eBay has been hacked. Your password is no longer secure.

Please change your password now! Top left, where it says "Hi, and your name", click the downward arrow and choose account settings.  From there look at the menu on the left and choose Personal information.  Then choose Password.  Type in the old one and then the new one twice and save.

How hackers exploit 'the seven deadly sins' Professor Alan Woodward By Prof Alan Woodward Department of Computing, University of Surrey

Viewpoint: How hackers exploit 'the seven deadly sins'

By Prof Alan Woodward Department of Computing, University of Surrey 
Copied from the BBC News today 

The phenomenon of "social engineering" is behind the vast majority of successful hacking.

This isn't the hi-tech wizardry of Hollywood but is a good, old-fashioned confidence trick.
It's been updated for the modern age, and although modern terms such as "phishing" and "smishing" are used to describe the specific tricks used, they all rely upon a set of human characteristics which, with due respect to Hieronymus Bosch, you might picture as the "seven deadly sins" of social engineering.
Apathy: To fall for a confidence trick, or worse, we assume others "must" have taken the necessary steps to keep us secure.
Sadly this leads to a lack of awareness, and in the world of the hacker that is fatal. When we stay in a hotel and we programme our random number into the room safe to keep our belongings secure, how many of us check to see if the manufacturers override code has been left in the safe?
It's nearly always 0000 or 1234 so try it next time.

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If you're not the paying customer, you're very likely to be the product”

Curiosity:

Humans are curious by nature. However, naive and uninformed curiosity has caused many casualties. Criminals know we're curious and they will try to lure us in. If we see an unfamiliar door appear in a building we frequent, we all wonder where it leads.

We might be tempted to open it and find out, but in the online world that might just be a trap waiting for an innocent user to spring it. A colleague built a website that contained a button that said Do Not Press, and was astonished to find that the majority of people actually pressed it.
Be curious, but exercise a healthy degree of suspicion.
Gullibility: It is often thought of as a derogatory term, but we all suffer from this sin. We make assumptions.
We take others at face value, especially outside of our areas of expertise. Put a uniform on someone and we assume they have authority.

Phishing scams can involve spoof emails designed to make users reveal their passwords

Give an email an official appearance by using the correct logo and apparently coming from the correct email address, and we might just assume it's real, regardless of how silly its instructions might be.
All of this can be easily forged online, so make no assumptions.
Courtesy: We quite rightly all teach our children to be polite. However, politeness does not mean you should not discriminate.
If you do not know something, or you feel something doesn't feel quite right, ask. This principle is truer than ever in the online world, where we are asked to interact with people and systems in ways with which we are quite unfamiliar.
If someone phones you out of the blue and says they are from your bank do you believe them?

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If someone has a problem with proving who they are, you should immediately be suspicious”

No. Phone them back.

And by the way, use a mobile phone as landlines can remain connected to the person who made the call in the first place and so while you might think you're phoning the bank on a valid number you're just talking to the person who called you.
Greed: Despite what we'd like to think we are all susceptible to greed even though it might not feel like greed.
Since its inception, the very culture of the web has been to share items for free.
Initially this was academic research, but as the internet was commercialised in the mid-1990s, we were left with the impression that we could still find something for nothing.
Nothing is ever truly free online. You have to remember that if you're not the paying customer, you're very likely to be the product. In the worst case, you might find that you have taken something onto your machine that is far from what you bargained for.
Many pieces of malware are actively downloaded by owners unaware that the "free" product contains a nasty payload, even if it also appears to do what you expected of it.
Diffidence: People are reluctant to ask strangers for ID, and in the online world it is more important than ever to establish the credentials of those whom you entrust with your sensitive information.

