Vanity, thy name is smartphone thief: We’re no strangers to the tale of the narcissistic villain who’s ultimately caught after uploading photos taken on the pilfered phones somewhere the owner can see them. That’s the ending one iPhone owner is hoping for, as she’s been watching the person who stole her device unwittingly send them straight to the owner’s Facebook account. [More]
Data & Privacy
Facebook Messenger Now Allows For Real-Time Customer Service Chat
By 3.25.15
Peppering a company’s Facebook page with questions and comments appears to be yesterday’s form of communication, as the social media site announced today that it’s giving users and companies the ability to chat with each other through its messenger app. [More]
News Sites Consider Moving Their Content Inside Facebook (Because That Worked So Well In The AOL Era)
By 3.24.15
There’s news in the world of news today, as some major sites are on the cusp of a new publishing deal with Facebook. The deal would actively keep their content inside of Facebook, rather than having links on everyone’s love-to-hate-it social network lead back out to other companies’ respective websites. But there is one specific lesson this deal highlights: even on the internet, you can’t escape the cycles of history. Somehow, everything old will be new again. [More]
Hilton HHonors Site Flaw Exposed All Accounts To Potential Hijacking
By 3.23.15
Following a report of a spike in hijacked accounts, Hilton recently asked its HHonors Awards members to change their passwords — offering them 1,000 bonus points if they did so before April 1. But cybersecurity experts say that hackers didn’t actually need passwords to take control of other folks’ HHonors accounts. [More]
Comcast Says It’s Tripling Size Of Social Media Customer Service Team
By 3.23.15
Comcast has been responding to customer complaints on Twitter and Facebook for years, but that didn’t help the company get out of the basement of customer satisfaction ratings — not just for cable and Internet providers, but for all U.S. companies. And now that Comcast is trying to merge with the one consumer-facing business with a worse reputation, it says it is making an investment to improve its social media customer service team. [More]
Facebook Launches Payments System For Messenger App Users
By 3.18.15
Facebook is dipping its toe into the pool of mobile payments, announcing this week that it’s launching a system that will allow users of its mobile Messenger app to send money to friends. [More]
No, Qantas Isn’t Giving Away Free First Class Tickets For Liking A Post On Facebook
By 3.16.15
It’s a Facebook post in which the company name is misspelled. It contends that an underwhelming number of passengers is reason to celebrate. It states that all you have to do to get free first class seats is to “Like” the post, and that “winner’s will be inbox’d on March 17.” Nothing about this seems legitimate, and yet more than 85,000 people thought it was worth a shot. [More]
Facebook Clarifies: Bared Nipples, Hate Speech Not Allowed
By 3.16.15
Facebook, like a lot of online sharing platforms with a large user base, frequently takes a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach to complaints about supposedly offensive posts. This has led to automated removal of rather innocent images — mothers breastfeeding, photos of nude paintings and sculptures — and other content that may offend some but was not intended to injure anyone. Today, Facebook tried to give users clearer guidelines about what sort of posts actually violate the site’s standards. [More]
FTC Chair Edith Ramirez Talks Privacy, Data Security
By 3.12.15
You may now be able to change your thermostat from another continent, your fridge might know when you need to buy more eggs, and your connected TV recommends shows and movies. But is your data being used for things other than keeping your house warm, your eggs in stock, and your kids entertained — and, just as importantly — is it secure? [More]
Hackers Can Now Use One Free Tool To Hijack Your Facebook-Linked Login For Pretty Much Any Site
By 3.10.15
Modern life means logging in to about a zillion different websites and apps every week, with about a zillion different accounts. But there are ways to streamline it all — for example, logging in to everything with your Facebook account, as millions do. That’s much more convenient not only for you, but for hackers who have a new way to target you: a free, easy-to-download tool that exploits a bug in those logins to let them hijack your account. Oops. [More]
Lawmakers Want To Know Who’s Tracking You Online, And Where The Info Goes
By 3.6.15
Everything you do online — on your phone, on your computer, with anything — leaves a digital wake. Put those trails together and you’ve got one massive big data industry that can (and does) track it all and sell it to the highest bidder. After decades of digital detritus building up, regulators and Congress both are contemplating some steps that would help protect consumers’ info. [More]
Facebook Adds New Tools For Suicide Prevention
By 2.26.15
In an effort to help those who may be expressing suicidal thoughts on Facebook, the social media site announced today that it’s worked with mental health experts to come up with new tools that will provide resources, advice and support those users, as well as friends and family members who might be worried about them when reading those posts. [More]
New Visa Feature Uses Smartphone Location Tracker To Prevent Fraud By Knowing Where You Are At All Times
By 2.18.15
Forgetting to tell your bank that you’ll be traveling far outside of your normal spending zone can often lead to frustrations like having transactions rejected out of concern that your card is being used fraudulently. In an attempt to make the lives of frequent travelers easier – and prevent fraud – Visa plans to launch a new service this spring that automatically informs banks where you are. [More]
Report: Gang Of Criminals Hacking Bank ATMs Has Stolen Up To $1B
By 2.16.15
Some of the world’s banks likely had a crummy Valentine’s Day after a new report from a computer-security firm came out this weekend, saying that a group of criminals has stolen millions of dollars since late 2013 from financial institutions in Russia, Eastern Europe and the United States. And it doesn’t seem like they’re done yet. [More]
FBI Now Investigating Possible Fraudulent Federal Tax Returns From TurboTax
By 2.12.15
Days after TurboTax resumed e-filing of all state tax returns following a third-party security expert’s finding that fraudulent activity reported by state tax officials did not result from a breach of Intuit’s own systems, federal regulators announced they would take a look for themselves. [More]
Facebook Adds Features To Let Users Control What Happens To Accounts After Death
By 2.12.15
In a reversal from its past stance that all it would do is freeze a user’s account upon death and “memorialize it,” Facebook says it will now allow users to designate a “legacy contact” to have some control over their pages, or otherwise designate what they’d like to happen to their accounts after they’ve passed. Or, you can tell Facebook just to shut the account down for good. [More]
IBM Report: Workers Using Dating Apps On Company Phones May Pose Security Risks
By 2.11.15
Whether you have a company-issued phone or you use your won for both work and play, finding love through dating apps on your device may increase the risk of a security breach for your employer, a new report from IBM says. [More]
Today In Social Media Hacks: Delta, Newsweek, And CFO Of Twitter Really Need To Change Their Passwords
By 2.10.15
Social media tools are an effective way for businesses and bigwigs to communicate with their customers… that is, as long as those companies or people are in charge of their own accounts. When hackers “borrow” their social presences, much less good things can happen. And today at least three high-profile accounts found that out the hard way. [More]
