Coventry crime victims get Christmas hampers

Coventry crime victims get Christmas hampers:

COMMUNITY support officers have spread some Christmas cheer in Coventry this week by delivering festive hampers to deserving residents.

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Ash Green School pupils give gifts to sick children

Ash Green School pupils give gifts to sick children:

STUDENTS at Ash Green School in Bedworth have been busy filling boxes with Christmas gifts, to help cheer up sick children.

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Socialbots Threaten Social Media Users

Socialbots Threaten Social Media Users:

A new paper released last week by researchers at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver (“The Socialbot Network: When Bots Socialize for Fame and Money”) has created a stir by highlighting social media sites’ vulnerability to infiltrations by socialbots. In an eight-week experiment, the UBC researchers deployed 102 socialbots on Facebook that were able to gain 250GB of personal information from over 1 million user profiles. What does this mean for the average Internet user? Your personal information is at risk every time you log on to a social media site. Here, we explain what a socialbot is and how you can protect yourself.

What is a Socialbot?

To know how to defend against these online enemies, you need to know what they are. As described by the paper’s authors, a socialbot is a computer software program that controls an account on a particular social network and has the ability to perform basic activities such as posting a message and sending a friend request. If a user accepts a socialbot’s friend request, the bot gains access to the individual’s information and contacts, which it will also try to befriend, and so on. Its success lies in its ability to mimic a human, making it a unique type of malware. The bots used in the experiment used profile photos taken from the website hotornot.com and generated fake status updates from the site iheartquotes.com, making them appear to be real people.

Cybercriminals can deploy socialbots to infiltrate social media sites for malicious purposes, usually to gain information for identity theft. The researchers’ bots obtained thousands of home and email addresses, birthdates, etc., all of which can be used to commit fraud. However, one of the unique skills of socialbots is that they can also do significant damage in the social sphere in the form of reputation defamation. As the researchers pointed out, social bots can be used to infiltrate social media sites to spread misinformation and propaganda.

Though social networks do have some safeguards in place, there are major flaws in the system—for example, the social bots in the study only sent out 25 friend requests a day, to stay under Facebook’s radar. In fact, the experiment proved Facebook’s security measures to be so ineffective that the socialbots had an 80 percent success rate of infiltration. In the absence of stronger security, it is up to social media users to be vigilant.

How to Protect Yourself

If you are an active user of social media sites, it is important to educate yourself and take the following steps to ensure you’re protecting yourself, as well as your online community.

Only friend people you know. A socialbot only has power if you give it to it. In the study, almost half of the friend requests sent out were accepted. You can avoid being victimized if you make sure you’re only adding contacts you know.

Don’t post personal information. Never post your home address, phone number, or financial information online—these can be used for ID theft. You should also assume that everything you post, including conversations, photos, etc. is permanent. Remember that your account can be vulnerable if a contact’s account is compromised. So if you would be uncomfortable with it being shared, don’t post it.

Report suspicious behavior. Be alert for suspicious activities or unusual online behavior from “friends.” Hackers can infiltrate friends’ accounts and spam their contacts list. If you are receiving peculiar messages or links encouraging you to click on them, report it (and contact your friend separately to let them know you think they might have been hacked). And if a stranger is repeatedly requesting friendship, flag, block, or report them.

Don’t share your contacts list when you join. When you sign up for most social networking sites, they ask if you’d like to invite your email list of contacts. Don’t approve this: The information can be exploited by hackers if your account is compromised.

Make sure you’re on the real site. Some phishing scams will send an email to you from your social networking site asking you to log in or verify some account information. When you click on the link, you’re directed to a fake site (which may look legit) that actually shares your username and password with cybercriminals.

Socialbots Threaten Social Media Users - ZoneAlarm Blog

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How to Protect Your Facebook Profile

How to Protect Your Facebook Profile:

Source

This week, many Facebook users are being affected by a coordinated spam attack that is littering newsfeeds and profiles with violent and pornographic images. Though this most recent breach has prompted an outcry (due to the severely disturbing images), these spam attacks are not new or unusual. With millions of active users, Facebook has become a popular target for cybercriminals intent on doing some damage through spamming, phishing, socialbots, etc. In fact, more than 20 percent of newsfeed links currently open viruses or imposter sites. And though Facebook and social media platforms do try to safeguard users’ profiles, hackers continue to attack the system and are actively coming up with new schemes.

