Kaspersky Lab, a global cybersecurity company celebrating 20 years in the market this year, today announced the launch of Earth 2050, an interactive multimedia project that accumulates predictions about social and technological developments for the upcoming 30 years.
Category Archives: Antivirus Vendors
Antivirus Vendors
Detection: What you don’t know will hurt you
One of the realities of today’s cybersecurity threatscape is not if you will be breached, but when, and how often. As good as cybersecurity is becoming – i.e. prevention solutions provide a 99.9 percent or higher detection rate for common malware – effective cybersecurity depends upon three pillars – prevention, detection and resolution – with the latter two required to address those situations where prevention isn’t enough.
IoT weaknesses put webcams at risk for attack [infographic]
Out of all the cybercrimes from malware to social engineering, the creepiest has to be a stranger watching your child through a webcam or baby monitor in their room. As this year’s Mobile World Congress starts in Barcelona, Avast researchers reveal that half a million smart devices in the city, including webcams and baby monitors, are currently vulnerable to cyber attack.
Cloudflare, Cloudbleed – or 3,400 reasons of shit happens
Over the course of the last six months, Cloudflare bled a lot of sensitive data. The reason? A bug in its HTML-Parser that in the end impacted millions of websites. Beside other things, they offer DDoS protection and a CDN service. Due to the massiv amount of affected websites its a rather important issue and it’s […]
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DNS attacks: How they try to direct you to fake pages
ESET’s Josep Albors looks at how DNS attacks will try and direct you to fake pages.
The post DNS attacks: How they try to direct you to fake pages appeared first on WeLiveSecurity
Security tips to avoid becoming a victim of revenge porn
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Relationship break-ups have always been difficult, sometimes even acrimonious. Unfortunately a distressing new trend has emerged that can make the process even more hurtful.
Revenge porn – the process of sharing intimate, naked photos of an ex-lover online without permission – is being used by some jilted partners. By sharing these pictures on social media and other public websites, the person hopes to hurt and humiliate their victim, who they often blame for the collapse of the relationship.
Obviously revenge porn is illegal – but once those photos are ‘in the wild’, there is almost nothing the victim can do to prevent their spread. The only way to stop yourself from becoming a victim is to put protections in place in advance.
Here are 4 ways to help yourself:
1. Don’t take naked photos
By far the safest way to prevent intimate photos from being leaked online is not to take them in the first place. As soon as those images exist, even if you don’t share them, they are at risk of loss, theft or leakage.
The minute you take a photo on your phone, it is copied to the Cloud for instance – so now you need to protect two copies. And if you sync your phone with your computer, that then creates a third; three copies that provide points of vulnerability.
2. Don’t share naked photos
The second rule of protecting yourself against revenge porn is to ensure you never send naked pictures to anyone. No matter how much you love and trust your partner, you give up all control over that image the minute you pass it on.
Should your relationship hit the rocks, you will find it even harder to regain any control over those pictures.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask someone to delete pictures
If you go ahead and send an intimate picture to someone, you should always be ready to ask them to delete it – for any reason at all. You should also watch as the image is deleted to make sure it really is gone.
4. Protect your devices
Sometimes technology lets us down, and sensitive data is stolen or leaked directly from our computers and phones. Modern malware and computer viruses are exceptionally good at stealing our information.
This is just one of many reasons why you must install security software on your phone and PC to protect against hackers. Using an application like Panda Security prevents cybercriminals from accessing your pictures, protecting you against revenge porn leaks or blackmail attempts.
Use your head
Like most cybersecurity problems, applying your common sense could save you a great deal of embarrassment later. There is nothing “prudish” about refusing to take or share naked photos – in fact, protecting yourself in this way is extremely mature. So you should never feel pressured into sharing something you don’t want to.
And if you so choose to share an intimate image, make sure that your phone and PC are secured to minimise the risk of your selfie being leaked. You can download a free trial of Panda Security to get started.
The post Security tips to avoid becoming a victim of revenge porn appeared first on Panda Security Mediacenter.
Exploring the boundaries of routers – securing the connected home
At Avast Labs, we started to look at the home router, since our homes today have more Internet of Things (IoT) devices running on our network than we may realize.
We believe routers can and should be at the heart of the connected home yet we know that they are subject to vulnerabilities.
Routers are often overlooked devices, capable of more than we might realize – more than just connecting our homes and devices to the Internet. However, as they are the central connected point, they are susceptible to the same attacks as any IoT device. Using the Avast Wi-Fi Inspector product, we performed 132 million unique scans last month of our global Avast users base to check the security status of their connected products and found:
- 22% of Avast users have some sort of router software vulnerability (Rom-0, CWE-79, etc.)
- 73% of Avast users have either router software vulnerability or weak/default password or open network
The concept of what we call ‘Chime’ started from the idea that a router could add an extra layer of security to your smart home and also act as connecting hub between your smart home devices. Chime is a platform that sits on top of the router and makes it smart so that it can protect itself and all devices connected to it.
We already have a partner in the US using it with their router. Amped Wireless’ new ALLY Smart Wi-Fi System, which recently won a CES Innovation Award, offers users an extra, to offer an extra layer of security to their IoT devices, parental controls and content filters to all their customers through an easy to use mobile app.
