Can cloud computers be easily hacked?

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Getting a new storage device to store our data – these days are gradually fading out. Thanks to Cloud services, people have discovered a new way to store their data and information at a much cheaper price. No additional expense, no extra physical space and best of all, no tension! That is the convenience of Cloud services. This technology has come out as a blessing in disguise for most of us and has indeed eliminated storage space concerns. But, have we ever thought of how safe actually cloud services are? Well, not most of us! We think, by just a simple drag-drop process our data are safe. But, are they really safe? 

No is the answer:

 

Well, we now have understood that cloud computers can be easily hacked. The recent security breaches of popular websites like Gmail and Sony PlayStation network clearly indicate that the clouds are truly vulnerable to attacks and threats. We are now at a point where cloud computing has become more of a fashionable statement used for product promotion than convenience. We have witnessed many tech giants and corporate integrating their products with cloud services. A new cloud service means a new platform to show off their hacking skills. It is believed that it is the hackers who get rejoiced first when a firm or a company announces a new cloud service followed by the users. 

What do hackers look for in a cloud?

 

1. Password:

 

It is claimed that most of the individual hacks occur due to poor password structuring. Hackers mostly use their password dictionary or use brute force attack techniques to decode the password and start their work. Thus, if your cloud service requires you to have a password, make sure that you generate a proper one with lots of symbols and codes. 

2. Mother cloud:

 

It is the general tendency of hackers to put in very little effort and retrieve the data. So, they usually avoid hacking individual spaces and preferably go for the heart of the cloud service. This gives them a better chance to invade on the ample number of individual spaces with minimal efforts. 

3. HTTPS or HTTP:

 

The ‘S’ stands for a Secured connection in HTTPS. This ensures that whenever a data is being sent to the website or the service, it is properly encrypted and is invulnerable to attacks. Though many services provide HTTPS connection, there are some that intentionally or unintentionally remove the secured connection, making your data less secured and creating a larger space for hacks. 

Can this be stopped?

 

Cloud services are a new concept in the IT industry. They have not yet been fully understood by many. Moreover there are no standard procedural rules or conventions for the operation. So, stopping it will indeed take some time. Few things that companies can do to minimize the attacks can be, appointing or consulting White Hat hackers to find the possible loopholes in hacking and come up with patches to resolve them. Moreover, biggies who offer cloud services should ensure their domain is safe and secure. Even the smallest bit of storage space is OK, but it should be a secured one, because there is no point in offering several GBs of storage space without any data security. And, it is also up to the users who use the cloud service to be safe from their perception. Frequent change of passwords, proper data encryption and use of security suites will be helpful. So, let’s hope the day comes when hackers tiresomely ask “God! Can the Cloud computers be hacked? 

This is a guest post by Travis Ramsy of Buycharter.com, a site that offers savings and current information on charter communications, as well as charter.com services

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Top 8 Points On Google’s New Privacy Policy

March 1 has finally come, which means Google’s long talked-about new privacy policy is now in place. The rumors about the changes have been flying wildly since Google first announced them back in January, but the truth is that very few people have actually taken the time to learn what the new policy really means.  But since Google is now operating under the new policy, it’s more important than ever to understand how it will affect you.  

Below are the top eight points you should know about Google’s new privacy policy.

1. Google is not selling your personal data

When Google first announced these changes, there was a popular belief that the cloud service provider would begin selling user’s personal data.  However, this is simply a myth.  Google is not selling your information, or even sharing it, with anyone.

2. Google has simply consolidated its many privacy policies into one

The big change for the new privacy policy is actually quite simple.  Previously, Google had a distinct privacy policy for each of its many services.  Now, Google has one, giant policy for the majority of its services.  This change means a simpler, easier-to-understand privacy policy that applies to most of the Google platforms you use regularly.

3. Google now has a complete snapshot of your web presence

Since Google now has one all-encompassing privacy policy, it now has a complete snapshot of your internet activity.  Basically, this means Google can track your activity as one user across its many platforms, which enables it to put together a complete picture of you as a Google user.  Why is this important?  Google plans to use this information to improve its services.  To get a better idea of exactly what this means, you can use the Google Dashboard to see your activity across all Google platforms just like Google does.

4. You will soon see more personalization

A major component of the improved services is more personalization.  With its complete user picture, Google will soon get a better idea of who you are online - how and where you spend your time on the web, what you tend to look for, and what you usually find the most beneficial.  Google will use this information to give you more of what you like and less of what you don’t, therefore personalizing its services to suit your individual needs.  Examples of this personalization include automatic spelling corrections, suggested contact lists, better search results, and advertisements geared toward your interests.  You can even contribute to the personalization with tools like the Ads Preference Manager, which allows you to designate what kinds of ads you want to see.

