Robert Siciliano, a McAfee security consultant, discusses whether Congressman Anthony Weiner's Twitter account was hacked or if he posted the controversial image himself. The conversation covers social media vulnerabilities, account compromise risks, and basic security steps like updating antivirus and locking down passwords.
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All right, a web giant and a congressman now in a web of trouble. We complete the package next. Congressman, even though you say that you're answering direct questions, finally, there are many more questions now. Well, you mess with Google, get ready for the FBI to maybe mess with you. Federal agents are now checking to see if some web Wizzes over in China tried hacking into Gmail accounts of U.S. government officials. My next guest says tack that on to those infamous gray boxer briefs you might have heard a thing or two about, you know, the ones that may or may not belong to a certain New York congressman, and you're exposing more than, uh, well, a certain package. Anyway, Robert Siciliano is a McAfee security consultant. Um, you know what's amazing to me, Robert? We keep hearing more and more of these type cases.— and I guess in the case of this congressman, an ample track record of tweets, whether controversial or not. They're all there. They're all, shall we say, exposed. So what's the lesson here?
Well, what you put on the web is pretty much going to be there forever for the world to see. If it's digital, it's repeatable. And so you must constantly manage your online reputation because, you know, everybody's paying attention. We're living in the fishbowl. But there's also a chance that he didn't do it too. The system in which he uses can easily be compromised as well.
To what end?
Repeat that?
To what end? Why? I mean, what, just embarrass a guy?
Well, there's a service that he used, that people use called Wyfrog. And Wyfrog I think was compromised. If you get the Wyfrog email address of anyone, you can basically tweet a photo in their behalf. And researchers in the past 24 hours have discovered this. And just today, I tried to do the exact same thing, tried to tweet via a Wyfrog address, and they discontinued the service, meaning they shut it down.
But in other words, in other words, it's doable. I guess We could go back and forth as to what the congressman did or didn't do, or why he didn't wholly disavow the picture in question. That— I don't think that's either here or there right now. But the fact that someone could be set up, or that they could be embarrassed, um, even with stuff that might be, uh, from their own collection, so to speak— I, I'm wondering how far this goes and who else is vulnerable.
We're all vulnerable. You are, I am. You know, the internet, social media, it's still just a kid. It's a wild thing.
So what's your warning for people even at work? I now all of a sudden when I heard about this, I panic thinking someone's gonna ask me, Neil, did you have a history of looking for fast food places within a 1-mile radius of your office? And all of a sudden I'm exposed. So, but, but what's the rule of thumb on this? Obviously you shouldn't do that stuff at work, I guess. But yeah, what?
Yeah, you get— you, you gotta lock down your PC, you gotta lock down your social media, you gotta update your antivirus. If, you know, if you have any photographs or video of anything that you shouldn't, you got to delete that stuff. I mean, you got to be a responsible—
Yeah, but you can delete it, but, but smart guys like you tell me it's always there, right?
Yeah. It's a nightmare.
So in a certain congressman's case and others that might crop up, even when they might be cleaning out their files, the files are still there, right? So then people target them and they might draw all sorts of inferences that are perfectly, you know, that might be intriguing but meaningless, right?
Yeah. And if he ever sent a picture to anyone, they have it and they can send it to their friend. They can send it to their friend. But again, I don't think he did it. I think he got— I think a prank was pulled on him, which is easy to do.
But, uh, but why would you just say, wait, wait, wait, wait, this is not my package?
You know, it could be another politician drunk with power. Uh, the guy obviously isn't handling this well in the media. Uh, he could have been hacked. He could have done—
wouldn't you remember a picture like that? Oh, that one.
I would, yeah.
But that's neither here nor there. Good stuff, Robert Siciliano. Thank you very, very much.
Thank you.
All right, from a certain congressman and the Battle of the Bulge to Paul Ryan and the battle of the debt.
