F-Secure invites our fellows to share their expertise and insights. For more posts by Fennel, click here. Facebook has unparalleled access to data tracking more than a billion of individuals across the globe. This access is “given” by people who would be denied access to Faceboo … | Continue reading
Just don’t click. If you want a basic piece of advice that can help you avoid nearly all spam, scams and potential viruses that could be spread through Facebook, that’s it. Just don’t click on the “free” offers you see in your feed or the quizzes or the sweepstakes. If a stranger … | Continue reading
There are two ways hackers can get into your company’s network — vulnerable technology or you. Well, not just you. It could be you, your CEO, or any of your co-workers. Employees who fall victim to social engineering were responsible for 52 percent of the external attacks, accord … | Continue reading
The line between the online world and the real world has never been thinner. Consider a story we recently heard from a mom who uses F-Secure: Today my 7-year old child got lost on her way from school to daycare. When the daycare informed me that she never arrived, I called her. A … | Continue reading
In the last decade, the main focus of malware makers seems to have shifted from being annoying to making money. It’s no wonder then, that the evolution of cyber crime aimed at consumer devices seems to constantly involve taking whatever latest technology has to offer, and monetiz … | Continue reading
The “evil maid” may be the most intriguing character in all of cyber security. Security researcher Joanna Rutkowska first used the phrase in 2009 to identify the sort of attacks that criminals can launch on unattended equipment in a somewhat public place like a hotel room. And th … | Continue reading
The UK’s Digital Economy Act 2018, which goes into full force in April of this year, includes a new age verification requirement for adult websites. While this step may sound reasonable for protective parents, experts warn that this unnecessary, new limitation on how adults use t … | Continue reading
You may be wondering, “Cyber Centaur? What on earth is this guy talking about?” So let me start by explaining what I mean by “Cyber Centaur.” You might have encountered the “man and machine” concept before in various contexts. It often describes an expert who has mastered his dom … | Continue reading
Ransomware is malware that infects your computer, locks it, and demands payment for unlocking it. Widespread ransomware attacks have steadily increased in the last years, largely due to the fact that it is an easily monetized form of cyber crime – typically the demanded payment v … | Continue reading
In 2016, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center processed 298,728 complaints with internet users reporting losses over $1.3 billion. And when we see the results for 2017, the year that saw the two biggest ransomware attacks ever, expect those numbers to be even larger. Given t … | Continue reading
Electing an employee to F-Secure’s board of directors is an experiment in finding new ways to bridge understanding across boundaries. I am a great believer in transparency in a company. So much so that one of my favorite sayings is ”Bad news is good news.” After all, bad news me … | Continue reading
In 2016, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center processed 298,728 complaints with internet users reporting losses over $1.3 billion. And when we see the results for 2017, the year that saw the two biggest ransomware attacks ever, expect those numbers to be even larger. Given t … | Continue reading
“For kids, apps are how they use the phone,” Timo Salmi, F-Secure Senior Product Marketing Manager, explains. “App Control gives parents the confidence of knowing that their kids are using only apps they should, whether they’re in front of the TV, on the bus or in their rooms.” A … | Continue reading
For the first time in the thirteen year history of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report, cyber security has made the top five of the survey of likely global risks — and it shows up twice. “Although in previous years respondents to the GRPS have tended to be optimistic ab … | Continue reading
After F-Secure principal security consultant Tom Van de Wiele stepped into the #CyberSauna for the second episode of our new podcast “Breaking Into Infosec: Advice from an Ethical Hacker,” he was met with a flurry of questions about Red Teaming and hacking corporate secrets as pa … | Continue reading
How would you hack a growing company? This is one of the questions the ethical hackers in F-Secure Cyber Security Services get asked all the time. That’s why five of our female cyber security pros made understanding the attacker’s point-of-view the foundation of a workshop we hos … | Continue reading
F-Secure and Future Female are teaming up to introduce the exciting world of cyber security to women with IT backgrounds. This weekend at Disobey – an annual hacker event in Helsinki – F-Secure is sponsoring a Future Female workshop that gives participants a crash course in cyber … | Continue reading
F-Secure invites our fellows to share their expertise and insights. For more posts by Fennel, click here. I have a question for you. Why should people care about information security? Why should people care about privacy? Why am I working in cyber security? There is of course a … | Continue reading
We’re only 4 days into 2018, and cyber security is already dominating headlines. Earlier today, multiple news outlets reported on the discovery of vulnerabilities in chips from Intel, AMD, and ARM. The vulnerabilities – dubbed Meltdown and Spectre – are fairly serious. An attacke … | Continue reading
It was hard to top 2016, the year when cyber security’s role in global politics became undeniable. And in 2017, the threats kept coming. Social media continued to be a battleground for voters but didn’t seem to play a significant role in the British, French of German elections. R … | Continue reading
A new laptop is at the top of many of our wish lists. Operating system and model aside, laptops remain as highly capable devices that keep track of and store the majority of our documents and personal data. If you’re one of the lucky individuals to receive a new laptop during thi … | Continue reading
The cyber security job market is experiencing a major workforce shortage. Millions of positions will be unfilled in the next few years as companies try to shore up their defenses against threat actors in our connected world. If you’re technically inclined, and if you’re willing t … | Continue reading
Chances are you’re expecting at least one package to be delivered to your home before Christmas. And even if you didn’t order something, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to discover to receive a notice that someone tried to deliver a package — a gift perhaps? — to your door. Bu … | Continue reading
Are you a new iPhone owner? If you’ve answered yes, keep reading – this post has been created especially for you. By this point, it’s no secret that iOS 11 has implemented a set of new security features that make it more difficult for unwanted parties to get into Apple customers’ … | Continue reading
