Have you logged onto Facebook in the past few months and been targeted with an advert relating to something you recently looked up on your device? For the majority of people the answer to this will be yes. Only a few days ago I searched for the new Jaguar using safari on my iPhone, that evening when I opened the Facebook app I was met with an advert for the new Jaguar XF. This was a very strategically placed targeted advert, and you need to remember that the reason Facebook is free is because we the users are the product. It was reported in the states that Facebook makes approx $7 a year for each and every user by giving marketers access to a defined market based on search history and social patterns of users. Now I have no issue with this, my issue however is I was carrying out searches for the above Jaguar car on safari and not through the Facebook app and this is where it gets a little scary. If I did not use the Facebook app to carry out a search how did I get an advert targeting me for this item? Well my guess is that Facebook is actually monitoring my activity on my phone even though I have it pretty well shutdown. You will notice on all of these adverts that at the top right hand corner there is a little arrow when you click this you get a drop down menu. On this drop down menu you will see the option "why am I seeing this?" This is Facebook's way of telling you why you have been targeted with a specific advert when I clicked on this I got the below information.
As you can see it specifically notes that this information is based on information from your profile and here is the important part AND YOUR DEVICE! Now you can limit Facebook right down by enabling all of your privacy setting but there is no option to click that says "stop spying on my applications outside of Facebook". The issue is if I have limited all of my privacy setting to the highest level how is this information still been obtained? And what information is Facebook gathering from my device? We know that tracking cookies are more than lightly the reason that Facebook can obtain this information so there is one way to stop this, you could stop your device from receiving cookies. This however is not a great solution as you need cookies enabled in order to log into any site where you may have a user account otherwise your session won't run so you can see where the issue lies if you were to turn them off. This means that until someone comes up with an iron clad way to stop tracking cookies from monitoring your online activity it's up to you how much information you really want to share.
This is the second post I have done on this topic and the reason for this is the increasing amount of questioning that I have been getting from parents around this area. I think in the past year the message is starting to sink in that real threats do occur online and you need to be aware of how to mitigate against them. First of all can I say that educating your child on how to use a computer can be very beneficial but use this time wisely educate your child how to master IT skills through the likes of your local coder dojo or local computer classes for children, I would not however suggest letting your child have unlimited access to your ipad or family computer. In many cases, kids are more technologically advanced than adults, so some parents may feel intimidated and refrain from enforcing rules that are imperative to protect their children as they surf and socialize online. This is a very real fact there are however ways for parents to educate themselves so they can take a more interactive role in how they deal with there children's use of online forums. Security software is one way to restrict what kids see and do on the web, taking a lot of pressure off parents to stay current with every new risk. But it’s still important that parents get involved with their kids’ online lives, and make sure that their children know how to act and how to react to what they see on the web. Communicating the dangers of the web to your child and staying involved in what they can and cannot do online helps build up an understanding of what is safe and acceptable.
In order to communicate these dangers parents firstly need to understand what the potential threats may be. The number one threat to children today be meeting a predator online, but there are many other online experiences that can result in inappropriate or illegal activity. Kids need to be told that not everything they read online is true, and that there is a lot of material on the web that is not meant for them. This material can include fascist sites, pornography sites, drug sites, and other explicit content that an unprotected child can easily view. To help mitigate these risks there are many new software options available such as filtering technologies, child-safe browsers and search engines that restrict where your child can surf.
Loss of privacy is a another big risk. Kids must be shown how important it is to protect their personal information and the information of their family and friends. Many child-oriented web sites solicit information from kids in surveys and forms in exchange for prizes, and get them to register online for fan clubs. In chat rooms, sharing their gender, age, and favorite hangout could seem harmless, but predators can easily use this information to track down the child. Parents need to be aware that digital predators often pose as children in order to gather information and ultimately meet their unsuspecting victims. But kids also flirt and pretend to be older than they actually are, not thinking about the potential results of such actions. It is also common for kids to get into online fights or become the target of bullying via email, chat, and instant messaging, this type of behavior can sometime consume the victim so much that they become withdrawn and with no physical marks to show from such behavior it can become hard for parents to figure out whats going on. With the introduction of such apps like snapchat where the messages disappear from the victims phone within seconds it can be very hard for a child to prove that the bullying exists. I would strongly recommend that parents are very aware of what messaging apps your child is using and carefully monitor there activity especially if the child's behavior starts to change.
