Holiday Season is right upon us and the New Year is just around the corner. It is the end of the final shopping season of the year, when many are still doing their last last minute shopping, hoping the overworked (and often unappreciated) delivery people from both the Post Office and the UPS/Federal Express/DHL will deliver them in time.
This is also a time to be with (or contact) loved ones, reflect upon what you have achieved, and plan for the upcoming year.
With all this travelling, buying, and communicating, it is also a great opportunity for those with coal in their hearts to use the Festive Season to spread malware, collect personal data, and hand out data breaches.
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Expect phishing attacks to be on the rise, specially using phone calls and text messages pretending to be a loved one in need or a misplaced package.
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The pictures you took of your holiday events and shared in social media may be used against you
For those of you who are business owners, this is not a time to relax your defenses:
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The MOVEit-related data breaches, which we talked about before, are still going strong.
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This is also the time when boss needing gift cards scams are on the rise.
What can you do?
Vigilance is the Price of Freedom, and that means you being vigilante. Don’t rely the protection of your (and that of your customers, employees, and loved ones) information on some magic product or service. You need to understand what you need to protect and how much you need to share before deciding on how to do that. There are a lot of resources out there. Companies like ours offer training on business/personal data security and data privacy. The Federal Trade Commission puts out consumer alerts. We run a blog discussing the different types of phishing attacks we have observed and how to identify them.
You are not alone but you must do your part. Make learning about data security and data privacy a goal for next year. And stick to it!