7 Things to Stop Doing Now on Facebook

Using a Weak Password

Avoid simple names or words you can find in a dictionary, even with numbers tacked on the end. Instead, mix upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. A password should have at least eight characters. One good technique is to insert numbers or symbols in the middle of a word, such as this variant on the word "houses": hO27usEs!

Leaving Your Full Birth Date in Your Profile

It's an ideal target for identity thieves, who could use it to obtain more information about you and potentially gain access to your bank or credit card account. If you've already entered a birth date, go to your profile page and click on the Info tab, then on Edit Information. Under the Basic Information section, choose to show only the month and day or no birthday at all.

Overlooking Useful Privacy Controls

For almost everything in your Facebook profile, you can limit access to only your friends, friends of friends, or yourself. Restrict access to photos, birth date, religious views, and family information, among other things. You can give only certain people or groups access to items such as photos, or block particular people from seeing them. Consider leaving out contact info, such as phone number and address, since you probably don't want anyone to have access to that information anyway.

Posting Your Child's Name in a Caption

Don't use a child's name in photo tags or captions. If someone else does, delete it by clicking on Remove Tag. If your child isn't on Facebook and someone includes his or her name in a caption, ask that person to remove the name.

Mentioning That You'll Be Away From Home

That's like putting a "no one's home" sign on your door. Wait until you get home to tell everyone how awesome your vacation was and be vague about the date of any trip.

Letting Search Engines Find You

To help prevent strangers from accessing your page, go to the Search section of Facebook's privacy controls and select Only Friends for Facebook search results. Be sure the box for public search results isn't checked.

Permitting Youngsters to Use Facebook Unsupervised

Facebook limits its members to ages 13 and over, but children younger than that do use it. If you have a young child or teenager on Facebook, the best way to provide oversight is to become one of their online friends. Use your e-mail address as the contact for their account so that you receive their notifications and monitor their activities. "What they think is nothing can actually be pretty serious," says Charles Pavelites, a supervisory special agent at the Internet Crime Complaint Center. For example, a child who posts the comment "Mom will be home soon, I need to do the dishes" every day at the same time is revealing too much about the parents' regular comings and goings. (See Full Story)

Should a teacher’s Facebook posts ruin her career?

A former high school teacher is suing a north Georgia school district, alleging she was forced to resign over photos and expletives on Facebook.

Ashley Payne contends that the Barrow County school district violated state labor law because she was never told she was entitled to a hearing. Her attorney, Richard Storrs, says the 24-year-old former Apalachee High School teacher was “not made aware of her rights” and should be granted the hearing.

After teaching at the school for two years, Payne resigned in August after her principal questioned her about her Facebook page, which included photos of her holding wine and beer and an expletive.

(Payne told the Athens Banner Herald it was the “B” word that landed her in hot water with her principal. She posted it in the context of saying she was going to an Atlanta restaurant that featured a game called Crazy “B” Bingo.  Here is a link to the bars that hold Crazy Bxxxx Bingo games.) According to the AJC.com

Breach-Proofing your organization brings many benefits...

Roanoke City Public Schools Surplus computers sold containing 2000 employees’ names and Social Security numbers...  

University of Louisville  A database with the names, social security numbers and other personal information of 708 dialysis patients was accessible via the Internet for more than a year, university officials announced Wednesday morning.

In order to prevent data breaches before they occur requires building a “Breach-Free Culture” within your organization.  Properly training employees across all areas of your business is a necessary component to breach-proofing your organization.

Another reason to incorporate training into your data breach prevention efforts is that, although cyber-criminals may get the headlines and media attention, the fact is that more than 88% of all breaches are caused by human error and process failures. Technology can't stop someone from making mistakes, however, training that changes behavior can!

Breach-Proofing your organization brings many benefits. We've all seen the statistics... Data breaches cost an average of $202 per record lost... 40% of consumers change their relationship with affected businesses... fines for non-compliance with the law can run into tens of thousands of dollars... lawsuits cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend and even millions of dollars to settle.

Creating a Breach-Proof Culture, where employees across all departments and areas share a heightened sensitivity, understanding and commitment to eliminating breaches can reduce your organizations risk.

University of Toledo, 200 reported incidents of Identity Theft...

At the University of Toledo, there have been 200 reported incidents of credit card and identity theft of students, faculty and staff in the past year, according to Marge Dell, head teller at UT’s Credit Union.

According to Dell, five of those incidents occurred on-campus.

“We had a counselor here that had their identity stolen by her secretary,” she said. “They actually took a mortgage out for their house for $80,000.”

Joseph Slater, professor of law instruction, became a victim of identity theft after someone obtained his social security number and home address in late 2004.

“I would get things in the mail from Circuit City saying, ‘thank you for opening up an account with us. You have reached your $600 limit. Please pay us,’” Slater said.

The man who stole Slater’s identity used his information to max out six credit card accounts with stores in Atlanta, Ga. and was not caught until the seventh account he tried to open... The Federal Trade Commission estimates 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year.

At the University of Toledo, there have been 200 reported incidents of credit card and identity theft of students, faculty and staff in the past year, according to Marge Dell, head teller at UT’s Credit Union.

According to Dell, five of those incidents occurred on-campus.

“We had a counselor here that had their identity stolen by her secretary,” she said. “They actually took a mortgage out for their house for $80,000.”

Joseph Slater, professor of law instruction, became a victim of identity theft after someone obtained his social security number and home address in late 2004.

“I would get things in the mail from Circuit City saying, ‘thank you for opening up an account with us. You have reached your $600 limit. Please pay us,’” Slater said.

The man who stole Slater’s identity used his information to max out six credit card accounts with stores in Atlanta, Ga. and was not caught until the seventh account he tried to open. (See Full Story)

Copy Machines, a Security Risk?

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the good, old-fashioned copy machine. But, as Armen Keteyian reports, advanced technology
opened a dangerous hole in data security...

The House of Representatives has passed a bill outlawing all caller ID spoofing

The House of Representatives has passed a bill outlawing all caller ID spoofing "with the intent to defraud or deceive".

So no more prank calls - but more importantly, no more calls from criminals aiming to trick people into giving away banking information.

The sponsors of the bill, Eliot Engel and Joe Barton, cited an identity theft operation in New York City which netted its operators more than $15 million - and another where a woman used the caller ID of a pharmacist to trick a love rival into taking an abortion drug. See Full Story

Facebook has begun warning its users...

Facebook has begun warning its users to avoid bogus links and fan pages that offer free gift cards because they are scams aimed at stealing user identities.

Facebook Security says it tries to remove these links and pages as quickly as it finds them.

"Watch out for suspicious offers for free gift cards," the site warns. "We've been removing groups and Pages that promise free gift cards but instead trick people into entering information or spamming their friends. If you come across one, report it to us immediately." (Link to full Article)