It’s one thing to bust into your kid’s diary and read it, but if your kids want the privilege of engaging in the cyber world, they need to understand that parents are justified in “spying” on them. Or are they? Depends on whom you ask and how far they go at “spying” on their kids.…
“Survivor.” What comes to mind when you see or hear this word? A victim of a disease or of a perverted crime? A TV show? We’re all survivors in that every day, we do something to stay alive—life-saving things we don’t even think about as life-saving, such as eating healthy and exercising. People die every…
Perhaps you’ve read that “HTTPS” at the start of a website address means that the site is secure, encrypted. However, a feature of the HTTPS can track you, says an article at theregister.co.uk. HTTP is not secure. Carnegie Mellon University in a Register article states “HSTS”, which is “Strict Transport Security” redirects users to HTTPS.…
Ever hear of a crime called skimming? It may not be as dramatic a crime as assault or Ponzi schemes, but it can cause significant problems to you as your savings account can be wiped out in a flash. Picture a scrawny nerd tampering with an automated teller machine (ATM)—the machine you use with your…
Smartphones are picking up popularity. You can now access email, social media, and other things from a device that fits in your pocket (most of the time). And, although we hear about breaches and security flaws in the news, it seems like a lot of us don’t think it applies to our mobile device. Here…
In the last few days, a number of tech magazines like Computerworld and PC Advisor have reported that FraudFox VM poses a threat to the security of online businesses—especially banks and payment services. FraudFox VM is a special version of Windows with a heavily modified version of the Firefox browser that runs on VMware’s Workstation…
Have you heard of iDict? It’s a tool that hackers can use to get passwords via what’s called brute force attacks. It’s designed to crack into iCloud’s passwords, and supposedly it can circumvent Apple’s anti-brute force attack security. But iDict doesn’t have as big a bite as you might think. A long, strong password is…
What goes on in the home life of a 14-year-old girl such that she feels there’s nothing better to do than send nude photos of herself to a man whom she’s been corresponding with online? Though this goes well-beyond the parents not bothering to find out what their kids do online, another huge issue is…
You can’t change your fingerprint like you can change your password. But why would you want to change your fingerprint? The thought might cross your mind if your fingerprint gets stolen. How the heck can this happen? Ask Starbug. He’s a hacker who demonstrated just how this could happen at an annual meeting of hackers…
If you plan on getting a new smartphone, have you ever thought of what the next user of your old smartphone will find on it? This assumes you’ll be selling or donating it, of course. Are you SURE those risqué photos are totally gone, or that your diary entries have been wiped clean? Experiments have…
