She's On The Money - How To Protect Your Financial Data

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

Another day, another data breach! So today's show is EXTRA important as we give you some practical actions to ensure you’re doing what you can to protect your precious data online. We’ll also talk about how to identify scams, and what to do if you think your data or identity has been stolen.Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements.The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708, AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money. She's on the money.

Hello and welcome to She's On The Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. My name is Jessica Ricci and today I have finance queen, Victoria Devine. I have a juice box, Jess. I'm very excited about this and I think everybody else should know that I have a juice box. I'm sure everybody else is thrilled to hear that. No one cares. Everybody who just listened to this because they were like, you know what? Oh my gosh, I've never listened to she's on the money before, they would really like to know how to protect my financial data. They're just thinking, this is not what I signed up for. So strap yourselves in because the entire episode is not what you signed up for. But what we will do today is talk to you about how to protect

your financial data. And I mean, this has come out because Optus recently, and even more recently than that, Woolworths and Telstra, just to name a few, have had massive data breaches. And we thought it was really important more than ever to actually have a chat about this and bring it to the show. It is as always a very good reminder that we need to be on guard with our personal information and too often we just freely give it away or don't protect it in a way that we absolutely should. We are always saying Jess that we really need to protect your credit score and your bank and your super statements and never give out your TFN and all of that information but today we are going to give you some more practical advice and actions to make sure that you're doing

what you can to protect your precious data online. And we're going to be talking about how to actually identify scams and also what to do if you think that your data or identity has actually been stolen. And recently, Jess, I know you haven't listened to them yet, but we have a few money diaries coming up where people have literally had their identity stolen and used to sign up for financial services products. It's unfortunately common. It's so scary to think about. And for anyone who's not up to speed, just a little quick recap on the recent events. On the 22nd of September, 2022, Optus was the victim of a cyber attack that resulted in the disclosure of heaps of customers' personal information, including mine, which is

really annoying. Yeah, it was, but it was really stressful in the office, right? Like you were calling them up, asking them what information that they had. And I mean, luckily for you, some of that information was like outdated. They had your old passport, so that wasn't going to work for anybody. But what if you just got your new passport and then just applied for a new phone? like it's a fickle position to be in. Yeah, the information disclosed varied person to person, but it could have included people's names, date of birth, emails, driver's licenses, Medicare cards, passports, all kinds of things that they might have had on file. And Optus said that they have contacted all current and former customers that were affected. And the Australian

Federal Police are also investigating. And it's kind of an ongoing thing at the time that we're recording this. My favourite part about that though, Jess, in light of your next point that you're about to make is people were jumping up and down they're like oh my gosh ha ha ha that's what you get I'm with Telstra then what happened? Oh well a few weeks later Telstra had a smaller scale cyber attack which also exposed information of current and former employees so we shouldn't laugh it isn't actually funny but I just think that I had so many people message me being like oh my gosh lucky I'm with Telstra this never would happen with Telstra and it's something that you cannot avoid you honestly can't. It's really hard and it really goes to show how

important it is to take steps to protect yourself because it seems like every week there are more and more breaches from all different companies. There's been Medibank and all these other places coming out recently. And I think as we move further into the digital age, it's something that is only going to continue to happen. And we need to update things. And in response to that Optus breach, the government actually nominated the ACCC's Scamwatch as the first point of contact for information about what customers can actually do to protect their information, especially online. And Scamwatch also has information about the current scams that are referencing the Optus breach. And we really, really, really recommend you check it

out as a resource. Obviously, I'll put the links in the show notes for today. V, let's start at the top. How common are cases of fraud in Australia? Unfortunately, scary. So the Australian Bureau of Statistics or the ABS, if you just say ABS, like we don't have those here at She's On The Money, but we do have the ABS. So strap yourself in, the scary stats are 2.1 million Australians, so 11% of Australians, have experienced one or more types of personal fraud in 2020 to 2021, not across the board, just in the one year. And the results showed an increase in the rate of personal fraud from 8.5% in 2014 to 2015, to 11% in 2020 to 2021. And I'm assuming that that is just in line with the growth of the amount of

