Introduction

Advancly strongly believes in providing security awareness for its staff and customers to ensure protection of the security of our customer’s personal data. This helps keeps our customers aware and updated on security threats and how to identify and avoid them.

We are consistently creating and implementing security measures to ensure that the integrity and confidentiality of our customers information and transactions performed while using our platforms.

1. Overview

Malicious actors have intensified their efforts in getting unsuspecting users’ personal information, as a result, it is important that we keep our customers safe while they are using our applications, services, or portals.

Advancly is committed to prioritizing the safety of our customers and we achieve this through sensitization on information security and tips on how to keep safe online and protect your data

2. Security Tips

2.1. General Online Security

• Ensure you system and web browser are kept updated. 
• Be extra cautious of emails.
• Set strong passwords and change them regularly.
• Log-out of sessions or account when not in use.
• Never leave your system open and unattended.
•  Use an anti-virus, personal firewall and VPN when possible.
• Ensure a site visited is secured i.e., has “HTTPS” in the URL.

2.2 Secure password

It is important that passwords used for accounts are well constructed and maintained. Here are some tips on creating a strong password:

• Use a minimum of 8 characters in length
• Use a combination of upper- and lower-case letters, special characters (such as !@#$&) and numbers
• Use a passphrase that can be easily remembered
• Use a password manager to store your password
• Change your password often or upon suspicious activity
• Do not repeat passwords used for other accounts
• Do not use names and common words / phrases
• Do not recycle old passwords
• Do not write your password down where it can easily be accessed
• Do not send your password as clear text via messaging platform

2.3. Phishing

This is the process of attempting to acquire sensitive information by masquerading as a trustworthy entity through email. This could appear to be a legitimate email having a company’s name, logo. email signature, and or spoof company domain.

Validate emails

Emails may be sent from people you know and do not know. It is important that in either situation the identity of the sender of the email be validated. If it’s someone you know, you can reach out to the sender through a different medium (such as SMS or other medium apart from email) to validate that they actually sent you the email. When the sender is unknown, use a trusted search engine to research the fact about the sender.

Social Engineering Tactics

A phishing email could request for information or could have a link to a website that looks legitimate. In most cases however, the message would use any one of these tactics that play on your emotions:

1. Authority: uses a position of seniority to exploit a user’s emotions
2. Urgency: uses the need to perform an action within a specified period to pressure users to perform an action
3. Scarcity: uses the promotion of a limited quantity of an enticing offer to trick users into performing an action
4. Consensus: uses the enticing ideas that people within your network are partaking in an activity and tries to make you perform an action based on it.
5. Familiarity: uses pretence of someone you know and trust to trick you into performing an action.
6. Reciprocity: this is also known as quid-pro-quo and requires you to do something in exchange for something else.

Links and Attachments

Be careful the call to action in an email such as clicking of links and opening of attachments. You should check for the actual site being referenced in a link by carefully hovering your mouse over it and checking the following:

• that the sender and content of the email aligns with the and the URL path shown in the link.
• Check for grammatical errors in spellings in the URL path
• Check to see if the path is secured – “HTTPS” sites mean the path is encrypted, however, “HTTP” means the site is not protected and should be careful in accessing it.
• Check that the path’s length is short and meaningful.

Be careful of attachments in an email as they can be used to deliver and install malware that can cause a lot of harm to your computer and information.

The essence of this tricky is to have you disclose personal information such as user ID or passwords, credit card information, account number, etc. It is important that you be sceptical of unsolicited or unexpected emails you receive and avoid clicking on suspicious links, downloading attachments and responding to unknown senders.

2.4. Pharming

This occurs when you type in a web address in your browser but get redirected to a fraudulent site that looks like the legitimate site without your knowledge or consent. To safeguard yourself, watch out for spelling errors, logos that looks out of place, unusual questions and when in doubt, log out of the site.

2.5. Smishing and Vishing

Smishing is an act of using SMS test messages to lure a user into performing specific actions. Vishing, known as phone phishing, is when a malicious actor tries to gain access to user’s private information through a phone conversation.

Watch out for unknown individuals who ask for information through suspicious messages or phone calls. Do not share information if you are unsure of the person communicating with you.

3. Contact

If you want to lodge a complaint over a security breaches, need our help with figuring out how to identify possible security attack or have further requests, please contact Advancly’s Information Security Team at customersecurity@venturegardengroup.com.