Tag Archive for: safer

Eastern Communications leads awareness on Safer Internet Day


IN alignment with the global observance of Safer Internet Day 2024, premier telecommunications company Eastern Communications steps forward to highlight the critical issue of online security.

Amid the growing prevalence of online scams, particularly through work emails and misleading links, Eastern Communications is at the forefront of educating and protecting businesses and individuals alike.

Source…

Here’s How Hackers Steal Your Password and How You Can Create a Safer One


Every year the private digital security company NordPass publishes a list of the most popular passwords across 30 countries. And as always, the current list from 2022 also contains shockingly simple ones. The top five are: “password,” “123456,” “123456789,” “guest” and “qwerty.”

Needless to say, these are weak passwords—but what makes a good one? Most people know a few rules of thumb: it should be as long as possible, contain special characters and not be a simple word. You should also change it regularly, choose a different password for each user account and never write it down. Meeting all these requirements at the same time seems almost impossible. And once you have found a good password, a website may not accept it: either it is too short, contains an illegal character—or is somehow too long. PayPal, for example, does not allow passwords longer than 20 characters. These restrictions make password selection extremely frustrating for most users.

For their secure password requirements, many Internet service providers rely on 2003 guidelines published by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology that recommend passwords with as large a mix of special characters, uppercase letters and lowercase letters as possible. Bill Burr, a former NIST employee, created these guidelines but has since told the Wall Street Journal that he regrets many of these recommendations. That’s because forcing people to change passwords and requiring them to use special characters often lead them to choose easy-to-remember (and therefore insecure) passwords that follow a particular scheme or pattern. For example, “password1” is no more secure than “password.” Thus, NIST has now revised its guidelines, but not all providers have followed suit. Very often, you are forced to use special characters, numbers, and uppercase and lowercase letters in a password.

How Are Passwords Cracked?

To learn how to choose a secure password, you need to understand how hackers do their work. The simplest approach is to systematically try all possible password combinations in what is known as a brute-force attack. Fortunately, it is rarely possible to log in to an online…

Source…

The Definitive Guide to Stay Safer


Ransomware is experiencing a renaissance in 2023, with some cybersecurity firms reporting over 400 attacks in the month of March alone. And it shouldn’t be a surprise: the 2023 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index found backdoor deployments — malware providing remote access — as the top attacker action in 2022, and aptly predicted 2022’s backdoor failures would become 2023’s ransomware crisis.

Compounding the problem is the industrialization of the cybercrime ecosystem, enabling adversaries to complete more attacks, faster. Over the last few years, the average time to complete a ransomware attack dropped 94% (from 2019 to 2021). In 2019, the average ransomware attack took over two months from initial access to ransomware deployment. Today it takes less than four days to execute an attack.

The X-Force Definitive Guide to Ransomware can help.

Threat actors continue to adjust their tactics, techniques, and procedures to evade detection. To stay ahead, we refresh the Guide annually to include the latest ransomware research, trends, and attack types. Originally developed by my colleague Limor Kessem in 2017 — who pulled me in as a coauthor — the guide was intended to be a point-in-time document to address the surge in ransomware across geographies and industries.

A bit unexpectedly, the Guide rapidly became one of the hottest publications we do here at X-Force, garnering tens of thousands of downloads and generating a lot of conversation on social media (and several of you have asked how it got started — hence the history lesson!). With that, we’ve refreshed it annually with current data on the evolution of ransomware, types of ransomware attacks — including double-and-triple extortion, and details on each phase of incident response.

Download the Guide

What’s New in the 2023 Definitive Guide to Ransomware

This year, we’ve pulled a handful of other X-Force brainiacs into the author mix — including some of our industry-leading intelligence and research experts — to make the Guide an even more robust and powerful tool in the quest to stay safer from ransomware.

In this year’s edition you’ll find:

  • The X-Force exclusive 5-stage ransomware attack framework,…

Source…

Latest Gamers Hacking Incidents and Online Security: Tips for a Cleaner, Safer Experience


Recent Gamer Hacking Incidents

Sadly, data breaches and hacking incidents are becoming a regular occurrence in the fast-paced world of technology and the internet. In the gaming community, such incidents have been rampant, leading to significant losses and breaches of trust for the affected companies and their customers.

In 2023, several high-profile companies experienced significant data breaches. T-Mobile, a mobile telecommunication company, suffered two data breaches in January and May. The breaches resulted in the exposure of personal information, such as names, emails, and birthdays, of over 37 million customers​.

ChatGPT, an AI company known for its revolutionary capabilities, also suffered a data breach in March 2023. The incident exposed users’ names, email addresses, payment addresses, and partial credit card information. Although the company took swift action, the incident shook users’ trust​.

Video game publisher Activision, renowned for the Call of Duty franchise, also confirmed a data breach in February 2023. The breach exposed sensitive employee data, including emails, cell phone numbers, salaries, and work locations​​.

Online Security Tips for Gamers

Given the increasing number of hacking incidents, maintaining a clean, safe gaming experience has become more important than ever. Here are some tips to help you secure your online gaming experience:

Don’t Reveal Personal Information

Cybercriminals are always looking for personal information to impersonate or target individuals. Avoid using your real name, birthdate, or other identifiable information in your username. Also, refrain from sharing personal details in chats or streams​.

Edit Your Privacy Settings

Online games allow you to interact with gamers worldwide. While this interconnectivity is exciting, it can expose you to potential threats. Always vet who you allow to follow your online profile, and be cautious of any friend requests from strangers. Customize your privacy settings to make your profile invisible to strangers​​.

Achieve a Safer Web with Tools like Guardio

Companies like Guardio are committed to helping you maintain a cleaner, safer web…

Source…