Blogs such as this one and Social networking sites such as Facebook are places where kids can share too much information—not only names and addresses but also personal photos that sometimes show illegal acts, such as underage drinking or drug use. Ask your kids to share their blogs or online profiles with you so you can check the content. If you are spicious that your kids are hiding content from you then use Google, along with the search tools on social networking sites, to search for profiles your child may have posted. Use your child’s full name, phone number, and other identifying information. You can also use Google images to upload a picture they may use on social media sites and this will trawl the web for that pictures or ones that may be similar.
The next threat vector parents need to be aware of is Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing this alone creates new issues and privacy problems. These programs allow people to browse and download files from Internet-connected personal computers of anyone else who uses the same program. This makes it easy for cyber criminals to spread viruses, Trojan horses, and spyware. Kids can also accidentally download pornography that is labeled misleadingly. I would strongly suggest that you don't allow your children to use such services unless you are able to closely monitor the content. Setting up a virtual machine will help mitigate the threat of malware and virus's to your main machine if you run your p2p service off the virtual machine but it will not prevent your child accidentally downloading porn.
So how do parents go about becoming proactive about the above? I have complied a list of ten things that you should sit down with your children and go through. The below list will set out clear boundaries for your child and let them know that you care and are taking a proactive role about there online security.
1) Monitor your child's online activity this is by far the most important step to take. Limit the chance that they are looking up inappropriate material by putting the computer in a high-traffic family area and limit there usage. There are loads of child monitoring software packages out there so do your own research to find a software that meets your needs and budget.
2) Fortify your computer with strong security software and make sure to keep it up to date I have wrote about the importance of this in past blogs so take a look through my posts if you need help with this. Using software such as The McAfee® Internet Security Suite guarantees protection from viruses, hackers, and spyware. It filters offensive content, pictures, and web sites. The anti-virus software will also protect your computer from viruses and spyware by automatically scanning email attachments and files downloaded from P2P file-sharing sites. For the most complete way to keep your children safe online, use McAfee Family Protection. It keeps children of all ages safe from exposure to inappropriate content, social networking risks, strangers, and other online threats. With McAfee, kids are free to safely explore, learn, and enjoy their online interests.
3) Make sure kids understand basic rules for using social networking sites such as Facebook and blogs. They should guard their passwords, and never post personally identifying information or inappropriate photos. Blogs and social networking sites offer privacy tools that can be turned on to restrict potentially dangerous users. The sites automatically provide these protective tools to kids under 15. Kids should share information only with people they know from the real world. Make sure that your kids understand that there are bad people online to and they may not be who they claims its very easy make up a fake social media account.
4) Never ever let your child arrange in-person meetings with people they meet online. If however for some reason you think that this is acceptable you should confirm the person’s identity, and you should accompany your child to the meeting in a public place.
5) When using P2P file-sharing programs, kids should not download files from users whom they don’t know. They could be downloading infected files, pictures, games, and music that are inappropriate, or media files protected by copyright law. As I said above using a virtual machine for this activity will save your computer if they do download a virus. Also its important to note that kids should not allow users to upload their music files unless they’re certain that they have permission to share them. You can disable the upload feature so that your kids don't inadvertently share files without permission.
6) Don’t allow kids to fill out online forms or surveys. If there is a legitimate site where they want to register, such as Nickelodeon or Disney, have them come to you first so you can check the site’s privacy policy and rules of conduct. You should take the time to read there privacy statement but I suggest use a throw away email address for such sign ups and limit the amount of factual information you need to share.
7) Only allow your children to use monitored chat rooms, and have them use a screen name that doesn’t hint at their true identity. As with blogs and MySpace, kids should never reveal personal information or share photos. Make sure they understand that people can lie about who they are and that online friends are still strangers.
