News worth knowing

(AKA “Tuesday Tidbits” a day early)

A few items worthy of your time/attention.

* Samsung Admits Its Smart TV Is Spying On You

“Is Your Smart TV Spying On You? You just need to make sure you don’t hold any private conversations in front of the internet-connected TV. IS SMART TV GETTING TOO SMART? Smart TVs are connected to the Internet, and they are capable of collecting and transmitting our data. Samsung’s Smart TV uses voice recognition technology to enable voice commands, but its privacy policy defined by …” Read more…

* Anthem Data Breach — 6 Things You Need To Know

“The Nation’s second largest Health insurer company, Anthem, alerted its customers on Wednesday that hackers had stolen the personal information of over 80 Millions of its customers, making it the largest data breach and double the number of payment cards affected by Target data breach occurred in 2013. The stolen personal information includes residential addresses, birthdays, medical …”Read more…

2. BEWARE!! E-MAIL SCAMS TARGETING ANTHEM CUSTOMERS

As soon as the story broke, cyber criminals started exploiting the latest Anthem data breach in an attempt to persuade people to sign up for bogus credit protection services and provide personal information about themselves.

* Carmakers fail to protect against security attacks

“Carmakers are cramming cars full of wireless technology, but failing to protect those features against the possibility that hackers could take control of vehicles or steal personal data, a US study has found.” Read more..

* Adware Android Apps Found in Google Play With Millions of Downloads

“Security researchers have once again found Google Play Store offering malicious apps that are infecting millions of Android users with adware.” Read more..

Just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it? (Keep in mind, I could post another dozen depressing day’s headlines, but why overwhelm?)

Today’s quote: “Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others…By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.” ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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

Half over

Hard to believe the year’s half over already.. Here are a few items for your consideration.

* Taxis sow traffic chaos in Europe protesting against Uber car app

“Taxi drivers sowed traffic chaos in Europe’s top cities on Wednesday by mounting one of the biggest protests ever against Uber, a U.S. car service whose smartphone app summons rides at the touch of a button.” Read more..

[ Which is it? Adapt or die, or Adapt and die? ]

* Baby you can’t drive my car

“Self driving cars:While the notion has been around in science fiction for at least 60 years, Google wants to bring it into reality.” Read more..

Layer 8: “Human error” contributes to nearly all cyber incidents, study finds

“Even though organizations may have all of the bells and whistles needed in their data security arsenal, it’s the human element that continues to fuel cyber incidents occurring, according to one recent study.” Read more..

A wake up call? Class-action filed against payroll company Paytime over massive data breach

“A class-action complaint has been filed against Paytime, a Pennsylvania-based payroll company that experienced a massive data breach in April. “Paytime failed to safeguard and prevent vulnerabilities from being taken advantage of in its computer system,” according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on Friday.” Read more..

Here’s a change: Technology sites “riskier” than illegal sites in 2013, according to Symantec data

“The “riskiest” pages to visit in 2013 were technology websites, according to data from users of Norton Web Safe, which monitors billions of traffic requests and millions of software downloads per day.” Read more..

Today’s quote: “The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.” ~ Harlan Ellison

Copyright 2007-2014 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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>> Folks, don’t miss an article! To get Tech – for Everyone articles delivered to your e-mail Inbox, click here, or to subscribe in your RSS reader, click here. <<

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.
And please, never forget – one person can make a difference.
Find a way to make someone’s day today.
(Best advice I ever heard? Don’t sweat the small stuff.)

$1 Million Reward Offered

As so often happens when the Powers that establish Law and Order fail to protect us, folks take matters into their own hands. It’s only natural, I think.

One doesn’t really need to study, or be particularly tech savvy to know that there really isn’t enough being done to prevent cybercrime.

And, I think we understand that there are aspects to this *new* “shadow economy” that make it very difficult, if not impossible, for the Powers That Be to be effective, should they even try to do something about cybercrime.

The other day, when a person called me (at Aplus Computer Aid) for my help “to make these porno popups go away”, and I had to tell them that they had been tricked into installing a rogue antivirus.. and explained all the implications.. they were somewhat stunned, and muttered, “I’d like to find the guy who did this to me..”
His was a typical reaction.

(For more on rogues, and to see an instructional video, please see my article, Scare Tactics.)

Almost everyday, someone asks me, “what is being done about this?”, and I tell them the truth; basically, nothing.
How would you find the guy? And when/if you did track him down, in the Ukraine, or China, or Bangladesh, or Peru.. how would you prosecute him?

I am pleased to report that cybercrime is being taken more seriously by the Powers, and the laws are changing. International cooperation is starting to happen. But that didn’t stop an estimated $105 Billion dollar loss last year.
BILLION.
$105.
(Hey, that’s what insurance is for.. right?)

But let’s get back to today’s title, shall we? I just read that recently a company had received a blackmail threat:
“St. Louis-based Express Scripts disclosed last week it received an anonymous letter that included the names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and, in some cases, prescription information of 75 members. The writer or writers threatened to release millions more of similar records if the business failed to pay an unspecified sum of money.”

Cyber-extortion.

After following proper procedures (such as notifying law enforcement), and looking at all their options, a new — and I hope effective — strategy was decided upon. This company has decided to offer a $1 million reward for information leading to the conviction of these extortionists.

They’ve posted a bounty.

History has shown that where’s there’s a bounty, there’s going to be bounty hunters.. and so I hope that this is just the first such offer of reward. Somebody needs to go after these guys, before they make the Internet so unsafe it’s unusable (and at the present rate, that’ll be next year).

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

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