FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. CAMERON PARK, CA (November 12, 2020) – Cyber Safety Net today announced How Hacks Happen and how to protect yourself was awarded the Nonfiction Authors Association's Gold Award.
"The Nonfiction Authors Association sets the bar extremely high," says author Mark Anthony Germanos. "To have How Hacks Happen be reviewed by other authors and receive the Gold Award is truly an honor. I am glad the reviewers, and reading public as a whole, are finding How Hacks Happen valuable. The content helps keep you safe online." Some sample reviews are as follows:
In How Hacks Happen, Mark Anthony Germanos uses two author personas to explain and illustrate the hazards to our online information: the cybersecurity expert trying to help us and the black-hat hacker exploiting our ... Read More
Free email services monetize your personal information. Use one of them and you are vulnerable. Free email and social media services are indexing and monetizing your mailbox data. They use that information for their gain, not yours.
Gmail monetizes your personal informationFor example, https://policies.google.com/terms?hl=en says “When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited ... Read More
COVID-19 private health information will no longer be private
A recent update on both iPhones and Droid phones allows our phones to publish our COVID-19 private health information (PII). Some of us may not even know this is happening. Here’s how to find out if your phone is.
On an iPhone, choose Settings > Privacy > Health and you get a screen with COVID-19 Exposure Logging near the top.
COVID-19 Exposure Logging is currently off. “Why the worry Mark,” you may ask. The worry is because I did not intentionally add this functionality. It appeared one day. I do not have an app to transmit data yet. However, I am nervous that a future iOS update will include a surprise app that will transmit this information and worse, ... Read More
Google tracks you (but you can purge what they know)
Two days ago, I wrote about how Google tracks you. Please see https://wp.me/paAiP4-wh for a refresher.
Go to the Google Dashboard at https://myaccount.google.com/dashboard. Let’s just download this data. Click the Download your data link, which takes you to https://takeout.google.com. Scroll through this list of services Google thinks you use. Google checks all by default. At the bottom, click the Next step button.
I am choosing to export this data once, save the data as a .ZIP file and span my data across multiple .ZIP files when the files are larger than 2 GB. Click the Create export button.
Google reports “This process can take a long time (possibly hours or days) to complete. You'll receive an email when your ... Read More
Suno Revolutionizes Music Creation for Analytical People Like You and Me
Suno is an AI-powered music creation platform that offers significant potential for businesses across various industries. This innovative tool streamlines content creation, reduces costs and provides unique branding opportunities. Left-brainers can use Suno. After all, the music Suno gives you comes from your prompts.
Getting Started with Suno
Start by creating your account.
Visit suno.ai
Click "Sign Up"
Choose from Discord, Google, or Microsoft login options
Complete the registration process
Access your new Suno dashboard
Songs I Created
Can you believe a left-brainer like me actually created music? My Suno screen name is Zeus Lives in California.
With the prompt "A synthesizer-driven song to go with scuba diving video in the Caribbean. Slow, mysterious and refreshing. Mix in water sounds," I ... Read More
Google tracks your activity
They've been tracking you since you first created that free Drive, Gmail or YouTube account. You can review the data Google tracks and download it. Google also lets you delete some data.
Google tracks via Gmail
Take a deep breath and visit https://myaccount.google.com/dashboard. Login if prompted.
Let’s start with the Gmail link. Google indexes Gmail contents and uses that to help determine which ads will be most interesting to us. Let’s see just how much data Google tracks.
Click the Gmail button.
Click GO TO GMAIL.
Click All Mail (on the left).
Peruse your entire mailbox.
Google reports 4,789 messages in my Gmail account. Although Google reports 4,789 messages, I see only 224 messages in my Inbox, 10 in Trash and 487 in Sent. The rest ... Read More
Predators and thieves see what you post online
Sometimes people aren't as street smart as they choose to believe. They share personal information online and then act surprised when they become victims of a crime.
I am changing my friends’ names here
Ann took a picture of an envelope and posted it on Facebook. This envelope had her name, address, city, state and zip. She also told Facebook she was leaving town for 10 days to visit a friend in Hawaii. Two weeks later, she told Facebook her home was burglarized. I told her she presented valuable information online to a potential thief. "Ah yes, I think you're right, Mark," she replied.
Jen posted her address and pictures of her home on Facebook. She also told Facebook she was ... Read More
Facebook acknowledges recording
It is not a secret. We share more information at Facebook than at most other online services. Sometimes we forget how much we share and that what goes online never really leaves online. I asked Facebook to export my personal information back on December 28, 2019. Their report read like the most thorough diary every compiled.
"Thanks Mark. I now see how they are collecting too much information about us. I am calling my Congressman. That Zuckerberg guy better fess up to what he is doing." I know you are thinking that.
Read the Terms of Service
Actually, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been called into the Principal's Office twice. He testified on April 10, 2018 and October 23, 2019. Congress asked if users could protect ... Read More
Remote Desktop is a big vulnerability
Maybe you use Microsoft’s Remote Desktop feature to connect to your workstation at work from…anywhere. Remote Desktop has been in Windows for 20 years at no extra cost. The network administrator at my target reviews the workstation’s logs through Windows’ Event Viewer. This screenshot is from my research honeypot.
Someone is trying to login to this virtual machine at a ferocious pace
The unlucky soul who has to read these logs finds login attempts are international. My perusal shows login attempts from five IP addresses:
211.72.1.31 in Taipei, Taiwan
24.142.48.215 in Dartmouth, Canada
87.147.195.55 in Olching, Germany
47.185.77.29 in Keller, Texas
91.234.125.163 is in Sosnicowice, Poland
Assuming it is one hacker who either employed a botnet (a series of computers simultaneously tasked with a large task) or is ... Read More
What Facebook knows is a result of what you have shared, and done, on Facebook
When we create that first Facebook account and go through the profile creation wizard, we can hardly see 10 feet ahead of us. We get a smorgasbord of questions
Where and when born?
Grade school?
Education achieved?
High school?'
College?
Marital status?
Spouse name?
Where you work or have worked?
Then we get to the most dangerous ones. Get ready:
Political views
Religious views.
I wisely answered the dangerous ones. I wrote "Everybody vote for me" and "Everybody worship me." Wise before my time, I suppose.
You are the product
I challenge you to look at your profile and see what information you are sharing. Remember Facebook is packaging this and selling it to ... Read More