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Cybercriminals are often seen as having the upper hand over the “white hat” community. After all, they’re anonymous, can launch attacks from virtually anywhere in the world, and usually have the element of surprise. But there’s one secret weapon the good guys have: Collaboration. That’s why Trend Micro has always prioritized its partnerships with law enforcement, academia, governments and other cybersecurity businesses.
We’re proud to have contributed to yet another successful collaborative operation with INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) in Singapore that’s helped to reduce the number of users infected by cryptomining malware by 78%.
Cryptomining On The Rise
Also known as cryptojacking, these attacks have become an increasingly popular way for cybercriminals to make money.
Why?
Because victims don’t know they’ve been infected. The malware sits on their machine in the background mining for digital currency 24/7/365. Increasingly, hackers have taken to launching sophisticated attacks against enterprise IT systems and cloud servers to increase their mining and earning potential. But many still target home computer systems like routers, as these are often left relatively unprotected. Stitch enough of these devices together in a botnet and they have a ready-made cash cow.
That’s why cryptojacking remained the most detected threat in the first half of 2019 in terms of file-based threat components, according to our data.
Unlike serious data breaches, phishing attacks, ransomware and banking Trojans, cryptojacking doesn’t have major impact on the victim. They don’t lose sensitive personal data, there’s no risk of follow-on identity fraud and they’re not extorted for funds by being locked out of their PC.
However, it’s not without consequences: Cryptomining malware can slow your home network to a crawl while running up serious energy bills. It may even bring your home computers to a premature end. Also, there’s always the risk with any kind of malware infection that hackers may switch tactics and use their footprint on your home machines to launch other attacks in the future.
Enter Operation Goldfish Alpha
That’s why we were keen to offer our assistance to INTERPOL during this year’s Operation Goldfish Alpha. Thanks to our broad global visibility into attack trends and infection rates, we were able to articulate the scale of the cryptojacking threat and key mitigation steps, at a pre-operation meeting with ASEAN law enforcement officers in June.
A few months later, we developed and disseminated a key Cryptojacking Mitigation and Prevention guidance document. It details how a vulnerability in MikroTik routers had exposed countless users in the region to the risk of compromise by cryptomining malware. The document explains how to scan for this flaw using Trend Micro HouseCall for Home Networks, and how HouseCall can be used to detect and delete the Coinhive JavaScript that hackers were using to mine for digital currency on infected PCs.
Spectacular Success
Over the five months of Operation Goldfish Alpha, experts from national Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) and police across 10 countries in the region worked to locate the infected routers, notify the victims and use our guidance document to patch the bugs and kick out the hackers.
Having helped to identify over 20,000 routers in the region that were hacked in this way, we’re delighted to say that by November, the number had reduced by at least 78%.
That’s the value of partnerships between law enforcement and private cybersecurity companies: They combine the power of investigative policing with the detailed subject matter expertise, visibility and resources of industry experts like us. We’ll continue to lend a hand wherever we can to make our connected, digital world a safer place.
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If the past couple of months have taught us anything, it’s that partnerships matter in times of crisis. We’re better, stronger and more resilient when we work together. Specifically, public-private partnerships matter in cybersecurity, which is why Trend Micro is always happy to reach out across industry, academia and law enforcement to offer its expertise.
We are again delighted to be working with long-time partner INTERPOL over the coming weeks on a new awareness campaign to help businesses and remote workers stay safe from a deluge of COVID-19 threats.
The new normal
All over the world, organizations have been forced to rapidly adjust to the new normal: social distancing, government lockdowns and mass remote working. While most have responded superbly to the challenge, there’s no denying that IT security teams and remote access infrastructure are being stretched to the limit. There are understandable concerns that home workers may be more distracted, and therefore likely to click on phishing links, and that their PCs and devices may not be as well protected as corporate equivalents.
At the same time, the bad guys have also reacted quickly to take advantage of the pandemic. Phishing campaigns using COVID as a lure have surged, spoofing health authorities, government departments and corporate senders. BEC attacks try to leverage the fact that home workers may not have colleagues around to check wire transfer requests. And remote infrastructure like RDP endpoints and VPNs are being targeted by ransomware attackers — even healthcare organizations that are simultaneously trying to treat critical patients infected with the virus.
Getting the basics right
That’s why Trend Micro has been pushing out regular updates — not only on the latest scams and threats we’re picking up around the globe, but also with advice on how to secure the newly distributed workforce. Things like improved password security, 2FA for work accounts, automatic software updates, regular back-ups, remote user training, and restricted use of VPNs can all help. We’re also offering six months free use of our flagship Trend Micro Maximum Security product to home workers.
Yet there’s always more to do. Getting the message across as far and wide as possible is where organizations like INTERPOL come in. That’s why we’re delighted to be teaming up with the global policing organization to run a new public awareness campaign throughout May. It builds on highly successful previous recent campaigns we’ve collaborated on, to tackle BEC and crypto-jacking.
This time, we’ll be resharing some key resources on social media to alert users to the range of threats out there, and what businesses and home workers can do to stay safe. And we’ll help to develop infographics and other new messages on how to combat ransomware, online scams, phishing and other threats.
We’re all doing what we can during these difficult days. But if some good can come from a truly terrible event like this, then it’s that we show our strength in the face of adversity. And by following best practices, we can make life much tougher for the cybercriminals looking to profit from tragedy.
The post Teaming up with INTERPOL to combat COVID-19 threats appeared first on .
The cybercrime economy is one of the runaway success stories of the 21st century — at least, for those who participate in it. Estimates claim it could be worth over $1 trillion annually, more than the GDP of many countries. Part of that success is due to its ability to evolve and shift as the threat landscape changes. Trend Micro has been profiling the underground cybercrime community for many years. Over the past five years, we’ve seen a major shift to new platforms, communications channels, products and services, as trust on the dark web erodes and new market demands emerge.
We also expect the current pandemic to create yet another evolution, as cyber-criminals look to take advantage of new ways of working and systemic vulnerabilities.
Shifts in the underground
Our latest report, Shifts in the Cybercriminal Underground Markets, charts the fascinating progress of cybercrime over the past five years, through detailed analysis of forums, marketplaces and dark web sites around the world. It notes that in many product areas, the cost of items has dropped as they become commoditised: so where in 2015 you expected to pay $1000 per months for crypting services, today they may be as little as $20.
In other areas, such as IoT botnets, cyber-propaganda and stolen gaming account credentials, prices are high as new products spark surging demand. Fortnite logins can sell for around $1,000 on average, for example.
The good news is that law enforcement action appears to be working. Trend Micro has long partnered with Interpol, Europol, national crime agencies and local police to provide assistance in investigations. So it’s good to see that these efforts are having an impact. Many dark web forums and marketplaces have been infiltrated and taken down over the past five years, and our researchers note that current users complain of DDoS-ing and log-in issues.
Cybercriminals have been forced to take extreme measures as trust erodes among the community, for example, by using gaming communications service Discord to arrange trades, and e-commerce platform Shoppy.gg to sell items. A new site called DarkNet Trust was even created to tackle this specific challenge: it aims to verify cybercrime vendors’ reputations by analysing their usernames and PGP fingerprints.
What does the future hold?
However, things rarely stay still on the cybercrime underground. Going forward, we expect to see a range of new tools and techniques flood dark web stores and forums. AI will be at the centre of these efforts. Just as it’s being used by Trend Micro and other companies to root out fraud, sophisticated malware and phishing, it could be deployed in bots designed to predict roll patterns on gambling sites. It could also be used in deepfake services developed to help buyers bypass photo ID systems, or launch sextortion campaigns against individuals.
Some emerging trends are less hi-tech but no less damaging. Log-ins for wearable devices could be stolen and used to request replacements under warranty, defrauding the customer and costing the manufacturers dear. In fact, access to devices, systems and accounts is so common today that we’re already seeing it spun out in “as-a-service” cybercrime offerings. Prices for access to Fortune 500 companies can hit as much as $10,000.
Post-pandemic threats
Then there’s COVID-19. We’re already seeing fraudsters targeted government stimulus money with fake applications, sometimes using phished information from legitimate businesses. And healthcare organisations are being targeted with ransomware as they battle to save lives.
Even as the pandemic recedes, remote working practices are likely to stay in many organisations. What does this mean for cybercrime? It means more targeting of VPN vulnerabilities with malware and DDoS services. And it means more opportunities to compromise corporate networks via connected home devices. Think of it like a kind of Reverse BYOD scenario – instead of bringing devices into work to connect, the corporate network is now merged with home networks.
Tackling such challenges will demand a multi-layered strategy predicated around that familiar trio: people, process and technology. It will require more training, better security for home workers, improved patch management and password security, and much more besides. But most of all it will demand continued insight into global cybercriminals and the platforms they inhabit, to anticipate where the next threats are coming from.
Fortunately, this is where Trend Micro’s expert team of researchers come in. We won’t let them out of our sight.
The post How the Cybercriminal Underground Has Changed in 5 Years appeared first on .
It started with one weird tweet. Then another. Quickly, some of the most prominent accounts on Twitter were all sending out the same message;
I am giving back to the community.
All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back double! If you send $1,000, I will send back $2,000. Only doing this for 30 minutes.
[- BITCOIN WALLET ADDRESS -]
Are Apple, Elon Musk, Barrack Obama, Uber, Joe Biden, and a host of others participating in a very transparent bitcoin scheme?
No. Of course, not. The question was whether or not individual accounts were compromised or if something deeper was going on.
User Account Protection
These high profile accounts are prime targets for cybercriminals. They have a broad reach, and even a brief compromise of one of these accounts would significantly increase a hacker’s reputation in the underground.
That is why these accounts leverage the protections made available by Twitter in order to keep their accounts safe.
This means;
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While it’s believed that one or two of these accounts failed to take these measures, it’s highly unlikely that dozens and dozens of them did. So what happened?
Rumours Swirl
As with any public attack, the Twitter-verse (ironically) was abuzz with speculation. That speculation ramped up when Twitter took the reasonable step of preventing any verified account from tweeting for about three hours.
This step helped prevent any additional scam tweets from being published and further raised the profile of this attack.
While some might shy away from raising the profile of an attack, this was a reasonable trade-off to prevent further damage to affected accounts and to help prevent the attack from taking more ground.
This move also provided a hint as to what was going on. If individual accounts were being attacked, it’s unlikely that this type of movement would’ve done much to prevent the attacker from gaining access. However, if the attacker was accessing a backend system, this mitigation would be effective.
Had Twitter itself been hacked?
Occam’s Razor
When imagining attack scenarios, a direct breach of the main service is a scenario that is often examined in-depth, which is also why it is one of the most planned for scenarios.
Twitter — like any company — has challenges with its systems, but they center primarily around content moderation…their backend security is top-notch.
An example of this an incident in 2018. Twitter engineers made a mistake that meant anyone’s password could have been exposed in their internal logs. Just in case, Twitter urged everyone to reset their password.
While possible, it’s unlikely that Twitter’s backend systems were directly breached. There is a much simpler potential explanation: insider access.
Internal Screenshot
Quickly after the attack, some in the security community noticed a screenshot of an internal support tool from Twitter surfacing in underground discussion forums. This rare inside view showed what appeared to be what a Twitter support team member would see.
This type of access is dangerous. Very dangerous.
Joseph Cox’s article detailing the hack has a key quote,
“We used a rep that literally done all the work for us.”
Anonymous Source
What remains unclear is whether this is a case of social engineering (tricking a privileged insider into taking action) or a malicious insider (someone internally motivated to attack the system).
The difference is important for other defenders out there.
The investigation is ongoing, and Twitter continues to provide updates via @TwitterSupport;
Our investigation is still ongoing but here’s what we know so far:
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020
Social Engineering
Donnie Sullivan from CNN has a fantastic interview with the legendary Rachel Tobac showing how simple social engineering can be and the dangerous impact it can have;
What is “social engineering,” you ask? @RachelTobac showed me. pic.twitter.com/TAw7FB1QPQ
— Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) July 16, 2020
If this attack was conducted through social engineering, the security team at Twitter would need to implement additional processes and controls to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
Such a situation is what your team also needs to look at. While password resets, account closures, data transfers, and other critical processes are at particular risk of social engineering, financial transactions are atop the cybercriminal’s target list.
BEC—business email compromise—attacks accounted for USD 1.7 billion in losses in 2019 alone.
Adding additional side-channel confirmations, additional steps for verifications, firm and clear approvals and other process steps can help organizations mitigate these types of social engineering attacks.
Malicious Insider
If the attack turns out to be from a malicious insider. Defenders need to take a different approach.
Malicious insiders are both a security problem and human resource one.
From the security perspective, two key principles help mitigate the potential of these attacks;
Making sure that individuals only have the technical access needed to complete their assigned tasks, and only that access is key to limiting this potential attack. Combined with the smart separation of duties (one person to request a change, another to approval it), this significantly reduces the possibility of these attacks causing harm.
The other—and not often spoken of—side of these attacks is the reason behind the malicious intent. Some people are just malicious, and when presented with an opportunity, they will take it.
Other times, it’s an employee that feels neglected, passed over, or is disgruntled in some other way. A strong internal community, regular communication, and a strong HR program can help address these issues before they escalate to the point where aiding a cybercriminal becomes an enticing choice.
Support Risks
Underlying this whole situation is a more challenging issue; the level of access that support has to any given system.
It’s easy to think of a Twitter account as “yours.” It’s not. It’s part of a system run by a company that needs to monitor the health of the system, respond to support issues, and aid law enforcement when legally required.
All of these requirements necessitate a level of access that most don’t think about.
How often are you sharing sensitive information via direct message? Those messages are most likely accessible by support.
What’s to prevent them from accessing any given account or message at any time? We don’t know.
Hopefully, Twitter—and others—have clear guardrails (technical and policy-based) in place to prevent abuse of support access, and they regularly audit them.
It’s a hard balance to strike. User trust is at stake but also the viability of running a service.
Clear, transparent policies and controls are the keys to success here.
Abuse can be internal or external. Support teams typically have privileged access but are also among the lowest paid in the organization. Support—outside of the SRE community—is usually seen as entry-level.
These teams have highly sensitive access, and when things go south, can do a lot of harm. Again, the principles of least privilege, separation of duties, and a strong set of policies can help.
What’s Next?
In the coming days, more details of the attack will surface. In the meantime, the community is still struggling to reconcile the level of access gained and how it was used.
Getting access to some of the world’s most prominent accounts and then conducting a bitcoin scam? Based on the bitcoin transactions, it appears the cybercriminals made off with a little over USD 100,000. Not insignificant, but surely there were other opportunities?
Occam’s razor can help here again. Bitcoin scams and coin miners are the most direct method fo cybercriminals to capitalized on their efforts. Given the high profile nature of the attack, the time before the discovery was always going to be sure. This may have been the “safest” bet for the criminal(s) to profit from this hack.
In the end, it’s a lesson for users of social networks and other services; even if you take all of the reasonable security precautions, you are relying on the service itself to help protect you. That might not always hold true.
It’s a harsh reminder that the very tooling you put in place to run your service may be its biggest risk for service providers and defenders…a risk that’s often overlooked and underestimated.
In the end, Marques Brownlee sums it up succinctly;
Don't send Bitcoin to strangers.
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) July 15, 2020
What do you think of this entire episode? Let’s talk about it—un-ironically—on Twitter, where I’m @marknca.
The post Twitter Hacked in Bitcoin Scam appeared first on .
Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. This week, read about one of Microsoft’s largest Patch Tuesday updates ever, including fixes for 120 vulnerabilities and two zero-days. Also, learn about Trend Micro’s new integrations with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Read on:
Microsoft Patches 120 Vulnerabilities, Two Zero-Days
This week Microsoft released fixes for 120 vulnerabilities, including two zero-days, in 13 products and services as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday rollout. The August release marks its third-largest Patch Tuesday update, bringing the total number of security fixes for 2020 to 862. “If they maintain this pace, it’s quite possible for them to ship more than 1,300 patches this year,” says Dustin Childs of Trend Micro’s Zero-Day Initiative (ZDI).
Trend Micro has discovered an unusual infection related to Xcode developer projects. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that a developer’s Xcode project at large contained the source malware, which leads to a rabbit hole of malicious payloads. Most notable in our investigation is the discovery of two zero-day exploits: one is used to steal cookies via a flaw in the behavior of Data Vaults, another is used to abuse the development version of Safari.
Top Tips for Home Cybersecurity and Privacy in a Coronavirus-Impacted World: Part 1
We’re all now living in a post-COVID-19 world characterized by uncertainty, mass home working and remote learning. To help you adapt to these new conditions while protecting what matters most, Trend Micro has developed a two-part blog series on ‘the new normal’. Part one identifies the scope and specific cyber-threats of the new normal.
Trend Micro enhances agility and automation in cloud security through integrations with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Through this collaboration, Trend Micro Cloud One offers the broadest platform support and API integration to protect AWS infrastructure whether building with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, AWS Lambda, AWS Fargate, containers, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), or Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) networking.
Shedding Light on Security Considerations in Serverless Cloud Architectures
The big shift to serverless computing is imminent. According to a 2019 survey, 21% of enterprises have already adopted serverless technology, while 39% are considering it. Trend Micro’s new research on serverless computing aims to shed light on the security considerations in serverless environments and help adopters in keeping their serverless deployments as secure as possible.
In One Click: Amazon Alexa Could be Exploited for Theft of Voice History, PII, Skill Tampering
Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant could be exploited to hand over user data due to security vulnerabilities in the service’s subdomains. The smart assistant, which is found in devices such as the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot — with over 200 million shipments worldwide — was vulnerable to attackers seeking user personally identifiable information (PII) and voice recordings.
New Attack Lets Hackers Decrypt VoLTE Encryption to Spy on Phone Calls
A team of academic researchers presented a new attack called ‘ReVoLTE,’ that could let remote attackers break the encryption used by VoLTE voice calls and spy on targeted phone calls. The attack doesn’t exploit any flaw in the Voice over LTE (VoLTE) protocol; instead, it leverages weak implementation of the LTE mobile network by most telecommunication providers in practice, allowing an attacker to eavesdrop on the encrypted phone calls made by targeted victims.
An Advanced Group Specializing in Corporate Espionage is on a Hacking Spree
A Russian-speaking hacking group specializing in corporate espionage has carried out 26 campaigns since 2018 in attempts to steal vast amounts of data from the private sector, according to new findings. The hacking group, dubbed RedCurl, stole confidential corporate documents including contracts, financial documents, employee records and legal records, according to research published this week by the security firm Group-IB.
Walgreens Discloses Data Breach Impacting Personal Health Information of More Than 72,000 Customers
The second-largest pharmacy chain in the U.S. recently disclosed a data breach that may have compromised the personal health information (PHI) of more than 72,000 individuals across the United States. According to Walgreens spokesman Jim Cohn, prescription information of customers was stolen during May protests, when around 180 of the company’s 9,277 locations were looted.
Top Tips for Home Cybersecurity and Privacy in a Coronavirus-Impacted World: Part 2
The past few months have seen radical changes to our work and home life under the Coronavirus threat, upending norms and confining millions of American families within just four walls. In this context, it’s not surprising that more of us are spending an increasing portion of our lives online. In the final blog of this two-part series, Trend Micro discusses what you can do to protect your family, your data, and access to your corporate accounts.
What are your thoughts on Trend Micro’s tips to make your home cybersecurity and privacy stronger in the COVID-19-impacted world? Share your thoughts in the comments below or follow me on Twitter to continue the conversation: @JonLClay.
The post This Week in Security News: Microsoft Patches 120 Vulnerabilities, Including Two Zero-Days and Trend Micro Brings DevOps Agility and Automation to Security Operations Through Integration with AWS Solutions appeared first on .
Trend Micro Research has developed a go-to resource for all things related to cybercriminal underground hosting and infrastructure. Today we released the second in this three-part series of reports which detail the what, how, and why of cybercriminal hosting (see the first part here).
As part of this report, we dive into the common life cycle of a compromised server from initial compromise to the different stages of monetization preferred by criminals. It’s also important to note that regardless of whether a company’s server is on-premise or cloud-based, criminals don’t care what kind of server they compromise.
To a criminal, any server that is exposed or vulnerable is fair game.
Cloud vs. On-Premise Servers
Cybercriminals don’t care where servers are located. They can leverage the storage space, computation resources, or steal data no matter what type of server they access. Whatever is most exposed will most likely be abused.
As digital transformation continues and potentially picks up to allow for continued remote working, cloud servers are more likely to be exposed. Many enterprise IT teams, unfortunately, are not arranged to provide the same protection for cloud as on-premise servers.
As a side note, we want to emphasize that this scenario applies only to cloud instances replicating the storage or processing power of an on-premise server. Containers or serverless functions won’t fall victim to this same type of compromise. Additionally, if the attacker compromises the cloud account, as opposed to a single running instance, then there is an entirely different attack life cycle as they can spin up computing resources at will. Although this is possible, however, it is not our focus here.
Attack Red Flags
Many IT and security teams might not look for earlier stages of abuse. Before getting hit by ransomware, however, there are other red flags that could alert teams to the breach.
If a server is compromised and used for cryptocurrency mining (also known as cryptomining), this can be one of the biggest red flags for a security team. The discovery of cryptomining malware running on any server should result in the company taking immediate action and initiating an incident response to lock down that server.
This indicator of compromise (IOC) is significant because while cryptomining malware is often seen as less serious compared to other malware types, it is also used as a monetization tactic that can run in the background while server access is being sold for further malicious activity. For example, access could be sold for use as a server for underground hosting. Meanwhile, the data could be exfiltrated and sold as personally identifiable information (PII) or for industrial espionage, or it could be sold for a targeted ransomware attack. It’s possible to think of the presence of cryptomining malware as the proverbial canary in a coal mine: This is the case, at least, for several access-as-a-service (AaaS) criminals who use this as part of their business model.
Attack Life Cycle
Attacks on compromised servers follow a common path:
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The monetization lifecycle of a compromised server
Often, targeted ransomware is the final stage. In most cases, asset categorization reveals data that is valuable to the business but not necessarily valuable for espionage.
A deep understanding of the servers and network allows criminals behind a targeted ransomware attack to hit the company where it hurts the most. These criminals would know the dataset, where they live, whether there are backups of the data, and more. With such a detailed blueprint of the organization in their hands, cybercriminals can lock down critical systems and demand higher ransom, as we saw in our 2020 midyear security roundup report.
In addition, while a ransomware attack would be the visible urgent issue for the defender to solve in such an incident, the same attack could also indicate that something far more serious has likely already taken place: the theft of company data, which should be factored into the company’s response planning. More importantly, it should be noted that once a company finds an IOC for cryptocurrency, stopping the attacker right then and there could save them considerable time and money in the future.
Ultimately, no matter where a company’s data is stored, hybrid cloud security is critical to preventing this life cycle.
The post The Life Cycle of a Compromised (Cloud) Server appeared first on .
Note: This article originally appeared in Verisign’s Q3 2020 Domain Name Industry Brief.
Verisign is deeply committed to protecting our critical internet infrastructure from potential cybersecurity threats, and to keeping up to date on the changing cyber landscape.
Over the years, cybercriminals have grown more sophisticated, adapting to changing business practices and diversifying their approaches in non-traditional ways. We have seen security threats continue to evolve in 2020, as many businesses have shifted to a work from home posture due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the phenomenon of “Zoom-bombing” video meetings and online learning sessions had not been a widespread issue until, suddenly, it became one.
As more people began accessing company applications and files over their home networks, IT departments implemented new tools and set new policies to find the right balance between protecting company assets and sensitive information, and enabling employees to be just as productive at home as they would be in the office. Even the exponential jump in the use of home-networked printers that might or might not be properly secured represented a new security consideration for some corporate IT teams.
An increase in phishing scams accompanied this shift in working patterns. About a month after much of the global workforce began working from home in greater numbers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported about a 300 percent to 400 percent spike in cybersecurity complaints received by its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) each day. According to the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), “[o]f global cyber-scams, 59% are coming in the form of spear phishing.” These phishing campaigns targeted an array of sectors, such as healthcare and government agencies, by imitating health experts or COVID-related charities.
Proactive steps can help businesses improve their cybersecurity hygiene and guard against phishing scams. One of these steps is for companies to focus part of their efforts on educating employees on how to detect and avoid malicious websites in phishing emails. Companies can start by building employee understanding of how to identify the destination domain of a URL (Uniform Resource Locator – commonly referring to as “links”) embedded in an email that may be malicious. URLs can be complex and confusing and cybercriminals, who are well aware of that complexity, often use deceptive tactics within the URLs to mask the malicious destination domain. Companies can take proactive steps to inform their employees of these deceptive tactics and help them avoid malicious websites. Some of the most common tactics are described in Table 1 below.
| Tactic | What is it? |
| Combosquatting | Adding words such as “secure,” “login” or “account” to a familiar domain name to trick users into thinking it is affiliated with the known domain name. |
| Typosquatting | Using domain names that resemble a familiar name but incorporate common typographical mistakes, such as reversing letters or leaving out or adding a character. |
| Levelsquatting | Using familiar names/domain names as part of a subdomain within a URL, making it difficult to discover the real destination domain. |
| Homograph attacks | Using homograph, or lookalike, domain names, such as substituting the uppercase “I” or number “1” where a lowercase “L” should have been used, or using “é” instead of an “e.” |
| Misplaced domain | Planting familiar domain names within the URL as a way of adding a familiar domain name into a complex-looking URL. The familiar domain name could be found in a path (after a “/”), as part of the additional parameters (after a “?”), as an anchor/fragment identifier (after a “#”) or in the HTTP credentials (before “@”). |
| URL-encoded characters | Placing URL-encoded characters (%[code]), which are sometimes used in URL parameters, into the domain name itself. |
Teaching users to find and understand the domain portion of the URL can have lasting and positive effects on an organization’s ability to avoid phishing links. By providing employees (and their families) with this basic information, companies can better protect themselves against cybersecurity issues such as compromised networks, financial losses and data breaches.
To learn more about what you can do to protect yourself and your business against possible cyber threats, check out the STOP. THINK. CONNECT. campaign online at https://www.stopthinkconnect.org. STOP. THINK. CONNECT. is a global online safety awareness campaign led by the National Cyber Security Alliance and in partnership with the Anti-Phishing Working Group to help all digital citizens stay safer and more secure online.
The post Cybersecurity Considerations in the Work-From-Home Era appeared first on Verisign Blog.
As a leader in cybersecurity, we at McAfee understand that every aspect of your digital life has potential weak spots that could make you vulnerable to threats and attacks. By incorporating security into everything you do online, you’re better protected from potential threats. To mount your offense, we’ve enlisted a team of partners that puts your security needs first, seamlessly blending our security with their services so you can live a confident life online. We bring our McAfee security teams together with industry players like PC & smartphone manufacturers, software & operating system developers, and more to make sure we can keep scoring security wins for you.
When was the last time you worried about security while you were shopping for a new PC? You were probably checking out the specs, price, and making sure it had all the capabilities you needed for working remotely, distance learning, and maybe a little gaming. And that’s all in addition to the day-to-day productivity, banking, and browsing you do. Like a strong defensive line, HP, Dell, Lenovo, and ASUS work closely with us to make sure that your personal data and devices are secure, especially as you spend more time online than ever before. That’s why so many new PCs are preloaded with a free McAfee® LiveSafe trial to provide integrated protection from malware, viruses, and spyware from day 1 with minimal impact on performance.
McAfee protection goes beyond just antivirus. We help you keep apps and Windows up to date and patched against vulnerabilities, block intruders with our firewall, and help you clean up cookies and temporary files to minimize the digital footprint on your PC.
We build our security directly into the devices consumers rely on for everything from remote yoga to distance learning, so that they know they’ll be safer online, regardless of what their new normal looks like.
Part of a good defense is understanding how the game has changed. We recognize that our customers are using multiple devices to connect online these days. In fact, their primary device may not even be a computer. That’s why we work with mobile providers to ensure customers like you have access to our comprehensive multidevice security options. Devices like mobile phones and tablets allow users to access social media, stream content, and even bank on their terms. For that reason, our mobile protection includes features like VPN, so that you can connect any time, any place safely and use your apps securely.
Our online and brick & mortar retail partners are also irreplaceable on the field. We understand that shopping for security can be complicated – even intimidating – when faced with a wall of choices. Whether you’re in-store or browsing online, we’ll work together to address your security needs so that your devices and personal data are protected with the solution that works best for you. Many of our retailers offer additional installation and upgrade support so you can have one less thing to worry about.
Your web browser is more than a shortcut to the best chocolate chip cookie recipe; it connects you to endless content, information, and communication. Equally important is your operating system, the backbone that powers every app you install, every preference you save, and every vacation destination wallpaper that cycles through. We partner closely with web browsers, operating systems, and other software developers to ensure that our opponents can’t find holes in our defense. Everything that seamlessly works in the background stays that way, helping stop threats and intruders dead in their tracks. Whether it’s routine software updates or color-coded icons that help differentiate safe websites from phishing scams, we’re calling safety plays that keep our customers in the game.
