What is Scareware: You’ve probably seen the pop-ups — “Warning! A virus has been detected on your computer. Download VirusBlaster to clean and remove it.” The malware that infects your computer is the program that pop-up is trying to trick you into downloading. Scareware can come in a variety of…
Tag: email
Common security threats – SQL Injection
What is SQL Injection: If a website has an input box or entry form (like when you’re entering your username and password or your credit card number if you’re buying something), then an attacker can try inserting structured query language code to gain access to or make changes to the…
Common security threats – DDoS
What is Distributed Denial of Service Attack: There is only so much traffic a computer system can process before it starts to slow down and becomes overwhelmed. By gaining control over a large number of hijacked systems and devices (referred to as a botnet), attackers can direct massive amounts of…
Common security threats – Password Cracking
What is Password Cracking: A login and password aren’t what most people think it is. It’s a complicated set of processes that can involve multiple systems, secure transport to and from the servers, a trusted network of server identity assurance and revocation, code to evaluate the complexity of the user-generated…
Common security threats – Malvertising
What is Malvertising: Marketers aren’t the only ones who like to utilize advertising to get in front of the crowds of website visitors. Criminals do the same thing, creating fake ads or inserting malicious code into legitimate ads so they can quite literally capture their audience. What makes protection a…
Common security threats – Download Hijacking
What is Download Hijacking: In nature, the big predators hang out at standard water holes and wait for their prey to come by. On the Internet, the big predators find ways to turn popular website visits into covert attacks. In some cases, they inject code through comments that force unsuspecting…
Common security threats – Downloaders
What are Downloaders: Normal-looking programs designed to fetch and install malware without raising any security alarms. In effect, what downloaders allow attackers to do is to get a “man on the inside” before committing to a full attack (it’s no coincidence they’re typically called “trojan programs”). Once a downloader creeps…
Common security threats – Ransomware
What is Ransomware: Malicious software designed to encrypt a victim’s files and then demand payment, generally in anonymous Bitcoin, in exchange for decrypting the files. As with other malware infections, ransomware attacks typically start with employees falling victim to phishing emails or visiting compromised websites. Unlike other malware infections, however,…
Common security threats – Social Engineering
What is Social Engineering: There are two ways to steal anything — you either take it yourself or you get someone else to give it to you. Social engineering is a broad umbrella term for any tactics designed to exploit and manipulate trust. Hence, the victim hands the attacker what…
Common security threats – Phishing
What is phishing: Any attempt to compromise a system and steal information by tricking a user into responding to a malicious message. The most common phishing attacks involve emails armed with malware hidden in attachments or links to infected websites. However, phishing can be conducted via other methods such as…