681 Results
Robert Siciliano Security Analyst at Safr.me
Yes, identity fraud is SO common that someone becomes a victim every two seconds. The 2014 Identity Fraud Study, as reported on javelinstrategy.com, turned up some alarming results. Though the dollar amount stolen had decreased over the year preceding the study, the number of victims had increased. People at highest risk were ages 35 to 44. Account...
04 June 2015 /security
You’ve probably heard of people storing information in “the cloud,” but what does that really mean, and is it safe to put your data there? The cloud is best described as a network of servers offering different functions. Some servers allow you to store and access data, while others provide an online service. You may be familiar with “cloud services...
03 June 2015 /security
Who needs psychics to reveal future lottery numbers when you can hack into the state lottery association and tamper with it? That apparently was the reasoning of Eddie Raymond Tipton, 51. Prosecutors believe Tipton inserted a thumb drive into a computer—the one that spits out random numbers for the lottery, says an article in the Des Moines Registe...
02 June 2015 /security
You can’t be too neurotic about shredding sensitive documents to smithereens. For example, some people make a career out of “dumpster diving,” digging through trash in search of bank account information, credit card preapprovals, medical bills, mortgage statements, etc., and then they commit fraud, including creating new accounts with the found in...
30 May 2015 /security
Hackers love LinkedIn because it links them in—straight through the portal of the targeted company. Geez, how much easier could this be, what with all the publically-exposed e-mail addresses of key players (and also worker bees) in big companies that someone wants to hack. An article on blog.sungardas.com was written by a white-hatter (his job i...
13 May 2015 /security
It’s hard to believe that, according to a recent poll from the Pew Research Center, most Americans aren’t too upset that the government can track their e-mails and phone calls. There’s too much of a blasé attitude, it seems, with people thinking, “I don’t care if I’m monitored; I have nothing to hide.” This blows it for those of us who actually DO...
06 May 2015 /security
It’s up to the potential victim—the user—YOU—to make your computer or smartphone very difficult for Joe Hackster to infiltrate. Passwords Being that cyber crime has been a fixture of modern living for over a decade, you’d think that everyone and his brother would know to use strong, long passwords, and a different password for each account. But pe...
26 April 2015 /security
Gee, it sounds like something out of one of those 1970s TV shows about government spies, but it’s reality: Plug this little thing into a wall socket and it records the keystrokes of a person nearby typing into a Microsoft wireless keyboard. The little gadget sends the information back to the gadget’s owner over the Internet. The device looks like ...
19 April 2015 /security
What’s it called if, for example, someone runs up your credit card line without your permission? Identity theft. ID theft isn’t necessarily someone going around impersonating you. But it is considered someone taking over your accounts. Account takeover is also someone hacking into your computer and getting the password for your PayPal account, then...
15 April 2015 /security
The IRS isn’t your biggest enemy during tax season. It’s the criminals who pretend to be IRS reps and then con people out of their money. They contact potential victims chiefly through phone calls and text messages. Typically, the message is threatening in tone and/or content, informing the target they’ll be arrested if they don’t immediately send ...
14 April 2015 /security
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