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ESET researchers analyzed a supply-chain attack abusing an Israeli software developer to deploy Fantasy, Agrius’s new wiper, with victims including the diamond industry
The post Fantasy – a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supply‑chain attack appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
Two years ago, we asked the question: What actually works in cybersecurity?
Not what everyone’s doing—because there are plenty of cybersecurity reports out there that answer that question—but which data-backed practices lead to the outcomes we want to implement in cybersecurity strategies?
The result was the first Security Outcomes Report, in which we analyzed 25 cybersecurity practices against 11 desired outcomes. And thanks to a large international respondent group, together with the mighty data science powers of the Cyentia Institute, we got some good data that raised as many questions as it answered. Sure, we found some strong correlations between practices and outcomes, but why did they correlate?
Last year, our second report focused in on the top five most highly correlated practices and tried to reveal more detail that would give us some guidance on implementation. We found that certain types of technology infrastructure correlated more with those successful practices, and therefore with the outcomes we’re seeking. Is architecture really destiny when it comes to good security outcomes? It does appear to be the case, but we had more research ahead of us to be more confident in a statement that sweeping.
All the while, we’ve been listening to readers considering what they’d like to glean from this research. One big question was, “How do we turn these practices into management objectives?” In other words, now that we have some data on practices we should be implementing, how do we set measurable goals to do so? I’ve led workshops in the UK and in Colombia to help CISOs set their own objectives based on their risk management priorities, and we’ve worked to identify longer-term targets that require close alignment with business leaders.
Another question that took a front-row seat in our presentations and just wouldn’t leave: the topic of cyber resilience, or security resilience. It’s almost reached the status of a buzzword in the security industry, but you can understand why it’s ubiquitous.
“Among the upheaval of the pandemic, political unrest, economic and climate turbulence, and war, everyone is struggling to find a new ‘business as usual’ state that includes being able to adapt better to the shaky ground beneath them.”
But what exactly is security resilience, anyway? What does it mean to security practitioners and executives around the world? And what are the associated cybersecurity outcomes that we can identify and correlate? We know it doesn’t simply mean preventing bad things from happening; that ship has sailed (and sunk). We also know that security resilience doesn’t always mean full recovery from an event or condition that has knocked you down. Rather, it means continuing to operate during an adverse situation, either at full or partial capacity, and mitigating the effects on stakeholders. Ideally speaking, security resilience also means learning from the experience and emerging stronger.
Security resilience is the focus of the third volume of our Security Outcomes Report: Achieving Security Resilience. It tells us how 4,700 practitioners across 26 countries are prioritizing security resilience: what it means to them, what they’re doing successfully to achieve it, and what they’re struggling with. Once again, the data gives us interesting ideas to ponder.
A stronger security culture boosts resilience by as much as 46%. By “culture,” we don’t mean annual compliance-driven awareness training. Cybersecurity awareness is what you know; security culture is what you do. When organizations score better at being able to explain just what it is that they need to do in security and why, they make better decisions in line with their security values, and that leads to better overall security resilience.
It doesn’t matter how many people you have; it matters whether you have any of them available in reserve to respond to events. Organizations with a flexible pool of talent internally (or on standby externally) show anywhere from 11% to 15% improvement in resilience. Which makes sense, as a fully leveraged team will be strained if they have to work even harder to take on an incident.
Because so many organizations around the world are looking to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework as a guidepost for cybersecurity practices, we also analyzed which NIST CSF capabilities correlated most strongly with our list of resilience outcomes. For example, our survey respondents that do a great job tracking key systems and data are almost 11% more likely to excel at containing the spread and scope of security incidents. From one angle, this seems like an obvious result, hardly worth mentioning. On the other hand, it’s worth presenting to your management some data that shows that investing in asset inventory solutions really does have long-range effects on your ability to stop an intrusion.
And there’s much more. The report identifies—and then explores—seven success factors that, if achieved, boost our measure of overall security resilience from the bottom 10th percentile to the top 10th percentile. These include establishing a security culture and properly resourcing response teams, among others.
