hello and welcome back to my channel my
name is jessica morehouse and this
channel is about all things money and
this video is brought to you by telus
wise which is a free digital literacy
education program that helps canadians
of all ages stay safe in a digital world
so as you may guess that is what the
topic of this video is going to be
focused on and i'm going to be doing
something a little bit different for
this video a little special i'm going to
bring on a special guest lee tynan to
have a discussion with me and she is a
cyber security expert and also the
director of telus online security now
you may recall uh in a recent video i
did about notable scams and fraud and i
also shared how i was this close from
actually falling victim to one of these
scams and there's this one scam that i'm
still dealing with to this day on
instagram while you know it's important
to talk about this topic any time of
year i think this is a very timely
moment to actually further the
conversation as summer travel picks up
and i think a lot of us don't realize
that this time of year um is actually
one where a lot of us are even more
vulnerable than normal to scams fraud
and breaches whether it's us sharing
more information you know for you know
hotel and airline bookings or joining
public wi-fi more often such as you know
at the park or at the airport or
spending money abroad in new foreign
locations this is a time that we are
more at risk with that in mind that is
why i want to invite lee onto my channel
to
share some of the things that she sees
day to day answer some questions that i
got from followers on instagram and also
share some tips and resources such as
tell us whys that we can you know take
advantage of so we can better protect
ourselves online so without further ado
welcome lee thank you so much for
joining me thank you i'm so excited to
be here as well and you said it right
while summer travel absolutely increases
our risk of having our information or
identity compromised because we're
connecting over non-secure public wi-fi
and sharing personal information the one
thing i want to stress is that we are
always at risk no matter the time of
year or where you are i find that as
trusting canadians we think oh
cybercrime is never gonna happen to me
i'm not rich or famous but the truth is
it is happening and we all need to pay
attention cyber crime is on the rise in
canada and there are some stunning stats
that came out of the canadian anti-fraud
center they actually reported 2021 being
a historic year for financial losses due
to cyber crime canadians lost over 380
million dollars from scams and fraud
there was over 67 000 victims of fraud
in 2021 an increase of 60 over the
previous year and that only represents
those that reported the fraud
i actually expect that real number to be
much higher there has obviously been a
huge uptick in cyber crime during the
pandemic and i think a lot of us are
wondering uh do you foresee this as kind
of our ongoing reality unfortunately i
do when we consider how much our lives
have changed since epidemic began how we
are working learning shopping banking
these are all being done online for some
people this was already their normal but
for many this was a rapid shift and one
that won't be reversed moving forward
with our lives becoming increasingly
digital there's an increased risk of
identity theft as there's a lot more
opportunities for our personal
information to become compromised telus
wise has put together some incredibly
useful and relatable tips because they
say using the internet is like stepping
in wet cement those footprints that you
leave can last forever every time you
engage with a business or organization
online you could be leaving them with
your personal data this includes
harmless activities like shopping
signing up for a rewards program or
making a donation all it takes is for
one of these organizations to be
breached and your data is compromised
and potentially sold online to hackers
and identity thieves the scariest part
is you don't know when this has happened
and covid19 has had a massive impact on
fraudulent activity beyond the stats
that i just shared you know between
march 6 2020 and march 31st 2021 there
were over 32 000 reports of covet 19
fraud almost 30 000 victims of covet 19
fraud and 8.17 million dollars lost in
covet 19 fraud this trend is only going
to continue which is why it's so
important to take those necessary steps
to protect ourselves welly having dealt
with some scams and some fraud myself
personally um it made me realize how
prevalent
all these different types of like cyber
attacks and fraud scams really are and i
think often
we
don't really pay attention to it until
we are personally affected so with that
what are some you know prevalent cyber
attacks or
fraud or scams that are happening right
now that we as canadians should be aware
of there is no doubt that cyber
criminals are upping their game and it's
time that we up ours too to protect
against the risks especially given the
fact that we are online now way more
than ever i encourage you to check out a
telus wise article which we're going to
link to that highlights many of the
common scams that we should be looking
out for there's the most simple one the
phishing and email scams
we have all seen them and many of you
may have received one of them today i
see these frequently uh from fraudsters
claiming to be reputable organizations
the canada post amazon ups government of
canada and even telus we see uh
fraudsters trying to to play upon good
companies names and appear real and they
often look real
always be cautious when something may
not seem right if you're not sure of the
validity check the email sender address
to see if it's legitimate and email the
requester directly and confirm before
you're sending files or clicking on
links or if it's a business reach out to
them directly if it is legitimate they
will be happy to extend the offer or
give you the information directly
subscription bombing here's a bizarre
thing because we all see so many emails
coming into our email boxes scammers
actually sign up your email addresses
