Guest Blogger: Travel Safety, Whether By Car, Sea, Plane, or Train!

Below is a guest post from SpyTown.com on the topical subject of travel safety.

Traveling is a wonderful experience, and whether you’re traveling abroad or going to the beach for a week, safety should always be on the forefront of your mind. After all, you want to have a great trip that you’ll remember for years to come with a smile on your face – rather than thinking about that day you got pick pocketed! Here are some tried and true travel safety tips to keep your travels safe and secure.

Keep An Eye On Your Luggage

We all fear that the airlines will lose our luggage, but what about it being stolen? There is an unfortunate amount of travelers that experience just this every year, and it’s as easy as someone else picking your bag up from the baggage claim belt. Be sure to stand close to where the luggage is coming out of the belt or near where you’re collecting it, and keep a keen eye out for your bag. Black, nondescript bags are prime targets, so choose luggage in a brighter color or pattern, or affix colorful ribbons to your luggage so you can easily pick it out as yours. Thieves will be less likely to steal luggage that can be easily identified as another’s.

Stay Smart With Street Smarts

We know that we should wear a money belt and not take any short cuts when walking around a city, but well, when we’re busy or feeling rushed, those go right out the window – right with our wallet! Commit to street smarts while traveling: always wear a money belt, do not take short cuts (like cutting through an alley, no matter how short it is), do your best to walk as if you know where you’re going, and keep a relatively low profile so as to not attract unwanted attention.

Use That Copier Machine

Getting a passport or driver’s license stolen is a scary experience, especially if you’re abroad. Keep your passport in the hotel safe, but make multiple copies of it, and bring those along with you when you’re out and about – never the original! You may need to carry your original driver’s license with you, but keep copies of it in the hotel safe, in your luggage, and with family members at home. In addition, be sure to send a copy of your passport to your embassy, should you be traveling internationally, so they are very aware you are overseas.

Secure Your Hotel Like You Secure Your Home

You wouldn’t leave your front door unlocked, would you? Well, we hope not! Same goes for a hotel – hotel thefts are fairly common, so always lock and deadbolt the door. Keep money and important documents in the safe – not lying around or in your luggage. Just as you wouldn’t walk around your neighborhood alone at night, only leave your room or walk along hotel corridors at night with hotel security or one of your travel partners.

These are just a handful of travel safety tips – what travel safety tips do you live and travel by? Share with us by leaving a comment!

Guest blog post by SpyTown.com home security cameras – SpyTown.com has advised many a traveler on safety and security. Before you leave for your travels, consider installing home Internet security cameras so you can view your home’s security feeds from anywhere with a secure Internet connection!

Guest Blogger: How To Keep Your Mobile Phone Safe

This article was written by Natalie Sabin, it maintains the theme of mobile phones and although the alledged answer phone hacking was thought to have occured via the remote voicemail system having your mobile stolen or losing it is a risk all of us with smartphones must be nervous of and any preventive action is something to bare in mind...

Mobile phone theft is a serious problem and smart phones are one of the most targeted items by thieves. Here are some ways to reduce the risk of you getting your mobile phone stolen.

Firstly, always be aware of your surroundings. It’s likely that your phone will be easier to steal when you are in a crowd or on a night out where there are lots of people. One swift grab and its gone forever! The more people there are, the more closely you should guard your phone.

Always be aware of where your phone is. If you’re not using it, keep it in the same place in your handbag or your pocket. Then if it does go missing, you know straight away that you do not have it. This could buy you crucial time if you have left it somewhere unattended.

Don’t advertise your phone to thieves, do not have it in view unless you are using it. Also never leave your phone in your car, it only takes a few seconds for someone to smash the window and take it.

When out to dinner or at a bar do not have your mobile phone on the table. It is too easy for someone to take it in passing if you don’t have your eye on it. Also, you are supposed to be enjoying yourself; leave your phone alone for 5 minutes!

If keeping your phone in a handbag make sure it is kept in an inner pocket where possible. Also keep your handbag securely closed so that a thief cannot just grab your phone when you’re not looking. Always keep your handbag next to you and in your view. All it takes is a turn of the head and a thief can get their hands in there and take your phone.

