The authors thank their colleagues Oliver Devane and Deepak Setty for their help with this analysis. McAfee Labs researchers have discovered new Russian malware, dubbed WebCobra, which harnesses victims’ computing power to mine for cryptocurrencies. Coin mining malware is difficult to detect. Once a machine is compromised, a malicious app runs silently in the background

If we asked database administrators, security teams, and risk teams about their definition of what database security is, the answers would vary widely. Each team views the definition based on their own requirements, but the one answer that most likely won’t appear is: “To protect data.” Traditionally, database security has always been seen as a

Holiday stress. Every year, come November, my resting heart rate starts to rise: the festive season is approaching. Not only is there so much to do but there’s so much to spend money on. There are presents to purchase, feasts to prepare and party outfits to buy. Throw in a holiday to fill the long

At the end of last year, a survey revealed that the most popular password was still “123456,” followed by “password.” These highly hackable choices are despite years of education around the importance of password security. So, what does this say about people who pick simple passwords? Most likely, they are shooting for a password that is

You aren’t going to like this post. However, you will, hopefully, find yourself nodding and perhaps, even making some changes because of it. Here it friends: That love-hate relationship you have with your smartphone may need some serious attention — not tomorrow or next week — but now. I’m lecturing myself first by the way.

If you’re a gamer, you know how important virtual currency is. It allows you to purchase new costumes and weapons to personalize your avatar. But how does one go about gaining virtual currency? Players complete in-game challenges and are rewarded with coins to spend in their virtual world. These challenges can be pretty difficult and

The Americas Partner Summit 2018 was held on Tuesday, October 16 at MPOWER Cybersecurity Summit. It was a day filled with McAfee and partner leadership coming together to collaborate on McAfee’s partner strategy, product portfolio, programs, and more. Here are some of the highlights: The Audience 338 partners 225 VAR, Disti, MSP, etc. 35 OEM

Cryptocurrency mining is the way transactions are verified and added to the public ledger, a database of all the transactions made around a particular piece of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency miners compile all of these transactions into blocks and try to solve complicated mathematical problems to compete with other miners for bitcoins. To do this, miners need

With just days until Black Friday, the unofficial kick off to the holiday shopping season is quickly approaching. In anticipation of the busiest time of year for e-commerce, this year we conducted a survey, Stressed Holiday Online Shopping, to understand how financial pressure can impact buyer behavior when it comes to online purchasing and cybersecurity.

Ahmad, Software Architect Hailing from a small town in India, school for me was largely a means to an end. Rather than a chance to explore and cultivate my own interest, education was a path to a degree that could be used to obtain a steady and respectable career. Throughout my childhood, however, I was

Malware that attacks industrial control systems (ICS), such as the Stuxnet campaign in 2010, is a serious threat. This class of cyber sabotage can spy on, disrupt, or destroy systems that manage large-scale industrial processes. An essential danger in this threat is that it moves from mere digital damage to risking human lives. In this

Clash of Clans, Runescape, Fortnite, Counter Strike, Battlefield V, and Dota 2. While these titles may not mean much to those outside of the video gaming world, they are just a few of the wildly popular games thousands of players are live streaming to viewers worldwide this very minute. However, with all the endless hours

If you’re an avid gamer, you’ve probably come across a game that just seems impossible to complete. That’s because, thanks to the internet, it’s so simple to look for cheats to games on YouTube to help you level up. Most cheats exist in the form of software patches that execute files in order to activate

Last week, I waved goodbye to my eldest son as he moved halfway across the world to study for a year. I was so emotional at the airport – I couldn’t talk! After many cups of tea and even more stares in an airport café, I had no more tears left and was finally able

Security evolves to meet the needs of the age. Keys, for example, were created to secure homes and possessions. Encryption, the elements of which stretch back for thousands of years, filled the need to secure messages over a long distance. Security – as both a concept and an industry — is relatively simple to understand

