Tag Archive for: seconds.

Google security check: 60 seconds to kick out snoops and hackers

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I’ll never forget the caller on my national radio show asking me for guidance because her brother was scammed out of $450,000. He trusted the wrong person, and he’s far from alone. People simply don’t realize they’re being taken for a ride until it’s too late.

Then clues pop up. Maybe you sent a bunch of gift card codes, or there are emails you didn’t write in your outbox. Or worse, you get a notice about a loan in your name. Pro-tip: That’s why you need to get your free credit report every year.

It’s also the reason to check your Google account’s security. It only takes a minute and will reveal who has access to your account. Fingers crossed, it’s just you.

EXPOSED: UNCOVER THE TRACKING SECRETS OF APPLE AND MICROSOFT WHILE YOU WORK ON YOUR MAC OR PC

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60-second safety check

I’m going to show you how to find digital clues a hacker got into your account, but that’s not all. This tip also works for spotting snoops. Is a friend or family member poking around your Google or Gmail account? Let’s sniff them out.

  • Go to google.com/devices. Sign in if you aren’t already.
  • Here, you’ll see a list of devices — the computers, smartphones and tablets you’re signed into or have been signed into within the last 28 days.

You can click each one to see which browser was used. That might be a tip-off someone else has logged in, say you see Chrome, but you only use Safari. 

Google headquarters in Mountain View, California

Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.  (Marlena Sloss/Bloomberg via Getty Images, File)

Don’t panic if you see the same device multiple times. Each session (or instance you logged in) is recorded. 

You may also see devices that have been inactive for a long time, like an old phone or computer you don’t use anymore. It’s wise to sign these devices out remotely.

  • Click the one you want, then Sign out. This will remove access to your Google account from the device entirely.

You should also take that step for any devices you once used to access your account, like a friend’s tablet or a work computer.

I sent smart security tips via email almost every day. Get my free newsletter here.

WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR PERSONAL INFO AFTER A DATA BREACH

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Hackers now use thermal attacks to steal passwords in seconds

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Among the images taken within 20 seconds, the system could also guess long passwords that used as many as 16-characters 67 percent of the time. As the passwords grew shorter, the accuracy increased, reaching 100 percent for passwords that were six characters long, the press release said.

“Access to thermal imaging cameras is more affordable than ever – they can be found for less than £200 (US$225) – and machine learning is becoming increasingly accessible too,” said Khamis in the press release. “It’s important that computer security research keeps pace with these developments to find new ways to mitigate risk, and we will continue to develop our technology to try to stay one step ahead of attackers.”

What can be done to avert this?

The research also provided insights into what mitigation strategies could be adopted to prevent a thermal attack. The researchers found that users who typed slower and left their fingers on the keyboard longer were more likely to see their passwords being guessed accurately than those who typed fast.

Also, the material that was used to make the keyboard also had an impact on the system’s ability to guess passwords. Thermosecure could accurately guess passwords typed on keycaps made from ABS plastics about 50 percent of the time. However, the success rate dropped considerably to 14 percent when keycaps made from PBT plastics were used.

Apart from moving to sophisticated means of authentication, such as fingerprint and facial recognition, users could adopt long passphrases as passwords.

The research findings were published in the journal ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security.

Abstract

Thermal cameras can reveal heat traces on user interfaces, such as keyboards. This can be exploited maliciously to infer sensitive input, such as passwords. While previous work considered thermal attacks that rely on visual inspection of simple image processing techniques, we show that attackers can perform more effective AI-driven attacks. We demonstrate this by presenting the development of ThermoSecure, and its evaluation in two user studies (N=21, N=16) which reveal novel insights about thermal attacks. We detail the implementation of ThermoSecure and make a…

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University of Glasgow: AI-driven ‘thermal attack’ system reveals passwords in seconds – India Education | Latest Education News | Global Educational News

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University of Glasgow: AI-driven ‘thermal attack’ system reveals passwords in seconds – India Education | Latest Education News | Global Educational News | Recent Educational News

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