Letting YouTube’s algorithm babysit your kids can be child abuse, argues Sean Sullivan, F-Secure Security Advisor. “You wouldn’t put your kids in front of a television showing subliminal advertising,” he told me. “You shouldn’t let a bunch of people who only care about maximizing … | Continue reading
This holiday season, you’ve finally gotten the new tablet that you’ve been waiting for. Maybe you’ve chose a Amazon Fire HD 10, or perhaps you’ve opted for a new iPad Pro. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S2 might have also been the new tablet of your choice. Regardless of the model and oper … | Continue reading
Our experts have made some fantastic predictions about larger trends to expect in 2018, but you don’t need to a crystal ball to know that we’re about to cross some other extraordinary milestones in the next 12 months. 1. The number of consumer IoT units will near the human popula … | Continue reading
This article was included a new book entitled Finland – 100 Years of Success that celebrates the centennial of Finland on the 6th of December, 2017. When Risto Siilasmaa was 15 years old, he dreamed of coding the world’s greatest adventure game. But fate had other plans and led h … | Continue reading
2017 is coming to an end. And the last year has seen some big vulnerability disclosures, global ransomware outbreaks, and of course, more data breaches and threats to people’s online privacy. Taken together, these developments might leave people wondering what they have to worry … | Continue reading
Picture this: You’ve just unboxed your shiny, new Android phone and are admiring it in all its new-device glory. This is the moment that you’ve been waiting for throughout (at least) the last six months. Before you get started signing into your accounts and filling up your phone’ … | Continue reading
If you’ve been paying any attention geopolitical news of late, you might have heard about the storm around Kaspersky. The Russia-based antivirus firm has been responding to allegations that it collected top secret NSA files from a customer machine and shared them with Russian int … | Continue reading
The email subject line says “Scanned from Lexmark” and the attached file is “image2017-11-23-9292134.7z”. Seems legit, right? You’re expecting a scan or maybe you just weren’t thinking. So you click on the file. Next thing you know the data on your PC has been encrypted and you s … | Continue reading
Chances are you’re about to get even more connected “things” in your home. If you take a look at Amazon’s “Best Sellers” in Electronics, you may notice Amazon makes all ten. That’s not surprising give who runs the platform. What’s more interesting is that as of Black Friday 2017, … | Continue reading
Imagine spending months leading up to Christmas searching for the perfect puppy only discover that the little love you thought you found doesn’t even exist. Instead, you’ve sent hundreds if not thousands of dollars to a scammer — a criminal who may not even live on the same conti … | Continue reading
After the 2016 U.S. election, one thing is sure: We will be talking about cyber security in the context of elections in the near future, and possibly forever. Securing a political campaign presents a unique challenge, especially in the United States where billions are spent to el … | Continue reading
When you spend your winters in Helsinki, you have to anticipate not seeing your bare fingers when you’re outdoors for a few months. This is because it’s usually dark out and the average temperature doesn’t break 0°C from December through March. With this in mind, Sean Sullivan — … | Continue reading
The biggest shopping day of the year is here again — and it’s not Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Singles Day in China on November 11 will likely break the one day shopping record with 158 billion yuan or $24 billion in sales, quadrupling the yield of last year’s Black Friday take. … | Continue reading
A year after the Mirai botnet used Internet of Things devices to launch a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack almost as twice as big as any similar attack that came before it, disrupting the firm that provides online infrastructure to Twitter, Amazon, Spotify, Netflix and … | Continue reading
The vast majority of malware targets Windows. This was true in 2016. It’s true in 2017. And it’s likely to be true for the foreseeable future. But the times, they are a changing — especially when it comes to threats targeting Google Android and Apple Macs. The rise of malware thr … | Continue reading
Twitter is admitting that it has a problem. The site announced that it will no longer sell advertising to Russian media outlets Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik “effective immediately.” The world’s fourth largest social media network says an internal investigation of the site’s role … | Continue reading
The Internet of Things has taken the world by storm, sneaking its way into our homes and making our living spaces “smarter” than we could ever imagine. You might notice the quotations marks surrounding the the word ‘smart’ — they are there for a reason. This is because the device … | Continue reading
Even the boss can get hacked. And a new F-Secure study CEO Email Exposure: Passwords and Pwnage finds that 3 in 10 CEO’s have had their passwords “pwned.” What does “pwned” mean? Pwn (verb): To own or dominate an opponent; to compromise, control or illegally gain access to a devi … | Continue reading
Cyber Security Base with F-Secure, an online course series developed by F-Secure and the University of Helsinki, is back for another year. The course series begins on October 31st (you can sign up to the mailing list to receive updates), and will kick-off in the morning (10:00am … | Continue reading
F-Secure SENSE, the WiFi router that secures your connected home, is making a buzz on social media — and for a good reason. In addition to F-Secure SENSE being sleek and easy to use, SENSE is an attractive product that is perfect for featuring in photos on social media. Want to s … | Continue reading
As another Halloween approaches, the line between haunted and being hacked grows dimmer every day. As we invite hundreds of connected devices into our homes, it’s likely cyber threats will become even more personal and scarier. Of course, this was all predictable and predicted. I … | Continue reading
Wi-Fi was not built to withstand the security challenges of the 21st century , and many cyber security experts advise caution when using it. And those warnings became more relevant than ever today after the disclosure of a series of Wi-Fi vulnerabilities. Attackers can exploit th … | Continue reading
Phishing is a serious security problem. It affects people and companies all over the world. And while things like ransomware infections and data breaches sound more serious, these problems often start with phishing emails. According to Europol’s 2017 Internet Organised Crime Thre … | Continue reading
To me, Cyber Security Awareness Month is about just doing a little bit more to protect your data. For most of us, that means getting the basics down. For business travelers, it means improving your OPSEC. For journalists and other high-value targets, cyber security awareness can … | Continue reading