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Browse every published article connected to Robert Siciliano, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
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Browse every published article connected to Robert Siciliano, or search within this exact expert archive.
Janet N. Cook, 76, was duped by a dashing younger man. A report at nytimes.com explains that in July 2011 she connected with Kelvin Wells via a dating site. Next thing, this seemingly-together man was in trouble and needed lots of money. Cook got burned; she sent the crook nearly $300,000 (amazing; just try to get a friend to give you $100). The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center warns:
A phishing e-mail is sent by a cyberthief to trick its recipient into revealing sensitive information so that the crook could steal money from the recipient or gain access to a business's classified information. One way to lure an employee is for the crook to make the e-mail appear like it was sent by the company's CEO. Often, phishing e-mails have urgent subject lines like "Your Chase Bank Balance Is Negative."
Companies that cut corners by giving cybersecurity training only to their technical staff and the "big wigs" are throwing out the welcome mat to hackers. Cyber criminals know that the ripe fruit to pick is a company's sales staff. Often, the sales personnel are clueless about the No. 1 way that hackers "get in": the phishing e-mail. Salespeople are also vulnerable to falling for other lures generated by master hackers.
What's it called if, for example, someone runs up your credit card line without your permission? Identity theft. ID theft isn't necessarily someone going around impersonating you. But it is considered someone taking over your accounts.
It's fair to wonder how many people would still be alive today if there were never any such thing as a life insurance policy. Personally I can't imagine NOT having a life insurance policy if you have children 17 and under. But the below info might ring true for some of you.
Many years ago when you were on vacation, before Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were invented (assuming you were an adult then), you had a great time, right? You weren't "connected," because there was no social media to be connected with. If today you can't imagine being disconnected from social media while on vacation, ask yourself how this can be, if years ago, you never missed what had not yet been invented.
If you are thinking of jumping onto the Bitcoin bandwagon, or any type of cryptocurrency, you have to make sure that you are watching out for scams. There are a ton of them out there, including the following: Fake Bitcoin Exchanges
I love that show, "Forensic Files." Every so often there's the case of a person who was found murdered in their apartment due to some forced entry. Which brings me to the topic of apartment security. New Apartment
You have probably heard of one data breach after another these days, but this is one that you should really pay attention to: more than 772 million unique emails, along with more than 21 million unique passwords, have been exposed.
Mass shootings. They happen so often these days, they are hardly making headlines, and when they do, they are soon pushed out of the news cycle thanks to what's going on in the White House or in Russia. There are many red flags that show what crazy mass shooters look like. Look at this:
If you're ever confronted by an assailant in your garage, you may have any number of highly effective weapons within your reach. A woman in Indianapolis identified as Carol found that out soon enough when she arrived home in February of 2016. A man was waiting in her garage. The 52-year-old questioned what the man wanted. He said he had a gun and demanded her purse.
It sounds almost like science fiction, even in this cyber age: A thief hacks into your computer and encrypts your files, meaning, scrambles the information so you can't make sense of any of it. He demands you pay him a big fat payment to "unlock" the encryption or to give you the "key," which is contained on the thief's remote server.
It's about time: a biometric for your smartphone that will change the way you think about biometric security.
As long as humans sit at computer screens, there will always be infected computers. There's just no end to people being duped into clicking links that download viruses. A report at theregister.co.uk explains how subjects, unaware they were guinea pigs, fell for a phishing experiment.
Get an account with TeamViewer, and you will have a software package that enables remote control, online meetings, desktop sharing and other functions between computers. But recently, customers of TeamViewer have reported remote takedowns of their computers that resulted in different forms of monetary theft, such as bank accounts being cleaned out.
Two thousand credit card payment terminals stand to become infected with malware called Trinity point of sales. Ten million credit cards were stolen by hackers, called Fin6, who may end up scoring $400 million. The cards were stolen from retail and hospitality businesses. If each card sells for $21 on secret carder shops, you can see how the hackers will rake in hundreds of millions of dollars.
What are you doing to prevent tax identity theft? Do you even know what steps to take? You'd better, because this crime has tripled since 2010, says the FTC.
