Here’s how much your personal information is worth to cybercriminals – and what they do with it

 

The black market for stolen personal information motivates most data breaches. aleksey-martynyuk/iStock via Getty Images

Data breaches have become common, and billions of records are stolen worldwide every year. Most of the media coverage of data breaches tends to focus on how the breach happened, how many records were stolen and the financial and legal impact of the incident for organizations and individuals affected by the breach. But what happens to the data that is stolen during these incidents?

As a cybersecurity researcher, I track data breaches and the black market in stolen data. The destination of stolen data depends on who is behind a data breach and why they’ve stolen a certain type of data. For example, when data thieves are motivated to embarrass a person or organization, expose perceived wrongdoing or improve cybersecurity, they tend to release relevant data into the public domain.

In 2014, hackers backed by North Korea stole Sony Pictures Entertainment employee data such as Social Security numbers, financial records and salary information, as well as emails among top executives. The hackers then published the emails to embarrass the company, possibly in retribution for releasing a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

Sometimes when data is stolen by national governments it is not disclosed or sold. Instead, it is used for espionage. For example, the hotel company Marriott was the victim of a data breach in 2018 in which personal information on 500 million guests was stolen. The key suspects in this incident were hackers backed by the Chinese government. One theory is that the Chinese government stole this data as part of an intelligence-gathering effort to collect information about U.S. government officials and corporate executives.

But the majority of hacks seem to be about selling the data to make a buck.

It’s (mostly) about the money

Though data breaches can be a national security threat, 86% are about money, and 55% are committed by organized criminal groups, according to Verizon’s annual data breach report. Stolen data often ends up being sold online on the dark web. For example, in 2018 hackers offered for sale more than 200 million records containing the personal information of Chinese individuals. This included information on 130 million customers of the Chinese hotel chain Huazhu Hotels Group.

Similarly, data stolen from Target, Sally Beauty, P.F. Chang, Harbor Freight and Home Depot turned up on a known online black-market site called Rescator. While it is easy to find marketplaces such as Rescator through a simple Google search, other marketplaces on the dark web can be found only by using special web browsers.

Buyers can purchase the data they are interested in. The most common way to pay for the transaction is with bitcoins or via Western Union. The prices depend on the type of data, its demand and its supply. For example, a big surplus of stolen personally identifiable information caused its price to drop from US$4 for information about a person in 2014 to $1 in 2015. Email dumps containing anywhere from a hundred thousand to a couple of million email addresses go for $10, and voter databases from various states sell for $100.

Where stolen data goes

Buyers use stolen data in several ways. Credit card numbers and security codes can be used to create clone cards for making fraudulent transactions. Social Security numbers, home addresses, full names, dates of birth and other personally identifiable information can be used in identity theft. For example, the buyer can apply for loans or credit cards under the victim’s name and file fraudulent tax returns.

Sometimes stolen personal information is purchased by marketing firms or companies that specialize in spam campaigns. Buyers can also use stolen emails in phishing and other social engineering attacks and to distribute malware.

Hackers have targeted personal information and financial data for a long time because they are easy to sell. Health care data has become a big attraction for data thieves in recent years. In some cases the motivation is extortion.

A good example is the theft of patient data from the Finnish psychotherapy practice firm Vastaamo. The hackers used the information they stole to demand a ransom from not only Vastaamo, but also from its patients. They emailed patients with the threat to expose their mental health records unless the victims paid a ransom of 200 euros in bitcoins. At least 300 of these stolen records have been posted online, according to an Associated Press report.

Stolen data including medical diplomas, medical licenses and insurance documents can also be used to forge a medical background.

How to know and what to do

What can you do to minimize your risk from stolen data? The first step is to find out if your information is being sold on the dark web. You can use websites such as haveibeenpwned and IntelligenceX to see whether your email was part of stolen data. It is also a good idea to subscribe to identity theft protection services.

If you have been the victim of a data breach, you can take these steps to minimize the impact: Inform credit reporting agencies and other organizations that collect data about you, such as your health care provider, insurance company, banks and credit card companies, and change the passwords for your accounts. You can also report the incident to the Federal Trade Commission to get a tailored plan to recover from the incident.

