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Posted in Board Brief on Jan 19, 2022
Multiple data breaches from outside the tax system means cybercriminals have basic information on millions of Americans, such as names, Social Security numbers and addresses. The steps taken by the IRS since 2015 help protect against fraudulent tax filings that use this basic data.
As a result, identity thieves are looking to steal more detailed financial information to help provide a more realistic tax return to better impersonate legitimate taxpayers. Because they need more personal data, cyberthieves increasingly target tax professionals, human resource departments, businesses and other pla...
Posted in Board Brief on Dec 15, 2021
Depending upon the method you choose to be communicated to by your bank/CU institution, they will send you a notification. If they detect or suspect fraud, they will call you, send an email or tweet. However, when they do, they don't talk to you or engage you except to confirm the transactions or deny it.
If you deny it, you are asked to contact them at the number provided. This makes for one of the most difficult detections, because the majority of the time, it really is your financial institution alerting you as soon as they can.
If you made a purchase, respond by typing yes to the text stre...
Posted in Board Brief on Nov 17, 2021
Ever get on a retailer’s email list? The solicitations come every day and they are annoying.
The industry has a way of handling such emails or texts. It’s call, “Unsubscribe”. Like all useful tools, scammers find a way to make something good bad. In this case, they got your email or text from somewhere. They send you everyday (or every hour in some cases) spam that you just want to get rid of.
NO! Don't Do It! So, you go to the bottom of your email and click on the Unsubscribe link. It takes you to a website where you enter your email and click submit. And for your trouble, malware is download...
Posted in Board Brief on Oct 20, 2021
You Know My Banking Situation. You Must Be Calling to Help! A banking institution calls you saying there has been an unusually large withdrawal taken from your banking account.
You say, I didn’t make such a transaction! They say they need to correct it immediately, but first they want to show you the transaction. They tell you to open a browser, give you the website and show you the transaction (real time) right there while you both are on the phone.
What's REALLY happening? You don’t realize it, but they have downloaded malware on your device and are now able to see what you see. They tell y...
Posted in Board Brief on Sep 15, 2021
You get a text on the weekend from Amazon saying your package was delayed. The text has a link on it. You click on the link- (something just happened, but it was too fast to see) that takes you to a Customer Service phone number with the instruction to call.
It just so happened you didn’t order anything from Amazon. So, you call the Customer Service number to tell them you didn’t order anything at this time. The Customer Service agent asks you to get on your computer (or mobile device), open your browser and enter the following website (which sort of looks like Amazon).
They tell you to click...