IT Round-up

It’s all about security

Fraudsters scamming businesses

Emails that appear to be legitimately from a company boss are being increasingly used by fraudsters to extract money from companies, according to a new report.

Called Business Email Compromise (BEC) or CEO fraud they ask for urgent payment to a new supplier in order to secure a contract.

Cybersecurity firm Proofpoint reports that its 5,000 clients saw a 45% rise in BEC fraud in the last three months of 2016.

Be wary of any email subject line appearing to be from the CEO and containing the words “urgent”, “payment” or “request”.

There’s more on this here

The end of secure encrypted messaging?

Following the Westminster attack in which a policeman was killed at the Houses of Parliament and several pedestrians were deliberately hit by a vehicle driven at them on Westminster Bridge there were calls for access to WhatsApp messages.

It had been revealed that the perpetrator had sent a message on WhatsApp just before the attack but because the messaging service is encrypted it was not possible to find out what it said.

Ministers have demanded that such services provide them with a way of accessing messages to gather electronic evidence and legislation is being planned by the EU to “oblige the IT providers to do what they have to do”. More here

Find out who’s “listening in” to your web traffic

A new internet map currently at beta stage will reveal the locations of alleged National Security Agency (NSA) listening stations around the world.

It is based primarily on US and Canadian information and funded by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, the country’s research council and Canada’s Privacy Commissioner. Find out more about the IXMap research project.

Laptop battery life tested

Tests carried out by Which? have found that laptop battery life is being significantly over-stated, with some brands, including models from Dell, Acer, Lenovo and HP, having less than half the advertised battery life.

There is more on this here

Word security bug patch issued

A “zero-day” vulnerability in Microsoft word could enable scammers to install a bug aiming to distribute Dridex malware.

A massive email campaign from spammers was discovered in early April.

Dridex is designed to infect victims’ computers and spy on their banking logins. Microsoft has urgently issued a patch and users are urgently advised to install as soon as possible.