{"id":5195,"date":"2011-03-05T00:31:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-05T06:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ishmaels.net\/blog\/?p=5195"},"modified":"2011-03-05T00:31:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-05T06:31:00","slug":"for-my-social-family-and-friends-protect-yoursefl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ishmaels.net\/blog\/2011\/03\/05\/for-my-social-family-and-friends-protect-yoursefl\/","title":{"rendered":"For my Social family and friends PROTECT YOURSELF!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was just too good not to repost here for my reminder and yours.  I know I get lax and sometimes put in stuff I shouldn\u2019t or think it is safe and maybe it wasn\u2019t.  The crooks are getting smarter and I am getting dumber so I need to watch double now.   This is from the latest Windows Secrets newsletter<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Windows Secrets personal security baseline <\/b>
\"KeysBy Jan Bultmann
Frequent Internet users get mixed messages about data privacy.<\/b>
We worry about data miners and identity theft but put our life stories up on Facebook. Here are some basic steps to enhance your personal security.
Are we confused or just careless about our privacy? On the one hand, we hear plenty of stories about the data-mining and aggregation techniques used by companies and various governmental agencies around the world, as well as by criminals seeking to use Social engineering to trick people out of money or processor power.
At the same time, social<\/strong>-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn \u2014 which many people see as legitimate and benign \u2014 ask for more and more information about our past, our employment, and our interests. With almost every iteration of these sites, the Internet presses more deeply into our privacy.
You have good reason to think twice before filling out every field your social<\/strong>-networking site presents to you. In case you forget the varieties of Internet perils out there, here are reminders of what’s not in your interest when some people get their hands on your data. After that, to cheer you up a little, are 10 tips on how to protect your privacy.
<\/a>
A flourishing black market for personal data <\/b>
<\/big>
<\/small>You undoubtedly know that cybercriminals gather personal data to steal identities and money. Users can suffer damage to their personal credit and even jeopardy to their physical safety. But you might not know that most cybercriminals sell your data to other criminals.
Criminal networks exchange huge databases of personal information that can be used for everything from scamming credit-card companies to creating botnets \u2014 networks of personal computers that have been compromised and are controlled remotely and secretly. Botnets can be used to launch denial-of-service attacks, for example, without the computer owners ever knowing anything is amiss.
Criminals also use personal data to assemble elaborate Social-engineering scams, in which they might impersonate you online to gather information from others you know or to trick your online acquaintances into clicking dangerous links that lead to spoofed websites. Most of us know such scams dupe people into downloading viruses or spyware onto their computers, but it still happens \u2014 frequently.
Online information is searchable. Powerful Internet search engines and data-crunching tools make it easy for criminals to build a full profile of you, even if the information about you online is distributed over many different social<\/strong> networking sites or posted by many different people.
It doesn’t hurt to remember that any data published online is there forever. Depending on the privacy policy of the company holding the data, your formerly private information might ultimately be seen by anyone on the Internet.
Personal data can get online a number of different ways.<\/p>\n