At McAfee, we work tirelessly to do what we do best: blocking the threats you see, and even the ones you don’t. These days your “digital life” blurs the lines between security, identity, and privacy. So, we go into the dark web to hunt down leaked personal info stolen by identity thieves. We include Secure VPN in all our suites to give you privacy online. It’s these capabilities that strengthen both the offense and defense in our starting lineup of security suites like McAfee® Total Protection and McAfee® LiveSafe.
In short, your protection goes from a few reminders to scan your device to a team of experts helping you stay primed for the playoffs. It’s a roster that includes technology and humans solely devoted to staying ahead of the bad guys, from McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) investigating and reporting like to artificial intelligence and machine learning that strengthens with every threat from every device. In fact, in just the first three months of this year, our labs detected over six threats per second!
Cybercriminals may be taking advantage of this current moment, but together, we can ensure our defense holds strong. After all, defense wins championships.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
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2020 has propelled us into a new digital reality – one where we are reliant on technology to help us maintain our way of life. This forced all age groups, from 8-80, to learn how to conduct their day-to-day online. I personally had my mother asking a million questions about how to video conference!
But while we’re all looking to remain connected, we need to also focus on staying protected. For those of us a little more tech-savvy, that means helping our family and friends learn how this new digital reality impacts online security.
Let’s examine what that entails.
Digital healthcare’s rise was predicted back in January when Bain & Company reported that 40% of U.S. physicians expect to start using telemedicine over the next two years. Then came COVID-19, which drove healthcare providers to turn toward digital options to deliver socially distanced patient care. Many PCPs moved almost entirely to telehealth, with half of those surveyed using telemedicine in over 75% of their patient care.
While telehealth significantly increases patient care availability, there are also intrinsic privacy and security risks that go along with it. For example, telehealth requires that patients submit their health information through online platforms – some of which lack the proper data safeguards and don’t meet HIPAA requirements. Like all data transferred over the internet, private health information used for telemedicine could be intercepted by hackers if users don’t take proper security precautions. This means ensuring you and your loved one employ best practices – locking your platform account with a strong password, ensuring you only give your personal information to your doctor or verified resource, etc. These simple steps from McAfee experts are more important than ever before, as the healthcare industry is a preferred target for criminals.
School may be back in session, but it looks pretty different than previous years. For parents, this means navigating the unknown terrain that is a virtual classroom – and how the new environment affects your family’s online security.
Distance learning has led to a substantial spike in online video conferencing tools to conduct virtual lectures – which is only compounded by the fact that kids are already constantly on devices to play and socialize. However, some of the tools they use have proven to lack necessary security measures, which could jeopardize your students’ academic success and online security. Beyond video platform concerns, the combination of increased personal device usage on not-as-secure home networks poses a threat of its own.
Parents must ensure their students succeed – at both school and security. While they’re helping kids adjust to distance learning, parents can help keep them safe online by conducting router firmware updates, changing any default passwords on home networks, and leveraging a VPN. Additionally, parents must teach kids good security hygiene, such as always updating an app or device when an update is available. With parents juggling so much right now, they can also look for some extra support in the form of a comprehensive security solution that covers all their family’s devices with an extra layer of protection.
Many consumers have adopted digital financial services to make contactless payments or participate in online banking – some for convenience, others to help minimize contact in light of recent events. However, as this tech grows, so does the need for up-to-date security.
As users incorporate digital financial services into their everyday lives, they may fall victim to the risks commonly associated with making online payments. My mother, for example, is new to mobile banking and doesn’t know to look out for targeted phishing attacks from hackers who are trying to trick her out of money. Even the most tech-savvy online banking users can fall victim to more sophisticated phishing schemes out there.
To ensure cybercriminals don’t trick my mom into sharing sensitive information by impersonating her bank, we’ve discussed some ways she can identify an attack. Now, she knows to always hover over suspicious links, avoid interacting with messages from unknown senders, and to go directly to her bank’s official website.
We can use technology to adapt and grow during this time, just as long as we all employ security best practices. So, whether it be telehealth, distance learning, or digital finances, your family should always keep the aforementioned tips top of mind.
And remember – you’re not in this alone. You’ve got the support you need during this new digital reality in the form of a comprehensive security solution, McAfee® Total Protection. With this solution, consumers are safeguarded from malware with cloud-based threat protection that uses behavioral algorithms to detect new threats. It includes comprehensive internet security, multi-faceted privacy protection, and our secure VPN to ensure your family is prepared for any potential threat.
With robust, comprehensive security in place, your family’s devices will be consistently protected from the latest threats that came from our digital reality. With all these devices safe, everyone’s online life is free from worry.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
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It’s hard to believe, right, parents? In just a blink or two, you went from being the teenager dropping cool phrases like “rad” and “gnarly” to monitoring a teenager texting words like “lowkey,” “IRL” and “CD9” into her smartphone non-stop.*
For generations, teens have been crafting terms to differentiate themselves from other age groups. The difference today is that smartphone texting has multiplied the scope of that code to include words, emojis, numbers, and hashtags.
The times have changed, fo’ sho.’
You don’t have to speak your child’s language (please don’t). However, with new terms and risks emerging online each day, it’s a good idea to at least understand what they are saying.
Since kids have been spending more time online due to the pandemic, we thought we might discover a few new and interesting terms. We were right. We found stories of teens referring to the Coronavirus as “Miss Rona” and “Rona,” and abbreviating quarantine to “Quar.” A “Corona Bae” is the person you would only plan to date during a lockdown.
Much of the coded language kids use is meant to be funny, sarcastic, or a quick abbreviation. However, there are times when a text exchange can slip into risky territory. Seemingly harmless, text exchanges can spark consequences such as bullying, sextortion, privacy violations, and emotional or physical harm.
To help kids avoid dangerous digital situations, we recommend three things: 1) Talk early and often with your kids about digital risk and behavior expectations, 2) Explore and use parental monitoring software, and 3) Know your child’s friends and communities online and in real life.
Note: Context is everything. Many of these terms are used in jest or as casual banter. Be sure to understand the context in which a word is used.
Flex. This term means showing off. For example, “Look at her trying to flex with her new car.”
Crashy. Description of a person who is thought to be both crazy and trashy.
Clap back. A comeback filled with attitude.
Cringey. Another word for embarrassing.
Hop off. Mind your own business.
Spill tea or Kiki. Dishing gossip.
Sip tea. Listening to gossip.
Salty. Mad, angry, jealous, bitter, upset, or irritated.
“She gave me a salty look in class.”
Extra. Over the top or unnecessarily dramatic.
Left on read. Not replying to someone’s message.
Ghosting. Ending a friendship or relationship online with no explanation.
Neglext. Abandon someone in the middle of a text conversation.
Ok, Boomer. Dismissing someone who is not up to date enough.
(Throw) shade. Insult or trash talk discreetly.
Receipts. Getting digital proof, usually in the form of screenshots.
THOT. Acronym for That H__ Over There.
Thirsty. A term describing a person as desperate or needy. “Look at her staring at him — she’s so thirsty.”
Thirst trap. A sexy photograph or message posted on social media.
Dis. Short for showing blatant disrespect.
Preeing. A word that describes stalking or being stalked on Facebook.
Basic. Referring to a person as mainstream, nothing special. Usually used in a negative connotation.
Chasing Clout. A negative term describing someone trying too hard to get followers on social media.
9, CD9, or Code9, PAW, POS. Parents are around, over the shoulder.
99. All clear, the parents are gone. Safe to resume texting or planning.
KPC. Keeping parents clueless.
Cheddar, Cheese, or Bread. These are all terms that mean money.
Cap. Means to lie as in “she’s capping.” Sending the baseball cap emoji expresses the same feeling. No capping means “I’m not lying.”
Hundo P. Term that is short for “hundred percent;” absolutely, for sure.
Woke. Aware of and outspoken on current on political and social issues.
And I oop. Lighthearted term to describe a silly mistake.
Big oof. A slightly bigger mistake.
Yeet. An expression of excitement. For example, “He kissed me. Yeeeet!”
Retweet. Instead of saying, “yes, I agree,” you say, “retweet.”
Canceled. Absurd or foolish behavior is “canceled.” For example, “He was too negative on our date, so I canceled him.”
Slap or Snatched. Terms that mean fashionable or on point. For instance, “Those shoes are slap” or “You look snatched.”
And just for fun, here’s a laugh out loud video from comedian Seth Meyer’s on teen Coronavirus slang you’ll enjoy on YouTube.
* lowkey (a feeling you want to keep secret), IRL (In Real Life), CD9 also Code9 (Adult Alert used to hide secretive activity). ** Terms collected from various sources, including NetLingo.com, UrbanDictionary.com, webopedia.com, and from tweets and posts from teens online.
The post Can You Decode Your Teen’s Texting Language? appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
If you’re thinking career change or career shift, there’s a field that has an estimated 4 million jobs open. Cybersecurity.
According to survey and research data from the International Cybersecurity Organization (ICS)2, there’s a cybersecurity workforce gap—a terrifically high volume of jobs left unfilled. Published in 2019, the gap they identified looked like this:
Needless to say, there’s opportunity in the field for both technical and non-technical roles.
Here’s an important thing to keep in mind about cybersecurity:, it’s not solely about understanding technology. It’s about understanding people too and how people and technology interact.
The moment you see cybersecurity through that broader lens, you can see how the field opens widely to encompass a range of roles. Of course, there are analysts and engineers, yet it also includes other roles like digital forensics and cyber investigation, healthcare information security, cryptography, and even cyber law. Additionally, there’s needed expertise in the realms of privacy, governance, ethics, and even digital ethics. And if you take a role with a security company such as ours, the opportunity further extends to positions in account management, marketing, and operations. (In fact, you can drop by our careers page for a look at our current openings and what workday life is like around here.)
There are plenty of reasons. Above that data published in 2019, our unprecedented reliance on the internet to work, learn, and stay connected in 2020, demand for cybersecurity jobs is yet more so on the rise. As so many of us turned increasingly to the internet to get through our day, the same is true for hackers and crooks.
With that, let’s take a quick look at several of the factors working in your favor as you consider a change.
We’ve all seen the news stories of major breaches at big retailers, credit reporting agencies, hotels, and even healthcare providers. It’s not just the private sector that’s been grappling with cybersecurity concerns, there’s need in the public sector as well—like municipalities. In all, every organization needs cybersecurity (just as we all need cybersecurity for our homes), and thus there’s plenty of opportunity out there. Using just one of the many possible cybersecurity roles as an example, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 32% increase in demand for information security analysts through 2028—which is far higher than the average of other professions.
In fact, the same (ICS)2 survey discovered that only 42% of current cybersecurity pros said that their first job after higher education was in the field of cybersecurity. In other words, the majority of cybersecurity pros ended up that way by some means of career shift or change. And they got there through certifications and training rather than by way of a degree from a college or university.
Our own Chief Human Resources Officer, Chatelle Lynch, put it quite well in an interview with Business Insider just a few weeks ago: “It’s no secret that the demand for cybersecurity staff has steadily grown over the past decade,” she says. “This means opportunity, so if you don’t have a degree, don’t let that slow you down. You may have unique work experience or relevant certifications, alternative learning, or transferable skills that you need to make sure you highlight when applying and interviewing.”
For example, she goes on to say that prior military service, IT experience, and volunteer or hobbyist activities (even online gaming) are a good foundation for cybersecurity roles.
These skills absolutely apply, and they’re sought after skills as well. The ability to work independently, lead projects, write and document well, and particularly strong people skills are vital for a role where you’ll be interfacing with numerous individuals, departments, and business units. Likewise, as called out above, certain roles focus more on the non-technical side of security solutions.
The beauty of making a career change to cybersecurity is that there are plenty of ways you can get it done at home and on your time.
If you’re just getting started, you can test the waters for free or at relatively low cost with a Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) that gives you the basics on cybersecurity. Future Learn’s “Introduction to Cybersecurity” from The Open University is one example of an intro program, as is the University of Michigan’s “Securing Digital Democracy” class that’s offered through Coursera.
If you’re already an IT pro or have a strong technical background, there are similar MOOC courses available that cater to your current level of knowledge and skill. The University of Maryland’s “Cybersecurity Specialization” and “Usable Security” are geared accordingly.
For a list of cybersecurity programs available online, drop by CyberDegrees.org. Their listing is one of many good places to start.
Other free and low-cost avenues out there include subscribing to some security bloggers, grabbing some hands-on work with coding and IT networking fundamentals from online learning companies like Udemy, Codecademy, and Khan Academy, or joining some online cybersecurity groups for a little professional networking. In all, there’s plenty of opportunity to learn from others, both in structured class settings and in more unstructured peer and mentorship relationships.
When you’re ready to start your job search, there’s a good chance that your interview will be conducted online. Online interviews have been part of the job-hunting landscape for a few years now, yet with many employers enacting work from home measures, it’s the way hiring gets done right now. I expect this to continue, as employers have embraced its many benefits, particularly in the early stages of interviews. If the prospect of an online interview is new to you, I put together a pair of articles this spring that can help.
As you make the jump, here’s the most important thing you’ll need: a love of technology and a desire to protect the people who use it. If you can combine a drive to understand both technology and people better with the further drive to see it all through, you’ll be well on your way. Like any career shift or change, there’s work ahead, yet it’s my impression that our field is a welcoming and supportive one—and very much on a keen lookout for new talent.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
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October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which is led by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA)—a national non-profit focused on cybersecurity education & awareness in conjunction with the U.S. government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). McAfee is pleased to announce that we’re a proud participant.
If there’s ever a year to observe Cybersecurity Awareness Month, this is it.
As millions worked, schooled, and simply entertained themselves at home (and continue to do so) this year, internet usage increased by up to 70%. Not surprisingly, cybercriminals followed. Looking at our threat dashboard statistics for the year so far, you’ll see:
And that doesn’t account for the millions of other online scams, ransomware, malicious sites, and malware out there in general—of which COVID-19-themed attacks are just a small percentage.
With such a high reliance on the internet right now, 2020 is an excellent year to observe Cybersecurity Awareness Month, along with its focus on what we can do collectively to stay safer together in light of today’s threats.
Unified under the hashtag #BeCyberSmart, Cybersecurity Awareness Month calls on individuals and organizations alike to take charge of protecting their slice of cyberspace. The aim, above making ourselves safer, is to make everyone safer by having us do our part to make the internet safer for all. In the words of the organizers, “If everyone does their part – implementing stronger security practices, raising community awareness, educating vulnerable audiences or training employees, our interconnected world will be safer and more resilient for everyone.”
Throughout October, we’re participating as well. Here in our blogs and across our broad and ongoing efforts to boost everyone’s awareness and expertise in cybersecurity and simply staying safe online, we’ll be supporting one key theme each week:
If you’ve kept up with our blogs, this is a theme you’ll know well. The idea behind “If you connect it, protect it” is that the line between our lives online and offline gets blurrier every day. For starters, the average person worldwide spends nearly 7 hours a day online thanks in large part to mobile devices and the time we spend actively connected on our computers. However, we’re also connecting our homes with Internet of Things (IoT) devices—all for an average of 10 connected devices in our homes in the U.S. So even when we don’t have a device in our hand, we’re still connected.
With this increasing number of connections comes an increasing number of opportunities—and challenges. During this weel, we’ll take a look at how internet-connected devices have impacted our lives and how you can take steps that reduce your risk.
As we shared at the open of this article, this year saw a major disruption in the way we work, learn, and socialize online. There’s no question that our reliance on the internet, a safe internet, is greater than before. And that calls for a fresh look at the way people and businesses look at security.
This week of Cybersecurity Awareness Month will focus on steps users and organizations can take to protect internet connected devices for both personal and professional use, all in light of a whole new set of potential vulnerabilities that are taking root.
Earlier this year, one of our articles on telemedicine reported that 39% of North Americans and Europeans consulted a doctor or health care provider online for the first time in 2020. stand as just one example of the many ways that the healthcare industry has embraced connected care. Another noteworthy example comes in the form of internet-connected medical devices, which are found inside care facilities and even worn by patients as they go about their day.
As this trend in medicine has introduced numerous benefits, such as digital health records, patient wellness apps, and more timely care, it’s also exposed the industry to vulnerabilities that cyber criminals regularly attempt to exploit. Here we’ll explore this topic and share what steps both can take do their part and #BeCyberSmart.
The growing trend of homeowners and businesses alike connecting all manner of things across the Internet of Things (IoT) continues. In our homes, we have smart assistants, smart security systems, smart door locks, and numerous other home IoT devices that all need to be protected. Businesses manage their fleets, optimize their supply chain, and run their HVAC systems with IoT devices, which also beg protection too as hackers employ new avenues of attack, such as GPS spoofing. And these are just a fraction of the applications that we can mention as the world races toward a predicted 50 billion IoT devices by 2030.
As part of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we’ll look at the future of connected devices and how both people and businesses can protect themselves, their operations, and others.
As Cybersecurity Awareness Month ramps up, it presents an opportunity for each of us to take a look at our habits and to get a refresher on things we can do right now to keep ourselves, and our internet, a safer place. This brief list should give you a great start, along with a catalog of articles on identity theft, family safety, mobile & IoT security, and our regularly updated consumer threat notices.
Given the dozens of accounts you need to protect—from your social media accounts to your financial accounts—coming up with strong passwords can take both time and effort. Rather than keeping them on scraps of paper or in a notebook (and absolutely not on an unprotected file on your computer), consider using a password manager. It acts as a database for all your passwords and stores new codes as you create them. With just a single password, you can access all the tools your password manager offers.
Phishing scams like these are an old standard. If you receive an email or text from an unknown person or party that asks you to download software, share personal information, or take some kind of action, don’t click on anything. This will steer you clear of any scams or malicious content.
However, more sophisticated phishing attacks can look like they’re actually coming from a legitimate organization. Instead of clicking on a link within the email or text, it’s best to go straight to the organization’s website or contact customer service. Also, you can hover over the link and get a link preview. If the URL looks suspicious, delete the message and move on.
Avoid hackers infiltrating your network by using a VPN, which allows you to send and receive data while encrypting – or scrambling – your information so others can’t read it. By helping to protect your network, VPNs also prevent hackers from accessing other devices (work or personal) connected to your Wi-Fi.
In addition, use a robust security software like McAfee® Total Protection, which helps to defend your entire family from the latest threats and malware while providing safe web browsing.
At a time where data breaches occur and our identity is at risk of being stolen, checking your credit is a habit to get into. Aside from checking your existing accounts for false charges, checking your credit can spot if a fraudulent account has been opened in your name.
It’s a relatively straightforward process. In the U.S., the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires credit reporting agencies to provide you with a free credit check at least once every 12 months. Get your free credit report here from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Other nations provide similar services, such as the free credit reports for UK customers.
To track malicious pandemic-related campaigns, McAfee Advanced Programs Group (APG) has published a COVID-19 Threat Dashboard, which includes top threats leveraging the pandemic, most targeted verticals and countries, and most utilized threat types and volume over time. The dashboard is updated daily at 4pm ET.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
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October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which is led by the U.S. government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in conjunction with the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA)—a national non-profit focused on cybersecurity education & awareness. McAfee is pleased to announce that we’re a proud participant.
We live in a day and age when even lightbulbs can be hacked.
Perhaps you’ve caught the stories in the news: various devices like home cameras, smart appliances, and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices falling prey to hackers and attacks, such as when the Mirai botnet took out large swathes of the internet in 2016. As posted by Statista, estimates project that the world will have nearly 40 billion IoT devices in the next five years and upwards of 50 billion by 2030. That’s in homes and businesses alike, ranging anywhere from digital assistants, smart watches, medical devices, thermostats, vehicle fleet management devices, smart locks, and yes, even the humble lightbulb—and like our computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets, they all need to be protected.
The reason is simple: your network is only as safe as the weakest device that’s on it. And we’re putting so much more on our networks than ever before. In effect, that means our homes have more targets for hackers than ever before as well. In the hands of a dedicated crook, one poorly protected device can open the door to your entire network—much like a thief stealing a bike by prying open the weak link in a chain lock. Therefore, so goes the saying, “If You Connect It, Protect It.”
What’s challenging is that our IoT devices don’t always lend themselves to the same sort of protections like our computers, laptops, and phones do. For example, you can’t actually install security software directly on them. However, there are things you can do to protect those devices, and the network they’re on too.
Just because that new smart device that’s caught your eye can connect to the internet doesn’t mean that it’s secure. Before you purchase, read up on reviews and comments from other customers. Look for news articles about the device manufacturer too. The fact of the matter is that some IoT device manufacturers are much better at baking security protocols into their devices than others, so look into their track record to see if you can uncover any issues with their products or security practices. Information such as this can help you make an even more informed choice.
One issue with many IoT devices is that they often come with a default username and password. This could mean that your device, and thousands of others just like it, all share the same credentials, which makes it painfully easy for a hacker to gain access to them as those default usernames and passwords are often published online.
When you purchase an IoT device, set a fresh password using a strong method of password creation. And keep those passwords safe. Instead of keeping them on a notebook or on sticky notes, consider using a password manager. It acts as a database for all your passwords and stores new codes as you create them. As always, don’t store them in an unprotected file on your computer, which can be subject to a hack or data loss.
Our banks, many of the online shopping sites we use, and numerous other accounts use two-factor authentication to make sure that we’re logging in we really are who we say we are. In short, a username and password combo is an example of one-factor authentication. The second factor in the mix is something you, and only you, own, like your mobile phone. Thus when you log in and get a prompt to enter a security code that’s sent to your mobile phone, you’re taking advantage of two-factor authentication. If your IoT device supports two-factor authentication as part of the login procedure, put it to use and get that extra layer of security.
Your router acts as the internet’s gateway into your home. From there, it works as a hub that connects all of your devices—computers, tablets, and phones, along with your IoT devices as well. That means it’s vital to keep your router secure. A quick word about routers: you typically access them via a browser window and a specific address that’s usually printed somewhere on your router. If you’re renting your router or you’ve purchased it through your internet provider, they should have help documentation that can guide you through this the process. Likewise, if you purchased your own, your manual should provide the guidance you need.
As we mentioned above, the first thing to do is change the default password and name of your router if you haven’t done so already. Again, use a strong method of password creation. Also, change the name of your router. When you choose a new one, go with name that doesn’t give away your address or identity. Something unique and even fun like “Pizza Lovers” or “The Internet Warehouse” are options that mask your identity and are memorable for you too. While you’re making that change, you can also check that your router is using an encryption method, like WPA2, which will keep your signal secure. If you’re unsure, reach out to your internet provider or check the documentation that came with your router.
Just as you can offer your guests secure access that’s separate from your own devices, creating an additional network on your router allows you to keep your computers and smartphones separate from IoT devices. This way, if an IoT device is compromised, a hacker will still have difficulty accessing your other devices, like computers and smartphones, along with the data and info that you have stored on them. You may also want to consider investing in an advanced internet router that has built-in protection and can secure and monitor any device that connects to your network.
Another line of defense that can hamper hackers is using a VPN, which allows you to send and receive data while encrypting your information so others can’t read it. When your data traffic is scrambled that way, it’s shielded from prying eyes, which helps protect your network and the devices you have connected to it.
As with our computers, laptops, phones, tablets, and apps, make sure you have the latest software updates for your IoT devices. The reasons here are the same: one, they’ll make sure you’re getting the latest functionality from your device; and two, updates often contain security upgrades. If there’s a setting that lets you receive automatic updates, enable it so that you always have the latest.
You’ve probably seen that you can control a lot of your connected things with your smartphone. We’re using them to set the temperature, turn our lights on and off, and even see who’s at the front door. With that, it seems like we can add the label “universal remote control” our smartphones—so protecting our phones has become yet more important. Whether you’re an Android owner or iOS owner, get security software installed on your phone so you can protect all the things it accesses and controls—in addition to you and the phone as well.
And of course, let’s not forget our computers and laptops. While we’ve been primarily talking about IoT devices here, it’s a good reminder that computers and laptops need protection too. Using a strong suite of security software like McAfee® Total Protection, can help defend your entire family from the latest threats and malware, make it safer to browse, and look out for your privacy too.
We’re connecting our homes and ourselves with IoT devices at an tremendous rate—now at an average of 10 connected devices in our homes in the U.S. Gone by are the days when all we had was a computer or phone or two to look after. Now, even when we’re not in front of a laptop or have a smartphone in our hand, we’re still online, nearly all the time. Take this week to make sure that what you’ve connected is protected. Even that little lightbulb.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
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During COVID-19, people stuck inside have scoured the internet for content to consume – often searching for free entertainment (movies, TV shows, and music) to avoid any extra costs. As these habits increase, so do the potential cyberthreats associated with free internet content – making our fourteenth Most Dangerous Celebrities study more relevant than ever.
To conduct our Most Dangerous Celebrities 2020 study, McAfee researched famous individuals to reveal which celebrities generate the most “dangerous” results – meaning those whose search results bring potentially malicious content to expose fans’ personal information.
Thanks to her recent starring roles, American actress Anna Kendrick has found herself at the top of McAfee’s 2020 Most Dangerous Celebrities list.
The Top Ten Most Dangerous Celebrities
You probably know Anna Kendrick from her popular roles in films like “Twilight,” Pitch Perfect,” and “A Simple Favor.” She also recently starred in the HBO Max series “Love Life,” as well as the 2020 children’s film “Trolls World Tour.” Kendrick is joined in the top ten list by fellow actresses Blake Lively (No. 3), Julia Roberts (No. 8), and Jason Derulo (No. 10). Also included in the top ten list are American singers Mariah Carey (No. 4), Justin Timberlake (No. 5), and Taylor Swift (No. 6). Rounding out the rest of the top ten are American rapper Sean (Diddy) Combs (No. 2), Kate McKinnon (No. 9), and late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel (No. 7).
Lights, Camera, Security
Many consumers don’t realize that simple internet searches of their favorite celebrities could potentially lead to malicious content, as cybercriminals often leverage these popular searches to entice fans to click on dangerous links. This year’s study emphasizes that consumers are increasingly searching for content, especially as they look for new forms of entertainment to stream amidst a global pandemic.
With a greater emphasis on streaming culture, consumers could potentially be led astray to malicious websites while looking for new shows and movies to watch. However, people must understand that torrent or pirated downloads can lead to an abundance of cyberthreats. If an unsuspecting user clicks on a malicious link while searching for their favorite celebrity film, their device could suddenly become plagued with adware or malware.
Whether you and your family are checking out your new favorite actress in her latest film or streaming a popular singer’s new album, it’s important to ensure that your searches aren’t potentially putting your online security at risk. Follow these tips so you can be a proactive fan while safeguarding your digital life:
Users looking for information on their favorite celebrities should be cautious and only click on links to reliable sources for downloads. The safest thing to do is to wait for official releases instead of visiting third-party websites that could contain malware.
When it comes to dangerous online behavior, using illegal streaming sites could wreak havoc on your device. Many illegal streaming sites are riddled with malware or adware disguised as pirated video files. Do yourself a favor and stream the show from a reputable source.
Safeguard yourself from cybercriminals with a comprehensive security solution like McAfee Total Protection. This can help protect you from malware, phishing attacks, and other threats.
Use a website reputation tool such as McAfee WebAdvisor, which alerts users when they are about to visit a malicious site.
Kids are fans of celebrities too, so ensure that limits are set for your child on their devices and use parental control software to help minimize exposure to potentially malicious or inappropriate websites.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Anna Kendrick Is McAfee’s Most Dangerous Celebrity 2020 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
During COVID-19, people stuck inside have scoured the internet for content to consume – often searching for free entertainment (movies, TV shows, and music) to avoid any extra costs. As these habits increase, so do the potential cyber threats associated with free internet content – making our fourteenth Most Dangerous Celebrities study more relevant than ever.
To conduct our Most Dangerous Celebrities 2020 study, McAfee researched famous individuals to reveal which celebrities generate the most “dangerous” results – meaning those whose search results bring potentially malicious content to expose fans’ personal information. Owing to his international popularity and fan following that well resonates in India, Cristiano Ronaldo takes the top spot on the India edition of McAfee’s 2020 Most Dangerous Celebrities list.
Ronaldo is popular not only for his football skills, but also for his lifestyle, brand endorsements, yearly earnings, and large social media following, with fans devotedly tracking his every movement. This year, Ronaldo’s transfer to Juventus from Real Madrid for a reported £105M created quite a buzz, grabbing attention from football enthusiasts worldwide. Within the Top 10 list, Ronaldo is closely followed by veteran actress Tabu (No. 2) and leading Bollywood actresses, Taapsee Pannu, (No. 3) Anushka Sharma at (No. 4) and Sonakshi Sinha (No. 5). Also making the top ten is Indian singer Armaan Malik (No. 6), and young and bubbly actor Sara Ali Khan (No. 7). Rounding out the rest of the top ten are Indian actress Kangana Ranaut (No. 8), followed by popular TV soap actress Divyanka Tripathi (No. 9) and lastly, the King of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan (No. 10).
