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As technology weaves itself into our lives in new and unexpected ways, some of it will get quite personal and close to home. That made itself clear at CES this year, which makes a strong case for your security.
The more things we connect, the more data we create. Data about ourselves that companies and others collect, share, and sell—where we are and what we’re doing, along with what we buy, watch, and search for. And today, we’re creating more of it and in more exacting detail.
We connect our homes with smart devices that create data about our comings and goings, and we connect ourselves with smart glasses and watches, rings, and things that track our health, our sleep, and wellness overall. Meanwhile, we have virtual reality and augmented reality hardware companies that want a place on your face with headsets and experiences that will take you into the metaverse.
Walking the floor of this year’s CES, you’ll see all these things, and plenty more. Yet central to it all is one thing—you. Specifically, your privacy and identity.
As technology evolves so rapidly and brings new ways of experiencing our world, it’s an exciting time. It’s also a somewhat uncertain time. What data will these devices create? Who’ll collect it? What will they do with it? And importantly, what can you do to protect yourself? Questions about your security are very much on our minds, and they’re on yours too. You’ve told us as much.
And unsurprisingly, protection is very much on your mind as well.
And that’s where we come in. Just as the floor of CES showcases the evolution of life online, we’re evolving online protection as well. McAfee+ represents that next step—a product line that gives you a full slate of online protection that covers your privacy, identity, and devices so you can enjoy life online with confidence.
At the center of that online life is you, and our definition of online protection has become quite expansive as a result. We see how it can help you monitor your credit, your identity, and where your personal information crops up online. We see how it can prevent the wrong people from getting their hands on data and info too. And we see how our industry-first Protection Score can show you how safe you are—and offer guidance that can make you safer still. In all, we see it as an online companion, one that removes uncertainty and gives you a feeling of security. Because you truly are secure.
In all, protection today demands this comprehensive approach because we go about so much of our day online. McAfee+ reflects that reality. And with that, the various plans for McAfee+ include:
And that list will only continue to grow. As the year takes shape, we’ll roll out yet more protections that will give you even more control of your privacy and identity. Particularly as you and your household rely on life online more and more.
As is true any year at CES, we see all manner of potential. New ways to make the day easier, more enjoyable, and more productive thanks to life online. Yet amidst it all, we see you. We see how you’ll use these new technologies, what the privacy, identity, and security implications are, and how we can protect you so you can benefit from these advances in technology, safely.
Like you, we’re excited for what’s next, and we’ll see to it that you can enjoy it—with protection that looks after you, your household, and your family.
The post The Case for Your Security at CES 2023 appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Pledging to follow healthier habits is consistently the most popular new year’s resolution. That January 1st promise looks different to everyone: snacking less often, going to the gym more often, drinking more water, drinking less soda, etc. This year, instead of a juice cleanse subscription, opt for a healthier habit that’s not an unappetizing shade of green: follow this digital detox, instead! In three easy steps, you can make great strides in improving your digital wellness.
There are various aspects of your digital habits that you should consider updating for a more private and safer online life. For starters, update your passwords. Do you reuse the same password for multiple online accounts? Doing so puts your personally identifiable information (PII) at great risk. For example, if a business with which you have an online shopping account is breached by a cybercriminal, your login and password combination could make it on the dark web, through no fault of your own. Then, through a brute force attack, a criminal could use that same password and username combo to walk into your banking or tax filing accounts.
Remembering unique, complicated passwords and passphrases for your dozens of online accounts would be impossible. Luckily, there’s software that remembers them for you! It’s called a password manager, which acts as a vault for all your login information. Just remember one master password, and you can be confident in the security of your accounts and never have to deal with the hassle of forgetting passwords.
Another aspect of updating you should adopt in 2023 is making an effort to always upgrade to the latest software updates on all your devices. The easiest way to do this is to turn on automatic updates. From there, you don’t need to take any further action! Apps and operating systems (like Apple, Android, and Windows) often release updates to patch security vulnerabilities. When you run outdated software, there’s a chance a cybercriminal could take advantage of that security gap.
Finally, make sure that you keep updated on the latest security headlines. Consider setting up news alerts to notify you when a breach occurs at a company that you frequent or have an account with. Speed is often key in making sure that your information remains safe, so it’s best practice to have your finger on the pulse on the security news of the day.
