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The White Hat Hacker

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These days, it is hard to pick up a newspaper or go online and not see a story about a recent data breach. No other example highlights the severity of these types of hacks than the Sony breach late last year.

11DWhile a lot of information, including creative materials, financials and even full feature-length movies were released – some of the most hurtful pieces of information were the personal emails of Sony executives. This information was truly personal.

You have a right to privacy, but it’s not going to happen in cyberspace. Want total privacy? Stay offline. Of course, that’s not realistic today. So the next recourse, then, is to be careful with your information and that includes everything from downloading free things and clicking “I agree” without reading what you’re approving, to being aware of whom else is viewing your information.

This takes me to the story of a white hat hacker—a good guy—who posed as a part-time or temporary employee for eight businesses in the U.S.. Note that the businesses were aware and approved this study. His experiment was to hack into sensitive data by blatantly snooping around computers and desks; grabbing piles of documents labeled confidential; and taking photos with his smartphone of sensitive information on computer screens.

The results were that “visual hacking” can occur in less than 15 minutes; it usually goes unnoticed; and if an employee does intervene, it’s not before the hacker has already obtained some information. The 3M Visual Hacking Experiment conducted by the Ponemon Institute shed light on the reality of visual hacking:

  • Visual hacking is real: In nearly nine out of ten attempts (88 percent), a white hat hacker was able to visually hack sensitive company information, such as employee access and login credentials, that could potentially put a company at risk for a much larger data breach. On average, five pieces of information were visually hacked per trial.
  • Devices are vulnerable: The majority (53%) of information was visually hacked directly off of computer screens
  • Visual hacking generally goes unnoticed: In 70 percent of incidences, employees did not stop the white hat hacker, even when a phone was being used to take a picture of data displayed on screen.

From login credentials to company directories to confidential financial figures – data that can be visually hacked is vast and what a hacker can do with that information is even more limitless.

One way to prevent people from handing over the proverbial “keys to the kingdom” through an unwanted visual hack is to get equipped with the right tools, including privacy filters. 3M offers its ePrivacy Filter software, which when paired up with the traditional 3M Privacy Filter, allows you to protect your visual privacy from nearly every angle.

Robert Siciliano is a Privacy Consultant to 3M discussing Identity Theft and Privacy on YouTube. Disclosures.

What is private Information and what is not?

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Data Privacy Day was Wednesday, January 28, and these days the concept of “privacy” can be ambiguous, generic or confusing. What you might think of as private actually isn’t. The definition of personal identifying information, by the U.S. privacy law and information security, is that of data that can be used to contact, identify or locate an individual, or identify him in context.

1PThis means that your name and address aren’t private, which is why they can be found on the Internet (though a small fee may be required for the address, but not always). Even your phone and e-mail aren’t private. What you post on Facebook isn’t private, either.

So what’s private, then? An argument with your best friend. A bad joke that you texted. Your personal journal. These kinds of things are not meant for public use. What about vacation photos that you stored in a cloud service? Well…they’re supposed to be private, but really, they’re at significant risk and shouldn’t be considered totally private.

And it’s not just people on an individual scale that should worry about privacy. It’s businesses also. Companies are always worrying about privacy, which includes how to protect customers’ sensitive information and company trade secrets.

But even if the company’s IT team came up with the most foolproof security in the world against hacking…it still wouldn’t protect 100 percent. Somewhere, somehow, there will be a leak—some careless employee, for instance, who gets lured by a phishing e-mail on their mobile phone…clicks the link, gives out sensitive company information and just like that a hacker has found his way in.

Even when employees are trained in security awareness, this kind of risk will always exist. An insider could be the bad guy who visually hacks sensitive data on the computer screen of an employee who was called away for a brief moment by another employee.

Tips for Training Employees on Security Savvy

  • Make it fun. Give giant chocolate bars, gifts and prizes out to employees for good security behaviors.
  • Post fun photos with funny captions on signage touting content from the company’s security policy document. It’s more likely to be read in this context than simply handed to them straight.
  • Show management is invested. Behavior changes start from the top down,
  • Get other departments involved. Even if they’re small, such as HR, legal and marketing, they will benefit from security training.
  • Stop visual hackers. Equip employees with a 3M Privacy Filter and an ePrivacy Filter which helps bar snooping eyes from being able to see what’s on the user’s screen from virtually every angle.
  • Don’t forbid everything that’s potential trouble. Rather than say, “Don’t go on social media,” say, “Here’s what not do to when you’re on social media.”
  • Make it personal. Inform workers how data breaches could damage them, not just the company. A little shock to their system will motivate them to be more careful.