5. Google’s platforms are now working together

Because most of Google’s platforms now share the same privacy policy, they are working together more than ever before.  This close integration allows for a smoother connection when working across multiple Google platforms, such as Gmail and Google Docs.  How will this connection actually affect you?  There are many ways, one of which is notifications.  With the changes in place, if you use Google Calendar to mark appointments and Google Maps to get to these appointments, you may now receive a notification indicating whether or not you’ll make it to the appointment on time.  This is because the two platforms can now share information with one another like you’re destination, the time you need to be there, you’re current location, and traffic conditions.

6. To experience more personalization and collaboration, you need to use more Google services

Google is able to offer this more personalized service because of the way it can now see your complete user data across all of its platforms.  To receive the most personalized services, as well as to get the most benefits from the increased collaboration between platforms, you need to use a variety of Google services on a regular basis.  This is because the more services you use, and the more often you use them, the more information about you Google will have to draw on when it comes to personalization.  Given this, Google Apps users, who tend to use the most Google platforms regularly, are likely to see the most changes in the shortest amount of time.

7. You can still use Google without having information tracked

These changes may be a lot for some people to take in, which is why there are ways you can still use Google services without having your information tracked.  Examples of tools that allow this are the “incognito window” in the Google Chrome web browser, which allows you to slip off Google’s radar, and “off the record” chat in Gmail.  Additionally, if you want to conduct a simple search or watch YouTube videos without Google noticing, you can easily sign out of your Google account.

8. Google will now be meeting your needs better and faster

Now that all of these changes are in place, you can expect Google to meet your needs better and faster.  From more personalized services to increased collaboration across platforms, the changes resulting from Google’s new privacy policy are all poised to improve your user experience.

Cloud Sherpas is a leading cloud service provider and was named the “Google Enterprise 2011 Partner of the Year.” As one of the first Google Enterprise partners, Cloud Sherpas has migrated over one million users across a variety of industries from legacy, on-premise messaging systems to Google Apps, helping organizations adopt cloud computing to innovate and dramatically reduce their IT expenses. Headquartered in Atlanta, Cloud Sherpas has regional offices in locations including San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Austin and Sydney, and has more Google Apps Certified Deployment Specialists than any other partner in the world.

SMTP Servers are excellent communicative platforms.

SMTP server also known as simple mail transfer protocol is an internet platform for transmission of emails. Today SMTP servers are widely used across the globe. Email servers and different other mail transferring mediums make use of SMTP for sending and receiving of messages. However, client-mail applications primarily rely on SMTP server. These are smart servers designed with features send mail messages at lightening fast speed and believe me they don’t make the slightest error while sending a mail. The mails go hit the right destination at the right time. These servers are specially designed and are best for emailing applications. Advancement of technology has given birth to a host of new ideas and technical solutions, and the simple mail transfer protocol system is no exception to this fact. This is a super-fast technology grabbing control over the internet media. 

We have now entered a world where technological developments to facilitate better and faster communication have become a widespread concept. Imagine even a few decades ago we had to depend on the manual ways to reach a message or a letter. Now situations have bettered ever since the arrival of the internet. Now sending a mail to desired destination takes place in a matter of seconds. The SMTP server allows you to carry on with your business level communication in a butter-smooth manner. These advanced servers enable faster and smarter sending and receiving email facilities for the user.

 

Image via Wikipedia

However, the process of installing this special server involves a lot of activities which need to be handled with care. At first you need to take note of the features to be installed. Yes you have to abide by the fundamentals to install the simple transfer protocol system. First of all you need to determine if the host is properly rendering its services or not and then connect the port with a specific domain. Remember the date and time settings would be shown. Once you see the correct time and date in your monitor you are assured of the fact that the SMTP Server has been rightly fitted. You can even fit one to your personal computer. All email programs can be conducted with the SMTP system.

Computer 101: Google 2-Step Authentication for All your Google Accounts.

Everyone that have internet access or uses that internet regularly for gaming, research, business and many more have an email account, this email account can be a corporate or an organization based or the paid email accounts from different providers and the most common of all the free email account which is available everywhere in the internet. One such provider of free email accounts is Google.com which is a very big internet based company. They have a free email account service called the G MAIL or Google Mail, aside from that they also have a lot of free services being offered like blogger.com for creating your own personal blog in the internet. All this free account is link within the Google system, if you lo-gin to one account then you can access another by configuring a few option without typing a username and password again and again. This setup is very useful if you’re going to jump from one account to another within Google.

