Talk of the Town Podcast: Staying Safe Online #12

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 12th visit to WHTC 1450 AM 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 show:http://whtc.com/podcasts/talk-of-the-town-today/99/updates-passwords-ai-james-allen-june-21/

New Password Guidelines by NIST

These guidelines are optional, yet often used, for non-governmental organizations. 

  • Three of the more relavent new password rules:
    • No more periodic password changes – Many organizations and some websites often require frequent password changes to the frustrations of users. This new ruling eliminates this requirement. This does not eliminate the need to change passwords when a breach is suspected.
    • No more imposed password complexity – The need for a password to have at least one lower case and upper case letters, a number and special characters is no longer a requirement. This does not mean that you are safe to use simple passwords.
    • Mandatory validation of newly created passwords – In order to make up for the recinded complexity requirement, new passwords need to be validated against a large dictionary of known, easily hackable, passwords such as 12345678 or Pa$$w0rd.
  • Password length is still critical part of a good password, the longer the better, with a minimum of 8 characters.
  • The use of multi-factor authentication, is an important way to increase the strengh of a user name/password.

Electronic Restrictions on Airlines

“Why we can’t have nice things” (or take our nice things traveling with us)

  • These restrictions only affect flights to the United States and Britain passing through ten airports located in eight Muslim-majority countries.
  • Israei Cyberoperators infaltrated a small cell of extremist bomb makers working t0 create explosives that could pass through x-ray machines and other screening methods, by looking exactly like batteries in laptops.
  • Cell phones are OK, but any electronic device larger than a smartphone has to be stowed in the baggage hold.

Microsoft Used Artificial Intelligence to Combat Global Tech Support Scams.

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsoft-used-ai-to-combat-global-tech-support-scams/

  1. Microsoft used AI to combat worldwide tech support scams as part of the FTC’s Operation Tech Trap.
  2. Machine learning was used to sort through content that was collected to determine if it was part of the fraudulent scams.
  3. The team also used Microsoft’s computer vision API to collect data like phone numbers from content associated with the scam.

Talk of the Town Podcast: Staying Safe Online #8

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 eighth visit to WHTC 1450 AM 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 show:

http://whtc.com/podcasts/talk-of-the-town-today/99/cyber-security-with-james-allen-feb-15/

Microsoft’s call for a “Digital Geneva Convention.”

Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft calls for the security community to remain neutral when nations fight each other in cyberspace.

Arby’s POS Data Breach

Arby’s corporate owned restaurant have had POS data breach of 335K records. 

Vizio has been watching you

Vizio has been caught and fined for collecting information on your viewing habits and selling it with a little too much info about you. If you want to disable the “feature” check out the linked article.

IRS Tax Scams (see article for details)

  1. Identity Theft
  2. Phone Scams
  3. Phishing
  4. Return Preparer Fraud
  5. Offshore Tax Avoidance
  6. Inflated Refund Claims
  7. Fake Charities
  8. Falsely Padding Deductions on Returns
  9. Excessive Claims for Business Credits
  10. Falsifying Income to Claim Credits
  11. Abusive Tax Shelters
  12. Frivolous Tax Arguments

Sorry for the short write up this month. I am preparing for the kickoff for the Davenport University Robotics Program.