Attacks

Your Site Has Been Hacked

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In case you’ve been living under a rock in the last few months, or the year is 2450 and this blog made it to the list of humanity’s archive of must read materials, we are in the midst of a global pandemic caused by the COVID19 disease. The pandemic has meant that most of our lives have changed significantly for the time being, and possibly for the foreseeable future. Most of the people with desk jobs are working from home, leaving your house is currently allowed but alertness and basic consideration is required, we are all turning into couch potatoes […]

Discussion

Take back the word: Hacker

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So .. Hacker. Hacking, Hacked … all bad words, I know. But are they really? Yes, when you think of hacking, the first definition that comes to mind is: The gaining of unauthorized access to data in a system or computer. But in a wider definition: A hacker may alter system or security features to accomplish a goal that differs from the original purpose of the system. And if we even get really nice about it and remove some key words: A hacker may alter a system to accomplish a goal that differs from the original purpose of the system. Alright, so […]

Attacks

The Sextortion scam where they have your password

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Or do they? Maybe a year ago I was approached by one of my friends who told me he received a sextortion email. A sextortion is a type of a social engineering attack where an attacker sends you an email telling you they have your password for, whether it be an email, banking account, your local PC, your phone, or if you reuse passwords, all of the above. They then tell you that they have infected your computer with malware and have gained access to your camera and have filmed you watching porn and presumably doing whatever you do while […]

Emails

5 Best Ways to Spot a Fake Email

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I’ve started this blog in order to be able to help regular people who might not be very tech savvy (Mom, I’m looking at you), and might be more prone to being scammed or lied to. That being said, I will try to explain this in the most layman way possible. I was going to start with explaining what phishing is, but maybe I will dedicate a whole post just to that, and just give you the basics on what and how you need to check, without needing to know what it’s technically called and what kind of technology it […]

Attacks

The Online Marketplace Scam

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So, you have some old furniture to sell on eBay or Facebook marketplace, or Craigslist, or GumTree? Great! you go on, take great photos of that small side table, create your listing, you describe your table as the best one ever … and you hope for the best. Great! But I have a few things to mention. I’ve always been bothered by these kind of large items sales on online classifieds, because they are generally collection only, unless you are willing to travel for a couple of hours to deliver a 100kg side cabinet. You are likely to have to […]

Authentication

2 Factor Authentication

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I’ve got only one thing to say to you: Enable it! That’s it really. You can stop reading here. Alright, you don’t have to take my word for it, you don’t have to understand what it is and why it’s there, but if you could do like two things and nothing else to protect yourself online, it would be 2-factor authentication and backups. I will tell you more about backups in another post. Now, I will explain a little bit about 2-factor authentication, so that you won’t have to take my word it, but it’s not as important for you […]

Mobile Security

The HMRC Tax Return text message

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So this one involves your mobile phone. It’s about a text message I received recently from the HMRC. For all those of you outside of the UK, the HMRC is the revenue and customs service. It’s where you pay your taxes. Like the IRS in the US and others. The message comes from +447392014366 and reads as follows: Records show your are due a tax return of up to £485. Please follow the link to calculate and claim your refund. https://gov.hmrc-tax-return.com/ Now, wonderful, the HMRC owes me money … I started thinking what to buy with this extra swag… but […]

Emails

The fake PayPal GoDaddy invoice

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So, I have received a PayPal invoice from GoDaddy today that I need to pay $62 for renewal of one of my domain names. Which fair enough, I thought to be a legitimate request. First of all to start with, when you receive an email from anyone and you have even the slightest suspicion, check where it’s coming from from. In my case, it did come from paypal.co.uk, so, first check is OK. But that’s probably the only thing legitimate about this. I am wondering who this SHAUTFBD is? It does look suspicious, but maybe it’s a trading name that […]