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...

This will be the first of a series of posts I will call "IMOW" or In My Own Words.  The objective of this is to explain tech stuff such that it will be, hopefully, understandable to not-to-technically-inclined users.  Feel free to comment/criticize if you find me going too technical/geeky so I can adjust accordingly. I came across this news item this morning and it is sort of alarming considering that I used to work for a large local bank and it may affect thousands of clients if it reaches our shores.  The news reports of a new malware that infects a computer when a user opens video that is supposed to be about the "Corona Virus".  This video is hosted on a compromised internet server which in turn infects everyone who attempts to open the Corona Virus video.  Security researchers named this malware " Grandoreiro ". Now, it the infected computer happens to be using Google Chrome and visits an internet banking site, the malware will generate an ...

A few days ago, a former colleague messaged me asking for a recommendation for Antivirus for his presumably new Windows 10 installation. If this question came my way 5 years ago, I would have recommended a veritable laundry list of reputable anti-virus for him . However, technology moved on and I personally believe that 3rd party anti-virus is no longer necessary for personal PCs.  Let me explain myself.  Nowadays, threats from convetional computer viruses is no longer as dangerous as it was years ago.  Most malicious behaviour of conventional computer virus are automagically detected by most modern Operating Systems, including Windows 10 (as long as it is updated).  Real threats nowadays are not as obvious as computer viruses.  These new threats include Phishing, Ransomware ,  Drive-by Downloads , Malvertising , etc. and most of these are not necessarily detected and "fixed" by antiviruses. So that we have established that conversional antiviruses ar...

In my previous post, I mentioned the dangers posed by "malware".  What is "malware" and do we really need to worry about it? Malware is a portmanteau of "Malicious" and "Software".  it is a piece of computer code that is written specifically to perform malicious actions.  Computer virus , trojan horses , ransomware , keyloggers , etc. are all considered Malware. With that in mind, are we all in danger from Malware?  The short answer is a resounding YES.  Can we do anything to protect ourselves from Malware?  Another short answer to this is another resounding YES. Given this, how do we protect ourselves from the dangers posed by Malware? Preventing damage done by Malware infection can either be simple or complex.  Here are some simple steps from protect ourselves from Malware: Keep your devices updated as much as possible, as soon as possible.  Malware easily penetrate devices (computers, laptops, tablets and cellphones).  Do n...