Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Cybercriminals Strike Again!


These online cybercriminals are just getting worse and worse. This weekend I was saying to Tiffy that if they devoted this much energy to worthy pursuits, they could find the cure for cancer: “After all, if they can find their way around encryption software, they should be able to find their way around the immune system!” Timely words indeed, because I just got notice of another database hack. As you may remember, my identity was stolen this spring, then my credit card number was stolen this summer, and Travalon’s was too, just a few weeks later. Luckily, in both our cases, the fraudulent charges were denied, probably because they were outside our usual spending habits. Then just today I was notified that the online stock trading company I have an account with had been hacked. Fortunately they believe the only information stolen was contact information, like our addresses and phone numbers, and that they couldn’t get at our passwords. That is good, because my pathetic little collection of electric company stock should be safe, and if these people want to write a letter to me, they can be my guest. The breach supposedly happened in 2013, but the company wasn’t allowed to tell us until the Feds were done with their investigation, which means the only address these people would have for me is my old condo, and the forwarding address from that is long since expired. I am hoping nothing dire comes of this, but it does scare me, because these criminals are getting too clever. This is why I keep my old flip phone, because smart phones can be hacked, and then if that is the phone number I have for verification and they get my bank account password too, they could access my money. But nobody can hack a flip phone, as far as I know, so if they don’t have the phone in their possession, they can’t receive the verification code to get into my account. So there, cybercriminals. Old Skool technology will stop you guys cold.

Famous Hat

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