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Here you can learn how to prevent scams and fraud, with more knowledge to come.
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Add your phone numbers to the TPS (Telephone Preference Service) for free, it will help to prevent Cold calling (unsolicited sales and marketing telephone calls), which will also help to prevent phishing scam attacks where people try to get personal information from you and it will help to prevent fraud attacks where people use your information against your will. Because it is a legal requirement that companies do not make such calls or messages to numbers registered on the TPS. This applies to the UK, but it applies to other countries as well, as they have their own versions of this service.
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Enable two-factor authentication in all your accounts that support it, this will add an extra layer of security to your accounts, so when you want to sign in it will ask you to enter your password and it will also send you a temporary random code each time to either your email address or to your phone number via a call or a text or it will generate one in an app like the Google Authenticator app or on a physical hardware key that you will have to plug in each time, etc. Google account's two-factor authentication will popup a yes or no prompt on signed in devices, to ask whether or not to allow the new device to sign into your Google account. I would like to add that other companies can have their own method of a two-factor authentication popup verification prompt, either using their own app or using a different companies / persons app or using another method, etc. I would also like to add that I know sometimes disabling two-factor authentication temporarily is needed or is thought to be needed even if it's not, as even I have to do this if I am changing around settings or if I am testing things out, etc.
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It is a good idea to keep one debit card with little money in it and no overdraft, this is so you can use that card to make payments over the phone without worrying that one of your cards with money kept in it or one of your credit cards will get compromised. But don't keep your debit card empty or the bank might close your account.
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Choose strong passwords that are different for each online account, especially for your email accounts, as this will limit the impact if one password gets compromised. Use a combination of numbers, symbols, and upper and lower case letters, make sure your new passwords are a minimum of 10 characters and avoid storing passwords in your browser to help avoid password leaks. Also, by creating different strong passwords for each online account, you will help to maintain your privacy and prevent attackers from hacking your online accounts.
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I would recommend that you use the LastPass encrypted password manager, as I have done much research about encrypted password managers and I have found it to be the best. The reasons I have found it to be the best are because it encrypts your data with very high grade encryption locally, so this means that LastPass never get your encryption keys, they just see in their cloud servers your encrypted data, so they can never see what you have encrypted. Another reason is that some other password managers will un-encrypt way too much of your encrypted data into RAM, but LastPass only un-encrypts the data it needs, to fulfil your request keeping all your other data still encrypted until it's needed. You can use its auto fill feature where it will on websites have a LastPass login button beside forms like username and password and when you go on that it will either ask for your fingerprint, personal identification number (PIN) or master password to login depending on how you have set LastPass up and it will either auto fill if you choose for it to or it will give you the choice whether you want to fill in like your username and / or password, if you have multiple username and / or passwords for a particular website they will all be in a list for you to choose which one to let it fill in for you. Here is LastPass explaining its security.
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I would like to add that using fingerprint authentication is acceptable on Windows with LastPass, as LastPass doesn't support PIN authentication on Windows, so your potentially very long LastPass master password would have to be entered in each time you login without using fingerprint authentication, but to make it more secure you can use double two-factor authentication by having fingerprint login and then having it request a second two-factor authentication method after. But you will need to find a way of adding two-factor authentication to the Windows login process, as like Android if fingerprint authentication is used for apps instead of PIN authentication, then fingerprint authentication is also used for the lock screen instead of PIN or passwords authentication.
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If you are in a data breach and you have to change your passwords, by only using one password for each online account it will definitely limit the impact if one of your passwords is leaked to the public and by using randomly generated passwords that are stored in an encrypted password manager's vault, it's so easy to just generate a new randomly generated password with an encrypted password manager. Also, you can check if you have been in a data breach by visiting Have I Been Pwned.
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Also, be careful of scam and fraud calls, if you receive a scam or a fraud call never provide any information at all just end the call. As scammers can do this to get you to say yes on their recording of the call, so they can use it as verbal consent for anything, they can do this to ask you to provide your personal information. They can also do this to ask you to let them remote into your computer, but don't allow them access to your computer, as these can be a scam that could end in your money and / or all of your personal information being stolen or held to ransom for money, etc. Then add the number to your personal call blacklist to block further calls from the number and report it to your providers scam / fraud report service. Additionally, if you are in the UK report it to the TPS (Telephone Preference Service) and to Action Fraud who will report it to the police and to the relevant authorities. Also, scammers can spoof their number, so when they are calling you it may seem like its a genuine number, but in your call log it will show a totally different number has called you. So always check that the caller who is calling you is genuine even if their number calling you seems genuine.
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Make sure the website you go on is the actual website you want to be on, you do this for one thing by looking at the URL bar and by reading the website's URL name.
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Make sure you do not allow your personal information to be given to third party organisations, you can do this by not allowing it on forms that you enter your personal information on, as they can do what they want with your personal information if you allow them access to it and they can pass it on to even more organisations.
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If you use ATM (automated teller machines) / cash machines be cautious, this is because attackers can fit a pinhole camera looking down at the keypad recording what personal identification numbers (PINs) are entered. Also, attackers can scan your cards by fitting a card scanner to the existing card scanner, so the ATM / cash machine still works, as your card passes straight through the attacker's card scanner and into the existing card scanner. Always check to see if an ATM / cash machine has been tampered with in any way for an example if anything has been fitted on to it, if it has been tampered with don't use it, then inform the bank. Finally, always cover the keypad while you are typing your PIN in, this is a good thing to always do, as for one thing it prevents people behind you looking at your PIN as you type it in.
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Divide your money into separate locations if you are carrying lots of money, because if one of your items gets stolen then all your money that you are carrying will not be stolen.
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Do not agree to let a listing website that you don't know use your personal information, so they can put an item listing up for you on their listing website, they could get your personal information from the listing website you used to put your item listing up. As this can be a scam if they contact you asking for your permission, this can be to get more personal information from you or to impersonate you by giving the illusion that they are selling your item, they can do this to take people's money without ever giving them the item that they paid for. They can buy and run their website anonymously or they can fake their details for their website, so they are hard for the police to track down to bring them to justice.
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I have already covered in my Computers Security Knowledge page other ways to secure yourself and to prevent your Information from being taken, so check there for that information as well. But I would like to add that I have duplicated some of the wording from my Computers Security Knowledge page to this page. I would also like to add that I may have duplicated some of the wording that is on this page as well.
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