Technology
How to safeguard your credit score in retirement as fraud and identity theft rise among seniors
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You’ve worked hard, saved smart, and now it’s time to enjoy your retirement years. But here’s the catch: your credit score still matters, even when you’re no longer applying for mortgages, car loans or new credit cards. Why? Scammers know many seniors don’t monitor their credit very often, and that makes retirees prime targets for identity theft. Due largely to increased scam attempts, financial losses for seniors reached $4.9 billion in 2024. And anyone can become a target. The good news is there are simple, powerful steps you can take right now to lock down your credit score and make sure your hard-earned nest egg is safe.
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Why your credit score matters in retirement
A lot of people assume that once they stop working, their credit score doesn’t matter anymore. After all, you’re not buying a new house or car, right? Not so fast. Your credit score can still affect:
- Insurance premiums. Some insurers factor your credit into your rates.
- Retirement community applications. Senior housing and assisted living facilities often run credit checks.
- Loan approvals. You may still need financing for medical bills, home repairs or emergencies.
- Identity theft risk. A clean, unused credit file is like a blank check to a scammer.
The hands of Karin Seelmann, a 70-year-old participant of a computer course for seniors, handle the keyboard of a laptop in Hanover, Germany, Feb. 21, 2017. (Peter Steffen/picture alliance)
Keeping your credit score safe is about protecting both your financial reputation and your retirement savings.
REMOVE YOUR DATA TO PROTECT YOUR RETIREMENT FROM SCAMMERS
Step 1: Monitor your credit regularly
Even if you’re not applying for credit, you should know what’s in your file. Seniors are often the last to find out when a scammer has taken out a loan or opened a card in their name. The three big credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, are required to give you a free report once a year. Here’s the trick: thanks to recent changes, you can now get a free weekly credit report at AnnualCreditReport.com. Set a calendar reminder to check your reports once a month. Look for accounts you don’t recognize, suspicious credit inquiries or sudden drops in your score.
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A man looking into his retirement matters. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Step 2: Place a fraud alert
If you suspect you’ve been targeted, a fraud alert makes it harder for identity thieves to open new accounts in your name. It tells creditors they need to take extra steps to verify your identity before approving anything.
- A fraud alert is free.
- It lasts for one year (you can renew it).
- You only need to contact one bureau. They’ll notify the others.
This is a great first line of defense if you’ve received scam calls, phishing emails or notice odd activity in your accounts.
A woman looking up her credit score on a laptop. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Step 3: Freeze your credit (the gold standard)
A credit freeze is the single most powerful tool retirees have to protect their credit score. Also, it’s completely free. Here’s why you should do it today:
- It blocks anyone from opening new credit in your name.
- It doesn’t affect your current accounts, score or benefits.
- You can unfreeze it anytime if you need new credit.
Since most retirees don’t apply for new loans often, a credit freeze is a “set it and forget it” safeguard. Think of it as putting your credit file in a vault.
How to do it:
- Contact Equifax, Experian and TransUnion individually (you’ll need to freeze your credit with each one).
- Provide proof of identity (usually SSN, date of birth and address).
- Keep the PIN or password they give you; you’ll need it if you ever want to lift the freeze.
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A woman looking into her retirement matters on her laptop. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Step 4: Lock down your personal data online
Here’s something many seniors don’t realize: even if your credit is frozen, scammers can still target you through other leaks of personal information.
Data brokers publish your name, address history, phone numbers, relatives and even property records online. Scammers use this information to:
- Impersonate family members in “grandparent scams.”
- Craft convincing phishing messages.
- Trick banks or creditors with stolen details.
That’s why removing your personal information from these sites is just as important as freezing your credit. Doing it manually means tracking down dozens (sometimes hundreds) of data broker websites and sending formal removal requests and repeating the process every few months as your info pops back up.
Data removal services can handle this automatically, requesting removals from dozens of data brokers at a time and monitoring for re-uploads. It’s one of the simplest ways to cut off scammers at the source and keep your retirement profile off the web.
While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.
Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.
5 STEPS TO PROTECT YOUR FINANCES FROM FAMILY SCAMS
Step 5: Watch for warning signs of identity theft
Even with strong protections in place, it pays to stay alert. Here are a few red flags to watch for:
- Bills or medical statements for services you never used
- Collection calls about debts that aren’t yours
- New credit cards or loans arriving in your mail
- Denials for credit or insurance you didn’t apply for
- A sudden, unexplained drop in your credit score.
