Swedish YouTube vlogger, PewDiePie, is reported to have inspired some of his 77 million followers to hack 50,000 printers to promote his YouTube channel, and to draw attention to vulnerabilities in their printer firmware that could even be exploited by hackers to ‘fry’ a printer chip. Messages Sent Through Printers The vlogger, PewDiePie, primarily wanted to make a point that popular printer firmware has vulnerabilities in it that could leave people open to hacks that could disable and even permanently damage their printer. Also, there is the risk that a printer hack could enable attackers to see and alter potentially [...]

For businesses to maintain an effective cyber defence, the ability to prevent, detect and stop smart botnets in real-time is now an important consideration. What Is A Botnet? A botnet is a term for multiple malicious mini-programs working together to take over large numbers of computers and digital devices for different purposes e.g. stealing data and / or launching attacks, or in the case of DDoS attacks, shutting down servers (and the websites on them) by bombarding them with requests (a flood).  Botnets also sap electricity and computing power as they work. How Big Is The Problem? According to DDoS [...]

If you use Google Chrome and you’d like to make sure that you know when you’re visiting a site that’s been hacked, and you’d like to set up a watch list for sites that you regularly visit, or those that store personal data, here’s a handy browser extension that could help. The HackNotice extension for Google Chrome could help you to add another layer of security to your browsing.  To use it: In Chrome, Google ‘hacknotice extension’. Click on the link. Click on the ‘Add to Chrome’ button (top right). Follow the instructions.

Research by Internet Privacy Company DuckDuckGo is reported to have produced evidence that could show that even in Incognito mode, users of Google Chrome can still be tracked, and searches are still personalised accordingly. Incognito Mode Going incognito (private browsing mode) in Google Chrome means launching a separate ‘Incognito’ browser window by going to top right (the 3 stacked vertical dots icon), > New Incognito Window.  According to Google, by using this browser window Chrome won't save your browsing history, cookies and site data, or information entered in forms, any files you download and bookmarks you create will be kept, [...]

Cashless businesses that only take contactless card payments, such as cafes and bars may be growing in number in major cities but despite their apparent convenience for their target market, they are also attracting accusations that they are discriminatory. Cashless Bar The BBC, for example, recently featured a story about the Crown and Anchor pub in South London which, in October, switched to fully cashless with customers only able to use debit cards, credit cards and contactless payments including Android Pay and Apple Pay. In the case of the Crown and Anchor pub, it was reported that the decision by [...]

After last week’s major O2 4G mobile network outage which left millions of customers with no network data access has been blamed on an expired software certificate that 3rd party supplier Ericsson had installed for some customers at business-critical part of the network. What Happened? On Thursday last week, O2 smartphone users were unable to use their mobile phone data for 24 hours.  O2, which is owned Spanish communications company Telefonica, has the UK's second-largest mobile network, which is part of BT, and as well as having 25 million users, it provides services for the Sky, Tesco, Giffgaff and Lycamobile [...]

Whereas most carriers use low-band spectrum or LTE, which offers great coverage area and penetration, it is getting very crowded, and peak data speeds only top out at around 100Mbps. 5G, on the other hand, offers 3 different Spectrum bands, which are: Low-band spectrum or LTE. Mid-band spectrum.  This gives faster coverage and better latency than low-band but isn’t as good at penetrating buildings. Mid-band spectrum will offer peak speeds up to 1Gbps. High-band spectrum /  mmWave .  This spectrum can offer peak speeds up to 10 Gbps and has very low latency, although it has a low coverage area [...]

After Ofcom announced back in November 2017 that broadband and landline customers will automatically be able to get compensation from their providers when things go wrong without the need for a claim, it appears that an £8-per-day deal agreement has finally been reached between Openreach and five of the UK's internet service providers. Agreement The voluntary agreement, which will only apply only if a fault takes longer than two days to fix, is between BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin Media, and Zen. Plusnet and EE had indicated previously that they would be prepared to sign up. This should now mean that [...]

If you’re planning a trip to an exciting destination you can now create your own travel itinerary in the Bing search engine. Here’s how: Sign up to (Microsoft Outlook) and into Bing Maps – see https://www.bing.com/maps Click on ‘My Places’. Select the ‘Itineraries’ tab. Open ‘New Itinerary’. Select the places you want to go, add the times you had in mind, and click ‘Get Started’. You can then go through your route and add key sites and attractions with a click, get suggestions, move additions between days, get directions, and add descriptions to the attractions.

A recent investigation by BBC TV’s Watchdog Live revealed evidence that some mobile phone shop staff are not conducting proper ID checks for replacement SIM requests, thereby enabling some customers to become victims of SIM swap scams. What is a SIM Swap Scam? SIM swap scams are believed to have been in existence for the last four years in one form or another.  In its current form, the SIM swap scan happens when a fraudster goes into a mobile operator’s shop and claims a false identity i.e. the identity of one of that operator’s customers.  The fraudster knows that the person [...]