Robert Siciliano is a Privacy Consultant to 3M discussing Identity Theft and Privacy on YouTube. Disclosures.

Online Data less safe than ever

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It’ll get worse before it gets better: online data safety. It’s amazing how many people think they’re “safe” online, while one huge business or entity after another keeps getting hacked to the bone.

1DAnd “safety” doesn’t necessarily mean the prevention of your computer getting infected with a virus, or falling for an online scam that results in someone getting your credit card information. It’s also a matter of privacy. While targeted advertising (based on websites you’ve visited) may seem harmless, it’s the benign end of the continuum—that someone out there is tracking you.

So, do you still think you’re hack-proof?

That you can’t be fooled or lured? That your devices’ security is impenetrable? That you know how to use your device so that nobody can get ahold of your sensitive information?

Consider the following entities that got hacked. They have cyber security teams, yet still fell victim:

  • LinkedIn
  • Yahoo! Mail
  • Adobe
  • Dropbox
  • Sony
  • Target

You may think the hacking is their problem, but what makes you believe that the service you use is immune? Are you even familiar with its security measures? That aside, consider this: You can bet that some of your personal information is obtainable by the wrong hands—if it already isn’t in the wrong hands.

Are you absolutely sure this can’t possibly be? After all, you’re just a third-year med student or recent college grad looking for work, or housewife with a few kids…just an average Joe or Jane…and you use the Internet strictly for keeping up with the news, keeping up with friends and family on social media, using e-mail…innocent stuff, right?

You’ve never even posted so much as a picture online and say you don’t use a credit card online either.

  • But hey, if your passwords aren’t strong, this ALONE qualifies you as a potential hacking victim.
  • So, what is your password? Is it something like Bunny123? Does it contain your name or the name of a sport? Keyboard sequences? The name of a well-known place? The name of a rock band?
  • Do you use this password for more than one account? That gets tacked onto your risks of getting hacked.
  • You need not be someone famous to get hacked; just someone who gets lured into filling out a form that wants your bank account number, credit card number, birthdate or some other vital data.
  • If you just ordered something from Amazon, and the next day you receive a message from Amazon with a subject line relating to your order…did you know that this could be from a scammer who sent out 10,000 of these same e-mails (via automated software), and by chance, one of them reached someone at just the right time to trick you into thinking it’s authentic?
  • People who know you may want your information to get revenge, perhaps a spurned girlfriend. Don’t disqualify yourself; nobody is ever unimportant enough to be below the scammer’s radar.
  • Did you know that photos you post in social media have a GPS tag? Scammers could figure out where the photo was taken. Are you announcing to all your FB friends about when your next vacation is? Did you know a burglar might read your post, then plan his robbery? Between the GPS tags and your vacation dates…you’re screwed.

Well, you can’t live in a bubble and be antisocial, right? Well, it’s like driving a car. You know there are tons of accidents every day, but you still drive. Yet at the same time, if you’re halfway reasonable, you’ll take precautions such as wearing a seatbelt and not driving closely behind someone on the highway.

Most of your fate is in your hands. And this applies to your online safety. You won’t be 100 percent immune from the bad cyber guys, just like you’re not 100 percent immune from a car wreck. But taking precautions and having the right tools really make a tremendous difference.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing  identity theft prevention.

Data Breach Aftermath

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Haste certainly doesn’t make waste if you’ve suffered from an entity getting hacked resulting in a data breach. Don’t waste a single minute delaying notifying affected accounts! In the case of a credit card company, they will investigate; you won’t have to pay the fraudulent charges. The breached card will be closed, and you’ll get a new one. And there is more.
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All sounds simple enough, but the experience can be a major hassle. Below is what you should do upon learning your card has been breached:

  • If a SSN is breached, place a credit freeze or fraud alert with the three big credit bureau agencies. Placement of the credit freeze or fraud alert will net you a free copy of your credit reports; review them.
  • See if you can find companies that have accounts in your name—that you didn’t set up. Notify and cancel them. Make a list of entities that might be affected by your ID theft, then contact them.
  • If your identity is actually stolen, you may need documents to show creditors proof of your ID theft, you should file a report with the police and FTC.
  • Keep vigilant documentation of all of your relevant correspondence.

