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In our digital age, a computer is not just a tool; it’s a gateway to a world of possibilities, entertainment, and creativity. The speed of everyday tasks from gaming, and streaming TV shows to editing images and videos can make us more productive but also make our computers more fun to use. When exploring our software choices, it’s vital to choose apps and services, such as online protection tools that have a minimal impact on your computer, allowing you to live your best life online, without the concerns of your PC slowing down.
McAfee has once again proven its excellence by securing the #1 spot in the AV-Comparatives PC Performance Test. With an impressive overall impact score of only 2.8, McAfee Total Protection outperformed all other security vendors, showcasing its lightweight design and exceptional performance. Download the full report from AV-Comparatives here.
AV-Comparatives, an Austria-based test-lab renowned for its comprehensive evaluations, conducted an extensive Performance Test to measure the impact of consumer security software on system performance. In this test, 16 security products, including McAfee Total Protection, were rigorously evaluated on a low-end PC with an Intel Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and SSD system drives. The tests were conducted on a clean Windows 10, 64-Bit system with the security software installed using default settings.
With an overall impact score of 2.8, McAfee Total Protection emerged as the lightest product in the test, surpassing the industry average of 12.3. This outstanding performance has earned McAfee Total Protection the highest possible ranking: ADVANCED+ 3 Stars. This achievement reaffirms McAfee’s commitment to delivering top-notch security solutions that prioritize both protection and performance. McAfee has consistently received the highest ADVANCED+ ratings for performance in all AV-Comparatives Performance Tests since October 2016. This track record of excellence demonstrates McAfee’s dedication to continuous improvement and delivering exceptional products.
To ensure the accuracy of the results, AV-Comparatives examined various activities such as file copying, application installation and launching, file downloading, and web browsing. All tests were conducted with an active internet connection, allowing for the evaluation of the real-world impact of cloud services and features. McAfee Total Protection excelled in all these areas, showcasing its ability to provide robust security without compromising system performance. Whether you’re a gamer, a movie buff, a budding photographer, or a video editor, the enhanced performance can significantly refine how you engage with your hobbies and passions. Learn how your computer can also be more fun!
For gamers, the benefits of a faster computer are immediately noticeable. Modern games require substantial system resources, including fast processors and powerful graphics cards, to run smoothly. Online protection with a minimal impact on your computer’s performance, lets you enjoy games as the developers intended, with minimal lag and stunning visuals.
Streaming TV shows and movies has become a staple of home entertainment. Platforms like Netflix and Disney Plus offer 4K streaming for many titles and an optimized computer can mean enjoying the best streaming content without buffering.
Photography enthusiasts and graphic designers know that image editing can be resource-intensive, especially with high-resolution images and complex effects. A more efficient computer speeds up the performance of software like Adobe Photoshop, allowing for quicker loading of images, smoother application of effects, and more responsive overall editing. This not only saves time but also makes the creative process more enjoyable.
Video editing is perhaps the most demanding task that regular consumers undertake on their computers. Editing software such as Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro can leverage the additional power of a faster computer to render video faster, apply effects more smoothly, and improve the playback of high-resolution footage in real time. This means less time waiting and more time creating.
Investing in robust, tried, and tested online security solutions offers peace of mind, without compromises to your system performance. If you find your current computer lagging in your digital aspirations, it might be time to consider stepping up to more capable online protection. Stay protected with McAfee and experience the perfect balance of security and efficiency.
The post McAfee Dominates AV-Comparatives PC Performance Test appeared first on McAfee Blog.
It’s the romance scam story that plays out like a segment on a true crime show. It starts with a budding relationship formed on an online dating site. It ends with an ominous note and an abandoned car on a riverside boat ramp hundreds of miles away from the victim’s home.
The story that follows offers a look at how far romance scams can go. With that, we warn you that this story comes to a grim ending. We share it to show just how high the stakes can get in these scams and how cunning the scammers who run them can be.
Most importantly, it gives us an opportunity to show how you can spot and avoid romance scams in all their forms.
As recently reported across several news outlets, comes the story of Laura, a 57-year-old retired woman from Chicago who joined an online dating service in search of a relationship. She went with a known site, thinking it would be safer than some of the other options online.
Sure enough, she met “Frank Borg,” who posed as a ruggedly good-looking Swedish businessman. A relationship flourished, and within days the pair professed their love for each other.
Over time, however, the messages became increasingly transactional. Transcripts show that “Frank” started asking for money, which Laura wired to a bogus company. All to the eventual tune of $1.5 million and a mortgaged home.
Yet the scam cut yet deeper than that. “Frank” then had her open several phony dating profiles on different online dating sites, set up new bank accounts, and further spin up fake companies. In all, “Frank” appears to not only have scammed Laura, he also weaponized her — turning her into an accomplice as “Frank” sought to scam others.
As the account goes, Laura grew suspicious about a year into the scam. A gap appears in her correspondence with “Frank,” and it appears that some conversations went offline. Today, Laura’s daughter speculates that her mother knew that what she was doing was illegal and was threatened to keep at it.
The story ends two years after the romance started, with Laura going missing, only to be found drowned in the Mississippi River. Left behind, a note, found by her daughter while searching Laura’s house. It wrote of living a double life that left her broke because of “Frank.” The note also left instructions for accessing her email, which chronicled the online part of the affair in detail.
Investigations found no clear evidence of foul play, yet several questions remain. What is known is that “Frank’s” profile picture was a doctor from Chile and that the emails originated in Ghana.
While Laura’s story falls into a heartbreaking extreme, romance scams of all sorts happen often enough. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) 2023 Internet Crime Report, losses to reported cases of romance scams topped more than $650 million.i
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cites even higher figures for 2023, at $1.4 billion, for a median loss of $2,000 per reported case.ii That makes romance scams the highest in reported losses for any form of imposter scam according to the FTC.
Sadly, many romance scams go unreported. The reasons vary. Understandably, some victims feel ashamed. This is particularly the case when it comes to older victims. Many fear their friends and families might take it as a sign that they aren’t able to fully care for themselves anymore. Other victims might feel that the romance was real — that they weren’t scammed at all. They believe that their love interest will come back.
Practically anyone can fall victim to a romance scam. People of all ages and backgrounds have found themselves entangled in romance scams. With that, there should be no shame. These scammers have shown time and time again how sophisticated their playbooks are. They excel at slow and insidious manipulation over time.
When the scammer starts asking for money, the victim is locked in. They believe that they’re in love with someone who loves them just the same. They fork over the money without question. And that’s what makes these scams so exceptionally damaging.
Sophisticated as these scammers are, you can spot them.
Even with the arrival of AI chat tools and deepfake technology, romance scammers still rely on a set of age-old tricks. Ultimately, romance scammers play long and patient mind games to get what they want. In many cases, scammers use scripted playbooks put together by other scammers. They follow a common roadmap, one that we can trace and share so you can avoid falling victim.
Top signs include …
It seems too good to be true.
If the person seems like a perfect match right from the start, be cautious. Scammers often stake out their victims and create profiles designed to appeal to their desires and preferences. In some cases, we’ve seen instances where a scammer uses pictures and profiles similar to the deceased partners of widowers.
Love comes quickly. Too quickly.
As the case was with “Frank,” two weeks hadn’t passed before the word “love” appeared in the messages. Take that as a red flag, particularly online when you’ve had no in-person contact with them. A rush into declarations of love might indicate ulterior motives.
The story doesn’t check out.
Victims might think they’re talking to a romantic partner, yet they’re talking with a scammer. Sometimes several different scammers. As we’ve shown in our blogs before, large online crime organizations run some romance scams. With several people running the scam, inconsistencies can crop up. Look out for that.
What’s more, even individual scammers forget details they’ve previously shared or provide conflicting info about their background, job, or family. It’s possible that one romance scammer has several scams going on at once, which can lead to confusion on their part.
You feel pressured.
Romance scammers pump their victims for info. With things like addresses, phone numbers, and financial details, scammers use that info to commit further identity theft or scams. If someone online presses you for this info, keep it to yourself. It might be a scam.
Another mark of a scam — if the person asks all sorts of prying questions and doesn’t give up any such info about themselves. A romance scam is very one way in this regard.
You’re asked for money in some form or fashion.
This is the heart of the scam. With the “relationship” established, the scammer starts asking for money. They might ask for bank transfers, cryptocurrency, money orders, or gift cards. In all, they ask for funds that victims have a tough time getting refunded, if at all. Consider requests for money in any form as the reddest of red flags.
Watch out for AI.
Scammers now use AI. And that actually gives us one less tell-tale sign of a romance scam. It used to be that romance scammers refused to hop on video calls as they would reveal their true identities. The same for voice chats. (Suddenly, that Swedish businessman doesn’t sound so Swedish.) That’s not the case anymore. With AI audio and video deepfake technology so widely available, scammers can now sound and look the part they’re playing — in real time. AI mirrors every expression they make as they chat on a video call.
As things stand now, these technologies have limits. The AI can only track faces, not body movements. Scammers who use this technology must sit rather rigidly. Further, many AI tools have a hard time capturing the way light reflects or catches the eye. If something looks off, the person on the other end of the call might be using deepfake technology.
The important point is this: today’s romance scammers can make themselves appear like practically anyone. Just because you’re chatting with a “real” person on a call or video meeting, that’s no guarantee they are who they say.
Romance scammers track down their victims in several ways. Some scammers blast out direct messages and texts en masse with the hope they’ll get a few bites. Others profile their potential victims before they contact them. Likewise, they’ll research anyone who indeed gives them a bite with a response to a blast.
In all cases, locking down your privacy can make it tougher for a scammer to target you. And tougher for them to scam you if they do. Your info is their goldmine, and they use that info against you as they build a “relationship” with you.
With that in mind, you can take several steps …
Make your social media more private. Our new McAfee Social Privacy Manager personalizes your privacy based on your preferences. It does the heavy lifting by adjusting more than 100 privacy settings across your social media accounts in only a few clicks. This makes sure that your personal info is only visible to the people you want to share it with. It also keeps it out of search engines where the public can see it. Including scammers.
Watch what you post on public forums. As with social media, scammers harvest info from online forums dedicated to sports, hobbies, interests, and the like. If possible, use a screen name on these sites so that your profile doesn’t immediately identify you. Likewise, keep your personal details to yourself. When posted on a public forum, it becomes a matter of public record. Anyone, including scammers, can look it up.
Remove your info from data brokers that sell it. McAfee Personal Data Cleanup helps you remove your personal info from many of the riskiest data broker sites out there. That includes your contact info. Running it regularly can keep your name and info off these sites, even as data brokers collect and post new info. Depending on your plan, it can send requests to remove your data automatically.
Delete your old accounts. Yet another source of personal info comes from data breaches. Scammers use this info as well to complete a sharper picture of their potential victims. With that, many internet users can have over 350 online accounts, many of which they might not know are still active. McAfee Online Account Cleanup can help you delete them. It runs monthly scans to find your online accounts and shows you their risk level. From there, you can decide which to delete, protecting your personal info from data breaches and your overall privacy as a result.
We’ve always had to keep our guard up to some extent when it comes to online romance. Things today call for even more skepticism. Romance scams have become tremendously more sophisticated, largely thanks to AI tools.
Even with technology reshaping the tricks scammers can pull, recognizing that their tactics remain the same as ever can protect you from harm.
Romance scammers flatter, manipulate, and pressure their way into the lives of their victims. They play off emotions and threaten to “leave” if they don’t get what they ask for. Emotionally, none of it feels right. Any kind of emotional extortion like that is a sign to end an online relationship, hard as that might be.
The trick is that the victim might be in deep at that point. They might not act even if things feel wrong. That’s where family and friends come in. If something doesn’t feel right, share what’s happening with someone you’ve known and trusted for years. That can help clear up any clouded judgment. Sometimes it takes an extra set of eyes to spot a scammer.
If you or someone you know falls victim to a romance scam, remember that no one is alone in this. Thousands and thousands of others are victims too. It might come as some comfort, particularly as many, many victims are otherwise savvy and centered people. Anyone, anyone, can find themselves a victim.
Lastly, romance scams are crimes. If one happens to you, report it. In the U.S., you can report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and you can file a complaint with the FTC. Also, report any theft or threats to your local authorities.
In all, the word on romance online is this — take things slowly. “Love” in two weeks or less hoists a big red flag. Very much so online. Know those signs of a scam when you see them. And if they rear their head, act on them.
The post How to Avoid Romance Scams appeared first on McAfee Blog.
You consider yourself a responsible person when it comes to taking care of your physical possessions. You’ve never left your wallet in a taxi or lost an expensive ring down the drain. You never let your smartphone out of your sight, yet one day you notice it’s acting oddly.
Did you know that your device can fall into cybercriminals’ hands without ever leaving yours? SIM swapping is a method that allows criminals to take control of your smartphone and break into your online accounts.
Don’t worry: there are a few easy steps you can take to safeguard your smartphone from prying eyes and get back to using your devices confidently.
First off, what exactly is a SIM card? SIM stands for subscriber identity module, and it is a memory chip that makes your phone truly yours. It stores your phone plan and phone number, as well as all your photos, texts, contacts, and apps. In most cases, you can pop your SIM card out of an old phone and into a new one to transfer your photos, apps, etc.
Unlike what the name suggests, SIM swapping doesn’t require a cybercriminal to get access to your physical phone and steal your SIM card. SIM swapping can happen remotely. A hacker, with a few important details about your life in hand, can answer security questions correctly, impersonate you, and convince your mobile carrier to reassign your phone number to a new SIM card. At that point, the criminal can get access to your phone’s data and start changing your account passwords to lock you out of your online banking profile, email, and more.
SIM swapping was especially relevant right after the AT&T data leak. Cybercriminals stole millions of phone numbers and the users’ associated personal details. They could later use these details to SIM swap, allowing them to receive users’ text or email two-factor authentication codes and gain access to their personal accounts.
The most glaring sign that your phone number was reassigned to a new SIM card is that your current phone no longer connects to the cell network. That means you won’t be able to make calls, send texts, or surf the internet when you’re not connected to Wi-Fi. Since most people use their smartphones every day, you’ll likely find out quickly that your phone isn’t functioning as it should.
Additionally, when a SIM card is no longer active, the carrier will often send a notification text. If you receive one of these texts but didn’t deactivate your SIM card, use someone else’s phone or landline to contact your wireless provider.
Check out these tips to keep your device and personal information safe from SIM swapping.
With just a few simple steps, you can feel better about the security of your smartphone, cellphone number, and online accounts. If you’d like extra peace of mind, consider signing up for an identity theft protection service like McAfee+. McAfee, on average, detects suspicious activity ten months earlier than similar monitoring services. Time is of the essence in cases of SIM swapping and other identity theft schemes. An identity protection partner can restore your confidence in your online activities.
The post How to Protect Your Smartphone from SIM Swapping appeared first on McAfee Blog.
For years now, the popularity of online dating has been on the rise—and so have the number of online romance scams that leave people with broken hearts and empty wallets.
In a recent CBS News story, one Texan woman was scammed out of $3,200 by a scammer claiming to be a German Cardiologist. After months of exchanging messages and claiming to be in love with her, he said that he’d been robbed while on a business trip in Nigeria and needed her help.
According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the reported cost of online romance scams was $1.14 billion in 2023.
Dating and romance scams aren’t limited to online dating apps and sites, they’ll happen on social media and in online games as well. However, the FTC reports that the scam usually starts the same way, typically through an unexpected friend request or a message that comes out of the blue.
With the phony relationship established, the scammer starts asking for money. The FTC reports that they’ll ask for money for several bogus reasons, usually revolving around some sort of hardship where they need a “little help” so that they can pay:
The list goes on, yet that’s the general gist. Scammers often employ a story with an intriguing complication that seems just reasonable enough, one where the romance scammer makes it sound like they could really use the victim’s financial help.
People who have filed fraud reports say they’ve paid their scammer in a few typical ways.
One is by wiring money, often through a wire transfer company. The benefit of this route, for the scammer anyway, is that this is as good as forking over cash. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. The victim lacks the protections they have with other payment forms, such as a credit card that allows the holder to cancel or contest a charge.
Another way is through gift cards. Scammers of all stripes, not just romance scammers, like these because they effectively work like cash, whether it’s a gift card for a major online retailer or a chain of brick-and-mortar stores. Like a wire transfer, once that gift card is handed over, the money on it is highly difficult to recover, if at all.
One more common payment is through reloadable debit cards. A scammer may make an initial request for such a card and then make several follow-on requests to load it up again.
In all, a romance scammer will typically look for the easiest payment method that’s the most difficult to contest or reimburse, leaving the victim in a financial lurch once the scam ends.
When it comes to meeting new people online, the FTC suggests the following:
Scammers, although arguably heartless, are still human. They make mistakes. The stories they concoct are just that. Stories. They may jumble their details, get their times and dates all wrong, or simply get caught in an apparent lie. Also, keep in mind that some scammers may be working with several victims at once, which is yet another opportunity for them to get confused and slip up.
As mentioned above, some romance scammers troll social media and reach out through direct messages or friend requests. With that, there are three things you can do to cut down your chances of getting caught up with a scammer:
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and others give you the option of making your profile and posts visible to friends only. Choosing this setting keeps the broader internet from seeing what you’re doing, saying, and posting, which can help protect your privacy and give a romance scammer less information to exploit.
Be critical of the invitations you receive. Out-and-out strangers could be more than a romance scammer, they could be a fake account designed to gather information on users for purposes of cybercrime, or they can be an account designed to spread false information. There are plenty of them too. In fact, in Q4 of 2023 alone, Facebook took action on 693 million fake accounts. Reject such requests.
Online protection software like ours can help you spot fakes and scams. Features like McAfee Scam Protection use advanced AI to detect scam links in texts, email, and social media messages before you click. Our Personal Data Cleanup can keep you safer still by removing your personal info from sketchy data broker sites — places where scammers go to harvest useful info on their victims. And if the unfortunate happens, we offer $2 million in identity theft coverage and identity restoration support.
If you suspect that you’re being scammed, put an end to the relationship and report it, as difficult as that may feel.
Notify the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov for support and next steps to help you recover financially as much as possible. Likewise, notify the social media site, app, or service where the scam occurred as well. In some cases, you may want to file a police report, which we cover in our broader article on identity theft and fraud.
If you sent funds via a gift card, the FTC suggests filing a claim with the company as soon as possible. They offer further advice on filing a claim here, along with a list of contact numbers for gift card brands that scammers commonly use.
Lastly, go easy on yourself. If you find yourself a victim of online dating or romance fraud, know that you won’t be the first or last person to be taken advantage of this way. By reporting your case, you in fact may help others from falling victim too.
The post How to Spot Dating Scams appeared first on McAfee Blog.
According to reports from the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel database, text message scams swindled $372 million from Americans in 2023 alone. The staggering figure highlights a growing concern for consumers globally, who increasingly interact with brands and service providers via text, email, and even social media. As our reliance on technology continues, it is important for everyone to understand how to spot scam texts amid the real messages they receive. amid the real messages they receive.
With such frequent communication from brands and organizations, you can be hard-pressed to figure out what is a scam or not. This practical and actionable advice may be able to help you spot the imposters and protect yourself against even the most hard-to-identify scam messages.
Most of us probably avoid reading disclaimers and terms of service from brands and organizations. Paying attention to guidelines for how an organization will contact you will help you stay safe from scams. Just take it from entertainment host, Andy Cohen.
Cohen received an email he thought was from his bank’s fraud department. Later, the scammer texted Cohen claiming to be from the bank, asking for more information. Cohen ended up sending the scammer money because he believed they were a bank representative. These days, many banks and brands have FYIs on their website about how to spot a legitimate text. Like this page from Chase, which goes over what a real Chase text looks like.
We have a similar disclosure on our site. For example, our customer service teams will never request sensitive information such as social security numbers, PINs, or bank or payment details. As soon as you sign up for a new account, it’s a good idea to check for this sort of disclaimer and familiarize yourself with contact methods and the type of information organizations might request.
Scam messages are so successful because scammers make them look real. During the holidays, when shoppers are ready to leap at deals, scam messages can be hard to resist. With an increased volume of scam texts during major shopping seasons, it’s no wonder open rates can be as high as 98%.
Consumers can protect themselves against realistic-looking scam messages by verifying the source of the message. If an email hits your mobile inbox, click on the sender’s name to expand their full email address. Typical brand emails will have a “do not reply” somewhere in the address or an official “@branddomain.com” email address. Scam email addresses often appear as strings of gibberish.
If unsure whether a text from a company is real, log into your account directly to see if it reflects the overdue bill or extra store credit that the text message suggests.
Knowing about the latest cybersecurity trends is always good practice. Scammers change their tactics constantly. Text scams that were popular one year may be totally out of style the next time you get a scam message.
Individuals looking for a place to start can check out FTC, FBI, and CISA websites. Those agencies offer valuable insights about fraud trends and recommendations about how people can protect themselves. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) has an interactive scam tracking tool, and AARP provides tips for older Americans who may not be as in tune with the latest tech trends and tools.
Thankfully, the software designed to protect against scams evolves, as well. Consumers can turn to product suites that offer features like finding and removing personal info from sites that sell it, adjusting social media controls, and even providing alerts about suspicious financial transactions.
For scam texts, AI is here to help. McAfee Scam Protection uses AI to scan SMS text messages and alert you about unsafe links. Users can delete those messages without opening them, reducing the risk of compromise and removing any question about whether the message is fraudulent or for real.
The $372 million figure is a stark reminder of growing fraud. As we continue into the digital age, the threat of fraudulent communications from scammers looms. To safeguard against bad actors, consumers must be proactive. By paying attention to brand communication guidelines, verifying the source of messages, remaining educated, and using modern privacy and identity products, consumers can avoid scams before they start.
The post How to Tell If Your Text Message Is Real appeared first on McAfee Blog.
We’ve said it several times in our blogs — it’s tough knowing what’s real and what’s fake out there. And that’s absolutely the case with AI audio deepfakes online.
Bad actors of all stripes have found out just how easy, inexpensive, and downright uncanny AI audio deepfakes can be. With only a few minutes of original audio, seconds even, they can cook up phony audio that sounds like the genuine article — and wreak all kinds of havoc with it.
A few high-profile cases in point, each politically motivated in an election year where the world will see more than 60 national elections:
Yet deepfakes have targeted more than election candidates. Other public figures have found themselves attacked as well. One example comes from Baltimore County in Maryland, where a high school principal has allegedly fallen victim to a deepfake attack.
It involves an offensive audio clip that resembles the principal’s voice which was posted on social media, news of which spread rapidly online. The school’s union has since stated that the clip was an AI deepfake, and an investigation is ongoing.iii In the wake of the attack, at least one expert in the field of AI deepfakes said that the clip is likely a deepfake, citing “distinct signs of digital splicing; this may be the result of several individual clips being synthesized separately and then combined.”iv
And right there is the issue. It takes expert analysis to clinically detect if an audio clip is an AI deepfake.
Audio deepfakes give off far fewer clues, as compared to the relatively easier-to-spot video deepfakes out there. Currently, video deepfakes typically give off several clues, like poorly rendered hands and fingers, off-kilter lighting and reflections, a deadness to the eyes, and poor lip-syncing. Clearly, audio deepfakes don’t suffer any of those issues. That indeed makes them tough to spot.
The implications of AI audio deepfakes online present themselves rather quickly. In a time where general awareness of AI audio deepfakes lags behind the availability and low cost of deepfake tools, people are more prone to believe an audio clip is real. Until “at home” AI detection tools become available to everyday people, skepticism is called for.
Just as “seeing isn’t always believing” on the internet, we can “hearing isn’t always believing” on the internet as well.
The people behind these attacks have an aim in mind. Whether it’s to spread disinformation, ruin a person’s reputation, or conduct some manner of scam, audio deepfakes look to do harm. In fact, that intent to harm is one of the signs of an audio deepfake, among several others.
Listen to what’s actually being said. In many cases, bad actors create AI audio deepfakes designed to build strife, deepen divisions, or push outrageous lies. It’s an age-old tactic. By playing on people’s emotions, they ensure that people will spread the message in the heat of the moment. Is a political candidate asking you not to vote? Is a well-known public figure “caught” uttering malicious speech? Is Taylor Swift offering you free cookware? While not an outright sign of an AI audio deepfake alone, it’s certainly a sign that you should verify the source before drawing any quick conclusions. And certainly before sharing the clip.
Think of the person speaking. If you’ve heard them speak before, does this sound like them? Specifically, does their pattern of speech ring true or does it pause in places it typically doesn’t … or speak more quickly and slowly than usual? AI audio deepfakes might not always capture these nuances.
Listen to their language. What kind of words are they saying? Are they using vocabulary and turns of phrase they usually don’t? An AI can duplicate a person’s voice, yet it can’t duplicate their style. A bad actor still must write the “script” for the deepfake, and the phrasing they use might not sound like the target.
Keep an ear out for edits. Some deepfakes stitch audio together. AI audio tools tend to work better with shorter clips, rather than feeding them one long script. Once again, this can introduce pauses that sound off in some way and ultimately affect the way the target of the deepfake sounds.
Is the person breathing? Another marker of a possible fake is when the speaker doesn’t appear to breathe. AI tools don’t always account for this natural part of speech. It’s subtle, yet when you know to listen for it, you’ll notice it when a person doesn’t pause for breath.
It’s upon us. Without alarmism, we should all take note that not everything we see, and now hear, on the internet is true. The advent of easy, inexpensive AI tools has made that a simple fact.
The challenge that presents us is this — it’s largely up to us as individuals to sniff out a fake. Yet again, it comes down to our personal sense of internet street smarts. That includes a basic understanding of AI deepfake technology, what it’s capable of, and how fraudsters and bad actors put it to use. Plus, a healthy dose of level-headed skepticism. Both now in this election year and moving forward.
[iii] https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/01/17/pikesville-principal-alleged-recording/
[iv] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-audio-deepfakes-are-quickly-outpacing-detection/
The post How to Spot AI Audio Deepfakes at Election Time appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Imagine receiving a call from a loved one, only to discover it’s not them but a convincing replica created by voice cloning technology. This scenario might sound like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it became a chilling reality for a Brooklyn couple featured in a New Yorker article who thought their loved ones were being held for ransom. The perpetrators used voice cloning to extort money from the couple as they feared for the lives of the husband’s parents.
Their experience is a stark reminder of the growing threat of voice cloning attacks and the importance of safeguarding our voices in the digital age. Voice cloning, also known as voice synthesis or voice mimicry, is a technology that allows individuals to replicate someone else’s voice with remarkable accuracy. While initially developed for benign purposes such as voice assistants and entertainment, it has also become a tool for malicious actors seeking to exploit unsuspecting victims.
As AI tools become more accessible and affordable, the prevalence of deepfake attacks, including voice cloning, is increasing. So, how can you safeguard yourself and your loved ones against voice cloning attacks? Here are some practical steps to take:
Voice cloning attacks represent a new frontier in cybercrime. With vigilance and preparedness, it’s possible to mitigate the risks and protect yourself and your loved ones. By staying informed, establishing safeguards, and remaining skeptical of unexpected communications, you can thwart would-be attackers and keep your voice secure in an increasingly digitized world.
The post How to Protect Yourself Against AI Voice Cloning Attacks appeared first on McAfee Blog.
In recent news, Roku, a leading streaming platform, reported that over 591,000 user accounts were affected by credential stuffing attacks. This incident underscores the critical importance of safeguarding your online accounts against cyber threats. Here’s what you need to know to protect yourself and your streaming accounts.
As a proactive security measure, Roku has reset the passwords for all affected accounts. It is also notifying customers about the data leak and is refunding or reversing charges for those with unauthorized charges made by cybercriminals.
Credential stuffing is a type of cyber-attack where hackers use lists of stolen usernames and passwords from other data breaches to gain unauthorized access to user accounts on various platforms. In Roku’s case, hackers exploited this method to compromise over half a million accounts.
Hackers obtain lists of usernames and passwords from previous data breaches or leaks. These credentials are often available for sale on the dark web. They then use automated tools to input these stolen credentials into multiple websites or services, including streaming platforms like Roku. When the stolen credentials match an existing Roku account, the hackers gain access and can potentially take control of the account.
When cybercriminals gain access to your streaming accounts, they can do more than just watch your favorite shows. They may sell your account credentials on the dark web, use your personal information for identity theft, or even lock you out of your own account. This not only compromises your privacy but also puts your financial information at risk if you have payment methods linked to your streaming accounts.
The recent credential-stuffing attack on Roku serves as a stark reminder of the importance of prioritizing online protection in an increasingly digital world. By following best practices such as using strong passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and staying vigilant about account activity, you can significantly reduce the risk of falling victim to cyber attacks. Protecting your streaming accounts isn’t just about safeguarding your entertainment preferences—it’s about safeguarding your privacy and personal information. Take the necessary steps today with McAfee+ to secure your online accounts and enjoy a safer, more secure streaming experience.
The post How to Protect Your Streaming Accounts: Lessons from Roku’s Data Leak appeared first on McAfee Blog.
In a world where digital communication dominates, the art of scamming has evolved into a sophisticated game of deception. A recent story in The Cut featured a seasoned personal finance journalist falling prey to an Amazon scam call and being duped out of a staggering $50,000. The story serves as a stark reminder that anyone, regardless of their expertise or background, can become a victim of vishing. Short for “voice phishing,” vishing is a form of cybercrime where scammers use phone calls to deceive individuals into revealing personal or financial information.
Contrary to common belief, it’s not just the elderly or technologically naive who fall victim to such schemes. One national survey found that only 15% of Gen Z and 20% of millennials express concern about falling victim to financial fraud. However, the Federal Trade Commission paints a different picture, indicating that younger adults are over four times more likely to report losing money to fraud than older adults. This dissonance highlights the need for heightened awareness and education across all age groups.
Vishing is a form of fraud that exploits the trust we place in phone calls. It operates through various strategies, all aimed at tricking victims. For example, wardialing involves automated systems dialing phone numbers to find vulnerable targets. VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, allows scammers to make calls over the internet, often making it harder to trace them.
Caller ID spoofing is another tactic where scammers manipulate the caller ID to display a trusted or familiar number, tricking recipients into answering. These techniques create a false sense of legitimacy, making it difficult for individuals to distinguish between real and fraudulent calls.
Vishing exploits trust and naivety to obtain sensitive information or conduct unauthorized transactions. Humans have always been vulnerable to scams, but the abundance of personal data available on the dark web, obtained from various data breaches and leaks, has significantly heightened the threat. For example, LinkedIn experienced a data breach in 2021 that exposed data from 700 million users on a dark web forum.
A data breach like that presents scammers with a treasure trove of details about potential victims, enabling them to personalize their attacks with alarming precision. By incorporating specific details gleaned from these data sources, scammers can craft convincing narratives and establish a false sense of trust and credibility with their targets. Consequently, even individuals who exercise caution in safeguarding their personal information may find themselves vulnerable to vishing scams.
As a result, individuals must remain vigilant and adopt comprehensive security practices. Familiarizing oneself with the telltale signs of a scam call is the first line of defense. Be wary of:
If an unsolicited call seems suspicious, hang up the phone. Verify the caller’s legitimacy through independent channels, such as contacting the organization directly using a trusted phone number. In addition to recognizing signs of scam calls, implementing call-blocking technologies or screening unknown numbers can reduce exposure to potential scams. McAfee Mobile Security’s call blocker feature can be employed to diminish the volume of incoming calls.
The alarming reality is that vishing knows no bounds and can affect any age or demographic. The unfortunate ordeal of the seasoned journalist losing $50,000 serves as a sobering reminder of the perils lurking behind seemingly innocuous phone calls. Vishing demands vigilance and awareness. Security software and apps can significantly increase the overall security of your phone by detecting and preventing various threats, such as malware, phishing attempts, and unauthorized access to sensitive information.