for an endless stream of newsletters and
they do that to hide an email that is
legitimate so for example it hides their
fraudulent activity in one of your
accounts
you see free product and service
promotions all the time scammers are
calling people posing as legitimate
service providers and asking them to
give their personal information their
private information that may include
their account numbers credit card info
even social insurance numbers in
exchange for the promise of free
merchandise the scammers then use that
information to order merchandise and
then they actually build the
organization or they when they the they
get the the bill from the organization
it's billed to you right they they turn
it around and it becomes your problem
social media contests are everywhere and
and fraudsters prey upon people who
enter legitimate social media contests
if you post that content and it's public
they will see that you did and they will
contact you and ask you for your
personal information so that they can
confirm your entry or fulfill that
contest and deliver the prize you know
people always want those things and and
they're willing to give information but
you have to be diligent you know if you
participate in a social media contest or
giveaway by leaving that information in
a public comment and then you reached
out to afterwards be cautious and you
should never have to provide your credit
card information for a social media
contest you know if you get a direct
message about a contest double check to
make it from an official account my
bottom line is really to avoid over
sharing online i recommend hyper
villagence if you're participating in
the social media contest
avoid playing those little social media
games you know which which princess are
you or what's your what's your name
understand that social media is not
private all of the social media
platforms have had great data breaches
in recent years so you need to be
mindful of what you share
and keeping your privacy settings locked
down well i can relate and i totally
agree and what's crazy is it's not just
us adults that are uh vulnerable young
canadians they're going online at much
younger ages and they can also be
vulnerable to any of these you know
scams and fraud online so what are some
things that we should be aware of in
terms of young canadians going online
and what can parents and guardians do to
better protect them i'm a parent of two
well now a 20 year old and a 17 year old
so i've been through this young
canadians are incredibly active on
digital platforms and they're going
online younger and younger and they're
sharing their personal information and
whether it's for entertainment or
schooling or just staying connected with
friends and family
some of the stats are quite surprising
on average canadians get their first
digital device at age 11 and they start
using social media at age 12.
40 of youth have been cyber bullied and
52 percent have witnessed it happening
and 56 of youth have sent a sext my best
advice to parents and guardians is to
educate education is paramount for both
the parents and guardians and their
children we're all learning a new way to
operate we need to spend time having
regular open transparent conversations
with our kids
we need to discuss appropriate use of
screen rules and where possible make
sure you're participating in their lives
many parents will will check phones or
and it's not about trust they're trying
to make sure that we're they're using it
health in a healthy manner you know ask
them about who they're following and why
who is their favorite youtubers and and
are they considering um you know you may
even consider playing games online with
them the more we can do to be part of it
and educate them the more successful
they will be and one of the best ways to
do that is actually educating yourselves
on the risks and telus wise offers free
workshops and resources the resources
are created in collaboration with telus
partners they're designed for educators
and parents youths and seniors really
offering something for everyone if we
can create a baseline of knowledge
understanding we can actually use the
internet and use the online tools more
successfully and keep our kids safer i
agree telespies is such a great resource
that is you know designed to help make
the digital space a safe space and you
know we've talked a lot about what you
can do to prevent this from happening
what you can do to protect yourself but
i think a lot of people are wondering
what can you do
um if you have potentially fallen victim
to a scam or a fraud or a cyber attack
it's a great question and i think
everyone listening would be surprised if
i told them that likely their personal
information is has already been
compromised and maybe for sale on the
dark web today and if you're not
familiar with the dark web it's an
anonymous and encrypted part of the
internet that's intentionally hidden
where often criminal activity including
buying and selling of people's personal
information takes place
we're including a link to this site
below for more information
as part of telus online security we're
actually trying to to be you know
sharing this information and so we have
created a free dark web scan now if when
you purchase the product it's a far more
detailed dark web scan that gives you
the exact sites and and what information
has been compromised but what it does is
it does a historic dark web scan i think
back to say okay where have you been
compromised and then it notifies you
moving forward you know using myself as
an example uh when i first signed up for
the product i had five vulnerabilities
that i had no idea about and in fact my
team was was the exact same so with none
of us knowing about what had happened
that the number one thing is becoming
informed so you need to understand
what's actually happening and we're
spending a lot of time trying to educate
canadians and get people to begin to
take action to protect themselves if you
have become a victim of identity theft
you you've got to go through a lot of
steps to to get your identity back which
