WyzGuys Tech Talk

Hey, smartphone users!  It is time to get some malware protection for your smartphone.  According to Sophos, these are the top 5 malware exploits written for the Android platform.

“1. Andr/PJApps-C. When Sophos Mobile Security for Android detects an app as Andr/PJApps-C it means that we have identified an app that has been cracked using a publicly available tool. Most commonly these are paid for apps that have been hacked. They are not necessarily always malicious, but are ...

There is buzz on the Internet that the three very successful cyber-war programs that the US and Israel launched against the Iranian Nuclear (Power?  Weapons?)Program, had be distributed, at least in part, by masquerading as a standard Windows Update.  For this to work, it makes sense that someone would have to be positioned inside Microsoft to assist in that part of the deployment.  There is a longer article on IT World today that is worth the read if ...

This post is the result of having read an Ars Technica post commenting on an article in The Scientific Method  that reported on a study undertaken by the British banking industry.  They were looking at the cost of installing security systems relative to the costs of letting the bank robbers just take the money.  Basically, which costs more – security systems or the actual thefts?  It turns out that in England the average back robbery nets about $31,000.   ...

I am a regular reader of the Sophos blog because they have so many great articles on computer security.  They recently delved into how to tell if your password is strong enough, and at the end of it all, it really boils down to length – the longer your password, the more secure it is likely to be.  I have been exchanging my 7 and 8 character passwords for new ones that are at least 14 characters long, ...

Here’s a dieting twist – top off your 600 calorie balanced breakfast with a piece of cake.  This came from today’s TechDirt Daily and reports on the finding of an Israeli medical researchers who found that people who ate cake for breakfast actually lost 40 pounds more than people who didn’t, and kept the weight off longer, too.  Evidently, if you are going to indulge, doing so in the morning when your metabolism is at its ...

Comcast users are receiving realistic looking but fraudulent emails about the “Constant Guard” security service, that is designed to trick them into clicking on a TinyURL link that takes them to a fake replica Xfinity login page.  If you have received this email, hopefully you deleted it, but if you signed in to the fake page, get into your Xfinity account and change your password.  The stolen credentials could be used to hijack your email account or other Comcast Xfinity ...

The number is not a typo.  30 million computers were hijacked and controlled by 143 servers.  This cybercrime feat was engineered by Georg Avanesov, a Russian citizen of Armenia descent.  He was earning about $125,000 a month renting out time on his botnet to spammers, malware distributors, and fake antivirus scams.  They were even involved in several denial-of-service attacks.  At one time it was responsible for sending out 3 billion infected spam email messages a day.  Some of his hijacked ...

Today I got to deliver the bad news to another client.  Brand new laptop with an unbootable drive, and I have been trying unsuccessfully all weekend to recover useful data from the failed hard drive.  No luck.  I called the client, who burst into tears when I asked if she had a backup of her files.  No she did not have a backup.

Personally, I hate these calls.  Considering how much of our work, life, and money is tied to these ...