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The Real Risk of a Hacked Email Address

email hacked

It’s happened to most people. All of your friends and colleagues receive an email from you, offering the latest benefits of a Viagra competitor and explaining that you will finally be able to satisfy your woman in the bedroom. With a sigh, you tell them you’ve been hacked and change your password. Maybe you go a step further and stop using the email address all together and keep your life moving.

The problem is that most people don’t realize that the person who hacked your email may not have done it just to hawk pills to make you and your friends better in the love department.  Hackers can access all of the sensitive data that you have ever sent from your email. If they figure out the password to your email, chances are they know your passwords to other companies. 55% of net users use the same password for most if not all websites, and 92% use the same password for email as they do for social media. Our emails often have the least amount of security, making them the easiest to hack.  

Think of what documents you’ve sent and received from your email. If you’re like most, the list includes your driver’s license, social security card, tax returns, proof of income, a couple of pictures you don’t want the world to see and a few Donald Trump jokes.

Now take a brief moment to think of the institutions that you receive email from and what these emails contain.  Most of us get emailed statements from our banks, retirement accounts, credit card companies, etc.  

They don’t have to learn how to hack these financial institutions in order to get access to your money, they simply have to wait. Monitoring your email is now their job in order to see where you have assets, then go to those sites and hit the button that says “I forgot my password”. How do these financial institutions, that we hope possess extremely secure sites, encryptions & firewalls, go about getting you a new password? They email it to you. D’oh!

This is precisely why every business management firm I’ve ever been to has mentioned that their clients’ emails got hacked and then they received a request to wire money to firm X, friend Y, and relative Z.  In the case of high net-worth individuals, hackers will patiently wait months while reading every email to see who the person interacts with regularly, how they write, their mannerisms, travel schedule, etc. This way, they know the most effective to strike for the maximum amount of damage.

One example I encountered was someone that was traveling to China to buy art.  As they were on the airplane on the way home, a thief sent an email to their business manager to a have funds wired immediately to a firm named something like “Jim’s Chinese Art House”.  It matched up with the buying trends & stated purpose of the trip and would have been completed, if not for the fact that the business manager had a strict policy of not sending out wires without verbal confirmation and was unable to reach the client (because they were in the air).  Shortly thereafter they received another email stating that they really needed the wire sent ASAP – but held firm.  When the client landed they called back and said that they didn’t have any idea of what the manager was talking about. Best practices for business managers and wealth advisers is to always make sure to require a verbal confirmation before disbursing funds, even if it’s for a presented purpose.  Also, insist that your high net-worth and high-profile clients implement 2-step verification on their email accounts.

Has your email address been compromised? Click here to check.

Want to add another layer of security to your email profile? Find out more about 2-Step Verification.

You can also strengthen the security of your profiles with password manager software like LastPass. Read more here.

Getting hacked by thieves online is an inevitability. Protect yourself from identity theft by blocking your credit entirely with Credit Block. Contact our office today to learn more.

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5 Things Your Kids Do Online That Cyber Criminals Love

kids identity theft

Kids do absolutely everything online and in social media. Even my four year old son complains when he doesn’t have access to the Internet when we are in the car or on the subway. And social media is their “voice,” their means of communicating with their friends, network and the world. The problem is that the world is listening back and there’s no way of knowing whether those people are nosey family members or an identity thief looking for personal information they can use to steal identities.

Home robberies have always been risky. They require a thief to acquire skills including surveillance, reconnaissance, lock picking and being agile & stealthy. With the coming of the Internet & the information age, information is everywhere. The more you do online, the more personal information there is about you available online being recorded and stored. Add to this proliferation of information the fact that there are easy to use tools for hackers, and you’ve lowered the barriers to entry to simply having a computer with Internet access.

50% of all adults had their personal information compromised in a large scale breaches in 2014 alone, the good news for grownups is that our data is pretty picked over. The new frontier for cyber attacks is our kids and the reasons are fairly simple.

