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What Is Phishing And How Can You Protect Yourself From It?

Ever gotten an e-mail offer that seemed just a little bit too good to be true? Might’ve been a phishing attempt! These are everywhere and can come in many different forms. 

So what’s phishing exactly, how can you detect it and how can you keep safe?

What is phishing?

Phishing (pronounced like fishing) is a type of cyberattack that tricks the user into trusting the source and revealing sensitive information. Fishing being the perfect analogy, the bait is a legitimate-looking site, e-mail or file and when you take a bite, your identity, banking information and much more can be revealed and stolen.

Phishing Illustration
Credit Anne Nygård on Unsplash

Some phishing attempts are incredibly obvious, others are super elaborate. Like with most types of malware, cybercriminals have become extremely well-versed in phishing and anyone can fall for it. To help you recognize and avoid it, we’ll take you through a couple of phishing types and give you tips on what to do if faced with them.

Phishing techniques

E-mail phishing

This is actually the most common type of phishing. A cybercriminal creates an e-mail containing stuff like attractive offers, legitimate-looking attachments or links and makes it appear as though it’s coming from a trusted source.

Illustration of Email Phishing
Credit Justin Morgan on Unsplash

For example, it looks like it’s coming from your bank or your favorite retailer. The logo looks legit and the structure of the e-mail seems familiar, so you might get tricked into clicking on whatever clickable content is in it.

Unfortunately this exposes your device to malware that hands your data off to the hacker, who can decide what to do with it further.

SMS and social media phishing

Like the above example, you could be approached with lucrative offers or links via text messages or social media messages. Typically, the messages seem relevant to the user as they will be made to look like they’re related to apps or services you’re using.

Voice phishing

Voice phishing attacks are schemes that appear as though they’re coming from a credible number. Normally, you’ll get a call about something related to credit cards or taxes to get you into a state of worry, leading you to disclose personal information on the phone.

Spear phishing, whaling and BEC

Spear phishing normally targets specific individuals within a company who are likely to have access to sensitive data. Spear phishers spend time collecting information they can use to reach out to the individual looking as trustworthy as possible. They’ll typically lead with something relevant, for example mentioning an upcoming company event, and make a seemingly legitimate request.

Whaling is a more elaborate form of spear phishing, which targets people in even stronger positions such as executives or high-value individuals. The ultimate goal is to get them to transfer financial or other sensitive information that can be used to compromise the entire business.

Spear Phishing Illustration
Credit Azamat E on Unsplash

BEC, or Business e-mail compromise, is a specific spear phishing technique carried out via e-mail. While there are many ways this is done, most commonly you’ll see instances where the phisher poses as a CEO or similar executive, or as a lower-level employee in specific positions (e.g. sales managers or financial controllers).

In the first situation, the impersonator reaches out to employees requesting them to transfer certain files or pay invoices. In the second situation, the phisher takes control of the employee’s e-mail account and sends false instructions to other employees in order to obtain data and information from them.

What can you do?

There are many ways you can be aware and spot a phishing attempt. Here are some tips:

  • Always check the sender’s address in your e-mails, even when they seem to come from a familiar source.
  • In any instance where payment information is requested, be very, very careful.
  • If you are receiving attachments you never asked for and definitely didn’t expect, better not click on them. 
  • Beware of content that transmits a sense of urgency (sales deals, urgent updates to login credentials, etc.).
  • Bad spelling and grammar are usually a telltale sign of phishing.
  • Links that look shortened (e.g. Bit.ly) or just suspicious in general - if you have a bad feeling, do not click on them.
  • If you are receiving threats, you probably shouldn’t be clicking on anything in that message.
  • Always examine first-time senders in detail.
  • Block suspicious e-mail addresses, numbers and social media accounts.
  • If you are receiving a coupon for free stuff… You aren’t.
  • If you’re being asked to update your payment details by a service you use, such as Netflix, chances are it’s an impersonator.

Those are some of the ways to identify and prevent phishing attacks. However, sometimes phishers disguise themselves a little too well or a misclick happens and there you go - you’ve been exposed to malware.

Illustration of a Lock on Keyboard Keys
Credit FLYD on Unsplash

This won’t happen if you invest in powerful protection software from the get-go, though. A good antivirus program like Bitdefender will keep you safe from becoming a victim of phishing scams. In fact, it will protect you from malicious attacks overall.

Be it your household or your business you’re concerned about, there are a bunch of different packages and options available, providing different kinds of cybersecurity services. That’s the only way you can ever really be sure you aren’t at risk of a digital attack.

Summary

Have you ever been targeted by phishers and didn’t know that’s what it was until you read this article? Many can relate. Protect yourself before it’s too late!

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The Sysfader iexplore.exe Application Error - What is it?

