One in six PCs harbour dodgy utilities
Some of the most prevalent “hacking tools” are those which users unwittingly install themselves, according to stats from anti-virus firm Trend Micro.…
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Raising the fine line
US consumer watchdog the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is calling for a bigger stick with which to punish spyware purveyors.…
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Call it an online game of strip poker, only spammers are the ones walking away with all the winnings. The latest innovation in malicious software takes the form of shapely “Melissa,” an alluring, scantily clad blond who requests the victim’s assistance in disrobing her. In this particular scam, which is assisted by a piece of malware anti-virus firm TrendMicro identifies as TROJ_CAPTCHAR.A, an additional article of clothing comes off each time the user helps her solve a CAPTCHA. CAPTCHAs, or “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart,” are those squiggly agglomerations of letters and numbers that free Webmail providers such as Yahoo! require the user to interpret and input before being allowed to open a new e-mail account. The Webmail providers use the CAPTCHAs to stop spammers and other bad guys from using automated processes to create hundreds or thousands of fake accounts. Those new […]
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When you’re the de facto tech support guy for most of your family and friends, you quickly find yourself making a lot of house calls. But if you’re not being summoned to help install memory or a new hard drive, there are plenty of tools you can use to diagnose and fix computer problems from afar. Free remote administration tools like UltraVNC and TightVNC have been around for a while now. But when you’re trying to help someone who barely knows their way around a PC, it’s best to keep things simple. And it’s difficult to find a PC remote control program that is simpler to set up and use than LogMeIn Free. LogMeIn Free is a simple, gratis program that lets you remotely access a Windows PC from any other computer connected to the Internet. Basically, you connect to the remote PC via LogMeIn.com’s Web site, which encrypts […]
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Big three credit reporting bureau Equifax on Wednesday detailed its plan to offer certain consumers the ability to freeze their credit files as a means of preventing identity theft. The offering provides a clearer picture of how the credit bureaus are likely to deploy this process. Earlier this month, the other two credit bureaus — Experian and TransUnion — said they would offer credit-freeze rights to consumers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In announcing its offering, Equifax said that beginning Oct. 31 it would start offering credit freezes to consumers in the 11 states (and Puerto Rico) where there currently are no security freeze laws in place. In those areas, the company plans to charge consumers $10 to place, thaw or remove credit freezes, while offering them for free to confirmed identity theft victims. For consumers in the 39 other states (and D.C.), Equifax will continue
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