  • They’re kids. As a result, vulnerable are vulnerable and susceptible to potentially dangerous interactions both online and in person.
    • No, I’m not saying your kid is dumb. They could be a genius or child prodigy but they’re probably ignorant as to the intricacies of finances and the value of their personal information to a hacker. That said, they post personal information without even realizing that it’s sensitive or that it could have detrimental effects.
  • The have a social media account.
    • Most kids have social media accounts, no surprise there. They use their profiles to give a play-by-play as to their everyday lives, often broadcasting to the digital world facts about their day like what they ate at every meal, birthdays, where they have traveled and where & when they have plans to travel, various information about family members, especially their parents/guardians and the list goes on.
    • Seventy-one percent of teens say they use more than one of the following social networks: Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Vine and Tumblr 

As a result, you’re more vulnerable to hackers and cyber criminals, especially when your kids do these five things.

  1. Malicious games and other apps have been shown to relay all data on a mobile device back to thieves. Kids might not realize that the apps they’re using aren’t legitimate.
  2. By “checking in” via social media apps, a thief can essentially track them and figure out where they live, go to school, hang out, etc.
  3. They may post publicly about when you are going to be on vacation and away from the house
  4. They post pictures of themselves and you. (I wish I had this digital technology available when I needed a fake ID!)
  5. Unknowingly answering your frequently asked security questions including pets names, their name, sibling names and dates of birth

Part of the solution is to educate kids & ensure that they’re aware that the Internet is not a private place. Regardless of privacy settings & anonymity promises, anything you post no longer belongs to you and that information stays on the internet forever.

As a parent or guardian, you should also strongly consider getting a tracking app that will show you what your kids are posting. If your kids were to find out, they would likely disapprove and it might put a damper on their social media lives, but it also might stop you from spending 40+ hours cleaning up identity theft or having to help them through a cyber-bullying situation.

To learn more, call our office at 800-710-4818 or e-mail us any time at help@mycreditblock.com.

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Don’t Close That Credit Card Account!

credit card

As contrary to common sense as it seems, keeping credit cards open is a good thing.

If you have cards that have been open for longer than 3 years, or cards that you paid down to $0 – keep them open. If you are like the average American with 11 different tradelines, then start closing the ones that are newer – and the ones that you opened just so you could get 10% off those khakis at the department store.

If you have an account that you don’t ever use for a variety of reasons, it’s best to use them every few months to buy gas, ties, gifts for your significant other just to keep them active, and then pay them off in full. One trick I use personally: I have a credit card that is only used to pay my cell phone bill every month – then I utilize auto-pay so that the balance is paid off in full automatically every month.

In addition, 15% of your credit score is based on the length of your credit history, so if you close an account it can affect your credit score. Closing a card can also decrease your debt to credit ratio.

So, no matter how tempted you are to close down those credit card accounts, your best bet is to keep them open and active.

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Credit Building for the Long Term

 

building credit

When we think of our credit, we often think of “right now” credit. That is, we’re thinking of what our current credit score is and whether it will allow us to open the credit account (i.e., mortgage, car loan, student loan, etc.) that we need… and we’re thinking about what immediate changes we can make to positively influence our score in the short term.

But that’s only part of the picture. A recent college grad might be focused on their “right now” credit to help them rent an apartment, but a decade from now that credit will be used to buy a house and a car. And a new couple might be focused on their “right now” credit to get their first house, but a decade from now that credit could be used to buy a minivan and buy a bigger house with room for the kids. Having a higher credit score gets you better interest rates on credit, so you pay less money over the life of the loan than you would if you had a low credit score. This is a great reason to have a long-range plan to build your credit.

We focus on our “right now’ credit, but we should also have a plan for a decade from now. Here are some ideas to help you put together a 10-year plan for your credit.

Start Now.

Your 10-year credit plan can start any time. This isn’t just for young people. In fact, if you’ve had a major financial event (such as a bankruptcy) then this is the perfect time for you to establish a long-range plan so that your credit will be in better shape when your bankruptcy falls off your credit report.

Start immediately; don’t wait for the New Year or the beginning of next month or next Monday. Start this instant. Ten years from now, you’ll be reaping the benefits of making changes today.