By adopting proactive measures, we can fortify our defenses against vishing scams and safeguard our financial well-being. Stay informed, stay vigilant, and stay protected.
The post A Finance Journalist Fell Victim to a $50K Vishing Scam – Are You Also at Risk? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
In today’s digital landscape, distinguishing between legitimate communications and phishing attempts can feel like navigating a labyrinth blindfolded. Phishing is a deceptive tactic where cybercriminals use fraudulent emails, texts, or messages to trick individuals into revealing sensitive information or clicking on malicious links. And let’s not forget its crafty sibling, “smishing” – the text message iteration of this digital charade.
Now that most brands and even government agencies communicate with consumers via text or email, it’s hard to know whether a message is legit or not. Consider the United States Postal Service, which should be solely focused on dependable package delivery, yet is frequently tasked with warning individuals against clicking on links from unsolicited messages impersonating the postal service.
Many people are concerned that they’ll unwittingly open an official-looking email or text only to become victims of a scam. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to educate yourself and establish safeguards against phishing and smishing attempts.
Here are five steps for staying cyber savvy and protecting yourself from phishing scams:
In a world where even simple emails and text messages can harbor malevolent intent, it’s crucial to fortify yourself with knowledge and vigilance. Using multifactor authentication and learning how to spot scam messages will help you avoid scams. If you want additional protection, our AI-powered Scam Protection scans text messages and alerts users or filters out the text if it detects a scam link. The software also blocks links from scam emails, texts, and social media messages in the event you accidentally click one. It’s not always easy to spot phishing scams, but we can help by providing that first — and second line of defense.
The post Stay Cyber Savvy: Your 5-Step Guide to Outsmarting Phishing Scams appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Four in ten Americans say they use peer-to-peer payment services, like Venmo, PayPal, or Apple Pay, at least once a month. These platforms have made it even easier to send money by adding QR codes that people can quickly scan to pull up someone’s profile and complete a payment. Two-thirds of restaurants have started including QR codes on tables to access menus. Scanning QR codes has become a normal, convenient way to exchange money or information.
Unfortunately, scammers are always looking for ways to take advantage of moments when people are primed to part with their money. The Federal Trade Commission is warning that scammers now use QR codes to hide harmful links to steal personal information. This new type of phishing attack, called “quishing,” highlights how scamming methods are constantly changing. In response, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an even more crucial part of defending against scammers.
To protect yourself against phishing attacks, it’s crucial to remain vigilant and employ proactive measures. Make sure to scrutinize all incoming emails, text messages, or social media communications for any signs of suspicious or unsolicited requests, especially those urging immediate action or requesting sensitive information.
Avoid clicking links, downloading attachments, or scanning QR codes from unknown or untrusted sources. Check the legitimacy of the sender by cross-referencing contact information with official sources or contacting the organization directly through trusted channels.
Before accepting where a QR code is going to take you, carefully examine the associated URL. Verify its authenticity by scrutinizing for any discrepancies, such as misspellings or altered characters, especially if it resembles a familiar URL.
Safeguard your mobile device and accounts by regularly updating the operating system. Additionally, bolster the security of your online accounts by implementing robust passwords and integrating multi-factor authentication measures to thwart unauthorized access.
As fraudsters continually evolve their tactics, distinguishing between what’s real and what’s fake becomes increasingly challenging. However, there is formidable technology available to safeguard against their schemes. AI can analyze vast amounts of data in real-time to detect patterns and anomalies indicative of fraudulent behavior. By continuously learning from new data and adapting algorithms, AI can stay ahead of evolving fraud tactics.
The McAfee+ suite of identity and privacy protections uses AI for identity protection, transaction monitoring, credit monitoring, and proactive Scam Protection to keep you safe from even the most sophisticated scam attempts. Scam Protection employs AI technology to block risky sites, serving as a secondary defense against accidental clicks on spam links. This ensures that even after being tricked into clicking, your device won’t open the fraudulent site.
Don’t leave your digital defenses to chance. See for yourself what advanced security looks like today.
The post How to Protect Against New Types of Scams Like QR Phishing appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Scammers are turning a buck on the eclipse. A rash of eclipse scams have appeared online, many involving the sale of unsafe viewers and solar eclipse glasses.
With the eclipse making its way from Texas, through the Midwest, and up through the Northeast on April 8th, people increasingly want to get their hands on equipment to view it. And as it always is when it comes to big events and scarcity, scammers rush in.
A map of the eclipse path – GreatAmericanEclipse.com
As such, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) issued a consumer warning about the sale of cheap, knockoff solar eclipse glasses.i Worse yet, viewing the eclipse with these bogus glasses can harm your eyes. So as if getting ripped off wasn’t bad enough, this scam can damage a person’s vision.
Here, we’ll put you on the path to buying a safe set of viewing glasses — and offer several ways you can avoid buying knockoffs from a scammer.
The American Astronomical Society has a list you’ll find helpful. With a visit to their page dedicated to suppliers of solar filters and viewers, you’ll have your pick of places where you can purchase. The list is long, featuring a mix of online and retail outlets where you can get safe, approved gear for viewing.
Also, check out the society’s page on safe viewing for the eclipse. It covers what you need to know to view the eclipse safely, from how to use a viewer, the ISO 12312-2 standard that all viewers must adhere to, and how to properly clean viewers so they remain safe.
How do so many scams ramp up so quickly for such a highly specific event? It doesn’t take much to spin up e-commerce sites and pump out ads nowadays. Thanks to a host of low-cost and easy-to-use tools for publishing and advertising online, scammers of all sizes can create bogus shopping experiences much more quickly than ever.
And as we’ve discussed so often in our blogs as of late, scams look and feel increasingly sophisticated today. AI gives scammers ready access to design tools, audio and video creation tools, copywriting bots, and more. Then add in the ease with which scammers can post their ads in search and on social media, and they have quick and ready ways of reaching potential victims.
Even so, a few extra steps and a bit of caution can help you avoid these scams.
1. Stick with known, legitimate retailers online.
This is a great piece of advice to start with. Directly typing in the correct address for online stores and retailers is a prime way to avoid scammers online. In the case of retailers that you don’t know much about, the BBB asks shoppers to do their research. Ensure that the retailer has a good reputation. The BBB makes that easier with a listing of retailers you can search by typing in their name.
2. Research new sellers for their history and reviews.
Never heard of that retailer before? See when they launched their website. A relatively new site might be a sign that it’s part of a scam.
A quick visit to the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) website can show you certain background info for any website you type in. Given how quickly and easily scammers can register and launch a website, this kind of info can help you sniff out a scam.
Of course, it might also indicate a new business that’s entirely legitimate, so a little more digging is called for. That’s where reviews come in. Aside from the resources listed above, a simple web search of “[company name] reviews” or “[company name] scam” can help you discover if the retailer is legit.
3. Look for the lock icon in your browser when you shop.
Secure websites begin their addresses with “https,” not just “http.” That extra “s” stands for “secure,” which means that it uses a secure protocol for transmitting sensitive info like passwords, credit card numbers, and the like over the internet. It often appears as a little padlock icon in the address bar of your browser, so double-check for that. If you don’t see that it’s secure, it’s best to avoid making purchases on that website.
4. Pay with a credit card instead of your debit card.
Credit cards offer fraud protections that debit cards don’t. Another key difference: when fraud occurs with a debit card, you fight to get your money back — it’s gone straight out of your account. With a credit card, the issuer fights to get their money back. They’re the ones who take the financial hit.
Additionally, in the U.S., the Fair Credit Billing Act offers the public protection against fraudulent charges on credit cards. The act gives citizens the power to dispute charges over $50 for goods and services that were never delivered or otherwise billed incorrectly. Note that many credit card companies have their own policies that improve upon the Fair Credit Billing Act as well. However, debit cards aren’t afforded the same protection under the Act. Avoid using a debit card while shopping online and use your credit card instead.
5. Protect your devices for shopping.
A complete suite of online protection software like McAfee+ can offer layers of extra security while you shop. It includes scam protection that can block malicious and questionable links that might lead you down the road to malware or a phishing scam — along with a password manager that can create and securely store strong, unique passwords.
If you have some last-minute bookings and travel in your plans for the eclipse, look out for online rental fraud scams. With a few images cobbled together from the internet, scammers list phony properties and seek to get paid outside legitimate rental platforms — leaving you short of funds and short of a place to stay when you finally arrive.
You can avoid these scams rather easily. Trust a trusted platform. Book your vacation rental through a reputable outlet. Vacation rental platforms like Airbnb and VRBO have policies and processes in place that protect renters from scammers.
You have several other ways you can avoid booking scams …
First, look at the listing.
Do the photos look grainy or like they came from a magazine? Do a reverse image search on the photo and see what comes up. It might be a piece of stock photography designed to trick you into thinking it was taken at an actual property for rent. Also, read the reviews for the property. Listings with no reviews are a red flag.
Only communicate on the platform.
The moment a host asks to communicate outside of the platform is another red flag. Scammers will try to lure you off the platform where they can request payment in forms that are difficult to recover or trace after you realize you’ve been scammed. That includes methods such as certified checks, money transfers like Western Union, and online payment apps like Zelle. Generally, when that money is gone, it’s gone for good.
Only pay on the platform.
Likewise, paying for your rental outside the platform might also go against the terms of service, as in the case of Airbnb. Or, as with VRBO, paying outside the platform voids their “Book with Confidence Guarantee,” which offers you certain protections. Use the platform to pay and use a credit card when you do. In the U.S., the Fair Credit Billing Act allows you to dispute charges. Additionally, some credit cards offer their own anti-fraud protections that can help you dispute a billing.
With big events comes scarcity. Postseason sports and merch. Holiday shopping and hot gifts. Vacation time and rentals at popular destinations. Scammers love this combination. With people in a rush to buy or book, scammers take advantage. As we now see, we can add eclipses to that list, just as we saw with the 2017 eclipse.
In addition to the advice above, take your time and ensure a safe purchase. Given that variants of this scam involve phony, unsafe viewing glasses, take the extra care that your vision absolutely deserves. Go with a reputable retailer with ISO-approved lenses.
The post How to Avoid Solar Eclipse Scams appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Smartphones have enabled a whole new digital world, where apps are gateways to just about any service imaginable. However, like many technological developments, mobile app proliferation can be a bit of a two-edged sword. A report analyzing more than 1 billion smartphone transactions found 45,000 malicious mobile apps, many of which were in the gaming category.
From ad fraud to taking advantage of embedded system security issues, fraudsters are consistently targeting smartphone apps. The trouble is that it’s not always immediately clear which apps pose a threat in a world where one in 36 mobile apps are considered high-risk.
These security concerns require a proactive approach with the ability to spot the signs of fraud or malice so that those apps can be avoided from the get-go. That’s where the four Rs of personal mobile security come into play.
Review
Staying informed about common scam tactics and emerging threats through reliable cybersecurity resources can empower consumers to make informed decisions and recognize potential risks more effectively. Our annual Consumer Mobile Threat Report always gives up-to-date information about the cyberattack landscape.
Understanding what a malicious or scam app looks like can help you avoid downloading a fraudulent app. For example, many fraud apps have very short descriptions or reviews from people who have previously been duped. In addition to scrutinizing the descriptions and reviews of apps, it’s essential to download apps only from trusted sources such as official app stores like Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Third-party app stores or unknown websites may host malicious apps.
Re-check
Fraudsters excel at creating seemingly legitimate apps to carry out scams, often by deploying deceptive tactics such as requesting unnecessary permissions or operating stealthily in the background. Exercise caution and conduct thorough checks of device settings whenever installing a new app.
It’s also essential to remain vigilant for indicators of suspicious activity, especially if you may have installed apps without security checks in the past. Be on the lookout for anomalies, such as unauthorized subscriptions, unfamiliar social media logins, or unusually rapid battery drain, which could signal the presence of fraudulent apps operating without their knowledge. Some malicious apps may also consume data in the background, leading to unusual spikes in data usage. Regularly monitoring data usage can help individuals detect and address any unauthorized app activity.
Revoke
Over time, it’s easy to inadvertently grant excessive permissions to apps or connect accounts to services that you no longer use or trust. This can create vulnerabilities that malicious actors could exploit to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Conduct an app review on your phone and revoke permissions or access granted to apps or services that are no longer needed or trusted. It’s essential to regularly audit and remove unnecessary permissions, apps, or connections to minimize the potential attack surface and reduce the risk of unauthorized access.
Reinforce
Reinforce your security posture with modern tools. Antivirus software remains a cornerstone of digital defense, offering proactive detection and mitigation of various threats, including malware, ransomware, and phishing attempts. For enhanced protection, consumers can opt for comprehensive security suites such as McAfee+, which not only includes antivirus capabilities but also integrates features like firewall protection, secure browsing, and identity theft prevention.
By leveraging these advanced security solutions, users can significantly reduce their vulnerability to cyberattacks and safeguard their personal and sensitive information effectively. Additionally, staying informed about emerging threats and regularly updating security software ensures ongoing resilience against evolving cyber threats in today’s dynamic digital landscape.
The post The Four Rs of Personal Mobile Security appeared first on McAfee Blog.
With the rise of cheap and easy-to-use AI tools, deepfake attacks find themselves likewise on the rise. Startling as that news might sound, you have several ways of falling victim to one.
Right now, we’re seeing plenty of AI voice cloning tools used in deepfake attacks. These attacks work much like classic targeted phishing attacks, also known as “spearphishing,” given the precision scammers use to pull them off.
It works like this:
A scammer identifies a target, gathers info on them, and then uses that info against them in a deepfake attack. With info gathered from their social media profiles, public records, “people finder” sites, and data broker sites, scammers create convincing-sounding messages with AI voice-cloning tools.
All they need is a script and a sample of a person’s voice that they want to impersonate — pulled from, say, YouTube, a social media video, a conference call, what have you. Just a few minutes does the trick, creating a voice clone that requires an expert to detect.
Between an uncanny voice clone and a script peppered with all kinds of personal details, these deepfake messages sound legit.
Moreover, scammers use another tool to get their victims to act. Urgency. They play on people’s emotions so that they’ll take the bait in the head of the moment. Imagine a deepfake message that sounds like it’s from a friend or family member. Their car broke down in the middle of nowhere and they need money for a repair or they run into trouble while traveling abroad and likewise need money to get out of a jam. In all, the voice clone says it needs help and needs it now.
Before the victim knows it, they’ve readily handed over funds, personal info, or both to a scammer — which leads to things like identity theft and fraud.
As these attacks started cropping up last year, we surveyed people worldwide to get a sense of just how often they occur. Out of 7,000 people surveyed, one in four said that they had experienced an AI voice cloning scam or knew someone who had.
Moreover, those attacks came at a cost. Of the people who reported losing money to an audio deepfake, 36% said they lost between $500 and $3,000, while 7% got taken for sums anywhere between $5,000 and $15,000.
Again, as even as convincing as these deepfake messages might sound, you can keep yourself safer from these attacks. It starts with keeping your personal info out of the hands of scammers.
Make your social media more private. Our new McAfee Social Privacy Manager personalizes your privacy based on your preferences. It does the heavy lifting by adjusting more than 100 privacy settings across your social media accounts in only a few clicks. This makes sure that your personal info is only visible to the people you want to share it with. It also keeps it out of search engines where the public, and scammers, can see it.
Remove your info from data brokers that sell it. McAfee Personal Data Cleanup helps you remove your personal info from many of the riskiest data broker sites out there. Running it regularly can keep your name and info off these sites, even as data brokers collect and post new info. Depending on your plan, it can send requests to remove your data automatically.
Delete your old accounts. Yet another source of personal info comes from data breaches. Scammers use this info as well to complete a sharper picture of their potential victims. With that, many internet users can have over 350 online accounts, many of which they might not know are still active. McAfee Online Account Cleanup can help you delete them. It runs monthly scans to find your online accounts and shows you their risk level. From there, you can decide which to delete, protecting your personal info from data breaches and your overall privacy as a result.
Set a verbal password with your friends and family. Several deepfake attacks involve an urgent voice message from a friend or family member. Setting a verbal password like you do with banks and alarm companies can help determine if a message is real or fake. Make sure everyone knows and uses it in messages when they ask for help.
Typically, deepfake attacks lead to some kind of fraud. Victims hand over money, personal info, credit card numbers, and gift cards after being taken in by the fraudster. So while deepfakes are new, the attack itself plays out like an age-old con game. With the age-old results. Given that, recovering from a deepfake attack follows the same steps it takes to recover from practically any type of fraud.
File a police report.
Someone stole from you. Treat fraud like the crime it is. Start by contacting law enforcement to file a report. Your local police department can issue a formal report, which you might need to get your bank or other financial institution to reverse fraudulent charges.
Before contacting the police, gather all the relevant info about what happened. This could include the dates and times of fraudulent activity and any account numbers affected. Bringing copies of your bank statements can be useful. Also, make note of any suspicious activity that might be related. For example, was your debit card recently lost or your email hacked? The police will want to know.
Notify the companies involved.
Depending on how you responded to the deepfake, the companies involved might include banks, credit card companies, the providers of gift cards, and other money transfer services. Each will have a method of reporting fraud. Some might offer ways to reverse the charges or recoup the funds. But not always. Scammers ask for payment in gift cards and money transfers for a reason. They’re as good as cash. After that money is gone, it’s likely gone for good.
In the U.S., File a report with the Federal Trade Commission.
In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hosts IdentityTheft.gov where you can further report such crimes. Along with the details you provide, it can create a free recovery plan you can use to address the effects of identity theft, like contacting the major credit bureaus or alerting the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) fraud department. You can report your case online or by calling 1-877-438-4338.
For another excellent resource from the FTC, you can visit their page dedicated to scam recovery. It offers detailed guidance for several types of scams and what to do if you fall victim to one.
And outside of the U.S.
Our knowledge base article on identity theft offers suggestions for the specific steps you can take in specific countries, along with helpful links for local authorities that you can turn to for reporting and assistance.
Put a freeze on your credit to prevent further theft.
A credit freeze is another smart move, which you can do through each of the three major credit bureaus. You can either call them or start the process online. This prevents people from accessing your credit report. Lenders, creditors, retailers, landlords, and others might want to see your credit as proof of financial stability. For example, if someone tries to open a phone contract under your name, the retailer might check the credit report. If there is a credit freeze in place, they won’t be able to view it and won’t issue the contract. If you need to allow someone access to your credit report, you can temporarily lift the freeze. And depending on your plan, you can issue a credit freeze or an even more comprehensive security freeze right from the McAfee app.
Use identity theft coverage to recover from deepfake fraud.
Having coverage in place before an attack can save you time and money should the unexpected happen. Our Identity Theft & Restoration Coverage can help. It offers $2 million in coverage and assistance from a licensed identity restoration pro who can repair your identity and your credit after an attack.
The post Are You a Victim of a Deepfake Attack? Here’s What to Do Next appeared first on McAfee Blog.
AT&T, one of the largest telecom giants, recently acknowledged a significant data leak that has affected millions of its customers. The leaked dataset, which includes personal information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and Social Security numbers, has raised concerns about privacy and security. In this blog post, we will provide an overview of the situation, explain the steps AT&T is taking to address the issue, and offer guidance on how you can protect yourself.
The Data Leak: AT&T has confirmed that the leaked dataset contains information from over 7.6 million current customers and 65 million former customers. The compromised data may include full names, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, AT&T account numbers, and passcodes. The company has reset the security passcodes of affected active customers.
AT&T’s Response: AT&T is actively reaching out to affected customers via email or letter to inform them about the data that was included in the leak and the measures being taken to address the situation. The company has also initiated a thorough investigation, working with external cybersecurity experts to analyze the incident. So far, there is no evidence of authorized access to AT&T’s systems resulting in data exfiltration.
Protecting Yourself: If you are an AT&T customer, it is crucial to take steps to protect yourself from potential fraud or identity theft. AT&T recommends setting up free fraud alerts with credit bureaus Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. These alerts can help notify you of any suspicious activity related to your personal information. Additionally, consider implementing the following measures:
McAfee+ automatically monitors your personal data, including your:
✓ Social Security Number / Government ID
✓ Driver’s license number
✓ Passport number
✓ Tax ID
✓ Date of birth
✓ Credit card numbers
✓ Bank account numbers
✓ Usernames
✓ Insurance ID cards
✓ Email addresses
✓ Phone numbers
AT&T’s data leak is a concerning incident that highlights the importance of safeguarding personal information in the digital age. By staying informed, taking proactive measures to protect yourself, and remaining vigilant against potential threats, you can minimize the risk of falling victim to fraud or identity theft. Remember, your privacy and security are paramount, and it’s crucial to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.
The post AT&T Data Leak: What You Need to Know and How to Protect Yourself appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Hackers used one of the oldest tricks in the book to turn a buck. All at the expense of several thousand Roku users.
Roku notified users that “certain individual Roku accounts” might have been accessed by someone other than their owners. The method of attack involved … credential stuffing, where stolen passwords from one account are “stuffed” into other accounts. With this form of attack, a reused password in one account can give access to several others.
Roku discovered that was the likely cause here, affecting at least 15,000 users.[i]
“Through our investigation, we determined that unauthorized actors had likely obtained certain usernames and passwords of consumers from third-party sources (e.g., through data breaches of third-party services that are not related to Roku).”
So while Roku itself wasn’t breached, hackers used info from other data breaches to break into these accounts, which were sold online. Reportedly for as little as fifty cents each.
With access to the compromised accounts, thieves tried to purchase subscriptions and hardware using stored payment options.
Roku went on to say that these unauthorized actors didn’t get access to “social security numbers, full payment account numbers, dates of birth, or other similar sensitive personal information requiring notification.”
The company said it continues to monitor accounts for unusual activity and that it’s working with subscribers to refund any unauthorized charges.
It has also reset passwords for potentially affected account holders. The company directed users to visit my.roku.com and use the “Forgot password?” option on the sign-in page.
While an estimated 15,000-plus compromised accounts have been identified, the possibility remains that yet more might be at risk as well. Every Roku subscriber should check their account for unusual activity. From there, we suggest updating your password to a new password that’s both strong and unique.
With that, we recommend that you take the following steps, which can help prevent and halt any harm being done with your personal info.
With some personal info in hand, bad actors might seek out more. They might follow up a breach with rounds of phishing attacks that direct you to bogus sites designed to steal your personal info — either by tricking you into providing it or by stealing it without your knowledge. So look out for phishing attacks, particularly after breaches.
If you are contacted by a company, make certain the communication is legitimate. Bad actors might pose as them to steal personal info. Don’t click or tap on links sent in emails, texts, or messages. Instead, go straight to the appropriate website or contact them by phone directly.
In this case, head to my.roku.com and use the “Forgot password?” option as the company suggests.
Changing passwords now is a must. Strong and unique passwords are best, which means never reusing your passwords across different sites and platforms. Using a password manager helps you keep on top of it all, while also storing your passwords securely. Moreover, changing your passwords regularly might make a stolen password worthless because it’s out of date.
While a strong and unique password is a good first line of defense, enabling two-factor authentication across your accounts helps your cause by providing an added layer of security. It’s increasingly common to see nowadays, where banks and all manner of online services will only allow access to your accounts after you’ve provided a one-time passcode sent to your email or smartphone. If your accounts support two-factor authentication, enable it.
Unfortunately at this time, Roku users don’t have this option available to them (although Roku does offer it for its smart home app).
An identity monitoring service can monitor everything from email addresses to IDs and phone numbers for signs of breaches so you can take action to secure your accounts before they’re used for identity theft. Personal info harvested from data breaches can end up on dark web marketplaces where other bad actors buy it for their own attacks. Ours monitors the dark web for your personal info and provides early alerts if your data is found on there, an average of 10 months ahead of similar services. We also provide guidance to help you act if your info is found.
In the case of the Roku attack, the account thieves purchased compromised accounts on dark web marketplaces. Identity monitoring can help you spot that kind of activity, which then lets you know it’s time to change your passwords.
Although Roku said it found no evidence that account thieves gained access to further sensitive info, treat your info like it was anyway. Strongly consider taking preventive measures now. Checking your credit and getting identity theft protection can help keep you safe in the wake of a breach. Further, a security freeze can help prevent identity theft if you spot any unusual activity. You can get all three in place with our McAfee+ Advanced or Ultimate plans. Features include:
A complete suite of online protection software can offer layers of extra security. In addition to more private and secure time online with a VPN, identity monitoring, and password management, it includes web browser protection that can block malicious and suspicious links that might lead you down the road to malware or a phishing scam — which antivirus protection can’t do alone. Additionally, we offer support from a licensed recovery pro who can help you restore your credit, just in case.
[i] https://apps.web.maine.gov/online/aeviewer/ME/40/e9cc298b-379b-47ba-a10d-e2263963b574.shtml
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There are more online users now than ever before, thanks to the availability of network-capable devices and online services. The internet population in Canada is the highest it has been, topping the charts at 33 million. That number is only expected to increase through the upcoming years. However, this growing number and continued adoption of online services pose increasing cybersecurity risks as cybercriminals take advantage of more online users and exploit vulnerabilities in online infrastructure. This is why we need AI-backed software to provide advanced protection for online users.
The nature of these online threats is ever-changing, making it difficult for legacy threat detection systems to monitor threat behavior and detect new malicious code. Fortunately, threat detection systems such as McAfee+ adapt to incorporate the latest threat intelligence and artificial intelligence (AI) driven behavioral analysis. Here’s how AI impacts cybersecurity to go beyond traditional methods to protect online users.
Most of today’s antivirus and threat detection software leverages behavioral heuristic-based detection based on machine learning models to detect known malicious behavior. Traditional methods rely on data analytics to detect known threat signatures or footprints with incredible accuracy. However, these conventional methods do not account for new malicious code, otherwise known as zero-day malware, for which there is no known information available. AI is mission-critical to cybersecurity since it enables security software and providers to take a more intelligent approach to virus and malware detection. Unlike AI–backed software, traditional methods rely solely on signature-based software and data analytics.
Similar to human-like reasoning, machine learning models follow a three-stage process to gather input, process it, and generate an output in the form of threat leads. Threat detection software can gather information from threat intelligence to understand known malware using these models. It then processes this data, stores it, and uses it to draw inferences and make decisions and predictions. Behavioral heuristic-based detection leverages multiple facets of machine learning, one of which is deep learning.
Deep learning employs neural networks to emulate the function of neurons in the human brain. This architecture uses validation algorithms for crosschecking data and complex mathematical equations, which applies an “if this, then that” approach to reasoning. It looks at what occurred in the past and analyzes current and predictive data to reach a conclusion. As the numerous layers in this framework process more data, the more accurate the prediction becomes.
Many antivirus and detection systems also use ensemble learning. This process takes a layered approach by applying multiple learning models to create one that is more robust and comprehensive. Ensemble learning can boost detection performance with fewer errors for a more accurate conclusion.
Additionally, today’s detection software leverages supervised learning techniques by taking a “learn by example” approach. This process strives to develop an algorithm by understanding the relationship between a given input and the desired output.
Machine learning is only a piece of an effective antivirus and threat detection framework. A proper framework combines new data types with machine learning and cognitive reasoning to develop a highly advanced analytical framework. This framework will allow for advanced threat detection, prevention, and remediation.
Online threats are increasing at a staggering pace. McAfee Labs observed an average of 588 malware threats per minute. These risks exist and are often exacerbated for several reasons, one of which is the complexity and connectivity of today’s world. Threat detection analysts are unable to detect new malware manually due to their high volume. However, AI can identify and categorize new malware based on malicious behavior before they get a chance to affect online users. AI–enabled software can also detect mutated malware that attempts to avoid detection by legacy antivirus systems.
Today, there are more interconnected devices and online usage ingrained into people’s everyday lives. However, the growing number of digital devices creates a broader attack surface. In other words, hackers will have a higher chance of infiltrating a device and those connected to it.
Additionally, mobile usage is putting online users at significant risk. Over 85% of the Canadian population owns a smartphone. Hackers are noticing the rising number of mobile users and are rapidly taking advantage of the fact to target users with mobile-specific malware.
The increased online connectivity through various devices also means that more information is being stored and processed online. Nowadays, more people are placing their data and privacy in the hands of corporations that have a critical responsibility to safeguard their users’ data. The fact of the matter is that not all companies can guarantee the safeguards required to uphold this promise, ultimately resulting in data and privacy breaches.
In response to these risks and the rising sophistication of the online landscape, security companies combine AI, threat intelligence, and data science to analyze and resolve new and complex cyber threats. AI-backed threat protection identifies and learns about new malware using machine learning models. This enables AI-backed antivirus software to protect online users more efficiently and reliably than ever before.
AI addresses numerous challenges posed by increasing malware complexity and volume, making it critical for online security and privacy protection. Here are the top 3 ways AI enhances cybersecurity to better protect online users.
1. Effective threat detection
The most significant difference between traditional signature-based threat detection methods and advanced AI-backed methods is the capability to detect zero-day malware. Functioning exclusively from either of these two methods will not result in an adequate level of protection. However, combining them results in a greater probability of detecting more threats with higher precision. Each method will ultimately play on the other’s strengths for a maximum level of protection.
2. Enhanced vulnerability management
AI enables threat detection software to think like a hacker. It can help software identify vulnerabilities that cybercriminals would typically exploit and flag them to the user. It also enables threat detection software to better pinpoint weaknesses in user devices before a threat has even occurred, unlike conventional methods. AI-backed security advances past traditional methods to better predict what a hacker would consider a vulnerability.
2. Better security recommendations
AI can help users understand the risks they face daily. An advanced threat detection software backed by AI can provide a more prescriptive solution to identifying risks and how to handle them. A better explanation results in a better understanding of the issue. As a result, users are more aware of how to mitigate the incident or vulnerability in the future.
AI and machine learning are only a piece of an effective threat detection framework. A proper threat detection framework combines new data types with the latest machine learning capabilities to develop a highly advanced analytical framework. This framework will allow for better threat cyber threat detection, prevention, and remediation.
The post The What, Why, and How of AI and Threat Detection appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Imagine a tool that can transform text into captivating videos, bridging the gap between imagination and reality by creating videos that look “lifted from a Hollywood movie” in minutes. In a world where technology continues to push boundaries, OpenAI is once again at the forefront of innovation with the unveiling of Sora, a groundbreaking text-to-video artificial intelligence (AI) model.
But what are the implications for personal internet security? As Sora enters the scene with its remarkable abilities, there arises a concern about how such advanced AI technology might impact the safety of online interactions and the potential for misuse or manipulation of generated content.
What is Sora?
OpenAI is the creator behind the ChatGPT AI chatbot. Their creation of Sora represents a leap forward in AI capabilities.
Sora transforms text prompts into videos. Previously, videos created by AI have had issues like choppiness and distortion; it was easy to tell that it was AI-generated content. In contrast, Sora’s video creation capabilities are adept at crafting intricate scenes with vivid characters and dynamic motion. While Sora still has limitations, its ability as an instant video generator far surpasses what has been seen before.
Currently, OpenAI is having Sora evaluated by cybersecurity professionals to identify critical areas for potential harm. As with any emerging technology, it’s essential to approach Sora with caution, recognizing both its benefits and its potential risks.
Top Internet Safety Concerns About Sora
Scammers and cybercriminals are likely to employ AI video generation for their deceptive purposes. Here are some of the dishonest applications of AI video generators to be aware of:
How to Stay Safe Against AI-generated Video Content
Protecting yourself against the risks associated with AI-generated video content is paramount in today’s digital landscape. Here are some key strategies to stay safe:
While it’s essential to acknowledge the new risks to personal internet security brought about by advances in AI video generation, the future isn’t a daunting place—it’s brimming with endless technological possibilities!
