92% Indian youths share personal info online: McAfee

NEW DELHI: As many as 92% of Indian youths were found to have shared private information online despite being aware that this is risky, according to a report. 

Sharing email IDs, phone numbers and home addresses on social networks and other websites poses a risk to the identity, but that does not seem to deter a majority of Indian youths as 70% of them share such details freely. 

These shocking numbers are part of the annual study — named Tweens, Teens and Technology 2014 — conducted by Intel's security arm 
McAfee, which examines online behaviour and social networking habits of Indian tweens (8-12 years) and teens (13-17 years). 

The number of youngsters that trust the virtual world and interact with strangers registered a whopping increase of 36% this year, to 53% from 17% last year, according to the study. 

In fact, as many as 51% of those polled do not care about their online privacy at all, according to the report. In the same manner, they also do not care about their location being shared as 63% of youth do not turn off their location or GPS services across apps. 

McAfee polled a total of 1,422 youngsters across seven cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune for this study. 

Another shocking revelation from the study is that 52% of the Indian youths access their social media accounts at schools, with tweens (57%) being more active than the teens (47%). Shockingly, even though the minimum age to register on social networking sites such as Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tinder, Tumblr, and Vine is 13, children aged 10-12 years access them more regularly than teenagers. 

Another big concern is that more than 60% of youngsters create fake profiles to be accepted virtually. Citing an example, Dr Sunil Mittal, a psychiatrist, shared how a 14-year-old girl set up a fake profile, projecting herself as someone totally different just to be accepted socially. She eventually tried to commit suicide when her second profile too was not 'socially accepted'. Mittal said a big reason for such behaviour was identity crisis which happens when children start idolizing through movies and advertisements. 

Lack of online safety leads to consequences such as cyberbullying, which has surfaced with alarming figures. According to the McAfee report, two out of three polled youngsters had some experience with cyberbullying and an overwhelming number said they would not know what to do if they were harassed online. 

Whatever goes on in the lives of teens virtually has a spillover effect in their real lives too. About 46% of youths have gotten into trouble at home or school as a result of being on a social networking website, said the report. 

According to McAfee researchers, parents need to play a bigger, more proactive role in protecting their children from the perils of virtual world. While 46% of the polled parents said they have had a conversation with their kids about online safety, as many as 52% said they simply didn't care, as per the report. Lack of tech savviness is the biggest reason behind this ignorance. 

One way to protect children from cyberrisks is to be involved in their lives and make sure that the communication lines with them always remain open, feel the experts. Parents also need to know about the various devices and latest social networks their kids are using. 

According to experts, the parents must have access to children's social media accounts and passcodes to devices at all times."Parents must not be very strict and try to be friends with their children so that they are comfortable enough to share their problems with them," says Anindita Mishra, McAfee Cybermum (a title given by the company). 

"Teens love it when you treat them like an adult or ask for their opinion and eventually they start trusting you too," she adds. 

She also says that it is highly important to make children aware about the threats the virtual world poses and it has become very important for schools to conduct sessions on this issue.

Fraudsters using New Tactics, Warn Cyber Experts

PUNE: Cyber criminals are employing new tactics to manipulate victims' data and steal money from their bank accounts, cyber security experts said on Saturday.

Customers need to watch out for skimmers fitted in ATM machines. Besides, they should never hand over their debit cards to unknown persons or share details like PIN with strangers, experts say.

The Kaspersky Lab recently performed a forensic investigation into cyber-criminal attacks targeting multiple ATMs around the world. During the course of this investigation, the Lab's researchers discovered a piece of malware infecting ATMs that allowed attackers to empty the cash machines via direct manipulation. Interpol alerted the affected member countries, including India, and is assisting ongoing investigations.

"They work at night - only on Sundays and Mondays. Without inserting a credit card into the ATM slot, they enter a combination of digits on the ATM's keyboard, make a call to receive further instructions from an operator, enter another set of numbers and the ATM starts giving out cash," said Kaspersky Lab experts.

Cyber experts said that fraudsters fit skimmers in ATM machine slots. Besides, fraudsters mount cameras above ATM keypads to know the user PIN. "At times, insiders collude with employees of the company that issues the cards," experts from Symantec said.

Experts have also warned about how victims of ATM frauds at times fail to get a cash withdrawal alert on their mobile phones. A cybercrime scrutiny expert said that in several internet banking frauds, the cybercriminals usually have insiders in the mobile company as well as the bank. The insider within a bank may provide the fraudster with information such as the 'fattest' account in the bank, the account number, user ID, the registered mobile number and even the prospective victim's know your customer documents.

The fraudster now knows the mobile company whose services the victim is using and arranges for an insider in that company to get the victim's KYC details.

The fraudster then uses these bogus documents to have another SIM card issued to him. Once the second SIM card is issued to the fraudster and is activated, the first one in the victim's phone automatically gets deactivated.

