Online Security Archives - John Sileo, Cyber Security Training

Safe Online Shopping on Cyber Monday

It’s almost Cyber Monday, so tell me something – why do you shop online? Because it’s super convenient! Or because you get better pricing? Maybe it’s because you’re allergic to hand-to-hand combat on Black Friday? I’m a huge fan of shopping online to save time, money and brain cells. But if you have bad surfing hygiene, you’re just asking identity thieves to go on a shopping spree with your money. And it’s so easy to avoid if you know how. Which you’re about to.

Thanks for joining me here on Sileo on Security, where we believe there’s no need to fear online shopping if you surf wisely. I want to share nine habits with you over the next three episodes that will keep your digital shopping cart safer than the real thing.

Data security breach attacks intensify as banks’ websites are struck

Several major American banks saw hackers take over their websites recently. We’re not talking covert fraud or spying here, but an explicit data security breach disabling official websites. It’s debilitating, it’s devastating-and it’s becoming more prevalent.

American Express and JP Morgan have been the targets of sophisticated strikes that resulted in their websites being disastrously compromised. Even if the effects were only temporary, the fact that hackers were able to accomplish such a significant breach should serve as a major warning to corporations and government officials alike.

A data security breach is always an alarming state of affairs, but this current rash of criminal activity seems to focus more on aggressive tactics than is usually the case. And these data security breaches may be the result of nationally sponsored efforts. According to the New York Times, one group, known as “Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters” seems to have come forward in relation to these attacks. The U.S. isn’t the only one to be the subject of such nasty attention: South Korea lost access to thousands of computers last month, and the European web protection group known as Spamhaus has been the target of an attack of staggering proportions.

Tired of Being Tracked by Websites? Do Not Track is Here.

In response to the growing demands for more privacy on the internet, Mozilla implements a Do Not Track option in Firefox 4.

The most recent version of Mozilla Firefox, which was rolled out this February, offers users the option to opt-out of website tracking. Once enabled, the user’s preference to not be tracked is automatically sent to the website. That doesn’t mean that the website has to do anything about it, but there will probably be a bit of a stink about those sites that don’t respect user’s privacy preferences (it would be the equivalent of someone making a sales call to you after you join the Do Not Call list). Unfortunately, most users will never know which websites are participating in the opt-out Do Not Track function.

Learn more about Firefox’s Do Not Track Technology and about the Big Brother issues posed by companies tracking your every move on the internet.