More Money Podcast - 358 How to Protect Yourself Online This Tax Season - Leigh Tynan, Director of TELUS Online Security

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

How secure is your information online? Do you use a password manager? Cyber security is more important than ever with phishing scams and cybercrimes gaining more victims every year. That’s why my guest today is Leigh Tynan, Director of TELUS Online Security, and she's sharing how Canadians can best protect themselves online this tax season and beyond. Leigh has been with TELUS for over 17 years and is a Co-Chair for Connections, TELUS’ Women’s Network, and is part of the Connections Global leadership team. She's focused on ensuring all Canadians are able to easily protect their devices, online privacy, and most importantly, their identity.  In today’s episode, Leigh shares how cyber attacks and identity theft online can happen to any of us and that’s why it’s important to have layers of protection for our sensitive information. Leigh also shares how cybercrime has become rampant in recent years and how scams are getting more clever and harder to catch these days. For full episode show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/358 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse, and this is episode 358. And your bonus episode, I love weeks where I do more than one episode, because what's better than one episode? It's two. It's two. It's more time with Jessica. Am I right? Am I right? Anyways, I've got Leigh Tynan on the show. She's the director of TELUS Online Security, and we're doing an episode about especially for tax season, because man are the scams and the phishing and the cyber attacks. They run rampant around this time of year. I mean, I don't know about you, but man, I've gotten so many spammy emails and text messages and phone calls lately, leading up to, you know, tax time, I feel like and it's never the CRA. It's never actually the CRA. And I don't need my,

you know, air ducts clean. You know what I mean? I don't even know. Like, I think I do have air ducts. I should probably look into that. But I'm certainly not going to hire someone who definitely sounds like they're, you know, talking through a tunnel. And it just doesn't give me good vibes. So anyways, we're gonna be talking about about fraud and scams and all the different things that you should be aware of, but also how to properly protect yourself and prevent some of these things from happening, prevent you from falling victim because it is very easy to fall victim these days. So like I mentioned, I've got Leigh Tynan on the show. She has been with TELUS for over 17 years and has extensive experience in marketing, product, communications,

municipal relations, and sales channel support across both business and consumer segments. And she's super passionate about security, online security specifically, which is why I'm so excited to have her on the show. Because well, first, Telus Online security is a software that i use and yes i pay for it and i've been using it for over a year now after i did a video with a lead that you can find on my youtube channel i realized how unsafe i was being online like i did not have a vpn and i did not know nothing was being monitored and that kind of freaked me out because my business is completely online. And so if something happens, I don't want to know what will happen. And so I think it's just really important to talk about this stuff because I know for

a fact there's so many of us that have, that know someone that has fallen victim or something happened. Like I share a lot of examples in the show where I almost fell victim or something happened to my husband. And oh, gosh, you know, it's just it's this is just the world that we live in. And these cyber criminals are just getting smarter and smarter and more sophisticated. And so we need to, you know, learn what we can do to, you know, protect ourselves and just be a little bit safer online. So I'm really excited to have Lee on the show. And yeah, without further ado, here is that interview with Lee. Welcome to the More Money Podcast, Lee. I'm so excited to have

you on, especially after, you know, doing that video that's on my YouTube channel. It's great to finally have you on the podcast. So welcome. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here. Yeah. So, you know, let's start off. Tell me a little bit about yourself, your background. Why are you so passionate about educating Canadians about protecting themselves against cybersecurity threats? And also, why is, you know, this time of year, we're kind of in tax season, in wintertime, why is this a really important time for people to be more aware of what's going on? That's a great question. So back to my background, how did I get involved? A couple years ago, I was asked to take on leadership of our consumer cybersecurity team. And at the time, I didn't know a lot about cybersecurity. And I have learned a lot. And the more I learn, the more I get excited to educate others. Because cyber security has, or cyber risk has evolved immensely over the past few years. And technology, both the way it's happening, how it's happening, and it is more sophisticated

and more pervasive than ever. And yet many Canadians keep thinking, well, it's never going to happen to me. And it is absolutely happening all around. Just yesterday, one of our leaders at TELUS, I learned that she actually is going through an identity theft situation and she's struggling alone. And it's awful and we can help. So this is happening more and more and

