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http://hassassociates-online.com/articles/2013/03/07/five-ways-to-manage-your-digital-reputation/ Reputation is the key word. In fact, online digital reputation has never been more important. While a few years ago much of our personal information was still considered private, today cyber security expose more information about our lives than ever before. While many people don't think much about having a "digital reputation," especially in purchasing products online, information about almost all adult worldwide can be found online. Based from the survey conducted by ORC International, results have shown more than 89% of consumers research articles online before making a buying decision, while, 87% of them agree that a favorable review has confirmed their decision to purchase. And while our real life reputation is largely defined by us through our interactions with others, our online digital reputation defines how people perceive us - without ever having a single conversation. The fact is, a digital reputation can be incorrect, it may present only partial information and it might even allow for slander and online attacks to define us for others. Translating your brand's personality onto the web can be tricky, so here is our list of five simple steps that can help you get started. 1: Match your offline and online personas: When you're creating a Facebook page or a Twitter account, it should match your brand's personality in the real world. Choose a design language (colors, shapes, textures, fonts) that represents your brand's image. Next, ask yourself which social media platform is best suited for communication between you and your customers. You may not need to create an account on each one of them. Selecting the one most actively used by your target audience will make it more manageable for you. 2: Groom your search results: Your customers will rarely move to the second page of the Google Search results to find what they are looking for. Set a dis

Reputation is the key word. In fact, online digital reputation has never been more important. While a few years ago much of our personal information was still considered private, today cyber security expose more information about our lives than ever before. While many people don't think much about having a "digital reputation," especially in purchasing products online, information about almost all adult worldwide can be found online. Based from the survey conducted by ORC International, results have shown more than 89% of consumers research articles online before making a buying decision, while, 87% of them agree that a favorable review has confirmed their decision to purchase. And while our real life reputation is largely defined by us through our interactions with others, our online digital reputation defines how people perceive us - without ever having a single conversation. The fact is, a digital reputation can be incorrect, it may present only partial information and it might even allow for slander and online attacks to define us for others. Translating your brand's personality onto the web can be tricky, so here is our list of five simple steps that can help you get started. 1: Match your offline and online personas: When you're creating a Facebook page or a Twitter account, it should match your brand's personality in the real world. Choose a design language (colors, shapes, textures, fonts) that represents your brand's image. Next, ask yourself which social media platform is best suited for communication between you and your customers. You may not need to create an account on each one of them. Selecting the one most actively used by your target audience will make it more manageable for you. 2: Groom your search results: Your customers will rarely move to the second page of the Google Search results to find what they are looking for. Set a distinct and clear name for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and other social networking site

http://www.wellsphere.com/brain-health-article/hundreds-of-south-african-facebook-profiles-have-been-cloned/1954857 Computer forensics expert Bennie Labuschagne said scammers used programs designed to "deep mine" online accounts to bypass security features."Cloning is very common and it is now like the 419 scams, only on social networks," he said. One of the South African Facebook victims, Dinesh Ramrathan, said yesterday: "A Facebook friend called me to find out why I had sent her a message asking for money online. I then discovered that my page had been duplicated. "My friends were caught off guard and accepted friend requests from the hacker, who then started sending requests for money." The impostor claimed that Ramrathan was in trouble and needed money urgently."I am lucky because all my Facebook friends know me personally outside of the social network so they knew that I was not in trouble," he said. Debby Bonnin's husband received a friend request from her even though they were already Facebook friends. One of sixmillion local users of Facebook, Bonnin said: "My major concern is identity theft and all the possible ramifications of that. On Facebook the prime issue is reputation. But the person behind the false profile could use your identity to access confidential information from your friends and then there could be security or financial problems that arise." Another Facebook user, Josh Delport, said his stored scores and tokens on game applications on the site had disappeared. University of KwaZulu-Natal associate professor of information systems Manoj Maharaj said that, though Facebook could not be hacked because of its hi-tech security features, the affected users might have put themselves at risk by clicking on links to external games, applications and shopping sites. "Users are clicking on these links without realising that their information is being passed on. If one of those sites is hacked, their information, such as credit card details, is easily a

