Mike Foster’s IT Security & Best Practices Blog

You see the headlines: “App discovered to be spying on you,” or “App removed from the store because it was downloading private information.” Delete your third-party apps. You can always reinstall them if you decide to use them. Your phone and tablet are more secure the fewer apps you have. Most people only use 20% […]

Have you ever noticed you are in a video conference call and did not realize your camera was capturing you? Or maybe you have two cameras, and your software unexpectedly selected the wrong one and broadcast an unflattering camera angle or showed something in the background you thought was out of frame? Embarrassing. Cover up […]

OpenOffice is a free program that allows you to create documents and spreadsheets. Right now, attackers are buying ads so that, if you search for OpenOffice and are a lucky searcher, an ad appears at the top of your search. Clicking on the ad could take you to a site to download a malicious program […]

Someone contacted me to explain that attackers hacked a family member’s Instagram account and threatened to expose some embarrassing photographs unless they paid the bad actor more than a thousand dollars. I told them: