Those who have followed my writing on the subject of Wi-Fi security know my passion for taking seemingly basic steps to keep one’s wireless activity safe and secure. In a recent survey conducted by the Wi-Fi Alliance 86% of all respondents had taken the appropriate steps to secure their routers, but only 56% had taken the step to create a “hard” password, thus making themselves vulnerable to dictionary attacks or the like.
So take three basic steps to keep yourself Wi-Fi secure:
SMISH smash, don’t let your accounts take a Phish bath
What’s SMISH? SMISH is Short Message Service (SMS) Phish or in the lexicon of the day, Text Message Phishing. What’s phishing? Phishing is a criminal action where you are engaged by a third-party with the specific goal of you providing private and sensitive information for nefarious purposes. The difference between SMISH (SMS Phish) and Email Phish (Phish) is only the avenue by which you are engaged by the criminal.
How does it work?
Mobile – Daily risks mitigated
If you don’t maintain the health of your device then you should expect that your device will at some point in the future become compromised in some way, shape or form.
What type of compromises may occur? How often? What can you do?
Let’s answer these in order…
Game On! Eight tips to stay safe while playing online games
Do you or your children participate in online gaming, using your PC, smart phone or game box? Then you need to make sure you understand what’s going on, especially behind the curtain, when you configure your “game” settings. Here are eight online security tips to keep you safe and secure.
Location, Location, Location
Location based services are here to stay, have great viability and absolutely increase the interaction between individuals and merchants, as well as serve to identify individuals with similar interest. Know that well intentioned services have a positive side, but also may also be used to your detriment. If you are satisfied with the answers to the questions in today’s post, then make your decision to share or not to share.
Cyber Security Awareness: Are you?
Today marks the start of National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) in the United States. If you’re reading this piece you are on a social network and have a modicum of interest in your online security. Throughout the month (as I have for the past few years) I will be publishing snack size tips that you may wish to share (family, friends, colleagues, or whomever) so that all have a leg-up on keeping their online activities enjoyable, but also safe and secure.
Medical Device Security – Are your devices secure?
Many medical devices have telemetry requirements, which require patient data to be both present within the device’s resident memory and to be transmitted from the device to a monitoring or record-preservation device (hard drive or tape). During transmission, are the content or command/control sequences protected? Do they need to be? Unfortunately, yes. The data must be protected not only from a PHI-data disclosure perspective, but also from data corruption perspective.
Online Safety: Are bots in your twitter following?
Yesterday I had a an interesting sequence of events happen within my Twitter footprint that I had not seen previously. I had 11+ new followers, all who had over 100, some over 1000 followers. These new followers all arrived in my follower list in sequence over the course of the early morning. Each of these *individuals* had sent between 2-10 tweets, none of which were original content – all of them being RT (re-tweets) of pieces from trusted sources such as Mashable.
The Twitter handle/name had the format of “given name” + “3 to 5 random characters”. Click on the Figure-1 o the left to see all of these names which arrived in my follower list and you’ll understand the naming convention. Every single one of these names is a “bot” generated name.
read more…
Online Safety – HTTPS
Please make sure you are connecting via HTTPS (S=secure) and much better for YOU than the HTTP connection
Online Safety: Cyberbullying those who are different – Trust the Movie
In David Schwimmer’s TRUST, the teenage character Annie finds herself the subject of great deal of unwanted and undeserved attention by her high school classmates in a manner in which constituted to all would be unacceptable and falls within the realm of cyberbullying (as the bullying occurred using online media). We all have encountered instances where those who did not conform or who had experienced something not of the ordinary come under undo scrutiny and are isolated for the experience by their peers. The scrutiny often times manifests itself into ridicule, sarcasm or insults as those who are observing from afar attempt to differentiate and exclude themselves from the experience.
Trust: Bad things can happen to good children (online safety)
In David Schwimmer’s TRUST, bad things happen to Annie, a good child. She is by all appearances a typical teenager – totally wired, online and available, 24/7/365. In the physical world, parents see with whom their child interacts. As the parents witness this interaction they are able to help guide and influence their child’s choices. The number one rule for every family: “The child must not engage in any personal meetings with an individual whom they have only met online without explicit parental permission.”
Online Safety: Neighborhood Watch Programs – WiFi
In my research, I found it interesting that, with the ubiquitous nature of wireless connectivity within our homes and businesses, I was unable to find an example of where a Neighborhood Watch had integrated the identification of insecure wireless access points within their neighborhoods. I advocate including a wireless scan capability into Neighborhood Watch programs. Most people who have a wireless access point do nothing more than simply pull it out of the box, and plug it into the wall and their broadband service provider. Neighbors can help neighbors stay safe by letting them know when their wireless access point is in an open or insecure state.
Bullying: The 34 we lost in 2010 to Bullycide
Bully Bullying Cyberbullying Bullycide – These four words continue to appear with ever greater frequency in the lexicon of the modern American family. We hear these words on the evening news, in our newspapers, and online in all forums. We live in 2011, but to see how we treat one and other from afar, you’d think perhaps the calendar had rolled back a few centuries. You see – individuals be they young or not-so-young are bullied both at school and at work. The tragedy is, our youth of today, by and large are not prepared for today’s always-on world, even though they live it 24/7. The fact that in 2010 we lost 34 children where bullying was a principal issue in their decision to end their lives speaks volumes. There were 33 who committed suicide. Then there was one young man who was killed while trying to extricate his sibling from two bullies who were pummeling his sibling, he was shot and killed. Each of them has a story, I share these…
ABA resolution addressing Bullying and Cyberbullying
Kudos to the American Bar Association (ABA) for amending and adopting their resolution 107A which urges “… federal, state, tribal, territorial, and local officials, to prevent and remediate the existence and dangers of bullying, including cyberbullying and youth-to-youth sexual and physical harassment.” In my view this is very much a step in the right direction…
Is your teen EXPOSED? Sexting is a crime.
Exposed is a 10 minute drama about a 15 year old girl called Dee, who makes a very common mistake of sending via (SMS – text messaging) five photos of herself to her boyfriend, nude photos. This is called “Sexting”
Safer Internet Day 2011 – It’s more than a game, its your life
Today, February 8, 2011 is Safer Internet Day. It’s more than a game, its your life. One can’t over emphasize how important it is to pay attention when you and your family are online. The internet is integral to our daily lives. Online is where we live and we need to stay safe online.
Here are a eleven tips to achieve that goal:
Every day is worth living
If we are able to collectively work together, we can save a life, we can save many lives and in doing so we will demonstrate to the children, every day is worth living.
How does my child access the internet? With whom is my child engaging?
A question which every parent should be asking themselves, “How does my child access the internet?” “With whom is my child engaging?” The array of answers may startle you. So make no assumptions. Why does it matter? Knowing how your child accesses the internet and with whom they are engaging are the first steps in crafting an online safety plan for your child. I have said it before and will repeat, our family is our responsibility.
How does my child access the internet? With whom is my child engaging?
Digital Birmingham A question which every parent should be asking themselves, “How does my child access the internet?” “With whom is my child engaging?” The array of answers may startle you. So make no assumptions. Why does it matter? Knowing how your child accesses the internet and with whom they are engaging are the first steps in crafting an online …
Passwords – Creation & Usage – Online Safety & Security
Do you use a password? The evolution of online crime is as much about your password strength as it is about your password usage. If you use your strong password for shopping site A and then reuse the password for shopping sites B, C, D, E, F then you are basically saying to yourself – “I trust each of these sites to have the same robust level of security”