Worried About Cyber Security? You Should Be!

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While attending a recent business conference with my husband, I sat in on an informative lecture on cyber security. The speaker was a former FBI agent in the government's Cyber Security division; now he is in private practice as an attorney who helps companies that have had their computer systems hacked. Below are a few facts from his speech: * It is not a matter of IF a company will be hacked; it is a matter of when. Nearly all companies either have been hacked or will be hacked. Many of them will be hacked multiple times. * In the investment business, it is highly recommended that brokers and traders rely on a mixture of both new and old technology. Even when a client emails their broker or bank about a stock trade or large withdrawal, the broker should pick up the phone and CALL the client before acting. Many hackers have figured out how to nearly duplicate a client's email, send messages to their banks or brokers, and have money sent to foreign accounts ... where it is then lost. * Consumers should be very hesitant to click on links in emails. They can be used to insert spyware on your computer so the hacker can read your mail, account numbers, passwords, etc. ... and you will never know it is happening. * Consumers should change their passwords frequently, especially whenever they learn that a company they deal with has been hacked. * There are entire businesses and even towns in some foreign countries where the whole economy is based on people working all day long to hack into American businesses. They exist in China, Eastern Europe, India and other countries. * China actually has a high-rise office building full of hackers who are working all day, every day to hack into the US government, other governments, and large businesses. I found that last statement especially interesting in view of the fact that Hillary Clinton's private email server showed no signs, according to the FBI report, of ever being hacked by foreigners. During the same period, as well as since then, many US government servers have been hacked, including the private email account of the head of Homeland Security. It makes me wonder if Clinton's emails were actually SAFER on her own server than they would have been if she had used a government server. Perhaps the government could learn a few things from Clinton's computer guys. I find that I actually trust her email server more than I do the government's computers. Perhaps the money spent investigating Clinton should have been used by the government to upgrade their own computers! It would have been a better use of millions of dollars.