Save the Fishing for fishermen, and Farming for farmers.

    

                          How The Fisherman Got Phished Himself

     One day Mr. Bass was swimming around, minding his business when a free, delicious dinner got waved in front of his face. Being a little skeptical, Mr. Bass swims closer and closer and possibly even a little nibble. Just as he decides it is safe and tastes good he gets ripped out of his home. That's when the trouble begins. In the meantime, after sitting down and enjoying a fish dinner, Mr. Smith was going through his e-mails and found one that announces YOU ONE THE LOTTO!!! Mr. Smith feels it sounds to good to be true, but it's a lot of money so he carelessly sends his personal information to claim his prize. One week later he found out his bank account is drained of his life savings and can't pay his mortgage so he has no roof over his head. It may be bad karma, but Mr.Smith had also been fooled by phishing. My little skit here may sound and look silly, but in 2012 there was an estimate of $1.5 billion (source: http://www.emc.com/collateral/fraud-report/online-rsa-fraud-report-012013.pdf) of global losses from phishing. Here are a few tips on how not to get hooked and I hope some stood out in my skit that were warning signs.

• Don't fall for it. If it sounds too good to be true, than it probably is.
• Notice the spelling of "won" is wrong, there are usually numerous spelling errors in scams.
• Don't EVER give out personal information to anyone requesting it in an e-mail. Banks, credit cards and such already have your personal information will never request it by e-mail. 
• Don't open e-mail attachments or click on hyperlinks from anyone you weren't expecting a message from. Malicious software is often hidden in these attachments. I couldn't stress this enough. I've studied for two years Computer Science and all of my professors will say the same. 

                                      Targets' Security Data Breach

I chose this video due to Targets' data breach being so recent and 40 million people felt the effects of it. I, myself, have not been a victim of any Internet or security breaches.

           
            No Good Can Come From Anything Rhyming With Phishing          

     Now that I have talked about phishing, which most people have heard of, I'm going to dive a little deeper talking a pharming, vishing, smishing, and spear phishing. To make this easy, pharming is a deceptive website. A good example of this would be www.rnacys.com and www.macys.com. One quick look at the first one and you might think it's a legitimate site. Look a little closer and it is spelled "r n a c y s". If you were to enter your credentials into this fake site, they now have your username and password. These sites can look idenitcal so beware. Vishing and smishing are similiar to phishing although vishing is a criminal act via phone to try and receive your personal information and smishing via text messaging. Spear phishing, again, the same as phishing but going after a particular good.

Infect my computer, I think not!

Now I felt this was needed to be shared this week considering I'm writing about how to avoid scams. I read about this in my book Cyber Crime Fighters, Tales From The Trenches by Felcia Donavan and Kristyn Bernier. 409 people willingly clicked on that ad that offers to give your computer a virus. This was just a test to see how many people would actually click on it, however, it didn't contain a virus. 

Don't worry, cyber security guard here to give you some tips!

There are numerous ways to safeguard yourself on the Internet. Be careful when giving out personal information. Just because a website looks legit or your "bank" requests information always check into this first. Banks will never request  users to input personal data through an email. Always remember, it is your personal information and you can decide who you want, and deny who you want to have this info. Be wary of who you chat with online. Just because you think they live a thousands miles away, does not mean this is actually true. I would like to put this on my blog for those of you who play online games. Just because you may think you can say and do as you want because the person your playing with is on a mic and not knowing your location does not mean that person can't find you. This is quoted from my textbook called Cyber Crime Fighters Tales from the Trenches by Felicia Donovan and Kristyn Bernier "In China, a Legend of Mir 3 player is spending the rest of his life behind bars for fatally stabbing another for the "theft" of a virtual sword." This may not be an everyday occurrence, but in reality it can happen. Here's some more tips to stay safe on the web in the following link. https://www.eff.org/wp/effs-top-12-ways-protect-your-online-privacy

     After having to try and convince my customers that my company is safe to do business with (hypothetically speaking, a class project) I had come across many businesses that thoughtfully explain their ethical reasoning behind collecting data.  Cookies, everyone loves cookies, for dessert yes, but on your hard disk, not so much. The misconception with cookies is that it is a program that tracks your information that you do over the Internet. With this being false, cookies are just text files that store user information such as your ID number for that store. The web server of that site only stores cookies from that particular site, which can NOT be viewed by any other site.

