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If I wanted to crack one of your passwords, I could probably make a series of educated guesses and get pretty close. Why? Because people tend to stick with simple, easy to remember passwords, but these are the passwords that are easy to hack. According to Bill Carey, VP Marketing for the RoboForm Password Manager “Users need to take personal responsibility for their passwords and not assume that companies will keep them safe.”

Hackers Have Many Ways to Get Into Your Accounts

There are many ways th

There are many reasons someone might right-click on your image and “Save image as…”

Porn, Sex and Dating Sites

• A woman might steal your blog headshot and use it for her dating site profile.
• A perv might take the picture of your child off your Facebook page and put it on a porn site.
• A person who runs a racy dating site might take your image and use it to advertise his service.

Scams

• Someone might use, without your knowledge, a photo of your house for a rental scam.
• Your motorcycle, jet ski, boat, puppy

There’s a problem on the home front: security lapses in the computers of the Secret Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, says a report on townhall.com. These departments were recently audited, and weaknesses were revealed.

Recently, hackers got into the White House, State Department and the Office of Personnel Management, among other entities. And this has caused the public to wonder about just how strong cybersecurity is for the U.S. government. So thus, the audit was carried out.

The

If you have made the decision to use a password manager for your personal cybersecurity, which I highly recommend, you will quickly find that you online world is safer, easier and more secure than ever before.

According to a recently concluded survey conducted by uSamp and sponsored by Siber Systems, creators of the RoboForm Password Manager, 63% of respondents reported forgetting a password, or had a password become compromised, in their professional life.  But it doesn’t need to be this difficu

Killing Off Community Banks — Intended Consequence of Dodd-Frank Act? “Orderly Liquidation Authority”. Consolidation of Megabanks

Source:

 Ellen Brown

The Web of Debt Blog

21 October 2015

The Dodd-Frank regulations are so lethal to community banks that some say the intent was to force them to sell out to the megabanks. Community banks are rapidly disappearing — except in North Dakota, where they are thriving. 

At over 2,300 pages, the Dodd Frank Act is the longest and most complicated bill ever passe

One difference between a credit card and a debit card is that if there’s an unauthorized charge on your credit card, you just get a little sting. It’s a hassle to straighten out. But no money is taken from you.

But if someone gets ahold of your debit card information, the second they use it, depending on the nature of the transaction, your bank account will be drained. And in some cases, you can kiss that money goodbye; you got scorched. More than ever, crooks are using others’ debit card data an

There are many prominent cybersecurity companies, including FireEye and Symantec. These companies “focus on blocking or detecting intrusions as they occur or responding to attacks after the fact,” according to The New York Times. Sometimes, this approach yields fruit, but inherently, it cannot “gain the upper hand” over threats; no matter how quickly security responds to an intrusion, that intrusion is already underway.

This is why cyber intelligence agency ISight zeroes in on hackers’ objectives

You’ve seen TV commercials and print ads about identity theft, and the “victim” is always an adult. That’s not realistic. The actor-portrayal should be that of a child. Yes, a kid.

Children are 51 times more likely than adults to have their identity stolen, says research from Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab.

Crooks want kids’ Social Security numbers. And crooks like the fact that kids are debt-free. Wow, with no debt to the child’s name, the thief could easily open up a line of credit in that v

Quantitative Easing Was a Bust; Let’s Try Higher Wages Instead

Source:

 Mike Whitney

CounterPunch

16 October 2015

Why is the economy still in the doldrums after 6 years of zero rates and three rounds of Quantitative Easing?

It’s because consumers aren’t consuming and there’s too much debt. You see, despite the Fed’s wacko theories about pumping liquidity into the financial system to make investors feel wealthier, people actually have to buy things to generate growth. And the truth is, consumers h

Public Services Under Attack through TTIP and CETA Atlantic Trade Deals

Source:

 Corporate Europe Observatory and Europe Observatory

12 October 2015

EU trade deals with Canada and the US could endanger citizens’ rights to basic services like water and health, as negotiators are doing the work of some of the EU’s most powerful corporate lobby groups in pushing an aggressive market opening agenda in the public sector.

