Archives for August 2018

PGA Golf Organization Gets Hit By Ransomware

August 20, 2018 by Joseph Martin

These days, we expect giant corporations, government agencies and medical facilities to be the targets of hackers. However, golf is something new.

According to a recent report from GolfWeek, the PGA’s offices have been hacked and infected with what appears to be the “BitPaymer” ransomware. That’s the same strain that recently hit the town of Matanuska-Susitna, in Alaska, forcing city officials to resort to the use of typewriters for a week until they got their system back.

The interesting thing about this is the fact that BitPaymer isn’t a new ransomware strain. It’s actually been in the wild for quite some time. Until very recently, it’s kept a low profile and hasn’t been widely used.

That appears to be changing. While the recent spike in BitPaymer infections can’t be called a serious trend on the web as a whole, it is true that the ransomware is suddenly getting a surge of attention from hackers.

One of its hallmarks is the fact that the people using it tend to demand much higher ransom amounts than average to decrypt files locked by the malicious software. Unfortunately for those affected by it, BitPaymer is quite secure, so victims have no choice but to pay up or restore their files from their most recent backup.

This represents a disturbing event on two fronts. First, it seems that no target is safe from hacking, not even something as innocuous as golf. Second, if the current trend continues, (and there’s no reason to think that it won’t), we’re going to be hearing more about BitPaymer attacks in the weeks and months ahead.

As ever, vigilance is the best defense. Make sure your IT staff is aware of this latest threat to system security. It may be time for another round of email education for all employees, to stress the importance of not opening messages from unknown parties and being wary of downloading files or clicking links unless the sender’s identity can be confirmed.

Joseph Martin

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Android Gets New OS Update Named Android Pie

August 17, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Android 9 is finally here, at least for some users. As of today, if you have any of the following phones, you can get the latest update:

The Google Pixel

The Pixel XL

The Pixel 2

The Pixel 2 XL

The Essential Phone

The company is currently working with other vendors to make the new update available. So if you’ve got an Android device other than those listed above, you should have access to the new version later this fall.

As to features, there’s a lot to like. Google borrowed from Apple’s playbook in at least one way by changing its navigation. It replaced its three-button navigation bar with a new gesture-based system that allows you to switch from one app to another by using natural gestures, which is a nice addition.

Additionally, the new OS makes excellent and much heavier use of machine learning and AI than any of its predecessors. Among other things, these changes subtly impact your phone’s brightness and battery power prioritization, which extends the time between recharges.

The phone learns how you use it and adapts accordingly. It also adapts to environmental conditions, adjusting display brightness as those conditions change.

Another new feature called ‘Slices’ brings relevant segments of certain apps forward, as needed. For example, if you’re searching for a ride, your phone will bring real-time pricing and driver ETAs from services like Lyft and Uber to the foreground.

There’s also a new suite of features under the general heading of “Digital Wellbeing,” which includes a “Do Not Disturb” mode that blocks notifications and sounds, and also grays out the screen to help eliminate unwanted intrusions.

The Digital Wellbeing dashboard also tracks and displays how much time you’re spending on each of the apps on your phone and allows you to set App Timers which will help you better manage the time you’re spending.

On balance, we love the robust new feature set, and we think you will too! If you have one of the devices mentioned above, you can download the update now by going to “Settings – System – System Update”, and then tapping “download and install.”

Joseph Martin

Microsoft Is Keeping Classic Skype, For Now

August 16, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Microsoft recently found itself on the receiving end of more than a little user rage when they made significant changes to Skype, with the release of version 8. The company’s original plan was to model Skype 8 after several different social media services, but the users found the new interface to be both annoying and frustrating.

On the face of it, Skype 8 boasts a number of impressive enhancements, enabling users to screenshare inside calls, connecting with up to 24 users simultaneously and sharing up to 300MB of files via the Skype application itself. Plus, it offers free HD video.

