‘Watering hole’ attacks can hurt

Posted 6/7/18

You’ve heard of malware, but do you know how it gets onto your computer? We don’t have to manually save viruses anymore. Passively viewing even legitimate sites can cause problems.

These …

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‘Watering hole’ attacks can hurt

Posted

You’ve heard of malware, but do you know how it gets onto your computer? We don’t have to manually save viruses anymore. Passively viewing even legitimate sites can cause problems.

These “watering hole” attacks are sneaky – the scammer watches to see which websites you visit and then infects those sites with malware. Even popular websites can fall victim to watering hole attacks because they are difficult to diagnose. The attacker looks at the website’s code and injects their own malicious code, all without alerting the site owner.

Typically, their code will send targets to the scammer’s own site where malware can scan and infect the target computers. Mal-ware can collect data or cause mischief. Malware can scramble user data and demand a ransom to fix it, steal logins in order to gain access to sensitive data, or cause a host of other problems. Malware doesn’t have to be saved by you manually to hurt you.

To protect yourself:

• Keep your computers and software up to date.

• Don’t miss important patches and security fixes.

• Hide your online activities. Cyber criminals can do a lot of damage with your online activity logs. Use a VPN or the “private” browsing feature on your computer or phone to better hide your activities and protect yourself.

• Get a good malware scanner and conduct regular checks. We like MalwareBytes because their free scanner catches threats other antivirus protection might miss.

Have a tech issue or question? Email me at katie.lexchron@gmail.com .

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