CYBER AND FRAUD AWARENESS

I recently attended a Zoom presentation given on behalf of Leicestershire police on the subject of Cyber Security.  I had heard a lot of it before but had never heard mention of a website which can be checked to see if your account has been the victim of a data breach, which might lead to your passwords and email addresses falling into the hands of cyber criminals.  There’s a lot of sensitive information linked to your email address – credit card details, important personal information etc.

The website is www.haveibeenpwned.com.  When you insert your email address the site will indicate if there is any chance of your account having been compromised in a data breach.  A good feature of the site is that you can select “Notify Me” which means that if there is a possibility of a breach you will be emailed which would give you an opportunity to change your password for the affected site.

By way of reminder, if you receive an email which you are not sure about, forward it to the Suspicious Email Reporting Service at report@phising.gov.uk and if it is a suspicious text forward it to 7726.

More helpful hints can be found on the National Cyber Security Centre’s website – www.ncsc.gov.uk.

Debra Thatcher