October means sweaters and fluffy socks, crisp mornings and beautiful sunsets, full moons and full bellies. For many of us, it is a time of thanksgiving.
October is also Cyber Security Awareness Month. As a client of CI Assante, you can be ‘thankful’ for the steps that we take to help ensure your information is secure. For example, trading instructions are always discussed and confirmed in person (or by phone or virtual meeting). All CI Assante staff take annual Cyber Security and Anti-Fraud/Anti-Money Laundering training, and this year we even invited a representative from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre to speak to our branch about our current practices, popular scams, and help us to better understand and detect some of the most common tactics and red flags of fraudulent activity.
The potential threats to your personal security are everywhere, and it can feel overwhelming and frightening to be that vulnerable. Unless you are living off the grid in a cave, the average Canadian who works, communicates and shops in today’s society will find themselves unavoidably facing these risks everyday. We have compiled a list of some practical measures that you can take to at least reduce your risk, and potentially reduce the negative effects if/when your personal data is compromised.
- PASSWORDS: Change your online passwords frequently and don’t use the same password on every site.
- ASSANTE INVESTOR ONLINE: Which allows you to track your investments online and access trade confirmations, statements and tax receipts, is a very secure site. The super-annoying five security questions you are asked to create when you first register help add a second level of protection. Registering for Assante Investor Online means less emailing of sensitive information or documents between yourself and our office, and you can reduce your paper mail as well. You can register here: REGISTER.
- BOX (SECURE FILE TRANSFER): We employ Box.com, which is a cloud-based system that allows secure sharing of documents between our clients and our office. There are many products like this on the market, some free, which allow secure file sharing and a secure file-storage and file back-up solution as well.
- EMAIL: Popular email platforms like Gmail, Sympatico, Yahoo or Hotmail are much less secure than corporate email programs. Beyond frequently updating your password you should also:
- Never use your email to send sensitive information.
- Make sure all traces of any sensitive emails are fully deleted…do not save it to find it later (make sure you go into the SENT folder and delete it there, and empty your DELETED/TRASH folder). Hackers who access your email can access data from all of those folders.
-  APPS: Many people enjoy the efficiency and practicality of having Apps on their phones that are connected to their personal banking information. Paying with a tap of your phone or watch certainly is appealing!! However, if you lose your phone you may wish you had never heard ‘there’s an app for that’. Make sure you protect yourself by adding key security features to your phone, like facial recognition, thumb print activation, passcodes or 2-step authentication.
- TAP your cards: It might be a generational thing, but I had always been leery of enabling the ‘TAP’ option on my debit and credit cards. It was my belief that thieves would be able to run around ‘tapping’ my stolen card everywhere, very quickly, before anyone was the wiser. However, after our training session with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, I found out that while I was correct about how easy it was for the thieves to use the card, banks and credit card companies are directed to recognize those transactions as fraudulent (once the card is reported stolen) and the process to have the funds returned to you is very simple. However, every time you decide NOT to tap your card, and choose to insert your card into a chip reader you are at risk of having your card number and PIN number stolen/recorded (thieves have become very creative with their technology, making it very difficult to tell if a chip reader has been tampered with). Instead of stealing your physical card, the thieves are now stealing digital information and using it to make online purchases. These purchases are harder to detect and prosecute. The added bonus of tapping your card? Not touching that really dirty keypad!
- PHISHING, VISHING and SMISHING? Nope, those aren’t funny new millennial terms for ‘kissing behind the bleachers’. Learn the new cyber-hacking lingo and help identify identity, dating, financial, grandparent and employment scams that might be hiding in your email, popping up in your text messages, or even calling you on the phone. Check out: Phishing, Vising or Smishing?
Please make sure to share these helpful websites with your loved ones.
If you have any questions or concerns about how Thomson Financial Partners is protecting your data, or if you’d like more information on registering for Assante Investor Online (and yes, there is an app for that! 😊 ), please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
– JULIE
