Tag Archive for Security

| March 9, 2021
Comments Off on McAfee Selling its Enterprise Security Business

McAfee Selling its Enterprise Security Business

McAfee Selling its Enterprise Security BusinessMcAfee is back in the news again. The often sold antivirus vendor is selling its enterprise security business. McAfee and private equity firm Symphony Technology Group (STG) announced on 03/08/2021 that the PE is buying McAfee’s enterprise security business for $4.0 billion in an all-cash deal. The deal is expected to close before 2022. McAfee is keeping its consumer security software business.

Selling its enterprise security business

$4.0 billion in an all-cash dealThe McAfee website touts that the enterprise business serves 86% of the Fortune 100 firms, and generated $1.3 billion in net revenue in the fiscal year 2020. Despite these numbers, it is clear why McAfee is selling its enterprise security business. For FY2020 the company reported $2.9 billion in total revenue, up 10% YoY. Techcrunch says the overall revenue broke down to $1.6 billion from the consumer side. The enterprise side brought in $1.3 billion in net revenue, an increase of just 1%.

Increased competition

One of the reasons McAfee is selling its enterprise security business is increased competition. McAfee’s enterprise business has struggled in recent years against fast-growing endpoint detection and response (EDR) software companies — such as CrowdStrike and SentinelOne. CrowdStrike’s revenue was up 86% YoY in 21Q3. SentinelOne is preparing an IPO that could achieve a $10 billion valuation. Also, major technology companies such as Cisco Systems, Microsoft, and VMware’s  Carbon Black have pushed deeper into McAfee’s market space.

We have seen this before

We have seen this beforeAfter the sale of the enterprise security business, it will re-branded. Once the deal closes, the McAfee consumer business will be known as McAfee. The STG-McAfee deal is similar to Symantec’s breakup. As I wrote about in 2019, Broadcom acquired Symantec’s enterprise security business for $10.7 billion. Symantec’s consumer business, now known as NortonLifeLock, remains publicly traded.

Legacy Synergy 

SynergySTG’s purchase of McAfee’s enterprise security business should pair well with another STG enterprise-focused security holding. The PE firm purchased RSA from Dell last February for $2 billion. STG did not point directly to the RSA acquisition, the two investments create a large combined legacy security business for the firm. Both firms have strong brand recognition but have lost some of their edge to more modern competitors in the marketplace.

Stay safe out there !

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| February 27, 2021
Comments Off on 5 Reasons to Never Unsubscribe from SPAM Email

5 Reasons to Never Unsubscribe from SPAM Email

5 Reasons to Never Unsubscribe from SPAM EmailWe all get unsolicited commercial emails, aka SPAM. Cisco’s Talos estimates that in January 2021 86% of emails sent were SPAM emails. That means that of the almost 145 billion emails sent 122 billion were SPAM email. The math works out to over 6 SPAM emails for each legit email. At best SPAM is annoying. At its worst, SPAM can be a threat to your PC and your personal information. SPAM email is a threat because 94% of malware is delivered by email, and one in every 3,000 email messages contains malware a payload.

SPAM email is big business

SPAMersSPAMers can make millions per year. TechRadar says an average full-time SPAMer makes around $7,000 a day – over $2.5 million a year. They can make this kind of money because email spam costs them very little to send. Most of the costs of SPAM is paid by the recipient and the carriers. The SPAMers do not have to pay for all the internet bandwidth tied up in the delivery of their spam emails. SPAMers send out millions of messages on behalf of online merchants who want to sell a product. SPAMers get paid for sending SPAM email messages, regardless of whether recipients buy any of the advertised products. They also re-sell their SPAM emails lists to other SPAMers. SPAMers can get up to $22,000 for a list of stolen email credentials. In some cases, these cybercriminals also get a percentage of the sale. For pharmaceuticals, the commission can be as high as 50%. A good example is “penis-related spam” which has a 5% click rate, meaning that 5% of the recipients actually open the spam mail and click on the link in the mail.

