With the internet and wireless communications playing such a large part in our lives, there’s a lot of information around these days – and much of it is simply data about data. This metadata as it’s known describes not only resources, web pages, and database entries, but also objects – including some of the artifacts that we create every day. … Read More
Mobile Device Ad Tracking
In a lofty-sounding process known as state management, administrators of web sites and search engines can optimize the online experience on your desktop or laptop computer’s browser through the use of cookies, which are little text files stored in your browser caches recording your user IDs, passwords, personalized themes, and other preferences. It’s achieved simply enough. But for mobile devices … Read More
Mobile Location Services – A Closer Look at Privacy and Security Issues
Technologies enabling your real-time location to be established by your mobile and automotive devices (Yes, a car is a mobile device as well, when you think about it) make life easier and more enjoyable in any number of ways: Predicting the local weather so you’ll know to take an umbrella when you saunter off for that important lunch meeting at … Read More
Protecting Sensitive Data on Your Mobile Device
A 2015 survey of 2,000 office workers revealed that 73% of those polled had downloaded personal apps to tablets issued by their employers, while over 50% used their personal smartphones and devices to conduct company business. With the lines now blurred between personal and corporate, the data stored and transmitted on mobile devices is often a mix of personally identifiable … Read More
Human Behavior – the Achilles Heel in Mobile Security
The continued success of email phishing attempts and social engineering tactics, and the growing efficiency of the emerging breeds of mobile malware all attest to a fact that security professionals have been moaning about for years: Human beings (in this case, mobile device users) are the single most effective tool that cyber-criminals have in compromising security. In classical Greek mythology, … Read More
Mobile Device Privacy and Security – Challenges and Recommendations
With some analysts predicting that by 2018, 25% of corporate data will pass directly between mobile devices and the cloud (avoiding network security perimeters) – and with an alarming 35% of workers in a Bank of America study admitting that their first thought of the day is to their smartphones, rather than their partners – it’s obvious that mobile technologies … Read More
Mobile Device Security – Smartphones are Becoming the New Target of Hackers
For some years, cyber-criminals have been exploiting desktop operating system and software vulnerabilities, leveraging unpatched web browsers with vulnerable add-ons and using human psychology and social engineering tactics to ensnare unsuspecting users into revealing vital information, giving the perpetrators access to systems and networks, or simply acting as a conduit for malware. Now though, the focus for cyber-threat activity is … Read More