8) Teach your kids to ignore emails and instant messages from people they don’t know. They should never open attachments they are not expecting nor click on links in messages. As with blogs and Facebook, they should not send out personal information.
9) Use browsers for kids and kid-oriented search engines. Children’s browsers such as Google safe search for kids do not display inappropriate words or images. It comes pre-loaded with kid-safe web sites and pre-set word filters.
10) Set you kids goals to research online safety be themselves as them to write you a little report on what they think the dangers online might be. Fact Monster is an excellent reference site, packed with information and homework help. For Ireland you should check out the office for internet safety.
Over the past few months Microsoft have been firing out their new operating system Windows 10 to the world for free. This blog is more aimed at anyone who is just after installing the operating system as chances are if you are a windows user you may have already upgraded or will be doing so in the near future. Like most things that come fresh out of the box to make them work to a level you might expect takes some tweaking. I am going to focus on a few basic steps you should take right away to make your new operating system secure.
1) Run the windows update straight away, I know you may have spend an hour or two installing the dam thing but running windows update will make sure your operating system has the latest patches. To find windows update just click the little search bar at the bottom of your screen and type "windows update" once opened just hit "check for updates" and your done.
2) System restore is turned off by default in Windows 10 so you might want to turn this on. Microsoft have renamed this function as "system protection" so to turn this on head back down to the little search bar and type "This PC" when the logo appears right click on it and select "Properties" click on "system protection" then click "Configure" and turn system protection on.
3) Check your Windows 10 privacy setting by default everything and I mean everything in here is turned on. To get here you go to START > Settings> Privacy spend a bit of time looking over this and make sure you are happy with it.
4) Make sure that all of your applications are updated in an earlier post I mentioned that Secunia PSI was a good application to check this.
5) Make sure you have your anti-virus turned on if you don't have an anti-virus Windows has a build in AV called Windows Defender. You can find Defender by going to the search bar and typing "Windows Defender".
In the last week the figures released from toymaker VTech surrounding the massive hack they have suffered is startling. The worst part about this hack is it shows that children are not immune to cyber crime. It is important to first realise the scale of this attack and just how many children have been affected worldwide. Below are statistics detailing how many individuals data has been leaked and in what countries along with if the data was that of an adult or a child. As you can see from the statistics below I have highlighted Ireland, the only reason for this is that I am Irish.
Country Parent Accounts Child Profiles
United States 2,212,863 2,894,091
France 868,650 1,173,497
United Kingdom 560,487 727,155
Germany 390,985 508,806
Canada 237,949 316,482
Others 168,394 223,943
Spain 115,155 138,847
Belgium 102,119 133,179
Netherlands 100,828 124,730
Republic of Ireland 40,244 55,102
Latin America 28,105 36,716
Australia 18,151 23,096
Denmark 4,504 5,547
Luxembourg 4,190 5,014
New Zealand 1,585 2,304
What I find the most frighting about all of this is that a particular VTech service known as Kid Connect was hacked and the information stolen. You may ask why is this frighting and I am going to explain why. Kid Connect is set-up to allow parents and their kids to communicate. That information includes kids head-shots and chat logs between parents and children. Most, if not all, of these cases, the logs, pictures, and recordings can be traced back to specific usernames, allowing anyone in possession of the hacked data to identify the people chatting as well as those in the pictures.
This may lead to a lot more unforeseen problems down the road but as it stands is just a very uncomfortable situation for parents to be in, and yet again starkly highlights the dangers for children in the digital age.
If you have been affected by this attack you might want to know what steps do you need to take now.
Luckily for you its coming up to Christmas so the VTech spin doctors are in full flight trying to somehow roll out reassuring and efficient damage control to save what's left of the companies reputation. In response to the attacks they have posted a very detailed breakdown of all of the events and the VTech response that can be found here. If you just want the main points I have pulled them out and you can find the below.
What kind of information are stored in the database?
Parent account information including name, email address, secret question and answer for password retrieval, IP address, mailing address, download history and encrypted password.
Kids profiles include name, genders and birthdates.
