Beware of Romance Scams

Beware of Romance Scams

‘Tis the season for love. And with it comes the opportunity for cybercriminals to pitch their romance scams. Millions of people fall victim to these fraudulent schemes every year. In a romance scam, a person posing as a potential romantic partner uses online dating websites, social media platforms, or other online channels to build a relationship with their target, gain their trust, and ultimately trick them into sending money or personal information.

While anyone can fall prey to a romance scam, the risks are particularly high for people who are looking for love online. And at this time of year, you’re reminded of how “important” it is to be in a relationship through marketing. In many cases, scammers will create fake profiles. This includes using pictures of attractive people, and crafting elaborate stories to win over their targets. They may even spend weeks or months building a relationship. They work their way up to asking for money, making it difficult for victims to recognize the scam until it’s too late.

How Do Romance Scams Work?

There are several common scenarios in which romance scams occur. For example, scammers may claim to be in the military, working overseas, or traveling for business, and ask their targets to send money to cover unexpected expenses or emergencies. In other cases, scammers will claim to have fallen in love with their target and ask for money to help them travel to meet, or to cover expenses related to a business venture.

Regardless of the specifics, the end goal of a romance scam is always the same: to trick the victim into sending money. And once the scammers have what they want, they disappear, leaving their victims heartbroken and out of pocket.

Protect Your Heart – And Your Wallet

To protect yourself from a romance scam, be cautious when meeting people online.

Here are some tips to help you stay safe:

♥️ Be wary of anyone who contacts you out of the blue, especially if they are located overseas.

♥️ Do not share personal information – your full name, address, financial details, etc. – with anyone you haven’t met in person.

♥️ Never send money to someone you haven’t met in person, even if they claim to be in a crisis.

♥️ Do your research. If someone seems too good to be true, that’s likely the case. You can run a background check on them using their name and any other information they’ve provided.

♥️ Use reputable dating websites that have security measures in place to protect users from scams. Ask friends or look online if you want to remain anonymous in your research.

♥️ Always trust your gut! If something seems off or too good to be true, it probably is.

Final Thoughts - Beware of Romance Scams

 

Final Thoughts

Remember, if you suspect that you are being scammed, the best thing to do is to stop communicating with the person immediately. Then report the scam to the relevant authorities. This could be your local police as well as the Federal Trade Commission.

Romance scams are a growing problem. However, by being vigilant and following some basic safety tips, you can protect yourself from falling victim to these fraudulent schemes. Cybersafety means protecting your world in every aspect – that includes your heart and your hard drive!

Make sure your personal and business assets are fully protected by contacting DataGroup Technologies, Inc. (DTI) today! Call us at 252.329.1382 or drop us a line at support@dtinetworks.com to see how we can help you Simplify IT!

********************

This article originally appeared on the Breach Secure Now! blog.

What You Should Know About Data Privacy – And How to Get Started

Managed IT Services for Law Firms
Managed IT Services for Law Firms

What You Should Know About Data Privacy – And How to Get Started

Data privacy is an issue of significant concern in the digital age, in large part because data breaches keep occurring, revealing the personal data of millions of people worldwide. Even one isolated breach can have profound consequences. Individuals may be subjected to identity theft or blackmail, while companies might run the risk of financial losses as well as harm to the public, investors, and customer trust.

It can be difficult to balance the need to utilize personal data for business purposes against an individual’s right to data privacy. In this article, we’ll explore the significance of data privacy, how it relates to data protection, which compliance regulations are centered around data privacy protection, and what you should be aware of when implementing a data privacy policy.

What You Should Know About Data Privacy – And How To Get Started

What Is Data Privacy, And Which Data Is Involved?

Data privacy, also referred to as information privacy, centers around how data should be gathered, stored, controlled, and shared with any third parties, along with complying with all applicable privacy laws.

To properly characterize data privacy, it’s helpful to specify precisely what is going to be protected. Several types of data that are customarily regarded as sensitive, both by the general public and by legal mandates, include:

  • Personally Identifiable Information (PII):  Data that could be utilized to identify, reach out to, or track down an individual, or to differentiate one person from another.
  • Personal Health Information (PHI):  Medical history, insurance information, and other private data accumulated by healthcare providers and could possibly be connected to a particular person.
  • Personally Identifiable Financial Information (PIFI):  Credit card numbers, bank account details, or other data regarding a person’s finances.
  • Student Records:  An individual’s grades, transcripts, class schedules, billing details, and other academic records.

