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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-alderman/dont-get-spoofed-by-rogue_b_3574710.html When caller ID first arrived on the scene it seemed like a godsend to many people: Now you could easily identify who was on the line and ignore unwanted calls, whether from telemarketers, an ex-boyfriend or an unfriendly collection agency. But as often happens, unscrupulous individuals soon began manipulating the technology to defraud people by pretending to be someone else. Their scheme is called "caller ID spoofing" and disturbingly, it's perfectly legal in many cases. Here's how caller ID spoofing works and what precautions you should take to avoid being victimized: For a very low cost, businesses and individuals can use widely available caller ID spoofing software to generate calls which alter the telephone number and/or name that appear on the recipient's caller ID screen. Police, private investigators and collection agencies have used legal spoofing services for many years. Others who might have a legitimate reason to hide their identity when making a call include domestic violence victims and doctors returning patient calls who don't wish to release their private telephone numbers. Beyond that, the lines of legality begin to blur. The Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009 prohibits anyone from transmitting misleading or inaccurate caller ID information with the intent to defraud, cause harm or wrongfully obtain anything of value. Violators can be penalized up to $10,000 for each infraction. Unfortunately, such penalties haven't dissuaded many scammers. One common caller ID scam involves spoofers pretending to represent a bank, government agency, insurer, credit card company or other organization with which you do business. They count on you being reassured after recognizing the company's name on your screen. Related Articles: http://hass-associates-daffy.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Under the pretext of warning about an urgent situation (breached account, late payment,

Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano gave her farewell speech last week. She had quite a bit to say, but there was one thing that caught my attention: She warned that a major cyberattack is on the way. I believe it. Most major U.S. companies have been under siege from hackers over the last 18 months. In fact, two days after Napolitano's speech, a hacker group called the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the New York Times' website and Twitter feed - for the second time this year. Of course, Napolitano wasn't just talking about American business. She was talking about America's infrastructure: power grid, communications, banking and so forth. Every one of these services relies on computers. A well-placed virus could do a lot of damage, especially if an insider planted it. The Northeast blackout of 2003 started at a single power center. A computer bug disabled an important alarm. The operators couldn't react in time to a downed power line and it blacked out 55 million people for several days. Imagine waking up one morning with no power. Cellphones can't connect, banks are closed, the Internet is down and credit cards don't work. In localized emergencies, workers from other areas help to restore services quickly. A cyberattack could affect wide regions of the country, overwhelming the available manpower. It could take days, weeks or months for basic services to be fully restored. Not a pretty picture. Now, a cyberattack might not take down everything, but it could make basic services unreliable. You won't be able to trust technology to always work. Further Information: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/komando/2013/09/06/cyberattack-hackers-syrian-electronic-army/2757833/ Related Article: http://forums.devarticles.com/asp-development-3/hass-and-associates-cyber-security-online-scams-to-watch-out-for-444796.html http://hassbiggerprice.wordpress.com/tag/hass-associates-online-cyber-review-scam-du-jour-theyre-creative/

The website Songsrpeople.com looks a lot like other amateur-video sites. It is wallpapered with clips featuring "the most insane amusement park ever" and "your girlfriend's six friends." The site draws tens of thousands of visitors a month, according to audience measurement firms. It also has ads for national brands, including Target Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and State Farm. But Web-security investigators at a firm called White Ops contend that most of the site's visitors aren't people. Rather, they are computer-generated visitors, or "bots," designed to fool advertisers into paying for the traffic, says White Ops, which has blacklisted the site-and thousands more like it-so that ads from clients such as Zipcar don't land there. An anonymous representative for Songsrpeople declined to discuss the site's traffic but in an email called the White Ops methodology into question. State Farm said it was looking into the matter while Target declined to comment and Amazon didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. Authorities and Internet-security experts say tens of thousands of dubious websites are popping up across the Internet. Their phony Web traffic is often fueled by "botnets," zombie armies of hijacked PCs that are controlled from unknown locations around the world, according to Internet security experts. The sites take advantage of the simple truth that advertisers pay to be seen. This creates an incentive for fraudsters to erect sites with phony traffic, collecting payments-often through middlemen and sometimes directly from advertisers. "When you walk into this world, you walk with eyes wide open," said Brian Harrington, chief marketing officer at Zipcar, which ran a recent ad campaign, assisted by White Ops to filter out bogus traffic. "You know stuff is not real." At their most sophisticated, botnets can mimic the behavior of online consumers, clicking from one site to the next, pausing at ads, watching videos, and even putting items in shopp