CyberheistNews Vol 2, #18
Editor's Corner
[caption id="attachment_1367" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Stu"]
[/caption]Law Firms: "Big Money In Security Breach Cases"
It was a matter of time. Law firms love class action lawsuits, because
the rewards are potentially enormous. So we've seen asbestos being used
for this, then tobacco, at the moment they are going after Big Pharma
and their antidepressants, and the next wave might be... you. If you
are in healthcare that's right now, and the rest of us, well just give
it a little while.
Why? Security breach cases are big money. CSO said: "Indeed, a suit pending
against St. Joseph Health System involves the exposure of medical information
of about 31,800 patients. At $1,000 each, even if only one violation
is involved, it is simple math to see that would yield damages of
$31.8 million." Forty percent of that for the lawyers... cha ching!
However, there is a silver lining here. Randy Sabett, an attorney with
ZwillGen, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm specializing in legal issues
involved in doing business on the Internet said: "Everybody knows,
including judges, that 100 percent security on the Internet simply does
not exist. Indeed, there are endless examples of breaches of companies that
are in compliance, which makes it much more difficult to prove negligence."
One more reason to pay a lot of attention to being actually compliant!
Here is the link to the full article:
http://www.csoonline.com/article/704288/law-firms-see-big-money-in-healthcare-breach-cases?
Quotes of the Week
"Use PATIENCE and your customers won't become PATIENTS." - Paul Gruenther
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. - Author Unknown
Please tell your friends about CyberheistNews! They can subscribe here:
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Not since the markets melted down, and the recession sank its icy hooks into the business climate in 2008, has American business faced a threat as serious as the current cybercrime scene. Small to medium enterprises have been hard-hit in particular, amounting to tens of millions of dollars being stolen out of their bank accounts.
IT Security specialists call it your phishing attack surface. The more of your email addresses that are floating out there, the bigger your attack footprint is, and the higher the risk is. Its often a surprise how many addresses are actually out there. This book is meant to educate you about the dangers of conducting business online. In particular, it covers phishing, a particular type of social engineering attack delivered by email or over the Internet.
Our goal is to help you recognize the increasing danger that individuals and organizations face when they use the Internet, especially when conducting financial activity, and take proactive measures to protect your organization. These risks include theft of sensitive information, theft of goods and services, loss of intellectual property, and exposure to fraudulent online money transfers that empty your bank accounts: a cyberheist.
Don't become a statistic. Read this book and apply the strategies and techniques described within to protect your organization from a potentially devastating cyberheist.
amazonkindle
amazon.com
Video: How A Crimepack Works
Cybercriminals are as organized and industrious as any legitimate
business. Case in point: exploit kits, also known as crimepacks, which
bad guys can purchase and which make infecting computers with malware
as simple as point and click. The software, often available for purchase
for only a few hundred dollars, also gives the criminal comprehensive,
real-time information about the machines it has impacted.
With an exploit kit, criminals can get new malware, infect web sites,
build business intelligence and manage an overall malicious campaign,
according to James Lyne, director of technology strategy for security
firm Sophos. Here is the video:
http://www.csoonline.com/article/704055/video-how-a-crimepack-works?
Google Now Sends Wordpress Update Notifications
Google, as we know is very good at introducing new features very often
to keep the web safer to use. Webmaster tools is a great product for any
website owner to get access to tweak their sites performance on Google
search results and also to help improve the site performance in terms of
speed and security. Recently, Google has come up with yet another new
feature for webmaster tools users using WordPress. If your WordPress is
out-of-date and or insecure, you will get an notification via mail to
update it for security reasons. More:
http://www.noob2geek.com/wordpress/google-now-sends-wordpress-update-notification-to-webmaster-tools-users/
Blast From The Antivirus Past
Remember MS-DOS Version 6? It was released March 1993. The new 6.0 had
a lot of new stuff including a basic anti-virus program and a disk
defragmenter. Other improvements were in the memory management area by
the addition of MEMMAKER.