Many consumers don’t realize that simple internet searches of their favorite celebrities could potentially lead to malicious content, as cybercriminals often leverage these popular searches to entice fans to click on dangerous links. This year’s study emphasizes that consumers are increasingly searching for content, especially as they look for new forms of entertainment to stream amidst a global pandemic.
With a greater emphasis on streaming culture, consumers could potentially be led astray to malicious websites while looking for new shows, sports, and movies to watch. For example, Ronaldo is strongly associated with malicious search terms, as fans are constantly seeking news on his personal life, as well as searching for news on his latest deals with football clubs. In addition, users may be streaming live football matches through illegal streaming platforms to avoid subscription fees. If an unsuspecting user clicks on a malicious link while searching for their favorite celebrity related news, their device could suddenly become plagued with adware or malware.
Whether you and your family are checking out your new favorite actress in her latest film or streaming a popular singer’s new album, it’s important to ensure that your searches aren’t potentially putting your online security at risk. Follow these tips so you can be a proactive fan while safeguarding your digital life:
Users looking for information on their favorite celebrities should be cautious and only click on links to reliable sources for downloads. The safest thing to do is to wait for official releases instead of visiting third-party websites that could contain malware.
Refrain from using illegal streaming sites
When it comes to dangerous online behavior, using illegal streaming sites could wreak havoc on your device. Many illegal streaming sites are riddled with malware or adware disguised as pirated video files. Do yourself a favor and stream the show from a reputable source.
Protect your online safety with a cybersecurity solution
Safeguard yourself from cybercriminals with a comprehensive security solution like McAfee Total Protection. This can help protect you from malware, phishing attacks, and other threats.
Use a website reputation tool
Use a website reputation tool such as McAfee WebAdvisor, which alerts users when they are about to visit a malicious site.
Use parental control software
Kids are fans of celebrities too, so ensure that limits are set for your child on their devices and use parental control software to help minimize exposure to potentially malicious or inappropriate websites.
Stay Updated
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Cristiano Ronaldo tops McAfee India’s Most Dangerous Celebrity 2020 List appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
2020 has certainly been the year for online entertainment. With many Aussies staying home to stay well, the internet and all its offerings have provided the perfect way for us all to pass time. From free movies and TV shows to the latest celebrity news, many of us have devoured digital content to entertain ourselves. But our love affair with online entertainment certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed by cybercriminals who have ‘pivoted’ in response and cleverly adapted their scams to adjust to our insatiable desire for content.
Cybercriminals are fully aware that we love searching for online entertainment and celebrity news and so devise their plans accordingly. Many create fake websites that promise users free content from a celebrity of the moment to lure unsuspecting Aussies in. But these malicious websites are purpose-built to trick consumers into sharing their personal information in exchange for the promised free content – and this is where many come unstuck!
McAfee, the world’s leading cybersecurity company, has researched which famous names generate the riskiest search results that could potentially trigger consumers to unknowingly install malware on their devices or unwillingly share their private information with cybercriminals.
And in 2020, English singer-songwriter Adele takes out the top honours as her name generates the most harmful links online. Adele is best known for smashing the music charts since 2008 with hit songs including ‘Rolling in the Deep’ and ‘Someone Like You’. In addition to her award-winning music, Adele is also loved for her funny and relatable personality, as seen on her talk show appearances (such as her viral ‘Carpool Karaoke’ segment) and concert footage. Most recently, her weight-loss and fitness journey have received mass media attention, with many trying to get to the bottom of her ‘weight-loss’ secrets.
Trailing Adele as the second most dangerous celebrity is actress and star of the 2020 hit show Stan ‘Love Life’ Anna Kendrick, followed by rapper Drake (no. 3), model and actress Cara Delevingne (no. 4), US TikTok star Charli D’Amelio (no. 5) and singer-songwriter Alicia Keys (no. 6). Rounding out the top ten are ‘Sk8r Boi’ singer Avril Lavigne (No. 7), New Zealand rising music star, Benee (no. 8), songstress Camila Cabello (no. 9), and global superstar, singer and actress Beyonce (no. 10).
Whether it was boredom or the fact that we just love a stickybeak, our love of celebrity news reached new heights this year with our many of us ‘needing’ to stay up to date with the latest gossip from our favourite public figures. Adele’s weight-loss journey (no.1), Drake’s first photos of ‘secret son’ Adonis (no. 4), and Cara Delevingne’s breakup with US actress Ashley Benson (no. 5), all had us Aussie fans flocking to the internet to search for the latest developments on these celebrity stories.
With many of us burning through catalogues of available movies and TV shows amid advice to stay at home, new release titles have definitely been the hottest ticket in town to stay entertained.
Rising to fame following her roles in ‘Twilight’ and musical comedy ‘Pitch Perfect’, Anna Kendrick (no. 2) starred in HBO Max series ‘Love Life’ which was released during the peak of COVID-19 in Australia, as well as the 2020 children’s film ‘Trolls World Tour’. R&B and pop megastar Beyonce (no. 10) starred in the 2019 remake of Disney cult classic ‘The Lion King’ and released a visual album ‘Black Is King’ in 2020.
While live concerts and festivals came to a halt earlier this year, many of us are still seeking music – both old and new – to help us navigate these unprecedented times. In fact, musicians make up 50% of the top 10 most dangerous celebrities – hailing from all genres, backgrounds and generations.
Canadian rapper Drake (No. 2) sparked fan interest by dropping his ‘Dark Lanes Demo Tapes’ album including hit songs ‘Chicago Freestyle’ and ‘Tootsie Slide’ that went massively viral on TikTok. New Zealand singer Benee also came out of the woodwork with viral sensations Supalonely and Glitter topping charts and reaching global popularity on TikTok.
Known for her enormously successful R&B/Soul music in the early 2000s, Alicia Keys (no. 6) released a string of new singles in 2020. Camila Cabello’s ‘Senorita’ duet with Canadian singer and now boyfriend Shawn Mendes, was Spotify’s most streamed song of 2019. The couple continued to attract copious attention as fans followed stories reporting on the lovebirds self-isolating together in Miami earlier this year.
Please don’t feel that getting caught by an ill-intentioned cybercrime is inevitable. If you follow these few simple tips, you can absolutely continue your love of online entertainment and all things celebrity:
If you are looking for new release music, movies or TV shows or even an update on your favourite celebrity then ALWAYS be cautious and only click on links to reliable sources. Avoid ‘dodgy’ looking websites that promise free content – I guarantee these sites will gift you a big dose of malware. The safest thing is to wait for official releases, use only legitimate streaming sites and visit reputable news sites.
Yes, illegal downloads are free but they are usually riddled with malware or adware disguised as mp3 files. Be safe and use only legitimate music streaming platforms – even if it costs a few bucks! Imagine how devastating it would be to lose access to everything on your computer thanks to a nasty piece of malware?
One of the best ways of safeguarding yourself (and your family) from cybercriminals is by investing in an comprehensive cybersecurity solution like McAfee’s Total Protection. This Rolls Royce cybersecurity package will protect you from malware, spyware, ransomware and phishing attacks. An absolute no brainer!
Kids love celebrities too! Parental control software allows you to introduce limits to your kids’ viewing which will help minimise their exposure to potentially malicious or inappropriate websites when they are searching for the latest new on TikTok star Charlie D’Amelio or go to download the latest Benee track.
I don’t know how my family of 6 would have survived this year without online entertainment. We’ve devoured the content from three different streaming services, listened to a record number of hours on Spotify and filled our heads with news courtesy of online news sites. And while things are looking up, it will be a while before life returns to normal. So, please take a little time to educate your family on the importance of ‘thinking before you click’ and the perils of illegal downloading. Let’s not make 2020 any more complicated!!
Stay safe everyone!
Alex x
The post How Searching For Your Favourite Celebrity May Not End Well appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
These days, work and home mean practically the same thing. Our house is now an office space or a classroom, so that means a lot of our day-to-day happens online. We check emails, attend virtual meetings, help our children distance learn, use social media platforms to check in on our friends and family – our entire lives are digital! This increase in connectivity could mean more exposure to threats – but it doesn’t have to. That’s why this National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) you should learn what it means to be cyber smart.
In our third blog for this NCSAM this year, we examine what that entails. Let’s dive in.
Stay Secure While Working Remote
According to Stanford research, almost twice as many employees work from home than at the office in the U.S. in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And this new work-from-home economy is probably only going to expand in the future. Your pets and children will continue to make surprise guest appearances on work calls, or you may continue your new job hunt from the kitchen table. But as you work on juggling your work life and personal life at home base, this doesn’t mean that you should have to juggle security threats too.
The new WFH landscape has also brought about increased risk from . Unlike corporate offices – which usually have IT staff responsible for making any necessary network security updates and patches – users’ home network security is in their own hands. This means users must ensure that their Wi-Fi connections are private and locked with a complex password or employ the help of a VPN to prevent hackers from infiltrating your work.
Be Cybersmart While Distance Learning
Work isn’t the only element of consumers’ lives that’s recently changed – school is also being conducted out of many students’ homes as they adapt to distance learning. As a result, parents are now both professionals and teachers, coaching students through new online learning obstacles. But as more students continue their curriculum from home and online activity increases, so does the possibility of exposure to inappropriate content or other threats.
For instance, the transition to distance learning has led to an increase in online students to lose valuable time meant to be spent on their education.
To help ensure that learning from home goes as smoothly as possible, parents must stay updated on the threats that could be lurking around the corner of their children’s online classrooms. Take the time to secure all the devices that power your kids’ learning with a comprehensive security solution.
Of course, everyone needs to find a balance between work, school, and play! These days, that means scavenging the internet for new content to help keep entertained at home. In fact, according to Nielson, there was an 85% increase in American streaming rates in the first three weeks of March this year compared to March 2019 reports. However, causing users to turn to other less secure alternatives such as illegal downloads and links to “free” content riddled with malware. This could open consumers up to a whole host of threats.
Users looking to stream the latest TV show or movie should be cautious and only access entertainment content directly from a reliable source. The safest thing to do is to subscribe to a streaming site that offers the content or download the movie from credible websites, instead of downloading a “free” version from a website that could contain malware.
We all need to be cybersmart and aware of the threats that come with our lifestyle changes. By following these pointers, you can block threats from impacting your new day-to-day and ensure security is one less thing to worry about. When looking ahead to the future, incorporate the aforementioned pointers into your digital life so that you are prepared to take on whatever the evolving security landscape brings – now that’s being cybersmart!
Stay Updated
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, look out for our other National Cybersecurity Awareness Month blogs, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Stay Connected and Protected During Work, School, and Play appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which is led by the U.S. government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in conjunction with the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA)—a national non-profit focused on cybersecurity education & awareness. McAfee is pleased to announce that we’re a proud participant.
Fitness trackers worn on the wrist, glucose monitors that test blood sugar without a prick, and connected toothbrushes that let you know when you’ve missed a spot—welcome to internet-connected healthcare. It’s new realm of care with breakthroughs big and small. Some you’ll find in your home, some you’ll find inside your doctor’s office, yet all of them are connected. Which means they all need to be protected. After all, they’re not tracking any old data. They’re tracking our health data, one of the most precious things we own.
Internet-connected healthcare, also known as connected medicine, is a broad topic. On the consumer side, it covers everything from smart watches that track health data to wireless blood pressure monitors that you can use at home. On the practitioner side, it accounts for technologies ranging from electronic patient records, network-enabled diagnostic devices, remote patient monitoring in the form of wearable devices, apps for therapy, and even small cameras that can be swallowed in the form of a pill to get a view of a patient’s digestive system.
Additionally, it also includes telemedicine visits, where you can get a medical issue diagnosed and treated remotely via your smartphone or computer by way of a video conference or a healthcare provider’s portal—which you can read about more in one of my blogs from earlier this year. In all, big digital changes are taking place in healthcare—a transformation that’s rapidly taking shape to the tune of a global market expected to top USD 534.3 billion by 2025.
Advances in digital healthcare have come more slowly compared to other aspects of our lives, such as consumer devices like phones and tablets. Security is a top reason why. Not only must a healthcare device go through a rigorous design and approval process to ensure it’s safe, sound, and effective, it also held to similar rigorous degrees of regulation when it comes to medical data privacy. For example, in the U.S., we have the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which sets privacy and security standards for certain health information.
Taken together, this requires additional development time for any connected medical device or solution, in addition to the time it takes to develop one with the proper efficacy. Healthcare device manufacturers cannot simply move as quickly as, say, a smartphone manufacturer can. And rightfully so.
However, for this blog, we’ll focus on the home and personal side of the equation, with devices like fitness trackers, glucose monitors, smart watches, and wearable devices in general—connected healthcare devices that more and more of us are purchasing on our own. To be clear, while these devices may not always be categorized as healthcare devices in the strictest (and regulatory) sense, they are gathering your health data, which you should absolutely protect. Here are some straightforward steps you can take:
Many medical IoT devices use a smartphone as an interface, and as a means of gathering, storing, and sharing health data. So whether you’re an Android owner or iOS owner, get security software installed on your phone so you can protect all the things it accesses and controls. Additionally, installing it will protect you and your phone in general as well.
Some IoT devices have found themselves open to attack because they come with a default username and password—which are often published on the internet. When you purchase any IoT device, set a fresh password using a strong method of password creation. And keep those passwords safe. Instead of keeping them on a notebook or on sticky notes, consider using a password manager.
You’ve probably come across two-factor authentication while banking, shopping, or logging into any other number of accounts. Using a combination of your username, password, and a security code sent to another device you own (typically a mobile phone) makes it tougher for hackers to crack your device. If your IoT device supports two-factor authentication, use it for extra security.
This is vital. Make sure you have the latest updates so that you get the latest functionality from your device. Equally important is that updates often contain security upgrades. If you can set your device to receive automatic updates, do so.
Your medical IoT device will invariably use your home Wi-Fi network to connect to the internet, just like your other devices. All the data that travels on there is personal and private use already, and that goes double for any health data that passes along it. Make sure you use a strong and unique password. Also change the name of your router so it doesn’t give away your address or identity. One more step is to check that your router is using an encryption method, like WPA2, which will keep your signal secure. You may also want to consider investing in an advanced internet router that has built-in protection, which can secure and monitor any device that connects to your network.
Similar to the above, another way you can further protect the health data you send over the internet is to use a virtual private network, or VPN. A VPN uses an encrypted connection to send and receive data, which shields it from prying eyes. A hacker attempting to eavesdrop on your session will effectively see a mish-mash of garbage data, which helps keep your health data secure.
One recent study found that 25% of U.S. homeowners with broadband internet expect to purchase a new connected consumer health or fitness device within the next year. Just be sure yours is secure. Read up on reviews and comments about the devices you’re interested in, along with news articles about their manufacturers. See what their track record is on security, such as if they’ve exposed data or otherwise left their users open to attack.
Bottom line, when we speak of connected healthcare, we’re ultimately speaking about one of the most personal things you own: your health data. That’s what’s being collected. And that’s what’s being transmitted by your home network. Take these extra measures to protect your devices, data, and yourself as you enjoy the benefits of the connected care you bring into your life and home.
The post Seven Tips for Protecting Your Internet-Connected Healthcare Devices appeared first on McAfee Blog.
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which is led by the U.S. government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in conjunction with the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA)—a national non-profit focused on cybersecurity education & awareness. McAfee is pleased to announce that we’re a proud participant.
Imagine it’s 20 years ago and someone at a dinner party predicts that one day you could pop down to the appliance store and buy an internet-connected fridge. Your year 2000 self might have shook that off and then then asked, “Why would someone ever do that?”
Yet here we are.
Today, so much is getting connected. Our appliances, security systems, and even our coffeemakers too. So far this month, we’ve talked about protecting these connected things and securing these new digital frontiers as Internet of Things (IoT) devices transform not only our homes, but businesses and communities as well.
To wrap up Cybersecurity Awareness Month, let’s take a look ahead at how the next wave of connected devices could take shape by taking a look at the network that billions of them will find themselves on: 5G networks.
You’ve no doubt seen plenty of commercials from the big mobile carriers as they tout the rollout of their new, more powerful 5G networks. And more powerful they are. For starters, 5G is expected to operate roughly 10 times faster than the 4G LTE networks many of us enjoy now—with the potential to get yet faster than that over time.
While mention of faster speeds continues to be the top selling point in ads and the like, 5G offers another pair of big benefits: greater bandwidth and lower latency. Taken together, that means 5G networks can host more devices than before and with a near-instantaneous response time.
The implication of these advances is that billions and billions of new devices will connect to mobile networks directly, at terrific speeds, rather than to Wi-Fi networks. Of those, many billions will be IoT devices. And that means more than just phones.
What will those devices look like?
One answer is plenty more of what we’re already starting to see today—such as commercial and industrial devices that track fleet vehicles, open locks on tractor trailer deliveries based on location, monitor heating and air conditioning systems, oversee supply chains. We’ll also see more devices that manage traffic, meter utilities, and connect devices used in healthcare, energy, and agriculture. That’s in addition to the ones we’ll own ourselves, like wearables and even IoT tech in our cars.
All together, we’ll add about 15 billion new IoT devices to the 26 billion IoT devices already in play today for a total of an expected 41 billion IoT devices in 2025.
Citing those examples of IoT applications underscores the critical need for safety and security in the new 5G networks. This is a network we will count on in numerous ways. Businesses will trust their operations to the IoT devices that operate on it. Cities will run their infrastructure on 5G IoT devices. And we, as people, will use 5G networks for everything from entertainment to healthcare. Not only will IoT devices themselves need protection, yet the networks will need to be hardened for protection as well. And you can be certain that increased network security, and security in general, is a part of our future forecast.
The GSMA, an industry group representing more than 750 operators in the mobile space, calls out the inherent need for security for 5G networks in their 5G Reference Guide for Operators. In their words, “New threats will be developed as attackers are provided live service environment to develop their techniques. 5G is the first generation that recognizes this threat and has security at its foundation.” When you consider the multitude of devices and the multitude of applications that will find their way onto 5G, a “square one” emphasis on security makes absolute sense. It’s a must.
While standards and architectures are taking shape and in their first stages of implementation, we can expect operators to put even more stringent defenses in place, like improved encryption, ways of authenticating devices to ensure they’re not malicious, creating secure “slices” of the network, and more, which can all improve security.
Another consideration for security beyond the oncoming flood of emerging devices and services that’ll find their way onto 5G networks is the sheer volume of traffic and data they’ll generate. One estimate puts that figure of 5G traffic at 79.4 zettabytes (ZB) of data in 2025. (What’s a zettabyte? Imagine a 10 followed by 21 zeroes.) This will call for an evolution in security that makes further use of machine learning and AI to curb a similarly increased volume of threats—with technologies much like you see in our McAfee security products today.
“Siri/Alexa/Cortana/Google, play Neko Case I Wish I Was the Moon.”
We’ve all gotten increasingly comfy with the idea of connected devices in our homes, like our smart assistants. Just in 2018, Juniper Research estimated that there’d be some 8 billion digital voice assistants globally by 2023, thanks in large part to things like smart TVs and other devices for the home. Expect to see more IoT devices like those available for use in and around your house.
What shape and form might they take? Aside from the voice-activated variety, plenty of IoT devices will help us automate our homes more and more. For example, you might have smart sensors in your garden that can tell when your tomatoes are thirsty and activate your soaker hoses for a drink—or other smart sensors placed near your water heater that will text you when they detect a leak.
Beyond that, we’re already purchasing connected lights and smart thermostats, yet how about connecting these things all together to create presets for your home? Imagine a setting called “Movie Night,” where just a simple voice command draws the shades, lowers the lights, turns on the gas fireplace, and fires up the popcorn maker. All you need to do is get your slippers.
Next, add in a degree of household AI, which can learn your preferences and habits. Aspects of your home may run themselves and predict things for you, like the fact that you like your coffee piping hot at 5:30am on Tuesdays. Your connected coffeemaker will have it ready for you.
These scenarios were once purely of the George Jetson variety (remember him?), yet more and more people will get to indulge in these comforts and conveniences as the technology becomes more pervasive and affordable.
One point of consideration with any emerging technology like the IoT on 5G is access.
This year drove home a hard reality: access to high-speed internet, whether via mobile device or a home network is no longer a luxury. It’s a utility. Like running water. We need it to work. We need it to study. We need it to bank, shop, and simply get things done.
Yet people in underserved and rural communities in the U.S. still have no access to broadband internet in their homes. Nearly 6 in 10 of U.S. parents with lower incomes say their child may face digital obstacles in schoolwork because of reduced access to devices and quality internet service. And I’ve heard anecdotes from educators about kids taking classes online who have to pull into their school’s parking lot to get proper Wi-Fi, simply because they don’t have a quality connection at home.
The point is this: as these IoT innovations continue to knit their way into our lives and the way the world works, we can’t forget that there’s still a digital divide that will take years of effort, investment, and development before that gap gets closed. And I see us closing that gap in partnership, as people and communities, businesses and governments, all stand to benefit when access to technology increases.
So as we look to the future, my hope is that we all come to see high-speed internet connections for what they are—an absolute essential—and take the steps needed to deliver on it. That’s an advance I’d truly embrace.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
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(pictured credit: axel 795, Pixabay)
If you have teens and you haven’t yet heard of ‘Among Us’ then I guarantee it won’t be long. Among Us is an online deception and strategy game that is having a real moment worldwide. Over the last six months, it has amassed 85 million players on both PC and mobile. In September, it broke the all-time record-setting peak player ceiling on Steam when nearly 400,000 people played it simultaneously and, Google Trends reports that there were 50 times more Google searches for it at the beginning of October, as compared to the beginning of August.
Among Us is an online multi-player game that is set on a failing spaceship. Suitable for up to 10 players, it has been compared to ‘Murder in the Dark’ or ‘Murder Wink’ – the old-school party game you may have played as children.
At the start of the game, you’re advised whether you are a regular crew member or an imposter. Crew mates are tasked with completing small tasks that benefit the spaceship eg cleaning our air-conditioning ducts whereas imposters (between 1-3 players) create havoc on the spaceship and seek out victims to kill – without letting anyone know.
Every time a dead body is found, a crewmember will call a meeting to workshop who they think the imposter is. This is one of the few times players can talk to each other. As you can imagine, this can get very heated (and entertaining) as players try to implicate others and remove themselves from focus. All players then vote on who they think the imposter is – and the player with the most votes is ejected from the spaceship’s airlock.
Crewmates win by managing to repair the ship and eject all the imposters while the imposter wins by killing all the crewmates before they complete their jobs.
Among Us was actually launched in 2018 but to little fanfare. But the planets have aligned for the developers at InnerSloth and it has become one of the biggest online games ever. In fact, it’s so successful that the developers have abandoned plans for a sequel and are instead, investing their resources into perfecting the original.
There’s no doubt that pandemic life has contributed to the popularity of Among Us with many touting it as the ultimate group party game. In fact, some believe it brings all the energy and pizazz of board game night – just virtually.
It is extremely easy to learn. So, if you aren’t a gamer with years of experience (that’s me) you can absolutely play. This concept has been described by popular YouTube gamer Pegasus as ‘ingenious’ for its simplicity, and praised for its ‘extremely social’ nature.
The game is also very well priced. In fact, it’s free on mobile – but you will have to view some ads. And it’s only around $7 on a PC – so much cheaper than anything my kids have played in years!
The Classification Board here is Australia gives Among Us a PG rating which means the content is mild in impact. But they do state that PG rated content is ‘not recommended for viewing by people under the age of 15 without guidance from parents, teachers or guardians.’
In Australia, the game is rated as suitable for 9+ on the App Store. On Google Play it is nominated as suitable for ages 10+.
The role of the imposter in the game to hunt and murder players is aggressive and violent. Yes, it is a cartoon-like visual which does reduce the impact but there are still bodies left lying around after the deed is done.
Parents know their children the best. Absolutely take heed of the advice, but ultimately, you need to decide what’s suitable for them. If you do decide to let your younger children play – or they’ve already discovered it – please talk about violence in video games. Does watching violent images make them feel scared or more aggressive? Do they feel better if they talk about it or, in fact, choose to watch something less violent?
There is opportunity to chat with strangers in the game but it is less than most online games. Players can chat in the online waiting room before a game starts and of course, there is also interaction in the meetings during which the group tries to work out who the imposter is. Enabling the censor chat mode is a good option here – this limits word and aims to block out expletives however I understand that isn’t completely fool proof.
But you can choose to play the game offline, locally, which means you play only with people you know. You simply share a generated code with the players you want to join the game. I highly recommend this for younger children and teens or if you want to play the game as a family. The game can be played with as few as four players which makes an offline game far easier to get happening.
Both trust and deceit are at the core of this game. Learning who to place your trust in is part of being a successful crewmember in Among Us whilst being a master of deceit will win you the game as an imposter.
You could argue that these themes are no different to playing Murder in the Dark or even the old classic Cluedo. However, I would absolutely have a conversation with your kids about the difference between real life and online (or gaming) life. Why not weave it into your dinnertime conversation?
My boys are really enjoying playing Among Us, in fact – we have earmarked this weekend for a family game. But please ensure you are comfortable with the game before you give your kids the green light. And if you do, be assured that one of the reasons this game is so popular is because players feel like they are part of a community – and isn’t that what we all need at the moment?
‘till next time.
Alex xx
The post What You Need to Know About Among Us appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Where would we be without our internet this year?
We’ve shopped, worked, studied and taught, job hunted, and cared for each other online this year in ways we haven’t before—not to mention entertained ourselves plenty too. As so many of us have faced challenges and outright adversity this year, it’s difficult to imagine what this year would have been like without the support of a reliable broadband internet connection. So much so, you can argue that it’s become a necessity.
For that, I’m thankful—and recognize that we have a long way to go before all of us can share in those same thanks. As I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, fixed broadband internet access at home remains elusive for many. In the U.S. alone, one analysis shows that more than 150 million people do not use the internet at broadband speeds, which is practically half of the U.S. population.
A good question to ask here is what exactly constitutes “broadband?” The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) defines broadband speeds as 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) of download speed and 3 Mbps of upload speed. (Note that the FCC estimates only 21 million people in the U.S. are without broadband, a number widely considered to be low.)
Put in everyday terms, 25 Megabits per second of download speed is baseline figure that should provide a family of two to four people with enough capacity to engage in bandwidth-hungry activities like working from home, schooling online, or even receiving medical care through telemedicine, along with streaming to stay entertained and informed too.
As we look at that figure of 150 million underserved people, we see people who live in remote areas that simply aren’t wired for broadband yet, representing millions of rural residents and people living on tribal lands. Additionally, it also includes people in urban areas who potentially have access to a broadband connection, yet their income levels impact their ability to subscribe to it.
Obviously, a major hurdle in rolling out broadband nationwide is the 1.9 billion acres that makes up our country. The physical, technological, and financial efforts associated with building fixed broadband access across rural and remote terrain are substantial to say the least. Additionally, there are regulatory matters as well, like the rules that govern access to existing utility poles and conduits needed for broadband deployment.
Ultimately, we’re talking about connecting not just homes, but entire communities—people, businesses, libraries, granges, local government, and more. Getting them access to broadband isn’t just a commercial interest, it’s a matter of infrastructure as well. Just as water and electricity are utilities, we can argue that the internet, broadband internet, has long since evolved into a utility. The reasons are clear: education, economic growth, employment and even access to healthcare all stand to improve when broadband is available to a community, as has been seen in communities such as Chattanooga, Tennessee and in Delta County, Colorado. Thus it makes sense that connecting them has become a joint endeavor by the public and private sector.
Meanwhile, last summer, the lack of adequate broadband across Nebraska during the pandemic prompted the state’s governor and legislature to allocate pandemic relief funds and pass bills that would speed the deployment of broadband across the state. As reported by the Omaha World-Herald, one of Nebraska’s rural power district managers said of fixed broadband service, “It goes beyond economic development, it goes beyond watching Netflix, there’s some real business implications here.”
However, even in communities where broadband is physically available, pockets of low-speed connectivity exist as well. According to the Pew Research Center, only 53 percent of adults with an income under $30,000 had broadband access at home. For those with an income of between $30,000 and $100,000, that figure takes a major leap up to 81%. Instead, lower-income Americans turn to their smartphones for all their internet access. From the findings:
“As of early 2019, 26% of adults living in households earning less than $30,000 a year are “smartphone-dependent” internet users–meaning they own a smartphone but do not have broadband internet at home. In contrast, only 5% of those living in households earning $100,000 or more fall into this category in 2019.”
What does a smartphone-only internet life might look like? Pew Research Center put that into perspective in a survey where respondents were asked about job hunting on the internet. Some 32% of people with a reported household income of under $30,000 said that they submitted a job application by phone. For those households making more than $75,000, that figure was just 7%. (Cost is certainly a factor, yet it is encouraging to see that the reported average cost of broadband in the U.S. is dropping—down to $50 a month from just over $67 a month a year ago.)
That’s just one example of a smartphone-only internet, yet you can imagine how difficult it must be to create a resume, complete schoolwork, or work remotely when your internet experience is limited to the small screen of a phone. Contrast that with this year’s need to work and study at home. A low-income household that’s dependent on smartphones misses out. Their internet is a less useful and less productive internet experience. They simply can’t work, learn, and train at home like fully connected households can.
