Welcome to the forum
Tim's Top Tips on *Cyber Crime, Strava and YOUR privacy settings*
Hi,
Quick one of my Top Tips you may want to look at or maybe you are already super safe?
I attended a presentation by the City of London Police this week introducing the very real threat we all face in both our business and personal lives from Cyber Crime (link below and its FREE if you fancy going along!). It really was quite scary and the stats are quite remarkable and eye-opening.
So, why the post? If like me you use Strava and Garmin (or equivalent) and indeed this forum your 'social footprint' is out there and quite possibly not secure. I have always been pretty good at not posting my rides a few years back as wanna be thieves can quite easily locate your house from start of ride end of ride stats. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to work out there are bikes at a particular location due to multiple actitvities. However, since the advent of Strava, I had personally let my security lapse! I checked it this morning and yep, all my rides are there for all to see, and clearly where I live etc etc..(yes Phil, you were right!!) I must admit, I assumed it was only followers that could see my activity... but NO, the default is EVERYONE!
Now I dont mind you lycra clad lot knowing but the rest of the world? maybe not.
So, Tim's Top Tip on this cold Wednesday morning is: CHECK YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS!
Strava was the big one for me, my Garmin was OK. Strava has a setting which allows you to even hide your home address (or specific starting point) for over a half a mile radius and also only allow your followers to view your activity rather than 'everyone'. If, like me, your rides abroad are all over Strava, then it would be fairly clear to someone that your usual home (with all those start/finish rides recorded) is empty at the time of posting. Unfortunately this is a very real fact and thieves are using it... along with twitter (a favourite) and Facebook - 'guess where I am everybody... at the airport!' #checkin... you may all be aware, but I thought I would mention it incase you are not :-)
Those who know me well remember I unfortunately had my garage broken into a few years back and a fair few bikes stolen! The Police believe I was certainly targeted through my cycling activity on social media and most likely through what was out there in the big bad web!
all our apps and stats are great.... but who's reviewing yours ?? !
be safe, be seen... but only on the road, not the web ;-)
https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/advice-and-support/cybercrime/Pages/Cyber-Griffin.aspx
Quick one of my Top Tips you may want to look at or maybe you are already super safe?
I attended a presentation by the City of London Police this week introducing the very real threat we all face in both our business and personal lives from Cyber Crime (link below and its FREE if you fancy going along!). It really was quite scary and the stats are quite remarkable and eye-opening.
So, why the post? If like me you use Strava and Garmin (or equivalent) and indeed this forum your 'social footprint' is out there and quite possibly not secure. I have always been pretty good at not posting my rides a few years back as wanna be thieves can quite easily locate your house from start of ride end of ride stats. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to work out there are bikes at a particular location due to multiple actitvities. However, since the advent of Strava, I had personally let my security lapse! I checked it this morning and yep, all my rides are there for all to see, and clearly where I live etc etc..(yes Phil, you were right!!) I must admit, I assumed it was only followers that could see my activity... but NO, the default is EVERYONE!
Now I dont mind you lycra clad lot knowing but the rest of the world? maybe not.
So, Tim's Top Tip on this cold Wednesday morning is: CHECK YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS!
Strava was the big one for me, my Garmin was OK. Strava has a setting which allows you to even hide your home address (or specific starting point) for over a half a mile radius and also only allow your followers to view your activity rather than 'everyone'. If, like me, your rides abroad are all over Strava, then it would be fairly clear to someone that your usual home (with all those start/finish rides recorded) is empty at the time of posting. Unfortunately this is a very real fact and thieves are using it... along with twitter (a favourite) and Facebook - 'guess where I am everybody... at the airport!' #checkin... you may all be aware, but I thought I would mention it incase you are not :-)
Those who know me well remember I unfortunately had my garage broken into a few years back and a fair few bikes stolen! The Police believe I was certainly targeted through my cycling activity on social media and most likely through what was out there in the big bad web!
all our apps and stats are great.... but who's reviewing yours ?? !
be safe, be seen... but only on the road, not the web ;-)
https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/advice-and-support/cybercrime/Pages/Cyber-Griffin.aspx
Comments
I also think that adding the equipment to Strava is another flag to say hey I have a really nice bike. I have 'black one' and 'red one' but never actually change it for each ride coz I'm lazy.
I have noticed that this forum doesn't have an SSL certificate, not sure of where its hosted (and who is managing it) happy to help get one installed. Depending on the setup we might be able to use an open source (free) one from these guys - https://letsencrypt.org/