Security

Maintaining your computer is essential to keep it running smoothly and efficiently. Neglecting to maintain your computer can lead to slow performance, security vulnerabilities, and even complete system failure.Here, we will discuss some tips for maintaining your computer to ensure that it runs smoothly and stays secure. Keep your computer clean.One of the easiest ways to maintain your computer is to keep it clean. Dust and debris can build up inside your computer and cause it to overheat. This can lead to hardware damage and a decrease in performance. To prevent...

When we hear of a a mobile or computer scam, we generally assume an overseas call centre or hackers are involved. This is not the case in this story after two men were arrested and sentenced to more than six years imprisonment. The pair after being found guilty of developing and carrying out an SMS scam, targeting millions of Australians. A 27-year-old Bendigo man was charged him with various telephone offences including hacking, and financial phishing offences. For tips on identifying an online scam, you can check out cyber.gov.au. If you are a...

Where there is an opportunity for scammers to take advantage of, you can bet there will be a scammer there doing so. The latest threat facing users in Australia is the RAT scam. With Rapid antigen test kits in short supply around Victoria, scammers are promising to fulfil stock orders. Over the last 2 years, the ACCC has received over 6,400 COVID-Related complaints with a figure of $9.8million in losses. Now that paid testing is the preferred and simple way for people to test for COVID-19, shortages have hit the state hard. Many of the...

During our day to day business operations, we see a constant stream of people asking us If the e-mail they got is genuine. Cybercrime affects a staggering 18 people worldwide per second. A crazy 1.55 million people per day are targeted by cyber criminals. Whist we and many other companies suggest being vigilant with e-mail fraud, its seems the message just isn’t getting through. So lets look at some of the easiest ways to distinguish a real email from a fake. Spelling errors. Many companies will have templates for invoices or e-mail...

As part of our business, we do onsite computer repairs in our area. On one of our call outs, we were asked by an elderly gentleman “Why did they target me?”. I had to explain to him that scammers didn’t pick him specifically, & that he is a victim of a random attack possibly caused by a click or installation of software without his knowledge. The truth is that no-one is 100% immune to scams & dodgy internet practices. Older people are generally to worst affected by these scams as...

Since the early to mid 2000’s, AVG and AVAST have been market leaders when it comes to free Anti-virus programs. Having paid versions also, both companies have grown to large scale international recognition. Avast has announced the acquisition will cost up to $1.3 Billion. Avast will purchase all ordinary share of AVG for $25.00 each. With this acquisition, AVG will add technical depth to their range. It is believed that Avast software will benefit greatly with the technical merge offered from both companies. By combining AVAST & AVG, the company will now...

Over the last few years, the ‘Telstra Scam’ has been a popular one for fraudsters. The Telstra scam starts by the target receiving a call from ‘The Telstra Technical Department’ and claims that your computer or internet connection is responsible for a glitch on the Telstra servers. In our experience, from there the fraudster will ask you to load ‘event viewer’ to show you a fault (any fault will do). From here they hope to have raised your alarm bells and that’s when the real action starts. The caller explains that...

In May 2017 the world was shocked by a technical attack that shut down major businesses around the world. High Profile examples include The National Health Service (UK), FedEx & Telefonica (Spain) and in Australia our chocolate manufacturing was halted when Cadbury was struck down. Not so sympathetic reactions were recorded however when the Victorian Speed Camera Network was shut down. What made the WannaCry ransomware threat so vulgar and dangerous is its ability to self-procreate and spread without the input from a human user. In the past, Ransomware largely depended...

There has been some news recently about a large scale data mining malware program that has netted over 711 Million e-mail addresses. What makes this threat more urgent, it’s not only e-mail address that have been captured, but passwords and server settings as well. A data dump like this one available to anyone that know where to look is extremely dangerous. If you have one of the 711 million compromised e-mail addresses, you could soon start receiving more spam, or worse start sending out spam from a computer you have...

A post by AVG Security suggest that one third of small businesses are clueless about the risks presented by ransomware. Ransomware is one of the fastest growing Internet threats today and the lack of understanding is a worrying sign. In June, AVG surveyed businesses to get a better understanding of ransomware in business. Out of the respondents 381 small to medium businesses representatives had heard the term ‘ransomware’ representing 68%. While this may look good, it shows that nearly one third are completely oblivious to the threats. Many of the respondants...