If you see any of these, act fast: file a report at IdentityTheft.gov, contact your bank or creditors and double-check that your credit freeze is active.
Kurt’s key takeaways
Retirement should be about peace of mind; you’ve earned your retirement. Protecting your credit score may not be the most exciting task on your to-do list, but it’s one of the smartest. By monitoring your credit, freezing your file, removing your data from broker sites and staying alert for red flags, you can keep scammers out of your finances and focus on enjoying the retirement you deserve. Want to take one major worry off your list? Start by having your personal information automatically pulled from the internet. It’s an easy way to reduce your digital footprint and keep your credit and your retirement fund safe.
Should more be done to protect retirees from identity theft and financial scams? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Technology
Skylight’s 15-inch smart calendar is down to its lowest price to date
When you’re juggling more than just your own calendar, staying organized can be overwhelming. Fortunately, the Skylight Calendar 2 can help simplify things by syncing multiple calendars in a single spot, and now through May 7th, it’s available directly from Skylight for $259.99 ($40 off), its best price to date.
Skylight’s 15-inch smart calendar improves upon the original with a brighter screen, faster performance, and a slimmer design with swappable magnetic frames. Otherwise, though, it offers the same core experience, making it easy for the whole family to see events at a glance, whether you mount it on a wall or place it on a kitchen counter using the included adjustable stand. It automatically syncs with Google, Apple, Yahoo, Outlook, and Cozi calendars, pulling them into a single shared space that updates automatically. Each household member gets their own color, too, so it’s easy to keep track of who’s doing what.
In addition to event planning, the Calendar 2 makes it easier to arrange and assign other day-to-day tasks. You can create and manage shared chore charts, grocery lists, and to-do lists directly on the touchscreen device or through the mobile app for Android and iOS, which makes it easy for everyone in your household to stay on track and contribute. Skylight also provides detailed weather forecasts for your events, so you know what to expect before heading out.
If you subscribe to Skylight’s Calendar Plus plan, the Calendar 2 takes even more of the work off your plate. You can forward emails, upload PDFs, or snap photos of flyers and automatically turn them into calendar events. You also get meal planning tools that let you plan breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for the week, as well as the ability to assign chores and reward kids for completing them. Plus, just for fun, there’s a screensaver mode that turns the display into an ad hoc digital photo frame when it’s not actively being used as a calendar.
Technology
Anthropic’s Mythos AI found over 2,000 unknown software vulnerabilities in just seven weeks of testing
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There is a new AI model called Mythos. Anthropic built it for defensive cybersecurity research. It is so effective at finding software vulnerabilities that Anthropic decided the general public cannot have it.
Instead, it is letting a small circle of trusted partners like Microsoft and Google experiment with it first under controlled conditions, while researchers figure out what guardrails need to exist.
That decision alone should tell you something. When the company that built a tool decides the world is not ready for it, you pay attention. And when you understand what Mythos actually did during testing, that caution starts to make complete sense.
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Anthropic’s Mythos AI uncovered more than 2,000 unknown software vulnerabilities in just seven weeks, showing how fast AI can now expose hidden weaknesses. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
How Anthropic’s Mythos AI found 2,000 vulnerabilities in seven weeks
Seven weeks. One AI model. One team. More than 2,000 previously unknown software vulnerabilities were found. If you need a moment with that, take it. John Ackerly, CEO and co-founder of Virtru, a data security company, put that figure into perspective in a way that is hard to shake.
“Mythos is absolutely a turning point for cybersecurity. Think about it. Mythos didn’t pick a lock; it found thousands of locks that were never locked in the first place (that no one even knew existed) in software that the best human security researchers had studied for decades.
The math is staggering. One AI model, and one team, in seven weeks, found more than 2,000 zero-day vulnerabilities. That is 30% of the world’s entire annual output prior to AI. When thousands of researchers get access to AI models like Mythos, a single year will surface exponentially more zero-days than the 360,000 recorded in all of software history.
Mythos and other AI models like it can now find and exploit software flaws at a speed and scale that is beyond containment. This means that the old approach of building stronger walls around systems and hoping they hold is becoming much less reliable. It also means that the manual “find a vulnerability, patch the vulnerability” process is not going to keep pace with a threat landscape bolstered by the speed and scale of AI.
The threat surface is now expanding faster than any wall can contain it. The only answer to this new dynamic is to protect the data itself, rather than prop up perimeter protection around it.
Thirty percent of the world’s annual output in seven weeks changes the game entirely.
What makes Mythos AI different from other AI security tools
Cybersecurity teams have used AI tools for years. So, what makes this different?