From gaming to helping people conquer their fear of spiders and getting quarterbacks ready for Sunday, virtual reality is a much-hyped emerging technology. But is it hackable?   In Ep. 18 of of Hackable?, “Virtually Vulnerable”, Geoff straps on a headset and tests his mettle against white-hat hackers manipulating his virtual experience. Can he withstand ransomware, a human

Alexandr Solad and Daniel Hatheway of Recorded Future are coauthors of this post. Read Recorded Future’s version of this analysis.  Rising from the deep, Kraken Cryptor ransomware has had a notable development path in recent months. The first signs of Kraken came in mid-August on a popular underground forum. In mid-September it was reported that

If you took an inventory of your digital possessions chances are, most of your life — everything from phones to toys, to wearables, to appliances — has wholly transitioned from analog to digital (rotary to wireless). What you may not realize is that with this dramatic transition, comes a fair amount of risk. Privacy for Progress With

On Tuesday, Oct. 16, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) held its “Kicking off the NIST Privacy Framework: Workshop #1” in Austin, Texas. I was honored to be asked to participate. This was the first in a series of public workshops focusing on the development of a useful and voluntary Privacy Framework, like

Many of us rely on our technology throughout our everyday lives. So, when something goes wrong, we look to tech support to save the day. Unfortunately, cybercriminals have used our reliance on tech support to make a profit in the form of tech support scams. And now it appears that a brand new scheme has

Innovation. It’s at the core of any security breakthrough. Just ask an expert in the crowd gathered at MPOWER, McAfee’s Annual Security Summit. And if you ask me, as McAfee’s SVP and chief human resource officer, innovation is not just how our industry can defend against the growing number of cyberthreats, but also how we

Look out, someone has released the Kraken — or at least a ransomware strain named after it. Kraken Cryptor ransomware first made its appearance back in August, but in mid-September, the malicious beast emerged from the depths disguised as the legitimate spyware application SuperAntiSpyware. In fact, the attackers behind the ransomware were able to access

This blog was co-written by Rafael Pena. We recently received customer submissions related to a phishing campaign that was redirecting users to a browser hijacker. It became clear, after analysis, that these cases were related to a technical support scam in which the attacker uses scare tactics—such as displaying fake error messages and phone numbers—to

One of the things we at McAfee have been looking at this midterm election season is the security of election infrastructure at the individual county and state levels.  A lot of media and cybersecurity research focus has been placed on whether a major national attack could disrupt the entire U.S. voting infrastructure. Headlines and security

The McAfee Mobile Research team recently found an active phishing campaign using text messages (SMS) that tricks users into downloading and installing a fake voice-message app which allows cybercriminals to use infected devices as network proxies without users’ knowledge. If the fake application is installed, a background service starts a Socks proxy that redirects all

It’s the middle of a workday. While researching a project, a random ad pops up on your computer screen alerting you of a virus. The scary-looking, flashing warning tells you to download an “anti-virus software” immediately. Impulsively, you do just that and download either the free or the $9.99 to get the critical download. But

This year’s MPOWER Americas was packed with innovative keynote speakers, the MPOWER Partner Summit, tons of sessions, technical deep dives, demos, an Innovation Fair, and much more. Take a look at some of the highlights from this year’s event! [embedded content] “Together is Power” in Action at Partner Summit On Tuesday, we hosted Partner Summit,

Over the past two decades, we’ve seen a huge rise in the popularity of online gaming among both children and adults. One particular game that has experienced huge success is “Grand Theft Auto,” or GTA, which has been developed and produced by Rockstar Games. The most recent edition of the game, “Grand Theft Auto V,”

As technology becomes more advanced, so do cybercriminals’ strategies for gaining access to our personal information. And while phishing scams have been around for over two decades, attackers have adapted their methods to “bait” victims through a variety of platforms. In fact, we’re seeing a rise in the popularity of phishing via SMS messages, or

When we think about how technology impacts our daily lives, we don’t really notice it unless it’s a big-picture concept. In fact, there are many areas where technology plays an outsized impact on our lives — and we hardly notice it at all. Traffic lights can be controlled remotely, thermostats can automatically warm or chill