My hope in sharing this issue with you is so that we can all gain a bit of perspective. Far fewer people have access to a broadband internet experience than we might initially think, which results in a lack of connectivity that stunts the benefits and opportunities they and their communities can realize.
Granted, the solution for increasing broadband access largely rests with state-level broadband offices, budgeting and legislation at the federal government level, along with public partnerships and interest groups who are all pushing for improved broadband access. (And, in the states which allow it, municipal broadband solutions.) However, as individuals, we can let this reality shape some of our decision-making on a local level.
When library funding measures come up for approval in your community, consider giving them your “yes” vote, as they may present an opportunity to fund library locations and services where people can access free broadband. Likewise, give school levies your consideration, they may help get a computer in the hands of a student who doesn’t have one. (An 11% increase in PC, Mac, and Chromebook sales this year was largely driven by the education market, which needed to supply computers for in-home learning.) These are just a couple of ways that we can “think global, act local” and help others get access to a full broadband internet experience.
So as Thanksgiving approaches, let’s indeed say thanks for the connectivity and internet experience so many of us enjoy—and how vital that was this year. Likewise, let’s remember that our country and the communities within it still have a way to go before the overwhelming majority of us can benefit from that same experience—so that they can enjoy and be thankful for it too.
Stay Updated
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Thankful for broadband internet, and hopeful for much more appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
And just like that, the holiday shopping season is among us! Like consumers everywhere, you may be trying to plan ahead when it comes to picking out gifts for your friends and family, scouring far and wide to cross items off your list. This year, however, will likely be different than past holiday shopping seasons.
While more than 124 million consumers shopped in-store during the 2019 holiday shopping weekend, findings from McAfee’s 2020 Holiday Season: State of Today’s Digital e-Shopper survey revealed that consumers plan to do more shopping online – and earlier – this holiday season. But how will this increase in online activity impact users’ digital lives?
Let’s explore what this online shopping trend means for consumer security this holiday shopping season.
The onset of the global health emergency caused users everywhere to live, work, play, and buy through their devices – maybe more than ever before. McAfee’s survey shows that general shopping activity has increased, with 49% of respondents stating they are buying online more since the onset of COVID-19. As one could predict, researchers expect these online shopping habits to bleed into the holiday shopping season. In fact, 36% of Americans note that they plan on using digital links to give gifts and spread cheer this year. However, this increase in online activity doesn’t exactly mean an increase in online safety.
Hackers love to take advantage of online trends, so it’s no surprise that they see an increase in online activity as more opportunities to spread threats. In fact, McAfee Labs observed an almost 12% increase in online threats per minute in Q2 2020 compared to the previous quarter.
Increased online activity serves as the perfect opportunity for hackers to interrupt consumers’ merriment and spread malicious misdeeds. And 36% of consumers noted that their online buying habits will increase this holiday season, even though they are aware of cyber risks. This lack of concern is troublesome, especially as hackers get stealthier in how they scam consumers. Take Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts, for example. Forty-three percent of survey respondents admitted to not checking the authenticity of these so-called deals when going through their emails and text messages. By not taking proper security precautions, users potentially open themselves up to a blizzard of cyberthreats.
While these survey results confirm that cyber-grinches are using their tricks to interrupt the merriment, that doesn’t mean consumers can’t still have a holly, jolly shopping experience. By taking the necessary steps to protect themselves – and their loved ones – this holiday season, consumers can continue to live their digital lives with confidence. To help ensure hackers don’t put a damper on your festive celebrations, follow these security tips:
Two or multi-factor authentication provides an extra layer of security, as it requires multiple forms of verification. This reduces the risk of successful impersonation by hackers.
Instead of clicking on a link in an email or text message, it’s always best to check directly with the source to verify a Black Friday or Cyber Monday offer or track a package’s shipment.
Use a comprehensive security solution, like McAfee Total Protection, which can help protect devices against malware, phishing attacks, and other threats. It includes McAfee WebAdvisor, which can help identify malicious websites.
Hackers often use consumers’ personally identifiable information to make fraudulent purchases – a trick that would certainly interrupt a holiday shopping spree. A solution like McAfee Identity Theft Protection takes a proactive approach to help protect identities with personal and financial monitoring and recovery tools to help keep identities personal and secure.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post ‘Sleigh’ Holiday Shopping by Protecting Your Online Security appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
You’re not the only one looking forward to the big holiday sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Hackers are too. As people flock to retailers big and small in search of the best deals online, hackers have their shopping scams ready.
So while you already know how to spot a great deal, here are ways you and your family can steer clear of online scams so you can keep your finances safer this shopping season:
A common scam hackers use is introducing malware via email attachments, and during the holiday sale season, they’ll often send malware under the guise of offer emails and shipping notifications. Know that retailers and shipping companies won’t send things like offers, promo codes, and tracking numbers in attachments. They’ll clearly call those things out in the body of an email instead.
A classic scammer move is to “typosquat” phony email addresses and URLs that look awfully close to legitimate addresses of legitimate companies and retailers. They often appear in phishing emails and instead of leading you to a great deal, these can in fact link you to scam sites that can then lift your login credentials, payment info, or even funds should you try to place an order through them.
A related scammer trick that also uses typosquatting tactics is to set up sites that look like they could be run by a trusted retailer or brand but are not. These sits may tout a special offer, a great deal on a hot holiday item or whatnot, yet such sites are one more way cybercriminals harvest personal and financial information. A common way for these sites to spread is by social media, email, and other messaging platforms. Be skeptical of any links you see there—it’s best to go to the site directly and look for the deal there.
Using a complete security software suite can offer layers of extra protection while you shop, such as web browser protection that will block malicious and suspicious links that could lead you down the road to malware or a financial scam.
Using the same narrow set of passwords only helps hackers. If they hack one account, they can then hack others—simply because that same password is in use over and over. Use a password manager that can create strong passwords and store them securely as well. That’ll save you some hassle and keep you safer in the process.
Two-factor authentication is an extra layer of defense on top of your username and password. It adds in the use of a special one-time-use code to access your account, usually sent to you via email or to your phone by text or a phone call. In all, it combines something you know, like your password, with something you have, like your smartphone. Together, that makes it tougher for a crook to hack your account. If any of your accounts support two-factor authentication, put it into place.
Public Wi-Fi in coffee shops and other public locations can expose your private surfing to prying eyes because those networks are open to all. Using a virtual private network (VPN) encrypts your browsing, shopping, and other internet traffic, thus making it secure from attempts at intercepting your data on public Wi-Fi and harvesting information like your passwords and credit card numbers.
Specific to the U.S., the Fair Credit Billing Act offers the public protection against fraudulent charges on credit cards, where citizens can dispute charges over $50 for goods and services that were never delivered or otherwise billed incorrectly. Note that many credit card companies have their own policies that improve upon the Fair Credit Billing Act as well. However, debit cards aren’t afforded the same protection under the Act. Avoid using those while shopping online and use your credit card instead.
Another alternative is to set up a virtual credit card, which is a proxy for your actual credit card. With each purchase you make, that proxy changes, which then makes it much more difficult for hackers to exploit. You’ll want to research virtual credit cards further, as there are some possible cons that go along with the pros, such as in the case of returns where a retailer will want to use the same proxy to reimburse a purchase.
With all the passwords and accounts we keep, this is important. Checking your credit will uncover any inconsistencies or outright instances of fraud. From there, you can then take steps to straighten out any errors or bad charges that you find. In the U.S., you can run a free credit report once a year with the major credit reporting agencies. Just drop by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) website for details on your free credit report.
One aspect of cybercrime that deserves a fair share of attention is the human element. Crooks have always played on our feelings, fears, and misplaced senses of trust. It’s no different online, particularly during the holidays. We all know it can be a stressful time and that we sometimes give into the pressure of finding that hard-to-get gift that’s so hot this year. Crooks do too, and they’ll tailor their attacks around those.
So, while you’re shopping online this year, take a deep breath before you dive in. Double-check those deals that may look almost too good to be true. They may be a scam waiting to spring—and indeed be too good to be true after all.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Cyber Monday is Coming – 10 Tips to Protect You From Online Shopping Scams appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
I’m pleased to report that I’ve achieved a number of personal bests in 2020 but the one I’m most proud about is my achievement in the highly skilled arena of online shopping. I’ve shopped online like I’m competing in the Olympics: groceries, homewares, clothing – even car parts! And my story is not unique. Living with a pandemic has certainly meant we’ve had to adapt – but when it came to ramping up my online shopping so we could stay home and stay safe – I was super happy to adapt!
And research from McAfee shows that I am not alone. In fact, over 40% of Aussies are buying more online since the onset of COVID-19 according to the 2020 Holiday Season: State of Today’s Digital e-Shopper survey. But this where it gets really interesting as the survey also shows that nearly 1/3 of us (29%) are shopping online 3-5 days a week, and over one in ten consumers (11%) are even shopping online daily!! But with many online retailers offering such snappy delivery, it has just made perfect sense to stay safe and stay home!
With just over a month till Santa visits, it will come as no surprise that many of us are starting to prepare for the Holiday season by purchasing gifts already. Online shopping events such as Click Frenzy or the Black Friday/Cyber Monday events are often very compelling times to buy. But some Aussies have decided they want to get in early to secure gifts for their loved ones in response to warnings from some retailers warning that some items may sell out before Christmas due to COVID-19 related supply chain issues. In fact, McAfee’s research shows that 48% of Aussies will be hitting the digital links to give gifts and cheer this year, despite 49% feeling cyber scams become more prevalent during the holiday season.
McAfee’s research shows very clearly that the bulk of us Aussies are absolutely aware of the risks and scams associated with online shopping but that we still plan to do more shopping online anyway. And with many of us still concerned about our health and staying well, it makes complete sense. However, if there was ever a time to take proactive steps to ensure you are minimizing risks online – it is now!
McAfee’s specialist online threat team (the Advanced Threat Research team) recently found evidence that online cybercrime is on increase this year, with McAfee Labs observing 419 threats per minute between April to June 2020 – an increase of almost 12% over the previous quarter.
And with many consumers gearing up to spend up big online in preparation for the Holiday season, many experts are worried that consumers are NOT taking these threats as seriously as they should. McAfee’s research showed that between April to June 2020, 41% of 18-24 year olds have fallen victim to an online scam and over 50% of the same age group are aware of the risks but have made no change to their online habits.
At the risk of sounding dramatic, I want you to channel your James Bond when you shop online this holiday period. Do your homework, think with your head and NOT your heart and always have your wits about you. Here are my top tips that I urge you to follow to ensure you don’t have any unnecessary drama this Christmas:
Click on random, unsafe links is the best way of falling victim to a phishing scam. Who wants their credit card details stolen? – no one! And Christmas is THE worst time for this to happen! If something looks too good to be true – it probably is. If you aren’t sure – check directly at the source – manually enter the online store address yourself to avoid those potentially nasty links!
This is a no-brainer – where possible, turn this on as it adds another lay of protection to your personal data and accounts. Yes, it will add another 10 seconds to the log-in process but it’s absolutely worth it.
If you have a VPN (or Virtual Private Network) on your laptop, you can use Wi-Fi without any concern – perfect for online purchases on the go! A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel between your device and the router which means anything you share is protected and safe! Check out McAfee’s Safe Connect which includes bank-grade encryption and private browsing services.
Ensuring all your devices are kitted out with comprehensive security software which will protect against viruses, phishing attacks and malicious website is key. Think of it as having a guardian cyber angel on your shoulder. McAfee’s Total Protection software does all that plus it has a password manager, a shredder and encrypted storage – and the Family Pack includes the amazing Safe Family app – which is lifechanging if you have tweens and teens!
So, yes – please make your list and check it twice BUT before you dive in and start spending please take a moment to ask yourself whether you are doing all you can to minimise the risks when online shopping this year. And don’t forget to remind your kids too – they may very well have their eye on a large gift for you too!
Happy Christmas Everyone
Alex xx
The post Christmas Shopping 2020 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Free VPNs May Still Come with a Price
If we’re being honest, many of us are consuming a lot of online content these days, whether it be for work, education, or sheer entertainment. I know my family is trying to balance what we need to do online, like meetings and classes, with fun activities like streaming movies, given that we are all spending more time safely at home.
But as a security professional what I’m really concerned about is how we are connecting to all this digital content. There has been a surge in VPN (virtual private network) downloads so far this year, showing that users are concerned about their online privacy, which is a good thing.
As you may know, a personal VPN is simply a piece of software that can establish a secure tunnel over the internet, offering you both privacy and freedom from IP-based tracking. It protects your identity and financial information by encrypting, or scrambling, the data that flows through the tunnel, and can mask your true location, making it appear as though you are connecting from somewhere else.
However, the myriad of VPN options—from free, to paid, to “freemium” (limited products offered on a trial basis for free, hoping customers will invest in more comprehensive, paid versions)—can be confusing and cause some customers to walk away unprotected. This is unfortunate, because here at McAfee we’ve recorded a growing number of network attacks, including targeted attacks against a variety of business and educational enterprises.
These threats mean that we need to do our best to ensure that our sensitive information stays safe, which is why I’d like to take a look at the difference between free VPNs and premium VPNs.
Sometimes a VPN is included in more robust security software, as it is in McAfee® Total Protection, but often it is a standalone tool, that is offered either at a monthly subscription rate, or for free. While it may be tempting to go for a free option, there are some serious considerations that you should take to heart.
Since free VPNs are not making money directly from their users, many make revenue indirectly, through advertising. This means that not only are users bombarded with ads, they are also exposed to tracking, and potentially malware. In fact, one study of 283 free VPN providers found that 72% included trackers. This is not that surprising, given that advertisers depend on gathering your personal data to better target their ads.
But beyond the frustration of ads, slowness, and upgrade prompts is the fact that some free VPN tools include malware that can put your sensitive information at risk. The same study found that 38% of the free VPN applications in the Google Play Store were found to have malware, such as keyloggers, and some even stole the data off of users’ devices.
Also concerning is how these free providers handle your data. In one worrying incident, a VPN provider exposed thousands of user logs and API access records openly on the web, including passwords and identity information.
VPNs are critical tools for enhancing our privacy and shouldn’t be an avenue for potentially opening the door to new risks. That’s why I always advise users to look for a paid VPN with the following features:
Unlimited Bandwidth —You want your network connection to stay secured no matter how much time you spend online.
Speedy Performance—We all know how frustrating a sluggish internet connection can be when you are trying to get things done. Whether connecting for productivity, education, or entertainment, we are all dependent on bandwidth. That’s why it’s important to choose a high-speed VPN that enhances your privacy, without sacrificing the quality of your connection.
Multiple Device Protection—These days many of us toggle between mobile devices, laptops, and computers, so they should all be able to connect securely.
Less Battery Drain—Some free mobile VPNs zap your battery life, making users less likely to stay protected. You shouldn’t have to choose between your battery life and safeguarding your privacy.
Ease of Use— As I’ve written recently, for technology to really work it has to be convenient. After all, these technologies should power your connected life, not serve as a hindrance.
Fortunately, we don’t have to sacrifice convenience, or pay high prices, for a VPN that can offer a high level of privacy and protection. A comprehensive security suite like McAfee Total Protection includes our McAfee® Safe Connect standalone VPN with auto-renewal and takes the worry out of connecting, so you can focus on what’s important to you and your family, and enjoy quality time together.
Stay Updated
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Free VPNs May Still Come with a Price appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
You wake up, log in to your Outlook, and find an email waiting in your inbox from support@irs.gov. Much to your confusion, the email claims that you have an outstanding account balance that you must pay immediately, or you will face legal charges.
As it turns out, you’re not the only one to receive this message. According to Bleeping Computer, a phishing campaign was recently discovered impersonating the IRS, with 70,000 spoofed emails reaching users’ inboxes. Let’s unpack how this scheme works.
This scam targets Microsoft 365 users and threatens to press legal charges unless the recipient settles an outstanding account balance. And while some of the telltale signs of a phishing scam are grammar errors and misspellings throughout the body and address of the email, this threat is a little more sophisticated. To make this threat appear more credible, scammers use the email support@irs.gov, causing recipients to believe that the email actually did originate from the IRS. The email also appears to have no spelling errors at first glance, further increasing its legitimacy to an unsuspecting user.
This scam is not foolproof, however. Upon further investigation, a recipient would see that the email’s header reveals the real sending domain: shoesbagsall.com. What’s more, the reply-to field redirects the replies to legal.cc@outlook.com instead of the IRS support mailing address.
To further entice users into falling for this scheme, scammers threaten arrest or other legal charges and tell recipients that they will forward the emails to their employer to withhold the fake outstanding amounts from their wages. Additionally, the emails also instruct the targets to immediately reply with payment details to avoid having their credit affected.
The best way to stay protected from phishing scams? Knowing how to spot them! Follow these security tips and best practices to prevent falling for fraudsters’ tricks:
Be skeptical of emails or text messages claiming to be from organizations with peculiar asks or information that seems too good to be true. Instead of clicking on a link within the email or text, it’s best to go straight to the organization’s website or contact customer service.
If you receive an email or text asking you to download software or pay a certain amount of money, don’t click on anything within the message. Instead, go straight to the organization’s website. This will prevent you from downloading malicious content from phishing links or forking over money unnecessarily.
If someone sends you a message with a link, hover over the link without actually clicking on it. This will allow you to see a link preview. If the URL looks suspicious, don’t interact with it and delete the message altogether.
If you accidentally respond to a phishing email with your personal data, change the passwords to any accounts you suspect may have been impacted. Make sure your new credentials are strong and unique from your other logins. For tips on how to create a more secure password, read our blog on common password habits and how to safeguard your accounts.
A solution like McAfee Identify Theft Protection will help you to monitor your accounts and alert you of any suspicious activity.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post 70,000 Phishing Emails Sent Impersonating the IRS: How to Stay Protected appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
This year has thrown a lot of challenges at us, and our digital lives were not immune. As millions of people around the world suddenly switched to working and learning online from home during the pandemic, digital threats spiked, making security and performance essential.
At McAfee, we are hyperaware of what our users are going through this year, with changes to their work, school, and lifestyles. At the same time, we are keeping our eyes on the threats aimed at taking advantage of the situation.
For example, we know that publicly disclosed security breaches increased by 41% in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the previous quarter. And, COVID-related threats are also on the rise. But with everything going on, it’s easy to see how technology users can become overwhelmed. That means that security not only has to protect against a wide range of threats, but also be seamless.
While you’ve been busy keeping up with all the changes this year has brought, we have been working on providing comprehensive security that protects you from existing and emerging threats so you can have peace of mind. In fact, Austria-based AV-Comparatives recently gave McAfee® Total Protection their highest three-star, “Advanced +” rating for malware protection measured against 16 competitors, and the German anti-malware test lab AV-Test awarded McAfee Total Protection with the TOP Product rating because of its 100% protection scores.
AV-Test also gave McAfee Mobile Security for Android its highest rating in terms of protection, performance, and usability against 14 competitors.
These labs also test for “false positives.” False positives happen when antivirus software identifies legitimate files or processes as malware by mistake. In recent tests, our products have also scored well when it comes to avoiding false positives. AV-Test showed that McAfee Total Protection and McAfee Mobile Security flagged zero false positives during testing.
Both of these independent antivirus testing organizations specifically look for how well security products protect their users against various threats, which is critically important given today’s threat landscape.
One of the key ways we keep on top of threats is through continuous product development. We don’t stop working on our software tools just because they are released to the public. Our products are continuously updated with new features and enhancements when they become available because security isn’t static. Regardless of if you bought your product in 2019 or early 2020, we make sure that you have the latest protection installed through automatic product updates.
Underscoring our dedication to continual product improvement, U.K.-based SE Labs recently named McAfee the 2020 winner for “Best Product Development.”
SE Labs’s slogan is “testing like hackers” because it evaluates a product’s effectiveness at various stages of attacks, from malicious emails and keystroke loggers, to full-on network attacks and system harm. All of these assessments are important to ensure that we can protect our users in real-world settings.
I’ve written before about how security software has to be convenient, and not get in the way of our productivity. Given the climate, it’s more important than ever that we offer comprehensive security tools that are lightweight and easy to manage.
For instance, I know how important these days are for my kids to meet with their teachers in online classes. If our security software was taking up so much of our computer’s resources that it kept them from being able to stream video while taking notes, it wouldn’t just be frustrating, but detrimental.
McAfee has consistently received some of the best scores in performance tests, while having a minimal impact on users’ systems. Just this month, AV-Comparatives awarded McAfee Total Protection the highest possible ADVANCED+ rating yet again, for the ninth time in a row!
This is great news for us, but even more important for our users since it shows that they do not have to sacrifice protection or performance, whether on their computers or mobile devices.
Of course, we know the threat landscape is continuously evolving, and we need to evolve with it.
By offering you tools that can guard against the latest risks while allowing you to be productive and connect with family and friends, we hope to be a strong ally in your digital life. It’s great to see that these three independent testing organizations recognize our accomplishments so far in protection efficacy and performance. We promise to keep it up so you can live a carefree digital life.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Putting Protection to The Test appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
And just like that, the holidays are here! That means it’s time to grab your devices and credit cards for some online holiday shopping. But while you plan to share the merry and shop for gifts, criminals are preparing some not-so-festive tricks of their own.
Let’s unwrap the top four phishing scams that users should beware of while making online purchases this week and through the rest of the year. Remember, there’s still time to shop for cybersecurity protection this holiday season.
It might surprise you to see that a tactic as old as email phishing is still so widely used today. Well, that’s because many people still fall for email phishing scams, as the criminals behind these attacks up the ante every year to make these threats more sophisticated.
Scammers also tend to take advantage of current events to trick unsuspecting consumers into falling for their tricks. Take earlier this year, for example, when many users received phishing emails claiming to be from a government entity regarding financial support due to the global health emergency. Cybercriminals will likely use similar, timely tactics leading up to the holidays, posing as famous retailers and promising fake discounts in the hope that a consumer will divulge their credit card details or click on a malicious link.
Like email phishing, spear phishing has been around for quite some time. With spear phishing attacks, hackers pretend to be an organization or individual that you’re familiar with and include a piece of content—a link, an email attachment, etc.—that they know you’ll want to interact with. For example, cybercriminals might claim to be charitable organizations asking for donations, knowing that many families like to donate during the holidays. The email might even include the recipient’s personal details to make it seem more convincing. But instead of making a generous contribution, users find that they infected their own system with malware by clicking on the fraudulent link.
No, that’s not the sound of Santa coming down the chimney – it’s the sound of voice phishing! “Vishing” attacks can be highly deceiving, as hackers will call a user and trick them into giving up their credentials or sharing other personal information. For example, a scammer could call an individual telling them that they won a large amount of cash as part of a holiday contest. Overjoyed with the thought of winning this so-called contest, the user may hand over their bank information to the criminal on the other end of the phone. But instead of receiving a direct deposit, all they find is that their banking credentials were used to make a fraudulent purchase.
SMS phishing, or “SMiShing,” is another threat users should watch out for this holiday season. This tactic uses misleading text messages claiming to come from a trusted person or organization to trick recipients into taking a certain action that gives the attacker exploitable information or access to their mobile device.
Due to the current global health emergency and the desire to do more digitally, consumers will likely rely on online shopping this holiday season. To take advantage of this trend, scammers will probably send fraudulent text messages disguised as online retailers. These messages will likely contain fake tracking links, shipping notices, and order confirmations. But if an unsuspecting user clicks on one of these links, they will be directed to a fake website prompting them to enter their credentials for the attackers to further exploit.
To prevent cybercriminals from messing with the festive spirit via phishing schemes, follow these tips so you can continue to make merry during the holiday shopping season:
If you receive an email, call, or text asking you to download software or pay a certain amount of money, don’t click on anything or take any direct action from the message. Instead, go straight to the organization’s website. This will prevent you from downloading malicious content from phishing links or forking over money unnecessarily.
If someone sends you a message with a link, hover over the link without actually clicking on it. This will allow you to see a link preview. If the URL looks suspicious, don’t interact with it and delete the message altogether.
Instead of clicking on a link in an email or text message, it’s always best to check directly with the source to verify a holiday shopping offer or track a package’s shipment.
Use a comprehensive security solution, like McAfee Total Protection, which can help protect devices against malware, phishing attacks, and other threats. It includes McAfee WebAdvisor, which can help identify malicious websites.
The post Top Phishing Lures to Look Out for This Holiday Season appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Whether you’re working, banking, shopping, or just streaming a few shows online, these quick tips will make sure you’re more secure from hacks, attacks, and prying eyes.
Start with the basics: get strong protection for your computers and laptops. And that means more than basic antivirus. Using a comprehensive suite of security software like McAfee® Total Protection can help defend your entire family from the latest threats and malware, make it safer to browse, help steer you clear of potential fraud, and look out for your privacy too.
Aside from using it for calls and texting, we use our smartphones for plenty of things. We’re sending money with payment apps. We’re doing our banking. And we’re using them as a “universal remote control” to do things like set the alarm, turn our lights on and off, and even see who’s at the front door. Whether you’re an Android owner or iOS owner, get security software installed on your smartphones and tablets so you can protect all the things they access and control.
Get a fresh start with strong, unique passwords for all your accounts using a strong method of password creation. And keep those passwords safe—don’t store them in an unprotected file on your computer, which can be subject to a hack or data loss. Better yet, instead of keeping them on a notebook or on sticky notes, consider using a password manager. It can actually create strong passwords for you, store them as you create them, and automatically use them as you surf, shop, and bank.
Make sure you have the latest software updates for your computers, laptops, phones, tablets, and apps, and internet of things (IoT) devices like camera and alarm systems. Updates are important for two reasons: one, they’ll make sure you’re getting the latest functionality from your app or device; and two, they often contain security upgrades. If there’s a setting that lets you receive automatic updates, enable it so that you always have the latest.
Hackers love playing the role of imposters to get a hold of sensitive info and account logins—because it’s often so effective. If you get what appears to be a suspicious request from a recruiter, co-worker, vendor, friend, or family member, verify the message with that person directly before opening or responding. Remember that an employer will never request sensitive information such as social security numbers or bank routing numbers over email or text.
When searching, give the results a good look before clicking. Ask yourself if the website you want to click is legitimate—are there any red flags, like a strange URL, an unfamiliar name, a familiar brand name with an unusual addition to it, or a description that simply doesn’t feel right when you read it. If so, don’t click. They could be malware sites. Better yet, use a built-in browser advisor that helps you search and surf safely. It’ll call out any known or suspected bad links clearly before you click.
To ensure that only invited attendees can access your video or audio conference call, make sure your meeting is password protected. For maximum safety, activate passwords for new meetings, instant meetings, personal meetings, and people joining by phone. To keep users (either welcome or unwelcome) from taking control of your screen while you’re video conferencing, select the option to block everyone except the host (you) from screen sharing.
If you receive an email asking to confirm your login credentials or that’s asking for any personal info, go directly to the company’s website or app—even if the email looks legitimate. Phishing attacks are getting more and more sophisticated, meaning that hackers are getting pretty good at making phishing emails look real. Don’t open any attachments or click any links in these emails. Instead, check the status of your account at the site or in your app to determine the legitimacy of the request.
Our banks, many of the online shopping sites we use, and numerous other accounts use two-factor authentication to make sure that we’re logging in we really are who we say we are. In short, a username and password combo is an example of one-factor authentication. The second factor in the mix is something you, and only you, own, like your mobile phone. Thus when you log in and get a prompt to enter a security code that’s sent to your mobile phone, you’re taking advantage of two-factor authentication. If your IoT device supports two-factor authentication as part of the login procedure, put it to use and get that extra layer of security.
Another line of defense you can use to hamper hackers is a virtual private network (VPN), which allows you to send and receive data while encrypting your information so others can’t read it. When your data traffic is scrambled that way, it’s shielded from prying eyes, which helps protect your network and the devices you have connected to it. If you’re working from home, check with your employer to see if they have a corporate VPN that you can use.
Stay even more secure with these free resources
Find out plenty more about working and schooling from home, health and well-being, in addition to articles on healthcare and dating online too. Drop by McAfee’s Safer Together site for a wealth of free articles and resources.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Top Ten Tips for Protecting Your Identity, Finances, and Security Online appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Every few weeks, there seems to be breaking news about large-scale data breaches that affect millions – but what about the lesser-known threats that lurk quietly in the shadows? Oftentimes, these are the scams that could wreak havoc on our day-to-day digital lives.
Adrozek malware is just that: a new strain that affects web browsers, stealthily stealing credentials through “drive-by downloads,” or a download that happens without your knowledge.
Let’s unpack how this malware works, who it targets, and what we can do to protect our browsers from this sneaky threat.
According to Threatpost, Adrozek is infecting several web browsers (including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Yandex) on Windows machines with the help of a browser modifier that hijacks search results. To find its way onto our devices, the malware uses “drive-by downloads” once you load one of its several malicious web pages. In fact, a huge, global infrastructure supports Adrozek – one that is made up of 159 unique domain names, each hosting an average of 17,300 unique URLs, which in turn hosts more than 15,300 unique malware samples.
