More happy news for your Friday

(I hope you didn’t eat at a Wendy’s recently..)

Absolutely none of this should surprise you.

First up:
* Hackers Can Steal Your ATM PIN from Your Smartwatch Or Fitness Tracker

“As your day-to-day apparel and accessories are turning into networked mobile electronic devices that attach to your body like smartwatch or fitness band, the threat to our personal data these devices collect has risen exponentially.” Read more..

(There are Privacy concerns with those dang things too, BTW.)

And..
* Flaw Allows Attackers to Remotely Tamper with BMW’s In-Car Infotainment System

“The Internet of things or connected devices are the next big concerns, as more Internet connectivity means more access points which mean more opportunities for hackers. When it comes to the threat to Internet of Things, Car Hacking is a hot topic. Since many automobiles companies are offering..” Read more..

* This Android Hacking Group is making $500,000 per day

“The bad news for affected Android users is that Hummer is extremely difficult if not impossible to get rid of, because the Trojan takes control of the phone at admin level, making it impossible for traditional antivirus tools to uninstall Hummer.

The dangerous part: It is impossible to delete the Trojan through a factory reset due to the fact Hummer comes equipped with up to 18 different separate rooting exploits that allow it to root itself on a phone..” Read more..

( Infecting a million phones each day…!!! )

And last but not least..
* Over 1000 Wendy’s Restaurants Hit by Credit Card Hackers

“The Popular fast-food restaurant chain Wendy’s on Thursday admitted that a massive cyber attack had hit more than 1,000 of its restaurants across the country. The burger chain did not speculate how many people may have been affected, though it did confirm that the hackers were able to steal its …” Read more..

So.. let’s see if I can come up with a good quote after all that news..

Today’s quote: “Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.” ~ Ernest Holmes

(And I’m thinkin’ it’s time to Just Say No to our current tech… All of us.)

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

"Free", "Cash Back", "Rebate", and Alarm Bells

“When you see the words “free”, “cash back”, and “rebate” on a website, alarm bells should ring in your head.”

The Subscription Trap

If you’ve ever opened your credit card bill to find that you’ve inadvertently joined a club you’ve never heard of, at a cost of $10 or more a month, you’re not alone. Millions of Web consumers have been snared by similar tactics. Our tips will help you fight back.

How can companies make more than a billion dollars selling a service that almost no one wants? By signing up millions of members who don’t know that they’re becoming members.

Folks, if you ever do any online shopping at sites like Orbitz, Priceline, Shutterfly, FTD, Hotwire, Buy.com, Classmates.com, Intellius, 1-800-Flowers, MovieTickets.com, Avon, Barnes & Noble, Budget, GMAC Mortgage, Staples, US Airways and Ticketmaster, etc., you need to be aware of certain facts…

“Getting your money back isn’t easy. According to some angry consumers, getting a full refund required writing a letter (the old fashion way) and waiting months to receive a credit card chargeback…

Tom Spring has a “must read” article, published in this month’s PCWorld. Please, click here and read about this scandalous outrage, and the steps you can take to avoid getting snared into a “subscription trap”.
This information is so important, I not only encourage you to read it, but also to forward it on to all your friends and family.

Today’s free download: Microsoft Security Essentials
Free, effective, lifetime antivirus/anti-Spyware. 64-bit. It’s one I use, and recommend.

Copyright 2007-2010 © Tech Paul. All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix.

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Another advantage of credit cards..

LONDON (Reuters) – Prices charged by cybercriminals selling hacked bank and credit card details have fallen sharply as the volume of data on offer has soared, forcing them to look elsewhere to boost profit margins, a new report says.*

Yes, folks, you read that right. If you want to buy a stolen credit card and PIN, now’s the time because the price has never been better. A Platinum card — guaranteed to be “fresh” and work when you use it — can be had for $20.

This is because hackers have been so successful at planting Trojans on your machines, poisoning websites, and getting people to provide their identities through phishing (spam) e-mails, and using their botnets, that they simply have too much product.

We aren’t just losing the war on cyber-crime, we’re not even fighting one.

So.. since stolen credit cards are now a dime-a-dozen, what is the “shadow economy” organized cyber-criminal to peddle? “New types of stolen data are now commanding a premium, such as patient healthcare information that can be used for insurance fraud or to illicitly acquire and sell medicines.

Other premium data includes business information, company personnel files and intercepted commercial emails.”

Yikes.

These kinds of news stories, and reports, never seem to make make the front page or headline the news. Billions are being stolen from us, every year, the problem is growing, and we don’t seem to care.

And the media doesn’t like finding the “guilty party” in this kind of story because the truly guilty are us.
* From a security perspective, the Internet is completely broken and needs to be scrapped and rebuilt. Nobody knows how to “fix” the old structure. The headline, Tech Experts Are Baffled isn’t very reassuring to the public, and that might lead to the dreaded “consumer confidence” failure.

* We –the common everyday Internet surfer– can’t be bothered with securing our machines, or even learning enough of that “tech stuff” to realize our PC’s are not convenient toys.
“Why get a new Vista or Mac computer? My Windows 98 machine lets me get on the Internet and play BlackJack..” How many times have I heard that???
Some experts say that 75% of all the computers are infected with malware. Wonder why?
What does this story’s headline look like?

* We –the common everyday Internet surfer– KEEP clicking on e-mails that promise us free iPods, or tell us that there’s 750,000 Pounds Sterling waiting for us to simply pick it up.
What does this story’s headline look like?

Awww, I’m getting depressed, angry, and.. frustrated. We deserve to have our identities stolen, and we can’t blame the smart people for taking it from us when it’s this easy.

Yes, a lot of this is not our fault. The Tech Industry continues to sell us crappy products, and would rather be first to market than to check the security of their technology. I wrote about this here, How the Tech Industry is Failing You.

* To read the whole news story which triggered today’s rant, click here.

To visit Finjan (one of the article’s sources) and look at their quarterly analysis of the state of Web security and cyber-crime, click here.

I apologize. I didn’t mean to bring you down. But if you think you can take more, why not read about how the credit card companies are putting unsecured transmitters into your cards now, so a criminal can pick your pocket wirelessly! Credit Card 2.0.

Don’t you just love the folly of Man?

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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