“Wikileak” is turning into a verb. This is when sensitive information in office document files such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Textpad, or PDF files can be easily copied, transferred, sold and leaked, all without the owning organization’s knowledge. It is easier than ever for sensitive information stored in electronic documents to be copied and publicly…
There’s dumb criminals and then there is this kid. A family was away from their home and had someone take care of some items around the house. Apparently the caretaker was doing some work on the exterior of the home and opened some shutters around a window and saw someone inside who wasn’t supposed to…
First thing I tell my seminar attendees is “The chances of anything bad ever happening to you is very slim. So don’t worry about. However you should still put these systems in place.” Are you a helicopter parent? An “alarmist”? Or Chicken Little: The sky is falling, the sky is falling! I heard somewhere along…
I rent cars all the time. I travel and need to get around so I can teach people about how scams work and how to protect themselves. Yesterday I encountered what seems like a scam but is probably just very unethical behavior on the part of Enterprise Rent a Car. Here is how it played out. I…
According to the figures released by the FBI, the estimated number of violent crimes in the Nation declined in 2009 for the third consecutive year. Property crimes also declined in 2009, marking the seventh straight year that the collective estimates for these offenses dropped below the previous year’s total. What has always bugged me about…
Teaching kids internet safety and security is an evolving and complex issue. The goal is to achieve a level of trust with your kids while providing a long enough leash to foster growth and responsibility. Google’s Family Safety Center is a new site compiling the best of resources for advice, guidance, direction and action items…
When a virus recruits an infected PC into a botnet, a criminal hacker is able to remotely access all the data on that computer. Robot networks, or botnets, have a varied history. A bot, which doesn’t necessarily have to be malicious or harmful, is essentially a program designed to connect to a server and execute…
Thanksgiving is coming quickly and it is one of the most traveled times of the year. Burglars know this. There are unfortunately many unsavory characters that are anticipating you are heading to a Thanksgiving Day football game or going to grandmas house and some of you might be helping the homeless at a soup kitchen.…
Today’s kids don’t even know what it’s like to not be connected to the Internet. But being technology savvy doesn’t mean they are safe and secure. Since the Internet as we know it was born in the early 1990s, it has become an integral part of our and our kids’ lives. Online shopping, social media,…
This is a little over the top and if this story was happening to one person I may not even dare to discuss. But it seems to be happening to hundreds, maybe thousands and possibly tens of thousands. And the fact that kids today are posting anything and everything, it needs to be discussed. Right…