More generally, in its “Guide to Protecting the Confidentiality of Personally Identifiable Information,” the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) offers the following examples of information that might be considered PII:

  • Name: Full name, maiden name, mother’s maiden name, or alias personal identification numbers, such as social security number (SSN), passport number, patient ID number, or a financial account or credit card number.
  • Address Information:  Street address or email address.
  • Personal Characteristics: Photographic images (particularly of the face or another distinctive characteristic), X-rays, fingerprints, or other biometric images or template data (e.g., retinal scans, voice signature, facial geometry, etc.).
  • Information About an Individual That’s Linked or Linkable to One of the Above: Date and/or place of birth; race; religion; activities; geographical indicators; and employment, education, financial, or medical information.
What You Should Know About Data Privacy – And How To Get Started

Which Data Is Not Subject to Data Privacy Concerns?

There are two main categories of data that aren’t subject to data privacy concerns:

  • Non-Sensitive PII: Information that is already in the public record, such as a phone book or online directory.
  • Non-Personally Identifiable Information: Data that can’t be used to identify an individual. Examples include device IDs and cookies. (Note: Some privacy laws consider cookies to be personal data, since they can leave traces that could be used in conjunction with other identifiers to reveal a person’s identity.)
How Can Manufacturing Companies Benefit from Managed IT Services?

Personal Data Protection and Privacy Regulations

Data breaches continue to make the news all too regularly, and the public realizes they’re gradually losing control over their confidential information. Industry research demonstrates that 71% of Americans occasionally or frequently worry about their personal data getting hacked, and that 8 in 10 U.S. adults are concerned about businesses’ ability to protect their financial and personal information.

In light of escalating public concerns, governments are tirelessly working to establish and improve privacy data protection laws. Indeed, the need to confront modern privacy issues and safeguard data privacy rights is a worldwide trend. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the most noteworthy law, but a number of nations – including Brazil, India, and New Zealand – have instituted new privacy regulations or reinforced existing regulations to govern how personal data can be collected, maintained, used, disclosed, and disseminated.

Currently, there are a number of prominent U.S. federal privacy laws in effect which obstruct companies from improper transmission of personal data, each designed to address particular types of data. These include:

  • Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) / Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH): Intended to secure personal health information.
  • Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA): Limited to financial information.
  • Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA): Protects children’s privacy by enabling parents to manage what information is collected.
  • Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA): Safeguards students’ personal information.
  • Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA): Regulates the collection and use of consumer information.

 

Shadow IT: How Your Company’s Data Is Silently Being Leaked Online

Data Protection vs. Privacy Protection

Data privacy is closely connected to data protection. Both share the same goal: shielding sensitive data from breaches, cyberattacks, and unintentional or deliberate data loss. Whereas data privacy focuses on guidelines for how organizations may gather, store, and process confidential information, data protection concentrates on the security controls that take into account the confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility of information. Furthermore, data protection typically involves protecting not only personal information but other all-important data as well, including trade secrets and financial information.

Strictly speaking, data protection demands enacting policies, controls, and procedures to uphold data privacy guidelines, such as the following standards outlined in the ISO/IEC 29100 framework: 

  • Accountability
  • Accuracy and Quality
  • Collection Limitation
  • Consent and Choice
  • Data Minimization
  • Individual Participation and Access
  • Information Security
  • Openness, Transparency, and Notice
  • Privacy Compliance
  • Purpose Legitimacy and Specification
  • Use, Retention, and Disclosure Limitation
What You Should Know About Data Privacy – And How To Get Started

How to Get Started with Data Privacy Protection

Merely putting into action one or more data security technologies doesn’t assure that you will bring about total data privacy. Rather, when framing your data privacy protection policies, make sure to observe these best practices:

12 Benefits of VoIP for Small Businesses

Know Your Data

It’s imperative to understand exactly what information is being gathered, how it’s being used, and whether it’s being hawked to or shared with third parties. Since various types of PII and their manifestations are unequal in value and some personal data can become sensitive in certain circumstances, you must classify your data by way of a quality data discovery and classification solution.

