COLUMBUS, Ohio — Doing your taxes online is the easiest it has ever been. Many now use a tablet, or even a mobile phone, to file.
With the April 18 tax deadline approaching, many maybe soon start rushing to get their paperwork in but make sure you are clicking on the right links, so your tax refund and your identity aren’t taken by a scammer.
“Cybersafety is a real problem,” said Brian West, vice president and general manager at AT&T. “When you're going to file your taxes online, we need to remember this is not just the desktop and laptop issue. Most of us are using our mobile devices, or phones or tablets for this now, too. That's a huge target for scammers.”
A survey by AT&T found seven in ten people would rather have their car stolen than their identity, and only 56% of consumers actively manage their devices for cyber vulnerabilities.
West suggests changing passwords frequently and hiding your home Wi-Fi network to prevent people from unauthorized internet access.
“Most of us have Wi-Fi at our homes and you know that Wi-Fi signal will extend about 300 feet beyond your home. Anybody who's driving by can actually see your network your network name. And if you don't have a password, protecting that Wi Fi, they can access it,” said West. “There's also a setting in your router to when people are driving around your home, it won't even show your network name. We highly recommend that you go in and you hide your personal Wi-Fi home network, so people can't even see it just in case, there's an opportunity for them to uncover what the password may be and join that network.”
AT&T has a quiz online to test how cyber aware you are, click here to take it.