OSC Guardian - Safety Advice

OSC GUARDIAN - SAFETY ADVICE
www.OramSecurity.com

Sunday, October 31, 2010

A TIA Is Your Stroke Warning

Find out how a TIA is different from a stroke, and what having a TIA could mean for your future health.
By Diana Rodriguez
Medically reviewed by Lindsey Marcellin, MD, MPH

Mini-stroke. Little stroke. Pre-stroke. Warning stroke. These are all terms used to describe a transient ischemic attack, or TIA, which causes the symptoms — but not the damage — of a stroke.
No matter what you call it, a TIA is a big red warning flag that indicates you are at major risk for a more serious stroke.

Read More

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Analysts “Like” New Facebook Privacy Controls

Analysts “Like” New Facebook Privacy Controls By John Wagley
Date: 10/20/2010

For at least a year, Facebook has faced increasing criticism over its handling of users’ privacy. During this time, the site has steadily added new security and privacy features.
But a just-released set of privacy controls seems to have particularly impressed at least a few analysts (with qualifications, of course). When it comes to Facebook and privacy, in fact, the biggest risk could lie with vulnerabilities or weaknesses in third-party sites, one analyst says.

http://www.securitymanagement.com/news/analysts-%E2%80%9Clike%E2%80%9D-new-facebook-privacy-controls-007773

Identity Theft Continues To Increase!

Identity theft continues to increase, according to a new study from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which looked at the frequency with which identity theft was named as a cause for concern by financial institutions filing suspicious activity reports (SARs) from January 1, 2003 through December 30, 2009. While the total number of filings rose 89 percent over the period, identity-theft related filings rose 123 percent. "Credit card fraud was the most frequently co-reported suspicious activity...appearing in over 45.5 percent of sample filings," according to the FinCEN Identity-theft report. The victim knew the thief in 27.5 percent of the cases. Victims self-discovered 28 percent of the thefts; banks were credited with finding another 21 percent through account monitoring

Saturday, October 23, 2010

American Red Cross, Sticking with the A-B-C's of CPR.

The American Red Cross announced Thursday that it does not plan to make any substantial changes to its CPR courses after conducting an initial review of new guidelines for CPR and emergency cardiovascular care. On Monday, the American Heart Association issued the new guidelines that advocate switching up the steps for CPR, recommending that rescuers start with hard, fast chest presses before giving mouth-to-mouth.

The national American Red Cross announced that it is "continuing with a more thorough review of the science behind the guidelines and may institute subtle changes in the future if they are warranted." However, the American Red Cross statement continued, "While we support the use of the hands-only technique by bystanders, full CPR with chest compressions and rescue breaths is still best for many people, including children, adolescents, drowning victims, or people who collapse due to breathing problems."

Halloween Safety Tips From the Red Cross

Friday, October 22, 2010

The New Terror Front

Homeland Security Network News

FBI Director Robert Mueller told a Senate Homeland Security Committee that groups and individuals inspired by al-Qaeda are switching to smaller scale attacks.

Points to consider: According to Director Mueller, these attacks are easier to plan and carry out, involve fewer people, can be put together more quickly, and are more difficult to detect and disrupt. "Groups affiliated with al-Qaeda are now actively targeting the United States and looking to use Americans or Westerners who are able to remain undetected by heightened security measures," FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Consider that in his book “Leaderless Jihad”, Dr. Marc Sageman, a former CIA officer, argues that, "the present threat has evolved from a structured group of al-Qaeda masterminds controlling vast resources and issuing commands to a multitude of informal groups trying to emulate their predecessors by conceiving and executing operations from the bottom up. These “homegrown wannabes” form a scattered global network, a “leaderless jihad." Once they have been recruited, indoctrinated and prepared, their lust for "martyrdom" which permeates the middle and lower levels of al-Qaeda make those terrorists difficult to deter..

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Terror threat to restaurants as Al Qaeda calls for attacks on government workers in D.C.

WASHINGTON - The terror group tied to the Ft. Hood killings and the Christmas Day undies airbomber urge wannabe American jihadis to open fire on crowded restaurants in the nation's capital to massacre U.S. government workers.
The advice appears in "Inspire," the latest issue of a slick propaganda publication by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Osama Bin Laden's franchise in Yemen.
"A random hit at a crowded restaurant in Washington, D.C., at lunch hour might end up knocking out a few government employees," Yahya Ibrahim writes in the 74-page jihadi how-to magazine.
"Targeting such employees is paramount and the location would also give the operation additional media attention," Ibrahim added.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/10/11/2010-10-11_terror_threat_to_restaurants_as_al_qaeda_calls_for_attacks_on_government_workers.html#ixzz12IbMX2xQ
Situational Awareness. Never knowing where the threat come from or when, we should all do our best to stay aware of what is going on around us.  As the NYPD asks us to remember......  IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING - Report Suspicious Activity to your local law enforcement.
 
Stay Safe
Oram Security
www.OramSecurity.com

Passwords............a pain in the neck.

Passwords are used every day to gain access to personal information e.g. email, banking, online shopping. In the past we were told to use something that is easy to remember. A combination of names or places, perhaps put a date with it, but something that you can remember without writing it down. As with many things, the recommendations have changed. Standard guidance given on selecting secure passwords is to use a combination of letters and numbers. This is a task ideally suited to a computer generated process.
“The PC Tools Password Generator (link at bottom of the page) allows you to create random passwords that are highly secure and extremely difficult to crack or guess due to an optional combination of lower and upper case letters, numbers and punctuation symbols.”
 It will even let you choose what different types of combinations you might want to use, since some sites have specific requirements. Now, this will also makes the pass words harder to remember, so we are starting to recommend writing them down. You see that I used the word 'Them"? Too many people are using one password for all or most of their accounts. This makes it easier for you to remember, but it also means that if someone cracks your password, they can now get into all of your accounts. The larger threat is not the person sitting at your desk and “breaking” into your accounts, it’s the person logging into your account from their own laptop down at Starbucks. Is your pass word your dog or cats name? Think you might have talked about your pet of Facebook? Or posted a lot of pictures? There is a good chance that the answers to your “Security Questions” can be answered by reading your profile on a social network.


So, take the few extra seconds needed to have a “real” password and help keep your privacy.

Stay Safe,
Oram Security

http://www.pctools.com/guides/password/