Whatever you have that is reachable from the internet, just so you know, someone out there will try everything in their power to get their hands on it. Sometimes, you can do your best to prevent this by setting up strong passwords, multi-factor authentication, and the like. In some cases, it's left to the company that is in charge of your assets to prevent the bad guys from getting it.
Inbox flooded with sign-up messages? Email bombing explained
Are you seeing lots of emails in your inbox that you can't keep track of? Something could be wrong. For example, someone might be trying to prevent you from reading an important email that requires your attention.
I mean, read the following:
They may have hijacked one of your accounts and reset the password, triggering a notification to your inbox. Or they may have made a fraudulent purchase in your name, with the invoice subsequently emailed to you. The main point is to create a smokescreen which prevents you from tackling the more serious fraud.
‘I Was Down the Rabbit Hole’: How Scammers Stole $400K From a Retired Nurse
I feel for the victim. I really do. I pray they have the heart and mind to live through this. $400k is not a joke. Go ahead, take your time, read it all, learn from it, and don't forget it.
From the article:
Research from the National Council on Aging shows that three-quarters of American adults age 55 and older have already been scammed or know someone who has. According to the FTC's Sentinel Network, adults aged 80 and over lose the most money to online scams, with a median loss of $1,499.
How to stop fake virus pop-ups on your Windows PC
I believe ad blockers and appropriate security tools can prevent you from falling for this. Still, the article is full of advice and what you can do if you find yourself in a situation where you are told that "Your computer is infected. Take action now."
For example:
Pop-ups involved in these scams create urgency with dramatic wording like "Critical Threat Detected!" and often use flashing lights, bright colors and even alarm sounds to increase the "scare" factor. You might hear a robotic voice announcing a "critical Microsoft security alert," or the site could even show you your IP address.
Is the ad a scam? How to tell before you click
My advice: if you see the ad, go online and locate the official website.
How dangerous can these ads be? Here you go:
These ads serve various purposes. Some may be outright malicious. Also known as malvertising, a click on this kind of ad will exploit browser/software vulnerabilities or trick you into unwittingly installing malware via an app download. Others are designed to persuade you into handing over personal information via prize giveaways, questionnaires and other phishing-style pages.
PHP ships emergency patches for critical PHP2Shell flaws
This was all over the news and social media. If you use both, you should have seen it as well. Apply the patch and protect your systems now.
While at it, if you have not read the news, here is what happened:
The two unauthenticated RCE flaws were discovered by Calif, OpenAI, and Wiz security researchers, and affect all PHP installations that serve web requests, including PHP-FPM, Apache with mod_php, php-cgi, FrankenPHP, and LiteSpeed.
Both flaws stem from the same underlying problem: PHP can leave its memory in a corrupted state when a request ends abnormally, and both can be exploited to achieve remote code execution.
‘Context Bombs’ Cut AI Attack Success by Misleading Agents With Fake Targets
By increasing the cost of the attack, attackers are left to answer the question: Is it worth it? This can potentially discourage them and they will back off. Or, make the Agents think that a "target" is a trap, causing them to look elsewhere and the target is left alone. All in all, it's all about making stepping up the game to protect systems and assets in the age of AI.
From the article:
Andy Smith, co-founder and CEO at Tracebit, explains the arguments: “We’ve seen in recent attacks that AI models exhibit unsanctioned and deceptive behaviors – the best defense against that is to beat them at their own game. This means adopting deception to send them down rabbit holes and tie them up in knots, so they burn time and tokens while avoiding real targets.
Credits
Cover photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.
That's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.
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