I hope this introductory blog—the first in a series exploring this latest report—whets your appetite to read the report itself. And remember, we are always aiming to reveal the next undiscovered insight that leads to better security outcomes. Please share your feedback and research requests with us in the comments below, or talk to us at the next security conference.
For more insights like what you’ve seen in today’s blog take a look at the Security Outcomes Report, Volume 3: Achieving Security Resilience.
Explore more data-backed cybersecurity research and other blogs on security resilience:
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
As 2022 draws to a close, the Threat Research Team at McAfee Labs takes a look forward—offering their predictions for 2023 and how its threat landscape may take shape.
This year saw the continued evolution of scams, which is unlikely to slow down, as well as greater adoption of Chrome as an operating system. It also saw the introduction of AI tools that are easy and accessible to virtually anyone with a phone or laptop, which will continue to have significant implications, as will the fluctuating popularity of cryptocurrency and the emergence of “Web3.”
Advances such as these have set the stage for 2023, which will continue to reshape our interactions with technology—advances that bad actors will try to exploit, and in turn, us.
Yet as the threat landscape continues to evolve, so do the ways we can protect ourselves. With that, we share McAfee’s threat predictions for 2023, along with insights and advice that can help us enjoy the advances to come with confidence.
By Steve Grobman, Chief Technology Officer
Humans have been fascinated by artificial intelligence (AI) for almost as long as we’ve been using computers. And in some cases, even fearful of it. Depictions in pop culture range from HAL, the sentient computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Skynet, the self-aware neural network at the center of the Terminator franchise. The reality of current AI technologies is both more complicated and less autonomous than either of these. While AI is rapidly evolving, humans remain at the heart of it, and whether it’s put to beneficial or nefarious use.
Within the last few months, creating AI-generated images, videos, and even voices are no longer strictly left to professionals. Now anyone with a phone or computer can take advantage of the technology using publicly available applications like Open AI’s Dall-E or stability.ai’s Stable Diffusion. Google has even made creating AI-generated videos easier than ever.
What does this mean for the future? It means the next generation of content creation is becoming available to the masses and will only continue to evolve. People both at work and at home will have the ability to create the AI-generated content in minutes. Just as desktop publishing, photo editing, and inexpensive photorealistic home printers created major advances that empowered individuals to create content that previously required a professional designer, these technologies will enable sophisticated outputs with minimal expertise or effort.
Advances in desktop publishing and consumer printing also provided benefits to criminals, enabling better counterfeiting and more realistic manipulation of images. Similarly, these emerging next-generation content tools will also be used by a range of bad actors. From cybercriminals to those seeking to falsely influence public opinion, these tools will empower scammers and propagandists to take their tradecraft to the next level with more realistic results and significantly improved efficiency.
This is especially likely to ramp up in 2023 as the U.S. begins the 2024 presidential election cycle in earnest. Globally, the political environment is polarized. The confluence of the emergence of accessible next-generation generative AI tools and what is sure to be a highly contested 2024 election season is a perfect storm for creating and distributing disinformation for political and monetary gain.
We’ll all need to be more mindful of the content we consume and the sources that it originates from. Fact-checking images, videos, and news content, something that’s already on the rise, will continue to be a necessary and valuable part of media consumption.
By Oliver Devane, Security Researcher
Cryptocurrency scams
In 2022 we saw several online scams making use of existing content to make crypto scams more believable. One such example was the double your money cryptocurrency scam that used an old Elon Musk video as a lure. We expect such scams to evolve in 2023 and make use of deep fake videos, as well as audio, to trick victims into parting ways with their hard-earned money.
The financial outlook of 2023 remains uncertain for many people. During these times, people often look for ways to make some extra money and this can lead them vulnerable to social media messages and online ads that offer huge financial gains for little investment.
According to the IC3 2021 report, the losses for financial scams increased from $336,469,000 in 2020 to $1,455,943,193 in 2021, this shows that this type of scam is growing by an enormous amount, and we expect this to continue.