If your credit card was compromised, you also must contact every company or service that was on autopay with the old card. This includes quarterly autopays (e.g., pesticide company) and yearly autopays, like your website’s domain name. Don’t forget these! You now have to transfer all the autopays to your new card.

But you also must consider the possibility that your credit card breach is only the beginning of more ID theft to come. You now must be more vigilant than ever. If it can happen once, it can happen again.

  • Check every charge on every statement. If you don’t remember making that $4.57 charge…investigate this. Thieves often start with tiny purchases, then escalate.
  • Use apps that can detect anomalous behavior with your credit card account. These applications are free and will alert you if there’s a purchase that’s out of the norm, such as there’s a charge to the card in your home town, but an hour later another charge occurs 800 miles away.
  • See if your card carrier will let you set up account alerts, such as every time a purchase exceeds a set amount, you get notified.
  • Never let your card out of your sight. The thief could have been someone to whom you gave your card for a payment—they used a handheld “skimming” device and got your data. If you don’t want to hassle with, for instance, the restaurant server who wants to take your card and go off somewhere to get your payment, then pay cash (if possible).
  • Never use public ATMs; ones inside your bank are less likely to be tampered with with skimming devices.

Other than tampered ATMs and retail clerks taking your card out of your view to collect payment, there are tons of ways your personal information could get into a thief’s hands. Here are steps to help prevent that:

  • Shred all documents with any of your personal information, including receipts, so that “dumpster divers” can’t make use of them.
  • When shopping online, use a virtual credit card number; your bank may offer this feature.
  • When shopping, patronize only sites that have “https” at the start of the Web address.
  • Never save your credit card number on the site you shop at.
  • If a retail site requires your SSN in order to make the purchase, withdraw from the site and never go back.
  • Never give your credit card or other personal information to online forms that you came to as a result of clicking a link in an e-mail message. In fact, never click links inside e-mail messages.
  • Make sure all your computer devices have a firewall, and antivirus/antimalware software, and keep it updated.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing  identity theft prevention.

Study Shows 67% of Employees Expose Sensitive Data Outside the Workplace

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IDC, an IT analyst firm, estimates that the mobile worker population could reach 1.3 billion by 2015, meaning, they access workplace data outside the workplace. This is risky because it exposes data to hackers.

2DIn fact, the safety of what’s displayed on the computer screen in public is of huge concern. The 3M Visual Data Breach Risk Assessment Study provides some troubling findings.

First off, 67 percent of workers expose company data beyond the workplace, including very sensitive information. Typically, the employee has no idea how risky this is. It’s as easy as the crook capturing data, that’s displayed on a screen, with a smartphone camera as he passes by or secretly looks on continuously from nearby.

And there’s little corporate policy in place to guard against this. The study says that 70 percent of professional employees admitted their company lacked any explicit policy on conducting business in public. And 79 percent reported that their employer didn’t even have a policy on privacy filter use.

Either communication about policies with employees is feeble, or attention to visual policy from the decision makers is lacking.

An increasing number of people are taking their online work to public places, but if they knew that company data was properly protected from roving snoops, they’d be more productive. Companies need to take more seriously the issue of visual privacy and this includes equipping employees with tools of protection. Below are more findings.

Type of Data Handled in Public

  • Internal financials: 41.77%
  • Private HR data: 33.17%
  • Trade secrets: 32.17%
  • Credit card numbers: 26.18%
  • SSNs: 23.94%
  • Medical data: 15.34%

Only three percent of the respondents said that there were restrictions imposed on some corporate roles working in public. Eleven percent didn’t even know what their employer’s policy was.

One way to make headway is a privacy filter because it blocks the lateral views of computer screens. Eighty percent of the people in the study said they’d use a device with a filter.

Another factor is that of enlightening workers about the whole issue. An enlightened employee is more likely to conduct public online business with their back to a wall.

Additional Results

  • In general, work is not allowed in public: 16%
  • No explicit policy on public working: 70%
  • To the worker, privacy is very important: 70%; somewhat important: 30%; not very important: 4%; not important at all: 1%.
  • Only 35 percent of workers opted to use a kiosk machine with a privacy filter when presented with two machines: one with and one without the privacy filter.

The study concludes that businesses are sadly lacking in security tactics relating to data that’s stored, transmitted, used and displayed. This is a weak link in the chain of sensitive information. Any effective IT security strategy needs to address this issue and take it right down the line to the last employee.

