Looks like there’s some worms in Apple. Not too long ago, dozens and dozens of iPhones were stolen from two Apple stores. How could this happen, what with Apple’s security? Simple: The thieves wore clothes similar to Apple store employees and obviously knew the innards of the stores. They sauntered over to the drawers that…
A ransomware attack is when your computer gets locked down or your files become inaccessible, and you are informed that in order to regain use of your computer or to receive a cyber key to unlock your files, you must pay a ransom. Typically, cybercriminals request you pay them in bitcoins. The attack begins when you’re…
The Dark Web, according to LeakedSource, got ahold of 33 million Twitter account details and put them up for sale. Twitter thus locked the accounts for millions of users. Twitter, however, doesn’t believe its servers were directly attacked. So what happened? The bad guys may have created a composite of data from other breached sources.…
If you’ve heard this once, you need to hear it again—and again: Never use the same password and username for more than one account! If this got Mark Zuckerberg’s (Facebook’s chief executive). Twitter account hacked, it can get just about anybody hacked. A report at nytimes.com says that the OurMine hacking group takes credit for…
An impostor posed as Lorrie Cranor at a mobile phone store (in Ohio, nowhere near Cranor’s home) and obtained her number. She is the Federal Trade Commission’s chief technologist. Her impostor’s con netted two new iPhones (the priciest models—and the charges went to Cranor) with her number. In a blog post, Cranor writes: “My phones…
It’s all about code—the building blocks of the Internet. Software code is full of unintentional defects. Governments are paying heavy prices to skilled hackers who can unearth these vulnerabilities, says an article at nytimes.com. In fact, the FBI director, James B. Comey, recommended that the FBI pay hackers a whopping $1.3 million to figure out…
Get an account with TeamViewer, and you will have a software package that enables remote control, online meetings, desktop sharing and other functions between computers. But recently, customers of TeamViewer have reported remote takedowns of their computers that resulted in different forms of monetary theft, such as bank accounts being cleaned out. The cyber thieves…
You’ve probably read many times that two-factor authentication is a superb extra layer of protection against a thief hacking into your accounts, because gaining access requires entering a One Time Passcode (OTP)—sent via text or voice—into a login field. In other words, no phone, no access. But CAN a hacker get the phone? Ask Deray…
In 2015, depending on the kind and type of identity theft we are talking about, identity thieves impacted 1.5 million people or more, says the Javelin Strategy & Research report. That’s more than double than for 2014. The move from stripe cards to chip cards has motivated crooks to fasten their seatbelts and really take…
Two thousand credit card payment terminals stand to become infected with malware called Trinity point of sales. Ten million credit cards were stolen by hackers, called Fin6, who may end up scoring $400 million. The cards were stolen from retail and hospitality businesses. If each card sells for $21 on secret carder shops, you can…