But there’s no need to delete your account. Luckily, there is a powerful defense against social media hackers: you. Because many of these malicious actions require your participation to become active, educating yourself is the best way to fight Facebook hackers. Here are our tips to protect your profile.

Don’t click on suspicious links: Spammers will attempt to flood your newsfeed with links encouraging you to click for special offers, games, or even apps that don’t exist (one popular scam advertised a “dislike” button you could download). Carefully consider what you click on. Note that any link that takes you away from the Facebook site and requests personal information is likely illegitimate.

Don’t accept unknown friend requests: Only add people you actually know. Socialbots (malware that mimics humans on social sites) will create fake profiles and request friendship to gain access to your info. It’s best to stick to contacts you know are legitimate.

Never paste lines of code into your browser bars: No matter how convenient it may seem, don’t copy/paste code into your browser. This is often a ploy that gives hackers power to distribute malware (this is the technique the most recent scam used). Instead, type in the URL address of any site you intend to access. Make sure you have the most up-to-date version of your browser, too. Also beware of popups or requests to install programs such as video viewers.

Police your friends: If you receive suspicious or uncharacteristic messages from your contacts, such as a “sexy photos” post from your mom, verify that they actually sent it. Don’t click the link; report it instead.

Turn on https:// browsing on your Facebook settings: This setting limits the content you can see, but it will protect you against spammers. Go to Account Settings, click on Security, then enable Secure Browsing.

Download Facebook security software: You should already have a full security suite installed and updated (firewall and anti-virus), but you should also protect yourself with additional software. ZoneAlarm’s SocialGuard protects you on Facebook by notifying you if your account gets hacked and alerting you to malicious links—best of all, the trial is free (download here).

Don’t post personal info: Never post financial or personal information that can be used for identity theft or fraud. You can also decrease your chances of being hacked by using separate usernames and passwords for all your social media accounts.

How to Protect Your Facebook Profile - ZoneAlarm Blog

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Your ID Price Tag: The Cost of a Stolen Identity and What to Do if It’s Been Compromised

Your ID Price Tag: The Cost of a Stolen Identity and What to Do if It’s Been Compromised:

As many as nine million Americans have their identity stolen every year. How much time and money does it cost consumers who become victims of identity theft and what steps can you take if your identity has been compromised?

(click image to enlarge)

Your ID Price Tag: The Cost of a Stolen Identity and What to Do if It’s Been Compromised - ZoneAlarm Blog

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It’s the Most Unsecure Time of the Year: Holiday Shopping Security Tips

It’s the Most Unsecure Time of the Year: Holiday Shopping Security Tips:

Holiday retail sales for 2011 are estimated to increase 2.8 percent to $465.6 billion during the months of November and December. Let’s look at how much the average American has spent since 2004 and will spend this holiday season.

(click image to enlarge)

It’s the Most Unsecure Time of the Year: Holiday Shopping Security Tips - ZoneAlarm Blog

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Teens’ Cruel World of Social Networking

Teens’ Cruel World of Social Networking:

Teens today are immersed in the Web and, more specifically, on social media sites. As more relationships are built and maintained through social networking sites, kids are encountering a growing number of unkind peers. Are parents seeing this and becoming more connected and involved in their kids’ online lives? Find out here.

(click image to enlarge)

Teens’ Cruel World of Social Networking - ZoneAlarm Blog

This is our opinion and feelings about the the posts added to this blog by ourselves and writers who have asked to write on our blog network and does not necessarily represent our agreement or disagreement with the writers concerned.Please add #AceHealthNews to your tweets and follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/AceHealthNews and quality healthcare. Thank you, Ian

Facebook first-half revenue doubles, report says

Facebook first-half revenue doubles, report says:

The social network is reportedly also profitable, though, as a private company, it has not publicly divulged those details.

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Hacker uses Facebook to find looted laptop

Hacker uses Facebook to find looted laptop: If you're going to riot and steal a MacBook Pro, perhaps it's best not to steal one from an IT security expert, a self-described hacker.

Originally posted at Technically Incorrect

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Amazon releases secure cloud for government

Amazon releases secure cloud for government: Amazon Web Services is bringing secure cloud computing to government agencies and contractors with a new service region.

Originally posted at Software, Interrupted

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Report: More cyberattacks hitting social networks

Report: More cyberattacks hitting social networks: Attacks against Facebook and other social networks are on the rise, though users are becoming more diligent about protecting themselves, says a new study from Webroot.

MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS -

Maybe the message is finally getting through and people are taking more care on social media sites. Is it not about time these social media baron`s took time out and looked at protecting their members and followers.

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More cyberattacks hitting social networks

More cyberattacks hitting social networks: Attacks against Facebook and other social networks are on the rise, though users are becoming more diligent about protecting themselves, according to a new survey.

MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS -

Many times on Facebook and again on Twitter l warn people of clicking links to people or sites they have never heard of even l have been caught out many many times in the past. So be careful and be safe.

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U.S. lawmakers alarmed over risks of insulin pump hacks

U.S. lawmakers alarmed over risks of insulin pump hacks: Lawmakers ask Government Accountability Office to look into report that researcher could hack his wireless-based lifesaving medical equipment.

Originally posted at InSecurity Complex

MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS -

This really shows what a sad world we live in when a researcher could break into his equipment used to save other peoples live`s.

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Can any browser be considered 'safe'?

Can any browser be considered 'safe'?: A recent NSS Labs report on browser security rates Internet Explorer versions 8 and 9 head-and-shoulders above Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera for blocking socially engineered malware, but these results may be misleading.

Originally posted at Workers' Edge

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Trend Micro Titanium steels itself for 2012

Trend Micro Titanium steels itself for 2012: Trend Micro's 2012 suites expand the cloud tech to include fake antivirus detection and a bevvy of extras.

Originally posted at The Download Blog

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Yale oversight exposes 43,000 Social Security numbers

Yale oversight exposes 43,000 Social Security numbers: Purdue University also reports exposure of more than 7,000 Social Security numbers after unknown person accesses server.

Originally posted at InSecurity Complex

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McAfee says Android plagued by the most malware

McAfee says Android plagued by the most malware: The security software company's latest threats report shows a steep increase in mobile malware, with Android as the primary target.

Originally posted at News - Wireless

YouTube Blog: Broadcast Yourself

YouTube Blog: Broadcast Yourself

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Official Google Enterprise Blog: More great apps for Google Apps

Official Google Enterprise Blog: More great apps for Google Apps

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Official Google Blog: Finding awesome stuff online with Google Reader Play

Official Google Blog: Finding awesome stuff online with Google Reader Play

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Ace News Service

The external keyword data that Google Webmaster Tools doesn

The external keyword data that Google Webmaster Tools doesn

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Ace News Service

Google Online Security Blog: Protecting Users and Ads from Malware

Google Online Security Blog: Protecting Users and Ads from Malware

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Official Gmail Blog: Gmail Chrome extensions

Official Gmail Blog: Gmail Chrome extensions

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Infographic Of The Day: Using Twitter And Flickr Geotags To Map The World | Co.Design

Infographic Of The Day: Using Twitter And Flickr Geotags To Map The World | Co.Design

The incredible interaction of two social media sites that should look the same with their tweets but Flickr comes out on top.

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Facebook Spam On The Rise

Facebook Spam On The Rise: "Most of us use facebook on a daily basis and im pretty sure you are aware of the current scenario present in facebook. Facebook spam is definitely on the rise the amount of spam on a person's...



[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

" This article is published on his site by my friend Prash it is well worth a visit as his advice is excellent and please a comment and he will get back to you with an answer.

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Apple AirPlay lands on Windows Media Center

Apple AirPlay lands on Windows Media Center: "

No music yet, but it's a start

A clever chap by the name of Thomas Pleasance has got in touch with Pocket-lint with news of a big breakthrough - Apple AirPlay via a PC using Windows Media Center.

Now, before you go getting all excited about streaming your iTunes music collection to your nettop and home cinema system, we better tell you that there's no music support at the moment, just video and picture streaming from your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

The add-in works in tandem with Apple's Bonjour service and apparently works 'seamlessly'.

It's only in its first beta stage at the moment but Thomas has already hinted at some of the new features going forward, including extenders support.

It's music that we want though, so we'll be keeping a keen eye on Thomas' progress and we'll let you know if and when that support lands.

In the meantime you can download the free add-in at madeformediacenter.com. It's free.

Tags:
AirPlay Windows Media Center Software Apple

Apple AirPlay lands on Windows Media Center originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 24 May 2011 10:55:00 +0100

" I will give it a try and report back my findings both good and bad "

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A New Suite of Safety Tools

A New Suite of Safety Tools: "

Safety has always been a social experience: as friends and family, we look out for each other and pass along advice to help each other stay safe. Safety on Facebook works the same way. By keeping each other informed, people make Facebook a more trusted environment. Today, we're making it easier to stay safe with the launch of new safety resources, tools for reporting issues and additional security features.

