Hi, My Name is Bernie

In a world ravaged by COVID-19, the reliance on the internet has been magnified. Majority of the workforce who can perform their mundane office tasks remotely are now allowed to work from home. Schools are virtually ghost towns as most of them opt to conduct classes online. Banking and other financial transactions are also mostly done from home. This unexpected "digital transformation" is well and good as it encouraged work from home and distance learning.  However, this also opens up home computers and home networks to more threats than ever.  One sad fact that needs to be addressed is that most home computer users (those who work or study from home) have not taken steps to secure their home computers, home network and their network-connected devices.  Securing all these will take a lot of time and a whole lot more time "researching".  As a public service, I will be writing a series of posts that should address this. What are the particular threats that faces peopl...

During this difficult time of "enhanced community quarantine", one of the things I do is muck around my gadgets to play games, research. and yes, blog.  During one of those gaming sessions on my phone, I noticed a simple and unobtrusive ad for a VPN.  The ad was about Tachyon VPN .  My initial reaction is that of indifference because ads for VPN service is a dime a dozen, especially when playing games on either iOS or Android.  A lot of them doesn't even work at all. However, I was strangely compelled to click on the ad and I was redirected to the App store amd since I was already there, I threw caution to the wind and clicked on install, ready to immediately delete the app once my device flags it as suspicious or malicious. I was pleasantly surprised when I was greeted by a rather clean interface and since no alarm bells rang, I decided to try it out and connect.  Upon connection, I was checked if the VPN was working.  I did this by going to https://www.wh...

In my last article, I discussed how wonderful it is to live in a time when technology gives us an unprecedented access to information and services right at the comfort of our homes and even at the palm of our hands. I also discussed how most of this technology becomes accessible to almost everyone. It is no longer a novelty seeing a sidewalk vendor playing mobile games on a smartphone or a security guard watching a videostream of his favorite NBA team. Teenagers often share their OOTDs, foodography and other activities on social media. Busy people often do their banking using the mobile banking application on their cellphones. Free wifi on malls and other public places are a godsend for people who do not have data plans on their mobile devices because it allows them to do all these at virtually no cost at all. As mundane as those activity may appear, each one of them poses a risk to both the users and the device that is in use.  I will enumerate the risks that a person opens ...