Most of us have countless online accounts; and without even realizing it, we spread our personal information throughout the World Wide Web. We therefore wanted to find out how people not only value the information they store in their online accounts, but how they protect their information to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.
The practice of employee monitoring in the workplace has been evolving and is increasingly present in companies. As of this writing, 15% of companies on the prestigious Fortune 500 list have equipped their offices with tiny sensors created by the company Enlighted, which are used to find out how much time a worker spends at his or her desk, and also the time of first activity on their computers (used to determine when they begin the workday).
However, these aren’t the only companies to use this type of technology. Others have used biometric sensors manufactured by Humanyze to know exactly what their employees do in their working hours. The objective is to increase productivity and thereby achieve a more efficient use of resources. Hidden in the lights, walls, desks or even card readers, these sensors are installed with the intention of knowing as much as possible about what’s happening in the company.
One of benefits of this technology is knowing if the office space you use is inferior to its capacity. This would help companies decide whether or not it would be worth it to relocate to a smaller space. Other benefits include knowing when workers are most productive so as to readjust their schedules accordingly, knowing what time the office starts to fill up (and programming the power to turn on at that moment — some companies have already managed to save 25% on energy costs), or even having knowledge about which applications are being run on employee computers. On this last point, it could be possible to know if employees are accessing confidential data and whether, therefore, there is a potential risk to the company’s security.
Some companies have already managed to save 25% on energy costs with this technology.
When installing one of these employee monitoring systems, it is essential to have the best protection possible. For starters, any vulnerability in the new system could be exploited by cybercriminals to gain access to a great deal of information about the operation of your company, not to mention the possibility of manipulating said data.
Another major concern about having hidden sensors scattered throughout the office is the privacy of employees. Although in some countries it is allowed by law to install any type of sensor regardless of employee privacy, ideally employees will have given their consent. In fact, some companies and institutions, such as the British National Health Service, are already doing this with the consent of their workforce. Their employees are monitored voluntarily to measure, among other things, their movement or their location.
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Today’s cybersecurity is good, with most prevention solutions having a 99.9% or higher detection rate for common malware, but once penetrated, identification is usually a case of too little, too late. The mean time to identify (MTTI) a data breach was 201 days, and a mean time to contain (MTTC) was 70 days. In up to 70% of cases, data breaches were detected by third parties.
The devastating terrorist attack that took place in London last week has brought grief to the UK and the rest of the world. The police that investigation into the incident has raised a number of questions, that could have far-reaching consequences.
The discovery that terrorist Khalid Masood had been using the messaging app WhatsApp shortly before the attack presents police with a problem. WhatsApp uses a technology called end-to-end encryption to encode text messages.
This encryption is intended to protect messages from being intercepted by hackers and cybercriminals. If a text is intercepted, it cannot be read without the decryption key – and only the authorised sender has that key. The text is completely garbage without decryption.
Unfortunately this also means that legal investigators cannot access those texts either – the data is completely inaccessible without access to Masood’s phone. Which means that the police may be missing vital evidence of other terrorist activities because the texts are encrypted.
Speaking in the media, UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd has criticised the use of end-to-end encryption, calling it “completely unacceptable”. She even went as far as suggesting that these encrypted messaging apps are “places for terrorists to hide”.
Ms Rudd’s main concern is that traditional surveillance techniques used to prevent terrorism and crime simply do not work in the age of complex encryption. As such, police and intelligence services are limited in what they can do to keep people safe.
The London terror attack is not the first time security services have run into problems. The FBI has run into similar problems in the US too, unable to access encrypted smartphones belonging to criminals.
Service providers like Apple, Google and Facebook have complied with requests to access data in the past, but in the case of WhatsApp, they remain powerless to act. All encryption keys are specific to the phone owner – services providers like WhatsApp do not store copies, so even they cannot read messages.
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For the majority of people, encryption is a vital tool to protecting their sensitive personal data. However criminals will exploit that anonymity – placing lives in danger in the process.
In future we may see WhatsApp and other messaging providers being forced by governments to create a “backdoor” in their apps that allows for proper surveillance. Although useful for the intelligence services, this approach could also be exploited by hackers, immediately weakening security of law-abiding citizens too.
How this situation will be resolved remains to be seen. But it could be that your favourite messaging app will undergo major changes security-wise in the near future.
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It’s soul-destroying and one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to deal with. No, not Sunday lunch with your mother-in-law. We’re talking about Android devices operating at frustratingly slow speeds. It wasn’t like that when you bought it of course. So what’s going on? Why is speed such a big issue half a year down the line? “Is my service provider at fault?” we hear you ask.
It probably isn’t. 88% of all US connections are 3G or 4G, so there should be enough juice available for everyone. Sorry to disappoint you but in all likelihood, your problem is closer to home. Like, with the device itself and the way you are using it. But the good news is that help is available. It’s a fact of life; Android devices will stop performing at top condition after any prolonged period of use. Nobody said you have got to settle for that.
If after following all these tips your Android device is still not working at an optimal speed, keep in mind that Panda Mobile Security maximizes the performance and battery life of your smartphone by analyzing in real time the activity of the apps installed on it.
There are plenty of other things to consider too. For example, why not use a high-speed memory card to your device? Not only you will increase your storage space (up to 2TB depending on your phone’s capabilities), but your device will start working faster. Also, if you’re are a gamer, check out one of the RAM memory optimizers.
Obviously, we’re all for cleaning things up… but make sure you don’t disable your Panda Security anti-virus software by mistake.
Stay safe!
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Fraud attacks on banks are becoming more common and attackers use sophisticated methods to steal big amounts of money. We have witnessed several large attacks on ATMs globally over the past few months; in Thailand, India, Latin America, across Europe, and other countries around the world. In these incidents, attackers managed to steal millions of dollars.
Apps installed on smartphones and tablets are considered to be one of the biggest risks for companies today. And for good reason. In addition to diminishing the performance of the devices themselves, they can become the gateway to mobile and corporate tablets for cybercriminals.
Because of this, IT departments should be wary of employees downloading certain apps on their devices that may pose a risk, whether because of their popularity or their vulnerabilities.
A recent study looks at the applications that have been most banned by companies around the world, and the result is not surprising: although its popularity began more than five years ago, Angry Birds is the most vetoed mobile app to today.
After surveying technology leaders from nearly 8,000 companies around the world, the report’s authors concluded that globally the game has been declared the number one public enemy of corporate security. No wonder, bearing in mind that the sequel to the game, ‘Angry Birds 2’, was infected a couple of years ago by malware that affected iOS devices.
The ban of Angry Birds on corporate devices shows that, today, mobile phones and business tablets are used interchangeably for professional and personal matters. On the other hand, BYOD (‘Bring Your Own Device’) has become a trend that, either because of the vulnerability of certain applications or of employees’ own personal devices, can jeopardize the security of any company.
To carry out the study, its authors took into account both Android devices and those with iOS or Windows Phone as operating systems. In this sort of blacklist, other applications that veer more toward the personal than the professional follow on the heels of Angry Birds, Dropbox and Facebook: platforms like WhatsApp, Twitter or Netflix are also among the ten most banned applications in the business world.
Another notable conclusion of the study is that among the prohibited applications there are also some that would seem right at home in a corporate environment. However, even these are considered by many companies to be a danger to their security. Such is the case of Skype, Outlook or Dropbox itself, which, after a leak that compromised millions of passwords, seems to have fallen out of favor of late.
The post The Apps That Most Frequently Appear on Companies’ Blacklists appeared first on Panda Security Mediacenter.
Shout out to a crowd “Hands up if you like music!” Cue plenty of hands going up, with some ‘whoohoo’ screams added on. Rock stars know how to win a crowd over. And not just rock stars… music is one of those universal pleasures passed down generations, with percussion being (probably) the earliest form of music known to humankind. Heck, the Egyptians were at it 6,000 years ago! Other civilizations developed musical instruments too until Guido D’Arezzo reportedly invented solfege a thousand years ago – thus making improvements to music theory that remain in place today (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, si, do… ).
The way we came to appreciate music has changed massively as technology evolved. From outdoor performances in public squares to enclosed theaters, to the invention of the humble gramophone all the way up to Sony’s Walkman, it looks as though the trend for “any music, anywhere… right now” is here to stay. The ability to listen to one’s favorite tunes while out and about is now a given and as common place an occurrence as can be.
At the turn of the millennium, four music visionaries founded Sonos in California. They forever changed music with the introduction at the CES showing off their smart speaker, an intelligent piece of technology operating wirelessly. The company’s Digital Music System bundle won the “Best of Audio” award at the CES Innovations Design and Engineering Awards in November 2005.
