You’ve likely heard of the recent ; below is an overview of what happened, along with recommended next steps to secure your information. What happened? Equifax, one of the major three US credit agencies, had it’s internal network compromised by criminal elements. As a result, the personal information of 140+ million consumers has been stolen. […]
What is the Equifax breach & what should I do about it?
September 19, 2017 By 2 Comments
[Read More ... ]
The Death of the Password
May 7, 2015 By 5 Comments
Password’s are dead. Why? Typical passwords are trivially easy to crack, even “strong” password can often be cracked within hours, if not minutes, by a hackers using a standard “dictionary attack.”
MS14-066 is a critical security update for Windows servers – patch as soon as possible
November 12, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Yesterday (11-Nov-2014) was patch Tuesday and Microsoft released 14 security bulletins. As is typical, each bulletin describes one or more vulnerabilities in one or more Microsoft products. One of these bulletins, MS14-066, looks to be extraordinarily important as it describes a vulnerability that can be exploited by a malicious actor simply by sending carefully designed […]
Why finding an EXE in your mail is a terrible thing
May 27, 2014 By Leave a Comment
The humble email attachment … arguably the most useful, yet most harmful, electronic communication development of the late 20th century. Once a novelty, email attachments are now as ubiquitous as … well, email itself! There’s no denying how convenient it is to share files with clients, colleagues & friends; unfortunately that very utility has made email […]
[ALERT] Heartbleed – What to do and what NOT to do
April 11, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Late on April 7 news came out that a key piece of software used by a majority of websites for secure transmission of information including logon passwords was broken. Since that time websites and organizations have been scrambling to put in place a fix. For the majority of major websites that work has been […]
A Windows Security Update You MUST Install (KB2621440)
March 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Every second Tuesday of the month Microsoft publishes a set of security bulletins along with security updates (patches) that address the flaws described in the bulletins. Every IT gal and guy knows this, so we simply build in the security update review and deployment process into our planned maintenance schedule. Sometimes, however, a security bulletin makes […]
Phone scams – the home computer connection
March 7, 2012 By 2 Comments
Do you give out personal information to people you don’t know when they call you? Neither do I! That is why you should take special care if you receive a call out of the blue telling you there is a problem with your PC and offering to fix it. For some time now scammers have […]
How to… Apply Windows Updates
March 1, 2012 By 3 Comments
Computer updates … what’s the deal, why bother? Unfortunately, patches & updates (security updates, in particular) are a fact of life on today’s Internet. The bad guys (hackers) are continually looking for – and being successful in finding – ways to break into computer systems. Targets are not just big companies, either – there is […]
Is your password on this Internet list?
May 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment
This article is an extremely worthwhile read, and a reminder why we need to take care when selecting passwords for online services. Using a common and/or easy-to-guess password opens up the possibility of having your system hacked, your identity stolen, or worse.
Malware Alert: “MACDefender” scareware targeting Mac OSX
May 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Mac users, beware a series of new ‘scareware’ malicious campaigns targeting MacOS! If you see a seemingly legitimate looking warning advising you to install or use “MAC Defender,” it is bogus – close it immediately with an apple-Q! New MAC OS X scareware delivered through blackhat SEO
Follow Cleartech on...