April 29, 2020
Transcript
Crystal Washington: Hello, I’m Crystal Washington, Technology Strategist, and Futurist
Karen McCullough: and I’m Karen McCullough, the millennial evangelist who helps you deal with change. And today we want you to rethink it forward
Crystal Washington: And by rethinking it forward, we mean that there are things that have worked for all of us in the past that aren’t going to work for us in the future. And if we’re, to be real honest, you’re not even necessarily working for us right now.
Karen McCullough.: Right? So today I want you to talk about something crystal that I think is top of mind for me and probably for everybody out there because we’re all on our computer so much. In fact, less than I was so worried that my computer was going to die. It was like making it a little bit of a noise and I went, please baby, please make it another day. Talk to us about online security. Tell us some of the things that we should be looking out for.
Crystal Washington: Okay. So was there something in particular that you were curious about as we were right now recording on zoom?
Karen McCullough.: I love to zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. I want to zoom in. Zoom in, zoom, zoom, zoom. Yes. I’m so worried that they’re going to take my zoom away from me.
Crystal Washington: Oh no. Okay. So here’s the thing about zoom, cause I know that’s been in the news right now and people are trying to figure it out. Zoom does not support end to end encryption, meaning that your information is not as safe as it could be in some other applications. But here’s the truth. You know what makes zoom so popular is its ease of use. You know when you compare it to some of its competitors, you can have someone who has little to no experience with webinar software, give them a link and they jump right on and it’s easy. Unfortunately the very things that make zoom easy to use that are a competitive advantage are actually responsible for some of the security concerns on the backend. So unfortunately as they improve security, the ease of access to using it will actually decrease.
Crystal Washington: It’s kind of like, did you hear about the people bombing with like porn and stuff?
Karen McCullough.: Oh Yeah, zoom bombing, they call it.
Crystal Washington: Yeah. So that’s how we know we have to give out passwords and we can’t just, and so now what happens is they say, okay, you give out the link that already has the password in it. Well, that’s great, but the password doesn’t help you if you’re posting it in public, if it’s still all part of that one link, it’s the exact same thing, right? So it’s not necessarily problematic except that you don’t want to, you know, talk about sensitive internal information. There’s actually a treasure trove of, of zoom videos that were, that popped up on a website a couple of days ago and there’s just thousands of them. There’s like, whose zooms are these? So you don’t want to talk about anything that’s privileged information. You want to make sure that if you’re in financial services, Mmm. The basic version of zoom is probably not compliant. That’s not what you want to use. So check with your institution or your company. But, uh, that’s zoom. I also have a few more little tips for everybody.
Karen McCullough.: Oh, please share.
Crystal Washington: So they’re techie, but it’s not too techie. Okay. So it’s all digestible. So one of the first things is, is that unfortunately, we know since the beginning of time, whenever there’s a tragedy, Karen, there are always dishonest people who want to take it.
Karen McCullough.: Oh, right. Making the money. Making the money from the virus.
Crystal Washington: Yes, and so the scammers are out there, y’all, and they’re feeding on people’s fears. Everything from contacting people saying, Hey, yeah, we can get you COVID 19 testing kits, and they’re not even real, but people are ordering these things, right. To try to get you to sign in for supposing it SBA loans, but they’re having you put your company details and information and personal information on there so that they can then steal your identity.
Karen McCullough.: Right. They want your social security.
