Blog Post

The holiday season is often proclaimed the most wonderful time of the year, but it also brings out those who could best be described as follows, and I quote: “Stink, stank, stunk!”

It happens every year: Grinches try to take the joy out of the holidays. With more people shopping online and avoiding malls, email and texting scams are on the rise. In fact, one cyber company cites that the number of shipping-related phishing emails increased 440% in just one month (from October to November)! Here are a few things to watch out for to avoid being scammed:

Cybercriminals and hackers are eager to acquire online passwords, especially as COVID-19 runs rampant and many organizations are attempting to push the majority of their business operations online. An unprotected password can allow cybercriminals to fraudulently gain access to systems, and the important data stored in those systems. Personally identifiable information (PII) is one type of data cybercriminals are always trying to find.

When

I received a great newsletter this week from the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) titled "8 Shopping Tips for the Holidays" and it got me thinking about all of the holiday-type attacks that I've seen resulting in compromised systems or an unhappy holiday experience.

Have you ever wondered how something you briefly look at on one website pops up as an advertisement on a completely different website? This is because each website you visit collects information about you, allowing the next site you visit to display advertisements based on the information that was collected. Usually this is done by companies to better advertise to you as well as collect data on their customers, but this can be a privacy concern or used for malicious purposes.

Every time you open a new account or are forced to change your password, you’ve probably been prompted to make sure that your password is a strong one. These days strong is not enough. A complex password is what you need.

Today's blog comes from Anthony (Tony) Neal-Graves, the executive director of the Colorado Broadband Office. Tony is responsible for driving the state’s broadband strategy and utilizing public and private sector relationships in communities across the state to support broadband expansion.