and almost half of Canadians now know have either been victim or know someone who is a victim so this is not this abstract concept and so our mission at TELUS and my personal mission is to actually improve the lives of Canadians through the power of technology and it's no different when it comes to online security cyberime and identity theft are more sophisticated and we want to help make everyone's online experience safer. So that's why I care so much. And particularly at times like tax time, although I would tell you it's no different at tax time

than it is any other day of the year, but you need to pay more attention, especially when really sensitive personal information is being transited across the Internet. Absolutely. And I know we've had conversations previously about, you know, I've almost, you know, fallen victim to some kind of phishing schemes. I definitely know people who have had their identities stolen. And I feel like personally, too, and I'm sure people listening may have had this experience too. I always find around text time, because this has honestly happened in the

past, I'd say a couple weeks or months, the amount of spammy DMs and emails and text messages and calls are getting wild right now. I've just gotten so many, like there was a good period where I didn't get anything. And all of a sudden, it's just like, it's outrageous how much is coming my way that I have to kind of navigate and remind myself of all the things that I know, to don't click and don't answer and all that kind of stuff. it's a lot of work to actually navigate. So I want to kind of dive into, because you used the term, you know, cyber risk, cybersecurity. Let's get really specific on what does that actually mean? So people are aware of what should they be looking out for? For sure. So cybersecurity, or I even like to say cyber safety, it comes down to protecting

our personal information from falling into the wrong hands. So cyber criminals want our information. Newsflash. Yeah. They want our passwords, our logins, our credit card numbers, anything that would allow them to access our accounts or impersonate you for things like credit card applications. Because the best, their best scenario is when they can actually not go into your accounts that you notice. They can create their own accounts based on your credit. And that's why it's called identity theft, right? They're stealing our information, our identity to pose as you. But they get this data through a million different ways.

And you just talked about how careful you are being. And that is so important. But the biggest aha moment I want everyone to understand is you can do all those things right. You can be so careful and not click and not trust and just not fall victim to those traditional things. But every organization, every company that we've ever done business with, they also have our information. And if they get compromised, your information is exposed, right? And so these fraudsters are constantly finding new ways to scam Canadians and businesses. And one of the things I really want people to begin to understand is you got to do the things right to protect you, like to stay safe with your choices. But we also need to understand that how our economy works is we engage with businesses every day.

And more than ever, those engagements are happening digitally or online. And for those organizations to provide the service or support that we're wanting to procure, they actually need our data. And so they're storing our data in their databases and cyber criminals are on the hunt for vulnerable businesses to gain access to that, right? So there are the things that you're talking about, like the phishing or the phone calls, all kinds of different fraud pieces. But it's really that understanding that I need to be careful and do things to stay safe. But I also need to understand that when I engage digitally, I'm giving up my information. I'm getting something for it, right? I'm interacting with a business, but I actually put myself at risk.

My data is out there. And so I need to take different steps to protect myself. Like that's the wow moment that people continue to think, well, it's not going to happen to me. You know, I'm careful. It's actually not about you being careful anymore. Yeah. I mean, I think the few times that my information has been compromised isn't because it is something that I did. It was because I opened up an account with, you know, a totally legitimate business and they were compromised.

I feel like I just got an email last week from a business. I can't remember which one. He also said, hey, you know, we've been compromised. Here are some steps to da da da da da. I'm like, gosh, I feel like I'm getting those every couple months. And it's frustrating because yeah, as a consumer, as an individual, there isn't so much that you can do to prevent that because sometimes you have to make an account with that company and have a password and put your personal info for whatever the case is. And so, yeah, that is kind of the frustrating situation, I think. I want to kind of talk a little bit more about what are some of these, you know, kind of breaches or, you know, types of fraud or scams that exist that we should be aware of, whether that is on the, you know, corporate

business level, or on the individual level. I know we kind of talked about identity theft, but what are some, you know, I'm sure you've seen it all. What are some things that are happening now that we may or may not be aware of? Absolutely, there's, and they're changing and evolving every day. There's the traditional things, right?ishing continues to be um something that happens every single day but what is changing is the sophistication of those attacks it used to be so easy to identify a phishing email yeah because it was a long lost cousin or a prince in in africa that wanted to give you money and there there were spelling mistakes. And the font was different. Like there's so many red flags. Yeah, there was a there was it was really easy

