Before I start this post let me issue a disclaimer. This post has nothing to do with any of my normal topics such as money philosophy or entrepreneurship. This post is about living in the year 2018. So Joe's and Joette's get ready for a different type of post. This post was inspired by events that happened this morning, so let's dive into today's post.

When I woke up this morning I was greeted by over twenty emails from eBay. There was over fifteen hundred dollars deposited into my PayPal account from eBay sales. This sounds like a good thing except I wasn't selling anything on eBay. My eBay account was hacked and I was to blame. Why am I to blame, it's because I didn't secure my account. This wasn't the first time I experienced a hack onto one of my accounts. A little over two years ago my PayPal account was hacked into and I almost lost six hundred dollars. Because of that incident I began using two factor authentication on all of my accounts.

From the last paragraph it sounds like I did everything right, so how am I at fault? At that point in time I made sure to secure any account that offered two factor authentication. I never continued to check what sites offered that service after that incident. eBay offers the service now and enabling it would have saved me from getting hacked. It would have also saved me a half an hour phone call this morning. For those of you reading this who don't know what two factor authentication is, it's an extra layer of security that is used in conjunction with your password. When you login with your password it prompts you for a token which is generated via a text or an authenticator app. It takes minutes to setup but it can save you from cyber attacks. I found it necessary to secure my email accounts with two factor authentication, especially the ones linked to my credit cards and bank accounts.

Security doesn't only affect us through the internet but also in the physical world. One thing I noticed through my neighborhood was the rise of credit card skimmers. People place them over card terminals and they are able to steal your card information. Which is why the chip was implemented into modern debit and credit cards. The only problem with that is modern skimmers can still get the information even with the chip. However there is a way to help prevent your card information from getting stolen on newer terminals. You can use a digital wallet such as Apple pay or Samsung pay. I know they aren't supported everywhere but they are unable to be copied by skimmers because it doesn't give out your real card number. That's why I use these digital wallets whenever it's available.

This was a small post which was designed to make everyone aware of the importance of security. I have already experienced what a lack of security can result in. Learn from my mistakes rather than your own.