Don’t be a Victim of Visual Theft
You take care to keep your passwords safe, you follow all the recommendations to keep your personal data secure, and you keep your computer protected with backups, firewall, and anti-virus software.
But when you’re using your debit card, do you make sure nobody is looking when you enter your PIN or password? Is anyone looking over your shoulder while you check your bank account from your phone? When you’re shopping online, who can see you enter your payment information? If you take your work outside the office, what steps do you take to protect it? What about working with sensitive information at the office?
While this may sound too low-tech to worry about, it can be very serious if sensitive information is seen by prying eyes.
This article by HP discusses how dangerous this type of theft can be, how successful it is, who is vulnerable, and how you can protect yourself against it.
Some of the precautions it includes are simple: use internal firewalls to keep sensitive information confidential; make sure visitors and other employees don’t have access to workspaces with sensitive information; look around and wait until your environment is private.
The last suggestion is the most simple: When you’re in public, simply make sure no one is watching you work with your sensitive information. Stop and look before you enter that PIN or password, whether it’s on your phone or at the register, and don’t enter your credit card where someone else can see your screen. If you do, you’re not being paranoid – you’re protecting yourself.
No Comments