Nearly half of Tested Computers Infected with Malware

February 8, 2010

Out of 22.7 million computers tested for malware, 48% were infected according to a new Phishing Activity Trends Report by the APWG (Anti-phishing Working Group).

Is your computer among the infected half?

Are the computers of friends and family members who send you photos, other attachments, and links in the infected half?

Will friends and family infect you – or you them?

Keeping computers and other internet-connected devices free from malware is the responsibility of every single internet user.

A secure computer is critical to protecting your finances, privacy, and reputation. It is critical to being respectful and protective of friends and family. And, it is critical to doing your part as a responsible upstanding digital citizen in protecting the internet for all users, and in defending your country against digital attacks by criminals and terrorist groups.

The battle over the internet continues to escalate

There are many companies, organizations like the AWPG, law enforcement, and government agencies leading the defense of the internet, but these defenders cannot succeed without your help. Every computer or other internet connected device owner must do their part.

Online crime busting is just like our standard crime busting efforts. Law enforcement officers lead the way in preventing and detecting crime, but every citizen needs to lock their doors, protect their homes and families, and report suspicious activity.

If your computer does not have up-to-date security software that automatically updates to keep your computers at the highest level of protection, install it now. If you cannot afford to pay for anti-virus and anti-spyware products, many good options are free.

Linda

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Talking and Driving, a Dangerous Mix

January 23, 2010

The New York Times has compiled a great series of articles on the use of mobile phones while driving. It is a list worth perusing as distracted drivers, particularly those under 30, continue to wreak havoc on the roads.

For a listing of state-by-state cell phone driving laws, go to the Governors Highway Safety Association’s Cellphone Driving Laws Page.

Also, check out my previous blogs:

Linda

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Is Using Phone While Walking Too Hard?

January 21, 2010

The New York Times has run an excellent series of articles looking into the risks of using cellphones and other internet connected devices while driving, and they’ve included an interesting article looking at the risks involved when pedestrians use their phones.

“Inattention blindness” is the term for zoning out about your surroundings when preoccupied with something else. It’s the phenomena of finding yourself in the driveway with no recollection of the commute home, and it’s now afflicting pedestrians as they talk – or text – while walking.

According to a study conducted by Ohio State University, just over 1,000 pedestrians spent time in emergency rooms in 2008 because they got distracted and tripped, fell or ran into something while using a cellphone to talk or text. That represents twice the number of reported in 2007, which had nearly doubled from 2006. And that’s just the “tip of the iceberg” said professor of city and regional planning at Ohio State Jack L. Nasar, as most accidents don’t require hospital visits.

Expect the risks to rise as increasing functionality in cell phones and rapidly expanding mobile applications designed to connect and entertain, encourage more people to be looking at their phones more often than the pavement.

Read the full New York Times article here.

Linda

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Your Online Reputation Matters – Attend Event “Online Privacy: Your Reputation is ON the Line” to Learn More

January 21, 2010

On January 28th, Canada, United States and the European Union will celebrate Data Privacy Day to educate consumers about protecting their online privacy. Today, people of all ages and backgrounds are sharing more of their lives online through social networks, micro-blogging, photo sharing and other online services. With people living more of their lives online, it’s important that they are aware and in control of the information they share.

If you are able to attend, this will be a very informative event with a strong cast of experts speaking out about how to empower consumers to take control of their online reputations.

See the full invitation and instructions on how to RSVP here:

In partnership with

Online Privacy: Your Reputation is ON the Line

On January 28th, Canada, United States and the European Union will celebrate Data Privacy Day to educate consumers about protecting their online privacy. Today, people of all ages and backgrounds are sharing more of their lives online through social networks, micro-blogging, photo sharing and other online services. With people living more of their lives online, it’s important that they are aware and in control of the information they share.  Please join us for a discussion with a variety of experts about how to empower consumers to take control of their online reputations.

*Featuring*

Michael Fertik, Chief Executive Officer, Reputation Defender

January 28th 2010
10:00am – 1:00pm
Lunch will be provided

Newseum
Knight Conference Center
555 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest
Washington, DC 20001

Opening Remarks (10:00am)
Jules Polonetsky, Co-chair and Director, Future of Privacy Forum

Remarks by (10:30am)
Brendon Lynch, Senior Director, Privacy Strategy, Trustworthy Computing Group Microsoft Corp

Panel discussion (11:00am)
Nat Wood, Assistant Director, Consumer & Business Education, Bureau of Consumer Protection
Federal Trade Commission
Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies, The CATO Institute
Marsali Hancock, President, iKeepSafe

Keynote Presentation (12:00pm)
Michael Fertik, Chief Executive Officer, Reputation Defender

Please RSVP to jan28event@futureofprivacy.org

Provided food and beverage compliant with Congressional Ethics and Gift Rules, Executive Branch Officials should consult their Executive Branch ethics rules

The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) is a Washington, DC based think tank that seeks to advance responsible data practices. The forum is led by Internet privacy experts Jules Polonetsky and Christopher Wolf and includes an advisory board comprised of leading figures from industry, academia, law and advocacy groups. FPF was launched in November 2008, and is supported by AOL, AT&T, The Better Advertising Project, Deloitte, eBay, Facebook, Intel, Lockeed Martin, Microsoft, The Nielsen Company, Verizon and Yahoo.