List your life’s dreams and the credit you’ll need.

If you plan to buy a new car in five years and a new house in 10 years, you’ll likely need a loan for those purchases. List all of your life’s dreams and goals and then figure out what credit score you’ll need by those dates. Keep this list handy as a motivational reminder of what you want to achieve in life.

Build goals around key credit factors.

Rather than building goals solely around your credit score, focus on your actions by building realistic short-term and long-term goals for the factors that influence your credit score.

For example,

Utilization ratio: “In one year from now, I will have paid my credit cards down to within 20% of the credit limit.”

Credit mix: “I will get a new credit account or other type of loan in two years so that I can show good payment behavior with different types of credit.”

New credit: “I won’t take out too much credit too often. I’ll only plan to apply for the amount of credit I need (in the amount that I know I can pay responsibly), and only when I need it.”

On-time payment: “I will make my loan payments on time every month.”

Outstanding debts: “I will pay off my $200 debt collection item by paying $25/week for the next eight weeks.”

Consider making goals for one year from now, two years, five years and 10 years.

Set dates to check.

Goals are only effective if you are taking action on them. So set dates in your calendar to…

Regularly check on the actions you will take (based on the goals you set in the last step).

Regularly pull your credit reports. Do this at least once every four to six months. You can get your credit reports for free once a year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies.

Regularly monitor your credit score for changes. There are many free tools on the market that allow you to monitor your credit scores. Credit.com offers a tool like this, and it also gives you a breakdown of the factors that influence your score.

Regularly revisit your list of your life’s dreams and your list of credit goals to update them. Do this at least once a year, or (better yet) every time you pull your credit reports.

Focusing on “right now” credit is important, but you’ll enjoy a healthier credit that is built on a nice, strong foundation if you also create a 10-year plan for long-term credit.

 

 

 

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When Should You Repair Your Credit?

repair your credit

The thought of strategic default always accompanies an enormous lingering  concern–how will I be able to repair my credit?  Even if you have yet to pay off current debts, the key to choosing the appropriate moment to repair credit is to stop accumulating more debt.  The reason for this is because accumulating additional debt goes hand in hand with accumulating blemishes and derogatory marks on your credit report.  If strategic default has led to a foreclosure on your home, the foreclosure can lower your credit score ranging anywhere from 90-120 points (depending on your past credit history).  A foreclosure also affects credit for to up to 10 years after it occurs by making obtaining loans in the future difficult and/or more expensive.

Filing for bankruptcy is one way to eliminate potential foreclosure as well as the debts that creditors continuously hound you for.  Chapter 13, Title 11 of the United States Code allows an individual to abide by a court-ordered and approved plan to re-organize their finances.  This grants the individual more time (about 3-5 years) to keep property and pay debts over time.  Chapter 7, Title 11 of the United States Code allows for the liquidation within a business.  Through this process, the debtor sells its nonexempt property, and the distribution of the proceeds goes to the creditors.  Debtors under Chapters 7 & 13 automatically receive a discharge when filing for bankruptcy.  A discharge frees the debtor from personal liability for certain types of debts.  However, if the individual or company does not follow the court ordered financial re-organization plan, then the case will be dismissed, debts will no longer be discharged, and that individual/company is once again susceptible to collection actions by the creditor including lawsuits.  For more information, refer to the following government websites:

http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/Bankruptcy/BankruptcyBasics/Chapter7.aspx

http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/Bankruptcy/BankruptcyBasics/Chapter13.aspx

For property owners and consumers who are paying off (most, if not all) current debts in a timely manner, the best thing to do is save.  Again, avoid accumulating additional debt.  However, if you do end up borrowing or signing up for a new credit card, use sparingly.  Interest rates for loans or credit cards are likely to be more expensive following strategic default or foreclosure.  The main focus for you in repairing your credit is not to focus on the damper a foreclosure or a strategic default has created on your score, but rather to centralize your focus on cleaning up your present financial condition and continuing to move forward.  Show the banks that you are a better candidate for future credit.

 

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