A man walks on a floor advertisement for Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 game console at an electronic store in Tokyo April 27, 2011. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

Internet crime is on the rise and companies where you do business are reluctant to talk about it. There is a code of silence because victims want to avoid  embarrassment, public scrutiny and falling stock prices. However, it’s hard to hide when this effects 77 million people worldwide.

Be aware. The Reuters article on this topic mentions that a study done by MacAfee showed that the networks of 85% of some 200 power producing companies had been hacked and 1 out of 4 of those were victims of extortion. The 28 page PDF report In the Dark, Crucial Industries Confront Cyberattacks is available here. They are recommending that these industries move beyond passwords to tokens and biometrics indicators, use of network encryption and monitoring for anomalies, increased oversight of how the network is accessed, and effective partnerships with government. What should you do? Read the rest of this entry »

Should you use Social Media?

One of the many data security seminars I attended this year to stay current as a computer security specialist  (I can’t remember which or I’d give credit) included a good story as illustration…

Imagine this is 1989 and you’re a foreign intelligence agent tasked with identifying potential “assets” in a US aerospace defense contractor. You target female senior engineers, divorced, in their 40s. It might take months of research to identify individuals, and months more to find their interests and daily habits. All of this would be quite costly. Fast forward to 2009: you could find all this data and much more in minutes through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and similar sites. People tend to trust contacts they make through social networking sites so after a few dozen interactions, and almost no expense, they trust you. You know what their hobbies are, their likes and dislikes, and are well placed to recruit them. This is one of the many nightmares facing big business and government, and it’s one of the reasons Read the rest of this entry »