Keeping your information secure from prying eyes.
In every job that involves interaction with the public, amusing “Can you believe…” stories about customers abound. They’re often triggered by seemingly reasonable behaviors that experts recognize as problematic. A well-known example from the early days of personal computing is a college student who kept track of his floppy disk by attaching it to his […]
Read moreCloud-based email services such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 dominate the market for organizational email for good reason. Dealing with the constant onslaught of spam and online attacks is hard, as those traumatized by running mail servers in the “good old days” can attest. While email service providers excel at their primary functions of […]
Read moreThe devastating losses caused by the Los Angeles wildfires have underscored the need to protect data from catastrophic events. A traditional offsite backup—periodically moving a hard drive to another location—might not have sufficed in areas affected by wildfires, where many structures were destroyed. An online backup using a service like Backblaze or CrashPlan is often […]
Read moreIt is increasingly difficult to distinguish between legitimate phone calls and scam phone calls. Scammers use ever more sophisticated deception methods to convince people to reveal personal information such as an account password or credit card details. One example of these sophisticated methods is described in this Krebs On Security article about phone phishing. To … Read more
Employers and their employees part ways for all sorts of reasons. People may move on because of a contract’s completion, to take a new job, or because they’re retiring. Employees may also leave due to being laid off or fired. Whatever the reason, offboarding—the process of managing an employee’s departure from an organization—is essential. Without […]
Read moreRecent news reports have revealed that a little-known company called Babel Street can track iPhone and Android user locations. Babel Street does this by leveraging data from mobile advertising data brokers. Investigators from data removal firm Atlas Privacy discovered they could use Babel Street’s Locate X tool to identify patients at a Florida abortion clinic, […]
Read moreWe’ve seen an uptick in fake invoices from scammers using PayPal. Because they’re being sent through PayPal itself, spam filters won’t catch them, and they have few of the usual markers of phishing email (but look for sketchy names and email addresses at the top). Some are even forged to appear as if they come […]
Read moreiPhones and iPads are highly personal devices, but you might want to let someone else use a particular app on yours without letting them poke through Messages, Mail, and Photos. For example, a child could play a game, a volunteer could check in attendees, or a friend could take photos. To allow this, Apple created […]
Read moreAll those data breaches are coming back to haunt us. Once our phone numbers and addresses began to be leaked, it was only a matter of time before scammers would personalize their attacks to make them seem more real. The latest “sextortion” scams purport to have compromising video of you taken from your computer’s webcam, […]
Read moreAlthough we’re still fans of 1Password, and there are plenty of other good password managers out there, like BitWarden and Dashlane, Apple has finally removed the last hurdle to using its built-in password management capabilities. Starting in macOS 15 Sequoia, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and visionOS 2, Passwords is now a real app rather than […]
Read moreAlthough paying attention to online security is of primary importance, don’t forget local security. You don’t want to go out for lunch and let someone wandering by your office poke through your email, messages, photos, and private files. To ensure this doesn’t happen, set your Mac to start the screen saver or sleep the display […]
Read moreWe’ve written in the past about how Apple-only companies can protect themselves from ransomware (strong security, isolated backups, monitoring software), but realistically, it’s primarily a threat to computers running Windows and Linux. If you, or anyone you know, is targeted by ransomware, look to the No More Ransom website, developed by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre […]
Read moreAre you confused by the following terms: password, passcode, passkey and security key? Here are some brief definitions and ways to learn more about these terms.
Read moreA few months ago, news broke about the latest massive data breach, this time from a company called National Public Data, a company that collects vast amounts of personal data about individuals from public data sources, including addresses, employment history, criminal records, and Social Security numbers. NPD then sells access to that data to employers […]
Read moreDo you want to password protect a folder on your Mac? If it’s a folder you use regularly then you can use Disk Utility, a free application that comes bundled with your Mac. That’s the focus of this article. On the other hand, if you want to encrypt a file or folder for long-term storage … Read more
QR codes, those square, blocky codes you scan with your iPhone’s camera to load a Web page, have become ubiquitous. So much so that we seldom pause before scanning any QR code we see. But if you think about it, that’s the same as clicking random links in emails or texts, which is a terrible […]
Read moreWe recently wrote an article for those who manage their own Internet domain names about using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to prevent your domains from being used in phishing attacks and enhance the deliverability of legitimate email. But what about other domains you own but don’t use for email? To make phishing attacks more believable, […]
Read moreIn the Apple world, the account that controls access to all your Apple-related online services is the Apple ID. Buying apps from the App Store, putting photos in iCloud Photos, and sharing data between iCloud-enabled apps—all these actions rely on your Apple ID. If you’re a regular Apple user, you have an Apple ID associated […]
Read moreLong ago, to get ready for a trip, we’d mostly make sure we had our plane tickets, books and magazines to read, and a snack. Prepping for travel in today’s tech-heavy world comes with a new set of tasks, most of which shouldn’t be left to the last minute. Identify Devices, Chargers, and Cables to […]
Read moreAlthough most Mac users rely on Apple’s Safari for Web browsing, plenty of people prefer Google Chrome for its cross-platform compatibility, massive collection of extensions, and tight integration with the Google ecosystem. Chrome is by far the most popular browser in the world, with about 65% of the market, compared to Safari’s 18%. Still others […]
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