Half of U.S. Adults have been hacked: Are you one of them?

AARP has estimated, nearly half of all adult Americans have been hacked in the past year.  The Better Business Bureau said 1 in 5 of all victims are college students or in their twenties.

Identity theft is exponentially rising while users aren’t realizing the true risk that is posed.

Roughly, 432 million online accounts that belong to 110 million Americans, which are half of all adults were hacked in cyber-attacks in the past year.

Consumer Reports estimates that 11 million Americans were victimized from email scams in 2013.

This year alone, there have been 260 breaches that have occurred in health facilities, exposing the sensitive data of 8 million people.

Could this be from health care facilities still using Microsoft Windows XP?  The software is no longer supported and vulnerable to zero-day exploits.

From coffee shops to corporate networks, grocery stores to airports, two-thirds of surfers have nothing to protect themselves.

AARP has launched Fraud Watch Network, where you can get access to information about how to protect yourself and stay alert on the latest tricks and scams.

The best ways to safeguard your personal data are:

1. Don’t share if you don’t have to
2. Monitor your finances
3. Protect your electronic devices and accounts
4. Leave a paper trail
5. Don’t trust everyone

Studies have shown that from the ages of 18 to 24, in the average of 132 days, they’ve been scammed.
 
That’s five times larger than the national average.

This goes to show why university computers are popular targets for cyber-criminals.

This year nearly 840,000 private records were exposed in breach attacks in at least 12 universities.
 
Universities affected are: University of Maryland, Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University, Iowa State, University of Minnesota, Auburn University College of Business, University of Wisconsin, Loyola Law School and North Dakota University.

Also, there were 5,000 records hacked in 10 data breaches of financial institutions, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center.

Reducing identity theft includes:

• Monitoring financing accounts
• Keeping checkbooks and statements
• Securely storing computers and all devices
• Avoiding Wi-Fi networks when shopping online
• Reading reviews before installing apps
• Decline free game downloads, music, and screen savers
• Adjust privacy settings for your social network sites
• Use credit cards instead of debit cards for liability protection
• Shredding solicitations for pre-approved credit cards

You can opt out of certain solicitations at https://www.optoutprescreen.com

For information on other scams, sign up for the Fraud Watch Network.

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References:

Kirchheimer, Sid
Half of U.S. Adults Hacked: Are You Among Them? – AARP Blog
http://blog.aarp.org/2014/06/06/half-of-u-s-adults-hacked-are-you-among-them/
June 6, 2014

Kirchheimer, Sid
College Students: Ideal for ID Theft – AARP Blog
http://blog.aarp.org/2014/05/16/college-students-ideal-for-id-theft…

Your Privacy is at Risk!

The Spy Next Door: Private Surveillance Has Never Been Easier

Do you feel like your personal information is being freely thrown around at your expense?  Not only can the government  spy on you, surveillance hardware and software are just a purchase away. These spying tools have never been more accessible or affordable than they are now.  Understanding how your privacy is at risk can help you gain control of your life.

What's more, the legal regulations dealing with privacy are unpolished and lacking in clarity. In other words,

"There's never been a better time to be the spy next door." -TechNewsDaily

To purchase the necessary spying gear isn't that hard. All you need is money!

Spy-goers can purchase cameras disguised as dictionaries, alarm clocks, house plants, desk lamps, teddy bears and sunglasses, from the range of $95-$300.

We're talking about going all James Bond status with the purchase of a few gadgets.

A License to Spy

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. The wording of the Amendment is geared specifically towards the government, it does not apply to private citizens performing these acts.

Cindy Southworth, vice president of development and innovation at the National Network to End Domestic Violence, says that domestic surveillance becomes illegal when it becomes systemic.

"If you walk by once and hear something versus if you walk by every day for a year, that's a very difference. It's what differentiates domestic violence and stalking from other things. It's a pattern of behavior."

Aaron's Law

Legislation that would make it more difficult for the government to prosecute people for violating an online company's terms of service was introduced on June 20th, 2013 by U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.).

The bill is called Aaron's Law. This is in remembrance of the activist Aaron Swartz. If passed, this law would modify the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the law makes unauthorized use of computers or digital technology a federal offense. This bill would remove noted redundancies in the CFAA at which point a person can be charged multiple times for the same crime.

Swartz  was charged in 2011 for allegedly using Massachusetts Institute of Technology servers to download a total of 4 million academic journal articles from JSTOR, a digital library that offers subscription-based access.

 Please visit http://www.hyphenet.com/blog/ for more blog posts on the latest technology and IT security news.

References:

[via: technewsdaily]

Jillian Scharr, TechNewsDaily Staff Writer
Published June 20, 2013
http://www.technewsdaily.com/18402-spy-next-door.html?cmpid=527305

http://www.technewsdaily.com/18404-aarons-law-hacking.html?cmpid=527305



Don’t miss out on the latest tech news and computer security alerts! Follow us on Twitter at @hyphenet,  “Like” us on Facebook or add us to your circle on Google+

EFF Warns Against Upgrading to New AIM Due to Privacy Concerns

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is advising users to think twice about upgrading to the new version of AIM due to privacy concerns.

The build in question is the revamped version of AIM that AOL debuted back in November of 2011 that offers fresh features like message syncing and in-chat media embedding.

The EFF’s concerns stem from the fact that once users login using the new AIM, “a flag is permanently set on your account to begin storing all of your conversations on AOL’s servers for up to two months, and perhaps indefinitely.”

While this feature is meant to provide users with the convenience of having full-access to their chat history regardless of the device they’re using to login to their account, it also potentially leaves user’s chat history open to the eyes of a party that wasn’t included in the original conversation. For instance, law enforcement officers armed with a warrant or even hackers targeting AOL’s servers.

There is an off-the-record feature within the new AIM client, but it must be enabled on a per-contact basis and cannot be applied to any Group Chats. The ‘off-the-record’ feature doesn’t work for third-party chat clients like Pidgin or iChat either.

Another concern was the fact that the new AIM automatically scans messaged links in order to retrieve and embed any shared media, whether it’s an image or video.

While on-the-fly media embedding is fine for the most part, the problem lies in the fact that links are scanned regardless of their type or purpose and may point to private network resources, contain authentication data within the URL or even be single-use URLs like unsubscription links.

The EFF has voiced their concerns to AOL, who has agreed to make changes to the new AIM chat client – including updating marketing content to make it crystal clear to users what information is being scraped, shared and stored.

However, due to the fact that merely signing onto the new version of AIM permanently changes your account settings to store ALL chat conversations on AOL’s servers, the EFF strongly recommends that existing AIM users do NOT upgrade to the new version.

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