Uber Data Breach Exposes 57 Million

By John Burcham in Breach and Scam News 0 Comment

What Happened? 

Uber Technologies, Inc. recently confirmed a global data breach that exposed 57 million of its customers and drivers. 

Of the 57 million affected, 50 million were customers and 7 million were drivers. Of the 7 million drivers affected, 600,000 were from the U.S.  Names, email addresses, phone numbers and driver’s license numbers were exposed. 

According to Bloomberg News, the breach initially occurred in October 2016. Cybercriminals first hacked a private coding site used by Uber software developers. From there, hackers used the credentials obtained from that site to access the company’s internal databases and files.  Continue reading

Malware in MailPoet Plug-in Attacks Thousands of WordPress Sites

By John Burcham in Breach and Scam News 0 Comment

MailPoet-WordCamp-logo

What happened?

On July 1, online security company Sucuri revealed a possible WordPress vulnerability on their blog. They confirmed the attack on July 23.

This security lapse allowed hackers to upload “malicious” custom themes remotely through MailPoet – a popular newsletter plug-in that has over 1.7 million downloads. The plug-in allowed the perpetrators to gain full control of a user’s website to host phising scams and distribute malware. Sucuri believes the bug can also overwrite files, making them hard to recover if not backed up. Continue reading

Major Internet Explorer Security Flaw Found

By Eugene Bekker in Personal Protection 0 Comment

You may have already heard about this in the media, but a serious flaw has been discovered in all versions of Internet Explorer since version 6 up through the most current version 11.  The flaw allows a malicious site to send a Web page that could compromise your computer and give full access of your information to an external party. Microsoft is unlikely to issue a Windows XP fix for this bug due to its recent end of support for that platform. Therefore, Internet Explorer will remain compromised on this platform indefinitely. As always, use extreme caution when surfing the Web and only visit sites that you know and trust. To best protect your information and computer, it is strongly recommended that you use an alternate browser such as FireFox or Chrome  until the Internet Explorer flaw is resolved and an official patch is provided by Microsoft.

For more details about the Internet Explorer bug, read here.

Files On Lockdown

By Laura Bruck in Personal Protection 0 Comment

Aware of malware? What about sites preying on victims? Hopefully you are up to date on the latest news concerning the malware/ransomware Cryptolocker.  This is a devastating malware delivered through email via a .zip file.  Once you open the .zip file, it installs a virus on your computer that locks up all your files.  The virus then puts a message on your screen with a timer.

The message will instruct you where to send a payment to have your files unlocked. If payment is not received within the allotted time, your files will be frozen and lost to you forever. Much to the dismay of the malware criminals, they are losing money to people that have been infected with Cryptolocker and don’t understand what is happening and/or how to pay the ransom fee.  So in the spirit of world-class customer service, according to NBC News, the criminals have launched a website for victims to get information on how and where to pay the ransom. See how a small business came forward to report their experience with this devastating malware. Continue reading