McAfee has long been a popular target of scammers, but recently, they've changed the nature of their game. In years past, they'd display a webpage informing you that any McAfee products on your computer are out of date and provide a link to the company's virtual storefront where you could renew. Unbeknownst to the people clicking on those links, they were being redirected by an affiliate link, so any purchases made would generate a commission for the site owners. It was an unscrupulous, … Read more
Uninstall Fake App Called “The Album by Google Photos”
If you take a lot of photos with your Android device, you're probably constantly on the lookout for a better way to organize them and access them. That's exactly what the authors of the malicious app called "The Album, by Google Photos" are hoping for. The app put in a brief appearance on the Microsoft store, where it claimed to be from Google but it's clearly not. Unfortunately, the authors have gone to great lengths to make it appear legitimate, and as such, it has been downloaded and … Read more
HIPAA Fines For Data Breaches Continue To Grow
Anthem is one of the largest insurance providers in the United States. Unfortunately in 2015, they had the dubious honor of suffering the largest health data breach in history. It left protected health information of nearly 79 million of their customers exposed. As a result, a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services called the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), levied the largest fine against the company in the agency's history. They were fined a staggering sixteen million … Read more
How Long Before You Experience A Cyber Attack?
According to this year's Traveler's Risk Index, published by The Traveler's Indemnity Company, a majority of business owners have a somewhat fatalistic view of hacking and data breaches. The index includes 52 percent of survey respondents indicating that they believe a cyber-attack is inevitable. The other statistics in the report paint a grim picture. Here's a quick overview: 55 percent of business owners say that they have not completed a cyber risk assessment 63 percent say that … Read more
Your Business Email Is Highly Targeted For Attacks
There's a new report out, authored by ProofPoint, and its findings for business are grim. It's no secret that businesses of all shapes and sizes are coming under increasing fire from hackers around the world. Now we have hard data that shows us exactly how big of an increase we're seeing. Here are some of the key findings in the report: Email fraud attacks targeting businesses have increased 25 percent in the last quarter alone They have increased by a staggering 85 percent from … Read more
Hackers Make More Money Than Is Spent On Cybersecurity
Quick question - how much do the world's cyber criminals make every sixty seconds? If you guessed a quarter of a million dollars, you'd be wrong. If you doubled that value, you'd be wrong again. According to research conducted by RiskIQ, cybercriminals are raking in a cool million dollars per minute, compared with businesses spending $171,233 per minute on security measures. It's a lopsided battle, and businesses aren't winning. Some other interesting tidbits culled from the company's … Read more
Gmail Releases New Confidential Mode
Google has introduced a new Gmail feature called "Confidential Mode," which seeks to make sending and receiving important or sensitive emails more secure. Unfortunately, it may have inadvertently created as many problems as it solves. Here's how the new feature works, and why you may be leery of using it: To send a confidential email, compose your message as normal, and then, click the "lock" icon located at the bottom of the email screen. When this button is pressed, you'll be presented … Read more
New Scam Targets Apple Users
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 … Read more
How Safe is Your Password Really?
Imagine this: You're setting up your login information for your email, or maybe it's your Cloud database account. Upon entering your password, the program prompts you to include a capitalized letter, number and possibly a symbol in your password. You wonder, "Is this really necessary? Who's going to be THAT determined to break into my accounts?" Well to answer that question: hackers. Hackers are going to great lengths to recover your account login credentials. And as hackers develop more ways … Read more
