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February, 2009

Obama's BlackBerry Security Strategy


When Barack Obama famously refused to relinquish his treasured BlackBerry, he became the first president in American history to use email while in office. He will also be the first to have to worry about personal internet security.

The president's new BlackBerry is a special modified variation with top-notch encryption features—further details are not being shared with the media. Vice President Joe Biden and other key officials have also been given this most limited of limited edition devices.

But is it Really Hacker-Proof?

But famed hacker Kevin Mitnick says that despite its special security features, no BlackBerry is impossible to compromise. In an interview with Fox News, Mitnick said "It's a long shot, but it's possible. You'd probably need to be pretty sophisticated, but there's people out there who are."

According to Mitnick, who is credited with hacking Motorola, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, FBI, and Pentagon networks (among many others,) the best course of action for a hacker would probably be to infiltrate the personal computer of somebody close to Obama. Then, the hacker would have to use that person's identity to divert Obama to a compromised website that would upload malicious code onto the BlackBerry.

The Most Exclusive List in Washington

That's precisely why the president's security team is keeping his email address such a closely guarded secret. Obama will also have to frequently change his email address.

Who exactly has this address is unknown, but the number is believed to be considerably less than 50, with Biden, advisers David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, press secretary Robert Gibbs, and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel almost certainly at the top of the list. Beyond that, one can only guess: top supporter Oprah Winfrey, secretary of state Hillary Clinton, celebrity email buddy Scarlet Johanson, DNC chair Tim Kaine? One can only speculate.

If any of our readers are on the list, please let us know so we can send him our suggestions on the economy...

February 20, 2009
8 comments

Learn How to Dispose of Cell Phones



Remember when the McCain campaign had that garage sale a few months back and sold two BlackBerries with hundreds of GOP contacts still saved on them? It may have seemed like a silly blunder to those who heard about it at the time, but it turns out that most of us are just as careless with our mobile phones and handheld devices as the McCain staffers were with theirs.

99% of Cell Phone Recyclers Neglect to Erase Data

According to a study by Regenersis, one of the leading electronics recycling firms in the world, 99 percent of recycled cellular phones are handed over with their owners personal information and contact lists completely intact. The company did a random sampling of 2000 devices in the month of December, and found that only a handful of consumers had bothered to delete information like emails, banking data, or addresses.

How to Remove Data Before Handing Over An Old Cell Phone

Very few recyclers offer the service of wiping devices before they pass them along, but even if they did, you'd still be handing over an extensive catalog of personal information to a perfect stranger and trusting them to do the right thing.

To take matters into your own hands:

  • Remove the SIM card from your phone. It's a little plastic memory card usually located behind the back cover underneath the battery.
  • Call your service provider and ask them to disconnect the phone from your account.

That's it! That wasn't hard, was it?

Unfortunately, if you own an iPhone or BlackBerry, it can be a little more complicated but these videos should help:

Erasing a BlackBerry



Erasing an iPhone


An Important Disclaimer

If you've got national security secrets on your phone or maybe mission briefings and data from U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's important to remember that there's no way to completely erase a handheld device. Sophisticated forensic recovery methods are capable of reversing pretty much any data-destroying trick that doesn't involve a hammer or a blowtorch, so for highly sensitive data, you should probably contact a specialist. For the rest of us though, the above methods should do the trick.

To read more about phone recycling, head on over to Earth911 blog.

February 7, 2009
9 comments

Is Someone Stealing Pennies From Your Bank Account?


It May Be "Salami Slicing." It May Be Petty Theft.

The latest identity theft scheme doesn't aim to empty your debit account or charge you to the credit limit—not yet anyway. According to The Boston Globe, at least 800 credit and debit cardholders have reported finding tiny fraudulent charges on their statements in recent weeks.

The charges range from 21 to 48 cents, and are billed under at two phony business names: "Adele Services" and "GFDL."

The mysterious charges have lead to a range of speculation over the nature of the scam. Some think that the small charges are meant to test the validity of a registry of stolen credit card numbers which may have been resold by the original thieves. If the theory is correct, those whose cards have already been charged can probably expect to be targeted for much larger amounts down the line.

A Slice of Salami

A less likely theory parallels the scam attempted by the main characters in the movie "Office Space," which featured three disgruntled computer programmers who attempt to slowly embezzle money from their company, pennies at a time. The scheme is sometimes referred to as "salami slicing", but usually targets businesses or customers rather than an unconnected group of individuals.

If this theory holds, those who fail to notice that their accounts have been compromised will continue to be targeted for small amounts of money indefinitely. Most likely, the thieves would have to create new false companies with each wave of thefts.

Plan of Action

Regardless of the intent of the perpetrators, the course of action for those who notice small, unexpected charges on their debit and credit card statements is the same:

  1. Report the charges to your bank or other financial institution.
  2. Report your card stolen so that you can be issued a new credit card and credit card number.

As always, it's important for everyone to pick carefully through their statements each month (if not more frequently,) looking for charges they don't recognize. Whether a questionable charge is 1 cent, $1, or $100, it should always be treated as a potentially serious problem.

February 3, 2009
16 comments

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