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USPS Breach is Latest Security Leakage.
The United States Postal Service ran an ad about how much safer your data is if you use the mail service. Some of the catch phrases include, “A refrigerator has never been hacked. An online virus has never attacked a corkboard.” It goes on to assure you that conducting your daily business using the Postal Service will protect you from the dangers of using modern conveniences. Or not…USPS has been hacked. Were they inviting the attack?
The good news about the USPS breach is that the cyber thieves didn’t appear to get too much volume (less than a million records); the bad news is that it included the gold standard of identity (SSNs):
- Up to 800,000 employees may have had their names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, emergency contacts and other information exposed.
Posted in Cyber Data Security by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "USPS Breach", John Sileo, Sileo
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHD2eWg9Cxk&rel=0]
Android flashlight apps harvesting your data for marketing & cyber crime.
You LOVE that flashlight app you have on your smartphone, right? Whether you’re in that dark restaurant with a size 2.5 font or wanting to share your love at a concert or finding your keys in your purse…you wonder, how did you ever live without it?
Well, it turns out the creators of that wonderful app love it, too, because it has become a way for them to get ahold of your personal data to use or sell.
Android devices seem to be especially vulnerable. Snoopbit studied the top ten Android flashlight apps and discovered that every one of them collects unnecessary user data and accesses areas of the device completely unrelated to the purpose of the app. This includes having the ability to read phone status and identity, view Wi-Fi connections, modify system settings, obtain full network access, and determine your precise location via your phone’s GPS, among other permissions.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: John Sileo, Sileo
What does cybergeddon have to do with ebola?
In 2014 Ebola has claimed over 4,000 lives in Western Africa and caused ONE death (of a person who contracted the disease in Africa) in the United States. Many Americans are in a proper panic about it and it continues to be front page news. In typical fashion, we have found something to worry about while conveniently ignoring other, “less sensational” but more critical topics:
- According to the CDC, Influenza kills about 3,000 people in this country in a good year (1986-1987) and up to nearly 50,000 in a bad one (2003-2004). Yet during the 2013-2014 flu season, only 46 percent of Americans received vaccinations against influenza.
- Seat belts have saved an estimated 255,000 lives since 1975. Yet each year more than 50 percent of people killed in car crashes were not wearing a seat belt.
Posted in Cyber Data Security by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Cyber Security, cybergeddon, Ebola, John Sileo, Sileo
Did Edward Snowden Actually Comment on the Dropbox Breach? No.
Almost as fast as every media source out there could jump on the “Yet Another Breach” bandwagon and report that Dropbox had been hacked, the company was denying it. So let’s play a little game of true or false to try to sort out fact from fiction:
Statement: Hackers were able to access logins and passwords of Dropbox users and then leaked 400 account passwords and usernames on to the site Pastebin.
True.
Statement: The usernames and passwords referenced in these articles were stolen from unrelated services, not Dropbox. Attackers then used these stolen credentials to try to log in to sites across the Internet, including Dropbox.
True. (In fact that is a direct quote from the Dropbox blog of October 13, 2014 in which they bluntly proclaim “Dropbox wasn’t hacked”.)
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Dropbox, Dropbox Breach, John Sileo, Sileo, Snowden
The original notice on GameOver Zeus appeared on the US-CERT site. If you’d like to go directly to the tests for the GameOver Zeus virus, scroll down.
Overview of GameOver Zeus
GameOver Zeus (GOZ), a peer-to-peer (P2P) variant of the Zeus family of bank credential-stealing malware identified in September 2011, [1] uses a decentralized network infrastructure of compromised personal computers and web servers to execute command-and-control. The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), is releasing this Technical Alert to provide further information about the GameOver Zeus botnet.
Systems Affected by GameOver Zeus Virus
- Microsoft Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, and 8
- Microsoft Server 2003, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, and Server 2012
Impact of GameOver Zeus
A system infected with GOZ may be employed to send spam, participate in DDoS attacks, and harvest users’ credentials for online services, including banking services.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Cyber Security, Gameover, John Sileo, Virus, Zeus
Home Depot Data Breach Exposes Our Growing Complacency
When Target suffered a data breach back in December of 2013, you couldn’t look at a news source without seeing a new story about it. Yet when the Home Depot data breach was revealed recently, it received almost a ho-hum reception in the news. This, even though, it was the biggest data breach in retailing history and has compromised 56 million of its customers’ credit cards! It seems we have come to expect these data breaches to the point where we have become almost complacent.
Consumers, like the companies that breach our data, have become apocalyptic zombies, staring unquestioningly forward as we are attacked from all sides.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Home Depot Data Breach", "Home Depot", Cyber Security Expert, Data Breach, John Sileo, Sileo
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVqJBizL90Y&rel=0]
Is Apple Pay going to be secure?
Apple has us ooing and ahhing about the iPhone 6, it’s big brother the 6+ and finally the Apple Watch. But the biggest announcement of all didn’t even have to do with gadgets. The most significant announcement was about a new service that will be built into those devices…
It is Apple Pay, Apple’s own version of a “mobile wallet” that will allow Apple users to pay for items with just a tap or wave of their device. That is if those items happen to be in stores that have agreed to install the technology necessary to allow near-field communication (NFC – no not the football conference, the radio-wave technology) to work. Of course, Apple has done the background work to ensure a lot of big names (MC, Visa, AMEX and retailers such as Target, Macy’s and McDonald’s to name a few) are already on board, which is a significant mark in their favor. And with the upcoming mandatory implementation of EMV technology, Apple may have just timed this perfectly.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention, Sileo In the News by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Apple Pay", Cyber Security Speaker, John Sileo, Mobile Pay, Mobile Payments, Mobile Wallet, Sileo
I mentioned anti-SPAM software on a 9News piece regarding email scams and ways to avoid them. The anti-SPAM software that I use (and get paid nothing to mention) is called SpamSieve for Apple devices. In the future, I will review anti-SPAM software more comprehensively.
Posted in Fraud Detection & Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: anti-spam software, John Sileo, spam solution
Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or haven’t been on the internet in the past 24 hours), you most likely know that intimate photos of celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton have been exposed (pardon the pun) to the public.
While it is not yet verified, Apple has said it is “actively investigating” the possibility that iCloud accounts have been hacked. The photos surfaced immediately after an Apple “Find My iPhone” exploit was revealed, so Apple’s own security is being questioned. As of now, Apple is saying that iCloud has not been systematically hacked, but that the breach of celebrity photos was a limited, targeted attack. Whether or not iCloud was exploited in any way for these pointed attacks hasn’t been determined.
Posted in Cyber Data Security by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: “Jennifer Lawrence”, Hacked, iCloud, Naked, Nude, Photos, Privacy, Sileo
Equifax Data Breach Protection Tips
Beware Disaster Scams in the Wake of Hurricane Harvey
Trump Russia Investigation Update: Did Campaign HELP Russians Plot Disinformation Strategy?
Is Russian Hacking of U.S. Nuclear Power Plants a Reality?
Cyber Security Experts: NotPetya isn’t Ransomware – It’s Cyber Warfare
Investigate Russian Hacking for Security, Not Politics (and get on with governing)
Identity Theft Services: Is ID Theft Monitoring Worth the $$$?
Internet Privacy Expert Reviews DuckDuckGo Private Search Engine
Stop Check Fraud with Security Checks
