Scam involving Microsoft Edge where users are tricked into believing they’ve been hacked

There is a known scam involving Microsoft Edge where users are tricked into believing they’ve been hacked. This scam often uses malicious pop-ups or notifications claiming that your computer is compromised, urging you to take immediate action. These alerts appear legitimate, but they are designed to deceive and potentially lead you to harmful sites or extract money from you. Clear your browser’s cache and cookies and run a full system scan with your antivirus software to address this. Avoid clicking on any suspicious links or calling any provided phone numbers.


The cure is to go into your settings, which are below (More Tools). It says (Settings) In the drop-down on the left side of the screen, you will find (Cookies and site permissions)
Under (Recent activity), Instead of deleting all of your cookies, go into the offending cookie and Block everything. If this needs to be clarified, call a good service person.

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Free Email Services vs Paid for Email Services

Free Email Services

Examples: Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook.com

Advantages:

  1. Cost: They are free to use, which is the most significant advantage for many users.
  2. Accessibility: Easy to set up and use, often requiring just a few minutes to create an account.
  3. Basic Features: Offer essential email features, including sending and receiving emails, attachments, spam filtering, and security.
  4. Integration: Often integrates with other free services offered by the provider, such as cloud storage, calendars, and online document editing.

Disadvantages:

  1. Privacy Concerns: Free email providers use data mining to serve targeted advertisements. Your email content and personal data may be analyzed.
  2. Advertisements: Many free email services display ads within the email interface.
  3. Limited Support: Customer support is often limited and typically available through forums or help centers rather than direct contact.
  4. Storage Limits: Free accounts may come with limited storage space, requiring users to manage and delete emails regularly.
  5. Custom Domain: Free email services usually don’t allow using a custom domain (e.g., yourname@yourdomain.com), which can be less professional for business use.

Paid Email Services

Examples: Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), Microsoft 365, ProtonMail (paid tier), Zoho Mail

Advantages:

  1. Privacy and Security: Paid services often prioritize user privacy, providing better security measures and no ads. Some services offer end-to-end encryption.
  2. Custom Domain: Allows for custom domain email addresses, which are essential for businesses and professional use.
  3. Advanced Features: These include additional features like more storage space, advanced spam filtering, email aliases, and enhanced collaboration tools.
  4. Customer Support: Access to dedicated customer support, often including phone and email support.
  5. Integration: Seamless integration with other premium services and software offered by the provider, such as advanced cloud storage, team collaboration tools, and enterprise-grade applications.

Disadvantages:

  1. Cost: Requires a monthly or annual subscription fee, which can vary based on the service level and number of users.
  2. Setup Complexity: This may require a more complex setup, especially for custom domain email addresses requiring technical knowledge or professional assistance.
  3. Overhead: Businesses must manage the subscriptions and renewals, adding to administrative overhead.

Security Drawbacks of Free Services like Google (Gmail)

  1. Data Mining and Privacy:
    • Email Scanning: Google scans emails for targeted advertising and data analytics. While this is primarily for ad targeting, it raises data privacy and security concerns.
    • Third-Party Access: Although Google has robust security measures, there have been concerns about third-party apps and services accessing user data through permissions granted by the user.
  2. Advertising Model:
    • Targeted Ads: The presence of targeted ads based on email content can feel invasive and raise concerns about how securely data is being handled.
  3. Basic Security Features:
    • Encryption: Gmail offers encryption in transit (TLS), but emails are not end-to-end encrypted by default. This means Google can access email content.
    • Standard Protection: While Gmail includes standard security measures like spam filtering and phishing protection, more might be needed for businesses with high-security needs.
  4. Support and Incident Response:
    • Limited Direct Support: Free services offer limited direct support in the case of a security breach or urgent security issue. Users might have to rely on forums and help centers, which can delay resolution.
    • Response Time: Security incidents might not be addressed promptly, as with paid services offering dedicated support.

