Skip to main content

Again, another data breach!

I know it's just FaceBook, as awful (who in the hell programmed that mess) as it is, but for those of you who do banking etc online, you must check your accounts several times a week. And have alerts set up. For example, I went shopping at Costco today and by the time I got home, I had an email on my phone alerting me that my card had been used and for how much. Very cool. 

 If your bank or financial institution doesn't provide this service, change banks. (I use Chase for most of my day-to-day transactions and Schwab for investing). My credit union also sends me fraud alerts on that account via text (Navy Federal Credit Union). Protect yourself. And check your credit reports every month. Chase allows me to do this for free. (I've frozen my credit accounts so no one can use them to create new accounts.) 

More details on the FaceBook breach from Experian:
  • Facebook announced a data breach on Friday, Sept. 28, in which the personal information of 50 million user accounts was put at risk due to a vulnerability in the social network’s code.
  • Hackers gained the ability to steal “access tokens” that allow users to stay logged into their accounts. Fraudsters could use these to not only take over users’ Facebook profiles, but also to access third-party accounts like Airbnb, Spotify or Uber that use Facebook credentials to log in.
  • Though the access tokens targeted in the attack could potentially be used to log into third-party sites, Facebook announced on Oct. 2 that its investigators don’t believe such third-party sites were affected.
  • Since discovering the breach, Facebook has fixed the vulnerability, informed law enforcement to investigate and reset the access tokens on 90 million accounts as a precautionary measure.
  • See this article for more information.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for the comment. Will get back to you as soon as convenient, if necessary.

Popular posts from this blog

California: A Model for the Rest of the Country, Part 2

Part 1 here . On Leaving the Golden State Guest Post by NicklethroweR . Posted on the Burning Platform. The fabled Ventura Highway is all that separates my artist loft from the beach where surfing first came to the United States. Both my balcony and front patio face the freeway at about eye level and I could easily smack a tennis ball right on to the ever busy 101. Access to the beach and boardwalk is very important to a Tourist Town such as mine and I can see one underpass from my balcony and another underpass from the patio. Further up the street are two pedestrian bridges. Both have been recently remodeled so that people can not use it to kill themselves by leaping down into traffic. The traffic, just like the spice, must flow and the elites that live here do not like to be inconvenienced as they dart about between Malibu and Santa Barbara. Another feature of living where I live would have to be the homeless, the insane and the drug addicts that wander this particular...
Post a Comment
Read more

Factfulness: Ignorance about global trends. The world is actually getting better.

This newsletter was powered by  Thinkr , a smart reading app for the busy-but-curious. For full access to hundreds of titles — including audio — go premium and download the app today. From the layman to the elite, there is widespread ignorance about global trends. Author and international health professor, Hans Rosling, calls Factfulness  “his very last battle in [his] lifelong mission to fight devastating global ignorance.” After years of trying to convince the world that all development indicators point to vast improvements on a global scale, Rosling digs deeper to explore why people systematically have a negative view of where humanity is heading. He identifies a number of deeply human tendencies that predispose us to believe the worst. For every instinct that he names, he offers some rules of thumb for replacing this overdramatic worldview with a “factful” one. In 2017, 20,000 people across fourteen countries were given a multiple-choice quiz to assess basic global literac...
Post a Comment
Read more

Proper way to calculate CAGR using T-Sql for SQL Server

After reading (and attempting the solutions offered in some) several articles about SQL and CAGR,  I have reached the conclusion that none of them would stand testing in a real-world environment. For one thing, the SQL queries offered as examples are overly complex or don't use the correct math for calculating proper CAGR. Since most DBAs don't have an MBA or Finance degree, let me help.  The correct equation for calculating Compound Annual Growth Rate (as a percentage) is:  Some key points about CAGR:  The compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) is one of the most accurate ways to calculate and determine returns for anything that can rise or fall in value over time. Investors can compare the CAGR of two alternatives to evaluate how well one stock performed against other stocks in a peer group or a market index. The CAGR does not reflect investment risk. You can read a full article about CAGR  here .  To calculate the CAGR for an investment in a language like ...
Post a Comment
Read more