A call from IT support might actually be from hackers based in a different continent

Do not let circumstances lead you to make assumptions about ID.
For example, if someone from "IT support" calls you and asks for your password so they can help fix your problem, how do you know they haven't called everyone else in the building first until they found you who has really got a problem?
This is a well-known attack. If someone has a problem with proving who they are, you should immediately be suspicious.
Thoughtlessness: Thinking before you act is possibly the most effective means of protecting yourself online. It is all too easy to click that link.
Stop.
How many of us when reading an apparently valid link in an email would bother to check whether the link is actually valid or whether instead it takes you to a malicious site.
It's horribly easy to make links look valid so try hovering your cursor over the link for a few seconds before clicking to see what the real link is: the true link pops up if you give it a moment.
As cynical as it may sound, the only answer is to practise your A-B-C:

• Assume nothing
• Believe no-one
• Check everything

With more Christmas shopping expected to be done online this year than ever before, you should watch out for those that would exploit the deadly sins.
Don't give criminals the chance to ruin your holiday season, and remember that a little bit of paranoia goes a long way online.
Alan Woodward is a visiting professor at the University of Surrey's department of computing. He has worked for the UK government and consults on issues including cybersecurity, covert communications and forensic computing.

Mice

We take it for granted nowadays that you interact with a computer using a mouse.  A mouse is a pointing device, which rolls on a surface and displays a pointer on the screen which allows you to point to what you want and select it.  It features 2 buttons and a wheel in the middle, which can also be used as a button and a cord if it is one that is plugged in.

Mice come in many shapes and sizes, and some are built in, as in the case of laptops.  I thought it was a worthy subject to talk about as mice are often overlooked, and can be more useful and interesting than you might think!

Mice have been in wide use since the 60’s.  Their early history is fascinating, and stemmed from the military.  If you are interested, do look this up on Wikipedia!  They started as 5 pin bowling balls.

They can be used in many ways- most of which you probably already know, but perhaps not!

·      Hovering over text with a mouse will often reveal information that is hidden.  Try this to see what date a photograph was taken.

·      Single left click, used to select.

·      Double left click, if done quickly will allow you to open programmes.   You would do this automatically to open an icon on the desktop, and you need to do so to open a folder.  You can also use double left click to select a single word in text.

·      Triple left click will select a sentence or paragraph in text.

·      Right click will bring up a menu.  This menu will change according to what you are doing.

·      Click the middle button- can also be used to select.

·      Click and drag- used to move things around in your folders or on the desktop.

·      Roll the middle button to travel up and down on your screen.  Many people overlook this feature.  It is so useful and easier than any other method when it comes to moving about on the screen.

·      Clicking while holding down another key to select multiple files.

·      Gestures- gamers will be familiar with these- swiping might make your character move to the right or left.

·      If mice have other buttons on them, these can be set up to do shortcuts.

Different type of mice include:

·      Optical or LED.

·      Laser.

·      Ergonomic.  These are comfy and designed to avoid RSI.

·      Gaming.  These come set up with lots of programmable buttons.

·      Wand, doesn’t need to be on a flat surface.

·      Ball mouse, great for very young children or those who struggle to control a mouse because of a shake.  They are large, and you use a finger to move the ball rather than move the whole mouse about.

They can be cordless or connected by a wire.

There are things to consider about using a mouse.  Make sure it isn’t too small for the size of your hand.  Make sure you are comfortable when using it.  I very often teach people who are using cheap and tiny mice, and they wonder why they are struggling.  For older people, the bigger the mouse, the easier it is.  Also just because you are using a laptop with inbuilt mouse doesn’t mean that you can’t plug a mouse in!  Many people find trackpads tricky on laptops.  It is easy to catch them with your wrist and do things that you hadn’t anticipated, so if this is happening to you, plug in a mouse and give it a try!  You can also disable the trackpad on your laptop to stop problems of accidentally clicking on something.

Mice can be adapted to your needs.  If you are left handed, you can set them up the opposite way.  You can also make the cursor (pointer arrow) larger or blacker so that you can see it better on the screen.  If the mouse is moving too fast, you can slow it down.

Hope that after reading this, you will have learned something new, and will look anew at your mouse and discover it’s true potential!