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Fileless malware: The invisible threat

Posted on Monday July 20, 2020 | security, malware, cybersecurity, fileless malware

Scanning the files you download is not enough to detect malware these days. Hackers have found a clever way to get around antivirus and anti-malware software by using fileless malware. Since this malware is not as visible as traditional malware, it can infect your entire infrastructure without you even knowing. Let's take a closer look at how fileless malware works and what you can do to defend against them.

Does private browsing secure your data?

Posted on Monday July 06, 2020 | firefox, safari, security, web browsers, chrome, vpn, opera, online privacy, private browsing, edge

If you're getting targeted with surprisingly relevant ads, there's a chance your internet activity is being tracked and analyzed by market researchers. While this doesn't bother most people, private browsing mode can offer you some protection against online marketers and data thieves.

Should you monitor your employees' online activities?

Posted on Wednesday July 01, 2020 | employees, tips, technology, security, productivity, lawsuits, online monitoring, policies, employee monitoring, online behavior

To monitor or not to monitor - that is the question. Employee monitoring is a touchy subject. If you've ever considered it, then you may ask yourself if it is a good idea for an employer to check on their staff's online activities. Below are the pros and cons of employee monitoring, and some helpful tips should you push through with it.

Turn off invasive Windows 10 settings in four steps

Posted on Wednesday July 01, 2020 | security, browser, microsoft, cookies, privacy, pc, cortana, windows 10, microsoft edge, p2p file sharing

Windows 10 has become the operating system (OS) of choice among business and personal users. Despite the many improvements to the OS that Microsoft has rolled out, Windows 10 isn't perfect. In fact, many users have complained about its intrusive default privacy settings. Luckily, you can easily turn these settings off to ensure your privacy.

Crooks Abuse Google Analytics To Conceal Theft of Payment Card Data

Posted on Monday June 22, 2020 | crime, google, privacy, security

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Hackers are abusing Google Analytics so that they can more covertly siphon stolen credit card data out of infected ecommerce sites, researchers reported on Monday. Payment card skimming used to refer solely to the practice of infecting point-of-sale machines in brick-and-mortar stores. The malware would extract credit card numbers and other data. Attackers would then use or sell the stolen information so it could be used in payment card fraud. One challenge in pulling off the hack is bypassing website security policies or concealing the exfiltration of massive amounts of sensitive data from endpoint security applications installed on the infected network. Researchers from Kaspersky Lab on Monday said that they have recently observed about two dozen infected sites that found a novel way to achieve this. Instead of sending it to attacker-controlled servers, the attackers send it to Google Analytics accounts they control. Since the Google service is so widely used, ecommerce site security policies generally fully trust it to receive data. "Google Analytics is an extremely popular service (used on more than 29 million sites, according to BuiltWith) and is blindly trusted by users," Kaspersky Lab researcher Victoria Vlasova wrote here. "Administrators write *.google-analytics.com into the Content-Security-Policy header (used for listing resources from which third-party code can be downloaded), allowing the service to collect data. What's more, the attack can be implemented without downloading code from external sources." The researcher added: "To harvest data about visitors using Google Analytics, the site owner must configure the tracking parameters in their account on analytics.google.com, get the tracking ID (trackingId, a string like this: UA-XXXX-Y), and insert it into the web pages together with the tracking code (a special snippet of code). Several tracking codes can rub shoulders on one site, sending data about visitors to different Analytics accounts." The "UA-XXXX-Y" refers to the tracking ID that Google Analytics uses to tell one account from another. As demonstrated in the following screenshot, showing malicious code on an infected site, the IDs (underlined) can easily blend in with legitimate code.

New Windows 10 update: Things you need to know

Posted on Friday May 22, 2020 | security, microsoft, windows, update, cortana, operating system, windows10, fluent design, w10

The Windows 10 update will roll out on May 26-28, 2020 and will bring about a fresher look for the world's most popular operating system. Aside from updates to Windows 10's interface, here are some functionality improvements you can expect.