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$100 Billion-A-Year Medical Care Fraud

January 17, 2010

Healthcare fraud is big business. Last year scammers and organized crime groups bilked an estimated $100 billion last year according to a new article Health care: A ‘goldmine’ for fraudsters from CNNMoney.com.

Medical Identity theft is the most lucrative aspect of the medical fraud business, and the most common method of gaining access to personal medical records is when someone with legitimate access to the data sells the information to criminals. But that’s changing.

According to the CNN article “Increasingly, criminal groups are hacking into digital medical records so that they can steal money from the $450 billion, 44-million-beneficiary Medicare system — making the government, by far, the “single biggest victim” of health care fraud, according to Rob Montemorra, chief of the FBI’s Health Care Fraud Unit.”

To learn more about the risks you face when your medical records go online, see my blogs:

While the government is the “single biggest victim”, every individual whose records are stolen will feel the pain.

The most common way scammers and criminals make their money is by sending in false bills to insurance companies and Medicare for medicines, equipment, in-home health care, or treatments that were not prescribed or requested.  Criminals also ‘resell’ an individual’s medical records to an uninsured person in need of medical care.

While the aim of the criminals behind medical ID theft and fraud is to steal money, the tampering with your medical information can place you at serious risk if doctors base medical decisions about your care on the falsified information in your file.

The government isn’t the only one footing the bill. In addition to the indirect costs to the government and insurance companies that every consumer pays for medical fraud, the average cost to an individual victim of medical ID theft was close to $1,200 according to Javelin Strategy & Research, a research firm specializing in trends in security and fraud initiatives. Javelin’s research also found that in 2008 the average incident of health care identity fraud netted the criminal $19,000, which is four times the earnings of overall ID theft.

In addition to the risk to your medical records, these thieves also gain access to the information that accompanies your records – including your name, address, phone number, social security number, insurance company, and more – placing you at high risk for traditional ID theft as well.

Stay vigilant

Always check your insurance benefits statements to see if there are charges or claims that are not yours. Notify your insurance company if your financial ID has been stolen, and notify your financial institutions if your medical ID has been stolen.

Linda

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How Young is Too Young for Facebook?

January 17, 2010

How Young is Too Young for Facebook?

Would you let your first-grader on social networking sites meant for adults? Melissa Stanton interviewed Linda Criddle for this article on helping parents understand what’s appropriate and what’s not for kids on social networks.

Read the full article here

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Internet Safety in 2010 – A Report from CES

January 14, 2010

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where companies, writers and consumers gather to see the latest technologies and discuss upcoming trends has just ended, and 2010 is promising to be an exciting year for Internet safety.

The conference gave tantalizing signs that companies, educators and non-profit groups are finally moving beyond the rudimentary ‘block and filter’ technologies and mentality of the past to give parents and youth more meaningful safety options.

New interfaces, like smart tiles and multi-touch screens, and new formats for existing technologies showed how products of the future will be better adapted to consumers of all ages, how safety is integral to design, and how services will transition between technologies to give integrated multi-platform experiences.

New services have been created with safety and youth in mind. These services include age appropriate – and fun – social networking sites, search environments, email clients, and gaming sites. While there have been a number of services for the youngest users, this year the dearth of options for tweeners has been remedied – now the challenge will be getting the word out.

Innovation in family safety tools finally shows real progress with innovative companies providing more nuanced and intelligent solutions, and where additional areas of concern – like reputations – are being addressed.

In addition, the tenor of the dialog about online safety has changed. Fear mongering has largely been displaced by experience, and the discussion has shifted to addressing real issues. Forward-looking schools are adopting a variety of technological enhancements and training materials to teach and interact with students.

Breakout by Kids@Play thoughtfully reflected these shifts with panels discussing the new interfaces, how kids interact in virtual worlds and online play, the role of the FCC in creating a safer Internet, bringing diversity into experiences, and of course the state of Internet safety. As a panelist in the online safety discussion, it was refreshing to hear the level of thought and innovation being applied to creating a safer online environment – not just for kids, but for consumers of all ages.

