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 …
Category: Phishing
How To Avoid Smishing Scams
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 …
Hacked & Attached!
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 …
Smishing & Pharming
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 …
IC3 2019 Report
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 …
Apple Problem?
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 …
Scam Phone Number(s)
Yesterday, after we closed, we received a phone call which automatically went to voice mail. Since I was still sitting at my computer, I saw the call come in and I listened to the message. What I heard was a computer voice asking me to call their number. The message was repeated and then the …
IRS Scams
In my post of January 31, 2019 (The Weakest Link), I pointed out that one of the three major ways scammers use Social Engineering to steal your money is by using fear as a motivator. It's the reason you always need to stop and think about what you are being told before you act. It …
Old Rule Out, New Rule In
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 …