Unfortunately, users weren’t pleased with the fact that the redesign relied on a single window. This makes it impossible to multitask with separate conversations occurring in different windows. Some of the new features lacked professional polish (like emoji’s and @mentions). These features would be fine for a consumer grade app, but the desktop version of Skype is something that businesses rely on heavily, and those features are of little value there.

It caused such an uproar in the Skype user community that the company abandoned their plans to end support for Skype 7 on September first, and re-branded it as “Skype Classic,” leaving it in place for the time being. Ultimately, the feeling is that “Skype Classic” will be killed off at some point, but for now, Microsoft has chosen to listen to their user base and continue offering support for it.

The future, however, is uncertain. While the temporary stay is useful, it is not yet known how long that will hold. The company might intend to go back to the drawing board where Skype 8 is concerned and re-think some of their design decisions to make the new version more palatable to Enterprise users. Time will tell.

Joseph Martin

Reddit Users Advised To Reset Their Passwords

August 14, 2018 by Joseph Martin

If you’re a Reddit user, it’s time to change your password. According to the company, they recently discovered evidence of a hack that exposed all company data from the site’s launch (2005) to 2007, including user emails and account credentials.

The company also reported that all public messages from that time period were downloaded, as well as an unknown number of private conversations.

In addition to that, the hacker was apparently able to access the logs containing the email digests that Reddit sent out between June 3rd and June 17th of 2018. Note that you were only impacted by this portion of the hack if you received an email from [email protected] between the dates mentioned.

Reddit is following what has quickly become standard procedure in the wake of an event like this. They reported the incident and are currently working with law enforcement to investigate the matter. Additionally, the company has bolstered its security, including making two-factor authentication a requirement to access all sensitive internal systems.

One slight departure from the standard response is this: Rather than notifying only the users whose email addresses and account credentials were compromised, Reddit is urging all users to change their passwords immediately and to enable two-factor authentication if you have not already done so.

It’s sound advice, but unfortunately, advice that only a minority of Reddit users will likely heed.

This is hardly the first high profile data breach in 2018, and it certainly won’t be the last. Each new breach reported on only sounds the alarm more loudly. Corporate systems are woefully insecure, and the hackers are finding more and more success. 2018 is on track to break the record set in 2017 for the most breaches in the history of the internet, and next year will probably break the record set later this year.

As ever, vigilance is the key.

Joseph Martin

Click Rates For Spam Emails Are Increasing

August 14, 2018 by Joseph Martin

F-Secure recently published a new report, and their findings are disturbing.

The click rates on spam emails increased to 14.2 percent for the second half of 2017, up from 13.4 percent reported in the first half of 2017.

The increase seems to be driven by two factors.

First, more intense targeting of smartphone users, who are typically more distracted and not paying as much attention when opening and reading emails.

Second, a slight increase in sophistication. For instance, an email that appears to come from a known sender is 12 percent more likely to be opened and responded to, so hackers are using this approach more often.

Even so, the report isn’t all bad news. While spam is still the most common means of attack, it’s highly inefficient, relying on brute force (volume) rather than an abundance of sophistication. Second, the report reveals that 85 percent of malicious attachments are made up of just five file types:

*.7z

*.PDF

*.XLS

*.DOC

*.ZIP

Knowing this, a savvy user who’s paying attention can more easily avoid falling into the trap of the hackers.

Other highlights from the report include:

46 percent of all spam campaigns are related to online dating

23 percent contain the malicious attachments described above

31 percent contain links to malicious websites

Sean Sullivan, an F-Secure Security Advisor had this to say about the report:

“We’ve reduced criminals to spam, one of the least effective methods of infection. Anti-malware is containing nearly all commoditized bulk threats. And honestly, I don’t see anything coming over the horizon that could lead to another gold rush, so criminals are stuck with spam.”

Overall, the report is bad news mixed with some good. One thing it clearly underscores is the continuing importance of ongoing email education for all employees of companies of any size.

Joseph Martin

The Internet May Be Hurting Your Sleep

August 14, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Can you imagine life without the always-on internet? If you’re like most people today, it’s a simply indispensable tool, and the thought of suddenly being without it makes you shudder and brings images of the Dark Ages to mind.

