Entries in Risk Assesment (7)

Friday
Jan252013

Is your cell phone number going public this month?

By now you should know the answer, NO!  Three times in the past two months clients have received a email identical, or similar to this,  

Subject: Cell phone numbers go public this month - Do Not Call number

 PLEASE READ CAREFULLY

REMINDER..... all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls. ....YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS.

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time.. It blocks your number for five (5) years.

You must call from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a different phone number. HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON. It takes about 20 seconds. 

https://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx

You cell phone number is not going public, here is the statement straight from the FCC, 

The Facts

At present, a wireless 411 directory is only in the idea stage.
Even if a wireless 411 directory is established, most telemarketing calls to wireless phones would still be illegal. For example, it is unlawful for any person to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with express prior consent) using any automatic telephone dialing system or any artificial or prerecorded voice message to any telephone number assigned to a paging service, mobile telephone service or any service for which the called party is charged for the call. This prohibition applies regardless of whether the number is listed on the national Do-Not-Call list.

FCC Website Link

It look like the FCC is painfully aware of the scams that have been going on.  If you receive one of these emails, please reply to the sender with this post.   The only way that we can stop these hoaxes is with facts and follow up.   If you are interested in more information on the hoax, check out the Snopes listing,

Celling your Soul


Thursday
Nov292012

Is it a dangerous website?

One question that I am frequently asked is, "Is this website safe?"   Determining the safety of a website is a challenge, the site functions might be safe, but the content inside might be suspect or dangerous. There is not one single way to determine if a website is safe, but I have found a site that can help.

http://zulu.zscaler.com/

For every website that you submit, zscaler provides a risk assessment,Benign, Low, Medium, or High, based on the following factors,

- Content Checks – Inspection of page content to identify potentially malicious code in a variety of categories

- URL Checks – Inspection of the full URL to identify malicious patterns and check the URL/FQDN/TLD against third party and Zscaler block lists

- Host Checks – IP, DNS and netblock reputation checks
Here is a sample report,

 This is a good tool to help understand the risk associated with websites, but ultimately the decision to yours on weather a website is safe.

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