All dongles aside, the incident over remarks that included one of those (I had no idea it looked like this for real) by a perky-eared bystander who snapped and posted an image to Twitter of alleged offenders behind her and subsequently jobs were lost over the conundrum (breath), has caused all sorts of crazy cyber-bullying against the female bystander and one of my peers who wrote about the incident.
Still not in the know? You can read all about it:
- Mark W. Schaefer’s blog post
- The letter from Anonymous; however, do not go to its website via Google search as it’s completely full of viruses. (I know, I just tried.)
- A wiki, Geek Feminism, with what appears to be a sequential unfolding of the debacle.
And, you know what really sucks? We don’t know the truth; we don’t know who is ultimately responsible — perhaps it’s Anonymous and perhaps not.
Stop Being Naive
What I do know is that we the people can no longer be naive that what we say online is protected and without recourse; that what we do in public surroundings when involving strangers is innocent. It’s not and it’s not.
The scare tactics of hacker groups are real; it is cyber-bullying extraordinaire. Reputations and businesses that don’t play according to cyber rules are being ruined; it’s survival of the fittest and who can survive a cyber attack?
As I was explaining to Amber-Lee Dibble of Pioneer Outfitters on Google+, it’s time to pick the battles, choose carefully how to tread online, know with whom you’re engaging, and throw caution into every word.
Ever wonder how to fight a cyber-attack during which a website crashes and the spam bots destroy the back end with waves of onslaught? I would not have the financial resources or time to devote to managing this type of crisis; in fact, there’s nothing I would be able to do but call in the troops and borrow from the IRA (that’s not the Irish Republican Army).
In a Facebook discussion today, Ms. Kittie Walker, Founder and President of Indigo Girl in London said, “It takes for people to stand up and stand up en masse to fight that kind of bullying. There are plenty of rival sub-culture organizations fighting against Anonymous, but they are employing the same tactics. The global security services and police are fighting Anonymous and they’ve made some inroads, but for every hacker they arrest, a new one pops up.
What’s the likelihood of the masses standing up to them – not big; they are currently seen as modern day Robin Hoods and those that don’t see them that way may take the road that you did when bullied over a review. So whom do you side with? The Government and their agencies that want to restrict the internet in ways that you can’t even imagine (crushing your business just as surely) or the anarchists. Seems to me to be a bit of a loose-loose situation. (Kittie also mentioned she respects Anonymous and I should be prepared to stand by my research.)
Pick your battles carefully – not just the ones that you can win – but where you can make a difference.”
Fighting Cyber Attacks
Pay careful attention to your passwords. The previous school of thought was to do random characters, yet none of us can remember them. The now school of thought is to take a story, the dog ate my homework, and use it as your password e.g. DogAteHomeHah. These resources below are worth a read.
Inc. Magazine on Fighting Hacking
Wired Magazine on Passwords/Hacking
Inc. Magazine: Cyberrisk Insurance
Jayme.
What ?? “(Kittie also mentioned she respects Anonymous and I should be prepared to stand by my research.)”
And just what exactly is that supposed to mean?
Did we find our answer? No. People, ALL people need to Stand. Up.
So. Jayme. It looks like we keep digging (because I am too).
AlaskaChickBlog I think Kittie has more knowledge than most about this group; I think she’s been following them and she doubts the letter to Adria was an original by that hacker group. Because I don’t have the depth of that knowledge, I believe she was cautioning me to research appropriately and be prepared to back up any statements I make with proof points. At least that’s my take.
Now, what about your WP site? Backed up? Passwords solid? Latest WP version installed? I have no idea what to do after those basics. Maybe some of those books I found will help us.
Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing AlaskaChickBlog This just keeps going round and round for me, Jayme. Because it is way bigger than a “oops!” on our websites.
Why can they not be caught and put in jail? YOU would be if you trashed someone’s business down on main street.
This is some scary stuff.
