Items tagged with spam
“We have been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty.” This statement has become something of a joke, but it serves to highlight people’s ongoing frustration with robocalls and text messages. The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently working on reducing these annoyances...
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The FCC has issued a mandate that all phone companies must support, which will help to fight spoofed robocalls. The FCC adopted new rules on March 31, 2020 that require the implementation of caller ID authentication using technical standards known as STIR/SHAKEN. The FCC says the new rules will further its efforts to...
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Many computer users know that Microsoft doesn't email you about Windows updates, but many people unfortunately still fall for spam tricks. There is a new malicious spam campaign going around that tells users to download a critical Windows update. If users install the attached file, Cyborg ransomware is then loaded on...
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When it comes to online life, where there is a will, spammers will find a way, unfortunately. Even more unfortunate, unwanted messages are not always contained within email. More recently, they have been spilling out into Google Calendar, and depending on bad the situation is, you may find that your calendar is filled...
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It doesn't matter what smartphone you prefer or what carrier you use; all smartphone users have to deal with robocalls and spam on their devices. Verizon wants to make it easier for its customers to end spam and robocalls and will be providing its third-party spam and robocalling protection for free starting in...
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There's no shortage of places to run into spam. It seems like nowadays, all you need to do is open a new email account, and there will already be spam in there waiting for you. Alright, that may be a slight exaggeration, but the problem was bad a decade or even twenty years ago, and it hasn't slowed down.
Many...
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We have all seen it on Facebook -- one of your friends “shares” a link to a new shake that will help you lose ten pounds in two days or a code to get suspiciously discounted Ray-Bans. Thankfully, most of these posts are obviously spam. Unfortunately, hackers are finding more ways to post annoying and potentially...
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Multiple Gmail users awoke Sunday morning to find that a bunch of spam that appeared to be sent from their accounts. The spam messages from their accounts were found in the sent items folder, but these weren’t emails that the users had sent themselves leaving many to think their accounts had been hacked.
One user...
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You can never be too cautious when it comes to security, and for that reason turning on two-factor authentication (when available) is typically a good thing. Unfortunately, Facebook has decided to abuse the feature by spamming users who enable the added security measure with notifications of what's happening in the...
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Several years ago, spammers figured out they could fill up a user's Google Calendar with advertisements and other unwanted messages by sending them out as event invites. The issue has largely flown under the radar, but unfortunately for some Google Home owners, the exploit (if you want to call it that) is preventing them from receiving legitimate
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TrendMicro has published a report that claims that a "sizable" spam campaign is underway and other than just having a bunch of unwanted email to contend with, the spam campaign is also pushing ransomware. The spam campaign is said to be distributing the latest variant of Locky, which is the ransomware that invaded...
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Twitch is a wonderful thing. It's the world's leading live video platform for gamers where more than 100 million people go to every month to broadcast, watch, and chat about gaming. But with its popularity there's also potential for abuse, which has come in the form of various bots. More than just an annoyance, Twitch...
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Some amount of justice has been doled out to Sanford Wallace, better known as the "Spam King," who will serve 30 months behind bars for sending millions of spam messages to Facebook users and essentially thumbing his nose at a court order to stay away from the social networking site. He was also assessed a fine of...
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As vast and widespread as the Internet is, the old adage "it's a small world" still seems to apply. It has had been widely reported that IP addresses are fast becoming a precious commodity, with IPV4 addresses completely allocated now and the future of Internet address identification and location reliant on IPV6 for...
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Gmail reduced spam from a major headache to an occasional annoyance, but Google is going after the remaining 0.1 percent of garbage that makes it to your inbox. The company rolled out new tools this week that are meant to shut down the most pernicious spam strategies and help important emails avoid getting...
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Sweet justice like this doesn't come along often enough. We've no doubt all dealt with the annoyance of phone spam -- either from companies that want to up-sell their service, bring us back, or hound for overdue bills which could have already been handled. In our busy lives, getting hassled by aggressive companies is...
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A potential trial between Royal Mail, the postal service company in the United Kingdom, and what's being described as a "big retailer" underscores why it's important to take online privacy seriously. Should the two sides move forward with the trial, online users living in the U.K. will receive market materials via...
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Researchers from security outfit ESET discovered that several thousand servers running Linux and BSD have unwittingly been sending out spam as a result of a previously undiscovered malware infection. This has been going on for more than 5 years, as the malware was able to stay hidden all this time due to its...
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These days, you can’t seem to escape reports of major corporations being “taken down” by phishing schemes (“Hello, Sony”) or ordinary spam. Valve doesn’t want its hugely popular Steam digital distribution service (or its users) to fall victim to such attacks, so it’s taking a rather unusual step to help weed out...
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How does one even begin a post with the above headline? In what is either a massive troll or an uncomfortable sign of the times, a pair of Brits named Matt Gray and Tom Scott are touting a new social network launching soon that will use only emoji. Dubbed “emoj.li”, the social network contains no words--no...
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Chances are, you’ve noticed a gradual uptick in the amount of spam in your Facebook Newsfeed. You know the stuff--"like-baiting", spammy links to trick you into clicking on a junk website, and even seeing the content over and over again--and Facebook is trying to get rid of it. “A smaller set of publishers who are frequently and...
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We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating as we enter the era of the Internet of Things (IoT): Anything that’s Internet-connected can be hacked. We’ve seen it recently with TRENDnet IP cameras and warned about it with Nest (even as Google snapped it up in a $3.2 billion acquisition this week). And now, a security company...
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