Cybercriminals change tactics throughout the week when waging phishing attacks, as social media services like Facebook are targeted more during the weekend, according to the Q1 2019 Phishers’ Favorites report published Thursday by Vade Secure.

Social engineering attacks—typically in the form of phishing—continue to be a popular mode of attack for cybercriminals, while an increase in social media for personal brand building, including the rise of Instagram “influencers,” resulted in an increased targeting of social media services. After three quarters of decline, Facebook-targeted phishing campaigns increased 155.5% in Q1, making it the fourth most-impersonated brand, jumping three places from the previous report.  Read more

By Kirk Steers, PCWorld

“Take good care of your PC, and it will take good care of you.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but reality is more like “Take good care of your PC, and it won’t crash, lose your data, and cost you your job–probably.” Follow these steps to stop PC problems before they stop you.  

Your PC’s two mortal enemies are heat and moisture. Excess heat accelerates the deterioration of the delicate circuits in your system. The most common causes of overheating are dust and dirt: Clogged vents and CPU cooling fans can keep heat-dissipating air from moving through the case, and even a thin coating of dust or dirt can raise the temperature of your machine’s components.

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Bullying is bullying, whether it happens online, in social media, by texting, or through other technology. The following eight steps are described in Kidpower’s bullying solutions book,  Bullying – What Adults Need to Know and Do to Keep Kids Safe.  Learn how to use and teach Kidpower’s assertive advocacy, boundary setting, and self-protection skills to protect children and teens from bullying at school, home, online social media and gaming, and out in your community.  Read More

Millions of victims falling for Nigerian scams

Smart people are easier to scam, according to a new report released by Ultrascan AGI, which recently released a report on Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Fraud statistics. According to the report, losses from Nigerian scams totaled $12.7 billion in 2013.

We have all gotten that email. You know the one, saying you just received a big inheritance, or maybe you won the lottery even though you never bought a ticket, or maybe the email sender needs to smuggle money into the U.S. and promises to give you a portion of the money in return for just a little help. If these emails even make it into your inbox instead of your spam folder, hopefully you recognize the scam, but according to the report, millions of people have fallen for these tricks, leaving huge holes in their pockets and making hundreds of thousands of Nigerians rich.  Read more

As a member of the IT team for Reed Exhibitions United States for the past five years, starting as a help desk analyst and now, a security analyst, I have regularly participated in business continuity/disaster recovery drills.

Although run by the IT department, I have come to learn that the robust yearly exercises and more frequent smaller scale testing involves extensive input from many people in various departments within the business, analytical thought about critical business functions which all hinges on our partnerships with external vendors such as our data center provider and BC/DR consultants. Read More

Computer and tech support scams are becoming more pampant. Microsoft revealed information in a common form of internet scam: Fake tech support sites will now automatically launch a device’s phone dialer with a prompt to contact their “support team.”

Tech support scam websites, as Microsoft said in the post, used to rely on a loop of popups and browser lockups to fool users into thinking something was wrong. Most browsers now have the ability to prevent sites from creating more dialog windows, effectively stopping those kinds of attacks, so scammers have been forced to adapt. 

This newly discovered scam has the potential to be devastating, especially as more people take to the internet to shop for the holidays. A single wrong click could have you paying for an expensive international call, or worse—it could have you falling for a scam that drains your bank account. Read More