Login
Next time you're tempted to hold off on installing software updates, remember why these updates are necessary in the first place
The post 5 reasons to keep your software and devices up to date appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
I’m sure you’ve seen them — emails or messages that sound alarming and ask you to act quickly. We live in a digital world that produces hundreds of messages and alerts every day. It’s often hard to determine the validity of a suspicious message or phishing email. Whether you are an administrator, or an end-user, it can be overwhelming to accurately identify a malicious message. When in doubt, here are some questions you should ask yourself:
Is the message from a legitimate sender?
Do I normally receive messages from this person?
If there’s a link, can I tell where it’s sending me?
Attackers continue to evolve their methods, and they’re highly educated on the defenses they come up against in the wild. They’ll craft messages that do not involve any traditional indicators of compromise, such as domains, IP address, or URL links. They’ll also start their attacks by sending messages as an initial lure to establish trust, before sending an email with altered invoice or one claiming to be a helpless employee attempting to get their payroll fixed.
Phishing is a socially-based attack type, one where the threat actors focus on human behavior. When these attacks target organizations, there are multiple levels of attack at play. One that focuses on behavioral patterns and workflow, and the other centers on the victim’s emotional boundaries, such as targeting their desire to help others. You see this pattern frequently in Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks.
Below, we’ve placed an example of a lure, which will test the victim to see if there is a means to quickly establish trust. Here, the threat actor is pretending to be the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the victim’s organization. If the lure is successful, then the threat actor will progress the attack, and often request sensitive records or wire transfers. Notice that in the email headers, the person pretending to be the CFO is using a Gmail account, one that was likely created just for this attack. The message is brief, stresses importance and urgency, and requests assistance, playing on the victim’s workflow and desire to help an executive or someone with authority.
The example below is a simplified one, to be sure, but the elements are legitimate. Daily, emails like this hit the inboxes of organizations globally, and the attackers only need to locate a single victim to make their efforts payout.
In the FBI / IC3 2021 Internet Crime Report, there were nearly 20,000 Business Email Compromise complaints filed, with an adjusted loss of nearly 2.4 billion dollars. While spoofing the identity of an executive is certainly one way to conduct a BEC attack, the FBI says that threat actors have started leveraging the normality of hybrid-work to target meeting platforms to establish trust and conduct their crimes. When successful, the funds from the fraudulent wire transfers are moved to crypto wallets and the funds dispersed, making recovery harder.
So as an end user what can you do to protect your organization? Be mindful anytime you receive an urgent call to action, especially when the subject involves money. If your workflow means that you regularly receive these types of requests from the specific individual, verify their identity and the validity of the request using another channel of communication, such as in person or via phone. If you do validate their identity via the phone, take care to avoid calling any numbers listed in the email.
Cisco Secure Email helps stop these types of attacks by tracking user relationships and threat techniques. These techniques often include account takeover, spoofing and many more. Using an intent-based approach allows Secure Email to detect and classify business email compromises and other attacks, so administrators are empowered to take a risk-based approach to stopping these threats.
Find out more about how Cisco Secure Email can help keep your organization safe from phishing.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
pic-1200
The concept of zero trust is not a new one, and some may even argue that the term is overused. In reality, however, its criticality is growing with each passing day. Why? Because many of today’s attacks begin with the user. According to Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report, 82% of breaches involve the human element — whether it’s stolen credentials, phishing, misuse or error.
Additionally, today’s businesses are hyper-connected, meaning that — in addition to your employees — customers, partners and suppliers are all part of your ecosystem. Couple that with hybrid work, IoT, the move to the cloud, and more emboldened attackers, and organizational risk increases exponentially.
Adopting a zero trust model can dramatically reduce this risk by eliminating implicit trust. It has become so crucial, in fact, that several governments including the U.S., UK and Australia have released mandates and guidance for how organizations should deploy zero trust to improve national security.
However, because zero trust is more of a concept than a technology, and so many vendors use the term, organizations struggle with the best way to implement it. At Cisco, we believe you should take a holistic approach to zero trust, starting with what you have and adding on as you identify gaps in your defenses. And while layers of protection are necessary for powerful security, so is ease of use.
Zero trust plays a major role in building security resilience, or the ability to withstand unpredictable threats or changes and emerge stronger. Through zero trust, the identity and security posture of users, devices and applications are continuously checked and verified to prevent network intrusions — and to also limit impact if an unauthorized entity does gain access.
Organizations with high zero trust maturity are twice as likely to achieve business resilience.
– Cisco’s Guide to Zero Trust Maturity
Eliminating trust, however, doesn’t really conjure up images of user-friendly technology. No matter how necessary they are for the business, employees are unlikely to embrace security measures that make their jobs more cumbersome and time-consuming. Instead, they want fast, consistent access to any application no matter where they are or which device they are using.
That’s why Cisco is taking a different approach to zero trust — one that removes friction for the user. For example, with Cisco Secure Access by Duo, organizations can provide those connecting to their network with several quick, easy authentication options. This way, they can put in place multi-factor authentication (MFA) that frustrates attackers, not users.
Cisco Secure Access by Duo is a key pillar of zero trust security, providing industry-leading features for secure access, authentication and device monitoring. Duo is customizable, straightforward to use, and simple to set up. It enables the use of modern authentication methods including biometrics, passwordless and single sign-on (SSO) to help organizations advance zero trust without sacrificing user experience. Duo also provides the flexibility organizations need to enable secure remote access with or without a VPN connection.
During Cisco’s own roll-out of Duo to over 100,000 people, less than 1% of users contacted the help desk for assistance. On an annual basis, Duo is saving Cisco $3.4 million in employee productivity and $500,000 in IT help desk support costs. Furthermore, 86,000 potential compromises are averted by Duo each month.
La-Z-Boy, one of the world’s leading residential furniture producers, also wanted to defend its employees against cybersecurity breaches through MFA and zero trust. It needed a data security solution that worked agnostically, could grow with the company, and that was easy to roll out and implement.
“When COVID first hit and people were sent home to work remotely, we started seeing more hacking activity…” said Craig Vincent, director of IT infrastructure and operations at La-Z-Boy. “We were looking for opportunities to secure our environment with a second factor…. We knew that even post-pandemic we would need a hybrid solution.”
“It was very quick and easy to see where Duo fit into our environment quite well, and worked with any application or legacy app, while deploying quickly.” – Craig Vincent, Director of IT Infrastructure and Operations, La-Z-Boy
Today, Duo helps La-Z-Boy maintain a zero trust framework, stay compliant, and get clear visibility into what is connecting to its network and VPN. Zero trust helps La-Z-Boy secure its organization against threats such as phishing, stolen credentials and out-of-date devices that may be vulnerable to known exploits and malware.
As mentioned, zero trust is a framework, not a single product or technology. For zero trust to be truly effective, it must do four things:
Many technology companies may offer a single component of zero trust, or one aspect of protection, but Cisco’s robust networking and security expertise enables us to provide a holistic zero trust solution. Not only can we support all the steps above, but we can do so across your whole IT ecosystem.