Unfortunately, scammers will often target the most vulnerable people. Fake loan scams are one such scam where the scammers know that the victims are desperate for the loan and therefore are less likely to react to warning signs such as asking for an upfront fee. McAfee predicts that there will be a large increase in these types of scams in 2023. When looking for a loan, always use a trusted provider and be careful of clicking on online ads.
Metaverses such as Facebook’s Horizon enable their users to explore an online world that was previously unimaginable. When these platforms are in the early stages, malicious actors will usually attempt to exploit the lack of understanding of how they work and use this to scam people. We have observed phishing campaigns targeting users of these platforms in 2022 and we expect this to increase dramatically in 2023 as more and more users sign up for the platforms.
By Craig Schmugar, McAfee Senior Principal Engineer
More than 25 years ago, Windows 95 became the platform of choice not just for millions of users around the globe, but for malware authors targeting those users. Over the years, Windows has evolved, as has the threat landscape. Today, Windows 10 and 11 make up the majority of the desktop PC market, but thanks to the rise of the mobile Internet, device diversity has greatly evolved since the advent of Windows 95.
Over five years ago, Android overtook Windows as the world’s most popular OS and with this shift bad actors have been pursing alternative methods of attack. The ultimate vectors are those which impact users across a spectrum of devices. Email and web-based scams (some of which are outlined in the blog above) are as prolific as ever as these technologies are ubiquitous across desktop and mobile devices.
Meanwhile, other technologies span across desktop and mobile experiences as well. For Google, such cross-platform capabilities are highlighted by increased adoption of ChromeOS and a few underlying technologies. This includes 270 million active Android users and a 270% increase in Progressive Web Application (PWA) installations [https://chromeos.dev]. ChromeOS’ ability to run Android applications, combined with its wide-spread adoption, provides the climate for increased attention by those with ill intentions.
Similarly, adoption of PWAs provide bad actors with additional incentive to deliver deceptive and imposter attacks through this multi-OS channel, including ChromeOS, iOS, MacOS, and Windows.
Finally, on the heels of COVID restrictions that impacted schools in various countries, Google reported 50 million students and educators worldwide [https://chromeos.dev] using ChromeOS. Many users will be unaware of malicious Chrome extensions lurking in the Chrome Web Store.
All of this means that the stage is set for a marked increase in threats impacting Chromebook in the year to come. In 2023, we can expect to see Chromebook users among millions of unsuspecting victims that download and run malicious content, whether from malicious Android Apps, Progressive Web Apps, or Chrome Web Store extensions, users should be leery of popups and push notifications urging them to install untrusted apps.
By Fernando Ruiz, Senior Security Researcher
Editor’s Note: Web3? FOMO? If you’re already lost, you’re not alone. Web3 is a term some use to encompass decentralized internet services, technologies like Bitcoin and Non-Fungible Tokens (digital art that collectors can purchase with cryptocurrency). Still confused? A lot of people are. This New York Times article is a good primer on what is currently considered Web3.
As for FOMO, that’s just an acronym meaning the “Fear of Missing Out.” That nagging feeling, most often felt by extroverts, that others are out there having more fun than them and that they’re missing the party.
Whether you invest in cryptocurrency or just see the headlines on Twitter, no doubt you’ve seen that the price of cryptocurrency has sharply declined during 2022. These fluctuations are becoming more normal as crypto becomes even more mainstream. It’s very likely that the value of crypto will rise again.
When the last upturn in valuation happened near the start of the pandemic, the hype about crypto also skyrocketed. Suddenly Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were everywhere. Out of that, rose the concept of Web3, with more companies investing in new applications over blockchain (the technology that is the backbone of cryptocurrency).
McAfee predicts that the popularity of cryptocurrency will rise again, and consumers will hear much more about Web3 concepts like decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), self-sovereign identity (SSI) and more.
Some amateur investors, remembering the rapid rise of the value of Bitcoin earlier this decade, won’t want to miss out on what they think will be a great opportunity to get rich quick. It’s this group that bad actors will seek to exploit, offering up links or applications that play on these users’ crypto/Web3 FOMO.
