You may have heard that you should always have a backup plan in place and that if you have one, you have none; nevertheless, not everyone takes these maxims as seriously as they ought to. Unfortunately, not everyone is aware of the necessity of a backup or the requirement for more than one copy. Data…
Your Data: It’s valuable to you. Imagine arranging your wedding for months only to discover your complete set of plans vanished when you wake up one morning. This is the unfortunate reality for the unprepared. Imagine putting ten years of effort into your family’s genealogy just to lose everything you’ve accomplished due to a hard…
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,…
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…
The growing popularity of cloud computing, flash memory storage and “always-on” personal computing devices are leading some individuals to believe that hard drive failure is a thing of the past, and this can be a problematic misconception. While it is true that solid state drive technology has vastly improved over the last few years, this…
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…
Ransomware attacks, one of the latest trends in cybercrime, are not subtle at all. Hackers who intrude upon networks for the purpose of infecting them with ransomware make it a point of letting their victims know that their data has been compromised and that it could be destroyed unless a ransom payment is made. When…
In 2017, information security researchers from Google’s Project Zero and from European universities stumbled upon two major vulnerabilities in the architecture of microprocessors manufactured by Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and other major chip makers. The two flaws are known as Meltdown and Spectre, and they could potentially present security risks to users of desktops, laptops,…
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday already behind us, retailers across the United States are looking forward to the rest of the holiday shopping season, which is poised to break sales records previously set in 2016. On Cyber Monday alone, sales were expected to surpass the $3.5 billion mark, which is what happens when 49…
Information security researchers have detected a new malware threat deployed by malicious hackers days before the start of the holiday shopping season. The threat has been identified as a ransomware attack called Scarab, and it is being distributed by means of a massive botnet known as Necurs, which is sending out phishing emails at a…