Five cyber safety tips for the block chain generation

Adam had been really hooked up to the block chain technology, a technology he did not know a lot about until about a couple of months ago. But after investing some time in it, he thought this had the potential to change the world. Also, like many others he was more interested to make some money from this. Everybody else around him was either already making money by investing in new technologies or was doing their own research and were ready to get in.

He was really amazed by how one coin could give a 70 times return in less than a year. And every coin he saw was giving serious returns in a short span of time. This could mean easy money, he thought. So looking up for good investment opportunities became a part of daily routine. He was invested in some and was waiting for the right price for others.
But he was more interested in the hundreds of news ones that were coming up with ICOs. Some of them had huge potential and he wanted to gain multi-fold by getting in at the ground floor. So he started participating in ICOs, collecting free coins where ever he got an opportunity. Sooner than he realized, he was invested in over 30 coins. This meant a lot of digital activity – multiple digital wallets, accounts on exchanges and accounts on each of these sites. And all this happened very quickly and he didn’t mind.

One day, he got an email and it appeared a new coin was about to be launched. He could get some free coins just by creating a new account on their website. He decided to check them out and as soon as he clicked the link in the email, he was locked out. It was a ransomware attack! We know what would have happened after that.

This is not a true story but it is not unlikely to happen. Ransomware is rocking the world. As more people are now using credit/debit cards, digital wallets and are connected to internet using smart devices, we are heading down the road we are not fully prepared for. Crypto currencies and their block chains have got the attention of the whole world.

A lot of users are not very used to this digital experience. Today, smart devices are cheap, internet is on the road to be free and there is a lot of craze around cryptocurrencies. Everybody wants in.

But being a digital generation is not going to be easy and cyber security will remain a significant challenge. Even the most reputed organizations with strong security teams are struggling with cyber-security issues. Whether it’s a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, theft of user account data or a ransomware attack, cyber criminals are getting sophisticated in their techniques. There is a huge dearth of cyber security talent in the market.

Enter block chain. These organizations are new, they have small teams and they want to reach the moon at an astronomical speed. Cyber security has been often perceived as a blocker that slows things down. It is an afterthought.

This year saw at least three major ransomware attacks that affect organizations globally. These new companies are asking a lot of users to be online, get a wallet, manage them, join and follow groups, make payments and what not. But a lot of these users are not that experienced. They have got to make a choice – either they can join in ‘Now’ and be a part of the next awesome ICO which will give them amazing returns or can spend some time getting used to this experience and learn about cyber safety along the way. Given the speed at which things are moving, we know what they will choose.

Some of us have been a bit used to being online, managing digital wallets and securing our accounts. But some of them might not be. These are the people without significant security training who routinely use or will use computing technologies. These people are now expected to take decisions that affects the security of their devices and hence their own data and money.

Managing these risks can be daunting for them. They might lack the knowledge and understanding i.e. they might not be able to understand the threats, they might not know how to secure their devices or they might not know how to avoid making mistakes which could lead to a device or an account compromise.

Hence we need to have a better understanding of the risks digital brings along. Here are my top five tips.

• Read stories about cyber fraud, there is a news piece or two every day in the newspapers. Tell these stories to friends and family. Stories are a great way to convey messages and they stick. Experiences are even better; if you have a friend or a relative who got conned; it makes for a great fore tale.
• Never ever share your card/bank account details like the CVV number, password, OTP etc. with anyone. Nobody, even your bank, can ask you for these details.
• Please watch out for suspicious messages whether it is email, SMS or a Facebook message. Phishing is the favorite tool of hackers to target innocuous users worldwide. It has been very effective for them. So, please be careful.
• Use a password manager. This will allow you to have different password for each of the hundreds of accounts that you may have without the burden of remembering them all. Using same password across accounts is the worst thing to do.
• Enable two factor authentication (2FA). This allows for an additional factor, like a one-time pin on the Google Authenticator to be entered while logging in. This way even if your password is compromised, hackers won’t be able to log in to your account since they won’t have the one-time pin.

Sooner or later, one of your account will be compromised. But if you are prepared from the start and have the right safeguards in place, it will lead to a lot less heartache. Adam learned the lesson the hard way, let us try to learn from other’s experiences.

A lot of these new organizations and exchanges are taking cyber security seriously even from the user perspective. They are offer 2FA, options to move coins to a secure wallet and provide notifications via email when something suspicious happens. But it is up to us to use them and ensure our accounts are protected. Stay safe out there.

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