Once it makes its way onto your machine, the malware changes the device’s browser settings to allow Adrozek to insert fake ads over real ones. If you do happen to click on one of these fraudulent ads, the scammers behind this threat earn affiliate advertising dollars for each user they deceive. This not only takes money away from advertisers who are unaware that malware is increasing their traffic, but it also pays cybercriminals for their crimes. What’s more, the malware extracts data from the infected device and sends it to a remote server for future exploitation. In some cases, it even steals saved passwords from Firefox. These features allow the cybercriminals behind Adrozek to capitalize on the initial threat by collecting data that could be used against everyday users like you and me when we least expect it.
Aside from being supported by a vast infrastructure, Adrozek is powerful for another reason: it’s difficult to spot. Adrozek is a type of polymorphic malware, or malware that is programmed to constantly shift and change its code to avoid detection. As a result, it can be tricky to find and root out once it’s infected your browser.
To help protect your devices from falling victim to the latest theats, follow these tips to help protect your online security:
Software developers are actively working to identify and address security issues. Frequently update your browsers, operating systems, and apps so that they have the latest fixes and security protections.
Because Adrozek actively steals saved passwords from Firefox, it’s crucial to practice good password hygiene. When updating your credentials, you should always ensure that your password is strong and unique. Many users utilize the same password or variations of it across all their accounts. Therefore, be sure to diversify your passcodes to ensure hackers cannot obtain access to all your accounts at once, should one password be compromised. You can also employ a password manager to keep track of your credentials.
You can typically get rid of browser-hijacking malware by resetting the browser. But because Adrozek will hide itself on your device, extra measures should be taken to get rid of it. If you suspect that Adrozek may have found its way onto your device, delete your browsers, run a malware scan, and reboot your device. Run the malware scan a second time and reinstall your browsers.
Use a solution like McAfee Total Protection, which can help protect devices against malware, phishing attacks, and other threats. It includes McAfee WebAdvisor, which can help identify malicious websites.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Adrozek Malware is Wreaking Havoc on Web Browsers: How to Stay Protected appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Like many of you, I spent a lot of time at home this year, but it came with an unexpected upside: an excuse to upgrade all my home tech! With so many great new products on the market, from 5G devices to smart TVs, cameras, and more, there’s a lot to choose from this holiday season, and into the New Year.
In fact, the smart home market is set to grow by nearly 12% over the next five years, to $135 billion, so I’m sure even more devices are coming. But for now, here are the devices on my wish list, and how to protect them once they’re unboxed.
Smart Thermostats—These have been around for a while, but the newest additions include features that keep your home comfortable, and eco-friendly, by giving you greater control over your energy use. Some thermostats can detect your habits, and heat or cool different areas of your home, depending on which rooms you are using. And others now connect to smart speakers, allowing you to stream your favorite music and podcasts, or receive calendar alerts.
Bluetooth Speakers—Speaking of high-tech speakers, this category has taken off in recent years, but now there are more options for different types of users. While some people like the voice command features that turn their speakers into personal assistants, other users just want portable speakers with great sound quality and a sleek style. Now you can find a variety of different designs, sizes, and price points.
Smart TVs—With the explosion of streaming content services, and the demand for more in-home entertainment during the pandemic, smart TVs have become a must-have item for many. The latest offer 4K streaming video, which gives you higher resolution, although you need to stream 4K content to get the benefit. It may be worth the investment for other new features, however, such as a faster user interface, and a built-in universal search engine that will allow you to easily locate a favorite movie, actor, or genre.
IP Cameras— Internet-connected cameras can be an affordable security option, and the latest versions offer extra surveillance with wide-angle lenses, night vision, and wireless options for outdoors. Some cameras even do motion tracking, and offer facial recognition, in case you want to know right away if the person on your property is a known entity or a stranger. Just keep in mind that to get the advanced features you usually need to sign up for a subscription service as well.
Gaming Router—As the father of two school-aged children, I know a lot of parents are wary of online gaming, but here’s why a gaming router may be a great gift, even if there are no hardcore gamers in the house. These routers aim to give you a more reliable internet connection, while allowing multiple devices to simultaneously receive data streams, which could be a game changer if your whole family is trying to work and learn online from home.
Some routers even offer Wi-Fi 6, which is a huge jump in potential speed to 9.6 Gbps from the current 3.5 Gbps. This also means that all the devices connected to your network could see a significant speed increase, but only if you have devices that can take advantage of it.
Here are a few more great holiday gifts ideas:
While the best smart home devices can certainly make your home more convenient, safe, and fun, they do open the door to some risk. You may have read about IP cameras being hacked, or other ways in which home networks are vulnerable to attacks. This is because most Internet of Things (IoT) devices come with little built-in security, making them an easy target for hackers.
Here’s how to secure both your network and your devices so you can enjoy them without worry.
By taking these precautions as soon as you unwrap your smart home devices, you’re setting yourself up for a fun, and safe, tech-filled New Year.
The post Best Smart Home Devices for a Connected New Year appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
No doubt, we have a lot to be hopeful for as we step into the New Year. We’ve adapted, survived, and learned to thrive under extraordinary circumstances. While faced with plenty of challenges, families successfully transitioned to working and learning from home like pros. So, as we set our intentions for 2021, we will need that same resolve to tackle growing cyber threats.
The good news: With a COVID-19 vaccine making its debut, we’re trusting there’s an end in sight to the pandemic of 2020, which may help curb a lot of our emotional as well as digital stressors.
The not-so-good-news: According to McAfee’s latest Quarterly Threat Report, pandemic-themed threats that began in 2020 will continue, specifically, phishing and malware scams targeting people working from home. According to the recent report, bad actors are especially taking advantage of the mass remote workforces.
According to Raj Samani, McAfee Fellow and Chief Scientist, “What began as a trickle of phishing campaigns and the occasional malicious app quickly turned into a deluge of malicious URLs, attacks on cloud users and capable threat actors leveraging the world’s thirst for more information on COVID-19 as an entry mechanism into systems across the globe.”
This report points inspires a few best practices for families as we launch a new year: Stay informed and keep talking about the threats and — as grandma might advise — dress in layers to protect against the elements (in this case, digital threats).
Safe Family Tips
• Use 2FA passwords. Regularly changing passwords and adding two-factor authentication (2FA) is proving to be the most effective way to thwart hackers. If you work from home, 2FA is a more secure way to access work applications. This password/username combo requires you to verify who you are with a personal device only you own puts an extra barrier between your data and a creative hacker.
• Use a VPN. If you travel or choose to work in a coffee shop, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) will give your family an encrypted channel that shields your online activity from hackers.
• Security software. If you’ve been cobbling your security plan together, consider one comprehensive security solution to help protect you from malware, phishing attacks, and viruses. Leading products such as McAfee Total protection will include safe browsing and a VPN.
The past year, while difficult, also gave us several gifts to carry into 2021. For families, it connected us with our resilience and creativity. It made us wiser, braver, and more ready for the challenges ahead, be they online or within the ebb and flow of everyday life. That’s something we can all celebrate.
The post 4 Ways to Help Your Family Combat Cyber Threats in the New Year appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
2020 was unexpectedly defined by a global pandemic. Throughout the year, we have all had to figure out how to best live our lives online – from working from home to distance learning to digitally connecting with loved ones. As 2020 comes to a close, we must ask: will this new normal continue into 2021, and how will it affect how we connect – both with each other and with our online world?
McAfee assessed the cybersecurity landscape as we head into the New Year, highlighting the key takeaways we should keep in mind to help protect our digital lives:
Home is a safe space – or is it? With more consumers living and working from home, we have seen an increase in connected devices within the home. In fact, since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, McAfee Secure Home Platform device monitoring shows a 22% increase in the number of connected home devices globally and a 60% increase in the U.S. These trends are also carrying over into mobile shopping habits. Almost 80% of shoppers have found themselves using their IoT devices to make more purchases since the beginning of the pandemic. The evolving world of the connected lifestyle gives hackers more potential entry points to homes and consumers information- through devices, apps and web services- and in 2021, we will be monitoring how this trend evolves.
With more of us working remotely, distance learning, and seeking online entertainment, cybercriminals will look to exploit our vulnerabilities. For example, remote employees are more likely to use personal devices while working and log onto home networks that are not fully secured. What’s more, many of the systems behind consumer networks have not had their passwords changed from the default settings since it was first introduced into the home . If a criminal can use the default credentials to hack the consumer’s network infrastructure, they may also gain access to other network devices – whether they are used for school, work, or leisure.
Touchless solutions for payments are becoming more popular as we all navigate the curveballs of COVID-19. Mobile payment apps provide the convenience of both paying for services and receiving payments without the hazards of touching cases or credit and debit cards. However, fraudsters are also following the money to mobile, as research by RSA’s Fraud and Risk Intelligence team shows that 72% of cyber fraud activity involved mobile in the fourth quarter of 2019. McAfee predicts an increase in “receive”-based exploits in 2021, since they provide a quick and easily entry for fraudsters to scam unsuspicious consumers by combining phishing with payment URLs.
Imagine receiving an email stating that you’re receiving a refund for a concert that was canceled due to COVID-19. The email instructs you to click on the URL in the next message, fill in your bank information, and “accept the refund.” But instead of getting your money back, you find that you’ve handed over your financial data to scammers. As we continue to adopt mobile payment methods in 2021, it’s important to remember that hackers will likely take advantage of these convenient touchless systems.
With the pandemic, more industries have QR codes to make our lives easier- with Statista reporting that over 11 million US households are expected to scan QR codes by 2020. From restaurants to personal care salons to fitness studies, QR codes help limit direct contact with consumers – you easily scan the code, see services/items offered, and select and purchase your desired items. But do you stop and think about how this might be putting your personal data at risk? As it turns out, QR codes provide scammers with a new avenue for disguising themselves as legitimate businesses and spreading malicious links.
Scammers are quick to exploit popular or new technology for their malicious tricks, and QR codes are no different. In fact, McAfee predicts that hackers will find opportunities to use social engineering to gain access to our personal data in a single scan. Take restaurant owners looking to make QR codes that give us quick access to their menus. Knowing that these business owners are looking to download apps that generate QR codes, bad actors are predicted to entice them into downloading malicious apps that pretend to do the same.
But instead of generating a code, the app will steal the owner’s data, which scammers could then use to trick loyal diners like you and me. Once a hacker gains access to the restaurant’s customer database, they can use this information to launch phishing scams under the guise of our favorite local eateries.
To help ensure that you are one step ahead of cybercriminals in the upcoming year, make a resolution to adopt the following online security practices and help protect your digital life:
If you receive an email, call, or text asking you to download software, app, or pay a certain amount of money, do not click or take any direct action from the message. Instead, go straight to the organization’s website. This will prevent you from downloading malicious content from phishing links or forking over money unnecessarily.
If someone sends you a message with a link, hover over the link without clicking. This will allow you to see a link preview and check for any typos or grammatical errors – both of which are typical signs of a phishing link. If the URL looks suspicious, don’t interact with it and delete the message altogether.
When setting up a new IoT device, network, or online account, always change the default credentials to a password or passphrase that is strong and unique. Using different passwords or passphrases for each of your online accounts helps protect the majority of your data if one of your accounts becomes vulnerable.
Use a comprehensive security solution, like McAfee Total Protection, which can help protect devices against malware, phishing attacks, and other threats. It includes McAfee WebAdvisor, which can help identify malicious websites.
Stay Updated
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Top Security Threats to Look Out for in 2021 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Typically, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) gives us a sense of where technology is going in the future. However, this year’s show was arguably more about technology catching up with how the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped our lives. While gathering in person was not an option, we still had the opportunity to witness incredible technological feats virtually – primarily those meant to help us better adapt to the new normal.
From devices aimed at making the world more sanitary to new work-from-home solutions, here are some of the highlights from this year’s first ever virtual CES:
Every year, CES introduces a plethora of smart home devices aimed at making our lives easier. But now that our homes have expanded beyond where we live to function as a workplace and classroom, companies have developed new gadgets to improve our lives while we stay at home. In fact, the smart home market grew 6.7% from 2019 to 2020 to $88 billion and is expected to reach $246.42 billion by 2025.
This year, Kohler showed off voice control features for its sinks and other fixtures, so homeowners can turn on faucets without touching them. And while every CES is paved with an array of flashy new TVs, LG drummed up lots of excitement with its new 55-inch transparent TV that you can see through when it’s turned off.
From monitors to keyboards and Wi-Fi upgrades to charging stations, plenty of the gadgets coming out of this year’s show were designed to improve the remote work experience. Take Dell’s UltraSharp 40-inch Curved Ultrawide U4021QW Monitor, for example. Ultrawide is the functional equivalent of two 4K monitors side-by-side, but without the seam. Belkin and Satechi also brought their latest charging stations to CES 2021 to improve the home office, allowing users to charge multiple devices at once. With so many companies creating innovative devices to make our work-from-home lives more manageable in the long run, it’s clear that remote work is likely here to stay.
CES 2021 also brought us a whole new lineup of technology designed to help us monitor our health at home. Fluo Labs debuted Flō, a device that stops your body from releasing histamines when pollen, dust, and other allergens enter your body. HD Medical also introduced HealthyU, a device smaller than a GoPro that includes a seven-lead ECG, a temperature sensor, a pulse oximeter, microphones to record heart and lung sounds, a heart rate monitor, and a blood pressure sensor. HealthyU is designed for people with heart issues to keep tabs on their health every day and send that information to their doctors remotely. Not only will these devices enable us to take better care of ourselves if we can’t physically go to a doctor’s office, but they will also enhance our awareness of ourselves and our loved ones.
In 2020, we became hyper-aware of germs and how they can easily spread – one of those ways being on digital devices. While disinfecting these surfaces with an alcohol solution can help, many look to taking a different approach to avoid germ-spreading: touchless technology.
While no one technology can win the battle against the virus, many companies are doing their part to promote a cleaner, healthier future. For example, Plott built a doorbell called the Ettie that can take people’s temperature before they’re allowed to enter. Another company, Alarm.com, created a Touchless Video Doorbell to cut down on the transmission of bacteria and viruses that we otherwise often leave on places we touch. Kohler also built a toilet that flushes with the wave of a hand. As we head further into 2021 and beyond, be on the lookout for more voice-activated and touchless devices to help slow the spread of germs and help us live our lives free from worry.
We’ve become more reliant on technology than ever before to stay connected with loved ones from afar, work from home without missing a beat, participate in distance learning, and find new forms of digital entertainment. But with this increase in time spent online comes a greater risk of cyberthreats, and we must stay vigilant when it comes to protecting our online safety. Hackers continue to adapt their techniques to take advantage of users spending more time online, so we must educate and protect ourselves and our devices from emerging threats. This way, we can continue to embrace new technologies, while we live our digital lives free from worry.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
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A baby can leave their first footprints internet even before they’re born.
The fact is that children start creating an identity online before they even put a little pinky on a device, let alone come home for the first time. That “Hello, world!” moment can come much, much sooner. And it will come from you.
From posting baby’s ultrasound pic to sharing a video of the gender reveal celebration, these are the first digital footprints that your child will make. With your help, of course, because it’s you who’ll snap all those photos, capture all those videos, and share many of them on the internet. Yet even though you’re the one who took them, those digital footprints you’ve created belong to your child.
And that’s something for us to pause and consider during this wonderful (and challenging!) stretch of early parenthood. Just as we look out for our children’s well-being in every other aspect of their little lives, we must look out for their digital well-being too. Babies are entitled to privacy too. And their little digital lives need to be protected as well.
Babies lives are more connected than you might think. Above and beyond the social media posts we make to commemorate all their “firsts,” from first solid food to first steps, there’s digital information that’s associated with your child as well. Things like Social Security Numbers, medical records, and even financial records related to them all exist, all of which need to be protected just like we protect that same digital information as adults.
Likewise, there’s all manner of connected devices like Wi-Fi baby monitors, baby sleep monitors, even smart cribs that sense restlessness in your baby and then rocks and soothes those little cares away. Or how about a smart changing table that tracks the weight of your child over time? You and your baby may make use of those. And because all these things are connected, they have to be protected.
This is the first of two articles that takes a look at this topic, and we’ll start with a look at making good choice about purchasing “smart devices” and connected baby monitors—each pieces of technology that parents should investigate before bringing them into their home or nursery.
As a new parent, or as a parent who’s just added another tyke to the nest, you’ll know just how many products are designed for your baby—and then marketed toward your fears or concerns. Before buying such smart devices, read reviews and speak with your health care provider to get the facts.
For example, you can purchase connected monitors that track metrics like baby’s breathing, heart rate, and blood-oxygen levels while they sleep. While they’re often presented as a means of providing peace of mind, the question to ask is what that biometric information can really do for you. This is where your health care provider can come in, because if you have concerns about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), that’s a much larger conversation. Your provider can discuss the topic with you about and whether such a device is an effective measure for your child.
Another question to ask is what’s done with the biometric data that such devices monitor. Is it kept on your smartphone, or is it stored in the cloud by the device manufacturer? Is that storage secure? Is the data shared with any third parties? Who owns that data? Can you opt in or opt out of sharing it? Can you access and delete it as needed? Your baby’s biometrics are highly personal info and must be protected as such. Without clear-cut answers about how your baby’s data is handled, you should consider giving that device a hard pass.
How do you get those answers? This is another instance where you’ll have to roll up your sleeves and read the privacy policy associated with the device or service in question. And as it is with privacy policies, some are written far more clearly and concisely than others. The information is in there. You may have to dig for it. (Of note, there are instances where parents consented to the use of their data for the purposes of government research, such as this study published by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.)
Related, here’s the advice I share on every connected “smart” device out there, from baby-related items to smart refrigerators: before you purchase, read up on reviews and comments from other customers. Look for news articles about the device manufacturer too. The fact of the matter is that some smart device manufacturers are much better at baking security protocols into their devices than others, so investigate their track record to see if you can uncover any issues with their products or security practices. Information such as this can help you make an even more informed choice.
An online search for “hacked baby monitor” will quickly call up several unsettling stories about hackers tuning into Wi-Fi baby monitors—scanning the camera about the room at will and perhaps even speaking directly to the child. Often, this is because the default factory password has not been changed by the parents. And a “default password” may as well be “public password” because lists of default passwords for connected devices are freely available on the internet. In fact, researchers from Ben Gurion University looked at the basic security of off-the-shelf smart devices found that, “It only took 30 minutes to find passwords for most of the devices and some of them were found only through a Google search of the brand.”
The three things you can do to prevent this from happening to your Wi-Fi baby monitor, along with other connected devices around your home, are:
What about “old-style” baby monitors that work on a radio frequency (RF) like a walkie-talkie does? Given that they’re not connected to the internet, there’s less risk involved. That’s because hacking into an RF monitor requires a per person to be in close physical proximity to the device and have access to the same broadcast frequency as your device—a far less likely proposition, yet a risk none the less. Some modern RF baby monitors even encrypt the radio signal, mitigating that much more risk.
Next up, we’ll take a closer look at baby’s privacy online. Yes, that’s a thing! And an important one at that, as taking charge of their privacy right now can protect them from cybercrime and harm as they get older.
Feel free to read on right here.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post The Connected Lives of Babies: Protecting First Footprints in the Digital World, Part 1 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Picture an infant with a credit card.
In her name. With a $10,000 limit.
Well, it happens. As recent as 2017, it was estimated that more than 1 million children in the U.S. were victims of identity theft. Of them, two-thirds were under the age of seven, and the total losses connected to all this fraud weighed in $2.6 billion dollars.
As I mentioned in part one of our article on the connected lives of babies, babies can make their first digital footprints before they’re even born. What’s more, the moment a child enters this world along with a unique ID like a Social Security Number, they become a tempting target for cybercriminals. The reason is this: babies and very young children are effectively a blank slate, upon which crooks can write their own illicit history of fraud. And it can be years before you or your child find out, long after the damage to their credit has been done.
So, let’s pick up where we left off in part one by taking a close look baby’s privacy and how you can protect it.
There’s rightfully a great deal of conversation out there about the things we can do to protect our identity from theft. What’s talked about less often is protecting children from identity theft. In fact, little ones are high-value targets for cybercriminals is because we typically don’t run credit reports on children. In this way, a crook with the Social Security Number of a child in the U.S. can open all manner of credit and accounts and go undetected for years until that child attempts to rent an apartment or open his or her first credit card.
To protect your family from this kind of identity theft, the major credit reporting agencies suggest the following:
I. Check your child’s credit regularly. If your child indeed has a credit report against their name, there’s a strong chance that their identity has been stolen. You can work directly with the credit reporting agency to begin resolving the issue. If there is theft, file a report with the appropriate law enforcement agency. You’ll want a record of this as you dispute any false records.
II. Freeze your child’s credit. A freeze will prevent access to your child’s report and thus prevent any illicit activity. In the U.S., you’ll need to create a separate freeze with each of the three major credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). It’s free to do so, yet you’ll have to do a little legwork to prove that you’re indeed the child’s parent or guardian.
III. Secure your documents and keep personal info close to the vest. Along with things like a passport, insurance cards, and birth certificates, store these items in a safe location when you’re not actively using them. That goes extra for Social Security cards. Likewise, doctor’s offices often ask patients for their Social Security Number, which typically helps with their billing. See if they can accept an alternative form of ID, use just the last four digits, or simply forgo it altogether.
Getting your kiddo a website is probably low on your list of priorities, yet it’s a sound move to consider. Here’s why: it carves out a piece of digital real estate that’s theirs and theirs alone.
Whether you opt for a dot-com or one of several hundred other extensions like .net, .us, and .me, a personal URL gives you and your child ownership of yet another piece of their digital identity. No one else can own it as long as you’re paying the fee to maintain it. Think of it as an investment. Down the road, it could be used for a personal email address, a professional portfolio site someday, or just a side project in web design. With internet URLs being a finite resource, it’s wise to see if spending a relatively small fee each a year is worth securing this piece of your child’s identity.
We all have one—that picture from our childhood that we absolutely dread because it’s embarrassing as all get-out. Now contrast that with today’s digital age, where an estimated 95 million photos are posted each day on Instagram alone. We’re chronicling our lives, our friends’ lives, and the lives of our families at an incredible rate—almost without thinking about it. And that opens a host of issues about privacy and just how much we share. Enter the notion of “sharenting,” a form of oversharing that can trample your child’s right to privacy.
For babies, we have to remember that they’re little people who, one day, before you know it, will grow up. How will some of those photos that seemed cute in the moment hold up when baby gets older? Will those photos that you posted prove embarrassing some day? Could they be used to harm their reputation or damage their sense of privacy and trust in you?
With that, let’s remember a couple things when it comes to sharing photos of our children:
• The internet is forever. Work on this basic assumption: once you post it, it’s online for good.
• Babies have a right to privacy too. It’s your job to protect it while they can’t.
So, before you post, run through that one-two mental checklist.
Sharenting can also lead to identity theft. In 2018, Barclay’s financial services estimated that oversharing by parents on social media will amount to more than 7 million cases of identity theft a year by 2030—just shy of a billion dollars U.S. worth of damage. This includes all the tips and cues that crooks can glean from social media posts and geographic metadata that’s captured in photographic files. Things like birthdays, pet names, names of schools, favorite teams, maiden names, and so forth are all fodder for password hacks and targeted phishing attacks. The advice here is to keep your digital lives close to the vest:
I. Set all social media accounts to private. Nothing posted on the internet is 100% private. Even when you post to “friends only,” your content can still get copied and re-shared.
II. This way, the general public can’t see what you’re posting. However, keep in mind that nothing you ever post online is 100% private. Someone who has access to your page could just as easily grab a screenshot of your post and then continue to share it that way.
III. Go into your phone’s settings and disable location information for photos. Specifics will depend on the brand of your phone, but you should have an option via the phone’s “location services” settings or within the camera app itself. Doing so will prevent the geographic location, time, date, and even device type from appearing in the metadata of your photos.
IV. Above all, think twice about posting in the first place. “Do I really need to share this?” is the right question to ask, particularly if it can damage your child’s privacy or be used by a scammer in some form, whether today or down the road.
Like new parents don’t have enough to think about already! However, thinking about these things now at the earliest stages will get you and your growing family off on a strong and secure start, one that you can build on for years to come—right up to the day when they ask for their first smartphone. But you have a while before that conversation crops up, so enjoy!
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post The Connected Lives of Babies: Protecting First Footprints in the Digital World, Part Two appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The holidays have come and gone, and students returned to the virtual classroom. But according to the FBI, cyberattacks are likely to disrupt online learning in the new year. As of December 2020, the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and MS-ISAC continue to receive reports from K-12 educational institutions about the disruptions caused by cyberthreats, primarily ransomware and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). To protect their education and digital lives, distance learners will need to stay vigilant when it comes to ransomware and DDoS attacks. Let’s dive into the impact these threats have on the K-12 education system now that more people are plugged in as a result of distance learning.
Of all the attacks plaguing K-12 schools this year, ransomware has been a particularly aggressive threat. Ransomware attacks typically block access to a computer system or files until the victim pays a certain amount of money or “ransom.” The FBI and the CISA issued a warning that showed a nearly 30% increase in ransomware attacks against schools. In August and September, 57% of ransomware incidents involved K-12 schools, compared to 28% of all reported ransomware incidents from January through July. And it’s unlikely that hackers will let up anytime soon. Baltimore County’s school system was recently shut down by a ransomware attack that hit all of its network systems and closed schools for several days for about 111,000 students. It wasn’t until last week that school officials could finally regain access to files they feared were lost forever, including student transcripts, first-quarter grades, and vital records for children in special education programs.
According to to ZDNet, the five most active ransomware groups targeting K-12 schools are Ryuk, Maze, Nefilim, AKO, and Sodinokibi/REvil. Furthermore, all five of these ransomware families are known to run “leak sites,” where they dump data from victims who don’t pay the ransom. This creates a particularly dangerous problem of having student data published online. To prevent distance learning disruption, students and educators need to understand the effects of ransomware on school systems and take steps to prevent the damage caused by this threat.
An increase in ransomware attacks isn’t the only problem that K-12 schools are facing. The CISA and the FBI warned those participating in distance learning to protect themselves against other forms of cyberattacks such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). DDoS is a method where hackers flood a network with so much traffic that it cannot operate or communicate as it normally would.
According to Dark Reading, Miami-Dade County Public Schools experienced significant disruptions during their first three days of distance learning for the 2020-2021 school year, thanks to a series of DDoS attacks. The school system stated it had already experienced more than a dozen DDoS attacks since the start of the school year. Sandwich Public Schools in Massachusetts were also knocked offline by a DDoS attack. When school systems fall victim to DDoS attacks, students can lose access to essential documents, files, or online platforms that they need to complete assignments. And with many students relying heavily on distance learning systems, losing access could put them behind.
In an effort to create a standardized framework for dealing with ransomware attacks across verticals – including education – McAfee has teamed up with Microsoft to lead the Ransomware Task Force, along with 17 other security firms, tech companies, and non-profits. And while we’re taking critical actions to decrease the threat of ransomware attacks, there are other steps you can take to prevent ransomware and DDoS attacks from interrupting your distance learning experience. Follow these tips to take charge of your education and live your digital life free from worry:
Many ransom notes seem convincing, and many only request small, seemingly doable amounts of money. Nevertheless, you should never pay the ransom. Paying does not promise you’ll get your information back, and many victims often don’t. So, no matter how desperate you are for your files, hold off on paying up.
With ransomware attacks locking away crucial data, it’s important to back up your files on all your machines. If a device becomes infected with ransomware, there’s no promise you’ll get that data back. Ensure you cover all your bases and have your data stored on an external hard drive or in the cloud.
Use decryption tools
No More Ransom – an initiative that teams up security firms, including McAfee, and law enforcement – provides tools to free your data, each tailored for a specific type of ransomware. If your device gets held for ransom, start by researching what type of ransomware it is. Then, check out No More Ransom’s decryption tools and see if one is available for your specific strain.
Your Wi-Fi router is the gateway to your network. Secure it by changing the default password. If you aren’t sure how to do this, consult the internet for instructions on how to do it for your specific make and model, or call the manufacturer. Solutions like McAfee Secure Home Platform, which is embedded within select routers, can help you easily manage and protect your network from DDoS attacks and more.
A lot of internet of things (IoT) devices come with default usernames and passwords. After taking your IoT device out of the box, the first thing you should do is change those default credentials. If you’re unsure of how to change the default setting on your IoT device, refer to setup instructions or do a bit of research online.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Ransomware and DDoS is on the Rise: Tips for Distance Learning in 2021 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
A baby can leave their first internet footprints even before they’re born.
The fact is that children start creating an identity online before they even put a little pinky on a device, let alone come home for the first time. That “Hello, world!” moment can come much, much sooner. And it will come from you.
From posting baby’s ultrasound pic to sharing a video of the gender reveal celebration, these are the first digital footprints that your child will make. With your help, of course, because it’s you who’ll snap all those photos, capture all those videos, and share many of them on the internet. Yet even though you’re the one who took them, those digital footprints you’ve created belong to your child.