As crypto bounces back and initial awareness of decentralization grows in the general population, consumers will begin to explore these Web3 offerings without fully understanding what they mean or what dangers they should be aware of, leaving them open to scams as they invest time and money into crypto or creating their own NFT content. These scams could entice users to click on a link or download an app that appears to legitimately interact with some blockchains, but in actuality:
Additionally, when consumers DO hold crypto, NFT, digital land, or other blockchain financial assets they are going to be targeted for more sophisticated threats that can drain their funds: smart contracts, exchanges, digital wallets, and synchronization services can all be associated with hidden authorizations that allow a third party (potentially a bad actor) to take control of the assets. It’s important that users read the terms and conditions of any app they download, especially those that will be accessing ANY type of financial institution or currency, whether traditional or crypto.
Social engineering will also continue to be a top entry point for cybercriminals. The complexity of the attacks will evolve as the technology does, which will require more preparation and understanding of how Web3 applications and tools work in order to safely interact with them.
What has emerged from the world of Web3 thus far, while exciting, has also expanded attack surfaces and vectors, which we expect to see grow throughout 2023 as Web3 evolves.
The post McAfee 2023 Threat Predictions: Evolution and Exploitation appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Ampol has been Australia’s leading transport fuel company since 1900. What began over 125 years ago is now an organization that powers a country, operating 1,500 retail stores and stations across ANZ, plus 89 depots for refining and importing fuels and lubricants, and 8,200 employees throughout Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Singapore. And while Ampol’s history goes back a century, they are a modern organization, using internet of things (IoT) technology across operational and retail locations, with sensors on everything from electric vehicle charging units to fuel tank gauges to transportation trucks to refrigeration units inside retail stores.
As a critical energy provider to a country of over 25 million people, Ampol’s security needed to match its evolving infrastructure. As Satish Chowdhary, Network Enterprise Architect, said, “At Ampol, we have implemented sensor technology across our network: from gauges in the fuel tanks to monitor fuel quality and quantity to sensors that monitor the temperature in various refrigerators across our retail sites to ensure goods stay chilled. It’s critical to manage these devices effectively and securely, and that’s where Cisco comes in…With IoT, a major security risk is posed by dodgy legacy devices left unpatched and vulnerable within your network. Cisco’s TrustSec and VLAN segregation automatically isolate vulnerable devices, not exposing the rest of the network to risks from untrusted devices.”
In addition to securing the IoT that let’s Ampol monitor and manage its critical operations, Cisco was able to create a comprehensive security environment that solved for their three strategic goals.
“Three key components of our cyber-resilient strategy were isolation, orchestration, and rapid recovery. Cisco SecureX nailed all three providing us a single interface to see all security events, and malicious files, thus expediting how fast we can isolate events and recover,” Chowdhary explained. “Before using Cisco Secure, security was a hindrance, not an enabler for our IT team, employees, and even customers,” he added.
In fact, Cisco Secure helped Ampol improve their security posture so much that they were able to quickly pivot during the early days of the pandemic.
“When Covid triggered supply challenges during lockdowns, people not being able to access groceries turned to their local service station convenience stores to get what they needed. For Ampol, maintaining that supply continuity was critical, not just for our business, but for the customers who were relying on us to get their supplies. And all of this was done when many employees were now having to work remotely… This was possible only because we could maintain our revamped locations, staff, clients, and business partners safe on our network – while still maintaining speed and efficiency. Cisco Secure was the ticket to Ampol’s resilience in the face of major change,” Chowdhary said.
In addition to enabling flexibility against supply chain fluctuations, Ampol is readily protected against threats, cyberattacks, and other vulnerabilities. Their Cisco security solution included:
“The major force for our Cisco Secure investment was simplification by integrating the entire Security portfolio…If we ever happen to have a cyber-attack, we can quickly find it and contain it,” Chowdhary said, adding, “The greatest outcome of using Cisco Secure is simplicity at its core. We achieved great efficiency integration, better visibility, and context that’s not hidden across five, ten, or fifteen consoles, and ultimately, greater security outcomes.”
