Protecting Our Seniors Can Be Easy, Fast, Safe, and Cost Effective

WHY TARGET SENIORS?

As we head into our “golden years”, we tend to not pay attention to the things we used to or keep as mentally focused. A quick email or phone call regarding our Amazon account or Netflix subscription that seems legitimate can trick you into answering security questions. This is all it takes to cost a few dollars, drain your bank account, or max out your credit card.

Threats are Abundant and Cheap to Leverage

Technology evolves at an astonishing pace. Sadly, technological threats have been evolving at the same pace, if not faster. Cybercriminals can leverage free email accounts, social media accounts, etc. and can target millions of individuals and companies within a few seconds at little or no cost. Because of this, an extremely low success rate can still result in an astronomical ROI.

Consider THIS

Let's imagine an email scam that only aims to defraud it’s targets of $10 US Dollars. One million emails go out containing this payload/message (and 1,000,000 is a pretty low number for this type of scheme). Let’s say that the success rate is 0.01%. That’s $100 return with an investment of just a few minutes of time. Many of these scams send out millions of emails. Worse yet, if they get your $10, you are marked and there will be other repeated attempts trying to get even more money out of you. Our senior population has been a lucrative target of cybercrimes.

Approach to Protecting Seniors

Below is a review of some traditional targets aimed at seniors how we have handled them in the past, and a better ways to combat these threats moving forward.

Don’t pay with gift card. Don’t pay with Cryptocurrency. Don’t wire money. While these are all good ideas, there are measures you can take beyond just telling your senior what to look out for. Scams are getting sophisticated and most, if not all of us, need sophisticated technological protections. So how do we protect our mothers, fathers, grandparents, etc. when there are so many opportunities to exploit them?

Bad Approach

Well, you can take away their cell phone, laptop, tablet, internet service… but that’s not feasible nor is it healthy for them; It is also counterproductive by making emergency services difficult to access or unavailable to them. What can you do without breaking the bank?

Good Approach

1. Move away from a landline

Most of us already have, but some of our senior folks do not want to do this as landlines are familiar and not too “techy”. But because they are not “techy” it is difficult to block malicious callers and control the influx of communications. Also, if there is an emergency situation, they may not be able to get to the landline to initiate a call for assistance. Get them a cell phone that your senior is comfortable using. There are a lot of options, get the right one for them.

2. Secure that cell phone

We highly recommend installing the mobile application Robokiller on the mobile device. Why is that? Well, it is very highly rated, The CIO 4 All use it for all our personal devices, and it’s as little as $31.99 per year with an easily attainable coupon. Yes, about the price of 1 month of phone service. So, what will it do? At it’s minimum, it does an excellent job of blocking scammers, telemarketers, robodialers, and fund raisers. Depending on your needs, it can be locked down so that only numbers in the contacts are allowed to call in.

3. Endpoint Protection on Everything

Now that you have the proper mobile devices (tablets, laptops, desktops, and mobile phones) what is next? Install endpoint protection on all of them This is a must. Not only does this help protect against bad programs (malware, viruses, ransomware), but also from malicious phishing (tricking you into giving valuable information) websites, trackers embedded in websites, and so much more! We have our favorite partner for this, and we think they’ll be your favorite too.

4. Network Protection

Enterprises spend a minimum of $1,000 to buy a single firewall to protect their interests from outside attacks and filter devices inside their network from accessing malicious content. Then they’ll spend thousands of dollars more to apply a filter that protects their inside assets from “inviting” in external threats. There are products out there that do this for the home, and they are enterprise quality, and easily affordable. We can recommended a highly rated and easily affordable device to add this layer of protection (This is also a great idea if you are a parent with resourceful children.)

The CIO 4 All is Acutely Aware of the Risk Seniors Are At

We’re happy to show you how to manage it, help you manage it, or let us manage it for you. You don’t have to be one of our business customers to take advantage of our free direction or use our discounted services for seniors. It’s one of our passions, and we want everyone to enjoy a safe and protected computing experience. We are the CIO for ALL, even if you’re just one person.

Also, check out our blog on “Layered Security” to see how and why taking these steps leads to a significantly reduced opportunity for compromise.

SafeSeniors@TheCIO4All.com to get more information about enterprise class protection for the senior members of your family.