Be Security Aware

How many people get into a routine in their daily lives where they take things for granted, one of them being security in what they do, perhaps most people.

How many people still leave a door key outside, under a brick, doormat, or plant pot; WHY? it only takes a thief to see this and they are into your property WITHOUT breaking in, if you are at work, out shopping, or doing something you regularly do then simply watching you puts you at risk, and how many people still hang a door key on a string inside the letterbox so it can be reached from outside.

You are uninsured if this happens under an insurance contractual clause.

How many people leave their downstairs windows open during the day, it may just be a top opener, but a thief can simply reach in and open a larger window to gain entry, and how many people have lockable windows, yet leave the keys in the window locks, or leave the key on a windowsill, all a thief needs is a magnet with string tied to it and they drop the magnet into an open top opener and they have your key attached to the magnet which they can pull out and unlock a window.

How many people have a unit of some kind inside their front door, they lock their car and come in and throw their keys onto the unit top and leave them there, in many cases people have a side window and a thief comes along and can see them, at night they can lift your letterbox and with a small light which they shine through, they can see them and come equipped with a long wire or even a fishing rod with a magnet or hook and they fish through your letterbox and hook them, you wake up to find your car gone. How many people actually leave their front door unlocked and a thief opens it and grabs your keys.
How many people fill up their vehicle at a petrol station and leave there cars unlocked and often with their keys in the ignition, and go off to pay for their fuel, they look out of the window and see their cars being driven away, and lets be under no illusions here, no theif cares about the damage to your car and how they do it; similarly, how many unlocked cars have a laptop, PDA, or mobile phone left inside them and a thief simply leans in and grabs them and runs off.

You are uninsured if this happens under an insurance contractual clause.

Social media is a blight to many of us and for good reason, in many cases people use it to brag about their wealth or latest bling they have acquired, they often post pictures online of themselves and family and often taken inside and outside a property, these pictures contain all sorts of information to a thief and they are more concerned with what they can see in the background, perhaps a couple of expensive computers, a new state of the art TV, or even credit cards ot other assets. Such scams have become big business and teams of thieves now operate across the world and have teams of people in rented offices watching and selecting people on social media sites in numerous worldwide locations and scour background information in posted pictures for information to use, they collate this and often sell it on in blocks to various criminals.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, this is very true, a set of photographs inside your home can give away a lot of information, contents such as TV's, computers, a layout, alarm details such as make and model from a keypad, car keys in a specific location, ad hoc items such as toys to credit cards, and many other things as to your identity and what you have as regards stealable assets and even if you have a dog or not, and what type of dog it is.
Outside a set of pictures can contain details such as car registrations, a house number, an outside layout where they can watch you while being hidden themselves, and all this is usable information which they use to collate and form a picture and a plan to steal from you, they will steal tangiable assets fairly easily but it is the non tangiable asstes which cause the problems as with sufficient (and very little) information they can steal your identity. Many houses in an area come in distinctive styles, they simply find which style of house is in which area, they can use street view to identify your location, or a DVLA enquiry check on a vehicle registration to find an address and street view to verify the information.
Next we have what you post online, and many people give away so much information about themselves, they are going to Bermuda on holiday for three weeks, they have a family party and will be away from home from 7pm until fater midnight gives a lot away and a thief a time when they know a property will be empty.

I was recently removed from a site as I didn't, and wouldn't post pictures, hey their loss, but because they had a core of members who posted their life in pictures and this included a lot of expensive equipment they tried the peer pressure angle and the site moderaators began targetting me as I wouldn't comply with their demands for me to post pictures, after being removed from the site two of their members suffered break ins and lost a lot of expensive equipment, karma I say, but hey they couldn't control me or force me to comply with their demands, but I wasn't robbed and two of them were.