Summary of BBC article
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Response to BBC article
Following the growth of the internet in recent years, online platforms and social media have become a significant part of human lives, especially during the current pandemic. Several things that people used to do face-to-face, such as shopping, dating, and studying, have become socially distanced activities. Technology, on the other hand, does not only help people, but it also has the potential to harm them.
People of all ages can be the victim of fraudsters. You might receive a text message from someone in your message box. It looks like a regular thing, but it is not. Only one mistaken click on a link in that message will steal your money or data before you realize what has happened. A few months ago, some messages appeared on my phone. They wanted me to invest in a particular company that could make a lot of profit. Because several articles had warned me about online and phone fraud, I deleted these texts immediately. The messages were related to online gambling. Perhaps, the scammer obtained my phone number from a public source, such as leaked data from some websites, and then sent me this text to lure me in. As experts suggest, I spent a few days changing my passwords in many accounts and enabled 2FA to ensure that my online life was safe. I’m not sure if it is secure enough or not, but I'm hoping that no other odd messages arrive in my phone or email box.
I agree with the National Cyber Security Centre that people should use a separate password for each account they have. However, if I have several accounts and each of them requires different passwords, it is difficult to remember all of them. Although I tried to note the passwords, I could not find them when I needed them. I swear that clicking the “Reset your password” button is my regular habit. Additionally, while a strong password and effective protection system will plausibly secure your account, it does not guarantee that you will not be hacked or scammed.
Last but not least, the fast-paced and convenient life of social activities can bring both advantages and drawbacks to anyone who uses social media. Several types of online scams are ready to attack any target, regardless of whether or not the victims are familiar with online platforms. To reduce the chances of being scammed, please keep up to date on new technologies and new forms of fraud, both physical and online.
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Question for readers
Do you or anyone you know have experience of online frauds in your life?
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Yo's comments about his experience with resetting his passwords reminded me of my own past habits, which were very dangerous. Effectively, I used the same password for almost everything until about ten years ago. I made small changes for the different sites, but as any expert would tell me, and as I knew, my passwords were not secure. I did make exceptions for my online banking accounts, but even there, they could have been better.
ReplyDeleteLike Yo, and I think most people today, I have a lot of passwords. I did a quick check as I read his response: I currently have more than 200 passwords. I not only can't remember almost all of them, I don't even remember some of the sites until something comes up and I need them. Fortunately, my web browsers remember my sign in information for all the newspapers, magazines and other publications I subscribe to, and Chrome also remembers the sign in details for Skillful. That saves a lot of bother, but whenever I sign in on a new device, those passwords and account details have to be entered again. I found that an excellent solution is a password manager, and after trying it for a while, I decided to upgrade to the paid version of the one I've now used for about ten years. It works across all of my devices and keeps a secure record of all my memberships, subscriptions, and other important information that I don't want lying around on scraps of paper or unencrypted on my computer. Now, I just need to remember one secure password to conveniently access all of them.
And I turn on 2FA for important accounts.
As Peter mentioned about a password manager, I remember that I saved some of my passwords as a word file on my old laptop a few years ago. It helped me to manage several passwords on a digital platform. Yet, after I bought a new laptop and forgot to copy the note, everything disappears. Spending several days to recollect my passwords was not fun. Then, I decided to keep my passwords on my cloud storage and browser instead. I found it is very convenient to support a user who has several devices and must remember those different passcodes.
DeleteEven if the service providers confirm that they control users' passwords and information by an efficient protection system, hackers and scammers in this era are steadily developing every day. It is hard to follow their tricks and tracks. If hackers can penetrate this cloud storage, they will steal my information completely. I hope the service providers are able to secure users' information as much as they claimed.
Personally, I never have experienced any online frauds, but I am always aware of it. I know that it is unsecure, but I usually note all the usernames and passwords down on my note.
ReplyDeleteThis is another dimension of the effect from COVID-19 pandemic that I have not realized. Since we all have to shift some activities to online platform such as bank transaction, shopping, food ordering and so on, online scams become more common and we as users should find ways to secure our privacy and personal information. After this pandemics, I think there will many many "New Normal" things that we have to adjust. I do really agree with Yo that we must keep ourselves up to date with upcoming technology.
I have experienced about phone and email scams. I think email scams is more popular than phone because it is easy to obtain as well as free. Many of email scams that I found were about fake forms. That need users to fill sensitive information such as credit card number ,phone number and nationality card number. I also agree with Yo that passwords should be used separately and difficulty. The password should contain different alphabet ,number and symbolics. It is better to protect our information in each platform. My problem is that I can’t remember all of my passwords. Luckily, my laptop could remember all of my passwords that make my life easier.
ReplyDeleteAs I read Pueng's comments about email scams, I realized that I don't see them as much these days as in the past. I suspect that the AIs used by Google and others do a much better job of filtering scams and other unwanted rubbish into my spam folders. I remember that 20 years ago, spam filters were not very effective and I got a lot of scam mail in my inbox, but these days, although a bit of rubbish mail arrives, it's actually very little. And only rarely does Google send an email I want into spam.
DeleteWhen I occasionally browse through my spam folder, Pueng's comment about the content sounds right: there are lots of emails pretending to be from business asking to verify credit card or similar information. I guess that enough people must believe those lies to make it profitable for the criminals to continue sending such emails.