Month: May 2017

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Malware – Know your nemesis

Malware - know your nemesis

Dogbot vs malworm

Malware, a portmanteau of "malicious" and "software", is an umbrella term for software applications and programs intended to cause disruption to computer operation, gather sensitive information, or gain access to private computer systems. It can appear in the form of code, scripts or active content (drive-by downloads), or as part of other seemingly-legitimate software. Some malware is disguised as genuine software, and may come from an official website in the form of a useful or attractive program which has the harmful malware embedded in it along with additional tracking software that gathers marketing statistics.

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Backup the [bleep] up!

Backups - inconvenience vs heartbreak

Dogbot with backup drive

Have you done a backup today, or even this week? This month? Ever? In this article, we'll talk about the importance of backing up data to help protect against catastrophic loss, such as through a failed hard drive, malware attack, theft, or other unforeseen event. Bulldog's been there, many moons ago. He's a lot wiser now.

Backup essential files regularly

Imagine losing all the photos you stored on your computer. The music you've saved on the computer since offloading your entire space-hogging CD collection on eBay. Those precious home videos of your family and holidays, all suddenly no longer there. All your work, all your accounts, all those memories. All gone because you trusted your PC to keep everything safe for one more day. Because you kept putting off those backups until the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. It applies just as much to work computers as those at home, as our experience has shown us that users all too often store personal files on computers at their place of work.

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Scam email of the week

Scam emails - spotting the fakemail amongst the realmail

Scam emails. We've all had them. Scammers love to send out emails claiming to be from a legitimate company, often the big ones such as Google or Amazon. Can you spot the realmail from the fakemail? We saw this one that claims to be from Apple, stating that we needed to click a link to change our account information. Hmmm really? Well we don't even have an Apple account, so even if this was legit, it would be nonsense!

Here's what to look for:

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Dodgy addons – rogueware in disguise

Can you be sure an addon is the real thing?

Rogue addons example - click for a larger view
Rogue addons example

Most regular websurfers use addons for their preferred internet browser to provide useful extra functions, but did you know some addons are not what they apear to be? This is one such example of a rogue addon you definitely do not want to install. The real address of the link shows up in the bottom left when you hover over the "install now" button, and it is nothing to do with Mozilla.com (where all official Firefox downloads including addons should come from), and instead a subdomain of reupd(dot)net. As it doesn't come from an official Mozilla address, it's most certainly rogueware.

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