SELF IMPOSED COMPUTER HAZARDS WHILE WORKING AT HOME

MOBILE PHONES CAN CAUSE SEVER ILLNESS

Mobile phones, no doubt is the biggest and fast moving electronic gadget market in the world today. The International Telecommunication Union had reported in 2011 that about 6 billion mobile phones have been subscribed at the end of that year. This means that 86 out of every 100 people have mobile phones worldwide. It have become a clip of our society, with every Tom Dick and Harry right from school kids to grown-up adults owning at least a mobile phone. Although mobile phones have made life easier but its negative effects are detrimental to users. Medical and ICT experts have shown a lot of concerns about the negative effects associated with the use of mobile phone.

Bacteria on Mobile Phones

Along with important information stored in mobile phones are deadly bacteria which are easily spread ignorantly by the user or owner of the mobile phone. An average mobile phone user puts his or her phone(s) in contact with several places where it can come in contact with germs.

A research carried out in University of London in 2011, shows that one in six mobile phones is contaminated with some sort of fecal matter, probably because their owners did not wash their hands with soap after using the toilet. E. coli, a bacterium from fecal origin was found in some phones. Such bacteria causes diarrhea, vomiting and sever fever when injected into the body.

Another research carried out by health students at South University Columbia, found out that mobile phones were frequently contaminated with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Staph aureus according to Dr. Robert J. Wolff “is always dangerous and MRSA forms are worse because they cannot be stopped easily. Staph skin infections, including MRSA, can quickly turn into deep, painful abscesses. The bacteria might remain confined to the skin, or burrow deeper into the body, causing potentially life-threatening infections in bones, joints, surgical wounds, the bloodstream, heart valves, and lungs.”

If your hands are very dirty, there is every tendency that your mobile phone would be highly contaminated with the same type of bacteria found on your dirty hands at that moment. The public are advised to maintain proper hygiene, keep their hands clean by washing with soap and water. They can also use a hand sanitizer, and importantly, clean their mobile phones often using a fairly dry towel and wipes that are safe to use on devices.

Your Eyes maybe at Risk

Bright screens and tiny text character can strain the eyes of mobile phone users and causes sever damage. It is important for mobile users to constantly refocus and reposition the eyes so as to process the text or graphics on the screen. This is because smartphones, tablets, and other hand-held devices are designed for reading at close range. The higher the use of hand-held devices, the more potential problems associated with vision. Symptoms of digital eye strain include eye redness or irritation, dry eyes, blurred vision, back pain, neck pain, and headaches. 

The public are advised to follow the “20-20-20” Rule. Which means, Take a 20-second break every 20 minutes when using an electronic device and look at something 20 feet away. People should reduce focus on the screen. They should make sure the screen is always clean and clear, the surrounding light that is competing with the screen should be dimmed, and there should be adequate distance between the eyes and the screen and also increase the text character of the device.

Radio Wave Exposure

Radio waves emitted by mobile phones transmit in all directions to find the nearest base station. It means that some of the radio waves are directed at your body when you use a mobile phone. Radio waves are absorbed into your body tissue as energy, which adds to the energy being produced by your body's metabolism. There have been speculations that the radiation from mobile phones can cause cancer and infertility, however the only known effects of this wave in the body is a little increase in temperature (about 0.2^oC according to experts) which is similar to normal rise in body temperature during rigorous exercise.

MOST COMMON WAYS CYBER CRIMINALS ATTACK BUSINESS SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS CUM PREVENTIVE MEASURES

About 95% of business enterprise and large organizations today have a sizable presence on social media, including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, among others. While social networks can enhance customer engagement and strengthen the company's brand in the marketplace, opportunistic attackers looking to embarrass an enterprise, tarnish its brand, tap from her resources or make a statement to the world have no better avenue than compromising corporate social media accounts.

Here are the most common ways in which attackers compromise social media accounts, and measures enterprises should take to ensure they don't fall prey.

Secure social media management

Using social engineering in phishing emails means an attacker doesn't have to circumvent network perimeter defenses, rather they only craft a credible and persuasive email that tricks the employee who manages the organization's social media accounts into clicking a malicious link or providing the password to the accounts.

Enterprises and organizations with a large social media following must ensure that those employees responsible for social media accounts receive security awareness training that covers how to recognize and deal with social engineering-based attacks prior to being given access credentials to corporate social media accounts.

This training should explain how social engineers operate and the tactics employees should be on the lookout for. With the proper training, these encounters should become second nature; the employee should know to trash offers that look too good to be true or links requiring login credentials, even if they appear to come from an internal address or partner organization. Simple safeguards such as checking that the sender actually sent an email with an attachment are invaluable. Be sure to keep employees informed of the latest techniques being used in brand hacking attacks such as phishing emails based on breaking news stories, both true and fictitious. Enterprises must also put procedures in place for employees to report unusual emails so that network surveillance can be stepped up and other employees forewarned.

