Are we ever truly safe?

By Henley Tullos

In a cyber-driven culture, the odds of being hacked will never be in our favor, a privacy and cyber security expert said Thursday.

“Everyone has been compromised,” said Adam Levin, a former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, current chairman and founder of CyberScout and co-founder of Credit.com.

Levin is the author of Amazon best-seller “Swiped: How to Protect Yourself in a World Full of Scammers, Phishers, and Identity Thieves.” In a Grady College press conference, Levin warned journalism students about the threat that a cyber culture poses to our privacy and security.

“We are where we are because of bad cyber hygiene,” said Levin.

Levin suggested that any opportunity for discovering a solution can be found in a change of culture.

“We live in a cyber world where we are surrounded by billions of internets and devices that are capable of being hacked,” said Levin.

Levin suggested that because we are constantly surrounded by technology, we are always vulnerable and under attack by any enemy.

One of the many ways Levin suggested people might experience attacks from cyber enemies is identity theft.

“We cannot prevent identity theft,” said Levin.

In discussing his book, “Swiped,” Levin offered three distinct ways to minimize enemy hacker access and maximize privacy.

To accomplish this, Levin suggested that technology users minimize their risk of exposure, monitor banking and transaction histories, and manage data while always having a plan.

Minimizing risk of exposure includes using different passwords across different platforms, not sharing personal information on social media, and never authenticating oneself to someone claiming to be official.

“To monitor, you can go to annualcreditreport.com and get a free copy of your credit report every year,” said Levin. “If you find something that doesn’t look right, don’t think it’s just a mistake, it could be something serious.”

Levin additionally suggested receiving monitoring alerts for tracking transactions, social security, and medical identity theft activity.

“You got to have a plan,” said Levin. “You can’t just say you’ll deal with it when it happens.”

Levin emphasized the importance of having a plan for when privacy breaches occur because all people are subject to having an issue.

“We can never trust, we must always verify,” said Levin.