Although you may think it’s impossible to share the common cold, flu, or even a STD online it’s possible!!  How you ask?
Just like we can’t see germs and can unknowingly infect ourselves with sicknesses we also can’t always see information hackers!  I’m going to tell you some ways how to avoid getting a cold, flu, or STD online.

Let’s look at a cold: it’s miserable, interrupts your life for a couple weeks, painful, and you usually end up buying medicines to help with the symptoms until they go away.  This is like phishing scams.  You think you’ve won some money, or a email comes saying how you’ve got some money waiting for you- but first you have to give them just a little bit of information such as:

• Your name- ok FLAG, if THEY contacted you they should know your name.
• Your address- again, chances are if it’s anything legit they will already have this information and should be able to send it to you to verify.
• Your phone number- because that’s all you need is for them to sell your contact info to telemarketing companies all over the world.
• Your Social Security number- ummmm MAJOR FLAG!! Never give this out to an unknown source that you can’t verify their credentials, especially when they contacted you for the information.
• Your birth date- if you’ve “won” anything it shouldn’t matter how old you are right?

So the moral of this post-
There are things you should NEVER share online in order to prevent getting “sick” or taken advantage of.

• Passwords
• Social Security Number
• Mother’s Maiden Name
• Bank account/credit card info