Modern organizations are operating multi-environment ecosystems that include a mix of on-premises and cloud technologies from various vendors. Zero trust solutions should be able to protect across all this infrastructure, no matter which providers are in use. Protections should also extend from the network and cloud to users, devices, applications and data. With Cisco’s extensive security portfolio, operating on multiple clouds and platforms, zero trust controls can be embedded at every layer.
Depending on where you are in your security journey, embedding zero trust at every layer of your infrastructure may sound like a lofty endeavor. That’s why we meet customers where they are on their path to zero trust. Whether your first priority is to meet regulatory requirements, secure hybrid work, protect the cloud, or something else, we have the expertise to help you get started. We provide clear guidance and technologies for zero trust security mapped to established frameworks from organizations like CISA and NIST.
Much of our Cisco Secure portfolio can be used to build a successful zero trust framework, but some examples of what we offer include:
All of our technologies and services are backed by the unparalleled intelligence of Cisco Talos — so you always have up-to-date protection as you build your zero trust architecture. Additionally, our open, integrated security platform — Cisco SecureX — makes it simple to expand and scale your security controls, knowing they will work with your other technologies for more unified defenses.
As Italy’s leading insurance company, Sara Assicurazioni requires complete visibility into its extended network, including a multi-cloud architecture and hybrid workforce. The company has adopted a comprehensive zero trust strategy through Cisco Secure.
“Our decentralized users, endpoints, and cloud-based servers and workloads contribute to a large attack surface,” says Paolo Perrucci, director of information and communications technology architectures and operations at Sara Assicurazioni. “With Cisco, we have the right level of visibility on this surface.”
“The main reason we chose Cisco is that only Cisco can offer a global security solution rather than covering one specific point…. Thanks to Cisco Secure, I’m quite confident that our security posture is now many times better because we are leveraging more scalable, state-of-the-art security solutions.” – Luigi Vassallo, COO & CTO, Sara Assicurazioni
To learn more, explore our zero trust page and sign up for one of our free zero trust workshops.
Watch video: How Cisco implemented zero trust in just five months
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
In the first step of our doxxing research, we collected a list of our online footprint, digging out the most important accounts that you want to protect and obsolete or forgotten accounts you no longer use. Because the most recent and relevant data is likely to live in the accounts you use regularly, our next step will be to review the full scope of what’s visible from these accounts and to set more intentional boundaries on what is shared.
It’s important to note here that the goal isn’t to eliminate every trace of yourself from the internet and never go online again. That’s not realistic for the vast majority of people in our connected world (and I don’t know about you, but even if it was I wouldn’t want to!) And whether it’s planning for an individual or a giant organization, security built to an impossible standard is destined to fail. Instead, we are shifting you from default to intentional sharing, and improving visibility and control over what you do want to share.
Before making changes to the settings and permissions for each of these accounts, we’re going to make sure that access to the account itself is secure. You can start with your email accounts (especially any that you use as a recovery email for forgotten passwords, or use for financial, medical, or other sensitive communications). This shouldn’t take very long for each site, and involves a few straightforward steps:
The best way to prevent a breached password from exposing another account to attack is to use a unique password for for every website you visit. And while you may have heard previous advice on strong passwords (along the lines of “eight or more characters, with a mix of upper/lower case letters, numbers, and special characters”), more recent standards emphasize the importance of longer passwords. For a great explanation of why longer passwords work better than shorter, multi-character type passwords, check out this excellent XKCD strip:
A password manager will make this process much easier, as most have the ability to generate unique passwords and allow you to tailor their length and complexity. While we’re on the topic of what makes a good password, make sure that the password to access your password manager is both long and memorable.
You don’t want to save or auto-fill that password because it acts as the “keys to the kingdom” for everything else, so I recommend following a process like the one outlined in the comic above, or another mnemonic device, to help you remember that password. Once you’ve reset the password, check for a “log out of active devices” option to make sure the new password is used.
MFA uses two or more “factors” verifying something you know, something you have, or something you are. A password is an example of “something you know”, and here are a few of the most common methods used for an additional layer of security:
If you want to know more about the different ways you can log in with strong authentication and how they vary in effectiveness, check out the Google Security Team blog post “Understanding the Root Cause of Account Takeover.”
Before we move on from passwords and 2FA, I want to highlight a second step to log in that doesn’t meet the standard of strong authentication: password questions. These are usually either a secondary prompt after entering username and password, or used to verify your identity before sending a password reset link. The problem is that many of the most commonly-used questions rely on semi-public information and, like passcodes, are entered on the same device used to log in.
Another common practice is leveraging common social media quizzes/questionnaires that people post on their social media account. If you’ve seen your friends post their “stage name” by taking the name of their first pet and the street they grew up on, you may notice that’s a combination of two pretty common password questions! While not a very targeted or precise method of attack, the casual sharing of these surveys can have consequences beyond their momentary diversion.
One of the first widely-publicized doxxings happened when Paris Hilton’s contact list, notes, and photos were accessed by resetting her password using the password question, “what is your favorite pet’s name?”. Because Hilton had previously discussed her beloved chihuahua, Tinkerbell, the attacker was able to use this information to access the account.
Sometimes, though, you’ll be required to use these password questions, and in those cases I’ve got a simple rule to keep you safe: lie! That’s right, you won’t be punished if you fib when entering the answers to your password questions so that the answers can’t be researched, and most password managers also include a secure note field that will let you save your questions and answers in case you need to recall them later.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
Dan Burke is the director of strategy, risk, and compliance for AppDynamics, a company acquired by Cisco in 2017. Burke and his team are a vital part of the Cisco acquisition process in helping acquired companies adhere to a higher level of cybersecurity. This blog is the fourth in a series focused on M&A cybersecurity, following Shiva Persaud’s post on When It Comes to M&A, Security Is a Journey.
Part of the secret to Cisco’s success is its ability to acquire companies that strengthen its technology portfolio and securely integrate them into the larger organization. From the outside, that process might appear seamless—consider Webex or Duo Security, for instance—but a fruitful acquisition takes tremendous work by multiple cross-functional teams, mainly to ensure the acquired company’s solutions and products meet Cisco’s rigorous security requirements.
“My team is responsible for aligning new acquisitions to Cisco controls to maintain our compliance with SOC2 and FedRAMP, as well as other required certifications,” says Burke.
When Cisco acquires a new company, it conducts an assessment and produces a security readiness plan (SRP) document. The SRP details the identified weaknesses and risks within that company and what they need to fix to meet Cisco standards.
“In the past, my team wouldn’t find out about an acquisition until they received a completed SRP. The downside of this approach was that the assessments and negotiations had been done without input from our group of experts, and target dates for resolution had already been decided on,” shares Burke.
“We needed to be involved in the process before the SRP was created to understand all risks and compliance issues in advance. Now we have a partnership with the Cisco Security and Trust M&A team and know about an acquisition months before we can start working to address risks and other issues—before the SRP is completed and the due dates have been assigned,” Burke adds.
“Another issue resolved in this process change is that Cisco can gain earlier access to the people in the acquired company who know the security risks of their solutions. During acquisitions, people will often leave the company, taking with them their institutional knowledge, resulting in Cisco having to start from scratch to identify and assess the risks and determine how best to resolve them as quickly as possible,” says Burke. “It could be vulnerabilities in physical infrastructure or software code or both. It could be that the company isn’t scanning often enough, or they don’t have SOC 2 or FedRAMP certification yet—or they’re not using Cisco’s tools.”
