Facebook Users Should Assume Their Public Has Been Scraped

April 20th, 2018

First it was 55 million.  Then 77 million.  Now, it's 2.2 billion, or pretty much every user on Facebook.  That's how many people should assume that their public profile information has been scraped.

The conversation began when it came to light that Cambridge Analytica (a political research firm) had misused Facebook's search function to scrap profile data for tens of millions of Facebook's users to help the Trump campaign win the recent presidential election.

Credit Card Breach Hits Two Large Companies

April 19th, 2018

Delta Airlines and Sears Corporation have both been notified of a data breach that has exposed the credit card information of some 100,000 Sears customers and "hundreds of thousands" of Delta customers.

Neither Delta nor Sears were breached directly.

Apple May Soon Say Goodbye To Intel Chips

April 18th, 2018

Rumors have been circulating for years that Apple has plans in the works to cut Intel and their chips out of the equation, in preference for using their own custom chips in its laptops and desktop computers.  Their iPhones and other devices already use custom chips, and according to the latest buzz, the move is designed to foster seamless interaction and cross-compatibility across the entire Apple ecosystem.

Most “Wannacry” Hacks Were On Windows 7 Machines

April 17th, 2018

Last year's Wannacry attack was bad, but in many ways, it was a self-inflicted wound.  According Webroot's recently published "Annual Threat Report," almost all of the machines that succumbed to the Wannacry attack were running Windows 7.  That attack is estimated to have caused in excess of $4 billion in total losses.

Hackers Zone In On Microsoft Products To Attack

April 16th, 2018

Congratulations to Adobe Flash Player for not being the software most targeted by hackers.  Security vendor "Recorded Future" has just published their annual list of the software hackers most commonly focus on when targeting computers and handheld devices for attack.

Energy Companies Under Attack From Malware

April 14th, 2018

The energy sector is in danger, and almost nobody is talking about it.  This, according to a newly published report by Kaspersky Labs.

At issue are ICS (Industrial Control System) computers.  Hackers are increasingly targeting them, having recently been given a robust set of tools to do so.

21 Percent Of Internet Traffic Riddled With Bad Bots

April 13th, 2018

How much of your website's traffic is driven by bots?  The answer may surprise you.  Overall, bots account for nearly half of all web traffic. The "good" bots account for 20.4 percent, and "bad" bots account for 21.8 percent.

Hackers, scammers and fraudsters commonly use bad bots to scrape content, test stolen account credentials, issue spam, conduct digital ad fraud by generating bogus clicks, conduct brute force attacks, and mine data from competitors.

Apple Releases Major iPhone and iOS Device Update 11.3

April 12th, 2018

There's a lot to talk about in Apple's latest update to iOS.  Version 11.3 boasts some significant changes and is well worth getting.  We'll go over the highlights below.

Battery management is the biggest and most significant change.  Last year, the company found itself in hot water when they began quietly throttling older phones and slowing down their performance because older phones have batteries that begin to degrade.

Alexa Now Makes It Easy To Donate To Charity

April 11th, 2018

Amazon has made a small but significant change to its Alexa service, which now makes it possible to donate to charity by issuing voice commands.

So far, there are 48 charities connected to the system, with more in the pipeline.  There are two ways you can make use of the new feature.

Amazon Removing Music Storage Service At End Of April

April 10th, 2018

If you use Amazon's Cloud MP3 Locker to store your music online, now is the time to start looking for a new home for it.  Last year, the company announced that they were ending the service, but didn't provide a firm date.  April 30, 2018 will be the last day you'll be able to access your music if you don't take action.