Why you get SPAM emails

There are a number of reasons why you get SPAM emails.
  1. victim of a data breachYou are the victim of a data breach. Any company you do business with could be vulnerable. Check haveibeenpwned to see if your account has been compromised – smaller breaches might not be listed.
  2. You posted your email address online. You put it on Facebook or other social media, on a website, or as a public comment. Once on the web, your email is considered fair game for SPAMers.
  3. At some time you opted in or neglected to opt out. When you signed up for something, buried somewhere was that little checkbox. You didn’t indicate you’d rather be left alone. The service for which you opted-in is either inundating you or they shared your email address with interested parties.

Never unsubscribe from a SPAM email

The “unsubscribe” button is a scamSo how do you stop SPAM from flooding your inbox? The first step is do not unsubscribe from SPAM. Ignore the convenient “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of the message from the Nigerian prince. The “unsubscribe” button is a scam. The cyber-criminals to get more info about you and increase the number of SPAM emails you receive.

1. When you unsubscribe, you confirm to the sender that your email address is valid and in active use. SPAMers now know the account is active and the volume of SPAM you receive will most likely go up. Now that you have validated your address, the SPAMer will sell it to his SPAMer friends. Now you will get SPAM from a completely new source.

A Federal Trade Commission study found that more than half the time, responding to a “remove me” option resulted in either no change or more spam emails.

2. In addition to giving away your email address, unsubscribing delivers lots of information about your email software. Emails contain meta-information that hackers can use to devise attacks.

3. When you respond to the SPAM email, SPAMers think you are interested in the subject matter—whether it’s getting money from a foreign prince, a penny stock tip, or a diet supplement.

4. If your response opens up a browser window, you’re giving away even more information about yourself. By opening a browser SPAMers learn information about your:

    • Geographic location,
    • Computer operating system,
    • Web browser.

Additionally, the SPAMer can give you a cookie. A cookie allows the attacker to track you across any other websites they own. They will be able to identify you personally.

install malware on your computer,5. Worst of all, if you visit a website owned by a spammer, you give them a chance to install malware on your computer, even if you don’t click anything. These attacks, known as drive-by downloads, can be tailored to use exploits the SPAMers knows you’re vulnerable to—thanks to the information you’ve shared about your operating system and browser.

How to stop SPAM email

Use SPAM filters – SPAM filters work by looking at the nitty-gritty technical details of the email. What it’s about. What it says. How it says it. How many other people are getting that same email message? If it looks like SPAM, then the email is placed in your SPAM or junk mail folder instead of your inbox. spam filtering machine learning algorithmsIf you’re using webmail, like Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo!, then you have a pretty good SPAM filter already. Gmail claims their SPAM filtering machine learning algorithms are 99.9% accurate. You can improve the default SPAM filters. You need to train your SPAM filter. To train your SPAM filter – report SPAM every time that you find it in your inbox. Whether you use, Gmail Yahoo, Outlook or Thunderbird, you should take the time to learn and understand its SPAM filtering features. When you flag an email as SPAM, your email app will use this information to refine its spam filter. The SPAM email filter will automatically get better at detecting SPAM emails in the future. This could be either globally if enough other people say the same things about emails like that. Keep flagging SPAM emails and the number of SPAM emails in your inbox should decrease – perhaps dramatically – over time.

Stay safe out there!

Related article   Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
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| January 11, 2021
Comments Off on 6 Things to Know about Pulling the Plug on Flash

6 Things to Know about Pulling the Plug on Flash

6 Things to Know about Pulling the Plug on FlashAdobe is finally pulling the plug on Flash. Adobe Flash player has been considered a performance-hampering security risk. Flash was originally released by Adobe (ADBE) in January 1996 and was used by 30% of the web. Flash led the way to a more graphical inter-tubes while Microsoft and Netscape duked it out – in the Browser Wars. Thankfully HTML5 is here and we can say see ya! Flash.

Adobe logoThe final release of Flash was made on December 8, 2021. On January 12, 2021, Adobe will officially pull the plug on Flash.Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player. Adobe pre-announced the end of Flash as early as July 2017 and phased out support for it on December 31.