Ravi Sen, Associate Professor of Information and Operations Management, Texas A&M University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Popping toys, the latest fidget craze, might reduce stress for adults and children alike

 

Popping toys like this one can relieve stress and anxiety and are just plain fun. Inna Reznik/Shutterstock.com

The newest fidget craze is popping toys. Adults and kids all over the world have been buying up this endlessly reusable version of a longtime favorite fidget activity: popping bubble wrap. Made of silicone and coming in a range of colors, shapes and sizes, they are half-sphere “bubbles” that can be pushed in, making a satisfying soft popping sound. After “popping” them all, you can turn the toy over and start again from the other side.

Some might remember the fidget spinner craze of 2017 and the controversy that these devices caused, with some teachers even banning them from classrooms. Popping toys raise the perennial question of whether and when fidget toys might be useful. Are they a nuisance? Or could having them help you or your children manage pandemic stress and fuzzy thinking?

Over the past several years, my research group has taken a deep look at how children and adults use fidget toys and objects. What we found tells us that these items are not a fad that will soon disappear. Despite sometimes being annoying distractions for others, fidget items seem to have practical uses for both adults and children, especially in stressful times.

Understanding fidgeting

Fidgeting didn’t start with the popping toy and spinner crazes. If you’ve ever clicked a ballpoint pen again and again, you’ve used a fidget item. As part of our work, we’ve asked people what items they like to fidget with and how and when they use them. (We’ve been compiling their answers online and welcome additional contributions.)

People report using USB thumb drives as fidget items. Yevgen Romanenko/Moment via Getty Images

People often report that fidgeting with an object in their hand helps them stay focused when doing a long task or keeping still and attentive in a long meeting. Objects people fidget with include paper clips, USB thumb drives, earbuds and sticky tape. But people also buy specialized items such as a popping toys for this purpose.

Fine-tuning for focus

Psychology research about sensation seeking tells us that people often try to adjust their experiences and their environments so that they provide just the right level of stimulation. Different people function well under different circumstances. Some like total quiet to help them focus, while others are happiest working in a busy, noisy environment.

The optimal level of stimulation varies among people and can change for one person throughout the course of a day depending on what they are trying to do. People fine-tune their environments to get things just right – for example, putting on headphones in a noisy office environment to switch to less distracting noise.

A person who can’t get up and walk around to feel more energized or go have a cup of tea to calm down may find it helpful to use a fidget item to stay focused and calm while also staying put.

Another common reason for fidgeting that we saw among adults in our online study is that some fidget objects – such as a favorite smooth stone – can be used to calm them down and achieve a more relaxed, contemplative or even mindful state. Children also spoke about how fidget items help them manage emotions. For example, they might squeeze a stress ball when they feel angry, or they might stroke a soft, fuzzy toy when they are anxious.

Relieving anxiety, focusing attention

The self-reported data we got from adults and children aligns with anecdotal accounts that fidget toys can help children with attention or anxiety issues stay focused and calm in the classroom. In fact, fidget toys have been available for kids to use for therapeutic purposes for quite some time.

There hasn’t yet been a definitive research study about the impact of these toys. In one preliminary study looking at stress ball use, sixth graders who used these fidget toys during instruction independently reported that their “attitude, attention, writing abilities, and peer interaction improved.”

The closest significant research is a study by University of California, Davis behavioral science professor Julie Schweitzer of letting children with ADHD fidget – wriggle, bounce or otherwise move gently in place – while they work on a lab-based concentration task called the “flanker paradigm.” She found that more overall movement in children with ADHD, as measured using an accelerometer on the ankle, did help them perform this cognitively demanding task. After I learned about her research, I approached Schweitzer to join forces, and we’re currently collaborating on the first rigorous study of the effects of fidget objects on people with ADHD, with support from the National Institutes of Health. We aim to better understand how using fidget toys may support people’s cognition.

To do this, my team built a “smart” fidget ball that senses when and how it’s used. Schweitzer’s team is tracking exactly when study participants fidget as they work, and how this correlates with changes in their performance on challenging thinking tasks. (If you happen to live in the Northern California Bay Area, you can apply to take part in the study.)

My group is also working with specialists in children’s social-emotional learning and technology, including Petr Slovak of King’s College London, to understand whether and how giving kids a “smart” fidget item that can respond to their touch might help calm them down and improve their self-soothing skills. We built a small “anxious creature” that children could hug and pet to calm it down. The creature begins with a fast heartbeat and then settles into happy purring once it is soothed. Early results are promising and have recently been applied by commercial product developers to create an interactive toy for calming kids. (I served briefly as a paid consultant on the toy’s initial research and development but have no ongoing financial stake.)

