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In late 2016, a huge data breach occurred. More than 412 million accounts were affected when hackers got into FriendFinder Networks.

According to sources, approximately a million of those accounts had the password ‘123456,’ and approximately 100,000 has the password that was simply, ‘password.’ This, of course, is despite the efforts from pros about password management and the importance of a strong password.

Complex Passwords are Inconvenient

This data breach is just one of many, and it shows that

According to a recent study, online security for most people is too bothersome. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology published the study, which shows that most people who use the internet have just given up and don’t follow the advice given to them about online security.

The result of this is that consumers are engaging in risky online behavior, and according to one survey participant, if “something happens, it is going to happen” and “it is not the end of the world.”

This is conc

Who’d ever think those silly little yellow circular faces and other such cyber symbols would become such a worldwide smash? I’m talking about emoticons, also known as emojis. Five years ago Apple put an emoji keyboard on its mobile devices. Six billion of these doggone things are sent every day.

But a story at kdvr.com says this isn’t as innocent as it seems.

The story mentions Sheila Allison and her 12-year-old who regularly communicate via emojis. For instance, Allison’s job means she’s not home

Get an account with TeamViewer, and you will have a software package that enables remote control, online meetings, desktop sharing and other functions between computers.

But recently, customers of TeamViewer have reported remote takedowns of their computers that resulted in different forms of monetary theft, such as bank accounts being cleaned out.

The cyber thieves controlled the victims’ computers via their TeamViewer accounts. Customers would witness their mouse arrow suddenly moving beyond the

As a parent, you may not be crazy about your child spending a lot of time “gaming.” Chances are good that your feelings are fueled by the fact that kids should play outside, be more social, and are getting addicted to tech or maybe the correlation between childhood obesity and excess computer time. It’s not pretty.

However, there’s another elephant in the room, perhaps squeezing out the obesity threat: the pedophile threat.

Recently on a Long Island college campus, a male student was found to be t

As much as you try, the unfortunate truth is that hackers are going to try to attack and access your WordPress website or blog, whether you like it or not. So, it is up to you to make sure you make the hacker’s job as difficult as possible. Here are some tips:

1. Use Plugins

One way to make your WordPress account less appealing is to use security plugins. These vary in quality, and you might have to purchase some of them, too. Just make sure to do some research before buying them, and when you do,

Beware of the B.E.C. scam, says a report at fbi.gov. The hackers target businesses and are good at getting what they want.

The hackers first learn the name of a company’s CEO or other key figure such as the company’s lawyer or a vendor. They then figure out a way to make an e-mail, coming from them, appear to come from this CEO, and send it to employees.

The recipients aren’t just randomly selected, either. The hackers do their homework to find out which employees handle money. They even learn the

Craigslist is one of my favorite sites on the Internet, though I admittedly have a love/hate relationship with it. One reason I love it is because of the deals and variety of items and services available, but I hate it because some of the people who use it are scammers and the site has some major security issues.

Once, I listed a property on on Craigslist for rent. Scammers relisted the property for a third of the asking price. People came to my home and would knock on my door to see the property

So Macs can be infected with malware. Who would have ever thought? The malware at issue here is the dreaded ransomware. Ransomware scrambles up your files, and the hacker at the helm says he’ll give you the cyber “key” in exchange for a handsome payment.

Ransomware historically has primarily impacted Windows users, but recently it got into OS X—its latest version, Transmission.

• The virus cyber-incubates for three days.
• Then with a Tor client, it connects to an Internet server and locks vulnerable f

Someone else might file your taxes if you don’t get to it. And they won’t be doing it as a favor; they’ll be doing it to steal your identity.

Here’s how it works:

• Cyber thieves send fraudulent e-mails to a business’s employees.
• The e-mails are designed to look like they came from the big wigs at the company.
• As a result, the targeted employees are tricked into revealing sensitive data about the company’s employees.
• The crooks end up with all this valuable data—enough to file phony tax returns.
• This pl

In France, anything is possible. Like getting tossed in jail for posting your children’s photos on Facebook.

