There has been a noted general uptick in social engineering attacks, which are designed to manipulate individuals into taking an action, such as divulging confidential or sensitive information. These attacks commonly take the form of phishing (attacks via email), smishing (attacks via text message) and vishing (attacks via phone). Common tactics include crafting messages that […]
In the following blog post from last week, https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/keeping-your-account-secure.html, Twitter disclosed that due to a bug, user passwords were inadvertently stored as plain text in an internal log. Passwords stored in plaintext are unmasked, so in this instance they were visible to Twitter employees vs. masked via a hashing process. Twitter states that they have […]
Google has identified and pulled the following fake ad blockers from the Chrome Web Store: AdRemover, uBlock Plus, Adblock Pro, HD for YouTube and Webutation. These ad blockers have been downloaded in excess of 20 million times. The extensions have been disabled on Chrome instances on which they were installed. However, if you installed one […]
Android users have discovered when downloading their Facebook files, that there is a section of the download that contains details on phone calls and text messages. In response to user queries, Facebook has stated that call and text history logging are part of an opt-in feature for people using Facebook Messenger or Facebook Lite on […]
Facebook has a VPN app, Onavo Protect, for iOS and Android available to users and offered as a encryption solution to safeguard all information being transmitted over public networks. It is estimated that 33 million users have installed Onavo Protect on their phones. Based on reviews Onavo appears to be a reliable VPN service but […]
National Consumer protection week, which begins today, is an ideal time to learn more about avoiding scams and understanding your consumer rights. Participate in Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) live Facebook chats via information on the following FTC Consumer Information web page: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2018/02/plan-tune-ncpw2018-facebook-live-chats Additionally, the following are links to NCCIC/US-CERT security tips web pages: Protecting […]
Intel has released their Microcode Revision Guidance publication, which details both the availability and schedule for planned microcode updates and changes. The following processors have firmware patches ready to use in production environments: Anniedale/Moorefield Apollo Lake Avoton/Rangeley Broxton Cherry View Coffee Lake Cougar Mountain Deverton Gemini Lake Kaby Lake Knights Landing Knights Mill Skylake SoFIA […]
The Equifax breach, which occurred in September of last year and impacted the personal data of 14.5 million consumers, appears to have impacted more data than initially reported. Equifax already confirmed the loss of social security numbers, birth dates, home addresses, credit-score dispute forms and in some instances, credit card and driver’s license numbers. According […]
There has been a recent uptick in phishing email campaigns using popular URL shortening services such as bit.ly, ow.ly, goo.gl, and t.co. to embed malicious links in email messages. This is a common ploy used by scammers as shortened URLs mask the true link destination. Further, these phishing messages often appear to come from […]
Be on the lookout for phishing campaigns crafted to steal your login credentials. Such phishing campaigns occur via the delivery of unsolicited email from known businesses, entities or services. Current phishing campaigns which employ this strategy are email purporting to come from Amazon and Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA). These particular phishing emails request that […]