When it comes to coercing people into parting with their money, cybercriminals seem to have an endless bag of tricks to choose from. There are some tricks, that they favor more than others, one of which is extortion. According to the FBI’s latest Internet Crime Report, US victims of extortion lost some US$107.5 million to these crimes last year.

While wanting to return a found USB flash drive is commendable, you should avoid taking unnecessary risks, lest your device get infested and your data compromised. External data storage devices have been around almost as long as computers have existed. Magnetic tape and floppy disks, which were once the dominant media, are now mostly fond

The cyber attack affects 14 inboxes belonging to the Department of Justice was confirmed by ESET researchers.  ESET’s team of malware researchers in Montreal, in collaboration with journalist Hugo Joncas, helped shed light on a cyber attack that affected the Quebec Department of Justice.  Indeed, on August 11 and 12, the Department of Justice suffered a cyber attack in which malicious actors used malicious software to infect 14 inboxes under the Department‘s

Zoom now supports phone calls, text messages and authentication apps as forms of two-factor authentication   Zoom is rolling out support for two-factor authentication (2FA) across its web, desktop, and mobile applications, allowing users to double down on the security of their accounts with an extra layer of protection.  For context, 2FA systems require users to pass authentication

ESET researchers have discovered and analyzed malware that targets Voice over IP (VoIP) softswitches. This new malware that we have discovered and named CDRThief is designed to target a very specific VoIP platform, used by two China-produced softswitches (software switches): Linknat VOS2009 and VOS3000. A softswitch is a core element of a VoIP network that

Oregon’s largest city aims to be a trailblazer when it comes to facial recognition legislation . On Wednesday, The Portland City Council passed what could be considered one of the strictest facial recognition bans in the United States. The legislation bans both city government agencies and private businesses from using the technology on the city’s grounds.  While bans on the public

The cyber incident has taken most of Newcastle University’s systems offline and officials estimates it will take weeks to recover.  While students are slowly preparing to return to their universities and colleges after a prolonged absence due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Newcastle University in England has been left reeling from a cybersecurity incident that has affected almost all its systems.  The university first became

…but there are no conferences or exhibitions??? Being a regular presenter and visitor at conferences and exhibitions, it is not unusual for me to get unsolicited emails with offers to acquire the “verified” list of visitors or attendees, with function and contact details. Even for conferences and exhibitions I do not attend and often do

With TikTok being all the rage especially with teens, we look at a feature that gives parents greater control over how their children interact with the app In our previous article, we looked at how TikTok users can protect themselves using the available security and privacy options. However, besides adults, the platform is very popular

ESET researchers analyze a previously undocumented trojan that is spread via malicious torrents and uses multiple tricks to squeeze cryptocoins from its victims while staying under the radar ESET researchers have uncovered a hitherto undocumented malware family that we named KryptoCibule. This malware is a triple threat in regard to cryptocurrencies. It uses the victim’s

What’s the benefit of deleting your Houseparty – or any other unused – account, rather than just uninstalling the app? When the coronavirus pandemic began, people took to Houseparty by the millions. Many of us weren’t allowed to meet anyone in person, so videocalling became an even bigger success and Houseparty was the front runner.

As the US presidential election nears, the company’s new tech should also help assure people that an image or video is authentic Microsoft has announced a new tool that’s designed to identify deepfakes and help combat the proliferation of doctored media on the internet. Dubbed Microsoft Video Authenticator, the new technology can analyze both photos

Unknown threat actors were able to exfiltrate information from the email accounts of several parliamentarians Norway’s parliament, also known as the Storting, disclosed on Tuesday that it fell victim to an extensive cyberattack that targeted its internal email system. In an official statement addressing the incident, the legislature said that cybercriminals were able to access

The vulnerability could allow criminals to rack up fraudulent charges on the cards without needing to know the PINs A team of researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) has found a security vulnerability in Visa’s EMV contactless protocol that could allow attackers to perform PIN bypass attacks and commit

