It’s important that you understand how tooltips are being used for phishing. First, I’ll explain terms and then I’ll outline the phishing process being used. Definitions Tooltips Are you familiar with the term tooltip? You probably see them all the time when you use a computing device but you might not know the term. Let’s …
Take a look at this screenshot of an email I received yesterday: I’ve underlined and circled some things so I can point them out to you. The first thing of interest is the “From:” name and email address. Notice, it reads that it’s from “[email protected]” but the real email address is showing and that address …
Malicious URLs are found in emails, in searches, on Social Media sites, and in texts. In this post, let’s explore ways to avoid being fooled by these hacker tricks. What Is A URL? Before we look at malicious URLs, we need to know the definition of the acronym URL. A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is …
Social Engineering is the number one way hackers break into computer systems and networks. As I explain in my blog post, Social Engineering: The Weakest Link In The Chain, the person operating a computing device is the weakest link in the security chain. Someone will click on a phishing email or be tricked into allowing …
Finally, no more Microsoft passwords! Yes, you read that correctly. You can now delete your Microsoft password forever! Password Troubles Over the years, one of the most aggravating aspects of computer usage has been passwords. Let’s see if you can relate to any of these password troubles: You forgot your password. Your password was lost. …
I suppose that before I explain how to avoid smishing scams, it might help to understand the meaning of the word “smishing.” Basically, smishing is phishing through text rather than email. All clear now? That definition works fine if you understand what phishing is. Okay, let’s go to the Mirriam-Webster dictionary to find out the …
June 19, 2021 Hackers Use Google Doc For Phishing If you use Google Docs, you need to be aware of a new phishing attack. Hackers are creating web pages that appear to be the well-known Google Doc form. These scammers are sending out links to what looks like a Google Doc. However, before you can …
I’m getting more inquiries about VPNs. We’re all seeing more ads about them and a larger variety of companies are offering them. But, what exactly is a VPN, and do you really need one? VPN Definition As the picture above spells out, the acronym VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. A VPN is like a …
Two days ago, Joyce and I separately received an email from one of our customers. It didn’t look important to me so I didn’t do anything with it when it arrived. Joyce, however, looked at the email and something told her it wasn’t on the up and up. Yes, it was from our customer’s legitimate …
In the past view days, I’ve gotten dozens of emails similar to the one pictured above. The email subject always includes the word “Receipt;” the email comes from different addresses; and the email has an Excel spreadsheet attached. While you may be curious as to what’s on the Excel spreadsheet, even though you might suspect …
Yesterday, the FBI released a special scam warning regarding COVID-19, Coronavirus Disease. It points out many of the warnings I have already given you here on our blog. However, I think all our blog readers should read what the FBI has to say. I’m going to paste the exact bulletin here: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, …
In my post, IC3 2019 Report, I shared that the top scam rip-off of 2019 was Phishing/Vishing/Smishing/Pharming. Although I’ve published posts on Phishing and Vishing, I have yet to cover Smishing and Pharming. I’m going to rectify that today! Smishing – Smishing is just like Phishing except the scam comes through text messaging instead of …
As I shared in my post, “Soapbox,” the FBI has released the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) 2019 Internet Crime Report. While my “Soapbox” post was focused on Tech Support Fraud, I think it’s important to share some of the other information found in this compte ren·du. For the record, I’m not passing this information along …
It seems like forever. Apple users were able to justify the cost of their Apple product, if for no other reason, because it was safer than a Microsoft device. Think about it. While there were tens of thousands of viruses for the Windows Operating System, there were, maybe, a hundred or so for the Mac …
You’re not going to believe this one! On my blog, I’ve posted about phishing and, hopefully, you understand what that encompasses. (If not, click on the word “phishing” in the previous sentence and have a look at the posts I’ve done.) Now, there’s a new type of scam. It’s call “vishing.” It’s like phishing except …
It was three years ago last month when I posted this video: In this blog, I’ve written these posts about scammers who scare you into letting them onto your computer: Are Foreigners On Your Computer? Anti-virus Not Working? Fake News Gift Cards=Scam Bad Anti-virus? The Weakest Link In The Chain Let’s Go Phishing! A Different …
One of the themes of this blog has been Social Engineering. I never set out to make that a primary subject but circumstances have drawn my posts in that direction. Today, I’m going to relate a story of how one of my customers got the “double whammy.” First, in case you missed my other posts …
In my post of January 31, 2019 – The Weakest Link In The Chain – I talked about Social Engineering (SE). While this post was aimed primarily at Social Engineering via the computer (fake pop-ups, phishing emails, etc.), I was reminded today by one of our customers that SE can occur via the phone, too. …
In this week’s Question of the Week (click to read) email, we answered a customer’s question about his credit card being found on the dark web. We gave a very brief definition of “dark web” but I wanted to expand that definition a bit. I’m actually going to quote and paraphrase from our October 23, …
Yesterday, I attended a security webinar presented by Lenovo and Intel with special guest speaker Vinny Troia. Vinny is a Computer Forensic Specialist and Certified Ethical Hacker, well-known throughout the computer IT world. Lenovo and Intel presented new ways they are improving hardware to make our computing safer. When it comes to software and user …
On January 29, 2019, I posted about phishing. (https://www.4kcc.com/blog/?p=774) Today, I’m posting about another kind of fishing – catfishing. No, not fishing for the “freshwater or marine fish with barbels resembling whiskers around the mouth, typically bottom-dwelling.” Rather, pretending to be someone else online in an attempt to deceive others. There are some real horror …