More Resources for Families

During President Obama's White House Conference on Bullying Prevention last month, we announced plans to expand our existing safety resources with new content for families. Beginning today, you can visit the newly redesigned Family Safety Center. There, you'll find useful articles for parents and teens and videos on safety and privacy, as well as many other resources. In the coming weeks, we'll also be providing a free, downloadable guide for teachers, written by safety experts Linda Fogg Phillips, B.J. Fogg and Derek Baird. We hope this guide will help educators with social media in the classroom.

Meet some of the team who work on safety at Facebook, many of whom are also parents.

Social Reporting Tools

We also recently unveiled a new social reporting tool that allows people to notify a member of their community, in addition to Facebook, when they see something they don't like. Safety and child psychology experts tell us that online issues are frequently a reflection of what is happening offline. By encouraging people to seek help from friends, we hope that many of these situations can be resolved face to face. The impact has been encouraging, and we're now expanding social reporting to other major sections of Facebook, including Profiles, Pages and Groups.

Advanced Security Features

We're also starting to introduce Two Factor Authentication, a new feature to help prevent unauthorized access to your account. If you turn this new feature on, we'll ask you to enter a code anytime you try to log into Facebook from a new device. This additional security helps confirm that it's really you trying to log in.

We announced earlier this year that people could experience Facebook over a secure connection using HTTPS. This feature helps protect your personal information and is particularly useful if you're uncertain about the security of your network or you're using public wifi to access Facebook. Today, we're improving HTTPS so if you start using a non-HTTPS application on Facebook, we automatically switch your session back to HTTPS when you're finished.

We think that social solutions to safety will become increasingly important to using the web. Tools like social reporting will help make our community even stronger, and we encourage you to use them.

Arturo, a director of engineering at Facebook, is excited about social reporting.

"

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'Toyota Friend' Social Networking Service Is A Twitter For Car Owners

'Toyota Friend' Social Networking Service Is A Twitter For Car Owners: "

TOKYO -- Toyota is setting up a social networking service with the help of a U.S. Internet company and Microsoft so drivers can interact with their cars in ways similar to Twitter and Facebook.

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. and Salesforce.com, based in San Francisco, announced their alliance Monday to launch 'Toyota Friend,' a private social network for Toyota owners that works similar to tweets on Twitter.

Read More...

More on Social Networking

" This should be really interesting and will it be a prelude to other similar companies using social media as an avenue for getting facial and social awareness of peoples needs. ?

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Numbered: The Week's Must-See Tech Stats

Numbered: The Week's Must-See Tech Stats: "

'Numbered,' our weekly digits digest, is bringing you the numbers behind the news.

This feature highlights the top new stats, facts, and figures to bring you the latest on tech, by the numbers, and quantify the changing state of mobile, social media, and more.

In this week's edition: Sony predicts major losses, LinkedIn's value soars, Microsoft warns of attacks, and more. See last week's stats here.

Read More...

"

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President Obama's cybersecurity plan - Part 2 Data Breach Notification Act

President Obama's cybersecurity plan - Part 2 Data Breach Notification Act: "
Following up on yesterday's post outlining the proposed changes to RICO and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, today I will dissect the White House's proposal for the National Data Breach Notification Act.

Currently 47 states have data breach notification laws with varying rules and requirements. This makes it very difficult for national and multinational organizations to understand when they must report lost or stolen data and how they must report it. The idea of a national law in the US has been debated for a couple of years now, and this proposal seems to strike a nice balance.

First, the definition of Personally Identifiable Information, or PII:

1. Full name plus any two of the following
   
   
   
   1. Address and phone number
   2. Mother's maiden name
   3. Month, day, and year of birth
   
   
2. Social Security Number (SSN), driver's license number, passport number, alien registration number, or other government issued identification number
   
   
3. Biometric data such as fingerprints, retinal scans, etc.
   
   
4. Unique account numbers, financial account numbers, credit card numbers, debit card numbers, electronic IDs, user names or routing codes
   
   
5. Any combination of the following
   
   
   
   1. First and last name or first initial and last name
   2. See item four above
   3. Security codes, access codes, passwords or source codes used to derive the aforementioned

The new rules would apply to any business possessing the PII of 10,000 or more individuals in a 12-month period. They would supersede any existing state laws, creating one unified national standard.

