After the LinkedIn Hack   Protect your account and be cautious  UPDATE: 6/7/2012: LinkedIn said it is working with the FBI to investigate a cyber attack in which 6.5 million of its users' passwords were stolen. The company told the Los Angeles Times that it is working with the federal agency after announcing on its blog that it was working with law enforcement to find more information about the recent hacking. eHarmony and Last.fm have also confirmed attacks. The aftermath of the breach of LinkedIn may effect more than just your password. A few points to be aware of after the breach of more than 6.5 million accounts on LinkedIn: * If you have not changed your password, do so immediately. It only takes a minute. Use upper and lowercase letters mixed with numbers and characters. The more random the better. See:  How to Change Your LinkedIn Password * Do not believe...

Learning with Learni.st - A Great Visual Learning Experience   Social Learning  By Karen Masullo EVP, Social Media for Firestorm Oh those fabulous folks at Grockit. If you're not familiar with Grockit: "Grockit is the social learning company that makes products that help people learn from other people."  Grockit makes Test Prep products for the GMAT, SAT, ACT, LSAT, GRE and other university admissions tests. Grockit was founded in 2007 by Farb (Farbood) Nivi, a former Teacher of the Year for The Princeton Review and academic director at Kaplan. "Over 1M people worldwide have used Grockit to successfully prepare for tests. And more people have used Grockit through private network partner deployments for K-12 schools, online universities and virtual schools." Today, it would appear that Mr. Nivi and team gave us Learni.st, and I thank them. Read the official announceme...

Spirit Airlines Gazopt Themselves – and don't appear to care   Social Media Risk Management UPDATE: 05/4/2012 5:00 PM Statement From Ben Baldanza, CEO of Spirit Airlines Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza has issued a statement: "At a time of ever-rising airfares, Spirit Airlines makes commercial air travel affordable for many Americans. A very important part of keeping our airfares reasonably priced is our refund policy. "Every day we seek to balance customer service with customers' demands for the lowest airfare possible. But sometimes we make mistakes. "In my statements regarding Mr. Meekins' request for a refund, I failed to explain why our policy on refunds makes Spirit Airlines the only affordable choice for so many travelers, and I did not demonstrate the respect or the compassion that I should have, given his medical condition and his service to our country. "Therefore I hav...

Joplin Tornado Volunteers nominated for Presidential Citizens Medal   Social Media and Disasters  Last month, Firestorm was (and is), proud to host the whitepaper from the founders and volunteers of the Facebook page Joplin Tornado Info. You can read the paper here: The Use of Social Media for Disaster Recovery and our accompanying interview here: A Real World Crisis Crowd™: How 3 people with 2 iPhones set a social media communications standard We are very please to pass along this most recent update on the recognition of efforts of the volunteers involved, via the following Press Release from Joplin Mayor Melodee Colbert-Kean: Joplin Tornado Volunteers nominated for Presidential Citizens Medal, seeking your vote CONTACT: Lynn Onstot, Public Information Officer 417-624-0820, ext. 204 Melodee Colbert-Kean, Joplin Mayor 417-437-8141 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Joplin is ma...

SINET, a Powerful Collaborative Platform Fighting 2012   The Year of the Cyber-Pandemic  Firestorm's Expert Council Member Anyck Turgeon recaps her experience at the 6th Annual ITSEF Conference hosted by Stanford University As $60 billion has been spent fighting cyber attacks and 431 million adults in 24 countries experienced the costly challenges of identity theft in 2011, it is no surprise that this year’s Security Innovation Network (SINET) Annual IT Security Entrepreneurs’ Forum (ITSEF) was sold out. Hosted at Stanford University, a full ecosystem of world-class cyber security experts gathered to discuss “Democratizing Security Innovation.” SINET is brilliantly led by Robert D Rodriguez, its Chairman & Managing Principal and former Special Agent of the US Secret Service. Through venues such as its 6th annual ITSEF event and my attendance as a qualified security ex...

A Real World Crisis Crowd™   How 3 people with 2 iPhones set a social media communications standard  Last week, I came across an interesting item on the Meta Leadership Community website posted by site manager Mark Lupo, CBCP. Mark is passionate about disaster response, and has been discussing the importance of integrating social media into organizational and community disaster response efforts.  To illustrate his point, he referenced a blog from Rebecca and Genevieve Williams, the founders of the Joplin Tornado Info Facebook page. Blog author Rebecca Williams joined the discussion and shared her recent co-authored white paper The Use of Social Media for Disaster Recovery - Lessons learned while creating and managing “Joplin Tornado Info” (2011) on Facebook and further implemented with “Branson Tornado Info” (2012), by Rebecca and Genevieve Williams and David Burton, ...

Information Technology   NASA: Hackers had 'full functional control' SUMMARY:  NASA this week released details of security breaches the organization has recently experienced. Out of 47 attempts last year, hackers managed to penetrate NASA’s computer network 13 times.  (ZDNET) NASA HACK  ANALYSIS: by Firestorm Principal Lt. Col Oz Hill (Ret.) The cyber security threat posed by hackers and cyber terrorists is palpable. A significant cyber attack on the nation’s classified networks and critical infrastructure will have far-reaching effects that adversely impact national security and the nation’s economy. The potential effects of the 13 penetrations against the NASA computer network, on national security and government functions are alarming; and underscore the vulnerability of government computer networks to cyber terrorism. Some experts argue that cyber terroris...

Data Security   ClearUSA Hacked HEADLINE:  Major US law enforcement Website shut down after data breach SUMMARY:  A hacker penetrated the web site of CLEARUSA.ORG  and downloaded a listing of members that contained names, addresses, organizations, titles, email addresses, phone numbers, and site password information. The hacker then posted this information on a blog and invited other people to attempt to try to break into various personal web sites (Facebook, email, Linkedin, etc.) to harass the organizations’ members. This tactic is in “retaliation” for the actions of law enforcement against “occupiers”. As a result of the security breach, the Clearusa web site has been temporarily shut down while its administrators are working to address security issues and repair the application. STORY LINK:  http://news.softpedia.com/news/Major-US-Law-Enforcement-Websit...

The Microsoft Computing Safety Index   And Something YOU Can Do That Will Actually Reduce CyberCrime  By Al Kirkpatrick CISM, CISSP - Chief Information Security Officer You have all heard me rave about how bad it’s getting in the cyberworld with the bad guys getting badder and smarter.   As a business person, if you haven’t given this some serious thought, then you… Have your head in the sand Have been asleep way too long Have some really cool drugs (it’s a blog – please share suggestions…) Today I happened upon a recently released survey conducted by Microsoft and titled The Microsoft Computing Safety Index.  You can find it at http://www.microsoft.com/security/resources/mcsi.aspx. Before you go there however, I’d like the opportunity to summarize what it is, what is says, and more importantly, suggest a way to think about it that you might otherwise...

Social Media Risk and Reward   Dear Sophie  By Karen Masullo, EVP Social Media, Firestorm Warning: I’m going to ask for your participation at the end of this short article. Why? There’s a little commercial video for Chrome – Google’s web browser - that has been circling the interwebs called “Dear Sophie” – you may have seen it. It has garnered more than 3.5 Million views since May 2, 2011. I’m not going to tell you what it’s about because I want you to watch it objectively and then comment. My reason in asking your opinion is my interest in the gamut of reactions people have had to it.  From “it’s wonderful – I cried,” to “We’re in for a frightening future.” The ad was created by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, whose clients – in addition to Google - include British Airways and Burberry. It is exceptionally well produced. The video echoes Facebook’s upcoming “Timeline” ...