A new year digital detox can be a whole family affair. Connect with your family, anyone connected to your home network, and your elderly relatives to get everyone on the same page with security best practices. Here are some common online security snags people of all ages encounter:
Everyone has an oversharer on their newsfeed. Alert your family members of the dangers of posting too much about their personal life. When someone takes those “get to know you” quizzes and posts their answers, cybercriminals can use that post to take educated guesses at your passwords. Additionally, social engineers can tailor social media scams to specific people in order to increase the chances of tricking someone into sending money or sharing valuable personal or banking details.
While spam filters catch a lot of phishing emails, phishers are getting smarter by the day and are making their attempts more and more believable. Connect with your loved ones and make sure they know how to recognize phishing emails, texts, and social media direct messages. Telltale signs of a phishing message include:
If you’re ever unsure if a message is a phishing attempt, the best course of action is to just delete it. If the “sender” is a well-known institution, follow up with a phone call using the official customer service number listed on their website. The phisher may also claim to be someone you know personally. In that case, give the loved one in question a phone call. It’s a good excuse to reconnect and have a nice conversation!
In the quest for free streams of the latest new show or movie, people often encounter unsafe sites that hide malware, spyware or other types malicious links and programs. Some types of malware can jump from one device to others connected to the same home Wi-Fi network. That’s why it’s important to make sure everyone under your roof practices excellent digital security habits. One wrong click could sink an entire household. Consider signing up your family for a safe browsing extension that can notify you when you stray onto a risky site. So, instead of putting your device at risk during movie night, connect with your friends or loved ones over one copy of a safely and officially purchased version.
As with any new health regimen, immediately zooming from zero to a hundred will likely be overwhelming and result in failure. The same goes for adopting new digital safety habits. If you try to do too much at once, all the security measures you put in place will likely get in the way of your daily online activities. The more inconvenient it is, the more likely you may be to cut corners; thus, negating all the progress you’ve made.
Being cybersafe doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy your connected devices to the fullest. It just means that you may need to act with more intention and slow down before volunteering personal details online or clicking on links.
To supplement your digital detox, consider signing up for McAfee+ Ultimate to make 2023 the year for a safer online you. McAfee+ Ultimate includes all the tools you need to live your best online life safely and privately, including a password manager, web protection, unlimited VPN and antivirus, and $1 million in identity theft coverage and restoration for peace of mind.
Cheers to a digitally smart 2023!
The post Start the New Year Right With This 3-Step Digital Detox appeared first on McAfee Blog.
The first day of school is right around the corner. The whole family is gearing up for a return to the routine: waking up to alarm clocks at dawn, rushed mornings, learning all day, and after-school activities and homework all night.
Even though everyone is in a frenzied state, now is a great time to slow down and discuss important topics that may arise during the school year. Parents and guardians know their children are tech savvy, just by looking at their thumbs fly across keyboards; however, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re cyber-savvy.
To make sure we’re all on the same page, here are our definitions of tech savvy and cyber savvy:
According to McAfee research, children cited that their parents are best suited to teach them about being safe online when compared to their teachers and online resources. Here are common scenarios your child, tween, or teen will likely encounter during the school year, plus some tips and tools you can share to make sure they are safe online.
It’s now common practice for school systems to communicate with students and their guardians over email, whether that’s through a school-issued email address or a personal one. Your student should know that phishers often impersonate institutions with authority, such as the IRS, banks, and in their case, a school. Put your children on alert to the most common signs of a cybercriminal phishing for valuable personally identifiable information (PII). These signs include:
If your child ever receives a suspicious-looking or -sounding email, they should start an entirely new email chain with the supposed sender and confirm that they sent the message. Do not reply to the suspicious email and don’t click on any links within the message.
An excellent nugget of wisdom you can impart is the following: Never divulge your Social Security Number over online channels and never give out passwords. If someone needs your SSN for official purposes, they can follow up in a method other than email. And no one ever needs to know your password.
With a return to the school year routine comes a flood of back-to-school social media posts and catching up electronically with friends. If your child owns a social media profile (or several!), alert them to the various social media engineering tactics that are common to each platform. Similar to phishing schemes, social media scams are usually “time sensitive” and attempt to inspire strong emotions in readers, whether that’s excitement, fear, sadness, or anger.