“Third-party vendors and suppliers can also present an issue,” he adds. “One of the biggest risk areas of any company is outside vendors who have access to a company’s data. It’s vital to identify who these vendors are and understand the level of access they have to data and applications. The earlier we know all these things, the more time we must devise solutions to solve them.”
“Now that I’m in the process earlier, I can build a relationship with the people who have the security knowledge—before they leave. If I can understand their mindset and how all these issues came about, I can help them assimilate more easily into the bigger Cisco family,” says Burke.
The additional benefits of bringing teams in earlier are reduced risk and compliance requirements can be met earlier. It also provides a smoother transition for the company being acquired and ensures they meet the security requirements that customers expect when using their technology solutions.
“Without that early involvement, we might treat a low-risk issue as high risk, or vice versa. The misclassification of risk is extremely dangerous. If you’re treating something as high risk, that’s low risk, and you’re wasting people’s time and money. But if something’s high risk and you’re treating it as low risk, then you’re in danger of harming your company,” Burke shares.
“The key is to involve their risk, compliance, and security professionals from the beginning. I think other companies keep the M&A process so closely guarded, to their detriment. I understand the need for privacy and to make sure deals are confidential but bringing us in earlier was an advantage for the M&A team and us,” Burke adds.
When asked what he thinks makes Cisco successful in M&A, Burke says, “Cisco does an excellent job of assimilating everyone into the larger organization. I have worked at other companies where they kept their acquisitions separate, which means you have people operating separately with different controls for different companies. That’s not only a financial burden but also a compliance headache.”
“That’s why Cisco tries to drive all its acquisitions through our main programs and controls. It makes life easier for everyone in terms of compliance. With Cisco, you have that security confidence knowing that all these companies are brought up to their already very high standards, and you can rely on the fact that they don’t treat them separately. And when an acquisition has vulnerabilities, we identify them, set out a remediation path, and manage the process until those risks are resolved,” Burke concludes.
Managing Cybersecurity Risk in M&A
Demonstrating Trust and Transparency in Mergers and Acquisitions
When It Comes to M&A, Security Is a Journey
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
What can schools, which all too often make easy prey for cybercriminals, do to bolster their defenses and keep threats at bay?
The post 5 steps to protect your school from cyberattacks appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
Technology has typically had a reputation for being exciting and inventive. Unfortunately, this hasn’t always been the case for security. But times have changed. We are now recognizing the crucial role security plays in any groundbreaking technology. Without strong defenses, even the most visionary app is likely to crash and burn. So it’s imperative that big security players like Cisco stay on top of what’s next.
I am thrilled to announce that in November, we will be launching our new video series, “NEXT” by Cisco Secure. In the series, my esteemed co-host TK Keanini and I will interview some of the brightest new minds in tech to find out more about the future of the industry and how we can best secure it. Watch the series preview below!
As the CTO of Cisco Secure, TK has over 25 years of networking and security expertise, as well as a penchant for driving technical innovation. As for me, I’m a cybersecurity specialist of 10 years with an obsession for communication and empathy. Together, TK and I will bring new cyber pioneers to the forefront and highlight the criticality of digital protection and privacy for everyone.
Whether we’re discussing Web3, the metaverse, or next-generation healthcare, we’ll learn and laugh a lot. Through simple conversations about complex topics, we’re building a bridge between leading-edge tech and how Cisco is helping to safeguard what’s on the horizon.
And what better time to preview this series than during Cybersecurity Awareness Month? A time when we focus on the reality that security belongs to everyone — not just the threat hunter, or the product engineer, or the incident responder — but everyone.
We all have a responsibility to protect the world’s data and infrastructure, and should all have a seat at the table for important security conversations. We hope you’ll join us as we dive into what’s making waves out there, and how we can keep it safe.
Follow our Cisco Secure social channels to catch our first episode in November, when we will speak with Michael Ebel, CEO of Atmosfy. Atmosfy is revolutionizing restaurant reviews by incorporating engaging live video that inspires others and supports local businesses. TK and I will chat with Michael about the origin of Atmosfy, and how the company keeps its content authentic and organization resilient.
In the meantime, explore our other Cybersecurity Awareness Month resources.
Who do you want to hear from next? Tell us your ideas for future guests in the comments.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
Sharing is caring… but on the internet, sharing can also be tricky! When we post something, we have to look at the forest and not just the trees. Doxxers usually start with one or two pieces of relatively innocent or public information, but by connecting the dots between those pieces they can build a frighteningly detailed picture of an individual.
Seemingly innocuous details can be pieced together into a much more personal profile when collected and leveraged to learn more. As one example, your wish list/wedding registry makes it easy for friends and family to get you gifts that you actually want, but could also be used to find out products/services you’re interested in as pretext (setting the scene) of a conversation or phishing email trying to gather more. You may have Google Alerts set up for your name (a great idea!), but this may not flag text in scanned documents such as school yearbooks, newspapers and other digitized paper records available online.
If the above sounds scary – don’t panic! Your first step in this auto-dox is going to be brainstorming as much personally identifying information (PII) shared online as possible. I suggest doing this either in a secure note or longhand. The goal is to write down all of the accounts/addresses/phone numbers that come to mind, as these are some of the top things that attackers will try to gather in their search. Start your list here:
Email addresses are an especially juicy target for someone trying to locate you, because most people only use one personal and maaaybe a second school or work email account. Those accounts are tied to all our other online identities and often double as our username for logging in.
When you finish this process, you will likely have dozens or even hundreds of “breadcrumbs” between your account list and search results. Read through your list again, and we’re going to sort it into three categories:
Great job! You’ve already got a much better idea of what people can learn about you than most folks ever do, and are well on your way to cleaning up your online footprint. In our next step, we’ll start locking down everything that you want to keep!
P.S. If you’re enjoying this process and value keeping people safe online, please check out our open roles at Cisco Secure.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
How do organizations earn and build trust when it comes to the personal data that customers share with them? Customers certainly expect these organizations to comply with all privacy laws that are now in place in more than 130 countries. Customers also expect them not to sell personal data without consent and to try to avoid data breaches that could expose personal data. While these actions are necessary, organizations still need to do more when it comes to customer trust. According to our latest research, consumers’ top priority is, in fact, for organizations to be more transparent about how they use personal data.
The Cisco 2022 Consumer Privacy Survey, released today, explores what organizations can do to earn and build trust with customers, the actions individuals are taking to protect their data, the impact of privacy laws around the world, and some of the benefits and costs of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data localization requirements. The report, our fourth annual look at consumer privacy issues, draws on anonymous responses from 2600 adults in 12 countries.
Here are some highlights from the survey:
Check out the associated infographic that provides visual and easily consumable descriptions of the key data.
