Credit Union Members: A special thanks to NAFCU for having me back a second year to present at their Technology and Security Conference. Join us in Vegas for some fun and really get into the nuts and bolts of cyber security.
Social network monitoring becomes big business. Fresh off the heels of learning that the NSA has been gleaning data about us using information found on social networking sites comes the news that a school district in California is paying a monitoring service to watch and report on what students are posting on sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Glendale Unified School District is paying $40,000 over the next year to a company called Geo Listening to monitor its students’ social media activity. This program was introduced after one of their students, 15-year-old Drew Ferraro, committed suicide by jumping from the roof of Crescenta Valley High School. It started as a pilot project in three schools last year and is now being rolled out to all middle and high schools across the district.
Your clients compute almost as much on mobile devices as on desktop computers. They read banking and investment emails on their smartphones, log in to sensitive financial accounts via their iPad and store mission critical data on their laptops. But along with the freedom and efficiency of mobile computing comes a great deal of risk – risk that threatens their net worth. Small devices are easier to lose, simple to steal and are tempting targets for data theft. And to top it all off, your clients protect their mobile devices like mere phones and book readers, instead of the computers they really are.
So, if you are thinking ahead about what to get your best clients for the holidays, we have the answer. How about a thorough list of privacy prevention practices to get them safely from Black Friday through New Year’s Eve? Sure beats a reindeer sweater or a fruitcake!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2oxGBSDW9E&ns?rel=0]
The story about the Texas parents who were terrified when their child’s video baby monitor was hacked struck me at first as a minor incident when viewed in the whole scheme of the world of hackers. After all, it is a rare event, no one was hurt, no threats were overtly made, and the child herself even slept through the event. But when I read more about it, I became increasingly bothered by the fact that I was not initially bothered by it! I mean, is that the creepiest of all feelings, to know that a stranger is watching your kids?
Admit it. You compute almost as much on mobile devices as you do on your main computer. You are hyper efficient because you are always connected. You read work emails on your iPhone or Droid, log in to sensitive Internet accounts via iPad and store mission critical files on your laptop. Thanks to the independence, flexibility and efficiency afforded by mobile gadgets, desktop computing is quickly becoming an outdated notion. To remain nimble and relevant, you must be able to connect, communicate and compute from anywhere.
But along with the rewards of freedom, mobile computing also comes with risk. Small devices are easier to lose, simple to steal and targets for data theft. Here’s the good news: Deluxe can help you stay one step ahead of the hackers, competitors and criminals looking to use your data to drive their profits.
Definitions
Identity Theft: involves the misuse of another individual’s personal identifiable information for fraudulent purposes.
Medical Identity Theft: occurs when someone uses an individual’s name and personal identity to fraudulently receive medical services, prescription drugs or goods, including attempts to commit fraudulent billing.
Data Breach: a security incident in which sensitive, protected or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen or used by an unauthorized individual. Data Breaches may involve:
An identity is stolen every 3 seconds!
Tax Time Identity Theft: Part 1 – Tax Preparers | Part 2 – Protecting Computers | Part 3 – IRS & Tax Scams
Secure your computers and copy machines from hackers.
Last year, more than 80 million Americans filed their tax returns electronically and even more stored tax-related information insecurely on their computers. To prevent electronic identity theft, implement the following security measures:
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.
Get monthly strategies and tips for protecting yourself and your business delivered right to your Inbox. Signup now and you'll immediately receive John's 7 Survival Strategies for Starving Data Spies!
Call us today at 303.777.3221 or 1.800.258.8076
The Sileo Group, Inc. | 381 S. Broadway | Denver, CO 80209 USA
© 2024 The Sileo Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Legal Information. Sitemap.
