{"id":3973,"date":"2011-02-06T15:41:15","date_gmt":"2011-02-06T05:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/?p=3973"},"modified":"2011-04-27T17:43:09","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T07:43:09","slug":"how-obvious-are-computer-security-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/?p=3973","title":{"rendered":"How obvious are computer security threats?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Threats are obvious only when we have knowledge of them and since cyber threats change from day to day<\/strong>…\u00a0<\/p>\n

Words like phishing, hacking and malware have become part of the\u00a0vernacular, but as our online connectivity increases there\u2019s a new batch of cyber security threats we should be aware of.<\/p>\n

What to look out for in 2011<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Social Networking:<\/span> Photos and personal information are\u00a0easy targets for hackers, and many users have already had their personal pages infiltrated – me\u00a0included! Beware of unusual messages or requests from your friends online. Cyber criminals are using Twitter to point to malware-laden websites and in Facebook accounts, someone you don’t know will try to ‘friend’ you to con you into giving personal information.<\/p>\n

Social Engineering<\/span> attacks thrive on Facebook and Twitter because of the enormous pool of potential victims, many of whom are maintaining a constant Facebook connection on their smartphones and other mobile devices. Attacks have become more convincing, more anonymous, more international and more professional.<\/p>\n

Gadgets and Smartphone Mobile devices: <\/span>The massive popularity of the iPhone and other iOS devices\u00a0like the iPad means these devices\u00a0become a more valuable and sought after target. The most serious threat is to online banking transactions done via smartphone, especially the iPhone. Targeted malware will continue to increase in sophistication in 2011 with the popularity of the iPad and iPhone in the business environment combined with a lack of security for these devices.<\/p>\n

Trending Topics:<\/span> <\/strong>Cybercriminals watch for online trends and poison search engine results, which can leave users at risk of clicking on an infected link.<\/p>\n

Shortened Web Addresses:<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>Twitter and Facebook have created short URLs so users can easily click and share information, but the short addresses also make it easy for cybercriminals to take advantage of them and difficult for users to see where the link is really taking them.\u00a0Clicking on unknown links can direct users to\u00a0a website that installs malware on an internet connected device.<\/p>\n

Pharming:\u00a0P<\/span><\/span>harming is similar to phishing and is more difficult to detect because it’s\u00a0not reliant upon the victim accepting a \u201cbait\u201d message, but instead redirects victims to a bogus web site. While phishing attempts to capture personal information by getting users to visit a fake website, pharming redirects users to false websites without them even knowing it. Hackers attempt to change\/exploit the DNS settings of a server so\u00a0when you enter the address of a legitimate website, it redirects you to a fake copy of the original site hosted somewhere else.<\/p>\n

Botnets:<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>Botnets collectively generate 95% of the world’s spam and have infected an estimated 100 million computers. That makes defending against botnets difficult, and it’s not getting easier. Spam will increasingly make use of\u00a0news and current affairs by consuming RSS feeds from major news aggregators and using these headlines as subjects in the messages. Hiding their\u00a0commands within images or music files distributed through file sharing or social networking websites will increase. Home users are the most vulnerable to botnets. Warn\u00a0the kids!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Here are a few ways to protect\u00a0against cyber attack <\/span><\/strong>suggested by <\/span><\/span>Mary Landesman<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>well known\u00a0About.com Guide and Antivirus Expert.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Update your computer.<\/span> If your budget will allow it, consider upgrading Windows (7)\u00a0or buying a Mac. Either will offer better overall security.<\/p>\n

Stay on top of patching.<\/span>\u00a0This means patches for all software,\u00a0not just the operating system. Particularly problematic are the many vulnerabilities continually being exploited in the ubiquitous Adobe Reader and Flash apps.<\/p>\n

Install the latest antivirus<\/span><\/span>.<\/span> Whether you’re using fee or free antivirus, always use the latest version available.<\/p>\n

Limit social contacts.<\/span>\u00a0When it comes to online friends and security, less is truly more. Only accept friend requests from people you know and trust. And speaking of trust, don’t blindly follow links in Facebook or Twitter. Use the same precaution you should already be applying to email links,\u00a0if you didn’t request it and didn’t expect it, treat the link with caution.<\/p>\n

Keep a close eye on your identity<\/span>. Set up transfer or balance threshold alerts for online accounts, consider freezing your credit report or signing up for a credit monitoring service, and shred documents and junk mail that contain personally identifying information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Threats are obvious only when we have knowledge of them and since cyber threats change from day to day…\u00a0 Words like phishing, hacking and malware have become part of the\u00a0vernacular, but as our online connectivity increases there\u2019s a new batch of cyber security threats we should be aware of. What to look out for in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[373],"tags":[184,476],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3973"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3973"}],"version-history":[{"count":65,"href":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4654,"href":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3973\/revisions\/4654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bonzamobilecomputerrepairs.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}