Facebook’s Zuckerberg Gets Hacked
While Facebook privacy issues are becoming a concern for most users, you would think that the CEO of Facebook should at least be protected. Apparently that is not the case. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page was hacked last week. The founder of the social networking giant found himself to be a victim of what many users often face, and I hope it prompts him to incorporate more robust security into the fabric of Facebook. In fact, my experience is that people’s willingness to pay attention to privacy and data security goes up exponentially when they have experienced a breach first hand.
Here is what The Guardian had to say about Zuckerberg’s breach:
“Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page has been hacked by an unknown person who posted a status update suggesting that the site should let people invest in it rather than going to the banks. The page belonging to the 26-year-old Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder who was named Time‘s Man of the Year in 2010, was hacked some time on Tuesday.” (The Guardian)
This hacking comes at the heals of the announcement that Facebook is worth about $50 billion after investors such as Goldman Sachs and a Russian venture capital firm started to take interest in the company. Many believe that those who made Facebook what it is today, the users, should be able to invest and profit from the billion dollar company. One significant breach of Facebook’s data could reduce that valuation by about 40%, as the loss of user trust would be devastating.
Egypt Going for Total Information Control
The Egyptian government has reportedly cut all access to the internet, extending their earlier restrictions on Twitter, Facebook, BlackBerry service and other forms of mass communication. The ban is likely to be in response to the use of social networking sites to organize pro-democracy, anit-Mubarak demonstrations in Egypt and other countries.
Internet access issues in Egypt have coincided with mounting demonstrations in the country, many of which were organized via social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Thousands poured into the streets of Cairo starting Tuesday to protest failing economic policies, government corruption, and to call for an end of the nearly 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. -PC Magazine
Pro-gun lobbyists worry about enforced gun registration because it could possibly give the government a way to confiscate all firearms. That’s child’s play compared to their ability to shut down access to the critical tools we use every day: the internet, email, Facebook, Google, text, cell phones – the information arsenal that we all tend to take for granted. Egypt understand the importance.
And so does the Obama administration, according to this WSJ Post:
At the State Department, spokesman P.J. Crowley expressed “deep concern” after Mr. Mubarak shut down the Internet and mobile phone service in Cairo. On his Twitter account, Mr. Crowley wrote: “Events unfolding in #Egypt are of deep concern. Fundamental rights must be respected, violence avoided and open communications allowed.”
Fraud Statistics – Colorado High on Scam Scale
Last week a list of 10 most scammed states was released, and Colorado ranks #3. The statistics, based on information from the Federal Trade Commission. According to their report, Coloradans receive more scam invitations via email, mail and phone than most other states. Add to this the number of new victims thanks to all of our information sharing on social networking sites like Facebook, and identity theft becomes relatively easy.
Here are the rankings for the top 10 states: 1. Washington D.C., 2. Nevada, 3. Colorado, 4. Maryland, 5. Florida, 6. Arizona, 7. Oregon, 8. Washington, 9. Delaware, 10. California
While many people think of scams that affect their pocket book directly, most thieves want to steal an entire identity from their victims. They are looking for as many pieces of personal information as possible, including: full name, Social Security number, address, phone number, mothers maiden name and passwords. This type of information allows them to use your identity to take out loans and purchase houses, not just wipe out your savings account or spend a bit on your credit cards.
The study found 412.4 fraud complaints and 95 identity theft victims for every 100,000 Coloradans. Some other Identity Theft Statistics include:
- Identity Theft counts for 21% of all fraud cases, followed by Third Party Creditor and Debt Collection Scams.
Identity Theft Statistics: Online Shopping & Cyber-Intrusion
According to a new survey, most online consumers are not taking the proper precautions when shopping online, putting them at a far higher risk of cyber-fraud. 75% of participants thought that a firewall alone could protect them while online. 62% of those polled thought that anti-virus software was enough protection to stop spy-ware. Are you part of these statistics?
While firewalls and anti-virus software are two important aspects of protecting yourself online, there is much more you need to do to keep yourself safe.
Here are additional statistics from the survey:
- While online, 45% of consumers are most concerned about identity theft, 41% about privacy, and 45% about computer viruses.
- While 28% of consumers thought that their identities were secure on mobile devices, most are more aware that their mobile devices are also vulnerable to malicious cyber-crime.
- 85% of those polled knew that they were being profiled by advertisers through their internet activity. This shows how high our tolerance is for cyber-intrusion into our private lives.
- 85% also said they were aware they were actively being stalked by cyber-criminals. It amazes me that the awareness can be so high and yet people continue to utilize the internet without a great deal of real concern.
Here are a few tips to help you protect your Identity online.
Facebook Boiling the Privacy Frog (You)
Facebook is preparing to give away your phone number and address to app developers and advertisers.
The frog is officially beginning to boil. Just check out all of the articles swirling around on the internet about Facebook’s latest attempt to release more of your information without your consent. This time they want to give out your phone number and address. They were pretty clear that the reason they want this information is to pass it on to developers of apps such as Farmville and advertisers that want to bolster their profile on you. They released the post late Friday afternoon – so late in fact that many news outlets didn’t pick it up until Monday. Many are accusing Facebook of trying to bury the news.
Here is what was posted:
User Address and Mobile Phone Number
We are now making a user’s address and mobile phone number accessible as part of the User Graph object. Because this is sensitive information, we have created the new user_address and user_mobile_phone permissions. These permissions must be explicitly granted to your application by the user via our standard permissions dialogs.
Although users currently have to give applications permission to access their information, there is a slight addition above to the type of information being shared. Look for “Access my contact information”, with the subtitle “Current Address and Mobile Phone Number” (see image above). If Facebook were actually interested in making their data sharing strategy noticeable, at least they could have bolded the warning rather than the hey-don’t-pay-attention-to-me-faded-gray they used.
Spokeo Shows Your Home with Only a Name?
True. Unless you have chosen to Opt Out (see below), a picture of your home is only one search away on Spokeo.com, even if I don’t have your address.
Check it out for yourself at www.spokeo.com. On most profiles, if Spokeo has your current address, they also have a picture of your home. It is the same as Google Street View, almost. The difference is that on Google Street View or Google Maps, you can’t easily look up someone’s address based on their name and find the corresponding picture of their home.
In other words, Spokeo aggregates your personal data in a more sophisticated way, ultimately giving users the ability to search on your name and peel back layers of your personal information. This has caused a recent web buzz on the subject and is pushing people to go on their site to remove information you don’t want to share with the world. A few months ago I posted a video about removing your information from Spokeo. Here are the steps.
- Visit www.Spokeo.com.
- Type in your name and click on the record that belongs to you (if it exists).
- Copy the URL in your web browser that points specifically to your record (you should see your name in the URL, something like this: http://www.spokeo.com/search?q=Smith%20Sample#Sample:1219812367)
Sileo In the Media
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