To find out how else Cisco Secure is helping protect Ampol against sophisticated threats and other challenges, read the full Ampol case study.
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 December 2021, Google filed a civil lawsuit against two Russian men thought to be responsible for operating Glupteba, one of the Internet’s largest and oldest botnets. The defendants, who initially pursued a strategy of counter suing Google for interfering in their sprawling cybercrime business, later brazenly offered to dismantle the botnet in exchange for payment from Google. The judge in the case was not amused, found for the plaintiff, and ordered the defendants and their U.S. attorney to pay Google’s legal fees.
A slide from a talk given in Sept. 2022 by Google researcher Luca Nagy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gz6_I-wl0E&t=6s
Glupteba is a rootkit that steals passwords and other access credentials, disables security software, and tries to compromise other devices on the victim network — such as Internet routers and media storage servers — for use in relaying spam or other malicious traffic.
Collectively, the tens of thousands of systems infected with Glupteba on any given day feed into a number of major cybercriminal businesses: The botnet’s proprietors sell the credential data they steal, use the botnet to place disruptive ads on the infected computers, and mine cryptocurrencies. Glupteba also rents out infected systems as “proxies,” directing third-party traffic through the infected devices to disguise the origin of the traffic.
In June 2022, KrebsOnSecurity showed how the malware proxy services RSOCKS and AWMProxy were entirely dependent on the Glupteba botnet for fresh proxies, and that the founder of AWMProxy was Dmitry Starovikov — one of the Russian men named in Google’s lawsuit.
Google sued Starovikov and 15 other “John Doe” defendants, alleging violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trademark and unfair competition law, and unjust enrichment.
In June, Google and the named defendants agreed that the case would proceed as a nonjury action because Google had withdrawn its claim for damages — seeking only injunctive relief to halt the operations of the botnet.
The defendants, who worked for a Russian firm called “Valtron” that was also named in the lawsuit, told Google that they were interested in settling. The defendants said they could potentially help Google by taking the botnet offline.
Another slide from Google researcher Luca Nagy’s September 2022 talk on Glupteba.
But the court expressed frustration that the defendants were unwilling to consent to a permanent injunction, and at the same time were unable to articulate why an injunction forbidding them from engaging in unlawful activities would pose a problem.
“The Defendants insisted that they were not engaged in criminal activity, and that any alleged activity in which they were engaged was legitimate,” U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote wrote. “Nevertheless, the Defendants resisted entry of a permanent injunction, asserting that Google’s use of the preliminary injunction had disrupted their normal business operations.”
While the defendants represented that they had the ability to dismantle the Glupteba botnet, when it came time for discovery — the stage in a lawsuit where both parties can compel the production of documents and other information pertinent to their case — the attorney for the defendants told the court his clients had been fired by Valtron in late 2021, and thus no longer had access to their work laptops or the botnet.
The lawyer for the defendants — New York-based cybercrime defense attorney Igor Litvak — told the court he first learned about his clients’ termination from Valtron on May 20, a fact Judge Cote said she found “troubling” given statements he made to the court after that date representing that his clients still had access to the botnet.
The court ultimately suspended the discovery process against Google, saying there was reason to believe the defendants sought discovery only “to learn whether they could circumvent the steps Google has taken to block the malware.”
On September 6, Litvak emailed Google that his clients were willing to discuss settlement.
“The parties held a call on September 8, at which Litvak explained that the Defendants would be willing to provide Google with the private keys for Bitcoin addresses associated with the Glupteba botnet, and that they would promise not to engage in their alleged criminal activity in the future (without any admission of wrongdoing),” the judge wrote.
“In exchange, the Defendants would receive Google’s agreement not to report them to law enforcement, and a payment of $1 million per defendant, plus $110,000 in attorney’s fees,” Judge Cote continued. “The Defendants stated that, although they do not currently have access to the private keys, Valtron would be willing to provide them with the private keys if the case were settled. The Defendants also stated that they believe these keys would help Google shut down the Glupteba botnet.”