If you think there’s like a million apps out there, that’s not exactly an exaggeration. For sure, there are more than you can imagine, which makes it easy to conceive that many certainly come with security problems. In fact, out of the top 25 most popular apps, 18 of them bombed on a security test from McAfee Labs recently. Creators of apps put convenience and allure ahead of security. This is why so many apps don’t have secure connections—creating welcome mats for hackers; they get into your smartphone and get your passwords, use ames and other sensitive information.
The holidays are just about here, and so is your not-so-friendly neighborhood burglar. Burglars know that during the holidays, there are just more goodies to steal, and not only that, but there's a lot of traveling away from home. During this time of year, homeowners need to be extra vigilant about protecting their property, and that includes making potential intruders think you're home rather than away for the holidays.
Of all the weird things that can happen to your iOS device, the latest is a relatively benign situation in which a string of text is sent to the phone…and it causes the phone to crash. The phone will reboot if the particular nonsensical text string is received while the phone is locked.
A sharp nine-year-old girl has a biting message to a 51-year-old man, according to an article on myfoxboston.com: "You deserve to stay in jail because you break into peoples houses. Stop breaking into peoples houses and do something with your life."
Ransomware thieves sure know how to pick their victims—institutions that store loads of highly critical data that they need on a daily basis, that without—even just 24 hours without—can have crippling effects. This form of cybercrime is growing by leaps and bounds.
A phishing attack is a trick e-mail sent randomly to perhaps a million recipients, and the thief counts on the numbers game aspect: Out of any given huge number of people, a significant percentage will fall for the trick.
You wouldn't have to worry about privacy issues on Facebook if you didn't post sensitive, private information on Facebook…such as information that one day can be used against you. And really, you should share only what you consider "professional" information, even with family. Just stop with the nonsense.
If you have a cell phone, and you use it in any way associated with accessing online accounts (and many do), you are putting yourself at risk of getting hacked. With only a phone number and a bit of information, which is easy to get through social engineering, a hacker can break into your personal and financial accounts.
Gee, if your home is connected to lots of different devices, doesn't it make sense that your cybersecurity integrates all your connected devices? Meet the Bitdefender BOX, a network bulletproofing hardware cybersecurity tool for the home that embraces smart home protection focusing on the Internet of Things with remote device management offering next generation privacy protection. BOX description:
Logins that require only a password are not secure. What if someone gets your password? They can log in, and the site won't know it's not you.
The IRS isn't your biggest enemy during tax season. It's the criminals who pretend to be IRS reps and then con people out of their money. They contact potential victims chiefly through phone calls and text messages.
The term, or in this case the word "blackhat" in tech generally refers to a criminal hacker. The opposite of black is white and a "whitehat" is a security professional. These terms originate from the "spaghetti western" movies when the bad guy cowboy wore a black hat and the law wore white hats. Fun huh?! Blackhat is also the name of the largest conference on the planet for information security.
A recent controversial SuperBowl commercial from a major insurance company depicted a young boy who died as the result of numerous preventable household accidents such as poising and falls. The commercial got lots of traction via social media. Although it was presented tactfully, many people didn't approve. The truth hurts and sometimes isn't pretty. However the message was clear; so many child deaths are preventable!
Wow, a lawyer in Memphis got scammed by his secretary—she embezzled over $362,000 from him, says an article on wreg.com. Atto ey Jerry Schatz hired Teresa Sumpter, 48, in July of 2013. Little did he know that his assistant would end up stealing checks from his trust account, forging her signature on them, and opening three credit cards—all in his name. And she named herself as an authorized user.
Using a knife in a survival situation is a skill that can mean the difference between life and death. But, you have to know how to use the knife. Here is some information: Knife Safety:
You know what a "buttdial" is. This is when a person has a seat somewhere, and the ensuring pressure of their butt against the seat accidentally presses upon the keypad of the phone that's in their pocket. Or they don't lock their phone and their fingers indiscriminately just call someone. Happens a lot.
First off, how NOT to fix a hacked credit report: signing on with a service that promises to correct the problem in a jiffy—a "sounds too good to be true" advertisement. A company that claims they will 100% fix your bad credit by removing negative information from your credit report is a bit scammy. In fact, whatever a credit repair company CAN legally do, you yourself can do.
Social Security numbers and credit card numbers are not the only types of data that hackers are after. Now, they are looking at frequent flyer accounts, and they are stealing reward miles, and then selling them online. How do Hackers Steal Frequent Flyer Miles?
If you have a contactless card, you might have worries about skimming. A contactless card or "frictionless" or "tap and go" is a card that has technology in it that allows payment over secure wireless like Apple Pay, Android Pay etc. Basically, this is where a criminal literally digitally pickpockets you by scanning things like your debit card or passport. What's scary about this is that anyone can get an app for their phone that will allow them to skim. Is there protection for this? Maybe.
If you are overseas somewhere and want to access your Facebook page…don't be surprised if you can't do this. In fact, you won't even be able to get onto the Facebook site (or YouTube, for that matter), depending on what country that you are visiting. This is because some countries limit website access for their citizens.
Have you ever wondered what kind of superpower you'd have? I've always wanted to send messages and ideas with my mind to others. My dream can sort of come true with near-field communications (NFC).
Want to earn up to $4.2 million? Then find the hackers on the FBI's most wanted list. Or at least give the FBI information leading to their arrest and/or conviction. These snakes have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars. Here is the list from the hacke ews.com: Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev (reward: $3 million)
Are you a cyber-blabber? Even a post about your daily afte oon foray to the sub sandwich shop could get you in trouble: A burglar reading this knows when to rob your house. But it doesn't end there. STOP THE MADNESS! The Giants: Facebook and Twitter
Hackers love LinkedIn because it links them in—straight through the portal of the targeted company. Geez, how much easier could this be, what with all the publically-exposed e-mail addresses of key players (and also worker bees) in big companies that someone wants to hack.
Think about hackers breaking into accounts. If you think they need top-notch computer skills, you would be wrong. These days, instead of requiring skills behind a keyboard, hackers generally rely on strategy…specifically a strategy called social engineering. This means that hackers don't have to be technical, but they DO have to be clever and crafty because they are essentially taking advantage of people and "tricking" them into giving information.
The days of using a computer to access your bank account, using a password, may be coming to an end, to be replaced entirely (as some experts believe) with a fingerprint or face scan using a smartphone. The smartphone employment of such biometrics will drastically reduce hacking incidents, but will be problematic for those who do not own a mobile device. Major banks are already offering the fingerprint scan as a login option.
A crook can steal your identity by taking control of your wireless phone account—by pretending to be you in person at the mobile store. The villain can then buy pricey mobiles and sell them—and guess who gets the bill but not the profit. Symptoms of Hijacked Account
Lois Riess is a woman from Minnesota who police say shot her husband, went on the run, and then killed a woman in order to take on her identity. Here are some shocking facts about her: Riess Looked Like her Victim
Your child is active online. Did it ever occur to you that he or she uses a fake name so that they can't be identified by you? Chances are, you, the parent, also uses a pseudonym. It's very common. Cyberspace is full of obvious pseudonyms, but a phony name can also be a regular name that many people have. Your child will be lost in a sea of David Johnsons or Amanda Millers.
Thinking of bringing a credit card with you on your travels? You can end up in a jam: You just treated your extended family to fine dining in France. Time to pay; your credit card is declined. If you try to make a purchase overseas, your credit card company might think it's fraudulent, since it would appear anomalous, relative to your usual, U.S. purchases. So before you leave for your trip:
A recent study says that people are more mindful of online safety issues than what experts had previously believed. An article on phys.org says that Nitesh Saxena, PhD, wanted to know what goes on in users' brains when they come upon malicious websites or malware warnings.
Have you ever seen men getting "attacked" by a police or military dog as part of the dog's training? The men (I've never seen a woman, but I'd like to think there are some strong, feisty women who suit up for this role) wear either just a big padded thing on one of their arms, or they're engulfed entirely in a padded suit.
Imagine getting a call from someone identifying themselves as a federal court official or U.S. Marshal, informing you that your arrest is imminent unless you pay a cost—all because you failed to respond to a jury summons (which you don't remember getting). I'd like to think that you'd immediately smell the rotten scam here and hang up, but unfortunately, many adults fall for this jury duty scam.