Free Republic

What you should do is factory-reset your router, disable UPnP, then check for firmware updates, since some companies have patched the vulnerability out. This won’t fix any other compromised systems, but it’s a necessary first step. After that, you can factory-reset any other internet-connected device that you’re concerned about. You might also want to just buy a new router, as recent models do not appear to be susceptible to this type of attack. This information comes from a blog post entitled "UPnProxy: EternalSilence" penned by researchers at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based data management firm Akamai. Cybercriminals have learned how to take advantage...

Effective immediately I won't be using the free image hosting service called imgbb.com. Over the last 2 weeks I've noticed a HUGE increase in pop-up ads in my lower right hand corner of my monitor (whether I'm online or not all), many ads seem legitimate software upgrade offers, but others are invitations to date various women of Asian countries. These small pop-up ads all have the source listed as ibb.co, which I've discovered is originating from imgbb.com. With all of my image posts I may be spreading this same '3rd Party Cookie' advertisements to my fellow FReeper's, so I've decided...

On January 8th, ExtremeTech published a piece about Forbes forcing users to disable their ad blockers in order to see any content, and guess what happened. Malware. For the past few weeks, Forbes.com has been forcing visitors to disable ad blockers if they want to read its content. Visitors to the site with Adblock or uBlock enabled are told they must disable it if they wish to see any Forbes content. Thanks to Forbes’ interstitial ad and quote of the day, Google caching doesn’t capture data properly, either.What sets Forbes apart, in this case, is that it didn’t just force...

Hillary Clinton has damaged our country in more ways than can be counted. Not only did she weaken our country along with former President Barack Obama, but she is also linked to numerous suspicious deaths of people who were either close to her or were close to sensitive information that would see Hillary imprisoned for treason. The “Butcher of Benghazi” proved that she has never cared for the people she was sworn to protect but was more interested in climbing the political ranks. Fortunately, Hillary was unsuccessful in her Presidential campaign or else we would be facing a real crisis.

Kris Anne explains quickly and clearly a lot more than the Supremacy Clause in this, her explanation of the Supremacy Clause.There is SO much that is interconnected within the Constitution.

The worm, called ADB.Miner, installs itself as an app called "Test" under the package name "com.google.time.timer". Once it's infected a device, it eats up resources mining cryptocurrency -- devices will become slow, video playback will stop abruptly and a notification saying "Test" with the green Android robot icon will appear randomly on screen. If you've never played around with your Fire TV's developer options (which are off by default), you'll be safe from the virus. If, however, you've allowed ADB debugging or apps from unknown sources, your device is at risk -- switch both to off. If you suspect you've...

On May 25, the FBI warned that anyone who uses a router to connect to the internet should reboot their routers. The warning comes amid a Russian malware (malicious software) called VPNFilter that can secretly install itself onto internet routers and collect data from an unsuspecting user. So far, it's estimated that 500,000 devices - mostly from the Ukraine - have been affected. Rebooting internet routers will "temporarily disrupt the malware and aid the potential identification of infected devices," according to the FBI. The agency also recommends to disable your routers' remote management settings, and update the password you use...

Hoping to thwart a sophisticated malware system linked to Russia that has infected hundreds of thousands of internet routers, the F.B.I. has made an urgent request to anybody with one of the devices: Turn it off, and then turn it back on. The malware is capable of blocking web traffic, collecting information that passes through home and office routers, and disabling the devices entirely, the bureau announced on Friday. A global network of hundreds of thousands of routers is already under the control of the Sofacy Group, the Justice Department said last week. That group, which is also known as...

If your Mac seems to be running at high fan rates or you’re seeing reduced battery-life for no apparent reason, you may want to check for some Mac malware that seems to be going around … A couple of support threads have described people finding a process called mshelper using a lot of CPU usage.From the little that’s known about it so far, it seems this is either adware or a cryptocurrency miner. Despite the heading in the Reddit thread, there’s no evidence that it’s a virus, so the most likely explanation for its spread is a sketchy download...