And that’s something for us to pause and consider during this wonderful (and challenging!) stretch of early parenthood. Just as we look out for our children’s well-being in every other aspect of their little lives, we must look out for their digital well-being too. Babies are entitled to privacy too. And their little digital lives need to be protected as well.
Babies lives are more connected than you might think. Above and beyond the social media posts we make to commemorate all their “firsts,” from first solid food to first steps, there’s digital information that’s associated with your child as well. Things like Social Security Numbers, medical records, and even financial records related to them all exist, all of which need to be protected just like we protect that same digital information as adults.
Likewise, there’s all manner of connected devices like Wi-Fi baby monitors, baby sleep monitors, even smart cribs that sense restlessness in your baby and then rocks and soothes those little cares away. Or how about a smart changing table that tracks the weight of your child over time? You and your baby may make use of those. And because all these things are connected, they have to be protected.
1) Buying smart devices for baby, Part One: Connect with your care provider
As a new parent, or as a parent who’s just added another tyke to the nest, you’ll know just how many products are designed for your baby—and then marketed toward your fears or concerns. Before buying such smart devices, read reviews and speak with your health care provider to get the facts.
For example, you can purchase connected monitors that track metrics like baby’s breathing, heart rate, and blood-oxygen levels while they sleep. While they’re often presented as a means of providing peace of mind, the question to ask is what that biometric information can really do for you. This is where your health care provider can come in, because if you have concerns about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), that’s a much larger conversation. Your provider can discuss the topic with you about and whether such a device is an effective measure for your child.
2) Buying smart devices for baby, Part Two: Do your security research
Another question to ask is what’s done with the biometric data that such devices monitor. Is it kept on your smartphone, or is it stored in the cloud by the device manufacturer? Is that storage secure? Is the data shared with any third parties? Who owns that data? Can you opt in or opt out of sharing it? Can you access and delete it as needed? Your baby’s biometrics are highly personal info and must be protected as such. Without clear-cut answers about how your baby’s data is handled, you should consider giving that device a hard pass.
How do you get those answers? This is another instance where you’ll have to roll up your sleeves and read the privacy policy associated with the device or service in question. And as it is with privacy policies, some are written far more clearly and concisely than others. The information is in there. You may have to dig for it. (Of note, there are instances where parents consented to the use of their data for the purposes of government research, such as this study published by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.)
Related, here’s advice I give on every connected “smart” device out there, from baby-related items to smart refrigerators: before you purchase, read up on reviews and comments from other customers. Look for news articles about the device manufacturer too. The fact of the matter is that some smart device manufacturers are much better at baking security protocols into their devices than others, so investigate their track record to see if you can uncover any issues with their products or security practices. Information such as this can help you make an even more informed choice.
3) Secure your Wi-Fi baby monitor (and other smart devices too)
An online search for “hacked baby monitor” will quickly call up several unsettling stories about hackers tuning into Wi-Fi baby monitors—scanning the camera about the room at will and perhaps even speaking directly to the child. Often, this is because the default factory password has not been changed by the parents. And a “default password” may as well be “public password” because lists of default passwords for connected devices are freely available on the internet. In fact, researchers from Ben Gurion University looked at the basic security of off-the-shelf smart devices found that, “It only took 30 minutes to find passwords for most of the devices and some of them were found only through a Google search of the brand.”
The three things you can do to prevent this from happening to your Wi-Fi baby monitor, along with other connected devices around your home, are:
What about “old-style” baby monitors that work on a radio frequency (RF) like a walkie-talkie does? Given that they’re not connected to the internet, there’s less risk involved. That’s because hacking into an RF monitor requires a per person to be in close physical proximity to the device and have access to the same broadcast frequency as your device—a far less likely proposition, yet a risk none the less. Some modern RF baby monitors even encrypt the radio signal, mitigating that much more risk.
4) Protect baby’s identity
There’s rightfully a great deal of conversation out there about the things we can do to protect our identity from theft. What’s talked about less often is protecting children from identity theft. In fact, little ones are high-value targets for cybercriminals is because we typically don’t run credit reports on children. In this way, a crook with the Social Security Number of a child in the U.S. can open all manner of credit and accounts and go undetected for years until that child attempts to rent an apartment or open his or her first credit card.
To protect your family from this kind of identity theft, the major credit reporting agencies suggest the following:
5) Register a URL for your child
Getting your kiddo a website is probably low on your list of priorities, yet it’s a sound move to consider. Here’s why: it carves out a piece of digital real estate that’s theirs and theirs alone.
Whether you opt for a dot-com or one of several hundred other extensions like .net, .us, and .me, a personal URL gives you and your child ownership of yet another piece of their digital identity. No one else can own it as long as you’re paying the fee to maintain it. Think of it as an investment. Down the road, it could be used for a personal email address, a professional portfolio site someday, or just a side project in web design. With internet URLs being a finite resource, it’s wise to see if spending a relatively small fee each a year is worth securing this piece of your child’s identity.
6) Sharenting, Part One: Think of baby’s future
We all have one—that picture from our childhood that we absolutely dread because it’s embarrassing as all get-out. Now contrast that with today’s digital age, where an estimated 95 million photos are posted each day on Instagram alone. We’re chronicling our lives, our friends’ lives, and the lives of our families at an incredible rate—almost without thinking about it. And that opens a host of issues about privacy and just how much we share. Enter the notion of “sharenting,” a form of oversharing that can trample your child’s right to privacy.
For babies, we have to remember that they’re little people who, one day, before you know it, will grow up. How will some of those photos that seemed cute in the moment hold up when baby gets older? Will those photos that you posted prove embarrassing some day? Could they be used to harm their reputation or damage their sense of privacy and trust in you?
With that, let’s remember a couple things when it comes to sharing photos of our children:
So, before you post, run through that one-two mental checklist.
7) Sharenting, Part Two: Identity Theft
Sharenting can also lead to identity theft. In 2018, Barclay’s financial services estimated that oversharing by parents on social media will amount to more than 7 million cases of identity theft a year by 2030—just shy of a billion dollars U.S. worth of damage. This includes all the tips and cues that crooks can glean from social media posts and geographic metadata that’s captured in photographic files. Things like birthdays, pet names, names of schools, favorite teams, maiden names, and so forth are all fodder for password hacks and targeted phishing attacks. The advice here is to keep your digital lives close to the vest:
Like new parents don’t have enough to think about already! However, thinking about these things now at the earliest stages will get you and your growing family off on a strong and secure start, one that you can build on for years to come—right up to the day when they ask for their first smartphone. But you have a while before that conversation crops up, so enjoy!
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post The Connected Lives of Babies: Protecting Their First Footprints in the Digital World appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
McAfee is headquartered in the U.S. and with our impressive global footprint protecting over 600 million devices protecting users’ connected lives isn’t just a priority for one location, but for the entire world that we serve. As Site Leader of our Consumer Ontario offices, when it came time to reflect on the past year, we knew it was important to gather findings for the communities we protect including those in Canada.
In 2020, we abruptly transitioned from offices to home workspaces, participated in distance learning, and figured out how to stay connected with friends and family from afar. We sought out new forms of entertainment by streaming countless movies and TV shows and found new ways to stay active with at-home workouts. None of this would’ve been possible without our devices and the technologies we rapidly adopted. In fact, data shows that we accelerated five years forward in digital adoption during the first two months of the pandemic alone. And according to findings from our 2021 Consumer Security Mindset Report, Canadian consumers plan to stick with this digital-first lifestyle in the new year and beyond.
In the past year, many of us started to use or increased our use of various online tools. In Canada, online banking surged to 78%, personal shopping to 63%, and social engagements to 59%. We’ve adapted to the convenience of these online alternatives and have used them to replace activities that were once primarily in-person. In fact, 70% of survey respondents indicated that they now use or have adopted common features designed for convenience, such as text and email notifications, web or mobile applications versus desktop sites, and more.
Online alternatives will continue to replace activities in people’s lives that were once in-person. According to our survey, the top digital activities that will remain part of our routines even as social distancing and stay-at-home restrictions lift include online banking, social engagements, and personal shopping. But as we continue to rely on technology to complete these tasks, how are we adapting our security habits to greater time spent online?
The more time we spend online interacting with various apps and services, the greater our exposure is to potential c
ybersecurity risks and threats. So, as we continue to adapt to and embrace our new digital world, hackers are simultaneously taking notes. Survey results show that 67% of respondents are most concerned about their financial data being stolen or compromised, while 65% are concerned that their personal information could get hacked.
A heightened sense of security is of the utmost importance so we can continue to live our digital lives free from worry. But 45% of survey respondents don’t feel very confident about their ability to prevent a cyberattack and believe that they don’t have what they need to ward one off.
Even with these concerns, there still appears to be a discrepancy between our perceptions around online security ver
sus our actions. While 66% of respondents stated that they purchased at least one connected device in 2020, only 42% bought security software, and only a quarter admitted that they check if their security software is up to date. But to preserve our digital wellness as we adopt new technology into our lives, we must upgrade our security habits in tandem. After all, it’s better to prevent a problem than be in a position of having to fix it.
To help prevent a hacker from striking, it helps to think about why they would want your data in the first place. However, 61% of Canadian respondents admitted that they never considered how much their online data is worth. Hackers are always looking for ways to exploit others for money. By scavenging and stealing our personally identifiable information over the internet, hackers can piece together our identities – a valuable asset and can be resold for a lot of cash.
To stay one step ahead of hackers and protect your digital wellness into the new year and beyond, continue to work on your own online habits and follow these security tips:
Two or multi-factor authentication provides an extra layer of security, as it requires multiple forms of verification like texting or emailing a secure code to verify your identity. Most popular online sites like Gmail, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. offer multi-factor authentication, and it takes just a few minutes to set it up. This reduces the risk of successful impersonation by criminals who may have uncovered your information by keyboard snooping.
Hackers tend to lurk in the shadows on public Wi-Fi networks to catch unsuspecting users looking for free internet access. If you have to conduct transactions on a public Wi-Fi network, use a virtual private network (VPN) like McAfee® Safe Connect to help keep you safe while you’re online.
Use a comprehensive security solution, like McAfee Total Protection, which can help protect devices against malware, phishing attacks, and other threats. It includes McAfee WebAdvisor, which can help identify malicious websites.
When using third-party tools like video conferencing platforms, adjust your security settings by password protecting your meetings and blocking other meeting attendees from sharing their screens. You can also adjust your device’s app permissions to only access your location when actively in use, or enable safe browsing options to protect you from malicious websites.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post New Year, New Digital You: Canadian Survey Findings from McAfee appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
2020 was a year unlike any other. We transitioned from the corporate office to the home office, participated in distance learning, and figured out how to communicate with one another from afar. We sought out new forms of entertainment by streaming countless movies and TV shows and found new ways to stay active with at-home workouts. But none of this would’ve been possible without our devices and the technology we rapidly adopted. In fact, data shows that we accelerated five years forward in digital adoption during the first two months of the pandemic alone. And according to findings from our 2021 Consumer Security Mindset Report , online alternatives will continue to replace activities in people’s lives and routines that were once in-person.
In the past year, many of us started to use or increased our use of various online tools. For example, online banking usage increased from 22% in 2020, online fitness classes increased by 7%, and virtual doctor’s appointments increased by 9%. We’ve adapted to the convenience of these online alternatives and have used them to replace activities that were once primarily in-person. Additionally, 77% of survey respondents indicated that they now use or have adopted common features designed for convenience, such as text and email notifications, web or mobile applications versus desktop sites, and more.
Online alternatives will continue to replace activities in people’s lives that were once in-person. According to our survey, the top digital activities that will remain part of our routines even as social distancing and stay-at-home restrictions lift include online banking, social engagements, and personal shopping. But as we continue to rely on technology to complete these tasks, how are we adapting our security habits to greater time spent online?
The more time we spend online interacting with various apps and services, the greater our exposure is to potential cybersecurity risks and threats. So, as we continue to adapt to and embrace our new digital world, hackers are simultaneously taking notes. Survey results show that 71% of respondents are most concerned about their financial data being stolen or compromised, while 68% are concerned that their personal information could get hacked.
A heightened sense of security is of the utmost importance so we can continue to live our digital lives free from worry. But 29% of survey respondents don’t feel very confident about their ability to prevent a cyberattack and believe that they don’t have what they need to prevent one. And while another 40% is confident in their ability to prevent an attack, they think they could better understand how to identify or combat threats.
Even with these concerns, there still appears to be a discrepancy between our perceptions around online security versus our actions. While 70% of respondents stated that they purchased at least one connected device in 2020, only 50% bought security software, and only a quarter admitted that they check if their security software is up to date. But to preserve our digital wellness as we adopt new technology into our lives, we must upgrade our security habits in tandem. After all, it’s better to prevent a problem than be in a position of having to fix it.
To help prevent a hacker from striking, it helps to think about why they would want your data in the first place. However, over half of U.S. respondents admitted that they never considered how much their online data is worth. Hackers are always looking for ways to exploit others for money. By scavenging and stealing our personally identifiable information over the internet, hackers can piece together our identities – a valuable asset and can be sold for a lot of cash.
To stay one step ahead of hackers and protect your digital wellness into the new year and beyond, continue to work on your own online habits and follow these security tips:
Two or multi-factor authentication provides an extra layer of security, as it requires multiple forms of verification like texting or emailing a secure code to verify your identity. Most popular online sites like Gmail, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. offer multi-factor authentication, and it takes just a few minutes to set it up. This reduces the risk of successful impersonation by criminals who may have uncovered your information by keyboard snooping.
Hackers tend to lurk in the shadows on public Wi-Fi networks to catch unsuspecting users looking for free internet access. If you have to conduct transactions on a public Wi-Fi network, use a virtual private network (VPN) like McAfee® Safe Connect to help keep you safe while you’re online.
Use a comprehensive security solution, like McAfee Total Protection, which can help protect devices against malware, phishing attacks, and other threats. It includes McAfee WebAdvisor, which can help identify malicious websites.
When using third-party tools like video conferencing platforms, adjust your security settings by password protecting your meetings and blocking other meeting attendees from sharing their screens. You can also adjust your device’s app permissions to only access your location when actively in use, or enable safe browsing options to protect you from malicious websites.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post New Year, New Digital You: Consumer Security Findings from McAfee’s Latest Report appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
One of the positive trends that we’ve seen in recent years is governments and users pressuring companies to simplify their privacy policies and security settings. This comes after a slew of concerning incidents, such as widespread data breaches and data sharing by social media companies.
The spotlight on these issues is beginning to take effect, as Facebook’s latest “Access Your Information” tool shows, and users are feeling more empowered. Furthermore, in November 2020, Californians voted in favor of the new California Privacy Rights Act to strengthen privacy protections for consumers. This is also reinforced by more and more states and countries considering or debating the introduction of comprehensive privacy legislation.
In fact, a recent study found that 71% of respondents checked their social media platform’s advanced privacy settings when they joined. This is great progress, but we can do more. We know from our research that only 39% of users make sure the site or service they’re using is legitimate, and a mere 12% use a dark web monitoring service. This year’s International Data Privacy Day, January 28th, is the perfect opportunity to make sure that your sensitive information stays as safe as possible.
The data we are looking to protect, known as Personal Data or Personally Identifiable Information (PII), can be anything that relates to your identity. And although many technology users feel that protecting this information is beyond their control, we actually have a lot of simple and effective ways to safeguard our PII. So, let’s start this new year by owning our privacy with a closer look at our social media accounts.
After all, we take pains to safeguard our finances, and the personal data we share on social channels is similar: it has value, and it’s up to us to make sure we take the right steps to keep it protected. Security tools like antivirus software and password managers help enormously in boosting our overall security, but when it comes to social media in particular it’s essential to know what kind of data we’re generating, and how it is used and shared.
First we need to recognize that where we click, “like” and login, all leave a digital footprint that can be used to reveal more about your identity and habits than you would think. For example, just using Facebook, Amazon, or Google to login to third-party sites generates an enormous amount of information about where you go and what you do. Many users choose this route because it is easier than creating and remembering passwords to each individual site.
Another way your data gets scattered around is through sharing—whether you intentionally post on social media sites, or use a website, app, or service that permits third-party access of user information. Many users unwittingly agree to this access because it’s buried somewhere in a thick privacy policy.
Now that we know a little more about how your PII gets out, let’s learn how to protect it.
Avoid oversharing—When it comes to social media accounts, set them to share with “friends only.” This should give you some control, but it’s also important to realize that your photos and data can still travel beyond your immediate network, so our best advice is not to post anything you wouldn’t want a future boss to see, for example.
For your other sensitive accounts, check to see which information is being shared, and with whom. If you’re not comfortable with the terms, you can decide to opt out, or close your account.
Check for linked logins—If you use your Facebook or Google login credentials to log in to other accounts, it’s a good idea to revise the list of sites that have access to your information and pare it down. In many cases you may have visited a site just once, and there is no reason for the third-party site to hold onto your data. Delete the linked information by visiting the website you used to login in the first place, and create unique login credentials for the sites you visit frequently.
Keep a careful eye on your apps—Mobile apps have become a key vector for hackers, so you want to make sure that you only download and install apps from reputable providers that have positive reviews.
For the apps that are already on on your phone or tablet, check the security settings to see if they are accessing more information than they need to work properly. For instance, a mapping app needs your exact physical location, but a gaming app may not. McAfee® Mobile Security can safeguard your devices from malicious files, and help prevent you from oversharing data with apps.
Lose what you don’t use—If you have accounts for apps or services that you no longer use, it’s time to get rid of them. This prevents them from potentially leaking your information in the future. Just remember that deleting an app doesn’t mean that your data is deleted. For that, you’ll need to close your account.
For the apps you want to keep, make sure they are updated, since updates often contain security fixes. You may also want to recheck the settings to ensure that your data is only being shared if you explicitly allow it.
Let tech tools help—Of course, I always recommend that you download security software, and a holistic solution like McAfee Total Protection includes dedicated privacy tools, like a virtual private network (VPN), which scrambles your data while it flows over the network, ensuring that no one else can see it. It also includes safe browsing tools to keep you safer from malicious sites and downloads, and dark web monitoring to help you keep tabs on your personal data.
McAfee also recently released a personal protection app (in beta) that monitors the dark web to see if your login credentials have been leaked. If so, it alerts you, so you can change your passwords immediately. It also includes a VPN.
Be careful where you click—Even the most savvy users can still accidentally click on a dangerous link, so consider using the free McAfee® WebAdvisor to alert you to risky links and downloads that may be hiding in your newsfeeds and timelines, before you click on them.
Stay aware of the latest scams—Part of owning your privacy includes staying informed about the latest threats. These blogs are a great resource.
This Data Privacy Day make a resolution to take back control of your personal information, and help others do the same. For more information visit the National Cyber Security Alliance.
Looking for more mobile security tips and trends? Be sure to follow @McAfee Home on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
The post This Data Privacy Day Own Your Privacy, Even On Social Sites appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The events of 2020 didn’t just set significant lifestyle changes in motion. According to a recent study, it also influenced our mindset about our online security.
McAfee’s 2021 Consumer Security Mindset Report highlights our collective shift to a Digital-First mindset and the increased risks that come with it.
This study is essential to families for several reasons. First, because it gives us a snapshot of reality, and when we understand reality, we can take steps to improve it. Second, it’s a reminder to us as parents that helping our kids build their digital skills is a process subject to cultural shifts that will require continuous recalibration.
In short, the study reveals that we’re online more and, for convenience’s sake, we’re taking more chances with our security. In step with this increase in digital activity, online scams are on the rise. And, while most of us admit to being worried about our online security and, many still don’t have the digital habits they need to protect themselves.
How do we respond to this new and seemingly ongoing reality? We can say we need better cyber safety skills, or we can implement them.
To help you do just that, here are ten easy peasy steps your family can take today to strengthen the protective circle around your digital life. Note: You don’t have to be tech savvy to do these things. They are easy, effective ways to build up your family’s digital defenses. Here we go!
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post 10 Easy Ways to Build Up Your Family’s Online Security appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Meet ShinyHunters, a hacker who recently leaked 10 new databases this past month from companies including:
• Pixlr.com
• Bonobos.com
• Wognai.com
• Tesspring.com
• Tunedglobal.com
• Buyucoin.com
• Wappalyzer.com
• Chqbook.com
• Rooter.io
• MeetMindful.com
But this isn’t the first time they’ve made headlines. It all started in May of 2020 when ShinyHunters attempted to sell several stolen databases on the Dark Web. They also leaked several other databases between April and July. In October, they proceeded to leak the database of the meal kit delivery company, HomeChef. Not one to be easily satisfied, ShinyHunters continued their antics by exposing sixteen other databases in November, where personal user records and information were publicly shared. Prominent companies who fell victim to this wave of data breaches include gaming site Animal Jam, online marketplace Minted, and coupon company ShopBack, among others.
Personal data released ranges from contact information and addresses, dates of birth, passwords, and financial information. Not including the latest data breach, a total of 129,406,564 user records were exposed. Given the alarming size of the exposure, this gives way to rising concerns for when ShinyHunters will strike again. What’s more, this group seeks notoriety from their misdeeds, hoping to claim credibility for the number of attacks they can execute—a troubling thought for everyday users like you and me.
You never know when or if a breach will occur, which is why we must take precautions to protect our data in the case of a security breach. In the past year alone, we have seen a record number of data breaches, posing unforeseen security concerns and bringing light to new priorities for data protection. That’s why we must learn from these occurrences by proactively protecting our private information in 2021 and beyond.
There’s no way of knowing whether your personal information will fall into the wrong hands or that it will be used maliciously, but ShinyHunters has indicated that they are on the lookout for opportunities to expose more databases, so we must take the necessary steps to protect our personal information before the damage is done.
Not knowing what data was stolen can make it significantly more difficult to pinpoint what threats you may become subject to. If you realize a company you buy from fell victim to a data breach, start investigating. Use this tool to see if the breach affects you.
Great passwords are usually the first line of defense against personal data exposures, so it’s important to update them as soon as they are compromised. Additionally, use different passwords or passphrases for each of your online accounts which helps protect the majority of your data if one of your accounts becomes vulnerable. One route you can take is to use a password manager that not only lets you create strong passwords but can let you manage them efficiently with added security and peace of mind.
On top of updating your credentials, you’ll want to secure your log-in process by enabling 2-Factor Authentication. So, if a hacker has access to your stolen passwords, they’ll still have to bypass an added security layer that is time sensitive. This makes it even more difficult for them to access your information.
Like regular phishing attempts, spear-phishing attempts will try to steal your information by posing as an authentic entity to target unsuspecting victims. However, spear phishing attempts can be harder to spot because the attempt is modified to target a specific individual, often in the form of a personalized email. If you receive an email, call, or text asking you to download software, app, or pay a certain amount of money, do not click or take any direct action from the message. Instead, go straight to the organization’s website. This will prevent you from downloading malicious content from phishing links or forking over money unnecessarily.
If you find that your credit card information has been exposed, keep an eye on your bank records and validate each transaction. In the above cases for a site like MeetMindful, where Facebook authentication tokens and user IDs were stolen, it’s always best to keep an eye on other social accounts for fraudulent activity.
For maximum financial protection, freeze your credit to prevent hackers from opening new accounts in your name. Placing a freeze on your credit is free for consumers and won’t affect your credit score. Simply contact the three major credit bureaus—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—to set up a freeze to secure your credit file until you decide to lift it.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post ShinyHunters Exposes Over 125 Million Online Credentials appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Love finds a way. Even in a pandemic.
Across this year and last, a growing number of couples are sticking to their wedding dates as planned, yet with a twist—they’re holding them online.
Whether to comply with local guidance, accommodate friends and family who cannot travel, or some mix of both, online weddings are indeed happening. They take many forms—from streaming a small ceremony at a church or venue, to a couple in their home with an officiant in another location and attendees viewing online, love is indeed finding a way.
I was intrigued and ultimately moved by the story of one couple, Irene and Troy, which I read in an article about couples who have opted to hold an online wedding. According to the article, Irene said that the timing could not have been better. “My father, who is older in age, was especially thrilled to join our wedding from the comfort of his home, and virtually shared his sentiments on video for all to see. One of our guests who watched the virtual marriage shared: ‘We were moved and uplifted by it all… by your love to each other, your commitment, your generosity. We all needed it [at this time]: the affirmation of life and beauty and faith. It made us all happy. And, in a way, fulfilled.'”
That’s absolutely wonderful and a testament to the way a wedding can lift us all, particularly now—the embodiment of commitment, resilience, and love.
With more and more articles and services taking shape that describe the planning of an online wedding, I’d like to share a few of my thoughts about the technical and security considerations that will inevitably come up as couples plan and hold their online wedding ceremonies.
First off, you’ll need an official wedding license and to make sure that your locality recognizes an online wedding. Earlier in the pandemic, several states and localities issued legal orders to allow couples to get their wedding licenses online and even conduct their wedding online with a recognized officiant. Naturally, the answer as to whether you can hold an official wedding will vary where you live and what the exact requirements are. The best advice here is to consult with your local officials or family law practitioner to determine what options are legally available to you—from obtaining a wedding license either by mail or online, to who must officiate and witness the ceremony and how.
If you’re livestreaming your ceremony, a strong and reliable internet connection will top your list of must-haves. If it turns out that your location has so-so Wi-Fi or no internet at all, you can look into a mobile hotspot device. Available as either as a prepaid device or as a rental, the advantage of using a mobile hotspot device over the hotspot on your phone is that it can host multiple devices, have a better connection range than your phone, and last much longer than your phone in terms of battery usage.
Of course, the performance of a mobile hotspot will be influenced by the network that’s available to it. Check the specs of the device and the coverage in the area to see if it can support streaming reliably.
Given that 5G mobile connectivity is making its first appearances, you may find that your 5G-ready phone is a better choice than a 4G LTE mobile hotspot device. If this sounds like a bit much to you, or if you’d simply rather focus on other things for your big days, this is an area where you may want the help of a producer to coordinate this aspect of your online wedding.
An online wedding is a live streaming event, just like a show, your show, and it’s one you’ll want to have go off seamlessly so you and everyone else can bask in the moment. If you’ve been working, studying, or socializing online, you know what kind of headaches can crop up with video conferencing—bad lighting, bad sound, or simply the dreaded bad internet connection. That’s where a producer can help, both on the big day and well in advance of it too.
Depending on the size and experience you want for an online wedding ceremony, you can hire a dedicated producer who can oversee the technical aspects of your ceremony and even act as a digital emcee who can orchestrate the flow of your big day by making introductions, playing music, controlling the microphones of guests, or even setting up a digital receiving line so that everyone can get some dedicated time with the couple. They can help you select the streaming platform for your needs as well.
Online services like Wedfuly and SimplyEloped offer a variety of plans that can handle details such as these for you, from getting the right tech and camera angles in place to rehearsals just like an in-person ceremony—with the bonus of troubleshooting any issues. Other options include looking into local DJ services, as some of them have adapted to run online weddings too. As with any such service or wedding vendor like your photographer or florist, do your research. Look for testimonials from other couples and their guests to get a sense if the service and the experience they provide is the right fit for you.
Just like you need to keep any sort of video conference secure, that goes extra for your online wedding. My earlier advice on keeping video conferences secure still holds sway, yet I’ll add a few more things specific to weddings:
The mailed wedding invitation will always be an elegant and personal touch, yet the online wedding begs another kind of invitation—the sharing of a link and a password. As mentioned above, you can include this in your R.S.V.P. process by requesting your guests to share their email with you to receive the link and password. Another option is to use a shared spreadsheet in the cloud, like a Google Sheets or an Excel document in Office 365. You can direct invitees to the document and have them fill out their email address, number of attendees, and so on. This way, you can email your guests the secure link and password to your wedding when you’re ready.
If you’re feeling extra confident with online tools, you can set up an account with Mailchimp and deliver a mass email invite (designed with your colors and photos too) to your friends and family in one fell swoop. Similarly, there are yet more options for paperless invites. Check out this article for a rundown of other couple-friendly wedding invitation resources.
Contemporary wedding etiquette has taken shape over dozens of years, and once again it has adapted to the times. Some tips about online wedding etiquette are obvious. Like wearing sweatpants below dress attire is a no-no. However, some are a bit more subtle. From gift-giving to receptions to when to mute or unmute your mic, this article touches on many of the basics.
And don’t be shy to ask the couple or their coordinator questions if you’re uncertain about how the day will unfold or how you should dress. Just as with any wedding, some may be more formal or more casual than others. You can take a cue from the couple. In all, putting some extra effort into dressing up and maybe putting some flowers or a nice setting in the background will appear on the happy couple’s screen in wonderful ways. Imagine the look on their faces when they see you and your space looking joyful too!
If you’re looking for tips on how to get your devices and viewing space working and looking great, check out my earlier article on “Setting the Stage for Your Job Interview.” While it’s certainly focused on online interviews, much of the advice applies to setting up your device and your space for attending a wedding too.
For those of you who have your big day circled on the calendar, or soon will, congratulations! Whether you’re planning a ceremony that’s completely online or some manner of hybrid for your guests, I hope that what I’ve shared here will make your online wedding safer, more secure, and, above all, that much more memorable in the best of ways.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Digital Marriage—Making Sure Your Online Wedding is Safe and Secure appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
With Safer Internet Day upon us, it’s time to have “The Talk.” The internet talk, that is.
What’s the internet talk? It’s a candid conversation about how safe we’re really being when we go online, as opposed to how safe we think we’re being. Indeed, there can be a sizable gap between the two, and our 2021 Consumer Security Mindset Report shows us just how significant it is:
I don’t know about you, but I was struck by the fact that only 50% of people are purchasing security software when they buy a new device. If that’s so, then it’s indeed time for the talk.
Whether we have the talk with our kids, our parents, or even have it with ourselves, this is a chance to make sure we’re protecting the things that matter when we go online—our families, our privacy, our finances, our data, and, of course, our stuff too—like our computers, tablets, smartphones, and other connected things too.
Plenty. However, let’s look at Safer Internet Day as a way to take some important first steps by asking a handful of questions that can lead to a much safer you online.
Given that security software statistic mentioned above, let’s start at square one. Holistic security solutions will provide you with strong antivirus protection and much more on top of that. It can steer you clear of malicious downloads and links, intercept phishing emails before they hit your inbox, and protect your privacy as well—just to name a few. Additionally, it can protect your smartphones and tablets too, whether you have an Android or iOS devices. Don’t forget to cover those things too, as chances are you do about half of your browsing on them.
If you’re using simple passwords or repeating the use of the same password with little or no variation, it’s time to make a change. Strong, unique passwords protect you in this age of data breaches and hacks, where passwords are stolen and then sold on the black market. If creating strong and unique passwords for each of your accounts sounds like a lot of work, consider using a password manager to create and securely store passwords for you.
A firewall acts as a digital barrier that blocks unauthorized access to your computers and devices, which is a must these days (and has been for some time now). It’s often included with comprehensive security software (one more reason why having comprehensive security software is far superior to having “just” antivirus).
A virtual private network (VPN) is software that creates a secure connection over the internet, so you can safely connect from anywhere. You may want to use it at home when you’re looking for extra protection while banking or handling finances. And you’ll most certainly want to use it when logged into public Wi-Fi at places like airports, hotels, and cafes because so-called “free Wi-Fi” is often unsecured, making it easier for hackers to access your device or the information you’re sending and receiving.
It may come as surprising, but hackers can piece together a great deal of information about you from social media and use it as the means for all manner of attacks. That includes identity theft, social engineering attacks where they impersonate you or someone you know, and even password theft. Avoid oversharing on social media by keeping details like addresses, school names, and other personally identifying information to yourself. Also, set you profiles to private so that only friends and family can see them.
When you’re shopping, banking, or passing along any sort of sensitive information, make sure the site address starts with “https” instead of “http.” The “s” stands for secure, and many browsers will represent that with a little padlock icon to indicate use of https, which uses encryption to scramble and help secure data from prying eyes.
Another form of protection from malicious sites is McAfee Web Advisor, which can help you steer you clear of adware, spyware, viruses, phishing scams, and sketchy downloads.
Updates do more than keep your apps and software current with the latest features, they often include security improvements as well. When and where possible, set your devices and software to update automatically. And when prompted to update, say yes. The few moments you spend here can prevent major headaches down the road should your app or software open an avenue to an attack.
Now that’s the $50,000 question. And I say that only half-jokingly. Where would you be without your photos, files, tax records, finances, projects, and so on? The answer is probably “a world of hurt.” Losing it could set you back personally and financially. Back up your data. I suggest doing so with a combination of a reputable cloud storage service and a local physical device like an external hard drive that you store in a safe location.
Another option for particularly sensitive data and files is use encrypted storage. For example, our File Lock feature allows you to create password-protected encrypted drives on your PC that only appear when you’ve unlocked them, perfect for storing sensitive files like tax returns and financial documents.
Sometimes asking the right question can set things in motion, and I hope that’s what this little talk does by helping you identify and patch up any gaps you find in your security. Go ahead and set aside some time to have “The Talk.” You and anyone you have it with will be safer for it.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and for more resources on staying secure from home, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Lets Have “The Talk” About the Internet: 7 Conversation-Starters for Staying Safer Online appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
In November last year, we lost our much-loved family dog. We were all so devasted. Harley was a very handsome black and white Cavoodle who died from a paralysis tick bite after giving us 12 years of love. After lots of tears and weeks of sadness, we have decided it’s time to start our search for another fur baby.
But it seems we are not the only ones in the market for a new puppy. Thanks to COVID and our new very home focussed lives, puppies have been in hot demand since early 2020 and they still are. What better way to deal with lockdown loneliness and a home-based existence than a brand-new ball of fluff!
Over the last few weeks, I’ve spoken to multiple breeders from all around Australia who have over 50 families waiting for a puppy! A Portuguese Water Dog breeder told me yesterday that it would be 2023 before she could offer me a puppy!! So,
And this trend hasn’t gone unnoticed by cybercriminals with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) reporting a four-fold increase in puppy scams in 2020!! In fact, a whopping $1.6 million was scammed from unsuspecting Aussies simply looking for a ball of fur to love between January and October 2020.
So, how do you avoid being caught up in a puppy scam and losing money? Here’s what I’m doing to ensure we don’t get swindled while we search for our new puppy:
Cybercriminals rely on us being in a rush and not doing our homework. A quick google search for popular dog breeds such as Cavoodles, Labradors or Dachshunds will yield pages of results, not all of them legit!
Scammers are very talented at making their sites look genuine. They will copy photos of puppies and breeders from legitimate sites and will even use certificates and identification numbers from these legitimate breeders too. Quite often the only detail that differs is the contact telephone number and email address.
Facebook and Instagram ads are also created using these details too making it very hard to identify what is legitimate and what isn’t.
Doing your due diligence is the best way to prevent becoming a victim of a puppy scam. Even if the person on the end of the phone sounds delightful and the pictures are gorgeous, you owe it to yourself – and your bank account – to ensure you are dealing with a legitimate breeder. Here’s what I recommend you do:
If you are not able to pick up your pet in person, requesting photos and even a video call with the breeder and your potential puppy is essential.
Ask the breeder for multiple photos of the pet with specific items – this help you ascertain that the pet is real and not photoshopped. A recent newspaper is a great item to suggest.
However, a video call is probably the best way of giving you total piece of mind. Yes, it maybe crazy and noisy but there’s nothing like seeing something with your own eyes to satisfy yourself that it is real and not photoshopped!
We all have a 6th sense and now is the time to use it:
I can’t imagine our family without pets. They play such an important, cohesive role and we take such joy in sharing photos of our crazy cats and their weird antics on our family group chat.
Next week, we are going to pickup our new puppy. After much debate about breeds, we have chosen a tri coloured beaglier – male of course! The breeder sounds delightful over the phone and the pictures are gorgeous. But just to ensure total piece of mind, I am driving nearly 7 hours to pick up our new fur baby in person. I’ll be sure to share some photos!
Happy pet shopping!
Alex xx
The post Here’s What I’m Doing to Avoid Being Caught Up in A Puppy Scam appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Whether they’re attending regular work meetings or catching up with extended family across the globe, many people leverage video conferencing to better connect with others – a process that will likely continue as our world only becomes more digital. But as the rapid adoption of video conferencing tools and apps occurs, potential threats to online safety emerge.
Agora is one of these tools for connection. The company’s video conferencing software is included in apps like MeetMe, Skout, Nimo TV, temi, Dr. First Backline, and Talkspace, across more than 1.7 billion devices globally. According to McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR), Agora’s video software development kit (SDK) until recently included a vulnerability that could have allowed an attacker to spy on ongoing video and audio calls.
In accordance with McAfee’s safe vulnerability disclosure policy, ATR provided Agora with details of its thorough research into the issue so that the software developer could take action to address it with a software update.
But let’s take a look at what a vulnerability like this could mean for users.
So, how exactly could this vulnerability allow others to spy on private calls?
The McAfee ATR team discovered that the Agora vulnerability stemmed from an error of incomplete encryption – the process of converting information or data into seemingly random output to prevent unauthorized access. Agora’s SDK implementation did not allow applications to securely configure the setup of video/audio encryption, thereby leaving a potential for hackers to snoop on them.
Therefore, if exploited, this particular vulnerability could’ve allowed a criminal to launch man-in-the-middle attacks, which occur when a hacker secretly intercepts and possibly alters the communications between two unsuspecting users. Aka, they could spy on users’ private video calls.
The vulnerability discovery and mitigation cooperation between McAfee and Agora illustrates why it’s so important for threat researchers to work closely and constructively with app developers to make our digital lives as safe as possible.
As a consumer, however, it’s important to realize what exactly you’re getting into when downloading applications for video conferencing and other tools that help you stay connected.
While the security community encourages developers to write software code with security in mind, software apps tend to struggle with bugs and vulnerabilities in their early days. Consumers should by all means download and enjoy the hottest new apps, but they should also take steps to protect themselves from any undiscovered issues that might threaten them.
Here are a few tips that can help ensure your safety while connecting with others online:
It’s easy to click “Install later” when software updates pop up on your screen. However, these updates often come with security patches for vulnerabilities like the ones mentioned above. To ensure that your software and apps have the latest security fixes, update them immediately or select the option update automatically if available.
Until a patch is created, you should operate under the assumption that a hacker could compromise your video calls. Avoid using vulnerable apps until developers make a software security update available to help protect your calls from being infiltrated.
In order to protect yourself and your loved ones from potential risks, make sure you have a holistic security solution in place, such as McAfee Total Protection, which can help block risky downloads with McAfee WebAdvisor, protect you from malicious mobile apps, and help update Windows and your apps all in one place with Vulnerability Scanner.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Hang Up on Hackers: Protect Yourself from Mobile App Video Conferencing Vulnerabilities appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
We’ve all come to a realization that we don’t go anywhere without our phone. It’s a utility that helps us navigate our daily lives: directions, schedules, shopping, discounts, banking, and so on. And as our reliance on our smartphone continues to grow, it’s no wonder that hackers have taken notice. This time, it’s another case of an app gone rogue.
With over 10 million downloads, the Barcode Scanner app provided users with a basic QR code reader and barcode generator, useful for things like making purchases and redeeming discounts. Then, most likely in a recent update, the app began to deliver ad-producing malware onto users’ phones – with the malware being traced back to the Android Barcode Scanner app. While Barcode Scanner was previously benign, it is believed that a hacker injected malicious code into the app before the latest update, pushing malware onto Android devices. Once installed, the malware hijacks your default web browsers and redirects you to random advertisements.
In a typical case of malvertising, or malicious advertising, fraudsters submit infected graphic or text ads to legitimate advertisement networks, which often can’t distinguish harmful ads from trustworthy ones. Under the guise of everyday pop-ups, these malicious ads push fake browser updates, free utilities, or antivirus programs in the hope that unsuspecting users will click. Depending on what kind of programs the malicious ads succeed in downloading, hackers might steal your data, encrypt or delete your information, or hijack your computer functions – as is the case with the Barcode Scanner’s malware.
While Google has taken down the Barcode Scanner from its store, it has not been deleted from infected devices. So, if you have the app on your phone, it’s time to uninstall it from your device manually…ASAP.
We all need to reflect on the state of our digital health, especially as hackers continue to target us through the device we use most – our phones. To help protect your data, family, and friends, check out these security tactics to keep sneaky mobile threats out:
While some malicious apps do make it through the app store screening process, most attack downloads appear to stem from social media, fake ads, and other unofficial app sources. Before downloading an app to your device, do some quick research about the origin and developer.
Reviews and rankings are still a suitable method of determining whether an app is legitimate. However, watch out for assessments that reuse repetitive or straightforward phrases, as this could be a sign of a fraudulent review.
Developers are actively working to identify and address security issues. Frequently update your operating systems and apps so that they have the latest fixes and security protections.
Holistic security solutions across all devices continues to be a strong defensive measure to protect your data and privacy from online threats like malware.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Millions Affected by Malware Attributed to Android Barcode-Scanning App appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
I’ve had such a busy morning! I’ve hunted down my favourite foundation, bought a puzzle mat, stocked up on special dog food for our naughty new puppy, ordered the groceries, made a few appointments and chatted with several friends. And guess what? I haven’t left my study – or changed out of my pyjamas!! Ssshhh!! Because it’s all happened online…
Of course, some of us embraced the benefits of the online world long before 2020 but the Pandemic forced almost everyone to replace our in-person activities and routines with online ones. New research from McAfee in their 2021 Consumer Security Mindset Report shows that 72% of Aussies made changes in their online activities last year out of convenience which makes complete sense!
But what’s so interesting is that now we have these super handy new online routines in place – we aren’t that keen to give them up! McAfee’s report shows that 76% of Aussies are planning on continuing with online banking, 59% of us want to keep connecting with friends and family online and 55% of us remain totally committed to online shopping! Hear, hear, I say! I am absolutely staying that course too!!
There’s no doubt that there is a lot of upside to managing our lives online but unfortunately there is also a downside – increased risk! The more time spent online, the greater the chance that we will be exposed to potential risks and threats such as phishing attacks, entering details into malicious websites or even becoming a victim of fraud.
McAfee’s research shows that we are aware of the risks of being online. In fact, 66% of us are concerned about the potential dangers of living our lives online with losing control of our financial data top of the list for the majority of us. And almost 2/3 (65%) of us are also worried about having our social media accounts hacked.
But pandemic life has meant that we are now a lot more comfortable with sharing information online. Whether it’s paperless transaction records, text and email notifications, opting to stay logged in or auto-populating forms with our credit card, this level of online sharing does make life so convenient but it can be a risky business! Why, I hear you ask? Because these conveniences usually only work when you share multiple pieces of your contact details. And the more you share, the greater your chance of being hacked or compromised. But the report was very clear – if we can make our online life more seamless then we are only too happy to share our key contact information! Oh dear!!
In addition to confessing that they don’t always take the necessary security precautions, Aussie consumers in McAfee’s report also admitted that they haven’t thought about why hackers might want their data. I don’t know how many people tell me that they don’t need to really bother with a lot of online precautions because they live a pretty boring life and don’t spend that much time online.
But this is a very dangerous way to think. Your online data is like a pot of gold to hackers. Not only can they use it to possibly steal your identity and try to empty your bank accounts but they can also on-sell it for a profit. But the majority of Aussies don’t stop to consider this with the research showing that 64% of Aussies have never considered just how valuable their online data is worth.
Hackers are ALWAYS on the lookout for new ‘up-to-date’ ways to exploit others for money. Don’t forget how quick they were to conjure up scams around COVID in early 2020 – it was just a matter of weeks before Aussies received phishing emails and malicious text messages with the aim of extracting personal information from vulnerable consumers.
But, encouragingly, 85% of Aussies said they would be far more proactive about managing their data if it could be traded as a currency.
The good news is that there are ways to secure your online life and minimise the risk of being hacked. Here are my top tips:
Yes, it might take a minute or 2 more, but using multi-factor authentication is an easy way to add an additional layer of security to protect your personal data and information. Commit to using it wherever it is offered!
If you live your life out & about like I do then you’ll be very tempted to use Wi-Fi. Using public Wi-Fi to conduct transactions, particularly financial ones is a big no-no! It takes keen hackers minimal effort to set up a fraudulent wi-fi service which could easily fool a busy person into connecting. Using a Virtual Private Network (or VPN) like McAfee® Safe Connect, is the best way of ensuring everything you share over Wi-Fi is safe and secure.
Browsing the internet with a tool like the McAfee WebAdvisor is a great way of ensuring dangerous malware is blocked if you click on a malicious link in a phishing email. You’ll have real peace of mind knowing you can manage your online life while someone looks out for you!
With 4 kids, 3 pets, 2 jobs – I know I could never get to the bottom of my ‘to-do’ lists without managing the bulk of it online. I often think I should send the internet an e-card at Christmas!! Of course, I understand why corners are cut and precautions are overlooked when we all feel so stretched for time. But just think about how much more time it would take if you were hacked and had to spend hours on the phone to your bank or if you had to reconfigure all your online accounts and social media platforms!!
So, you know what you need to do! Stay safe online everyone!
The post How 2020 Has Shaped The Way We Live Our Lives appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Only 57% of women in the U.S. are working or looking for work right now—the lowest rate since 1988.
That telling data point is just one of several that illustrate a stark contrast in these stark times: of the millions who’ve seen their employment affected by the pandemic, women have been hardest hit.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), some 2.3 million women left the workforce between the start of the pandemic and January 2021. Meanwhile, the BLS statistic for the number of men who left the U.S. workforce in that same period was 1.8 million. With International Women’s Day here, it’s time we ask ourselves how we can stem this inordinately sized tide of hard-working and talented women from leaving the workforce.
A broader BLS statistic provides a further perspective: a total of 4,637,000 payroll jobs for women have been lost in total since the pandemic began in the U.S. alone. That ranges from executive roles, jobs in retail, and educators, to work in public service and more. Of those jobs lost, about one third of women aged 25-44 cited that childcare was the reason for that unemployment.
Combine that with the fact that globally women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men, and a global gender pay gap of 23%, it’s easy to see why millions of women have simply dropped out of the workforce to manage children and home schooling—even in the instances where employment is available.
Not that this should surprise us. For example, just a few years before the pandemic, research showed that few Americans wanted to revert to the traditional roles of women at home and men in the workplace. However, when push came to shove, the Pew Research showed that women most often made compromises when needs at home conflicted with work. And now we’ve seen that sentiment come home to roost. On a massive scale.
Put plainly, when the pandemic pushed, women’s working lives predominantly went over the edge.
Within these facts and figures, I’d like to focus on the women who are working remotely while caring for their families, whether that’s their children, elders in their lives, or even a mix of both. What can we do, as employers, leaders, and co-workers in our businesses to better support them?
As early as June, Forbes reported that women were reducing their working hours at a rate four to five times greater than men, ostensibly to manage a household where everything from daycare, school, elder care, and work all take place under the same roof. The article went on to cite ripple-effect concerns in the wake of such reductions like the tendency to pursue less-demanding work, greater vulnerability to layoffs, and reduced likelihood for promotion. In fact, one study conducted in the U.S. last summer found that 34% of men with children at home say they’ve received a promotion while working remotely, while only 9% of women with children at home say the same.
In an interview with the BBC, Melinda Gates, the Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, stated her views on the situation succinctly: “I hope Covid-19 forces us to confront how unsustainable the current arrangement is—and how much we all miss out on when women’s responsibilities at home limit their ability to contribute beyond it. The solutions lie with governments, employers, and families committed to doing things more equitably.” I agree. This is a problem for us to solve together.
As for the role of employers and leaders in the solution, some thinking presented in The Harvard Business Review caught my eye. The article, “3 Ways Companies Can Retain Working Moms Right Now” focuses on what employers can do to better support the women in their workforce. The three ingredients the authors propose are:
If we think about the stressors we all face, this simple recipe actually reveals some depth. It takes knowing, and engaging with, employees perhaps more greatly than before. One sentence in the conclusion struck me in particular:
“It is no longer an option for managers to pretend that their employees do not have lives outside of their jobs, as these evaporated boundaries between home and work are not going away anytime soon.”
I see this every practically every day when I meet with my team. I’m sure you’ve seen it as well. With our laptop cameras on for sometimes hours a day, we’ve all caught glimpses into our coworker’s lives outside the office, seen that 7am meeting rescheduled for 8am to accommodate a busy breakfast rush with the family, or even kiddos pop into the frame during a call to say “hi.” What we may not see is just how much of a struggle that could be for some in the long haul.
Enter again those notions of providing certainty and clarity, rightsizing job expectations, and showing empathy. While not the end-all-be-all answers, they provide a starting point. As employers and leaders, if we can minimize the x-factors, adapt the workloads, and show compassion as we navigate the road to recovery, we can retain employees—and at least mitigate some of the stressors that are pushing women out of their jobs and careers during this pandemic. Exceptional employers and leaders have always done this. And now, in exceptional times, I believe it must become the norm.
Likewise, for co-workers, it’s absolutely okay to check in with people on your team, your vendors, your clients, and other people in your network and simply ask how they’re doing. I’ve had many meetings where we informally go around the horn and talk about what’s going on outside of work. The shared experience of working remotely has a way of creating new norms, and perhaps starting a meeting with an informal check-in way on occasion is one of them.
This is an opportunity to listen, simply so someone can feel better by being heard, and so that we can pinpoint places where we can come in and offer some support.
Some challenges women are facing are beyond our capacity to help firsthand, yet we can identify them when we see them. If you or someone you know is struggling, here are a few resources in the U.S. that can help:
The Office on Women’s Health, part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human services, offers a wealth of resources on its website, along with a help line that can provide further resources as well.
The National Institute of Mental Health has an extended list of articles, resources, and links to services that can provide immediate help for people who are struggling to cope or who are in crisis.
A Better Balance is a nonprofit legal advocacy group that “uses the power of the law to advance justice for workers, so they can care for themselves and their loved ones without jeopardizing their economic security.” They offer a confidential help line that can provide people with information about their workplace rights.
The National Women’s Law Center offers complementary legal consultations and with questions about accessing paid sick leave and paid leave to care for a child whose school or childcare provider is closed because of COVID-19.
As women leave the workforce worldwide, we’ve seen organizations lose precious talent, and we’ve seen women sacrifice their livelihoods and career paths. As such, the pandemic has exacted hard and human costs, ones that have fallen on women in outsized ways.
A problem of this scope is one for us to solve collectively. Apart from the bigger, broader solutions that may be forthcoming, as the employers and co-workers of women, there’s something we can do right now: reach out, listen, and act. These days call for more empathy and adaptation than ever before, particularly for the hard-working women who are doing it all—and then some.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Supporting the Women Most Affected by the Pandemic appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
It’s tax time in the United States, and even if you’re pretty sure you did everything right, you’re worried. Did I file correctly? Did I claim the right deductions? Will I get audited? Unfortunately, tax season brings out scammers eager to take advantage of your anxiety.
First, know that you’re probably doing a good job with your taxes. Less than 2% of returns get audited and most discrepancies or adjustments can get handled easily if you address them promptly.
Still, wariness of the IRS and intricate tax laws makes for ripe pickings when it comes to hackers, who prey on people’s fear of audits and penalties. Common scams include fake emails, phone calls from crooks posing as IRS agents, and even robocalls that threaten jail time. With the information they get from you, hackers can take things a step further by stealing your identity and filing tax claims in your name.
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about at tax time.
The good news is that you have plenty of ways to protect yourself from hackers. Check out these tips to stay safe this tax season.
Straight from the authority itself, the IRS has published its top 12 tax season scams with new warnings brought on by the events of 2020.
For example, new to this year are scams associated with stimulus checks sent out by the government. The IRS says they have seen “… a tremendous increase in phishing schemes utilizing emails, letters, texts and links. These phishing schemes are using keywords such as “coronavirus,” “COVID-19” and “Stimulus” in various ways.”
This is very important: The IRS does not use email. If you get an email from someone saying they are the IRS and they want to talk with you about a problem, it is a scam.
Here’s what the IRS has to say:
The IRS will never initiate contact with taxpayers via email about a tax bill, refund, or Economic Impact Payments. Don’t click on links claiming to be from the IRS. Be wary of emails and websites − they may be nothing more than scams to steal personal information.
Social media attacks also made the IRS Dirty Dozen. In a social media attack, scammers harvest information from social media profiles. Hackers use the information to gain access to your online accounts in social media and beyond, like your bank account. Make it hard for them. Make your social media profiles private so that only friends and family can see them. Also consider so you can be safer from these kinds of crimes.
When a hacker poses as an IRS agent, they try to get personal information from you, like your social security number. They might demand payment, sometimes under the threat of penalties or even jail time. These strong-arm tactics are a dead giveaway that the email or phone call is fake.
What will the IRS do? Usually, the IRS will first mail a bill to any taxpayer who owes taxes. IRS collection employees might call on the phone or make an unannounced visit to your home or business. If they require a payment, the payment will always be to the U.S. Treasury. Read about other ways to know what the IRS won’t do when they contact you.
And remember: the IRS does not use email to contact you about tax problems.
A good defense is a good offense. File early. Protect yourself by filing your claim before they have a chance to file one as you. You don’t want to be one of those identity theft victims who finds out you’ve been scammed when you file your taxes only to get a notice in the mail saying your tax claim has already been filed.
Here’s other tool that can help you fight identity theft. And get this: it’s not only helpful, it’s free. Through the Federal Trade Commission, you are entitled to a free copy of your credit report from each of the three major credit reporting companies once every 12 months. In this report, you can find inaccuracies in your credit or evidence of all-out identity theft.
Keep in mind that you get one report from each of the reporting companies each year. That works out to three reports total in one year. Consider this: if you request one report from one credit reporting company every four months, you can spread you free credit report coverage across the whole year.
The idea is that, just like with your physical wellness, there are lots of steps you can take to protect your digital wellness. We’ve covered some of those steps in this blog. Consider one more: protect your digital life with a holistic security solution like McAfee Total Protection so you can enjoy life online knowing your precious data is protected. Tax time or otherwise, security software is always a smart move.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Who loves tax season besides accountants? Hackers appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Technological advancements continually emerge that make our lives easier. Right? As beneficial and convenient as emerging tech is, it can pose serious risks to our online safety and privacy—risks that you might find yourself ill-prepared to handle. In fact, according to our 2021 Consumer Security Mindset research, 45% of Canadian respondents don’t feel very confident about their ability to prevent a cyberattack and believe that they don’t have what they need to ward one off.
With many of us turning to online platforms for things we used to do in-person, activities like banking, shopping, taxes, and more, the need for broader online privacy protection has never been greater. As we continue to integrate technology into our everyday lives, we must learn to recognize the risks they pose and understand how to safeguard our online security.
Telehealth visits have opened the door for many to get the medical care they need when visiting the doctor or going to the hospital isn’t feasible. Digital health platforms have demonstrated many benefits for optimizing time and cost efficiencies for both patients and providers, but at what cost?
Despite efforts to address barriers to virtual healthcare adoption, Canada currently lacks a national framework for governing virtual care. As a result, many healthcare providers are left to act on their best judgements regarding patient data interoperability across provinces and providers. The lack of a pan-Canadian governance framework also makes it difficult for digital health platforms to operate with the assurance of certain security protocols, leaving many of us to wonder how to best protect our data in the face of an ambiguous virtual healthcare system. The risk is made all the more severe when factoring in sensitive biometric data from monitoring devices that can be used for malicious purposes when in the hands of cyber attackers. Those of us who take advantage of digital health devices must understand how to secure our data privacy and control its usage to mitigate further risks.
The first line of defense to ensure your data remains protected is to understand the security policies put in place by your healthcare provider and any third-party digital platforms that they leverage. Additionally, you’ll want to ensure that your healthcare provider uses a telehealth platform that integrates data encryption. Take matters into your own hands by enabling two-factor authentication and use strong passwords across all devices and accounts. Using a VPN and running anti-malware and anti-virus scans can also mitigate the risk of security threats during telehealth visits and while using integrated medical devices.
Student privacy is a top concern as households turn to remote learning. In a rush to optimize remote learning experiences in the face of a rapidly evolving digital landscape, many educators and remote learners may not realize the hazards that put student privacy at risk.
We’re almost a year into distance learning and schools have now adopted a range of technologies to optimize the digital classroom, including virtual learning platforms, holistic learning solutions, and even social media applications. However, many of these digital platforms are not designed for child usage, nor do they have privacy policies in place to ensure that the student data gathered is protected. Many learning platforms may even treat student data as consumer data, raising more red flags regarding student data privacy and compliance. Online learning has also garnered the attention of cybercriminals looking to exploit student data, resulting in online bullying, identity theft, and more.
For educators and parents alike, knowledge is the greatest asset to mitigating the risks of remote learning. IT teams and educators must understand the implications of the student data they collect, govern access to it, and control its usage to comply with child privacy regulations. Parents can take proper precautions by discussing the importance of privacy with their children. Keeping learning platforms up to date and monitoring their children to prevent them from downloading suspicious apps or straying to unknown websites are all ways to ensure safer remote learning environments.
Remote work has become commonplace nowadays as more companies permit their employees to work from home long-term and, for some, permanently. Given the abrupt shift to remote workplaces in the past year, companies have found themselves severely unprepared to handle the security and logistical concerns that accompany a distributed remote workforce.
In a recent Fenwick poll among HR, privacy, and security professionals across industries, approximately 90% of employees now handle intellectual property, confidential, and personal information in their homes. Endpoint security, or the protection of end-user devices such as our laptops and mobile devices, poses more of a concern as employees trade in office networks for their in-home Wi-Fi. If these devices and networks are unsecured or if the data is not encrypted, employees run the risk of exposing sensitive information to hackers. A lack of proper employee security training opens additional opportunities for online threats to take advantage of unsuspecting victims through common phishing scams.
