Welcome to HakProof.com. This site is my attempt to reach out beyond the physical classroom to the community at large to help each of you increase your personal SQ or Security Quotient. Today was my 13th visit to WHTC 1450 AM/ 99.7 FM radio station in Holland Michigan to be a guest on the daily show, Talk of the Town.
Click on Link to access the Podcast, of my time on today’s
http://whtc.com/podcasts/talk-of-the-town-today/99/cyber-safety-with-james-allen-july-26/
Adobe Flash End-fo-Life
Over the next three years, the once ubiquitous Adobe Flash player will be phased out of existence in a number of steps. The evolving HTML 5 standard and supporting technologies replace Flash in showing video and web-based game play. Why should you care? Hackers love to exploited users through their Adobe Flash plugin or fake download, when a site asks you to update to the latest version.
- So long, and thanks for all the Flash
- Microsoft commits to eliminating Flash support in Windows by 2020
MySpace’s Zombie Data
Nearly half a billion past users’ personal “zombie data” still exists on their site. This realization comes in the wake of last years MySpace hack that claimed 427 million passwords that were then made available to buyers for $2,800. Even if you login was not compromised in last years password breach, MySpaces’ password recovery system is poorly implemented. At first glance, the recovery system appears to go overboard on the information it asks you to provide, but behind the scenes, the recovery process only requires three or more of the answers to be correct for you to successfully recover your password.
Solution: Delete your account and then change the password of any site that you may have used the same password.
Ad Blocking
Do targeted ads drive you nuts? Targeted ads are those that keep showing up after visiting specific websites or search specific topics. It can really spoil Christmas shopping online. The real problem with rogue ads that pop-up in the middle of your page, or those that contain malware that attacks your device while visiting a normally safe site. Plus limiting adds decreases bandwidth usage on mobile devices.
Before installing the nearest Ad Blocker consider the sites you are running it on. Does it the site have obtrusive ads? Do you visit these sites regularly? Advertising is often the only form of income some of these sites have. If you indiscriminately block all ads you could be a part of your favorite websites demise. Consider White Listing sites you want to support.