Embrace these opportunities with confidence, knowing that McAfee has your back. To protect your online privacy, devices, and identity, entrust your digital safety to McAfee+. McAfee+ includes $1 million in identity theft coverage, virtual private network (VPN), Personal Data Cleanup, and more.
The post What is Sora and What Does It Mean for Your Personal Internet Security? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
This year marks the world’s biggest election year yet.
An estimated four billion voters will head to the polls across more than 60 national elections worldwide in 2024 — all at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) continues to make history of its own. Without question, the harmful use of AI will play a role in election interference worldwide.
In fact, it already has.
In January, thousands of U.S. voters in New Hampshire received an AI robocall that impersonated President Joe Biden, urging them not to vote in the primary. In the UK, more than 100 deepfake social media ads impersonated Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on the Meta platform last December[ii]. Similarly, the 2023 parliamentary elections in Slovakia spawned deepfake audio clips that featured false proposals for rigging votes and raising the price of beer[iii].
We can’t put it more plainly. The harmful use of AI has the potential to influence an election.
In just over a year, AI tools have rapidly evolved, offering a wealth of benefits. It analyzes health data on massive scales, which promotes better healthcare outcomes. It helps supermarkets bring the freshest produce to the aisles by streamlining the supply chain. And it does plenty of helpful everyday things too, like recommending movies and shows in our streaming queues based on what we like.
Yet as with practically any technology, whether AI helps or harms is up to the person using it. And plenty of bad actors have chosen to use it for harm. Scammers have used it to dupe people with convincing “deepfakes” that impersonate everyone from Taylor Swift to members of their own family with phony audio, video, and photos created by AI. Further, AI has also helped scammers spin up phishing emails and texts that look achingly legit, all on a massive scale thanks to AI’s ease of use.
Now, consider how those same deepfakes and scams might influence an election year. We have no doubt, the examples cited above are only the start.
Within this climate, we’ve pledged to help prevent deceptive AI content from interfering with this year’s global elections as part of the “Tech Accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI in 2024 Elections.” We join leading tech companies such as Adobe, Google, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, and TikTok to play our part in protecting elections and the electoral process.
Collectively, we’ll bring our respective powers to combat deepfakes and other harmful uses of AI. That includes digital content such as AI-generated audio, video, and images that deceptively fake or alter the appearance, voice, or actions of political candidates, election officials, and other figures in democratic elections. Likewise, it further covers content that provides false info about when, where, and how people can cast their vote.
A set of seven principles guide the way for this accord, with each signatory of the pledge lending their strengths to the cause:
In all, we see the tech accord as one important step that tech and media companies can take to keep people safe from harmful AI-generated content. Now in this election year. And moving forward as AI continues to shape and reshape what we see and hear online.
Yet beyond this accord and the companies that have signed on remains an important point: the accord represents just one step in preserving the integrity of elections in the age of AI. As tech companies, we can, and will, do our part to prevent harmful AI from influencing elections. However, fair elections remain a product of nations and their people. With that, the rule of law comes unmistakably into play.
Legislation and regulations that curb the harmful use of AI and that levy penalties on its creators will provide another vital step in the broader solution. One example: we’ve seen how the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) recently made AI robocalls illegal. With its ruling, the FCC gives State Attorney Generals across the country new tools to go after the bad actors behind nefarious robocalls[iv]. And that’s very much a step in the right direction.
Protecting people from the ill use of AI calls for commitment from all corners. Globally, we face a challenge tremendously imposing in nature. Yet not insurmountable. Collectively, we can keep people safer. Text from the accord we co-signed puts it well, “The protection of electoral integrity and public trust is a shared responsibility and a common good that transcends partisan interests and national borders.”
We’re proud to say that we’ll contribute to that goal with everything we can bring to bear.
[i] https://apnews.com/article/new-hampshire-primary-biden-ai-deepfake-robocall-f3469ceb6dd613079092287994663db5
[ii] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/12/deepfake-video-adverts-sunak-facebook-alarm-ai-risk-election
[iii] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-29/trolls-in-slovakian-election-tap-ai-deepfakes-to-spread-disinfo
[iv] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-400393A1.pdf
The post McAfee Joins Tech Accord to Combat Use of AI in 2024 Elections appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Deep fakes are a growing concern in the age of digital media and can be extremely dangerous for school children. Deep fakes are digital images, videos, or audio recordings that have been manipulated to look or sound like someone else. They can be used to spread misinformation, create harassment, and even lead to identity theft. With the prevalence of digital media, it’s important to protect school children from deep fakes.
Educating students on deep fakes is an essential step in protecting them from the dangers of these digital manipulations. Schools should provide students with information about the different types of deep fakes and how to spot them.
Media literacy is an important skill that students should have in order to identify deep fakes and other forms of misinformation. Schools should provide students with resources to help them understand how to evaluate the accuracy of a digital image or video.
Schools should emphasize the importance of digital safety and provide students with resources on how to protect their online identities. This includes teaching students about the risks of sharing personal information online, using strong passwords, and being aware of phishing scams.
Schools should monitor online activity to ensure that students are not exposed to deep fakes or other forms of online harassment. Schools should have policies in place to protect students from online bullying and harassment, and they should take appropriate action if they find any suspicious activity.
By following these tips, schools can help protect their students from the dangers of deep fakes. Educating students on deep fakes, encouraging them to be media literate, promoting digital safety, and monitoring online activity are all important steps to ensure that school children are safe online.
Through quipping students with the tools they need to navigate the online world, schools can also help them learn how to use digital technology responsibly. Through educational resources and programs, schools can teach students the importance of digital citizenship and how to use digital technology ethically and safely. Finally, schools should promote collaboration and communication between parents, students, and school administration to ensure everyone is aware of the risks of deep fakes and other forms of online deception.
Deep fakes have the potential to lead to identity theft, particularly if deep fakes tools are used to steal the identities of students or even teachers. McAfee’s Identity Monitoring Service, as part of McAfee+, monitors the dark web for your personal info, including email, government IDs, credit card and bank account info, and more. We’ll help keep your personal info safe, with early alerts if your data is found on the dark web, so you can take action to secure your accounts before they’re used for identity theft.
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With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, concerns about the privacy of personal data have reached an all-time high. Generative AI is a type of AI that can generate new data from existing data, such as images, videos, and text. This technology can be used for a variety of purposes, from facial recognition to creating “deepfakes” and manipulating public opinion. As a result, it’s important to be aware of the potential risks that generative AI poses to your privacy.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss how to protect your privacy from generative AI.
Generative AI is a type of AI that uses existing data to generate new data. It’s usually used for things like facial recognition, speech recognition, and image and video generation. This technology can be used for both good and bad purposes, so it’s important to understand how it works and the potential risks it poses to your privacy.
Generative AI can be used to create deepfakes, which are fake images or videos that are generated using existing data. This technology can be used for malicious purposes, such as manipulating public opinion, identity theft, and spreading false information. It’s important to be aware of the potential risks that generative AI poses to your privacy.
Generative AI uses existing data to generate new data, so it’s important to be aware of what data you’re sharing online. Be sure to only share data that you’re comfortable with and be sure to use strong passwords and two-factor authentication whenever possible.
There are a number of privacy-focused tools available that can help protect your data from generative AI. These include tools like privacy-focused browsers, VPNs, and encryption tools. It’s important to understand how these tools work and how they can help protect your data.
It’s important to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in generative AI and privacy. Follow trusted news sources and keep an eye out for changes in the law that could affect your privacy.
By following these tips, you can help protect your privacy from generative AI. It’s important to be aware of the potential risks that this technology poses and to take steps to protect yourself and your data.
Of course, the most important step is to be aware and informed. Research and organizations that are using generative AI and make sure you understand how they use your data. Be sure to read the terms and conditions of any contracts you sign and be aware of any third parties that may have access to your data. Additionally, be sure to look out for notifications of changes in privacy policies and take the time to understand any changes that could affect you.
Finally, make sure to regularly check your accounts and reports to make sure that your data is not being used without your consent. You can also take the extra step of making use of the security and privacy features available on your device. Taking the time to understand which settings are available, as well as what data is being collected and used, can help you protect your privacy and keep your data safe.
This blog post was co-written with artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool to supplement, enhance, and make suggestions. While AI may assist in the creative and editing process, the thoughts, ideas, opinions, and the finished product are entirely human and original to their author. We strive to ensure accuracy and relevance, but please be aware that AI-generated content may not always fully represent the intent or expertise of human-authored material.
The post How to Protect Your Privacy From Generative AI appeared first on McAfee Blog.
AI scams are becoming increasingly common. With the rise of artificial intelligence and technology, fraudulent activity is becoming more sophisticated and sophisticated. As a result, it is becoming increasingly important for families to be aware of the dangers posed by AI scams and to take steps to protect themselves.
By taking these steps, you can help protect your family from AI scams. Educating yourself and your family about the potential risks of AI scams, monitoring your family’s online activity, using strong passwords, installing anti-virus software, and checking your credit report regularly can help keep your family safe from AI scams.
No one likes to be taken advantage of or scammed. By being aware of the potential risks of AI scams, you protect your family from becoming victims.
In addition, it is important to be aware of emails or texts that appear to be from legitimate sources but are actually attempts to entice you to click on suspicious links or provide personal information. If you receive a suspicious email or text, delete it immediately. If you are unsure, contact the company directly to verify that the message is legitimate. By being aware of potential AI scams keep your family safe from financial loss or identity theft.
You can also take additional steps to protect yourself and your family from AI scams. Consider using two-factor authentication when logging in to websites or apps, and keep all passwords and usernames secure. Be skeptical of unsolicited emails or texts never provide confidential information unless you are sure you know who you are dealing with. Finally, always consider the source and research any unfamiliar company or service before you provide any personal information. By taking these steps, you can help to protect yourself and your family from the dangers posed by AI scams.
monitor your bank accounts and credit reports to ensure that no unauthorized activity is taking place. Set up notifications to alert you of any changes or suspicious activity. Make sure to update your security software to the latest version and be aware of phishing attempts, which could be attempts to gain access to your personal information. If you receive a suspicious email or text, do not click on any links and delete the message immediately.
Finally, stay informed and know the signs of scam. Be your online accounts and look out for any requests for personal information. If something looks suspicious, trust your instincts and don’t provide any information. Report any suspicious activity to the authorities and make sure to spread the word to others from falling victim to AI scams.
This blog post was co-written with artifical intelligence (AI) as a tool to supplement, enhance, and make suggestions. While AI may assist in the creative and editing process, the thoughts, ideas, opinions, and the finished product are entirely human and original to their author. We strive to ensure accuracy and relevance, but please be aware that AI-generated content may not always fully represent the intent or expertise of human-authored material.
The post How to Protect Your Family From AI Scams appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Two massive data breaches in France have impacted roughly half the nation’s population. The data of an estimated 33 million people has been compromised, making this the country’s largest-ever data breach.
Attackers targeted two French healthcare payment service providers, Viamedis and Almerys. Both companies manage third-party payments for health insurance in France. According to the CNIL, (Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés) France’s data protection agency, data was compromised during two separate breaches that struck in early February.
From a statement issued by the CNIL, affected records of policyholders and their families include:
The CNIL further stated that data such as banking info, medical data, health reimbursements, postal details, telephone numbers, and emails were not swept up by the breaches.
The concern with this breach, as with any other, is how this breached info might get combined with info from other breaches. Taken together, bad actors might use that combined info to conduct follow-on attacks, including identity theft.
As such, the CNIL suggests the following for policyholders:
In the meantime, the CNIL stated that it’s investigating the attack further, particularly to determine whether the security measures in place were in line with European data standards and obligations.
Any time a data breach occurs, it means that your personal info might end up in the hands of a bad actor. In light of this, there are a few steps you can take to protect yourself in the aftermath of a data breach, which involves a combination of preventative steps and some monitoring on your part.
Report unauthorized use of your info or accounts immediately.
As noted by the CNIL, keep an eye on your account. If you note any unusual activity, notify Viamedis or Almerys immediately.
Keep an eye out for phishing attacks.
With some personal info in hand, bad actors might seek out more. They might follow up a breach with rounds of phishing attacks that direct you to bogus sites designed to steal your personal info. So it’s always wise to keep a skeptical eye open for unsolicited messages that ask you for info, often in ways that urge or pressure you into acting. Always look out for phishing attacks, particularly after breaches.
With that, you can look into McAfee Scam Protection. It uses AI that detects suspicous links in email, texts, and social media messages. Further, it can block risky sites if you accidentally click or tap a link.
Change your passwords and use a password manager.
While it doesn’t appear that login info was affected, a password update is still a strong security move. Strong and unique passwords are best, which means never reusing your passwords across different sites and platforms. Using a password manager will help you keep on top of it all, while also storing your passwords securely. Moreover, changing your passwords regularly might make a stolen password worthless because it’s out of date.
Enable two-factor authentication.
While a strong and unique password is a good first line of defense, enabling two-factor authentication across your accounts will help your cause by providing an added layer of security. It’s increasingly common to see nowadays, where banks and all manner of online services only allow access to your accounts after you’ve provided a one-time passcode sent to your email or smartphone. If your accounts support two-factor authentication, enable it.
Consider using identity monitoring.
Breached and stolen info often ends up in dark web marketplaces where hackers, scammers, and thieves purchase it to commit yet more crime. Once it was difficult to know if your info was caught up in such marketplaces, yet now an Identity Monitoring service can do the detective work for you.
McAfee’s service monitors the dark web for your personal info, including email, government IDs, health IDs, credit card and bank account info, and more. This can help keep your personal info safe with early alerts that show you if your data is found on the dark web, an average of 10 months ahead of similar services. From there, you’ll get guidance that you can act on, which can help protect your info and accounts from potential theft.
We also offer identity restoration services through our McAfee+ Ultimate subscriptions. Identity restoration includes access to experts who can help generate an effective and efficient plan to quickly restore your identity, so you don’t have to tackle the issue by yourself.
Consider using comprehensive online protection.
A complete suite of online protection software can offer layers of extra security. It offers you the tools and services listed above, along with further features that can protect you online. That includes a VPN to keep your time online more private from online data collection while protecting it from thieves who’re out to steal credit card and account info. It also includes web browsing protection that can warn you of sketchy websites and malicious downloads that look to steal your info. In all, it’s thorough protection for your devices, privacy, and identity. And in a time of data breaches, that kind of protection has become essential.
Whether you’re a French citizen or not, word of this data breach offers an opportunity to bolster your defenses. Major breaches like these occur, just as we saw with the Facebook breach in 2021, the PayPal breach in 2023, and the 23andMe breach, also in 2023. Taking preventative steps now can put you a step ahead of the next one.
Of those steps, using comprehensive online protection software is the strongest. Protection like ours safeguards your privacy, identity, and devices in breadth and depth — protecting you from data breaches and all manner of scams and attacks that often follow them.
The post France Gets Hit with Its Largest Data Breach Ever — What You Need to Know appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Security researchers have discovered a massive data breach containing more than 26 billion records — a hacker’s trove of records compiled from LinkedIn, Twitter, Adobe, and thousands of other organizations. Likely the largest of its kind, researchers have dubbed it MOAB or the “Mother of All Breaches.”
With billions of pieces of personal info compromised, you can count on one thing here for sure. Bad actors out there will surely take advantage of this windfall. We’ll share the immediate steps you can take to stay safe.
Just to get a sense of the breach’s scope, the newly discovered database contains over 3,800 folders, each containing records from an individual data breach. As such, it seems that these breached records were compiled over time to create this database.
Within that list of 3,800 folders, it includes major brands and entities such as Twitter/X (281 million records), LinkedIn (251 million records), Evite (179 million records), and Adobe (153 million records). Leading the way with breached records is Tencent, with 1.5 billion records exposed.
Researchers also discovered that the leak contains records from government organizations in the US, Brazil, Germany, Philippines, Turkey, and other countries.
To date, no group has stepped forward to claim responsibility for this massive compilation of breached info. Researchers speculate that it could be a “malicious actor, data broker, or some service that works with large amounts of data.”
Given the scale of the breach, your best bet is to act like your data was caught up in it.
This breach truly is a treasure trove for hackers and scammers. With the info contained in it, they can launch follow-on attacks. Like identity theft, phishing attempts, and password-stuffing attacks often follow in the wake of breaches. And indeed, this is a massive breach.
We can’t stress enough that acting now is super important.
Immediate steps include:
Changing passwords now is a must. Strong and unique passwords are best, which means never reusing your passwords across different sites and platforms. Using a password manager will help you keep on top of it all, while also storing your passwords securely. Moreover, changing your passwords regularly might make a stolen password worthless because it’s out of date.
While a strong and unique password is a good first line of defense, enabling two-factor authentication across your accounts will help your cause by providing an added layer of security. It’s increasingly common to see nowadays, where banks and all manner of online services will only allow access to your accounts after you’ve provided a one-time passcode sent to your email or smartphone. If your accounts support two-factor authentication, enable it.
An identity monitoring service can monitor everything from email addresses to IDs and phone numbers for signs of breaches so you can take action to secure your accounts before they’re used for identity theft. Personal info harvested from data breaches can end up on dark web marketplaces where other bad actors buy it for their own attacks. Ours monitors the dark web for your personal info and provides early notifications if your data is found on there, an average of 10 months ahead of similar services. We also provide guidance to help you act if your info is found.
When personal info gets released, there’s a chance that a hacker, scammer, or thief will put it to use. This might include committing fraud, where they draw funds from existing accounts, and theft, where they create new accounts in a victim’s name.
With that, strongly consider taking preventive measures now. Checking your credit, putting a security freeze in place, and getting theft protection can help keep you safe in the wake of a breach. You can get all three in place with our McAfee+ Advanced or Ultimate plans. Features include:
Credit monitoring keeps an eye on changes to your credit score, report, and accounts with timely notifications and guidance so you can take action to tackle identity theft.
Security freeze protects you proactively by stopping unauthorized access to existing credit card, bank, and utility accounts or from new ones being opened in your name. And it won’t affect your credit score.
ID Theft & Restoration Coverage gives you $2 million in identity theft coverage and identity restoration support if determined you’re a victim of identity theft. This way, you can cover losses and repair your credit and identity with a licensed recovery expert.
A complete suite of online protection software can offer layers of extra security. In addition to password management and identity theft protection, it includes AI-powered scam detection that can spot scam texts, emails, and links on social media that otherwise look legit. If you accidentally tap or click on a sketchy link? Don’t worry, it can block those links from taking you to risky sites too. In all, online protection software offers you a broad range of defenses and preventative measures any time data breaches occur. Even breaches the size of the MOAB breach.
The post 26 Billion Records Released in “The mother of all breaches” appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Taylor Swift wants plenty of good things for her fans — but a free Dutch oven isn’t one of them.
A new scam has cropped up on social media, where an AI deepfake of Swift targets her loyal Swifties with the lure of free Le Creuset products. Yet no one winds up with a piece of the singer’s much-beloved cookware. Instead, they end up with a case of identity fraud. This latest scam follows a string of celebrity deepfakes on YouTube and scams also targeting Kelly Clarkson.
The story has made its share of headlines. Unsurprisingly so, given the singer’s high profile. Scammers have cooked up a synthetic version of Swift’s voice, using AI voice cloning technology we’ve highlighted in our blogs before.
With a script for the voice clone and real snippets of video of the star, the scammers (not Swift) encourage fans to jump on the free offer. All it takes is a $9.96 shipping fee. Paid for by credit or debit card. Once in the hands of the scammers, the cards get charged, and sometimes charged repeatedly. In all, it’s a classic case of identity fraud — this time with an AI voice clone twist.
Image of footage from the Taylor Swift social media scam.
Le Creuset quickly pointed out that no such promotion exists and that any certified Le Creuset promotions get posted on their official social channels. So, to put a fine point on it, Tay-Tay will not send you a Le Creuset.
Swift unfortunately finds herself in plenty of company. As we’ve reported previously, 2023 saw numerous celebrity AI cloning scams that hawked bogus goods, crooked investment scams, and phony cryptocurrency deals. Our 2024 predictions blog called for much more of the same this year, and the Taylor Swift scam has kicked things off in a high-profile way.
If people haven’t heard about AI cloning scams already, there’s a good chance that they do now.
So, what are we to do about it? How are we to tell what’s real and what’s fake online? Our Project Mockingbird points to the answer.
We just unveiled Project Mockingbird at the CES tech show in Las Vegas, a new technology that helps detect AI-generated audio in deepfakes. Think of it as a lie detector that spots fake news and other schemes.
See for yourself. We ran video of the Taylor Swift cookware scam through our Project Mockingbird technology. You’ll see red lines spike as it detects cloned audio, which shows you to what degree the audio is real or fake, all along a charted timeline.
In addition to spotting celebrity scams, this approach to AI clone detection combats another particularly popular form of deepfake. The AI wrapper scam, where scammers wrap their cloned speech inside an otherwise legitimate video. Check out the example below. Here, scammers used clips of real news presenters to dress up their ChatGPT investment scam video.
Note how the detector registered at the baseline when the news presenters spoke, which indicates authentic audio. Then note how it spiked when the cloned audio kicked in — the part of the video that pitched the ChatGPT investment scam.
Project Mockingbird marks the first public demonstration of our new AI-detection technologies. In addition to AI audio detection, we’re working on technology for image detection, video detection, and text detection as well.
With these capabilities, we’ll put the power of knowing what is real or fake directly into your hands. Another way you can think about it is that McAfee is like having a lie detector in your back pocket. With it, you’ll know what’s real and what’s fake online. Something we’ll all need more and more as AI technologies mature.
Looking ahead, we’ll see more than celebrity scams. We’ll see AI voice clones used to trick family members into sending money as part of phony emergency message scams. We’ll see it used for cyberbullying. And we’ll see bad actors use it to twist political speech across 2024’s major election cycles worldwide.
Through it all, we aim to give you the power of trust — to trust what you see and hear online. To know what’s real and what’s fake out there. Project Mockingbird represents our first public step toward that goal.
The post No, Taylor Swift Won’t Send You a Free Dutch Oven — The New AI Cloning Scam appeared first on McAfee Blog.
New year, new tech. That’s what hits the floor at the CES show each January in Las Vegas. Whether it’s striking, strange, or just pretty cool, plenty of this year’s tech is connected — and that means it needs to get protected.
Already we’ve seen a personal health scanner that works like a tricorder from Star Trek, smart belts that help people with limited vision get around safely, and smart locks that open your door with the palm of your hand.
Coursing through all these connected devices are data and info — data and info about you. Your family. Your home. Your comings and goings. The kind of data and info that all kinds of people want to get their hands on.
That’s where protection comes in.
Any device connected to the internet must be protected. Even if it’s something as innocuous as a smart wall outlet. The reason is, your home network is only as strong as its weakest security link. And many smart devices don’t come with the best security out of the box. Hackers know this. By compromising a device like a smart wall outlet, a hacker can gain access to the rest of the network and the devices and data on it.
But how do you protect a smart wall outlet, along with that smart coffeemaker, door lock, and refrigerator? We’ll run it down for you, plus advice for keeping the latest in medical, fitness, and mobile devices safe as well.
Broadly speaking, you can protect most of your tech with a handful of steps. Whether it’s a new Wi-Fi router, smartwatch, or even a connected fridge, they can all benefit from the following basics.
Use strong, unique passwords.
When it’s time to set up a new account or device, go with a strong, unique password. Strong means a mix of at least 12 characters, if not more. That includes a mix of numbers, symbols, and both letter cases, upper and lower. Unique means you don’t repeat it across accounts. That way, if one password gets compromised, the rest will remain secure.
Why strong and unique? Given today’s computing power, a hacker’s password generator can create millions of passwords in seconds. Weak passwords have no chance against them. It’s a simple matter of statistics.
Consider a password that uses eight numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and symbols. Sounds pretty strong, right? Unfortunately, a brute-force attack might crack that password in as fast as one second. One second …
|
Password Length
(Using numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and symbols) |
Time to Crack |
| 8 | One Second |
| 12 | Eight Months |
| 16 | 16 Million Years |
However, increase that password length to twelve numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and symbols — it’d that eight months to crack that password. Bump it up to 16, and it would take 16 million years. The longer it is, the more complex it is. And thus tougher to crack. It’s the difference between one second and 16 million years. And if a hacker’s brute-force attack on one password takes too long, it’ll simply move onto the next one.
A password manager can help create strong, unique passwords for you. Also found in comprehensive online protection software, a password manager can create and securely store strong and unique passwords for your mom and dad, giving them one less thing they need to remember and worry about.
Use multi-factor authentication
Online banks, shops, and other services commonly offer multi-factor authentication to help protect your accounts — with the typical combination of your username, password, and a security code sent to another device you own (often a mobile phone).
If your device or account supports multi-factor authentication, consider using it there too. It throws a big barrier in the way of hackers who try and force their way into your device with a password/username combination.
Keep everything updated
Update your apps and devices regularly. In addition to fixing the odd bug or adding the occasional new feature, app and device updates often address security gaps. Out-of-date apps and devices might have flaws that hackers can exploit, so regular updating is a must from a security standpoint. If you can set your apps and devices to receive automatic updates, even better.
Keep in mind that this very much applies to smart home devices as well.
Secure your internet router
Another device that needs good password protection is your internet router. Make sure you use a strong and unique password there as well to help prevent hackers from breaking into your home network.
Also consider changing the name of your home network so that it doesn’t personally identify you. Fun alternatives to using your name or address include everything from movie lines like “May the Wi-Fi be with you” to old sitcom references like “Central Perk.” Also check that your router is using an encryption method, like WPA2 or the newer WPA3, which will keep your signal secure.
Protect (your) everything
Comprehensive online protection software can secure your phones, tablets, and computers. Moreover, it can protect your privacy, identity, and spot scam texts, messages, and links — just to name a few of the many things it can do.
Moreover, these devices often connect to other devices on your home network. In a way, they act as a remote control for smart home devices like thermostats, alarms, and door locks. Protecting phones, tablets, and computers thus protect those other devices by extension.
The smarts behind a smart home come from you. At least when it comes to keeping it more private and secure. The thing with smart home devices is this, they’re connected. And anything that gets connected gets protected. That can look a little different for these devices than it does for your computers and phones, yet there are steps you can take.
Reset the factory password
Many smart home and internet of things (IOT) devices come with preset usernames and passwords from the factory. So much so, that you can easily find lists of stock usernames and passwords for these devices posted online where hackers can get a hold of them.
In the past, we’ve seen all kinds of attacks occur when these credentials don’t get changed. Among them are stories of hacked baby monitors where attackers take control of the camera and speakers. So just as you do for your other devices and accounts, create a fresh username and pair it with a strong, unique password as outlined above.
Upgrade to a newer internet router
Likewise, older routers might have outdated security measures, which might make them more prone to attacks. If you’re renting yours from your internet provider, contact them for an upgrade. If you’re using your own, visit a reputable news or review site such as Consumer Reports for a list of the best routers that combine speed, capacity, and security.
Set up a guest network specifically for your IoT devices
Just as you can offer your guests secure access that’s separate from your own devices, creating an additional network on your router allows you to keep your computers and smartphones separate from IoT devices. This way, if an IoT device is compromised, a hacker will still have difficulty accessing your other devices on your primary network, the one where you connect your computers and smartphones.
One more note — research the manufacturer
One of the strongest security measures you can take is research. Before purchasing, look up the manufacturer. Have they had security issues with their devices in the past? Are their devices well-reviewed? How about their privacy policy? What are they doing with your data?
It can get a little tricky tracking down that kind of info, yet you have a couple of great places to start. One is Consumer Reports and their thorough reviews of devices and tech. Another resource is Mozilla Foundation’s “Privacy Not Included” site, which reviews connected products like smart home and IoT devices for safety and security.
For a quick check-in, a prescription consultation, or just a conversation with a healthcare pro, telemedicine has firmly established itself as a viable option for many types of care. Of course, the info discussed and shared in such a visit can be sensitive.
Use a VPN
A VPN, or virtual private network, offers a strong layer of additional protection when you’re transmitting health data or having a private conversation about your health with a professional. A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel to keep you and your activity anonymous. In effect, your data is scrambled and hidden to anyone outside your VPN tunnel, thus making your private info difficult to collect. Check with the care provider to see if their telemedicine solution uses a VPN. If not, you can always get a VPN as part of your online protection software.
Check in with your provider
If you’re considering a virtual doctor visit, now’s a great chance to check in with your care provider before your appointment. This way, you can get comfortable with what your visit will look like, find out what special apps (if any) are used, and how your care provider will protect your privacy. Also, you can decide which device you’ll use and where you’ll use it so that you feel at ease during your virtual visit.
A reputable care provider will likely put all this pre-appointment info together for you on their website or “frequently asked questions” (FAQ) page, which will include helpful links and numbers to call if you need help or have questions. For an example of what that might look like, check out the telemedicine page that Virginia Mason/Franciscan Health designed for its patients.
Pick a private place
We’ve talked plenty about digital security, yet there’s the old-fashioned issue of physical eavesdropping to think about too. When it’s time for your actual appointment, pick a place in your home where you can ensure yourself some privacy. (Of course, don’t go online for your virtual appointment in a public place.) Look for a space where you can’t be overheard by neighbors and passers-by — preferably someplace like your bedroom where you can be comfortable as well.
By design, many wearables are big on data collection. Coursing through them are all kinds of data, about your vital signs, sleep patterns, not to mention your whereabouts — like when and where you like to run on your hill training days. Keeping these devices secure means keeping some of your most personal info secure as well.
As always, research the manufacturer
Very similar to what we mentioned about smart home and IoT devices, check the manufacturer’s track record. Read reviews. Hit up trusted sources. In all, find out how private and secure your device is. The same resources listed above can help you make an informed purchase.
When it comes to privacy, not all privacy policies are equal. The same goes for their privacy policies. Reading the privacy policy will tell you what kind of data the device collects. Further, it will show if and how it’s shared with the manufacturer and if they sell or share it with others. Likewise, you can factor what you find into your purchasing decision.
Adjust the privacy settings
This will vary from device to device as well, yet one more way you can lock down your privacy is in the device settings. Look for options around location tracking, social media sharing, and what types of data are shared online in addition to the device. Overall, consider what kind of fitness data it gathers and where it goes. If you’re not comfortable with that data ending up in the hands of a stranger, make it private.
When upgrading to a new device, wipe your old one.
Along the same lines, that old wearable of yours might be chock full of data. Before passing it along, selling it, or recycling it, wipe it. Remove all the old data by restoring it to factory settings (your manufacturer can show you how).
Also, delete any old online account associated with it if you have no more use for it. See to it that any data with that account gets deleted as well, which leaves you with one less account that could wind up the target of a data breach. A service like our own McAfee Online Account Cleanup can help, which you can find in our McAfee+ plans.
Certainly, if there’s one device that works like the remote control for our lives, it’s our smartphone. Smartphones and mobile devices like them need protection too — in their own right, and because they connect to so much more.
Avoid third-party app stores
Google Play and Apple’s App Store have measures in place to review and vet apps to help ensure that they are safe and secure. Third-party sites might very well not, and they might intentionally host malicious apps as part of a front. Further, Google and Apple are quick to remove malicious apps from their stores when discovered, making shopping there safer still.
Review apps carefully
Check out the developer — have they published several other apps with many downloads and good reviews? A legit app typically has quite a few reviews, whereas malicious apps might have only a handful of (phony) five-star reviews. Lastly, look for typos and poor grammar in both the app description and screenshots. They could be a sign that a hacker slapped the app together and quickly deployed it.
Yet better than combing through user reviews yourself is getting a recommendation from a trusted source, like a well-known publication or from app store editors themselves. In this case, much of the vetting work has been done for you by an established reviewer. A quick online search like “best fitness apps” or “best apps for travelers” should turn up articles from legitimate sites that can suggest good options and describe them in detail before you download.
