Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
By now you probably know about the dangerous Heartbleed bug that’s affecting millions of secure websites. It’s a pretty nasty vulnerability that must be avoided at all costs.
A few days ago I wrote about a great tool developed by the folks at LastPass that lets you check to see if a particular website is affected by Heartbleed. Well, now there’s another tool that’s even faster and easier to use. [Read more…]
Millions of computers are infected by viruses and other forms of malware every month, and a large percentage of those infections occur as the result of clicking on a bad link. That’s why I’ve written several times in the past about the importance of avoiding links that will take you to an unfamiliar website.
But there’s a problem. With so many people using shortened URLs on Facebook and Twitter, it seems all but impossible to determine where a link will take you without clicking on it first. Well, now there is an easy way to determine exactly where a shortened link will take you, and even get a quick “opinion” from security experts about just how safe the landing page is! [Read more…]
The popular “Daily Deals” site LivingSocial.com has announced that their site has been hacked and the personal information belonging to over 50 million users has been compromised.
If you have an account with LivingSocial you need to change your password immediately (click here for tips on selecting one that’s tough to crack, but easy to remember). You should also begin monitoring your credit report and financial statements for irregularities.
According to LivingSocial, the customer data that has been compromised includes the following: [Read more…]
In order to be fully protected against malware, hackers and other online security threats you need a complete Internet Security software suite. There are many such programs on the market, and I’ve tested several of them over the course of the last few months. One of my favorites is COMODO Internet Security.
COMODO comes with one of the best firewall applications available today. It blocks both inbound and outbound known threats from getting through in either direction while “sandboxing” unknown websites so they cannot spread viruses and spyware to the rest of the system. [Read more…]
If it seems like you’re prompted to update Adobe Reader more often than you visit the grocery store, there’s a reason: It’s an inherently insecure program that requires more patches than a NASCAR driver’s racing uniform in order to keep hackers from breaking into your system.
Yep, hackers love Adobe Reader – which means you shouldn’t.
The good news is you don’t really need Adobe Reader on your computer at all, even if you tend to read lots of PDF files. If you use Google Chrome or Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, those browsers now display PDF files by default without having to load Adobe Reader at all. [Read more…]