Now, how did you get your anti-virus updates? You had to buy them! Here
is a 3-page PDF that shows how. First the instructions how to get a user
ID. Grab your 9600 baud modem and dial their Bulletin Board System (BBS).
Next follow the download instructions to get your AV updates. The third
page is the promo where they sold you on getting a whopping whole TWO
anti-virus updates for as little as $9.95 each. Add the sales tax on top
of that. Oh boy, what a deal. Here is my blog post with the link:
http://blog.knowbe4.com/blast-from-the-antivirus-past
And, did you know that Antivirus is 30 years old?
Simon Edwards created a great blog post about this April 12, 2012. He
started out with: Once upon a time, frighteningly not that long ago,
Ross M Greenberg wrote the first anti-virus software for the PC. It was
called FluShot and it was written in 1982, thirty years ago this year.
FluShot was a DOS program that required 10K RAM. Little information is
available about it on the web, and what still exists appears to be largely
in text files originally distributed over BBS. I recommend you read the
full blog post, its quite interesting really:
http://simonedwards.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/anti-virus-is-30-years-old.html">
http://simonedwards.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/anti-virus-is-30-years-old.html
Pinpoint Unsavory Elements In Your Neighborhood
The Criminal Tracker app by U.S. Publications Inc. says that a study by
the U.S. Department of Justice has revealed that sex offenders are four
times more likely to re-offend than other convicted criminals, and that
60% of convicted sex offenders are out on parole or probation. Playing
on the fear that there could well be just such a person living secretly
in your neighborhood, the company has announced a new app that's said
to be capable of pointing out the location of such undesirables within
a 40 mile (64 km) radius of a given area. The Criminal Tracker app
doesn't limit its results to sex offenders, however, as the company's
database is claimed to be the most comprehensive National Criminal
Index available. I tried it, seems to work OK. Many more sex offenders
than criminals in my nick of the woods. Hat Tip to Gizmag:
http://www.gizmag.com/criminal-tracker-app-criminals-locations/22131/?
Cyberheist 'FAVE' LINKS:
* This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff.
SUPER FAVE: A big red push button on a quiet square in a small town in
Belgium with a sign "Push to add drama". See what happens next ...
http://www.flixxy.com/a-dramatic-surprise-on-a-quiet-square.htm
190 years ago, Nicolas Rieussec recorded time to an accuracy of a fifth
second for the first time - the chronograph was born. To celebrate this
unique invention, Montblanc created the one-of-a-kind "The Beauty of a
Second" short-film contest presented by the famous film director Wim
Wenders. Beautiful:
http://www.flixxy.com/the-beauty-of-a-second.htm
They need to give some sound to electric vehicles to protect pedestrians.
Here is how they created to sound of the Audi e-tron supercar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeKCgZCdxjg&feature;=player_embedded
Sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke predicted in this 1974 TV interview that
in 2001, regular people would have personal computers and be connected
all over the world. Very interesting and accurate:
http://www.flixxy.com/arthur-c-clarkes-1974-prediction.htm
DARPA Robot Masters Stairs. We are getting better at this. Skynet, here
we come:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqCmX5dMYHg
Interactive: Broadband adoption map. Find out what percentage of people in
your county have broadband. Interesting to see the average income too:
http://www.iwatchnews.org/node/8484
Here's a remarkable symphony orchestra in the Congo, 200 musicians defying
the poverty of their war-torn country and creating some of the most moving
music ever:
http://www.flixxy.com/joy-in-the-congo-a-musical-miracle.htm
Cute Kitten Of The Week video: Kittens in competition to get their milk
straight from the cow:
http://www.flixxy.com/kittens-get-their-milk-straight-from-the-cow.htm
A beautiful compilation of amazing video clips to the music of "Thirteen
Thirtyfive" by Dillon.
http://www.flixxy.com/amazing-world.htm