Ackerly explains it this way: “What makes this different is the level of autonomy and speed it enables. Mythos is being described as a system that can discover vulnerabilities and even generate working exploits much faster than traditional human-led workflows. This model could make it easy for a bad actor to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in software, even if that bad actor isn’t knowledgeable or trained.”
That last part matters most. Before a tool like this, exploiting a serious software vulnerability required real technical skill. Mythos AI lowers that barrier significantly. A person with bad intentions and no technical background could potentially use a model like this to cause serious damage. The expertise gap that once offered some natural protection is closing.
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Security experts warn that tools like Mythos could shrink the time it takes to find and exploit flaws from weeks down to minutes. (Patrick Sison/AP Photo)
Why Anthropic’s Mythos AI is breaking down perimeter security
Most cybersecurity spending, the overwhelming majority of it, goes toward what experts call perimeter defense. Think firewalls, network monitoring, endpoint security and intrusion detection. The entire strategy is built on one core idea of keeping the bad actors out, and the data inside stays safe.
Ackerly describes how that model is now breaking down.
“The perimeter is the digital wall around your systems and the information you possess. For decades, cyber strategies have primarily focused on the idea that if you protected the perimeter well enough — if you built a strong enough wall — the sensitive data on the inside would stay safe,” Ackerly said.
“The industry has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into firewalls, endpoint detection, network security, application security and other perimeter defenses. Traditional security architecture by itself cannot keep pace in this new world.
“The Mythos development from Anthropic is making a hard truth very apparent: Time is running out for companies to prepare for this new reality. Shifting focus from ‘protecting the perimeter’ to ‘protecting the data’ is critically important to mitigate data loss or compromise.”
Hundreds of billions of dollars. And now the model those dollars were built on is becoming unreliable. It forces a full rethink.
Does Anthropic’s Mythos AI give attackers the advantage?
This is the question everyone wants a straight answer to. Ackerly offers one that is more nuanced than a simple yes or no.
“I wouldn’t frame it as attackers automatically having an advantage. But, over time, it does mean that ‘bad guys’ and ‘good guys’ will have access to essentially the same tools. As a result, I do think defenders absolutely need a different strategy. If you assume the outer wall may fail, then the smarter move is to protect the data itself so it stays controlled even after a breach.”
The playing field is leveling. And that may sound fair until you remember attackers only need to succeed once, while defenders have to succeed every time.
How fast is Mythos AI changing the cybersecurity threat landscape?
Speed is what makes Mythos AI genuinely alarming. Traditional cyberattacks move through a lifecycle. Reconnaissance takes time. Finding the right vulnerability takes more time. Building an exploit takes more time on top of that.
Ackerly explains what happens when AI compresses all of that.
“AI is accelerating the threat. A model that can find and exploit vulnerabilities autonomously compresses the attack lifecycle from weeks to hours, or even minutes. Every layer of the traditional security stack now has to operate at machine speed. Manual security architectures cannot keep up.
“But AI also makes data-centric security more powerful, not less so. When every piece of sensitive data is protected at the object-level, AI agents can enforce governance at scale by checking entitlements, applying attribute-based access controls, and auditing data flows in real time. The same capabilities that make Mythos a dangerous tool in the hands of ‘bad guys’ make it a valuable tool in the hands of ‘good guys.’”
The question organizations should be asking shifts from “how do I build higher walls?” to “when the walls fail, is my data still protected?” That is the question worth sitting with.
What Mythos AI means for regular people’s personal data
Most of the Mythos coverage has focused on corporate risk. But your bank account and medical records sit in those same vulnerable systems.
“For everyday people, the first change is that breaches and scams could become more frequent, more targeted, and harder to spot. If AI makes it easier to uncover weak points in the systems we all rely on, that can translate into more pressure on the services that hold our personal data, from email and cloud storage to health, banking, and retail platforms.
Consumers shouldn’t assume a company is doing the right thing with their data. Now, they really can’t assume a company’s outer defenses are enough to protect their information.
This also highlights the importance of basic cyber hygiene like unique passwords and MFA, so that when breaches happen, the scope of impact on your own personal data is contained.”
Your bank account, your medical records, your tax documents, your private messages. All of it already lives across dozens of platforms you trust to protect it. If those platforms’ outer defenses are no longer reliable, what exactly is standing between your data and someone who wants it?
Ackerly goes further on where the exposure actually lives. “Data now travels across clouds, devices, partners, and borders. The risk isn’t just one hacked server in one building anymore. It’s all the places your data passes through or gets copied to along the way.
