73 Results from 2015
Robert Siciliano Security Analyst at Safr.me
Burglars get burgled, muggers get mugged, and hackers get hacked. This includes a sophisticated ring of hackers: Hacking Team, hailing from Italy, specializing in selling hacking software to major governments. An article on wired.com describes how a “400 gigabyte trove” went online by anonymous hackers who gutted the Hacking Team, including source ...
13 August 2015 /security
Did you know that the original meaning of hacker, as far as computers, was that of a person who built codes into computers? In fact, the bad guy was called a “cracker.” Somehow, “cracker” didn’t catch on. But the mainstream folk out there hears “hacker,” and right away, they think of a digital thief, often someone who breaks into governmental comp...
11 August 2015 /security
Foreign hackers, look out: Uncle Sam is out to get you. President Obama has issued an order that allows the State Department and Treasury Departments to immobilize the financial assets of anyone out-of country suspected of committing or otherwise being involved in cyber crimes against the U.S. This order, two years in the making, covers hacking of...
29 July 2015 /security
Think about your keychain. It probably holds the necessities: car keys, home keys, work keys, miscellaneous keychains you bought on your previous vacations. Now, imagine you have a keychain full of these keys that all look the same, but each only opens a specific door. Sounds kind of like your list of passwords, right? But what happens when you ha...
25 July 2015 /security
There is good news for the tech-unsavvy out there: Google has made their privacy settings easier to work with. This day has not come a moment too soon. “My Account” is Google’s new dashboard. When you use any Google account, the giant company collects information on you. The new dashboard will reveal what information this is. My Account also has ot...
21 July 2015 /security
So someone comes up to you in a restaurant—a complete stranger—and asks to look at your driver’s license. What do you do? Show it to that person? You’d have to be one loony tune to do that. However, this same blindness to security occurs all the time when a person is tricked by a “phishing” e-mail into typing in the password and username for their ...
16 July 2015 /security
Recently I got a puppy for my child. We decided to name the puppy 4wgu23x5#9. My wife,8yysH3m, thought we should name the dog 0x2%#b5. But I’m sure she’ll get over it. Meanwhile, I’m helping my older child with setting up a few social media accounts, and I suggested the two passwords: Rover and Spot. Is there something wrong with this picture? Of ...
15 July 2015 /security
When someone online presents as a different person than their true self, this is called catphishing, and it occurs on online dating sites. Google the name of the object of your interest. Obviously, “Kelly Smith” and “John Miller” won’t get you far, but “Jaycina McArthur” just might. What comes up? See if they have social media accounts, as these s...
11 July 2015 /security
Do you know what ATM stands for? For crooks, it stands for A Thief’s Moneymaker. A new report from FICO says that “skimming” crimes have made their biggest spike in the past 20 years. This includes ATMs on bank premises, but of course, public ATM kiosks have seen the biggest spike. The thief tampers with the ATM’s card receiver; the installed gadge...
08 July 2015 /security
Ever wonder just what happens to the data in a data breach incident? Does it go into some kind of wormhole in cyberspace, out through the other end? Well, the answer is pretty much so, when you consider that hacked data makes its rounds on a global scale, taking only 14 days to land in 22 countries spanning five continents—according to an experime...
19 June 2015 /security
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