Category Archives: Consumer Alerts

From Tourist Information to Malware in one easy step…

This week BBC News and others reported that Gibraltar is joining another well known destination, Monmouth UK, by tagging locations around the country with printed 2 dimensional bar codes (QR Codes) which can be scanned by your smartphone to link you to Wikipedia articles. As a regular traveler, tourist, and conveyor of useless information, to Read more…

Latest Yahoo Data Breach Restates Need for Basic Security

News broke today of a large data breach against Yahoo Voices, resulting in more than 400,000 username/password combinations being posted in clear text. The compromise involved a basic SQL-injection attack against an exposed Yahoo server (dbb1.ac.bf1.yahoo.com).  Similar to other recent events, the account data was reportedly stored in an unencrypted state. We see this type of attack Read more…

Yahoo! Hacked: 15 Tips To Better Password Security

In light of the Yahoo Voices hack where 450,000 passwords have been compromised, it’s time again to let the world know what they are doing wrong when it comes to passwords. CNET pointed out that: 2,295: The number of times a sequential list of numbers was used, with “123456″ by far being the most popular password. Read more…

INTERNET USERS: Take These Actions Before July 9 To Ensure You’ll Stay Connected

Updated – July 6th at 1pm pacific McAfee releases a free tool to help consumers identify the risk of DNS Trojan and modify their Internet settings by ‘DNSChanger’ Trojan On July 9, 2012, the FBI will be shutting down Internet servers that had previously allowed millions of Internet users, who were infected by the DNSChanger Read more…

6.5M LinkedIn Passwords Reportedly Stolen: What Users Should Do Now

–Updated at 2pm pacific– Earlier today, Norwegian computer site, DagensIT.no, reported that 6.5 million LinkedIn passwords were recently posted to a Russian hacker site. LinkedIn is continuing to investigate the incident, but has confirmed that “some of the passwords that were comprimised correspond to LinkedIn accounts.” According to DagensIT.no, only the hashed passwords were posted. Read more…

Consumer Alert: McAfee Releases Results of Global Unprotected Rates Study

Security experts labelled 2011 “Year of the Hack,” with a string of high-profile attacks against corporations and consumers alike. There is no doubt cybercrime is increasing at an alarming rate. The question is: what can you do about it? McAfee set out to address this question by first understanding the overall level of consumer security Read more…

McAfee Finds Personal Computer and Smartphone Threats at Four-Year High

8 million new malicious software samples have been detected since January 2012 due to unrelenting spammers and hackers Since the start of the new year, PC malware (malicious software) has already reached the highest levels in four years, according to the McAfee Threats Report: First Quarter 2012. The report exposes a disturbing increase in malicious Read more…

McAfee Issues Pinterest Scam Alert, Warns Users to “Pin with Caution”

Pinterest users should be careful when visiting a link that uses catchy titles like “Free Gift Card” “Shocking video” or “Free Giveaways” In March, McAfee Labs reported a new wave of social scams targeting Pinterest users that could compromise their personal information. Today, McAfee Labs warns consumers that ready-to-use toolkits, that make it easy for Read more…

Fake-Alert Scam Targets Mac Users

One of the most prevalent families of recent Trojans is called fake alerts. These Trojans generate fake warning screens that look like they were generated by legitimate security or anti-malware software. The majority of malware within this family attempts to con users by convincing them that their systems are at risk and that they should purchase Read more…