(TNS) — The upfront price Stop & Shop offered customers was $10 — an attempt to make up for the inconvenience of disrupted online shopping.The behind-the-scenes cost of this month’s systems breach is still unknown. Corporate parent Ahold Delhaize scrambled to recover after taking its U.S. and European grocery chain websites offline for days. Many more companies were scrambling Wednesday to install patches for a flaw in PHP, a programming language used to run websites. The disruptions were another reminder of the headaches businesses and consumers can face when hackers find a backdoor into back-end systems.If major companies such as AT&T, Charter Communications and Comcast are vulnerable, where does that leave you? Nearly 10,000 Connecticut residents and businesses reported being victimized in 2025 by one of the many varieties of digital crime, according to the FBI’s annual tally — and that obviously leaves out the larger numbers of those who deal with things on their own without filing formal complaints.Reported losses averaged nearly $2,700 per victim, totaling $219 million. There are steps you can take to reduce your risk. Some are habits that cost nothing; others come with a price.How to secure your accounts with strong passwords and multifactor authenticationIt is the first word on data security but one that still needs spelling out for many people — strong passwords are your best defense, along with a surefire way to remember them or a secure place to safeguard them otherwise. And it’s a good idea to set up multifactor authentication (MFA) — those prompts you can get by email or text through devices you control to confirm your identity.Recycling the same few passwords across varying accounts is obviously a bad idea. One way to remember them on the spot is through mnemonic devices — tricks to jog your memory, like using the first or last letters of each word in various song titles, lyrics or phrases you will never forget, or combinations of numbers and letters you know by heart.And establish a system for changing passwords on a regular schedule — it can be as simple as inserting a few characters to existing passwords to keep them largely intact, then rotating those characters out for a fresh set on the next go-around.How to spot phishing links and malicious QR codesIt’s old hat, but it still hooks victims every day — phishing schemes that hoodwink you into clicking on a link that lets a hacker in the door. The artificial-intelligence era is only compounding the problem by allowing criminals to create a profile on you more easily, allowing them to personalize texts and emails toward that end, or craft QR codes you will be tempted to scan with your mobile phone for a malicious hyperlink to click.Business email compromise was the second biggest hit Americans took in 2025 of any of the dozens of schemes tracked by the FBI, with losses exceeding $3 billion. Before clicking on any link, confirm the person who sent it is indeed that person — and double-check that they are not simply forwarding you a link they failed to vet themselves.How antivirus software, updates and backups can protect your devicesUse antivirus software that can flag suspicious activity and messages. It can cost up to $5 a month or more depending on the vendor and the level of protection you sign up for, but it can save you a headache. Bitdefender, Malwarebytes, McAfee and Norton are among the names cited by a number of trade publications as among the best options in 2026, based on overall effectiveness or features like parental controls.It should go without saying, but so many of us table this task anyway: when prompted to update your device’s operating systems or other software, let it happen in the next scheduled window and take a screen-time break. Those updates include security patches for known threats that have emerged, which could leave you vulnerable if you decide to skip it.And of course, have a file backup system in place to help you recover in the event of a malicious attack.What the Connecticut Data Privacy Act lets consumers doTaking effect in 2023, the Connecticut Data Privacy Act makes it easier for people to opt out of companies sharing their personal information, or have businesses delete it entirely. Exemptions in place for smaller businesses that have less than 35,000 customer records, as well as for large sectors like insurance carriers, nonprofits and government agencies among others.You can set personal parameters through Global Privacy Control, which is a downloadable extension for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge; and enabled by default for Brave, DuckDuckGo and Firefox users. After GPC activation, your browser sends opt-out commands automatically to the websites you visit.There is no consumer right to sue under the law for any remuneration, but the Connecticut Attorney General can fine companies up to $5,000 per violation. The AG’s office has a comprehensive FAQ on the law at portal.ct.gov/ag/sections/privacy/the-connecticut-data-privacy-act.© 2026 Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Conn. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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