Those of us working from home can help ensure the safety of our company’s confidential information by boosting our awareness of security threats and prevention measures via company-mandated security trainings. Additionally, we can promote a safer remote working environment by practicing basic digital hygiene like keeping all devices and software up to date, using a VPN and a strong password across devices.
With the limited availability of in-person exercise classes, many of us have turned to virtual fitness experiences to augment our personal health regimens. Some have even taken their fitness routines one step further to include and high-tech equipment like at-home spin bikes or other wearable devices to track and monitor progress.
Although these devices create a more engaging experience and connect users across the globe through online sharing, there are risks, too. Wearables and other devices embedded with sensors and software that collect and share data across an interconnected network are considered Internet of Things (IoT) technology. IoT devices don’t have the same stringent security protocols as laptops and mobile devices, making them more susceptible to cyberthreats.
To prevent cyber attackers from infiltrating IoT devices connected to your home network, start by securing your network router. Change the default name and password of your router so hackers can’t identify the make and model. Create an additional layer of security by enabling the highest level of encryption to secure your Wi-Fi network. We also suggest creating a guest network for your IoT devices so that even if someone does infiltrate your IoT device, they won’t be able to access other devices like laptops and mobile devices.
Some of the platforms I use the most allow me to keep track of and manage my finances. Whether it’s my mobile banking app or taking advantage of online tax filing, there is such a convenience in having the ability to pay bills, deposit checks, and more, all with the devices I use every day. But many of us may not realize just how much trust we put into these platforms to protect our online privacy, especially when we don’t have a clear picture of who exactly is on the other end of our online transactions.
While recognizing the signs of online banking and tax-related fraud helps ease the burdens associated with these schemes, there are multiple steps users can take to prevent becoming a victim of these scams in the first place. If you receive a call regarding your taxes, make sure the caller is a CRA employee before handing over money or personal information on the phone. You can also double-check your tax account status and make sure the CRA has your current address and email. This will also show whether you owe a balance if a hacker does try to trick you into paying up. By being mindful of how cybercriminals take advantage of the platforms we use out of convenience, we can better protect against threats to our personal privacy.
Digital devices are part of how we live our lives every day, whether we’re taking conference calls on our laptops, tracking the latest mile on our smartwatches, or banking on the go. Although our everyday digital devices make our lives that much more convenient, securing them makes our lives that much safer by minimizing online threats to ourselves and those around us. Safeguarding the digital platforms we use for work, school, fitness, you name it, is the first step to ensuring our private information remains just that—private.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post Privacy in Practice: Securing Your Data in 2021 and Beyond appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
In the eyes of hackers, scammers, and thieves, your online privacy and identity look like a giant jigsaw puzzle. One that they don’t need every piece to solve. They only need a few bits to do their dirty work, which means protecting every piece you put out there—a sort of holistic view on your personal security. One that protects you, not just your devices.
Here’s what’s at stake: we create and share loads of personal information simply by going about our day online, where each bit of information makes up a piece of that giant jigsaw puzzle. Some pieces directly identify us, like our tax returns, bank account information, or driver’s licenses. Other pieces of information indirectly identify us, like the IP addresses assigned to our computers, tablets, and phones—or device ID numbers, location information, and browsing history. And bad actors only need a few key pieces to do you harm, such as committing identity crime in your name or selling your personal information on sketchy websites or the dark web.
While people show great concern about their personal information, who has it and what’s done with it, our research shows that 70% of people feel like they have little or no control over the data that’s collected about them. However, you have plenty of ways that you can indeed take control—ways that can prevent, detect, and correct attacks on your privacy and identity. That’s where holistic protection comes in.
You can think of holistic protection as layers of shields that protect you and the devices you use. It gives you three layers in all—a Prevention Layer, Detection Layer, and a Correction Layer.
A holistic and comprehensive security solution like McAfee+ combines those three layers in a way that protects your personal information and keep your identity private, showing you how it does it along the way, so you can see exactly how safe you are. Let’s take a quick look of some of the protections you’ll find in each layer …
In the Prevention Layer, you’ll see:
In the Detection Layer, you have …
In the Correction Layer, several other protections have your back …
These are just a few examples of the protections in each layer. And you’ll find our most comprehensive holistic protection in McAfee+ Ultimate, covering your privacy, identity, and devices.
While your online privacy and identity may look a jigsaw puzzle, protecting it shouldn’t be as complicated. With a holistic security solution for your personal protection, you can minimize your exposure with layers of security that do much of the work for you.
Antivirus on your PC is not enough. It has not been enough for many decades now. And this becomes more evident as we continue to spend more time online, with the average person spending 6 hours and 54 minutes online each day, leaving clouds of personal information in their wake.
While standalone apps like a password manager, a VPN app, and an identity solution from different vendors can be piecemealed together with your device security, these are difficult to keep track of and burdensome to maintain.
We have combined the important tools you need into a seamless and comprehensive experience because good security software is something that you use daily to feel safer online. This is why we are working on your behalf to redefine security, so you can enjoy your connected life with confidence.
The post True Security Requires a Holistic Approach appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Over the last 12 months, technology has featured in our lives in a way I don’t think any of us would have predicted. Whether you were in lockdown, choosing to stay home to stay well or quite simply, out of other option – technology saved the day. It helped us work and learn from home, stay connected with friends and family, entertain ourselves, shop and essentially, live our lives.
For many parents, this was a real ‘aha’ moment. A moment when technology went from being an annoying distraction to incredibly critical to the functioning of our day to day lives. Of course, many of us had always considered technology to be useful to help us order groceries and check Facebook but to experience first-hand that technology meant life could go on during a worldwide pandemic was a real game changer.
Whether it was downloading video calling apps like Zoom or Facetime, setting up a Twitter account to get updates from the Health Department, using Google Doc to work collaboratively or experiencing what online gaming really is via a few sessions on the Xbox, 2020 means many parents had to get up to date, real fast! And you know what – that’s a good thing! I’ve had so many parents remark to me that they know finally understand why their kids are so enamoured with technology. There really is nothing like walking in someone’s shoes to experience their world!
I’m a big believer in parents taking the time to truly understand the world in which their kids exist. For years, I’ve advised parents to download and use the apps and games their kids play so they can understand the attraction and complexity of their kids’ digital life. Well, it may have taken a global pandemic, but I am delighted to report that, anecdotally at this stage, more parents are now embracing their kids’ online world.
When we first become enamoured with something, we often enter the ‘honeymoon’ phase. As a married woman of 28 years, this was many years ago for me!! The honeymoon phase is when everything is wonderful and rosy, and negatives are not always considered. And our relationship with technology can be much the same. And I’ve been there – there’s nothing quite so wonderful as discovering a new app or piece of software and almost being joyous at just how transformational it could be for your life. And this often means we gloss over or even ignore the risks because we are in love!!!
So, as Cybermum, I’m here to cheer you on and pat you on the back for embracing and using new apps and software. Yes, I’m very proud! But I also want to share with you just a few steps that you need to take to ensure you are not taking on any unnecessary risks with your new favourite app. Here are my top tips:
1. Passwords
Every app, online account or piece of software needs it own individual password. Yes, I know that it is a real pain, but it is one of the most important things you will do to protect yourself online. I’m a big fan of password managers that not only generate the most incredibly complex passwords for each of your accounts but remember them for you. McAfee’s password manager, True Key, is a free option which has completely helped me manage my 80 plus collection of passwords!! Very grateful!
2. Software Updates
The main purpose of a software update is to protect the user from security threats. Yes, you may also get some new features and possibly have a glitch or 2 removed but it is all about the user’s safety. So, if you don’t update your software, it’s a little like leaving windows open when you go out. And the longer you leave between updates – the more windows you leave open!
So, automate these updates if you can or schedule them in your diary. Why not earmark the first day of the month to check and see what you need to download to protect yourself? And don’t forget about your operating system on your phone or laptop too!
3. Be Wi-Fi Wary
Dodgy wi-fi is where so many people come unstuck. Regardless of what app or software you are using, anything you share via unsecured wi-fi could be intercepted by a hacker. So, if you find yourself using wi-fi regularly, you might want to consider a Virtual Private Network or VPN. A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel so anything you share via Wi-Fi cannot be intercepted. Genius, really! Check out McAfee’s Safe Connect for peace of mind.
So, please keep going! Keep exploring new ways technology can work for you in our new COVID world. But remember to take a break too. There is no doubt that technology has saved the day and has ensure we can all still function but there must be a balance too. So, walk the dog, play a board game or having a cuppa outside. Remember you manage the technology; it doesn’t manage you!
Till next time
Stay safe online.
Alex xx
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post How 2020 Helped Parents Understand Their Kids’ Digital Lives appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
You flick through some reels and an ad for “a more private phone” crops up. You scroll through your news feed and catch wind of yet another data breach at a major retailer. You see a post from a friend who says their social media account was hacked. Maybe you don’t think about security every day, but when you do, it can feel … overwhelming. We’re here to solve that. We’re here to make security easy.
As security providers, we have to offer protection against a wide variety of threats without adding more complexity to your already busy life. Managing your security should be easy, and even enjoyable.
Enjoyable?
Yes. We want you to have a sense of accomplishment, both knowledge and a feeling that you’re safer than you were before.
With these things in mind, we set out to make your security software work better for you. We streamlined the experience to simplify what you see, while still offering robust protection. After all, true security is the security that you benefit from every day, and it’s up to us as providers to make it smooth and easy as possible.
Our new setup process now includes easier navigation, fewer screens, and clearer action items and alerts. It smoothly moves you through setting up protection across all the ways you interact online and your compatible devices. This way, you know that we’re helping to keep you safe whether you’re messaging, browsing, or shopping and banking online.
Another area where we put a lot of focus is the new home screen. This is your home base, where we clearly show you what your current protection status is in the areas that matter the most to you. This includes making it easier to monitor your personal information and strengthen protections you already use, like passwords.
The home screen is also where you come to perform essential tasks, such as running an antivirus scan. It guides you to take actions when needed, giving you proactive protection, and a clear view of your overall security in one convenient place. From here you can access details on the status of your PC, web, and identity protection.
While we’re always focused on helping you feel confident and protected online, we realize that making our tools easy to use is just as important. The digital security landscape will continue to be a complicated one, with more than a million new and unique threats cropping up each day, but we can and are making security simpler, and therefore, more effective.
With easier setup and protection that turns on automatically at the right moments, we want to make security easier for you so that you can feel safer online. We’ve heard your feedback about how we can improve, and we’ll bring all that goodness in a product that you can use every day.
You’ll find this interface across our McAfee+ family of products, along with continual upgrades and improvements as we roll out more features that will keep you safer online.
The post Let’s Make Security Easy appeared first on McAfee Blog.
In a year where people relied on their digital lives more than ever before and a dramatic uptick in attacks quickly followed, McAfee’s protection stood strong.
We’re proud to announce several awards from independent third-party labs, which recognized our products, protection, and the people behind them over the course of last year.
The Cybersecurity Excellence Awards is an annual competition honoring individuals and companies that demonstrate excellence, innovation, and leadership in information security. We were honored with four awards:
Further recognition came by way of three independent labs known for their testing and evaluation of security products. Once more, this garnered several honors:
As the threat landscape continues to evolve, our products do as well. We’re continually updating them with new features and enhancements, which our subscribers receive as part of automatic product updates. So, if you bought your product one or two years ago, know that you’re still getting the latest award-winning protection with your subscription.
We’d like to acknowledge your part in these awards as well. None of this is possible without the trust you place in us and our products. With the changes in our work, lifestyles, and learning that beset millions of us this past year, your protection and your feeling of security remain our top priority.
With that, as always, thank you for selecting us.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post McAfee Awarded “Cybersecurity Excellence Awards” appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
When gyms were forced to close last year, you likely looked for other ways to get some exercise and stay active during quarantine. From investing in a few pairs of dumbbells or perhaps downloading an app or two to help you track your workouts, you found alternatives to help you break a sweat. As an accessible, easy way to release endorphins, running quickly grew in popularity along with the platforms that help runners stay accountable. According to Runner’s World, there was a 34% uptick in outdoor miles logged by common fitness apps between March and September 2020 compared to the same stretch in 2019. But are these tools potentially endangering your privacy?
According to TechCrunch, running apps could potentially threaten your security if the data they collect ends up in the wrong hands. Let’s explore the functionalities of these apps and how they could pose a threat to your online safety.
Running apps are solid companions for advanced and amateur runners alike, allowing you to track the length of your run and set a pace for yourself. These apps learn a lot about you the more you use them by gathering health data like your height and weight and even your location. But similar to the threats that exist when you overshare on other online platforms, this data could pose a serious threat to your privacy. For example, location data could identify where you live or where you work – information that you definitely wouldn’t want in the hands of a stranger. If a cybercriminal is able to hack into your account, they could exploit this information to commit identity theft or craft a phishing email disguised as your employer.
Additionally, many of these apps lack basic security measures to prevent hackers from breaking into accounts or from health and fitness data from spilling out. For example, many popular running apps allow the most basic passwords like “qwerty” and “password.” Oftentimes, hackers automate their attacks by targeting accounts with easy-to-crack passwords like the ones mentioned. This allows them to exploit the most accounts with as little effort as possible. Furthermore, these apps do not have the option to set up two-factor authentication, which creates an additional barrier to prevent hackers from exploiting reused passwords.
No matter where you are in your fitness journey, it is essential to take the necessary precautions to minimize the risks of the platforms you use to hold yourself accountable – running apps included. If you are looking to hit your stride while keeping security and privacy top of mind, follow these tips:
Your password is your first line of defense, so it is important that you use one that is strong and unique to your other account credentials. If a hacker does manage to guess your password for one of your online accounts, it is likely they will check for repeat credentials across multiple sites. By using different passwords or passphrases, you can feel slightly more at ease knowing that the majority of your data is secure if one of your accounts becomes vulnerable.
You can also use a password manager to help you create strong passwords, remove the hassle of remembering numerous passwords, and log on to websites automatically.
Some running apps are configured to publicly share user data by default. After you download an app, spend some time researching how to change these settings so your data is not shared with strangers without your permission.
If your running app of choice does undergo any security updates, make sure that they are installed as soon as possible. Developers actively work to identify and address security issues. Frequently update your operating systems and apps so that they have the latest fixes and security protections. The easiest way to do this is to enable automatic software updates on your mobile device.
Next time you go for a run with your location services on, think again about what risks this poses to your virtual security and your physical safety. Enhance your security by only enabling the features that are necessary to optimize your fitness performance. This will help prevent hackers from using your location as a vehicle to invade your privacy.
Since the data collected on running apps involves sensitive health and location information, it is worth reviewing the privacy policies for all of the fitness platforms you regularly use to see how your data might be affected. To ensure that you can keep moving toward your fitness goals while protecting your online safety, stay educated on the tools you use to track your progress and implement the necessary security measure to do so with security in mind.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our email, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post How to Remain Secure While Using Running Apps appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Cybersecurity is often used as a blanket term to address online safety. Cybersecurity can refer to the software used to protect your devices, but it can also refer to the processes you put in place to protect yourself from online threats. Whether you’re implementing best practices, building awareness of security threats, or installing security software, taking a holistic approach to online security is crucial to remain secure and protected at all times.
Here are three tips for a holistic online security approach.
Efficient online protection ultimately begins with you, the end-user, and the steps you take to secure your devices.
The first step to ensure your device is secure is never to leave it unattended. Whether you’re at the grocery store or at home, always keep an eye on your devices. All it takes is a few minutes for someone to steal them or for kids to click on a malicious link while your attention is diverted. Make sure you have a contingency plan in case your device is compromised. For example, if someone steals your device, wipe the information on the device remotely. Revert it to the factory setting, so the thief can’t access your personal information. Regularly back up your data in the event of a lost or compromised device to ensure you retain important documents.
In some instances, you can also recover deleted files at any time given the right tools. Regularly shred unwanted documents for the files that you want permanently deleted. Install security measures across all devices and your networks to protect your data and privacy. Always lock your device before stepping away and layer your device security with multi-factor authentication to ensure you are the only one who can access your sensitive information.
Passwords are the gateway to your device and play just as critical a role in securing your personal information. Follow password best practices to prevent cybercriminals or mischievous children from infiltrating files and data. Use long and complex passwords and never reuse them across accounts. You can also use a password manager to keep track of your passwords in one centralized and secure location.
Strengthen your protection strategy by layering your physical device security with an enhanced awareness of relevant threats. Start by first taking a step back to assess your online persona. In other words, who are you? Are you a college student or a remote working parent who teleconferences frequently? Do you own an iOS device? Understand what your online devices and habits say about you as a person, as this will affect why and how cybercriminals target you.
For example, if you frequently teleconference for work or medical visits, you need to be aware of the teleconferencing risks of remote work or telehealth. Remote workers and telehealth patients face threats such as phishing emails or disrupted video conference calls. As a result, users must know the importance of using a video conferencing tool with end-to-end encryption and not sharing sensitive information through chat features.
Once you know the risks you face as an online user, consider the specific daily best practices for online safety. One good habit includes regularly updating your devices and software. Updating laptops, mobile devices, and routers ensure that existing bugs are fixed and security flaws are patched. Devices not equipped with the latest software are vulnerable to hackers.
Additionally, many cybercriminals will use social media to identify victims and target them through social engineering tactics. For example, they will send phishing emails to steal personal information and sell it on the dark web or hold it for ransom. Once you know what to look for, phishing emails are easy to spot. From there, you can send malicious messages straight to your trash folder and sidestep the threats that lie within. Check your privacy settings to control who can view your posts and ensure you receive notifications about suspicious activity on your account. Don’t respond to unknown messages and think twice before revealing sensitive information online. Practice better awareness by keeping up with new viruses and vulnerabilities. Use monitoring tools to check if your email or phone number is released in a recent data breach. Keep an eye on your financial accounts and consider freezing your credit to prevent hackers from taking out loans and opening new accounts in your name. Read reports such as McAfee Labs Threats Report and stay informed through credible news sources to stay one step ahead of the latest threats.
Also, stay aware of online fraud tactics since they are a significant risk for many Canadians. According to a CPA Canada Fraud Study conducted in January, almost three in four of those surveyed have received fraudulent requests including email and telemarketing requests. Evade online fraud by screening for unknown calls and steering clear of unsecured websites asking for sensitive information such as personal identification numbers and bank information.
The final component of a holistic security strategy involves implementing a complete security suite, such as McAfee Total Protection, across all your devices. Leveraging software security tools is one of the best ways to protect your devices and personal information from online threats. This software takes a multi-layered approach to security to prevent virus infection, detect vulnerabilities and minimize the risk of viruses.
For example, tools like a VPN and antivirus software take a preventive approach to online security. A VPN encrypts your data, so even if someone were to get their hands on your information, they would not be able to make much sense of it. Antivirus software guards against malware and monitors online traffic and activities for malware.
Detection and correction capabilities are also crucial to a well-rounded security suite. Identity theft protection is a critical part of this solution to ensure the integrity of your credit, as well as your court and criminal records, remain intact. Report missing ID cards and conduct a background if you suspect someone is impersonating you. The right security solution will be able to monitor your accounts and notify you when it detects unusual activity. It will also be able to guide you through the remediation process to restore your privacy and identity.
Effective cybersecurity requires a multifaceted approach to create a holistic security strategy. This approach should integrate layered protection starting with your devices, expanding to your threat awareness, and ending with the software tools you leverage to enhance your digital security. With a strategic framework in place, you can rest assured knowing that you are well equipped to handle whatever malicious threat comes your way.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our newsletter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post 3 Tips to a Holistic Online Security Approach appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
There are more online users now than ever before, thanks to the availability of network-capable devices and online services. The internet population in Canada is the highest it has been, topping the charts at 33 million. That number is only expected to increase through the upcoming years. However, this growing number and continued adoption of online services pose increasing cybersecurity risks as cybercriminals take advantage of more online users and exploit vulnerabilities in online infrastructure. This is why we need AI-backed software to provide advanced protection for online users.
The nature of these online threats is ever-changing, making it difficult for legacy threat detection systems to monitor threat behavior and detect new malicious code. Fortunately, threat detection systems such as McAfee’s Antivirus and Threat Detection Defense adapt to incorporate the latest threat intelligence and artificial intelligence (AI) driven behavioral analysis. Here’s how AI impacts cybersecurity to go beyond traditional methods to protect online users.
Most of today’s antivirus and threat detection software leverages behavioral heuristic-based detection based on machine learning models to detect known malicious behavior. Traditional methods rely on data analytics to detect known threat signatures or footprints with incredible accuracy. However, these conventional methods do not account for new malicious code, otherwise known as zero-day malware, for which there is no known information available. AI is mission-critical to cybersecurity since it enables security software and providers to take a more intelligent approach to virus and malware detection. Unlike AI–backed software, traditional methods rely solely on signature-based software and data analytics.
Similar to human-like reasoning, machine learning models follow a three-stage process to gather input, process it, and generate an output in the form of threat leads. Threat detection software can gather information from threat intelligence to understand known malware using these models. It then processes this data, stores it, and uses it to draw inferences and make decisions and predictions. Behavioral heuristic-based detection leverages multiple facets of machine learning, one of which is deep learning.
Deep learning employs neural networks to emulate the function of neurons in the human brain. This architecture uses validation algorithms for crosschecking data and complex mathematical equations, which applies an “if this, then that” approach to reasoning. It looks at what occurred in the past and analyzes current and predictive data to reach a conclusion. As the numerous layers in this framework process more data, the more accurate the prediction becomes.
Many antivirus and detection systems also use ensemble learning. This process takes a layered approach by applying multiple learning models to create one that is more robust and comprehensive. Ensemble learning can boost detection performance with fewer errors for a more accurate conclusion.
Additionally, today’s detection software leverages supervised learning techniques by taking a “learn by example” approach. This process strives to develop an algorithm by understanding the relationship between a given input and the desired output.
Machine learning is only a piece of an effective antivirus and threat detection framework. A proper framework combines new data types with machine learning and cognitive reasoning to develop a highly advanced analytical framework. This framework will allow for advanced threat detection, prevention, and remediation.
Online threats are increasing at a staggering pace. McAfee Labs observed an average of 588 malware threats per minute. These risks exist and are often exacerbated for several reasons, one of which is the complexity and connectivity of today’s world. Threat detection analysts are unable to detect new malware manually due to their high volume. However, AI can identify and categorize new malware based on malicious behavior before they get a chance to affect online users. AI–enabled software can also detect mutated malware that attempts to avoid detection by legacy antivirus systems.
Today, there are more interconnected devices and online usage ingrained into people’s everyday lives. However, the growing number of digital devices creates a broader attack surface. In other words, hackers will have a higher chance of infiltrating a device and those connected to it.
Additionally, mobile usage is putting online users at significant risk. Over 85% of the Canadian population owns a smartphone. Hackers are noticing the rising number of mobile users and are rapidly taking advantage of the fact to target users with mobile-specific malware.
The increased online connectivity through various devices also means that more information is being stored and processed online. Nowadays, more people are placing their data and privacy in the hands of corporations that have a critical responsibility to safeguard their users’ data. The fact of the matter is that not all companies can guarantee the safeguards required to uphold this promise, ultimately resulting in data and privacy breaches.
In response to these risks and the rising sophistication of the online landscape, security companies combine AI, threat intelligence, and data science to analyze and resolve new and complex cyber threats. AI-backed threat protection identifies and learns about new malware using machine learning models. This enables AI-backed antivirus software to protect online users more efficiently and reliably than ever before.
AI addresses numerous challenges posed by increasing malware complexity and volume, making it critical for online security and privacy protection. Here are the top 3 ways AI enhances cybersecurity to better protect online users.
The most significant difference between traditional signature-based threat detection methods and advanced AI-backed methods is the capability to detect zero-day malware. Functioning exclusively from either of these two methods will not result in an adequate level of protection. However, combining them results in a greater probability of detecting more threats with higher precision. Each method will ultimately play on the other’s strengths for a maximum level of protection.
AI enables threat detection software to think like a hacker. It can help software identify vulnerabilities that cybercriminals would typically exploit and flag them to the user. It also enables threat detection software to better pinpoint weaknesses in user devices before a threat has even occurred, unlike conventional methods. AI-backed security advances past traditional methods to better predict what a hacker would consider a vulnerability.
AI can help users understand the risks they face daily. An advanced threat detection software backed by AI can provide a more prescriptive solution to identifying risks and how to handle them. A better explanation results in a better understanding of the issue. As a result, users are more aware of how to mitigate the incident or vulnerability in the future.
AI and machine learning are only a piece of an effective threat detection framework. A proper threat detection framework combines new data types with the latest machine learning capabilities to develop a highly advanced analytical framework. This framework will allow for better threat cyber threat detection, prevention, and remediation.
The post The What, Why, and How of AI and Threat Detection appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Kids are online now more than ever, not just during free time, but also during school time. It is impossible to always peek over their shoulder, and depending on their age, they may grow tired of a POS (aka parent over shoulder). The internet can be a dangerous place, but with the right education, kids can navigate hazards and remain safe and calm while online.
Check out this online safety guide on how to keep your children engaged while learning about cybersecurity and imparting lessons that stick. This guide will work for children ages 6 through 18 with variations.
The first tip to teaching kids about online safety is making sure that your lessons are relatable. For example, if the day’s lesson is about phishing, do not illustrate it with an example of a major corporation’s folly. Instead, liken it to stranger danger. Just like kids know not to talk to strangers on the sidewalk and to distrust strangers who say they have candy, tell them that the same rule applies to online strangers: Walk right by and do not accept anything you are offered. That means not clicking on any links the online stranger sends you, especially when they say you have won a prize. Thirty-four percent of Canadians have encountered a phishing attack since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Statistics Canada. This prevalence means that it is likely someone in your family will receive a phishing message. Warn children that phishing and other social engineering attempts are likely to play with their emotions to make them feel happy, excited, mad, or scared. Encourage your children to always stay calm online and let an adult know when they are approached by strangers.
Along the lines of keeping cybersecurity lessons relatable, make sure that children also know what is at stake if they are irresponsible online. In the case of clicking on suspicious links, tell children that this could make their device ill. When computers are infected with a virus, or are sick, they work slowly and could shut off when they are in the middle of a school assignment. Also, make note of the prevalence of viruses, and how children should stay on guard for them constantly. Over 800,000 Canadian devices had encounters with malware in the last 30 days, at the time this article was written.
In extreme cases, children can have their identities stolen due to irresponsible online behavior. A stolen identity could affect their credit card eligibility and set them off on the wrong foot in adulthood. Stress the severity of identity theft and the specific consequences. Teenagers who have their sights set on financial freedom, buying a car, or setting up their own bank account could be severely affected. The best way to keep your identity safe is by keeping your Social Insurance Number completely private, never sharing your banking information, and not oversharing online. Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy explains that preteens especially have a hard time judging the accuracy of online information and are vulnerable to filling out forms that ask for their personal information. When possible, try to keep all internet-connected devices in communal areas of your home so you can periodically check in on your kids.
When teaching children about online safety, make sure you don’t use fear tactics. Be firm about the potential consequences, but emphasize that kids have your support, the right online literacy skills, and the support of antivirus software and identity theft protection to catch any threats that fall through the cracks.
Passwords are a thing of the past. The hippest new way to protect your accounts is with complex, yet memorable, passphrases. The Government of Canada defines a passphrase as “a memorized phrase consisting of mixed words with or without spaces.” When kids are old enough to be responsible for their own accounts, such as a school login, email address, or social media profile, impart the lesson of passphrases. Thinking up passphrases can turn into a fun exercise.
When it is time to create a passphrase, have your kids brainstorm some of their favorite things that loosely relate to the account the passphrase is for. For example, a social media site’s passphrase could be about friends, like “A$hleyIsMy#1Fr13nd!” and a school login could be along the lines of “$0cial$tud!esR0ck$!” A loose association may make the passphrase easier to remember.
If they are gamers, kids may already be familiar with leet, or using symbols in place of letters. Encourage children to practice their leet fluency and substitute as many letters for symbols as they would like. The Government of Canada recommends that passphrases be at least 15 characters long.
As hard as it might be, never write down passphrases on paper, do not share your password with other people, and do not reuse passphrases. Instead, leverage a password manager, like McAfee True Key, to keep them safe for you. If your child is old enough, encourage them to set up their own account and protect it with two-factor authentication.
Encourage kids to ask questions! Part of your cybersecurity lessons should be to alert an adult when they are not sure if something is quite right. For example, they received an email from grandma, but there is a weird link hidden inside it. Children should know that they can come to you for questions and caution is better than rolling the dice. Questions can then lead to advanced lessons, like how to hover over links to see where they redirect and if the links look fishy.
The cybersecurity lessons you impart on children now will set a solid foundation for sound cyber literacy for a lifetime. No one is ever too old or too young to learn the basics and then put them into practice. Who knows? Maybe you will learn something along the way.
To stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats, follow @McAfee_Home on Twitter, subscribe to our newsletter, listen to our podcast Hackable?, and ‘Like’ us on Facebook.
The post How to Teach Kids About Online Safety: A Guide appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
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