You might be shocked to know that when Social Security numbers were first given in the 1930s, the intention was never to use them as a form of identification. However, most of us use our Social Security numbers all of the time, from doing transactions at the bank to visiting our doctor’s ... Views: 749
Sooner or later, you’ll need to leave your child home—unsupervised, alone—for an extended period. And even though you may have smart devices to keep a constant check on your child, this doesn’t mean you can instantly teleport home in the event your smart security system ... Views: 747
One reason to go wireless is obvious: Who wants all sorts of wires built under their house, which requires more than just the abilities of a recreational DIY enthusiast, like the old fashioned home security systems required? Not only is this a hairy, time consuming installation project, but a ... Views: 746
If you are like most people, when you think of burglars, you think that it “won’t happen to me.” But, it very well could happen to you, because it happens each and every day across the country. I have taken some time to gather some recent real-life stories that will not only ... Views: 745
We all get scam phone calls, but the newest one is meant to scare. When you pick up the phone, you get a message that your Social Security number is suspended due to suspicious activity, and then prompts the victim to speak with an agent to get help.
The FTC makes something very clear: your ... Views: 744
Last year, says the security firm Gemalto, over 700 million records were breached. Or, to put it another way, this translates to two million stolen or lost records every day.
2015 Breach Level Report
1,673 hacking incidents
398 were triggered from the inside of the attacked company: ... Views: 743
Hackers bank heavily on tricking people into doing things that they shouldn’t: social engineering. A favorite social engineering ploy is the phishing e-mail.
How a hacker circumvents two-factor authentication:
First collects enough information on the victim to pull off the scam, such ... Views: 742
To those of us consider Tom Cruise the movie star of our day or even Grunge as the music we grew up with, looking at millennials, and the way they view life, is fascinating. These “kids” or young adults, many are brilliant. They really do define “disruption”.
However, ... Views: 741
Have you ever wondered if you could access your old email accounts? You might want to look for some old files, or maybe need information about an old contact. Whatever the reason, there is good and bad news when it comes to accessing old email accounts.
The best thing that you can do is to ... Views: 740
Not all viruses that find their way onto your computer dramatically crash your machine. Instead, there are viruses that can run in the background without you even realizing it. As they creep around, they make messes, steal, and much worse.
Malware today spies on your every move. It sees the ... Views: 740
This entire post is brutal and for some, hard to read. But if there is a woman or girl in your life might benefit from being freaked out, read it and forward and share it.
We’ve all heard about the man approaching a child, showing her a picture of his “lost” puppy, asking ... Views: 738
Did you know that often, burglars gain entry by simply kicking open locked doors? You just would not believe how easy this is. This is why it’s crucial to beef up the strength of your house’s doors. And this can be done several ways.
Deadbolt Strike Plate
It’s ironic that ... Views: 736
If you are like most of us, you probably don’t think much about the security of your basement. However, you might want to start doing that. Why? Because burglars love to get into homes by crawling into the basement. They know that most people don’t put a lot of security there, so it ... Views: 732
You probably have a few usernames, or you might have just one that you use for every site. Either way, your user names can be used not just to identify you online, but it can also be used to track you and find out information about you. How do people track you based on your user name? They do ... Views: 732
If you are working for an IT security company, I have a message for you: the term “identity theft protection” is way overused and even abused as a marketing term. We know that this term is used to sell services and products, but does it really protect a user from being the victim of ... Views: 731
The days of using a computer to access your bank account, using a password, may be coming to an end, to be replaced entirely (as some experts believe) with a fingerprint or face scan using a smartphone.
