Vulnerability Team

What Can You Do To Protect Yourself After This Security Breach?

1. Change passwords: as your PSN password may have been leaked, and it is a fact that users tend to re-use passwords, change your passwords across the board. That includes your email security password, Facebook, online banking etc.

2. Keep an eye on your credit card. If you have made a purchase over PSN with your credit card there is a chance it has been compromised. Keep an eye on your account activity and it may be no harm to discuss with your bank the measures to take if you think your credit card number has been compromised.

3. Change your security questions. PSN has security questions in place in case you forget your password – the answers to these may have been stolen and since you may have used the same question for a different online or telephone service, be sure to change your security questions and answers across the board.

4. As phone numbers appear to have been compromised in this attack, it’s not just the online world you need to be wary of. Be aware of suspicious phone calls asking for personal information and purporting to be from your local bank, for example.

5. Implement strong email security measures, including anti-spam, anti-phishing, and anti-virus solutions with encryption control, such as that provided by MXSweep.

6. Be aware of scam phishing emails purporting to be from Sony. All it takes is for the hackers to know your name, email address, and that you had a sony account for them to put together a convincing email which could convince you to give over personal information.

7. Delete anything that looks like spam immediately.

8. Use the preview window in your mail program to protect yourself.

9. NEVER click on links within emails. If in doubt, type the address manually yourself. Scammers will often mask a link in an email to make it look legitimate.

10. Don’t trust the “from” line in your email program. It is very easy to fake a sender of an email. In a similar vein, never trust any phone numbers or addresses in emails, especially if you have a bad feeling about them.

The Sony PSN security breach will be a huge concern for its 70 million customers worldwide, but by following the tips above you can protect yourself from theft and identity fraud.

source: mxsweep.com

The developers of Google developed an advanced opt-in security feature called 2-step verification that makes your Google Account significantly more secure by helping to verify that you're the real owner of your account. Now it's time to offer the same advanced protection to all of our users.

2-step verification requires two independent factors for authentication, much like you might see on your banking website: your password, plus a code obtained using your phone. Over the next few days, you'll see a new link on your Account Settings page that looks like this:



Take your time to carefully set up 2-step verification. A user-friendly set-up wizard will guide you through the process, including setting up a backup phone and creating backup codes in case you lose access to your primary phone. Once you enable 2-step verification, you'll see an extra page that prompts you for a code when you sign in to your account. After entering your password, Google will call you with the code, send you an SMS message or give you the choice to generate the code for yourself using a mobile application on your Android, BlackBerry or iPhone device. The choice is up to you. When you enter this code after correctly submitting your password we'll have a pretty good idea that the person signing in is actually you.

It's an extra step, but it's one that significantly improves the security of your Google Account because it requires the powerful combination of both something you know—your username and password—and something that only you should have—your phone. A hacker would need access to both of these factors to gain access to your account. If you like, you can always choose a "Remember verification for this computer for 30 days" option, and you won't need to re-enter a code for another 30 days. You can also set up one-time application-specific passwords to sign in to your account from non-browser based applications that are designed to only ask for a password, and cannot prompt for the code.

To learn more about 2-step verification and get started, visit our Help Center. And for more about staying safe online, see our ongoing security blog series or visit http://www.staysafeonline.org/. Be safe!

fuente: googleblog.blogspot.com