Keep an eye on app permissions
Another way hackers weasel their way into your device is by getting permissions to access things like your location, contacts, and photos — and they’ll use malicious apps to do it. If an app asks for way more than you bargained for, like a simple puzzle game that asks for access to your camera or microphone, it might be a scam. Delete the app.
Lock your phone — and keep an eye on it too
Some bad actors will try to install spyware on phones themselves. However, this requires access, time, and effort to pull off. Locking your phone and always keeping it close can help prevent bad actors from infecting your phone this way.
Another step you can take is to familiarize yourself with the remote locking and wiping features of your mobile device. Many manufacturers offer this feature on mobile devices. Strongly consider using it in the event of loss or theft.
The post New Year, New Tech at CES — The Latest Protection for the Latest Tech appeared first on McAfee Blog.
We’ve seen how AI can create — and how it can transform our lives. What gets talked about less is how AI protects us too.
Certainly, it’s tough to miss how generative AI has turned sci-fi dreams of the past into today’s reality. From AI apps that help ease loneliness thanks to their human-like conversations, to technology that can predict and manage health risks, to browsers that whip up pieces of art with a prompt, it’s changing the way we go about our day and the way we live our lives.
However, we find ourselves only in generative AI’s earliest days. Countless more applications await over the near and distant horizon alike.
Yet that’s the important thing to remember with AI. It’s an application. A tool. And like any other tool, it’s neutral. Whether it helps or harms comes down to the person using it.
Thus, on the flip side of AI, we’ve seen all manner of shady and damaging applications. Hackers use AI to code new forms of malware at record rates. Scammers spin up convincing-looking phishing attacks and sites that harvest personal info, also at record rates. And we’ve further seen bad actors use so-called “deepfake” technologies to clone the voices and likenesses of public figures, whether for profit or to spread disinformation.
So, amid the excitement about AI, there runs a thread of uncertainty. Recently, we found that 52% of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI in daily life. Only 10% of people said they’re more excited than concerned. Meanwhile, 36% feel a mix of excitement and concern.
Uncertainty prevails, for sure. Yet something often gets overlooked in the conversation about AI: it can offer powerful protections against all manner of threats. Moreover, AI offers particularly potent protections against AI threats.
In this way, AI is your ally. At McAfee, we’ve used it to protect you for nearly a decade now. In fact, AI applications have been around for some time, long before they made headlines like they do now. And we continue to evolve AI technologies to help keep you safe. In the age of AI, McAfee is your ally. Our aim is to give you certainty and safety in rapidly changing times.
Ultimately, here’s what’s at stake today: people want to know what they can trust, and AI has made that tricky. What’s real? What’s fake? It’s getting tougher and tougher to tell.
The future of AI and online safety lies in pairing progress with protection. Here at McAfee, we see this as our role. We’re evolving AI in ways that give people the power to protect their privacy, identity, and devices even better than before. Now, that protection extends yet further. It also gives them the power to know what they can trust whenever they go online.
The time couldn’t be more right for that. Uncertainty about AI prevails. In all, more than half of Americans we talked to said they’re concerned that the arrival of AI has made online scams more accurate and believable.
Our threat detection figures put their concerns into focus:
With that, we ask ourselves, what can AI do for you? How can it keep you safe? Three principles provide the answer:
These principles drive our thinking in significant ways as we pair progress with protection in the age of AI. They stand as our commitment to keeping you safe and certain online, through our existing technologies and entirely new technologies alike.
As we’ve used AI as a core component of our protection for years now, it’s done plenty for you over that time. Our AI has sniffed out viruses, malicious websites, and sketchy content online. It’s helped steer you clear of malicious websites too.
So, the AI you have in your McAfee antivirus, it works like this:
Now we’ve made improvements to our AI-driven protection — and unveiled all-new features that take full advantage of AI, such as McAfee Next-gen Threat Protection and McAfee Scam Protection.
McAfee’s AI-powered security just got faster and stronger. Our Next-gen Threat Protection takes up less disk space, reduces its background processes by 75%, and scans 3x faster than before. This makes your time online safer without slowing down your browsing, shopping, streaming, and gaming.
Results from AV-TEST’s product review in October 2023 saw it block 100% of entirely new malware attacks in real-world testing. It likewise scored 100% against malware discovered in the previous four weeks. In all, it received the highest marks for protection, performance, and usability — earning it the AV-TEST Top Product certification.
Moreover, AI continually gets smarter because every evaluation provides more data for it to learn and improve its accuracy. McAfee conducts over 4 billion threat scans a day, and that number is quickly growing. We continue to innovate with leading-edge AI technology to provide the most advanced and powerful protection available.
The AI-powered scam protection in McAfee+ is like having that lie detector test we mentioned earlier. Advanced AI-powered technology helps prevent you from opening scam texts and blocks risky sites if you accidentally click on a scam link in texts, QR codes, emails, social media posts, and more. This AI-driven scam protection delivers real-time mobile alerts when a scam text is detected and is the only app on the market that sends alerts on both iOS and Android.
Advances in threat protection and scam protection mark just the start of where we’re taking our long-standing use of AI next. Sure, AI has made life easier for hackers and scammers. In some ways. In yet more important ways, it’s making their lives far more difficult. Downright tough in fact, particularly as we use it here at McAfee to detect their scam messages and texts, beat their AI-generated malware, and warn you of their malicious websites. And that’s just for starters. We have more to come.
You can expect to see other fraud-busting and info-validating uses of AI across our online protection software in the months to come. That’s what’s in store as we stand as you ally in the age of AI.
The post How to Stay Safe in the Age of AI appeared first on McAfee Blog.
AI and major elections, deepfakes and the Olympics — they all feature prominently in our cybersecurity predictions for 2024.
That’s quite the mix. And that mix reflects the nature of cybersecurity. Just as changing technology shapes cybersecurity, it gets further shaped by the changing world we live in. The bad actors out there exploit new and emerging technologies — just as they exploit events and trends. It’s a potent formula that bad actors turn to again and again. With it, they concoct a mix of ever-evolving attacks.
For a pointed example of the interplay between technology and culture, look no further than Barbie. More specifically, the scams that cropped up around the release of the “Barbie” movie. Using AI tools, scammers generated videos that promoted bogus ticket giveaways. They combined the new technology of AI with the hype surrounding the film and duped thousands of victims as a result.
We expect to see more of the same in 2024, and we have several other predictions as well. With that, let’s look ahead so you can stay ahead of the hacks and attacks we expect to see in 2024.
2024 has plenty on the slate in terms of pivotal elections. Across the globe, we have the United States presidential election, general elections in India, and the European Union parliamentary elections, to name a few. While every election comes with its fair share of disinformation, the continued evolution of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion add an extra level of complication.
So, if a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s an AI-generated photo, video, or voice clone worth? For disinformation, plenty.
Already, many voters raise a skeptical brow when politicians sling statements aimed at discrediting their opponents. Yet when those words are backed by visual evidence, such as a photo or video, it lends them the appearance of credibility. With AI tools, a few keywords can give a false statement or accusation life in the form of a (bogus) photo or video, which now go by the common name of “deepfakes.”
Certainly, 2024 won’t be the first election where bad actors or unscrupulous individuals try to shape public opinion through the manipulation of photos and videos. However, it will be the first election where generative AI tools are significantly more accessible and easier than ever to use. As a result, voters can expect to see a glut of deepfakes and disinformation as the election cycle gears up.
Likewise, the advent of AI voice-cloning tools complicates matters yet more. Consider what that means for the pre-recorded “robocalls” that campaigns use to reach voters en masse. Now, with only a small sample of a candidate’s voice, bad actors can create AI voice clones with striking fidelity. They read from any script a bad actor bangs out and effectively put words in someone else’s mouth — potentially damaging the reputation and credibility of candidates.
As we reported earlier this year, AI voice cloning is easier and more accessible than ever. It stands to reason that bad actors will turn it to political ends in 2024.
Disinformation has several goals, depending on who’s serving it up. Most broadly, it involves gain for one group at the expense of others. It aims to confuse, misdirect, and manipulate its audience — often by needling strong emotional triggers. That calls on us to carefully consider the media and messages we see, particularly in the heat of the moment.
That can present challenges at a time when massive amounts of content scroll by our eyes in our subscriptions and feeds. Bad actors count on people taking content at immediate face value. Yet asking a few questions can help you spot disinformation when you see it.
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions offers this checklist:
That last piece of advice is particularly strong. De-bunking disinformation takes time and effort. Professional fact-checkers at news and media organizations do this work daily. Posted for all to see, they provide a quick way to get your answers. Some fact-checking groups include:
Put plainly, bad actors use disinformation to sow discord and divide people. While not every piece of controversial or upsetting piece of content is disinformation, those are surefire signs to follow up on what you’ve seen with several credible sources. Also, keep in mind that those bad actors out there want you to do their dirty work for them. They want you to share their content without a second thought. By taking a moment to check the facts before you react, curb the dissent they want to see spread.
In the ever-evolving landscape of cybercrime, the emergence of AI has introduced a new level of sophistication and danger. With the help of AI, cybercriminals now possess the ability to manipulate social media platforms and shape public opinion in ways that were previously unimaginable.
One of the most concerning aspects of this development is the power of AI tools to fabricate photos, videos, and audio. These tools enable bad actors to create highly convincing and realistic content, making it increasingly difficult for users to discern between what is real and what is manipulated. This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for cybercriminals to exploit unsuspecting individuals and organizations.
One alarming consequence of this is the potential for celebrity and influencer names and images to be misused by cybercrooks. With the ability to generate highly convincing content, these bad actors can create fake endorsements that appear to come from well-known personalities. This can lead to an increase in scams and fraudulent activities, as unsuspecting consumers may be more likely to trust and engage with content that appears to be endorsed by their favorite celebrities or influencers.
Local online marketplaces are also at risk of being targeted by cybercriminals utilizing AI. By leveraging fabricated content, these bad actors can create fake listings and advertisements that appear legitimate. This can deceive consumers into making purchases or engaging in transactions that ultimately result in financial loss or other negative consequences.
As AI continues to advance, it is crucial for consumers to be aware of the potential risks and take necessary precautions. This includes being vigilant and skeptical of content encountered on social media platforms, verifying the authenticity of endorsements or advertisements, and utilizing secure online marketplaces with robust verification processes.
One of the most troubling trends on the horizon for 2024 is the alarming rise of cyberbullying, which is expected to be further exacerbated by the increasing use of deepfake technology. This advanced and remotely accessible tool has become readily available to young adults, enabling them to create exceptionally realistic fake content with ease.
In the past, cyberbullies primarily relied on spreading rumors and engaging in online harassment. However, with the emergence of deepfake technology, the scope and impact of cyberbullying have reached new heights. Cyberbullies can now manipulate images that are readily available in the public domain, altering them to create fabricated and explicit versions. These manipulated images are then reposted online, intensifying the harm inflicted on their victims.
The consequences of this escalating trend are far-reaching and deeply concerning. The false images and accompanying words can have significant and lasting effects on the targeted individuals and their families. Privacy becomes compromised as personal images are distorted and shared without consent, leaving victims feeling violated and exposed. Moreover, the fabricated content can tarnish one’s identity, leading to confusion, mistrust, and damage to personal and professional relationships.
The psychological and emotional well-being of those affected by deepfake cyberbullying is also at stake. The relentless onslaught of false and explicit content can cause severe distress, anxiety, and depression. Victims may experience a loss of self-esteem, as they struggle to differentiate between reality and the manipulated content that is being circulated online. The impact on their mental health can be long-lasting, requiring extensive support and intervention.
The ripple effects of deepfake cyberbullying extend beyond the immediate victims. Families are also deeply affected, as they witness the distress and suffering of their loved ones. Parents may feel helpless and overwhelmed, struggling to protect their children from the relentless onslaught of cyberbullying. The emotional toll on families can be immense, as they navigate the challenges of supporting their children through such traumatic experiences.
Scammers exploit emotions – such as the excitement of the Olympics. Darkly, they also tap into fear and grief.
A particularly heartless method of doing this is through charity fraud. While this takes many forms, it usually involves a criminal setting up a fake charity site or page to trick well-meaning contributors into thinking they are supporting legitimate causes or contributing money to help fight real issues.
2024 will see this continue. We further see potential for this to increase given the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Scammers might also increase the emotional pull of the messaging by tapping into the same AI technology we predict will be used in the 2024 election cycle. Overall, expect their attacks to look and feel far more sophisticated than in years past.
Aside from its ability to write love poems, answer homework questions, and create art with a few keyword prompts, AI can do something else. It can code. In the hands of hackers, that means AI can churn out new strains of malware and even spin up entire malicious websites. And quickly at that.
Already, we’ve seen hackers use AI tools to create malware. This will continue apace, and we can expect them to create smarter malware too. AI can spawn malware that analyzes and adapts to a device’s defenses. This helps particularly malicious attacks like spyware and ransomware to infect a device by allowing it to slip by undetected. It also makes the creation and dissemination of convincing phishing emails and QR code scams, faster and easier. This extends to the creation of deepfake video, photo, and audio content aimed at deceiving unsuspecting targets and scamming them out of money. The rise of QR code scams, also known as quishing, is an additional concern. Scammers use AI to generate malicious QR codes that, when scanned, lead to phishing websites or trigger malware downloads. As the barrier to entry for these threats lowers, these scams will spread to all platforms with an increased focus on mobile devices.
However, like any technology, AI is a tool. It works both ways. AI is on your side. In fact, it’s kept you safer online for some time now. Meanwhile, at McAfee, we’ve used AI as a core component of our protection for years now. As such, it’s done plenty for you over the years. AI has sniffed out viruses, malicious websites, and sketchy content online. It’s helped steer you clear of malicious websites too.
As such, you can expect an increasing number of AI-powered tools that combat AI-powered threats.
With big events come big scams. Look for plenty of them with the 2024 Summer Olympics.
An event with this level of global appeal attracts scammers looking to capitalize on the excitement. They promise tickets, merch, and exclusive streams to events, among other things. Yet they take a chunk out of your wallet and steal personal info instead.
You can expect to see a glut of email-based phishing and message-based smishing attacks. Now, with the introduction of generative AI, these scams are getting harder and harder to identify. AI writes cleaner emails and messages, so fewer scams feature the traditional hallmarks of misspelled words and poor grammar. Combine that with the excitement generated around the Olympic games, and we can easily see how people might be tempted by bogus sweepstakes and offers for the Olympics trip of a lifetime. If they only click or tap that link. Which of course leads to a scam website.
You can expect these messages to crop up across a variety of channels, including email, text messages, and other messaging channels like WhatsApp and Telegram. They might slide into social media DMs as well.
If you’re planning to catch the Olympic action in person, scammers have a plan in mind for you — ticket fraud. As we’ve seen at the FIFA World Cup and several other major sporting events over the years, scammers spin up scam ticket sites with tickets to all kinds of matches and events. Again, these sites don’t deliver. These sites can look rather professional, yet if the site only accepts cryptocurrency or wire transfers, you can be certain it’s fraud. Neither form of payment offers a way to challenge charges or recoup losses.
The post 6 Cybersecurity Predictions for 2024 – Staying Ahead of the Latest Hacks and Attacks appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Imagine paying $16,000 to park your car in a lot for a couple of hours. That’s what happened to one woman in the UK who fell for a QR code scam posted in a parking lot.
As reported by The Independent, scanning the posted QR code with her phone took her to a phony parking payment site that stole her card info. After her bank blocked several attempted fraudulent transactions, the scammers contacted her directly. They posed as the bank and convinced her to open a new account, racking up the equivalent of $16,000 in stolen funds.
Scams like that have spiked in popularity with crooks out there. In the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has warned of a fresh wave of QR code scams that have led to lost funds and identity theft. Not to mention infected devices with a glut of spyware, ransomware, and viruses.
Yet even as QR code scams become increasingly common, you can protect yourself. And enjoy the convenience they offer too, because they can truly make plenty of transactions go far more quickly.
You can find them practically anywhere nowadays.
QR stands for “quick-response,” thus a quick-response code. They look like a square of pixels and share many similarities with the bar codes you see on grocery items and other products. Yet a QR code can hold more than 300 times the data of a barcode. They’ve been around for some time. Dating back to industrial use in the 1990s, QR codes pack high volumes of visual info in a relatively compact space.
You can spot them popping up in plenty of places nowadays. With a click of your smartphone’s camera, they can quickly whisk you away to all kinds of sites.
You might see them pop up in TV ads, tacked up in a farmer’s market stand, and stapled onto telephone poles as part of a concert poster. Restaurants place QR codes on their tables so you can order from your phone. Parking lots post them on signs so you can quickly pay for parking (like above). Your drugstore might post them on shelves so that you can download a digital coupon.
Anyone can create one. A quick search for “QR code creator” turns up dozens of results. Many offer QR codes free of charge. It’s no wonder they show up in restaurants and farmer’s markets the way they do. And now in scams too.
As it is anywhere people, devices, and money meet, scammers have weaseled their way into QR codes. With the QR code scam, pointing your smartphone’s camera at a bogus QR code and giving it a scan, scammers can lead you to malicious websites and commit other attacks on your phone.
In several ways, the QR code scam works much like any other phishing attack. With a few added wrinkles, of course.
Classically, phishing attacks use doctored links that pose as legitimate websites in the hopes you’ll follow them to a scammer’s malicious website. It’s much the same with a QR code, yet they have a couple of big differences:
Typically, one of two things:
It’ll send you to a scam website designed to steal your personal and financial info. For example, a phony QR code for parking takes you to a site where you enter your credit card and license plate number. Instead of paying for parking, you pay a scammer. And they can go on to use your credit card in other places after that.
It can take you to a download that infects your device with malware. Downloads include spyware that snoops on your browsing and passwords, ransomware that locks up your device until you pay for its release (with no guarantees), or viruses that can delete or damage the things you’ve stored on your device.
Aside from appearing in emails, direct messages, social media ads, and such, there are plenty of other places where phony QR codes can show up. Here are a few that have been making the rounds in particular:
Scanning a QR code might open a notification on your smartphone screen to follow a link. Like other phishing-type scams, scammers will do their best to make that link look legitimate. They might alter a familiar company name so that it looks like it might have come from that company. Also, they might use link shorteners that take otherwise long web addresses and compress them into a short string of characters. The trick there is that you really have no way of knowing where it will send you by looking at it.
In this way, there’s more to using QR codes than simply “point and shoot.” A mix of caution and eagle-eyed consideration is called for to spot legitimate uses from malicious ones. Online protection software can help keep you safe as well.
Luckily, you can follow some basic rules and avoid QR code attacks. The U.S. Better Business Bureau (BBB) has put together a great list that can help. Their advice is right on the mark, which we’ve paraphrased and added to here:
1. Don’t open links or scan QR codes from strangers. Scammers send QR codes by email, over social media, and sometimes they even send them by physical mail as part of a “Special offer, just scan here” ploy. In all, if a QR code comes to you out of the blue, even from a friend, skip scanning it. See if you can type in a physical address to a site that you can trust instead.
2. Check the link and the destination. Given that many QR codes lead to phishing sites, look at the link that pops up after you scan it. Scammers alter addresses for known websites in subtle ways — or that differ from them entirely. For example, they might use “fed-exdeliverynotices.com” rather than the legitimate fedex.com. Or they might use a scam URL followed by text that tries to make it look legit, like “scamsite.com/fedex-delivery.” (For more on how to spot phishing attacks, check out our full article on the topic.)
3. Think twice about following shortened links. Shortened links can be a shortcut to a malicious website. This can particularly be the case with unsolicited communications. And it can still be the case with a friend or family member if their device or account has been hacked.
4. Watch out for tampering. In physical spaces, like parking lot signs, scammers have been known to stick their own QR codes over legitimate ones. If you see any sign of altering or a placement that looks slapdash, don’t give that code a scan.
5. Stick with your phone’s native QR code reader. Steer clear of QR code reading apps. They can be a security risk.
6. Don’t pay bills with QR codes. Once again, you can’t always be sure that the code will send you to a legit site. Use another trusted form of payment instead.
7. Use scam protection on your phone. Using the power of AI, our new McAfee Scam Protection can alert you when scam texts pop up on your phone. And as a second line of defense, it can block risky sites if you accidentally follow a scam link in a text, email, social media, and more. You’ll find it in our McAfee+ products — along with up to $2 million in identity theft coverage and restoration support if the unfortunate happens to you.
QR codes have made transactions smoother and accessing helpful content on our phones much quicker. As such, we’re seeing them in plenty of places. And useful as they are like other means of paying or browsing online, keep an eye open when using them. With this advice as a guide, if something doesn’t feel right, keep your smartphone in your pocket and away from that QR code.
The post How to Protect Yourself from QR Code Scams appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Depending on the day’s most popular headlines, AI is either a panacea or the ultimate harbinger of doom. We could solve the world’s problems if we just asked the algorithm how. Or it’s going to take your job and become too smart for its own good. The truth, as per usual, lies somewhere in between. AI will likely have plenty of positive impacts that do not change the world while also offering its fair share of negativity that isn’t society-threatening. To identify the happy medium requires answering some interesting questions about the appropriate use of AI.
The full answer to this question could probably fill volumes, but we won’t go that far. Instead, we can focus on a use case that is becoming increasingly popular and democratized: generative AI assistants. By now, you’ve likely used ChatGPT or Bard or one of the dozens of platforms available to anyone with a computer. But can you prompt these algorithms and be wholly satisfied with what they spit out?
The short answer is, “no.” These chatbots are quite capable of hallucinations, instances where the AI will make up answers. The answers it provides come from the algorithm’s set of training data but may not actually be traceable back to real-life knowledge. Take the recent story of a lawyer who presented a brief in a courtroom. It turns out, he used ChatGPT to write the entire brief, wherein the AI cited fake cases to support the brief.1
When it comes to AI, human oversight will likely always be necessary. Whether the model is analyzing weather patterns to predict rainfall or evaluating a business model, it can still make mistakes or even provide answers that do not make logical sense. Appropriate use of AI, especially with tools like ChatGPT and its ilk, requires a human fact checker.
Again, this is a question more complicated than this space allows. But, we can attempt to examine a narrower application of the question. Consider that many AI algorithms in the real-world have been found to exhibit discriminatory behavior. For example, one AI had a much larger error rate depending on the sex or race of subjects. Another incorrectly classified inmate risk, leading to disproportionate rates of recidivism.2
So, can those who write these algorithms fix these concerns once the model is live? Yes, engineers can always revisit their code and attempt to adjust after publishing their models. However, the process of evaluating and auditing can be an ongoing endeavor. What AI creators can do instead is to focus on reflecting values in their models’ infancy.
Algorithms’ results are only as strong as the data on which they were trained. If a model is trained on a population of data disproportionate to the population it’s trying to evaluate, those inherent biases will show up once the model is live. However robust a model is, it will still lack the basic human understanding of what is right vs. wrong. And it likely cannot know if a user is leveraging it with nefarious intent in mind.
While creators can certainly make changes after building their models, the best course of action is to focus on engraining the values the AI should exhibit from day one.
A few years ago, an autonomous vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian.3 The question that became the incident’s focus was, “who was responsible for the accident?” Was it Uber, whose car it was? The operator of the car? In this case, the operator of the vehicle, who sat in the car, was charged with endangerment.
But what if the car had been empty and entirely autonomous? What if an autonomous car didn’t recognize a jaywalking pedestrian because the traffic signal was the right color? As AI finds its way into more and more public use cases, the question of responsibility looms large.
Some jurisdictions, such as the EU, are moving forward with legislation governing AI culpability. The rule will strive to establish different “obligations for providers and users depending on the level of risk from” AI.
It’s in everyone’s best interest to be as careful as possible when using AI. The operator in the autonomous car might have paid more attention to the road, for example. People sharing content on social media can do more due diligence to ensure what they’re sharing isn’t a deepfake or other form of AI-generated content.
This may just be the most pressing question of all those related to appropriate use of AI. Any algorithm needs vast quantities of training data to develop. In cases where the model will evaluate real-life people for anti-fraud measures, for example, it will likely need to be trained on real-world information. How do organizations ensure the data they use isn’t at risk of being stolen? How do individuals know what information they’re sharing and what purposes it’s being used for?
This large question is clearly a collage of smaller, more specific questions that all attempt to get to the heart of the matter. The biggest challenge related to these questions for individuals is whether they can trust the organizations ostensibly using their data for good or in a secure fashion.
For individuals concerned about whether their information is being used for AI training or otherwise at risk, there are some steps they can take. The first is to always make a cookies selection when browsing online. Now that the GDPA and CCPA are in effect, just about every company doing business in the U.S. or EU must place a warning sign on their website that it collects browsing information. Checking those preferences is a good way to keep companies from using information when you don’t want them to.
The second is to leverage third-party tools like McAfee+, which provides services like VPNs, privacy and identity protection as part of a comprehensive security platform. With full identity-theft protection, you’ll have an added layer of security on top of cookies choices and other good browsing habits you’ve developed. Don’t just hope that your data will be used appropriately — safeguard it, today.
The post Safer AI: Four Questions Shaping Our Digital Future appeared first on McAfee Blog.
You guard the keys to your home closely, right? They have their own special spot in your bag or in your front pocket. When your keys go missing, does a slight pit of unease grow in your gut?
Our homes store many sentimental and valuable treasures within their walls. The same goes for your online accounts. Think of your login and passwords as the keys to the cozy home of your date of birth, Social Security Number, full name, and address. When you lose those keys and they fall into the hands of a criminal, the break-ins to your online home can be costly.
In a scheme called credential phishing, online scammers seek to steal the keys to your online accounts: your login and password combinations. Just like you’d protect the keys to your house, so should you guard your online account credentials closely.
Credential phishing is a type of online scam where a cybercriminal devises tricks to gain one type of valuable information: username and password combinations. Once they eke this information from their targets, the thief is able to help themselves to online bank accounts, online shopping sites, online tax forms, and more. From there, they could go on a shopping spree on your dime or pilfer your personally identifiable information (PII) and steal your identity.
There are two common ways a criminal might try to steal online account credentials. The first is through a phishing attempt that asks specifically for usernames and passwords. They may impersonate a person or organization with authority, such as your boss, a bank representative, or the IRS. Phishing attempts often threaten dire consequences if you don’t reply promptly. Handle emails, texts, and social media direct messages that demand urgency with care. If it’s truly important, your bank will find another way to get in touch with you. Additionally, be aware of your notification preferences and communication channels with important organizations. For example, the IRS only contacts people by mail.
A second way credential phishers may try to steal your passwords is through fake login pages. You may get redirected to a fake login page by clicking on a risky link hidden in a phishing message or on a malicious website. An example of credential phishing and fake login pages in action happened to customers of a password storage company. Customers received phishing emails that contained a link to a “login page” that was actually a malicious subdomain that sent the details straight to scammers.1
There’s one very simple rule to avoid a phisher stealing your credentials: never share your password with anyone! No matter how authoritative a phone call, text, or email sounds, a legitimate business nor an IT professional nor your boss will ever ask you for your password and username combination.
If you suspect a phishing attempt, do not reply or forward the message. Additionally, do not click on any links. Artificial intelligence content creation tools like ChatGPT can make phishing messages sound convincing, as AI tools often compose messages without typos or grammar mistakes. But if anything in the tone or content of the message strikes you as suspicious, it’s best to delete it and forget about it.
Ultimate secrecy is a great first step in keeping your credentials a mystery. Practice these other password and online account safety best practices to keep your PII safe:
To add extra security to your online comings and goings, consider investing in McAfee+, which includes McAfee Scam Protection. McAfee Scam Protection is an AI-powered tool that blocks risky links in your emails, texts, and on social media. This is helpful just in case you accidentally click on a link that would’ve brought you to a fake login page or to another risky site. The more you use Scam Protection, the smarter it gets! And should your credentials and PII ever fall into the wrong hands, McAfee+ has credit and identity monitoring tools that can alert you to suspicious activity.
Consider McAfee as the home security system for your online life. When you log off and lock up, you can relax knowing that McAfee will alert you to breaking-and-entering attempts.
1Cybernews, “LastPass employees and customers targeted in ‘pervasive’ phishing campaign”
The post What Is Credential Phishing? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Throw open the windows and let in some fresh air. It’s time for spring cleaning.
And that goes for your digital stuff too.
Whether it’s indeed spring where you are or not, you can give your devices, apps, and online accounts a good decluttering. Now’s the time. Cleaning them up can protect your privacy and your identity because when there’s less lying about, there’s less for hackers to scoop up and exploit.
The reality is that we accumulate plenty of digital clutter that needs cleaning up from time to time. Think about it:
Together, these things take up space on your devices and, in some cases, can open you up to security hazards. Let’s take a look at how you can clean up in a few steps.
1. Review your accounts and delete the ones you don’t use. Look through your bookmarks, your password manager, or the other places where you store your passwords and usernames. Review the sites and services associated with them critically. If you haven’t used an account in some time, log in one last time, remove all personal info, and deactivate it.
Doing so can keep your email address, usernames, and passwords out of unnecessary circulation. Major breaches like this one happen with unfortunate regularity, and the sad thing is that you may not even be aware that a site you’ve used has been hit. Meanwhile, your name, password, and info associated with that account (such as your credit card) are in the hands of hackers. Limit your exposure. Close those old accounts.
2. Get organized, and safer too, with a password manager. While creating strong, unique passwords for each of our accounts is a must nowadays, it can be quite the feat, given all of the accounts in our lives. Here’s where a password manager comes in. It can create those strong, unique passwords for you. Not only that, but it also stores your passwords on secure servers, away from hackers and thieves.
Along those lines, never store your passwords on your computer or device, like a text document or spreadsheet. Should your device ever get compromised, lost, or stolen, having passwords stored on them are like handing over the keys to your digital life.
3. Clean your PC to improve your performance (and your security). Let’s face it, so many of us are so busy with the day-to-day that cleaning up our computers and laptops is way down the list. However, doing so once a month can keep our devices running stronger for longer and even give you that “new computer feeling,” particularly if you haven’t cleaned it up for some time. Check out our guide for improving PC performance. We will walk you through some straightforward steps that can make a marked difference.
Moreover, part of this process should entail bolstering your operating system and apps with the latest updates. Such updates can not only improve speed and functionality, but they also often include security upgrades as well that can make you safer in the long run. If your operating system and apps feature automatic updates, enable them, and they’ll do the work for you.
4. Organize and store your photos. Photos. Now there’s a topic all unto itself. Here’s the thing: Estimates show that worldwide we took somewhere around 1.2 trillion photos. And you certainly have your share.
However, your photos may be just sitting there, taking up storage space on your computer or phone, instead of becoming something special like an album, greeting cards, a wall hanging, or popping them into a digital picture frame for your kitchen or living room. And this is where a little spring cleaning can be a bit of fun. For tips on cleaning up your photos, backing them up, and making something special with them.
5. Delete old apps and the data associated with them. Let’s say you have a couple of apps on your phone for tracking your walks, runs, and exercise. You’ve since stopped using one altogether. Go ahead and delete the old one. But before you do, go in and delete your account associated with the app to ensure that any data stored off your phone, along with your password and user id are deleted as well.
For your computers and laptops, follow the same procedure, recognizing that they also may have account data stored elsewhere other than on your device.
In short, many apps today store information that’s stored and maintained by the app provider. Make sure you close your accounts so that data and information is taken out of circulation as well.
6. Shred your old files and encrypt the important files you’re holding on to. This bit of advice calls for using comprehensive security software on your devices. In addition to protecting you from viruses, malware, and other cyberattacks on your privacy and identity, it can help you protect your sensitive information as well. Such security software can offer:
7. Throwing away old computers and tech—dispose of them properly. When it comes time to say goodbye to an old friend, whether that’s a computer, laptop, phone, or tablet, do so in a way that’s friendly to the environment and your security.