Google rejected the defendants’ offer as extortionate, and reported it to law enforcement. Judge Cote also found Litvak was complicit in the defendants’ efforts to mislead the court, and ordered him to join his clients in paying Google’s legal fees.
“It is now clear that the Defendants appeared in this Court not to proceed in good faith to defend against Google’s claims but with the intent to abuse the court system and discovery rules to reap a profit from Google,” Judge Cote wrote.
Litvak has filed a motion to reconsider (PDF), asking the court to vacate the sanctions against him. He said his goal is to get the case back into court.
“The judge was completely wrong to issue sanctions,” Litvak said in an interview with KrebsOnSecurity. “From the beginning of the case, she acted as if she needed to protect Google from something. If the court does not decide to vacate the sanctions, we will have to go to the Second Circuit (Court of Appeals) and get justice there.”
In a statement on the court’s decision, Google said it will have significant ramifications for online crime, and that since its technical and legal attacks on the botnet last year, Google has observed a 78 percent reduction in the number of hosts infected by Glupteba.
“While Glupteba operators have resumed activity on some non-Google platforms and IoT devices, shining a legal spotlight on the group makes it less appealing for other criminal operations to work with them,” reads a blog post from Google’s General Counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado and vice president of engineering Royal Hansen. “And the steps [Google] took last year to disrupt their operations have already had significant impact.”
A report from the Polish computer emergency response team (CERT Orange Polksa) found Glupteba was the biggest malware threat in 2021.
For these Cisconians, hands-on is the way to go when it comes to giving back. Using Cisco’s Time2Give benefit that provides 10 paid days to volunteer each year, team members rolled up their sleeves to build homes, cuddle and care for animals, distribute food and more. If you also value giving back, check out our open roles.
Marketing Specialist, Global Events Julie Kramer used Time2Give to build a shed with Habitat for Humanity of Huron Valley. Kramer especially appreciated learning about the organization’s purpose in addition to learning how to build.
John Hindman, an account executive, used Time2Give to spend a week in Nicaragua with SuNica, an organization centered on clean water and fellowship. Hindman cleared out downed trees, picked coffee and built treehouses to allow the organization to host more children from surrounding communities.
In the community Hindman visited, repurposing recycled materials is critical to the economy, and one way that happens is through “mining” the local landfill. Hindman’s team encouraged local employees and led games and activities for local children.
For those considering Time2Give, Hindman says, “Do it. Unplug, find something you’re passionate about, set up your out-of-office, and ignore everything work-related for the time you’re serving.”
Animal lover Carrie Cordeiro, a Cisco Secure digital strategist/manager on the Brand Marketing team, volunteers with Hopalong and Muttville as a kitten cuddler and dog walker. Most of her time is spent transporting kittens, puppies, cats and dogs around the Bay Area to vet appointments, adoption centers and foster locations.
The best part for Cordeiro is “getting to interact with so many adorable animals,” she said. As for leadership support around utilizing Time2Give? “I love doing it and my management team absolutely supports it, especially when I share photos.”
Customer Success Manager Kristen Gehrke reminds us that, “You don’t always have to look far to utilize Time2Give.” She sewed a baby blanket for Bluebonnet Trails Community Services. “The best part of the experience was giving back to mothers and their babies, as I am an expecting mother myself,” she said.
Engineering Manager Blake Ellingham organized food pantry shelves and packed bags for food distributions with HTB Food Bank. “I love getting to do work with my hands that helps others,” he said.
Ellingham recommends scheduling something routine for Time2Give. “Consistency matters! By going in every week for a half day of volunteering, I was able to make great friends with the staff,” he said.
From empowering youth globally and remotely to volunteering across community hubs, Cisconians deeply value innovative ways to contribute their time and talents.
If you are interested in increasing the impact of your skills and passions at work and beyond, check out our open positions.
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
Without doubt, the biggest criticism we all have of social media is that everyone always looks fabulous! And while we all know that everyone is only sharing the best version of themselves, let’s be honest – it can be a little wearing. Well, there’s a new social media platform that is determined to uproot our online curated lives by having users post very real pictures of themselves – with no time to stage or add filters!