To view more about cookies, click on the following link. It describes into depth the different ways web sites use cookies. How you can opt out of cookies being stored on your hard disk and why there is a bad reputation for cookies. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cookie.htm.

      Onto a different topic, identity theft. Considering there are 23,000 victims per day, what are some ways to protect you and your family. Protect important documents, such as social security numbers, bank accounts, and billing information. Always monitor banking accounts and notify your bank immediately when a suspicious transaction appears. Make sure websites that you use credit card information or any personal information that the URL includes an "s" at the end of HTTP. This stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. This encrypts data that is transmitted between server and client. I found a useful link with many more ways to prevent identity theft. Unfortunately this girl was a victim of identity theft, however, she was lucky to not have to deal with the damage for years following the incident.  http://studentmoneyskills.bankofamerica.com/article/view.asp?articleID=39

 





Don't deny me the job based on an opinion I might have!

     Digital citizenship can be defined as how to appropriately act when using the Internet. There are nine elements to consider when posting anything on the World Wide Web. I, however, will discuss three elements and show how they can either positively or negatively affect my life. Digital law, which is abiding by the law involving but not limited to  releasing destructive programs, illegally downloading software, movies, and/or music and hacking, with other possibly beyond these examples. A close friend of mine (sorry, keeping the name private) was illegally downloading movies. One day he went to go access his Internet and a warning from his Internet Service Provider and Universal Studios warned him that unless he signed a wavier and removed all pirated movies, there would be a 10,000 dollar fine and up to ten years in jail! To all the people who still download movies illegally (my friend has stopped due to this) it's not worth it.

     Digital Literacy is an extremely important concept to grasp for many employees, along with college and high school students. My diligence as a college student is provide research for many courses. Although, you can find just about every topic on the internet, it is my responsibility to assure that the information is correct by assessing it. With a majority of my courses also being online, I need to know the proper way of being able to use technology. Both of this issues could negatively affect my grades if I didn't have the knowledge of technology and searching strategies.
     Finally Digital Health and Wellness. Computers have not affected my life in a psychological manner, however, in a physical aspect I am 27 and at 24 I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel, nerve damage, and arthritis. Not only that,  I see a chiropractor at the minimum of twice a month for having locked vertebra in my neck due to my excessive computer usage. Unfortunately, I don't follow many guidelines to prevent computer related illnesses, for this has effected my life in a negative way. The following is a link which provides the remaining six digital citizenship elements.
http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html

   Follow these guidelines when using a computer to save yourself pain now and in the long-run.
     Do you find it appropriate for employers to make hiring decisions based on your information on social media sites? I have to say that this is NOT an appropriate way to base a decision of whether to hire a person. People have free time after work and should be free to do as they please. For instances, I am pro-life, this topic wouldn't be brought up in a work setting and tends to be a touchy subject for many, but could it hinder me getting a job if the hiring manger is a strong advocate for pro-choice? I would like to hope not, but with employers plunging into decisions based on personalities outside of work, I keep my life to private communications. As should other people. Here's the webpage to look over for anyone wondering others views on the topic ... http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2008/03/employers_get_outta_my_facebook.html
     Since this course is about computer security and this module we did some surfing of the web to find out digital footprints we left on the web, during my research I came across some shocking information that I would like to let viewers of my blog be aware of. Many smart phones and digital cameras have GPS systems on them. What individuals are not aware of is that taking pictures with the GPS setting turned on can store the metadata of the exact location; the latitude and longitude of where that picture is taken. This gives easy access to a perpetrator.  Here's a video of how to protect yourself from revealing your location on the web. Thanks for reading!