Best Practices for Protecting Your Identity
/With the news of yet another, potentially enormous data breach, this time from National Public Data, resulting in the leak of an as-of-yet unknown number of personal records (some estimates put it at 2.9 billion personal records exposed, while the company claims the number is closer to 1.3 million) the priority of protecting your assets and identity has never been greater. Sadly, news of breaches like this are far too common, despite the best efforts of the keepers of this data to keep bad actors away. It’s with this in mind that we want to remind you of what your team at Clearwater is doing to protect you and what you can do to help protect yourself.
In an effort to prevent a case of identity theft resulting in the loss of funds from your investment account(s), Clearwater’s policies require us to obtain a verbal verification from you whenever you request certain account updates or money movements. Given that typical verification questions largely involve using data that may have been part of a previous data breach, your team at Clearwater has begun reaching out to establish unique passphrases, along with hints to jog your memory, that we will use to identify you whenever we need a verbal verification. Please feel free to call our office (847-841-8650) to get your passphrase and hint set up, if you haven’t already, at your convenience. Please note that you should not send your passphrase or hint via email or text message. Please call us with it.
It is also important to remember that large institutions employ robust security systems that would need to be defeated. It is far easier for bad actors to target individuals given the far lower level of security that most people have in place. Therefore, it is critical that you be extra vigilant when it comes to cyber security and identity theft. Here are a few tips to help keep you and your information safe:
Be wary of scammers. Do not click on links or open attachments in emails or text messages that you aren’t expecting to receive, especially when you don’t know the sender. It is also best to not answer calls from unknown numbers since the recording of voices has now become a tactic used to clone voices to help fool people.
Never provide your usernames, passwords, account numbers or Social Security Number to someone that calls you. Hang up the call, look up the service provider’s published phone number and call them back to ensure you are actually talking to that entity.
Set your social media privacy settings to hide all of your personal data from people you aren’t connected with. Be wary of new friend requests and only accept people you actually know. Also consider removing personal data from your profiles for an extra layer of security.
Turn on Multi-Factor authentication on any website or app that will allow for it. If you are re-using passwords, change them all to be unique and strong. Do not follow a pre-set password pattern and don’t re-use passwords over time. If you haven’t changed your passwords on banking/financial systems recently, please update them.
Turn on a credit freeze for all members of your family. A credit freeze locks your credit file so lenders cannot extend credit without your specific permission. It does not impact your credit score and is free. The only catch is that you have to remember to contact each credit bureau to lift the freeze when you are trying to open a new account or take out any sort of loan. After your activity is complete you can re-establish the freeze. To freeze your credit you will need to contact each of the three credit bureaus.
Equifax: Call 800-349-9960, or go online to https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/
Experian: Call 888-397-3742, or go online to https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
TransUnion: Call 888-909-8872, or go online to https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze
In the event that you do experience a data breach, here is a road map for how to respond in order to limit the damage. These steps should be implemented as soon as possible once the breach has been identified. Your team at Clearwater is here to guide you through the process.
Clearwater Capital and your custodian partners are dedicated to the safety and security of your assets and information. Each has invested heavily in robust hardware, software, consulting, training, policies, and procedures to do all that can be done to protect your assets and prevent disruptions. Charles Schwab, LPL Financial and Clearwater Capital have robust Business Continuity Plans that lay out reactions to business disruptions in order to get systems back online as soon as possible, while also maintaining communication with you. Your custodian partners and Clearwater are also backing up the holdings of each of our client accounts daily out of an abundance of caution. Further, those clients with accounts held with Charles Schwab have a 100% fraud protection guarantee (more information can be found here: https://www.schwab.com/schwabsafe/security-guarantee).
In closing, there is no doubt that cyber security and identity theft are evolving issues. We at Clearwater are continuing to explore ways we can help prepare you and your family to stay a step ahead of the bad actors. We will continue to update you as new information and tools become available. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your advisor with any questions you may have.
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