On the surface, social networking is like a worldwide cocktail party—full of new friends, fascinating places and tasty apps. Resisting the urge to drink from the endless fountain of information is nearly impossible because everyone else is doing it—connecting is often advantageous for professional reasons, it’s trendy and, unchecked, it can be dangerous.
Beneath the surface of the social networking cocktail party lives a painful data-exposure hangover for the average business. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are now the preferred tool for malware delivery, phishing, and “friends-in-distress” scams while more business oriented sites, like LinkedIn, allow for easy corporate espionage and the manipulation of your employees.
To avoid the cocktail party altogether is both impractical and naïve—the benefits of social networking outweigh the dangers—but applying discretion and wisdom to your social strategy makes for smart business. Follow these 7 Security Secrets of Social Networking to begin locking down your sensitive data.
America’s top Privacy & Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo has appeared on 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper, Fox & in front of audiences including the Department of Defense, Pfizer, Homeland Security and hundreds of corporations and associations of all sizes. His high-content, humorous, audience-interactive style delivers all of the expertise with lots of entertainment. Come ready to laugh and learn about this mission-critical, bottom-line enhancing topic.
John Sileo is an award-winning author and keynote speaker on the dark art of deception (identity theft, fraud training, data privacy, social media manipulation) and its polar opposite, the powerful use of trust, to achieve success. He is CEO of The Sileo Group, which advises teams on how to multiply performance by building a culture of deep trust.
Fraud Training Expert John Sileo has appeared recently on 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper, Fox Business, Fox & Friends and in Newsweek and USA Today. He speaks around the world on the dark art of deception (identity theft, social engineering, fraud detection, manipulation defense, data breach, social media privacy) and the powerful use of trust. His satisfied clients include the Pentagon, FDIC, Pfizer, FTC, Blue Cross, among hundreds of others. Learn more about protecting your bottom line by training your organization on proactive fraud detection. Watch John perform a humorous but effective fraud training in front of an audience of thousands.
Your national security depends on the job you do educating your children.
Here’s an alarming wakeup call: a task force led by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Joel Klein, former chancellor of New York’s school system has issued a stunning report. They warn that the nation’s security and economic prosperity are at risk if America’s schools don’t improve. The task force consists of 30 members with backgrounds in education and foreign affairs and was organized by the Council on Foreign Relations. As reported by the Associated Press, the report cautions that far too many schools fail to adequately prepare students and that “The dominant power of the 21st century will depend on human capital. The failure to produce that capital will undermine American security.” A shortage of skilled workers is expected to get worse as the current work force retires. The task force said the State Department and U.S. Intelligence agencies face critical shortfalls in the fields of foreign language, science, defense and aerospace. And so, it’s not a stretch to realize that no matter how diligent we are about educating people and businesses to protect their identities and information and to develop safe habits, the problem is ever so much more complex.
Holiday travel brings various levels of challenge and stress. Don’t let identity theft risk add to your anxiety.
Here are five tips to help you to avoid becoming a victim while on vacation:
1. Stop your mail and newspaper. Avoid letting un-invited credit invitations sit in your mail box. You can stop your mail by phone or online at usps.com. Also, ask a trusted neighbor to watch for package & parcel deliveries and to hang on to them until you return. If you receive a daily newspaper, put your subscription on hold. A pile of un-retrieved newspapers in your driveway is a “Welcome” sign to thieves.
2. Don’t advertise that you’re on vacation. Make sure if you are going to post vacation updates on your e-mail, on social networking websites, or on your voice mail greeting, that you post generically, no specifics. Put a few lights on timers so that your home doesn’t look unoccupied for the entire time you’re gone. Replace the front porch light bulb.
This post is a summary of an excellent article appearing in USA Today By Byron Acohido, Scott Martin and Jon Swartz.
It’s a heated competition to tap what many experts predict will be the next big Internet gold rush — online advertising — Google and Facebook laid down very big bets, during a week when European regulators are hashing out strict new rules that could prevent much of what the tech giants seek to do.
Google signaled its intent to begin correlating data about its users’ activities across all of its most popular services and across multiple devices. The goal: to deliver those richer behavior profiles to advertisers.
Likewise, Facebook announced it will soon make Timeline the new, more glitzy user interface for its service, mandatory. Timeline is designed to chronologically assemble, automatically display and make globally accessible the preferences, acquaintances and activities for most of Facebook’s 800 million members.
The post appears like it’s coming from a known friend. It’s enticing (“check out what our old high school friend does for a living now!”), feeds on your curiosity and good nature, begs you to click. A quick peek at the video, a chance to win a FREE iPad or to download a coupon, and presto, you’ve just infected your computer with malware (all the bad stuff that sends your private information to criminals and marketers). Sound like the spam email of days gone by? You’re right – spam has officially moved into the world of social media, and it’s like winning the lottery for cyber thugs.
What is Social Spam?
Nothing more than junk posts on your social media sites luring you to click on links that download malicious software onto your computer or mobile device.
Let’s say you ordered winter boots for your spouse on Zappos.com (now part of Amazon), which has world-class customer service. You don’t really even shop the competition because someplace in your brain you already trust Zappos to deliver as they always have. Your unquestioned confidence in Zappos is worth a fortune.
And then hackers break in to a server in Kentucky this past weekend and steal private information on 24 million Zappos customers, including (if you are a customer) your name, email address, physical address, phone number, the last four digits of your credit card number and an encrypted version (thank goodness) of your password. Consequently, your junk email folder is overflowing (your email has been illicitly sold to marketing companies), you receive the doom-and-gloom breach notification from Zappos (just like I did), and suddenly, you don’t have quite the same confidence in this best-in-practice business any more. Your shaken confidence in Zappos costs them a fortune. For the foreseeable future, you will pause before using their website again.
Anderson Cooper’s 1st show of the year brought a panel of experts to discuss New Year’s resolutions, why we make them and how we can better keep them. Identity theft expert John Sileo closed out the show with 3 Tips for Avoiding Scams in the new year. Click on the video to the left to view the segment. Anderson and John discuss smartphone stupidity, passwords and social networking privacy.
Identity Theft Expert John Sileo Appears on the Anderson Cooper New Year’s Resolution Special.
John Sileois an award-winning author andspeaks internationallyon the dark art of deception (identity theft, data privacy, social media manipulation) and it’s polar opposite, the powerful use of trust, to achieve success. He is CEO of The Sileo Group, which advises teams on how to multiply results and increase performance by building a culture of deep trust. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer, the FDIC, and Homeland Security. Sample his keynote or media appearances on Anderson Cooper, 60 Minutes or Fox Business. Contact him on 800.258.8076.
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