"Freezing" Identity Hackers in their place!
Hello there again my Hacker Humiliators! Hoping that your week so far has been devoid of any CrowdStrike or Microsoft related downtimes! Lolololololhahahahahahajajajaja! Yeah, kind of a low blow, but I needed a laugh and hopefully we can all laugh about it now that some time has passed since the horrible times.
Today is inspired by a recent event that involved my parents...yes, I know it must be shocking that I wasn't hatched or created in a lab someplace, but even I have parents who love him...well, not as much as they love my brother...or my daughter...come to think of it they love my wife more than they love me (that one kind of hurts mom!) but its love nonetheless and I will take it! Lol. Enough crying here, else I won't have any tears for my psychiatrist...on to this week's blog! How to protect against Identity Hackers...the only way I know how...
Identity hackers can easily be compared to bullies...bullies don't like fair fights. Bullies ae lazy, they don’t want to really beat you, they just want the easy way out. Instead of working hard and earning a "win", they pick on easy targets...they don’t try and hack a Gibson (Hack the Planet!), they go after people who don’t know computers and prey on their fears. They are the literal worst as evidenced by who these attacks are normally perpetuated by...not the elite state actors I normally write about, but these are the people who can't get any other job in tech so they swindle people using what amounts to card tricks and fear.
Anyhow, on to the solution. Some of you might have heard of LifeLock, Aura, Identity Guard...etc. LifeLock being infamous for their CEO broadcasting his social security number boasting that he was 100% safe and then getting hacked a million and one times...lol...if there is ever one thing no one should ever do is taunt hackers. Back to protection...here is my baseline strategy for protecting myself from hackers. As always, If you have more in depth needs and need the full suite of protections, please feel free to reach out. We have protected high profile individuals and can provide the same service to you!
As for my recommendations, I normally split up my recommendations into three tiers. For today's blog I will describe my baseline tier as the others really should only be for high risk, high visibility people. Those recommendations might be a little overkill to protect mom and dad from being hacked.
1) Don’t LifeLock it! In other words, don’t taunt hackers. I fully respect some of the talent out there. Don’t be like the LifeLock guy! Don’t start no <bleep>, there will be no <bleep>.
How to accomplish this: Just don’t...this one is the simplest one to apply to your life! Lol Just block the fishing attempts. I only mention this as I had a client taunt a text phishing attempt and the bad actor on the other end took it personally and it lead to some issues.
2) MFA everything! While not perfect, it provides decent protection. Use the APP verification as its better than the SMS methods, and if you can use fingerprint or some form of password-less solution. In order of preference (imho...there is some debate here, so please take that into account)...Password-less > App Verification > SMS.
How to accomplish this: Please refer to a previous blog regarding MFA. Each system will be different, but if you read that blog, it will help you set up MFA on any system in the best possible way.
3) Freeze Credit Bureaus! If you freeze your credit, no one should be able to open up any credit under your name! Mind you, this DOES NOT HELP after being hacked or if a bad actor already has access to your credit somehow. This should be done BEFORE any bad action occurs. If you are hacked, please reach out and we can help get them out of your accounts!
How To Accomplish this: Simple, there are 3 major Credit Bureaus...Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Below details how you accomplish freezing and unfreezing your credit. All 3 major credit agencies have to freeze your accounts for FREE and all of them have both links and phone numbers to call. Also, they will all try and upgrade you to a paid service that’s called a Credit Lock vs a Credit Freeze. I wouldn’t buy that upgrade...They will cite that it takes days to turn the credit freeze on and off, but every time I have turned it on or off, it was completed in minutes if not immediately.
Equifax
Freeze Link: Security Freeze | Freeze or Unfreeze Your Credit | Equifax®
Freeze Number: 1-888-Equifax (1-888-378-4329)
Experian
Freeze Link: Freeze or Unfreeze Your Credit File for Free - Experian
Freeze Number: 1-888-397-3742
TransUnion
Freeze Link: Credit Freeze | Freeze My Credit | TransUnion
Freeze Number: 833-806-1627
That’s it! That’s the baseline! That’s the minimal amount of protection I put on anyone and should protect you from many of the Identity thieves out there. If you do this, you will protect yourself against the majority of bad actors out there because remember, they are bullies! They don’t like people who know what they are talking about...they want easy prey. So don’t make yourself easy prey!
If you are a high profile target and want more in depth protection or if you have already been hacked and need a team of seasoned individuals to help get them out of your life, please feel free to reach out. We have protected many high profile individuals such as <Redacted due to NDA>, <Redacted due to NDA>, and of course the super famous <Redacted due to NDA>. lol
Thanks again for your time today and hopefully this helps you bolster your personal defense against these horrible bad actors!