Sorry for the loaded title. There’s a lot to talk about, even for those of you who don’t use or even know what Telegram is.
We’ll try to sum this up, because we think there is a lot to say about security and the nature of technology in this, and like all things these days, there’s some odd rabble-rousing about this whole series of events. Who’s up for a wild ride?
Last week we went through some of the issues that Facebook is dealing with in regards to its security and data privacy. Today, we thought it would be helpful to give you the tools you need to protect your privacy on Facebook.
Maintaining data security is an important consideration, and most people try to do what they must to secure their personal data. They verify emails; they roll out antivirus and antimalware; they take vigilant steps to avoid the myriad of threats and active attacks we all deal with from one day to the next.
Social media scams are fraudulent schemes or deceptive activities that take place on various social media platforms. Users of Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and dozens of others have been victims of these attacks. These scams can target users of all ages and backgrounds, and they aim to exploit people's trust, curiosity, or lack of awareness. Social media scams come in various forms, and here are some common ones.
Last time, we started our discussion on the best search engines by talking about the behemoth, Google. While Google is, by far, the most popular and commonly used, and arguably the most accurate search engine, it doesn’t mean it’s always the right search engine to use. Let’s talk about some other alternatives and see where they might fit in.
Even if you lived under a rock, you’ve probably done a Google search or two. There are, in fact, other search engines, each with their own pros and cons. We’re going to compare some of the most popular search engines and talk about what makes them different.
Social media is often seen as simply a consumer technology that has limited value to businesses, but you might be surprised by how much proper use of social media can impact it. Here are four benefits your business could potentially see from using social media websites and applications.
It is not an exaggeration to refer to social media as a world-changing technology, impacting life in all manners—interpersonal, social, and professional. We wanted to focus on this last aspect and discuss how social media can assist a business in its operations.
Almost daily there is another data breach reported that exposes data for hundreds of thousands or millions of people. This is a troubling trend. One of the most troubling events happened recently as 700 million profiles from the social media network LinkedIn were found for sale on a popular hackers forum. What’s worse is that the company isn’t admitting that it had been breached recently. Let’s take a brief look at this situation and try to unpack what is going on with LinkedIn.
Nowadays, social media companies have a lot of power and influence, which is part of the reason that so many of today’s largest businesses have adopted social media as a critical promotional tool. With the average person spending about two hours and 24 minutes on social media and messaging applications per day, this makes social media a clear opportunity for any sized business to embrace. Let’s consider a few ways this can be accomplished for these different businesses.
Social media platforms—like Facebook and Instagram—are a great place to communicate with people, as many political campaigns are now taking advantage of. With an election on the horizon, political advertisements abound on these platforms. Of course, not everyone wants their feeds cluttered with these ads… especially if these ads don’t align to their own politics.
Chances are that if you’re using a smartphone, you’ll have your WiFi turned on as often as you possibly can. This helps to keep data hogs (applications that use a ton of your monthly allotted mobile data) at bay. However, not everyone has the convenience of an Internet connection at all times, particularly while you’re out of the office. Here’s how you can limit the damage done by your favorite smartphone apps.
Cyber security professionals and Internet users rejoice, for the “Spam King,” Sanford Wallace, has finally been sentenced for his longtime use of stolen Facebook credentials to spam other users. Between 2008 and 2009, he had stolen credentials for Facebook accounts, and then used the accounts to send credential-stealing web links. Now, he gets to spend the next two and a half years in prison, and pay an oddly-specific fine of $310,629.
Have you ever encountered something that you thought was interesting on social media, and you wanted to share it with your friends? Before, sharing a link or a story would also slap a status update on your Facebook profile, for all of the world to see. Now, however, Facebook offers an alternative, in the form of sharing a post on the News Feed without also posting it to your timeline.
Social media is a great way for organizations to share information about their products and services, but while it’s great for those who want to reach a new audience, it’s also exposing you to another audience that you may not want to be familiar with: hackers. Believe it or not, there are hackers who are trying to take advantage of the personal information you share on your social media accounts.
