COVID Vax Posts Help ID Thieves

You lock your doors. Security cameras ring your house. And then you post pictures of your vaccination cards on Facebook after you get your injection. We regard our vaccinations as an achievement and an encouragement for others to get their shots. Identity thieves are not gonna miss their shot at mining your data.

Let’s be real. The information on most vaccination cards is minimal: your name and your date of birth. Both pieces of information are likely known to many people and organizations who interact with you, and it’s all readily available on public information websites. We won’t get into how many of you don’t make your year of birth available on Facebook for “privacy” reasons. But you do appreciate birthday greetings.

That said, let’s get back to the vaccination cards. I fall into two groups: 1c for my age and 1b for health reasons. If an ID thief is looking for some way to carry out medical fraud, my info is right there. Looking at my age and 1b status, the thief has the makings of a target. The name and date of birth on an official document validates who you are.

The thief can find my home address. Again, it’s public information, but when it’s added to my “dossier,” it’s another piece of a puzzle. I know I have added more clues about me when I shared some of my hospital visits. By and of themselves, each piece is small, but a thief may have enough to start looking at things just to let me know that they know me.

Then comes the phishing email disguised as an offer about some kind of insurance. If I bite by clicking on a link or opening an attachment, the thief can plant some malware to get a lot more information by mining my data. They might even get into my medical records and have enough info to file a false claim for treatment I never had. They might also lock me out of my records by changing all my login credentials and using HIPPA regulations. In short, I can wind up on the hook to pay for treatment I never had, and I can’t get info about the bill.

It’s one scenario about how big data can be mined – legally and illegally – from one small piece.

You can be vulnerable in other ways.

Let’s say you take a car trip somewhere, and you post a picture that includes your car and shows its license plate number. If your car is desirable, a thief can use your license plate number to trace your address – or maybe start observing you. When you leave the car somewhere, such as in a supermarket parking lot, it’s easy enough to get the VIN number through the windshield and then take steps to retitle your car before stealing it and selling it “legitimately.”

Big data makes these examples possible. There’s a lot more out there all the time, and hackers are more sophisticated. Better software tools allow more thieves to gather and analyze data to pinpoint a target and let them commit a larger number of small crimes that add up to decent money.

Our advice is simple: Don’t put any more of your data out there than is absolutely necessary. Be careful about what you photograph and post. Be careful about how you handle email and about the info you provide – even to legitimate businesses and organizations – by email or telephone. Even with those you know, question why they need certain information, such as your Social Security Number. Use common sense.

You can augment your common sense by keeping all your operating system and application software up to date; updates usually include security patches and bug fixes. Install, properly configure and update anti-virus and malware protection software. We can help you install and maintain software. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to set up an appointment.

Oh, and one more thing: Get your COVID vaccination as soon as you can!

Unlocking Phones of Masked Users

Apple’s upcoming upgrade to iOS 14.5 will make it possible to use an Apple Watch to use facial recognition to unlock your iPhone while wearing your mask. iPhone users without the watch and Android users will still have to jump through hoops to unlock their phones while masked. A year into the pandemic, we have to ask: Why has this taken so long?

Biometrics have long played a role in being able to unlock a cell phone. The first systems used a fingerprint for touch ID, and it has been a bellwether. Many cell phone users still rely on it. Face ID came along next, and many cell phone users rely on it to unlock phones quickly and easily. It’s as good as unencumbered gets.

But with COVID-19 and mask wearing, Face ID doesn’t work. If you want to use the technology while complying with public health needs, Face ID is about as cumbersome as it gets. The less-than-ideal workaround is something like this:

  1. Go to the Face ID option in the settings.
  2. Register for an alternate appearance by going to Set Up Alternate Appearance (or the Reset Face ID).
  3. Take a mask and fold it in half. Assuming the nose as the center point, put it in front of your face. It is recommended that you cover only the tip of the nose with the mask.
  4. Start registering your face like you normally do with the Face ID.  When the system prompts with a message “Face Obstructed,” start removing the mask very slowly until the system says move your head slowly to complete the circle.
  5. Once the process is done successfully, you will get a message that the Face ID is set up.

