October is Cyber Security Month

Cyber Security Information

How to protect myself if involved in a data breach

It is an unfortunate situation if/when you are notified that your personal information was involved in a data breach. Regardless of what data was exposed, it is good practice to institute the following steps:

• Frequently review your financial accounts. See the FTC’s “warning signs of identity theft.”
• Check your credit report at annualcreditreport.com.
• Consider placing a credit freeze on your credit report, with each of the three credit reporting agencies—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

If your social security number has been breached, here are some additional suggestions:

Be extra vigilant: It is possible that cybercriminals may leverage stolen personal information from this attack to craft convincing phishing attacks in the coming weeks and months. An email, notice, or text message containing accurate information about you or one of your accounts is not enough to verify authenticity. Verify the source of a message before responding. Take note of how to identify a phishing attack. Phone calls may also be used to obtain personal or financial information.
Monitor your financial accounts and credit regularly: It is always wise to monitor your credit report for unusual activity. Consider putting a credit freeze in place to frustrate would-be scammers if you believe you are being targeted.
Secure your accounts: Remember to enable two-factor authentication and to use long passphrases for all of your accounts. Never give someone your password or a two-factor code if asked for it, even if they claim to be from a trusted organization.

If any credit card or financial account information has been breached, here are some additional suggestions:

Speak to your bank or financial institution right away: Let them know what happened and follow their instructions.

The IT department wants to remind everyone that cybersecurity starts with you.

The National Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has put out about 20 different pamphlets of information about being aware and careful to improve your security.

The theme this year is STOP. THINK. CONNECT. ™

This year we are selecting the following pamphlets that we think are important for your to review;

As an employee, please read the following: https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Week1TipCard-%20508%20compliant.pdf
If you are a parent, we recommend the following:

https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Chatting%20with%20Kids%20Booklet_0.pdf

For those with game consoles, please check to see if you do these 5 simple things:

https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Online%20Gaming_0.pdf

Lastly, recommendations for your cell phone:

https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Mobile%20Security%20Tip%20Card_3_0.pdf

Please take 15 minutes this month to improve your knowledge of how to be CyberSecurity compliant. You will be glad you did!