Today, Sonos offers many powered speakers that utilize Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other standards to extend usage beyond audio playback; a soundbar “PLAYBAR”; and a subwoofer (for those craving that deeper sound!). The company also offers a device to link its system to conventional audio equipment such as and CD player and amplifiers for example.
For music lovers, this means multiple devices within a single household can be connected to one another wirelessly, or through a wired Ethernet network or a mixture of the two. The Sonos system operates with a proprietary AES-encrypted peer-to-peer network known as SonosNet.
In theory, this allows for each unit to play any chosen input. If desired, synchronized audio with one or more zones can also be achieved. Latest versions developed by the company integrate MIMO (an essential element of wireless communication standards) that function on 802.11n hardware, this provides a more robust connection.
Can I get my mate’s audio device to blast out some weird music as a prank? Well, one hack reported a few years ago was much creepier: called “Ghosty”, this Sonos hack freaked people out with haunted mansion sounds. We’re not joking. Developer Aaron Gotwalt combined an unofficial Sonos API, some spooky audio files, and a Raspberry Pi to achieve scary effects.
Taking control of a Sonos system isn’t exactly easy, but that’s beyond the point. Almost everything is hackable nowadays. In today’s era of plentiful connected, hackable devices… it’s good to know help is available. Take Panda Security for example. We operate toll-free, seven days a week phone lines with a human being picking up the phone. We resolve all your home IT and security issues providing much-needed piece of mind.
No need to call Ghostbusters if your Sonos system goes wild, call us – we’ll sort it out.
The post Music lovers, are your Sonos devices safe?! appeared first on Panda Security Mediacenter.
What do millions of desktop and laptop users have in common? I’ll give you a hint: You are busy with some activity on your laptop and a message pops up informing you that one of your software programs or tools needs updating. If you are like most people, you hit the ‘Remind Me Later’ option, and keep doing what you’re doing. Later often never comes. Does that sound familiar?
Pretty much every day, you accept a few new cookie warnings without actually reading them. Websites are required to inform you that they’re storing cookie files that gather data about your preferences on your own computer. The European Commission has just proposed to simplify these warnings. In addition to cookies that websites create, the memory cached on your browser stores temporary files so that pages load more quickly.
All those cookies start to pile up, believe it or not. Your computer can actually end up getting sluggish after gorging on all those digital cookies. Now that I’ve put it into perspective for you, you can appreciate the seriousness of the situation.
Sometimes what we chalk up to possible malware is actually just an information overload slowing down your browser. That’s why it is recommendable that you do a little bit of tidying up every now and again and clean out the cookie cache. And if you use a shared computer, this could have the additional benefit of protecting your privacy.
In the case of Chrome, the most popular browser, you have the option in the icon of the three vertical points located at the top right of the window. Just click the icon and go to More tools and Clear browsing data. Chrome allows you to select the exact information you want to delete: you can delete cookies, files and cached images, browsing history or passwords, and specify a date range. It also offers an alternative path from Settings, Show Advanced Settings and Privacy.
To remove your little trail of crumbs in Mozilla Firefox, click on the icon of the three horizontal stripes and select History and Clear recent history. You’ll see a window that allows you to decide the time period for which you’d like to do the cleaning. From the Details tab, you can choose the information you want to delete. And from the same menu, you can access Options, Privacy and History. There you will find the option “Use a custom configuration” for the history, which allows you to decide which browsing data will be cleared when Firefox closes.
For their part, users of Apple computers can clean out the Safari browser from the Preferences and Privacy menus. Among the available options are to change the configuration of cookies and accepted data from certain websites, delete information of specific pages individually or all at the same time, and see which sites store that data in Details.
If you’ve already installed Windows 10 on your computer, you’re sure to have saved personal information on Microsoft Edge. To clean it, select More, Settings (the little gear), Clear scan data and check the boxes of the data you want to delete in Choose what to delete. From Advanced Settings you can tell Edge to stop collecting or storing certain information.
Finally, Opera users remove cookies and clear the cache much like users of Chrome. By clicking on the icon at the top right of the window, you can click Delete browsing data and select the items you want to delete and from when you want to delete them.
Now you know where to find the virtual duster on your personal or corporate computer, so go and do some spring cleaning!
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