At Cisco, we believe that privacy is a fundamental human right. Privacy continues to be a high priority for consumers, and organizations need to do their part to protect personal data and build consumer confidence in how this data is being used. Some recommendations for organizations include:
Privacy remains a critical element of trust. Consumers want more transparency and control of their personal data, especially as we continue to see innovations in technology. As we are now in the midst of Cybersecurity Awareness Month in the US and other countries around the world, it’s a great time to learn more and join in activities and discussions that advance cybersecurity.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
One of the oldest tricks in the cybercrime playbook is phishing. It first hit the digital scene in 1995, at a time when millions flocked to America Online (AOL) every day. And if we know one thing about cybercriminals, it’s that they tend to follow the masses. In earlier iterations, phishing attempts were easy to spot due to link misspellings, odd link redirects, and other giveaways. However, today’s phishing tricks have become personalized, advanced, and shrouded in new disguises. So, let’s take a look at some of the different types, real-world examples and how you can recognize a phishing lure.
Every day, users get sent thousands of emails. Some are important, but most are just plain junk. These emails often get filtered to a spam folder, where phishing emails are often trapped. But sometimes they slip through the digital cracks, into a main inbox. These messages typically have urgent requests that require the user to input sensitive information or fill out a form through an external link. These phishing emails can take on many personas, such as banking institutions, popular services, and universities. As such, always remember to stay vigilant and double-check the source before giving away any information.
A sort of sibling to email phishing, link manipulation is when a cybercriminal sends users a link to malicious website under the ruse of an urgent request or deadline. After clicking on the deceptive link, the user is brought to the cybercriminal’s fake website rather than a real or verified link and asked to input or verify personal details. This exact scenario happened last year when several universities and businesses fell for a campaign disguised as a package delivery issue from FedEx. This scheme is a reminder that anyone can fall for a cybercriminals trap, which is why users always have to careful when clicking, as well as ensure the validity of the claim and source of the link. To check the validity, it’s always a good idea to contact the source directly to see if the notice or request is legitimate.
Corporate executives have always been high-level targets for cybercriminals. That’s why C-suite members have a special name for when cybercriminals try to phish them – whaling. What sounds like a silly name is anything but. In this sophisticated, as well as personalized attack, a cybercriminal attempts to manipulate the target to obtain money, trade secrets, or employee information. In recent years, organizations have become smarter and in turn, whaling has slowed down. Before the slowdown, however, many companies were hit with data breaches due to cybercriminals impersonating C-suite members and asking lower-level employees for company information. To avoid this pesky phishing attempt, train C-suite members to be able to identify phishing, as well as encourage unique, strong passwords on all devices and accounts.
Just as email spam and link manipulation are phishing siblings, so too are whaling and spear-phishing. While whaling attacks target the C-suite of a specific organization, spear-phishing rather targets lower-level employees of a specific organization. Just as selective and sophisticated as whaling, spear-phishing targets members of a specific organization to gain access to critical information, like staff credentials, intellectual property, customer data, and more. Spear-phishing attacks tend to be more lucrative than a run-of-the-mill phishing attack, which is why cybercriminals will often spend more time crafting and obtaining personal information from these specific targets. To avoid falling for this phishing scheme, employees must have proper security training so they know how to spot a phishing lure when they see one.
With so many things to click on a website, it’s easy to see why cybercriminals would take advantage of that fact. Content spoofing is based on exactly that notion – a cybercriminal alters a section of content on a page of a reliable website to redirect an unsuspecting user to an illegitimate website where they are then asked to enter personal details. The best way to steer clear of this phishing scheme is to check that the URL matches the primary domain name.
When users search for something online, they expect reliable resources. But sometimes, phishing sites can sneak their way into legitimate results. This tactic is called search engine phishing and involves search engines being manipulated into showing malicious results. Users are attracted to these sites by discount offers for products or services. However, when the user goes to buy said product or service, their personal details are collected by the deceptive site. To stay secure, watch out for potentially sketchy ads in particular and when in doubt always navigate to the official site first.
With new technologies come new avenues for cybercriminals to try and obtain personal data. Vishing, or voice phishing, is one of those new avenues. In a vishing attempt, cybercriminals contact users by phone and ask the user to dial a number to receive identifiable bank account or personal information through the phone by using a fake caller ID. For example, just last year, a security researcher received a call from their financial institution saying that their card had been compromised. Instead of offering a replacement card, the bank suggested simply blocking any future geographic-specific transactions. Sensing something was up, the researcher hung up and dialed his bank – they had no record of the call or the fraudulent card transactions. This scenario, as sophisticated as it sounds, reminds users to always double-check directly with businesses before sharing any personal information.
As you can see, phishing comes in all shapes and sizes. This blog only scratches the surface of all the ways cybercriminals lure unsuspecting users into phishing traps. The best way to stay protected is to invest in comprehensive security and stay updated on new phishing scams.
The post The Seven Main Phishing Lures of Cybercriminals appeared first on McAfee Blog.
It is never too late to start a career in cybersecurity — this may sound cliché, but it holds a lot of truth. If you are passionate about the topic and are ready to put in the work to acquire the skills and knowledge needed, anyone, regardless of educational background, can break into cybersecurity.
At the age of 26, I started a four-year bachelor’s degree in digital forensics. I got introduced to the field by chance after working in data analytics for a few years and taking a college class on criminology. The program that I signed up for was mostly remote, with 80% independent preparation and bi-monthly on-site weekends at the university. I quickly realized that this model of education works great for me — I could read the materials provided by the program at my own pace and use as much external materials to supplement my understanding as needed. While the program was designed for working professionals and classes were spread out over four years, instead of the usual three years for a bachelor’s degree in Germany, it required a lot of discipline to complete the coursework while having a full-time job. Along the way, I learned several things about combining the responsibilities of adult life and achieving the study goals I had set for myself.
Below, I will outline a few recommendations to follow if you would like to break into the security field as an adult learner.
Use visual support to communicate your goals and timeline to others. This makes it easy for them to understand where you stand and why you might pass on the dinner invitation for next weekend.
Small reminders like the one above can help you stay motivated and focused.
One of the first events that I attended as a student was an information day by the German research institute Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT). Public institutions like this one tend to offer more affordable events and discount rates for students.
Appreciate the small steps forward and be gentle to your mental health.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
Shiva Persaud is the director of security engineering for Cisco. His team is responsible for the Cisco Secure Development Lifecycle (CSDL), a set of practices based on a “secure-by-design” philosophy developed to ensure that security and compliance are top-of-mind in every step of a solution’s lifecycle. This blog is the third in a series focused on M&A cybersecurity, following Jason Button’s post on Demonstrating Trust and Transparency in Mergers and Acquisitions.
One of the most important considerations when Cisco acquires a company, is ensuring that the security posture of the acquisition’s solutions and infrastructure meets the enterprise’s security standards. That can be a tricky proposition and certainly doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, at Cisco, it only comes about thanks to the efforts of a multitude of people working hard behind the scenes.
“The consistent message is that no matter where a product is in its security journey, from inception to end-of-life activities, there’s still a lot of work that can happen to lead to a better security outcome,” says Persaud.
While Persaud and his team work within Cisco on all the company’s products and solutions, they also play a critical role in maintaining security standards in Cisco’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) work.
Simply put, Persaud’s team is tasked with identifying the security risks posed by an acquisition’s technology and helping teams mitigate those risks.