Consider this … what’s on that old hard drive of yours? That old computer may contain loads of precious personal and financial info on it. The same goes for your tablets and phones. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) offers some straightforward advice in their article about protecting your data before you get rid of your computer. You don’t want those old tax returns ending up in the trash unprotected.
When it comes time for disposal, you have a few options:
As with any spring cleaning, you’ll be glad you did it
Enjoying the benefits of your work—that’s what spring cleaning is all about, right? With this little list, you can end up with a digital life that’s safer and faster than before.
The post Digital Spring Cleaning: Seven Steps for Faster, Safer Devices appeared first on McAfee Blog.
With the rush of Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping comes a rush of another kind. Millions of fake delivery texts sent by scammers – designed to steal your personal info or saddle your phone with malware.
From late November through early January, scammers slip into the holiday mix and catch online shoppers unaware with fake delivery texts. They pose as postal services, delivery companies, and retailers, sending texts that alert their potential victims of some delivery issue or other.
The stories these scammers spin vary, yet the classics include:
In every case, the con game is the same. The scammer wants you to tap the link they’ve included in your text.
From there, that link whisks you to a malicious site designed to do you harm. That might involve installing malware like ransomware, spyware, or viruses. It might also steal your personal and financial info by asking you to fill out a form. Or both.
But you can absolutely beat these scams. A combo of knowing what to look for and some helpful tools can steer you clear of these scams and the headaches that follow.
A little background shows why hackers send so many during the holidays — and it starts with the reported $38 billion that U.S. consumers spent from Black Friday through Cyber Mondayi. Think of it this way, that’s $38 billion worth of stuff coursing through the mail and delivery services.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) alone will deliver an estimated 800 million packages between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Dayii. Overall, the USPS will process 15 billion pieces of mail. And then there’s the millions more shipped by UPS, FedEx, and Amazon’s delivery services.
That offers scammers plenty of opportunities. With all those packages moving around, they count on people responding to their fake delivery texts. Scammers make good money when even a small percentage of people tap the links in those texts.
That flood of bogus texts has understandably put people on their guard. Our own recent research shows that 36% of Americans said they were a victim of an online shopping scam during the holiday season. That’s more than one in three people, making it likely that you know someone who’s been taken in. Of those who fell for holiday scams online, nearly half said it cost them $100 or more. Strikingly, one in four victims said it cost them $1,000 or more.
The top two online scams people reported include:
Complicating matters more this year – AI. We’ve been talking a lot about that in our blogs this year, and with good reason. Scammers now have AI-driven tools that help them fire up fake emails, malicious sites, and text messages with a few clicks. In fact, a new phishing site is created every 11 seconds, and Americans receive an average of 12 fake messages or scams dailyiii.
As a result, 31% of people we surveyed said that it’s getting tougher to tell a real message from a fake one. And that includes delivery notifications by text.
With that, let’s cover what you can look out for.
As with any fake text, scammers do their best to look legitimate. All in the hope that their victims will tap that malicious link. Here’s how they try to disguise themselves:
In the U.S., the “big four” organizations that scammers like to impersonate are the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), FedEx, UPS, and Amazon. With that, they can cast a rather wide net because they’re responsible for so many deliveries this time of year. Of course, scammers won’t limit themselves to posing as those organizations. Just about any company will do.
Companies typically have a standard set of web addresses and phone numbers that they use for contacting customers. For example, Amazon states that legitimate Amazon addresses have a dot before “amazon.com” such as https://pay.amazon.com for Amazon Pay. Scammers try to spoof these addresses, often with addresses that look like the real thing but aren’t. They might use “fed-exdeliverynotices.com” rather than the legitimate fedex.com. In other cases, scammers might use a totally unrelated dot-com address, like in this phony DHL delivery notice below:
Note how the scammer slipped in “dhl” after the dot-com address, all in a ruse to make the link look more legitimate by using the DHL name, a legitimate shipping company.
Scammers rely on stress and high emotions to lure in their victims. And during the gift-giving season, an alert about a package delivery can do the trick. Scammers (falsely) claim that you won’t get your package without tapping that link and taking some sort of next step.
Once, red flags like these let you know you were staring down a scam. That’s still the case, yet AI has changed that. Scammers now use common AI tools to cook up their texts, which are far less likely to contain common typographical and grammatical errors. Still, look for any kind of writing that looks or reads a bit “off.” Trust your gut. That’s a warning sign.
You have several ways you can avoid the headaches and harm that these texts can lead to.
Consider being a part of the solution. Many companies have dedicated email addresses and web pages for fraud protection. This helps them identify scams along with their behaviors and trends. In turn, they can alert their customer base of current scams and help them track down the scammers.
Further, in the U.S., you can also report scam texts to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at https://www.ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Similarly, they use and share reports with law enforcement partners to help with investigations.
By taking a deep breath and scrutinizing that seemingly alarming delivery message, you can avoid getting taken in by scammers and hackers this time of year. Using official websites and apps to track your packages goes a long way toward putting you at ease that all’s well with your shipment. Or letting you know that there’s truly an issue with a package.
You also have comprehensive online protection software like ours in your corner. It protects more than your devices. It protects your privacy and identity too — from text scams like these and a host of other scams and attacks as well. In short, it can help you tell what’s real and what’s fake out there.
The post Is That Delivery Text Real or Fake? How to Shop and Ship Safely this Season appeared first on McAfee Blog.
As the tax season draws near, the incidence of cybercrime, particularly phishing for W-2s, tends to increase dramatically. Cybercriminals are aware that this is the time of year when many unsuspecting individuals are completing their tax returns, and they design schemes to exploit this vulnerability. This blog raises awareness about this growing problem and offers practical advice for keeping your financial data safe during tax season.
W-2 phishing scams often involve emails that appear to be from the IRS or another official source, requesting personal information. These phishing emails can be highly sophisticated, often mimicking the look and feel of legitimate communications. The goal is to trick the recipient into revealing confidential data, such as social security numbers and financial information, which the perpetrator can then use for fraudulent purposes. The first step in protecting against such scams is understanding how they work and being able to recognize the red flags.
Phishing scams are fundamentally deception tactics—disguised as legitimate correspondence, they aim to trick the recipient into parting with sensitive information. In the case of W-2 phishing scams, the perpetrator often poses as an employer, government agency, or financial institution. The message may request that the recipient update their personal information, verify their identity, or provide their W-2 form. Typically, these emails have a sense of urgency, indicating that failure to comply will result in adverse consequences.
The contents of a phishing email are often compelling and appear to be authentic. They may contain official logos, legal disclaimers, and even legitimate contact details. However, closer examination often reveals telltale signs of phishing. For example, the email address of the sender may not match the organization they claim to represent, or the message may contain poor grammar and spelling. Additionally, phishing emails often require the recipient to click a link or open an attachment—actions that could potentially install malware on the victim’s device or redirect them to a fraudulent website.
McAfee Pro Tip: Nowadays, those sneaky social engineering tricks look a lot like legit messages from well-known folks. They’re super well-crafted, with proper grammar, and seamlessly fit into everyday situations. But don’t be fooled by their slick appearance – underneath it all, they’re still after your sensitive info. Keep your personal stuff safe and sound with McAfee+ to dodge the headaches that come with social engineering.
Recent years have seen a significant increase in the number of reported W-2 phishing scams. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), thousands of these scams occur every tax season, leading to substantial financial losses and ID theft. Not only does this affect individuals, but businesses too. In fact, some companies have reported instances where their entire workforce was targeted, resulting in massive data breaches.
The impact of falling for a W-2 phishing scam can be devastating. Once cybercriminals have gained access to your financial data, they can use it in a variety of malicious ways. This may include filing fraudulent tax returns, opening new credit accounts, or even selling the information on the black market. The recovery process from such scams can be lengthy and stressful, as victims have to prove their identity to the IRS, their bank, and credit reporting agencies. Additionally, they need to monitor their financial activity closely for signs of any further unauthorized transactions or fraudulent activities.
→ Dig Deeper: Watch Out For IRS Scams and Avoid Identity Theft
Given the prevalence and potential impact of W-2 phishing scams, it’s crucial to take steps to protect yourself. One of the most effective strategies is to improve your digital literacy, namely your ability to identify and respond appropriately to phishing attempts. This includes being skeptical of unsolicited emails, especially those that ask for personal or financial information. Always verify the sender’s identity before responding or clicking any links. Remember, legitimate organizations rarely request sensitive information via email.
Another important safeguard is to ensure your computer and mobile devices are protected with up-to-date security software. This can help identify and block potential phishing emails and malicious links. Further, regularly backing up data can help mitigate the potential damage caused by a successful breach. Consider using a secure cloud service or an external storage device for this purpose.
Next is to file your tax returns as early as possible. By doing so, you can beat the scammers who might make an attempt to file a fraudulent tax return in your name. Additionally, if you receive an email that appears suspicious, do not click on the links or download the attachments included in that email. Instead, forward the suspicious email to phishing@irs.gov.
Finally, two-factor authentication (2FA) is another excellent way to safeguard your data. By enabling 2FA, you are adding an extra layer of security that makes it harder for cybercriminals to access your data even if they get your password. Additionally, always be cautious about sharing your personal and financial information online. Make sure that you only enter such information on secure websites – those with ‘https://’ in the URL. Regularly check your financial accounts for any suspicious activity and report immediately to your bank if you notice anything unusual.
If you believe you have fallen victim to a W-2 phishing scam, it is crucial to act quickly. If you have divulged your social security number, contact the IRS immediately. They can aid you in taking steps to prevent potential tax fraud. Additionally, it would be wise to file an identity theft affidavit (Form 14039) with the IRS. This form alerts the IRS to the theft of your identity and allows them to secure your tax account.
Additionally, you should report the phishing scam to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) using the FTC Complaint Assistant at FTC.gov. If you have clicked on a link or downloaded a suspicious attachment, run a full antivirus scan to check for malware. You should also consider placing a fraud alert or a credit freeze on your credit reports, which makes it harder for someone to open a new account in your name. Finally, you should check your credit reports frequently for any signs of fraudulent activity.
→Dig Deeper: Credit Lock and Credit Freeze: Which Service Is Best for You? Both!
Protecting your financial data during tax season is crucial, and being aware of phishing scams can save you from a world of trouble. By understanding the nature of W-2 phishing scams and implementing the above-mentioned best practices, you can keep your sensitive information safe. Remember to always be skeptical of unsolicited emails and never share personal or financial information unless you can confirm the legitimacy of the request. By doing so, you will not only protect yourself but also contribute to the collective fight against cybercrime.
Protecting your W-2 information during tax season is not a one-time effort but a continuous process. Always stay vigilant, and remember that it’s better to be safe than sorry. If you ever suspect that you have become a victim of a W-2 phishing scam, take prompt action by reporting it to the relevant authorities and taking necessary measures to mitigate possible damages. The key to staying safe is staying informed, vigilant, and prepared.
The post How to Protect Your Financial Data During Tax Season appeared first on McAfee Blog.
In today’s digital age, we know the importance of online privacy and security. However, with an increasing number of websites requiring passwords, it becomes tough to remember them all. This is where a password manager comes into play.
A password manager is a software application that is used to store and manage the passwords that a user has for various online accounts and security features. Password Managers provide a convenient and secure way of keeping track of all your passwords, ensuring that you never forget a password again. But do you need a password manager? Let’s delve into why a password manager might be necessary for you.
The internet has become an integral part of our lives. We use it for everything from banking and shopping to managing our health records. This has led to an explosion in the number of accounts and passwords we need to remember. The complexity of these accounts and the security risks associated with them mean that managing them all can be a daunting task.
Let’s discuss the importance of a password manager, why you need one, and how it can benefit you. We’ll look at the challenges of managing multiple passwords and how a password manager solves these problems.
In our daily online activities, we create a lot of accounts on different websites. From social media platforms, online banking, and email service providers, to various apps we use daily. Each of these accounts requires a unique password to ensure optimal security. As the number of online accounts increases, it becomes more challenging to remember each password.
Often, due to this increasing complexity, many people opt to use one password for all their accounts or keep relatively simple passwords. Both these practices are security hazards. Using one password across all accounts means that if one account is breached, all your accounts are at risk. On the other hand, using simple passwords makes it easy for hackers to guess your password and gain access to your accounts.
Passwords are the first line of defense against unauthorized access to your personal and financial data. Failure to properly manage your passwords can lead to data breaches, identity theft, and financial losses. According to a report by Verizon, 81% of hacking-related breaches leverage either stolen and/or weak passwords. This shows a clear link between poor password practices and security incidents.
Another major risk comes from phishing attacks. Cybercriminals often use deceptive emails and websites to trick users into revealing their passwords. If you use the same password for all your accounts or simple passwords, you become an easy target for these cyber-attacks. A password manager can protect you from such threats by generating strong, unique passwords for all your accounts.
Aside from security concerns, there is also a matter of convenience. Remembering a long list of complex, unique passwords can be downright daunting. When you fail to remember a password, you have to go through the tedious process of resetting it. This is where a password manager provides a major relief. It does the hard work of remembering your passwords, so you don’t have to. With a password manager, all you need to remember is one master password.
Most password managers also fill in your login details for you automatically. This not only saves you time but also protects you from keyloggers, a malicious program that tracks your keystrokes. Keyloggers are often used by cybercriminals to steal your passwords, credit card numbers, and other sensitive information.
There are different types of password managers available, each with its unique features. Understanding the different types can help you choose the one that best suits your needs. The most common ones are:
Cloud-based password managers store your passwords on a server in the cloud. You can access these from any device with an internet connection, making them highly convenient. The disadvantage, however, is that if the company’s server is hacked, your data may be at risk. Nevertheless, most reputable cloud-based password managers use robust encryption techniques to protect your data.
Local password managers store your password data on your device. This makes them less vulnerable to server hacks. The downside is that if you lose your device or it gets stolen, you lose your password data. Unless, of course, you have a backup somewhere else.
McAfee Pro Tip: Every individual is vulnerable to data loss or theft, and safeguarding against such risks can be achieved through a simple yet crucial measure—backing up your data. This step not only protects all your information but also serves as a deterrent against cybercriminals attempting to seize what rightfully belongs to you. Know how you can protect your data through backup.
Browser-based password managers are integrated into your web browser. They offer the convenience of auto-filling forms and password fields. However, they are generally less secure than standalone password managers.
With many password managers in the market, it can get overwhelming to choose the right one. Here are some key features to consider when shopping for a password manager:
The primary role of a password manager is to keep your passwords secure. Thus, strong encryption is a must-have feature. Most reputable password managers use AES-256 bit encryption, the same encryption standard used by banks and governments.
Another crucial feature is auto-fill, which automatically fills in your login details when you visit a site. This feature not only saves time but also eliminates the risk of keyloggers capturing your keystrokes. Some password managers also offer auto-change, a feature that automatically changes your passwords at regular intervals or whenever a breach is detected
Two-factor authentication, or 2FA, adds an extra layer of security to your password manager. With 2FA, even if someone gets hold of your master password, they will also need a second factor (like a fingerprint or a unique code sent to your phone) to access your data.
A password manager should be easy to use. A user-friendly interface ensures that you can quickly and easily add, retrieve, and manage your passwords.
In conclusion, a password manager is an essential tool in today’s digital age. With the increasing number of online accounts we have and the growing threats of cybercrime, a password manager provides a secure, convenient solution for managing your passwords. It not only helps you create strong, unique passwords for each of your online accounts but also remembers them for you. This eliminates the risk of using weak or the same passwords across multiple platforms, which is a significant security concern.
There are different types of password managers available, so it’s important to choose the one that best fits your needs. Look for important features like strong encryption, auto-fill and auto-change, two-factor authentication, and a user-friendly interface. With all these features in place, a password manager can significantly enhance your online security while making your life a whole lot easier.
For a comprehensive solution that encompasses all these aspects and more, consider exploring McAfee Password Manager. With McAfee, not only can you significantly boost your online security, but you can also simplify your digital life.
The post Why Do I Need a Password Manager? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
A simple click of a link can’t cause any trouble, right? Wrong.
It doesn’t matter if you quickly close out of a window. It doesn’t matter if you only take a quick peek and don’t touch anything else while you’re on a risky webpage. Often, just clicking on a single link can compromise your device, online privacy, and even your identity.
Here’s everything you need to know to steer clear of malicious links and the viruses, malware and other problems that they may contain.
What Is a Risky Link?
A risky link is any hyperlink that redirects you to an unexpected webpage. Often, these webpages trick visitors into divulging personal information or the webpages download malicious payloads (viruses, malware, spyware, etc.) onto devices. While they often appear in phishing emails and texts, risky links can pop up anywhere: on social media, in comment sections, or on risky websites.
What Happens If You Click on a Risky Link?
A few nasty tricks, viruses, and malware could be lurking behind risky links. All it takes to fall for a cyber scheme is to click on a link. For example, a malicious link could bring you to a fake login page. This is a way for a phisher to steal your username, password, or answers to your security questions. Instead of logging into your bank account or an online shopping account, you’re actually handing your login credentials right to a scammer. From there, they could walk into your accounts, make purchases in your name, or steal your sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) attached to your account.
If a risky link downloads a virus or malware to your device, the effects could vary. Some viruses bring your device to a crawl and seriously limit your computing power. Mobile malware is a vast category of malicious software and it often makes its way onto devices through infected links. Malware can spy on you, watch your keystrokes, attach your device to a botnet, and overall compromise your device and the information it stores.
How Do You Steer Clear of Risky Links?
Avoiding risky links requires that you slow down and think before you click on anything. Scammers and phishers disguise their malicious links to look legitimate making them difficult to spot. Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Bard are making phishing correspondences more believable than attempts from a few years ago. If you move too fast, you could fall for scams that you’d normally sniff out if you were taking your time.
Here are a few tips that’ll go a long way toward keeping your device and PII out of the hands of cybercriminals.
What Tool Can Give You Peace of Mind?
McAfee Scam Protection fights malicious links with artificial intelligence-powered proactive alerts and automatic protection. The more you use it, the smarter McAfee Scam Protection becomes. When it detects a scam link in your texts, emails, or on social media, McAfee Scam Protection automatically alerts you to it. Additionally, if you accidentally click on a scam link, the app will block the malicious webpage from loading, protecting your device and online privacy from invaders.
Confidence in your ability to avoid or block risky links will go a long way toward lessening any unease you have about navigating the conveniences and entertainment the internet offers.
The post What Are the Risks of Clicking on Malicious Links? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
In the ever-growing digital age, our mobile devices contain an alarming amount of personal, sensitive data. From emails, social media accounts, banking applications to payment apps, our personal and financial lives are increasingly entwined with the convenience of online, mobile platforms. However, despite the increasing threat to cyber security, it appears many of us are complacent about protecting our mobile devices.
Survey revealed that many mobile users still use easy-to-remember and easy-to-guess passwords. With such an increasing dependence on mobile devices to handle our daily tasks, it seems unimaginable that many of us leave our important personal data unguarded. Theft or loss of an unsecured mobile device can, and often does, result in a catastrophic loss of privacy and financial security.
The unfortunate reality of our digital era is that devices are lost, misplaced, or stolen every day. A mobile device without password protection is a gold mine for anyone with malicious intent. According to a global survey by McAfee and One Poll, many consumers are largely unconcerned about the security of their personal data stored on mobile devices. To illustrate, only one in five respondents had backed up data on their tablet or smartphone. Even more concerning, 15% admitted they saved password information on their phone.
Such statistics are troubling for several reasons. The most obvious is the risk of personal information —including banking details and online login credentials— falling into the wrong hands. A lost or stolen device is not just a device lost— it’s potentially an identity, a bank account, or worse. The lack of urgency in securing data on mobile devices speaks to a broad consumer misunderstanding about the severity of the threats posed by cybercriminals and the ease with which they can exploit an unprotected device.
→ Dig Deeper: McAfee 2023 Consumer Mobile Threat Report
Perhaps one of the most surprising findings of the survey is the difference in mobile security behaviors between men and women. This difference illustrates not just a disparity in the type of personal information each group holds dear, but also the degree of risk each is willing to accept with their mobile devices.
Broadly speaking, men tend to place greater value on the content stored on their devices, such as photos, videos, and contact lists. Women, on the other hand, appear more concerned about the potential loss of access to social media accounts and personal communication tools like email. They are statistically more likely to experience online harassment and privacy breaches. This could explain why they are more concerned about the security of their social media accounts, as maintaining control over their online presence can be a way to protect against harassment and maintain a sense of safety.
The loss of a mobile device, which for many individuals has become an extension of their social identity, can disrupt daily life significantly. This distinction illustrates that the consequences of lost or stolen mobile devices are not just financial, but social and emotional as well.
Despite the differences in what we value on our mobile devices, the survey showed a worrying level of risky behavior from both genders. Over half (55%) of respondents admitted sharing their passwords or PIN with others, including their children. This behavior not only leaves devices and data at risk of unauthorized access but also contributes to a wider culture of complacency around mobile security.
Password protection offers a fundamental layer of security for devices, yet many people still choose convenience over safety. Setting a password or PIN isn’t a failsafe method for keeping your data safe. However, it is a simple and effective starting point in the broader effort to protect our digital lives.
→ Dig Deeper: Put a PIN on It: Securing Your Mobile Devices
While the survey results raise an alarm, the good news is that we can turn things around. It all begins with acknowledging the risks of leaving our mobile devices unprotected. There are simple steps that can be taken to ramp up the security of your devices and protect your personal information.
First and foremost, password-protect all your devices. This means going beyond your mobile phone to include tablets and any other portable, internet-capable devices you may use. And, while setting a password, avoid easy ones like “1234” or “1111”. These are the first combinations a hacker will try. The more complex your password is, the sturdier a barrier it forms against unauthorized access.
Another important step is to avoid using the “remember me” function on your apps or mobile web browser. Although it might seem convenient to stay logged into your accounts for quick access, this considerably amplifies the risk if your device gets stolen or lost. It’s crucial to ensure you log out of your accounts whenever not in use. This includes email, social media, banking, payment apps, and any other accounts linked to sensitive information.
McAfee Pro Tip: If your phone is lost or stolen, employing a combination of tracking your device, locking it remotely, and erasing its data can safeguard both your phone and the information it contains. Learn more tips on how to protect your mobile device from loss and theft.
Sharing your PIN or password is also a risky behavior that should be discouraged. Admittedly, this might be challenging to implement, especially with family members or close friends. But the potential harm it can prevent in the long run far outweighs the temporary convenience it might present.
Having highlighted the importance of individual action towards secure mobile practices, it’s worth noting that investing in reliable security software can also make a world of difference. A mobile security product like McAfee Mobile Security, which offers anti-malware, web protection, and app protection, can provide a crucial extra layer of defense.
With app protection, not only are you alerted if your apps are accessing information on your mobile that they shouldn’t, but in the event that someone does unlock your device, your personal information remains safe by locking some or all of your apps. This means that even if your device falls into the wrong hands, they still won’t be able to access your crucial information.
It’s also critical to stay educated on the latest ways to protect your mobile device. Cyber threats evolve constantly, and awareness is your first line of defense. McAfee has designed a comprehensive approach to make the process of learning about mobile security not just informative but also engaging. Our array of resources includes a rich repository of blogs, insightful reports, and informative guides. These materials are meticulously crafted to provide users with a wealth of knowledge on how to protect their mobile devices, ensuring that the learning experience is not only informative but also engaging and enjoyable.
While the current state of mobile device security may seem concerning, it’s far from hopeless. By incorporating simple security practices such as setting complex passwords and avoiding shared access, we can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized data access. Additionally, investing in trusted mobile security products like McAfee Mobile Security can provide a robust defense against advancing cyber threats. Remember, our digital lives mirror our real lives – just as we lock and secure our homes, so too must we protect our mobile devices.
The post How to Protect Your Mobile Device From Loss and Theft appeared first on McAfee Blog.
In October, a hacker claimed to have hijacked profile information of “millions” of users from the popular genetic testing site 23andMe.com. Now the company has put a figure to that – some 6.9 million people. Roughly half of 23andMe’s user base.
What’s at risk? Some of the most personal info possible. Per the company’s statement to Techcrunch, this included “the person’s name, birth year, relationship labels, the percentage of DNA shared with relatives, ancestry reports and self-reported location” for roughly 5.5 million people who opted into the “DNA Relatives” feature, which automatically shares some information with other users automatically.
→ Worried about potential ID theft? Get identity protection with McAfee+ today
Another 1.4 million users had their “Family Tree information accessed.” This further includes display names, relationship labels, birth year, self-reported location and whether the user decided to share their information.
Just as we reported initially in October, the source of the breach appears to revolve around compromised passwords in an attack method known as “credential stuffing.” In plain terms, hackers “stuff” the credentials from one account into another to gain access. It’s a prime example of the perils that can follow when people reuse passwords. A stolen password from one account can get “stuffed” into another and give the hacker access.
Complicating the attack, and widening its scope immensely, is the DNA Relatives feature mentioned above. Because of the way it shares information between users, one compromised account can divulge the personal and genetic information of many more users – even if their account and password were not compromised in the attack. In this way, a relative handful of compromised accounts affected some 6.9 users.
Per the company’s statement on its blog, “If we learn that a customer’s data has been accessed without their authorization, we will notify them directly with more information.” Moreover, the company said,
“Our investigation continues and we have engaged the assistance of third-party forensic experts. We are also working with federal law enforcement officials.
We are reaching out to our customers to provide an update on the investigation and to encourage them to take additional actions to keep their account and password secure. Out of caution, we are requiring that all customers reset their passwords and are encouraging the use of multi-factor authentication (MFA).”
Further, in November the company required its users to use MFA to further secure their accounts, which had only been optional until that point.
As unsettling as this news may come, 23andMe customers can take the following steps.
In light of the attack on 23andMe and the sensitive data it exposed, several class action lawsuits have been filed against the company. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 23andMe stated, “multiple class action claims have been filed against the Company in federal and state court in California and state court in Illinois, as well as in British Columbia and Ontario, Canada, which the Company is defending.”
As reported by Engadget, 23andMe sent users an email in early December notifying them of a change in the company’s terms of service – specific to its Dispute Resolution and Arbitration terms. By default, users now waive their rights to bringing forward class and collective action against the company to the fullest extent allowed by applicable law:
However, concerned users of 23andMe can opt out of these terms, thus allowing them to pursue class and collective action if they see fit. Users need to send written notice of their decision to opt-out by emailing 23andMe at arbitrationoptout@23andme.com. As of this writing the terms as posted are as follows:
Once again, users can refer to Section 5 of 23andMe’s terms of service for full details and to monitor any changes the company makes to those terms.
Far and beyond 23andMe users, everyone who goes online should take note of this attack. Which is pretty much all of us. It makes one of the strongest cases for strong, unique passwords—and for limiting the info you share online. In this case, even a secure password was no help in protecting the personal info of millions of people.
If you’re a 23andMe user, you can opt out of DNA Relatives by selecting the Manage Preferences option within DNA Relatives or from your Account Settings page. Granted, this will remove your ability to gain deeper genetic insights from other users, yet it will offer additional protection if a similar attack occurs.
For all of us, sharing and storing personal info is a fact of life online. The more you share and store online, the more risk you take on. And you have some control over that.
Consider what you’re sharing, who you’re sharing it with, what they do with that info, who they share it with, and in what form and circumstances. Yes, that’s a lot to consider. Complicating that yet more, many of the sites, services, and apps we use don’t make it easy to answer those questions. Terms of service and data policies rarely make for light and understandable reading.
Luckily, you can turn to trustworthy resources to get answers. The Common Sense Privacy Program evaluates privacy policies with K-12 students in mind. The Mozilla Foundation’s Privacy Not Included website scores apps and connected devices for privacy, including apps, smart home devices, and cars.
In an otherwise murky landscape, the privacy question is this: is the reward worth the risk? If you share that info, are you okay with someone unwanted accessing it? Particularly if the privacy risks are tough to spot.
Put simply, less sharing means more privacy. Put careful thought into when and where you share. And with whom.
On that note, it might be time for a cleanup.
We’ve logged into all kinds of things over the years. Many of which we don’t log into anymore. And others we’ve completely forgotten about. Across these forums, sites, and stores, you’ll find your personal info to some degree or other. If one of those sites gets compromised, your personal info stored there might get compromised too. That gives you a solid reason to delete those old accounts.
A tool like our Online Account Cleanup can help remove your info from online accounts. You’ll find it in our online protection software, along with our Personal Data Cleanup—which helps remove your personal info from risky data broker sites. It shows you where your personal info was found, and what data the sites have. Depending on your plan, it can help clean it up.
With 6.9 million people affected by the 23andMe attack, it reinforces a big lesson: strong, unique passwords are an absolute must. And the stakes for online privacy have never been higher.
Today we entrust the internet with so much, which increasingly includes our heath and wellness info, not to mention genetic info with services like 23andMe. Taking the steps outlined here can help protect yourself from invasions of privacy and the loss of personal info. And as we’ve seen, protect others too. Consider them whether you’re a 23andMe customer or not.
The post User Data from 23andMe Leaked Online – What Users Should Do, and the Rest of Us Too appeared first on McAfee Blog.
As AI deepfakes and malware understandably grab the headlines, one thing gets easily overlooked—AI also works on your side. It protects you from fraud and malware as well.
For some time now, we’ve kept our eye on AI here at McAfee. Particularly as scammers cook up fresh gluts of AI-driven hustles. And there are plenty of them.
We’ve uncovered how scammers need only a few seconds of a voice recording to clone it using AI—which has led to all manner of imposter scams. We also showed how scammers can use AI writing tools to power their chats in romance scams, to the extent of writing love poems with AI. Recently, we shared word of fake news sites packed with bogus articles generated almost entirely with AI. AI-generated videos even played a role in a scam for “Barbie” movie tickets.
Law enforcement, government agencies, and other regulatory bodies have taken note. In April, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warned consumers that AI now “turbocharges” fraud online. The commission cited a proliferation of AI tools can generate convincing text, images, audio, and videos.
While not typically malicious in and of themselves, scammers twist these technologies to bilk victims out of their money and personal information. Likewise, just as legitimate application developers use AI to create code, hackers use AI to create malware.
There’s no question that all these AI-driven scams mark a major change in the way we stay safe online. Yet you have a powerful ally on your side. It’s AI, as well. And it’s out there, spotting scams and malware. In fact, you’ll find it in our online protection software. We’ve put AI to work on your behalf for some time now.
With a closer look at how AI works on your side, along with several steps that can help you spot AI fakery, you can stay safer out there. Despite the best efforts of scammers, hackers, and their AI tools.
One way to think about online protection is this: it’s a battle to keep you safe. Hackers employ new forms of attack that try to work around existing protections. Meanwhile, security professionals create technological advances that counter these attacks and proactively prevent them—which hackers try to work around once again. And on it goes. As technology evolves, so does this battle. And the advent of AI marks a decidedly new era in the struggle.
As a result, security professionals also employ AI to protect people from AI-driven attacks.
Companies now check facial scans for skin texture and translucency to determine if someone is using a mask to trick facial recognition ID. Banks employ other tools to detect suspicious mouse movements and transaction details that might be suspicious. Additionally, developers scan their code with AI tools to detect vulnerabilities that might lurk deep in their apps—in places that would take human teams hundreds, if not thousands of staff hours to detect. If at all. Code can get quite complex.
For us, we’ve used AI in our online protection for years now. McAfee has used AI for evaluating events, files, and website characteristics. We have further used AI for detection, which has proven highly effective against entirely new forms of attack.
We’ve also used these technologies to catalog sites for identifying sites that host malicious files or phishing operations. Moreover, cataloging has helped us shape out parental control features such that we can block content based on customer preferences with high accuracy.
