How to Change Your Facebook Password
A close friend of mine just had his Facebook account taken over and used for pretty nasty things, so… this is just a quick reminder to change your Facebook password frequently for added security. If you have been a member for years, like most people, and have not ever changed your password, I recommend you do so right now (don’t wait, you’ll never do it later).
On a site like Facebook that houses so much of your personal reputation and information, it is good to keep passwords new and difficult to hack. We see people’s Facebook profiles get hacked every day from clicking on malware and phishing schemes – and once they have your Facebook password, they probably have the same password you use on other accounts. Changing your password frequently, as simple as it sounds, is an easy way to avoid some of the privacy problems posed by Facebook. Once you are logged in, visit your Account Settings Page. On the first page next to Password click change.
Now that you are in your Account Settings, spend a minute clicking around to explore some of your other settings. While changing your password doesn’t solve all of your security issues, it will help you feel a bit safer on the social networking giant!
Facebook Can Use Your Photos in Their Ads Without Permission
Did you know that Facebook can use photos you post on the site in advertisements targeted on the right (advertising) side of your contact’s profile?
Unless you customize your privacy settings, Facebook can share just about anything you post with just about everyone. Using your intellectual property for their financial gain is not a new Facebook issue, but one that should be revisited due to recent Facebook Privacy changes. Here’s the funny part: you gave Facebook the right to use any of your content in any way they see fit when you signed up for your account and didn’t read the user agreement. If you visit the Facebook Statement of Rights page you will see the following:
You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:
- For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (“IP content”), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free,
worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (“IP License”). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
iPad & Tablet Users Asking for Identity Theft
The identity theft and corporate data risk problem isn’t limited to iPad users – it affects all Tablets – but iPads are leading the way. With the rapid increase in highly powerful tablet computers, including the Motorola Xoon and Samsung Galaxy, a new survey is urging users to beware of the risks. Harris Interactive just released a study showing that tablet users transmit more sensitive information than they do on smartphones and are considerably less confident of the security protecting those tablets.
The survey shows that 48% of tablet users transfer sensitive data using the device while only 30% of smart phone users transfer sensitive information. The types of sensitive data included credit card, financial, personal and even proprietary business information. Many factors contribute to the increased risk:
- Users initially bought tablets as book readers and web browsers, but have increasingly added to their functionality with new Apps.
- Tablet computers are in their infancy and haven’t been equipped with the same security features as laptops and desktops.
- Corporate users haven’t yet been trained on securing the data on tablets.
- Tablets are more capable than smartphones, making it a natural laptop replacement, but without the robust, time-tested security.
- Indiscriminate App downloading (covered in detail in the Smartphone Survival Guide) greatly increases chances of accidentally loading malware to your tablet.
Identity Theft is #1 Consumer Complaint 11th Year in a Row
According to the Federal Trade Commission, Identity Theft still tops the annual list of consumer complaints. The list was released last Tuesday and Identity Theft was #1 for the 11th year in a row with more than 250,000 complaints. Identity theft accounts for 19% of all consumer complaints received by the FTC last year.
Why is this such a lingering, time-tested problem? Because most people, most businesses, read about it being such a terrible problem, and then go off an do little about it. Corporations fail to train their employees on personal identity theft, and that lack of skill and prevention framework seeps into the workplace. This, in turn, leads to the loss of more data, customer records, employee files and intellectual capital.
The report also states that the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. area ranks #1 in the nation for identity theft complaints per capita. Number 2 on that list is Brownsville, Texas followed by Dunn, N.C.
The 10 top consumer complaints nationally in 2010 were:
- Identity theft
- Debt collection
- Internet services
- Prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries
- Shop-at-home and catalog sales
- Impostor scams
- Internet auctions
- Foreign money, counterfeit check scams
- Telephone and mobile services
- Credit cards
Entire Town in Colorado Has Identity Stolen
In a town with a population of about 3,000 people it seems that almost all the citizens of Bennett, Colorado have had their identity stolen. The scheme was simple and it was easy to fall victim. Identity thieves apparently used skimmers to extract credit and debit card numbers from individuals. Skimmer scams can happen when the criminal installs a “skimming” device over the card slot of an ATM, debit or credit card reader. The skimmer then reads the magnetic strip as the user unknowingly passes their card through it.
In the case of Bennett, Colorado it is believed that this was done at a local King Soopers gas pump. The skimmer is gone now and authorities are on the hunt for the thief. King Soopers has denied that any of the fraudulent activity happened at their gas pumps and authorities have also said that they knew this was a crime spree for the past few weeks. In the meantime, many of the victims who used debit cards are without those funds because its the same as using cash. The average amount stolen was around $700 and more people are coming forward every day.
There are many ways you can make sure that you don’t become a skimmer victim.
Identity Theft Expert Releases Smartphone Survival Guide
In response to the increasing data theft threat posed by Smartphones, identity theft expert John Sileo has released The Smartphone Survival Guide. Because of their mobility and computing power, smartphones are the next wave of data hijacking. iPhone, BlackBerry and Droid users carry so much sensitive data on their phones, and because they are so easily compromised, it’s disastrous when they fall into the wrong hands.