If you keep your phone in your pocket never keep it in your back pocket. It is too easy for someone to take it out without you noticing – some of these criminals have sinister skills as they do this all day everyday! If kept in your back pocket it is also easy for it to fall out when you sit down, leaving it vulnerable to opportunistic thieves. Keeping your phone in your back pocket can also damage the screen (this is from personal experience!).

Always use a pass code on your phone. In the unfortunate circumstances that your phone is stolen it will give you valuable time in order to get it immobilised so that it becomes useless to the thief – for a free immobilisation service register your mobile phone on http://www.immobilise.com/.

It is also advised that you insure your phone to make sure it’s covered in the event of a loss or theft (or if you keep it in your back pocket!) – visit mobile phone insurance to get cover for your phone.

Guest Blog by Natalie Sabin works in 'mobile phone insurance', she is an Information Science graduate with an interest in mobile communications and in harnessing the power of social media to reach all corners of the globe!

Guest Blogger: Cyberwar Meeting in European Parliament with NATO's Jamie Shea

This post was written by Reza Rafati - CEO Cyberwarzone.com and he has given us his permission to post it on Chatback Security. Reza recently responded to our request for guest bloggers and what a prefect way to kick things off as Cyber Security is a specialism that we do not profess to know much about!

Cyber Security is now recognized as a high risk priority by governments across the globe. This is supported by the fact that the UK Government’s Strategic Defence Spending Review which diverted key funds away from traditional areas of spending to the protection of the UK’s critical national infrastructure from the cyber threat.

There is no winner in Cyber warfare

The importance of this shift to a greater focus on Cyber Security was given highlighted by the discovery of STUXNET, the first example of a ‘cyber weapon’ designed to attack an aspect of a nation’s critical national infrastructure.

The Meeting

The Cyber Security meeting was a great success. At the start of the meeting there were some technical issues with the microphones, but who cares? We want to discuss Cyber warfare! And so we did.

Strategies

The discussion started with the NATO strategies issue, it was about which options does a country have when it is under attack by a force?

This was a very delicate issue because what is Cyber warfare is? Well we speak of Cyber warfare at the moment that a country has declared war to the country. So when a country or a force attacks another country without a declaration of warfare it is not Cyber warfare.

The act of attacking without a declaration of war is classified as Cybercrime. This makes it hard to retaliate because there is no war declared. The next issue that comes along is the fact that even if we do reply with an attack, we could take down an hospital and then we are speaking of collateral damage. Because the aggressor used the hospital network to attack, we retaliate against the hospital.

We will need a global understanding & perspective about the Cyber war attacks.

Cybercrime is like a paradox. There is no hierarchical system

Nightmare of all problems

After an attack (Stuxnet) there are certain points that need to be checked and controlled. You will have to look after :

 - How did they penetrate the systems

 - You will have to clean the systems

 - The disruption it caused

 - Exploits ?

 - The mental stress it causes.

Regulate

The cyberspace needs to be regulated, but how do you want to regulate the internet while it can't be regulated by a single regulator. Because when we look to the internet we see it as no man’s land (law of the sea), but in fact it is somebody's property, it could be from the government, companies or from civilians.

Transparency

So the world has to agree for transparency. If we need help or information regarding Cyber security the countries should provide them.

But at the moment there is no transparency, think of the Estonia and Russian conflict.

A Finnish expert, told the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper that it would be difficult to prove the Russian state's responsibility, and that the Kremlin could inflict much more serious cyber-damage if it chose to. source

Open issues

 - The internet traffic regarding Cybercrime has increased rapidly.

 - How can a behaviour code be created to use the internet legitimate.

 - If there is an attack going on, and you want to retaliate how will you get the attribution of proof?
 - How can we make retaliation possible?

 - Who is responsible ?

 - What can we do against sponsored cyber attacks?

 - How can we prevent extremists from recruiting people from the internet?

 - At a certain point defence will catch up with offensive behaviour

 - Creating a global cyber war response team

If I would shutdown a honey pot because there is a "cyber war" going on, it could affect over 500 servers. And that is the reason why you can't retaliate, because you don't know were the bodies will show up.

Author: Reza Rafati

Twitter name: @cyberwarzonecom

Website: http://www.cyberwarzone.com/