Practice Management

Who Uses iPad? Has AT&T’s Security Breach Left Them Vulnerable?

The iPad is sellling like hotcakes.  Despite tepid advance reviews, the techno-users keep gobbling them up.  Sales are strong home and abroad.  But the recent security breach of AT&T’s web site devoted to iPad users, has most users feeling very uneasy.

A recent article in C-Net News regarding the AT&T security breach which exposed data of more than 100,000 iPad users, listed the following noteworthy users:   White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, journalist Diane Sawyer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, movie producer Harvey Weinstein, New York Times CEO Janet Robinson, officials at the FBI, departments of Defense and Justice, federal courts, and NASA, as well as executives from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan, among many others. 

As the FBI continues its investigation, and AT&T continues to apologize for the inadvertant security hole, iPad users wonder what their risks are. 

According to the article, they face exposure to external threats in the form of phishing emails and tempting links to phoney sites laden with spyware.  That’s nothing new in today’s world, but you can be sure, with the high profile potential targets identified above, that the best of the worst characters will be employed in the pursuit of creating more serious exploits.  Many iPad users will receive Emails will appear legitimate, in an attempt to compel users to willingly open attachments or click on links.

If you’re an iPad user (or even if not, but have an active email inbox) be extra careful about emails which appear to come from legitimate sources, and include attachments or links.  I?ve provided information previously, in a post entitled ?How to Avoid Dangerous Web Sites,? about a web site which enables you to check another web site for malicious code before actually landing on it.   If you want to find out whether or not it is safe to click on a link, you can try testing it at LinkScanner Online. This free service allows you to visit the URL in a controlled environment on their servers.  LinkScanner Online will inspect the site in real-time to determine whether it is hiding any nasty exploit code and, if so, what exploit.

Let?s be careful out there!

==========

To return to the main page of the blog, click here.  To return to the blog  Index, click here.

Full post as published by Law Practice Management on June 11, 2010 (boomark / email).