to go, oh, this is funny. It isn't so easy anymore. And I think that's what people need to understand is we're all ordering things from Amazon or getting things through UPS or what have you. And there you're tracking packages. So when you get a note that says, hey, you know, track your package or your package is delayed or there's a duty required, it's legitimate. You can believe it. But you're also seeing fraudsters pose as trusted people. You know, it's a form of social engineering, right? It's your information is available through social media. They create accounts. They pretend to be one of your friends. They're asking for information. They're convincing you to give information because you have details

about them that you think this person would only know. And it's actually readily available and public on social media. But even, you know, romance scams are another one where that scammer is trying to convince you to enter an online romantic relationship. And it's slow. It doesn't happen overnight. It builds. What you don't realize is they have a thousand of these that they're just they're just working you through the system. And then lo and behold, some emergency happens and it's a medical emergency or a financial one. And they ask you for money and you give it because you've now invested months in this in this relationship. And people are dating like online, like dating has changed. Right. When I first started dating to date myself, the Internet didn't exist.

Right. And today my kids are, are online and meeting people. Like it's, it's, that's the world we live in. But investment scams too, like the people you've got fake accounts, they're sending you information and they're promising things. You know, there was a lot happening with Bitcoin before and it was like, here, we can give you fantastic returns, you know, don't miss out on this. And so then people invest and then they fake it. You know, if you haven't watched the documentary on Netflix, it really shows how eager people are to get those better than average returns. So, like, I could keep going. Like, there's all of the, you talked about the number of phone calls

that you're getting, right? And, and people think, but the number was legitimate. Well, have you ever had someone call you and say, you just called me and you were, but you never did call them? Well, that's because they're scam, they're, you know, scammers are faking caller ID and they, they will go through and and like that happens so you can't even trust the caller ids um you gotta be super suspicious and and and don't trust things um if you're winning things and i think you had an example uh if i recall um someone was impersonating you in a contest is that was oh yeah i'll tell you so so what's happened in the past few years, things have improved, thankfully, this year. But for the past since like 2019, and it

all started because I did do a giveaway on my Instagram where I actually made a little gift basket. I bought all the things. I thought I was doing a nice thing to kind of like, you know, just like celebrate my podcast listeners and audience and stuff like that. And so I'm like, hey, enter my contest on Instagram. And I think I had maybe a link that, you know, went to like a Google form or a type form or something like that to enter so I can collect emails so I can let you know if you want. I thought it was, you know, pretty safe. And, you know, in a past life and past career, I used to like deal with contests constantly. That was part of my role working for a newspaper. And so I thought I knew I was doing all the right things, had like terms and conditions, all that. What I didn't realize was someone could very easily copy all

that content, my photos, make a fake account that looks just like me, and was gathering information from a lot of my audience with a new form, collecting their personal info, but info that I mean, I wouldn't collect, I was collecting like first name and your email so I can contact you. They were collecting really personal info. And I had a few people that legitimately thought it was me, even though it was a totally separate account. There's lots of red flags. And unfortunately, yeah, they and so I had to tell them like, you gave them your credit card. Why would you give a credit card number away for a giveaway? That should be something that you should think twice about. And unfortunately, a few people got scammed. I hurriedly told them, call your credit

card company immediately to tell them what's going on. But oh, I still kind of deal with that. I had someone the other week who messaged me even though luckily, i got verified on instagram so people can easily find out is this my legitimate account or not even still there was someone who approached me and my dms being like hey um is this you and it was an account it was like at jessicamorehouse1 or something like that and they were dming of course it did not sound like me and they were talking about trades and crypto and things i would never talk about but how they convinced that person I think or they were trying to convince that person to give them some personal information is they doctored or photoshopped what looked like a conversation between me and someone else legitimate to prove that no this is really me and then I went to go

see okay who is the account that they're talking about? Looked at that, like, we've never DM'd in my life. And so I shared a screenshot. But I mean, that's how easy it is. Anyone can easily Photoshop something to look legitimate. And so I told this person, no, it's not me. So even still, I'm still battling the scammers. And there's unfortunately very little that individuals like me can do when it comes to social media. A hundred percent true.

I think people need to monitor, begin to monitor their accounts and look for where something is fishy. But, you know, you've highlighted it. Don't trust. Don't assume. Verify. You know, actually go verify. And the same thing goes with websites. One of the things that I, this blew my mind because I thought, oh my goodness, you have scammers that are buying, actually buying media, right? Whether it's in Instagram or Facebook or just any kind of digital ads and they will have that ad up and they will leave it up and just get people clicking on it so they don't get flagged.