You may see an Adobe flash “you need to uninstall me” notification on your computer.  In fact, your browser has been notifying that it will is blocking Flash. The (new) Edge Chrome and Firefox, by default block Flash.

So, what is the home user to do about Flash

Do nothing – If you are using a modern web browser – Adobe Flash is already blocked – what you did not notice?

Do nothing (Again) – Microsoft will be pushing out KB4577586 during an upcoming patch Tuesday. The update will remove “Adobe Flash Player that was installed by your version of Windows.” If you installed Adobe Flash Player manually from an:other source, it will not be removed.

Do it yourself (Adobe) – To completely remove Adobe Flash Player from your computer click “Uninstall” when prompted by Adobe in Flash Player.

Do it yourself (Microsoft) – Manually download KB4577586 from the catalog site by matching up the version you have.

Use the Adobe Flash uninstaller – If ever downloaded and installed Adobe Flash Player in IE, Firefox or other browser yourself. Download the Adobe Flash Uninstaller for Window from Adobe Follow the instructions there.

Be sure you manually delete any remaining files in the four folders listed in STEP # 3 of the Adobe instructions, including files in the hidden %appdata%\Adobe\Flash Player and %appdata%\Macromedia\Flash Player folders. 

Verify Flash is gone – To see if Flash is gone – open the OLD IE and go to Adobe here. The Adobe testing site will let you know if flash is still installed.

So, what about enterprise users?

Enterprise users have options. If you have an internal business need for Flash support and commercial licensing, reach out to HARMAN for licensing, according to an Adobe announcement.

Microsoft also said that customers will still be able to run the  software. Enterprise environments must use dedicated Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer plug-ins. Microsoft said.

To aid such customers, Microsoft Edge will allow Adobe Flash Player to load as a plug-in via the IE mode feature, … Once you make the switch from Microsoft provided Adobe Flash Player, it will be treated as any other third-party plug-in and will not receive Customer Support from Microsoft.

 

Stay safe out there!

Related article

  • Time for virtual farmers to retire as Farmville shuts down with end of Adobe Flash (WLS-TV)

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him at LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| December 28, 2020
Comments Off on 2020’s Most Dangerous Celebrities Online

2020’s Most Dangerous Celebrities Online

2020's Most Dangerous Celebrities Online2020 has been quite the year. Even the Internet has turned against us. According to cybersecurity firm McAfee, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns have made searching for celebrities on the web even more dangerous. In their 14th annual survey, San Jose, CA-based McAfee (MCFE) identified the most dangerous celebrities around the globe to search for on the Intertubes in 2020.

Anna Kendrick is McAfee's most dangerous celebrity1- Anna Kendrick – The actress, singer, and Doritos slinger was recently crowned McAfee’s 2020 most dangerous celebrity online. Thanks to her roles in Pitch Perfect, Twilight, Love Life, and Trolls World Tour, her search results were most likely to be used by online criminals to expose her fans to potentially malicious content. She ranked 4th most dangerous in 2019.

2 – Sean “Diddy” Combs – The multi-millionaire rapper and producer, was the second most dangerous celebrity on the McAfee list. Diddy sparked fan and attacker interest by announcing the return of MTV’s Making the Band. He also hosted a virtual dance-a-thon fundraiser featuring J. Lo, Snoop Dogg, and Justin Bieber to raise money for healthcare workers. Mr. Combs is no stranger to McAfee’s list – he ranked No. 8 in 2017.

3- Blake Lively – The actress’s roles in the TV series Gossip Girl and in films like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Green Lantern garnered her enough attention to put her number 3 on this year’s McAfee list. 

4McAfee logo– Mariah Carey – The award-winning singer drew the attention of fans and fraudsters in 2020. She headlined the iHeart Living Room Concert for America event that raised over $8 million in the fight against COVID-19. She appeared in virtual telethon Rise Up New York! to raise money for those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The diva was McAfee’s 2020 #4 most dangerous celebrity. She was #5 in 2008.