hass associates review articles Think the Internet Leads to Growth? Think Again Remember the year 2000 in the months after the Y2K bug had been crushed, when all appeared smooth sailing in the global economy? When the miracle of finding information online was so novel that The Onion ran an article, "Area Man Consults Internet Whenever Possible?" It was a time of confident predictions of an ongoing economic and political renaissance powered by information technology. Jack Welch-then the lauded chief executive officer of General Electric (GE)-had suggested the Internet was "the single most important event in the U.S. economy since the Industrial Revolution." The Group of Eight highly industrialized nations-at that point still relevant-met in Okinawa in 2000 and declared, "IT is fast becoming a vital engine of growth for the world economy. … Enormous opportunities are there to be seized by us all." In a 2000 report, then-President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers suggested (PDF), "Many economists now posit that we are entering a new, digital economy that could inaugurate an unprecedented period of sustainable, rapid growth." It hasn't quite worked out that way. Indeed, if the last 10 years have demonstrated anything, it's that for all the impact of a technology like the Internet, thinking that any new innovation will set us on a course of high growth is almost certainly wrong. That's in part because many of the studies purporting to show a relationship between the Internet and economic growth relied on shoddy data and dubious assumptions. In 1999 the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland released a study that concluded (PDF), "… the fraction of a country's population that has access to the Internet is, at least, correlated with factors that help to explain average growth performance." It did so by demonstrating a positive relationship between the number of Internet users in a country in 1999 with gross domestic product g

US regeringen använder sällan bästa cyber security steg: rådgivare Direkt lank: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-11-23/news/44389988_1_cyber-security-cybersecurity-legislation-advisers WASHINGTON: Den amerikanska regeringen själv sällan följer cyber security metodtips och måste släppa sin gamla operativsystem och osäkra webbläsare som den försöker driva den privata sektorn att skärpa sin praxis, teknik rådgivare till President Barack Obama. "Den federala regeringen följer sällan accepterade bästa praxis," sade presidentens rådet av rådgivare om vetenskap och teknik i en rapport som släpptes på fredagen. "Det måste föregå med gott exempel och påskynda ansträngningarna för att göra rutinmässiga cyberattacks svårare genom att implementera bästa praxis för sina egna system." PCAST är en grupp amerikanska forskare och ingenjörer som gör politiska rekommendationer till administrationen. William Press, professor i datavetenskap vid University of Texas i Austin, och Craig Mundie, senior rådgivare till VD på Microsoft Corp, bestod av en arbetsgrupp för cybersäkerhet. Obama-administrationen i år intensifierat sin push för kritiska till att stärka deras cyber försvar, och Obama i februari utfärdade en verkställande order för att motverka bristen på framsteg på cybersäkerhet lagstiftning i kongressen. Mer relaterade ämnen: http://hassassociates-online.com/ http://www.linkedin.com/groups/hass-associates-4854820 http://hassassociates-online.com/art

