Businesses and consumers are preparing for the holiday shopping and gift-giving rush. Prices are falling, but cybersecurity hygiene is also falling. As inboxes fill with markdowns, opportunistic cybercriminals ramp up their holiday frauds. This post discusses why seasonal retail is targeted by cybercriminals, five holiday season scams, and what businesses and buyers can do to…
A Plus Computer provides updates on the dynamic world of malware. Malware, viruses, spyware, and adware are terms most of us are acquainted with. Be ready for botnets now. A bot is a single computer that has been compromised and starts operating under the control of the hacker. A group of compromised computers that are…
Even though the “cryptojacking” cyber threat has been dominating news headlines over the last couple of months, ransomware is a risk that computer users in the High Desert should keep in mind. The spectacularly damaging WannaCry and NotPetya ransomware attacks that took place in 2017 and 2018 are unlikely to be repeated because information security…
Two new cyber threats have been detected by information security firms in early March; one of them appears to be part of a hacktivist campaign while the other involves fake Little Caesars pizza coupons. The hedge funds already affected by Beyond the Grave are known to invest in companies and sectors that work with the…
At the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, tech journalists were excited by the prospect of smart home automation, which is set to have its breakthrough year in 2017. If you have thought about welcoming smart appliances and other devices into your Apple Valley home, 2017 would be a good starting point; nonetheless, you…
One of the biggest misconceptions often heard by information security experts is related to Apple products, particularly those that run on the macOS platform formerly known as OS X. Quite a few Mac users in the High Desert and across the world somehow believe that they are impervious to malware attacks, and this is a…
Online retail activity tends to be higher during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but this does not stop millions of Americans from extending their internet shopping throughout December. The holiday shopping season is highly anticipated not just by consumers but also by cybercrime groups who specialize in identity theft. If you suspect that your desktop,…
Information security analysts monitoring the situation ahead of the midterm elections in the United States have determined that hackers working on behalf of the Kremlin intend to continue interfering with the American democratic process, and one of their proven strategies involves taking advantage of unsecured home networks. For the most part, cyber attacks perpetrated by…
Over the last few years, ransomware has stood out as being of the most destructive and pernicious cyber attacks in history. Global ransomware attacks have disrupted public health and transportation systems as well as municipal governments. Data backups are the best protection strategy against ransomware, but sophisticated hackers have come up with a way to…
In computer security circles, there is a growing consensus about the growing complexity of modern exploits and vectors of attack. There was a time when IT security experts could easily determine or detect if someone had tampered with a laptop; however, the sophisticated threats in use these days make this determination more difficult, particularly in…