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Further Information and Manual Repair

To prevent IE web browser and your PC from coming crashing, here are some solutions that you can try to resolve the Sysfader iexplorer.exe application error:
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You may also contact a Windows repair technician as well, in case you have trouble implementing the steps mentioned for modifying your Windows registry or if other problems arise while you are proceeding with these instructions.

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Step two: Type the appropriate password or provide confirmation if you are prompted to do so

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Unfortunately, there’s no known cause for this error. However, some users reported that this occurs when:

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Further Information and Manual Repair

Your Windows 10 upgrade will not be successful if you’re not able to create a user account or finish the Out of the Box (OOBE) phase of the installation. Here are some methods that will help you fix this manually.

Method 1 – Wait and retry

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Method 2 – Load default user manually

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Method 4 – Create a local account if you’re trying to set up a Microsoft account

Instead of connecting to a Microsoft Account after the set-up, you might want to try creating a local account. To do this, follow the steps below:

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Method 5 – Boot your computer from Windows 10 media

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After doing the steps above, there’s a chance you get an error message that says “installation cannot be completed in safe mode”. When you see this, just press Shift+F10. This will execute and open the command prompt of your computer.

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 After replacing the username and password on the text, press the Enter button on your keyboard. You’ll know if the command is successful once you see the message, “The command completed successfully.”

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Started as an internal network and has slowly expanded since 1960 internet has taken over the world. In the beginning, it was a means of information change but in the modern age you can run applications and virtual machines over the internet, you can stream video and audio, and you can communicate in real-time with someone on the other side of Earth.

With the internet growing so fast in such a small amount of time it is only logical and wise to take a step back and take a good look at what it offers now, what are great things about it and what are some of the worst.

internet

Good sides of the internet

Information

There are a lot of advantages of the internet, first and foremost is information. Internet was made as an information exchange service and even today you can find a lot of various information about various topics that interest you. A site like Wikipedia is a completely free online encyclopedia and a lot of news companies have their own internet sites where you can find free information and news.

On the other hand, there are also websites like udemy, edx, Coursera, and many others that will offer you the education, some for free, some for money but you can get a glimpse and part of university quality education for just a fraction of price.

Online shopping

Sites like Amazon have used the internet and launched themselves as today's multi-billion companies. In today's world, there is not a single thing you can not buy online. Many sites today are going from the large online marketplace where you can find everything to small niche specialized ones. Also every major brand in the world today has its own online store.

Other shops will offer you music, movies, games, etc. Services like steam, xbox pass, sony pass etc, will let you buy games online, other music, movies, and many more.

Streaming services

Days, when you had to buy movies in order to watch them at home, are gone, thanks to the internet we have plenty of streaming services for movies and tv shows as well as ones for music. If you do not want to spend money on actually purchasing things then a good idea is to have a streaming plan set up when you want it.

Email and messaging

Communication is a great thing and since the dawn of mankind people have been talking and sharing with each other, the internet has made it possible to send mail electronically and instantly and modern chat communication is everywhere. We can not just talk with our friends and family that can be on the other side of the world, we can also talk in real-time with the sales representative, with technical service, or attend online classes with a group of people.

Cloud storage services

Saving your pictures in this digital media age on the hard drive can be risky but thanks to modern technologies you can save most of your precious files on cloud servers for safekeeping. From pictures to documents and even other files that you need and want to save. There are some of them that will offer you a free amount and some basic free plans as well.

Bad sides of the internet

Malware, viruses, and phishing

We could not talk about the bad side of the internet if we do not mention its greatest threat. Bad sites, infected software, phishing emails, and many more malicious threats. Problem is that these kinds of tricks and attacks have become more and more sophisticated and harder to detect and avoid.

Pornography

Pornography is bad, having it freely available to children is even worse. Sadly the only way to regulate this is on a computer-by-computer basis by turning on parent control on each one. There are many studies that go into detail about why this is bad, sadly currently there are no effective ways to isolate this content.

No privacy

When we say there is no privacy we do not mean by using social media and not setting your privacy settings altho that also fits in this point, what we are talking about is data mining of your habits and things you do. It is well known that today lot of websites are using some form of AI recommender system in order to tailor your internet experience to suit your needs better. Most of these AI systems are trained by mining your data and analyzing your habits.

If you have 2 google accounts there is a high probability chance that for the same query you will get different results, depending on your so far browsing habits. The same goes for other services as well.

Dark webshops

There are some great things in dark and deep WEB-like sites with true news and information. Even some legit libraries where you can find and download rare books. Sadly as goes with the internet dark and deep WEB also has its well, dark sides, from disturbing content to shops that sell stolen items to straight stealing your money by parading as legit shops but only to steal your money.

Dating sites

We all try to find someone that is perfectly matched with us but using the online dating site has many proven bad effects on psychology. It also devaluates interaction between people and can lower self-esteem.

