Jamie Hawkins of DH2i Honored as a 2023 CRN Channel Chief

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 6, 2023 by itnerd

DH2i®, the world’s leading provider of always-secure and always-on IT infrastructure solutions, today announced that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has recognized Jamie Hawkins, Director of Marketing, on its 2023 Channel Chiefs list. Every year, this list honors the IT channel executives who work tirelessly to advance the channel agenda and deliver successful channel partner programs and strategies.

The 2023 CRN Channel Chiefs were selected by the editorial staff based on their record of business innovation and dedication to the partner community. This year’s list represents the top IT executives responsible for building a robust channel ecosystem. 

Hawkins and her esteemed colleagues on this year’s 2023 Channel Chiefs list were recognized for having helped their solution provider partners and end customers navigate an increasingly complex landscape of interconnected challenges and shifting industry dynamics. With their innovative strategies, programs, and partnerships in place, the solution provider community has continued to thrive.

The 2023 CRN Channel Chiefs list will be featured in the February 2023 issue of CRN Magazine and online at www.CRN.com/ChannelChiefs.

Leave a comment »

Twitter Sort Of U-Turns On Making API Access A Paid Feature…. And Businesses Are Being Told To Pay Up For Their Gold Verification Checkmark

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 6, 2023 by itnerd

Last week, Twitter caused an uproar over killing free access to their API. That in turn caused developers to flee the platform. That takes us to today where in another U-Turn of sorts, Elon said this:

Here’s the problem with this. A “light, write-only API for bots providing good content that is free” isn’t going to cut it for bots that need more access that that. And what stops Elon from moving the goalposts and deciding what is “good content” and what isn’t for example? I’m sorry, this isn’t good enough Elon. But what it does highlight is the blowback from killing free API access must have been strong enough that Elon felt he had to respond. Or the implications of having developers flee the platform en masse had the same effect. Either way, this is turning out to be another one of those negative situations that Elon has created and is unable to clean up the resulting mess.

Meanwhile in another attempt to collect revenue, Twitter will charge businesses $1000 a month to keep their gold verification checkmark:

Wow, Elon has some balls to try this stunt. I am guessing that he’s counting on the fact that businesses will pay for this in order to stand out from the crowd. And that $1000 a month is a rounding error to major companies. But I question if he’ll get as many takers as he thinks he will. Especially now that this information has leaked to the public. And this will add to his issues and highlight the fact that he is desperate to make cash by any means necessary.

2 Comments »

Guest Post: Over 25% of ‘Pig Butchering’ scams happen on dating sites

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 6, 2023 by itnerd

Data presented by Atlas VPN shows that 25.7% of pig butchering scams had their first point of contact on dating websites.

Pig butchering is a relatively recent social engineering scam in which fraudsters contact people via social media sites or emails and text messages and cultivate trust through long-term dialogue. They create the illusion of a friendship or romantic relationship, also called the “feeding” phase.

At some point, the fraudsters suggest that the victim invests in cryptocurrencies on the suggested platform.

Little does the victim know even though the website looks trustworthy, the platform itself isn’t connected to a legitimate cryptocurrency exchange or market.

Victims who visit these bogus investment dashboards see large returns and believe their investment is bringing huge returns quickly. Then, the fraudster advises investing even more while the getting is good, hence luring out even a larger sum of money from the victim. In other words, “harvesting” the already “fed” victim. 

Finally, when the victim attempts to cash out, they are hit with multiple procedures and fees. As suspicion builds, shortly, the website is shut down, and the previous friend or romantic interest is nowhere to be found.

The data on pig butchering scams is originally from the Pig Butchering Scam Reportby RealCall, based on a survey of 996 RealCall users, interviews with scam victims, former scam sweatshop workers, advocates, rescue workers, etc., and some research in numerous channels. The survey findings were released in January 2023. 

Surprisingly, nearly 48% of the respondents report that they have gone through a pig butchering scam and experienced financial losses. 

Another 49% of those surveyed said that they had encountered a pig butchering scam in the past but were able to identify it and avoid it. 

