bank

Google is testing a new way of showing a web page address in the browser. It hopes that simply showing the domain name will make it easier for users to spot phishing scams - as already happens with some rival browsers. At the moment most browsers ... will show the entire web page address (URL) in the address bar. That's the box near the top of the screen that has a dual purpose in most browsers: it shows the current page address but is also where users type in both addresses and search terms. A study for Google looked at ways scammers can take advantage of the browser bar. One example was the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Kathleen S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I really need your help! I have been scammed by fake PayPal technical support . Here's how it happened: beginning some time in March, 2019, I received invoices from PayPal claiming that I paid ... for some kind of technical support for my computer. I have no recollection of this, so up until now I've kept deleting the emails, thinking they were sent in error. Flash forward to January 8, 2020, and I received another message stating that if I don't pay the original invoice ($399), I'm going to be charged an additional ' $500 late fee ,' and ... (view more)

Have you been scammed by Informatico Experts, Inc for a fake PC support contract? You're not the only one. Infopackets Reader 'Ulrica' writes: " Dear Dennis, I have been in contact with Informatico Experts Inc ( Live PC Experts ) since last November ... and have paid them a grand total of almost $12,000 (up until recently). They claimed my PC has been hacked and have installed Firewalls and Antivirus service over the last few months. They keep calling me all the time and want to gain access to my computer. They told me my computer was being used to commit crimes and that I needed to get it fixed ... (view more)

A man has been arrested for allegedly stealing more than a billion dollars in cyber attacks. The tactics were so outlandish, they almost sounded like the words used by Richard Pryor's character in Superman III. The unnamed man was arrested in Spain ... after an investigation that involved officials from six countries on three continents plus private cyber security firms. The man is alleged to have led a gang that attacked more than 100 banks and other financial institutions around the world. The gang has been operating for at least three years using three forms of malware, known as Anunak, ... (view more)

Two biometric security measures have come into question after reporters and researchers claimed to have overcome them. A phone's iris recognition and a bank's voice log-in both appear to be less than perfectly secure. The Samsung Galaxy S8 - ... arguably the most high-profile and hyped phone currently running the Android system - includes an option to unlock the phone by simply looking at the camera. In a similar way to fingerprint recognition, it works on the idea that the patterns in the eye's iris are unique. Samsung described these patterns as "virtually impossible to ... (view more)

Facebook is rejecting claims that it let advertisers target users based on their current mood. It says research into the technology was carried out, but not used for advertising. "The Australian" newspaper report was based on leaked internal data ... that says Facebook could figure out mood swings based on combined data from user posts and pictures, the interactions they had with other users, and other activity on the site. Some of the moods which Facebook could reportedly discover included feeling anxious, defeated, nervous, overwhelmed, silly, stressed, stupid, useless or a failure. ... (view more)

A man has been arrested after allegedly scamming two US companies into sending him more than a hundred million dollars online. He posed as a legitimate computer manufacturer and issued bogus requests for payment. The companies haven't been named, ... but prosecutors say one is a "multinational technology company" and the other a "multinational online social media company." Evaldas Rimasauskus was arrested in Lithuania last week and has been charged in US courts with one count of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identify theft, and three counts of money laundering. Bogus ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Janie T. writes: " Dear Dennis, I wanted to know if I should use a VPN (virtual private network) to connect to my bank website. A service I came across called saferweb.com claims that they will encrypt my connection, but I don't ... know if they can be trusted or not. What do you think? PS: I love your daily infopackets letters - they are very informative. " My response: This is a good question. When visiting saferweb.com I noted the following statements on their site: "Safer Web gives you an extra layer of security against Internet hackers. By hiding your IP, we keep your ... (view more)

Two Facebook millionaires want US officials to regulate an exchange for buying and selling the controversial "cryptocurrency" Bitcoin. The move follows a scandal when the largest such exchange in Japan went out of business . The Bitcoin currency ... isn't issued by any government or backed by any assets. Instead, each new unit of the currency is created when a computer successfully solves what's effectively a puzzle designed to slowly increase the amount of Bitcoins in circulation. Every time one user pays a Bitcoin to another, a publicly available ledger of transactions is ... (view more)