Bad habits

Since the internet has become wildly available and popular on various devices like tablets and mobile phones more and more people are spending an unhealthy amount of time on it. Harvesting the benefits of the internet is great but find some time for other people as well.

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fortnite cannot connectCheck the Epic Games Status page

Check the Epic Games Server Status page to make sure all systems are operational. If the issue you’re experiencing is related to an outage or system-wide issue, you won’t be able to connect to the Epic Games Launcher or Fortnite until it's resolved.

Use a wired connection

Wireless connections are not as stable as wired connections. This means that the signal can be unreliable and result in packet loss, connection problems, or higher latency or ping. Connect directly to your modem or router with an Ethernet cable to eliminate this possibility and have the fastest connection possible.

Disable your firewalls

Often the quickest way to fix connection problems due to firewalls is to temporarily uninstall and/or disable it.

Windows Firewall disable guide:

  1. Click on Start.
  2. Click on Control Panel.
  3. Click on System and Security.
  4. Click on Windows Firewall.
  5. Click on Turn Windows Firewall on or off (You might need to provide the Administrator password at this step)
  6. Under each Network location, select the Turn off Windows Firewall option

Uninstall any other firewalls

Using a third-party firewall may prevent you from being able to connect to the Epic Games Launcher, Fortnite, or another Epic Games product. We recommend removing any third party firewalls temporarily to see if this resolves your issue. If it does resolve the problem, make sure to add the following executables as exceptions to your firewall:

Epic Games Launcher

  • C:\Program Files (x86)\Epic Games\Launcher\Engine\Binaries\Win64\EpicGamesLauncher.exe
  • C:\Program Files (x86)\Epic Games\Launcher\Engine\Binaries\Win32\EpicGamesLauncher.exe

Fortnite

  • C:\Program Files\Epic Games\Fortnite\FortniteGame\Binaries\Win64\FortniteClient-Win64-Shipping.exe
  • C:\Program Files\Epic Games\Fortnite\FortniteGame\Binaries\Win64\FortniteClient-Win64-Shipping_BE.exe
  • C:\Program Files\Epic Games\Fortnite\FortniteGame\Binaries\Win64\FortniteClient-Win64-Shipping_EAC.exe
  • C:\Program Files\Epic Games\Fortnite\FortniteGame\Binaries\Win64\FortniteLauncher.exe
Contact your firewall manufacturer for instructions on how to add these as exceptions to it as this varies between them.

Unblock your network ports

Network ports allow certain types of data to be successfully sent over a network that is used by our services. If you have any of these blocked, it may result in you being unable to connect to our games or use our services properly. To unblock your ports on your router do the following:

Windows

First, you will need to get your default gateway and internal IP address:

  1. Click on Start.
  2. Type cmd and press Enter.
  3. Type ipconfig and press Enter.
  4. Take note of your Default Gateway and IPv4.

Configuring your router to unblock the ports

  1. Open your web browser.
  2. Type your Default Gateway into the address bar and press Enter. (A common Default Gateway is 192.168.1.1)
  3. You may be asked for a username and password. This varies for each router. Before entering anything, try just hitting OK. If that doesn't work, try the common default username and password below: Username: admin Password: password If these don't work, you can check this website for a list of usernames and passwords based on your router model.
  4. Locate the Port Forwarding page in the administration tool and click on it.
  5. Make sure you have Port Forwarding selected and not Port Triggering as this is completely different.
  6. On this screen, you will need to enter the ports and port ranges below with the correct protocol and local IP of which you took note of above: 80 (TCP/UDP), 433 (TCP), 443 (TCP), 3478 (TCP/UDP), 3479 (TCP/UDP), 5060 (TCP/UDP), 5062 (TCP/UDP), 5222 (TCP), 6250 (TCP/UDP), and12000-65000 (TCP/UDP).
If you have any trouble doing the above on your router, make sure to check out the router manufacturer's support site for additional instructions as these will vary from router to router.

VPN and Proxy Servers

Do NOT use VPN or Proxy Servers. These cause issues that can't be resolved by us without having you disable them. Check out this article for information on how to disable your proxy server.

Switch Domain Name Systems (DNS)

Switching your DNS can result in better connectivity and performance for your internet connection. There are two different DNS services we recommend to have you try if you are having issues with your connection. Below are the followings links with instructions on how to change your DNS:

Epic Games Launcher: Edit your Engine.ini file (Windows only)

Editing these settings can result in better download speeds using the Epic Games Launcher:
  1. Click on Start.
  2. Type %localappdata% and press Enter.
  3. Open the EpicGamesLauncher
  4. Open the Saved
  5. Open the Config
  6. Open the Windows
  7. Open ini and add the following lines to it: [HTTP] HttpTimeout=10 HttpConnectionTimeout=10 HttpReceiveTimeout=10 HttpSendTimeout=10[Portal.BuildPatch] ChunkDownloads=3 ChunkRetries=20 RetryTime=0.5
  8. Save the file and open the Epic Games Launcher.
fortnite gameplay
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JBL Clip 4 Review, a small perfection

Portable small Bluetooth speakers are nothing new on the market, most of the time they have given the opportunity for music listening during picnics and walks in nature and also replaced some car speaker systems. The latest star in small portable speakers in JBL Clip 4, small in size, waterproof, and with an incredible high-quality sound.