Now how do we use our email account? Well we use it for personal communication and transaction over the internet, some sensitive information has also been stored in our email. Now is this free email account really secure? Well yes they are secure because if not, in the first place no one will use them if they are not secure. The first level of security for these email services is the password. Yup that all important passwords, the things that we always keep forgetting is not used frequently or we have already to many password to memorize. Also the user name we used in combination with the all important password, the more complex the password the more secure it or the longer the password the more secure it also. Now nobody can access your accounts if they not know the username and password. But wait what if those two important information has been stolen form you? You say what, how they got my information?

Image via Wikipedia

Well every heard of the term hacking and Phishing? Simply put it, theses terms means to get or acquire in this case sensitive personal information from one account. There are many ways on how to implement this technique. One is using software another is using link from email send to your email accounts from some one you though you know. Please click the link to see a more details and historical explanation for Phishing and for hacking. To cut it short, rather that securing your email account with just the username and password why not use another layer of security. Well this is where the Google 2-step authentication process comes in for all Google accounts users. This process although will take longer to access your G mail account is very important in keeping your account safe. It will add another layer of security. When we log-in to our email account the first thing that we do is we put the username and the password then we wait for the contents to display on our screen.

But with added feature security the second step for verification or authentication is it will send a code to your very own personal phone, via text or voice call. And you will encode the code on the box provided to verify that you’re the real owner of that account. After verifying the code is correct it will proceed in displaying the content of your G mail account. Also there is an option on the verification process that the computer that you are using can be remembered for 30 days. This feature allows the user to enter the verification only once within 30 days for the same computer. This is very helpful if you are using your own laptop or PC we don’t have to type in that code every time we log-in to our G mail account. This second layer of protection is also very handy while we access our G mail accounts from public computers.

Now the next questions are how do we activate this G mail verification process? To activate the process on your G mail account please click the link provided, it is the official blog for Google Email protection.  For other email service pleas check if they provide for free accounts. 

Computer 101: Unable to Change the Desktop Picture in Windows 7 Starter

Hello again world, after more than a month of not updating this blog, I have finally found the inspiration to update it. This will be my seventh blog article for 2011 and the first for the month of March. I have no article for the month of February. Hopefully I could follow this one with many more to come. Do you like personalizing your gadget? Like your computer, phones and other devices that allow user level customization without going very technical about it? Today being personal about how your devices appear is very nice. On the internet email provider such as Google allows user to change their Gmail background picture for a more personal appeal. The same is true with their Browser the Google Chrome; you can now change the picture or put a picture that you like on your Chrome browser whenever you create a new tab or windows. This is also true for personal computer such as your desktop and laptop. For me personally one form of customization is changing the picture of the desktop on my computer, laptop or phone. Just like the background picture of my Google Chrome browser below.

Just last year to be exact November 2010, I bought my very first laptop and I also bought a new operating system with it the Microsoft Windows 7 Starter version. The reason I bought this version is because it’s the cheapest version of the current new Windows 7 series from Microsoft. This is version lack the basic featured that comes with all previous windows software that has been release. 

For one thing i cannot change the background picture of this version to make my laptop more personal. I’ve search for article regarding this feature on the internet and finds that to change the background picture of the desktop i need to do a lot of tinkering with the registry and some files that is related to the background picture. There is no article that says the background picture can be change via the normal way of just selecting the desired picture and pressing the OK button. I mean the usual way of changing the background picture of my desktop at any point in time that I like to do.

If your just a regular guy who uses the computer and do not care much about the technical stuff the goes on inside. I recommend not touching your registry just to change a background picture. You see the registry is the most sensitive part of any computer meaning you need to know what you are doing very precisely in order not to harm your computer. If you search the internet on how to change the background picture of the desktop in Windows 7 starter. You’ll notice that they all point to editing a little part of the registry and renaming some files associated with background picture or they say use a third party software to have a personalized desktop. 

Image by Gino Carteciano via Flickr

The problem with this is all program uses memory amount and space to work if you have tons of installed programs in your computer then another one will be added in the sharing of the precious memory resources. If your computer has a big amount of memory let say like 4 GIG and up then there is no problem but if your computer has a common 2 Gig amount then adding another program just for changing the desktop picture of your computer is simple not worth it.

I personally would like to make my gadget look very mine and changing the background of my laptop is one way of expressing myself through my very first laptop. In order to change my background picture on the desktop I need to upgrade my Windows 7 Starter to any higher version and my problem will be solved.