Alert your child that not everything they read on social media is true. Photos can be doctored and stories can be fabricated in order to prompt people to click on links to “donate” or “sign a petition.” You don’t have to discourage your child from taking a stand for causes they believe in; rather, urge them to follow up through official channels. For instance, if they see a social media post about contributing to save the rainforest, instead of donating through the post, contact a well-known organization, such as the World Wildlife Fund and inquire how to make a difference.
More and more school systems are entrusting school-issued connected devices to students to use in the classroom and to bring home. Other districts have BYOD (or bring your own device) policies where students can use personal family devices for school activities. In either case, device security is key to keeping their information safe and maintaining the integrity of the school system’s network. Families don’t want to be the weakest link in the school system and are responsible for a town-wide education network breach.
Here are three ways to protect any device connected to the school network:
These conversations are great to start at the dinner table or on long, boring car rides where you’re most likely to get your child’s undivided attention. Don’t focus so much on the fearful consequences or punishment that could result from poor cyberhabits. Instead, emphasize how easy these steps and tools are to use, so it would be silly not to follow or use them.
The post Back to School: Tech Savvy vs. Cyber Savvy appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Private tech companies gather tremendous amounts of user data. These companies can afford to let you use social media platforms free of charge because it’s paid for by your data, attention, and time.
Big tech derives most of its profits by selling your attention to advertisers — a well-known business model. Various documentaries (like Netflix’s “The Social Dilemma”) have attempted to get to the bottom of the complex algorithms that big tech companies employ to mine and analyze user data for the benefit of third-party advertisers.
This article will help you better understand what information is being collected by tech companies, how it’s being used, and how you can protect your privacy online.
Tech companies benefit from personal information by being able to provide personalized ads. When you click “yes” at the end of a terms and conditions agreement found on some web pages, you may be allowing the companies to collect the following data:
For someone unfamiliar with privacy issues, it is important to understand the extent of big tech’s tracking and data collection. Once these companies collect data, all this information can be supplied to third-party businesses or used to improve user experience.
The problem with this is that big tech has blurred the line between collecting customer data and violating user privacy in some cases. While tracking what content you interact with can be justified under the garb of personalizing the content you see, big tech platforms have been known to go too far. Prominent social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn have faced past legal trouble for accessing personal user data like private messages and saved photos.
The information you provide helps build an accurate character profile and turns it into knowledge that gives actionable insights to businesses. Private data usage can be classified into three cases: selling it to data brokers, using it to improve marketing, or enhancing customer experience.
Along with big data, another industry has seen rapid growth: data brokers. Data brokers buy, analyze, and package your data. Companies that collect large amounts of data on their users stand to profit from this service. Selling data to brokers is an important revenue stream for big tech companies.
Advertisers and businesses benefit from increased information on their consumers, creating a high demand for your information. The problem here is that companies like Facebook and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) have been known to mine massive amounts of user data for the sake of their advertisers.
Marketing can be highly personalized thanks to the availability of large amounts of consumer data. Tracking your response to marketing campaigns can help businesses alter or improve certain aspects of their campaign to drive better results.
The problem is that most AI-based algorithms are incapable of assessing when they should stop collecting or using your information. After a point, users run the risk of being constantly subjected to intrusive ads and other unconsented marketing campaigns that pop up frequently.
Analyzing consumer behavior through reviews, feedback, and recommendations can help improve customer experience. Businesses have access to various facets of data that can be analyzed to show them how to meet consumer demands. This could help improve any part of a consumer’s interaction with the company, from designing special offers and discounts to improving customer relationships.
For most social media platforms, the goal is to curate a personalized feed that appeals to the users and allows them to spend more time on the app. When left unmonitored, the powerful algorithms behind these social media platforms can repeatedly subject you to the same kind of content from different creators.
Here are the big tech companies that collect and mine the most user data.
Users need a comprehensive data privacy solution to tackle the rampant, large-scale data mining carried out by big tech platforms. While targeted advertisements and easily found items are beneficial, many of these companies collect and mine user data through several channels simultaneously, exploiting them in many different ways.
