I don't know who advised our President to basically give Vladimir Putin a road map as to which 16 critical infrastructure platforms not to cyber attack but that is a subject for another day.
Cyber security is everyone's responsibility.
Despite your long lost uncle's dalliance with a Nigerian princess, she's not going to send you $10 million even if you send her your bank account information, drivers license, PIN etc. Also, Walmart, Amazon, Target, et al will not randomly pick your email address and decide to send you a one hundred dollar gift card if you only enter you name, address, and age. Fedex will not send you an email about the laptop you ordered that they are trying to deliver to you (which you didn't order).
Some basic safety tips:
If something sounds too good to be true, it is.
Never give out your personal information on a website that you are not sure of.
Always check the sender's email address. You can do this by hovering your mouse over the sender's email address. If it's some bunch of random letters or not from the company that supposedly sent it, it's not real.
Check for correct spelling and grammar in the email message.
Not only can your personal information be stolen, leading to hackers getting your bank account info, you can also inadvertently infect your employer's computer network.
Once the hackers have gained control of your computer (without you knowing it) and you decide to check your work email, they now have your username and password for your work account. From there, they can log in to your company's network and try to gain access.
As the last few cyber attacks have taught us, higher gas prices and higher beef prices are only the tip of the iceberg. Utility companies are doing a fantastic job of protecting their network, but it just takes one person to hack into a utility and disable the power grid. Just think about all the things our society relies on electricity for. Kind of scary.
Please be vigilant. The reliance that everyone has on computers can be a blessing, but it can also be a curse.
Alan Janney