Here’s how to protect yourself from the EFAIL vulnerability in Apple Mail on both iOS and macOS. These temporary fixes come after the new vulnerability was discovered that allows hackers to derive decrypted plaintext from encrypted emails. For the attack to work, the third party must be in possession of your encrypted S/MIME or PGP emails. Although Apple’s likely to offer a fix to this vulnerability sooner rather than later, there are things you can do now to make your email more secure.The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was the first to discover this vulnerability.Method 1 As previously mentioned, the first method involves removing...

North Korea’s cyber army, long considered a midlevel security threat, is quietly morphing into one of the world’s most sophisticated and dangerous hacking machines. Over the past 18 months, the nation’s fingerprints have appeared in an increasing number of cyberattacks, the skill level of its hackers has rapidly improved and their targets have become more worrisome, a Wall Street Journal examination of the program reveals. As recently as March, suspected North Korean hackers appear to have infiltrated Turkish banks and invaded computer systems in the run-up to the Winter Olympics, cybersecurity researchers say. *** North Korea is cultivating elite hackers...

If at first you don't succeed, you're Redmond Microsoft today issued an emergency security update to correct a security update it issued earlier this month to correct a security update it issued in January and February.In January and February, Redmond emitted fixes for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 machines to counter the Meltdown chip-level vulnerability in modern Intel x64 processors. Unfortunately, those patches blew a gaping hole in the operating systems: normal applications and logged-in users could now access and modify any part of physical RAM, and gain complete control over a box, with the updates installed.Rather than stop...

This email starts innocently enough. Don't open it!

MeltdownPrime and SpectrePrime, found by Princeton and NVIDIA researchers, may require significant hardware changes to be mitigated. MeltdownPrime and SpectrePrime, new variants of the Meltdown and Spectre flaws, could put PCs at risk of another type of cyberattack. The MeltdownPrime and SpectrePrime exploits could be harder to protect against than the original Meltdown and Spectre flaws, because of how deep their flaws exist in the processor. Security researchers from NVIDIA and Princeton have discovered new variants of the Meltdown and Spectre flaws that may be more difficult to tackle than the originals. Dubbed MeltdownPrime and SpectrePrime, these flaws were further...

Malwarebytes first discovered the malware when investigating a separate campaign late last month. Specifically, the team was testing a malvertising chain on Windows and Chrome that would lead to tech support scams, but when they tested the same chain on Android, they were “redirected via a series of hops to that cryptomining page.” The page in question features a warning message and a CAPTCHA code. Until the user enters the code, the website will proceed to mine Monero cryptocurrency (XMR) at full speed. Malwarebytes found several identical domains, all of which use the same CAPTCHA code. The first was registered...

Thousands of websites, including ones run by U.S. and UK government agencies, were infected for several hours on Sunday with code that causes web browsers to secretly mine digital currencies, technology news site The Register reported. More than 4,200 sites were infected with a malicious version of a widely used tool known as Browsealoud from British software maker Texthelp, which reads out webpages for people with vision problems...

Thieves have discovered a new way to exploit older ATM's into spitting out every dollar they hold. It's called jackpotting because of the speed of the bills flying out, resembling how slot machines used to pay out coins. The Secret Service has warned financial institutions to expect a wave of jackpotting over the next week to 10 days, based on its investigation of ATM crimes in several parts of the country. The U.S. appears to be the latest target. In 2016, jackpotting yielded $13 million from ATM's. Twelve European countries and Mexico have also been hit recently. Ahmed Banafa, from...

"We're aware of an issue with a protection update that shipped an hour ago that is causing all web traffic to be blocked and RAM usage to climb. We are triaging this right now with all hands on deck. I will have an update shortly with root cause and will share with all of you as I get information. I completely appreciate the pain this is causing our users and we are working hard to resolve this"

I know there are a lot of computer geeks in Freeperland. What malware protection is best, in your opinion.

Internet security firm Malwarebytes recently discovered that a pair of extensions will not only hijack Chrome and Firefox, but will block any attempts to remove them from these two browsers. The version found in Chrome is a forced extension resulting from web pages that trick visitors into installing the extension via a JavaScript-based popup. The Firefox version stems from advertisements pretending to be an official manual update requirement warning posted by Mozilla. “Tiempo en colombia en vivo” is the name of the invading Chrome extension. Malwarebytes doesn’t provide any specifics about what this extension actually does to Chrome but presumably, it completely...