Robert Siciliano Security Analyst at Safr.me
There have been many articles written about scammers who pose as representatives of government agencies. But perhaps the most inventive are the scams that appear to originate from the IRS. It makes perfect sense for the IRS to reach out regarding your finances. And regardless of the season, the IRS is really always in business. I’ve never received...
09 September 2010 /security /regulation
I was watching Back to the Future II with a little person in my life and thought how funny it was that every time McFly was called a chicken he would accept the challenge and throw up his dukes. Maybe it’s funny to me because I’m kind of like McFly. When someone tosses out an insult or a challenge or baits me, my teeth come out and I’m ready for b...
“Money mules” may be unsuspecting Americans who act as shipping managers, do the dirty work for the bad guy, and open bank accounts, too. Sometimes the mule may be foreign, traveling to the United States specifically to open bank accounts. Mules often get hooked into a “small business” or employment that is a function of a criminal enterprise. The ...
03 September 2010 /security /regulation
Officials are reporting a wave of credit and debit card attacks targeting point of sale swapping, skimming of card data, and hacking into payment processors. Reports say the U.S. Secret Service, among others, are in the process of investigating a multistate crime spree. The Oklahoma Bankers Association commented, “It is beyond apparent our banker...
30 August 2010 /security /regulation
This year’s Defcon convention of hackers in August brought to light a fact that many in the security industry have known: mobile phones are becoming a bigger target for criminals. Recent news of applications on the iPhone and Android that are vulnerable to attack and possibly designed to send your data offshore have reinforced the security concer...
28 August 2010 /security /regulation
We often hear people (including myself) drone on at how the system is broken and how good guys end up in jail and bad guys are released on good behavior. The criminal justice system is far from fair. Too often bad people are let out only to re-offend and sometimes do worse the second or third time around. Securing your home is crucial way of prot...
Social media has evolved into the fifth major form of media: print, radio, television, Internet, social. While social media functions on the Internet, there’s no denying that it is its own platform. It encompasses most forms of media in one tight and neat package. Some social networking sites have more users than number of residents in some countr...
26 August 2010 /security /regulation
The only difference between a so-called celebrity and you and I is exposure. Their lives are subjected to much more attention than most people and for that they pay a price. Ours is a celebrity obsessed culture that has multiple TV programs every day of the week that focus solely on the lives of the popular people. With that attention often comes ...
25 August 2010 /security /regulation
There has been a bit of buzz lately regarding an Internet “kill switch” and a handful of trusted individuals given the responsibility of rebooting the Internet, should it go down from cyber attack or be shut down for whatever reason. The operation is born of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICAAN). ICANN was formed in 1998....
In a recent post (Hackers Play “Social Engineering Capture The Flag” At Defcon) I pointed to a game in which contestants used the telephone to convince company employees to voluntarily cough up information they probably shouldn’t have. At the recent Defcon event, social engineers proved that it doesn’t take much more than asking to get the necessa...
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