And then all of a sudden they're going to change that link and the link is now taking them to the fraudulent sites. So they are using legitimate companies to and pretending to be them. They are buying media legitimately and then actually driving customers to a false site. And you have to you've got to be careful. You can't assume. So, again, if it's too good to be true or, you know, if you're if there's a certain deal that is being portrayed digitally, go to the actual website. Pretty darn sure that company wants your business and they will offer that. But you need to make sure that it's legitimate. You need to be careful and look at the sites that you're being redirected to. Make sure that they are accurate. You can Google, you know, is this site legitimate? And it's going

to tell you, like, you need to take those steps. We can't be trusting and you have to be a skeptic. You have to not trust. And that, again, is opposite to how all of us, me included, wants to operate because we believe that people are good and we believe that these things are legitimate. But you can't. Yeah. And we don't want to take the time. Like, we're busy, you know, and we're used to instant gratification and just like clicking on a few buttons and then you just ordered something and it's going to, you know, arrive

on your doorstep tomorrow. And it's, yeah, it's a real issue. I mean, that's something that I've had to actively practice, especially since the thing that I kind of mentioned earlier when I almost fell victim to something, it was something that you kind of mentioned earlier about deliveries. And I was in the middle of moving out of my townhouse into my new home. But there was a few deliveries that I was waiting for. And I got this email that because I was so busy and my mind was elsewhere and I was stressed and sleep deprived and all that kind of stuff, which is, you know, can happen to anybody. I got this email that looked legit and had a photo of a package.

So I'm like, oh, yeah, OK. And but then, I mean, I literally went to all the steps and even entered my credit card information into this form. And then I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Why would the post office ask, like for this information? They've never done that before. And so then, you know, deleted all that information and clicked out. And luckily, my credit card did not get scammed or anything like that. But it was so easy to happen to anybody, right? And especially to when you say, look at the website. Yeah, that's one thing I didn't really do is I didn't really pay attention to the email. It was coming because they did use a fake one, like it looks like there's the display

email, but it was actually a different email. And the, you know, website that they had, again, was a not the Canada Post website. I mean, I get emails all the time, not so much in that way, but in my business email account, on the daily, people saying, hey, do you want me to, are you looking for a video editor or someone to help you with your Instagram? They're all scams. But I always make sure I'm like, okay, well, maybe this is a legitimate person. I'm not going to hire them anyway. But I'm just curious. And then I'll look at their the domain from their email and Google that. And most of the time, it's the website does not exist. And but that the reason I, you know, I'm used to this, because this happens a while. But I think if you don't come in contact with this,

you may just kind of think, oh, it's fine. It's fine but you know these things happen all the time but you know one thing I want to mention because I thought this is really good especially when it comes to the different scams and romance scams are so I mean pervasive now like they're everywhere like that show Tinder or is a documentary Tinder swindler is the perfect example because all of those people were very smart and well-educated and they fell into this guy's trap. And it was such an interesting watch to see really how he worked, the things he did, and how just like kind of like I watch a lot of cult documentaries. It's very easy to see how people get into cults because it's such a slow burn until you're like, wait, and then you've dug so much time and energy and money into this. It's hard to get yourself out

or to acknowledge that this probably isn't legitimate. So you just realize that it's not just for people that, oh my gosh, they should have known better. It's like it really could happen to anyone, unfortunately. Well, it can. And one of the things, so artificial intelligence, businesses are using artificial intelligence for a million different things. Cyber criminals are too. You need to understand that cyber crime is big business. They're organized crime.

They are well-funded. They operate like a business. I was at a conference last year and we were talking about these types of cyber crimes and they were talking about a ransomware group. And the ransomware group, as part of the recovery, they actually had a bit of a reverse hack. And what they gained access to was emails. They operate like a business. They get holidays. There are coverage. You know, it was it's it is absolutely an organized

organization that is 110% focused on how to abscond with people's money, right? But we need to understand that it is big business. It is sophisticated. They are using artificial intelligence. That's what's making it so good now. Yeah. Now, I want to kind of talk a little bit more about okay, what can obviously like, especially when it comes to like the big corporate level, there's limited things that we can do, obviously changing your passwords. And just, you know, for me, one thing that obviously I do use TELUS online security, so I do get notified if something, you know, a company has been compromised, or my email has been, you know, on the dark web or something like that. But what are some things that on the individual level that you can do to minimize the potential for you to fall victim

