Posts Tagged ‘Social Engineering’
Eir laptop theft – could have been worse
The eir laptop theft that was revealed this week was pretty … actually … it was really bad and deeply embarrassing for eir. However details that emerged from the statement by the Data Protection Commission showed that it could have been a LOT worse. 1,500 Laptops worse!
Read MoreDisaster Relief Charity Scam – watch out!
Disasters happen many times a year and huge disasters impacting the US that get massive coverage in the international media happen less frequently (Katrina 2005, Sandy 2012 and now Harvey 2017). What has also happened at all of these disasters is a vile crime. The Disaster Relief Charity Scam.
Read MorePhishing subject lines – Top 10.
What would you expect if you got an e-mail with the subject line of “Security Alert”? How about “Unusual sign-in activity”? You probably expect it to be an e-mail that is trying to raise your awareness about some potential security issue. I’m afraid it is likely not. These are just two examples from the Top…
Read MorePhone scams – some current examples
In the last few days, I’ve received a couple of attempted phone scams. The first was a new one on me, but the second was an old favourite.
Read MoreHow a typo can cause you problems.
Nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes. One of the most common mistakes, in particular with mobile phones and their small keyboards, is the simple typo. Did you know that the evil doers have got sneaky ways that they try to capitalise on your fumbling fingers? It’s a technique called “Typosquatting“.
Read MoreGMail had a bad case of the phishers.
About 1 million GMail users were subject to a very clever phishing campaign last week. “What’s phishing?” I hear you ask. It’s basically an e-mail that persuades you to take an action, which ends up compromising you in some way. In this case, you receive an e-mail with an apparent Google Docs attachment. If you follow…
Read MoreEvil e-mail has your name and address!
Reports today are somewhat concerning. Below are two examples of evil e-mail that has been doing the rounds in the last day or so. The greeting addresses you by your first/given name and the file that is attached to the e-mail is called after your surname. The postal address shown IS also your address. I’ll…
Read MoreScary new way to have your GMail password and account stolen.
This is an incredibly easy way for the evil doers to steal your GMail ID and GMail password. This one could even catch out security people like me! ? So what happens is you receive an e-mail from somebody you know, who also had a GMail (note the emphasis on had).
Read MoreCould the attempted theft of €4.3m from Meath County Council happen to your business?
As was widely reported at the weekend, Meath County Council were the victim of an attempted theft of some €4.3 million. A lot of the reportage was pointing to hackers and this being a cyber attack, but based on what is known, in my opinion, it’s not really. This attempted theft was facilitated by the…
Read MoreThere is a lot of variations in scam e-mail the last couple of days.
I yearn for the days when evil e-mail was so easily identified “becuse it wuz ritten in, gud, inglish wit grate spellhng an pun.tation”. ? In the last couple of days, the evil doers have been varying their scam e-mails fairly wildly and it’s bound to catch out some people. I’ll run through three sneaky methods…
Read MoreSnail mail delivers USB keys … WTF?
I find I’m writing a second article about Evil USBs within a week. At least these ones don’t destroy your equipment, but they might infect you with nasty software that does things that you really wouldn’t want it doing. In this case, in Victoria, Australia, Evil Doers were dropping USB drives into people’s mailboxes. The…
Read MoreProtect your on-line accounts, but not with text messages.
As I outlined here, if you are using on-line accounts for e-mail, social media, etc. then one of the strongest means of protecting yourself from the evil doers is to use, what is called, two factor authentication. If you are not doing this now, you really should be as it improves your protection massively. This is…
Read MoreInternet Security Awareness and Safety Training
Justification: Did you know that malicious software gets past commercial, enterprise grade anti-virus and e-mail filtering products on a worryingly regular basis? Firewalls and Anti-virus packages lure people into a false sense of security. While they do provide protection up to a point, if somebody opens an e-mail attachment that contains new malicious software, these…
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