because their personal data is compromised, and the company is
harmed because its customers now associate the fake Facebook
page with the real company — and decide not to buy from that
company anymore.
Jo;e says there is no way to prevent a criminal from setting up
a fake Facebook page, but companies can use monitoring tools
such as Social Mention to see how the company name is being
used online. If an unauthorized page turns up, companies can
ask the social network to remove the fake listing.
4GPS Jamming: Threat or Nuisance? An emerging criminal tactic — interfering with GPS signals — has security experts divided on just how harmful it could become. Jamming a GPS signal at the source is next to impos- sible, says Phil Lieberman, founder of enterprise security
vendor Lieberman Software. Blocking the radio signals that are
broadcast from orbiting GPS satellites would require a massive
countertransmission. And because the satellites are operated by
the U.S. military, jamming them would be considered an act of
war and a federal crime, says Lieberman.
However, it is easy to jam GPS receivers using low-cost jamming
devices like one sold by Brando. The devices jam a receiver by
overloading it with a signal that’s similar to the real GPS signal.
The receiver then becomes confused because it can’t find a steady
satellite transmission.
Lieberman doesn’t give much credence to fears about jammers
disrupting airplanes or air tra;c control systems, because those
networks use a completely di;erent GPS signal from the one we
use in cars and handheld devices. Jamming could, however, be a
potentially dangerous issue when it comes to financial records,
he says, because GPS devices are used in the banking industry to
add time stamps to financial transactions. Although completely
blocking transactions would be di;cult, Lieberman says, an
industrious hacker could theoretically disrupt transactions and
cause headaches for banks.
Security expert Roger Johnston, a systems engineer at the
Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, says spoofing GPS
signals is the greater danger, explaining that GPS receivers are
low-power devices that latch on to any strong signal. He says
spoofing could be used for serious crimes — tricking a delivery
truck driver into turning down a dark alley, changing the time
stamps on financial transactions, delaying emergency vehicles
from finding their routes. There have been no reported cases of
GPS spoofing to commit a criminal act, but Johnston warns that
the government and businesses should work to deter such attacks.
Taking some extra precautions — using strong encryption technology, engaging only with trusted friends on social
networks, and using penetration testing software on corporate
networks — can alleviate some fears and help you sleep at night,
even if the bad guys keep coming up with new exploits. ◆
Brandon is a former IT manager at a Fortune 100 company who now
writes about technology. He’s written more than 2,500 articles in the past
10 years. Follow his t weets at @jmbrandonbb.
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