to one of these scams? Number one thing is to educate yourself. I think we've talked about that before. You know, we do things like we have alarms on our homes or, you know, smart automation. We have, we ride a bike, we lock it, we drive our car, we lock it. And yet our most valuable possession of our identity, we often forget to protect. So understanding that and now taking the steps to be more aware of what's happening. Really simple things like making sure you have the most up-to-date software on your computer or mobile devices, that's critical. You need to protect against malware and ransomware and viruses and those kinds of things. Like that's table stakes. Passwords you highlighted, people continue

to use the same or one of three passwords across all other sites. And I understand why they do. It's overwhelming, but we need to actually create unique, complex passwords for each of our accounts. So doing something like using a password manager can help keep them all straight because it is overwhelming. And then when one password is compromised, everything isn't at risk. You can change that one password. And that's, again, something that we need to think about. Two-factor authentication. That's another really simple step. People often resist two-factor authentication. I know, it's annoying. It's so annoying. I need to have my cell phone or whatever it is. But it's actually there to help you. So don't get angry, don't get frustrated.

Embrace it and understand that it's actually there to protect you. So wherever you can, sign up for it. VPNs, using a VPN to mask your activity from spyware or online hackers is really important. We use it all day for work or most of us in work settings, but then we go into our personal lives and we forget about it. Well, we shouldn't forget about it, right? And especially if you're using public Wi-Fi. Public Wi-Fi is just that public. It doesn't have protection. When you are in your home, you are behind a password protected connection, right? If you are outside of your home, don't ever share personal information over public Wi-Fi. Do not submit your taxes over public Wi-Fi, but be behind a VPN. Use your VPN for those kinds of moments.

Those are really important pieces. So there's so many simple things that you can do. Free dark web scans. So one of the things that we have made free for all Canadians, telus.com slash dark web, you can do a dark web scan. You need to see, is my information out there? And if it is, you got to make changes to passwords and protect yourself. So understand what's happening.

Obviously, the service we offer with our TELUS online security is more robust. It will tell you exactly which site and what information has been compromised. But doing free scans is better than doing nothing, right? It's all about information. No, absolutely. It's funny that you mentioned that so i think my husband just told me last week he had a friend and his information was compromised because he was using public wi-fi at like the library or something something very innocent and that's what happened so he's like sorry i have to deal with all this right now so i'm gonna have to cancel our meeting and yeah something similar happened to my husband i want to say maybe a year ago, I've been using a password manager for, gosh, maybe six plus years. And

it was honestly, because I was listening to a podcast. I mean, yeah, long time ago from this woman who I followed for a long time. And it was more like a business kind of focused podcast. And she was talking about how her Instagram was hacked. And she was a very, you know, big public figure. And she hadn't put some steps in place to have a really strong password and two factor authentication and everything. And so it was a big mess. And so she was just talking about how important it was for her to now use the password manager. So I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna do that. Sounds important, because I think, at the time, I was rotating maybe four or, you know, five different passwords, which was also hard to remember which one was which.

And so I've been using that ever since. And that's been really, really helpful. But I was trying to get my husband on board and he was just very resistant because it can be a lot of work. I have hundreds of digital accounts because you may not realize all the different accounts that you have opened up because it's been a long time. Like maybe you want to buy a pair of shoes from this one website and you made an account and then you forgot it because that was like 10 years ago or something like that. So he was really resistant until similarly to lots of people, his email for one company was compromised. There's there's something at the organizational level. And because that password was connected to so many other of his accounts, he had to go

through everything. It was awful and scary. And even, you know, months after he kind of corrected everything, still, there'd be a new account that popped up. He's like, shoot, I forgot about that one. So if you can do prevention is always like the best medicine, right? And so if you can take care of that now, and honestly and honestly like it's really not that big of a deal doing that like just you can put the tv on and then just get to work on uh you know setting up everything but for me it gives me a lot of peace of mind and also i know lots of password managers also have you know different uh methods of letting you know if an organization has been compromised to to let you because you know usually the organization does let you know but sometimes

they don't and you find out through the password manager, hey, it's time to update your passwords. And also they'll maybe send you a reminder, hey, it's been a year, you need to update your password. So I mean, yeah, I can't really say more about how important it is to have those important passwords, because it's it really can be the thing that gets you in the end. And yeah, like you said, a lot of people don't think about it. But the VPN, I thought, was actually really interesting. I'm curious, and this is just kind of like, I'm not sure. If I'm just at home using my internet, not using a VPN, but just my personal internet,

should I still be using a VPN for safety? It's never a bad thing. The key is your home site, your modem would have encryption, right? It would have password protection. So that is your first layer of security. And that's the keyword layers. These are all layers. You don't just do one thing and say, I'm good. I've got unique and complex passwords. I'm done. No, that's one thing. Cyber safety is all about layers. So think about what are all the things that I can do. So using a VPN, one of the reasons why people often say, well, VPNs slow things down.

