Posts by SynchroNet Team
Website Hospitality for People with Disabilities
We know how the Biblical Christmas story goes, right? A key component of the narrative is “no room at the inn” for the very pregnant lady. So, in the spirit of the season, we thought we’d torture a metaphor and ask if your website is welcoming of people with special needs … or does it…
Read MoreAs If You Don’t Enough to Be Afraid Of… Introducing Self-coding Computer Viruses
Take just about any fictional monster, and somewhere there’s a fictional mad scientist who wants to make it even more dangerous. (Anyone remember Jurassic World?) Well, how about taking oh-so-real malware-nasty strings of code that cripple networks, steal data and generally wreak mayhem on the world … and imbuing it with artificial intelligence? Welcome to…
Read MoreSimple Steps for Protecting Your Online Privacy
Do you worry about your online privacy? Most of us have gotten use to the fact that the conveniences of the Internet come at a price, usually in the form of huge companies collecting data about us that they then resell to marketers. Still, it can be a bit disconcerting to see an ad pop…
Read MoreFearsome Amex Phishing Scam
We know this horror story: A trusted character is not who (or what) others think he is. Typically, movie audiences get to see the creature’s eyes glow or go all black when the onscreen victim isn’t looking. Devils behind a recent phishing scam that targeted American Express accounts, however, were fiendishly clever about hiding their…
Read MoreAre Humans Mean to Artificially Intelligent Entities?
Sometimes we are the fiends … science reveals that humans tend to be meaner to artificially intelligent entities than to other humans. Let’s find out why: A new incarnation of a 1970s thriller, Westworld, has begun airing on HBO to rave reviews and much excitement. The original film featured an android cowboy (Yul Brynner) walking…
Read MoreIn Other Tales of Terror
As frightening as the recent Amex phishing scam was, it wasn’t the only monster-related cybersecurity incident to come to light during the past few weeks. Here are a few of the headliners: On September 22, Yahoo revealed that data from at least 500 million user accounts might have been stolen in one of the largest…
Read MoreIf IT Threats Were Cast as Star Trek Villains
The United Federation of Planets had a lot of enemies, and if you run a business, you also face some substantial threats to your operation. So in recognition of Star Trek’s 50th anniversary, we decided to cast IT’s most infamous bad actors as notable villains from the Trek shows and movies. Ransomware and Viruses as…
Read MoreWalking Off a Cliff is NOT The SynchroNet Way
To be fair, Russia does contribute more to the cyber-world than a bunch of organized criminals. One example of Russian thoughtfulness is related to the Pokemon Go craze. Now, we’ve never played Pokemon Go, but it seems the game requires you to use your smartphone to locate Pokemon at random sites ranging from private homes…
Read MoreWho Does Ransomware Target?
Another popular enterprise for Russian cybercriminals is organizing ransomware campaigns that target Western companies and individuals. Click on a ransomware-infected link or email attachment and you’ll be helping these thieves “earn” a salary that is—on average—13 times that of average Russian wages. (In case you need a refresher, ransomware is malicious software designed to block…
Read MoreПривет из России. Вы были взломаны. (“Greetings from Russia. You’ve Been Hacked.”)
Sometimes a theme asserts itself. We didn’t start out to make Russia a focal point of this newsletter but once we selected our topics, we couldn’t help but notice a commonality. We’ll begin with something you may have heard about — the hacking of Democratic Party emails by an organization known as Guccifer 2.0. US…
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