This was the tweet from the Associated Press on April 23: “Breaking: Two explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.” Of course, it wasn’t true. The AP had been hacked. But the stock market temporarily lost more than 100 points on the news, and the tweet briefly rattled some already jittery nerves around the country.
So how does this type of hacking happen, and how can you keep it from happening to you?
Our topic this week on a special edition of the GeekWire radio show: the latest in digital security, hacking and protecting yourself online.
We’re joined in the studio by three people with different perspectives to this topic.
- Dave Peck (@dangerdave), one of the founders of Cloak, a Seattle startup that helps computer and device users protect themselves on public wireless networks.
- Eric Butler, a freelance software developer (@codebutler) known for creating Firesheep, a tool that demonstrated just how easy it can be to hijack someone’s online accounts on open wireless networks.
- Christopher Budd (@christopherbudd) of security firm Trend Micro, who previously worked for a decade on Microsoft’s Security Response team and also contributes to GeekWire.
Just as we were going into the studio, the importance of these issues was illustrated yet again as news broke about Living Social being hacked, affecting more than 50 million customers of the deals service.
You can listen to the show above or via this MP3 file. Continue reading for related links and additional information.
Associated Press: How a phony tweet and computer trades sank stocks
Twitter is working on two-factor authentication, according to a Wired report.
GeekWire, April 17: Microsoft confirms plan to boost security with two-factor login
Mat Honan, Wired: How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking
GeekWire, August 2012: Microsoft vets launch ‘Cloak’ to safeguard Macs, iPads from wireless snooping
Cloak Blog: Cloak + 1Password: Safer together
PC World, October 2010: How to Hijack Facebook Using Firesheep
Eric Butler’s Firesheep project page, and more on his projects.
Christopher Budd, GeekWire post: Why I won’t buy another subsidized Android phone (and why you shouldn’t, either)
App of the Week: Where You @ for Android
