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Rabbi Matthew Leibl explaining the Jewish origins of popular xmas songs

Matthew Leibl
Rabbi Matthew at the keyboard
Asper Campus, Dec. 10, 2019

By BERNIE BELLAN This article first appeared in the Dec. 23, 2019 issue of The Jewish Post & News. Since being posted to our website almost two years ago, it’s become one of our most widely read articles – and the Youtube video of Rabbi Matthew singing xmas songs written by Jewish composers has been viewed hundreds of times.If you want to watch the video, you can see it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWyZ1djqxaI

Here’s my story from Dec/2019:  It’s hard to believe, but it was only two years ago that Rabbi Matthew Leibl entertained a packed room of mostly seniors in the Adult Lounge of the Asper Campus with a medley of famous xmas songs – all written by Jewish composers.

Rabbi Matthew Leibl is not your usual rabbi – but he sure can command a room.

 

With all his considerable talents – as a clever and always witty speaker, as a terrific keyboardist and pleasant singer, and with a range of interests from that go anywhere from Jewish scholarship to sports, Rabbi Matthew can both entertain – and educate, often simultaneously.
It came as no surprise, therefore, that on Tuesday, December 10, 2019, the adult lounge of the Asper Campus was packed – entirely with older adults mind you, who were there to hear Rabbi Matthew give a presentation that was titled “Oy to the World: The Jewish Contribution to Christmas”. (The name of the event itself was a pretty good clue that this was not going to be your typical “drash”.)
It turns out that Rabbi Matthew did do his research for what was to follow. He unveiled a seamless narrative, mixing well-known Christmas songs with stories about their composers, combining everything into a narrative that demonstrated how so many Jews have influenced our modern attitudes to Christmas.

Of course, nothing that Rabbi Matthew does is predictable, so when he greeted the audience with the first few lines of “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas”, I would dare say that most of us there were expecting him to reveal that well-known song was written by a Jew.
Aha – gotcha! It was written by Meredith Wilson – most famous undoubtedly for having written “The Music Man” – or, as Rabbi Matthew announced to the audience: “not a Jew”.
The tone was set, therefore, for what would turn out to be an evening of surprises, in which Rabbi Matthew would sing a well-known Christmas song, and then follow the song with what was almost always an unexpected story, either about how the song was written, or about how it came to be universally popular (often when the composer himself thought it would be a flop).

But first, Rabbi Matthew told another funny story about how, as a child, he misinterpreted the name of a well-known Christmas carol: “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”. To his mind, Rabbi Matthew said, he thought it was a song about his “Zaida Harold” (the late Harold Pollock) – “Hark, the ‘Harold” Angels Sing”.
At that point, Rabbi Matthew launched into playing – and singing, words to a song that just didn’t seem familiar. Here’s what he sang:
The sun is shining, the grass is green
The orange and palm trees sway
There’s never been such a day
In Beverly Hills, L.A
But it’s December the twenty-fourth
And I am longing to be up North
Can you guess that those are the words in the introduction to “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”? As Rabbi Matthew explained it, however, we never actually hear the introduction to the song on any of its many recordings – and the image that introduction evokes is hardly one of a “white Christmas”. In fact, time and time again, as we were to learn, songs that have come to conjure up images of snow-lined streets, fireplaces blazing, and other such stereotypical Christmas images, were actually composed in Los Angeles – often during heat waves when various composers were all trying to cool themselves off by imagining cold winter scenes!
In any event, “White Christmas” was composed by Irving Berlin – born Israel Isidore Beilin in 1888 in Russia. A prodigy at an early age, Berlin’s first big hit was “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”. Berlin is considered one of the greatest American songwriters of all time. With so many hits to his name, it’s hard to realize they were all written by the same person. For instance, Berlin also wrote “God Bless America” (in 1938), which was a way for him to show his appreciation for the country that had taken in his family.
“White Christmas”, as Rabbi Matthew told the audience, was originally written in 1940 for the movie, “Holiday Inn”, which wasn’t released until 1942. (The introduction was scrapped when it was sung in the movie.)
The song, however, sung by Bing Crosby, was first played on the radio on Christmas day, 1941. It became an immediate sensation – and the Bing Crosby version went on to sell over 50 million copies, making it the best-selling Christmas single of all time. (Altogether, various different recordings of the song have sold over 100 million copies.)
Not only is “White Christmas” a song that tugged at the heartstrings at a time when America had just been plunged into what would become the second most costly war (in terms of lives lost) after the American Civil War, as Rabbi Matthew explained, it also set two other precedents: It was the first commercial success for a Christmas song and it was the first-ever secular Christmas song.
The song also set the pattern for future composers to follow, in terms of its beat which, as Rabbi Matthew noted, was “A,A,B,A”. “The time repeats, but the words change,” Rabbi Matthew explained.