Was Anthropic right to keep Mythos AI restricted?
Anthropic made a choice that is rare in the AI industry. They built something powerful and then decided not to release it widely.
On that decision, Ackerly is direct. “Anthropic’s decision to withhold Mythos from general release is unprecedented and, frankly, responsible. Time will tell what these partners are able to do with regard to safety, but releasing it to the general public would certainly have been ill-advised and dangerous.”
Unprecedented. That word deserves weight here. In an industry that races to release new tech, Anthropic stopped. That speaks volumes.
We reached out to Anthropic for a comment, but did not hear back before our deadline.
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As AI accelerates cyberattacks, the focus is shifting from protecting networks to protecting the data itself. (Kury “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
How to stay safe as cybersecurity shifts
The perimeter model is deteriorating, but that does not mean you are helpless. Individual behavior still matters, and it matters more now than it did before.
Ackerly’s recommendation is this: “Stop assuming the app, platform, or company perimeter can always protect your information, or that they will do the right thing with your data. People should be much more deliberate about what data they share, where they store it, and who can access it. Protection needs to travel with the data, not just sit at the edge of a network. For you, that means choosing services that give you stronger control over your information and being more cautious about oversharing sensitive data in the first place. The data owner should always have governance over said data.” So where do you start?
1) Use unique passwords for every account
A password manager makes this realistic. If one platform gets breached, unique passwords keep the damage isolated to that one account.
2) Turn on multi-factor authentication wherever it is available
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) adds a layer that survives even when a password is compromised. It is one of the highest-impact steps an individual can take.
3) Run strong antivirus software and keep devices updated
Outdated software is one of the most common entry points attackers use. Strong antivirus software catches threats your instincts might miss, and keeping apps and operating systems current closes the gaps that models like Mythos are built to find. Get my picks for the best 2026 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android & iOS devices at Cyberguy.com
4) Be selective about what you share and where
Every app that holds your data is a potential exposure point. The less you overshare, the smaller your footprint becomes.
5) Use a data removal service
Data brokers collect and sell your personal information, often without you ever knowing. Data removal services find where your data is listed and request its removal. You cannot control every place your information travels, but you can shrink the trail it leaves behind. Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com
6) Choose services that offer real data control
Not all platforms treat your data the same way. Look for services that let you see, manage and limit how your information is used and where it goes.
7) Monitor your accounts and credit
Catching a breach early limits the damage significantly. Set up account alerts wherever your bank or financial platform allows it. A credit freeze costs nothing and stops new accounts from being opened in your name without your knowledge.
8) Stay skeptical of phishing attempts
Ackerly warned that scams will get more targeted and harder to spot as AI lowers the barrier for bad actors. Scrutinize every link before you click it and treat unexpected emails or texts asking for login information as suspicious by default. If something feels off, it probably is.
9) Assume breaches will happen
The goal is to limit how much damage they can do. When you operate with that assumption, your decisions about data hygiene get sharper, and your exposure gets smaller.
Take my quiz: How safe is your online security?
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Kurt’s key takeaways
Mythos did not create the vulnerability problem. It made the scale of it visible in a way that is no longer ignorable. The foundation of modern cybersecurity, the idea that strong enough walls will keep data safe, is being tested in real time by a technology that moves faster than any human team can. That is a consumer story as much as it is a corporate one. Your data lives in systems built on that old model.
And the moment to think differently about how it is protected is now, not after the next major breach makes the headlines. Anthropic made a responsible call by limiting access to Mythos. But the model exists. The capability is real. Other versions of it are being developed. The question for every organization and every individual becomes the same one Ackerly keeps returning to.
When the walls fail, and experts are telling us they will, what is actually protecting your data on the other side? Let us know your thoughts by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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Copyright 2026 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Technology
Trump fires the entire National Science Board
Multiple sources are reporting that the Trump administration has dismissed the entire National Science Board (NSB). The NSB advises the president and Congress on the National Science Foundation (NSF), which has already been funding research at historically low levels and has seen significant delays in doling out that funding. The NSF has been fundamental in helping develop technology used in MRIs, cellphones, and it even helped get Duolingo get off the ground.
In a statement, Zoe Lofgren, the ranking Democrat on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, said:
“This is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation. The NSB is apolitical. It advises the president on the future of NSF. It unfortunately is no surprise a president who has attacked NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the Foundation. Will the president fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who won’t stand up to him as he hands over our leadership in science to our adversaries? A real bozo the clown move.”
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