Smartphones

Researchers at Georgia Tech in the United States recently found a way to use an iPhone to record keystrokes and determine the words being typed. Smartphones are amazing pieces of technology with built-in features that enable users to perform a wide variety of tasks with them, but these features also allow those with malicious intent to unleash a whole new set of data theft techniques upon an unsuspecting public. It’s smart to stay up-to-date on the latest security threats for smartphones.

Phishing, Vishing, and Smishing

These classic scams are still much more likely to be how data theft is achieved than any other ultra-advanced technique. We can get so worked up over ingenious methods of attack that we can easily forget to take a second-look at emails from banks asking for personal information. Again, through the reliance on mobile devices, we can easily send a text to a number without stopping to make sure we aren’t giving away information that could be used against us.

Social Media

The popularity of social media combined with the amount of personal information inherent to it makes it a gold mine for collecting private data about people. In addition, malicious third party software can autonomously collect this information and use it against individuals or anyone else their information can lead hackers to. If you have qualms over letting private data exist in the cloud, then social media should be your chief concern, not the data centers themselves. Hackers won’t be trying to break into the Facebook mainframe; they’ll be trolling passwords and other basic forms of identity theft.

Social Engineering

At the heart of 99% of cyber crime is something called social engineering. The term is really just a fancy way to describe good old fashioned flimflamming: aspiring cyber criminals contact people in positions of authority and/or privilege and essentially talk their way into getting the vital information they need. Whether it’s getting the office number of an employee or the week schedule of an CEO, social engineering experts are geniuses at filling in the gaps of information they need to execute a worthwhile cyber crime.

In this new era of computing, where the majority of data created and programs used are located remotely in relation to the user, people can get squeamish about where their personal information is going. But the fact of the matter is that the threats to personal information are much more grounded in the devices we use, sites we visit, and con games we allow ourselves to fall prey to.

The internet history started with the introduction of the dial-up internet, followed by other forms of internet such as the cable and DSL internet and we now have various forms of super fast mobile and broadband internet services today. The reality though is that a lot of people who claim to be enjoying a high speed broadband internet connection are only enjoying a fraction of the speed they’re supposed to be getting. In fact, some people get low dial-up internet speeds from their so called broadband internet service and then start to wonder why this is happening.

You need to realize first that your ISP alone can’t determine which internet speed you will enjoy and you have to take some extra steps to start enjoying the broadband internet speed offered by your ISP. Below are 4 things you can do to start enjoying your high speed internet today.

Clean up Your Desktop

You might be wondering and asking yourself how your desktop has to do with your internet speed. The reality is that a computer isn’t made up of just one element, and for it to work effectively every element must be in place (after all, that’s why it is called a computer). The same thing applies to your desktop and your internet connection. The speed of your computer will affect the speed of your internet connection, and cleaning up your desktop regularly will make your computer faster thus making your internet connection faster.

Install a Speed Booster

This solution is for internet users who are starting to become increasingly frustrated with the speed they are getting from their internet service.

You can easily ensure you start getting more internet speed by installing speed boosting software or by installing a browser with this capability. A great browser with this capability is the Opera browser – all you need to do is install a latest version of it and activate the turbo mode.

Install a Download Accelerator

When you’re not getting the desired speed from your internet connection it can be really frustrating to try downloading a file only to see a small file taking hours to download. In this situation your best bet will be to install a download accelerator. Most download accelerators look for different servers for the particular file you’re trying to download, they then select the best server that is nearest to you thus leading to you getting optimal download speed.

Upgrade Your Computer

I’m an avid lover of Microsoft Windows XP. It used to be my favorite operating system until I started experiencing problems with my internet connection. I just can’t seem to get the speed I desire and even if I format my computer I will only get very fast internet access for a few days before my computer starts to malfunction again. As a result of this I decided to upgrade my computer to Microsoft Windows 7 and I’ve been using it for close to 5 months now without experiencing any problems.

Internet Explorer 6 Usage

If you look at the above chart you will notice that Asian countries are too slow in adopting up-to-date browser, while rest of the world are faster enough in this countdown race.

But, Asia is “the second largest nominal GDP of all continents, after Europe, but the largest when measured in PPP. As of 2010, the largest economies in Asia are China, Japan, India, South Korea and Indonesia“  — Source: Wikipedia.

So, in this era of modern web standards,we Asian provocatively say “it’s time to say goodbye“.