An attractive young lady going by the name of Jenn Collins is in the process of friending hundreds of people on Facebook, many of them members of the UK based business network, Ecademy. A few days ago she had 488 friends, today 553. Jenn says she lives in Miami Florida and speaks multiple languages. She is also polite, friendly and likes the movies Spiderman and Braveheart.
Unfortunately the pictures, as seen above, are not hers. Nor is Jenn who “she” claims to be. It’s fake and the prelude to a probable scam or other misuse of trust. The person or persons operating the Facebook account are using social engineering to quickly build a pliable and trusting following. The use of provocative pictures has ensured that plenty of men accepted in a flash. No surprise there, just human nature at work.
It’s also the real-world manifestation of the occasional darker side of being “Open Random and Supportive”* (ORS*), a networking methodology frequently advocated on Ecademy and by its founders. So it should come as no surprise that Ecademy Chairman Thomas Power is one of Jenn’s friends!
If I’m wrong about this fine young lady I’ll happily travel to Miami to meet Jenn in person, confirm her identity and report back. Of course, I’ll also retract this blog.
I have a good idea who is behind this, but I’m not saying more at this time, other than to say there is a clue on Facebook that leads to the operator(s).
* Copyright © The Ecademy Ltd. 2009 – 2011
Tagged as:
ecademy,
facebook,
social engineering
Has your email address or password been exposed in one of the many recent and ongoing website hacks?
Check it quickly and easily at ShouldIChangeMyPassword.com
ShouldIChangeMyPassword.com has been created to help the average person check if their password(s) may have been compromised and need to be changed.
This site uses a number of databases that have been released by hackers to the public. No passwords are stored in the ShouldIChangeMyPassword.com database.
My comment: This website is legitimate and safe. It’s purpose is to help the public. It is not a tool for collecting email addresses. You only enter your email address on the site. They look it up on a list of hundreds of thousands of compromised accounts. You do not enter your password.
If your account does show up you should change your password EVERYWHERE it has been used on the internet.
Tagged as:
data breach,
hacks,
password hashes
Swiss Life has just announced the launch of a new insurance product destined to protect the reputation of an individual. Swiss Life E-Reputation has been developed in partnership with Reputation Squad, specialist in reputation management on Internet, and is for now only available to individuals in France. This product provides financial, legal and technical resources to protect anyone in case of violation their reputation on Internet.
Source:
http://www.newsinsurances.co.uk/blog/swiss-life-launch-of-new-e-reputation-product/0169479618
My take: A very interesting development. Maybe a first? Note that they are calculating the average cost for an incident at 2-3 thousand euros.
I’d love to see this type of insurance offered in the USA and elsewhere.
Are you in control of your name online?
Do you even own your name?
Is (at a minimum) the .com domain of your name under your control and correctly registered?
The consequences of not owning your name
The consequences of not owning your name (if your name is uncommon or you are a person of notoriety) can be devastating to reputation, personal well-being and expensive to rectify. What comes as a shock to many is the fact that there is no blanket automatic copyright or right of ownership to one’s own name, according to the international and domestic rules of the domain registration authorities.
Smear campaigns that could have been avoided
Here at Highwick Associates we have been involved in multiple cases where the owners of successful businesses became targets of retribution initiated by the registration of their name (first+last) as a domain name by an adversary. This was followed by the initiation of an online smear campaign anchored by a derogatory website. Because of the significant weight that Google gives to the .com domain extension, these simple websites ranked at or near the top of page one of search engines within a few days.
Removal from search engines is hard
Getting such websites taken down or modified can be very tricky. If they contain “opinion” and are not libelous they are permitted by most web and blog hosting providers. And search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo will not remove anything from search results until the website or content the domain points to is permanently removed from the Internet.
Get expert help before you need to
The advice we give, self-serving though it may appear, is to get expert help to secure your name and brand BEFORE you need to.
Get control first, or lose it
If you don’t get control of your name first, someone else, anyone else, can. And you lose.
