Cassidy Wolf, 19, was recently crowned 2013 Miss California Teen USA on August 10, 2013. Months before she won her title, she was a victim of a cybercrime.

After winning her title, Wolf traveled to local schools in California near her home to speak to students about the awareness of potential cybercrime. She hopes to continue spreading awareness while attending school as a freshman at the New York Film Academy. Wolf provided some tips that could be useful to protect against hackers. They include changing your passwords frequently and running them through a password safety test, deleting cookies and computer history regularly, and putting a sticker over the computer’s webcam when it is not in use. A computer cookie is a small piece of data that is sent to your web browser to record everything you clicked or searched on that website.

In 2010, Norton, an online security program, found that every second, about 14 adults worldwide are victims of cybercrime.  More than 1 million people were a victim of cybercrime each day. According to criminal defense law firm led by Daniel Murphy, Cybercrimes result in a great amount of financial loss. In the US, in 2010, 74 million people were victims of cybercrime and $32 billion was the financial loss. The past year, 2012, about 18 adults worldwide were victims of cyber crime each second, resulting in 1.5 million victims of cybercrime daily. Many people who are victims of cybercrime don’t even know it. Victims may contact our firm to find out who is threatening them.

To prevent yourself from becoming a cybercrime victim, you should follow some of Wolf’s tips and tips from other websites. Norton Security suggests keeping your computer updated: do not take online offers or surveys that require personal information; protect your computer with a security software app like Mac Password Manager; choose a strong password and don’t share it; and review your bank and credit card statements regularly. If you use some, or all, of these tips, you can decrease your chance of becoming the next victim of a cybercrime.