There is a reason why it has been advised that users should not visit suspicious looking websites or click on suspicious links. Google has recently attempted to educate users on the dangers of that where these links could try to get users to give up their passwords to their banks and so on.

Smart gadgets are wonderful things. They help us automate a lot of our lives, and provide us with even better and accessible home security than ever. However its security is really only as strong as your account’s password, which is what a family in Orinda discovered when their Nest camera was accessed and used to broadcast a fake message about North Korea firing missiles at the US.

Gmail’s spam detection feature works pretty well and for the most part does an excellent job at filtering out scam emails from the real ones (although sometimes it ends up filtering out the real ones as well). However from time to time, phishing emails do get through and some of them look so convincing that even seasoned internet users might be fooled.

Avoiding malware on our smartphones and computers is pretty easy: just don’t install apps or visit suspicious sounding and looking websites. Granted this isn’t a guarantee that you can’t get infected, but usually practicing such habits can help. Unfortunately for owners of certain Alcatel handsets, their phones actually came with malware preinstalled.

Last year it was reported that the Marriott Starwood database had been breached by hackers, where it was initially estimated that about 500 million guests had their details exposed. However in an update provided by Marriott, it seems that the actual number of guests affected might be smaller than they thought.

Phishing scams are actually rather common, although for the most part if you use email services like Gmail, Google’s spam filter does a pretty good job at filtering them out. However not all phishing scams come via email, some are sent via text message, and in this particular case, was made via a phone call.

If you’ve been around the internet, more specifically YouTube, long enough, chances are you are familiar with YouTube personality PewDiePie. He is one of the platform’s top earners and safe to say that he probably doesn’t need more publicity. However some of his fans have taken it upon themselves to hack printers and websites to promote his channel.

Say you’re in a cafe and you need to make a quick run to the bathroom, so for security purposes you lock your laptop, and go do your business. Safe for someone physically stealing your laptop, you should be somewhat safe from prying eyes, right? Nope, not entirely, no thanks to what those in the hacking community refer to as the “Rubber Ducky”.

If one of your wishes for 2019 was for less hacks, it seems like the year might already be off to a bad start. According to a report from Apple World Today, it seems that on the 1st of January, 2019, a new iCloud phishing attempt had started to make its rounds already, where like pretty much all phishing attempts, tries to trick the user into handing over confidential information.

It has been suggested that using a 2FA system will help protect users against hackers. To a certain extent that is true because 2FA systems add an additional level of security with a one-time generated code that would be impossible to guess. However it seems that researchers working on behalf of the Iranian government might have found a way around it.

Right now when it comes to biometric security, the most popular option available out there is still fingerprint. However in recent times we’re also see interest in facial recognition, thanks largely to Apple’s success with Face ID. Then there is also iris scanning which Samsung uses, and to a much lesser extent, vein scanning.

Phishing scams aren’t exactly new, and for the most part a lot of times email services such as Gmail do a good job at hiding them in our spam folders meaning that we’ll never have to look at them. However recently it appears that a new phishing scam targeting Netflix users is making its rounds, so much so that the FTC has issued a warning about it.

hackIf you’re an Internet Explorer user, then you might want to download the latest security update that Microsoft has issued for its browser. According to the company, this update is particularly important as it appears to address a security issue where hackers have apparently been able to exploit the flaw used in targeted attacks.

Distributed denial of attacks aren’t new and have been around for a while now, and are typically favored by hackers who are looking to disrupt services and crash websites. Unsurprisingly such services have also been offered to those willing to part with their money, although thankfully it seems that the FBI has managed to bring down quite a number of them.