“It starts with a risk assessment where we ask ourselves what an attacker would do to compromise this specific technology,” says Persaud. “What are the industry best practices for securing this type of technology? What do our customers expect this technology to provide from a security perspective? And once we have those risks enumerated, we prioritize them to decide which is the most important to take care of first.”
To anticipate where a hacker might find vulnerabilities and the actions they might take, the CSDL team must put themselves in that attack mindset. Fortunately for Persaud, his interest in computer security started as early as middle school. “It just kind of grew from there,” he says. “For many folks I’ve worked with and hired over the years, it’s a similar situation.”
That lifelong interest and experience work to the team’s advantage. They take a risk-based approach to security, in which they identify all the issues that need to be fixed and then rate them based on the likelihood of occurrence and seriousness of the results of an attack. Those ratings inform their decisions on which issues to fix first.
“We come up with ways to go mitigate those risks and co-author a plan called the Security Readiness Plan, or SRP,” Persaud says. “Then we partner with teams to take that plan and execute it over time.”
In alignment with CSDL’s continuous approach to security throughout a solution’s lifecycle, Persaud says that “security is a journey, so the workflow to finish the secure development lifecycle never ends.”
While initial onboarding of an acquired company—including completion of the initial risk assessment and the SRP—typically ends within several months of the acquisition. Persaud adds, “The work continues as the technology is integrated into a larger tech stack or as it’s modified and sold as a standalone offering to our customers.” As the solution or technology evolves and begins to include new features and functionalities, the CSDL work continues to make sure those features are secure as well.
That work can have its obstacles. Persaud says that one of the primary challenges his team deals with is cutting through the flurry of activity and bids for the acquisition’s attention that come pouring in from all sides. It’s a crazy time for both Cisco and the acquisition, with many important tasks at the top of everyone’s to-do lists. “Not just in the security realm,” says Persaud,” but in many other areas, too. So being able to get the acquisition to focus on security in a meaningful way in the context of everything else that’s happening is a major challenge.”
Another challenge is dealing with acquisitions that might not have much security expertise on their original team. That means they’re not able to give Persaud’s team much help in determining where security risks lie and how serious they are—so Cisco’s engineers have a lot more investigative work to do.
When asked what advice he would give to organizations that want to maintain a good security posture when acquiring another company, Persaud names three key factors.
To succeed in M&A security, it’s critical that the organization’s board of directors, CEO, and all subsequent levels of management support and be committed to meeting a high level of security standards and outcomes. The remaining management of the acquisition also needs to be on board with the security commitment, and both organizations should make sure that all employees recognize that commitment and support. If management support is not there, the work ultimately won’t get done. It can be difficult and time-consuming and without companywide recognition of its key importance, it won’t get prioritized, and it will get lost in the myriad of other things that all the teams have to do.
The issue of security can get really complicated, very quickly. Persaud says it’s smart to find industry standards and best practices that already exist and are available to everyone, “so you’re not reinventing the wheel—or more concerning, reinventing the wheel poorly.”
Where to look for those industry standards will vary, depending on the technology stack that needs to be secured. “If you are interested in securing a web application,” says Persaud, “then starting with the OWASP Top Ten list is a good place to start. If you are selling a cloud offer or cloud service, then look at the Cloud Security Alliance’s Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) or the Cisco Cloud Controls Framework.”
One way to think of it, Persaud says, is that there are a variety of security frameworks certain customers will need a company to adhere to before they can use their solutions. Think frameworks like FedRAMP, SOC-2, Common Criteria, or FIPS.
“You can align your product security work to those frameworks as a baseline and then build on top of them to make technology more resilient.” It’s a great place to start.
It’s essential that an organization be very clear on what it wants to accomplish when it comes to ensuring security of an acquisition’s solutions and infrastructure. This will help it avoid “trying to boil the whole ocean,” says Persaud.
Persaud and his team talk about working up to security fitness the way a runner would start with a 5K and work up to an Ironman competition. “You take progressive steps towards improving,” he says. “You’re very explicit about what milestones of improvement you’ll encounter on your journey of good security.”
Persaud says Cisco is uniquely positioned to help organizations maintain security standards when acquiring other companies. He points to three critical differentiators.
“The level of visibility and support that we have for security at Cisco, starts with our board of directors and our CEO, and then throughout the organization,” says Persaud. “This is a very special and unique situation that allows us to do a lot of impactful work from a security perspective,”
Cisco has long been adamant about security that’s built in from the ground up and not bolted on as an afterthought. It’s the reason the CSDL exists, as well as the Cisco Security & Trust Organization and the many, many teams that work every day to infuse security and privacy awareness into every product, service, and solution—including the technology and infrastructure of newly acquired companies.
Once Persaud’s team has identified and assessed the security risks of an acquisition, his and other teams go about helping the acquisition address and mitigate those risks. Cisco provides a set of common building blocks or tools that teams can use to improve the security posture of an acquisition.
“We have secure libraries that teams can integrate into their code base to help them do certain things securely, so that the individual teams don’t have to implement that security functionality from scratch,” says Persaud. “And Cisco produces certain pieces of hardware that can be leveraged across our product lines, such as secure boot and secure storage.”
“Cisco’s operations stack also has various services acquisitions can use,” says Persaud. “An example of this comes from our Security Vulnerability and Incident Command team (SVIC). They provide logging capabilities that cloud offers at Cisco can leverage to do centralized logging, and then monitor those logs. SVIC also offers a security vulnerability scanning service so individual teams don’t have to do it independently.”
Another critical building block is Persaud’s team and their expertise. They act as a valuable resource that teams can consult when they want to build a new feature securely or improve the security of an existing feature.
Persaud concludes, “Cisco has an extremely strong and active security community where teams can ask questions, gain insights, give guidance, troubleshoot issues, share ideas and technology, and discuss emerging security topics. The community is committed to helping others instead of competing against each other. Members have the mindset of enriching the overall approach to security at Cisco and learning from any source they can to make things continually better.
Managing Cybersecurity Risk in M&A
Demonstrating Trust and Transparency in Mergers and Acquisitions
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
Related tags
Your phone buzzes. You hope it’s a reply from last night’s date, but instead you get an entirely different swooping feeling: It’s an alarming SMS text alerting you about suspicious activity on your bank account and that immediate action is necessary.
Take a deep breath and make sure to read the message carefully. Luckily, your assets could be completely safe. It could just be a smisher.
Smishing, or phishing over SMS, is a tactic where cybercriminals impersonate reputable organizations or people and trick people into handing over their PII or financial details. Sometimes they can seem very credible with the information they have, and you may have even been expecting a correspondence of a similar nature.
So how can you tell when an SMS text is real and requires your attention? And how should you deal with a smisher to keep your identity safe?
Like email phishing and social media phishing,
SMS text phishing often tries to use a strong emotion – like fear, anger, guilt, or excitement – to get you to respond immediately and without thinking through the request completely.
In the case of one coordinated smishing attack, cybercriminals not only impersonated financial institutions but collected PII on their targets ahead of time. The criminals then used these personal details – like old addresses and Social Security Numbers – to convince people that they were legitimate bank employees.1 But since when does a bank try to prove itself to the customer? Usually, it’s the other way around, where they’ll ask you to confirm your identity. Be wary of anyone who texts or calls you and has your PII. If you’re ever suspicious of a caller or texter claiming they’re a financial official, contact your bank through verified channels (chat, email, or phone) you find on the bank’s website to make sure.