Emerging attacks and security controls

It's important to note that it's not just social media account credentials that need safeguarding. A number of attackers have successfully compromised social media accounts by subverting domain name system (DNS) data. By capturing the login credentials of people authorized to modify DNS records, attackers can redirect tweets, blogs and other traffic to servers they control. Enterprise DNS administrators should take advantage of security features offered by Registrars to control modifications made to their domain.

Twitter itself has also put security controls in place to help prevent hacking across its platform. A recent SEA attack against Twitter was only partially successful as the company had implemented the "Domain Lock" feature which prohibits certain changes to a domain until it is unlocked -- a simple but valuable control.

In addition, two-factor authentication should be introduced for both social media accounts and for those that control important services like DNS. Out-of-band checks such as a security code sent to the user's mobile phone can greatly reduce the chances of a phishing email being enough to gain access to an account. Ideally, dedicated computers should be used to access and update social media content so that additional security checks and controls can be deployed on these systems to monitor for unusual network traffic and keyloggers, which have become another suspected method used by hackers to obtain social media account credentials.

It is critical to draw up an emergency response plan to reduce the impact of a social media account breach, should one occur. It is important that website administrators know which modules or components within a site provide social media content so that they can be quickly disabled should the need arise. This will also help prevent the need for an entire site to be taken offline.

While social media is a great way for enterprises to interact with their customers and strengthen their reputation, companies that want to maintain trust in their brand must put forth the extra effort required to stop them from falling prey to brand hacks and social attacks.

BUSINESS ENTERPRISES AND SOCIAL MEDIA REGULATIONS/COMPLIANCE: THE NITTY-GRITTY

Social media, being one of the fast growing electronic medium in our world today, has become an essential tool for business success. A large number of organizations build strong presence on social media with majority of them having many accounts on Twitter and Facebook, which makes it easier for product branding, communication, information sharing and building strong relationship with people. Social media has come to stay. Those organizations or enterprises that choose not to key into social media could be at a competitive disadvantage and experiencing operational deficiency.

Social media has introduced complexities into the business environment which now stands as a challenge to many organizations. There are vast differences in functionality and cultural expectations on the use of social media sites both personally and professionally. For instance, Germany makes a distinction between private social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and business social media (LinkedIn). Efforts are been made by organizations and regulators to enforce appropriate compliance guidelines for social media activities.

QUESTIONS BOTHERING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

The main issue that arises from using social media in a business setting is that it alters the way we present ourselves, merging our roles as people, professionals and consumers. As we share more of ourselves on a growing number of social media platforms, questions quickly surface around appropriate social media behavior - how often and on what social networks should we post? When should we present ourselves in our professional role and when should we share our personal opinions? Is it right to be social media friends with co-workers, clients or a boss?

No doubt, these are complicated questions for individuals and absolute puzzle for enterprises concerned with how employees behave and interact within and outside workplace. Controlling employee’s social media usage is even more difficult for enterprises. The questions now are, can organizations dictate how their employees use social media? Can they monitor social media conversations or use them to learn more about prospective job applicants? When does the personal connection allowed by social media tools cross the line from business to personal? To this end, regulators and government agencies are revising specific guidelines, regulations and laws relevant to social media management and oversight. Among them are; Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council's (FFIEC) which proposes "Social Media: Consumer Compliance Risk Management Guidance" and the proposed European Union General Data Protection Regulation.  

 

A security and risk analyst (Nick Hayes) has identified five common categories of requirements that organizations must begin to address immediately to ensure social media regulations and compliance.

DATA PROTECTION AND PRIVACY

The rise of social media is in large part to blame for the growing controversy between privacy and appropriate personal boundaries, which has caused heated debates between various regulators, as people are willing to share more and more information about themselves in largely public forums. At the same time, firms are investing in advanced technology to harvest this data and convert it into actionable business intelligence. To avoid potential conflict, organizations should evaluate how they collect social media data and work to clearly address their intentions in a public way, such as through their websites' public privacy policy statements.

EMPLOYEE RIGHTS

Approximately two-thirds of U.S. and EU Web-connected adults are accessing social networking sites regularly. This means that employees in virtually any industry are likely to use social media in some form, which drastically increases a company's exposure to potentially negative branding and reputational events. To address these concerns, organizations can adopt policies to guide employee use of social media in some form. However, they must be careful that these policies don't conflict with country or state privacy laws, or other labor laws. In particular, companies should be wary of how they monitor employees, restrict behavior through their corporate social media policy, and gather information for recruiting and hiring purposes.