Having begun with what is undoubtedly the most successful Christmas song of all time, Rabbi Matthew then took a step back in time to play another song that wasn’t really a Christmas song in the sense that it doesn’t mention the name “Christmas” at all, but nonetheless has come to be associated with the Christmas season: “Walking in a Winter Wonderland”, music by Felix Bernard, and written in 1934.
“The words to the song are terrible,” Rabbi Matthew suggested. He gave as an example these lines:
“He’ll say ‘are you married?’, we’ll say ‘no, man’‘
But you can do the job when you’re in town’ “
Moving back to the 1940s again – which turned out to be a most productive decade when it came to composing great Christmas songs, Rabbi Matthew sang “I’ll be home for Christmas”, released in 1943, music by Walter Kent (a.k.a. Walter Kaufman). The song was also first recorded by Bing Crosby.
As with “White Christmas”, this song captured the mood of America, with its famous final line “I’ll be home, if only in my dreams.” At the time, while America was fully at war with Japan in the Pacific, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were also in England preparing for what would turn out to be D-day the next year.
As it was, there was also quite a bit of controversy attached to “I’ll be home for Christmas”, as another composer, by the name of “Buck Ram” (whose name I can’t help but think would be great for a male porn star), claimed he had met Walter Kent and lyricist Kim Gannon at a bar, where he had given them a copy of the song. His name was eventually added to the record label as a co-writer and he received royalties.

The next song on Rabbi Leibl’s list was “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” (or as it is actually titled, “The Christmas Song”), music by Mel Tormé (whose name was really Tormé!). As I noted at the beginning of this article, this was one of those songs written in L.A. during a torrid summer heat wave.
Rabbi Leibl quoted Mel Tormé as having said this about his song: “It was not one of my favourites, but it was my annuity!” The song is also noteworthy for being the first song ever to drop the name “Santa Claus” into it. (Boy, you have to wonder what Christmas would be like if so many Jews hadn’t fashioned its modern-day image.)

Keeping with the theme of heat waves, the next song was also written in the same 1945 heat wave that engulfed Los Angeles: “Let it Snow”, lyrics by Sammy Cahn, music by Jule Styne.
Here are some comments made by Rabbi Leibl about the song: They (the composers) were trying to think cool thoughts…there’s no mention of Christmas…the song appears at the end of “Die Hard” – one of the two greatest Christmas movies ever made (the other being “Home Alone”). You can kind of get a sense of the era in which Rabbi Leibl grew up by his loving references to the 1980s.

As with every other song he played during the evening, the next one was accompanied by a very amusing anecdote.
The song was “City Sidewalks, Silver Bells” –  written in 1951 by Jay Livingston (born Jay Levison) (music) and Ray Evans (lyrics) – both Jewish. The duo also went on to write “Que Sera Sera” – which is probably the first song I myself ever remember from a movie.
“Silver Bells” was originally called “Tinkle Bells”, Rabbi Matthew explained, but when Jay Livingston went home to his wife and told her that he and Evans had composed a song called “Tinkle Bells”, her reactions was: “Are you crazy? Do you know what ‘tinkle’ means?” (Actually, a reference to Wikipedia expands upon Rabbi Matthew’s story. Apparently, Jay Livingston didn’t know what his wife was talking about: “Of course, Jay and Ray had never heard it used in that way. ‘Tinkle’ (for ‘pee’) is a woman’s term. As Jay said in the act that they used to do, ‘When I was a boy, I said “Pee-pee”. Come to think of it, I STILL say “Pee-pee’”, only more frequently’.”
In any event, the song title was changed to “Silver Bells” – and although it was first sung by William Frawley (who went on to play Fred Mertz in “I Love Lucy”), it was made famous when it was recorded by Bing Crosby in 1950.