It’s important to make sure your personal information is protected. Protection solutions like McAfee’s Personal Data Cleanup feature can help. With this feature, our teams scour the web for traces of your personal information and assist in getting it removed to enhance your online privacy.
McAfee’s Total Protection provides antivirus software for all of your digital devices and a secure VPN connection to avoid exposure to malicious third parties while browsing the internet. Our identity monitoring and personal data removal solutions further remove gaps in your devices’ security systems.
With our airtight data protection and custom guidance (complete with a protection score for each platform and tips to keep you safer), you can be sure that your internet identity is protected.
The post What Personal Data Do Companies Track? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
There were multiple times during my digital parenting journey when I would have loved to put my head in the sand. Pretend that life was easy and that my kids weren’t going to grow up and want devices and to join social media. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. With four kids who had technology running through their veins, I had no choice but to embrace it.
While many kids will first experience the internet from a family laptop or via their parent’s phone at a coffee shop (we’ve all done it), it’s when they get these devices into their hot little hands unsupervised a few years down the track that the real show starts. And that’s usually when they get access to a phone. Research from our eSafety Office shows that just under half of Aussie kids between 6 and 13 use a smartphone with about 1/3 owning their own device.
And while we can all wax lyrical about the good old days when we used payphones and how great it would be if our kids didn’t have smartphones, we need to keep it real. Technology is not going anywhere so the best thing we can to accept it’s here, educates our kids about how to use it safely and introduce boundaries and rules to ensure they are as safe as possible.
So, without further ado, let me introduce you to the concept of a family technology contract – a great way to manage your kids and their tech use.
I like to think of a tech agreement as a clear outline of your expectations of your kids’ digital behavior – any behavior that occurs while using a device should be included in the agreement and yes, include TV here too! Now, before we progress, I have to share one key tip – don’t even think of putting together an agreement like this when tensions are high, or a heated argument is still in place – it will never work. Only talk about this or start working on it when you are in a calm and serene headspace.
The most important thing is to have an agreement that is suitable for your kids’ ages and maturity and one that works for your family’s schedule. There’s no point making your 5-year-old sign an agreement that limits their time on Instagram when they’re probably quite happy visiting only the online sites that you have ‘bookmarked’ for them. And if your kids have a super busy schedule then you might want to include a rule that means there is no ‘leisure screen time’ (eg TV/movie viewing) till all homework is complete.
While it’s entirely based on your kids’ interests and tech usage, I think 3 is a good age to start with a basic agreement. That’s when they start understanding rules. And how old is too old for a tech contract, I hear you ask? Well, I acknowledge that introducing new rules and boundaries when your kids are well into their teens may be difficult however if things feel out of control and you are concerned about their mental health and less than ideal digital habits then it may also be exactly what you all need!
Keeping an agreement age-appropriate and relevant is essential. You may also want to keep it simple and focus on a few key things, such as:
But it can include so much more. Here are some items you may choose to include in your own personalized version. Think of this list as a shopping list. Simply, pick & choose what works for the ages of your kids and your family’s structure.
Online Behaviour
I understand that access to my devices is a privilege and breaking this agreement will lead to the following consequences: (list what you feel is appropriate)
I would have all parties sign and date the agreement: both parents and kids. You may choose to keep a copy on the fridge? Again, whatever works for your situation.
So, if you are feeling like this digital parenting thing is getting the better of you, please consider introducing an agreement. For decades, parenting experts have written about the virtues of establishing clear boundaries for our kids and in my opinion, a tailored family tech agreement absolutely does that!
Good luck!!
Alex x
The post Why You Need to Get a Family Technology Agreement Happening appeared first on McAfee Blog.
We all know the frustration. A new piece of tech isn’t working the way it should. Or maybe setting it up is simply turning into a royal pain. Grrr, right? Just make sure that when you go on the hunt for some help, you don’t let a tech support scam get the better of you.
Like so many scams out there, tech support scams play on people’s emotions. Specifically, the frustration you feel when things don’t work right. You want that problem fixed right now. So much so that you may not pay close enough attention to that tech support link you found in a search or came across in an ad. Tech support that looks legitimate but isn’t.
