NLB Blog

Not all summer scams target unwary travelers. There are legion crimes waiting to happen that target their victims at home or in the workplace. 

Vacation season presents a golden opportunity for scammers. Their targets are typically looking for bargains and are more likely to let their guard down, especially now with demand for rentals and hotel space at an all time high. For those hoping to get some rest and relaxation away from work and other responsibilities, the competition for that perfect vacation spot can present a perilous lure--and scammers know it.

With the arrival of summer and the easing of shelter in place restrictions nationwide, people are planning vacations, looking for jobs, and starting home improvement projects. 

Unfortunately, scammers are gearing up to take advantage of these summertime, post-quarantine activities with a wide array of schemes aimed at turning your plans, projects and even your aspirations into cold hard cash.

Quarantine fatigue is not only sending people to crowded bars in Wisconsin. We’re all getting tired of it—call it quaran-tigue—and that could spell trouble on the cybersecurity front. 

Multiple studies and articles of late have noted a trend that could have serious repercussions in the days, weeks and months to come. The caution employers and employees alike had talked about in making WFH (work from home) a workable, secure answer to widespread social distancing measures has given way to overconfidence

Covid-19 quickly revealed shortages (and organizational) shortcomings that worried consumers, whether it was the availability of PPE supplies, medical treatments, or diagnostic tests. Each of these deficits provided criminals with hard to resist lures that continue to be used in phishing and malware campaigns.

The response from federal, state, and local government agencies and organizations to support the economy during the pandemic created fertile ground for scammers. With tens of millions of newly jobless or furloughed Americans filing for unemployment benefits and the federal government paying individual stimulus checks to avert further economic crisis, criminals have been making a fortune.

Several state governments have been targeted by a sophisticated fraud campaign that has likely siphoned millions of dollars in unemployment payments earmarked for the record number of Americans seeking benefits as a result of the pandemic, a new Secret Service memo warns.

It’s World Password Day, and much like every other day of the year, the state of password security is terrible. 

Despite repeated warnings from security experts and IT departments, “123456” is still the most common password for the last seven years, narrowly edging out “password.” The problem isn’t limited to easily guessed passwords: a recent study of remote workers found that 42 percent of employees physically write passwords down, 34 percent digitally capture them on their smartphones, and at least 20 percent admit to using the same password across multiple work accounts. Enter the password manager: an application or service that consolidates the credentials for all a user’s accounts. If you stop reading here: Password managers are not failsafe.

When it comes to protecting yourself online, there’s no silver bullet. Security software may block some incoming threats, VPNs can secure your communications, and sound data hygiene can prevent data leaks and breaches. But there’s one strategy that can both help to prevent and recover from otherwise catastrophic data incidents: Regularly backing up files and data.

Businesses across the country have had to adjust to their employees working from home. For many it was a last-minute scramble to adjust to what has become “the new normal” in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.As businesses and their employees settle into what could be for many a span of several weeks or months with a mandatory or recommended work from home order, organizations large and small face a potential company-killer: their surface of potentially vulnerable technology grew exponentially overnight.