5- Justin Timberlake – The Grammy award-winning singer, actor, and producer is very popular with attackers. In 2020 his work on the soundtrack for the Trolls World Tour and collaboration with Justin Bieber attracted online attackers. In 2020 Mr. Timberlake ranked #5 on the McAfee list. He ranked number 46 in 2013 and number 3 in 2008.

Taylor Swift is McAfee's 6th most dangerous celebrity6 – Taylor Swift – The country singer-songwriter dropped two albums in 2020, Folklore and Evermore. The award-winning singer’s popularity and ongoing disputes made Taylor Swift McAfee’s 6th most dangerous celebrity to search for in 2020.

7 – Jimmy Kimmel – The late-night TV show actor’s 2020  notoriety made Mr. Kimmel an effective lure for fraudsters. role as the host of celebrity Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and host of the Emmy Awards had to take time off over his appearance in blackface and using racial slurs in a music video. This notoriety landed him at#7 on the 2020 list. He ranked first on McAfee’s 2015 most dangerous celebrity list.

8 – Julia Roberts – Academy Award winner and  Pretty Woman and Erin Brockovich actress Julia Roberts earned the #8 spot this year. He is another favorite of fraudsters, she ranked No. 2 on the McAfee 2010 most dangerous celebrity list.

Julia Roberts is McAfee's 6th most dangerous celebrity9 – Kate McKinnon – The Saturday Night Live actress and comedian attracted the attention of fans and hackers in 2020 when she announced that she would continue the chaos and star as Carole Baskin in an upcoming ‘Tiger King‘ TV series. 

10 – Jason Derulo. The Haitian-American vocal sensation Derulo’s massive success on Tik Tok got him the #10 place on McAfee’s 2020 list.

In the UK, Graham Norton was McAfee’s most dangerous 2020 Celebrity. Mr. Norton was followed by comedian Ricky Gervais. 75-year-old Rolling Stones front-man Sir Mick Jagger ranked fifth on the McAfee list for 2020.

In Australia, British singer-songwriter Adele topped McAfee’s dangerous celeb list for 2020, edging out second-place Anna Kendrick. Rapper Drake was third down under.

in India. Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo topped the list. McAfee ranked Bollywood actresses Tabu and Taapsee Pannu the second and third riskiest celebs to search for in India.

rb-

Some of the stars are new, but the game is the same. In addition to the same advice from 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, – apply some critical thinking to your web surfing so you don’t fall victim to any of McAfee’s most dangerous celebrities online.

Stay safe out there!

Related article

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| December 9, 2020
Comments Off on These Passwords are Not Protecting Your Info

These Passwords are Not Protecting Your Info

These Passwords are Not Protecting Your InfoIt is 2020 and among all the other things going on during this dumpster-fire of a year – passwords are still a problem. According to a list of the 200 worst passwords of 2020 from NordPass, millions of people are still using “123456” and “password” as part of their login credentials. These passwords are the worst you can use year in and year out they have been the worst since I started tracking them on the Bach Seat in 2011.“123456,” has been breached more than 23 million times alone, according to NordPass. To protect your data – stop using “123456″ and “password.”

Half of the top 25 passwords are new offenders for 2020. But NordPass says any of the top 25 bad passwords typically take less than a second to crack. Don’t be fooled – using some variation of the number bar, such as “000000″ or “123123” does not add extra security to your account. Similarly, any adjacent-key letter combo you are using such as “qwertyuiop” or “asdfghjkl,” can be easily cracked in less than a second’s time, the company said.

2020's Worst Passwords

2020 RankPasswordChange from 2019
1123456-
2123456789-
3picture1New
4password-
512345678+1
6111111+3
7123123+3
812345-1
91234567890New
10senhaNew
111234567-6
12qwerty-9
13abc123-2
14Million2New
15000000New
161234New
17iloveyou-9
18aaron431New
19password1New
20qqww1122New
21123New
22omgpopNew
23123321New
24654321New
25qwertyuiop-10

data breach researchMethodology: The list of passwords was compiled by Nordpass,  which sells a password manager, in partnership with a third-party company specializing in data breach research. They evaluated a database that contained 275,699,516 passwords in total.

Stay safe out there!

Related article

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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