Forward to 1962 – and the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Where’s this going, you’re probably wondering?) Rabbi Leibl told a story about someone named Gloria Shayne who, when she was growing up, happened to live next door to a family by the name of Kennedy (as Gerry Posner would say, “as in John Fitzgerald Kennedy’ ”).
Gloria Shayne and her then-husband, Noël Regney, wrote the song, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” as a plea for peace. Something else that set this song apart from every other song Rabbi Leibl sang that evening, as he noted, was that it was the only one that mentioned the name “Christ”.

Many of you reading this might remember the “Andy Williams Show”, which was popular in the 1960s. But, did you know that the song “It’s the most Wonderful Time of the Year” was written for that show? It was written in 1963 by Sydney Pola (born Sidney Edward Pollacsek) and George Wyle (born Bernard Weissman, also famous for composing the theme song to “Gilligan’s Island”, a very important show for Rabbi Leibl’s parents’ generation). By the way, although I was taking copious notes during this very important lecture, I have had to resort to Googling a good portion of the information you’re reading here. I can’t imagine how much work Rabbi Matthew put into putting together his song list. He really should do his show again; I’m sure it would attract an even bigger audience next year.

Next, we were told we’re going to hear songs by “the greatest Christmas composer of all time!” But, what about all the songs we just heard? Who could top some of those songwriters?
It turned out that it was Johnny Marks. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia: John David Marks (November 10, 1909 – September 3, 1985) was an American songwriter. Although he was Jewish, he specialized in Christmas songs and wrote many holiday standards, including “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (a hit for Gene Autry and others), “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (a hit for Brenda Lee), “A Holly Jolly Christmas” (recorded by the Quinto Sisters and later by Burl Ives)” and even more.
While Rabbi Leibl told one story after another about each of the above songs, he really outdid himself when he told the story how “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” came into being. The story goes that Marx’s sister was married to a guy by the name of Robert Ray.
Ray was working for the department store Montgomery Ward, working as a low-level copywriter. Although Rabbi Leibl described what happened in great detail, it’s such a beautiful story that I thought I’d quote extensively from the Wikipedia article describing how the song came into being:
Sometime in the 1930s, May moved to Chicago and took a job as a low-paid in-house advertising copywriter for Montgomery Ward. In early 1939, May’s boss at Montgomery Ward asked him to write a “cheery” Christmas book for shoppers and suggested that an animal be the star of the book. Montgomery Ward had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas every year and it was decided that creating their own book would save money and be a nice good-will gesture.
May’s wife, Evelyn, had contracted cancer in 1937 and was quite ill as he started on the book in early 1939. May “drew on memories of his own painfully shy childhood when creating his Rudolph stories.” He decided on making a reindeer the central character of the book because his then four-year-old daughter, Barbara, loved the deer in the Chicago zoo. He ran verses and chapters of the Rudolph poem by Barbara to make sure they entertained children. The final version of the poem was first read to Barbara and his wife’s parents…
In 1948, May’s brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, wrote (words and music) an adaptation of Rudolph. Though the song was turned down by such popular vocalists as Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore, it was recorded by the singing cowboy Gene Autry. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was released in 1949 and became a phenomenal success, selling more records than any other Christmas song, with the exception of “White Christmas”.
And with that, the entire audience joined in the singing of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” All that was needed to cap off the evening was for everyone to adjourn to The Shanghai (which, alas, is no longer) – and which, Rabbi Leibl recalled, was where his family always used to go for Christmas.

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And now the news – with Laurence Wall

By GERRY POSNER I am betting that many readers will have memories of the Wall family, formerly of Winnipeg, later of Phoenix and Ottawa. For people with long memories like me, (which memories my grandkids define as old ), that means as far back as Dr. Mark and Elsa Wall. The Walls had four sons: Richard, Laurence, Murray and Bruce. Likely, you will know one or more of the boys. Both Richard and Bruce reside in Phoenix, while Laurence and Murray are in Ottawa. Of course, each has a story, but I was certainly taken by the Laurence Wall story.