As the Kids@Play dynamo Robin Raskin put it, “Today’s kids have grown up in a digital world. Babies cut their first teeth on remote controls. Toddlers bang on keyboards before they can walk. By the time they reach high school, these same kids will likely dabble in video production, explore virtual worlds and own a drawer-full of prized personal consumer electronics. From storybooks to Facebook, it’s the way they learn, communicate, and entertain themselves.”

Over the course of the next few months, I will highlight and review some of the great services available for kids, tweens and teens to help you find products and services that better match your needs.

Linda

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How to Use the New Facebook Privacy Settings

December 16, 2009

Facebook has taken a laudable step forward in helping consumers maintain their privacy when using the service. These much-anticipated updates in their privacy settings allow users to determine on a post-by-post basis exactly who they are sharing with.

Understanding Facebook’s expanded privacy settings and knowing how to apply them is critical to ensuring your safety and the safety of your children should you, or they, be among the now 350 million Facebook users.

Fortunately, a fantastic instruction guide – replete with screenshots – has been created by Zack Whittaker for ZDNet. This guide includes:

  • Changing exactly who can see what on your profile
  • Changing who can contact you on Facebook
  • Changing application and website privacy settings
  • Changing who can search for you on Facebook
  • Completely blocking people, how and what it does

Other resources you can turn to for understanding and using the new Facebook privacy settings include: Facebook’s explanation video, and Patrick Miller, of PC World, has this created tutorial.

To learn more about what motivated these changes, read Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg’s An Open Letter from Facebook blog.

Take the time to review your settings and leverage these new options today.

Linda

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Don’t Fall for the Xmas Variant of the Koobface Worm

December 1, 2009

There is always a Grinch. This year he comes in the form of malware, and his name is Koobface.

Koobface (an anagram for Facebook) is a malicious worm that uses social networks to send fake messages to users – things like “Hey! Are you really in this video?”, “LOL, check it out”, “My home video :)”, or “Hey! You are on news!” and contain a link to a website where you will supposedly be able to view the ‘video’.

Clicking on the malicious link starts your troubles. Once on the site, if you click to watch the ‘video’ you get a pop-up message telling you that in order to watch the video, you need to update your Adobe Flash player. Conveniently, they provide the option to install the ‘new’ version simply by clicking install.

What you really install of course is the Koobface Worm that infects your computer, steals your information, and enables a proxy tool so that your machine becomes part of a botnet so the attackers can continue to abuse your computer and any information it contains.

In this example, the ‘message’ refers to a fake video posted by ‘SantA’, and you are led to believe it will be cute entertainment to watch.

Adobe Flash player continues to be one of the most popular social engineering tactics used by criminals to turn your computer into a bot. But one simple rule will prevent you from becoming a victim.

Consistently applying one key principle will ensure that you don’t fall for these scams

Steer don’t be pulled

  • Do not use a link contained in a message – whether it comes in email, IM, on a social networking site, text message, or some other means. Find the proper URL yourself using a search engine – and use a malware filter like McAfee Site Advisor (it’s free) to be sure the site is legitimate before clicking the link.
  • If you think you need to install a newer version of ANY software, go to the company’s site (in this case Adobe.com) and download from there. It is the only way to ensure you are not getting something other than you bargained for.

Following a few safety principles will keep the Grinch, Koobface, and other nastiness out of your holiday festivities.

Linda

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1.5 Million Unencrypted Medical Records “Lost”

November 29, 2009

Medical insurance giant Health Net apparently waited 6 months to notify authorities of the breach of 1.5 million consumer and physician’s medical records.

The breach occurred in a Health Net office in Connecticut, but consumers in Connecticut are not the only group exposed; HealthNet also provides services in Arizona, California, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington State.

According to an article by the Health Information Trust Alliance Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal reaction to the belated notification was severe, “I am outraged and appalled by Health Net’s huge loss of personal financial and medical information and its failure to swiftly inform authorities and consumers. This information vanished six months ago, but Health Net is only now informing authorities and consumers, an inexcusable and inexplicable delay. Health Net’s incomprehensible foot-dragging demonstrates shocking disregard for patients’ financial security, as well as loss of their highly sensitive and confidential personal health information.”

Blumenthal went on to say “Another day, another data breach, but companies still don’t get it: personal information is like cash and should be guarded with equal care. Casual and cavalier attitudes toward data protection and breaches are intolerable and must stop. I will fight to compel companies to fully safeguard personal information, quickly inform consumers of breaches and properly protect them when losses occur.”

Health Net’s inaction is inexcusable… and far too common. Personal health records have become a hot new and lucrative target for hackers and ID thieves as more medical data has been dumped online without appropriate security precautions.

Learn more about the scope of personal data record theft and why the notification rules for personal health record breaches aren’t going to work by reading my blogs:

Stay vigilant.

Linda

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