Chime can also do more. In our prototype demo shown here at Mobile World Congress 2017, we are exploring how we can make the router also act as a smart home hub, facilitating the interaction between the smart devices in your home. Our scenario is where a Chime-enabled router acts as a liaison between an IP camera and your smart TV.
Here’s how this works. Imagine you are at home sitting and watching TV when someone comes at your front door. Then the motion enabled camera (which might also be a smart doorbell) will start streaming the video of your visitor to your Chime router. The router will take this video and will show it as overlay on top of whatever you are watching on the TV, enabling two previously separate devices to communicate and making it simple for you to control both from a single screen.
This short demo is just a hint of what a Chime enabled router will be able to do for the IoT home of the future. By enabling your smart home devices to communicate with each other, the router will allow you to create any customized scenario you might think of, limited only by the devices you own.
For more information, please visit: http://www.chimewifi.com/
Kaspersky Lab Continues to Achieve Top Spot in Overall Independent Testing for 2016
For the fourth year in a row, Kaspersky Lab has continued to outperform the competition in its TOP3 metric for internet security, achieving top scores in independent tests throughout the year.
Online dating scams
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Does swiping right cost more than $200 million to the USA?
Protection when using dating apps no longer means you have to pop by the pharmacy before you go out on an internet date. UK’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) recently reported online dating fraud in the UK cost victims a heart-breaking £27 million ($34 million) last year. NFIB states the numbers are not entirely correct as they believe many people are not reporting online dating crimes out of embarrassment. Quartz most likely takes this argument into account as it mentions the losses in 2016 from online dating in the UK estimates at very close to $50 million. Anyway, we will rely on NIB’s data. The UK has a population of 65 million people, and according to the UK’s office for national statistics, about 45 million of them have access to or use the internet.
How is this relevant to us here in the USA?
Having in the scams are happening in a well-developed country such as the United Kingdom we find the results of NFIB’s research utterly shocking. We decided to see how these numbers would compare to cases in the US. According to PerREsearch, today roughly 280 million Americans use the internet or have access to a connected smartphone or a PC.
If we maintain the same ratio, we can quickly conclude that online dating fraud is mostly costing the US population more than $200 million. This is a lot of money, just to put things into perspective $200 million would be the cost of constructing a desalination plant able to provide clean water for the whole county of Ventura. People need to be protected while enjoying the perks that come with online dating. I guess we just solved the drought problem for one of California’s drought-stricken counties.
Is it $200 million dollars?
It most likely is more than that. It’s no secret USA tops the list of the countries most engaged in online dating. We, the Americans might be smarter and not fall for the tricks of hackers, but according to eHarmony, 40% of Americans use online dating sites when compared to just 25% in the UK, who admitted to having at least one dating app installed on their phone or tablet.
Even if we are not as easy to trick as the Brits, online dating scams are most likely affecting us more than our British friends across the pond. We won’t go into further details but the time and money Americans lose on dating sites are serious. Thus, we wouldn’t be surprised if numbers in the US are even higher.
Who are the victims?
Seniors are more prone to fall victim to one of these scams. About 62% of those who fell for the scams were over 40, and a quarter were aged 50-59. So be extra vigilant if you are in this age group. And even if you are not, if it seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t. And unless you are into giving away your personal belongings, money and personal information to complete strangers in exchange for a possibility of a hookup, we advise you to keep yourself protected with antivirus software that may prevent you from getting scammed. We understand that chatting with exotic lads and ladies might be bringing emotions you enjoy, but please remember to remain protected. Don’t be a contributor to the $200 million pot the US is most likely giving away.
How to determine if you are being scammed and what actions you must take?
Yes, you can be a good citizen and help the police catch the lovebird trying to take your vacation money away from you. The number one rule is always to record the incoming phone number should you start receiving calls. This should not be hard as you can find it in your ‘recents’ section on your cell phone. Secondly, try to remember as much as possible about the way your lover-to-be is talking, i.e. accent, or type of words he/she is using. If it doesn’t feel right, hang up and report the user to the fraud department of the dating platform you are using.
Being a good citizen will help dating sites keep their listings as accurate as possible. Never allow access to your personal information, if you have doubts about the person you are meeting or chatting.
Bear in mind those three rules:
- Do not give your account number to anyone over the phone or the Internet unless you are the caller or if you are 100% sure who they are.
- Keep in mind that fraudulent activities are often made by non-native people.
- Using common sense is the best way to avoid a scam.
Panda Security is here to the rescue; we offer the best antivirus protection for all your devices. Next time you swipe right, stop by at www.panda.com and get yourself protected. Then go to the pharmacy and get the additional things you may need to enjoy a safe and happy relationship.
The post Online dating scams appeared first on Panda Security Mediacenter.
Find out if your home network is vulnerable with Wi-Fi Inspector
That little black home router with the funny antennae and shiny lights could be part of an army of devices conscripted to take down the internet. It sounds dramatic, but regular people’s internet-enabled devices – routers, webcams, printers, and so on – were used in a massive online attack that shut down a huge part of the internet for hours one Friday morning last October. With the number of connected devices estimated to reach 50 billion by 2020, you can be guaranteed that cybercriminals will attempt it again.