Organizations discovering lost or stolen PII would have 60 days to notify affected customers unless law enforcement or national security concerns intervene. If there are extenuating circumstances, organizations can provide proof to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that they require up to an additional 30 days.

The proposal includes a 'safe harbor' provision when measures are in place to protect data (encryption). Organizations must still report the data loss to the FTC within 45 days, including a professional risk assessment, logs of access to the data and a complete list of users who had access to the protected data.

If data is determined to be properly protected and evidence is submitted on time, individual notifications would be unnecessary. Financial institutions who only lose account numbers are also exempt if other protective measures are in place to prevent fraud.

After a data loss incident, organizations would be required to notify individuals by letter, phone or email.

Notices would include what information was compromised and a toll-free number to contact the company responsible to obtain more information. If a third party lost the data, the notice must include the name of the original collector (direct business relationship) of the PII.

States may pass laws requiring notifications to include information about identity theft/fraud prevention.

When more than 5,000 victims are involved, organizations would be required to do the following:

• Place advertisements in mass media ensuring potential victims are aware of the risk they are being exposed to.
  
  
• Notify all consumer credit reporting agencies of the victims within 60 days of discovery.

Businesses would be required to notify the Department of Homeland Security for law enforcement purposes when any of the following are true:

• The breach contains, or is believed to contain, PII on 5,000 or more individuals.
  
  
• The breach involves a database or network of databases that contain PII on 500,000 or more individuals.
  
  
• The breach involves a database owned by the United States government.
  
  
• The breach involves PII of employees or contractors of the United States government involved in law enforcement or national security.

Notice to DHS must occur 72 hours before individual notices are served, or 10 days after discovery of the incident, whichever comes first.

The proposed rules would be enforced by the FTC after consultation with the US Attorney General to ensure there is no interference with ongoing criminal investigations. State Attorneys General would also be able to enforce the rules within their jurisdiction after notifying the FTC.

Penalties for non-compliance would be $1000 per person affected per day, for a maximum of $1 million. There would not be a maximum penalty if it is determined the non-compliance was willful or intentional.

Organizations that are required to comply with HIPAA or HITECH data protection laws are exempt from this legislation.

It appears the Obama Administration and Howard Schmidt, the President's Cyber-Security Coordinator, have taken careful notes from the different laws passed by individual states. This proposal is a great start to making data security a priority and contains provisions to make adjustments after implementation.

Why not download the 'The State of Data Security' report we published today? It covers the most prominent data loss incidents and details the actions you can take to prevent you from being the next company to have to notify your customers.

" WELL DOES IT GO FAR ENOUGH - OR TO FAR - LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS ?

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Google rolls out silent fix for Android security vulnerability

Google rolls out silent fix for Android security vulnerability: "

There's good news for any owners of Android devices worried about the recently announced security vulnerability that could allow allow unauthorised parties to snoop on your Google Calendar and Contacts information.

Google has already started rolling out a fix!

The issue had already been fixed in Android 2.3.4 (codenamed Gingerbread), but as we mentioned earlier this week over 99% of Android users are running earlier versions of the operating system.

Google has started to implement a server-side patch that addresses the issue for all versions of the Android OS. The great news is that it doesn't require a software update on the Android devices themselves - meaning the fix is automatic and worldwide. Effectively this is a silent fix.

The fix addresses a vulnerability with the use of authTokens for Google's Calendar and Contacts apps discovered by researchers at Germany's University of Ulm, but a similar issue with Picasa is still being investigated. If not fixed, the problems could mean that a hacker could snoop on your activity when you use an unencrypted WiFi hotspot and steal personal information.

Google reckons the work will be complete, and all devices secured from this vulnerability, within the week by forcing its servers to use an encrypted HTTPS connection when Android phones try to sync with them.

Here's what a Google spokesperson had to say:

'Today [May 18th] we’re starting to roll out a fix which addresses a potential security flaw that could, under certain circumstances, allow a third party access to data available in calendar and contacts. This fix requires no action from users and will roll out globally over the next few days.'

So, it's a very good thing that this problem is being fixed. Of course, concerns still remain as to how easy it would be to fix a serious security vulnerability on the Android devices themselves, given that Google is so reliant on manufacturers and carriers to push out OS updates.

"

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