Safety Online
More and more work is being done online. Emails, texts and social media are all ways to keep in contact with clients and to recruit new clients. Because of this you or your agents may have connections with people that you don’t really know. Steps can be taken to help you and your agents from exposing personal information and data.
• Keep business separate from your personal life online. Set up separate personal and business accounts on Facebook, Twitter or any social media sites. This will help protect your personal photos, posts and other information from people you don’t know.
• Make sure passwords are not easy to crack. Don’t use things like your birthday, a family member’s birthday, your last name, or a street name. Effective passwords have at least one special character and one capitalized letter. The harder you make it for the hacker, the more likely they are to leave you alone.
• Checking in to places has become very popular, but as a REALTOR®, you and your agents should be careful about checking in. Would-be thieves can follow you and determine if you’re alone or not.
Scam artists “phish” for victims’ information by posing as representatives of banks, stores or government agencies via email. Don’t respond to a request to verify your account number or password. Don’t give out personal information. Legitimate companies will not request this kind of information in this manner.
For more information, visit www.realtor.org.
