#secure surfing

The title alone says it all. It makes absolutely no sense why somebody would want to list their current location. When I see “Henry Hartwell is at Star Nails in Bucktooth, CA getting a manicure,” the first thing I think is; why the hell is this guy getting a manicure?  The second thing I think is; hopefully nobody is evil enough to use that very statement to ruin his livelihood.  It sounds horrible, I know, but what’s scary is that it’s true.  That statement could have multiple ramifications.  Imagine me being a burglar; I know you well enough to know that you have some really cool stuff of value in your home. I befriend you on Facebook and see this post. Next I grab my keys get in my car, drive to your house and rob you blind. Why? Because I know you’re not home.

Another major issue with location disclosure is a very interesting one. It’s called “Social Marketing.” What search engines and social media sites do is, collect all of our disclosed personal information (age, sex, job, school, likes, dislikes, currently shopping at, etc.). They collect all of this information from websites such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social outlets/search engines. But what’s even scarier, is that they collect information from your smart phones!  Over the past holiday season there was a report on the news about Mall Traffic Data collected by people’s cell phones. They say that they wanted to track the amount of people visiting the mall. But was that all they were after?  If they can track you via GPS by your phone, they can not only see that you came in the mall, but what stores you visited, how long you were in them and if you bought something.

There is no such thing as “Secure” in our cyber world. The more secure we become, the more vulnerable we become. So to say that a website is secure when you enter your credit card information is absolute rubbish.  In fact, toss that logic out of the window!  A secure website can only secure the information that is being sent, not the information that is being typed. So say I installed Spyware (A type of Malware.) into your computer that collects your keystrokes (Letters), as you are typing. This program is known as a “Keylogger.”  This spyware is collecting every key you hit and you just made a purchase online through a secure site; now I have your credit card information. It is that simple. Spyware comes in many forms and could be very complex or very simple.  Now apply that same logic to all internet usage, like applying for a credit card; you have to enter your social security number. What door does that open? There is a lot to think about here.  These spyware programs are extremely intelligent. With the ability to continuously update, it is very difficult for your anti-virus to detect them. They are very tricky to detect and most of the time you will never even know they were even running in your computer.

Although it seems like a lot to take in, there are a few simple steps you can take to ensure that your internet purchases are secure.  

·         Use a separate credit card with a low limit for online purchases. Never use your personal bank account to make purchases. Open up a separate account that you use for online transactions. 

·         Never make purchases through a public network. Anything public is PUBLIC! Literally! If I’m at Starbucks “Sniffing” their network traffic, I can collect information from every computer on their wireless network. That means; that every person there; is giving me an opportunity to steal their credit card information and worse, their Identity!

·         Anti-Keyloggers are a great tool to use to detect this spyware. It basically scans all of the files on your computer looking for specific traits that these Keyloggers possess. Once one is found it gives you the ability to get rid of the spyware.

·         Another great one is using software that will randomize your keystrokes and inserting tons of other keystrokes, which overloads the Keylogger and protects your information without corrupting the intended key order.