The best advice, of course, is to never give out personal information over the phone unless you initiate the contact with a trusted source.
Other Tips
Jacobs said people need to understand the potential perils when using thumb drives with another computer. “When you put a thumb drive into an infected computer it will often install a virus on to the thumb drive, and when you plug that into another computer you infect that computer," he said.
Elsewhere, he noted that most credit card companies now have apps that provide instant notification for everything you charge. So you can get real-time notification if an unauthorized person is trying to use your card.
Jacobs also recommended that folks can freeze their credit reports, which can be unfrozen when a client files for Social Security or addresses various credit-related matters.
“If a client wants to do this, it’s probably good for an advisor to help them go through the process of unfreezing it at least once so they know what it’s like and don’t have to do it in a crisis situation,” he said.