And we continue to evolve it so that it detects threats even faster and yet more accurately than before. Taken together, AI-driven protection like ours quashes threats in three ways:
What does AI-driven protection look like for you? It can identify malicious websites before you can connect to them. It can prevent new forms of ransomware from encrypting your photos and files. And it can keep spyware from stealing your personal information by spotting apps that would connect them to a bad actor’s command-and-control server.
As a result, you get faster and more comprehensive protection with AI that works in conjunction with online protection software—and our security professionals develop them both.
Yet, as it is with any kind of scam, it can take more than technology to spot an AI-driven scam. It calls for eyeballing the content you come across critically. You can spot an AI-driven scam with your eyes, along with your ears and even your gut.
Take AI voice clone attacks, for example. You can protect yourself from them by taking the following steps:
As AI continues its evolution, it gets trickier and trickier to spot it in images, video, and audio. Advances in AI give images a clarity and crispness that they didn’t have before, deepfake videos play more smoothly, and voice cloning gets uncannily accurate.
Yet even with the best AI, scammers often leave their fingerprints all over the fake news content they create. Look for the following:
1) Consider the context
AI fakes usually don’t appear by themselves. There’s often text or a larger article around them. Inspect the text for typos, poor grammar, and overall poor composition. Look to see if the text even makes sense. And like legitimate news articles, does it include identifying information — like date, time, and place of publication, along with the author’s name.
2) Evaluate the claim
Does the image seem too bizarre to be real? Too good to be true? Today, “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet,” now includes “Don’t believe everything you see on the internet.” If a fake news story is claiming to be real, search for the headline elsewhere. If it’s truly noteworthy, other known and reputable sites will report on the event—and have done their own fact-checking.
3) Check for distortions
The bulk of AI technology still renders fingers and hands poorly. It often creates eyes that might have a soulless or dead look to them — or that show irregularities between them. Also, shadows might appear in places where they look unnatural. Further, the skin tone might look uneven. In deepfaked videos, the voice and facial expressions might not exactly line up, making the subject look robotic and stiff.
The battle between hackers and the people behind online protection continues. And while the introduction of AI has unleashed all manner of new attacks, the pattern prevails. Hackers and security professionals tap into the same technologies and continually up the game against each other.
Understandably, AI conjures questions, uncertainty, and, arguably, fear. Yet you can rest assured that, behind the headlines of AI threats, security professionals use AI technology for protection. For good.
Yet an online scam remains an online scam. Many times, it takes common sense and a sharp eye to spot a hustle when you see one. If anything, that remains one instance where humans still have a leg up on AI. Humans have gut instincts. They can sense when something looks, feels, or sounds …off. Rely on that instinct. And give yourself time to let it speak to you. In a time of AI-driven fakery, it still stands as an excellent first line of defense.
The post How to Win the Battle Against Deepfakes and Malware appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodle: Cybercriminals have a sweet tooth just like you. But their favorite type of cookie is of the browser variety.
Browser cookies – often just referred to as cookies – track your comings and goings on websites. And when a cyber thief gets their mitts on your browser cookies, it can open all kinds of doors into your online accounts.
The first step to protecting your devices and online privacy from criminals is to understand their schemes. Here are the key terms you need to know about cookie theft plus how to keep malicious software off your devices.
Cookie theft can happen to anyone. Knowing the basics of this cyberscheme may help you better protect your online life:
Cookies thieves are generally motivated by the financial gains of breaking into people’s online accounts. Banking, social media, and online shopping accounts are full of valuable personal and financial details that a cybercriminal can either sell on the dark web or use to impersonate you and steal your identity.
Malware is generally the vehicle cybercriminals use to steal cookies. Once the malicious software gets onto a device, the malware is trained to copy a new cookie’s data and send it to the cybercriminal. Then, from their own machine, the cybercriminal can input that data and start a new session with the target’s stolen data.
There was a stretch of a few years where cookie thieves targeted high-profile YouTube influencers with malware spread through fake collaboration deals and crypto scams. The criminals’ goal was to steal cookies to sneak into the backend of the YouTube accounts to change passwords, recovery emails and phone numbers, and bypass two-factor authentication to lock the influencers out of their accounts.1
But you don’t have to have a valuable social media account to draw the eye of a cybercriminal. “Operation Cookie Monster” dismantled an online forum that sold stolen login information for millions of online accounts gained through cookie theft.2
To keep your internet cookies out of the hands of criminals, it’s essential to practice safe browsing habits. These four tips will go a long way toward keeping your accounts out of the reach of cookie thieves and your devices free from malicious software.
McAfee+ is an excellent partner to help you secure your devices and digital life. McAfee+ includes a safe browsing tool to alert you to suspicious websites, a password manager, identity monitoring, and more.
The next time you enjoy a cookie, spare a moment to think of cookies of the digital flavor: clear your cache if you haven’t in awhile, doublecheck your devices and online accounts for suspicious activity, and savor the sweetness of your digital privacy!
1The Hacker News, “Hackers Stealing Browser Cookies to Hijack High-Profile YouTube Accounts”
2CNN, “‘Operation Cookie Monster:’ FBI seizes popular cybercrime forum used for large-scale identity theft”
The post How to Keep Cybercriminals Out of Your Accounts appeared first on McAfee Blog.
It’s a longstanding question: can your phone really take selfies without your knowledge?
The answer is yes, but with a pretty big asterisk next to it. And that asterisk is known as spyware. Spyware can use your phone for snooping in several ways, including using your camera to take pictures and videos.
What exactly is spyware? It’s any software or app that steals information from a device and passes it to another party without the victim’s knowledge. And here’s the tricky part—you might have installed it yourself, right from an app store. In other words, you can end up with spyware without a hacker installing it on your phone via a malicious download or link.
Fortunately, you can avoid spyware rather easily.
First off, it helps to know how spyware can take over your phone’s camera.
It comes down to permissions. Apps require permissions to do things like access your contacts, photo library, microphone, and camera. For example, a social media app will ask for permission to access your camera if you want to snap a pic and post it online. A messaging app might ask for access to your camera and microphone to send video and voice messages. Likewise, a navigation or rideshare app will ask for permission to access your phone’s location services. Depending on your specific settings, your app might ask for permissions each time you use it, or you might give an app blanket permissions the first time you use it.
Effectively, permissions make apps go. Yet some apps cross the line. They ask for invasive permissions that they absolutely don’t need to function. A classic example is the glut of old flashlight apps that asked for permission to access things like contact lists and cameras. With those permissions, bad actors stole all manner of personal information. In some cases, they used the phone’s camera and microphone to spy on their victims.
That old “flashlight app” ruse continues today. You’ll occasionally see reports of spyware cropping up in app stores. This spyware hides in plain sight by masquerading as legitimate apps—like document readers, chat apps, wallpaper apps, and even security software. But these apps are all bogus.
Google Play does its part to keep its virtual shelves free of malware-laden apps with a thorough submission process as reported by Google and through its App Defense Alliance that shares intelligence across a network of partners, of which we’re a proud member. Further, users also have the option of running Play Protect to check apps for safety before they’re downloaded.
Apple’s App Store has its own rigorous submission process for submitting apps. Likewise, Apple deletes hundreds of thousands of malicious apps from its store each year.
Yet, bad actors find ways to sneak malware into the store. Sometimes they upload an app that’s initially clean and then push the malware to users as part of an update. Other times, they’ll embed the malicious code so that it only triggers after it’s run in certain countries. They will also encrypt malicious code in the app that they submit, which can make it difficult for reviewers to sniff out.
Unique to Android phones, Android gives people the option to download apps from third-party app stores. These stores might or might not have a thorough app submission process in place. As a result, they can be far less secure than Google Play. Moreover, some third-party app stores are fronts for organized cybercrime gangs, built specifically to distribute malware, making third-party downloads that much riskier.
The post Secret Selfies: Can Phones Take Pictures and Videos of You Without Your Knowledge? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
We reported earlier this year, a fresh rash of online job scams continue to rope in plenty of victims. Now, those victims are taking to TikTok with a warning.
https://www.tiktok.com.mcas.ms/@thenamesamber/video/7188616142062275886
Source, thenamesamber on TikTok
Take the story thenamesamber told on TikTok. It starts out like many. Amber wanted a job that allowed remote work, and luckily enough, a recruiter reached out to her through an online recruiting site with an opportunity.
From there, the recruiter directed Amber to download a messaging app, which the company would use for the interview process. The interview went just fine, Amber got a job offer, and then the company asked Amber for a home address.
Here’s where the catch comes in.
Amber goes on to say that the company sent her a check by overnight mail, a check she should use to buy equipment. A check for nearly $5,000. For days, the check didn’t post. The company repeatedly asked for update. Had it posted yet? Had it posted yet?
At this point, Amber said she got suspicious. She contacted her bank. The check had a hold placed on it, and according to Amber, she was charged a fee and her account frozen for days. In speaking with her bank, Amber was told that the check was bad and that she was the victim of a scam. The bank has seen a lot of it lately, said Amber.
Yet based on what we’ve seen, Amber got lucky.
Victims and banks sometimes fail to spot the scam as it unfolds. In those cases, the check gets posted and the scammers tell the victim to forward the money to another person who’ll purchase equipment for them. Usually by way of an online payment app.
Days later, the check bounces for insufficient funds. Meanwhile, victims get burdened with the fraud reporting process — with their bank and with the payment app they used. Depending on the means and terms of payment, some or all of that money might be gone for good. And as a result, the scammers get a few thousand dollars richer.
If you spend some time on social media, you’ll stumble across plenty of videos that tell this exact story in one form or another. And with each story, you’ll find dozens of people sharing that the same thing happened, or almost happened, to them.
We’re glad people are taking to TikTok to share their stories, even as sharing those stories can get painful. You can avoid these scams. Part of it involves awareness. They’re still going strong. The next part counts on you and your sharp eye to spot sketchy behavior when you see it.
We’ll show you how, and that begins with a look at where these scams take place.
Employment figures continue to surge. It’s a hot job market out there, and when things get hot, you’ll find scammers looking to turn a buck. It’s much like tax season and gift-giving holidays. Scammers will take advantage of trends and seasonal events where people go online and there’s money involved. Job scams are no different.
Where do these scams crop up?
As we reported earlier this year and as TikTok videos have shared, many appear to originate from trusted online recruiting platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed. Scammers will either set up a bogus company or pose as a representative of a legitimate company. In other cases, job scams take root on social media. Here, scammers play the same game—set up a bogus company or impersonate a legitimate one.
From there, stories like Amber’s unfold.
Without question, recruiting and social media platforms know what’s going on and take steps to quash scam accounts.
For example, LinkedIn’s latest community report cited the removal of more than 21 million fake accounts in the first half of 2022:
Likewise, Facebook took action on 426 million fake accounts in Q1 of 2023 alone, with nearly 99% of them acted on before users reported them.
In its guidelines for a safe job search, Indeed mentions the global teams “dedicated to the safety and authenticity of the jobs posted on our platform.”
Still, some scammers make their way through to these platforms and others like them.
Our earlier advice on the topic still holds true. You can spot scams several ways, particularly when you know that scammers want your money and personal information as quickly as possible. The moment any so-called job offer asks for any of those, a red flag should immediately go up.
It’s possibly a scam if:
They ask for your Social Security or tax ID number.
In the hands of a scammer, your SSN or tax ID is the key to your identity. With it, they can open up bank cards, lines of credit, apply for insurance benefits, collect benefits and tax returns, or even commit crimes, all in your name. Needless to say, scammers will ask for it, perhaps under the guise of a background check or for payroll purposes. The only time you should provide your SSN or tax ID is when you know that you have accepted a legitimate job with a legitimate company. Only sent it through a secure document signing service, never via email, text, or over the phone.
They want your banking information.
Another trick scammers rely on is asking for bank account information so that they can wire a payment to you. As with the SSN above, closely guard this information and treat it in exactly the same way. Don’t give it out unless you have a legitimate job with a legitimate company.
They want you to pay before you get paid.
Some scammers will take a different route. They’ll promise employment, but first you’ll need to pay them for training, onboarding, or equipment before you can start work. Legitimate companies won’t make these kinds of requests. Amber’s check story provides a good example of this.
They tell you to download a specific messaging app to communicate with them.
Victims report that the scammers require a specific app to chat and, sometimes, to conduct the interview itself. Apps like Signal and Wire get mentioned, yet rest assured that these apps themselves are legitimate. The scammers are the problem, not the apps. Consider it a warning sign if someone asks you to largely communicate this way.
Aside from the types of information they ask for, the way they ask for your information offers other clues that you might find yourself mixed up in a scam. Look out for the following as well:
1) The offer is big on promises but short on details.
You can sniff out many online scams with the “too good to be true” test. Scammers often make big promises during the holidays with low-priced offers for hard-to-get holiday gifts and then don’t deliver. It’s the same with job scams. The high pay, the low hours, and even the offer of things like a laptop and other perks, these are signs that a job offer might be a scam. Moreover, when pressed for details about this seemingly fantastic job opportunity, scammers might balk. Or they might come back with incomplete or inconsistent replies because the job doesn’t exist at all.
2) They communicate only through email or chat.
Job scammers hide behind their screens. They use the anonymity of the internet to their advantage. Job scammers likewise create phony profiles on networking and social media websites, which means they won’t agree to a video chat or call, which are commonly used in legitimate recruiting today. If your job offer doesn’t involve some sort of face-to-face communication, that indicates it might be a scam.
3) And the communications seem a little …off.
Scammers now have an additional tool to reel in their victims — AI chatbots like Chat GPT, which can generate email correspondence, chats, LinkedIn profiles, and other content in seconds so they can bilk victims on a huge scale. However, AI has its limits. Right now, it tends to use shorter sentences in a way that seems like it’s spitting out information. There’s little story or substance to the content it creates. That might be a sign of a scam. Likewise, even without AI, you might spot a recruiter using technical or job-related terms in unusual ways, as if they’re unfamiliar with the work they’re hiring for. That’s another potential sign.
4) Things move too quickly.
Scammers love quick conversion. Yet job seekers today know that interview processes are typically long and involved, often relying on several rounds of interviews and loops. If a job offer comes along without the usual rigor and the recruiter is asking for personal information practically right away, that’s another near-certain sign of a scam.
5) You get job offers on Facebook or other social media sites not associated with job searches.
This is another red flag. Legitimate businesses stick to platforms associated with networking for business purposes, typically not networking for families, friends, and interests. Why do scammers use sites like Facebook anyway? They’re a gold mine of information. By trolling public profiles, they have access to years of posts and armloads of personal information on thousands of people, which they can use to target their attacks. This is another good reason to set your social media profiles on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and other friend-oriented sites to private so that scammers of all kinds, not just job scammers, can’t use your information against you.
As a job hunter you know that getting the right job requires some research. You look up the company, dig into their history—the work they do, how long they’ve been at it, where their locations are, and maybe even read some reviews provided by current or former employees. When it comes to job offers that come out of the blue, it calls for taking that research a step further.
After all, is that business really a business, or is it really a scam?
In the U.S., you have several resources that can help you answer that question. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) offers a searchable listing of businesses in the U.S., along with a brief profile, a rating, and even a list of complaints (and company responses) waged against them. Spending some time here can quickly shed light on the legitimacy of a company.
Also in the U.S., you can visit the website of your state’s Secretary of State and search for the business in question, where you can find when it was founded, if it’s still active, or if it exists at all. For businesses based in a state other than your own, you can visit that state’s Secretary of State website for information. For a state-by-state list of Secretaries of State, you can visit the Secretary of State Corporate Search page here.
For a listing of businesses with international locations, organizations like S&P Global Ratings and the Dun and Bradstreet Corporation can provide background information, which might require signing up for an account.
Given the way we rely so heavily on the internet to get things done and enjoy our day, comprehensive online protection software that looks out for your identity, privacy, and devices is a must. Specific to job scams, it can help you in several ways, these being just a few:
Amber’s story, and stories like hers have racked up nearly a quarter-billion dollars in reported losses in the first half of this year here in the U.S. The median loss, somewhere around $2,000 per victim.
Job scams persist. In fact, they’ve increased by nearly 25% this year compared to this time last year. It’s no surprise that scam stories on TikTok keep racking up. Yet as you’ve seen, awareness and a sharp eye can help you avoid them.
Editor’s Note:
Job scams are a crime. If you think that you or someone you know has fallen victim to one, report it to your authorities and appropriate government agencies. In the case of identity theft or loss of personal information, our knowledge base article on identity theft offers suggestions for the specific steps you can take in specific countries, along with helpful links for local authorities that you can turn to for reporting and assistance.
The post Online Job Scams – TikTokers Tell Their Stories, with a Warning appeared first on McAfee Blog.
You can almost feel it in the air. Wi-Fi is everywhere. And if you tap into public Wi-Fi, do it with a VPN.
The keyword in public Wi-Fi is “public.” That means anyone else on the network can see what you’re connecting to and what data you’re passing along, with a little effort. Your credit card number while you shop. Your password when you bank. That confidential contract you just sent to a client. And your logins for social media too. It’s all an open book to anyone who has the tools to snoop.
What tools let them snoop? Network analyzers, or packet sniffers as many call them, can read the data traffic that travels across a network. And because public Wi-Fi networks are open, so is the data traffic — loaded with your credentials, personal info, and so on. A bad actor can gather up data with a packet sniffer, analyze it, and pluck out the sensitive bits of information that are of value.
This is where a VPN comes in. It makes any network private. Even on public Wi-Fi.
Let’s take a look at what a VPN is, how it works, and why it’s your friend on public Wi-Fi.
A VPN is an app that you install on your device to help keep your data safe as you browse the internet. When you turn on your VPN app, your device makes a secure connection to a VPN server that routes internet traffic. Securely. This keeps your online activity private on any network, shielding it from prying eyes. Thus, while you’re on a VPN, you can browse and bank with the confidence that your passwords, credentials, and financial information are secure. If any malicious actors attempt to intercept your web traffic, they’ll only see garbled content, thanks to your VPN’s encryption functionality.
Every internet connection is assigned a unique set of numbers called an IP address, which is tied to information such as geographic location or an Internet Service Provider (ISP). A VPN replaces your actual IP address to make it look like you’ve connected to the internet from the physical location of the VPN server, rather than your real location. This is just one reason so many people use VPNs.
To change your IP address, you open your VPN app, select the server location you’d like to connect to, and you’re done. You’re now browsing with a new IP address.
An ideal case for using a VPN is when you’re using public Wi-Fi at the airport, a café, hotel, or just about any place “free Wi-Fi” is offered. The reason being is that these are open networks, and any somewhat enterprising cybercriminal can tap into these networks and harvest sensitive information as a result. One survey showed that 39% of internet users worldwide understand public Wi-Fi is unsafe, yet some users still bank, shop, and do other sensitive things on public Wi-Fi despite the understood risks.
Further, you have your privacy to consider. You can use a VPN to help stop advertisers from tracking you. Searches you perform and websites you visit won’t get traced back to you, which can prevent advertisers from gleaning information about you and your online habits in general. Moreover, some ISPs collect the browsing history of their users and share it with advertisers and other third parties. A VPN can prevent this type of collection as well.
A VPN protects your search history through the secure connection you share. When you search for a website, or type a URL into your navigation bar, your device sends something called a DNS request, which translates the website into the IP address of the web server. This is how your browser can find the website and serve its content to you. By encrypting your DNS requests, a VPN can hide your search habits and history from those that might use that info as part of building a profile of you. Others might use this info in a wide variety of ways, from legitimately serving targeted ads to nefarious social engineering.
Note that a VPN is quite different and far, far more comprehensive than using “Private Mode” or “Incognito Mode” on your browser. Those modes only hide your search history locally on your device—not from others on the internet, like ISPs and advertisers.
No, a VPN can’t make you anonymous. Not entirely anyway. They help secure what you’re doing, but your ISP still knows when you’re using the internet. They just can’t see what you’re doing, what sites you visit, or how long you’ve been on a site.
Apple’s Private Relay is similar to a VPN in that it changes your IP address so websites you visit can’t tell exactly where you are. It works on iOS and Macs as part of an iCloud+ subscription. Yet there is one important distinction: it only protects your privacy while surfing with the Safari browser.
Per Apple, it works like this:
When Private Relay is enabled, your requests are sent through two separate, secure internet relays. Your IP address is visible to your network provider and to the first relay, which is operated by Apple. Your DNS records are encrypted, so neither party can see the address of the website you’re trying to visit. The second relay, which is operated by a third-party content provider, generates a temporary IP address, decrypts the name of the website you requested, and connects you to the site. All of this is done using the latest internet standards to maintain a high-performance browsing experience while protecting your privacy.
Check to see if Apple Private Relay is available in your country or region. If you travel somewhere that Private Relay isn’t available, it’ll automatically turn off and will notify you when it’s unavailable and once more when it’s active again. You can learn more about it here , and how you can enable it on your Apple devices.
Private Relay only works with Safari on iOS and macOS as part of an iCloud+ subscription. Even if you are using an Apple device, a VPN is still a good idea because it’ll protect the information that your device sends outside of Safari — such as any info passed along by your apps or any other browsers you might use.
An unlimited VPN with bank-grade encryption comes as part of your McAfee+ subscription and provides the security and privacy benefits above with bank-grade encryption. Additionally, it turns on automatically any time you connect to an unsecured Wi-Fi network, which takes the guesswork out of when you absolutely need to use it.
In all, our VPN makes it practically impossible for cybercriminals or advertisers to access so that what you do online remains anonymous, so you can enjoy your time online with confidence.
The post On Public Wi-Fi, a VPN is Your Friend appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Spotting fake news in your feed has always been tough. Now it just got tougher, thanks to AI.
Fake news crops up in plenty of places on social media. And it has for some time now. In years past, it took the form of misleading posts, image captions, quotes, and the sharing of outright false information in graphs and charts. Now with the advent of AI, we see fake news taken to new levels of deception:
All of it’s out there. And knowing how to separate truth from fact has never been of more importance, particularly as more and more people get their news via social media.
Pew Research found that about a third of Americans say they regularly get their news from Facebook and nearly 1 in 4 say they regularly get it from YouTube. Moreover, global research from Reuters uncovered that more people primarily get their news from social media (30%) rather than from an established news site or app (22%). This marks the first time that social media has toppled direct access to news.
Yet, you can spot fake news. Plenty of it.
The process starts with a crisp definition of what fake news is, followed by the forms it takes, and then a sense of what the goals behind it are. With that, you can apply a critical eye and pick out the telltale signs.
We’ll cover it all here.
A textbook definition of fake news goes something like this:
A false news story, fabricated with no verifiable facts, and presented in a way to appear as legitimate news.
As for its intent, fake news often seeks to damage the reputation of an individual, institution, or organization. It might also spout propaganda or attempt to undermine established facts.
That provides a broad definition. Yet, like much fake news itself, the full definition is much more nuanced. Within fake news, you’ll find two categories: disinformation and misinformation:
From there, fake news gets more nuanced still. Misinformation and disinformation fall within a range. Some of it might appear comical, while other types might have the potential to do actual harm.
Dr. Claire Wardle, the co-director of the Information Futures Lab at Brown University, cites seven types of misinformation and disinformation on a scale as visualized below:
Source – FirstDraftNews.org and Brown University
Put in a real-life context, you can probably conjure up plenty of examples where you’ve seen. Like clickbait-y headlines that link to letdown articles with little substance. Maybe you’ve seen a quote pasted on the image of a public figure, a quote that person never made. Perhaps an infographic, loaded with bogus statistics and attributed to an organization that doesn’t even exist. It can take all forms.
The answers here vary as well. Greatly so. Fake news can begin with a single individual, groups of like-minded individuals with an agenda, and it can even come from operatives for various nation-states. As for why, they might want to poke fun at someone, drive ad revenue through clickbait articles, or spout propaganda.
Once more, a visualization provides clarity in this sometimes-murky mix of fake news:
Source – FirstDraftNews.org and Brown University
In the wild, some examples of fake news and the reasons behind it might look like this:
Perhaps a few of these examples ring a bell. You might have come across some where you weren’t exactly sure if it was fake news or not.
The following tools can help you know for sure.
Some of the oldest advice is the best advice, and that holds true here: consider the source. Take time to examine the information you come across. Look at its source. Does that source have a track record of honesty and dealing plainly with the facts?
This falls under a similar category as “consider the source.” Plenty of fake news will take an old story and repost it or alter it in some way to make it appear relevant to current events. In recent years, we’ve seen fake news creators slap a new headline on a new photo, all to make it seem like it’s something current. Once again, a quick search can help you tell if it’s fake or not. Try a reverse image search and see what comes up. Is the photo indeed current? Who took it? When? Where?
Has a news story you’ve read or watched ever made you shake your fist at the screen or want to clap and cheer? How about something that made you fearful or simply laugh? Bits of content that evoke strong emotional responses tend to spread quickly, whether they’re articles, a post, or even a tweet. That’s a ready sign that a quick fact check might be in order. The content is clearly playing to your biases.
There’s a good reason for that. Bad actors who wish to foment unrest, unease, or spread disinformation use emotionally driven content to plant a seed. Whether or not their original story gets picked up and viewed firsthand doesn’t matter to these bad actors. Their aim is to get some manner of disinformation out into the ecosystem. They rely on others who will re-post, re-tweet, or otherwise pass it along on their behalf—to the point where the original source of the information gets completely lost. This is one instance where people readily begin to accept certain information as fact, even if it’s not factual at all.
Certainly, some legitimate articles will generate a response as well, yet it’s a good habit to do a quick fact check and confirm what you’ve read.
A single information source or story won’t provide a complete picture. It might only cover a topic from a certain angle or narrow focus. Likewise, information sources are helmed by editors and stories are written by people—all of whom have their biases, whether overt or subtle. It’s for this reason that expanding your media diet to include a broad range of information sources is so important.
So, see what other information sources have to say on the same topic. Consuming news across a spectrum will expose you to thoughts and coverage you might not otherwise get if you keep your consumption to a handful of sources. The result is that you’re more broadly informed and can compare different sources and points of view. Using the tips above, you can find other reputable sources to round out your media diet.
Additionally, for a list of reputable information sources, along with the reasons they’re reputable, check out “10 Journalism Brands Where You Find Real Facts Rather Than Alternative Facts” published by Forbes and authored by an associate professor at The King’s College in New York City. It certainly isn’t the end all, be all of lists, yet it should provide you with a good starting point.
De-bunking fake news takes time and effort. Often a bit of digging and research too. Professional fact-checkers at news and media organizations do this work daily. Posted for all to see, they provide a quick way to get your answers. Some fact-checking groups include:
As AI continues its evolution, it gets trickier and trickier to spot it in images, video, and audio. Advances in AI give images a clarity and crispness that they didn’t have before, deepfake videos play more smoothly, and voice cloning gets uncannily accurate.
Yet even with the best AI, scammers often leave their fingerprints all over the fake news content they create. Look for the following:
AI fakes usually don’t appear by themselves. There’s often text or a larger article around them. Inspect the text for typos, poor grammar, and overall poor composition. Look to see if the text even makes sense. And like legitimate news articles, does it include identifying information—like date, time, and place of publication, along with the author’s name.
Does the image seem too bizarre to be real? Too good to be true? Today, “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet,” now includes “Don’t believe everything you see on the internet.” If a fake news story is claiming to be real, search for the headline elsewhere. If it’s truly noteworthy, other known and reputable sites will report on the event—and have done their own fact-checking.
The bulk of AI technology still renders fingers and hands poorly. It often creates eyes that might have a soulless or dead look to them—or that show irregularities between them. Also, shadows might appear in places where they look unnatural. Further, the skin tone might look uneven. In deepfaked videos, the voice and facial expressions might not exactly line up, making the subject look robotic and stiff.
The fact is that fake news isn’t going anywhere. It’s a reality of going online. And AI makes it tougher to spot.
At least at first glance. The best tool for spotting fake news is a fact-check. You can do the work yourself, or you can rely on trusted resources that have already done the work.
This takes time, which people don’t always spend because social platforms make it so quick and easy to share. If we can point to one reason fake news spreads so quickly, that’s it. In fact, social media platforms reward such behavior.
With that, keep an eye on your own habits. We forward news in our social media feeds too—so make sure that what you share is truthful too.
Plenty of fake news can lure you into sketchy corners of the internet. Places where malware and phishing sites take root. Consider using comprehensive online protection software with McAfee+ to keep safe. In addition to several features that protect your devices, privacy, and identity, they can warn you of unsafe sites too. While it might not sniff out AI content (yet), it offers strong protection against bad actors who might use fake news to steal your information or harm your data and devices.
The post How to Spot Fake News in Your Social Media Feed appeared first on McAfee Blog.
It’s that time of year again: election season! You already know what to expect when you flip on the TV. Get ready for a barrage of commercials, each candidate saying enough to get you to like them but nothing specific enough to which they must stay beholden should they win.
What you might not expect is for sensationalist election “news” to barge in uninvited on your screens. Fake news – or exaggerated or completely falsified articles claiming to be unbiased and factual journalism, often spread via social media – can pop up anytime and anywhere. This election season’s fake news machine will be different than previous years because of the emergence of mainstream artificial intelligence tools.
Here are a few ways desperate zealots may use various AI tools to stir unease and spread misinformation around the upcoming election.
We’ve had time to learn and operate by the adage of “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.” But now, thanks to deepfake, that lesson must extend to “Don’t believe everything you SEE on the internet.” Deepfake is the digital manipulation of a video or photo. The result often depicts a scene that never happened. At a quick glance, deepfakes can look very real! Some still look real after studying them for a few minutes.
People may use deepfake to paint a candidate in a bad light or to spread sensationalized false news reports. For example, a deepfake could make it look like a candidate flashed a rude hand gesture or show a candidate partying with controversial public figures.
According to McAfee’s Beware the Artificial Imposter report, it only takes three seconds of authentic audio and minimal effort to create a mimicked voice with 85% accuracy. When someone puts their mind to it and takes the time to hone the voice clone, they can achieve a 95% voice match to the real deal.
Well-known politicians have thousands of seconds’ worth of audio clips available to anyone on the internet, giving voice cloners plenty of samples to choose from. Fake news spreaders could employ AI voice generators to add an authentic-sounding talk track to a deepfake video or to fabricate a snappy and sleazy “hot mike” clip to share far and wide online.
Programs like ChatGPT and Bard can make anyone sound intelligent and eloquent. In the hands of rabble-rousers, AI text generation tools can create articles that sound almost professional enough to be real. Plus, AI allows people to churn out content quickly, meaning that people could spread dozens of fake news reports daily. The number of fake articles is only limited by the slight imagination necessary to write a short prompt.
Before you get tricked by a fake news report, here are some ways to spot a malicious use of AI intended to mislead your political leanings:
Is what you’re reading or seeing or hearing too bizarre to be true? That means it probably isn’t. If you’re interested in learning more about a political topic you came across on social media, do a quick search to corroborate a story. Have a list of respected news establishments bookmarked to make it quick and easy to ensure the authenticity of a report.
If you encounter fake news, the best way you can interact with it is to ignore it. Or, in cases where the content is offensive or incendiary, you should report it. Even if the fake news is laughably off-base, it’s still best not to share it with your network, because that’s exactly what the original poster wants: For as many people as possible to see their fabricated stories. All it takes is for someone within your network to look at it too quickly, believe it, and then perpetuate the lies.
It’s great if you’re passionate about politics and the various issues on the ballot. Passion is a powerful driver of change. But this election season, try to focus on what unites us, not what divides us.
The post This Election Season, Be on the Lookout for AI-generated Fake News appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Some scams make a telltale sound—rinnng, rinnng! Yup, the dreaded robocall. But you can beat them at their game.
