I have just listened to a podcast on the BBC Sounds service in which Fiona Hill discusses the issue of Fake Science and how this is being used to distort actual scientific fact to further political, social and religious extremist viewpoints. It appears that extremist organizations, as well as political/nation state actors are cherry picking... Continue Reading →
What a difference 365 days makes. 2019 has been an eventful year for cyber security professionals with a number of new threats emerging as well as an escalation in ransomware and level of data breaches as well as all the normal threat vectors. IoT has also featured heavily in the cyber security landscape. But first... Continue Reading →
This week I noticed a report on how malware could be downloaded and installed using an Open Redirect from Cisco. Lets first define what an Open Redirect is. An open redirect is when a legitimate site allows unauthorized users to create URLs on that site to redirect visitors to other sites. For example, Google has... Continue Reading →
I have found there is a general perception among people that they won't be hit by a cyber attack of some form and that cyber security is not something they need to worry about too much, after all you have installed an Internet Security product on your PC and you download apps from the official... Continue Reading →
We have all seen the adverts on TV, and in the media in general, around how a Virtual Private Network (VPN) will secure your web browsing, and make your connection totally private. Well, I hate to say this, but this is not totally true. So, what is a VPN? We need to first of all... Continue Reading →
Whether or not you realise it, we all use the cloud for something in our daily lives. In this blog I want to explain in simple terms what 'The Cloud' is and how you can apply some simple safeguards to secure your use of it. What is the Cloud - a History Lesson? Lets go... Continue Reading →
Social Engineering is a form of cyber attack where the physiological manipulation of people to trick them into divulging confidential information that can be used to hack into websites and other computing resources. There are various forms of social engineering: Baiting Impersonating PharmingPhishingSmishingSpear FishingTailgatingVishing Water HolingWebsite CloningWhaling. Lets take a deeper look at these. Baiting... Continue Reading →
We all have hundreds of online accounts that we have accumulated over several years on online activity. I know I have as I have just gone through all of them to ensure they are not vulnerable to any form of cyber attack. What kind of Cyber Attacks are we talking about here? There are many,... Continue Reading →
When was the last time you paid for a transaction in cash? We all use electronic forms of payment these days, and in some cases people just don't carry cash anymore. So, what are the various forms of electronic payments we use? The following are the usual examples: Credit/Debit Cards (in person or online)Direct Debit... Continue Reading →
An interesting factoid came to be earlier this week via a tweet by Twitter user @Tarah about the top 20 most commonly used 4 digit Mobile PINs. I also found a similar list on Gizmodo that also gave the percentages. These are as follows: 1234 1111 0000 1212 7777 1004 2000 4444 2222 6969 9999... Continue Reading →
Normally in May Microsoft hold their annual developers conference called Microsoft Build (and for this year and last year (2018) it clashed with the Google IO developer conference - not sure if that is by design or just bad planning) . You need to understand where Microsoft is right now in relation to what services... Continue Reading →
Let me ask you a simple question. If your primary computer (e.g. Laptop, Tablet, Phone) were irrecoverably lost, could you get back all the data that you consider valuable that is stored on this device? If the answer is either 'I don't know', or 'No', you don't have an adequate disaster recovery and/or backup plan.... Continue Reading →
