How to protect your Facebook account from hackers, spammers and clowns

If you’re like the average Facebook user, you have 130 Facebook friends.  Those friends may include your mom, your best friend from 5th grade, your boss. (If your friends list includes people you don’t know, you should audit your account right now. )Now, what happens if your Facebook account is taken over by a spammer or a scammer? Or maybe a disgruntled ex gets control of your profile and starts posting shameful things on your friends’ walls. Could you brush it off and tell yourself, “It’s just the Internet. Who cares?” Probably not.Hackers are out there—helping each other to take advantage of lax security. So here’s what you need to know to keep strangers out of your account. If you’re in a hurry, the most important information...

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How to protect your data privacy on social networks

Studies have said public speaking makes as many as 3 out of 4 people anxious. But that was before Facebook.The 650 million people on Facebook suggest that most of us are getting over—or want to get over—that fear of communicating (or at least sharing pictures) in public. In just a few years, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have given billions of people the chance to connect to an audience they would never had access to before.But now that you’re becoming comfortable in public, you may begin to wonder: Am I revealing too much? In a world with the NSA, TMZ and Wikileaks, do I have any privacy? Is it possible to be a public person and still protect my information from being misused?Friday January 28 is Data Privacy Day 2011, an international...

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WiFi + Airport = Lost password

As most travelers know, many airports and VIP lounges offer Wi-Fi connectivity but, unfortunately, these connection are rarely encrypted.   Here’s an example: All data sent and received travels in clear text, which means anyone could intercept the data for malicious purposes.  This unencrypted data could include passwords, logins, financial information like PIN codes, etc.Many people also know that it’s always better to use a VPN connection.  However, in many cases,  VPN connection are filtered out and blocked by rules on the network firewall. I tried two different protocols and both were blocked.  Mostly network administrators don’t allow using VPNs from Public WiFi access points only because they want to make...

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iPhone passwords succumb to researchers' attack

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology in Darmstadt, Germany, have found a way to steal passwords found in the Apple iPhone's keychain services within six minutes. In order to steal passwords, the researchers said, the attacker must have have the actual, physical iPhone in hand--this isn't a remote maneuver. First, the attacker has to jailbreak the iPhone, and from there then must install an SSH server on the smartphone to be able to run unrestricted programs. The researchers also created a "keychain access script" that they then copied to the iPhone. After executing that script, they found that they were able to decrypt and see some passwords saved in the keychain. Over the past year, several iPhone...

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