Melanistic Magazine - Vol 9

TECH TALK

WITH GEMAL HUMMAD

LIVING WITH MALWARE IN INTERNET AGE

In the past two decades, the Internet has changed the mass media landscape at warp speed. It has been summarily accepted and relied on to manage our daily lives. But it also poses a consistent threat to our security and wellbeing.

Edge, Chrome and Safari are de facto web browsers installed on your computer along with operating systems Windows, Chrome OS and OSX. But free they are not. They provide a handsome profit to the software makers surreptitiously because they are tools for collecting personal data that is used in advertising campaigns. Along with email, browsers deliver malware to your computer.

We now know Pegasus of NSO Group is used by state spy agencies on mobile devices to track down persons of interest. Ransomware was recently used successfully to attack very large US companies’ networks resulting in temporary crippling of their IT systems. This highlighted the reality that no computing device is safe from attack. While Pegasus is seemingly impossible to stave off, there is much you can do to minimize the risk of garden variety malware and ransomware attacks .

Recognize that, malware and ransomware need transportation and delivery mechanisms to carry out their attacks. If sufficiently prepared you can avoid the attacks by:

1. Installing a good antivirus on your system, that is constantly updated with new definitions.

2. