Entries by Robert Siciliano

Mobile Payment Update: Who Will Take the Lead This Summer?

As summer heats up, so does mobile payment  – a hot topic between major credit card companies, mobile carriers, and mobile manufacturers. First, to give you some perspective, let’s cool down and cite some statistics from November of last year, when “Cyber Monday” was the most successful ever; and mobile purchases skyrocketed on Black Friday.…

Using Tech Support to Set Up Your New Devices

There are some things in life that require a “professional” to get the job done properly. You wouldn’t let your cousin Larry who’s a landscaper reset a broken bone in your hand right? You can certainly go to a hardware store and buy all the wood to build a deck, but just because you know…

How Does Jailbreaking Or Rooting Affect My Mobile Device Security?

You may have heard the term jailbreaking or rooting in regards to your mobile phone, but what is this and what does it really mean for you? Jailbreaking is the process of removing the limitations imposed by Apple and associated carriers on devices running the iOS operating system. To “jailbreak” means to allow the phone’s owner…

“BYOD”? Mobile Security Tips for Small Businesses

Many employees have come to expect that they should be able to use personal smartphones and other mobile devices at the office. This creates problems for IT managers. A company’s IT staff may have a solid grasp on company-issued laptops, desktops, and even mobile phones, but it is almost impossible to control the results when…

Is There A Risk With Using My Personal Device For Work?

The day after you get your shiny new mobile or tablet, chances are you’ll take it right to work and request the IT department to set it up with your work email and allow access to the company network. “Bring your own device” (BYOD) has become widely adopted to refer to workers bringing their personal…

Geo-tagging: Is Your Smartphone Revealing Your Location?

Location-based services utilize geo-location information tied to your phones GPS and in some cases your carriers connection and even WiFi Geo-location or geo-tagging can be used on PCs, but is primarily applicable to mobile phones. The geo-location software usually obtains its data from your device’s Internet protocol (IP) address or your global positioning System (GPS) longitude and…

Safe Searching on Your Mobile Device

The web and especially the mobile web can be a minefield of malicious links luring you to click, so bad guys can infect your device. Search engines do their best to filter these sites out but nefarious criminals have found ways to get their scammy pages to the top of search through a process called…

Online Gaming Is Lucrative For Organized Gold Farming Rings

So-called “gold farmers” play massive multiplayer online games, not for fun, but to accumulate virtual currency, or “gold,” which can then be sold to other players, despite the fact that most game operators explicitly ban the exchange of in-game currency for cash. Gold farming is so lucrative, people in China and other developing nations can…

Security Snapshot: How Is EMV Safer?

To understand why EMV credit cards—or “chip and PIN” cards—are safer, first we must understand  standard magnetic stripe cards. The familiar magnetic stripe, which can be seen on all credit cards carried in the United States, has been around for more than four decades. The security technology behind the magnetic stripe has been compromised, since…

European Cybercrime Not Slowing Down

Device reputation authority iovation published a report revealing that the number of fraudulent transactions originating from Europe has risen dramatically over the past two years. From April 2011 to April 2012, iovation prevented approximately 15 million fraudulent online transactions in Europe. That’s an increase of 60% over the previous year. The rate of European fraud…