As technology evolves, so do the dangers associated with it and scam attempts. Not a day goes by without a new vulnerability or bug being discovered in one of our favorite applications, which allows our data to be stolen or even worse, our mobile phone to be hacked.
It is important to consider all of these dangers when using our devices and handling our confidential information, such as credit card numbers or personally identifiable information, such as our address or ID. identify. We should also be wary of strangers who bring the news is too good to be true
However, what many people don’t know is that being too careful is just as bad as being too careful. Concretely, if we panic at the slightest opportunity, we can leave the door open to scammers and hackers.
Tips to avoid getting scammed
These types of outages by users most concerned about their cybersecurity are becoming so common that tech companies are starting to take notice. Instead of recommending that the user take certain steps to protect themselves, many start to calm the user before they do what they shouldn’t do.
Amy Hogan-Burney, general manager of Microsoft’s cybersecurity team, shared a very simple recommendation, in a simple sentence that she shared with PC World: “Ask someone if you should continue.”.
Let’s say our computer has been hacked and a screen appears stating that our data has been encrypted and we need to make a payment to get it back. Or that someone called us on the phone pretending to be from our bank and let us know that our bank account had been closed due to suspicious activity. Or we may receive a WhatsApp video call to resolve a problem and be informed that the camera is not working.
In all these cases, The worst thing we can do is play the attackers’ game.. If someone or something alerts us that we’re being attacked, it’s easy to lose sight of the clues that it’s a hoax. Microsoft’s advice is therefore to seek the advice of a third party, who will not be influenced in this way and will be able to advise us better.
For example, we can use this rule if someone calls us to tell us that they have closed our account; Instead of following their instructions for fear of losing our money, we should hang up and call us at the bank to verify that our account is working properly. If this is a real problem, we will solve it this way, and if it is not, we will have avoided giving our account data to an attacker. The same tactic can be applied to different types of attacks. We can ask for help from someone who knows more about computers if we think it has been hacked.