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Most experts in cybersecurity suggest that computer users utilize a password manager, and I think they have a great point. These managers ensure that you can use a unique, strong password for all online account. On the flip side, there are naysayers that state a password manager isn’t as safe as you might think, as if the master password is discovered, it could give someone access to all of your information. So, who is right?

According to a recently concluded survey conducted by uSamp and sponsor

Taking Control of Our Money

Source:

Public Banking Institute

This is a great introduction to public banking. America has plenty of money--but it's all under the control of private banks. This video uses economic reality, clips from "It's a Wonderful Life," and other methods to bring home the key points that banks create the money they lend, and that the privatization of finance has been a disaster. It explains public banking's potential to lower the costs of funding public goods--because, after all

Many people, including myself, make mistakes with their passwords and use them on site after site. To remain safe, it’s important to use a unique, strong password on every site you visit. How do you do this the easy way? Use a password manager.

According to a recently concluded survey conducted by uSamp and sponsored by Siber Systems, creators of the RoboForm Password Manager, the results indicate that people have some idea of the scale of the password challenge: More than half said they felt str

Hackers know small companies are more vulnerable to data breaches due to limited resources. Cybersecurity should always be a high priority. But when a company’s IT staff consists of maybe 1-2 people who are provided limited budgets and are constantly solving other tech problems, the focus on security suffers. And hackers aren’t the only problem. One significantly overlooked part of the security process “cleaning” the IT infrastructure.

IT staff being and small business owners must keep on top of:

The Internet helps us connect and share with people around the world, but there are some people with whom you definitely shouldn’t be sharing your information. Although it’s not pleasant to think about, it’s not just friends and family that can see your online posts, bad guys can too, including criminals and even sex offenders.

So, when you take a photo of your kids in your backyard, know that if you post that picture on social media, a predator can potentially obtain the GPS coordinates of where

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, an identity database, was attacked by hackers rather recently, and they hit the jackpot: More than 21 million federal workers are at risk of identity theft for perhaps the rest of their lives, reports an article on forbes.com.

The hackers from overseas now have security clearance documents for these employees that contain some very sensitive personal information. And nobody can take these documents away from the hackers.

That’s the problem with these centra

The biggest mistake that you can make to threaten your online safety is to treat the online world different—as far as your private information—than you would treat the physical world. In other words, if someone walked up to you and said, “Hi, can you please provide me with your name, address, birth date, home phone, cell phone, email, usernames, passowords all your friends names and all their contact info?” I think not.

What sane person would pass out cards with their Social Security number, birt

One of the reasons you—and many others—don’t have your alarm on during the day is because you know you’ll keep forgetting to turn it off every time you want to step into the garage or go outside. So you just keep it off. And that’s not smart because many home invasions and burglaries occur during daylight hours.

Typically, home security systems require you to push buttons.

• What if you panic and forget the code?
• What if you accidentally disable it?
• What if your naughty visiting nephew messes with it?

Companies that want to employ at-home workers for their call centers to save money and reduce the hassles of office space have to look at security considerations. In addition to thorough vetting of the agents and their equipment, organizations also need to ensure that the security is top-notch. A cloud-based contact center combats these issues. Here are some considerations:

• Will it anger customers to have an agent who can’t speak clear English? Not only does poor speech of the employee drive some

Editor’s Note: In this week’s guest blog security expert Robert Siciliano explains how to protect your IT systems and your business from hardware failure. To learn more, download our new e-book, “5 Things Small Businesses Need to Know about Disaster Recovery.”

It is September and that means National Preparedness Month: an ideal time to get involved in your community’s safety. Make plans to stay safe, and this includes keeping ongoing communications alive. National Preparedness Month culminates Se

Once you become active online…and especially once you become “connected” with a smartphone…your privacy will be in sizzling hot demand—and in fact, you can bet that as you read this, it is already being invaded in ways that you couldn’t possibly imagine. Here are some of those ways, provided by wired.com:

1. Someone could be collecting information on you via a keylogger: It’s a little tool that records your keystrokes, that someone secretly inserts into your computer. A keylogger, however, can also

As recent data breaches have shown, cyber attacks are particularly threatening to government entities handling sensitive data like Social Security numbers. Unfortunately, state agencies struggle to hire cybersecurity professionals.

The cause of this staffing shortage? There simply aren’t enough qualified people for the job^[i]. Thankfully, change is in the air.

To attract skilled cybersecurity experts, some state governments are expanding IT internships for high school and college students. Many ar

National Preparedness Month is happening right now. It’s the perfect time to take action for you and your community. It’s all about making plans to remain safe, and when disasters do strike, to keep communications going. September 30th is the culmination of NPM, with the National PrepareAthon! Day.

If a burglar sees your Facebook status that you are traveling on vacation and then enters your house, and takes $10,000 worth of valuables, it’s safe to say you as the homeowner facilitated the theft.

Some of us remember college dorm days, when students were envied if they had their own typewriter. These days, college students must have a personal laptop computer, and a smartphone, and their lives revolve around these connected devices.  Such dependency should be proactively protected from loss or theft.  Campus security now means more than just being beware of who might be hiding in the bushes at night.

When you send your college kid off into the world, you want them to be prepared for life’s

You’re sitting on your front porch. You see a stranger walking towards your property. You have no idea whom he is. But he’s nicely dressed. He asks to come inside your house and look through your bank account records, view your checkbook routing number and account number, and jot down the 16-digit numbers of your credit cards. Hey, he also wants to write down all your passwords.

You say, “Sure! Come on in!”

Is this something you’d be crazy enough to do? Of course not!

But it’s possible that you’ve

If you don’t want your smartphone to know more about you than you do, here are top choices, as detailed on gizmodo.com:

BlackPhone 2

• The Blackphone 2 will black out the federal government from spying on you.
• Has a five inch handset with full HD screen (with Gorilla Glass 3 that prevents shoulder surfing).
• 3 GB or RAM
• Its Silent Circle’s PrivateOS 1.1 provides a “Spaces” UI: Data will be encrypted and compartmentalized.
• The “Spaces” allow you to set up distinct spaces for different types of data, inclu

Cybersecurity professionals are always in demand^[i]. Threats to intellectual property and sensitive data constantly evolve with technology, which means a security professional’s job is never done. There’s always another security problem to solve.

Consider the recent proliferation of cyber attacks: it’s become easier and easier for a small group of people to compromise vast networks of corporate and government information. Worse still, cyber criminals are getting better at covering their tracks.

Ex

Maybe you don’t mind the ads for that bicycle rack following you around in cyberspace after you visited a site for all things bike, but browser trackers (“cookies”) also create a profile of you that gets sold to other advertisers and third parties.

Are you doomed to be stalked forever by bike ads? This is caused by third-party cookies. You can use third party software such as CCleaner, which can identify third-party cookies and clean out the cookies in your hard drive. It’s the third-party cookie

When you subscribe to an online service, be careful of how much information you give out about yourself.

Most businesses in their terms and conditions, say they “respect your privacy.” But what if these companies go under or are sold? An article from the online New York Times explores this concept. Today’s market-data-hungry-businesses can gather lots of data about subscribers. This data can be transferred to third parties in the event the company is sold or goes belly up.

The New York Times recen

It’s tough being responsible sometimes. And managing responsibilities for what is precious in your life usually takes a little extra thought.  Let’s say you’ve just welcomed a beautiful set of triplets into the world.  Lucky you . . . and lots to managed! But, you wouldn’t give all these babies the same name simply to make it easier to remember, right?

Consider this same concept as you manage other precious aspects of life, like your on line accounts. It may seem convenient – and easier to rememb