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Facebook will now identify ads that have been targeted at users based on browser histories, ZIP codes and other data that advertisers collect. This is just a glimpse into the information floating around the Web about us.
According to a recent article in VentureBeat, a little blue triangle over an ad on Facebook will denote that it has been targeted for you specifically. But, don’t get too excited about this supposed transparency just yet.
For starters, it doesn’t reveal the specific information that led the advertisers to target you, nor does it specify how they obtained it. Furthermore, you have to jump through more than one hoop to even see the little blue triangle.
Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: internet privacy, online privacy
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnTQZFPDhH4?rel=0]
Watch the entire Browser Spies Online Privacy series. To view the entire series, wait until the end of each video and click on the Next Video button in the lower right-hand corner of your screen. As you watch each short video in your browser, make the necessary changes based on each simple video tip on protecting your online identity and privacy.
Browser privacy expert John Sileo and Fox & Friends have teamed up to educate consumers on how your browsing patterns are being monitored, shared and sold as you surf the Internet. These tips give you more control over your online security in short, easy to implement phases. Data exposure, surf-tracking and constant browser surveillance are a reality of the digital age. It’s important to defend your information privacy before it’s too late.
Posted in Burning Questions (Video), Online Privacy, Video Tips by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Online Privacy Expert", Browser Privacy, Expert, Internet Tracking, John Sileo, online privacy, Online Surveillance, Online Tracking, Privacy Tracking, Web Tracking
Quick! Name a major international newspaper that wasn’t hacked last week. It might be harder than you think.
Last Wednesday, The New York Times announced on its front page that it had been hacked over the course of four months by state-sponsored cyber criminals in China. The Times said that Bloomberg News had also recently been targeted. The following day, The Wall Street Journal said it too had been infiltrated by Chinese hackers. Next up was the Associated Press, acknowledging similar data security breaches.
According to The Times, it was breached thanks to a spear-phishing attack, at which point the hackers uploaded an array of malware to the company network and started stealing email passwords of reporters, editors and other employees.
This all stems from an October 2012 story written in the paper about the family of the Chinese prime minister quietly amassing a multi-billion-dollar fortune in recent years. Apparently, they were looking for sources used in the investigation that might be revealed in the email accounts of Times reporters and editors.
Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: data risk management, data security, data security breaches
About 250,000 Twitter accounts may have been hacked last week. Was yours one of them?
On Friday, the company announced via its official blog that it has reset the passwords for those users after a breach was detected in which email addresses, usernames and encrypted password data may have been accessed by hackers.
The blog post was quick to point out that other companies such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have recently fallen victim to data security breaches as well, though those attacks appear to have been state-sponsored (check back here tomorrow for more on those breaches).
There has been no indication as of yet that the infiltration of Twitter was related to those incidents. However, Bob Lord, the company’s director of information security and author of the blog post, said he does not believe this was an isolated event, and that the attack was sophisticated and not “not the work of amateurs.”
Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: data risk management, data security, data security breaches, social media risk management
Word broke last week that the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Jon Leibowitz, will step down from his post in mid-February.
During his four-year run, Leibowitz brought cases against two of the internet’s biggest companies – Google and Facebook – for violating their own privacy policies. He also spent time working on the expansion of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
An article in The New York Times cites several political figures with varying stances on his performance as the FTC’s chief. Most of the attention, however, has been focused on his actions to curb unfair competition practices in the United States.
While this is obviously the main focus of the FTC, it is frightening that online privacy is treated as the red-headed stepchild of the head of the FTC’s duties. As companies like Google, Facebook and Apple continue to grow in gargantuan leaps and bounds, their business practices are inextricably interwoven with online privacy rights.
Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: “Prevent Identity Theft”, internet privacy, online privacy, online privacy training
Get this. A new study says that your Facebook status updates are more memorable to people today than carefully crafted lines from a book. If that’s not proof that social media exposure has real impact and an insanely long shelf-life, I don’t know what is.
A team of psychologists from the University of California published their research in the academic journal “Memory and Cognition.” They collected hundreds of Facebook posts from undergraduate research assistants and the same number of random phrases from recently published books sold on Amazon.
They made sure that the specific context was taken out so that the status updates and book excerpts stood completely on their own. Study participants were asked to memorize them. As it turns out, those Facebook statuses we throw up all willy-nilly stick with a person 1.5 times more than the words written by published authors.
Posted in Digital Reputation & Trust by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Online Reputation, social media exposure, social media reputation
Most inside fraud is committed using the barbecue approach – “low and slow.”
A recent study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University’s CERT Insider Threat Center examined 80 instances of insider fraud. What researchers discovered is that the most damage to companies and their clients was done when criminals pilfered small amounts over extended periods of time. This makes it easier for them to evade detection and cause serious harm.
If you’ve never watched the Food Network, low and slow is the best way to cook barbecue. Really, it’s the only way. You get the juiciest meat and best flavor. When miscreants apply this approach to fraud, they get the same result. There’s no sudden flare-up that catches anyone’s attention and they can usually make off with more of your money than if they tried for one big score. Fraud detection efforts have to account for this if they are to be successful.
Posted in Fraud Detection & Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Fraud Detection, Fraud Prevention
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv4SHrjT77M?rel=0]
Watch the entire Browser Spies Online Privacy series. To view the entire series, wait until the end of each video and click on the Next Video button in the lower right-hand corner of your screen. As you watch each short video in your browser, make the necessary changes based on each simple video tip on protecting your online identity and privacy.
Online surveillance expert John Sileo and Fox & Friends have teamed up to educate viewers on how your data is being tracked, stored and sold as you surf the World Wide Web. These tips give you more control over your online privacy in short, easy to implement steps. Internet privacy, cookie tracking and constant web surveillance are a reality of the information economy. It’s important to defend your privacy before it’s too late.
Posted in Burning Questions (Video), Online Privacy, Video Tips by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Online Privacy Expert", Browser Privacy, Expert, Internet Tracking, John Sileo, online privacy, Online Surveillance, Online Tracking, Privacy Tracking, Web Tracking
“When you put something out there, anyone can see it – from a future job interviewer to an internet creep.”
This was what the title character on the ABC drama “Castle” said to his daughter in a recent episode upon discovering a video blog in which she was sharing personal details about her life. Richard Castle, played by actor Nathan Fillion, was distraught over his 18-year-old daughter’s over-sharing, worried that any number of miscreants could use details she posts online to do her harm.
When he explained this to her and added that he didn’t want something she posted on a whim to haunt her years later, she showed a fractured appreciation of the topic of online privacy.
“My generation grew up in a digital fishbowl,” she said. “No matter how careful we are stuff will get out there. Friends will tag me in photos, inevitably doing something stupid. Why should that define me?”
Posted in Digital Reputation & Trust, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: digital reputation, online privacy, online reputation management
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