DISCLOSURE AND THIRD-PARTY ENDORSEMENT

A difficult issue posed by social media is how to communicate sensitive, often complicated messages with limited words. Twitter restricts messages to just 140 characters, for example, but organizations that need to comply with the FTC, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other disclosure requirements must ensure that all social media messages meet strict specifications. What is considered acceptable practice depends on specific regulations and how they deal with certain aspects of social media usage. For instance, how long can a post remain on an account before it's considered an endorsement? The FTC's guidance is less prescriptive and more about overall intent, leaving it up to them to judge on a more case-by-case basis. The FDA, on the other hand, has provided little guidance specific to social media, often leaving its corporate constituents wary of pursuing an aggressive social media strategy. Any organization that is planning a push into the realm of Twitter, LinkedIn and the like should become familiar with the specific social media regulations and compliance challenges that pertain to its company and industry.

GOVERNANCE AND OVERSIGHT

Employees across organizations are leveraging social media to deepen customer relationships, improve team collaboration and strengthen lead-generation efforts. In fact, Forrester has found that career-driven information workers are almost twice as likely as the rest of the workforce to use social media for business purposes. Considering these statistics, firms are increasingly allowing employees to use social media for business purposes, but regulators in some industries, such as FINRA and FFIEC, now want to see that organizations develop proper internal procedures and controls to ensure they manage associated risks effectively.

INFORMATION ARCHIVING AND RETENTION

Social media also presents new challenges for organizations that are required to retain records of all business communications. Namely, social content doesn't remain static; content creators can edit or delete posts after they are published, and other posters can comment and add to the discussion as well. Further complicating matters is determining what content is considered "business" communication and when that content should be captured and archived. Forrester recommends determining the appropriate context of business communications first, and then deciding which devices and applications employees are permitted to use and under what circumstances.

The reality for most organizations is that social media is not receding. In fact, it continues to grow and evolve at an alarming rate. Consumers increasingly discover and communicate with businesses via social media channels, and just as importantly, workers across many organizations enjoy increased productivity thanks to the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn. Instead of cowering from social media due to compliance fears, enterprises should take the same precautions they've always needed to in the past by focusing on all applicable regulations and putting the right governance processes in place to comply with them. Organizations that are thinking about and acting on such issues now can begin reaping the business benefits today and avoid exposing the company to unnecessary risk later.

Companies’ Security and Social Media Attacks

In one of my previous articles, social media attacks and individual security measures was discussed extensively. With the continuous surging of enterprises going online because of the huge  and easily accessible online market, hackers and cybercriminals are shifting grounds and are increasingly turning attention to companies, corporate organizations and government agencies through the employees of these enterprises who are users of social media network. The bad habits of users of social media have made the operations of hackers fast and smooth without any hindrance to gaining personal data and fooling unsuspecting victims.

Social media risks have been an issue for individuals; security experts said the risks have spread its tentacles to organizations and companies’ users, as hackers look to manipulate and collect sensitive, personal information online and also carryout phishing attacks which might be detrimental to the security of the enterprise. For instance, hackers with their God-given wisdom and intellect, devishly use it to trick unsuspecting individuals on social media sites, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms into clicking on malicious links, downloading of virus-loaded files that will make them vulnerable to attacks and ignorantly sharing sensitive information with social media friends. Gary Bahadur, a security expert said that when a hacker deploys a social engineering attack (on social media), they take advantage of people's trust.

Potentially, employees with little or no understanding of social media security pose greater risks for enterprise which among others, recklessly posting personal information online, which can be exploited by hackers and use in attacking the enterprise or organization. According to experts, exploiting social networks is easier for hackers because it is the path of the least resistance. Enterprise networks are becoming more sophisticated and conscious of cyber security, but uninformed employees using social media are more likely to fall victim to attacks because they don't know the value of their personal information or how much data they're actually exposing on the Web.

Hackers often carryout their operation by presenting scams in the form of news about fake celebrity death reports and sex tapes, unbelievable world news, must-see videos, free offers for smartphones, plane tickets, or gift cards. These spread rapidly on social media because people are more likely to click on links posted by a friend or if it has many shares and likes. This describes how individuals attribute more trust and value into something because it's been clicked on or approved by other users. Another security expect with Symantec (Samir Kapuria) said, "They're automating the ruse more through social media, so the victims are being brought right to the doorstep of the bad guys, they're using the power of social networking, along with the surge of mobile devices, and they're getting more efficient and effective with how they conduct their business."

Employees need to take appropriate precautions and measures to protect their identity because it can also affect their work environment. For example, when users fail to configure completely different usernames and passwords for social media sites, it can put their email accounts, bank accounts and especially enterprise accounts at risk. An employee should use a total different username and password for the company’s email accounts and that of social media networks.

The young generation should be properly educated on the dangers of social media so as to protect or limit the amount of information they share online. According to Bahadur, "Once they(the young generation) hit the corporate world, their online presence could be a disaster, and  they won't understand the concept of privacy and sensitive data." Employees need to be aware of social media risks and recognize that overexposing themselves online can make them and their employers an easier target for hackers. "If there is gold over here, heavily protected, and silver over there, not protected, then the hackers will go after the silver, not the gold." (Christopher Budd)