Smishers often keep up with current events and attempt to impersonate well-known companies that have a reason to reach out to their customers. This adds false legitimacy to their message. For example, in the summer of 2022, Rogers Communications, a Canadian telecommunications provider, experienced an extended loss of service and told customers they could expect a reimbursement. Smishers jumped on the opportunity and sent a barrage of fake texts requesting banking details in order to carry out the reimbursement.2 However, Rogers credited customers directly to their Rogers accounts.
If you receive a suspicious text, go through these three steps to determine if you should follow up with the organization in question or simply delete and report the text.
Do you have text alerts enabled for your bank and utility accounts? If not, disregard any text claiming to be from those organizations. Companies will only contact you through the channels you have approved. Also, in the case of the Rogers smishing scheme, be aware of how a company plans to follow up with customers regarding reimbursements. You can find information like this on their official website and verified social channels.
If the tone of the text urges you to act quickly or proposes a dire consequence of ignoring the message, be on alert. While suspicious activity on your credit card is serious, your bank will likely reimburse you for charges you didn’t make, so you have time to check your bank account and see recent activities. Official correspondence from financial institutions will always be professional, typo-free, and will try to put you at ease, not make you panic.
Whenever you get a text from someone you don’t know, it’s a good practice to do an internet search for the number to see with whom it’s associated. If it’s a legitimate number, it should appear on the first page of the search results and direct to an official bank webpage.
Once you’ve identified a fake SMS alert, do not engage with it. Never click on any links in the message, as they can redirect you to risky sites or download malware to your device. If you have McAfee Safe Browsing on your mobile, it can be your backup if you accidentally open a malicious link.
Also, don’t reply to the text. A reply lets the criminal on the other end know that they reached a valid phone number, which may cause them to redouble their efforts. Finally, block the number and report it as spam.
A great absolute rule to always follow is to never give out your Social Security Number, banking information, usernames, or passwords over text.
To give you peace of mind in cases where you think a malicious actor has access to your PII, you can count on McAfee+. McAfee+ offers a comprehensive suite of identity and privacy protection services to help you feel more confident in your digital life.
1PC Mag, “Scammers Are Using Fake SMS Bank Fraud Alerts to Phish Victims, FBI Says”
2Daily Hive, “Rogers scam alert: Texts offering credit after outage are fake”
The post What Is Smishing? Here’s How to Spot Fake Texts and Keep Your Info Safe appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Whether or not you’ve heard the term “doxxing” before, you’re probably familiar with the problem it names: collecting personal information about someone online to track down and reveal their real-life identity. The motivations for doxxing are many, and mostly malicious: for some doxxers, the goal in tracking someone is identity theft. For others, it’s part of a pattern of stalking or online harassment to intimidate, silence or punish their victim – and overwhelmingly, victims are youth and young adults, women, and LGBTQ+ people. The truth is, most of us have information online that we don’t realize can put us at risk, and that’s why I’ve written this series: to inform readers about how doxxing happens, and how you can protect yourself from this very real and growing problem by doxxing yourself.
In computer security, we talk about the idea of a “security mindset”: understanding how someone with bad intentions would cause harm, and being able to think like they would to find weak spots. In this series, you will learn by doing. By understanding the tools and methods used by those with ill intent, you’ll be better prepared to keep yourself safe and your information secure.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to follow along and find out everything the internet knows about… you!
This series will provide simple steps for you to follow as you begin your investigation. Along the way, as you get familiar with the tools and tactics of internet sleuths, you’ll get a better idea of your current internet footprint as well as know what tracks you leave in the future. Our process will be split into three main sections:
Information is power. And in the case of doxxing, most people don’t realize how much of their power they’re giving up! My goal in this series is to demystify the methods used for doxxing, so in the spirit of “showing my work,” here are some of the best resources and collected checklists I referenced when planning these exercises, along with how to best use each:
If this looks like a whole lot of homework… don’t worry! We’ll cover most of the core tools and tips mentioned in these resources through the course of this series, and we’ll revisit these links at the end of the series when you’ve gotten more context on what they cover. In the next article, we’ll take on the review step of our process, getting a holistic inventory of what personal information is currently available online so you can prioritize the most important fixes. See you soon!
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
Giving back is part of the ethos at Cisco. Part of how that happens is through employees volunteering as part of Cisco’s Time2Give benefit in which employees can use paid time to contribute to their communities and support the causes they’re passionate about. During the pandemic, Cisco increased this benefit from five paid volunteering days to 10 and encourages virtual volunteering, too.
Elizabeth Chang, a software engineer on the Duo Security platform services team, considers Time2Give a great opportunity to “invest in people around you. It is amazing that Cisco supports what we are passionate about and that we can use this time to grow ourselves in other areas of life,” she said.
Cisconians care deeply about many causes, and this post celebrates how teammates spend their time supporting children, youth and teens in and out of school and those preparing for college. Stay tuned for future posts highlighting how other employees give their time. You may even be inspired to find out how you can develop your skills while contributing to organizations that matter to you!
Pierpaolo Panarotto, an account executive on Duo’s EMEAR continental team, volunteers at Sport senza frontiere onlus, a summer sports camp in Italy for refugee children. This summer Panarotto tutored and taught badminton. The program also welcomed children from Ukraine this year.
For Panarotto, the best part, hands down, was seeing the children’s smiles. He advised, “Give back to your community. Sometimes we forget how lucky we are.”
Chang also volunteered at a summer camp, supporting middle and high school students in Boston. The program she supported, Area Youth Ministry Leadership Camp and Summer Boost, fosters leadership skills and college readiness while promoting mentorship.
By helping lead a coding workshop, Chang was able to share what she does professionally. “I was glad that I got to help inspire youth to pursue computer science,” she said. The camp was such a hit that many participants “didn’t want to go home because they had such a fun time,” Chang shared.
“Take the time! You’ll never get the opportunity to go back and take it later. Your community and your heart will thank you!” – Sarah Moon-Musser
Now that school has started, Engineering Program Manager in Platform Engineering Sarah Moon-Musser helps teach the Belleville High School Marching Band’s color guard choreography for their halftime show. She loves spending time with the students. To those considering utilizing Time2Give Moon-Musser says, “Take the time! You’ll never get the opportunity to go back and take it later. Your community and your heart will thank you!”
College readiness is also a passion for Justin Fan and Seema Kathuria who both volunteer with Code2College. They’re able to volunteer virtually by reviewing resumes and college entrance essays and providing constructive feedback through shared documents.
Senior Product Marketing Manager, Kathuria appreciates “learning about the experiences of high school students and how they approach writing about their accomplishments,” she said.
For Fan, a senior customer success manager in security customer success, “the best part is supporting younger generations as they move into college and career. They’re so much more focused and mature than I was at their age,” he said. Fan also participates in virtual career workshops with high school and college students with Students Rising Above.