Tech support scams make good money for bad actors. In fact, the larger tech support scam operations organize and run themselves like a business, with call centers, marketing teams, finance groups, and so forth—and can rack up some serious profits to boot.
They make their money in several ways. Sometimes they’ll charge large fees to fix a non-existent problem. Other times, they’ll install information-stealing malware under the guise of software that’s supposed to correct an issue. In some cases, they’ll ask for remote access to your computer to perform a diagnosis but access your computer to steal information instead.
Fortunately, these scams are rather easy to spot. And avoid. If you know what to look for.
Let’s start with a quick overview of tech support scams. They tend to work in two primary ways.
This could be a phone call that comes from someone posing as a rep from “Microsoft” or “Apple.” The scammer on the other end of the line will tell you that there’s something wrong with your computer or device. Something urgently wrong. And then offers a bogus solution to the bogus problem, often at a high cost. Similarly, they may reach you by way of a pop-up ad. Again telling you that your computer or device is in need of urgent repair. These can find you a few different ways:
These are phony services and sites that pose as legitimate tech support but are anything but. They’ll place search ads, post other ads in social media, and so forth, ready for you to look up and get in touch with when you have a problem that you need fixed. Examples include:
While tech support scammers can and do prey on older computer users, they’re not the only ones. An apparent lack of computer savviness certainly makes older users an attractive target, yet it also seems that an apparent overconfidence in one’s savviness makes younger victims susceptible to tech support scams too. Turns out that the growing majority of victims worldwide are between 18 and 35 years old, a group that has known the internet for most, if not all, of their lives. That’s according to research from Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit, which found the 1 in 10 of people between the ages of 18 and 35 who encountered a tech support scam fell for it and lost money.
Whatever the age group, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says that the reported losses in the U.S. are into the millions, which of course does not account for the assumedly millions more that do not go reported.
Lastly, a good piece of general advice is to keep your devices and apps up to date. Regular updates often include security fixes and improvements that can help keep scammers and hackers at bay. You can set your devices and apps to download them automatically. And if you need to get an update or download it on your own, get it from the company’s official website. Stay away from third-party sites that may host malware.
This will provide protection if the scammer was able to access your account passwords in some form. While this can be a big task, it’s a vital one. A password manager that’s part of comprehensive online protection can make it much easier.
Delete files or apps that the software says is an issue. Do the same for other devices on your network too. Experienced and determined scammers can infect them as well simply by gaining access to one device on your network.
Contact your bank, credit card company, online payment platform, or wire transfer service immediately to reverse the charges. File a fraud complaint as well. The sooner you act, the better chance you have of recovering some or all your money. (Note that this is a good reason to use credit cards for online purchases, as they afford extra protection that debit cards and other payment services do not.)
In the U.S., you can contact https://www.ftc.gov/complaint, which reports the claim to thousands of law enforcement agencies. While they cannot resolve your individual issue, your report can help with broader investigations and build a case against scammers—which can make the internet safer for others. Their list of FAQs is particularly helpful too, answering important questions like “how do I get my money back?”
Here’s to holiday tech that works. And to quick fixes when things don’t go as planned. In all, if you find yourself staring down a technical issue, go straight to the source for help as we’ve outlined above. As you can see, scammers have burrowed themselves alongside otherwise legitimate ads, search results, and forums online, ready to take advantage of you when you need to get things working right.
Likewise, keep an eye and ear open for those scammers who’ll reach out to you, particularly this time of year when so many people are getting so many new devices. Realizing that legitimate tech support won’t call you out of the blue is a great place to start. In all, go with the pros you know—the ones you can reach at the companies you trust.
The post New tech for the holidays? Watch out for these tech support scams. appeared first on McAfee Blog.
It’s easy to imagine where we would be without women in technology.
We’d be poorer for it.
With Mother’s Day upon us, I couldn’t help but think once more about the stark employment figures I shared in my International Women’s Day blog just a few weeks ago. Millions of women have involuntarily left the workforce at a much higher rate than men during the pandemic—with roughly one third of women in the U.S. aged 25-44 citing that childcare was the reason for that unemployment.
Reflecting on this further, I thought about the women in technology who’ve left their positions during this past year. It’s a loss of talent and capability that’s set back decades of advances by trailblazing women who not only shine in their field yet also do so in male-dominated realms of study, research, and employment.
