TOLEDO, Ohio — Cyber security specialist from Trustedsec, Paul Sems said the main goal hackers have is to steal money.
To do so, they will attack a major data breach, similar to the incident that happened with Toledo Public Schools. One the data breach is attacked, hackers can take personal information and possibly sell it in the black market.
"Whether it's trying to take out credit whether it's buying things and having them shipped and selling them in the black market and sometimes we Would see it you know a medical type of information where they're trying to do lots of different things like that can happen," said Sems.
Sems explained a few red flags to look out for inunsuspected emails; don't open any attachments to an email you didn't expect to receive and don't click on any links that may pop up on your computer screen.
"Hackers are expecting you to click on that link and I'll give you a fake prompt that says type in your username and password and as soon as you do that they're in there able to access your system so all those are things when there's a massive call to action like you need to do this right away that typically is a sign that there's some thing going on," added Sems.
A way you can protect yourself is do not use the same password for different accounts and you can put a credit alert or credit freeze on your account. If your child's information is leaked you can also put a credit alert for them too.
"You do have to show that they are the guardian of the child but if that's the case they can also do that especially in this Situation where we have adults and students information in the clear we want to make sure we can set that up for the students also," said Sems.
He added that cyber security has been noticing an influx of attacks during the pandemic since many people are working from home, so before you open that email may sure you know where it's coming from.