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Cyberattacks on nursing homes: How to protect your loved ones

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Cyberattacks on nursing homes: How to protect your loved ones

Taking care of your loved ones comes in many forms: cooking a warm meal after a long day, lending a listening ear when life gets tough, sending a check-in text just because or making sure they receive the right support at a nursing home. But as recent events have shown, care shouldn’t stop there. 

Physical and mental well-being are essential, but protecting finances and personal information is just as important. 

I’ll walk you through some steps you can take and some services worth considering to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.

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A man being helped with technology (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

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Protecting nursing home residents from cyberattacks and data breaches

Scammers and fraudsters often have no moral compass, and they increasingly target the most vulnerable, especially nursing homes and the personal data of their residents.

Take the case of Hillcrest Nursing Home, the victim of a cyberattack that led to a data breach affecting more than 100,000 people. Names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, patient records, treatment information, insurance details and provider data — all leaked in a single incident.

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?

The good news? There are things you can do to help safeguard your loved ones’ financial and personal data in the event of a similar breach.

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A group of elderly nursing home residents   (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

HOW CRIMINALS ARE EXPLOITING PERSONAL INFORMATION TO TARGET VULNERABLE SENIORS IN ELDER FRAUD

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Cyberattacks exploit vulnerable systems and elderly patients

In the first few months of 2025 alone, more than half a dozen nursing homes have reported some form of cyberattack. Experts say elderly patients are being targeted because they’re simply easier marks, from limited digital literacy to a lower likelihood of regularly monitoring their financial or medical accounts.

Add to that the often outdated and vulnerable IT infrastructure of nursing homes, and you’ve got a prime target. As a security advisor from Optiv, a cybersecurity solutions company, explains, these centers typically operate on tight budgets, which means cybersecurity isn’t always a top priority — or even feasible at the level it should be.

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A woman in a wheelchair in a nursing home (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

BEST TECH TO HELP A LOVED ONE WITH MEMORY ISSUES

6 things you should do to make sure your loved ones are safe from cyber threats and identity theft

Cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated, but, with the right precautions, you can protect your loved ones from falling victim to these threats. Here’s a guide to six essential actions you can take to safeguard their personal and financial information. 

1. Freeze credit accounts to prevent fraud

Data breaches usually happen for one reason — financial gain. This often involves selling stolen information to scammers or hackers who use it for fraudulent activities, such as running credit fraud schemes. Since many forms of identity theft revolve around credit accounts, it’s crucial to take action if your or a loved one’s personal data has been exposed.

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One of the most effective ways to prevent credit fraud is by placing a security freeze on your credit accounts. A security freeze stops anyone from opening new accounts, issuing new cards or conducting any credit-related activities in your name while the freeze is in place.

If managing this process feels overwhelming, consider using an identity theft protection service. These services can handle placing and managing security freezes on your behalf, saving you time and ensuring the process is done correctly. Many of these services also offer additional features, such as credit monitoring and alerts, to help you stay on top of potential threats to your personal information. Taking this step can significantly reduce the risk of identity theft and provide peace of mind that your financial information is secure.

Identity theft companies can monitor personal information like your Social Security number, phone number and email address and alert you if it is being sold on the dark web or being used to open an account.  They can also assist you in freezing your bank and credit card accounts to prevent further unauthorized use by criminals. See my tips and best picks on how to protect yourself from identity theft.

2. Place a fraud alert

A fraud alert is an extra layer of protection for your credit accounts. Like a credit freeze, you can set it up with all three credit bureaus.

When you activate a fraud alert, it notifies the bureaus that there may be suspicious activity on your account. As a result, any attempts to open new credit or make changes will be looked at more carefully.

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Equifax: You can place a fraud alert online or by calling their customer support at (888) 298-0045.

Experian: Place a fraud alert online or contact their customer service at (888) 397-3742.

TransUnion: You can place a fraud alert online or call them at (800) 916-8800.

3. Sign them up for a data removal service

Now that your credit accounts are secured, there’s one more step worth taking, a broader layer of protection. I’m talking about personal data removal services. These companies specialize in removing your personal information from the internet. With how easy it is for someone to find details like your name, address, contact info, relatives  and more, you and your loved ones are at greater risk for scams and identity theft.

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This is especially true for older adults, who are often seen as easier targets by scammers. Even just for peace of mind, it’s worth taking this extra step. There are plenty of services out there that tackle this issue. Check out my top picks for data removal services here.

4. Install strong antivirus software

Install strong antivirus software to further safeguard your loved ones’ devices and personal information. Strong antivirus programs help block malware, spyware and phishing attempts that can lead to identity theft.

The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe. Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices. 

5. Regularly review financial statements

Encourage your loved ones to regularly review their bank and credit card statements for any suspicious transactions or do it for them. Early detection can help prevent significant financial loss.

6. Educate on internet safety

Many elderly people fall victim to scams due to limited digital literacy. Providing basic cybersecurity education, such as recognizing phishing emails, avoiding suspicious links and using strong passwords, can significantly reduce their risk of being targeted. Consider using a password manager to generate and store complex passwords. Get more details about my best expert-reviewed Password Managers of 2025 here.