content people disclose on social media. Jess, I was watching a TikTok the other day, which I'm honestly really good at. It's not just a hobby anymore. It's a future potential career path for me just to watch TikToks. And there was this woman who basically educates people on scams and how your personal data is really easily accessible. She's a lawyer. She's like quite legit she's in America and she actually gets people to comment on her videos because people don't believe her they're like good luck finding where I live and like she snaps back and says okay yeah right scary because I had never really thought about it but then when I started to look into some of the usernames that I've used in the past that are actually linked to my personal

name you can find my date of birth like it's not actually hard to find my phone number on the internet. Do you know what I mean? It's actually really, really intimidating when you start thinking about it because so much of this information we just willy-nilly add to our profiles because like what's better than VictoriaDivine91 as a username? That's so true. And I feel like we've all probably had a little bit of anxiety, particularly over the last couple of years, that we might have fallen victim to a data breach or to a scam or something of that nature. What should we be doing if we feel like our identity or our data has been stolen? Look, The first step that you want to take is to obviously report the breach to your bank or

super fund or any type of institution that you think it has happened with. So if it was Optus, obviously reporting it with Optus and making sure that for that period of time, you're just freezing your accounts. So if it is your bank, instead of being like, oh, I don't know, is it, isn't it? Just freeze your accounts. You absolutely can. All you need to do is call your bank and have a chat with them or have a chat with your super fund, because the sooner that you can do it, one, the sooner it can be traced, but two, the more likely it is that whoever has your information that's about to use it is going to be barred from doing that instead of racking up debt that you'll then have to negotiate your way out of. I would obviously change my password. I feel like this

is just the stock standard list of things that everyone should do, but it's good to get a refresher. Then be on the lookout for really suspicious emails or phone calls or text messages or DMs that you get through social media because sometimes people will bait you into giving you more information. Or Jess, more recently, send you a message. Have you seen this one on WhatsApp? I've got it a few times and it's, hey, can you call me? And I reply like, what is going on? And they're like, oh, I dropped my phone. This is my friend's number. Can you give me a call, mum? Oh, I have actually heard people talking about that. It's actually wild. And it's funny because, you know, side note completely, in our team,

we call each other mum sometimes. Like it's just kind of like, let's call it a term of endearment. Like it just does something nice for me. I'll be like, oh, thanks mum. Cause she's looked after me and vice versa. My team call me mum all the time. And Kate, our mortgage broker got this and genuinely thought it was me. Oh my gosh. They didn't say anything other than mum, I dropped my phone. This is it. Can you like help me? And Kate was like, oh, it must be V. Like, oh, of course I'll help you. Thankfully she did not get scammed because she immediately called me and I was like, what are you talking about? She was like, so you're not being like, your phone isn't drowned. And I was like, no, absolutely not.

But imagine if you actually were a parent and you got that message and you had like a teenage son and that just made sense. Of course they would message you off a friend's phone. It's just getting so intricate that it makes me feel really icky. To that note, and going off of your first point about reporting breaches to companies, I would also add if you get a text, even if it seems like it's from a company that you bank with. So, for example, if you bank with Bendigo Bank and you get a text saying, hi, it's Bendigo Bank, your data's been hacked, I would be picking up the phone and calling them from the phone number listed on their website because a friend of mine actually got scammed earlier this year, I think it was, and it was because she received a text from her bank

and it was in the thread that her previous bank text had... It's actually crazy how deep this can go. Yeah. And it was saying your account has been compromised. We just need you to update your password, log into your thing and update it. And it had the link to take you through. And that link was obviously not legitimate. And she lost, I think it was like $15,000 or $20,000. What? And she did all the right things. It came from her bank. It was on the thread with her previous communications with that bank. It was actually wild how, like, I don't know how that works, but it was someone that I personally know, not just a story on the internet.