Robert Siciliano is a Privacy Consultant to 3M discussing Identity Theft and Privacy on YouTube. Disclosures.

10 ways to protect your Devices and Data

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Gee, it used to be just your desk computer that needed protection from cyber thugs. Now, your connected thermostat, egg tray monitor, teen’s smartphone, garage door opener, even baby monitor, are all game for cyber creeps.

7WCan’t be said enough: Install antivirus software. This software really does make a huge difference. Malware scanners are not enough, by the way. You need both: antivirus, anti-malware, though malware usually targets laptops and PCs. But don’t bet on it staying this way; Macs, mobiles and tablets are vulnerable. Don’t wait to get security applications for your smartphone and tablet. Android is particularly vulnerable.

Enrich your Wi-Fi. Turn on your WPA or WPA2 encryption. Change your router’s default password to something really unique. Update the router’s firmware. Register any new routers online. Contact the router manufacturer’s site for helpful information on making things more secure. Whenever using free public WiFi recognize your data can be sniffed out. Use Hotspot Shield whenever logging in at airports, hotels, internet cafés and more.

Don’t use outdated software. Are you still on Windows XP? Time to switch to 7 or 8. Security holes in outdated applications will not get plugged if there’s no longer support.

Power passwords. You wear a power suit; you take a power lunch, a power nap and a power walk, but do you have a power password? A power password is extremely difficult to crack. It’s at least 12 characters long, contains no dictionary words or keyboard sequences, and has a variety of symbols. You can also use a password manager to create and encrypt passwords.

OS updates: often. Many people fail to keep their operating systems updated. Big mistake. An update means that a security hole, through which a hacker could get in, has been patched. Lots of holes mean lots of entry points for hackers. If Windows alerts you to an available update, then run it. Learn about your system’s update dynamics and get going on this.

Patch up your software. Have you been getting update alerts for Adobe Reader? Take this seriously, because this software is highly vulnerable to hacking if it has unpatched holes. Any reminder to update software must be taken seriously. Don’t wait for an attack.

Wipe old hardware. Got any defunct laptops, tablets, flash drives, hard drives, etc.? Before reselling them, strip them of your data. If you want to discard them, literally hammer them to pieces.

Two-factor authentication. A long, strong password is not 100 percent uncrackable. If a hacker cracks it, but then finds he must apply a second factor to get into your account…and that second factor requires your smartphone to receive a one-time code, he’ll move on.

Don’t get duped. Never click links in e-mails. Don’t click on something that seems too good to be true (a link to naked photos of your favorite movie star). Avoid suspicious looking websites.

Stop blabbing on social media. Information you post on Facebook, for instance, could contain clues to your passwords or security questions for your bank account. Sure, post a picture of your new puppy, but leave the name a mystery if it’s the answer to a security question.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to Hotspot Shield. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him discussing internet and wireless security on Good Morning America. Disclosures.

SEC comes down on Breached Companies

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If you’re wondering if businesses, who’ve been targets of cybercrime, have been properly handling the fallout, you have company: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

1SThe SEC is investigating this very issue. Key Questions Include:

  • Did the businesses adequately protect data?
  • Were investors properly notified about the breach’s impact?

One of the companies being investigated is Target Corp.

The SEC, historically, has concentrated on giving guidance to companies regarding disclosure of data-breach risks, and the SEC has traditionally also assisted with ensuring that financial companies were well-equipped against hackers.

But the SEC doesn’t like when there seems to be incomplete disclosures of the data breaches or some kind of perceived misleading information.

For example, Target didn’t disclose its breach until the day after it was first reported—by renowned security blogger Brian Krebs.

Just how much should companies say about breaches? This is being debated among regulators, corporate attorneys and activist investors.

Nevertheless, public companies owe it to investors to inform them of material compromises that could affect the investors’ decisions to sell or buy shares. A material attack, says the SEC, includes one that makes a company greatly boost what it spends on defenses, and one in which intellectual property is stolen.

Businesses in general would rather keep silent about breaches to avoid negative fallout. At the same time, it’s not easy to come up with evidence that a business should have disclosed more about a data breach than it actually did. A stolen trade secret, even, won’t necessarily be harmful to a big company’s growth or profits. The interpretation here varies almost as much as the different kinds of cyber attacks do.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to AllClearID. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video. Disclosures.

Post-Data Breach Reputation Building

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You WILL be hacked. Remember that mantra if you’re a business. Business leaders need to realize the effect that a data breach would have on customers and clients—an aftermath of distrust which can take a lot of time and money to rebuild.