Fidget spinners can be helpful and sometimes distracting in classrooms. Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Avoiding distraction

If fidget items are so helpful, why were schools banning the spinners, and why did teachers take them away? Not all fidget items are created equal. Some are more distracting than others. The fidget items most therapists recommend can be used without looking and don’t attract other people’s attention too much with motion or noise. Fidget-spinner motion distracted other kids in classrooms.

Popping toys don’t have movement that attracts others’ eyes, but they do make some noise. Kids in our study reported that noise was a reason they got fidget toys taken away in class. For this reason, popping toys might not be as welcome as the world slowly returns to more in-person learning. But they might be great for kids (or adults) who can hit the mute button in online school and meetings.

[You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter.]

Though research is still ongoing, therapists’ practical experience and both adults’ and kids’ self-reflections suggest that fidget toys can be helpful for emotional and cognitive support. There may actually be some benefits in getting yourself or your child a fidget toy to power you through a wall of boring Zoom meetings or a stressful school day.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on May 17, 2017.

Katherine Isbister, Professor of Computational Media, University of California, Santa Cruz

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Why we remember more by reading – especially print – than from audio or video

 

When mental focus and reflection are called for, it’s time to crack open a book. Noam Galai/Getty Images

During the pandemic, many college professors abandoned assignments from printed textbooks and turned instead to digital texts or multimedia coursework.

As a professor of linguistics, I have been studying how electronic communication compares to traditional print when it comes to learning. Is comprehension the same whether a person reads a text onscreen or on paper? And are listening and viewing content as effective as reading the written word when covering the same material?

The answers to both questions are often “no,” as I discuss in my book “How We Read Now,” released in March 2021. The reasons relate to a variety of factors, including diminished concentration, an entertainment mindset and a tendency to multitask while consuming digital content.

Print versus digital reading

When reading texts of several hundred words or more, learning is generally more successful when it’s on paper than onscreen. A cascade of research confirms this finding.

The benefits of print particularly shine through when experimenters move from posing simple tasks – like identifying the main idea in a reading passage – to ones that require mental abstraction – such as drawing inferences from a text. Print reading also improves the likelihood of recalling details – like “What was the color of the actor’s hair?” – and remembering where in a story events occurred – “Did the accident happen before or after the political coup?”

Studies show that both grade school students and college students assume they’ll get higher scores on a comprehension test if they have done the reading digitally. And yet, they actually score higher when they have read the material in print before being tested.

Educators need to be aware that the method used for standardized testing can affect results. Studies of Norwegian tenth graders and U.S. third through eighth graders report higher scores when standardized tests were administered using paper. In the U.S. study, the negative effects of digital testing were strongest among students with low reading achievement scores, English language learners and special education students.

My own research and that of colleagues approached the question differently. Rather than having students read and take a test, we asked how they perceived their overall learning when they used print or digital reading materials. Both high school and college students overwhelmingly judged reading on paper as better for concentration, learning and remembering than reading digitally.

The discrepancies between print and digital results are partly related to paper’s physical properties. With paper, there is a literal laying on of hands, along with the visual geography of distinct pages. People often link their memory of what they’ve read to how far into the book it was or where it was on the page.

But equally important is mental perspective, and what reading researchers call a “shallowing hypothesis.” According to this theory, people approach digital texts with a mindset suited to casual social media, and devote less mental effort than when they are reading print.

Students are more prone to multitasking and distraction when studying on screens. Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Podcasts and online video

Given increased use of flipped classrooms – where students listen to or view lecture content before coming to class – along with more publicly available podcasts and online video content, many school assignments that previously entailed reading have been replaced with listening or viewing. These substitutions have accelerated during the pandemic and move to virtual learning.

Surveying U.S. and Norwegian university faculty in 2019, University of Stavanger Professor Anne Mangen and I found that 32% of U.S. faculty were now replacing texts with video materials, and 15% reported doing so with audio. The numbers were somewhat lower in Norway. But in both countries, 40% of respondents who had changed their course requirements over the past five to 10 years reported assigning less reading today.

A primary reason for the shift to audio and video is students refusing to do assigned reading. While the problem is hardly new, a 2015 study of more than 18,000 college seniors found only 21% usually completed all their assigned course reading.

