The Romantik Seehotel Jäger, sitting serenly for 111 years in the picturesque Austrian Alps, fell victim to a ransomware attack. At the height of the winter ski season, cybercriminals took control of the hotel’s computer system and demanded $1,603 in bitcoins to release reservations and the system to program electronic keys used by guests to access their rooms.
Last week an article from The Guardian stated that a backdoor within the end-to-end encryption of popular messaging app WhatsApp could be used by governments to snoop on users. The author “warned it could be used by government agencies as a backdoor to snoop on users who believe their messages to be secure.” This caused quite a stir in security circles, which resulted in a group of cryptography and security experts calling for a retraction and an apology for misleading claims.
Hackers broke into the Supercell gamers’ forum and got away with forum user information including email addresses, simply hashed passwords, usernames, and IP addresses. Supercell created the popular games Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Boom Beach, and Hay Day. Motherboard reports that the breach affected 1.1 million accounts.
The reason cybersecurity is a process, not a one-time solution, is that the Bad Guys – whether careless or malicious employees, hacktivists, cybercriminals, or rogue governments (not to be confused with the good governments, which only spy on us for ou…
In an information-based economy where bring-your-own devices (BYOD) and, increasingly, bring-your-own applications (BYOA), are the norm, IT groups are struggling to enable their organizations to be fast and flexible while protecting their digital asset…
Ghost Push is a malware family that exploits vulnerabilities to gain root access to Android devices to then download and review other apps in the background. Using social engineering, users are tricked into downloading Ghost Push from third party app stores or via links sent in text messages. Once installed, Ghost Push tries to gain root access. As the name suggests, Ghost Push acts in a ghostly fashion once it has root access, meaning infected users don’t notice anything – everything happens in the background. Recently, a new variant of the Ghost Push malware, Gooligan, was detected spreading in the wild. The Gooligan variant steals email addresses and authentication tokens stored on the infected devices, gaining access to users’ Google account data, including Gmail and Google Play. More than one million users’ Google Play accounts were affected.
Originally published at The Parallax.
With the digital threatscape proliferating exponentially – i.e. phishing emails increased almost 800 percent quarter-to-quarter in Q1 2016, to 6.3 million, while ransomware soared 300 percent year-over-year on its way to a billion-dollar-a-year problem – it’s important to remember that effective cybersecurity rests on three pillars – products and services, processes, and people. Simply throwing more money and resources at cybersecurity is not the answer: People are the key, and everybody has a role to play in effective cybersecurity.
Cerber ransomware is a highly effective ransomware family that has been developed by professional cybercriminals. Fortunately for us, even professional cybercriminals make mistakes – like misconfiguring their servers. Twitter user and researcher @Racco…
Facebook, the social giant that many people check obsessively, is testing a new, handy feature to help their users find free public Wi-Fi directly via their Facebook mobile app. The tested feature is available only for selected iOS users in various countries.
“To help people stay connected to the friends and experiences they care about, we are rolling out a new feature that surfaces open Wi-Fi networks associated with nearby places,” a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable.
We believe that being connected gives us flexibility and great opportunities, but before you actually connect to any public Wi-Fi recommended by Facebook, double check its security and speed. You can do it for free, using Avast Wi-Fi Finder.
How does Facebook’s Find Wi-Fi work?
Once you click on the Find Wi-Fi feature, you will see an actual map with a Wi-Fi spots, showing you the distance and directions towards the public free Wi-Fi hotspots available in your area.
Image source: Venturebeat
At this point there is little information available about the Find Wi-Fi feature. There are many speculations on why Facebook is even releasing it. One of the strongests is related to the company’s mission to help people access the internet (even if it’s through its platform). Other theories involves collecting information about business and its users.
And then there’s the whole targeted advertising thing — getting you to free hotspots around the city could impact the ads that you’re shown within your Facebook experience, selling you on hanging out at more popular local merchants and restaurants, comments Ken Yeung
We don’t want to speculate, we just follow the available facts. One of our tasks as a security company is to raise questions about safety and privacy of users’ data. Facebook will use this feature to collect data about users for advertising purposes.
It will not only show you the business offering free Wi-Fi, but also how long it’ll take to get there and the network you can connect to. Facebook recommends that you give the app permission to access your location history, claiming it will “allow Facebook to build a history of precise locations received through your device.”
We know that open Wi-Fi hotspots are great: they allow you to access the Internet when you travel to new places. But losing your personal data is not worth it.
“Many of us have found ourselves in situations when traveling or working remotely in which we’re unable to find reliable and secure Wi-Fi. With the Avast Wi-Fi Finder, consumers are now able to find a safe and fast Wi-Fi connection whether you’re at the gym, hotel, airport, bus station, library or café.” said Gagan Singh, president of mobile at Avast.
What is the added value of the Avast Wi-FI for the users? Our technology checks for the vulnerabilities of the Wi-Fi Hotspot such as:
Last but not least: for the maximum protection of your data, we recommend you use VPN protection.
In February 2016, we ran an experiment at the Barcelona Airport and gathered more than 8 million data packets, proving that open Wi-Fi hotspots are risky. We learned the following information:
“Many individuals recognize that surfing over open Wi-Fi isn’t secure. However, some of these same people aren’t aware that their device might automatically connect to a Wi-Fi network unless they adjust their settings,” said Gagan Singh, president of mobile at Avast.
To make sure that your connection is secure regardless of the Wi-Fi hotspot settings and avoid looking extensively for recommended, secure hotspot, we recommend that you use Avast SecureLine VPN.