Yeah, that's wild. and she's a switched on girl. I would trust that too. And having spoken to a few of my friends who work in the banking space, I can unequivocally say your bank will never, ever, ever send you a link that you need to click because they know that that's what scams look like. And they're trying to train you to be able to identify that. So your bank is never going to say, oh, Jess, we'll send you the link or text you a link. Maybe they will say your password has been compromised, log into your account and change it. But it's one of those things that a bank is actually never going to send you a link to click on or try and get you to share personal information on a text message thread.

It's just not going to happen. And you are absolutely correct. The one thing I would do is just like Google NAB's phone number and call NAB immediately and go, hey, I've just got this text message. They'll be able to work it out for you in two seconds, whether that's legitimate or not. Jess, I was actually recording some Money Diary solo because turns out you're allowed to have a life and go on holidays without me, which kind of seems really weird. And we need to talk about that later. But the other day I was recording a money diary and it was of one of our very, very beautiful community members who, one has a really good story, but we won't get into it. But part of her story was that her identity got stolen. When she was at uni, she was a little bit

careless with her wallet. It got lost and her identity was stolen. And the way she found out was that a policeman emailed her dad and asked for a photo of her to verify that she wasn't the person that was currently suspected of, you know, doing all of these naughty things. Oh my God, what? That sounds like a scam. That sounds like a scam. And I was just like, what on earth? And she's like, no, that legitimately happened. And she was an adult when this happened. Why are you getting my dad involved? Her dad genuinely thought it was a scam and had to call the cops. And turns out it wasn't. they were just communicating with her in a very strange way. But in these times, question

everything. Because to me, if someone emailed my dad, what are you? Coppa? Dibba-dobba? Are you telling my dad about some stuff I did? What if I don't even have a relationship with my dad? What are you going to do? Email him? How did you even find his email address? It's a great point. So yeah, I guess the point is sometimes they are legit. So if you call and check that whoever the institution is, is it going to say, yeah, actually, we need you to update your information. Do it here. Or are they going to say, please don't give anybody information, you're about to lose all your money. I'm so skeptical of places that the times that my bank has called me, which, you know, happens sometimes. I do like normal banking and

business banking. I'm so skeptical that I actually go, hey, can you give me like your number and I'll call you back? And then I Google the number, validate the number, and then I call them back. Sorry, I just, you know, have had too many times where this has happened. And I know that that's a bit of like workaround, but people these days are so smart. They can actually call you through numbers that are not their numbers. And just, I don't want to be stooged. I don't want to be in a situation like your friend where I'm missing a whole heap of cash when I could have just Googled a number and kept myself safe. Yeah, a thousand percent. What else is on your list to keep us safe? The last two things I would say is obviously be on the lookout for those suspicious emails,

but then keep a really close watch on your bank account for any unauthorized transactions. It's really, really common these days. I don't experience this. Jess, I know how many times a day you log into your bank account. So you're all over this too. But you know, there are heaps of people in our community who are like, I don't really check my bank. I don't check my statements. I am crazy. Like I check it all the time. And even with our work accounts, I'm always like, Jess, what's this? And you're like, babe, I went to Spotlight and I got Christmas decorations. I'm like, oh, that makes sense. That's nice. Like it just seemed like a really random location. And you're like, yes, I got it while I was driving home. I question everything.

Better safe than sorry. I'm like, what Christmas decorations did you get though? Were they cute? It's a surprise. That's really important. Not a scam. But the other thing is you can actually call and request a temporary ban on your credit report to ensure that there are no unauthorized loans or applications made in your name, which I think so many people don't know exist because you know how you call your bank and you freeze your accounts and stuff. You can actually call and get your credit paused so that no one can take a loan out in your name. I mean, you can't even take a loan out in your

name. It would definitely be temporary, but just to make sure things are safe and secure. Yeah, which is a really good idea because we've spoken about before, you know, when people take your identity, maybe they don't do something with it right away. Maybe they sit on it for a little bit and then... Like this money diarist that I had the other week. It took a year before the person who stole her data used it. Yeah. A year. And people are not very nice sometimes. And so if you put that freeze on, it gives you a little bit of protection. I feel like it also kind of gives you a bit of a trail as well. so you can be like, hey, like I took all of the appropriate actions. I did everything right. If something still happens, you know, at least you know that you've taken all the steps and

