State Agency Cyber Incident Reporting
Washington state agencies should call 360-407-8800 to report cybersecurity incidents.
If you are a Washington state resident, please go to the Washington State Office of the Attorney General website, which has links and information for victims of internet crime.
Cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Preventing them requires everyone to be aware and on guard.
To help individuals and small businesses protect themselves online WaTech's Office of Cybersecurity has compiled some trusted resources that can be used to improve your online security.
Here are four things you can do:
- Implement multi-factor authentication on your accounts and make it 99% less likely you'll get hacked.
- Update your software. In fact, turn on automatic updates.
- Think before you click. More than 90% of successful cyber-attacks start with a phishing email.
- Use strong passwords, and ideally a password manager to generate and store unique passwords.
Additional Security Tips
For Individuals
Phishing
Bad actors will often take advantage of increased worldwide tensions, such as the conflict in Ukraine, to launch phishing campaigns that aim to disrupt organizations. Here are some steps you can take to protect yourself ... (Read more)
Charity Scams
Scammers try to take advantage of world events by setting up fake charities that look and sound like real ones in order to steal your money. Here are some tips from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on ways to make sure the charity you're working with is legitimate ... (Read More)
Disinformation
Foreign content aimed at influencing public opinion is designed to look like real news. It is important to look for a diversity of credible sources. You should be able to trust that the author's ideas are their own, are unbiased, and are backed up by sound, fact-based evidence. Here are some best practices from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that can help you identify quality content and avoid being duped.
For Small Business
Small businesses might not consider themselves targets for cyberattacks. However, they do have valuable information that cybercriminals want, including employee and customer records, bank account information, access to the business's finances and access to larger networks ... (Read more)
Cyber Hygiene Tips
- One Big Leap to Protect Your Information: There are many ways to protect important personal information including using strong passwords, freezing your credit, and being careful what you post on social media. There is one safeguard, however, that has become indispensable in today's world - multifactor authentication (MFA), also sometimes referred to as two-factor authentication ... (Read More)
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Six steps you can take to protect yourself from BEC scams: Business email compromise (BEC) is a form of email phishing that uses the trust of people and companies we do business with to steal money. In a BEC scam, criminals send an email message that appears to come from someone you know who is making a seemingly legitimate request, such as ... (Read More)