I had my blog attacked a while back. It was down for three days and I had to pay someone to fix all the problems.
I can’t understand why anyone would respect Anonymous, unless they were just going on record to try to avoid getting attacked.
ExtremelyAvg Why do you think your blog was picked out, Brian? Did you have good security measures in place? Could you put a finger on how it happened to protect yourself in the future? See? 3 days of downtime would absolutely kill me and the stress of that would kill me twice.
I was thinking about that after I posted. I don’t remember exactly. It was a terrible time, that is for sure.
Yes, I had security.
ExtremelyAvg If that EVER happens again, take notes! It’s worth a blog post to help your peers! I don’t wish it on anyone.
Super scary!
As for passwords, I didn’t know about stories. I’ve been using 1password for a couple of years now to generate all these bizarre looking passwords. The app remembers for me.
(BTW: since the newsletter got so awesome with regular posts sent to my email I find my way winging back to join in the site and conversation. It’s a great device ! )
jonbuscall Good to see you! Hope you had fun in Rome; look at what the new “Bishop” is doing to Rome! They must be beside themselves with this guy! Fascinating unfolding of the story, isn’t it! I heard from some of my Catholic friends who are up in arms about it, too!
Wait, do you mean my little RSS feed of my blog posts or my newsletter I just sent out? Shoot, any time I get a comment I’m doing something right in digital marketing, I’m all ears two times over!! Heh.
Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing jonbuscall Your newsletter :=) Rome was awesome. But saw a Berlusconi rally was happening and it made me think of the Nazis. Truly scary. Off to France next to maybe buy a house :=)
jonbuscall Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing Oh boy…thanks for that compliment, Jon!
Buy a house in France? Oh, I’m so envious of you Euros who can gallavant anywhere within hours. I think you’ll need 5 BDR — all the dogs and moi. !
Hey, Jayme – it can be treacherousness navigating the web 😮
There’s is nothing more alarming then getting your social sites or blog hijacked by someone who talking to you during the process… That happened to me once – yikes!
MarkHarai1 Please see what Kittie wrote above — really good info for Blogger Beat, Mark. Have a good week; see you on the flip.
Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing MarkHarai1 Excellent info… we will be on top of this for sure…
On another note, it’s not easy building a site that’s never been built before 😮
There are all kinds of things that pop up the deeper you dig in. Will have this site whipped soon. Promise.
I use Sucuri Security just in case…
Joshua Wilner/A Writer Writes Good to know; hadn’t heard of this one, either. Thanks, Josh.
Hey Jayme,
Most of those big Distributed Denial Of Service (DDOS) attacks and DNS related attacks could be closed out overnight – here’s a post that talks about what could and should be done. It’s basically your internet service provider that’s leaving your vulnerable. https://readwrite.com/2013/03/27/whos-to-blame-for-the-huge-cyberattack-slowing-the-web-your-isp Maybe a class action suit against them would close that particular door.
If you’re running a WordPress installation then the best security plugin is WordFence. Make sure that you deny anyone access that gets a user name wrong and only give people a couple of tries for their password before banning them for a considerable period of time. It’s a great plugin and will guard against many things.
You’ll also want to secure any WordPress site you set up using the best practices found here https://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress this is why one-click installations might be an easy option, but they are not the most secure way of doing things.
And always keep everything up to date, the WordPress installation, themes, plugins and so on. Always delete anything that you no longer use. Anything that is not updated and/or remains inactive can cause security vulnerabilities.
You can guard yourself against most issues just by being proactive in your security measures.
kittiewalker This is excellent info, Kittie. Thank you very much for providing this. I hope everyone taps into your 411 so we’re not doing a 911. Do they have either of those in the UK? Thanks again.
Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing kittiewalker It’s a pleasure. Nope they’re not the same over here, but it translates. So much so that if you dial 911 over here now you actually get tranferred to the emergency services eben though that’s not their number!