Denver, CO (PRWEB) March 7, 2011
Smartphones are quickly becoming the fashionable (and simplest) way for thieves to steal private data. Case in point: Google was recently forced to remove 21 popular Android apps from it’s official application website, Android Market, because the applications were built to look like useful software but acted like electronic wiretaps. At first glance, apps like Chess appear to be legitimate, but when installed, turn into a data-hijacking machine that siphons private information back to the developer.
In response to this new threat facing iPhone, BlackBerry, Droid and Windows Phone users, identity theft expert John Sileo has just released “The Smartphone Survival Guide: 10 Critical Security Tips in 10 Minutes.”
“Once you download a Trojan app” says Sileo, “the thief has more control over your phone than you do. Your privacy is an open book… your identity, contact list, files, emails, texts, passwords… all of it. This doesn’t just threaten the individual phone owner, it threatens the organizations they work in and the data they handle every day.”
Stupid App Usage Makes Your Smartphone a Fraud Magnet
With the recent avalanche of digital convenience and mass centralization comes our next greatest privacy threat - the stupid use of Mobile Apps. As a society, we depend on the latest technology and instant connectivity so desperately that we rarely take the time to vet the application software (Apps) we install on our mobile phones (and with the introduction of the Mac App store, on our Macs). But many of the Apps out there have not been time-tested like the software on our computers. As much as we love to bash Microsoft and Adobe, they do have a track record of patching security concerns.
The ability to have all of your information at your fingertips on one device is breathtakingly convenient. My iPhone, for example, is used daily as an email client, web browser, book, radio, iPod, compass, recording device, address book, word processor, blog editor, calculator, camera, high-definition video recorder, to-do list, GPS, map, remote control, contact manager, Facebook client, backup device, digital filing cabinet, travel agent, newsreader and phone… among others (which is why I minimize my stupidity by following the steps I set out in the Smart Phone Survival Guide).
Trojan Apps Hijack Android App Store
Google removes 20+ Apps from Android Market, signaling that malware distribution has gone mainstream, and not just for Droids.
The Adroid Operating System is open source – meaning that anyone can create applications without Google’s approval. It boosts innovation, and unlike Apple iPhones or Blackberrys, Droid Apps aren’t bound by all of the rules surrounding the Apple App Store. But this leniency can be exploited by hackers, advertisers and malicious apps. And now those apps aren’t just available on some sketchy off-market website, but on the Android Market itself. As smartphones and tablets become one of the primary ways we conduct business, including banking, this development shifts the security conversation into high gear.
A recent discovery forced Google to pull 21 popular and free apps from the Android Market. According to the company, the apps are malware and focused on getting root access to the user’s device (giving them more control over your phone than even you have). Kevin Mahaffey, the CTO of Lookout, a maker of security tools for mobile devices, explained the Android malware discovery in a recent PC World article (emphasis mine):
“DroidDream is packaged inside of seemingly legitimate applications posted to the Android Market in order to trick users into downloading it… Unlike previous instances of malware in the wild… DroidDream was available in the official Android Market, indicating a growing need for mainstream consumers to be aware of the apps they download and to actively protect their smartphones.”
Will Facebook Make Privacy Policy Understandable?
Facebook announced this week that it’s seeking user comment on a proposed redesign of its privacy policy that’s meant to make the policy easier to understand while bringing the world of legalese-smothered documents into the widget-filled realm of the 21st century.
In a post to Facebook’s site governance section, the company’s privacy team offers a look at its “first attempt” to re-organize, rewrite, and add interactivity to the current policy, which is essentially your standard mass of small black text.
Among other potentially interesting re-imaginings, the proposed redesign features an interactive tool intended to demonstrate how profile data is put to use in serving advertisements (click “Personalized ads” and scroll down to “Try this tool”). The tool puts Facebook members into the shoes of someone creating and targeting an ad. It’s not clear if users would deem it an educational aid or a nuisance in practice, but that seems to be part of why the potential redesign is being put to public scrutiny in this way.
Read Full Article on CNET. Read More from the NYTimes.
Reputation Gets You What You Want
For six years I have done almost nothing professionally but study and speak on phenomenons that drive companies out of business or otherwise destroy their reputation. In the process, I have discovered what I consider to be an under-recognized and highly powerful maxim that remains relatively untapped both by people (especially leaders), and by businesses. We talk about it, but we rarely take an active role in improving it.
Reputation gets you what you want.
I know this because I have seen countless people’s reputation destroyed by identity theft (including mine when I was thought to be a criminal) and hundreds of businesses’ reputations wrecked because of data breach, social networking over-exposure or reputation hijacking. I know this because I’ve worked as a reputation management partner to companies that aggressively manage what the world thinks of them from an offensive perspective – they cultivate it long in advance of any attack.
Think of Apple – they have had a reputation of producing simple, functional, beautiful gadgets that WOW us. Now, even when they release the most modest of upgrades, we all jump to buy them because of Apple’s reputation. Apple works day and night to protect and project this reputation, but because of the nature of reputation (you can’t blow your own horn too loudly), it is a silent and subtle campaign that accumulates over time.
Sileo In the Media
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