Yes indeed, it’s true. People in France can be put behind bars for putting their kids’ pictures on Facebook. Or, they may face heavy fines. This is because the French authorities deem posting kids’ photos online threatens their security.

Parents are being warned about the consequences of this violation. The authorities believe that posting images of one’s kids online can lead to some pretty

Last year, says the security firm Gemalto, over 700 million records were breached. Or, to put it another way, this translates to two million stolen or lost records every day.

2015 Breach Level Report

• 1,673 hacking incidents
• 398 were triggered from the inside of the attacked company: employees and even IT staff who were tricked (social engineering) by hackers into clicking on malicious links or attachments
• Government agencies suffered the greatest data leaks.
• Following that were nation states and heal

What’s it gonna take for companies to crack down on their cybersecurity? What’s holding them back? Why do we keep hearing about one company data breach after another?

Well, there’s just not enough IT talent going around. The irony is that most company higher-ups admit that cybersecurity is very important and can even name specific situations that could compromise security, such as

having multiple vendors vs. only a single vendor; not having quality-level encryption in place; allowing employees to

Apparently there are people who take pictures of their airplane boarding pass…and post it online. I’m dead serious. I’ve heard of toddlers getting excited over scraps of paper, but full-grown adults posting images of their boarding pass online? Don’t get me started.

Let’s just only say that this is incredulously absurd. Like, who cares about your bleepity bleep boarding pass, right? OK, you got bumped up to First class. SAVE IT. Well wait a minute. Fraudsters care.

Fraudsters also care about the b

Whatever the appeal of sexting is to kids (attention), it’s definitely there, and won’t be going away too soon. Of all the things that teens can do in their daily lives, why spend time sexting?

• To feel cool
• To get a crush’s attention
• To make a relationship seem more serious
• To harass the recipient
• Peer pressure
• ATTENTION, SHOCK, AWE, SEX.

Before the advent of sexting, teens talked sex and even shared racy photos with each other. But the old-fashioned way meant that the only viewers were the people with

Gee, if your home is connected to lots of different devices, doesn’t it make sense that your cybersecurity integrates all your connected devices? Meet the Bitdefender BOX, a network bulletproofing hardware cybersecurity tool for the home that embraces smart home protection focusing on the Internet of Things with remote device management offering next generation privacy protection.

BOX description:

• One complete security solution for connected homes
• Sets up to a router
• Is controlled by the user’s mobi

Some people believe that monitoring your kids’ online activities crosses the line of privacy or trust. But monitoring and controlling online activities is, essentially, no different than controlling access to the cookie jar or TV or even locking a liquor cabinet.

Which brings me to a way that parents can always know exactly what their kids are doing in cyberspace. And control when, too. This is possible due to a type of software known as “parental control” that monitors the goings-on of any conne

You may be putting your company at risk simply by hiring a new employee. Why? Because that person could have a hidden, malicious agenda.

This is known as an inside threat, and it means that someone within your organization is planning or conducting activities meant to harm the company.

There is a pattern that most insider threats use: The first step is to gain access to the company’s system. Once they have access to the network, they will investigate it and seek out any vulnerable areas. The malic

Do you shop at Amazon.com? Are you aware they have a back door through which hackers can slip in?

Let’s look at Eric’s experience with hackers and Amazon, as he recounts at medium.com/@espringe.

He received an e-mail from Amazon and contacted them to see what it was about. Amazon informed him that he had had a text-chat and sent him the transcript—which he had never been part of.

Eric explains that the hacker gave Eric’s whois.com data to Amazon. However, the whois.com data was partially false beca

Most people have heard of storing information in “the cloud,” but do you know what this means, and if it is even safe?

A cloud is basically a network of servers that offer different functions. Some of these servers allow you to store data while others provide various services. The cloud is made of millions of servers across the globe and most are owned by private or public corporations. Many of those corporations are diligent about security, and you are likely using the cloud whether you know it