Updated 8 months ago
The data breaches from last year – they have much of our data now – are really coming into fruition. Just the past few days I’ve seen an alarming rise in reports from friends of hacking and phishing attempts.
So, this advice is timely:
1. Don’t answer your phone if you don’t have their number, and if it seems like an institution you trust, be very wary of spoofed numbers. Ask to call them back at a direct line and google that number. Don’t have a conversation with strangers on the phone if you can at all avoid it – If you really want to be paranoid then know that they can sample your voice and build an AI around it and weaponize it against you. It took me about half an hour to make this. And in any case, never ever give anyone on the phone personal data.
2. Use 2FA for everything valuable.
3. People who get hacked are the ones who have really bad non-16 digit+ easy to guess or brute force passwords. And they don’t have a password manager, which is easy to use. You don’t have to be a fancy techy to do this very simple thing. I like Bitwarden. It’s free. I have ~300 PWs on it. The collector in me relishes adding new passwords. All complex 16 digits, and all different. I have even use it to store vital personal data.
How much is your privacy and data really worth? In this case, a gram of prevention is a megaton of cure. It’s like washing your hands, but more critical to your life.
And all this is only going to keep getting worse. Consider the hacker world a force of nature. It’s never going away. Protect yourself. If you don’t and get hacked, it’s all on you.