hopefully if you have insurance or if it's through a bank or whatever, you'll be able to recover whatever you lose. And at least you can show that within your realm of power, you did everything that you could. Yeah. It also gives you a bit of time to get new documentation. Like if your passport has been stolen, you can get a new one within that period of time, or you can get a driver's license reissued or you can get new credit cards and it just puts you in a position where everything's on hold and you can kind of sort your life out. Yeah, all right. So what are some signs of identity theft that we should be keeping an eye out for? Fake mustaches. Good to know. The peel-off kind that you twirl with your fingers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're really

good ones. I also like to wear a sombrero with them for added effect. But if your identity has been stolen, it can take a little while to realize. As I said, it took 12 months before our money diarists' stolen information had been used. They literally sat on it and then waited. And I think that that's, you know, you lose your wallet, nothing happens, nothing's negative. You loosen up a bit, you're not so worried. And then when it does start happening, it takes you ages to realize because you've stopped checking your bank account so regularly. You've stopped looking at your credit applications. Why would you? It happened more than a year ago. It's not stressful anymore. But any type of unusual bills or charges that you don't recognize appearing on your bank

statement. One thing that I would be really careful of is mail that you're expecting to arrive that then either doesn't arrive or it does arrive and it just feels a little bit off. One thing that I have done recently is change all of my mail that gets sent out. So bank statements and like electricity bills all over to email, because I feel like physical is really scary. Our money artist that you haven't listened to yet, Jess, she suspects that the person that stole her identity was swinging past her house to pick up the mail to like finish credit applications and stuff. Wow. So creepy. So weird. The next is that you get calls or texts about products and services that you've never actually used or engaged with. Really strange emails that turn

up in your inbox and a sudden increase in suspicious phone calls or text messages or even just messages and DMs through social media. So there's lots of different ways and not all of them are immediately like, hey, Jess, here's a statement for a credit card you never applied for. It might just be really weird phone calls of being like, hey, Jess, you're short on this. And you go, no, I'm not. I definitely didn't do that. So let's just, this episode might put the fear of God into a lot of people, but I think just being vigilant is the most important thing here. Alrighty, we're going to go to a really quick break. And when we come back, we're going to be talking tangible tips. So don't go anywhere, guys.

all righty everybody we are back and victoria i want to know your tips that people can use to help protect themselves and their financial data against attacks i have a laundry list i'm excited are you sitting are you ready it's taken me ages to pull together because i wanted it to be as comprehensive and useful as possible which is why it is so extensive so if you're not ready maybe pause, grab a cup of tea and come back. This is a time for you to be alive. So first things first, we are going to regularly check our credit reports. I say this all the time. Literally, I'm obsessed with saying it. It can be free. You can even sign up for a free credit monitoring email that will consistently come into your inbox to make sure that you are safe and

secure. So that is free and easy to do. Update your devices. So cyber criminal hack devices using known weaknesses in our systems or apps means that if you update your security consistently you're going to fix these weaknesses in your apps so that there won't be as many breaches. I do this personally by making sure that I have automatic updates on my phone so that when my phone is beside my bed charging at night and connected to wi-fi it just does it so that I'm not using all of my data. Use a secure password manager and there are a lot of them around these days and these will often tell you if there's been a leak of your data on the dark web or if your passwords are compromised and also you don't need to remember any of your passwords with this. They

like autofill so it feels easier but it's safer. Google did that for me recently. I got an email it was like 97 of your passwords are compromised and I was like oh my god what? How do you have 97 passwords Jessica? I can't even remember the three that all involve my own name. I feel like 97 might be a small exaggeration but it was a lot. We'll go with it. The next tip I've got for you is using multi-factor authentication. This really annoys our team. Jess, you can probably agree with this one, but multi-factor authentication improves your security by increasing the difficulty for cyber criminals to actually access your files or accounts. So anytime anyone banks in our office or like pays an invoice or does their job,

