Not sure if you’ve noticed, but there are a lot of emails being received that have a few lines of gibberish followed by a hyperlink, and often times a nice motivational quote. Many times, these emails are coming from someone you know. How are these emails getting past the spam and virus filters you have [...]
Filed under: Instructional, PC Security | Leave a Comment »
For years, we in the computer industry, have been telling people to create cryptic passwords that include upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. We’ve been saying that if you replace certain characters with others, such as @ instead of “a”, or 3 instead of “E”, or ! instead of l, that chances of [...]
Filed under: Instructional, PC Security | 3 Comments »
Fake Antivirus Industry Down, But Not Out — Krebs on Security. Many fake antivirus businesses that paid hackers to foist junk security software on PC users have closed up shop in recent weeks. The wave of closures comes amid heightened scrutiny by the industry from security experts and a host of international law enforcement officials. [...]
Filed under: Internet Items, PC Security | 1 Comment »
From KrebsOnSecurity Google last week began warning more than a million Internet users that their computers are infected with a malicious program that hijacks search results and tries to scare users into purchasing fake antivirus software. Google security engineer Damian Menscher said he discovered the monster network of hacked machines while conducting routine maintenance at a Google data [...]
Filed under: PC Security | Leave a Comment »
Tracking cookies The other day I noticed that I was running out of space on the hard disk of my computer. I went through and removed some programs and moved some data to an external drive to free up some space, but the next day, the space was low again. I ran my normal cleanup [...]
Filed under: PC Security, Internet Items, Instructional | 2 Comments »
Or if you’re using your neighbor’s wireless connection, you may want to reconsider. To sum up, an individual in New York found himself facedown in his living room in the morning with federal agents all around him. They were accusing him of being a pedophile and pornographer. They ended up seizing his computer, his wife’s computer and [...]
Filed under: PC Security, Internet Items, PC Tips and Tools | Leave a Comment »
Since this post is going to be a little technical, I’m going to start by defining some of the things that will be discussed. DNS – Short for Domain Name System (or Service or Server), an internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses. Because domain names are alphabetic, such as askbillfirst.com, they’re easier [...]
Filed under: PC Security, PC Tips and Tools | 2 Comments »
As the popularity of the iPhone and the iPad – both of which run iOS – has gone mainstream, hackers are tapping iOS. And surely, they’re counting on users – who have long known about vulnerabilities to computers – to be naive about the vulnerabilities that are possible in the mobile world. Today, Gizmodo posted [...]
Filed under: PC Security | 1 Comment »
Just five days after Google researcher Tavis Ormandy released details of a critical vulnerability affecting Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, malware authors have struck, exploiting the flaw to plant malware on Windows machines.The attacks, described by Microsoft as “limited,” are being distributed on rigged Web sites drive-by downloads.“Windows Server 2003 customers are not currently at [...]
Filed under: Instructional, PC Security | 1 Comment »
Adobe has issued a security advisory about a “critical” vulnerability in its Flash Player and Adobe Reader and Acrobat products that it says could let attackers take control of peoples computers. The company said late Friday that there had been reports of the hole actually being exploited and that an official patch was not yet [...]
Filed under: Instructional, PC Security | 1 Comment »