Security Advantages of Paid Services like Network Solutions

  1. Enhanced Privacy:
    • No Data Mining for Ads: Paid services like Network Solutions do not rely on advertising revenue, so they don’t scan emails for ad targeting. This ensures greater privacy and security for your data.
    • Data Ownership: Users typically retain full ownership and control of their data, not used for any purpose other than the service provided.
  2. Advanced Security Features:
    • End-to-end Encryption: Many paid email services offer end-to-end encryption, ensuring that only the sender and recipient can read the email content.
    • Advanced Spam and Phishing Protection: Enhanced spam filters, phishing protection, and malware detection are standard in paid services, reducing the risk of security breaches.
  3. Custom Security Configurations:
    • Customizable Security Settings: Paid services allow for more granular control over security settings, enabling businesses to tailor security protocols to their specific needs.
    • Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): While free services offer 2FA, paid services often provide more robust and customizable authentication options, including multi-factor authentication (MFA).
  4. Dedicated Support and Incident Response:
    • Priority Support: Paid services typically offer 24/7 customer support with dedicated security experts who can quickly address and resolve security issues.
    • Incident Response: Faster response times and professional incident response teams are available to handle security breaches, ensuring minimal disruption.
  5. Compliance and Legal Protections:
    • Regulatory Compliance: Paid services often provide features and support to ensure compliance with various regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, etc. This is crucial for businesses handling sensitive or regulated data.
    • Audit and Monitoring: Enhanced monitoring and auditing tools are available to track and respond to suspicious activities.

Summary

The choice is yours and depends on your specific needs. Free email services are suitable for personal use, casual communication, and users who don’t require advanced features or high levels of privacy. Paid email services are ideal for businesses, professionals, and users who prioritize privacy, custom domain usage, advanced features, and robust customer support.

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Gmail is a prime target for malicious actors

With over 4 billion registered users, it’s no surprise that Gmail is a prime target for malicious actors. Personal Gmail accounts, unlike many business email accounts, often remain active for years; after all, Gmail has been around since its launch in 2004.

To access your Gmail, threat actors aim to compromise your Google account, and they are persistently working on this around the clock. One method they use is exploiting expired cookies. Additionally, some new phishing techniques are remarkably sophisticated. To protect yourself, never open an attachment you’re unsure about. You can hover your mouse over the link to see its destination before clicking.

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Deep Packet Inspection

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and application-layer filtering are advanced network security techniques that provide comprehensive scrutiny of the data flowing across a network. These technologies allow for a deeper understanding and control over traffic than traditional packet filtering, which primarily examines headers of packets. Let’s delve into how each works:



Deep Packet Inspection (DPI)
DPI goes beyond basic header information to analyze the actual content (payload) of network packets. It operates at various layers of the OSI model, primarily focusing on the network, transport, and application layers. Here’s how DPI works:

Traffic Capture: DPI systems capture packets passing through a network node, such as a router, firewall, or switch.

Full Packet Inspection: Unlike simple packet filtering that only checks source and destination IPs or ports, DPI examines the entire packet content, including headers and data payload.

Pattern Recognition: DPI tools use signatures or patterns to identify specific types of traffic. For instance, it can distinguish between different types of application data, such as streaming video, Skype calls, or BitTorrent files.

Behavior Analysis: Advanced DPI systems can analyze the behavior of traffic to detect anomalies or signs of malicious activity, such as malware, spyware, or unauthorized data exfiltration.

Policy Enforcement: Based on the analysis, DPI can take actions defined by security policies, such as blocking, rerouting, or prioritizing certain types of traffic. It can also apply bandwidth restrictions or provide Quality of Service (QoS) enhancements.

Application-Layer Filtering
Application-layer filtering focuses specifically on the application level (Layer 7 of the OSI model) and is about understanding and managing traffic based on the application that generates it. Here’s how application-layer filtering operates:

Protocol Analysis: This filtering technique recognizes and interprets the protocols used by applications, such as HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, DNS, and others.

Content Inspection: It inspects the content of messages and data transferred in application-layer protocols to detect harmful content or policy violations, such as malware in a file being downloaded or sensitive information being uploaded.

Contextual Decisions: Application-layer filters consider the context of the traffic, including user behavior, time of access, and the nature of the content. This context helps in making more informed decisions about the legitimacy or safety of the traffic.

Action Execution: Depending on the policies set, the system can allow, deny, redirect, or modify application traffic. For example, it can block access to certain websites, prevent the download of certain file types, or remove sensitive information from outgoing emails.

Logging and Reporting: These filters log traffic details and decisions for auditing and compliance purposes. They provide detailed reports on application usage, blocked activities, and detected threats.

Integration and Use
Both DPI and application-layer filtering are often integrated into broader security systems, including Unified Threat Management (UTM) devices, Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFW), and Secure Web Gateways. These technologies are critical in modern network environments where security needs to be multi-faceted due to the sophisticated nature of threats and the complexity of high-volume, high-speed data transmissions.

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Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity:

    • Phishing: Deceiving individuals into revealing personal information or downloading malware by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in electronic communications.
    • Spoofing: Deceiving systems or individuals about the identity of the attacker by falsifying data such as IP addresses or email headers.
    • Honey Pots: Setting up decoy systems to attract attackers and divert them from actual targets, gathering information about their techniques.

