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Today is international Safer Internet Day 2013. Take a few moments and think about the online safety and security of you and your family. Nine tips to help you get started: Tip #1 – Know who: Tip #2 – Security Software: Tip #3 – Passwords: Tip #4 – Guidance & Direction: Tip #5 – Browser Settings: Tip #6 – Tagging: Tip #7 – E-mail: Tip #8 – Computer Settings: Tip #9 – Public Computers:
This morning, I, like so many others across the globe, sit with tears streaming down my face and into my lap as I think about the 26 souls who are now in Heaven on a direct path from the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. I can not possibly imagine the angst the families ...
On the 18th of October, the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media announced the publication of “Bringing the Social Media #Revolution to Health Care” (Mayo Clinic) – for those involved in the health care vertical and with social media responsibilities you owe it to yourself to get this book. More than 20 individual contributors made ...
The stalker, may he burn in hell, a male predator on-line convinced a 12-yr-old Amanda whom he befriended in a chat room to flash her breasts over an internet connect and did a screen grab of the event. For the next few years, he continually threatened and then followed up those threats with action sharing the photos of Amanda within her peer population when she declined to do whatever he was demanding of her – via Facebook where he had set up alias accounts and assimilated himself into Amanda’s new circle of friends. Where could Amanda and her mother taken some direct action?
Safer Internet Day 2012 (SID2012) serves as great opportunity to remind ourselves of the need to exercise a bit of caution as we traverse the wired side of life. What impresses me the most is the multi-lingual, multi-topic approach taken to spread the message of how to stay safe online.
On 2 November, I gave a talk, “Unintended Consequences” at Gnomedex. I spoke to the need to recognize that “always-on” isn’t necessarily always good. I went on to describe the train-wrecks which occur when technology which is created for good, is used in a manner, unintended. I then shared the stories of 36 young people who we lost in 2010 due to being overwhelmed, both online and off.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Chris Pirillo pre-Gnomedex about a variety of subjects, some light, some humorous and one very serious – the topic of bullying and the attendant suicides. During this discussion, I also shared my thoughts on how we as a collective society need to step up and accomplish in the immediate future. I do hope you will come and listen to my talk on the Gnomedex stage at Seattle Interactive conference on 2 November 2011 at 1400 hours (2:00pm). The presentation is titled: “Unintended Consequences”
17 October 2011 (#NCSAM – National Cyber Security Awareness Month) Encryption: To encrypt or not encrypt, that is the question (a hat tip to the Bard of Avon). In this day and age of digital data thefts, careless loss of hardware and infusion of crimeware / malware, in my opinion it pays to encrypt. When ...
Information Security, News, Online Safety, Safety & SecurityThose who have followed my writing on the subject of Wi-Fi security know my passion for taking seemingly basic steps to keep one’s wireless activity safe and secure. In a recent survey conducted by the Wi-Fi Alliance 86% of all respondents had taken the appropriate steps to secure their routers, but only 56% had taken the step to create a “hard” password, thus making themselves vulnerable to dictionary attacks or the like. So take three basic steps to keep yourself Wi-Fi secure:
News, Online Safety, Safety & SecurityWhat’s SMISH? SMISH is Short Message Service (SMS) Phish or in the lexicon of the day, Text Message Phishing. What’s phishing? Phishing is a criminal action where you are engaged by a third-party with the specific goal of you providing private and sensitive information for nefarious purposes. The difference between SMISH (SMS Phish) and Email Phish (Phish) is only the avenue by which you are engaged by the criminal. How does it work?
News, Online Safety, Safety & SecurityIf you don’t maintain the health of your device then you should expect that your device will at some point in the future become compromised in some way, shape or form. What type of compromises may occur? How often? What can you do? Let’s answer these in order…
News, Online Safety, Safety & SecurityDo you or your children participate in online gaming, using your PC, smart phone or game box? Then you need to make sure you understand what’s going on, especially behind the curtain, when you configure your “game” settings. Here are eight online security tips to keep you safe and secure.
News, Online Safety, Safety & SecurityLocation based services are here to stay, have great viability and absolutely increase the interaction between individuals and merchants, as well as serve to identify individuals with similar interest. Know that well intentioned services have a positive side, but also may also be used to your detriment. If you are satisfied with the answers to the questions in today’s post, then make your decision to share or not to share.
News, Online Safety, Safety & SecurityToday marks the start of National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) in the United States. If you’re reading this piece you are on a social network and have a modicum of interest in your online security. Throughout the month (as I have for the past few years) I will be publishing snack size tips that you may wish to share (family, friends, colleagues, or whomever) so that all have a leg-up on keeping their online activities enjoyable, but also safe and secure.
News, Online Safety, Safety & Security
Many medical devices have telemetry requirements, which require patient data to be both present within the device’s resident memory and to be transmitted from the device to a monitoring or record-preservation device (hard drive or tape). During transmission, are the content or command/control sequences protected? Do they need to be? Unfortunately, yes. The data must be protected not only from a PHI-data disclosure perspective, but also from data corruption perspective.
Yesterday I had a an interesting sequence of events happen within my Twitter footprint that I had not seen previously. I had 11+ new followers, all who had over 100, some over 1000 followers. These new followers all arrived in my follower list in sequence over the course of the early morning. Each of these *individuals* had sent between 2-10 tweets, none of which were original content – all of them being RT (re-tweets) of pieces from trusted sources such as Mashable. The Twitter handle/name had the format of “given name” + “3 to 5 random characters”. Click on the Figure-1 o the left to see all of these names which arrived in my follower list and you’ll understand the naming convention. Every single one of these names is a “bot” generated name. read more…
News, Online Safety, Safety & SecurityPlease make sure you are connecting via HTTPS (S=secure) and much better for YOU than the HTTP connection
News, Online Safety, Safety & Security
In David Schwimmer’s TRUST, the teenage character Annie finds herself the subject of great deal of unwanted and undeserved attention by her high school classmates in a manner in which constituted to all would be unacceptable and falls within the realm of cyberbullying (as the bullying occurred using online media). We all have encountered instances where those who did not conform or who had experienced something not of the ordinary come under undo scrutiny and are isolated for the experience by their peers. The scrutiny often times manifests itself into ridicule, sarcasm or insults as those who are observing from afar attempt to differentiate and exclude themselves from the experience.
In David Schwimmer’s TRUST, bad things happen to Annie, a good child. She is by all appearances a typical teenager – totally wired, online and available, 24/7/365. In the physical world, parents see with whom their child interacts. As the parents witness this interaction they are able to help guide and influence their child’s choices. The number one rule for every family: “The child must not engage in any personal meetings with an individual whom they have only met online without explicit parental permission.”
In my research, I found it interesting that, with the ubiquitous nature of wireless connectivity within our homes and businesses, I was unable to find an example of where a Neighborhood Watch had integrated the identification of insecure wireless access points within their neighborhoods. I advocate including a wireless scan capability into Neighborhood Watch programs. Most people who have a wireless access point do nothing more than simply pull it out of the box, and plug it into the wall and their broadband service provider. Neighbors can help neighbors stay safe by letting them know when their wireless access point is in an open or insecure state.
Author, Speaker, Humanitarian, Leader, Senior Security Advisor
My focus is on Safety, Security, Intelligence, Intellectual Property and Humanitarian issues.
I place particular emphasis on the protection of both the young and the elderly of our society.
You may contact me directly via:
Christopher@BurgessCT.com
