
17 July 2023
Travel safe: no summer breaks in security awareness (training)
The out-of-office season is here! Has your office become a little more quiet too? This might be a good time to put some extra focus on security awareness training in Wave for employees who will be staying at home. After all, cybercriminals don’t go on vacation!
Do your employees go on vacation? If so, this article contains a number of useful tips to ensure that they continue to protect their data on the road and at their vacation destination.
Passport copies
Your passport or ID card is a serious collection of highly sensitive personal data. In particular, the citizen service number (BSN), your passport photo and signature, and your date of birth are susceptible to identity fraud.Β
Renting a car or booking a hotel stay? A copy of your ID is easily made at the counter, but the vast majority of service providers have no legal permission to do so at all. You should therefore never agree to this!
Although it is quite conceivable that your justified reluctance will result in a discussion with the hotel staff or the host of your Airbnb, youβll find that calmly and clearly explaining why you do not want to have your ID card scanned or copied will go a long way. Itβs simply necessary to keep your data protected!
If you are persuaded to provide a copy anyway, make sure you take the following measures to minimize the risk of identity fraud:
- make your own copy or scan in which the BSN has already been crossed out;
- put the word ‘copy’ and the purpose on the printout, e.g. ‘hotel London’;
- never keep a photo or copy of your ID card on your laptop or phone, unless the BSN, photo and signature are already concealed.


Phishing: not just via email
Weβre very happy that youβve turned on your out-of-office. Itβs important that you leave your business e-mail until after your vacation! However, don’t forget that phishing is hardly limited to e-mail these days. βAnglingβ for login credentials and personal information has in recent years become part of pretty much every form of communication, from work and personal e-mail to SMS and social media.Β
Get a text message from the bank while on vacation? Then don’t click the link because, as with phishing emails, it most likely leads to a fake website where scammers are out to intercept your data. The text messages supposedly come from your bank, with all kinds of requests that also sound very urgent β such as an outstanding direct debit (ABN AMRO), linking your bank scanner (Rabobank) or “to avoid account suspension” (ING). Don’t fall for it, a bank will never send a text message about payments.
Social media: beware of what you share
We understand that you canβt wait to share a photo of your exotic beach destination, a fresh cocktail in hand. But be careful with what you share on Facebook and Instagram, because burglars love those updates too. Use social media wisely, even β or especially β on vacation.
The more information you share about yourself, the easier it becomes for others to impersonate you. That can have far-reaching consequences for you personally, but it also opens the door for fraudsters to get a foot in the door at a company through your network. Phishing, in fact, is still the most common variant of social engineering (see tip #2!), where “hacking” is usually only an afterthought: cybercriminals use information that is already available online to find out as much as they can about an organization or a specific target within an organization.


Security on the Go
Looking out for signs saying “Free Wi-Fi” at restaurants and gas stations? Itβs better not to. Because hackers can tag along relatively easily by plugging into other connections within the same unsecured network. From passwords and private messages to work documents and personal information, the data on your laptop or smartphone is not safe on public Wi-Fi β not even on password-protected networks.
By being aware of the dangers and being smart about the settings on your smartphone, tablet and laptop β avoiding automatic connection, for example β you can reduce the risks. Accessing a corporate network on such a connection is, of course, completely out of the question. Rely on your phone’s 4G network instead!
Training with Wave
Interested in learning more about secure data handling? In Wave, our learning experience platform where employees learn to work securely with information, the content is always up to date. We are constantly looking for the latest scientific insights and the latest best practices to ensure maximum user resilience. But we also know that security and privacy awareness are only tools, with sustainable behavior change throughout the organization as the real goal. After all, every employee is part of the security chain, every day and throughout the year! Are you not yet familiar with our learning experience platform? Use the contact form below to easily request a demo.