I get a text message and you need the code. Yeah. So it's one of those things that for me, makes me feel far more secure because I don't want to lose money, but I also don't want to to be compromised. I have the same on my email and on my Facebook. I use Google Authenticator and basically I have an app on my phone and it generates one-time use codes. And when I go to log in, I put my username, my password, and then click sign in. And then it'll go to a second page and be like, what is the code on your Authenticator app? And to me, that one makes me feel a lot more secure, but do I just think it's smart? Because the more time flies, the more likely you are to be hacked or have someone trying to access your personal information, I just want to make

it as hard as possible for them. You know, make them really work for it, Jess. Yeah. The other thing, if you don't actually have access to multi-factor authentication is use a secure passphrase. So in cases where you can't use multi-factor authentication, a secure passphrase can often be the only thing protecting your information and account from criminals, which is kind of scary. Then the next thing, do you do this? I feel like you've got a semi-nerdy boyfriend. So you might do this. Do you use a VPN? I'm pretty sure we have one hooked up at home. So a VPN is a virtual private network. I have one on my phone. I have downloaded it. I actually didn't discover this for my own security, Jess. This is slightly embarrassing. The app I have

is called NordVPN. So you remember like Nord security. It's like a legit company. Anyway, I really wanted to watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills when I was in New Zealand. It's on Hulu and that wasn't actually available in New Zealand. So when I was trying to log in and cast it to the TV because I was obviously having a very exciting holiday, watching my favorite show with a glass of wine. It was like, this isn't available in your area. So I was like, oh my gosh, this is going to ruin my entire holiday if I can't watch this show. I'm going to have to download this app. So I did all the Googling, worked it out, downloaded NordVPN, and I could change my location so that anybody on the internet, when they're looking at my IP

address, don't actually get to see my real IP address, which means one, I could watch whatever show I wanted, but two, I'm actually far safer and more secure. And now that's how I operate across the board, which I think everybody should. It is a paid app, but I do think it is worth it. The next tip is just to please be smarter with your social media usage tip. It's keep personal information off social networks. Honestly, terrifying. You told me about this the other day that scammers can actually find out where you live and work through your posts. Obviously, if you're posting your workplace. But Jess, you were telling me that Instagram would actually geotag the photo and you had automatically turned it off or something. Yeah. So I'm super paranoid

about location specifically because internet safety scares me. And I have my location services on my phone off because I watched this, I think it was Social Ultimatum or something. The Social Dilemma? Something like that. Yeah. I watched it and I freaked out and turned off all of my location services. She didn't just freak out. She called me and did this and we used to have each other on find my friends and now I have no friends it was just a whole thing yeah so Instagram can do it but even just the photos within your phone do it as well automatically if you don't turn it off and so if you were to lose your phone for example I have an iPhone I don't know if Android does this too but if you lost your phone and you took a photo at home that could be how do they know that

if your location service is on and you can toggle oh my gosh actually I know mine are on because when I go to my albums on my phone, it has places and I can just zoom in and look, 8,400 photos. Probably spend a lot of time there. Oh, Jess, that's literally my house. Yeah. So you can turn off, if you go into your phone settings, you can turn off location. Look at all these places I've been.

Oh, that's cute. We've been to some of those together. But you can turn off your location settings holistically, or you can turn it off for specific apps as well. But yeah, you have to think a little bit bigger picture because you go, oh, I just won't post my front door. Like I won't tag my local suburb, but even it's showing your local coffee shop feeders, you know, or all of these little things that if someone is really paying attention, they can put together a pretty good picture of where you're spending time and what

you're doing. So it's just being super conscious about what you're putting out there because you don't know who's watching. And I think people try to be really sneaky about this. This is something I see in our community all the time. And if you're comfortable with it, keep doing it. I never would do it though and that's posting a picture of you putting your sold sticker up on the house that you just purchased I have strong feelings about this do you as well yeah well because I used to work in real estate do you know how easy it is like the amount of people that I went to high school with that have bought houses post a photo I've been like well I want to know what that house looks like and I found it in about five minutes yeah it's not even hard and I'm a creep as well

