The good old days were when today’s college kids’ parents lugged their typewriters into their dorm room, and they communicated to people via the phone on their room’s wall. Their biggest worry was someone stealing their popcorn maker. Nowadays, college kids need to beware of remote invasions by thieves. Major educational institutions have reported numerous…
How safe do you really think your home is? Lock the doors. This no-brainer doesn’t just mean when you’re gone all evening. It means during the daytime when you’re home. There’s no reason for doors to be unlocked when you’re inside the house. Does your lock consist of a deadbolt? Don’t rely on just a…
What a nutcase: the man who recently broke into the White House, missing President Obama by just minutes. (Why isn’t the White House fence more unscalable?) Omar J. Gonzalez, 42 and unarmed, was arrested just inside the house. The Texan was charged with unlawful entry, and it’s not clear what his motive was. The Sept.…
Okay, so you were taught to share your toys in the sandbox, but little did your parents know that years later, sharing your files could result in disaster. People share personal and business files all the time on their computers without realizing the security risks. Not all data breaches occur due to malicious events. An…
Don’t blame the hackers; don’t blame the bank; apparently it’s the victim’s fault that a Missouri escrow firm was robbed of $440,000 in a cybercrime, says a report on computerworld.com. The attack occurred in 2010, but the appeals court’s March 2013 ruling declared that the firm, Choice Escrow and Title LLC, can’t hold its bank…
In an average year I’ll tally 75,000 airline miles. In an average week while waiting for the plane to board or while in flight I’ll see multiple laptop screens flipped open with an over the shoulder view of emails being sent and received, PowerPoint presentations being tweaked, proposals being written and various client and employee…
The holiday season means an upsurge in home-based parties, and some parties can seem extremely innocent, like a Christmas tree decorating party. These events can get out of hand, even if you know all your guests. But sometimes your guests bring guests that are shady. It’s awful to even acknowledge this, but even people you…
Remember that song from 1984, “Somebody’s watching me?” It was a great foreshadowing of things to come: These days, people really CAN watch you while you go about your business at home…through your computer. So if someone confides in you that “they’re spying on me through my computer,” don’t be too quick to assume your…
In the movies, the good guys always get the bad guys. In cyber reality, no such thing exists. A survey of 5,000 IT security professionals turns up the following: 63% doubt they can stop data breaches. 69% think threats slip through the cracks of their security systems. 57% believe their company lacks protection from advanced…
No, not deadly to a fly that you swat at, but to the homeowners who are subjected to aggressive police searches after the police receive a 911 call that someone was shot at the house. But the call is a hoax. This happened to Jesse Vanremortel at 3:30 am, says an article at theoaklandpress.com. He…