From keeping your account safe to curating who can view your liked content, we look at how you can increase your security and privacy on TikTok TikTok, one of the most recent additions to the roster of major social media platforms, has been enjoying immense popularity since its debut three years ago. The app is

The extortionists attempt to scare the targets into paying by claiming to represent some of the world’s most notorious APT groups Over the last few weeks, a cybercrime group has been extorting various organizations all over the world by threatening to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against them unless they pay thousands of dollars in

Chrome gets a new way of managing tabs while Firefox now features a new add-ons blocklist Google and Mozilla have each released new stable versions of their web browsers for desktop platforms, with both Chrome and Firefox bringing a slew of new features and security fixes that are being rolled out to Windows, Mac and

Cybercriminals take aim at teleworkers, setting up malicious duplicates of companies’ internal VPN login pages The United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have issued a joint advisory to warn about a surge in voice phishing (vishing) attacks targeting staff at a number of companies. The spike in

Several services, including the national revenue agency, had to be shut down following a series of credential-stuffing attacks Cybercriminals set their sights on the Canadian government at the beginning of August, when several government services were disabled following a series of cyberattacks. On August 15, the Treasury Board Secretariat announced that approximately 11,000 online government

Beware the tax bogeyman – there are tax scams aplenty Although it’s been some weeks since the height of the income tax season in many countries around the globe, the year 2020 has been looking less than normal even for cybercriminal activity. For several months, various threat actors have been attempting to impersonate governmental organizations,

It’s never too soon to plan for what will happen to your digital presence after you pass away Forgive me for writing about what may seem, at first glance, like a sensitive topic while many parts of the world continue to struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic. I, like many people, use the internet as a

Armed with personal data stolen from the hotel’s dining reservation system, fraudsters trick guests into handing over their credit card details The Ritz London has launched an investigation into a potential data breach that affected its food and beverage reservation system. The information stolen in the breach seems to have been used by fraudsters to

Could your social media account be spoofed, why would anybody do it, and what can you do to avoid having a doppelgänger? Social media has some great advantages, such as keeping in touch with loved ones and sharing experiences with friends, but like almost anything on the internet, it can be easily abused. With some

The web browser will only display domain names as a way to help people recognize impostor websites Google will test a new feature in the Google Chrome web browser to help people spot websites that aim to trick them into giving away their personal data. The experiment, which will be rolled out on the desktop

Another in our occasional series demystifying Latin American banking trojans In this installment of our series, we introduce Mekotio, a Latin American banking trojan targeting mainly Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Peru and Portugal. The most notable feature of the newest variants of this malware family is using a SQL database as a C&C server. Figure

The price tag is higher if the incident exposed customer data or if it was the result of a malicious attack, an annual IBM study finds The average cost of a data breach has declined by 1.5% year-over-year, costing companies US$3.86 million per incident, according to IBM’s 2020 Cost of a Data Breach Report. The annual

An apparent glitch is preventing a number of users from signing into their accounts A number of Twitter users from around the globe report experiencing problems when attempting to log into their accounts. The microblogging site is investigating what seems to be a glitch in its verification systems that is affecting some people who utilize

With the big voting day rapidly approaching, can the security of the election still be shored up? If so, how? Following the Black Hat keynote about voting security, we wonder how fixing elections might be possible in the next few months amidst pressure of U.S. elections rapidly approaching, requiring massive, coordinated effort at immense expense.

Here’s what to be aware of if your personal data was compromised in the breach at the cloud software provider Is yet another data breach newsworthy enough to write a blogpost? Probably not, unless there is a personal connection or something interesting. In the case of Blackbaud, for me, there are both. The majority of

Why are SMBs a target for ransomware-wielding gangs and what can they do to protect themselves against cyber-extortion? According to the World Bank, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) play a huge role in most economies, accounting for 90% of businesses worldwide and representing over 50% of employment. These are businesses that range from family-owned restaurants, through