Worth noting that the surveyed respondents already use the service offered by RealCall, which is used to detect and block unknown spam calls and robocalls, suggesting that the population surveyed has already had a negative experience pertaining to being contacted by an anonymous actor with negative intentions, so these percentages should not be applied to the more general population.

On the other hand, knowing the most common points of contact is still useful in order to avoid getting taken advantage of. 

As already mentioned, 25.7% of respondents say they were first messaged through dating websites, while 40.4% of victims note their initial contact with fraudsters was through anonymous calls and messages.

Another 11.2% of communication was started on social media, and 9.3% through job-hunting channels. These days, only 7.6% of contact is made through emails. 

Man loses $1 million

Not long ago, Forbes released an extensive article revealing how a pig butchering scam works in real life. Here, a 52-year-old guy from San Francisco lost $1 million after being approached by scammers posing as an old friend.

The deception was carried out during a months-long, WhatsApp chat that totaled more than 271,000 words. 

To read the full article, head over to:

https://atlasvpn.com/blog/bad-romance-over-25-of-%E2%80%98pig-butchering%E2%80%99-scams-happen-on-dating-sites

Leave a comment »

Elon Musk Asks For Public Support… And That’s A Bit Of A Red Flag For Me

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 6, 2023 by itnerd

From the “I didn’t have this on my BINGO card” department comes a very odd Tweet from Elon Musk in response to a Wall Street Journal story about him. Here’s the Tweet in question:

Now I do question if Twitter is truly trending towards a breakeven point. But I will go down that rabbit hole another day. The fact that Elon is calling the last three months “pain”, along with the fact that he wouldn’t wish this on anyone, and asking for public support are maybe signs that he’s not in a good place mentally. It’s got to be tough to be in his situation with a significant part of the planet wanting him to fail. Not to mention watching Elon’s personal fortune go into free fall. Now to be clear, I’m not making excuses for the guy, or turning this into a “poor Elon Musk” sort of story. But all of that, along with whatever else he has going on is going to be incredibly hard on anyone’s mental health.

One thing is clear, Elon has some support from the Twtterverse. But it also continues to highlight that he’s not in a good place:

My question is, how long can this go on before something happens to him, never mind one or all of his companies?

1 Comment »

Uber introduces shared rides in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 5, 2023 by itnerd

Today Uber is announcing that shared rides are officially coming back to Uber with the launch of UberX Share in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal this week.

Since pausing UberPool in Toronto in 2020 due to the pandemic, Uber have been working tirelessly to revamp the experience. And after months of listening to driver and rider feedback, redesigning, testing, and troubleshooting through various pilots around the globe, the new UberX Share will allow riders to:

  • Always save 💲: As their most affordable option, riders will receive an upfront discount of up to 20% if they choose UberX Share. With an Uber One membership, riders get an additional 5% discount.
  • Make a sustainable choice 🌎: UberX Share provides a greener way to get from A to B, by moving more people with fewer cars to help your city avoid extra emissions and car travel by sharing your ride. 
  • Stay on schedule ⏰: Look out the window, not at your watch. On average UberX Share only adds around 6 minutes to your trip when matched. 

Shared rides have long been a rider favourite, from the spontaneous singalongs to meeting new friends and other fun chance encounters. To help make the most of the UberX Share experience, Uber is also sharing our top 5 Do’s and Don’ts for riders below:

  1. Best driver, for real – DO thank and tip your driver for their excellent service. Spread the love!
  2. No drama, it’s all about the vibe – DO respect your co-rider and driver. Kind people are the best kind of people. Be friendly and open to conversation. You never know if you’ll meet someone new, your next BFF or maybe even a love interest. 
  3. Gotta ride solo – DON’T bring a buddy. One trip request equals one seat.
  4. No take backs – DON’T ask your driver to change your destination. This helps Uber be mindful of everyone’s ride experience.
  5. Bestie, you’re not always the main character – DON’T be annoyed if your co-rider—who joined the trip after you—gets dropped off first. It’s about an efficient route; trust the process.

You can find the full news release here. 

