Article published on PennLive.com!

Last week the Associated Press' hacked Twitter account tweeted to 1.9 million followers  that two explosions took place in the White House and that President Obama was injured. The tweet was retweeted more than three thousand times before Twitter suspended the account.

The AP's massive Twitter reach is great when it comes to disseminating critical news and information, but it also made it an attractive target for hackers. The AP is not the only victim. NBC News, 60 Minutes and the Guardian have also had their accounts hacked.

Passwords to social media accounts — not just those belonging to large news organizations — should be protected just as you would protect the keys to your house. Your password should be strong and it should change every few months. From theTwitter Help Center, they recommend you use a password that is:

• At least 10 characters long.
• A mix of uppercase, lowercase, numbers and symbols.
• Different than other passwords you use.
• Stored in a safe place (consider Moxier Wallet).

You can have a great password set, but as the above victims will tell you their password was stolen by using a Phishing attack, or an e-mail that looks genuine that tricks the user into providing their username and password. Phishing isn’t something new, in fact you probably have seen phishing emails in your inbox for years pretending to be from eBay, banks or other financial services.

Even the strongest password won't protect you if you hand it over in a Phishing attack. Here are some ways to know if you are being phished:

• Before you click a link in an e-mail mouse over it and does the follow link address match the text?
• Did you request a password change on your account before that e-mail notification arrived?
• Are there spelling errors or an e-mail address that you don’t know?

It’s never possible to fully secure your social media accounts, but with proper policies and good education of your employees you can limit your exposure to hacking and Phishing attacks.

Read the article on PennLive.com!

Social media has provided every place of business, politician and individual the power to control their media.  Every social media platform powers you to market and network your product to a unique and attentive audience, and each should be treated as a separate media outlet.

Facebook is the network of choice for millions of people and Facebook Pages allow you to reach all those users.  A post on Facebook has a character limit of over 60K, so you can put a lot of information in a single post.  Users scroll their timelines and recent posts usually include posts that can be days old.  Facebook also includes the ability to link and automatically share your posts on Twitter.

Twitter is what I call an Instant News Platform.  Death’s, traffic updates, events, celebrity sightings, a time-restricted promotion or that big news headline will hit Twitter first.  By limiting posts to 140 characters the end user gets a lot of news quickly and easily.  A typical tweet is usually only seen and interacted with for a couple hours.  With the use of hashtags (#) and tagging other users you have the ability to extend that time and to grow your followers faster.

If you are automatically sharing your Facebook posts on Twitter the tweet usually includes a link back to Facebook to view the whole message, as that 60K character post won’t fit inside a tweet with a limit of 140 characters.

Twitter also has the ability to automatically share your tweets on Facebook.  This is why your Facebook wall is full of Hashtags that do nothing or abbreviated words that when you can use 60K characters, you think why abbreviate?

If you haven’t figured it out - I recommend that you treat each separate and take the extra minute and post messages for the platform.  You will look more professional, receive more interaction and increase your Likes and Followers! 

So please unlink your accounts!

Three weeks ago I lost access to my AppleID account for about 12 hours after an attempted hack.  Losing access to my documents, iTunes music library, e-mail and everything else iCloud, while being unable to reset my password online I was forced to call Apple support.

I was trying to verify my account using my security answers and support was unable to verify and I had the answers stored in my Moxier Wallet.  My thought is someone changed my answers but was told I could try typing in the answers online in eight hours or wait 24 hours for e-mail verification.

I was stuck, after the eight hours I was able to reset my passcode using security answers as Apple support was typing in patriot news not patriot-news, eight hours over a hyphen.

Thankfully, yesterday Apple quietly updated the AppleID security policy and finally enabled two-step verification.  What two-step verification does is you type you password and one of your verified IOS devices (or SMS capable phone) receives a four digit passcode to verify you are who you say you are.

Before you assume you will need to use two-step verification for every Apple store purchase relax.  You will be prompted for two-step verification only when you sign on to manage your AppleID, make an iTunes purchase from a NEW device or when you call Apple support.  So it’s actually done right.

Two-step verification isn't new and can be setup and used on Facebook, Google, Dropbox and many corporate environments use it today.

I have already migrated my AppleID to the two-step verification, and would recommend each of you follow suit and do the same.  You can switch from security questions to two-step verification today by visiting https://appleid.apple.com and following the steps below.

1. Log in to your Apple ID account by clicking Manage your Apple ID.
   
2. Click on Password and Security and answer your existing security answers.
3. You will see Two-Step Verification so click Get started...
   
   
4. Apple will explain two-step verification and click Continue, Continue and Get Started.
   
   
5. You will need to verify your trusted IOS devices.
   
   
6. Save your Key in your Password Manager.
7. Now your AppleID is more secure with two-step verification.
   
   

Learn more about Apple Two-Step Verification here.

We are running Firefox as a Virtual Application or ThinApp for Virtual Desktops.  We are in the process of migrating all users to Google Chrome browser and will eventually discontinue support for Firefox.  Before we can do this you probably want to migrate your Firefox Bookmarks to Chrome.

First we need to export a copy of your bookmarks in Firefox as an html file.

1) Open Mozilla Firefox

2) Hit Ctrl+Shift B (or Show All Bookmarks from the Bookmarks Icon)

3) Import and Backup Menu > Export Bookmarks to HTML

  Note: I would place the file in U:\Bookmark Backups, and name the file firefox.html

4) Close Firefox

Now let's open Chrome and import the Bookmarks.

1) Open Google Chrome

2) Hit Ctrl+Shift O (or Menu Icon > Bookmarks > Bookmark Manager)

3) Select Organize and 'Import bookmarks from HTML file...'

4) Browse to your U:\Bookmark Backups, and select the file firefox.html

5) The bookmarks are now in Chrome on the Bookmarks bar under Imported > Mozilla Firefox