The smartphone employment of such biometrics will drastically reduce hacking incidents, ... Views: 730
Do you fancy yourself a spy and wondering how you can monitor someone else’s cell phone? You won’t get that information here, but there is some good info on cell phone monitoring if you keep reading:
The Legalities of Tracking Cell Phones
Generally, it is not legal to monitor a ... Views: 727
What a very interesting experiment: Researches randomly deposited 297 USB drives (aka USB stick, flash drive, thumb drive) around the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. They wanted to see just how many, and how soon after dropping them off, they’d be collected by ... Views: 725
Over the past two years, the media has tended to sensationalize jihadists’ rapid adoption and strategic use of social media. Despite perpetual news coverage on the issue, the public, by and large, continues to be relatively in the dark about the intricate ways in which many jihadists ... Views: 725
Do you think you know all there is to know about water storage? Most people think they have a good grasp on it, but they are in for a bit surprise. Below, there is a lot of information about storing water that might contradict what you think you know:
Storing Barrels – You can keep ... Views: 723
Get an account with TeamViewer, and you will have a software package that enables remote control, online meetings, desktop sharing and other functions between computers.
But recently, customers of TeamViewer have reported remote takedowns of their computers that resulted in different forms of ... Views: 722
Humans have evolved a new body part: the cell phone. One day it will be part of anatomical illustrations of the body in health and medical books probably an appendage on your head. I’m not a Dr. so don’t quote me.
For now, we have to figure out a way to keep this appendage juiced ... Views: 721
There are a number of misconceptions about cybercrime and those who engage in it. To a cybercriminal, there is no target that is special unless they have a grudge or beef with a particular entity, and as a rule, they will often cast their net wide and then move to attack the easiest prey they ... Views: 721
It’s all about code—the building blocks of the Internet. Software code is full of unintentional defects. Governments are paying heavy prices to skilled hackers who can unearth these vulnerabilities, says an article at nytimes.com.
In fact, the FBI director, James B. Comey, ... Views: 721
Do you have employees who bring mobile phones to work and use those devices on the corporate network? Do they store company data on these “Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD)”?? Does your company have a policy in place for this?
First, the moment a person brings in their personal phone ... Views: 719
All of us have cell phones these days, and if you are like the vast majority of the population, you access everything from social media to banking information right from your mobile phone. However, if you do this, which everyone does, you are putting yourself in the position to get hacked. With ... Views: 718
In late 2016, a huge data breach occurred. More than 412 million accounts were affected when hackers got into FriendFinder Networks.
According to sources, approximately a million of those accounts had the password ‘123456,’ and approximately 100,000 has the password that was ... Views: 718
What’s it gonna take for companies to crack down on their cybersecurity? What’s holding them back? Why do we keep hearing about one company data breach after another?
Well, there’s just not enough IT talent going around. The irony is that most company higher-ups admit that ... Views: 713
Do you work for a corporation, especially in the U.S.? You may be at risk for tax return fraud.
ADP is a payroll provider. Hackers were able to acquire tax information of employees of U.S. Bank from ADP. Now, this doesn’t mean that ADP was directly hacked into. Instead, what happened, ... Views: 713
A startling new study shows that youth suicide is on the rise, and it has risen in dramatic fashion.
Data from the National Poison Data System shows that there were more than 1.6 million cases of kids from 10 to 24-years old attempting suicide by poison during the time between 2000 and 2018. ... Views: 713
Social media is an excellent tool for small businesses, yet, the use of social media by small business staff can definitely put the company in danger. Many small business owners and managers don’t realize this.
Recently, I was talking to employees of a credit union about what to do in a ... Views: 712
Yes that title is awful and yes you should be offended. Real estate agents often find themselves in dangerous situations. And for 20 years, I’ve been screaming this, doing something about it, and it keeps happening. And the real estate agents and industries response?
Thots and prayers. ... Views: 711
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a totally burglar-proof home, but there is also no burglar who can get into any home. By taking a few steps and using some specific security measures, you can make your home ALMOST burglar-proof.