Maybe it’s a call about renewing an extended warranty on your car (one you don’t have). Or maybe the robocaller offers up a debt relief service with a shockingly low rate. Calls like these can get annoying real quick. And they can also be scams.
In the U.S., unwanted calls rank as the top consumer complaint reported to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Partly because scammers have made good use of spoofing technologies that serve up phony caller ID numbers. As a result, that innocent-looking phone number might not be innocent at all.
Whether the voice on the other end of the smartphone is recorded or an actual person, the intent behind the call is likely the same—to scam you out of your personal information, money, or both. Callers such as these might impersonate banks, government agencies, insurance companies, along with any number of other organizations. Anything that gives them an excuse to demand payment, financial information, or ID numbers.
And some of those callers can sound rather convincing. Others, well, they’ll just get downright aggressive or threatening. One of the most effective tools these scam calls use is a sense of urgency and fear, telling you that there’s a problem right now and they need your information immediately to resolve whatever bogus issue they’ve come up with. That right there is a sign you should take pause and determine what’s really happening before responding or taking any action.
Whatever form these unwanted calls take, there are things you can do to protect yourself and even keep you from getting them in the first place. These tips will get you started:
This straightforward piece of advice can actually get a little tricky. We mentioned spoofing, and certain forms of it can get rather exact. Sophisticated spoofing can make a call appear to come from someone you know. Yet more run-of-the-mill spoofing will often use a form of “neighbor spoofing.” The scammers will use a local area code or the same prefix of your phone number to make it seem more familiar. In short, you might answer one of these calls by mistake. If you do answer, never say “yes.” Similarly sophisticated scammers will record a victim’s voice for use in other scams. That can include trying to hack into credit card accounts by using the company’s phone tree. Recordings of slightly longer lengths can also lead to voice cloning using AI-driven tools. In fact, three seconds of audio is all it takes in some cases to clone a voice with up to 70% accuracy.
Apple and Android phones have features you can enable to silence calls from unknown numbers. Apple explains call silencing here, and Android users can silence spam calls as well. Note that these settings might silence calls you otherwise might want to take. Think about when your doctor’s office calls or the shop rings you with word that your car is ready. Cell phone carriers offer blocking and filtering services as well. Carriers often offer this as a basic service by default. Yet if you’re unsure if you’re covered, contact your carrier.
So, let’s say you let an unknown call go through to voicemail. The call sounds like it’s from a bank or business with news of an urgent matter. If you feel the need to confirm, get a legitimate customer service number from a statement, bill, or website of the bank or business in question so you can verify the situation for yourself. Calling back the number captured by your phone or left in a voicemail can play right into the hands of a scammer.
As you can see, scammers love to play the role of an imposter and will tell you there’s something wrong with your taxes, your account, or your bank statement. Some of them can be quite convincing, so if you find yourself in a conversation where you don’t feel comfortable with what’s being said or how it’s being said, hang up and follow up the bank or business as called out above. In all, look out for pressure or scare tactics and keep your info to yourself.
Several nations provide such a service, effectively a list that legitimate businesses and telemarketers will reference before making their calls. While this might not prevent scammers from ringing you up, it can cut down on unsolicited calls in general. For example, the U.S., Canada, and the UK each offer do not call registries.
Scammers and spammers got your number somehow. Good chance they got it from a data broker site. Data brokers collect and sell personal information of thousands and even millions of individuals. They gather them from public sources, public records, and from third parties as well—like data gathered from smartphone apps and shopping habits from supermarket club cards. And for certain, phone numbers are often in that mix. Our Personal Data Cleanup can help. It scans some of the riskiest data broker sites and shows you which ones are selling your personal info. From there, it guides you through the removal process and can even manage the removal for you in select plans.
Hop onto the app stores out there and you’ll find several call blocking apps, for free or at low cost. While these apps can indeed block spam calls, they might have privacy issues. Which is ironic when you’re basically trying to protect your privacy with these apps in the first place.
These apps might collect information, such as your contact list, usage data, and other information about your phone. As with any app, the key resides in the user agreement. It should tell you what information the app might collect and why. It should also tell you if this information is shared with or sold to third parties.
What’s at risk? Should the app developers get hit with a data breach, that information could end up in the wild. In cases where information is sold to analytics companies, the information might end up with online data brokers.
Pay particularly close attention to free apps. How are they making their money? There’s a fine chance that data collection and sale might generate their profits. At some expense to your privacy.
Given that your privacy is at stake, proceed with caution if you consider this route.
A quieter phone is a happy phone, at least when it comes to annoying robocalls.
While blocking 100% of them remains an elusive goal, you can reduce them greatly with the steps mentioned here. Thankfully, businesses, legislators, and regulatory agencies have taken steps to make it tougher for scammers to make their calls. A combination of technology and stiffer penalties has seen to that. Taken all together, these things work in your favor and can help you beat robocallers at their game.
The post How to Beat Robocallers at Their Game appeared first on McAfee Blog.
What does a hacker want with your social media account? Plenty.
Hackers hijack social media accounts for several reasons. They’ll dupe the victim’s friends and followers with scams. They’ll flood feeds with misinformation. And they’ll steal all kinds of personal information—not to mention photos and chats in DMs. In all, a stolen social media account could lead to fraud, blackmail, and other crimes.
Yet you have a strong line of defense that can prevent it from happening to you: multi-factor authentication (MFA).
MFA goes by other names, such as two-factor authentication and two-step verification. Yet they all boost your account security in much the same way. They add an extra step or steps to the login process. Extra evidence to prove that you are, in fact, you. It’s in addition to the usual username/password combination, thus the “multi-factor” in multi-factor authentication.
Examples of MFA include:
With MFA, a hacker needs more than just your username and password to weasel their way into your account. They need that extra piece of evidence required by the login process, which is something only you should have.
This stands as a good reminder that you should never give out the information you use in your security questions—and to never share your one-time security codes with anyone. In fact, scammers cobble up all kinds of phishing scams to steal that information.
Major social media platforms offer MFA, although they might call it by other names. As you’ll see, several platforms call it “two-factor authentication.”
Given the way that interfaces and menus can vary and get updated over time, your best bet for setting up MFA on your social media accounts is to go right to the source. Social media platforms provide the latest step-by-step instructions in their help pages. A simple search for “multi-factor authentication” and the name of your social media platform should readily turn up results.
For quick reference, you can find the appropriate help pages for some of the most popular platforms here:
Another important reminder is to check the URL of the site you’re on to ensure it’s legitimate. Scammers set up all kinds of phony login and account pages to steal your info. Phishing scams like those are a topic all on their own. A great way you can learn to spot them is by giving our Phishing Scam Protection Guide a quick read. It’s part of our McAfee Safety Series, which covers a broad range of topics, from romance scams and digital privacy to online credit protection and ransomware.
In many ways, your social media account is an extension of yourself. It reflects your friendships, interests, likes, and conversations. Only you should have access to that. Putting MFA in place can help keep it that way.
More broadly, enabling MFA across every account that offers it is a smart security move as well. It places a major barrier in the way of would-be hackers who, somehow, in some way, have ended up with your username and password.
On the topic, ensure your social media accounts have strong, unique passwords in place. The one-two punch of strong, unique passwords and MFA will make hacking your account tougher still. Wondering what a strong, unique password looks like? Here’s a hint: a password with eight characters is less secure than you might think. With a quick read, you can create strong, unique passwords that are tough to crack.
Lastly, consider using comprehensive online protection software if you aren’t already. In addition to securing your devices from hacks and attacks, it can help protect your privacy and identity across your travels online—both on social media and off.
The post How to Protect Your Social Media Passwords from Hacks and Attacks appeared first on McAfee Blog.
The first of August marks the celebration of World Wide Web Day – a day dedicated to the global network that powers our online activity, creating a wealth of knowledge at our fingertips. The World Wide Web (WWW) has revolutionized the way we communicate, learn, and explore, becoming an integral part of our daily lives. With the importance of the internet only growing stronger, it’s only fitting to honor the World Wide Web with a special day of commemoration. But with the internet comes risks, and it’s important to make sure your family is protected from potential threats. Here are some tips and tricks to keep your family safe online.
Phishing scams are a type of fraud that involves sending emails or other messages that appear to be from a legitimate source. The goal of these messages is to trick users into providing personal information such as passwords, credit card numbers, and bank account details. To protect against phishing scams, teach your family to:
Identity theft is a crime in which someone uses another person’s personal information to commit fraud or other crimes. Teach your family to protect against identity theft by:
A virtual private network (VPN) is a type of technology that provides a secure connection to a private network over the internet. A VPN can help protect your family’s online activity by encrypting the data and hiding your online activity from others. To ensure your family’s online safety, teach them to:
Strong passwords are an important part of online security. Teach your family to create strong passwords and to never share them with anyone. Additionally, use a password manager to store and manage your family’s passwords. A password manager can help by:
To conclude, celebrations on World Wide Web Day allow us to give thanks for the incredible world of knowledge, commerce, entertainment, communication, and innovation that the internet has provided, and continues to provide for us all. By following these tips and tricks, your family can stay safe online and enjoy all the benefits of the internet. Happy World Wide Web Day!
The WWW has enabled us to achieve so many things that were simply impossible before. From the ability to catch up with friends and family across the globe to finding information about virtually any topic, the power of the internet is remarkable. In fact, the World Wide Web has significantly enriched our lives in countless ways.
Did you know that the first-ever image posted on the World Wide Web was a photo of Les Horribles Cernettes, a parody pop band founded by employees at CERN? It was uploaded in 1992 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who used a NeXT computer as the first-ever web server. And although we use the term “surfing the net” regularly, do you know who actually coined the phrase? A librarian by the name of Jean Armour Polly wrote an article titled “Surfing the Internet” in the Wilson Library Bulletin at the University of Minnesota in 1992.
There are many other remarkable facts about the World Wide Web, including its growth over the years. By the start of the year 1993, there were only 50 servers worldwide, but that number had grown to over 500 by October of the same year. Advances in data compression enabled media streaming to happen over the web, which was previously impractical due to high bandwidth requirements for uncompressed media. Although the number of websites online was still small in comparison to today’s figure, notable sites such as Yahoo! Directory and Yahoo! Search were launched in 1994 and 1995, respectively, marking the beginning of web commerce.
On World Wide Web Day, you can celebrate by exploring the capabilities of the internet and discovering how it has changed over the years. Many organizations worldwide host events featuring conversations and interviews with technology leaders, entrepreneurs, and creators. There are also different talks, activities, and discussions online that you can join, allowing you to delve deeper into the history and potential of the World Wide Web. You could even consider running an event at your local business to market the day and celebrate what WWW has done for us all!
The post World Wide Web Day: How to Protect Your Family Online appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Are you skeptical about mainstream artificial intelligence? Or are you all in on AI and use it all day, every day?
The emergence of AI in daily life is streamlining workdays, homework assignments, and for some, personal correspondences. To live in a time where we can access this amazing technology from the smartphones in our pockets is a privilege; however, overusing AI or using it irresponsibly could cause a chain reaction that not only affects you but your close circle and society beyond.
Here are four tips to help you navigate and use AI responsibly.
Artificial intelligence certainly earns the “intelligence” part of its name, but that doesn’t mean it never makes mistakes. Make sure to proofread or review everything AI creates, be it written, visual, or audio content.
For instance, if you’re seeking a realistic image or video, AI often adds extra fingers and distorts faces. Some of its creations can be downright nightmarish! Also, there’s a phenomenon known as an AI hallucination. This occurs when the AI doesn’t admit that it doesn’t know the answer to your question. Instead, it makes up information that is untrue and even fabricates fake sources to back up its claims.
One AI hallucination landed a lawyer in big trouble in New York. The lawyer used ChatGPT to write a brief, but he didn’t double check the AI’s work. It turns out the majority of the brief was incorrect.1
Whether you’re a blogger with thousands of readers or you ask AI to write a little blurb to share amongst your friends or coworkers, it is imperative to edit everything that an AI tool generates. Not doing so could start a rumor based on a completely false claim.
If you use AI to do more than gather a few rough ideas, you should cite the tool you used as a source. Passing off an AI’s work as your own could be considered cheating in the eyes of teachers, bosses, or critics.
There’s a lot of debate about whether AI has a place in the art world. One artist entered an image to a photography contest that he secretly created with AI. When his submission won the contest, the photographer revealed AI’s role in the image and gave up his prize. The photographer intentionally kept AI out of the conversation to prove a point, but imagine if he kept the image’s origin to himself.2 Would that be fair? When other photographers had to wait for the perfect angle of sunlight or catch a fleeting moment in time, should an AI-generated image with manufactured lighting and static subjects be judged the same way?
Even if you don’t personally use AI, you’re still likely to encounter it daily, whether you realize it or not. AI-generated content is popular on social media, like the deepfake video game battles between politicians.3 (A deepfake is a manipulation of a photo, video, or audio clip that depicts something that never happened.) The absurdity of this video series is likely to tip off the viewer to its playful intent, though it’s best practice to add a disclaimer to any deepfake.
Some deepfake have a malicious intent on top of looking and sounding very realistic. Especially around election time, fake news reports are likely to swirl and discredit the candidates. A great rule of thumb is: If it seems too fantastical to be true, it likely isn’t. Sometimes all it takes is five minutes to guarantee the authenticity of a social media post, photo, video, or news report. Think critically about the authenticity of the report before sharing. Fake news reports spread quickly, and many are incendiary in nature.
According to “McAfee’s Modern Love Research Report,” 26% of respondents said they would use AI to write a love note; however, 49% of people said that they’d feel hurt if their partner tasked a machine with writing a love note instead of writing one with their own human heart and soul.
Today’s AI is not sentient. That means that even if the final output moved you to tears or to laugh out loud, the AI itself doesn’t truly understand the emotions behind what it creates. It’s simply using patterns to craft a reply to your prompt. Hiding or funneling your true feelings into a computer program could result in a shaky and secretive relationship.
Plus, if everyone relied upon AI content generation tools like ChatGPT, Bard, and Copy.ai, then how can we trust any genuine display of emotion? What would the future of novels, poetry, and even Hollywood look like?
Responsible AI is a term that governs the responsibilities programmers have to society to ensure they populate AI systems with bias-free and accurate data. OpenAI (the organization behind ChatGPT and DALL-E) vows to act in “the best interests of humanity.”4 From there, the everyday people who interact with AI must similarly act in the best interests of themselves and those around them to avoid unleashing the dangers of AI upon society.
The capabilities of AI are vast, and the technology is getting more sophisticated by the day. To ensure that the human voice and creative spirit doesn’t permanently take on a robotic feel, it’s best to use AI in moderation and be open with others about how you use it.
To give you additional peace of mind, McAfee+ can restore your online privacy and identity should you fall into an AI-assisted scam. With identity restoration experts and up to $2 million in identity theft coverage, you can feel better about navigating this new dimension in the online world.
1The New York Times, “Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT”
2ARTnews, “Artist Wins Photography Contest After Submitting AI-Generated Image, Then Forfeits Prize”
3Business Insider, “AI-generated audio of Joe Biden and Donald Trump trashtalking while gaming is taking over TikTok”
4OpenAI, “OpenAI Charter”
The post Four Ways To Use AI Responsibly appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Turns out, scammers really love Barbie.
As Barbie makes her debut on the big screen, scammers are aiming to cash in on the summer blockbuster. A rash of scams have cropped up online, including bogus downloads of the film that install malware, Barbie-related viruses, and fake videos that point people to free tickets—but lead to links that steal personal info with spyware instead. Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for opportunities to make phishing and other scams more attractive and believable,” said Steve Grobman, CTO of McAfee, “They often leverage popular and well-publicized events such as movie premieres, concerts, or sporting events to trick users into clicking on malicious links.
Fans lining up to see “Barbie” can steer clear of these attacks if they know what to look for. Here are a few examples of what our researchers have turned up.
In India, we’ve seen several examples of malicious campaigns that attempt to trick victims into downloading the “Barbie” movie in different languages:
Screenshot of malicious campaign aimed at Hindi-speaking users
By clicking the link, it prompts victims to download a .zip file, which is packed with malware.
In the last 3 weeks, we’ve seen 100 new instances of malware that have Barbie-related filenames. Once again, this shows how attackers have latched onto the movie’s hype, hoping the people will click the malicious files because the Barbie name is trending.
The types of files varied but included typical types such as .html and .exe. By and large, attackers focused on the U.S., yet other countries have found themselves targeted as well. Below, you can see the country-by-country stats in where these instances of Barbie malware have cropped up:
Malware distribution by country, as of July 20, 2023
The videos will direct potential victims to a Discord server or a website. There, attackers prompt visitors to download a large size .exe file. As before, the file is loaded with malware, such as a variety known as “Redline Stealer” that siphons personal info, login information, and more from devices.
Example of a video pitching bogus Barbie tickets on YouTube
Sharing personal and financial information with these scam sites leads to identity theft and fraud. Scammers might commit these follow-on crimes themselves, and they might post the stolen information for resale on dark web marketplaces as well—all of which puts movie fans at risk.
Even while the Barbie and Oppenheimer films churn up hot, new hype, the online scams linked to them are old hat. Historically, big media events of any kind usher in a glut of online scams. We can point to scam sites linked to the Super Bowl in the U.S., cryptocurrency scams that capitalize on hit shows like Squid Games, and the merchandise and streaming scams that pop up during FIFA’s Men’s and Women’s World Cup.
Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for opportunities to make phishing and other scams more attractive and believable,” Said Steve Grobman, CTO of McAfee, “They often leverage popular and well-publicized events such as movie premieres, concerts or sporting events to trick users into clicking on malicious links.
With that, it’s good news for movie fans. You can avoid these “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” scams by looking out for several telltale signs and by putting a few simple security measures in place.
The post Scammers Love Barbie: Fake Videos Promote Bogus Ticket Offers That Steal Personal Info appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Artificial intelligence used to be reserved for the population’s most brilliant scientists and isolated in the world’s top laboratories. Now, AI is available to anyone with an internet connection. Tools like ChatGPT, Voice.ai, DALL-E, and others have brought AI into daily life, but sometimes the terms used to describe their capabilities and inner workings are anything but mainstream.
Here are 10 common terms you’ll likely to hear in the same sentence as your favorite AI tool, on the nightly news, or by the water cooler. Keep this AI dictionary handy to stay informed about this popular (and sometimes controversial) topic.
AI-generated content is any piece of written, audio, or visual media that was created partially or completely by an artificial intelligence-powered tool.
If someone uses AI to create something, it doesn’t automatically mean they cheated or irresponsibly cut corners. AI is often a great place to start when creating outlines, compiling thought-starters, or seeking a new way of looking at a problem.
When your question stumps an AI, it doesn’t always admit that it doesn’t know the answer. So, instead of not giving an answer, it’ll make one up that it thinks you want to hear. This made-up answer is known as an AI hallucination.
One real-world case of a costly AI hallucination occurred in New York where a lawyer used ChatGPT to write a brief. The brief seemed complete and cited its sources, but it turns out that none of the sources existed.1 It was all a figment of the AI’s “imagination.”
To understand the term black box, imagine the AI as a system of cogs, pulleys, and conveyer belts housed within a box. In a see-through box, you can see how the input is transformed into the final product; however, some AI are referred to as a black box. That means you don’t know how the AI arrived at its conclusions. The AI completely hides its reasoning process. A black box can be a problem if you’d like to doublecheck the AI’s work.
Deepfake is the manipulation of a photo, video, or audio clip to portray events that never happened. Often used for humorous social media skits and viral posts, unsavory characters are also leveraging deepfake to spread fake news reports or scam people.
For example, people are inserting politicians into unflattering poses and photo backgrounds. Sometimes the deepfake is intended to get a laugh, but other times the deepfake creator intends to spark rumors that could lead to dissent or tarnish the reputation of the photo subject. One tip to spot a deepfake image is to look at the hands and faces of people in the background. Deepfakes often add or subtract fingers or distort facial expressions.
AI-assisted audio impersonations – which are considered deepfakes – are also rising in believability. According to McAfee’s “Beware the Artificial Imposter” report, 25% of respondents globally said that a voice scam happened either to themselves or to someone they know. Seventy-seven percent of people who were targeted by a voice scam lost money as a result.
The closer an AI’s thinking process is to the human brain, the more accurate the AI is likely to be. Deep learning involves training an AI to reason and recall information like a human, meaning that the machine can identify patterns and make predictions.
Explainable AI – or white box – is the opposite of black box AI. An explainable AI model always shows its work and how it arrived at its conclusion. Explainable AI can boost your confidence in the final output because you can doublecheck what went into the answer.
Generative AI is the type of artificial intelligence that powers many of today’s mainstream AI tools, like ChatGPT, Bard, and Craiyon. Like a sponge, generative AI soaks up huge amounts of data and recalls it to inform every answer it creates.
Machine learning is integral to AI, because it lets the AI learn and continually improve. Without explicit instructions to do so, machine learning within AI allows the AI to get smarter the more it’s used.
People must not only use AI responsibly, but the people designing and programming AI must do so responsibly, too. Technologists must ensure that the data the AI depends on is accurate and free from bias. This diligence is necessary to confirm that the AI’s output is correct and without prejudice.
Sentient is an adjective that means someone or some thing is aware of feelings, sensations, and emotions. In futuristic movies depicting AI, the characters’ world goes off the rails when the robots become sentient, or when they “feel” human-like emotions. While it makes for great Hollywood drama, today’s AI is not sentient. It doesn’t empathize or understand the true meanings of happiness, excitement, sadness, or fear.
So, even if an AI composed a short story that is so beautiful it made you cry, the AI doesn’t know that what it created was touching. It was just fulfilling a prompt and used a pattern to determine which word to choose next.
1The New York Times, “Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT”
The post 10 Artificial Intelligence Buzzwords You Should Know appeared first on McAfee Blog.
When it comes to protecting your privacy, take a close look at your social media use—because sharing can quickly turn into oversharing.
The term “oversharing” carries several different definitions. Yet in our case here, oversharing means saying more than one should to more people than they should. Consider the audience you have across your social media profiles. Perhaps you have dozens, if not hundreds of friends and followers. All with various degrees of closeness and familiarity. Who among them can you absolutely trust with the information you share?
And you might be sharing more than you think. Posts have a way of saying more than one thing, like:
“This is the pool at the rental home I’m staying at this week. Amazing!” Which also tells everyone, “My home is empty for the next few days.”
“I can’t start my workday without a visit to my favorite coffeeshop.” Which also says, “If you ever want to track me down in person, you can find me at this location practically any weekday morning.”
One can quickly point to other examples of oversharing. Unintentional oversharing at that.
A first-day-of-school picture can tell practical strangers which elementary school your children attend, say if the picture includes the school’s reader board in it. A snapshot of you joking around with a co-worker might reveal a glimpse of company information. Maybe because of what’s written on the whiteboard behind the two of you. And in one extreme example, there’s the case an assault on a pop star. Her attacker tracked her down through her selfie, determining her location through the reflection in her eyes.
The list goes on.
That’s not to say “don’t post.” More accurately, it’s “consider what you’re posting and who gets to see it.” You have control over what you post, and to some degree, who gets to see those posts. That combination is key to your privacy—and the privacy of others too.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and others give you the option of making your profile and posts visible to friends only. Choosing this setting keeps the broader internet from seeing what you’re doing, saying, and posting—not to mention your relationships and likes. Taking a “friends only” approach to your social media profiles can help protect your privacy, because that gives a possible scammer or stalker much less material to work with. Yet further, some platforms allow you to create sub-groups of friends and followers. With a quick review of your network, you can create a sub-group of your most trusted friends and restrict your posts to them as needed.
Be critical of the invitations you receive. Out-and-out strangers might be more than just a stranger. They might be a fake account designed to gather information on users for purposes of fraud. There are plenty of fake accounts too. In fact, in Q1 of 2023 alone, Facebook took action on 426 million fake accounts. Reject such requests.
Think about posting those vacation pictures after you get back so people don’t know you’re away when you’re away. Also consider if your post pinpoints where you are or where you go regularly. Do you want people in your broader network to know that? Closely review the pics you take and see if there’s any revealing information in the background. If so, you can crop it out (think notes on a whiteboard, reflections in a window, or revealing location info). Further, ask anyone you want to include in their post for their permission. In all, consider their privacy too.
While we’re on the topic, you can take a few other steps that can make you more private online. In addition to your social media usage, other steps can help keep more of your private and personal information with you—where it belongs:
Granted, “social” is arguably the opposite of “private.” Using social media involves sharing, by its very definition. Yet any oversharing can lead to privacy issues.
Maybe you want close friends to know what’s going on, but what about that so-so acquaintance deep in your friends list? How well do you really know them? And to what extent do you want them to know exacting details about where you are, where your kids go to school, and so on? Those are questions you ultimately must answer, and ultimately have some control over depending on what you share on social media.
Also important to consider is this: if you post anything on the internet, consider it front page news. Even with social media privacy settings in place, there’s no guarantee that someone won’t copy your posts or pics and pass them along to others.
The flipside to the topic of social media and privacy is the platform you’re using. It’s no secret that social media companies gather hosts of personal information about their users in exchange for free use of their platforms. Certainly, that’s a topic unto itself. We cover what social media companies know about you in this article here—along with a few steps that can help you limit what they know as well.
When it comes to your privacy and social media, it depends largely on how you use it. How you use various privacy and audience settings offers one way to manage it. The other is you and the information you put out there for others to see.
The post How to Help Protect Your Online Privacy appeared first on McAfee Blog.
It’s all anyone can talk about. In classrooms, boardrooms, on the nightly news, and around the dinner table, artificial intelligence (AI) is dominating conversations. With the passion everyone is debating, celebrating, and villainizing AI, you’d think it was a completely new technology; however, AI has been around in various forms for decades. Only now is it accessible to everyday people like you and me.
The most famous of these mainstream AI tools are ChatGPT, Voice.ai, DALL-E, and Bard, among others. The specific technology that links these tools is called generative artificial intelligence. Sometimes shortened to gen AI, you’re likely to have heard this term in the same sentence as deepfake, AI art, and ChatGPT. But how does the technology work?
Here’s the simple explanation of how generative AI powers many of today’s famous (or infamous) AI tools.
Generative AI is the specific type of artificial intelligence that powers many of the AI tools available today in the pockets of the public. The “G” in ChatGPT stands for generative. Today’s Gen AI’s evolved from the use of chatbots in the 1960s. 1 Now, as AI and related technologies like deep learning and machine learning have evolved, generative AI can answer prompts and create text, art, videos, and even simulate convincing human voices.
Think of generative AI as a sponge that desperately wants to delight the users who ask it questions.
First, a gen AI model begins with a massive information deposit. Gen AI can soak up huge amounts of data. For instance, ChatGPT is trained on 300 billion words and hundreds of megabytes’ worth of facts through the year 2021.2 The AI will remember every piece of information that is fed into it. Additionally, it will use those nuggets of knowledge to inform any answer it spits out.
From there, a generative adversarial network (GAN) algorithm constantly competes with itself within the gen AI model. This means that the AI will try to outdo itself to produce an answer it believes is the most accurate. The more information and queries it answers, the “smarter” the AI becomes.
Google’s content generation tool, Bard is a great way to illustrate generative AI in action. Bard is based on gen AI and large language models. It’s trained in all types of literature and when asked to write a short story, it does so by finding language patterns and composing by choosing words that most often follow the one preceding it. In a 60 Minutes segment, Bard composed an eloquent short story that nearly brought the presenter to tears, but its composition was an exercise in patterns, not a display of understanding human emotions.3 So, while the technology is certainly smart, it’s not exactly creative.
The major debates surrounding generative AI usually deal with how to use gen AI-powered tools for good. For instance, ChatGPT can be an excellent outlining partner if you’re writing an essay or completing a task at work; however, it’s irresponsible and is considered cheating if a student or an employee submits ChatGPT-written content word for word as their own work. If you do decide to use ChatGPT, it’s best to be transparent that it helped you with your assignment. Cite it as a source and make sure to double check your work!
One lawyer got in serious trouble when he trusted ChatGPT to write an entire brief and then didn’t take the time to edit its output. It turns out that much of the content was incorrect and cited sources that didn’t exist.4 This is a phenomenon known as an AI hallucination, meaning the program fabricated a response instead of admitting that it didn’t know the answer to the prompt.
Deepfake and voice simulation technology supported by generative AI are other applications that people must use responsibly and with transparency. Deepfake and AI voices are gaining popularity in viral videos and on social media. Posters use the technology in funny skits poking fun at celebrities, politicians, and other public figures. Though, to avoid confusing the public and possibly spurring fake news reports, these comedians have a responsibility to add a disclaimer that the real person was not involved in the skit. Fake news reports can spread with the speed and ferocity of wildfire.
The widespread use of generative AI doesn’t necessarily mean the internet is a less authentic or a riskier place. It just means that people must use sound judgement and hone their radar for identifying malicious AI-generated content. Generative AI is an incredible technology. When used responsibly, it can add great color, humor, or a different perspective to written, visual, and audio content.
1. TechTarget, “What is generative AI? Everything you need to know”
2. BBC Science Focus, “ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about OpenAI’s GPT-4 tool”
3. 60 Minutes, “Artificial Intelligence Revolution”
4. The New York Times, “Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT”
The post What Is Generative AI and How Does It Work? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Apple recently issued an urgent iPhone update, iOS version 16.5.1. If you haven’t updated yet, you should.
Owners of iPads should update to iOS 16.5.1 as well.
The update contains two critical security fixes that prevent bad actors from executing malicious code on iPhones and iPads.
One of the fixes addresses an issue with the kernel of the device—the core code that runs iPhones and iPads. Apple reported that the issue could allow an app to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges. With those privileges, a malicious appp could attack the device at the root level. The other addresses an issue with the operating system’s WebKit, which, if uncorrected, could process maliciously crafted web content.
You can update to iOS 16.5.1 now by going to Settings > General > Software Update.
The update is available for:
Keeping your operating system current on your iPhone, and all your devices, provides a strong foundation for protection. In addition to adding new features, updates often include fixes focused on security. In this case, a couple of critical security fixes.
You have a few options for keeping on top of security updates:
Aside from using online protection software, keeping your device current offers a strong defense from hacks and attacks. Updates to your operating system and apps will fix security issues and loopholes—the very sorts of things that bad actors are quick to exploit.
You can keep current quite easily, thanks to automatic updates. Yet keeping an eye on the news remains important as well. If you catch word of an important update, grab it right away. No need to wait.
The post iPhone Update — Apply It Now If You Haven’t Already appeared first on McAfee Blog.
While we’re enjoying all the good things in our digital lives—our eBooks, movies, email accounts, social media profiles, eBay stores, photos, online games, and more—there’ll come a time we should ask ourselves, What happens to all of this good stuff when I pass away?
Like anything else we own, those things can be passed along through our estates too. Some of it, anyway.
With the explosion of digital media, commerce, and even digital currency too, there’s a very good chance you have thousands of dollars of digital assets in your possession. For example, we can look at research we conducted in 2011 which found that people placed an average value of $37,438 on the digital assets they owned at the time. Now, with the growth of streaming services, digital currency, cloud storage, and more in the past decade, that figure feels conservative.
Enter the notion of a digital legacy, the way you can catalog your digital assets and prepare to pass them through your estate.
Like so many aspects of digital life nowadays, estate planning law has started to catch up to the new realities of life online. However, attorneys, executors, and heirs still face some challenges when dealing with an estate and its digital assets. In the U.S., new laws are rolling out that address how digital assets are treated when the owner passes away. For example, they give fiduciaries (like an estate executor, trustee, or an agent under a power of attorney) the right to manage a person’s digital assets if they already have the right to manage a person’s tangible assets. Such laws continue to evolve, and they can vary from state to state here in the U.S.
