Robert Siciliano Security Analyst at Safr.me
A recent study shows that organized criminals create approximately 8,000 malicious websites every day, or over 57,000 each week. These malicious websites model legitimate websites that we visit every day, such as bank websites, online shopping sites, and eBay. According to this study, the most frequently impersonated companies include Visa, Amazon....
07 October 2010 /security /regulation
“A prized Vincent van Gogh still life was stolen from a Cairo museum leading to a massive art hunt, conflicting reports about the details of the crime, and plenty of finger-pointing. Five people, meanwhile, have been arrested for “negligence” in relation to the embarrassing theft, which seems to have been carried out in the absence of rudimentary...
05 October 2010 /security /regulation
One of the most common yet underreported causes of data breaches is users’ failure to properly log out of public PCs. Is your work computer accessible to others, perhaps after business hours? How about your home computer? Does its use extend beyond your immediate family, to your kids’ friends or babysitters, for example? Do you ever log in to a hot...
02 October 2010 /security /regulation
This story is about a victim of criminal identity theft. The victim is a trucker who discovered that his identity had been stolen when his commercial driver’s license was suspended because the thief who stole his identity had been busted for drinking and driving on four different occasions. Imagine. The consequences of identity theft are often so ...
27 September 2010 /security /regulation
I’ve said it before, use upper and lower case, use number and letter combinations and when possible, if the website allows it, use special characters. It has been documented that “Adding just one capital letter and one asterisk would change the processing time for an 8 character password from 2.4 days to 2.1 centuries.” It is great advice to stren...
22 September 2010 /security /regulation
September is National Campus Safety Awareness Month. I helped Uni-Ball conduct a survey of 1,000 college students and 1,000 parents. The survey revealed that while about 74% of parents believe students are at a moderate to high risk for identity theft, and 30% of all identity theft victims are between 18 and 29, only 21% of students are concerned ...
21 September 2010 /security /regulation
Technology is meant to make life easier, safer and in some cases fun-er. Geolocation is supposed to make you save a few bucks on discounts when you “check in” at participating retail stores and gather “points”. It is also supposed to tell your friends and followers via geo-tagging that you just snapped a photo somewhere. However there is nothing ...
15 September 2010 /security /regulation
iTunes users all over the world are being hooked in a possible phishing scam that siphons cash out of their PayPal accounts. Phishing scams, of course, consist of emails that appear to be coming from a legitimate, trusted business. These emails are often designed to trick the victim into revealing login credentials. Once the phishers have access t...
When most people think about a virus, they think of a fever, chills, and maybe a potential pandemic. But when they think about a computer virus, they think of a headache, or worse, identity theft. Unusually, one report claims that a computer virus played a role in the deadliest air disaster in Spanish history. Others refute this claim, arguing tha...
14 September 2010 /security /regulation
A report issued by the FTC finds that customers in the process of withdrawing cash from ATMs are more likely to be victims of ATM fraud than a direct, physical crime, and skimmer devices have recently been found on gas pumps and ATMs throughout Northern California. ATM skimming occurs when a device is placed on the face of an ATM, often over the s...
Welcome to Finextra. We use cookies to help us to deliver our services. You may change your preferences at our Cookie Centre.
Please read our Privacy Policy.