BitTorrent. uTorrent. The Pirate Bay. These are just a few of the many popular peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing sites you’ve probably heard of. Since its increase in popularity in the late 1990s, P2P file sharing has had its fair share of backlash for enabling illegal activity. Run a Google News search on peer-to-peer file sharing, and you’d find headlines like:
“Barre man charged with promoting child pornography.”
“Is the free download of uTorrent legal?”
“Illegal downloaders in federal court’s crosshairs.”
There’s another aspect to P2P that has traditionally caused concern: computer security and privacy risks. Continue Reading… What You Need To Know About Peer-to-Peer File Sharing
The password to your online account is like the key to your front door. How strong are your passwords? We’ll address some troubling facts about weak passwords and what you can do to make them stronger.
Continue Reading… Weak Passwords: Are You Making It Too Easy For Criminals?
Imagine you’re trying to log into your online banking account. Rather than being directed to the page you’ve requested after entering in your User ID and password, an additional field appears and asks you to enter your debit card information, social security number, driver’s license, and other personal information. You check the URL of the website, and it’s verified to be from your bank.
If you entered in your personal information, you’ve likely become a victim of a man-in the-browser attack. And it only gets more problematic from here. In this case your PC, not the bank’s website, has been compromised by malware.
Continue Reading… The Man-In-The-Browser: It Hungers For Your Online Credentials
Malware is everywhere. You can get infected by opening up a rigged attachment in your email, or by visiting a booby-trapped website that automatically downloads malware on to your computer. Once infected, your computer can turn into a zombie, being remotely controlled by criminals to attack other computers. Criminals may steal your personal data or use your computer for nefarious activity.
While you need to take precautions to prevent getting infected in the first place, such as running an up-to-date security software, it’s also important to know how malware works and how they spread. There is a lot of misinformation out there, so here are some of the myths about malware you shouldn’t believe.
Continue Reading… Five Myths About Malware You Need to Know
Anyone who has ever used the Internet has looked up at their browser’s address bar and noticed a series of letters that either looks like this ‘HTTP’, or like this ‘HTTPS’. At first glance, it may seem like it’s just the letter S. In reality though, it is much more complicated than that.
Continue Reading… HTTPS: The S is More Than Just a Letter