It’s glorious, no doubt, and it really is a remarkable tool, but unfortunately, it’s not all upside. A recent study funded by the European Research Council has concluded that access to broadband internet access costs you as much as 25 minutes of lost sleep every night. Considering that most of us are already getting by on far too little sleep, that’s not good.

Luca Stella, one of the researchers responsible for the study, had this to say about it:

“Internet addiction and technology use near bedtime are often blamed as a major cause of the sleep deprivation epidemic. Yet the empirical evidence on this relationship is still limited. In our study, we first show descriptive evidence that the use of digital services at night is correlated with shorter sleep duration. Then, exploiting differences in the access to high-speed internet caused by the pre-existing telephone infrastructure in Germany, we analyze the relationship between high-speed internet and sleep. We find that access to broadband internet reduces sleep duration and sleep satisfaction.”

While the report is clearly bad news, in many ways, it merely confirms what we already knew. It seems self-evident that if you spend time surfing the web just before bed, you’re probably going to get sucked in, which is going to cut further into your already limited sleep time. Sure enough, we now have evidence that supports this notion.

What is interesting in the report, and something that runs counter to most people’s assumptions, is that people in the 30-59 year age range suffered more sleep loss than those in the under 30 crowd.

A fair question then, is how much sleep are you getting? If you’d like more, it might be time to consider curtailing late-night internet use.

Joseph Martin

New Tools Help You Limit Your Social Media Time

August 12, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Facebook and Instagram are rolling out new tools designed to help manage how much time you’re spending on those two social media platforms.

On Facebook, the new feature is called “your time on Facebook,” and on Instagram, it’s called “Your Activity,” but both features do essentially the same thing.

They monitor and report on how much time you’re spending on the platform and can be fine-tuned by users to temporarily mute your push notifications.

The changes are being rolled out in an effort to address concerns that a number of groups are now raising. The concerns are about the addictive feedback loops built into social media apps. These feedback loops have been demonstrated to have a negative effect on the well being of users who get sucked in too deeply.

The new features will be rolled out to 99 percent of the users on each platform. The company is withholding the new features from 1 percent to allow for comparative testing.

Once they become available, the new features can be found under the “Hamburger Menu,” which is the nickname for the three vertical lines at the top right-hand corner of the Facebook app. On Instagram, the new feature can be found under the settings menu, accessible by tapping the gear icon on your Instagram profile.

It remains to be seen whether these new features will have the desired effect. Since they have to be manually activated, odds are that the impact will be minimal. For a certain subset of users who seem not to be able to control their social media addiction on their own, it might provide just enough of a boost to make a difference.

Even if that proves not to be the case, it’s clear that the company takes the matter seriously, so we can expect to see more from them on this front in the months ahead.

Joseph Martin

New Scam Targets Apple Users

August 11, 2018 by Joseph Martin

There’s a new, surprisingly elaborate phishing scam targeting iPhone users. The scam starts with an email informing users that their phones have been locked due to “illegal activity” and instructing them to call “Apple Care” to get the problem fixed.

Of course, there is no such company as Apple Care, but it’s an official enough sounding name that it’s luring a surprising percentage of victims into calling. In fact, opening the email will open a call dialog box, making connecting to “help” a very simple, and incredibly tempting option.

Naturally, the person on the other end of the phone isn’t tech support, but a hacker who’s looking to obtain as much information about the caller as possible. It’s a well thought out, well-engineered scam and it’s taking a lot of people in.

Given that smartphones have officially overtaken PCs as the primary means of surfing the web, it should come as no great surprise that phishing attacks targeting smartphone users are on the rise. Since most people keep their whole lives on their phones these days, it’s no wonder that so many people are quick to try and get help at the first sign of trouble with their cherished device.

Hackers are all too aware of that fact and are increasingly using it to prey on unsuspecting victims. Unfortunately, people tend to be more distracted when they’re on their phones versus when they’re using a PC, which explains why phishing attacks directed at smartphone users tend to succeed more often than they do against PC users.

