I believe I can say without fear of contradiction that every single person reading this post has been subjected to one or all of the above: Spammers who flood your email inbox with marketing for things you do not want or need, Scammers who purport to be friends, legitimate companies or individuals but whose only objective is to defraud you, and Phishers who send you real looking fake notices purporting to come from your bank, PayPal, Amazon, UPS or any other company you may do business with, often alarming and always intended to violate your identity and pocketbook.
I counted one week and amidst pleading requests for money from both political parties and dozens of candidates for office, I received well over 100 phony emails. My email address was found on the so-called dark web, my Facebook page has been hacked, even my social security number was leaked in one of the larger hacks this year. This violation of privacy and invasion of criminals intent on fleecing us has indeed reached pandemic proportion.
As one small example, if you pay attention to who responds to the posts I put up each week you might notice that without fail some young and attractive woman I do not know--often educated in a foreign country but located in the US, compliments my post and asks me to friend her. I am not so vain or simple that I have been deluded into doing so, at least not yet. Undoubtedly at the other end of those fake personas is a hairy 55 year old Bulgarian extorter named Boris living in a one room Soviet era flat in Gabrovo. No offense to Bulgarians who I am told are generally very nice people. As for you Boris, nice pictures.
Some, maybe the majority of these online email fakers are easy to spot--just look at the actual address of the sender; never click on or reply to the emails, and if in doubt call the company in question to check (and never at the number shown in the email). But the deceptions are getting better and better every day. I try to approach this the same way I do with texts and phone calls--if I do not know you, and you cannot verify your identity we have nothing to talk about. If someone really needs to get my attention, leave a voice mail and if it's legit I will call back. I might miss a call now and again--though it is very rare, but that is a small price to pay to avoid nuisances and criminals.
My spidey sense is pretty good, after all I did software development for many years, and you'd think I learned something along the way, but I confess that I know enough to be concerned about when I will fall into a trap, not if. So I have done some things I would urge folks to consider. I've locked my credit at all three credit agencies. It takes a bit of time but once done no one can open a new account in my name. It is a minor pain to grant temporary access to get a new credit card, buy a car, or a home--but those are not everyday things.
I have an email account that is public--(and it has been hacked), and several that haven't, so I can keep track of any potential abuses and if necessary throw away compromised accounts. I do not give out personal information online, over the phone or even in person but if I must, I only do so to the extent absolutely necessary to do business with legitimate organizations. It's my policy and I will not violate it for anyone, no matter what.
I use a VPN ( a virtual private network) and restrict my web use to known sites--in other words I stay off the back alleys of the Internet. I use some software to check any site I might visit and I avoid most transactions online -limiting those I do make to a handful of trusted accounts. It helps that I am not an avid social media user. That means I forego some things but it is a small price to pay for my privacy and protection.
A week or so ago I went to pick up some parts at my car dealership and like many of folks was turned away. Thousands of car dealers across the US were brought to a standstill when a company that provided software to power their accounts, inventory, finance and other critical functions was subjected to a ransom attack. It took about two weeks to begin to restore business and even then a lot was still not working. I am told the company paid the ransom. But before they did everyone who has ever bought a car, financed or leased it from a dealer who utilized this software has had their financial information exposed. So, even if each of us takes every precaution, our identities, and everything attached thereto can be compromised through no action on our part.
Some years ago I learned this the hard way. As someone who held a top secret clearance I had to fill out a very detailed form (SF-86) and undergo a lengthy background investigation, not once but on three separate occasions. The form contained the most sensitive and detailed information about me. All that information was stored in the records of the Office Of Personnel Management (OPM) in Washington, DC. OPM was hacked, and I received a letter informing me that quite literally every minute detail of my life from the name of my 4th grade teacher to the birthmark on my thigh was now floating around the web, along with tens of thousands of other folks.
OPM kindly offered identity monitoring for life, but requested a few small bits of additional information that were not already in my exposed files. I declined.
By the way, my 4th grade teacher was Mrs. Sayers and she was delightful. It's already out there somewhere, no harm in telling you.
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