Born in Montreal in 1954 at a time when his father was doing post graduate work in OBGYN, Laurence grew up in Winnipeg’s south end, on Lanark Street and later Queenston Bay. Wall graduated from Grant Park High School in 1972. From there he was off to the University of Manitoba, where he obtained a BA in 1975. Later that year, he left for Ottawa where he studied journalism at Carleton University, finishing with a Bachelor of Journalism. While at Carleton, he met Roslyn Nudell from Montreal, also a student in the journalism program. They married in 1978.

Wall began his career at the Winnipeg Tribune (and if you can remember the Walls, you’re sure to remember the Tribune). He was a reporter there from 1976-1979. Then he moved to CBC Radio in Winnipeg, first as a story producer for the network program, “Canada Watch,” then a stint as a writer- broadcaster for “ Information Radio”.
In 1983 Wall moved to CBC Saskatoon (much like professional athletes who move from team to team, although for much less remuneration) where he was a radio reporter until 1985. The next stop was at CBC Fredericton from 1985 through 1993. By that time, Wall had moved up to become a senior news editor at the CBC.
In 1993, Wall was hired as a senior editor in Ottawa. He continued in that position for three years. In 1996, he wanted to return to on-air work, so he moved back into the radio booth at CBC Ottawa. He became the afternoon news presenter and never looked back. For 28 years, he wrote and edited dozens of new stories and audio items for 13 different newscasts and news updates every weekday, amassing more than 50,000 newscasts and news updates to his credit.
He retired on May 31, 2024. That day marked the end of an illustrious 44 years with the CBC at four different stations. If you lived in Ottawa, his name was immediately recognizable – so much so that on May 31, 2024, the mayor of Ottawa declared that “ Laurence Wall Day.”

Over the course of his time with CBC in Ottawa, Wall reported on some of the most significant stroies of the day, including the 1998 ice storm; the day to day ups and downs (I think more downs than ups ) of the Ottawa Senators of the NHL; the killing pf Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial in 2014 – and the chaos that followed; and, of course, Covid 19. In fact, Covid caused a major change in the way Wall presented the news. For Wall broadcasts emanated from the basement of his home in suburban Ottawa, which he jokingly referred to as”CBC Nepean.”

Over the years Wall had the opportunity to meet many celebrities, including Gordon Pinsent, Alan Thicke, Ken Dryden, and Eugene Levy. Wall recounts that, although he didn’t manage to get a photo with Levy, he did get a laugh when he introduced himself to Levy as “just the chopped liver news presenter.” He also interviewed Randy Bachman at the Ottawa Writers Festival.

A side of Wall that is not as well known is his musical bent. Since 2001, Wall hosted hundreds of concerts and events for the Ottawa Music Festival, the Music and Beyond Chamber Festival, the Ottawa Jazz Festival, Opera Lyra Ottawa and the Ottawa Writers Festival. He has worked tirelessly to promote classical music for young people. Not to be forgotten are his own talents on the cello as a player in the 65-member community group known as the Divertimento Orchestra.

Aside from all that, Laurence Wall has MC’d dozens of events for various Jewish organizations in Ottawa, including the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, the Weizmann Institute, the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship, the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, Limmud Ottawa, his own Kehillat Beth Israel Synagogue, Active Jewish Adults 50+, and a local choir known as Musica Ebraica. Now that is a list of accomplishments that could fill a “ Wall.”

Laurence and Roslyn are also parents of two daughters and are now grandparents as well to one grandson, with another grandchild on the way. Retirement so far for Wall has been just as fulfilling as his career. You might just say that Laurence Wall has just turned another page in his career.

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95-year-old Holocaust survivor invited to be part of new mini-series reliving the end of darkest period of her life