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

Skjebnen til AMD'S Sea-øyene skjult i tåke rapporter dukket opp sist helg som AMDS grafikk veikart for 2013 ville holde Radeon HD 7000 serie "stabil" hele året. Nyheten kom ut på en uvanlig måte, via et intervju med et japansk nettsted, og deretter flere tweets fra AMD ansatte og den offisielle Radeon Twitter feed. Naturligvis, vi hadde spørsmål om tingenes tilstand, så AMD holdt en telefonkonferanse for press i dag, i et forsøk på å avklare saker. Før sist helg ventet vi AMD å innføre en ny generasjon av grafikkortene innen de neste månedene. The Tech Report Den sanne kostnaden for en bringebær Pi er mer enn du tror som bringebær Pi mani feier Internett, du kunne har funnet deg selv ønsker å kjøpe liten datamaskinen for å se hva prosjekter du kan bruke den til. Du kan ha tenkt for deg selv som selv om du ikke kan tenke på en kjekk liten prosjektet, hvem bryr seg, fordi høyere-end modell B er bare $35. Imidlertid er det virkelig så billig når alt er sagt og gjort? Jeg har nylig bestilt min første bringebær Pi. Jeg kunne aldri finne ut hva de skal gjøre med det, men har ønsket en rett og slett fordi det er en billig, spennende liten datamaskin. ExtremeTech Låse de slemme gutta med asymmetrisk kryptering kryptering, transformasjonen av data i et skjema som hindrer noen uautorisert forståelse at data, er en grunnleggende teknologi som gjør det muliggjør for elektronisk handel, sikker kommunikasjon og beskyttelse av konfidensiell informasjon. Krypteringsalgoritmene er den matematiske formler for å utføre disse transformasjonene. Du angir en krypteringsalgoritme med en nøkkel og dataene du vil beskytte (ren tekst), og det produserer en kryptert utgang (chifferteksten). Ars Technica Hvordan Nests kontroll freaks gjenoppfunnet termostaten i 2007, Tony Fadell trodde han kunne se fremtiden. Han var Apple executive som hadde skapt iPod og ble en ledende figur på laget som hadde jobbet på iPhone, som selskapet var i ferd med å lansere.

Windows 8, den nyeste versjonen av Microsofts operativsystem, er de mest ambisiøse og det merkeligste viktigste produktet noensinne utgitt av gigantiske. Utformet for å kjøre på smartphones, tavle-PCer, bærbare datamaskiner, servere og selv superdatamaskiner, presenterer Windows 8 sine brukere med samme grensesnitt, med bare mindre variasjoner, på enhver enhet. For å demonstrere for kunder og opprinnelige utstyrsfabrikanter (OEMer) mulighetene for det nye grensesnittet, som er radikalt forskjellig fra tidligere versjoner av Windows og optimalisert for berøring, var Microsoft tvunget til å utvikle sin første datamaskin, overflate tabletten. Responsen har vært blandet: noen kritikere guardedly velkommen 8 Windows, priste sin vakre grafisk design og dristig likegyldighet til Microsofts fortiden; andre var fortsatt forvirret av forsøket på å innføre en enkelt brukeropplevelse på alle typer datamaskiner (se vår egen anmeldelse, "Windows 8: Design over brukervennlighet," av Simson Garfinkel). Jason Pontin, MIT teknologi Review'seditor i chief, talte til Microsofts konsernsjef Steve Ballmer, om det nye operativsystemet og fremtiden av hans selskap. Read More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2013/feb/21/technology-links-newsbucket Technology Info: http://www.slideshare.net/biancca17/hass-and-associates-hong-kong-news http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/95364-hass-associates

46% av konsumenterna säger de kommer handla online på Cyber måndag. Källa lank: https://www.internetretailer.com/2013/11/19/cyber-new-black Medan många amerikanska detaljhandlare anser Black Friday inofficiella starten av den kritiska semester säljer säsong, indikerar bara släppt resultat från Nielsen's Holiday utgifterna Prognos studien att 85% av konsumenterna i år planerar hoppa över butikerna på svart fredag, en term som används för dagen efter Thanksgiving. Men säger nästan hälften av konsumenterna (46%) de kommer handla online här Cyber måndag. Cyber är måndag den allt vanligare benämning för måndagen efter Thanksgiving när många konsumenter gå tillbaka till jobbet och handla online. Det är från 30 procent under 2012. En annan bonus för webb-enda handlarna: för dem som planerar att handla på svart fredag, 51% planerar att åtminstone göra några av deras shopping online. 13% av de tillfrågade planerar att handla i fysiska butiker detta svart fredag, ner från 17% 2012, medan resterande 2% svarade "vet inte, säger Nielsen. Detta är fjärde året i rad att andelen shoppare som säger att de inte kommer att drabba butikerna på svart fredag antingen ökat eller förblivit densamma. I 2010 sa 80% av shoppare de skulle hoppa över butikerna dagen efter Thanksgiving; i både 2011 och 2012 sade 82%. och i år 85% säger att de inte besöker butiker på svart fredag. Läs mer relaterade ämnen: http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/hass-associates-cyber-warning-tips-reviews-1865/topics/hass-associates-paypal-teams-et-searchers http://hassassocia

With all the hundreds of quests from our survey, it's a Hass Associates pleasure to answer those today! As what we have observed, identity theft is on the top where individuals get so interested. In fact, identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America, affecting on the average of 500,000 new victims each year, for the past decade. And so, we are glad to discuss this for you to be well- informed and have preventive measures, such as reducing and reporting scams and prosecuting scammers. These topics are followed by: -online security and hardware concerns; -earning money from legitimate work-at-home programs and work-at-home scams; -credit cards and consumer issues; -Nigerian and lottery scams; -viruses and spyware; -phishing scams; -investment scams; and -urban legends. Obviously, many subscribers are interested in knowing out about new scams in these areas. This seems quite related to what we have been writing about. With all your exciting and terrific questions, Scam Busters will become even better. Today, we'll answer five of your biggest questions about identity theft: Answers to Our Subscribers' 5 Biggest Identity Theft Protection Questions 1) How big of a problem is identity theft and how long does it typically take to recover it? With victims' losses amounting to about $1.1 billion a year, identity theft reached the top of FCS's yearly list of consumer complaints for seven years in a row. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates more than the average victims that devote 170 to 300 hours trying to recover his or her identity and to resolve theft-relates issues. More than 110 million people in the US reported since January 2007 that have been packed letters from the different government branches, universities, corporations, banks, medical professionals, credit unions, no non-profit organizations and others notifying them that their personal information had either been stolen or lost. (Check out more statistics at our Identity Theft In

The House of Representatives go for the second round of Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act as it passed legislation on Thursday. The newly granted powers are intended to stop computer security threats against a company's rights and property. But the definitions are broad and vague. The terms allow purposes such as guarding against "improper" information modification and ensuring "timely" access to information, functions that are not necessarily tied to attacks. Once handed over, the government is able to use this information for investigating crimes that are unrelated to the underlying security threat and, more broadly, for "national security" purposes, which is a poorly defined term that includes "threats to the United States, its people, property, or interests" and "any other matter bearing on United States national or homeland security." The bill's vague definitions like "cybersecurity purpose" and "cybersecurity system" also raise the frightening possibility of a company using aggressive countermeasures. If a company wants to combat a threat, it is empowered to use "cybersecurity systems" to identify and obtain "cyber threat information." But the bill does not define exactly how far a company can go, leaving it open to the possibility of abuse. The bill drew support from House Democrats, passing on a bipartisan vote of 288-127, although the White House repeated its veto threat on Tuesday if further civil liberties protections are not added. Some lawmakers and privacy activists worry that the legislation would allow the government to monitor citizens' private information and companies to misuse it. U.S. authorities have recently elevated the exposure to Internet hacks and theft of digital data to the list of top threats to national security and the economy. Though thousands of companies have long been losing data to hackers in China and elsewhere, the number of parties publicly admitting such loss has been