So as we look ahead to recovery, we should also look back. By celebrating just a few of the women in technology who shaped our world today, women who truly are “mothers of invention,” perhaps we can remember just how vital women are in our field—and how we should double down on our efforts to welcome them back.
Imagine a time when the term “software engineering” wasn’t recognized, even though it was crucial to us landing on the moon.
Such were the days when Margaret Hamilton began her work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a job to support her family while her husband went to law school at Harvard. This was in 1959 and would introduce her to Edward Lorenz, the father of chaos theory, and put her on the path to help humanity set its first footsteps on the moon.
It was her work and her code that developed a software-driven system that warned astronauts of in-flight emergencies, an advance she credits her young daughter for inspiring, as recounted in this interview:
Often in the evening or at weekends I would bring my young daughter, Lauren, into work with me. One day, she was with me when I was doing a simulation of a mission to the moon. She liked to imitate me – playing astronaut. She started hitting keys and all of a sudden, the simulation started. Then she pressed other keys and the simulation crashed … I thought: my God – this could inadvertently happen in a real mission.
I suggested a program change to prevent a prelaunch program being selected during flight. But the higher-ups at MIT and NASA said the astronauts were too well trained to make such a mistake. Midcourse on the very next mission, Apollo 8, one of the astronauts on board accidentally did exactly what Lauren had done. The Lauren bug! It created much havoc and required the mission to be reconfigured. After that, they let me put the program change in, all right.
When you search online, you have this woman to thank.
A true pioneer, Karen Spärck Jones worked at Cambridge, during which time she developed the algorithm for deriving a statistic known as “term frequency–inverse document frequency” (TFIDF). In lay terms, TFIDF determines how important a word is relative to the document or collection of terms in which it is found. Sound familiar? It should, as her work forms the basis of practically every search engine today.
Spärck Jones remained outspoken with regards to what she referred to as “professionalism” in technology. This had two layers: the first being the technical efficacy of a solution, the second being the rationale for even doing it in the first place. In her words,
“[T]o be a proper professional you need to think about the context and motivation and justifications of what you’re doing … You don’t need a fundamental philosophical discussion every time you put finger to keyboard, but as computing is spreading so far into people’s lives you need to think about these things.”
Her vision for computing and her hands-on work led to development of COBOL, a programming language still in use today. Driving that vision was the belief that human language could be used as the basis for a programming language, making it more accessible, particularly for business use. The result was the FLOW-MATIC programming language, which was later developed into COBOL, a language that is estimated to be used in 95% of ATM card swipes.
During her time as a naval officer, she helped transform centralized Defense Department systems into smaller, distributed networks akin to the internet we now know and use. At her retirement near the age of 80, she went to work in the private sector where she held the role of full-time senior consultant until her passing at age 85. This 1983 profile of her, aired when she was 76, is certainly worth a watch.
Quite plainly, Perlman’s work paved the way for the routing protocols that underpin the modern internet.
Prior to Perlman’s work, as networks grew and accordingly became more complex, data would often flow into loops that prevented them from reaching their intended destination. Enter her creation of the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), which can handle large clouds of computers and network devices. While its since evolved, the concept of an adaptive network remains squarely in place.
Another advance of hers was introducing computer programming to young children aged 3 to 5 back in the 1970s. While working at MIT’s LOGO Lab, she created TORTIS (Toddler’s Own Recursive Turtle Interpreter System), which used buttons from programming and allowed for experimentation with a robotic turtle that would follow a toddler’s commands. In the abstract for her paper that documented the work, she emphasized what she felt was a vital point, “Most important of all, it should teach that learning is fun.”
These women have led and inspired, and likewise it’s on all of us in technology to build on the advances they made possible through both our work and the workplace cultures we foster—particularly as we begin our recovery from this pandemic.
One of the many reasons I’m proud to be a part of McAfee is our Women in Security (WISE) community. It’s truly a forward-thinking program, which we introduced to enrich and support women in the tech sector through mentorship programs and professional development conferences. It’s one of the several, tangible ways we actively strive for a vibrant and diverse culture at McAfee.
