On this episode of Privacy Project, John confronts a coffee drinker about leaving their laptop totally alone as they talked outside on the phone at Starbucks.
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.
You and I have come to think of our Smartphones as indispensable tools. Flaws recently discovered in mobile apps for Facebook, Linkedin and Dropbox could turn our tools into weapons by exposing us to data theft at many levels, including personal identity theft and corporate data loss.
Taking extra precautions now will protect not only your Smartphone but other devices, too, as the flaw may well be present in other mobile applications including many iOS games.
Apparently, Facebook’s iOS and Android apps don’t encrypt their users’ login credentials. These flaws expose users to identity theft by saving user authentication keys (usernames and passwords) in easily accessible, plain text files. These unencrypted files may be stolen, transferred to another device in a matter of minutes, and used to access the victim’s accounts without ever having to enter any user login credentials.
Recent information available in Britain has shown that popular hotspots can be easily mimicked by thieves, which leaves consumers vulnerable to identity theft.
Tests conducted showed that security experts were able to obtain usernames, passwords and messages from phones using WiFi in public places. The tests all used volunteers so that no actual breach occurred. In cases where the iphone 4 was targeted, the information could be taken and stored without the user even knowing.
This issue is a huge problem for the UK’s nearly 5 million BT hotspots located in train stations, coffee shops, hotels, and airports. While the smartphone service providers have knows about these WiFI security flaws for some time, they have still not done anything about it.
Using inexpensive communication equipment and free software that you can download from the internet, thieves can set up bogus hotspots to start sniffing your personal information. Once you have established a connection with one of these impersonators, whether on a phone or laptop, they can start decrypting your sensitive data.
We’ve all done it before – left the table to get a coffee refill or go to the bathroom and left our laptop, iPad, smartphone or purse sitting on the table. We justify it by telling ourselves that we are in a friendly place and will only be gone a second. Our tendency is to blame technology for information theft, but the heart of the problem is almost always a human error, like leaving our devices unattended. Realizing that carelessness is the source of most laptop theft makes it a fairly easy problem to solve.
My office is directly above a Starbucks, so I spend way too much time there. And EVERY time I’m there, I watch someone head off to the restroom (see video) or refill their coffee and leave their laptop, iPad, iPhone, briefcase, purse, client files and just about everything else lying around on their table like a self-service gadget buffet for criminals and opportunists alike.
Identity Theft Expert John Sileo has partnered with Amazon.com for a limited time to offer the Smartphone Survival Guide for Kindle at 1/4 of the retail price.
The Smartphone Survival Guide: 10 Critical Tips in 10 Minutes
Smartphones are the next wave of data hijacking. Let this Survival Guide help you defend yourself before it’s too late.
Smartphones are quickly becoming the fashionable (and simplest) way for thieves to steal private data. Case in point: Google was recently forced to remove 21 popular Android apps from its official application website, Android Market, because the applications were built to look like useful software but acted like electronic wiretaps. At first glance, apps like Chess appear to be legitimate, but when installed, turn into a data-hijacking machine that siphons private information back to the developer.
With the recent avalanche of digital convenience and mass centralization comes our next greatest privacy threat – the stupid use of Mobile Apps. As a society, we depend on the latest technology and instant connectivity so desperately that we rarely take the time to vet the application software (Apps) we install on our mobile phones (and with the introduction of the Mac App store, on our Macs). But many of the Apps out there have not been time-tested like the software on our computers. As much as we love to bash Microsoft and Adobe, they do have a track record of patching security concerns.
The ability to have all of your information at your fingertips on one device is breathtakingly convenient. My iPhone, for example, is used daily as an email client, web browser, book, radio, iPod, compass, recording device, address book, word processor, blog editor, calculator, camera, high-definition video recorder, to-do list, GPS, map, remote control, contact manager, Facebook client, backup device, digital filing cabinet, travel agent, newsreader and phone… among others (which is why I minimize my stupidity by following the steps I set out in the Smart Phone Survival Guide).
In response to the increasing data theft threat posed by Smartphones, identity theft expert John Sileo has released The Smartphone Survival Guide. Because of their mobility and computing power, smartphones are the next wave of data hijacking. iPhone, BlackBerry and Droid users carry so much sensitive data on their phones, and because they are so easily compromised, it’s disastrous when they fall into the wrong hands.
Denver, CO (PRWEB) March 7, 2011
Smartphones are quickly becoming the fashionable (and simplest) way for thieves to steal private data. Case in point: Google was recently forced to remove 21 popular Android apps from it’s official application website, Android Market, because the applications were built to look like useful software but acted like electronic wiretaps. At first glance, apps like Chess appear to be legitimate, but when installed, turn into a data-hijacking machine that siphons private information back to the developer.
Google removes 20+ Apps from Android Market, signaling that malware distribution has gone mainstream, and not just for Droids.
The Adroid Operating System is open source – meaning that anyone can create applications without Google’s approval. It boosts innovation, and unlike Apple iPhones or Blackberrys, Droid Apps aren’t bound by all of the rules surrounding the Apple App Store. But this leniency can be exploited by hackers, advertisers and malicious apps. And now those apps aren’t just available on some sketchy off-market website, but on the Android Market itself. As smartphones and tablets become one of the primary ways we conduct business, including banking, this development shifts the security conversation into high gear.
A recent discovery forced Google to pull 21 popular and free apps from the Android Market. According to the company, the apps are malware and focused on getting root access to the user’s device (giving them more control over your phone than even you have). Kevin Mahaffey, the CTO of Lookout, a maker of security tools for mobile devices, explained the Android malware discovery in a recent PC World article (emphasis mine):
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