Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
As you probably know by now, ransomware is an insidious form of malware that will encrypt the contents of your hard drive and then demand that you pay a ransom to a scammer in exchange for the encryption key.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to fall victim to ransomware, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to recover your files even if you pay the ransom as instructed.
Now, the scammers are planning to take this insidious threat to an even more sinister level! [Read more…]
Have you ever paid Office Depot big bucks to fix your computer? If so, you just might have been scammed.
Several family members and acquaintances have told me about questionable dealings they’ve had with our local Office Depot’s computer computer service desk, but I figured it was just a bad apple or two at that one store.
But as the video below suggests, the entire Office Depot chain is apparently charging customers to “fix” computer problems that don’t even exist. Watch the video and check it out for yourself: [Read more…]
There’s a new Android malware called Gooligan that’s currently spreading like wildfire via the installation of malicious Android apps.
Gooligan attacks Android smart phones, tablets and other devices, and the end result is the hackers completely taking over your device and hijacking your Google account.
Over 1 million Google accounts have already been compromised and about 13,000 new Android devices are becoming infected every day! [Read more…]
Another day, another scam. But I must admit that this one caught me by surprise.
The makers of the popular “Web of Trust” browser extension (aka WOT) have been caught collecting and selling sensitive user information to third party companies.
And when I say the information being sold is sensitive, well…check it out for yourself: [Read more…]
Popular website creation service Weebly has been hacked, and the hackers were able to steal the usernames, email addresses, passwords and IP addresses belonging to over 43 million customers.
Weebly claims that the stolen passwords were in encrypted form, but if you have an account with them I strongly recommend that you log in to your account and change your password immediately. As they say, “better safe than sorry”.
They also claim that no credit card or bank account information was stolen, but I recommend that you monitor any accounts that are connected with your Weebly account for unusual activity anyway. Again, “better safe than sorry”.
Unfortunately, this Weebly breach is just the latest in a long string of successful hacking attacks, and I don’t see that string coming to an end any time soon. Therefore, I have a few suggestions for protecting all of your online accounts:
[Read more…]