By MYRON LOVE Klara Belkin has led a life writ large. She was the principal cellist for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra for 20 years.  As well, for many years, in the winters, she and her late husband, Emile, a violinist, were also members of the Tampa Symphony Orchestra in Tampa Bay. As a teacher, she served as a member of the faculty of the University of Manitoba’s School of Music for almost 20 years.  
Even though Klara Belkin is 95, her career isn’t quite over yet. Recently, she was invited to join Joshua Bell – in New York in September – in a performance with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra of the soundtrack of a projected new four-part miniseries. 
The mini-series, “The Train Near Magdeburg”, is the true story of a train packed with prisoners from Bergen Belsen concentration camp in the early days of April 1945, that was intercepted – and the passengers liberated – by American soldiers. 
For Belkin (who moved to Saskatoon four years ago, after her husband died, to be closer to her daughter, Lisa),the story is personal.  She, her mother, and her brother, were on that train.
Originally from Szeged in Hungary, she and her family were interned in ghettos in 1944. In June of that year, she, her mother, and her brother, were taken to Austria as farm labourers.  (Her father had been taken into the Hungarian army.) In December 1944, they – along with her grandparents – were moved to Bergen Belsen.
“I was lucky in that I was in relatively good health and I was with most of my family,” she said in an earlier interview with the Jewish Post & News, of her time in the concentration camp.
However, in April of 1945, with the Russians closing in, it looked like that luck was about to run out for the 15-year-old and the other surviving prisoners  at Bergen Belsen.  They were all loaded onto boxcars and sent toward Theresienstadt, where – they feared – death awaited them. Their journey came to an end, however on April 13, on the banks of the Elbe River near Magdeburg. A bridge had been blown out and the train could go no further. There were reports that the train was to be plunged into the river or blown up. Before that could happen, the American army arrived on the scene.
“We couldn’t see anything from inside the boxcars,” Belkin recalled. “Suddenly it went quiet. The SS guards had run away. We heard honking outside and then knocking on the boxcar doors. The doors were opened and we saw an American soldier with a gun aimed at us. He couldn’t believe what he saw. He was no doubt expecting to see German soldiers or munitions. Instead, he saw a boxcar full of half dead people.”
Belkin recalled that they were all moved to a nearby village from which the residents had been evacuated. “There were many of us who had typhus and many – including my grandfather – died shortly after liberation,” Belkin said.
Fortunately, her mother, brother, and grandmother also survived. After liberation, Belkin returned to Budapest where the family reconnected with her father and she studied the cello at the Franz Liszt Academy. Following the Hungarian Revolution in October, 1956, she was able to leave Budapest – with the encouragement of her mother – for Vienna. In Vienna, though, the symphony was not hiring any female musicians. So she came to Canada and found a position with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. That was also where she met her husband, Emile, a violin player, who was also a member of the WSO.
About 15 years ago, Belkin had an opportunity to meet two of the GI’s who liberated her and her family.  It started with a New York State high school history project. This story began when Lisa Belkin decided to write her mother’s biography. In the course of her research, she came across a tape of an interview that Diane Sawyer had conducted with Hudson Falls, New York, history teacher Matt Rozell (recorded in 2007). In 2001, Rozell had had his students do interviews with surviving World War II veterans living in the area.  First Lieutenant Frank Towers, liaison officer of the 30th Infantry Division, and former tank commander Carrol Walsh (743rd Tank Battalion, 119th Regiment), were among the interviewees.  They were the last two living American soldiers from the unit who saved Klara and the other Jewish prisoners – 600 of them children – near war’s end from almost certain death.
Klara, Emile, and Lisa Belkin met the two veterans in Florida in February 2011. “I was never able to put a face to my liberators before,” Klara Belkin said at the time.
 It was Frank Towers’ duty to arrange food, shelter and care for the former prisoners. Belkin reports that Towers and Walsh frequently spoke about their war experiences and had been invited to the Weizman Institute in Israel where they met with Bergen Belsen historian Bernd Horstmann.
Belkin notes that a reunion in Israel with Towers, Walsh, Rozell and some of the boxcar survivors was talked about – but nothing came of it.
Lisa Belkin reports that she and he mother have seen the first two episodes of the mini-series.  She adds that both the BBC and Netflix may be interested in airing the series in the fall.

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How to Use the Internet Safely in Canada


Discover essential tips for using the internet safely in line with the Government’s newest cybersecurity report and whole-of-society approach to digital safety.

Whenever we think we’ve seen it all, the internet chucks something unexpected at the world. In the past few days, we’ve seen two dazzling demonstrations of the power of AI to deceive or convince. First, a hacker infiltrated the internal television screens of the Washington headquarters of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to play a deepfake video of US President Donald Trump kissing Elon Musk’s feet. Next, President Trump shared an AI-generated video of his vision for Gaza on his Truth Social account.

