CTR Announcements

Travel cyber-safely during the holidays

Consider the following tips to keep your family cyber-safe during the holidays, even if you are traveling locally.

Before you travel:

• Update devices, back-up important data and photos, and update banking and travel apps with long, strong and no repeating or similar passwords or PINs. 
• Use virus and malware protections on all your devices, multi-factor authentication for all accounts, and virtual private network (VPN) for browsing, banking, and shopping. 
• Pack your own charging cables, plugs and battery packs (since public or free items may be infected with malware). These make great holiday gifts for you and family!

On the road:

• If you’re working away from your home office, only use office-issued equipment, and follow office protocols like encrypted Wi-Fi, a cellular hotspot, and VPN for safe virtual work. 
• Disable Bluetooth from automatically connecting, location sharing, and data shares like Airdrop when not in use and while shopping in person. 
• Don’t use public Wi-Fi, public computers or USB ports. Use a cellular network, cellular hotspot, and VPN.  
• Before returning home, delete data from your rental car, hotel, AirBNB, and friends or family TVs. Sign out of any streaming app you used (Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ etc.) so that others can’t access your account information. 
• Be careful of social media posts that could let fraudsters know you’re not at home, and enable them to track your location or obtain key information.
• Turn off location services for photos in settings and when sharing or posting.

When you’re back home:

• Do a virus and malware scan on all your devices. 
• Check for any irregular activity on your accounts and change passwords if you have concerns.

See our CTR Cyber page for more cybersecurity internal controls and contact [email protected] with any incidents or suspected incidents of fraud or cyber threats or if you need support from the CTR Statewide Risk Management Team.