For others wanting to use Time2Give, Fan suggests finding opportunities you’re passionate about and utilizing light meeting days to volunteer. Kathuria says, “Take advantage of the 10 Time2Give days per year that Cisco gives us. It is very generous, and it feels so good to give back to the community in whatever way makes you happy and fulfilled.”
If you’re looking to feel fulfilled by your work and the impact you can make, please check out our open roles.
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!
Cisco Secure Social Channels
Healthy habits that are instilled and nurtured at an early age bring lifelong benefits – the same applies to good cybersecurity habits
The post The need to change cybersecurity for the next generation appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
Have you ever been on the receiving end of a scam or heard of someone whose bank account was emptied by fraudsters?
Unfortunately, these examples are becoming increasingly common. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) shared that they receive about 1,000 scam complaints daily from cash app users. As the number of cash app users increased over the last few years, so did the number of fraudsters on payment apps like Venmo and PayPal. As a result, even the most alert people have found themselves prey to smooth-talking fraudsters.
This article highlights common themes of cash app scams and explains how to protect your financial and personal information from scammers online. Stay tuned to learn more.
With the number of scams rising, it’s important to be more aware and cautious. So, what can you do to protect yourself from being scammed?
Here are four essential safety tips to avoid some common Venmo scams:
Let’s discuss some scam tactics commonly used on money transfer apps like Venmo and how you can quickly recognize and sidestep them.
Spoofing and phishing scams are practices that trick you into revealing sensitive financial or online information, leading you to lose money and face risk identity theft.
Knowing common ways that an online scammer can trick you will help you stay alert. This knowledge might make it easier to recognize a fraudster.
Let’s talk about a few common scam tactic examples, so you know the red flags to look out for when using cash apps like Venmo.
In this type of scam, a scammer will send you a text message, a notification, or an email with a link telling you that you won a cash prize or trending concert tickets on Venmo. The link generally leads to a page that asks you to sign in or provide information about your Venmo account. For example, the text could say something like, “As a long-time user of Venmo, you have received a $20 gift card from Venmo. Sign in to redeem.” Filling in these details can lead to your Venmo account being hacked.
Prevent being scammed this way by never sharing your Venmo login information with any person or third-party website.
A scammer may try to sign in to your Venmo account, requiring them to enter a code sent to your mobile number. They will call you, pretend to be from the Venmo tech support or customer service team, and produce any plausible reason they need you so you’ll share the code you received.
For example, this phone call may sound like, “Hello, we have noticed some unauthorized transactions on your Venmo account. This can lead to your account being blocked. To authorize the transactions, we need to confirm that you are the real owner of this account. For authentication purposes, we sent a code to your phone. Could you share that code with me, please?”
When in the middle of a busy work day, this call might not seem like a big deal and you may share the code without suspecting the caller of smishing. However, this code might be part of multi-factor authentication on Venmo and will give the scammer access to your account.
This can also look a little different. For example, someone who claims to be a Venmo agent might ask you to transfer a sum of money into another account to “verify” your account.
To avoid being scammed this way, keep in mind that a Venmo agent will never ask for a private code or try to gain access to your account. In addition, Venmo will never ask you to install a third-party app, redirect you to a different sign-in page, or ask you to send money to “verify” an account.
As a rule of thumb, never share your Venmo verification code with anyone, no matter who they claim to be.
This scam has a few names, including pyramid scheme, money circle, or cash wheel. Here, a scammer will persuade you to send them a small amount of money to earn back a larger sum within a short period. This is an easy scam to identify because you have no guarantee that the person will pay you back. However, scammers can be extremely convincing, and you may fall for their words.
To avoid this mistake on the cash transfer app, don’t ever send money to strangers on Venmo. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably a scam.
In such a scam, a scammer will attempt to impersonate someone you know. For example, a scammer is impersonating your friend “X.” They use any publicly available information about “X” and create an account using “X’s” name and picture. If “X’s” Venmo account isn’t private, the scammer can access “X’s” transaction history. And, if “X” has transacted with you in the past, the scammer posing as “X” will connect with you and request money. Usually, these requests suggest an urgent need for money. Since you know “X,” you might consider lending them the amount.
Avoid this scam by being wary of any unusual money requests from someone who looks like a friend. Before accepting the payment request, double-check that the person requesting the money is your friend or a family member. Reach out to your friend outside of Venmo through their phone or a credible social media account to verify that it’s not a fake profile asking you for money. In addition, you should always keep your Venmo friend list and transaction history private to avoid giving scammers access to your data.
If you’re selling goods online, a buyer might try to obtain your goods without actually paying for your product. So, they may send you a screenshot of a fake payment to prove they have paid when you haven’t received any money.
Sometimes, a scammer will send a screenshot showing that they accidentally paid you an extra sum of money, and may ask you to pay the money back. However, their payment was fake, and you will end up paying money from your pocket.
Another example involves a seller who sends a message that seems like it’s from Venmo. The message might say that the buyer made a payment, but it will only be fully processed once goods are shipped. Again, this is a red flag to watch out for because Venmo doesn’t offer this feature.
If you’re a buyer online, your seller may convince you to Venmo them the entire payment, and then they may refuse to ship the purchased goods to you.
To be protected from such scams, avoid selling and buying items using Venmo. If you’re buying from strangers on Venmo, ensure it is a Venmo-approved business account so you have purchase protection for any eligible items covered under the user agreement.
As a rule, it’s best not to exchange Venmo payments with strangers. Consider blocking the user if you receive an unsolicited payment or a payment request from a stranger on Venmo.
As transactions become increasingly digital, it’s important to educate yourself about the best practices to protect your financial information online.
Here are some general tips to follow:
Online safety should not be taken lightly, and investing in an advanced tool is a good idea to ensure your cybersafety.
If you’re serious about online safety and security, the McAfee+ Protection package is a great investment. This package gives you a premium level of online security, with full protection from things like identity theft. In addition, you get access to antivirus software for unlimited devices, personal data clean-ups, lost wallet protection, and a secure VPN — among other benefits. Sign up today!
The post How to Identify and Protect Yourself From Venmo Scams and Other Cash App Scams appeared first on McAfee Blog.
The joy of purchasing a new device is liberating. Now you can work, learn, and play faster — along with enjoying ample storage space. So, the last thing you’d expect is your apparently safe device being exposed to vulnerabilities, or “bloat.”
Exposure to unwanted software can derail its performance and hog its storage within a few months of usage. In technical terms, such pieces of software are referred to as bloatware. Bloatware has the potential to attack PCs with Microsoft systems and Android devices. It can also attack Apple iPhones and Macs although their systems tend to be built with a bit more protection.
This article defines bloatware, offers common examples, explains how to identify it, and discusses its impact on your computer’s security.
Bloatware, also called Junkware or Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUP), are third-party programs that slow down the performance of your device and lay it bare to cybersecurity risks.
Manufacturers initially introduced bloatware to provide users with more utility, but the programs led to device issues. Software programs that identify as bloatware run in the background, and locating them is not child’s play.
Bloatware finds its way into your device in two ways: it comes pre-installed or through programs downloaded from the internet. Lenovo‘s Superfish bloatware scandal from 2015 explains how bloatware can harm your devices.
Common examples of bloatware apps include:
As a piece of good advice, it is best to uninstall such apps when of no use — whether on your Android smartphone, Windows computer, or an iOS device.
