Some HP Laptops Being Recalled For Battery Fire Risk

April 10th, 2019

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC) has recently issued a statement concerning HP's recall of more than 78,000 laptop batteries.  This is being issued in addition to the 50,000 laptop batteries the company recalled in January 2018 for the same issue.

Hackers Continue To Attack POS Transactions And Systems

April 9th, 2019

Have you heard of DMSniff?  If you're in the restaurant, entertainment, or retail business and you haven't heard of it, this article is likely to dismay you. It's the latest threat being deployed against those industries.

Researchers from the cybersecurity company Flashpoint now believe that DNSniff malware has been lurking in the wild since at least 2016.

It has proved to be notoriously hard to detect, which explains why we're just now hearing about it.

Pixel Phones Have The Update For Newest Android OS

April 8th, 2019

The latest version of the Android OS is now available in beta form.  The catch is, you've got to own a Google Pixel phone to use it at this point. The rest of Google's massive user base will get to see Android Q later this year. In an unusual move, the company limited access to their latest work in progress to Pixel owners, including those still using the Pixel 1 (which is technically no longer supported by the company).

The latest version of the OS introduces a variety of advancements.

Social Security Administration Seeing High Number Of Scams

April 5th, 2019

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently issued a public service announcement regarding the growing number of Social Security related scams they've been getting reports about.

In 2017, just 3,200 people called to report instances of SSA Voice Phishing (called 'vishing'), with total 2017 losses amounting to some $210,000.

In 2018, that number swelled to more than 63,000 with losses in excess of $16.6 million.

Ransomware Attackers Targeting Larger Companies For More Money

April 4th, 2019

If you haven't heard of the GrandCrab ransomware strain, it's something you should put on your company's radar.  It first emerged as a viable threat in early 2018.

Since that time, its creators have been constantly tweaking and honing their approach, turning it into a devastatingly effective strain.

New Windows 10 Update May Cause Gaming Issues

April 3rd, 2019

If you've installed Microsoft's March 1st update for Windows 10, version 180G, be aware that a growing percentage of users are reporting performance issues that impact graphics quality and mouse movement. Granted, the issues seem to have the biggest impact on games, with gamers who play games like Destiny 2 and Call of Duty 4. Of course, performance issues are likely to crop up in a variety of other applications as well.

Survey Shows Identity Theft Is Common For Americans

April 2nd, 2019

How big of a problem do you imagine identity theft to be?  What percentage of Americans do you think have been impacted by it? If you're like most people, whatever number you selected probably underestimated its impact.  In a recent survey conducted by nCipher, it was discovered that nearly 29 percent (17.6 percent) of respondents admitted that their identities had been stolen.

Creator Of Popular Kids App Fined For Privacy Violations

April 1st, 2019

The Federal Trade Commission just issued an enormous fine to a Chinese app developer for illegally collecting the personal data of the children who used it.

The company was handed a staggering $5.7 million fine when the FTC filed a complaint alleging that the video-sharing app was in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

2018 Was The Record Breaking Year For Data Breaches

March 30th, 2019

We knew fairly early in the year that 2018 was on track to beat 2017 and set a new record for the number of data breaches in the year.

Afterall, 2017 had shattered 2016's record the year before.  Now that the final numbers are in though, we can see just how big an increase we've seen in the number of data breaches from one year to the next.