Serial: 3/6 – Sure sign of system compromise No. 4: Frequent random popups This popular sign that you’ve been hacked is also one of the more annoying ones. When you’re getting random browser pop-ups from websites that don’t normally generate them, your system has been compromised. I’m constantly amazed about which websites, legitimate and otherwise, can bypass your browser’s anti-pop-up mechanisms. It’s like battling email spam, but worse. What to do: Not to sound like a broken record, but typically random pop-ups are generated by one of the three previous…

Serial: 1/2 – The FCC is proposing new rules that would govern cable networks and other carriers — rules it says will protect the open internet. But critics say the regulator is going to cripple net neutrality and introduce a pay-to-play internet. Here’s what you need to know. The issue of net neutrality is back in the news again, thanks to some proposed rule changes by the Federal Communications Commission, changes that the regulator says are aimed at protecting a “free and open internet.” A chorus of critics, however, say…

Serial: 2/6 – Sure sign of system compromise No. 2: Unwanted browser toolbars This is probably the second most common sign of exploitation: Your browser has multiple new toolbars with names that seem to indicate the toolbar is supposed to help you. Unless you recognize the toolbar as coming from a very well-known vendor, it’s time to dump the bogus toolbar. What to do: Most browsers allow you to review installed and active toolbars. Remove any you didn’t absolutely want to install. When in doubt, remove it. If the bogus…

If you’ve been tracking the ebb and flow of news related to the Heartbleed vulnerability, you may remember how what at first seemed like good news about the limited potential for a worst-case scenario attack quickly turned south when a challenge held by Web security company CloudFlare proved the flaw could indeed be exploited. Today the person who won the CloudFlare challenge, Rubin Xu, a security researcher and PhD candidate at Cambridge University in the UK, revealed how he did it. (The post wasrepublished on Ars Technica, which is where I first read…

Serial: 1/6 – In today’s threatscape, antivirus software provides little piece of mind. In fact, antimalware scanners on the whole are horrifically inaccurate, especially with exploits less than 24 hours old. After all, malicious hackers and malware can change their tactics at will. Swap a few bytes around, and a previously recognized malware program becomes unrecognizable. To combat this, many antimalware programs monitor program behaviors, often called heuristics, to catch previously unrecognized malware. Other programs use virtualized environments, system monitoring, network traffic detection, and all of the above at once in order…

Businesses that advertise on Facebook show signs of growing frustration  In space, they say, no one can hear you scream. Some marketers feel the same way about Facebook. The social network has come to play a vital role for many of the million-plus businesses that promote their brands and connect with customers on its site. But it’s clear that some marketers no longer see Facebook as their friend. A recent post on the site by Eat24, a food delivery service, was the latest sign of marketers’ discontent. The problem, Eat24 and…