If this doesn’t work the first time, you’ll need to retry it. You may need to try another trick, such as selecting an alternate appearance option if it’s available.

Apple contends you should use a numeric code to unlock your phone while wearing a mask. They also note that manipulating the Face ID software could compromise your phone’s security. Most likely, they’d prefer you get an Apple Watch if you don’t already have.  

Once your iPhone is running iOS 14.5 and your Apple Watch has WatchOS 7.4 installed, you can turn on Unlock with Apple Watch with a few taps. Open the Settings app on your iPhone and then select Face ID & Passcode. Next, scroll down until you find the section titled Unlock with Apple Watch. The name of your Apple Watch should be listed there. Next to it is a toggle to turn the feature on or off. Slide that switch to the On position and then back out of the Settings app. 

Whenever you’re wearing a mask, all you’ll need to do is hold your phone up as normal to unlock it with Face ID. You’ll feel a haptic tap on your wrist, letting you know your watch was used to unlock your phone. The alert on your watch will also include a button to lock your phone in case it was unlocked by someone else. It’s a security feature to ensure someone else doesn’t pick up your phone and unlock it while wearing a mask.

You can expect to see iOS 14.5 in April. As the release date gets closer, we’ll pass along whatever we find out about other security features. Once it’s available, we’ll be on hand to help you configure your watch, phone and iPad if need be. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to find out what you’ll need to upgrade your iOS security.

Data Cap Management Poses Challenges

We called it a long time ago, and now it’s a reality. Internet service providers (ISPs) are capping data, and it couldn’t happen at a worse time. As we continue to work and learn at home, use cloud-based services for application programs and data storage retrieval – and stream more entertainment, we’re set up to use more data. You’re going to need to look at data bytes like you look at calories on a menu.

We all know that calorie counts on a restaurant menu don’t tell the full story. The calorie count for a salad may be low, but dressing may raise the total through the roof. Knowing how much data you’ll use to watch a standard-definition movie on a device of any kind won’t really help you a whole lot in planning your data usage for a month. In reality, you’ll want that visual salad dressing – HD or 4K resolution – to enjoy the quality of the experience. A movie that requires 600 to 700 mbps to watch can easily balloon to 4 Gigs.

What’s really ugly about it is that most households or small businesses have multiple users on their internet plans. We’re still not going back to the office in droves in anytime soon, and the same is true for kids going back to school – although that will likely happen faster. If you have a business and have employees logging into your network from home, they’re using your data while logged into your system. They’re also using their own data to log in.

In addition to logging in to work from home, kids are logging in for classes, collaborating with classmates and doing research. That uses data.

Everyone, no matter where they are, is using cloud-based software to run applications and work with files. We’re all using data, too, for email, web browsing, social media and entertainment. That last item is a major source of data use for families that have cut the cable TV cord. The more people you have streaming different content, the faster your data usage can run up – and up.

We have no problem with that; it’s a reality. But we do have a problem with the ISPs’ lack of transparency in sharing our data usage. You can’t easily find how much data you’ve used during a billing cycle so that you can manage it. The ISPs make it easier for their big-business customers to know how much data they use. They don’t do it for small businesses or residential users.

If you don’t know how close you are to your limit or if you’ve exceeded it, you can be in for a surprise. Either your service will drop down to a slower speed, which is not cool during a business meeting or class, or you’ll wind up with an extra charge on your bill.

As the cable companies lose traditional cable TV subscribers, they need to make up for lost revenue by fine-tuning how they price their data plans. That’s fine. We knew they’d come to data caps. We just want them to be more transparent about telling us what the caps are, letting us know when we’re close and giving us realistic options for managing our caps.

Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us if you have any questions about how to better manage your data use and monitoring at home or at the office.