This week’s theme on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: How To Protect Yourself From Cyber Theft

Today, I’m talking about some of the top ways you can protect yourself from cyber theft. 

#1: Check your credit reports. You can get a free copy of your credit report every week. If you make it a habit to check regularly and often, you’ll catch any suspicious activity sooner before years pass and a lot of damage has been done. 

#2: Password protection:

• Phone - For many of us, there is a lot of sensitive information on our phones. A plain notepad note with your social maybe? Apps for all of your bank accounts and every other account you frequently use. In 2018, Kaspersky Labs found that 52 percent of people don’t password-protect their phones. Turning on password or biometric identification (like fingerprints or facial recognition) can prevent a thief from accessing personal information on your phone. And use the longer 6 digit code. It will be harder to guess if someone does steal your phone. 

• Use a password manager - One of the ways hackers can steal your info is that they get one of your passwords, and then they test it on different sites to see if it works there. Most people use repeat passwords that aren’t very strong - password1. It takes like 12 seconds to guess weak passwords and then it’s just a matter of time before they are able to hack into your facebook, email, bank accounts, etc. So its critical to use a unique and strong password for every single online login account you have. Whether that’s Amazon, your bank, email, place you shop, etc. You don’t need to remember these passwords because they’re stored securely in the password manager. You only need to remember your master password, and make sure that it is strong and hard to guess.

#3: 2FA - create another step for log in for your most sensitive log ins with 2FA. This is where you have to enter a code, similar for entering your pin when you use your debit card. It’s that extra step that can stop a thief from logging into your account if they do get your login credentials. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.   

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance