That’s only partly true. Business Insider released an interesting list that tells you how much it costs to get different accounts hacked. According to the page hacking a generic website is quite expensive when compared to the other options: You’ll have to pay as much as $2000 to get it done. Getting Facebook account access is a lot cheaper with only $350 and the one for Gmail would only cost you $90. One popular hacker apparently even offers to boost Yelp reviews!
Let’s face it. If you know the right search terms you’ll be able to find almost everything. “While it’s well-known that the dark web offers black market marketplaces for things like drugs and firearms, so too are there places where hackers offer up their skills for a fee. These hackers-for-hire offer a wide-ranging menu of services, many of which are likely not legal, “ writes Business Insider, and one of the pages offering some of the services reads: “Hiring a hacker shouldn’t be a difficult process, we believe that finding a trustworthy professional hacker for hire should be a worry free and painless experience.”
Hacking as something for the mass market? Of course – hackers-for-hire would come in handy if you really need to break into your own accounts; but how often does that really happen? While the above site states in their Terms of Use that “you agree to act responsibly in a manner demonstrating the exercise of good judgment. For example and without limitation, you agree not to: violate any applicable law or regulation, infringe the rights of any third party, including, without limitation, intellectual property, privacy, publicity or contractual rights, etc.” one can only wonder how legitimate the requests made are in the end.
If there is one thing we can take from all of this, it’s that account safety should be takes more serious than ever.
Perhaps Mother’s Day is your opportunity, for one day at least, to bring back the tradition of enjoying a meal surrounded by great conversation and the people you love.
Technology has definitely changed the dinner table dynamic, sometimes for good, and sometimes for bad. And depending on your age, your family values, and how you use your mobile devices, the experience is often different for many of us.
For some, dinner times used to be a place where debate over controversial urban myths often surfaced. In the days before “Mythbusters” existed, it was at the dinner table where hypotheses’ and logic were tested and rigorously explored.
And while stronger family personalities often won arguments based on false pretences – mobile devices and Internet now mean that the real facts are just a Google or Wikipedia search away. In my view, the lessons of learning to “agree to disagree”, along with the ability to resolve conflict using conversation alone, are sadly lacking in today’s world.
Busy family schedules used to be communicated across the dinner table too, but even this has been replaced by Calendar invites and Facebook events. For technologically savvy families there’s virtually no need to discuss such things during mealtime.
It’s no wonder with all the technology at our disposal, and with the humdrum of daily living taken care of by apps of every kind, that Mother’s are missing out on the attention and conversation they deserve.
So, for this Mother’s Day, switch to flight-mode during dinner time and pretend you’ve taken off to a world of wonder and beauty – one where loving connections are fostered, arguments are settled the old fashioned way, and where stories are shared and enjoyed.
Do you remember, who was the last person you spoke on the phone with? And the first one you sent a WhatsApp message this morning? If the answer is yes, you might want to change your usual passwords for the answers to this questions.
Do you imagine your passwords changing depending on your last ‘Like’ in Facebook? Anything you have done with your smartphone or your computer during the last few hours can be used as a password by ActivPass. A system developed by researchers of the universities of Illinois and Texas and the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, in India.
These researchers have developed a new method of authentication to unlock applications for which users had to answer correctly questions about recently completed actions. Something that it has proven to be possible, despite of what our absent minds might think. In fact, those who took part in this study answer correctly 95 percent of the questions.
ActivPass could be a possible solution to the many times a user forgets his password and clicks on “forgot your password”. In fact, they hope to reduce the amount of passwords we have to remember thanks to their tool, as the questions will be about recent topics and will change overnight.
They first thought of it as an evolution to the questions about our past which are already used as security measures in many platforms. Questions like: “What was your first pet’s name?” or “What was the first name of your favorite teacher?”
“Whenever there’s something you and your phone share and no one else knows, that’s a secret, and that can be used as a key” says professor Choudhury, University of Illinois. However, this new security method is not foolproof yet. Still raises some unknowns, like what would happen if a long period of time passes and the user can’t remember what he did last time.
Researchers are working to improve it, but for now they just conceive it as a part of a user’s authentication on a platform. Also, during the firsts test they found other disadvantages. Those who volunteered to take part in the tests not only had a high percentage of success in the questions about their own activities, but also were able to answer question about other people less than 6 percent of the time, which is quite disturbing.
As the research conducted by Jason Hong, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, demonstrated the percentage of users correctly answering questions about other people is low.
So, despite of having to fix some details, it doesn’t seem far away when we will use a system like ActivPass instead of standard passwords. An option that is gaining popularity among platforms where you can share content with our friends and family. If, for example, you were to be subscribed to Wuaki.tv, you can give access to your cousin one night without having to worry about changing the password the next day. The password will change depending on what we have done that day, something our cousin would not know, unless you told him.
Passwords that change every day. A method of discouraging those who want to access others accounts, but also a challenge to the absentminded. Would we be able to remember the first thing we did with our phone?
While paying through a mobile device, wearable or digital card may seem like a high-tech near future, the reality is that mobile payments are already soaring around the globe.
Earlier in April, GSMA Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) released its 2014 State of the Industry Report on mobile financial services. The report indicates that there are already 255 mobile money services in operation across 89 countries and in over 60% of developing markets.
The arrival of major tech and finance players such as Apple, VISA and Samsung have brought the mobile payments into the spotlight and into the mainstream.
Here we look at three of the most interesting developments in recent months:
Digital Credit Cards
While generally still in the beta phase, digital credit cards promise to consolidate the bulk of a wallet or purse into a single card.
The idea is to forgo multiple cards and instead have a single digital card that can be programmed with the details of all your other payment and membership cards. At the touch of a button, your American Express card can become your Starbucks loyalty card. Pretty neat!
There are several major players in this space including Coin, Plastc, Swyp and Wocket.
Mobile payments are getting full backing
There’s recently been some good news for those worried about storing money in online services such as Apple Pay, PayPal or Google Wallet.
According to Yahoo Finance, the Feder Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) now insures funds stored in Google Wallet.
This means that should anything happen to Google or one of the banks holding your money, your digitally stored funds are protected by the US federal government.
While most of us use services such as PayPal to directly make payments rather than actually store money, it’s reassuring to know that online digital balances are starting to get the same government protection offered to the traditional banking system.
Mobile payments are going social
One of the most interesting developments in the mobile payment space has been the land grab by several social networks to integrate payment services into their platforms. Both Facebook and Snapchat have both got involved.
The rise of dedicated social payment services is also worth noting. Payment service Venmo has already risen to prominence (although not with a few security hiccups on the way).
I personally see social and banking as two diametrically opposed services. One should be private, secure and personal, the other open public and shared.
The fact of the matter is that there’s clearly a demand for a payment protocol with inbuilt social features so expect to see a whole lot more activity in this area in the coming months.
Probably when you were reading about the privacy policy on Facebook or Twitter, you skipped the part of ‘how to protect yourself from cyber attackers’. Each time you download a new application you agree to its terms and conditions, and we are sure that you don’t stop to read them and never worry about how the applications manage your sensitive information.
Social networks strive to inform you on how they protect your information and what can you do to contribute to this task. That’s why they offer the information in the most understandable possible way.
Facebook the most complete
Facebook just had its guide to security redesigned and in the ‘How to Keep Your Account Secure’ section offers new recommendations on how to prevent cyber-attacks through interactive graphics. And to assure everyone can read these tips, they are available in 40 languages and you can share them on your profile.
The recommendations “focus on the tools we make available to help you secure your account, the steps we take to keep your information secure, and the ways you can recognize and avoid attempts to compromise your information” explained Melissa Luu-Van, product manager at Facebook. Van-Luu added in the same post that already millions of people have read the new privacy settings launched last November.
Click on ‘help’ if you think your account might have been taken over by someone else, explain you that you have to log out if you are not using your habitual computer or inform you that you can report suspicious profiles and posts are some of the features included in the new security collection.
The guide also warns you of the possibility of a phishing attack. Facebook will never send you an email asking for your password, so if you ever receive an ‘email’ requesting this information could come from a cyber-attacker who created a fake web site to steal your information.
LinkedIn the less organized
Facebook isn’t the only social network which has improved its security information recently. LinkedIn has also a new ‘Security Blog’ with helpful guidelines. “We’ll use this site to share some of our security research, whitepapers on how we handle data and the security features and diligence we’ve built into our products. If you are responsible for information security at an enterprise that uses LinkedIn’s products” says Cory Scott, LinkedIn’s Information Security Director.
This professional network explains how your information is used and protected. For example, inform that they can hire third party companies to provide their services with limited access to your information. In addition its support center offers advice on how to better protect your account: changing your password regularly, check the privacy settings or activate the two-step verification to prevent phishing attacks, that many users have suffered in the last few months. Nevertheless, this information is less organized than in Facebook, so you will have to dive deeper to find what you want.
Twitter the one that offers personal tips
Twitter also wants to show you its way of protecting your information. If you are interested to know more details, in their help center there is a wide security and protection section, you can access it from the tab of ‘help and support’ in your profile.
Here you can find out some tips on how to maintain secure account (similar to other social networks), or how to inform Twitter if you find your account has been violated. The company pays special attention to cyberbullying and includes custom security tips for teens, parents and teachers.
What about Google?
But not only social networks detail their security policy; google has been doing it for a while. A complete manual is included in the web ‘How to stay safe and secure online’ where explains how to prevent cyber-attacks protecting your passwords, checking your Gmail’s settings or verifying the emails’ sender if you think it might be a scam.
You can also dig through all the security and privacy tools offered, like two-step verification or who to browse through Chrome without your computer recording it in your browsing history.
So, if you ever wonder how the services you trust every day protect your information against cyber-attacks now you have no excuse, the answer is here!
On March 31st, Facebook began rolling out its new “Scrapbook” feature which loving parents can fill with pictures of their children without fear of flooding their friends’ Facebook feed.
While this is great news for those of us who loathe oversharing, it also makes it easier for parents to manage their privacy. By placing all their images in a Scrapbook, parents can easily control who can and cannot view them.
Scrapbook addresses the very clear demand for parents to document, store and share precious memories and highlights the trends that we highlighted in Digital Diaries research.
In fact, as many as 30% of parents have shared a pre-natal scan via social media, creating a Digital Footprint for their child long before they are even born.
And it doesn’t stop there; later stages of Digital Diaries highlight the sharenting phenomenon where parents don’t consider the long term consequences of sharing every detail of their child’s life.
Video
Do Parents Share Too Much?
Scrapbook may help parents keep a handle on the visibility of their baby photos but as such is exacerbating the sharenting issue.
Today’s children are growing up in digital world that doesn’t forget and a world where their every moment is being captured and stored on line. Before we share anything, it’s important to remember that.
The new policy, which runs to 2,500 words is designed to remove the confusion over why some content gets removed and some doesn’t.
So what kind of things are included in the new guidelines?
Several things that you would expect to be deemed inappropriate were listed, for example:
Bare buttocks
Female breasts that show a nipple
Text that contains vivid detail of a sexual act
Praising or supporting terror groups
Altered images or video considered bullying
Hate speech
Criminal activity
Self injury
The list goes on and is a step in the right direction for users, but does it go far enough?
For example you could still post graphic images or video and if, and only if, someone complains then an interstitial page will be shown warning viewers that there is a potentially graphic or upsetting graphic image. Why should this content be on the site at all?
It seems that while many of the obvious things that we would not expect to see in normal life are being blocked, some still are allowed. I recently saw a clip spreading around that showed the murder of the French policeman in the Charlie Hebdo attack earlier this year.
While no terror group can exist on Facebook, that doesn’t seem to stop people sharing graphic inappropriate content relating to violence, discrimination or other unwelcome things.
While I applaud any move that reduces the amount of inappropriate content on a social network used by minors, I still feel that they could do more.
I wonder whether there is a revenue motive at hand. Graphic videos are accompanied by ads around them and when they go viral then so do the ads around them. And remember kids of 13 could be watching this content legally!
Can you imagine if a major news network showed the actual murder on TV, there would be public outrage and complaints to regulators, so why are we allowing it to happen online.
I believe we should look further into why some issues seem acceptable online but not in the real world. In my eyes, the rule should be as simple as “if you can’t see this offline in a public place then it is unacceptable to allow it online in a public place”.
Facebook users get malware from clicking on fake Flash Player updates.
Facebook users have fallen victim to a recycled scam, and we want to make sure that all of our readers are fore-warned. Cybercrooks use social engineering tactics to fool people into clicking, and when the bait comes from a trusted friend on Facebook, it works very well.
Here’s how the scam works – your friend sends you an interesting video clip; in the latest iteration you are tagged and lots of other friends are also tagged – this makes it seem more trustworthy. The video stops a few seconds in and when you click on it, a message that your Flash Player needs to be updated for it to continue comes up. Since you have probably seen messages from Adobe to update your Flash Player, this does not raise any red flags. Being conscientious about updating your software, as well as curious about what happens next in the video, you click the link. That’s when the fun really begins.
The fake Flash Player is actually the downloader of a Trojan that infects your account. Security researcher Mohammad Faghani, told The Guardian, …” once it infects someone’s account, it re-shares the clip while tagging up to 20 of their friends – a tactic that helps it spread faster than previous Facebook-targeted malware that relied on one-to-one messaging on Facebook.”
How to protect yourself from Facebook video scams
Don’t fall for it. Videos that are supposedly sensational or shocking are also suspect. Be very cautious when clicking.
Does your friend really watch this stuff? If it seems out of character for your friend to share something like that with you, beware. Their account may have been infected by malware, and it’s possible they don’t even know this is being shared. Do them a favor and tell them about it.
Be careful of shortened links. The BBB says that scammers use link-shortening services to disguise malicious links. Don’t fall for it. If you don’t recognize the link destination, don’t click.
Use up-to-date antivirus software like Avast Free Antivirus with full real-time protection.
