Increasingly
with the growth in the use of smart phones, tablets, and ipads the internet criminal
community has changed their methods of stealing your money. Prior to the
Smartphone/ipad era, criminals, for the most part, relied on spyware and
viruses to infect your computer and steal the necessary information. These methods are still widely used but
others are now being employed to get at your identity if you are a Smartphone/tablet/Ipad
user.
The Achilles Heel of The Cloud
Hotmail,
Facebook, Gmail, Dropbox, Picassa the list is endless when it comes to cloud
computing. These “free” applications come with a hidden price and danger that
most people are simply oblivious to. The Danger? Once a criminal gets your
password all of the information stored on the cloud can be used to both steal
your identity and your money. The security of these applications has been
increased but most people do not use these features. Do you use two step
confirmation on your hotmail account? If the answer is no or what is it? – this
illustrates my point. These applications simply put are not safe and the more
information you put on them the easier it will be to steal your identity if you
get hacked.
How Criminals Get Your Passwords
The top
methods used to get your passwords are:
- Fake versions of legitimate Websites (banking site, facebook site or email site)
- Bin surfing or shoulder surfing computer users (ebay was hacked using a legitimate password stolen from an ebay employee)
- Fake email requests to change your password.
- Brute force attacks on your account (Automated programs which try often used passwords to guess your account)
- Guessing passwords based on profiles on Facebook, online dating and other social media sites
- Fake wireless access points (more on this next month)
- Infecting Web kiosk and internet café computers with viruses or stealth key logging software.
- Virus and spyware infections on personal computers (Avoid the “free” anti-virus solutions like the plague or you’ll regret it)
How to Reduce the Risk
- Maintain a high level of password security and use two step verification where available.(see last months article on passwords)
- When out and about don’t access banking or email from unknown or free wireless access points.
- Don’t use web café for accessing your email or banking sites
