Week 9- Top Secret Service agent helps kick off cyber-crime campaign in South Florida

According to Ihosvani Rodriguez from Sun sentinel, South Florida is “leading the nation in identity theft” and in other cybercrimes.  Since 2010 identity theft in South Florida has increased 76%.  Listed amongst the other cybercrimes was credit and debit card theft via illegal devices such as card readers or skimming devices.  Skimming devices can be used to capture credit card numbers and pins.  These devices can be set up on ATM machines to read the magnetic strips and take pictures of pin numbers. 

Credit and debit cards are often used by many people as forms of payment for online and in store purchases and is something that we all should be concerned about.  We also use our debit and credit cards at payment terminals, gas pumps, car wash, red box (movie rental Kiosk), gift card kiosk, and any other vending machine that accepts credit and debit cards as forms of payment.  These are all systems that can be modified by criminals to steal our credit and debit card information to commit fraud.  Store employees have also been known to commit fraud by writing down or taking pictures of customers credit/debit card numbers. They have also been known to attach illegal devices to credit/debit card readers to steal information.  Once criminals obtain your credit card numbers and pin they can create fake cards with those numbers to make purchases and steal money.  Listed below are a few tips to remember the next time you use your debit and credit card especially during the Holiday Season:

1.        Check system for any signs to tampering before using.

2.       If you see anything unusual about a system, don’t use it.

3.       Check your statements often for unauthorized purchases.

4.       Never use your cards on unfamiliar sites.

5.       Be aware of online advertisements, SPAM, and phishing attempts.

Credit card fraud can be easily fixed if caught in time.  Debit card fraud cause more damage because a criminal can drain your bank accounts leaving you without any money.  The bank may or may not credit your money back to your account.  If they do it can take a long time before they replace it leaving you frustrated and without any money. 

Article can be found at:  http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-10-11/news/fl-cyber-security-forum-20121010_1_identity-theft-cyber-crimes-south-florida

Week 8 White House Confirms Security Breach By Chinese Hackers (But It's Not As Bad As It Sounds)

Over the past few months there seem to be a lot of security breaches that stems from phishing attempts.  Business and organizations have been requiring that all employees take some form of security training on an annually basics. The training usually warns users of virus, phishing attempts and other information security aspects.  I’m just curious as to why users are still falling prey to phishing attempts especially those who are associated with the government or military.  About a month ago the white house suffered a breach on their unclassified network via a phishing e-mail.  As government employees you are constantly warned about phishing e-mails and yet there is a breach via outsider gathering information from a phishing e-mail.  Is there something wrong with the training? Does it need to be revamped? Or is it that users are just not thinking?  This is another example of an “insider threat”.  The article can be found at:  http://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-confirms-security-breach-by-chinese-hackers-2012-10#ixzz2A5hQ1lJA

Week 7- TD Bank data breach hits 260,000 customers

Another insider threat has occurred  at TD Bank in Jacksonville where unencrypted backup tapes have been misplaced affecting over 260,000 customers.  The backup tapes contained customers social security numbers and account information.  Incidents such as this make you wonder if your personal information really protected.  Not only do we have to worry about protecting our own information but we also have to worry about how business are protecting our information.  How do you misplace unencrypted tapes?  What kind of security procedures do they have in place to protect against this kind of incident? Do they contain measures for keeping and storing backup takes? The story can be found at: http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2012/10/15/td-bank-data-breach-hits-260000.html

Week 6- U of Pennsylvania Confirms Data Breach

It seems like the number of Universities being hacked are starting to climb the chart in data breaches.  So far about twelve schools have been breached where hackers have stolen data.  Hackers are starting to come together and create hacker groups.  Hacker groups are more effective at breaching systems than working alone.  The hacker group responsible for the University of Pennsylvania data breach is known as “Team GhostShell”.  They claim their motive was to show how changes made to the education system by politics have affected us as a whole.  They did not steal any data that could lead to identify theft.  They only stole data that shows student debt and posted it on a few websites.  My question is:  Is there such thing as a good hack?  Is this a justifiable hack?  Do these hacks show that there may be a security flaw in the Universities system?  Are hackers becoming smarter or is security software and hardware behind the curve?  These are just a few questions that ran across my mind as I read this article.  The article can be found at:  http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Technology/2012/10/04/U-of-Pennsylvania-confirms-data-breach/UPI-38071349378891/

New Threats

When it comes to protecting personal data we sometimes only think of protecting personal data on our home computers but we never stop and think about protecting our mobile devices.  Mobile devices are just as vulnerable to attacks as our personal computers.  Mobil devices can be used to do just about anything.  They can be used for online banking, check e-mail, shopping, booking flights, booking hotels and much more.  Malware can easily be downloaded to our mobile device via android apps or any other type of download.  Not only do we have to worry about computers and mobile devices but there has also been a huge increase in malware being found in external drives such as thumb drives.  Thumb drives/pen drives are known for carrying viruses and malware.  As users of these devices we need to mindful of the potential risk associated with each of these devices and protect ourselves.  Running virus scans on all external storage devices and installing virus software on our mobile devices will provide some level of protection.  McAfee released an article about a month ago titled “McAfee Threats Report Shows Largest Malware Rise in Four Years”.  This rise is due to thumb drives and mobile devices being infected with malicious software. The article can be found at:  http://www.mcafee.com/sg/about/news/2012/q3/20120904-01.aspx