Leave a comment »

Don’t Use Google To Download Software…. Here’s Why

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 4, 2023 by itnerd

If you’re the type to use Google to search for downloads of popular software is a really bad idea. But over the past few months, it has been downright dangerous. Here’s why:

“Threat researchers are used to seeing a moderate flow of malvertising via Google Ads,” volunteers at Spamhaus wrote on Thursday. “However, over the past few days, researchers have witnessed a massive spike affecting numerous famous brands, with multiple malware being utilized. This is not “the norm.'” 

The surge is coming from numerous malware families, including AuroraStealer, IcedID, Meta Stealer, RedLine Stealer, Vidar, Formbook, and XLoader. In the past, these families typically relied on phishing and malicious spam that attached Microsoft Word documents with booby-trapped macros. Over the past month, Google Ads has become the go-to place for criminals to spread their malicious wares that are disguised as legitimate downloads by impersonating brands such as Adobe Reader, Gimp, Microsoft Teams, OBS, Slack, Tor, and Thunderbird. 

On the same day that Spamhaus published its report, researchers from security firm Sentinel One documented an advanced Google malvertising campaign pushing multiple malicious loaders implemented in .NET. Sentinel One has dubbed these loaders MalVirt. At the moment, the MalVirt loaders are being used to distribute malware most commonly known as XLoader, available for both Windows and macOS. XLoader is a successor to malware also known as Formbook. Threat actors use XLoader to steal contacts’ data and other sensitive information from infected devices. The MalVirt loaders use obfuscated virtualization to evade end-point protection and analysis. To disguise real C2 traffic and evade network detections, MalVirt beacons to decoy command and control servers hosted at providers including Azure, Tucows, Choopa, and Namecheap.

That’s not trivial and this is true for Windows and Mac users. And the challenge is that I have had to come to the rescue of people who just think that this behaviour is okay. Which it isn’t. So I would strongly suggest that you exercise good computing habits and only download software from reputable sources. Seriously, don’t do it.

Leave a comment »

TELUS ranks highest among North American telecoms on Corporate Knights Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 3, 2023 by itnerd

TELUS has been recognized by Corporate Knights in its Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations as the top North American telecommunications company, ranking 37th overall for its global leadership and commitment to building a better, more sustainable future. This improved placement is an increase from 49th in 2022 and 54th in 2021, recognizing TELUS’ ongoing commitment to make sustainability a core part of its business and allocating meaningful resources to reduce its carbon footprint. The Corporate Knights ranking is based on a rigorous assessment of nearly 7,000 public companies with more than US$1 billion in revenues and is one of the world’s most valued and transparent rules-based sustainability ratings. TELUS was also recently recognized on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the 22nd year in a row, leading the Canadian telecommunication industry in environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance.

TELUS’ recognition by the Corporate Knights and Dow Jones Sustainability Index follows a number of international accolades recognizing TELUS’ global leadership in sustainability, corporate citizenship, social purpose, and environmental and social reporting, including:

  • Received an A- rating from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), placing in the top 10 per cent globally
  • Being named one of Canada’s Top 100 Greenest Employers
  • Recognized as the only telecommunications company listed in the Wall Street Journal’s top 100 Most Sustainably Managed Companies in the World
  • Awarded the Terra Carta Seal for leadership on climate change energy transition
  • Recipient of several 2022 Loyalty360 Awards including the Social Impact and Corporate Social Responsibility and CSR & Social Impact Awards
  • Featured in Sustainability Magazine’s Top 100 Companies in Sustainability, ranking 8th
  • Recognized by Corporate Knights as one of 2022’s Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada

To learn more about TELUS’ commitment to a more sustainable future, visit telus.com/sustainability.

Leave a comment »

BlackFog Releases Its State Of Ransomware Report For January 2023

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 3, 2023 by itnerd

BlackFog has today released the State of Ransomware Report for January 2023. BlackFog issues these reports monthly to provide insight into the varying countries, threat groups, variants and more, by tracking both publicly disclosed and unreported ransomware attacks. 

Darren Williams, CEO and Cofounder, BlackFog had this comment:

“After a record-breaking 2022, we start January with yet another record, this time the highest January on record with 32 attacks, a 22% increase over 2022. We also start 2023 with new statistics and now include unreported attacks so we can see the scope of the problem. This month we see that 478% of attacks have gone unreported, a growing trend we have seen over the past year.