Developed in France in 2020, BeReal is where Aussie teenagers are currently spending their time and energy online. And to be honest, I can totally see why. It’s all about sharing random, authentic pics without having to spend time and energy making them look beautiful. In fact, my 19-year-old tells me that the uglier and weirder the photo, the better! How refreshing!!!
Once you’ve signed up, the app will send all users a notification at a random time throughout the day that it’s ‘time to BeReal’. As soon as the user opens the app to share a pic, they have just 2 minutes to take a picture of whatever they’re doing at that particular moment whether they’re on the bus, at the gym or chilling at home in trackies. The app will take 2 pictures using the front and back cameras so that your followers can see what you look like and where you are.
Now, if you don’t manage to post in 2 minutes, you’re officially late and your friends will know. In fact, there’s a small amount of shame for being tardy – as if on some level you’re not committed to being authentic. But don’t let this worry you too much – we can’t wait around all day awaiting the notification to post!
When you have uploaded your daily snap, your friends can comment, respond to your pic with ‘RealMojis’ and even see where you are in the world with the map feature. Users can also choose to upload their pics to the public feed where other users can leave “RealMoji’ reactions but no comments. But in order to access either the public feed or your friends’ photos, users will need to take their own picture too.
Now for my favourite parts of this app – this app has NO filters, NO option to ‘like’ anything, NO follower counts and NO private messaging!! How liberating!!
Like all social media platforms, there are a few risks however with a bit of strategy and a few smarts, users should be able to have a safe and positive experience. And when compared to platforms where follower counts and likes are public, influencers dominate and comments are allowed, BeReal is definitely a great choice.
Here are my top tips to keep the experience safe and positive:
1. Disable Your Location To Avoid Being ‘Discoverable’
Before you share your pics, ensure you disable your location to avoid the app sharing your exact location on the map. You don’t want an ill-intentioned follower knowing your exact whereabouts!
2. Think (Quickly) Before You Post
The very brief 2-minute posting window may result in rushed decisions about what to post and potentially oversharing of personal information. So, ensure you (and your kids) know not to share anything that can identify their location, any identifiable numbers such as passports or licences or, their computer screens that may display confidential information.
3. Don’t Feel Pressures to Post If You Can’t
Accept that there will be times when you just can’t post within the 2-minute time frame. You may be driving, sleeping or doing something far more important. You can absolutely still post late.
4. Know How To Report Bad Behaviour
If you see a post that is inappropriate, then report it immediately. It’s an investment in keeping the BeReal community as safe as possible. Simply tap the three dots at the top right of the post. A report button should appear. You will then have the option to flag the post as undesirable or inappropriate.
5. Be Aware of the Comparison Trap!
Like all social media platforms, users may compare their posts with others. They may think their lives are boring and predictable, particularly if their friends are doing more exciting things. If a young person is prone to anxiety or low mood, this may not be helpful. As a parent, reminding your kids that perception is not reality, and that one photo does not define a person may be required. But if it all gets too much, a digital detox might be just the thing!
So, if your kids have embraced BeReal then your homework is pretty easy – join up too! It’s impossible to understand your kids’ online world if you don’t take some time to step inside it. And for what it’s worth – I think you’ll really like this one. The fact that there is no public like count, follower tally, filters or private messaging makes the Mama Bear in me very happy!!
The post BeReal – The Newest Kid On The Social Media Block appeared first on McAfee Blog.
We're in Copenhagen! Scott and family joined us in Oslo for round 2 of wedding celebrations this week before jumping on the ferry to Copenhagen and seeing the sights here. There's lots of cyber things in this week's vid relating to HIBP's birthday, Medibank and financial penalties for breaches, but I'm just going to leave you with one of the most amazing moments of my life captured in pics:
🇳🇴 ❤️ 👰♀️ 🤵 pic.twitter.com/pPY49DArIF
— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) December 2, 2022
FreshRSS 