6 Indicators That You Need to Overhaul Your Data Recovery Plan

Take Control of Your Data Stores and Backups

Be sure not to retain personal data without a clear purpose. Establish retention policies and moderate personal data in line with its value and risk.

What You Should Know About Data Privacy – And How To Get Started

Manage and Control Risk

Data privacy protection has to incorporate periodic risk assessment. Rather than creating a framework from the ground up, you can implement one that’s already well-established, such as the NIST risk assessment framework defined in Special Publication SP 800-30.

What You Should Know About Data Privacy – And How To Get Started

Hold Periodic Training Sessions for Users

Ensure that employees are familiar with the subtleties of data privacy and security. Clarify privacy basics from the outset, specifying which devices can be employed when working with sensitive data and how this data may be transmitted and shared. Occasionally, it’s appropriate to advise personnel that they aren’t permitted to alter other people’s records, whether out of curiosity or for personal reasons, nor are they at liberty to take proprietary data with them when they part ways with the organization.

Social Media Data Breaches: Reducing the Risk

Final Thoughts

In times past, individuals’ personal data could be gathered discreetly and shared freely – but those days are gone. Now, any organization that collects and utilizes financial, health, and other personal information must manage that data with regards to its privacy.

By applying the best practices detailed above, your organization can establish a baseline privacy structure for becoming a conscientious and principled steward of personal data.

If you need help implementing a data privacy protection plan, DataGroup Technologies can help! Give us a call at 252.329.1382 today!

Related Posts

Related Posts

Post Tags

Top Cybersecurity Trends For 2021

Top Cybersecurity Trends For 2021
Top Cybersecurity Trends For 2021

Top Cybersecurity Trends for 2021

Bell bottom pants, neon-colored everything, kale as a diet staple…. Trends come and go and, for the most part, we aren’t preoccupied with keeping tabs on whatever’s in fashion at the moment. But cybersecurity trends? That’s something we can certainly support!

So, what can we anticipate seeing as consumers, employees, employers, business owners, or merely members of the general public who regularly use computers?

At the time of this writing, we’re a quarter of the way through 2021. Let’s take a look at a few key cybersecurity trends we’re seeing so far.

Top Cybersecurity Trends For 2021

Inside Jobs

There’s a disturbing phenomenon that is growing in popularity known as insider-threat-as-a-service (ITaaS). Yes, you can actually hire a disgruntled employee to undermine a business and compromise its data integrity by stealing information or destroying the business from the inside.

Managed services providers like us have been paying attention to ITaaS for longer than just the current year. But now that the entire hiring process for many remote employees is being conducted via video or other long-distance methods, it isn’t always a simple task to garner and build up the trust you might have commanded from years of sharing office space.

Top Cybersecurity Trends For 2021

Fake IDs

Illegally obtained credentials can be utilized for more than securing a credit card. Sure, you can create an identity and establish credit – but you can take it a step further and concoct a history that doesn’t actually exist in relation to the person for whom it’s being created.

This is a significant progression from the aforementioned insider job that can occur; but it’s crucial to be aware of exactly who you’re hiring and to whom you’re providing your sensitive information.

Top Cybersecurity Trends For 2021

Bigger Phish

With people being the number one risk to cybersecurity and working from home being common practice for many, an overall increase in cyberattacks can be anticipated.

Why? Because human beings are the quickest point of entry for any hacker, and unobserved humans are even easier to dupe. Subsequently, phishing scams will be even more widespread with regard to cyberattack attempts.

Top Cybersecurity Trends For 2021

Final Thoughts

At the crux of any trend is the fact that it will ebb and flow in popularity over time. One trend that isn’t going anywhere, however, is the possibility of data breaches. While the outfit or the outward appearance may vary, an attempt is always made to disguise the true identity of the attacker.

The best-case scenario for any business to implement a solid cybersecurity plan designed to protect your systems and networks from external (or internal) intrusion, thereby ensuring smooth and uninterrupted business operations and securing your employees’ and customers’ vital data.

DataGroup Technologies, Inc. (DTI) can help you do just that! Reach out to us today by calling 252.329.1382 or visit our website to schedule a free IT assessment for your business.

