Fake news is the new computer virus. That’s the conclusion I came to when reading a remarkable new report from computer security firm Trend Micro. If you doubt the massive efforts of underground “hackers” to influence you—and the massive cash they can make doing so—flip through the pages of this report. A few years ago, it could have been written about the spam, computer virus or click fraud economies. Today, “news” has been weaponized, both for […]
Summer’s here and the time is right for getting hacked or worse, having the contents of your computer held hostage by ransomware. For a couple of carefree and extreme data-consuming months, kids everywhere will be doing whatever they want online even if you’ve tried to control them. In other words, be very afraid. Only you know if it is time to have “the talk” with your child about online security. But before you sheepishly clear […]
First Amendment concerns and consumer privacy law has people talking about a case recently settled in Massachusetts. It revolved around the practice of serving advertisements with geo-fencing technology. At issue: was it legal for anti-abortion groups to use this new marketing technique to directly communicate with young women on their way to get abortions? According to the settlement in Massachusetts, the answer, at least for the time being, is no. The ads in question used […]
While the writing has been on the wall for a long time, last Friday it was in the news wires when a new strain of ransomware called WannaCrypt raged like an out-of-control wildfire across Europe and Asia, ultimately impacting computers in 150 countries. For many affected by this hack, a few hundred dollars in ransom money is a pittance when compared to the cost of hiring someone to attempt the recovery of your files after […]
In case you missed it, a major cyberattack swept the globe Friday. Per pretty much every major news outlet here in the U.S., hackers locked computer systems worldwide, then threatened to destroy data if the victim did not pay to be let back in. In other words, they executed a large scale ransomware attack, targeting companies, government agencies, public institutions and ordinary citizens across continents. The attack comes just one week after Google Docs users […]
The landmark WannaCry ransomware attack, I believe, may have been a proof of concept experiment that inadvertently spun out of control after it got released prematurely. But now that it’s out there, WannaCry signifies two developments of profound consequence to company decision-makers monitoring the cybersecurity threat landscape: • It revives the self-propagating internet worm as a preferred way to rapidly spread new exploits, machine to machine, with no user action required. • It lights up […]
Doubtless, you are aware that phishing (an email that looks like a company communication or something work-related containing malware) and spear phishing (the same thing from the spoofed account of a company executive) have become facts of life. Or maybe not. There are a host of reasons to be concerned. Phishing attacks are literally out of control. According to one survey published earlier this year, 85 percent of companies in the United States reported being […]
Nigerian 419 con artists have been around seemingly forever, relentlessly sucking funds out of the bank accounts of one duped individual victim at a time. You’ve probably heard of them. These gambits revolve around tricking the victim into thinking he or she can help transfer a large sum into a U.S. bank, and make a tidy profit on the side. But now some veteran Nigerian criminals have evolved–ripping off small- and medium-sized businesses on a […]
When a young Finnish programmer named Tatu Ylönen conjured up the Secure Shell (SSH) coding protocol in 1995, he had no inkling of the pivotal role his creation would play in the rapid evolution of network-centric commerce. And Ylönen certainly never imagined that one day he would be consumed with spreading awareness about a darker aspect of SSH: his protocol – or, more precisely, how SSH has come to be used as part of the […]
Health awareness was celebrated across the globe last Friday on World Health Day, an event sponsored by the World Health Organization. But humans aren’t the only ones who suffer from health issues—so do computers. Here is a look at some comparable characteristics of the two species. Health Checks. Humans require assurance from their doctors from time to time that they are fit and healthy. So we schedule regular health checks to ensure we’re on the […]
