Entries by Robert Siciliano

Woman Drives her Sleeping Assailant to Police Station

You don’t always have to outmuscle a assailant to beat him at his game. This is what a New Zealand woman learned after Vipul Romik Sharma abducted her. At first, things seemed fine; she exited a bar in Otahuhu with the 22-year-old and another man. Then they kidnapped and raped her. Sharma then told her…

Google Alert Scams

If you want to know the latest on “any topic”, just sign up for Google Alerts. Google will e-mail you notifications of new information coming online. I have Google Alerts for “Home Invasion” “Identity Theft” “Burglary” “Computer Security” and many more. So what could be so harmful about receiving alerts about topics or people who…

Beware of the Jury Duty Scam

Imagine getting a call from someone identifying themselves as a federal court official or U.S. Marshal, informing you that your arrest is imminent unless you pay a cost—all because you failed to respond to a jury summons (which you don’t remember getting). I’d like to think that you’d immediately smell the rotten scam here and…

Beware of the CEO E-mail Scam

Beware of the B.E.C. scam, says a report at fbi.gov. The hackers target businesses and are good at getting what they want. The hackers first learn the name of a company’s CEO or other key figure such as the company’s lawyer or a vendor. They then figure out a way to make an e-mail, coming…

Craigslist Rental Scams in Your Town

Craigslist is one of my favorite sites on the Internet, though I admittedly have a love/hate relationship with it. One reason I love it is because of the deals and variety of items and services available, but I hate it because some of the people who use it are scammers and the site has some…

Before you die, do This

“Nobody likes to do it, but it has to be done.” You’ve heard that before. This time, it applies to 26 documents that you should have all bundled up in a folder that trusted family members have access to (someplace where fire and water won’t damage them). But first let’s go over some details about…

You need a Home Security Safe

You don’t have to be wealthy or live in a big house to need a home security safe. If you don’t think you need one, ask yourself why. Ask yourself if you don’t have any valuables—not necessarily something that would be valuable to a burglar, but something very dear and special to you, such as…

Celebrate World Password Day in 2016 With These Tips

Each year, researchers in security take the time to rate some of the worst passwords found on the Internet. While popular pop culture events have caused waves with the list of the worst passwords of 2015 – think “solo,” “starwars,” and “princess” – the worst passwords of last year were still the usual suspects, “password,”…