The talk of last week, reported in a Forbes post, was (via the Wall Street Journal) the story about a deepfake voice scam. The CEO of an unnamed UK-based energy firm believed he was on the phone with his boss, the chief executive of the firm’s German parent company, when he followed his orders to immediately transfer €220,000 (approx. $243,000) to the bank account of a Hungarian supplier. The voice belonged to a fraudster…

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is a part of the Department of Homeland Security, released a post identifying a number of ransomware resources on September 6. Organizations are encouraged to review the following resources to help prevent, mitigate, and recover against ransomware: CISA Insights: Ransomware Outbreak CISA resource page on ransomware FireEye blog and report on ransomware protection and containment strategies CISA also recommended that victims of ransomware should report it immediately…

ZDNet said in a September 2ndpost that business email compromise (BEC) has overtaken ransomware and data breaches as the main reason companies filed a cyber insurance claim in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Asia) region last year. Insurance giant AIG said in July that BEC-related insurance filings accounted for nearly a quarter (23%) of all cyber insurance claims the company received in 2018. Ransomware-related incidents came in in second place, accounting for…

Even The Norman Transcript in Oklahoma carried a post about the need to upgrade from the Windows 7 operating system. On January 14, 2020, Microsoft will end all support for Windows 7. That means no more updates, no more patches and no more security fixes. A hacker’s field day will begin, just like the one that happened when Microsoft ditched support for Windows XP in 2014 and Windows Vista in 2017. New security problems will…

SecureWorld carried a post on August 26th reporting that The Internet Society and a total of 30 organizations sent an open letter to world leaders at this week’s G7 Summit. It was basically a “do not weaken encryption letter which reads in part, “As you strive to tackle global inequalities at the G7 Leaders Summit and beyond, we ask you to recognize the particular importance of digital security for our digital economies and societies.…

Endgadget published a post on August 27 with good news for Android customers. Verizon rolled out a free version of its spam filter earlier this year to counteract the annoying robocalls that so often plague our lives. Now, if you’re on Android, you’ll get it as standard, so you don’t need to do anything to avoid the nuisance. in June, the Federal Communications Commission voted to allow carriers to block robocalls by default, and Verizon…

ZDNet published a post on August 27, noting that Microsoft says that users who enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for their accounts will end up blocking 99.9% of automated attacks. The recommendation applies not only to Microsoft accounts but also to any other profile, on any other website or online service. If the service provider supports multi-factor authentication, Microsoft recommends using it, regardless if it’s something as simple as SMS-based one-time passwords, or advanced biometrics solutions.…