About 16 years ago in the UK, I walked into a local police station to report a computer crime, because walking into local police stations is how they did things back then. There may well also have been penny farthing bicycles, real pea souper fogs, Mary Poppins, and Jack the Ripper, though I could well be wrong on those last two. I was greeted at the incident report desk by a bemused officer on … [Read more...]
June 15, 2018
June 15, 2018
Recognize a phishing attack, then stop it dead in its tracks
We would like to think we can outsmart the bad guys who are trying to phish for our personal data. Learn how to get one step ahead of their hacking attempts. … [Read more...]
May 30, 2018
Researchers discover vulnerabilities in smart assistants’ voice commands
Virtual personal assistants (VPA), also known as smart assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant, are in the spotlight for vulnerabilities to attack. Take, for example, that incident about an Oregon couple’s Echo smart speaker inadvertently recording their conversation and sending it to a random contact. Or that time when the Alexa started laughing out of the blue. Indeed, something … [Read more...]
May 29, 2018
Two major Canadian banks blackmailed after alleged data breach
While the US was celebrating Memorial Day on Monday, Canada was dealing with an unusual data breach affecting two popular financial institutions: Simplii Financial and the Bank of Montreal (BMO). The CBC broke the story and updated it throughout the day to mention that some 90,000 customers were possibly affected by this attack which the banks say they became aware of on Sunday, just one day … [Read more...]
May 29, 2018
SEO poisoning: Is it worth it?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) poisoning basically comes down to getting your web page high in the rankings for relevant search results without buying advertisements or using legitimate, but tedious, SEO best practices. Instead, threat actors use illegal means to push their page to the top. Sometimes, this technique is also referred to as black hat SEO. (Although the people selling these … [Read more...]
May 29, 2018
Why you need to report cyber attacks
Once you’ve been hit by a cyber attack, the damage has already been done. There’s no way to make the disruption disappear, so you might suppose it’s best to just get on with things. Reporting the incident to your supervisory authority means extra work and could cause a PR nightmare. Nonetheless, it’s essential that you notify relevant parties of the breach. The attacker is a criminal, and it’s … [Read more...]
May 20, 2018
57 technical terms that all true geeks should know
Every culture and trade has its own secret language known only to the initiates, but in today’s post we’re going to look at 57 of the oddest/strangest/most obscure terms we use in what, to us, is everyday language. … [Read more...]
April 19, 2018
April 9, 2018
April 3, 2018
Panerabread.com breach could have impacted millions
Customers who signed up for a Panerabread.com account in order to order fast-casual baked goods may want to guard their dough. Security researcher Brian Krebs reported yesterday that the website for the bakery chain leaked millions of customer records, including names, emails, physical addresses, birthdays, and the last four digits of customers’ credit card numbers. Until Monday, millions of … [Read more...]