Audio and video can feel more engaging than text, and so faculty increasingly resort to these technologies – say, assigning a TED talk instead of an article by the same person.

Maximizing mental focus

Psychologists have demonstrated that when adults read news stories or transcripts of fiction, they remember more of the content than if they listen to identical pieces.

Researchers found similar results with university students reading an article versus listening to a podcast of the text. A related study confirms that students do more mind-wandering when listening to audio than when reading.

Results with younger students are similar, but with a twist. A study in Cyprus concluded that the relationship between listening and reading skills flips as children become more fluent readers. While second graders had better comprehension with listening, eighth graders showed better comprehension when reading.

Research on learning from video versus text echoes what we see with audio. For example, researchers in Spain found that fourth through sixth graders who read texts showed far more mental integration of the material than those watching videos. The authors suspect that students “read” the videos more superficially because they associate video with entertainment, not learning.

The collective research shows that digital media have common features and user practices that can constrain learning. These include diminished concentration, an entertainment mindset, a propensity to multitask, lack of a fixed physical reference point, reduced use of annotation and less frequent reviewing of what has been read, heard or viewed.

Digital texts, audio and video all have educational roles, especially when providing resources not available in print. However, for maximizing learning where mental focus and reflection are called for, educators – and parents – shouldn’t assume all media are the same, even when they contain identical words.

[You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter.]

Naomi S. Baron, Professor of Linguistics Emerita, American University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

 

Do people become more religious in times of crisis?

Has COVID-19 strengthened people’s faith? Karen Minasyan/AFP via Getty Images

Organized religion has been on the decline for decades in the United States. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers found that online searches for the word “prayer” soared to their highest level ever in over 90 countries. And a 2020 Pew Research study showed that 24% of U.S. adults stated their faith had become stronger during the pandemic.

I am a theologian who studies trauma and this shift makes sense to me. I often teach that traumatic events are, at their heart, crises of meaning that cause people to question assumptions about their lives, including their spiritual beliefs. The years 2020 and 2021 certainly fit that bill: The global COVID-19 pandemic has indeed led to traumatic experiences for many people, due to the isolation, illness, fear and death that it created.

Questioning beliefs

People who experience traumas tend to question some of the assumptions they might have had about their faith – what pastoral theologian Carrie Doehring calls “embedded beliefs.” These beliefs may include ideas about who God is, the purpose of life or why evil events happen to good people.

So, for instance, many Christians may inherit an embedded belief from the tradition that God is all good and that evil emerges when God “rightly” punishes people for their sins. In other words, an all-good God would not punish someone without a reason.

Christians raised with that assumption might ask what made them incur God’s wrath if they contracted COVID-19. In such an event, the embedded belief in a punishing God may become something called a negative coping strategy – a coping strategy that has negative effects on a person’s life.

Here’s what this might look like practically: If a person believes they’re being punished by God, they may feel shame or despair. If they feel God is punishing them for no reason, they may feel confusion or try to identify something that is problematic or sinful about their identity. As a result, their faith becomes something that is a source of stress or cognitive dissonance rather than a source of comfort. If that happens, then the belief is functioning as a negative coping strategy that the person needs to address.

Trauma and religiosity

Mental health experts like Judith Herman have known for several decades that healing from trauma involves making meaning of the traumatic event. Traumatic events are often confusing for people because they don’t make much sense. In other words, traumas differ from the expectations of everyday life, and as a result, they seem to defy meaning or purpose.

Spiritually, individuals may begin to recognize that some of their beliefs got challenged by the trauma. This is the time when spiritual meaning-making occurs because people start to discern which embedded beliefs still make sense and which need to be revised.

During this stage of recovery, theologian and trauma expert Shelly Rambo explains that traumatized individuals may draw on prayers, personal reflections, rituals and conversations with spiritual experts such as chaplains, ministers and spiritual directors. These have been shown to function as positive coping mechanisms that help individuals feel more grounded in the aftermath of a trauma.

Over time, these resources help individuals develop more intentional beliefs, meaning consciously chosen beliefs that take their suffering into account. These might include reasons why the suffering occurred and what its significance is for the overall meaning of the person’s life. Doehring refers to these as deliberative, or consciously chosen, beliefs. Individuals have a sense of commitment to these beliefs because they make sense in light of the trauma.

