Entries by Robert Siciliano

Concert Season Coming: Don’t Get Scammed

As spring is in full swing, so are the advertisements for upcoming concerts. I, for one, look forward to getting on my Harley, snagging easy parking, and taking in a few shows this year. And, as with all seasonal activities and events, scammers are gearing up to take advantage of another opportunity to prey upon…

Workplace Safety Tips: Identifying Fire Hazards

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provide an exhaustive (and exhausting) detailed reference of fire safety standards here. Many states such as IOSHA (Indiana) have adopted these workplace safety tips and summed them up different fire hazards in a convenient way: General Fire Safety Tips To eliminate fire hazards, you can install a fire…

POS Skimming—Bad News for Banks and Merchants

EFTPOS skimming has become increasingly prevalent over the past few years. EFTPOS skimming—which stands for “electronic funds transfers at the point of sale”—involves either replacing the self-swipe point of sale terminals at cash registers with devices that record credit and debit card data, or remotely hacking a retailer’s POS server. In one such case, Romanian…

What Are The Risks Of Mobile Spam?

Spammers send unwanted emails or texts that are both annoying and frightening. Most spam messages are useless advertisements selling stuff you don’t need or want. In 1995, 8,069 unique pieces of malware were detected. One out of 20 emails were spam, and the Melissa virus infected hundreds of thousands. By 2010, 54 million unique pieces of malware were detected…

Fraud Perpetrated on Cybercriminal’s Clock

Contrary to popular belief, cybercriminals are hard workers. They work long hours, often through the night. In fact, many are “third-shifters”—up late at night, into the early morning hours. For example, the number one online fraud offender does his best work at 1:00 am local time in Ghana, or 5:00 pm PST. For the number two fraud…

Mobile and Phishing – Why It’s More Dangerous

Phishing occurs when scammers send emails that appear to have been sent by legitimate, trusted organizations in order to lure recipients into clicking links and entering login data and other credentials. SMiShing is a version of phishing in which scammers send text messages rather than emails, which, as with phishing emails, appear to have been sent by…

Energy Saving Tips for Small Business

Going “Green” isn’t a fad, it’s necessary to save the planet. If you have watched any of the documentaries on the Discovery Channel about how the polar icecaps are melting then you might have the same sick feeling in the pit of your stomach like I do.  Conservatively, sea levels will rise around 2 feet…

50 Million Fake Facebook Accounts

Just about anyone can set up a fake account on just about any website. Facebook and other social media sites are popular targets due to the amount of traffic they get and the variety of scams that can be perpetrated against legitimate users. Facebook estimates that as of December 31, 2011, false or duplicate accounts…

Free Mobile Apps = Drained Battery

Go through your smartphone right now. Look at each app and seriously consider whether you need it. If not, delete it. Then, determine which of the free apps are worth upgrading to the paid versions, since free apps that contain advertising that puts an additional drain on your battery. Using a special energy-profiling tool, researchers from Microsoft…