Military Tactics:

    • Diversion: Creating a diversion to draw attention away from the main attack.
    • Feints: Simulating an attack on one point to hide a real attack on another.
    • Disinformation: Spreading false information to mislead the enemy about your intentions, capabilities, or locations.
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Is AI Making Hackers Smarter?

Is AI Making Hackers Smarter?

By Skeeter Wesinger

Artificial intelligence (AI) significantly influences the advancement of hacking techniques, enhancing the creativity and complexity of hacker strategies. Here are the primary ways AI is transforming hacking:


AI enables the automation of various hacking activities. It streamlines tasks such as scanning for network vulnerabilities, executing phishing attacks, and cracking passwords. This efficiency allows hackers to target multiple systems at once with minimal effort.

AI also plays a crucial role in developing malware that can evade detection. By learning from its operational environment, AI-enhanced malware can modify its behavior to bypass security measures, making it more challenging for conventional security tools to detect and prevent attacks.

In the realm of social engineering, AI, particularly through natural language processing (NLP), can create more convincing phishing emails and other deceptive tactics. These AI tools analyze extensive data from social media and other sources to tailor attacks more personally, increasing their likelihood of success.

AI systems can rapidly assess the results of their actions and adjust strategies promptly. When an attack method becomes ineffective, AI can swiftly identify alternative approaches, enhancing the threat posed by AI-driven attacks.

Hackers can use AI to detect patterns and vulnerabilities in software and systems that have eluded human researchers. These zero-day exploits, which exploit previously unknown vulnerabilities, are invaluable for compromising secure systems. Moreover, AI can make strategic decisions about which targets are most susceptible and thus more worthwhile to attack, helping hackers optimize their resources.

AI also reduces the barrier to entry for aspiring hackers by automating complex tasks, enabling individuals with limited hacking expertise to launch advanced attacks and expand the threat landscape.

However, it is crucial to recognize that AI technologies are also being used to strengthen cybersecurity defenses, setting the stage for a continuous arms race between attackers and defenders. AI-enhanced security systems can quickly analyze threats, adapt to new methods, and automate responses, providing an essential countermeasure to AI-powered hacking efforts.

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BitLocker

BitLocker, Microsoft’s encryption software for SSDs, has faced various challenges since its debut. The upcoming Windows 11 version 24H2 update, also known as the 2024 update, may introduce a new concern for users: BitLocker could be enabled by default during the installation process for all editions of Windows, including the Home edition. This information comes from a report by the German news outlet Deskmodder, which was subsequently covered by Neowin. Enabling BitLocker by default is seen as problematic for several reasons outlined below.

Firstly, enabling BitLocker, which encrypts and decrypts data continuously on your SSD, can significantly decrease your PC’s performance. Specifically, it could slow down system performance by up to 45% in Windows Pro, with similar impacts likely on other versions of the operating system.

Secondly, there is a risk for users who are not familiar with encryption. They might end up encrypting their data unintentionally during installation and could face difficulties decrypting it later if they misplace or fail to save the necessary decryption key. This could render both the CPU and the SSD inaccessible.

A third concern highlighted involves security vulnerabilities in BitLocker. According to YouTuber Stacksmashing, BitLocker’s encryption can be easily breached. They demonstrate that with a modest investment in a $10 Raspberry Pi Pico and physical access to the machine, encrypted data on a system with an external Trusted Platform Module (TPM) can be decrypted.

However, there is a straightforward remedy for this automatic encryption: users can disable Device Encryption in the Privacy & security section of the Settings menu. While this option exists, many Windows 11 users, particularly those with the Home version, may not be aware of it or know how to manage these settings.

If these reports are accurate, it would be prudent for Microsoft to reconsider the default auto-encryption feature before releasing the update. Such a feature seems to introduce more problems than it resolves.

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Zenbleed security hole

AMD finally patches gaping Zenbleed security hole — MSI releases AGESA 1.2.0.Ca BIOS update for Zen 2

AMD

MSI has published new BIOS updates featuring AMD’s AM4 AGESA 1.2.0.Ca firmware update, which targets Zenbleed attacks. The new firmware targets a vulnerability in AMD’s Ryzen 4000 series Zen 2 APUs that “may allow an attacker to potentially access sensitive information.”

It appears MSI is rolling out the new BIOS updates as we speak. The new firmware update is available on almost all X570 motherboards, but only a few of MSI’s other chipsets and motherboards (including the 400 series) have the new firmware update at the time of writing.

