Yahoo Malware Attack & Skype Twitter Hack

The new year just started and the cyber criminals are diligently working.  This week the Yahoo! advertisement server was hit with malware.  Visitors at Yahoo.com were vulnerable. Users in Great Britain, Romania, and France were affected the most.  Java was exploited to carry out the attack.You can read more at http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/05/tech/yahoo-malware-attack/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 

Innocent visits to reputable sites, such as Yahoo! can have bad outcomes.  The most important way to thwart the problems is to maintain up-to-date antivirus and anti-malware software running on your computers. There are versions of antivirus and anti-malware software available for free.  Two examples are AVG and Malwarebytes.

This is the second cyber crime (I am certain that there were more) in the last few days.  On New Years Day, cyber criminals hacked the Skype Twitter account to bash Microsoft.  The Syrian Electronic Army took credit for the hack.  You can read more at http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/1/5264540/skype-twitter-facebook-blog-accounts-hacked

Fake a Facebook Friend Scam

A Facebook post this morning reported that a friend's Facebook account had been scammed. 
I read more about the problem to understand what happened.  There is a good article on the topic by Katherine Hutt at Consumer News and Opinion http://www.bbb.org/blog/2013/07/imposter-facebook-profiles-can-fake-out-your-real-friends/

First, do not accept a Friend invitation if that person is already your friend (check your Friends list).  I believe I might have done that unknowingly. 

The motives for the fraud are:

• To learn more about you
• To pretend to have an emergency requiring you send money

Northeaster University IT services ( http://www.northeastern.edu/securenu/?page_id=471 ) provides helpful information about how to identify a fake.  

Update on Identity Thefts and Cyber Criminals

Cyber criminals are alive, well, and busy stealing identities.  PC World has a good article, How Your Identity Gets Swiped Even if You're Careful, by Dan Tynan online at http://www.pcworld.com/article/2050328/how-your-identity-gets-swiped-even-if-youre-careful.html

According to the article, three of the largest data mining companies, LexisNexis, Dunn & Bradstreet, and Kroll Background America Inc., have been hacked. The site, SSNDOB, is selling personal identifiers on the black market.  The only way to know if our personal data has been compromised is to order a free credit check.  Information on ordering the credit check is online at https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

To learn more about privacy rights thefts, go to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse at http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach/new
I use the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse as a learning activity in the informatics courses I teach for Chapter 24 on Legal and Ethical Issues.  I  ask the students to find three information breaches and then to discuss how the breaches could be prevented.  The positive feedback on the assignment is awesome.  

Evernote Hack Compromises User Information

The hacking criminal business is thriving these days.  Hackers are attacking many sites including one of my favorites, Evernote.  If you use Evernote, but have not been contacted this week by Evernote, your information probably was not compromised.  However, many user account information was stolen.  If you are an Evernote user, go ahead and login.  You will probably be alerted to change your password.

CNN has more information about the hack at http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/02/business/evernote-hacked/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 

CNN reports that user names, email addresses, and encrypted passwords were stolen.  My wish is that the cyber criminals would use their knowledge to get a "real" job working to support the web and my use of it, rather than to destroy it.