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?

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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.

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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.

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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