We also start 2023 with education leading the way with 10 attacks, 30% of the total for the month. This continues the trend we saw in 2022 followed closely by healthcare and government with 8 and 6 attacks respectively.

January also saw some big changes in data exfiltration, which is dominated by China, representing 36% compared to Russia at 9%. As of 2022, we see that exfiltration is now the dominant technique for ransomware and was involved in 88% of all attacks in January.

Lastly, we see that LockBit continues to be the dominant variant and expect this to increase further over the coming months and was involved in 18.8% of reported attacks, but crucially 32.6% of unreported attacks. We expect to see this reflected in next month’s statistics as we see some pull-through from unreported to reported.”

The full report can be found here.

Leave a comment »

Elon Musk Has Temporarily Locked His Twitter Account…. Here’s Why

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 3, 2023 by itnerd

Something odd is happening over at Twitter. Elon Musk has locked his twitter account. Is he hiding something. Is he sick of hearing from people that Twitter sucks since he took over?

Actually, he is testing to see if the Twitter algorithm is broken. I’ll explain why this course of action seems odd to me. But here’s the sequence of events as best as I can figure out. Twitter users have noted that since Elon took over, their Twitter feeds have changed. All sorts of random tweets people’s “For You” feeds from accounts they weren’t following or had never interacted with. Elon acknowledged the issue and said that it was an algorithm update which had been fixed. But clearly that isn’t true as Elon’s friends complained that their engagement was down due to whatever he had done.

Then something weird was discovered. Users were seeing more engagement, such as likes and retweets, when they had locked their accounts. Now locking your account essentially makes tweets private and only visible to their current followers. So there should be less engagement not more based on that. But this was confirmed by one of Elon’s right wing friends:

Elon then responded with this:

Here’s why this is odd. The fact that Elon himself is testing this makes zero sense. Even with Twitter staff being decimated by Elon’s job cuts, surely he has programmers, engineers and developers who can test this stuff out and come up with a fix of some sort? I ask because by the time a CEO is in the trenches testing something himself, something is seriously wrong with the company. Another reason why this is an odd course of action by Elon is that he is essentially using a sample size of one, himself, to test this. Correct me if I am looking at this wrong, but that seems flawed. No?

In any case, I think that this highlights what is not only wrong with social media driven by algorithms, but it also illustrates that Elon’s changes have made Twitter worse and not better.

1 Comment »

Public School In Massachusetts Gets Pwned In Ransomware Attack

Posted in Commentary with tags on February 2, 2023 by itnerd

On Tuesday, a public school in Nantucket Island, Massachusetts suffered a ransomware attack, forcing them to shut down:

“Together with outside data security experts, our Information Technology Department has been working very hard all day to restore our computers and internet service,” Superintendent Beth Hallett said Tuesday in a message to the the school community.

Students in the island’s five public schools were sent home at noon Tuesday and told not to use school-issued electronic devices. The district has nearly 1,700 students, according to state records.

“All student and staff devices have been shut down, and our safety and security systems, including phones and security cameras, are also disabled,” Hallett said in an email to parents.

Brian Johnson, CISO at Armorblox shared his thoughts on this topic:

Educational institutions have one of the largest attack surfaces of all industries. There are thousands of faculty, parents, students and even alumni all accessing the same network through their laptops, phones, and tablets on a daily basis. All it takes is for one of them to click a link or open an attachment in a phishing email to compromise the whole thing for financial gain, to disrupt classes, or for other potentially destructive purposes. We’ve seen every variation of phishing email possible—from “schools” asking alumni for donations to “teachers” asking students to login with their credentials and review an important document. There’s no amount of cybersecurity training or education that can cover such a broad user base. With limited budgets and staff, educational institutions need to automate their security operations as much as possible. And with ChatGPT making it easier than ever for cybercriminals to spin up legitimately looking phishing and business compromise emails, schools and universities need to invest in their own natural language-based AI defenses that are trained to spot even the most realistic looking and sounding phishing emails and stop that one person who would have clicked from having to even think about it.  

The challenge that schools have is that they are often cash strapped. So that makes them prime targets for being pwned. Hopefully they can scale up their defences so that they stop being targets.

Leave a comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »