Social Engineering: Japanese Tragedy

It’s a sad fact that many people exploit human nature for their own ends. The BBC reports that there is a text message circulating in Asia suggesting that radiation has “leaked” [sic] across Asia from the Fukushima power plant in Japan. Sophos’ Graham Cluley has blogged about malware spreading across the globe in the guise of videos supposedly coming from Japan with subject lines like: “VIDEO: The village that escaped the tsunami”, “VIDEO: Struggle for normal life in Japan”, “VIDEO: Woman talks about tsunami escape”, and “Japan tsunami touches New Zealand”.

Other examples include the fake Japanese Tsunami charity appeals, fakes CNN footage of the tidal wave, and a Facebook “clickjacking” scam that entices people with the bizarre claim of showing viewers a whale stuck in a building after the Tsunami.

This goes to show that everyone needs to be extra careful when tragedies such as the one in Japan happen, as people will try to hijack the event, appealing to people’s curiosity or good nature for their own purposes. Even viewing a video or clicking on a site may reveal more than you want.

If you want to donate to the relief effort, go directly to a reputable charity.

Staying Safe Online awareness series at LSE

The majority of people I talk to want to do the right things online to protect themselves but don’t know what to do. That said, most people won’t go hunting for information to help themselves because they have to wade through great mountains of jargon and impenetrable comments from all quarters. If they do go looking for stuff, many give up.

So, I have been organising a series of three evenings at LSE, in the Old Theatre, with eminent speakers to explain what’s going on in the information security world, and how you can protect yourselves.

These will take place on the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st of October from 6.30pm and are open to the general public.

#ssol on Twitter

On the Internet nothing is ever deleted

This case just goes to show that you really should never post anything online you don’t want the world to see.

In summary, a woman in the US has been claiming that she is largely bed-ridden. The company that she works for disputes this, citing pictures of her being active on her Facebook account and they have applied to a judge to gain access to her Facebook and MySpace postings, including those that she has deleted.

It’s not overly clear from the article whether deleted posts were actually recovered, but Facebook’s privacy policy implies that at least some deleted content can be recovered.

More analysis can be found from The Register.

Top Ten Social Networking Tips

I’m in the process of creating some “Top Ten Tip” flyers for work to try to distil some best practice into bite-sized chunks.

Here are my Top Ten Social Networking Tips:

1. Never post anything you don’t want made public
2. Check your privacy settings often
3. Don’t use the same password as for your email account
4. If one of your friends starts chatting and asking for money, phone them up!
5. Don’t install apps you don’t know the provenance of
6. Remember: everyone can read your tweets!
7. Be careful on tagging other people in posts
8. Don’t show your date of birth to anyone
9. Be careful who you friend
10. Consider the future implications of posts and pictures: nothing ever gets deleted

Are there any more important ones? What would you suggest?