Home User Tips and Hints

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Free Advice for the Home User E057 2025 02 14
Recently I’ve become acutely aware of the common vulnerabilities that many regular people face. So here are some hints and tips that may help you avoid common pitfalls.
Here’s a brief story I heard from a colleague a few years ago. He’s an assistant to a GVP at a major NY bank. He got an email from a friend of his, an assistant to a Director in Finance at a large manufacturing firm that does a lot of business with the bank. The email said: “Hi Fred, great job your son did in soccer last weekend! Hey, that invoice for $5M has been sitting on the desk for a while and we’re near the end of the quarter. Can you ask someone to move those funds forward? Thanks- see you at the team picnic!” So Fred forwarded the note to his contact – it had the account information helpfully in the message. A few minutes later, he got a call from his contact, who said that the account number they provided wasn’t valid. So he called his buddy and said “That account number you emailed me wasn’t correct. Can you give me the good one?” His buddy said “What account number?”
The bad guys had used LinkedIn to find the two men in complementary roles, and used Facebook to get a bit of background on how they knew each other. If the bad guys hadn’t mistyped that account number, the money would have vanished. And this was before AI would do the hard ort for you.
First, protect your kids. Specifically, their credit records. The PowerSchool data breach, disclosed in December, exposed the records of tens of millions of students, going back to the mid-1970s. That data is gold for cybercrooks. They can use a “clean file” to build a credit history, and most young people won’t apply for a credit card till they get into their late teens or early twenties – by which time they may have a terrible credit rating with a decade or more of fraudulent information. What to do? Put a freeze on their credit reports. Contact the three credit reporting agencies and tell them to disclose everything they have on your children, freeze the reports, and begin cleaning them up.
Second, set up a “safe word” for your family so they can validate themselves to each other. Too many people fall for “imposter scams” where an AI generated voice call identifies the caller as your child or grandchild who is traveling. The call goes like this: “Granma, I’m in trouble – they say you have to send $499 in Walmart Gift Cards to this email or I’m going to prison in Mexico – I’m scared!” You say, “Honey, you’ll be all right. What’s your safe word?” At that point, the crook will hang up. You should try to contact your child to make sure they are fine, which I am certain they are.
Third, please use multifactor authentication. That means when you connect with social media or a bank app, set it up to get a separate message to make sure you are really you on your real phone. I have a good friend who had her Facebook account stolen – hackers guessed her password, and when they took her account, they set up two-factor authentication. She can’t get it back. All her pictures and all her conversations are now someone else’s. Use two-factor authentication everywhere.
Fourth, please use a different PIN. The 4-digit PIN codes people select are too easy to guess. The Top Ten include 0000, 1234, and 2580 - if you glance at a keypad you’ll see why. The top ten PINs comprise twenty seven percent of all PINs.
See for a beautiful graphic.
Fifth, keep your software and hardware up to date. Install fixes, upgrade to supported versions. If you are running old stuff, you will be vulnerable to known defects.
Finally, use a reputable anti-virus product on your home computers and cellphones. Ther are a lot of choices, and the popular brands are generally great. I have used many over the years and none have been terrible.
For a list of basic information security hints and tips, see the Center for Internet Security controls list at - but don’t get overwhelmed.
References:
PowerSchool breach: .
Set up a safe word to stop family threats:
For multifactor authentication, see for more guidance and details.
Center for Internet Security controls list at
Hints and tips for home users - A Bit of Security for February 12, 2025
Here are a few good ideas that will make your home computing a bit safer. Listen to this -
Let me know what you think in the comments below or at wjmalik@noc.social
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