Antivirus Vendors
Avast is a fantastic employer, we have offices around the world, and a cool company culture . More than 20% of Avast employees are women, which means there are 435 of us! For International Women’s Day on March 8th, we asked our female colleagues a few questions to find out why they like working for Avast.
A full radio interview with ESET’s Alexis Dorais-Joncas and radio and TV personality Marc Saltzman – on NewsTalk 1010 – talking about a malicious weather app that was found on Google Play.
The post Good Weather App radio interview with Alexis Dorais-Joncas and Marc Saltzman appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
Often seen as a male-dominated industry, women have played an important part in driving developments in the computer industry. As we celebrate International Women’s Day, these eight women have blazed a trail in IT, setting an example to us all.
Ada LovelaceDespite being the daughter of the well-known bohemian hell-raiser George Byron, Ada Lovelace’s own life was incredibly successful, albeit slightly less “colourful”. Encouraged to study maths and logic by her mother, Ada’s studies soon brought her into contact with Charles Babbage, ‘the father of computers’.
As part of her work with Babbage, Ada created what is believed to be the first ever computer program – an algorithm to be run by Babbage’s legendary Analytical Engine.
As well as being a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy, Grace was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer. Her work led to the creation of the first compiler – a tool used to change computer code into a fully-functioning application.
Grace was also instrumental in creating COBOL, one of the first programming languages, and one that is still in use today.
During study for a graduate degree, Henrietta began working at the Harvard College Observatory. Her job – as a human computer was to help grade photographs taken through the observatory’s telescope, and to perform complex mathematical calculations.
Henrietta’s work paved the way for the techniques used by astronomers today to calculate the distance between Earth and distant galaxies.
Best known as a Hollywood actress, Hedy Lamarr was also an accomplished inventor in between roles. During World War II, Hedy helped to create a jam-proof radio guidance system to be used with torpedoes.
Although this signal-hopping technology was deployed by the US Navy until the 1960s (where it proved to be particularly effective), it is still in use today. The same basic principles are also used in modern WiFi and Bluetooth radio technologies – like those that make your smartphone and tablet work wirelessly.
After leaving school, Stephanie went to work for the Post Office Research Station where she helped build computers from scratch. She also learned to program machine code – the very low level language used by computer parts to work properly.
In 1962, Stephanie founded Freelance Programmers, a software company with the intention of helping women get into IT – just 1% of her programmers were male. The team worked on a broad range of projects, including the black box recorder for the supersonic jetliner, Concorde.
Having taught herself to program computers, Jude’s first job was in the IT department of a US food manufacturer. She also helped to create the Berkley Software Distribution (BSD) operating system which is still in use today.
Jude was also a committed social activist and hacker, going by the name of “St Jude”. Coining the term “cypherpunks”, St Jude helped to promote the idea of using cryptography to protect personal information as a route to social and political change.
Despite majoring in philosophy and theology, Mary became a computer programmer at the Massachusetts University of Technology. Initially she was programming IBM systems as part of a speech recognition project.
Later Mary was moved to a team working on LINC, widely believed to be the world’s first “personal computer”. As far back as 1964, Mary was using the LINC computer at home to refine the system’s design.
After a very successful period at university, Lynn was recruited by IBM to work on a project designing an advanced supercomputer. Known as the Advanced Computing Systems (ACS) project, the resulting computer is believed to have been an example of the first superscalar design.
Later Lynn worked for major organisations including DARPA and Xerox, and MIT as an associate professor.
Although these women may serve as examples to women considering a career in IT, their experiences and achievements are actually a lesson for all young people – regardless of gender.
The post International Women’s Day: 8 empowered woman in the computing world appeared first on Panda Security Mediacenter.
Another day, another important security update for WordPress. If you’re running a self-hosted version of WordPress, you must update the software on your website now.
The post WordPress webmasters urged to upgrade to version 4.73 to patch six security holes appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
Avira Scout has been launched for the public, combining our security expertise with the Chromium code to give users a free browser that slashes the risks from malware, malvertising, and obtrusive trackers. Scout provides multiple layers of security and privacy without interrupting the user experience. We’ve integrated together a selection of best-in-class security and privacy […]
The post Avira Scout: the browser for your online security & privacy appeared first on Avira Blog.
After years of using hotspots, many of us who connect our PCs via Wi-Fi away from home have learned the difference between secured and unsecured networks – and are now smarter and safer when we get online at the café or airport. But our connection habits are changing. In 2016, average smartphone usage grew 38 percent, and more mobile phone traffic – nearly 60 percent – was handled by Wi-Fi hotspots than by cellular networks, putting our phones at risk, too. Add the proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and today’s Wi-Fi threats can outpace even the tech-savviest among us. Because we have greater mobility and connectivity, hackers are motivated to take advantage of our need for both.
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Printers are everywhere, but they’re not exactly the sort of device that we pay especial attention to when it comes to our businesses IT security infrastructure. In reality, corporate networks of printers that are not properly protected could end up being one of the company’s biggest security gaps.
A spectacular example of this can be found in an apparently mysterious event that recently affected more than 160,000 printers all over the world. Without warning, every one of them printed the same document, which warned that the printer in question would now be part of a bot network. In short, the printer had been infected and now seemed to respond only to orders coming from its new cybercriminal master.
Whatevs, flaming botnet. I DON’T EVEN LIKE THE OFFICE PRINTER. @lmaostack pic.twitter.com/UKxE9aKxCL
— Stephanie Sanchez (@IAmStephanieS) February 6, 2017
As it turns out, behind this singular attack was Stackoverflowin, an enigmatic hacker who explained that the whole thing was a joke intended to raise awareness of printers’ vulnerabilities. “It was kind of on impulse,” he acknowledged. As he explained, he was looking to raise awareness of how dangerous it is to expose connected printers to the public internet without a firewall or other tools.
In order for the humor of this singular attack to be noticed, the hacker’s warning came with a fun robot drawn with ASCII art. But jokes aside, the situation really is quite serious: printers of every kind and from all over the world have fallen into Stackoverflowin’s trap.
To achieve this, the hacker developed a script able to track printers connected to the Internet with one of its ports open. Using the open port, he was able to order the device to print the enigmatic document.
However, it is actually quite simple to heed Stackoverflowin’s warning and fix the problem. Just make sure that the ports on the printer network have a secure password and that all devices on your corporate network are covered by the right protection to avoid cyberattacks that, next time, may not be so friendly.
In case this wasn’t enough, a group of German researchers has published a study that shows that numerous printer security flaws can be exploited to access the memory of these devices and steal data such as passwords or even confidential documents. So check your printers! This is an issue that we collectively need to take more seriously, and these potentially vulnerabilities are worth looking into.
The post Over a Hundred Thousand Printers Simultaneously Ghost Printed Goofy ASCII Art appeared first on Panda Security Mediacenter.
People often trust their social media contacts more than traditional advertising, and more readily believe everything from restaurant reviews to political opinions when it comes from a social network. An amusing or tragic anecdote that may not be representative of any trend has a better chance of going viral than a well-reported story with lots of analysis and facts. As always, there are marketers, abusers, propagandists, and outright criminals who are quick to exploit these psychological biases. The person who attacks you over a political tweet may be a paid troll or a robot. The spam you ignored in your inbox is now served into a trusted social media feed. The phishing attacks and malicious links you’d never click on in an anonymous email may now appear as a recommendation from a good friend, or a celebrity you admire. These attacks may even be customized by AI to target you perfectly, the way you get shopping or movie recommendations.
Technology is affecting our relationships and changing our lives, but are we taking the necessary measures to protect ourselves online? Here’s how to outsmart cybercriminals.
The post 10 ways to ruin a cybercriminal’s day appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
The Kaspersky Lab Global Research and Analysis Team has discovered a new sophisticated wiper malware, called StoneDrill. Just like another infamous wiper, Shamoon, it destroys everything on the infected computer.