4HInteractions is a customer experience marketing group that released a study called “Retail’s Reality: Shopping Behavior After Security Breaches.” One of the findings is that 45 percent of shoppers don’t trust retailers with their personal information. Following a data breach, 12 percent of faithful shoppers cease shopping at that store, and 36 percent shop there less. And 79 percent of those who’d continue shopping there would more likely use cash—which means buying less.

So that’s a retailer’s worst nightmare: Non-trusting customers who are spending less (not to mention the ones who quit shopping there altogether).

This leaves retailers with two options: prevent all data breaches (not an attainable goal) or devise a plan to minimize the disastrous aftermath.

Communication and transparency with customers is crucial in the aftermath of a breach. Customers want to know that a company will rise to the occasion in the event of a breach and are more interested in how the retailer will deal with the fallout, rather than how a retailer will prevent it. After all, consumers tend to realize that hacking these days is just a part of life.

Companies should not wait till a breach occurs to figure out how to retain customer trust; they should plan ahead. Companies should be able to assess the risk related to the data they collect and have a breach response plan in place prior to a data breach.

The IT department is often on center stage following a breach, but marketing, customer service, and HR departments are also very important.

The departments should pool together to come up with a plan to reassure customers that their security is the top priority and that should a breach occur, they will do everything possible to protect their customers and restore any and all accounts that are compromised as a result.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to AllClearID. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video. Disclosures.

Mailroom Error, Big Data Breach

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Data breaches need not be launched maliciously in order to be very troublesome, as was the case involving about 3,700 Medicare Advantage members. Freedom Blue and Security Blue members received risk assessment results that actually belonged to other individuals. The addresses, birthdates, member ID numbers and medical information of some members ended up in the hands of other members.

1DAnd how? An innocent mistake committed by a mailroom employee. Though there was no evidence of malicious use of this personal information, it just goes to show you how easily a person’s private information can end up in a stranger’s hands. Imagine receiving a stranger’s medical information in your mailbox. It would make you think twice about trusting the company with your personal information in the future.

Members were notified of this error after the insurer spent a month exploring how it happened. Though the unintended recipients received information about other members’ scores on mood tests, medications and results of frailty tests, at least the Social Security numbers weren’t revealed.

If a breach affects more than 500 people, law requires that the health industry alert the Health and Human Services Department, which will then launch an investigation. The affected consumers, and local news outlets, are also required to be notified.

Highmark Inc., the health insurance company whose members were affected by the mailroom breach, changed the member ID numbers of the affected members or those who might have been affected. Sixty-three members received forms pertaining to other people, and 233 never received a mailing, suggesting that their forms possibly went to other members.

As for the bumbling employee, that person was fired. The other employees are being retrained, and Highmark will implement a bar code system on all mailings, which is one proper way to track breach notification letter mailings to ensure the right pieces of mail end up in the right hands and avoid over-stuffing or mis-stuffing of envelopes..

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to AllClearID. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video. Disclosures.

 

Data Breach Response Planning 101

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Don’t think in terms of “if” you’ll suffer a data breach, but rather, “when.” Once you establish this mindset, it’s time for you to develop a response plan. After all, a security system that’s impenetrable has yet to be invented.

4HWhat’s even more, an amazing number of businesses don’t even have the best security system available. So again, the data breach is a “when,” not an “if.”

For starters, a response plan should include as much information about the incident as possible, remaining transparent (consult your legal team about the types of information that should and should not be disclosed) and being aggressive at managing the circumstances.

Another area to consider when developing a response plan is how the data breach will impact customers and clients—namely, their trust in the company. The Ponemon Institute states that much of the damage from a data breach stems from the loss of customer trust in the company.

Though the average number of customers who vanish following a data breach came in at 4 percent, says the study, there are enterprises that see an average “customer churn” rate of 7 percent. While it may seem small, it will undoubtedly be noticeable when it comes to the bottom line, , and the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries are just the type to suffer this degree of loss.

So how can a company prepare to retain as many customers as possible following a data breach? Be prepared, and this preparation should include a way to stay level-headed.

One way to stay cool and collected is to avoid jumping the gun when the breach occurs, because if the business is too hasty at revealing the breach, the organization will have that much less time to respond in an efficient, optimal matter. Thus, take the time to consult with experts and gather all of the facts before reacting.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to AllClear ID. He is the author of99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video. Disclosures.