So in the hypothetical case of someone who believes God is punishing them for contracting COVID-19, that feeling of shame and despair may result from a failure to understand why God would treat them that way. These negative feelings would then function as negative coping mechanisms that prevent healing, as psychologist Kenneth Pargament and his colleagues have observed about similar situations where people felt God was punishing them.

The person might then try to alleviate their distress by questioning the assumption that God punishes people with illness, thereby starting a kind of spiritual quest or reassessment of beliefs. They may even start to think differently about God being a punishing deity. The shift between what the person assumed about God and this new, consciously chosen belief, is an example of the shift between embedded and deliberative beliefs.

Trauma and atheism

Traumatic events could make a person more spiritual. Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Some people may argue that suffering logically ought to turn people into atheists. After all, the horror of something like the COVID-19 pandemic could easily make someone question how it would be possible for any deity to allow such horrors.

It would make far more sense to reason that creation is random, chaotic and determined only by some combination of the forces of nature and human decisions. The agnostic philosopher Bertrand Russell crafted such a proposal when he argued that Christians should accompany him to a children’s hospital unit because they would inevitably stop believing in God once they saw such profound suffering.

[Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.]

The way humans experience suffering spiritually, however, may not necessarily lead to atheism or agnosticism. Indeed, research from experts who study the intersection of psychology and religion – including psychologists of religion and pastoral theologians – has found that events that could be labeled as traumatic do not necessarily destroy faith.

Indeed, they can also strengthen it because faith-based beliefs and practices can help individuals make sense of their life’s story. In other words, trauma challenges so many assumptions about who we are, what our purpose is and how to make sense of a traumatic event. Faith-based beliefs and practices offer meaningful resources to help navigate those questions.

This is why spiritual beliefs and practices across various religions can often lead to faith strengthening rather than weakening, following a trauma.

So even though people may have had limited access to buildings like churches or synagogues during the pandemic, they still had access to spiritual resources that can help them navigate traumatic events. This may explain data showing that some individuals are stating their faith is stronger than it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Seminary of the Southwest is a member of the Association of Theological Schools.

The ATS is a funding partner of The Conversation US.

Danielle Tumminio Hansen, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology & Director of Field Education, Seminary of the Southwest

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Natural cold and flu remedies can be found in your kitchen cabinets

 

 There are no known cures for the common cold; however, your kitchen cabinets are likely stocked with many ingredients that can help relieve symptoms and speed up recovery.

LEMONS: Lemons can be used to soothe sore throats, cleanse blood and loosen mucus in the sinuses or throat. A healing lemonade can be made by adding the juice from half a lemon and one teaspoon of maple syrup to a cup of warm water. Cayenne pepper can also be sprinkled on for added cleansing effect.

CHICKEN SOUP: Chicken soup has been used since the 12th century, when the Jewish physician and philosopher Maimonides recommend chicken soup to treat colds and flu. A whole natural organic chicken can be used to create a healing broth.

MUSTARD: Mustard packs placed on the chest can reduce fever and help heal mucous membranes in the lungs and chest.

GINGER: Ginger kills germs, and ginger tea can be used as an antiviral and also for upset stomachs. To make ginger tea, simmer two tablespoons of fresh ginger (chopped or grated) mixed into two cups of water. Simmer for 15 minutes, then remove from the heat and let it steep for ten minutes. This can be consumed as often as needed, as ginger is also healing for the stomach - and the stomach flu. A ginger bath stimulates the lymph system and can speed up lymph drainage. To make a ginger bath, use a food processor to finely grate a quarter cup of fresh ginger. Place the ground ginger into a cheesecloth (or an old nylon stocking will do) and soak in the tub as water fills.

GARLIC: Common household garlic is a great treatment for colds and flu and can also be used to prevent their occurrence. Raw garlic has antifungal, antibacterial and antiviral properties. Research has shown that garlic could speed up healing from the flu and also increase immunity. Too much garlic can cause bleeding, so those taking medications for blood thinning, such as aspirin, should take care when increasing the amount of garlic in their diet.

(Note: Seek medical help if symptoms persist or worsen. At signs of sudden weakness, or high fever, seek emergency care.)

Sources include:

http://science.naturalnews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu

About the author:
Talya Dagan is a health advocate and health coach, trained in nutrition and gourmet health food cuisine, writing about natural remedies for disease and nutrition and herbal medicine. You can follow her blog at www.talyadagan.com