Step Forward with Malwarebytes Secure Backup
Computer security can be exhausting when you consider all the updates and scans you know you should do every day. Keeping all your data safe – not to mention website blocking, external security (keeping your password safe and your computer locked) and, of course, backing up important files in case you are actually infected with some new strain of malware or your hard drive crashes – is a tough job. Luckily, Malwarebytes has just released a tool that will alleviate some of these concerns and help you stave off some of these headaches. Malwarebytes Secure Backup, our newest malware security tool, not only helps keep your files safe with regular backups to either secure cloud storage or local storage but also makes sure that you do not back up any malware by scanning every file that you back up.
New Internet Explorer 8 Zero Day
On the 1st of May (a date which many countries celebrate as Labor Day), the US Department of Labor’s website was hacked. This was described as a watering hole type of attack, aimed at certain people only. The first news reports identified it as an already known and patched Internet Explorer vulnerability until today, when details emerged that this was not the case.
Nowhere to Hide: Three methods of XOR obfuscation
A couple of months ago, I did an article on generic obfuscation techniques used to hide malware. It continues to be no surprise that malware tries to hide using an array of techniques that are easy to implement.
I wanted to elaborate on one of those techniques I mentioned earlier, which was the exclusive or more commonly abbreviated “XOR” logical operation. In computer science, XOR is a type of bitwise operation used to manipulate values, along with several others to include AND, OR, NOT, etc. Back when I had my first lesson in Discrete Mathematics, I remember creating what is known as a truth table to help me better understand how these bitwise operations worked. A truth table uses Boolean logic to compute the value of an expression—here is a simple one for an XOR operation.
XOR Truth Table |
||
Input |
Output |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
As you can see from the table above, the input values must differ for the result to be true. If they are the same, the result is false.
Let’s try a practical example using the XOR operation. This time we’ll XOR Read more…
Tech support scams: a look behind the curtain
My previous post about fake support calls from Microsoft generated a lot of reactions. I was quite astounded by how many other people also had similar experiences and that this was still going strong. In this post, we will try to better understand how such companies operate and why despite so many complaints, they are still operating shamelessly. Read more…
Safeguarding your online accounts against hackers
It is very likely that you or someone you know has had one or multiple of their online accounts hacked into. It happens to everybody: individuals, small and big companies alike, can have disastrous consequences and makes you feel extremely vulnerable. In this post we will talk about some tips to give cyber-criminals a hard(er) time in their inevitable quest for easy money or their five minutes of glory. Read more…