At home, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security recently released a report that underlines the need to keep expecting the unexpected. According to their National Cyber Threat Assessment 2025-2026, Canada is experiencing a barrage of digital attacks.

A Perfect Storm of Cyber Criminality

There has been a notable increase in state-sponsored cyber operations to disrupt Canada’s critical infrastructure. The report specifically mentions the aggressive cyber programs of the People’s Republic of China. Looks like Russia also aims to destabilize Canada and its allies.

Another concern is the flourishing underground network of cybercriminals. In this space, foreign threat actors and financially motivated ‘ordinary’ criminals cross paths. They sometimes find enough common ground to scratch each other’s backs. That may be one reason ordinary Canadians face more attempts to steal personal data and sensitive information.

Data breaches do a lot of damage. Apart from the financial loss, it brings reputation damage, and even legal consequences for both individuals and organizations. For example, a Equifax survey showed that 73.5% of all fraudulent credit card applications and 89.3% of all deposit frauds in Q4 2023 resulted from identity fraud.

The Dangers of Data Sharing Among Thieves

Cybercriminals trade stolen information, and this data-sharing trend is becoming a significant concern. With access to more extensive and diverse data pools, these criminal groups can better leverage people’s personal data. A bigger data pool makes criminals more effective and profitable. Even worse, it allows them to shift their focus to more complex and vastly more disruptive projects.

The Government of Canada is taking the increased threat level seriously. They’ve developed the National Cyber Security Strategy (NCSS) to address digital threats. The new plan uses a whole-of-society approach and has a substantial proposed budget.

According to security experts, Canadians can take more steps to use the internet safely. This includes avoiding phishing scams, identity theft, malware attacks, and data breaches. When individuals are safer from fraud and scams, the overall threat to everyone online is reduced.

10 Quick Tips on How to Use the Internet Safely in Canada

It’s not hard to make using the internet safer — a little preparedness goes a long way.

  • Install antivirus software and enable your device’s firewall.
  • Get a reliable VPN in Canada. A Virtual Private Network is a basic defence system that all devices should have. It encrypts your internet connection to keep out snoopers (like your ISP) and hackers with mayhem on their minds.
  • Update devices immediately and keep operating systems (and all your apps) up to date. Updates are important patches addressing security weaknesses and closing loopholes in new exploits.
  • Improve your passwords. It is far better to use a password manager to create long, complex passwords or phrases for each account.
  • Enable 2FA (two-factor authentication) where possible. Your favourite app or online account is nagging you to enable 2FA for a good reason! 2FA can knock out a considerable percentage of hacking attempts. Would-be hackers with access to your passwords would also need your phone or other authentication device to get into your account.
  • Become more privacy-aware. We give away a lot of information by accident. Most people use and accept the default privacy settings on the software and apps they use every day. They’re unaware that the default privacy settings are skewed in advertisers’ favour. Review and adjust the privacy settings on every app, social media account, and search engine you use. Also, check and adjust the settings on your smartphone and other devices. Use your VPN every time you connect to the internet. A VPN changes your IP address and gives you an extra layer of privacy against advertisers and marketers.
  • Encrypt sensitive files. Encryption scrambles the file data by making it unreadable to anyone without the correct decryption key.
  • Always think: “It might be phishing”. Be suspicious of links that arrive via email, text, or social media. A click could start a malware download. Phishing scams often impersonate well-known businesses like Netflix, Facebook, or government agencies. Phishing attacks are attempts to trick people into divulging sensitive information. Phishing attacks can also lead to hijacking accounts with stolen login credentials.
  • Check the legitimacy of websites. Don’t enter personal or financial information on a website that does not display “HTTPS” in the URL. But be cautious even if there is a padlock icon in the address bar. Cybercriminals can easily get a free SSL certificate for a scam website to make it look more professional. If a website seems ‘off’ or the offers are too good to be true, better leave.
  • Create a backup. Store copies of important information on an external hard drive or a secure cloud storage service. Making backups won’t make your device safer, but it could help you recover from a cyber incident.

Staying Cyber Aware as a Society

The internet is a vast resource for modern society. Online tools increase productivity, simplify life, and help us learn new things. But cybercriminals have proven they won’t hesitate to use these tools to create havoc. There is always a new threat on the horizon, so we must keep learning and striving to stay informed about emerging threats.

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