Possibly the biggest story of 2021 — an investigation by the Guardian and 16 other media organizations, published in July — suggested that over 30,000 human rights activists, journalists and lawyers across the world may have been targeted using Pegasus. Pegasus is a so-called “legal surveillance software” developed by the Israeli company NSO. The report, called the Pegasus … [Read more...] about How to protect from Pegasus and other advanced spyware
protect
What is NoReboot and how to protect yourself from such an attack
To be absolutely sure your phone isn’t tracking you or listening in on any conversations, you might turn it off. It seems logical; that way, even if the phone is infected with serious spyware, it can’t do anything. In addition, turning off or restarting a smartphone is one of the most reliable ways to fight such infections; in many cases, spyware “lives” only until the next … [Read more...] about What is NoReboot and how to protect yourself from such an attack
Meta Expands Facebook Protect Program to Activists, Journalists, Government Officials
Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, on Thursday announced an expansion of its Facebook Protect security program to include human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and government officials who are more likely to be targeted by bad actors across its social media platforms. "These people are at the center of critical communities for public debate," said Nathaniel … [Read more...] about Meta Expands Facebook Protect Program to Activists, Journalists, Government Officials
Malware on Discord and how to protect oneself
In the six years since the launch of Discord’s chat and VoIP service, the platform has become a popular tool for building communities of interest, especially among gamers. However, just like any other platform that hosts user-generated content, Discord can be exploited. Discord’s extensive customization options also open the door to attacks on ordinary users, both on and off … [Read more...] about Malware on Discord and how to protect oneself
What you see is what you get … to protect
In my first nearly 90 days since joining Cisco, I’ve spoken with customers from around the world. And one thing that I continue to hear? The shift to a more distributed workforce is driving the need for anywhere, anytime access to resources, wherever they exist. Prior to 2020, many treated “digital transformation” as merely a buzzword — a low priority, at best. Legacy … [Read more...] about What you see is what you get … to protect
How to protect yourself from ransomware: five tips
Recent years have seen ransomware grow from an abstract curiosity into a major problem anyone can face — and that hundreds of thousands of people already have. Now a mass industry, ransomware even shows a division of labor, with some criminals writing malicious code and others selecting targets and using the code to infect them, earning a percentage of the ransom. In the past … [Read more...] about How to protect yourself from ransomware: five tips
What vishing is and how to protect yourself from it
Between tech support requesting access to your computer, concerned tax services specialists demanding payments, medical equipment suppliers “returning your call,” and many more — none legitimate — it’s a wonder anyone even answers their phone anymore. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t experienced some form of phone scam, although the name for it isn’t as … [Read more...] about What vishing is and how to protect yourself from it
Mozilla Says Google’s New Ad Tech—FLoC—Doesn’t Protect User Privacy
Google's upcoming plans to replace third-party cookies with a less invasive ad targeted mechanism have a number of issues that could defeat its privacy objectives and allow for significant linkability of user behavior, possibly even identifying individual users. "FLoC is premised on a compelling idea: enable ad targeting without exposing users to risk," said Eric Rescorla, … [Read more...] about Mozilla Says Google’s New Ad Tech—FLoC—Doesn’t Protect User Privacy
What smishing is and how to protect yourself from it
With smishing all the rage, media in the United States, Italy, and Brazil have been cranking out alarming stories about new scams. The German police even issued an official warning about one such campaign. The phenomenon has raked in massive sums, as evidenced by its search popularity. So, what is smishing? Rise in search popularity of “smishing” on Google in the past few … [Read more...] about What smishing is and how to protect yourself from it
New Framework Released to Protect Machine Learning Systems From Adversarial Attacks
Microsoft, in collaboration with MITRE, IBM, NVIDIA, and Bosch, has released a new open framework that aims to help security analysts detect, respond to, and remediate adversarial attacks against machine learning (ML) systems. Called the Adversarial ML Threat Matrix, the initiative is an attempt to organize the different techniques employed by malicious adversaries in … [Read more...] about New Framework Released to Protect Machine Learning Systems From Adversarial Attacks