Precautions to Protect your Personal Data
Company data breaches have become more frequent every year. In 2024, hackers have compromised customer data everywhere from AT&T and Ticketmaster to Dell and Roku. As the list of companies that have encountered these leaks continues to increase, it is important to remain proactive in protecting your personal data.
In addition to attacks on corporations, we are seeing an uptick in the number of individuals being targeted. Not only are these scams becoming more frequent, but the attacks themselves are becoming more sophisticated.
A recent example mirrors stories often heard about on the news with hackers impersonating law enforcement. In this instance, an individual received a phone call from someone posing as a DEA agent. She was told that they had discovered that someone had stolen her identity and was trying to move illegal substances via packages addressed to her at the border. In addition, this imposter advised that they found that several fake bank accounts were opened using her personal information. The imposter assured this individual that they would help her to resolve this and that the first step was to pull her money out of the bank and deposit it into a Bitcoin ATM to keep it safe. In a panic, the individual followed instructions, only to later realize that something wasn’t right. The hackers also were able to identify that this individual had investment accounts but were unable to gain access to them.
To protect yourself from something like this happening, a great first step is to enable two-factor authentication for any account that you have that offers that option. That way, even if your password is compromised, access to your account cannot be gained without a second verification method. This is often a code that is sent your phone number on file.
Another important step to take, should you find yourself in a similar situation, is to make an independent call to a trusted number to verify what you are being told. For example, another client recently received a call from someone claiming to be from their bank’s fraud department. They claimed that they had found suspected fraudulent charges on their bank account and proceeded to ask the customer for personal information to supposedly verify their account. Suspicious that this could be a scam, the customer asked to speak with a manager. To their surprise, they were transferred to a supposed supervisor who even gave them a reference number. Still wary, the customer called the bank at an independently verified number. After getting through to the bank, they confirmed that the caller on the other end of the phone was not the bank at all and was instead someone trying to gain access to their account.
These stories are becoming more frequent. If you are contacted by a financial institution, it is okay to take down their information and callback to a number you can verify is for the company to double check the legitimacy. In addition, enable two-factor authentication on your accounts whenever possible. Lastly, a further precaution that can be taken is to freeze your credit with the three major credit bureaus: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax. This step is free and only takes a few minutes to implement. Should you need to temporarily unfreeze your credit if applying for a loan, for example, doing so is simple and immediate.
At Heritage Wealth Architects, we enable two-factor authentication for both internal and client-facing systems. This can be enabled on both your custodian platform as well as your financial planning software. If you ever have any questions about your account security or a data request, please contact a member of our team right away.
Resources:
Security Freeze | Freeze or Unfreeze Your Credit | Equifax®
Credit Freeze | Freeze My Credit | TransUnion
Freeze or Unfreeze Your Credit File for Free – Experian
Sources:
Data Breaches That Have Happened in 2024 So Far – Updated List (tech.co)