'I'm Proud to Be Gay,' says Apple CEO Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook says he's proud to be gay.

The public declaration, in an essay written for Bloomberg Businessweek, makes Cook the highest-profile business CEO to come out as gay.

Cook said that while he never denied his sexuality, he never publicly acknowledged it, either. The executive said that for years he's been open with many people about his sexual orientation and that plenty of his Apple colleagues know he is gay.

Cook wrote in the column published on Thursday that it wasn't an easy choice to publicly disclose that he is gay, but that he felt the acknowledgement could help others.

"I've come to realize that my desire for personal privacy has been holding me back from doing something more important," he wrote.

Microsoft enters smartwatch market with $200 Microsoft Band

Band isn't Microsoft exclusive: apps will allow it to work with Apple iPhones, Android, and Windows Phones

Microsoft confirmed what we all expected -- that it too, has a smartwatch that it wants you to wear 24/7, for work and for play, called the Microsoft Band. Looking as much like a hospital bracelet as anything else, the $200 Microsoft Band features a rectangular, 320 x106 TFT display that hovers over your wrist. Sensors -- a continuous optical heart monitor, GPS, UV sensor, and more -- track your activity while on the move and at rest, and send the data to what Microsoft calls the Intelligence Engine, aka Cortana's little brother. The Band is then designed to work with third-party apps developers, including MyFitnessPal, RunKeeper, and Starbucks -- which has developed a "payment" app of sorts. 

In all, Microsoft is calling the Band its flagship device of Microsoft Health, a reboot of sorts for a health initiative it tried to establish with products like HealthVault. If you choose, you can store the data the Band collects in HealthVault and share it with your medical provider. Otherwise, Microsoft sees the Band, and Health, as a new way to collect data about you that it can use to improve your day. 

How? Initially, Microsoft sees the Intelligence Engine as supplying suggestions on how long to recover from a workout, for example. Over time, the Engine will apparently be able to comment on whether eating breakfast will make you run faster and more effectively. It's unclear how the Engine will feed data into Cortana, but she's there: you'll be able to ask Microsoft's digital assistant to add calendar entries, for example, or dictate a text. And, of course, the Band will notify you about upcoming appointments, as your Windows Phone already does. 

"Imagine you've set the goal that you want to get fit and lose weight as part of your exercise routine," Zulfi Alam, general manager  of Personal Devices at Microsoft, said in a statement. "Based on your burn rate and exercise over one week, we will soon be able to auto-suggest a customized workout plan for you. As you follow that plan – or if you don't follow the plan – our technology will continue to adjust to give you the best outward-looking plan, like a real coach would do." 

Why this matters: A number of fitness bands already track your activity, even sleep. Fewer still, though, deliver messages calendar invites. And, barely any smartwatches beyond the Big Three -- Apple, Google, and now Microsoft -- provide any intelligence that helps you anticipate and plan your day. Microsoft's Intelligence Engine and Cortana appear to be the pair of intelligent technologies that Microsoft hopes will inspire you to plunk down $200, rather than opt for the aesthetics of the Apple Watch or Google's ecosystem. 

Open to all

But Band isn't Microsoft exclusive: apps will allow it to work with Apple iPhones (the iPhone 4S, 5, 5C, 5S, 6, 6 Plus running iOS 7.1 or later), Android (4.3 or 4.4) and Windows Phones (with the Windows Phone 8.1 Update). Those apps leaked out earlier on Wednesday.

Microsoft promises that the Band will last about 48 hours on a single charge, with functions like GPS lowering that somewhat. It will charge in about an hour and a half. Unfortunately, it's not waterproof, so swimmers will have to look elsewhere. But it will repel "splashes" and will work from 14 degrees up through 104 degrees. 

Specifically, the Band will include an optical heart rate sensor, a 3-axis gyrometer, GPS, ambient light sensor, skin temperature sensor, an ultraviolet light sensor, a galvanic skin sensor, and a capacitive sensor. The watch will monitor your heart rate 24/7, and assess whether you've been sleeping well. 

The band will record data without a data connection, then beam it your phone via Bluetooth. It won't make calls, but it will flash messages, emails, and even Facebook posts and Twitter tweets. And, of course, there's a microphone, to trigger Cortana. There's no speaker, however, so Cortana's information will be passed along via the screen. 

All in all, you'll find a lot of crossover between the features the Band offers and what other fitness bands and smartwatches offer. But the $200 Band is also available now, in three different sizes to fit different wrists. Microsoft also seems to be taking a page from Google in that it's promising that the Band will improve over time, specifically as it learns more about you. With the Microsoft Band, Microsoft appears to want to play seriously in the health market, while also providing a tool for your workday. It remains to be seen, however, whether Microsoft will leverage its other technologies -- its Xbox game console comes to mind -- to enhance its capabilities further. On paper, however, the Band certainly appears to be in the lead pack of smartwatches.