Social Media Scams

Social Media Scams

One of the biggest concerns in social media is TRUST.

As social media scams continue to plague networks, it relates to identity theft, brand hijacking, privacy issues, and the opportunity social media creates for criminals to “friend” their potential victims in order to create a false sense of trust and use that against their victims in phishing or other scams.

Do you trust the link on that tweet or short URL?

A recent post from TechRadar points out that:

Some startling web-based statistics have been unearthed in a new report, which shines a light on just how corrupt parts of the internet are. According to Websence Security Labs the majority of what we see online and receive through email has links to spam and contains malicious code. In fact, 95 per cent of user generated content is generally spam or dangerous links and 85 per cent of emails sent are no more than 419 scams cunningly disguised – or not so cunning if they begin: “dear friend”.

Stat attack

In the findings, it was also noted that 71 per cent of websites which contain malicious material are legit sites which have been compromised. And of those attacks, 35 per cent will have a data-stealing code embedded.

There’s definitely a significant rise in compromised websites, with Websence Security Labs reporting that there has been a 225% rise in dangerous websites, when comparing the second half of 2009 to the second half of 2008.

Friends; David Kyle of Planet Search exposed the iJango Scam early last year, and Keith Schilling of On Top Results exposed LocalAdLink as a scam as well.

A website I found recently to do a quick search on a company/service is simply: “Is this a scam?”

• If you are wondering if an ad, email, or miracle cure is a scam? Ask them and see the results.

Do you have any sites or horror stories of social media scams? Please leave a comment.

Social Media Skills – Typing Speed Test

Social Media Skills – Typing Speed Test

Being more efficient with social media is a topic everywhere these days. Let’s take it back to basics to when you first began typing. Maybe it was on a typewriter? I know mine was, until I received my first computer the Macintosh LC II “pizza box” computer, circa 1992, and got hooked up with AOL.

I remember typing classes in Middle School through High School, learning about home-keys and proper posture while sitting at a keyboard/workstation. I still try to put these good habits to use daily but alas, sometimes it’s just easier to be lazy and slouch or look at the keyboard when you type.

Social Media Efficiency

The ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort is a tough task sometimes in social media, and creating content is a big part of the role. I have found that taking a typing test daily has improved my key-entry speeds 20% over the past 2 weeks.

From Keybr:

Keybr.com is very straightforward. You can choose from three basic lessons that start with a certain number of keys on the keyboard, and then, as you progress through the lessons, more keys are introduced to the mix to make things a little tougher. As an added bonus, our software keeps track of all your mistakes and your words–per–minute (wpm) — and even creates graphs of your day–by–day performance.

How does Keybr.com work?

Unlike much of the teaching typing software available out there, Keybr.com does not force you to type random characters over and over again; that is simply boring and contributes very little to your learning. Instead, Keybr.com generates readable random words using the phonetic rules of your native language. These words look almost natural, and often they really are. Typing sensible text is much easier than random letters, and it helps you to remember frequent key combinations. For example, it’s almost impossible for the letter ‘W’ to follow the ‘Z’ in English, and you will never type this combination in Keybr.com. Instead, you will type more common words, such as “the,” “that,” “with,” and so on. Keybr.com lets you introduce as few keys as possible to the lesson, adding more keys later when you feel that you are competent and fast enough on the current level. So, if you start with the keys from the Caps Lock row, then add keys form the Tab row, and then from the Shift row, you will eventually end up typing real text with capital letters and punctuation.

Keybr.com is a web–based software that runs directly in your browser. You don’t have to download or install anything! The most recent and up–to–date version is always with you. You can use it from any computer connected to the Internet, and your typing statistics are kept on the web site and available on–demand.

My favorite part of Keybr.com is the ability to import content from a web site or blog into Keybr.com to type it out.

Give it a try and let me know if you have any other typing speed tricks or favorite tools to share.

Mobile Internet Security and Jackie Chan

Internet Security

One of the off-marketing topics that I am often asked is: how can I make my network more secure? Many times this conversation will lead into mobile device security. I predict 2010 will be the year networking engineers take internet security on mobile devices and the social web seriously.

Do you really know what is on the other side of that twitter link?

Mobile Security

With malware news results at an all time high and One in 63 Smartphones Infected by Mobile Spyware and Malware, it’s time to take security risks seriously with your mobile device. Self-propagating worms and Trojan horses in mobile telephones are the main concern. Safety in mobile is only going to get worse with the proliferation of smart devices and applications expanding the attack surface. This year threats to the systems of the iPhone and Android are tested and taken seriously.

Smartphone Spyware

One of the biggest threats are malicious phone attacks, where mobile device malware can delete or steal confidential information, send mass SMS and MMS messages from infected phones. Other attacks may dial premium rate numbers without your knowledge and/or transfer malicious code to a PC once a connection is established.

So how can you protect your smartphone?

My preferred internet and mobile security company I recommend is Kaspersky. (affiliate link)

Seriously though – who better then Jackie Chan to take cyber-security to the next level?

I would love to hear if you have even thought of or talked about mobile security yet?