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Kurt’s key takeaways 

Remember that protecting your loved ones from cyber threats and identity theft is an ongoing process. It’s not just about taking a few steps and forgetting about it. It’s about continually updating your strategies as new threats emerge. By combining these measures, like freezing credit accounts, using fraud alerts, removing personal data from the internet, installing strong antivirus software, regularly reviewing financial statements and educating them on internet safety, you can significantly reduce the risk of identity theft and provide peace of mind for both you and your loved ones.

Have you or a loved one ever been a victim of a cyberattack or identity theft? How did you handle it? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact

For more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/Newsletter 

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Technology

What Big Tech got out of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill

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What Big Tech got out of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill

The massive budget bill signed into law by President Donald Trump on Independence Day didn’t include everything on Big Tech’s wishlist, but the industry’s largest players stand to gain significantly from several provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The Republican-backed legislation is best known for its tax cuts on tips, deduction caps that could primarily benefit wealthy taxpayers, restriction on healthcare coverage for low-income and disabled Americans, cuts to renewable energy incentives, and tens of billions of dollars in funding to immigration enforcement. But it also includes restored tax deductions for research and development and other items that could benefit the tech industry, among other businesses.

In one high-profile fight, the tech industry failed to secure a moratorium on state AI laws, a proposal which had been supported by several trade groups and might have also affected a host of other state tech protections. But after months of lobbying from Congress to Mar-a-Lago, the industry will see slashed taxes and may receive new contracts from border enforcement funding, the Tech Oversight Project finds in a new report shared exclusively with The Verge. Some changes will likely benefit businesses of all sizes and sectors — while others may offer large companies in the tech industry the biggest benefits.

The budget bill essentially reverses a policy from Trump’s first term that limited how companies could write off research and development on their taxes. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) forced companies to spread write-offs for domestic R&D costs across five years, rather than deducting them fully in the year they were incurred. Now, Congress is restoring the previous, more generous deduction setup, and small businesses can get retroactive tax write-offs for the last couple years when the changes — which took effect in 2022 — were in place.

In a recent report, Quartz linked the R&D deduction changes to the wave of layoffs across the industry, describing how it made it so companies could effectively only write off one-fifth of their R&D costs in the year they were incurred, rather than the full sum, making salaries for engineers and other high-skilled roles much more costly. The nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that in the three years in which the TCJA changes took effect, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Tesla saw their tax bills rise a collective $75 billion as a result.

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“The loss of full R&D expensing disincentivizes firms from significantly increasing their R&D investments”

So unsurprisingly, tech-backed groups like the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) pushed to revert the rule. “The loss of full R&D expensing disincentivizes firms from significantly increasing their R&D investments because the cost of those investments has risen,” ITIF wrote in a blog post earlier this year.

Maintaining a lower corporate tax rate

Conversely, business groups successfully pleaded with lawmakers to keep a different change from the TCJA: a massive reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. In a letter to lawmakers last year, tech-backed Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) told lawmakers that the reduction had brought the US in line with peer countries, and provided US companies “a more level playing field against their international competitors,” which the nonprofit Tax Foundation found helped boost US investment. Democrats who have opposed the lower tax rates have framed it as a handout to corporate America.

Extending lower international tax rates

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The new budget law also blocks a scheduled increase in the effective tax rates on things like the money companies make abroad based on US-based patents or other intangible assets.

These kinds of taxes — the base erosion and anti-abuse tax (BEAT), global intangible low-taxed income tax (GILTI), and the foreign-derived intangible income tax (FDII) — are generally meant to prevent shifty accounting practices like moving assets to a foreign subsidiary. Before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed, the effectively lowered rates through these three policies were set to expire at the end of 2025.

The tech industry argued protecting those low rates would keep US companies competitive with other countries, like France and the UK. “Several other nations already offer IP incentives,” ITI told lawmakers in an October letter. “It is essential that the FDII rate remains as low as possible.”

“The tax break disproportionately benefits large corporations with significant intellectual property portfolios”

But groups like the nonpartisan Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition and ITEP see lower rates for taxes like the FDII as a giveaway to the biggest players in the tech industry, which deal heavily in intangible assets like patents and trademarks.

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“The tax break disproportionately benefits large corporations with significant intellectual property portfolios while doing little for smaller firms that lack similar assets,” ITEP wrote in a blog post last year, where it found that Google parent Alphabet reported over $11 billion in tax benefits from 2018 to 2023 as a result of the FDII.

Border protection funding could flow to tech

Alongside a significant budget increase for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other immigration-related funding, the law includes about $6 billion for border technologies, including surveillance systems. That money could flow to several large tech firms already engaged in the space.

Those include Peter Thiel-founded data company Palantir, which currently has a $30 million contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to build “ImmigrationOS” to create “near real-time visibility into instances of self-deportation.” Thiel-backed Anduril also stands to gain if the agency expands infrastructure like the surveillance towers it already supplies to the government. MIT Technology Review reported in 2018 that Amazon Web Services hosted Department of Homeland Security (DHS) databases related to immigration, including a deep pool of biometric data.

