How many people do you know, including yourself, who are avid Facebook users? Be honest. You will know that your account contains a large amount of information, much of it quite personal, that data thieves would be happy to mine and use. A solution is to protect this information.
You can start with a good password, not something like 123456 but say We3kEnd5*r3G0od (weekendsaregood). A good password should be easy to remember but contain a mix of lower and upper case letters, numbers and special characters. It should also be at least 12 characters long to give the brute force cracking tools a headache. One alternative is to use a password manager like say LastPass (www.lastpass.com) or similar. The other golden rule is to never give your password out, especially not to any email or link that asks for it unless of course if you're signing into your accounts. In Facebook you do this under Settings or Account Settings and the Password part of your privacy settings.
Facebook also supports Login Approvals. This is a two step process where you say login and then use a code sent to your phone or an email to confirm the login. This process is called two-factor authentication and other organisations e.g. your local government, or bank may use the same approach. This is configured under Settings -> Security -> Login Approvals. If you want to try this the easiest is to have a text sent to you. For safety, don't remember the browser when asked.
When I access my local bank account I get an email. You can also turn on login alerts in Facebook to get a notification when someone logs into your account. Go to Settings -> Security -> Login Alerts to be notified in Facebook itself, or by email or SMS. There are more things you can do but that's enough for this week.
How many times have you flashed a peace sign since it became a thing in the 1960s? Along with the thumb, the index finger is a common one to use for fingerprint sensors. The Japanese at the National Institute of Informatics have announced that they are close to being able to capture a fingerprint from your finger in a photo that is taken up to about 2.5m away. While this technology is not yet in the commercial stage of development the same team is working on a transparent film that will block this emerging technology. I suspect more people will have their fingerprints captured than those that will wear a film on their fingers just in case. I also suspect that there are one or more agencies that are already using a similar technology.
The report is in and Samsung has placed the blame on the two battery makers for their flaming Note 7 problems. The claim is that the batteries contained faults that lead to short circuits, overheating and the results seen in YouTube videos. Three independent experts were cited who detailed the flaws they found during their investigation. This included faults between the layers in the batteries and making the batteries "too large". Basically, Samsung didn't do anything wrong, apart from perhaps pushing the manufacturers too hard. It went on to say that they would allow more space in the compartment which just confirms my original assessment in an earlier article where they went with an internal battery without enough space for expansion. I for one am not buying in to all of Samsung's conclusions.
Those attending this month's Mobile World Congress will not be seeing a new Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone. I'm sure there will be some other models in the mid-range on show but no new flagship offerings. This will give others like Huawei the opportunity to show their latest offerings instead. I suspect that having US$5.3 billion shaved off your bottom line would motivate most to exercise some caution before their next release.
Not sure this still classifies as news but Apple is suing again. This time it is Qualcomm who they claim are charging too much for their patent royalty fees. I must admit that I lost interest after reading to that point.
Nearly three years ago, the malware Heartbleed was discovered in many systems worldwide. According to the search engine people Shodan, www.shodan.io, there are at least 200,000 systems still vulnerable to the malware. Back in 2014 people started applying patches but even today not everyone has patched the holes in the OpenSSL system. These holes allow people to steal passwords, private keys and more. Those that have not yet patched are widespread, including the US, China, Germany and Korea. If you are unsure then check with your system administrators.
It is not only Heartbleed that people have not patched. Stuxnetwas is six years old and still there are those that have not fixed it. Word Macros became vulnerable again back in 2015 but attacks persisted throughout the whole of 2016 and the list goes on. Eventually an unpatched system will be compromised. You have been warned, again.
James Hein is an IT professional of over 30 years' standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com.