like there have been influencers who have posted their sold thing and they think that they're being really smart because they like white out the real estate agent's number and like what it is, but they leave up the description. Mate, I can just Google that. It's going to come up. And also even if you like rub out who it is, like this is outing me as an absolute creep, but like I know yellow is Ray White. Like I know what real estate agent you have gone through and therefore I'm very likely to find it on the Ray White website under recently sold. I'm just going to scroll through and be like, that's probably it because the picture will stay up. Anyway, I just think that that is compromising your privacy. Steve and I, when we bought our

house, you'll remember this Jess, we just got a picture outside the house, like in an area of the house that you absolutely cannot see from the street. And we used a sold sticker, not from the same company that we bought the house from because I was just like, one, I have a lot of real estate friends around and I was basically like, can I have a sticker? Cause the other one stuck to the board but two I was kind of like oh can it not be from this particular company because I just I don't want to compromise my privacy like that and I mean it is from my perspective a little bit hypocritical as well because I do tag local cafes and I do share a fair bit on social media like you guys know I'm in and around Melbourne I just I don't need you knowing my pinpointed

location yeah and I think it can be yeah really jarring but I think we do need to be really aware of that because as you said, Jess, if you saw someone buy a house, you're going to Google it, especially if you grew up with them or you knew them. But that's just, I guess, a wholesome person looking something up. You just don't know who can also look it up, who might not be as kind or as just pervy as you are, right? Yeah. Look, the next tip I've got for you guys is back up your devices and set them to regularly auto backup. I say this because you can automatically restore your files in case your device is ever hacked or lost or stolen or damaged. I know I have so many photos on my phone. Like I am nearly as psychotic as Jess when it comes to taking

photos, but I would be heartbroken if they got lost. And sometimes if your device has been hacked, it just needs to be completely wiped. Like there's no opportunity to take some of the files off because they could be compromised. But if you backed up your phone, basically that device can be destroyed. It's absolutely fine. It could be completely wiped. And then you could just restore an older backup that does not have the virus or the hacking on it. The next thing is secure or shred your sensitive documents. Recently, we have got our own shredder in the office. You love the shredder. I love the shredder. I love it. I love it. And it's not like an old school one where you get the little like, you know, the strips of paper. Yes. Have

you opened our shredder? I haven't. Or is it just me? No. It's like confetti. Brilliant. Like good luck. Good luck piecing that together, friends. Yeah. I feel far safer. Someone's always like, what's shredding got to do if someone wants to steal my bank details like I'm really good at puzzles maybe I will just like put them up on the wall like I'm some kind of like true crime investigator and work out what the letter said but no chance with my shredder but I think that you should be shredding literally everything that is not of use to you so letters from your bank super fund or employee details literally anything that people could use to steal your identity from my perspective should be shared. Save them in a safe location, something that I do if I think it's

really important. Like I got a letter being like, hey, here's your TFN. I take a photo of it or I use the scanner app and upload it to my emails and file it away. So I know I've got a digital copy of it. I don't need the physical copy anymore. I feel like historically I used to just keep those things lying around. Denada in this house. The next thing is be really careful with public computers and also public Wi-Fi. So if you're using a public computer, like for example, at the library, you need to one, make sure that you're clearing your internet history and logging out of every single account because that's just giving people a ticket to go and read through your emails. But two, public Wi-Fi is actually quite dangerous because they're not secured.