http://hassassociates-online.com/articles/2013/04/23/house-passes-cybersecurity-bill-as-privacy-concerns-linger/ The House of Representatives go for the second round of Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act as it passed legislation on Thursday. The newly granted powers are intended to stop computer security threats against a company's rights and property. But the definitions are broad and vague. The terms allow purposes such as guarding against "improper" information modification and ensuring "timely" access to information, functions that are not necessarily tied to attacks. Once handed over, the government is able to use this information for investigating crimes that are unrelated to the underlying security threat and, more broadly, for "national security" purposes, which is a poorly defined term that includes "threats to the United States, its people, property, or interests" and "any other matter bearing on United States national or homeland security." The bill's vague definitions like "cybersecurity purpose" and "cybersecurity system" also raise the frightening possibility of a company using aggressive countermeasures. If a company wants to combat a threat, it is empowered to use "cybersecurity systems" to identify and obtain "cyber threat information." But the bill does not define exactly how far a company can go, leaving it open to the possibility of abuse. The bill drew support from House Democrats, passing on a bipartisan vote of 288-127, although the White House repeated its veto threat on Tuesday if further civil liberties protections are not added. Some lawmakers and privacy activists worry that the legislation would allow the government to monitor citizens' private information and companies to misuse it. U.S. authorities have recently elevated the exposure to Internet hacks and theft of digital data to the list of top threats to national security and the economy. Though thousands of companies have

http://hassassociates-online.com/articles/security-holes/ Vulnerabilities The larger and more complex information systems are, the greater the possibility of error in logic and loopholes in algorithm. These are weak points that could enable hackers to breach a system and compromise the integrity of information stored. Programmers themselves who are not yet adept in writing software code can unknowingly misuse the code and lead to a vulnerability. A classic example of vulnerabilities that can be exploited is a weak password or its repeated use on various services or software. There are also websites containing malware that installs automatically once visited. Even legitimate software could be a venue for an exploit due to unknown errors (bugs) generated by the program. The end-user or the human element in information systems is arguably the weakest point that hackers easily utilize. 0-day exploits 0-hour or 0-day attack is the exploitation by outside parties of a security hole in a computer program which is unknown from its developers. The term comes from the premise that the attack unfolds on the "day 0, meaning no awareness as of yet from the developers so there is no opportunity and time to issue a fix for the threat. Zero-day exploits are usually shared among hackers even before the developer knew. Programmers could use the vulnerabilities via several avenues: on web browsers and email. Web browsers allow for a wider target. Meanwhile, using email, hackers can send a message that includes an executable file on the attachments, set to run once downloaded. Such 0-day threats are in the time frame where a security hole is exploited up to the time that the program developers issued a patch for it.

Hass and Associates Cyber Security/ Security Holes

http://hassassociates-online.com/articles/sqli/ SQL injection is a tactic used in attacking a database or a server via its front-end (e.g. website). Through putting parts of SQL statements in an entry field of the website, hackers can try and get the site to run the newly-created malicious command to the database itself, for instance, dumping its contents to a remote server under the control of the attacker. This type of attack takes advantage of logical or structural loopholes in the source code through issuing a wrong or unexpected user input, resulting in a messed up execution. The 'injection' of code is to exploit a vulnerability of a website or a software. For example, SQL commands to alter or harvest information on the database would be put on the web entry form and run on the database.

In late 2011 and early 2012, activists, progressive politicians and Internet companies led in part by Internet freedom advocate Aaron Swartz came together to defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Advertised as measures against copyright infringement, the bills would have opened any website that contained copyrighted material it was not authorized to publish on any of its pages to a forced shutdown. A site that unknowingly held a copyrighted image in a comment section, for instance, would have been eligible as a violator. Virtually everyone was susceptible to closure. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) followed SOPA and PIPA in April 2012. CISPA was worse than its predecessors, proposing that private companies be allowed to share user information, a provision that would have violated many privacy protections of the Internet. Recognizing this, Swartz fought again. "It sort of lets the government run roughshod over privacy protections and share personal data about you," he said of the bill at the time. Again, he prevailed. Now, a year and a half after Swartz killed himself, there is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act. CISA is a lot like CISPA, but could end up being even worse. Privacy and civil rights groups including the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are standing up to fight it. In an article about the bill, the ACLU's Sandra Fulton wrote: CISA "poses serious threats to our privacy, gives the government extraordinary powers to silence potential whistleblowers, and exempts these dangerous new powers from transparency laws."