The new social media open the way for us to communicate with more people, more of the time.
Unfortunately, those same media also became an inviting target for criminals.
"As new media becomes even more popular, more of the attacks are shifting over to that way as well. In the last six months, we've seen a substantial increase in the number of scams related to text messaging,” said Ken Newman from Central Pacific Bank.
The scam works like this - a seemingly innocent text message will appear on your cell phone supposedly from your bank, saying it's important you call a certain number.
Newman said, "And if you call that number, the way the technology is, you're going to get a very professional sounding voice system that may even sound something like your bank that will ask you to leave personal information, leave account numbers or passwords."
If you do become the victim of such a scam, it's difficult for authorities to trace the source.
"In reality, it's somebody sending an e-mail since most phones nowadays will just accept an e-mail to a particular address and the phone company has a gateway that converts that to a text message,” said Newman.
And Newman says the same words of caution apply to cell phone or computer use.
"You never want to open an e-mail of which you're not sure where it came from. And if you ever are looking at an e-mail that has a link that you're unsure about, never, ever clink on the link even out of curiosity,” said Newman.
An extra layer of security comes with your password - Newman suggests taking eight words from a favorite music or movie passage.
Use the first letter of each word and put them together.
"You've got something random to anybody else, but you'll know exactly what it means and then just make that a little more complex. Make something upper case, add some numbers or special characters but that will give you a very strong password,” advised Newman.