Don’t fall for it.

Train your brain to be more mindful of any email you get that hints at a problem with any account or device you control. The best thing you can do if you get an email like that would be to close it and test the account or device yourself to verify that it’s locked. If it isn’t, delete the email and assume it was a scam. If it is locked, reach out to the company directly, rather than clicking links embedded in an email, or calling numbers obtained from an email.

That’s still not a fool proof solution, but it will help to minimize your risks.

Joseph Martin

Lifelock Customers At Risk Of Email Information Exposure

August 9, 2018 by Joseph Martin

A dark day for Lifelock, the Identity Theft Protection company. It has recently come to light that the company may have accidentally exposed their customers to additional attacks.

They recently fixed a vulnerability on their website that allowed anyone with a browser to index email addresses associated with their entire customer database. The vulnerability can even unsubscribe users from company communications designed to keep them safe and keep them apprised of changes they need to be aware of.

In addition to that, the vulnerability made it possible for hackers to initiate highly targeted phishing campaigns and create a convincing spoof of the Lifelock brand.

Symantec, which purchased Lifelock in late 2016, took the company’s website offline not long after being contacted by KrebsOnSecurity, which is how they became aware of the vulnerability.

Krebs was made aware of it by Nathan Reese, a freelance security consultant based out of Atlanta. Nathan put together a proof of concept script that was capable of downloading the email addresses of all 4.5 million of Lifelock’s customers and then presented it to Krebs.

Reece aborted his script after downloading 70 emails so as not to set off alarm bells at Lifelock, and had this to say about his discovery:

“If I were a bad guy, I would definitely target your customers with a phishing attack because I know two things about them. That they’re a LifeLock customer and that I have those customers’ email addresses. That’s a pretty sharp spear for my spear phishing right there. Plus, I definitely think the target market of LifeLock is someone who is easily spooked by the specter of cybercrime.”

He’s not wrong, so it’s good that Reece isn’t a bad guy.

There’s no evidence that any hackers were aware of the issue, or made off with any of Lifelock’s customer emails. However, given the existence of the now-patched flaw, it pays to be suspicious of any email that appears to be coming from Lifelock for the short to medium term, at least.

Joseph Martin

Automatic Mobile Picture Sync Coming To Windows 10

August 9, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Microsoft has made numerous ventures into the smartphone ecosystem, but so far, they’ve only been met with limited success. This time, they’re trying something a little different.

Instead of making their own Windows-based phones, they’ve created a “Your Phone” app that syncs your phone with your PC. The app is still in testing and is slated to be released sometime in October.

At present, while there are two versions (Android and iOS), the Android version is currently more limited than the iOS version. The Android version works like this: If you take a picture with your Android smartphone, it will sync automatically to your PC, allowing you to access or edit the image in something close to real time.

With the iOS version, you can surf the web on your phone, send the web page to your phone and pick up surfing where you left off. That’s much handier, because among other things, it allows you to start watching a streaming video on your phone, then switch to a bigger screen for a better viewing experience.

In addition to the development of this new app, Microsoft is taking steps to try and bolster the popularity of its Edge browser. Coming soon will be a biometric sign-in for Edge, which gives users a password-free method of signing into websites in hopes of keeping at least some percentage of users from switching their default browsers to Chrome, Firefox, or some other option.

At present, the changes are interesting, but not compelling. We expect that Microsoft will continue heavily investing in integration, however, in a bid to increase its presence in the market. Whether their latest efforts will bear fruit remains to be seen, but from what we’ve seen so far, the early versions of the Your Phone app show promise. Kudos to Microsoft, and here’s hoping these first steps lead to even greater integration and an improvement to the overall experience down the road.

Joseph Martin

PGA Golf Organization Gets Hit By Ransomware

Android Gets New OS Update Named Android Pie

Reddit Users Advised To Reset Their Passwords

Click Rates For Spam Emails Are Increasing

New Scam Targets Apple Users

Lifelock Customers At Risk Of Email Information Exposure

Automatic Mobile Picture Sync Coming To Windows 10

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