Business use IT more today than ever before, and this has led business owners, CIOs and IT managers to constantly search for ways to deliver organizational profitability through technology. They do this by attempting, sometimes futilely, to pinpoint issues with their overall business strategy and practices while discovering technology solutions that will help mitigate these problems. Typically, if an IT manager speculates that a technology implementation will reduce costs or improve productivity, those solutions find a way to be implemented.
In 2017, when there is more technology to choose from than there are colors in a box of crayons, it’s important to rely on competent and frugal managers to find you the technology that can work to make your business more efficient. Here are three ways businesses that have never relied on automation can leverage it to improve some aspect of their business.
Social Media
Nowadays, having a social media presence is standard operating procedure for businesses. Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn can help to boost your business’ traffic, but if you don’t have the resources to continuously keep up with updating social media, there are options out there that will add some degree of automation to your social media initiatives. The application called Hootsuite was created to assist organizations to enhance their social media presence without having to put as much time and effort into their social media marketing. Hootsuite offers a free plan that supports three social media profiles and two campaigns, and it also has affordable paid options that provide organizations with several additional tools.
Paperless Automation
Going paperless can save your business plenty of resources, but sticking with a paperless office strategy is no easy task. Utilizing modern scanning equipment (as opposed to the old one-page-at-a-time flatbed technology), you can process more documents in less time. Using software to organize, share, and distribute scanned documents, both on-premise or in the cloud, can speed up the overhead and save a lot of time in the long run. Equally as important, is to make sure digitized files are backed up automatically, so your data is stored redundantly in case of a disaster.
Point of Sales and E-Commerce
When your organization sets out to sell products, whether you are focusing on sales inside a brick and mortar store on selling to clients on the Internet, it is important that you have a secure and reliable sales interface. Since business often moves faster than people do, having a solution to process payments, and get products to customers, is essential. There is software that delivers automation by linking your organization's storefront to your fulfillment vendors. This automation, integrating the invoicing, shipping, and customer feedback processes into one easy-to-manage solution, provides any product-based organization the tools they need to enhance customer satisfaction, build reliable customer relationships, and provide top notch support.
If your business is searching for solutions to your major business problems, there is a good chance that there is software that has been developed to remedy those issues. Do you already use automated services to help your business be more efficient? Have you considered trying some to further your organization’s goals? Tell us all about it in the comments section below.
Social media might make it easy to stay connected, but it comes with a lot of negative side-effects--particularly in regard to security for both personal and professional use. If social media isn’t used properly, it could spell trouble for your organization. How can you foster proper social media usage so that your organization doesn’t suffer from poor security practices? It all starts by spreading awareness.
The modern office is filled with distractions, and that’s to say nothing about the everyday user’s life. With so many devices and notifications interrupting focus for users all over the world, it’s more important than ever before to have a strategy for how to deal with these issues and become as productive as possible in the workplace. Today, we’ll be discussing some of the biggest distractions in the workplace and how your employees can overcome them.
In part one of this series we started to go through Facebook privacy failings, but we didn’t really give you any information you can use. For part two, we have decided to take you through some security setting for Facebook.
Facebook has over two billion users, and as a result, it has its fair share of privacy snafus. While they do (finally) make available all of a person’s Facebook information, their strategies to success are important reasons why there are so many privacy concerns throughout the online world.
Making it a priority to know how to take control over your personal information on Facebook is a good place to start. Let’s run through Facebook’s privacy settings, and get you set up with two-factor authentication.
Let’s start from a PC. Head over to facebook.com and log in.
Once you’re logged in to facebook.com, you’ll want to click the little down arrow on the top right of the page. In that menu click on Settings. This can get a little confusing, so if you ever need to start from the beginning know that using the little down arrow can bring you back.
You will want to verify that you own and control all of the email accounts tied to your Facebook account. If you used an old email address (that you can’t get into), you’ll have a hard time getting back into the account if something were to happen.
Click Security and Login on the right.
On this screen, you can see all the devices your Facebook account is currently signed into. You will be confused why there are so many, but think about it: how long have you been using Facebook? For many people it’s not out of line to suggest that they are on their fourth or fifth phone since first using the Facebook app. This means that these devices will show up. You don’t use a Nokia Lumia 920 any longer? Not many people do. Facebook gives you the option to sign out of any of these devices by accessing the three-dot icon next to the device’s name.
