A valuable resource we have found is the The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). It is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center Internet Crime Complaint
A recent posting focused on Defending Against Hacktivism:
While eliminating your exposure in the current digital age is nearly impossible, law enforcement and public officials can take steps to minimize their risk in the event they are targeted.
(1) Turn on all privacy settings on social media sites and refrain from posting pictures showing your affiliation to law enforcement.
(2) Be aware of your security settings on your home computers and wireless networks.
(3) Limit your personal postings on media sites and carefully consider comments.
(4) Restrict your driver license and vehicle registration information with the Department of Motor Vehicles.
(5) Request real estate and personal property records be restricted from online searches with your specific county.
(6) Routinely update hardware and software applications, including antivirus.
(7) Pay close attention to all work and personal emails, especially those containing attachments or links to other Web sites. These suspicious or phishing emails may contain infected attachments or links.
(8) Routinely conduct online searches of your name to identify what public information is already available.
(9) Enable additional email security measures to include two factor authentication on your personal email accounts. This is a security feature offered by many email providers. The feature will cause a text message to be sent to your mobile device prior to accessing your email account.
(10) Closely monitor your credit and banking activity for fraudulent activity.
(11) Passwords should be changed regularly–and make them strong by combining letters, numbers, and symbols
(12) Be aware of pretext or suspicious phone calls or emails from people phishing for information or pretending to know you. Social engineering is a skill often used to trick you into divulging confidential information and continues to be an extremely effective method for criminals.
(13) It’s a group effort! Advise family members to turn on security settings on ALL social media accounts. Family member associations are public information and family members can become online targets of opportunity.
It’s a lot to do in some ways–but worth the effort.
For more on best practices with personal information protection, please visit www.hvshred.com