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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
There are many ways you can be aware and spot a phishing attempt. Here are some tips:
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.
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.
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!
My Maps Wizard is a browser extension for Google Chrome Developed by Mindspark Inc. This extension offers users access to different websites that offer route planning, map views, and other traveling tools.
While all this might sound interesting and useful, this extension has been marked as a Browser Hijacker by several popular anti-virus applications.
When installed this extension changes your default home page and new tab page to MyWay.com or Ask.com depending on the extension version. It also monitors and records user browsing activity that it later uses to display sponsored / unwanted ads throughout your browsing sessions. While browsing the internet with this extension active and installed you will see additional pop-up ads, sponsored links, and injected ads into search results.
A newfound bug in Google docs is causing it to crush and upon reopening it will crush again making it very difficult to re-access your document. The bug is manifested when a series of the same word is typed into a document and Show grammar suggestion is turned on.
A Google Docs user, Pat Needham brought up the issue on Google Docs Editors Help forum.
"I've only tried in Google Chrome, with documents from three separate Google accounts (personal, G Suite Basic, and work one which might be enterprise). All three experience this same issue".
"It's case-sensitive. So trying with 'and. and. And. and. And.' doesn't cause it to crash."
While Needham publicly reported the bug, it appears that the issue was discovered by Eliza Callahan who was writing a poem novel for her novel using Google Docs.
Needham's findings have also been confirmed by other users running Firefox 99.0.1
Another user, Sergii Dymchenko, said strings like "But. But. But. But. But." triggered the same response. Some also noticed putting any of the terms like "Also, Therefore, And, Anyway, But, Who, Why, Besides, However," in the same format achieved the outcome.
A YCombinator HackerNews reader suspected the cause to be the "Show grammar suggestion" option in Google Docs.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the presence of the issue adding, "we're aware of this issue and the team is working on a fix."
First thing first, turn off Show grammar suggestions so you do not run into issue by accident. In order to turn it off go to Tools and then into Spelling and grammar and untick Show grammar suggestions.
Now, if you already have a document that has been crushed, fear not because there is a workaround to access it. For some strange reason this bug does not manifest on Google Docs mobile app, so you can open the crushed document in the mobile app, delete words that have caused the bug and reopen the document on your desktop.
Until Google comes up with the solution this is currently the only way to address the issue.
CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9When you rename or create a folder or file using the reserved words given above, you could encounter an error that says, “The specified device name is invalid”. This occurs since these words are Windows system reserved words that you can’t use, unlike any other words. Thus, if you have a folder or file which contains any of the reserved words on another computer that runs a non-Windows operating system and you try to copy or rename it Windows, then it’s no wonder why you’re getting this error message. In such cases, you can always click on the Skip button to stop the operation. However, if there are various folders or files, you can just use the Command Prompt to carry out the task. All it takes is a simple command that will get rid of the folder as well as the files in it. How? Refer to the instructions given below. Step 1: Tap the Win + R keys to open the Run utility. Step 2: Next, type “cmd” in the field and then tap Enter to open Command Prompt. Step 3: After opening Command Prompt, execute the following command:
rd \.file-folder-path /S /QNote: The “rd” command will remove the directory or the folder while the “\.” command will select the current computer. The “/S” command, on the other hand, helps you in removing all the sub-directories and the files that are in the CON folder. The “/Q” command is not really mandatory since it helps you remove everything silently without any confirmation message. For example, if you have a folder named “CON” located on your Desktop, the path will be like this “C:/Users/<username>/Desktop/CON”. In this case, the command should be like this:
rd \.C:Users<username>DesktopCON /S /QHowever, if the error pops up for a whole different reason, you could use the following command instead to remove the reparse point extended functionality. Once you’ve entered the given command below, you should now be able to delete the file.
FSUTIL reparsepoint delete C:Users<username>DesktopFileName DEL C:Users<username>DesktopFileName
Rollback using system restore‘The installer encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2324.’
Error Causes“The program can’t start because AVFoundationCF.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.” "This application failed to start because avfoundationcf.dll was not found.” "Cannot find %COMMONFILES%AppleApple Application Supportavfoundationcf.dll." "Cannot start AVFoundationCF. A required component is missing: avfoundationcf.dll.” “Avfoundationcf.dll Access Violation." "Cannot register avfoundationcf.dll."
Error Causes
Since this requires registry tweak, please follow given solution step by step
