More bad security news

Well, right after (“Patch Tuesday”) major software vendors released Updates to patch several major security vulnerabilities, news of a very serious database software flaw (named “venom”) makes the news (click here to read more).

Ho hum. Not terribly surprised. This is just the flavor of the week..

So, here’s something maybe a little more useful to some of you.. How To Deal With Difficult & Toxic People

Today’s quote: “When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you.” ~ Lao Tzu

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

---

>> 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. <<

---

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

Who’s Tamara Moon? | Software Giveaway

Who is Tamara Moon? I never heard of her, have you? Neither had I heard of FINRA. But I had heard of Citigroup. What caught my eye was a half-million dollar fine.

“FINRA recently announced that it was fining Citigroup $500,000 for failing to keep track of an employee who managed to steal almost $750,000 from 22 customers during the course of eight years.“

I ask you, who is the worst villain here? (This is from Dark Reading, an Information Security website).

“A sales assistant at a branch office, Tamara Moon, stole money from the elderly, people with Parkinson’s disease, and even her own dad. And she managed to keep up her thieving ways despite exception reports that popped up for her superiors detailing conflicts in new account application information. Similarly, her supervisors did not spot red flags from suspicious transfers between unrelated accounts.“

While FINRA is penalizing (punishing) the supervisors, the article sort of suggests the ‘bad guy’ is those working the technology, and I found it an interesting read: Insiders Still Thwart Database Controls Without Supervisory Support.
(Also interesting [to me]: “still thwart“.. like, insider theft should be stopped by now. I ask, has their ever been a defense created that an attacker didn’t eventually out-maneuver? At the moment, I can only think of one.. the Cold War policy of MAD.)

Today’s “Don’t miss out“: on the chance to enter my latest software license giveaway drawing!

---

***Last Chance: Win A Valuable Prize! ***

---

The folks at Softland have generously donated ten licenses for Backup4all Professional to me, to award to my readers – a $50 program!

“Backup4all is an award-winning data backup software for Windows. This backup utility was designed to protect your valuable data from partial or total loss by automating backup tasks, password protecting and compressing it to save storage space. This backup application is feature rich and offers an intuitive interface making all features easily accessible for both beginners and professionals.“ Entry closes at midnight (Pacific) tonight. Act now!

To enter the drawing, please see: Backup4all License Giveaway Drawing

~     ~     ~

Today’s quote: “Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.” ~ Gil Stern

(And just in case you’re wondering.. people like Tamara.. well, I cannot print my thoughts.)

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

---

>> 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. <<

---

$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

Share this post :