With that in mind, nothing offered in this article is legal advice, nor should it be construed as such. For legal advice, you can and should turn to your estate attorney for counsel on the best approach for you and the laws in your area. However, consider this article as a sort of checklist that can help you with your estate planning.
Whether your assets have real or sentimental value, you can prepare your estate for the ones you care about.
The best answer you can get to this question will come from your legal counsel. However, for purposes of discussion, a digital asset is any text or media in digital form that has value and offers the bearer with the right to use it.
To frame it up in everyday terms, let’s look at some real-world examples of digital assets that quickly come to mind. They include, but aren’t limited to:
However, digital assets can readily expand to further include:
And as far as your estate is concerned, you can also consider:
That’s quite the list, and it’s not entirely comprehensive, either.
The process of lining up your digital assets begins just like any other aspect of estate planning. List all the digital assets and accounts you own.
From there, you can see what you have and what you’d like to distribute—and what you can distribute. In fact, when it comes to digital, there are some things you can’t pass along. Let’s take a closer look.
Generally speaking, digital assets that you own can be passed along. “Own” is the operative word here. Many digital things we have are in fact licensed to us, which aren’t transferrable. More on that next, yet examples of things you can likely transfer include:
Check with your legal counsel to ensure you’re following the letter of the law in your region. Also look into any licensing agreements you might have for items like internet domain names and airline miles that you have. Sometimes you can transfer these. In other cases, you can’t. Your legal counsel can help determine if they are in fact transferrable.
Transfer is an important topic. As mentioned above, some accounts you hold are licensed to you and you alone. So, they will not transfer. Two of the biggest examples are social media and email accounts. This can have serious repercussions if you don’t leave specific instructions as to how those accounts should be handled after your passing.
For example, do you want your social media profiles to remain online as a memorial or do you want them simply shut down? Note that different social media platforms have different policies for handling the accounts of users who have passed away. For example, Facebook allows for creating memorialized accounts that allow friends and families to continue sharing memories. Policies vary, so check with your social media platforms of choice for specifics.
Likewise, will your executor need access to your email account to handle the estate’s affairs? And what about access to online accounts for paying bills and then ultimately closing those accounts? In all, these are points of discussion to have with an experienced estate attorney who knows the law in your region.
Other things to be aware of are that subscriptions to streaming accounts are likely non-transferrable as well. Often, eBooks and digital publications you own are only licensed to you as the sole owner and can’t be transferred. Check the agreements linked with items like these and have a talk with your attorney about them to determine what can and can’t be done with them.
Another aspect of your digital legacy is your voice. If you’re a blogger or a participant in an online community, you might wish for a fiduciary or family member to leave a farewell post. Additionally, in the case of a blog, you might want to set up some means for your work to stay online or get archived in some manner. Again, you can work with your attorney to leave specific instructions.
You can’t pass assets along if an executor can’t get access to them. A real-life example shows why digital executorship is so vital. Consider the story of the woman who lost family photos after her husband passed away. He kept them in an online storage account to which she had no access. And sadly, the company wouldn’t grant her access after his passing.
This is often the case with many online accounts and services. Legally speaking, the deceased might own the storage account and the media kept within it, yet the cloud storage company owns the servers on which that media is stored. Access by someone other than the deceased might constitute a breach of their privacy policy or user agreements.
One way you can avoid heartbreak like this is to discuss giving your executor access to your accounts. You can consider creating a list of accounts, usernames, and passwords in a sealed letter with instructions that outline your wishes. A sealed letter is important: a will is a public record after you pass away. A separate, sealed letter is not, which makes it a safe place to pass along account information. Again, you can discuss an option such as this with your attorney.
One thing you can do today that can protect your digital assets for the long haul is to use comprehensive security protection. Far more than just antivirus, comprehensive security can store precious and important files securely with encryption, arm all your online accounts with strong passwords, and protect your identity as well. Features like these will help you see to it that your digital legacy is secure.
When the idea of a digital estate plan comes up, a light might go on in your head. “Of course, that makes a lot of sense.” It’s easy to take our digital possessions somewhat for granted, perhaps in a way that we don’t with our physical possessions. Yet as you can see, there’s a good chance that you indeed have a digital legacy to pass along. By getting organized now, you can see to it that your wishes are followed. This checklist can help you get started.
The post How To Protect Your Digital Estate appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Do you remember the days of printing out directions from your desktop? Or the times when passengers were navigation co-pilots armed with a 10-pound book of maps? You can thank location services on your smartphone for today’s hassle-free and paperless way of getting around town and exploring exciting new places.
However, location services can prove a hassle to your online privacy when you enable location sharing. Location sharing is a feature on many connected devices – smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, smart fitness watches – that pinpoints your exact location and then distributes your coordinates to online advertisers, your social media following, or strangers.
While there are certain scenarios where sharing your location is a safety measure, in most cases, it’s an online safety hazard. Here’s what you should know about location sharing and the effects it has on your privacy.
Location sharing is most beneficial when you’re unsure about new surroundings and want to let your loved ones know that you’re ok. For example, if you’re traveling by yourself, it may be a good idea to share the location of your smartphone with an emergency contact. That way, if circumstances cause you to deviate from your itinerary, your designated loved one can reach out and ensure your personal safety.
The key to sharing your location safely is to only allow your most trusted loved one to track the whereabouts of you and your connected device. Once you’re back on known territory, you may want to consider turning off all location services, since it presents a few security and privacy risks.
In just about every other case, you should definitely think twice about enabling location sharing on your smartphone. Here are three risks it poses to your online privacy and possibly your real-life personal safety:
Does it sometimes seem like your phone, tablet, or laptop is listening to your conversations? Are the ads you get in your social media feeds or during ad breaks in your gaming apps a little too accurate? When ad tracking is enabled on your phone, it allows online advertisers to collect your personal data that you add to your various online accounts to better predict what ads you might like. Personal details may include your full name, birthday, address, income, and, thanks to location tracking, your hometown and regular neighborhood haunts.
If advertisers kept these details to themselves, it may just seem like a creepy invasion of privacy; however, data brokerage sites may sell your personally identifiable information (PII) to anyone, including cybercriminals. The average person has their PII for sale on more than 30 sites and 98% of people never gave their permission to have their information sold online. Yet, data brokerage sites are legal.
One way to keep your data out of the hands of advertisers and cybercriminals is to limit the amount of data you share online and to regularly erase your data from brokerage sites. First, turn off location services and disable ad tracking on all your apps. Then, consider signing up for McAfee Personal Data Cleanup, which scans, removes, and monitors data brokerage sites for your personal details, thus better preserving your online privacy.
Location sharing may present a threat to your personal safety. Stalkers could be someone you know or a stranger. Fitness watches that connect to apps that share your outdoor exercising routes could be especially risky, since over time you’re likely to reveal patterns of the times and locations where one could expect to run into you.
Additionally, stalkers may find you through your geotagged social media posts. Geotagging is a social media feature that adds the location to your posts. Live updates, like live tweeting or real-time Instagram stories, can pinpoint your location accurately and thus alert someone on where to find you.
Social engineering is an online scheme where cybercriminals learn all there is about you from your social media accounts and then use that information to impersonate you or to tailor a scam to your interests. Geotagged photos and posts can tell a scammer a lot about you: your hometown, your school or workplace, your favorite café, etc.
With these details, a social engineer could fabricate a fundraiser for your town, for example. Social engineers are notorious for evoking strong emotions in their pleas for funds, so beware of any direct messages you receive that make you feel very angry or very sad. With the help of ChatGPT, social engineering schemes are likely going to sound more believable than ever before. Slow down and conduct your own research before divulging any personal or payment details to anyone you’ve never met in person.
Overall, it’s best to live online as anonymously as possible, which includes turning off your location services when you feel safe in your surroundings. McAfee+ offers several features to improve your online privacy, such as a VPN, Personal Data Cleanup, and Online Account Cleanup.
The post 3 Reasons to Think Twice About Enabling Location Sharing appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Social engineering. It’s a con game. And a con game by any other name stings just as badly.
Like any form of con, social engineering dupes their victims by playing on their emotions. Fear, excitement, and surprise. And they prey on human nature as well. The desire to help others, recognizing authority, and even the dream of hitting it big in the lottery. All of this comes into play in social engineering.
By design, the scammers who employ social engineering do so in an attempt to bilk people out of their personal information, their money, or both. More broadly, they’re designed to give scammers access—to a credit card, bank account, proprietary company information, and even physical access to a building or restricted space in the case of tailgating attacks. In this way, social engineering is an attack technique rather than a specific type of attack.
Several types of attacks employ social engineering:
The list goes on. Yet those are among the top attacks that use social engineering as a means of hoodwinking their victims. It’s a scammer’s secret weapon. Time and time again, we’ve seen just how effective it can be.
So while many bad actors turn to social engineering tricks to do their dirty work, they share several common characteristics. That makes them easy to spot. If you know what you’re looking for.
An overexcited or aggressive tone in an email, text, DM, or any kind of message you receive should put up a big red flag. Scammers use these scare tactics to get you to act without thinking things through first.
Common examples include imposter scams. The scammer will send a text or email that looks like it comes from someone you know. And they’ll say they’re in a jam of some sort, like their car has broken down in the middle of nowhere, or that they have a medical emergency and to go to urgent care. In many of these cases, scammers will quickly ask for money.
Another classic is the tax scam, where a scammer poses as a tax agent or representative. From there, they bully money out of their victims with threats of legal action or even arrest. Dealing with an actual tax issue might be uncomfortable, but a legitimate tax agent won’t threaten you like that.
You’ve won a sweepstakes! (That you never entered.) Get a great deal on this hard-to-find item! (That will never ship after you’ve paid for it.) Scammers will concoct all kinds of stories to separate you from your personal information.
The scammers behind bogus prizes and sweepstakes will ask you for banking information or sometimes even your tax ID number to pay out your winnings. Winnings you’ll never receive, of course. The scammer wants that information to raid your accounts and commit all kinds of identity theft.
Those great deals? The scammers might not ship them at all. They’ll drain your credit or debit card instead and leave you tapping your foot by your mailbox. Sometimes, the scammers might indeed ship you something after all—a knock-off item. One possibly made with child labor.
Scammers will often pose as people you know. That can include friends, family members, co-workers, bosses, vendors or clients at work, and so on. And when they do, something about the message you get will seem a bit strange.
For starters, the message might not sound like it came from them. What they say and how they say it seems off or out of character. It might include links or attachments you didn’t expect to get. Or the message might come to you via a DM sent from a “new” account they set up. In the workplace, you might get a message from your boss instructing you to pay someone a large sum from the company account.
These are all signs that something scammy might be afoot. You’ll want to follow up with these people in person or with a quick phone call just to confirm. Reach them in any way other than by replying to the message you received. Even if it looks like a legitimate account. There’s the chance their account was hacked.
How do scammers know how to reach you in the first place? And how do they seem to know just enough about you to cook up a convincing story? Clever scammers have resources, and they’ll do their homework. You can give them far less to work with by taking the following steps.
Online data brokers hoard all kinds of personal information about individuals. And they’ll sell it to anyone. That includes scammers. Data brokers gather it from multiple sources, such as public records and third parties that have further information like browsing histories and shopping histories (think your supermarket club card). With that information, a scammer can sound quite convincing—like they know you in some way or where your interests lie. You can get this information removed so scammers can’t get their hands on it. Our Personal Data Cleanup scans some of the riskiest data broker sites and shows you which ones are selling your personal info. It also provides guidance on how you can remove your data from those sites and with select products, it can even manage the removal for you.
Needless to say, social media says a lot about you and what you’re into. You already know that because you put a part of yourself out there with each post—not to mention a record of the groups, pages, and things that you follow or like. All this provides yet more grist for a scammer’s mill when it comes time for them to concoct their stories. Setting your accounts to private takes your posts out of the public eye, and the eye of potential scammers too. This can help reduce your risk of getting conned.
Scammers throw all kinds of bogus links at people in the hope they’ll click and wind up on their scammy websites. They’ll also send attachments loaded with malware—a payload that contains ransomware, spyware, or viruses. If you get a message about one of your accounts, a shipment, or anything that involves your personal or financial info, confirm the sender. Did the message come from a legitimate address or account? Or was the address spoofed or the account a fake? For example, some scammers create social media accounts to pose as the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS doesn’t contact people through social media. If you have a concern about a message or account, visit the site in question by typing it in directly instead of clicking on the link in the message. Access your information from there or call their customer service line.
The combination of these two things makes it tough for scammers to crack your accounts. Even if they somehow get hold of your password, they can’t get into your account without the multifactor authentication number (usually sent to your phone in some form). A password manager as part of comprehensive online protection software can help you create and securely store those strong, unique passwords. Also, never give your authentication number to anyone after you receive it. Another common scammer trick is to masquerade as a customer service rep and ask you to send that number to them.
This is the one piece of advice scammers don’t want you to have, let alone follow. They count on you getting caught up in the moment—the emotion of it all. Once again, emotions, urgency, and human nature are all key components in any social engineering con. The moment you stop and think about the message, what it’s asking of you, and the way it’s asking you for it, will often quickly let you know that something is not quite right. Follow up. A quick phone call or face-to-face chat can help you from getting conned.
The post Social Engineering—The Scammer’s Secret Weapon appeared first on McAfee Blog.
The dystopian 2020s, ’30s, and ’40s depicted in novels and movies written and produced decades ago blessedly seem very far off from the timeline of reality. Yes, we have refrigerators that suggest grocery lists, and we have devices in our pockets that control seemingly every function of our homes. But there aren’t giant robots roaming the streets bellowing orders.
Humans are still very much in control of society. To keep it that way, we must use the latest technological advancements for their main intended purpose: To boost convenience in our busy lives.
The future of technology is bright. With the right attitude, security tools, and a reminder every now and then to look up from our devices, humans will be able to enjoy everything the future of technology holds.
A look into the future of technology would be incomplete without touching on the applications and impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on everyday tasks. Platforms like ChatGPT , Voice.ai, and Craiyon have thrilled, shocked, and unnerved the world in equal measures. AI has already transformed work life, home life, and free time of everyday people everywhere.
According to McAfee’s Modern Love Research Report, 26% of people would use AI to aid in composing a love note. Plus, more than two-thirds of those surveyed couldn’t tell the difference between a love note written by AI and a human. AI can be a good tool to generate ideas, but replacing genuine human emotion with the words of a computer program could create a shaky foundation for a relationship.
The Center for AI Safety urges that humans must take an active role in using AI responsibly. Cybercriminals and unsavory online characters are already using it maliciously to gain financially and spread incendiary misinformation. For example, AI-generated voice imposters are scamming concerned family members and friends with heartfelt pleas for financial help with a voice that sounds just like their loved one. Voice scams are turning out to be fruitful for scammers: 77% of people polled who received a cloned voice scam lost money as a result.
Even people who aren’t intending mischief can cause a considerable amount when they use AI to cut corners. One lawyer’s testimony went awry when his research partner, ChatGPT, when rogue and completely made up its justification.1 This phenomenon is known as an AI hallucination. It occurs when ChatGPT or other similar AI content generation tool doesn’t know the answer to your question, so it fabricates sources and asserts you that it’s giving you the truth.
Overreliance on ChatGPT’s output and immediately trusting it as truth can lead to an internet rampant with fake news and false accounts. Keep in mind that using ChatGPT introduces risk in the content creation process. Use it responsibly.
Though it’s powered by AI and could fall under the AI section above, deepfake is exploding and deserves its own spotlight. Deepfake technology is the manipulation of videos to digitally transform one person’s appearance resemble someone else, usually a public figure. Deepfake videos are often accompanied by AI-altered voice tracks. Deepfake challenges the accuracy of the common saying, “Seeing is believing.” Now, it’s more difficult than ever to separate fact from fiction.
Not all deepfake uses are nefarious. Deepfake could become a valuable tool in special effects and editing for the gaming and film industries. Additionally, fugitive sketch artists could leverage deepfake to create ultra-realistic portraits of wanted criminals. If you decide to use deepfake to add some flair to your social media feed or portfolio, make sure to add a disclaimer that you altered reality with the technology.
Currently, it’s estimated that there are more than 15 billion connected devices in the world. A connected device is defined as anything that connects to the internet. In addition to smartphones, computers, and tablets, connected devices also extend to smart refrigerators, smart lightbulbs, smart TVs, virtual home assistants, smart thermostats, etc. By 2030, there may be as many as 29 billion connected devices.2
The growing number of connected devices can be attributed to our desire for convenience. The ability to remote start your car on a frigid morning from the comfort of your home would’ve been a dream in the 1990s. Checking your refrigerator’s contents from the grocery store eliminates the need for a pesky second trip to pick up the items you forgot the first time around.
The downfall of so many connected devices is that it presents crybercriminals literally billions of opportunities to steal people’s personally identifiable information. Each device is a window into your online life, so it’s essential to guard each device to keep cybercriminals away from your important personal details.
With the widespread adoption of email, then cellphones, and then social media in the ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s, respectively, people have integrated technology into their daily lives that better helps them connect with other people. More recent technological innovations seem to trend toward how to connect people to their other devices for a seamless digital life.
We shouldn’t ignore that the more devices and online accounts we manage, the more opportunities cybercriminals have to weasel their way into your digital life and put your personally identifiable information at risk. To protect your online privacy, devices, and identity, entrust your digital safety to McAfee+. McAfee+ includes $1 million in identity theft coverage, virtual private network (VPN), Personal Data Cleanup, and more.
The future isn’t a scary place. It’s a place of infinite technological possibilities! Explore them confidently with McAfee+ by your side.
1The New York Times, “Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT”
2Statista, “Number of Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices worldwide from 2019 to 2021, with forecasts from 2022 to 2030”
The post The Future of Technology: AI, Deepfake, & Connected Devices appeared first on McAfee Blog.
The dark web. The name raises all kinds of questions. What is the dark web, really? Where is it? Can anyone hop on it?
Answering these questions can help you stay safer online.
The story of the dark web is a complicated one. It’s a small and highly anonymous layer of the internet. As a result, it has a reputation for harboring criminal activity. We often mention the dark web in our blogs, typically when the conversation turns to identity theft, data breaches, and stolen personal information. Rightfully so. Plenty of cybercrime can get traced right back to the dark web.
Yet cybercriminals didn’t create the dark web. And they’re far from the only people who use it. News outlets like the BBC and the New York Times have a presence there, as does the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Journalists, activists, and everyday citizens use it as well, often to work around oppressive censorship. Even Facebook is there, providing people access to the social media site in regions where it’s blocked.
Anonymity reigns on the dark web. It was designed to work that way. With that, it’s home to a mixed bag of activity, legitimate and illicit alike. Yet that anonymity doesn’t stop us from putting a face onto the dark web—from understanding what it is, where it is, and what transpires there.
That starts with a look at the internet and the two primary layers that make it up.
If you visualize the internet as an ocean, you’ll find it populated with websites and collections of data at all depths. Yet, the typical internet user only has access to the first few feet, a layer of the internet known as the surface web.
The sights you’ll see within the surface web will look familiar. It’s all the blogs, shops, social media sites, and so on that you visit regularly. And it’s easy to get to. You only need to fire up your browser and go. All the sites are public facing. With a quick search, you can find them.
In all, the surface web contains any destination you can reach through search. To put it more precisely, the surface web accounts for areas of the internet that search engines can “crawl” and index for search. Estimates vary, yet the surface web accounts for roughly 4 to 5% of the internet.
Now, enter the deep web, the next 95% of the internet that is not searchable. Yet, that’s not to say that you don’t travel down into its depths from time to time. In fact, you likely do it daily. Any time you go through a paywall or use a password to access internet content, you’re entering the deep web. The content found there is hidden from search. Examples include logging into your bank account, accessing medical records through your healthcare provider, or using corporate web pages as part of your workday. Even streaming a show can involve a trip to the deep web. None of that content is searchable.
As such, the overwhelming majority of activity within the deep web is legitimate. So while this layer of the internet runs deep, it isn’t necessarily dark. The dark web is something altogether different.
The dark web lives within the deep web. Like the other depths of the deep web, it’s not searchable. The people behind the websites and data collections on the dark web intentionally keep them hidden from search. And the reasons vary. Some of them are entirely legitimate, others questionable, and several are outright illegal in nature.
Its origins go back to the 1990s, when the U.S. Department of Defense developed the dark web as a means of anonymous and encrypted communications. That story might sound familiar. It’s quite like the origin story for the broader internet. That had its roots in the Department of Defense as well. So, just as the broader internet eventually became available to the public, so did the dark web as well.
Getting there requires a special browser because the protocols for the dark web differ from the surface web. Moreover, these browsers strip web traffic of identifiable information, encrypt it, and send it through a series of server jumps. The browsing traffic will appear to go through a server in one country, then a different server in another, and then another.
These steps make it highly difficult to identify the person using the browser. On the flip side, it makes it difficult to identify the people hosting the sites and services on the dark web as well.
Without question, privacy is everything on the dark web. For good and for bad.
While the notion of the dark web typically gets raised in the context of cybercrime and other illegal activity, it has legitimate uses. Some of these use cases include:
Well-regarded news outlets such as the BBC and Pro Publica maintain a presence on the dark web to ensure that anyone can access their reporting. This includes people in nations and regions where certain news sources are censored.
For the particularly privacy-conscious, the dark web hosts several resources for encrypted communication. That includes email clients, internet chat, and even social media sites.
Anonymous tips are a part of national security, law enforcement, and journalism as well. The private nature of the dark web confers an additional degree of anonymity to tipsters.
The dark web isn’t a place everyday internet users will need, or even want, to go. It’s far more complicated than the surface web—and going in without taking several security measures can make the trip a risky one.
This is where the rubber meets the road from an online protection standpoint. The dark web is also a marketplace for hackers and bad actors. In several ways—as a place to purchase and rent malware, a repository for stolen information, and a place to communicate and coordinate attacks.
For starters, the dark web is populated with dark marketplaces. And difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency is the coin of the realm. With dark web stores stocked with ready-made malware kits, bad actors can launch attacks with little need for technical expertise. Others have done the work for them.
Cybercrime groups of all sizes prop up these shops, which they also use to rent out other services for attacks. For example, a small-time bad actor could easily lease a botnet to wage an attack that slows a targeted website to a crawl. Some cybercrime groups will provide hackers who can run attacks on someone else’s behalf, creating a mercenary “hacker for hire” gig economy.
Likewise, information stolen from a data breach can end up in dark web marketplaces as well. The personal information posted in these marketplaces can range anywhere from emails and passwords to in-depth information like tax numbers, health information, and driver’s license numbers. Some of it goes up for sale. Some of it gets dumped there for free. With the right information in hand, cybercriminals can commit acts of identity theft. That includes claiming unemployment benefits and tax refunds in someone else’s name. In extreme cases, it can lead to bad actors can outright impersonate their victims, racking up debts and criminal records along the way.
Some hacking groups sell hacked accounts outright. For a couple hundred dollars, they offer up login and password information for bank accounts that have a couple thousand dollars in them. Also available, pre-hacked email, social media, and online payment accounts. If it’s hackable and has value, it’s likely for sale on the dark web.
With all this shady activity on the dark web, you might wonder how you can protect yourself. In fact, you can take several steps to help prevent your information from finding its way there. And you also can take other steps if your information unfortunately does end up on the dark web.
Installing online protection software is the first step. Online protection software can help prevent many of the attacks bad actors can purchase on the dark web. It protects against ransomware, adware, spyware, and all manner of malware, whether it’s pre-existing or entirely new.
Yet today’s online protection goes far beyond antivirus. Comprehensive protection like ours protects your privacy and identity as well. It can monitor your identity and credit, create strong passwords, and clean up your personal information online.
An identity monitoring service can actively scan the dark web for personal info like your date of birth, email addresses, credit card numbers, personal identification numbers, and much more. In the event you fall victim to identity theft, our identity theft coverage and restoration can provide up to $1 million in coverage to cover the costs. Plus, it provides the services of a recovery expert with limited power of attorney to help you repair the damage done.
If you spot unusual or unfamiliar charges or transactions in your account, bank, or debit card statements, follow up immediately. That might indicate improper use. In general, banks, credit card companies, and many businesses have countermeasures to deal with fraud. Moreover, they have customer support teams that can help you file a claim if needed.
Given all the accounts you likely have a credit monitoring service can help. McAfee’s credit monitoring service can help you keep an eye on changes to your credit score, report, and accounts with timely notifications and provide guidance so you can take action to tackle identity theft.
With the high number of accounts you need to protect, creating strong, unique passwords for each one can get time consuming. Further, updating them regularly can become a time-consuming task. That’s where a password manager comes in.
A password manager does the work of creating strong, unique passwords for your accounts. These will take the form of a string of random numbers, letters, and characters. They will not be memorable, but the manager does the memorizing for you. You only need to remember a single password to access the tools of your manager.
The more online accounts you keep, the greater the exposure you have to data breaches. Each account will have varying degrees of personal and financial information linked to it. And that means each one carries a varying degree of risk if it gets breached. Moreover, some sites and services protect data better than others, which adds another dimension of risk. Closing old and particularly risky accounts can decrease the risk of your personal and financial information winding up in the hands of an identity thief.
With security and savings in mind, McAfee created Online Account Cleanup. It finds and requests the deletion of unused accounts and protects your personal data from data breaches as a result. Monthly scans across your online accounts show a risk level for each account and help you decide which ones to delete.
Two-factor authentication is an extra layer of defense on top of your username and password. It adds a one-time-use code to access your login procedure, typically sent to your smartphone by text or call. Together, that makes it tougher for a crook to hack your account if they get hold of your username and password. If any of your accounts support two-factor authentication, the few extra seconds it takes to set up is more than worth the big boost in protection you’ll get.
The “dark” in the dark web stands for anonymity. And with anonymity, all kinds of activity follow. Good and bad.
From a security standpoint, the dark web is a haven for all manner of cybercriminals. Understanding how they use the dark web can help you protect yourself from their activities. You have tools for prevention, and you have resources available if your information ends up there or leads to identity theft.
By putting a face on the dark web, you put a face on cybercrime and can help reduce the risk of it happening to you.
The post What is the Dark Web? The Answer Can Help You Stay Safer Online. appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Anyone can try ChatGPT for free. Yet that hasn’t stopped scammers from trying to cash in on it.
A rash of sketchy apps have cropped up in Apple’s App Store and Google Play. They pose as Chat GPT apps and try to fleece smartphone owners with phony subscriptions.
Yet you can spot them quickly when you know what to look for.
ChatGPT is an AI-driven chatbot service created by OpenAI. It lets you have uncannily human conversations with an AI that’s been programmed and fed with information over several generations of development. Provide it with an instruction or ask it a question, and the AI provides a detailed response.
Unsurprisingly, it has millions of people clamoring to use it. All it takes is a single prompt, and the prompts range far and wide.
People ask ChatGPT to help them write cover letters for job interviews, make travel recommendations, and explain complex scientific topics in plain language. One person highlighted how they used ChatGPT to run a tabletop game of Dungeons & Dragons for them. (If you’ve ever played, you know that’s a complex task that calls for a fair share of cleverness to keep the game entertaining.)
That’s just a handful of examples. As for myself, I’ve been using ChatGPT in the kitchen. My family and I have been digging into all kinds of new recipes thanks to its AI.
So, where do the scammers come in?
Scammers, have recently started posting copycat apps that look like they are powered by ChatGPT but aren’t. What’s more, they charge people a fee to use them—a prime example of fleeceware. OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, have just officially launched their iOS app for U.S. iPhone users and can be downloaded from the Apple App Store here. The official Android version is still yet to be released.
Fleeceware mimics a pre-existing service that’s free or low-cost and then charges an excessive fee to use it. Basically, it’s a copycat. An expensive one at that.
Fleeceware scammers often lure in their victims with “a free trial” that quickly converts into a subscription. However, with fleeceware, the terms of the subscription are steep. They might bill the user weekly, and at rates much higher than the going rate.
The result is that the fleeceware app might cost the victim a few bucks before they can cancel it. Worse yet, the victim might forget about the app entirely and run up hundreds of dollars before they realize what’s happening. Again, all for a simple app that’s free or practically free elsewhere.
What makes fleeceware so tricky to spot is that it can look legit at first glance. Plenty of smartphone apps offer subscriptions and other in-app purchases. In effect, fleeceware hides in plain sight among the thousands of other legitimate apps in the hopes you’ll download it.
With that, any app that charges a fee to use ChatGPT is fleeceware. ChatGPT offers basic functionality that anyone can use for free.
There is one case where you might pay a fee to use ChatGPT. It has its own subscription-level offering, ChatGPT Plus. With a subscription, ChatGPT responds more quickly to prompts and offers access during peak hours when free users might be shut out. That’s the one legitimate case where you might pay to use it.
In all, more and more people want to take ChatGPT for a spin. However, they might not realize it’s free. Scammers bank on that, and so we’ve seen a glut of phony ChatGPT apps that aim to install fleeceware onto people’s phones.
Read the description of the app and see what the developer is really offering. If the app charges you to use ChatGPT, it’s fleeceware. Anyone can use ChatGPT for free by setting up an account at its official website, https://chat.openai.com.
Reviews can tell you quite a bit about an app. They can also tell you the company that created it handles customer feedback.
In the case of fleeceware, you’ll likely see reviews that complain about sketchy payment terms. They might mention three-day trials that automatically convert to pricey monthly or weekly subscriptions. Moreover, they might describe how payment terms have changed and become more costly as a result.
In the case of legitimate apps, billing issues can arise from time to time, so see how the company handles complaints. Companies in good standing will typically provide links to customer service where people can resolve any issues they have. Company responses that are vague, or a lack of responses at all, should raise a red flag.
Scammers are smart. They’ll count on you to look at an overall good review of 4/5 stars or more and think that’s good enough. They know this, so they’ll pack their app landing page with dozens and dozens of phony and fawning reviews to make the app look legitimate. This tactic serves another purpose: it hides the true reviews written by actual users, which might be negative because the app is a scam.
Filter the app’s reviews for the one-star reviews and see what concerns people have. Do they mention overly aggressive billing practices, like the wickedly high prices and weekly billing cycles mentioned above? That might be a sign of fleeceware. Again, see if the app developer responded to the concerns and note the quality of the response. A legitimate company will honestly want to help a frustrated user and provide clear next steps to resolve the issue.
Google Play does its part to keep its virtual shelves free of malware-laden apps with a thorough submission process, as reported by Google. It further keeps things safer through its App Defense Alliance that shares intelligence across a network of partners, of which we’re a proud member. Further, users also have the option of running Play Protect to check apps for safety before they’re downloaded. Apple’s App Store has its own rigorous submission process for submitting apps. Likewise, Apple deletes hundreds of thousands of malicious apps from its store each year.
Third-party app stores might not have protections like these in place. Moreover, some of them might be fronts for illegal activity. Organized cybercrime organizations deliberately populate their third-party stores with apps that steal funds or personal information. Stick with the official app stores for the most complete protection possible.
Many fleeceware apps deliberately make it tough to cancel them. You’ll often see complaints about that in reviews, “I don’t see where I can cancel my subscription!” Deleting the app from your phone is not enough. Your subscription will remain active unless you cancel your payment method.
Luckily, your phone makes it easy to cancel subscriptions right from your settings menu. Canceling makes sure your credit or debit card won’t get charged when the next billing cycle comes up.
Be wary. Many fleeceware apps have aggressive billing cycles. Sometimes weekly.
ChatGPT is free. Anyone can use it by setting up a free account with OpenAI at https://chat.openai.com. Smartphone apps that charge you to use it are a scam.
You can download the official app, currently on iOS from the App Store
The post Anyone Can Try ChatGPT for Free—Don’t Fall for Sketchy Apps That Charge You appeared first on McAfee Blog.
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