Crystal Washington: Yeah. They want your social security. They want your business EIN. They’re getting all this information and so we have to be very, very careful, and make sure that we pause for a second before we make any moves or click on anything because this is how people are stealing information. It’s only going to get worse. One of the things that I tend to suggest that people do is to freeze or lock their credit with the three major bureaus, and I’ll put some links. You know, Karen, I’ll put some links underneath this video so you can see how to do that. Now, if you’re trying to get a loan right now, I had to unlock my credit for a few days. I gave it like a couple of weeks or whatever, and then it’s going back on. What these locks or freezes do is they make sure that someone can’t get a credit card in your name or any of that kind of stuff because it’s locked, it’s unusable, and there’s a difference between freezing and locking. Freezing is free, so all the bureaus are required by law in the US you know, in the United States to allow you to freeze your credit. That costs nothing. If you want to lock it, then that actually usually carries a cost with the bureaus and it unlocks it supposedly faster. But I find that freezing and walk just as fast. So
Karen McCullough.: I froze all mine. I froze all three and then I went and refinanced my house. So like two weeks later I had to unfreeze them. It took a second and now they’re back frozen again. So it’s really easy and I totally recommend it. It’s a snap to do. Go and do that.
Crystal Washington: Yes. Now you don’t have to worry about people opening credit cards and lines of credit or getting utilities in your name. So go ahead and freeze. FYI, little little tip for you. For those of you that have children, um, that may or may not have contact with all different kinds of family members or people you can actually put freezes on their credit too. So there’s a way to do that for minors ahead of time. So if you have small children, you can put a freeze on their account until they’re 16, 17, 18 and that not take it off and tell them because what do they need credit for when you’re five?
Karen McCullough.: Say 24 might be a better age.
Crystal Washington: I’m going to have to agree with you cause man Karen when I got to college, you know how they get free tee shirts for filling out for credit, I had so many free tee shirts right at a credit card for everybody but McDonald’s. Alright, next one. When you get emails from different organizations, they might say, Hey, we’re part of SBA or we’re part of this. Anything that could be sensitive that’s requiring you to sign in. Go ahead and take your mouse, your clicker, your, your touchpad, whatever. Get that arrow over the link and in the bottom left-hand side you’ll be able to see where it’s leading you. The actual address of on the web of where it’s trying to send you. It may not be where you think it is and any time you’re in doubt, ignore the email, log on to that actual website itself. Just cut and paste and then go through there. We’re not even cutting and pasting. But if you notice the SBA go onto the SBA sign into under you and then see if that same message or something is connected to that so you don’t have to click the link, go through the source that way you know for sure you’re safe. Last tip, anything. Do you have anything on that one, Karen?
Karen McCullough.: I get those all the time. I just go up and look at the email address and it’s really interesting cause it’s never the company. It’s always some weird Gmail account or something and I just, they’re just, it’s, it’s kind of fun now cause I don’t click on anything. I actually don’t really click on anything, so don’t send me a file because I’m not opening it. Yeah, my joke,
Crystal Washington: my favorite is when it’s a government email from like a Yahoo.
Karen McCullough.: Right? That’s right. Right.
Crystal Washington: It’s like [email protected].
Karen McCullough.: Right.
Crystal Washington: So the last one is what’s going, we’re talking about, you know, I just gave the example of the government, y’all, the government is not calling you by phone. Okay. So you know, the IRS or whoever else is not calling you saying you’re behind on taxes and we’re about to come and take your house. That’s not how this works. Okay. So, and I’m giggling, but if you don’t know, you don’t know. So
Karen McCullough.: Yeah, they also don’t eat it. Email you. I, the IRS only send you letters. I know that for a fact. They don’t email you either.
Crystal Washington: So you know, don’t react to anything. Cause what’s happening is they’re depending on your fear and as long as you have fear, you’re going to make a quick, you’re going to have a quick reaction to try to mitigate whatever’s happening. And that’s how they get you. It’s, you’re not stopping to think first. So take your time. Um, if you have other people in your family that need to hear about this, even parents, feel free to shoot a link to this video over to them so that they understand. Because right now people are also praying on elderly who are not technology advanced because there’s plenty of people that are seniors that are tech-savvy, right? So I’m not lumping everyone together or they’re a scam savvy, but for those that aren’t, make sure that we’re empowering them with the information they need and shoot them this video as well, and they’ll be able to access the links.
Karen McCullough.: Well, that’s really good. Yeah, that’s very smart, crystal. Yeah, be safe everybody