You may have heard the expression, "It's not paranoia, if they are out to get you." This certainly applies to how we should feel about our data online.
Santa Clara, California-based McAfee released its security forecast, which lists top targets for cyber criminals in 2011. Some of it is pretty scary stuff.
Specific items that have made the list include: Android, iPhone, Foursquare, URL-shortening services, Google TV and the Mac OS X platform. As it turns out, next year, nothing may be safe. Let's start with the threats you already know about.
Your inbox, URL shorteners, and mobile devices
We all know that we're not really getting an email from a Nigerian prince. We also know better than to open an unknown attachment. What about a message from your sister? The attachment is labeled, 'baby pictures'. Should you open it? E-mail based attacks work, because people think the message is legit. In 2011, detecting the real thing will get harder. McAfee expects malicious messages to increase in sophistication in 2011.
While we are on the topic of friends, be especially wary of social sites with URL shortening. Those short links will often lead to malicious websites. Next year McAfee expects URL-shortening services to be, "...riddled with cybercriminal activity". Popular sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, will be targets.
Mobile devices, and the bevy of networks they run on, cause a serious problems for security. There is a lack of solid encryption on mobile platforms, carriers, and devices. The way that mobile has blown up, it is sure to be a target for data theft.
Not all security threats are so obvious. Let's examine some of the threats that may surprise you.
Geo-location tools, and your TV
You may have already considered the idea that geo-location services are a stalker's dream. As it turns out, location-based services, such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Places are are also fun for malicious code. These services send out a mind-numbing amount of data about you. The wealth of information that is available, such as your location, your interests, your operating systems and preferred applications, all make targeting attacks much easier.
I'll bet you never thought of watching TV as a security risk. If you have a Web-based TV device, such as Google TV, however, McAfee expects it to be just that - a security risk. A combination of what the company calls, "rush to market thinking by developers" and the newness of the devices, will make them a target.
Apple
For a long time, Apple devices were considered secure, simply because they weren't much of a target. Only a small number of users were running OS X-based devices. Black-hat hackers are playing a numbers game, and Apple was simply less attractive. Given the explosion of popularity, and bevy of mobile devices made by Apple, OS X is going to become a very real target. A second layer of problems come from IT professionals, and end users, who do not know how to properly secure the devices.
Users interested in finding out more about emerging threats, in real time, should visit the Threat Intelligence Labs. The site lists emerging threats by region and gives security status updates for operating systems, and other software.
Never fear, now that you know what is coming around the corner, you can prepare. After all, being one step ahead of the scammers is half the battle.
(Image property of the makers of Futurama)
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Twitter is an online information network that allows anyone with an account to post 140 character messages, called tweets. It is free to sign up. Users then follow other accounts which they are interested in, and view the tweets of everyone they follow in their "timeline." Most Twitter accounts are public, where one does not need to approve a request to follow, or need to follow back. This makes Twitter a powerful "one to many" broadcast platform where individuals, companies or organizations can reach millions of followers with a single message. Twitter is accessible from Twitter.com, our mobile website, SMS, our mobile apps for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, our iPad application, or 3rd party clients built by outside developers using our API. Twitter accounts can also be private, where the owner must approve follower requests.
Twitter started as an internal project within the podcasting company Odeo. Jack Dorsey, and engineer, had long been interested in status updates. Jack developed the idea, along with Biz Stone, and the first prototype was built in two weeks in March 2006 and launched publicly in August of 2006. The service grew popular very quickly and it soon made sense for Twitter to move outside of Odea. In May 2007, Twitter Inc was founded.
Our engineering team works with a web application framework called Ruby on Rails. We all work on Apple computers except for testing purposes.
We built Twitter using Ruby on Rails because it allows us to work quickly and easily--our team likes to deploy features and changes multiple times per day. Rails provides skeleton code frameworks so we don't have to re-invent the wheel every time we want to add something simple like a sign in form or a picture upload feature.
There are a few ways that Twitter makes money. We have licensing deals in place with Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft's Bing to give them access to the "firehose" - a stream of tweets so that they can more easily incorporate those tweets into their search results.
In Summer 2010, we launched our Promoted Tweets product. Promoted Tweets are a special kind of tweet which appear at the top of search results within Twitter.com, if a company has bid on that keyword. Unlike search results in search engines, Promoted Tweets are normal tweets from a business, so they are as interactive as any other tweet - you can @reply, favorite or retweet a Promoted Tweet.
At the same time, we launched Promoted Trends, where companies can place a trend (clearly marked Promoted) within Twitter's Trending Topics. These are especially effective for upcoming launches, like a movie or album release.
Lastly, we started a Twitter account called @earlybird where we partner with other companies to provide users with a special, short-term deal. For example, we partnered with Virgin America for a special day of fares on Virginamerica.com that were only accessible through the link in the @earlybird tweet.
What's next for Twitter?
We continue to focus on building a product that provides value for users.
We're building Twitter, Inc into a successful, revenue-generating company that attracts world-class talent with an inspiring culture and attitude towards doing business.
