Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. It is supposed to make it more convenient. It is supposed to take some of the stress out of life. What happens when it doesn’t?
When the pandemic crashed down on the United States, unemployment soared. People who had never thought about filing for unemployment benefits soon found themselves wading through the process of filing for benefits. The problem is that cyber criminals were hard at work stealing identities, perpetrating fraud and stealing billions of dollars of unemployment benefits.
The CEO of ID.me is Blake Hall. His company tries to prevent fraud, yet his estimate is that Americans lost $400 billion to fraudulent unemployment claims. He went on to tell Axios as much as half of that money might have been stolen.
Jack Blount is the CEO of Intrusion, a company that protects the data of some of the world’s largest companies and deals with issues of cyber-security on a daily basis. He joined me on KDKA Radio Friday afternoon to talk about the scams that were perpetrated and the simple fact that if you lost unemployment benefits, there is nothing you can do. That money is gone. The government will not be issuing another check.
So what can we do? All of us already know the answer. We have heard it hundreds of times, but Blount says it is as simple as changing your on-line passwords on a regular basis and changing them to things that complex and not predictable. He says there are dozens of free pieces of software on-line to help people hack your passwords. We need very strong passwords to “outsmart” those algorithms that help criminals steal from you.
I also asked Blount about software options designed to keep track of your passwords. He said “As long as they are reputable companies like Google or Microsoft, they use 64-bit encryption that cannot be hacked.” Those options provide ample protection to keep your passwords safe – and allow you to able to remember what they are.
So don’t delay. Take the time to change your passwords. It’s time we all allow technology to truly make our lives easier – while worrying less about who might be trying to steal your money or identity.