Tag Archive for: Survive

Planes dropping out of the sky. Your mobile rendered useless, just like your car. As a Netflix film portrays a nightmare that security experts insist is a very real prospect… How will YOU survive on the day an enemy state switches off the internet?




An oil tanker ploughs into a tourist beach. Planes fall from the sky. Driverless cars run amok. The internet fails and the mobile network dies. Feral instincts take over as people fight for food, water and medicine amid the ruins of civilisation.

That is the nightmare vision depicted in Leave The World Behind, Netflix‘s recent hit film starring Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke as a couple battling societal breakdown when the technology that underpins civilisation collapses.

It’s fictional, but it touches on deep-seated, real-life fears.

The film is produced by Michelle and Barack Obama‘s company, Higher Ground. The ex-president was closely involved in shaping the plot, which dramatises many of the cyber-security issues on which he was briefed during his eight years in the White House.

For our 21st-century lives are almost entirely dependent on complex technologies that many do not understand — and that can so easily be exploited by our enemies.

Maintaining a car, for example, was previously a job for any competent motorist and their local mechanic. Now our vehicles are computers on wheels, their inner workings a mystery.

A scene from Leave The World Behind. The film is produced by Michelle and Barack Obama’s company, Higher Ground
A nightmare vision of the future is depicted in Leave The World Behind, Netflix’s recent hit film starring Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke as a couple battling societal breakdown when the technology that underpins civilisation collapses

We used to navigate with paper maps and landmarks. But with his car’s satnav out of action, Ethan Hawke’s character Clay Sandford is unable even to find his way to the nearby town.

Our telephone system used to run on sturdy copper wires, with handsets you could fix with a screwdriver. Now it is a branch of cyberspace.

So, too, is finance. Remember when a credit card’s embossed number left an imprint on a paper slip? Not any more. Our payment system depends wholly on electronic encryption.

What use is cash in the modern world? In the film, with the internet gone, it becomes a prized asset.

If the technologies we rely on break down, many of us will be as helpless as Hawke’s Clay Sandford. ‘I am a useless man,’…

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5 Cyber Safety Tips To Survive the Internet, Hackers and Scammers


Navigating the internet can be a trouble-filled journey. Bad actors intent on exploiting uninformed users are constantly lurking behind emails, websites, and social media invites. Even your Wi-Fi router and those now-ubiquitous QR codes can be danger points. Add to that, the never-ending virus and malware threats.

Computer and mobile device users are often unaware of the danger zones. However, the internet need not be a constant trip through the badlands. What it takes to stay protected online is knowing what to avoid and how to protect yourself.

Here are five things in your control to help keep your digital activity safe.

1. QR Codes, Handy but Potentially Harmful

QR Code for TechNewsWorld.com
A safe QR code for TechNewsWorld.com

These postage-size image links to websites can be convenient. Just point your smartphone camera at it and instantly go to a website, tech support location, discount offer on a purchase, or restaurant menu.

However, QR codes can also take you to a nefarious place where malware or worse is waiting. QR codes can be programmed to link to anything, putting your privacy and security at big risk.

Think before you scan a QR code. If the code is displayed on a website or printed document you trust, it is probably a safe. If not, or you are unsure, check it out.

You can download reputable QR reader apps that will perform a security check on the endpoint of the QR code’s destination. One such safety tool I use is the Trend Micro QR Scanner app, available for Android and iOS.

2. Avoid ‘Unsubscribe’ Email Scams

This is a popular ongoing scam that has a high success rate for hackers. Potential victims get an email for a product offer or other business invitation. The opt-out action step is enticing, looks familiar, and sounds reasonable. “Don’t want to receive our emails? Click here to unsubscribe,” it beckons.

Sometimes the annoying repeat emails ask if you want to unsubscribe from future emails. Some even offer you a link to cancel a subscription.

Do not select any options. Clicking on the links or replying confirms your active address.

Never input your email address in the “unsubscribe me” field, either. More senders will follow.

A better…

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To Survive, Deceive: Decoys in Land Warfare


Editor’s Note: This article has been adapted from a paper in French published in Défense & Sécurité Internationale (DSI).

In a black-and-white photo seen in many books and newspapers to illustrate the deception integral to the D-Day invasion, four men carry a 30-ton Sherman tank near what seems to be a barrack. This famous image is bizarre. Of course, what it shows is an inflatable tank, a decoy that was used in the vast and complex deception operation around the 1944 Normandy landings. Land tactical decoys are dummy equipment like armored vehicles, bridging capabilities, artillery pieces, and radars or installations (buildings, bridges, and runways) intended to deceive enemy observers. Their use has been standard in warfare since ancient times. Among the countless examples, relatively contemporary decoys include the Quaker guns of the U.S. Civil War, which were logs simulating artillery pieces; “horses” made of wood and blankets used by the British at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918; the construction by Her Majesty’s Sappers of 8,400 dummy vehicles and devices of all kinds for Operation Bertram in 1942; and, more recently, various decoys to deceive enemy aircraft used by the Iraqis in 1990 and 1991, the Serbs in Kosovo in 1999, the self-styled Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. Unsurprisingly, major potential adversaries of Western countries have kept a place for decoys in their armed forces: China seems well equipped and appears to give decoys a prominent place in its maneuvers, for example, and North Korea is reportedly using decoys intensively to protect its equipment and plans to use them extensively in warfare. Faithful to its longtime military doctrine of maskirovka, or deception, Russia pays special attention to decoys and even has a dedicated unit (the 45th Independent Camouflage Regiment) stationed near Nakhabino in the Moscow region.

 

 

Western armies, however, appear to have dropped decoys from their inventories. The main reason is that for too long, they have benefited from “operational comfort” and, in particular, undisputed air superiority during interventions…

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Suspected Chinese Hackers Unleash Malware That Can Survive OS Reinstalls – PCMag

  1. Suspected Chinese Hackers Unleash Malware That Can Survive OS Reinstalls  PCMag
  2. Kaspersky Finds Sophisticated UEFI Malware in the Wild  ExtremeTech
  3. Rare Bootkit Malware Targets North Korea-Linked Diplomats  Threatpost
  4. MosaicRegressor APT campaign using rare malware variant  ComputerWeekly.com
  5. Diplomats Attacked with Firmware Bootkit  Infosecurity Magazine
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