JBl Clip 4

Performance and quality

Out of the box and after first look speaker looks great, it has excellent design and is very intuitive to work with. Everything is laid out logically and you can start using it right away without reading instructions.

The sound quality is surprisingly very good and clear. I must say I have not expected this clarity and power from a speaker of this size. The volume range is also incredibly good and will fill most needs even on small picnics outdoors where you can hear it loud enough. One thing to mention is that even on their loudness levels sound is still clear without distortion which, to be honest, is to be expected from someone like JBL.

Where you can take JBL Clip 4

You can take it where ever you want, Its size and clip make it perfect for beach and pool trips. Speaker is waterproof and gas IP67 rating, meaning that sand and dirt will not affect it either. Do not take this speaker to your diving adventures since that will break it but a depth around 1 meter underwater should be safe. After your trip do not forget to wash Clip 4 with clean water so all dirt, salt, and other stuff are properly cleaned for longer life of the device.

How long it will play?

JBL claims that the battery will last 10 hours of continuous play. Note that this is meant probably on the largest volume setting so when you use it on lower settings battery is lasting longer. Playing of course on low volumes will extend playback time even longer but here we come at one feature that I do not like, there is no indication of any kind how much battery is left in the speaker, the only indication is a red light when the battery is almost empty which means you could be outside at that point and did not know that low battery was there in the first place when you were packing. Some battery indication would be a great addon.

More stability for JBL Clip 4

The clip itself has been improved from the previous Clip 3 model, it is wider, it goes all the way around the casing, and feels overall better and more stable. Since the clip is now all around casing this means a wider opening can be made making it fit around stuff Clip 3 was not able to.

Conclusion

All in all, Clip 4 is an incredible speaker and one that would highly recommend, the price goes around 79 USD but it can be found even as low as 50 USD on discounts and promotions and if you manage to get one at that price it is a great buy. Sound is good, portability is great, dirt and waterproof are excellent and battery life is really good.

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Sites for COVID-19 information
Living in today's world sadly is still living in the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been more than a year and sadly pandemic is still very strong and we are battling it on a daily basis. Governments all over the world are trying to battle pandemics in their own way with their own ideas and prevention measures. We as individuals can not very much influence how will the pandemic itself go but fortunately in this modern age of information we can at least follow and be in the loop at the current state of the situation regarding it. Today instead of having a troubleshooting article or tips and trick for your PC we are doing something else but in the domain of internet technology, you know, just to keep everything still IT related ???? Below you will find websites with small descriptions of what they do to keep yourself informed and hope to get over this dreadful pandemic.
  1. The WHO’s COVID-19 Dashboard

    If you are interested in real-time COVID-19 information about active cases, death tool so far, new cases and the number of vaccines administrated so far I would recommend WHO's dashboard. How WHO is a non-government institution composed of doctors from all over the world with just a single goal in mind, to help and put an end to this pandemic is a great non-biased source of information on the current state of virus spread.
  2. Vaccine Finder

    Please be aware that Vaccinefinder is working only on the territory of the United States of America. The reason why it was included in this list is that basically it is a great idea and I hope to see this site expand on other world regions or at least that inspires the emergence of another worldwide website with this type of content. If you live in the USA, this site will be a great help since you can track where and how many shots are distributed to states and even towns in America.
  3. COVID tracking project

    This site is also for U.S. residents, this time it is about tracking cases in each state with details and statistics. If you are interested in more detailed statistics of hospitalized patients per state or overall you are just interested in statistics about the pandemic in the U.S. this site might provide all the information about your needs.
  4. NPR

    On national public radio or NPR for short, there is a special section devoted to the coronavirus where new articles about pandemic are released daily with new information and new findings on how to battle it and the current state of things. A great informational site to keep up with the current state of things.
  5. Google's COVID-19 page

    Google has not been inactive during this pandemic and on its page specially dedicated to the COVID-19 virus you can find a lot of free information updated daily. From safety and prevention tips to data about pandemics there is a lot of ground covered on-page and we recommend at least going through the prevention section to inform yourself how to keep yourself and others safe.
  6. Coronavirus tracker

    This daily updated chart can show how many cases and deaths are from chosen time period all in form of a chart, you can see charts for each country in the world how COVID cases rose or dropped along with the death tool it brought.
There you go, 6 websites to track and inform yourself about this dreaded pandemic which has managed to change the world and people's lives forever, sadly on the bad side.
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