October was once again Cybersecurity Awareness month.
This year the focus was on four frontline areas of personal cyber protection:
1) Using Strong Passwords
2) Turning on Multi-Factor Authentication on all important logins (MFA a.k.a 2FA)
3) Recognising and reporting phishing
4) Updating your software with the latest versions
We used this opportunity to create awareness at an onsite activation and promote the iTOO [MY]CYlution Personal Cyber policy.
Our activation allowed people to check if their data had been compromised in any known data breaches on haveibeenpwned.com. We then followed this up by checking how easy your password is to hack on passwordmonster.com.
In most of the interactions we had, people knew close cases of personal cyber crime even if they hadn't been exposed to it directly themselves.
I've personally experienced a few cases of cyber crime;
The first being on Black Friday 2017 when I went went on a shopping spree in New York City. The only problem was I was sitting at my desk in Cape Town... Luckily at that time, cyber crime was relatively new and my bank covered the amounts stolen from me. What we are seeing now are the banks pushing back on just refunding customers who experience theft of funds.
The second incident happened a few weeks ago when I was helping a friend with their tax return. SARS flagged them for non-disclosure of income from a second IRP5. We established that this IRP5 had been issued to a passport of theirs stolen in 2016 and identity theft had been committed.
Both these incidents would have been covered under the iTOO [MY]CYlution policy which can be taken out in a few easy clicks HERE.
From R22,50 a month, you can cover your bank account against theft of funds not covered by your bank. More comprehensive packages add cover such as Identity Theft, Cyberbullying and Cyberstalking, Express Kidnapping (being forced to withdraw funds against your will) as well as Cyber Extortion amongst others.
With personal cyber attacks happening more frequently, protecting yourself with a personal cyber policy makes sense as well as implementing the four frontline areas of personal cyber protection.