Access PDF of full report in English.

Read the executive summary in English, French,

Google Degenerates into Ministry of Truth; All Knowledge Must Now Be Pre-approved by Search Algorithm

Gone are the days when you could search Google and pull up neutral, relevant content appropriate to your search query. The search engine giant is reportedly pioneering a new search algorithm that will tailor search results not based on popularity or accuracy, but rather on what Google itself deems to be truthful or untruthful.

The

If you are like me, you have several online accounts, each with a user name and password. Though it is tempting to use one password for every account, this can be troublesome as it is a huge security risk. So, what is your only option? To use a password manager.

According to a recently concluded survey conducted by uSamp and sponsored by Siber Systems, creators of the RoboForm Password Manager:

• 42% write them down
• 23% reported always using the same password**
• 25% reported using personal information
• O

Who has time to think about identity protection when planning a wedding? And why, for that matter? Well, there’s good reason: Marriage begets a change in identities. The months preceding the big day should be when the couple starts taking action to avoid identity theft.

• If you’re using any website or smartphone application to organize your wedding, make sure it’s protected with a password—a long password that contains zero clues about your wedding, identity or anything else personal. An ideal pas

Consider a keychain for a moment. For most of us, a keychain holds all of our necessities such as home keys, car keys, work keys and even forgotten keys, that we aren’t quite sure what to do with. Now, think about this. What if your keychain had keys that look identical, but each key only opens one door.

If you are like most people, this key scenario is almost identical to the way you treat your account passwords online. What happens when you want to use a key, but you don’t know which one goes w

Nobody likes surprises in business. Using a risk-based approach to identify your organization’s likely vulnerabilities is highly recommended and vital to short-term and long-term success. Expanding regulations make compliance increasingly complex and expensive, and increases in deficient internal audit controls have heightened scrutiny of companies by the SEC, PCAOB, and investors.

Business surprises are preventable, but there are several common issues with risk identification that can be impossi

Just because a job recruiter says he’s from (fill in blank—any huge corporation) doesn’t mean the job can’t be a scam. Anyone could say they’re from Microsoft or Google. Impersonating a representative from a big-name company is one way to fool gullible job seekers.

Another way is to advertise the scam jobs on radio because the scammer knows that listeners will think, “It has to be legit if it’s on the radio.” Scammers will post their job ads anywhere.

An article on consumer.ftc.gov lists the follo

The 2015 Social Media Glossary: 207 Essential Definitions

Source:

Dara Fontein

Hootsuite

Dara is a Blog Writer at Hootsuite. She writes about social media, technology, and Hootsuite happenings.

A lot can change in a year, especially in the world of social media. It can be difficult to keep up with all of the terms and slang used with the introduction of new technologies and platforms, so we decided it was time to update our Social Media Glossary. Like previous editions of the glossary, this is a livi

Studies across the board indicate that weak usernames and passwords are one of the top causes of data breaches, and I find that information to be unfortunate, because it is preventable. According to a recently concluded survey conducted by uSamp and sponsored by Siber Systems, creators of the RoboForm Password Manager: 70% reported forgetting a password, or had a password become compromised, in their professional life in the US.

• More organizations are enacting policies where employees can use the

While data breaches have dominated the news cycle, The Wall Street Journal’s “Risk and Compliance Journal,” reports that fraud is actually much more common, even if it generates fewer headlines.

In the fiscal year ending March 31st, 2015, instances of retail fraud averaged a 94% increase from the prior year when calculated by average loss of revenues. Industry reaction to this news has been relatively predictable: as many companies have decided to devote a higher percentage of their budget to pre

Sweden Aims To Become The World’s First Fossil Fuel-Free Nation

Source:

 Amanda Froelich

True Activist

11 October 2015

Powered by Sweden plans to become one of the first nations in the world to thrive on 100% renewable energy.

There are quite a few things to love about Sweden. Not only is the eco-conscious nation considering implementing a ‘meat tax’ to reduce its carbon footprint, the country has literally run out of trash to incinerate for energy and, therefore, must import garbage from its neighbor