Experts share how to protect your personal information from cyber attacks

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ( WIAT ) — Recent cyber-attacks and scams across the country, and in Alabama, have presented cyber security concerns.

Jarrod Stisher, the Marketing and Communications Manager at Tech Birmingham, said some of the best ways to protect yourself, or your company, is by using multi-factor authentication on your devices and changing your online passwords every three months.

“Social security, driver’s license card information, all of that is on your device whether that be your phone, Apple Pay, you know. All that kind of information is there, willing to be taken if you don’t take the right precautions,” said Stisher.

Stisher said another way is to invest in an antivirus protection software. Stisher said this will help any phishing scams from reaching your device.

“I would recommend McAfee, which is has always been a staple that comes with normally your PC, or Barracuda, which also prevents any type of scams from trying to come in. Just being ready to take constant courses to educate yourself on what forms an efficient scam will come in at that point of time,” said Stisher.

With the recent Global IT outage and cyber-attacks on AT&T and the Alabama Department of Education, Carl Bates, President of Birmingham’s Better Business Bureau, says they’ve seen cases of phishing scams surrounding cyber protection.

“Example would be things like your computer software is out of date, your Norton software, your McAfee software is out of date, and you need to update it right now so we can get it back in sync,” said Birmingham Business Bureau President Carl Bates.

“We track these scammers, and we work with law enforcement to make sure we turn them over to them and they try and stop them as quickly as possible,” said Bates.

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