Another powerful voice for women in tech is AnitaB.org, which supports women in technical fields, as well as the organizations that employ them and the academic institutions training the next generation. A full roster of programs help women grow, learn, and develop their highest potential.
And for looking forward yet further, there’s Girls Who Code, which is building the next generation of female engineers and technologists. Their data shows why this is so vital. They found that 66 percent of girls aged six to 12 show interest in computing, but that drops to 32 percent for girls aged 13 to 17, and then plummets to only 4 percent for college freshmen. Accordingly, they support several programs for school-aged girls from third grade up through senior year of high school, help educators and communities launch clubs, and advocate for women in their field through their work in public policy and research.
And that’s just for starters. For an overview of yet more organizations where you can get involved, check out this list of 16 organizations for women in tech—all of which help us realize a better world with women in technology.
The post The Mothers of Invention: Women Who Blazed the Trail in Technology appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Today, there are so many different avenues where we receive information.
Personally, I prefer finding out what’s going on in the world by scanning my favorite news channels’ websites and by receiving personalized feeds and notifications to my phone. My wife, however, scans social media platforms – from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram – to discover the latest happenings. My teenage daughter spends 2+ hrs a day on social media platforms engaging with her friends.
While were initially meant to help us stay connected, they come with their own handful of security implications. Let’s explore what these threats are and how to stay protected.
Users rely on social media to feel connected. So while the world was social distancing, social media grew more popular than ever before – as of March 2020, people are on social media 44% more worldwide. However, with these platforms being so popular, they’ve become a hotspot for cybercriminal schemes.
There’s a variety of potential threats on social platforms, including misinformation, account takeovers, and phishing scams. The latter threat is all too common, as these platforms have become a popular avenue for cybercriminals to spread troublesome links and websites.
To lure unsuspecting users into clicking on these links, hackers often tap into what consumers care about. These topics have ranged from fake tech support scams to getting verified on Instagram.
At McAfee, we want users to enjoy a safe online social life. That’s why we created a new McAfee® WebAdvisor feature that scans for dangerous links across six major social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, and LinkedIn – so users can scroll their feeds with confidence. To do this, McAfee WebAdvisor now color codes links across these social platforms, as it has always done for online searches, to show which ones are safe to visit.
It’s important to take advantage of new technologies that help us adapt and grow into security superstars. My family and I are excited to see this new feature roll out across our existing McAfee® Total Protection subscription. That way we can keep up with the latest news and trends, as well as stay connected with family and friends without worrying about any potential threats. I can sleep much better at night knowing that my whole family will be both connected and protected.
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 Stay Connected & Protected: Weaving Security Into Our Social Media Habits appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
With millions of people continuing to work and study remotely, scammers have followed them home—generating an average of 375 new threats per minute so far this year. In response, our enhanced consumer portfolio directly addresses the new needs and new threats people face.
McAfee Labs found that these new threats via malicious apps, phishing campaigns malware, and more, according to its McAfee COVID-19 Threat Report: July 2020, which amounted to an estimated $130 million in total losses in the U.S. alone.
To help people stay safer and combat these threats, today we announced our latest consumer security portfolio. Our enriched products come with better user experiences such as a native Virtual Private Network (VPN), along with new features, including integrated Social Media and Tech Scam Protection—all of which are pressing security essentials today.
Specifically, our product lineup has been updated to include:
Scams involving tech support and product activation have continued to sneak into people’s inboxes and search results, which require a critical eye to spot. Here are some tips on how to identify these scams. We’re making it easier for people to stay safer with new features such as:
With jobs and things that simply need to get done “right now,” security can be an afterthought. Sometimes that desire for convenience has consequences, leading to situations where people’s devices, data, and personal information get compromised. In response, we’re doing our part to make security more intuitive so that people can get things done quickly and safely:
With people’s newfound reliance on the internet, we’ve made new advances that help them live their increasingly connected lives—looking after security and privacy even more comprehensively than before on security and the apps they use:
McAfee is on a journey to ensure security allows users to be as carefree as possible online, now that more time is spent on devices as consumers navigate a new normal of life from home. For more information on our consumer product lineup, visit https://www.mcafee.com/en-us/antivirus/mcafee-total-protection.html
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 Evolving Security Products for the new Realities of Living Life From Home appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
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