Performance degradation is a common symptom of a device carrying bloatware. Extended boot-up times, clogged storage, and startup delays are common occurrences. Let’s review some programs that may also be bloatware:
Here’s how to identify bloatware:
As mentioned, not all bloatware is a threat to your device. Some may be useful and can be removed easily. But a major chunk of bloatware is known to slow down your computer.
Bloatware eats up a good chunk of the disk space or hard drive as it runs in the background, and it drains the battery life. Bloatware that isn’t removed quickly may clog your device with annoying ads. These ads can pose a security threat or even corrupt your operating system.
Sadly, it can be a challenge to uninstall bloatware because it finds its way back into the device — sometimes even after it has been deleted. In some cases, it may even redirect you to fake bloatware removal websites and offer malicious removal tools. Such websites ask you to install a new program to remove the previous one, trapping your device further. Unfortunately, there are no secret hacks to stop it from finding a way into your system.
Pro tip: Anytime you download a program or software, be sure it’s from an official source (like a secured website, the Google Play Store, or the Apple App Store). Installing a program from a suspicious website can put your device at risk, as the program can download bundles of other programs on the back end without your knowledge.
Windows 10 comes with a special refresh tool to remove any bloatware disguised as user-installed programs. This tool can bring your PC back to a clean slate. It’s important to check your hard drive beforehand, as it can also remove licenses.
Bloatware can be both harmful and annoying. New devices need full-fledged protection so they can last longer. The answer to your bloatware woes is an antivirus program. It safeguards your computer from dangerous security threats and prevents accidental downloads, so malicious bloatware or malware can’t access your device.
Bloatware can compromise your online safety and security. McAfee+’s protection package is the ideal investment for your new device, so you can work without any hassles or doubts.
McAfee+ enables a top-tier level of online security with full protection from pesky software programs like bloatware. Additionally, you get access to antivirus software for unlimited devices, lost wallet protection, a secure VPN, personal data clean-ups, and more. Sign up for McAfee + and rest easy while your devices remain bloatware-free.
The post What Is Bloatware and How Can It Impact Security? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Until recently, people had little control over how companies used their online data. But, with data privacy now a human right, people are pickier about who can access their data and how they use it.
Every time you visit a website by typing its address on the address bar, your browser history holds a record of information like the name of the site, its location, and when you visited it. Unfortunately, third parties can access this data, leaving you vulnerable to identity theft and data misuse. Simply deleting your Internet Explorer browser history is not enough to safeguard your data.
This article explains how to keep your internet activities private and delete your web browser history for good.
Most people don’t know that clearing your browsing history doesn’t actually delete it.
Even after you’ve clicked on the “clear browsing history” option in your selected browser, there’s still a record of every Google search from the beginning of time. This information can be accessed by third parties like your internet service provider, the websites you visit, and advertisers. So, clearing your browsing history is not enough to safeguard your data.
While clearing your browser history has benefits like better application efficiency, you should invest in useful online tools like McAfee’s identity theft protection and you better protect your data online. to help you truly protect your data online. to help you truly protect your data online.
Before diving into how to clear your browser history, let’s talk about why you should give importance to deleting your data for good.
Just like you have to clear out the dust from your vacuum cleaner to continue cleaning, you should clear the data on your browser so it remains speedy and efficient.
Your browsing history records are cluttered with cache files, cookies, search history, and autofill data. All this digital clutter fills up your Random Access Memory (or RAM), slowing your PC, Apple iOS device, or Android device’s functioning.
You might see pop-ups on websites telling you that they use cookies. Without giving it much thought, you might click the “OK” or “Accept cookies” button and continue browsing the site. But do you know how these cookies are used?
Cookies are temporary internet files that store browsing data and preferences to make your future online experiences easier. For example, this helps you personalize your search results to an extent. The cache stores parts of pages, websites, or images you visit, enabling the pages to load faster the next time you open them.
These types of files sound like they help you have a better internet experience, so why should you delete them?
Here are some reasons to clear your browsing history, cache, and cookies:
However, simply clearing cache and cookies is not enough. This method will clear space on your device and erase some references, but the data is still saved on your device as free space. You should use tools to permanently delete your browsing data from the hard drive because:
So, it’s crucial to properly wipe your data if you’re serious about protecting your privacy online.
Many people switch to incognito mode when making an embarrassing Google search because it seemingly leaves no trace of the search on your device. But, does useing incognito mode or a private browsing window protect your data and ensure your privacy & security?
When you use incognito or private browsing mode, the tracking cookies on the websites you visit are blocked by default, and your cookie data and search history are deleted from the browser as soon as you close the window. Essentially, it auto-deletes your browser history as soon as you close the window.
However, your browser actions are still visible to the websites you have visited and your internet service provider (ISP). In addition, data from your browsing activity is saved to any accounts you’re logged into (like your Google account), even when using incognito mode.
Your internet service provider and other third parties have easy access to your browser activity irrespective of whether you’re in private browsing mode. This means using incognito mode is not enough to protect your online privacy.
If you’re worried about what someone might see on your laptop or you notice your applications slowing down, we’re here to help. We’ll show you how to quickly clear your device’s browser history from some commonly used internet options.
There’s no fixed or recommended time for deleting your browsing history, cache, and cookies. It’s all relative to your system’s storage space and personal preferences. Refer to this step-by-step guide whenever you feel like it’s time to clear junk from your browsers.
To delete your browser history on Google Chrome:
Some of your settings might be deleted when clearing your browser history. For example, you might have to re-sign into your accounts.
If you want to delete cookies and cache for a specific site, you can learn how to change more cookie settings in Chrome.
To delete your browsing, search, and download history on Mozilla Firefox, follow these steps:
Now, you have quickly deleted your browser history on Mozilla Firefox.
To clear your Microsoft Edge browsing data from just the device you are currently using, turn off sync before clearing the data. The selected data will be deleted across all of your synced devices if sync is turned on.
Follow these steps to turn off sync:
To clear browsing data on Microsoft Edge:
This is how to clear your browsing data on Microsoft Edge in a few simple steps.
Here are simple steps to clear browser cache and cookies on Safari 8.0 through 10.0. These steps apply to your Apple laptop running macOS, but an iPad or iPhone might have slightly different steps.
That’s all! You’ve now deleted your browser history on Safari.
To clear cache and browser history in Opera:
There you have it! It’s simple and free to erase your browser history, cache, and cookies, and you should regularly do so.
Now you know how to delete your browser history to keep your device running smoothly and limit how much data advertisers and companies can collect about you.
However, you may be concerned about the identity traces still being captured without your knowledge.
If you’re serious about maintaining complete privacy with your online data, invest in advanced tools to safeguard your online information and prevent identity theft.
McAfee helps keep your digital data private and protected from identity theft. Access various tools to safeguard your online spaces by investing in the McAfee privacy and protection service. This service includes antivirus software for unlimited devices, complete data cleanup from your hard drive and browser, and much more. In addition, this product comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Easily keep your digital spaces safe and your online data private with McAfee+.
The post The Expert’s Guide to Deleting Your Browser History for Good appeared first on McAfee Blog.
FreshRSS