It’s a good practice to keep your account logged out on devices you don’t typically use to access Facebook. If you see any suspicious devices among your list of approved devices, you will immediately need to change your password (directions below).
Changing your password regularly is a good idea, but you definitely don’t want to use the same password over multiple accounts. To do so here, you will want to click on the down arrow on the top right of Facebook, going to Settings, and clicking Security and Login.
If you haven't heard of two-factor authentication, it is the practice of setting your account up with an additional layer of security. To get started, select Use two-factor authentication and click edit. Click Get Started.
A screen will pop up that gives you two Security Methods. Before choosing an option, you should understand both.
Option 1 - Authentication App - Clicking on this option will allow you to use a third-party app to authenticate your identity. Popular authentication apps include Google Authenticator, Last Pass Authenticator, or Duo Mobile. Using the authentication app option is more secure than option 2, but it does require you to have access to the mobile device that the authenticator app is installed on.
To set this up, open your authentication app on your mobile device. It makes the most sense to use the authenticator app that you use for other accounts, but if you don’t have one, and you have a Google account, use Google Authenticator.
Then, from Facebook on your computer (see the above screenshot), select Authentication App and click Next.
Facebook will present you with a QR code to scan. In your Authenticator App, add a new account (typically there is a + icon to tap) and scan the QR code. Once scanned, the app will generate a six-digit number to use. Facebook will ask for a Confirmation Code. Type in the six-digit number and you’ll be set.
Option 2 - Text Message - Option number two sends a code via text message to your mobile device. Make sure that you enter the correct number. This method may not be as secure as using an authentication app, but for practical purposes it will do.
Select the Text Message option and click Next, Facebook will text you a code. Type that code into Facebook and voila, you are in.
Depending on the option you choose, Facebook will walk you through the next steps to verify and enable two-factor.
Add a Backup Plan
Once you’ve set up your method, Facebook will provide you with an option to Add a Backup. If you chose to set up two-factor with an Authentication App then Facebook will allow you to set Text Message 2FA as a backup, and vice versa. It’s not a bad idea to set up the other method as well, just in case.
Nowadays, a lot of online accounts offer 2FA, but Facebook also lets you have Recovery Codes (Google also does this, so if you have a Google account or use Gmail, it’s a good idea to get all of this set up over there as well).
Back on the Two-Factor Settings page, under the Add a Backup, there is an option for Recovery Codes.
Click Setup, and Facebook will pop up a window telling you about recovery codes and click Get Codes.
At this time, Facebook will provide you with 10 recovery codes. You can use them in an emergency to get back into your account. These codes are just single-use 2FA codes, so you’ll need to know your password and one of these codes to get back into your account. Since these codes can only be used once, you can request 10 new codes at any time by returning to the Two-Factor Settings page. Keep these codes in a safe place to ensure your account isn’t accessed by anyone else.
If you go back to the Security and Login area of the settings menu, scroll down to Setting Up Extra Security.
This area allows you to set alerts when a new device or browser is used to log into your Facebook. The menu allows you to define additional email addresses. You can also have those notifications sent to you via Facebook Messenger, SMS, or as a Facebook notification.
Below that option, you can choose 3 to 5 Friends to Contact if you get locked out of your Facebook account. If you choose this option, you will want to make sure that you only list people that you trust. If they are like-minded about their own privacy, the better off you will be.
This is admittedly a lot to take in, but setting up two-factor authentication and having control over who can access your Facebook account will go a long way toward securing your Facebook experience. You’ll still be inundated with stupid memes, but at least your personal data will remain secure.
Check back for part three of our Facebook privacy series and leave any thoughts you may have in the comments section below.
Businesses around the world now find themselves in a situation unlike what most have ever seen. With so many trying to keep their distance from one another, many workplaces have deemed it necessary to close down for the time being or to operate remotely in order to reduce the risk they present to their clients and customers… but it isn’t as though these clients and customers are going to expect radio silence from these businesses.
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