Related Posts

Related Posts

Post Tags

Are You Protected Against Business Email Compromise Attacks?

Are You Protected Against Business Email Compromise Attacks?
Are You Protected Against Business Email Compromise Attacks?

Are You Protected Against Business Email Compromise Attacks?

On May 4th, 2022, the FBI published a public service announcement updating its warnings about the continuing threat of business email compromise, also known as CEO fraud. It’s a problem that has reached staggering proportions. Between June 2016 and December 2021, the FBI quantified 241,206 domestic and international incidents of business email compromise. The exposed dollar loss – including both actual and attempted losses – was more than $43 billion!

Are You Protected Against Business Email Compromise Attacks?

What Is Business Email Compromise?

According to TechRepublic, business email compromise (BEC) is “a sophisticated scam that targets companies and individuals who perform legitimate transfer-of-funds requests.”

Through the use of social engineering or malware, cybercriminals will masquerade as one of the individuals involved in these money transfers to trick the victim into sending money to a bank account owned by the cybercriminal. Once the fraud is exposed, it’s often too late to recoup the money. Scammers are quick to relocate the money to other accounts and withdraw the cash or use it to buy cryptocurrencies.

However, the scam is not always associated with an unauthorized transfer of funds. One BEC variation involves compromising legitimate business email accounts and requesting personally identifiable information (PII), wage and tax settlement (W-2) forms, or even cryptocurrency wallets from recipients.

Business Email Compromise Attacks – Managed IT Services vs. In-House IT Specialists

How to Protect Your Business Against BEC Attacks

In the public service announcement, the FBI offers several suggestions for businesses to adopt to better protect against business email compromise attacks.

  • Use secondary channels (such as phone calls) or multi-factor authentication to validate requests for any changes in account information.
  • Ensure that URLs in emails are associated with the businesses or individuals from which they claim to be originating.
  • Keep an eye out for hyperlinks that contain misspellings of the actual domain name.
  • Steer clear of providing login credentials or PII of any sort via email. Bear in mind that many emails requesting your personal information may appear to be legitimate.
  • Verify the email address used to send emails – especially when using a mobile or handheld device – by making sure the address appears to match that of the purported sender.
  • Enable settings on employees’ computers to allow full email extensions to be viewed.
  • Monitor your personal financial accounts routinely for irregularities, such as missing deposits.
Are You Protected Against Business Email Compromise Attacks?

What to Do If You or Your Company Should Fall Victim to a BEC Attack

According to TechRepublic, business email compromise (BEC) is “a sophisticated scam that targets companies and individuals who perform legitimate transfer-of-funds requests.”

Through the use of social engineering or malware, cybercriminals will masquerade as one of the individuals involved in these money transfers to trick the victim into sending money to a bank account owned by the cybercriminal. Once the fraud is exposed, it’s often too late to recoup the money. Scammers are quick to relocate the money to other accounts and withdraw the cash or use it to buy cryptocurrencies.

However, the scam is not always associated with an unauthorized transfer of funds. One BEC variation involves compromising legitimate business email accounts and requesting personally identifiable information (PII), wage and tax settlement (W-2) forms, or even cryptocurrency wallets from recipients.

Are You Protected Against Business Email Compromise Attacks?

Final Thoughts

Cybersecurity has never been more important. We live in an increasingly connected world, which enables cyberattackers to constantly find new ways to carry out digital attacks. Even the most vigilant business owners and IT managers can become overwhelmed with the stress of maintaining network security and protecting their data.

These increasingly advanced cyberattacks create unprecedented situations of data breach and money extortion. The tools that hackers use are getting smarter and stronger every day. If you’re not proactive about protecting your network, your business will become a target of cybersecurity attacks.

DataGroup Technologies, Inc. (DTI) offers a wide variety of cybersecurity services to help protect your business from cyberthreats, including security risk assessments, email security solutions, web/DNS filtering, next-generation firewalls, network security monitoring, operating systems/application security patches, antivirus software, and security awareness training. If you’re not 100% certain that your business is protected from cybercriminals, contact us today at 252.329.1382 or message us to find out more about how we can help #SimplifyIT!

Related Posts

Related Posts

Post Tags