And if you join a network that a hacker is on, instant connection, like you're able to actually instantly connect with them. And there are some devices like Apple has a higher level of security when it comes to this stuff. And it'll say, do you want to share your information on this network or not when you connect? But to be honest, I really like to not use free Wi-Fi where I can, because more often than not, it's just not a good or safe idea. And I mean, it's 2022. You probably have enough data on your phone. Yeah, the Wi-Fi might be quicker, but it's not often that advisable. You see me do that when we travel because I used to work corporate and there was a breach that occurred because somebody, they left their laptop somewhere. I can't remember what it was, but it

was like drilled into us. So now whenever I travel, because I travel with my work laptop because we travel for work. Yeah, I was literally like, bro, are you signing out of everything so that I can't see it? Because one time I was like, oh, Jess, can I borrow your laptop? And you're like, let me just sign out of everything. And I was like, bro, I'm not going to go on your Facebook. And you were like, oh, it's not because of that. I'm like, you're way smarter than me. It was drilled into us. Like anytime I take my laptop outside of like the workplace, like even if we're just traveling interstate, when we're traveling internationally, I will sign out of my emails, all of my personal platforms, anything that could identify the business. I do the same on my phone as well.

And we also, when we traveled, we used to have to lock our devices. So like if you went on a holiday, like a personal holiday and you weren't taking your stuff, the company rule was that you had to physically lock your laptop away so that nobody could access or breach anything while you were gone. It was crazy because they had it happen in the past where some really confidential client information got out because somebody's computer was accessed while they weren't there. And it's really, really scary. And so I know that sounds like you go, who's going to log out of their Facebook when they travel? I don't know, Jess, you're talking to me and how many times this year have I left a laptop on a flight? Literally, you just don't know. And it's such

an easy thing and if you didn't know most social networking platforms and like email platforms and stuff you can log out of them remotely so if you do lose your laptop you can go oh I'm gonna sign out of every device that I'm signed into and it will take it off of everything because yeah you just don't know and I feel like nowadays everyone is quite savvy with these things you're oh there's a password on my laptop no one's gonna guess it it's not like it's my birthday mine's auto filled there you go you just never know no we don't do that in this house no we're gonna change that when we get off okay sorry sorry all right well the last tip I've got in this laundry list of tips is securing your mail so this is hot tip that I have added because I need to do it right

now there is not a lock on my mailbox but there should be because we don't want people stealing our mail and it baffles me that I've never thought of this personally until we decided to do this episode and I was sitting down being like, what should be on this list? Literally, if you get a new credit card, Jess, where does it get sent? Great point to my letterbox. Yeah. How are you protecting that? Yeah. I hadn't thought about that. That's real creepy, isn't it? Yeah. So from my perspective, getting a locked mailbox so people can't steal your stuff is a top priority. And the last tip I've got in our laundry list of tips, Jess Grigi. Now we have done a full episode in the past on getting scammed. It's called Scamdalous. Excellent name, if I do say so.

We are geniuses. Just thought of that, if anybody hadn't guessed. So I definitely recommend going back and listening to that episode just to give yourself a refresher on how you can identify scams, what common scams are, things of that nature. It sounds like a very Beyonce style episode. It really does. And the thing I think I would encourage people to really consider is if you receive a communication from somewhere that might seem official, doesn't seem like you're being rushed into doing something doesn't seem like you're being pressured into making a change immediately scammers want you to do it asap instead of like oh have you got

time to chat and you're like no i don't work they're like no worries i'll call you later yeah no credit companies do not want you to make a split second decision because that's a bad decision yeah exactly right so if you're feeling those things do the vibe check call the place see what's up before we head out the door v can you tell me where can people find more resources for help if they do need them. First things first, in our show notes, we will always drop a whole heap of information pertaining to the episode that we are talking about there. So don't worry about writing these down. But for more information on spotting scam messages, you can see the ACSC's Detecting Socially Engineered Messages guidance, which is obviously linked in the show notes. And

if you're concerned that your identity has been compromised or you feel like you might have been a victim of a scam contact your bank immediately and call id care on 1-800-595-160 and then if your identity has been stolen you can actually apply for a commonwealth victim certificate and if you believe that you are a victim of cyber crime you need to go to report cyber at cyber.gov.au jessica all right that's a lot i hope that that was helpful for the people listening we don't mean to put the fear of god into you but we've been seeing a lot of conversations with these breaches and like I said, I was a victim to one of them and I totally get the anxiety,

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