October is Cyber Security Awareness Month. According to the FBI’s state-by-state breakdown of cyber crime, Nebraskans lost roughly $80,000 from identify theft and $90,000 from credit card fraud in 2016.
Dr. Matthew Hale, assistant professor of cyber security at UNO, says a good place to start, when it comes to protecting yourself from cyber crime, is with the kind of information you release on social media.
“That can include everything from your address, your phone number, locations where you’ve tweeted out pictures that were geo-tagged. So, being aware of what you are putting out and not releasing overly personal data that you are not okay with being public is the first and foremost line of defense. Because hackers can take that information and combine it; if there is a breach, and they have your credit card information, they can use it to reverse engineer some of the other data associated with your account.”
More information about cyber crime, including the state-by-state breakdown, a link to safe surfing practices for kids and tips about ways to protect your computer, are available at fbi.gov/investigate/cyber.
.