When most homeowners consider security, they usually ... Views: 710
If you are thinking of buying a house, and you start going to open houses, you might be surprised to learn an interesting fact: the real estate agent might be carrying a gun. Some of you reading this might have jumped to this article looking for a fight, because in M’erka guns are a ... Views: 709
When it comes to background checks, the National Crime Information Center is the gold standard. It is only available to law enforcement agencies and is the most accurate and complete database tracking convictions and arrests in the US. That sounds pretty great, right? Unfortunately, it’s ... Views: 708
Do you have children? How do you talk to them when something like a mass shooting happens? What about a robbery in your neighborhood? Do you talk about nuclear weapons? If you are like most parents, you don’t know where to start. Here’s 10 tips that you can use to talk to your kids ... Views: 707
What’s sicker than raping a woman? Ordering her to phone her boyfriend so he could listen to the rape. But that was a good thing for a woman who was kidnapped last year. Her abductor drove her to the parking lot of an adult entertainment store in Georgia with the intent of raping her, ... Views: 707
Sell something called “SuperParent” or even the actual FlexiSpy — and all is swell. Frankly, I’m not opposed to monitoring a child’s phone, kids shouldn’t have phones anyways.
But sell something called “iStalk” or “StalkU,” well ... Views: 706
Even if you have the best security on your computer network, you might have noticed that you still seem to get hacked…or worse. Ask Equifax. Why is this happening? It’s probably because a member of your staff has made it easy for cyber criminals to get inside. It’s really ... Views: 705
It seems like there have been a number of natural disasters hitting the US over the past couple of years…hurricanes, wild fires, floods…the list goes on. If you are caught in the face of a survival emergency, do you have supplies? Consider a bugout bag. These are sacks that you can ... Views: 703
According to statistics, those who are 50-years old and older, like 65-85, are often targets of identity thieves. The bad guys have no issue taking advantage of your parents. They violate their trust, and understand that they are often naïve about the internet and scammy phone callls. Cyber ... Views: 703
There is a new Social Security scam in the news, and you should definitely know about it. The Acting Inspector General of Social Security, released a statement that warns people of this new scheme. Basically, scammers are impersonating Social Security Administration employees.
The scam ... Views: 699
Imagine the effectiveness of the following sign at your front door when a would-be intruder reads it:
WARNING: This house is protected by a remote monitoring service; if you break in while the homeowner is away, he’ll be instantly alerted and the police will be automatically ... Views: 698
Cyber criminals are constantly trying to stay one step ahead of the good guys, and there is now another scam out there that you should know about: synthetic identity theft. Basically, the criminals take information from someone, and then make up the rest. They also often use fake Social Security ... Views: 696
Is your home secure? You might believe it is, but if you aren’t using layered security, it’s probably not as secure as you think. What’s layered security? It means that you aren’t putting all of your eggs in one security basket. Instead, you are using multiple methods to ensure that you are as ... Views: 696
Imagine you learn your husband (or wife) of 25 years is really a different person. That’s what happened to Mary Hickman—25 years after she married a man who had identified himself all those years back as Terry Jude Symansky. The Florida couple had a son and lead an uneventful life, ... Views: 695
You have a mobile phone, you might think it’s pretty safe, but what you might not realize is that these devices can have spyware on them. Keep in mind, many of the “signs” listed below are everyday normal phone behaviors. But combined, might mean spyware. Here are some of the ... Views: 693
Riviera Beach, a city in Florida, has agreed to pay a $600,000 ransom to hackers who attacked its network.
This week, the City Council voted to pay the demands after coming up with no other option to meet the demands of the hackers. It seems that the hackers got access to the system when a ... Views: 692
In June, 2015, it was revealed by an anonymous source that the Office of Personnel Management was hacked. This office, which administers civil service, is believed to have been the target of the Chinese government. This is one of the largest hacks in history involving a federal ... Views: 690
“Tom” can also be “Alicia.”
Nevertheless, it happens often enough to come up every so often in a crime documentary aired on the Investigation Discovery channel.
The premise is as follows:
A person is SO convinced that their spouse or soon-to-be ex-spouse is going ... Views: 687