Saturday, March 30, 2024 – My best tip for protecting your info from scammers – Here’s a safe way to sell your used Apple devices

I frequently write about things you can do to protect your online accounts and your personal information from scammers and hackers, but there’s one tip that can do more to protect you against fraud than all the others combined…

Don’t post any piece of sensitive info on any website or social media platform that isn’t absolutely necessary for effectively using that site or service.

Why? Because information that can’t be seen or accessed in some other way can’t be stolen and subsequently exploited.

For example, anyone who takes the time to look at my personal profile on Facebook won’t see very much except for my name, my profile photo and the URL to my tech blog.

Therefore, there’s virtually nothing on there for a scammer or hacker to steal and exploit.

The same goes for other types of sites as well…

Most any “service” type of website will require that you input certain types of information, but there are typically fields that you have the option of leaving blank. I recommend that you do just that whenever possible.

It really concerns me when I look at a friend’s profile on social media and see their full name, their street address, their phone number, their mother’s maiden name and their birthdate.

All of those pieces of info together can be used to steal that person’s identity. The only thing missing is their social security number, and an experienced scammer can easily dig that up once they have all the other info.

I recommend that you be an absolute miser when deciding which pieces of personal and financial information to make available online.

Here are my two primary rules of thumb for Internet safety and security:

1 – If it’s optional, it won’t be posted. Period.

2 – If it’s mandatory but I can get by with making something up, I make something up to ensure that piece of info can’t be used for a nefarious purpose even if it gets stolen.

Bottom line: The scammers of the world are getting smarter by the day. It’s your job to make their job as hard as possible by keeping as much of your private information private as you possibly can.

Tech news that caught my eye…

• New phishing attack targets iPhone and Android alike

• Journaling app Palmsy offers fake likes from real friends

• Apple plans to update new iPhones while they’re still in the box

• The FCC’s “Affordable Connectivity Program” is coming to an end

• You can now sign-in to Google services using your PC’s Windows Hello feature

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Thanks so much, and have an amazing day.

Your tech buddy,

Rick Rouse
https://www.RicksDailyTips.com