Other tax-saving adjustments

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Tech companies and other businesses will also benefit from changes in how business interest deductions are calculated, and a permanent extension of rules allowing companies to take a full deduction of certain equipment expenses. House Democrats have previously called this kind of tactic a “Tax Scam,” writing, “Two-thirds of the benefits go to corporations making over $250 million in revenue, and from 2018 through 2021, about two dozen of the largest corporations received roughly $50 billion in tax breaks through this provision.”

Some of the tax changes in the bill will benefit smaller firms and businesses across many different industries. But large tech companies are particularly well positioned to benefit from changes in how foreign profits on intellectual property are taxed and fuller R&D write-offs. After months of cozying up to the Trump administration with little to show for it, it looks like the largest players in the industry have finally notched some wins.

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Technology

Spying camera vest deters attackers by recording them in action

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Spying camera vest deters attackers by recording them in action

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

When you’re out walking, jogging or running, you should feel empowered, not unsafe. Yet a recent survey found that 92% of women in the U.S. reported feeling concerned for their safety while running, with half of those women fearing physical attack. 

Additionally, over one-third experienced physical or verbal harassment, including sexist comments, honking, or being followed. To help address this alarming trend, Urban Eyes introduces a high-visibility safety vest with cameras built in. By capturing real-time footage of your surroundings, this clever wearable tech empowers you to stay focused, feel protected, and reclaim control of your outdoor workouts.

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ATM JUGGING SCAM ON THE RISE AS THIEVES TARGET VICTIMS

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A man running while wearing a safety vest with cameras   (Urban Eyes)

How a safety vest with cameras helps deter attackers

Attackers don’t want to be caught on camera. When you wear a vest with front and rear cameras, you send a clear message: you’re being recorded. This visible deterrent makes would-be harassers think twice before approaching. With bright white, eye-shaped cameras and flashing blue LEDs, Urban Eyes makes sure everyone knows you’re protected.

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A woman wearing a safety vest with cameras   (Urban Eyes)

How this safety vest with cameras works in action

Slip on the vest, power up the cameras, and hit the ground walking, jogging or running. The wireless remote lets you control both cameras with one button. Want to snap a photo? Just press the remote. All footage is stored locally, so you’re always in control, no cloud connection required.

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?

Top features of this safety vest with cameras

  • Dual 2.5K cameras: Capture every stride, front and back, day or night.
  • Ultra-lightweight design: Weighs just 0.9 lb, moves freely without feeling weighed down.
  • High-visibility panels: Reflective piping and bold colors keep you seen in low light.
  • Long battery life: Record up to 90 minutes on a single charge.
  • Secure storage: Footage saves directly to SD cards in each camera.
  • Easy Plug & play: No app headaches. Use the wireless remote to start, stop, or pause recording instantly.
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Pocket-sized remote for the safety vest with cameras  (Urban Eyes)

A safety vest designed for comfort and everyday use

Urban Eyes fits most chest sizes (28″-52″) and comes in five color combos. The adjustable waistband and breathable fabric mean you can sprint, jog, or walk comfortably. There’s a large zippered pocket for your phone and smaller pockets for keys or cards, no more juggling essentials.

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The benefits of this safety vest with cameras

The Urban Eyes safety vest with cameras gives walkers, runners or joggers, a sense of control and confidence. Knowing the cameras are recording adds an extra layer of protection, making it easier to stay focused instead of feeling vulnerable. The vest’s bright colors and reflective details make sure you’re seen by drivers and cyclists, even in dim conditions. It also keeps things simple. There’s no need to download an app or connect to Wi-Fi. You just press the remote and start recording. Most importantly, it gives you peace of mind. Instead of worrying about who might be behind you, you can concentrate on your pace and your path, knowing that your vest is capturing everything along the way. 

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A woman holding the pocket-sized remote while wearing a safety vest with cameras  (Urban Eyes)

Urban Eyes safety vest: Price and preorder info

Urban Eyes is available for preorder at about $204. Choose your color, order online, and expect delivery in about 35 days.

Kurt’s key takeaways

Personal safety tech has come a long way. 

With Urban Eyes, you get more than a vest; you get a visible deterrent and a personal eyewitness. You protect your home, car, and personal data; why not protect yourself when you’re out and about?

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Would you feel safer running, walking, or jogging with a camera vest, or do you prefer other safety gadgets?  Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.

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Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts, and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you’ll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide – free when you join my CYBERGUY.COM/NEWSLETTER.

Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.

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Stranger Things 5’s first trailer promises an epic showdown

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Stranger Things 5’s first trailer promises an epic showdown

It’s been a long time coming, but we finally have a real look at the end of Stranger Things. Netflix just released the first teaser trailer for the show’s fifth season, which will also be its last when it starts streaming later this year. As was alluded to in the finale of season 4, the new trailer — which, despite being called a teaser, clocks in at nearly three minutes long — is focused on the major showdown with Vecna that will presumably end the string of supernatural bad luck in Hawkins, Indiana for good.

Here’s the official setup for the finale, according to Netflix:

The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding. As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they’ve faced before. To end this nightmare, they’ll need everyone — the full party — standing together, one last time.

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