AGESA 1.2.0.Ca specifically addresses Zen 2 vulnerability CVE-2023-20593, classified as a medium-level threat by AMD. Specific details on the threat itself were not disclosed, however, AMD does say that this threat can allow an attacker access to sensitive information “under specific microarchitectural circumstances”.
Even though AGESA 1.2.0.Ca is targeted at Ryzen 4000 “Renior” APUs, the threat exists in all Zen 2 processors. It just happens that AMD already patched this security vulnerability in prior AGESA microcode updates—1.2.0.C and 1.0.0.B—in Ryzen 3000 processors before it got around to rectifying the issue in the Ryzen 4000 series.

AMD has already patched the security threat for other Ryzen-based CPUs outside of the AM4 platform, including the Ryzen 3000 Threadripper HEDT chips, 7002 EPYC server CPUs, and Ryzen 4000, 5000, and 7020 series mobile CPUs (yes, some Ryzen 7000 mobile parts are Zen 2-based). The only Zen 2 platform that remains vulnerable is AMD’s Ryzen Embedded V2000 CPus, which was supposed to get the EmbeddedPi-FP6 1.0.0.9 AGESA firmware update by April.

AMD did not state if this new security update impacts performance. When we tested Zenbleed fixes previously, we found that while gaming was unaffected, other performance could drop as much as 15%.

To re-iterate, this specific vulnerability only affects Zen 2-based chips, so if you have an AM4 chip using a different architecture — like Zen+ or Zen 3, you don’t need to update your BIOS.

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on-path attacks

In the bygone times of the 1990s, when the internet was less guarded, every piece of data transmitted from one computer to another was exposed. This was an era where not just the innocuous content of websites but also the critical confidences of usernames and passwords were exposed. With the advent of universal encryption, this blatant espionage was primarily curtailed, yet the adversaries of the digital age adapted swiftly, crafting new means to breach even these fortified defenses.

Among the nefarious tactics that gained currency was the sinister stratagem known as the man-in-the-middle attack; this has now evolved in nomenclature to reflect its changing nature—machine-in-the-middle, adversary-in-the-middle, or on-path attacks. This technique allows interlopers to clandestinely position themselves between a user’s device and the server it seeks to communicate with, thereby pilfering login credentials and session cookies to usurp control of accounts.

The ruse typically begins with an unsuspecting click on a phishing link, leading the user to a deceptive facsimile of a trusted site. In this crafted illusion, credentials are entered and captured, along with access tokens, before the user is unwittingly redirected to the actual website.

These MitM attacks pose a threat even to accounts secured by robust, unique passwords and buttressed by two-factor authentication (2FA)—a disconcerting fact highlighted by recent incidents involving Google and Microsoft accounts targeted by an innovative phishing kit, making hacking as accessible as subscribing to a software service.

Yet, the situation is not devoid of hope. Far from powerless, individuals can fortify their defenses against such MitM attacks with prudent changes to their login practices, among other security measures. While seemingly simple, these steps can significantly bolster one’s digital ramparts. Don’t fall victim. Think before clicking!

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SunPass $3.95 phishing scam

Sun Pass

Beware, fellow travelers of Florida’s highways, for amidst the innocuous currents of digital communication lurks a cunning deception. A seemingly benign message professing to address unpaid tolls through the venerable institution of SunPass emerges as a treacherous ruse designed to ensnare unwitting drivers in a web of deceit.

The artifice employed by these swindlers is as subtle as it is insidious. With meticulous attention to detail, they craft missives of alarming authenticity, purporting urgent demands for trifling toll fees. Yet, beneath this veneer of urgency lies a calculated scheme, a sly attempt to coerce unsuspecting victims into relinquishing their most guarded possessions: their personal information and, most perilously, their credit card details.

Pause, dear reader, and scrutinize these missives with discerning eyes of $3.95. scam. Note well that the path delineated by the hyperlink does not lead to the hallowed halls of SunPass; rather, it veers sinisterly towards the abyss of identity theft and financial ruin. This is naught but a stratagem, a subterfuge engineered to plunder your coffers and lay waste to your financial security.

Stand vigilant, for you need not fall prey to these nefarious machinations. Arm yourself with knowledge, and let not haste cloud your judgment. By unraveling the cloak of deception that shrouds these SunPass toll text scams, we may yet emerge unscathed from the clutches of these perfidious schemers. Behold, as we illuminate the workings of this fraudulent enterprise, exposing its dark underbelly to the light of scrutiny and thereby fortify ourselves against its pernicious advances.

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