Encrypted Learning Lodge’s contents including, Kid Connect’s profile photos, undelivered Kid Connect messages, bulletin board postings and Learning Lodge content (ebooks, apps, games etc).
Download sales report logs.
Progress logs to track kids games, for parents’ reference.
It does not contain any credit card information. VTech does not process nor store any customer credit card data on the Learning Lodge website. To complete the payment or check-out process of any downloads made on the Learning Lodge website, our customers are directed to a secure, third party payment gateway.
It does not contain any personal identification data (such as ID card numbers, Social Security numbers or driving license numbers).
Was any credit card information stolen?
No, our Learning Lodge website database does not contain any credit card information and VTech does not process or store any customer credit card data on the Learning Lodge website. To complete the payment or check-out process of any downloads made on the Learning Lodge website, our customers are directed to a secure, third party payment gateway.
Why do you need this customer information?
Learning Lodge allows our customers to download apps, learning games, e-books and other educational content to their VTech products. Customers need to set up an account for such transactions. The information is used to identify the customer and track their downloads. As customer safety and privacy are of utmost importance to us, we are making all necessary adjustments to our system security, which will include only storing such information as is required for our customers to download and enjoy our services. All other information will be deleted from our servers.
Is there anything I can do to better protect myself?
Whilst all personal customer passwords are encrypted, even encrypted data can be susceptible to skilled hackers, so we are advising you to immediately change your passwords on any other sites that may use the same email, secret question and answer, and password combination.
What is VTech doing to protect data stored on Kid Connect?
The Kid Connect service has been temporarily suspended. We are reviewing our security protocols and will delete all unsent messages before we restart the service.
How can I change my password or delete my Learning Lodge account and personal data stored on your servers?
As an precautionary measure, we have temporarily suspended Learning Lodge and Kid Connect service along with a number of other websites to conduct a thorough security assessment and whilst we implement additional security protocols. We will advise our customers of further action when the websites are ready to be reactivated.
When can we expect that Learning Lodge will be online again? Should I then register again?
We are working as fast as possible to resume our service. We will advise our customers of further action when the websites are ready to be reactivated.
Is it safe for my kids to play with the toys with Learning Lodge app? Could the hacker reach my kids through the devices, trace their activity or location?
Our investigation to date suggests the breach is on the server, not on the device itself. There is no evidence to suggest the toys are not safe at this time. We will continue to investigate and share more information as it becomes available.
Has there been any customer data found leaked on the internet?
We have no evidence that any of the data has been used or distributed criminally. Whilst all personal customer passwords are encrypted, even encrypted data can be susceptible to skilled hackers, so we are advising you to immediately change your passwords on any other sites that may use the same email, secret question and answer, and password combination.
In light of the popularity of the Black Friday phenomenon having made a full transition online shoppers need to be more aware that ever of how they shop online. This is a day that cyber criminals will be in full flight waiting to grab shoppers credit card and login information using eCommerce sites that are vulnerable. This is a day that shoppers need to be extra vigilante when shopping online. Silcon Republic have posted a number of tips to help customers keep safe and the article can be found here.
The main points from that article can be found below.
1) Consumers should be careful not to expose their computer or mobile screen to the eyes of strangers, especially when a credit card number is visible.
2) Online shoppers need to keep their computer updated with the latest malware protection. Even if a consumer conducts all transactions on a secure site, it is possible for the computer to be hacked or to be running malware, which means all data entered can still be stolen.
3) Be aware of internet connections. Using a public Wi-Fi service without encryption gives anyone the ability to hack into the connection and collect a user’s information.
4) Pay close attention to shopping websites. Many websites do not properly protect the data they collect. Shoppers can know the site is safe if it has a green lock in the address bar, which signifies the company has met strict standards with respect to protecting data they collect from customers.
5) Finally, shoppers should frequently monitor bank statements for suspicious transactions. Many times, cyber theft is done in small amounts in order not to draw suspicion.
If you need help in making your devices even more secure you should have a read of some of my posts on securing your laptop and iphone. All of my posts can be found on my blog.