includes credit checks and and you know
changing your credit cards or shutting
down accounts that have been opened
there's an entirely large process to go
through which is part of why having a
solution like telus online security will
do that for you so if should your
identity become compromised through our
restoration and reimbursement coverage
we will help get it back for you and
make it right so the key is let's be
proactive begin to monitor the dark web
see if your information is there and
change passwords uh to the accounts that
have been compromised and then make sure
you're going beyond that to actually
track and and see what's happening and
subscribe to a service that will help
help protect you proactively now i've
got to say i did the dark web scan and
was very surprised to find some of my
information on there so it definitely uh
you know
made me learn quite a bit on what i need
to do to better you know prevent some of
this and protect myself and there's
definitely a lot we can do to prevent us
falling victim so let's talk about it
what are some actionable things that
canadians could do to prevent
being a victim of you know a scam or
fraud or a cyber attack in the future my
best advice to canadians is to educate
themselves when you think about our our
day-to-day activity we set up cameras so
that we can see what's going on outside
our homes if we're riding a bike we lock
it up when we leave it and we wouldn't
give our car keys to anyone nor do we
leave a car without you know pressing
that button twice to make sure that it's
locked
yet i would argue our most valuable
possession our identity
we often forget to protect or more
likely we don't know how to protect and
so we need to be more aware of the fraud
threats out there to take the actions to
protect ourselves you know when i think
about the tips from some other workshops
there's definitely things we can do to
help protect our information and
identity
you think about the information that you
are sharing online
in your social media profile whether
it's fun quizzes or better yet just
avoid those all together if you're
traveling over the summer wait to post
about it until you get back home if you
haven't already look into setting up a
vpn and ensuring the vpn is on to mask
your activity from spyware and to
protect yourself from online hackers
many of us use vpns every day for our
business activities but we don't think
about it when we go into our personal
lives one of the baseline
recommendations is never trust a wi-fi
connection that isn't your own
never share personal information or
credit cards while using public wi-fi
because you never know who is watching
one of the most common things is around
passwords every password should be
unique and complex and always keep your
codes and user ids passwords and pins
secret if you can use a password manager
it can help keep them all straight
because that's one of the greatest risks
that people face is there's too many
passwords well using a tool like a a
password manager helps make that simple
be careful when you click or where you
click you should be skeptical about all
email and text messages that sound too
good to be true or if they are
threatening in nature or asking you to
provide personal information question
everything even if it's from friends and
family still question am i expecting
this a very simple one save and back up
your data frequently and ensure you
always have the most up-to-date software
on your computer or mobile devices
subscribing to a service like a device
security it will help protect you from
malware ransomware viruses spyware and
other online threats be proactive as i
mentioned earlier check the dark web for
your information as i mentioned
telus.com dark web we offer a free dark
web scan to give you this information
but you should go beyond that as well
and monitor your credit and and one of
the the crazy things that people have a
bit of a tough time wrapping their head
around is even if i do everything right
i i don't click on things i'm careful we
need to remember that our information is
still at risk because of every company
or organization or business that we have
engaged with online so the key is if
they're compromised you're compromised
so the number one step to getting your
identity back is actually knowing that
it's been compromised i recognize that
all of this might seem overwhelming and
and many don't know where to start i
would encourage you to consider
investing in a solution like telus
online security which provides the most
comprehensive all-in-one protection for
your identity online privacy and devices
well thank you so much for joining me
lee this has been such an insightful
conversation thank you so much for
having me jessica
i am excited to have this conversation
and continue to educate canadians on how
to stay safer online so as i mentioned
at the top of this video we are always
at risk of having our information or
identities compromised so please take
this video as your cue to take the
necessary steps to help protect yourself
now first and foremost i would direct
you to tell us wise check it out they've
got a ton of great resources further on
the topic of protecting yourself online
they've got videos and articles and
guides you can even book a workshop or
watch one of their workshops online and
i know throughout this video we
mentioned a ton of different resources
and websites for you to check out so i'm
going to make it very easy for you make
sure to check out the description of
this video for all of those links to
make it very easy for you and lastly if
you have any questions that you would
like to direct to lee specifically who
is the cyber security expert make sure
to comment them below and we will get
those answers to you and of course if
you liked this video make sure to hit
that like button and if you're not
already subscribed to my channel please
please please hit that subscribe button
uh but that is really it for me i really
appreciate you watching i hope you
learned several things and yeah i guess
that's it for me i will see you in my
next video
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