Ransomware in 2017 saw users and businesses across the globe trying to cope with campaigns such as Petya and WannaCryptor. Not to be outdone, Android ransomware had a year full of innovative infiltration and rougher extortion as highlighted by the latest ESET research whitepaper.

This week saw the second Tuesday of the month, and everyone who is responsible for protecting Windows computers knows what that means: another bundle of security patches have been released by Microsoft.

Smart TVs afford us the opportunity to use them for purposes that are more commonly associated with computers. In fact, that’s what these TVs have become – internet-connected ‘computers’, much like mobile phones. It would no doubt help if we thought of them as such and treated them accordingly.

These developments show that security technology is now keeping up, or outpacing other technological and regulatory developments. Thus, while users’ wants often continue to trump their appreciation of risk, the industry has responded and in many cases gotten ahead of popular demand.

If undetected by a user’s security solution or content- or ad-blocker, the script ran in the background unbeknown to the user until the webpage was closed. A number of the affected websites, including that of the ICO, were also offline for hours in the aftermath of the attack.

If you're still running a website that is still using insecure HTTP then it's time to wake up and drink the coffee. Because unless you take action soon, you're going to find many of your visitors are going to distrust your website.

This is aimed at improving security at the time of the handshake, which is when the key is being exchanged. As a result, WPA3 is poised to provide robust security even if short or weak passwords are used, i.e. those that don’t contain a combination of letters, numbers and symbols.

According to US authorities, the enterprise aimed at becoming the premier destination for the buying and selling of stolen payment card data and forged identification documents. It is believed that the losses that the Infraud Organization had intended to cause were north of $2.2 billion.

The investigation showed that the tool, which required little technical knowledge to deploy, had over 8,600 users in 78 countries. Victims are believed to be in the thousands.

Another template attempts to scare, rather than thrill, the recipients. Upon learning that “your IP address and other identifying information were used to commit multiple online crimes”, the mark is urged to contact the sender by phone immediately.

While it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask for help from local law enforcement, know that even major cities may not have the expertise or the bandwidth to investigate compromised mobile devices. The most important objective is to take steps to make sure you’re safe. Ask for help, but do not wait for others to help you.

In 2017, the number of vulnerabilities smashed records set in previous years. According to CVE Details, more than 14,600 vulnerabilities were reported in 2017, compared to 6447 in 2016.