You know, there are some elements to that, but you can also think about when you want to have the VPN on. When you are sharing personal information, have it on. There's no downside, right? Maybe you're not streaming a movie through a VPN, but you know, when you're gonna be sharing personal information, have it on. There's no downside, right? Maybe you're not streaming a movie through a VPN, but you know, when you're going to be sharing personal information, have it on. Like it's not going to hurt you. It's just there to protect you. So always think about these things in layers. What are all the things that I can do to stay safer? Absolutely. And also like

going back to the two-factor authentication, this is something that I've been telling people for years to do, but especially, and since this is a personal finance show, especially on your bank accounts, your investment accounts, anything connected to really important information, all of these sites and apps now do, I think, have a function for two-factor authentication.

And although, yes, it's annoying, like all of my things, I have to like open my email or get a text message or use an authenticator app. You get used to it. And then you're just like glad that it's not so easy for someone to get into your bank account. Because again, like you said, these scammers, they're getting more intelligent and they

have more technology than they've ever had. And so it seems actually really simple for you to just do one extra layer to have that source of protection, but especially for your bank accounts and your investment accounts. I mean, that just like is kind of a no brainer in my mind. So, so before I, you know, kind of let you go, is there any other tips or things that you want to make sure that listeners are aware of so they can be better prepared moving forward? Anything, you know, from your experience in your role or in your personal life that you're like, I wish I knew this

because, you know, I could have saved myself a lot of headaches. You talked about a lot of them. I did want to come back to the tax season though. Yes. Because that's kind of where we started in this conversation. So if you are filing taxes and you're doing them yourselves, a vpn right protect your that's something that i've never even thought about you know because we often most people do their taxes online these days that's something i think a lot of people don't realize have a vpn for your taxes right yeah it's personal information so doing taxes use a vpn choose your software

carefully make sure they're a legitimate company. Be really careful of free tax filing software. I think I've said to you before, you know, if you're not paying, you are the payment. Yeah, you're giving them something. You're giving them something. So be really careful. So choose legitimate companies. CRA has great information on their website of approved and certified tax software. So, you know, look there. Understand that the CRA will never ask you for certain information, right? Like if you receive a text message or an email from the CRA to pay your taxes, they don't like they're not going to do that. Don't click it. They have lots of examples on their website of the fraudulent types of communication. So, again, educate yourself. Make sure you're using unique usernames and passwords.

And the CRA does offer to offer two factor authentication. Make sure you're using that. Make sure you actually sign up. Register for my account. It will actually send you notifications of what's happening and give you alerts. So if something happens and someone submits something, you're going to know about it. So make sure that. Take the steps to actually subscribe to a security solution, right? You know, obviously, I represent Telus Online Security, and we have partnered with a global leader in Norton to help keep your private information private. Like you need to take steps to prevent bad things from happening. And one of the key things we offer is should you do fall victim to identity theft, we are there to help support you, right? Dedicated restoration specialist,

24-7 live support. You are not going through this alone. And as I mentioned earlier, one of our leaders at TELUS, you know she she is a TELUS online security customer and she hadn't asked for help she was struggling with her bank you're not alone and and yesterday I gave her a hug I actually saw her and gave her a physical hug and I said you're not alone like we're here to help and and that's that this is the exact reason and time why so just make sure that you're you you know, think beyond take steps to protect yourself. You know, you don't have to do this alone. Be sure to use like free is better than nothing. But understand what also the risks that come with with free services.

Yeah, I know a lot of people feel like and I used to feel the same way just because I think I'm just cheap. But I'm like, you know, oh, gosh, I have to, you know, pay for this password manager or this, you know, software to give me that extra level of protection. But it's like, yeah, you know, we do similar things with other areas of our life. Why wouldn't it make sense to, you know, it doesn't make sense. So like, oh, no, I'll just use a spreadsheet for all my passwords. It's like, no, that's not safe. Someone can probably get a chair in your computer and get that spreadsheet. Right. As little as $10 a month, we offer the device protection, the prevention, the monitoring, and the restoration. We provide all of that for less than you spend on coffee in a week probably. Right. Like, so these things don't have to be

expensive, but it is about committing to staying safer online. Yeah, absolutely. And it's like, it's just like insurance. When people don't think that they need it until something happens, then they really wish that they can go back in time. Wouldn't you rather do something now to avoid that situation? So make sure, yeah, you're properly protected in all areas of your life. So you don't have to have, I mean, yeah, just like that. And again, recall some people that you know that have gone through identity theft or been scammed, just like that. And again, recall some people that you know, that have gone through

identity theft or been scammed or things like that. It takes a toll on you. And it takes a lot of time and energy to recover. And so what can you do now to prevent that from happening? Because then you'll be glad that you did. Where can people find more, you know, resources and information about TELUS Online Security? Specifically, I know the website does have a lot of great resources and information. Absolutely. Telus.com slash online security. It's just that simple. Yeah. And the key things we provide that multi-layered, I talked about layers earlier, multi-layered solution to help keep you safer. Prevention, you know, monitoring the threats that are happening out there, providing the VPN, et cetera, password managers, or detecting and alerting you to when your information is at risk.

Because you can either choose to do dark web scans and try and stay on top of it, but it's much easier if we just tell you, right? Because this isn't what you think about every day. So we continuously monitor the dark web and also your social media accounts, bank and credit card investment accounts. So we can help alert you to when things are happening. And then the best thing in the world when things go wrong, because this isn't a matter of if it's really a when, because our information is out there. So if the worst should happen, we have the dedicated restoration specialist that will be assigned.

And we also have reimbursement coverage up to a million dollars to help support with anything identity related, right? Your lawyers, experts, replacement cards, lost wages, etc. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And yeah, like you mentioned, like, it really does offer a lot of things. Again, I've been a customer for over a year now. And yeah, it's interesting, like the things like it's, I just have it running in the background. So I don't really think about it. But once in a while, I'll get a notification like, hey, check your Twitter, there's something that, you know, may not be something that you want up there or something like that. And it's nice to have something that's monitoring that because I don't have time to do that. So yeah, definitely

take a look. And also, you know, recommend people put this in the show notes for this episode. But we did a video together about a year ago that we talked a little bit about this too. So you can check that out. But thank you so much for taking the ago that we talk a little bit about this too. So you can check that out. But thank you so much, Lee, for taking the time to come on the show. Talk about this really important topic that does not get discussed enough, but it is just as important as so many other elements of your kind of personal finance life. And so make sure to protect yourself. But thanks again for joining me.

Thank you so much for having me. And that was episode 358 with Lee Tynan from TELUS Online Security. If you want to learn more about that platform, just go to telus.com slash online security. Another resource I would point you to that also has a lot of great information about how to be safe and prevention and all that good stuff is getcybersafe.ca from the government of canada has a lot of in-depth information about uh you know how you should be cyber safe and what you can do so make sure to check out that and of course also make sure to check out my youtube channel i'll link to it in the show notes for this episode if you want to watch that video i did with lee um about a year ago where we talk about lots of the same things. But if you just want to

watch us chat, you can do that on YouTube. So there you go. So hopefully you enjoyed this episode. And to tease next week's episode, I've got Clarissa Moore, not related, but also love that there's another Moore. Moore House, Moore. That's fun. I've got Clarissa Moore from Clarissa Explains Money. You may already follow her. She's very big on Instagram. That's how I discovered her. And she is coming on the show to talk about all money things. You're gonna love it. She's such a great personality. I'm so excited to have her. So that's what you can look forward to next week. Clarissa explains money and she will be explaining money to you on the show next week. What else do I have to say? I feel like that's, that's probably plenty. You know,

if you've listened to yesterday's episode, that's a lot of Jessica time. So maybe you're busy, got things to do. And I understand that. So thank you so much for sticking around and listening, and I will see you back here next Wednesday. Big shout out to podcast editor Matt Rideout, as always, and have a great weekend. See you next Wednesday. This podcast is distributed by the women in media podcast network find out more at women in media.network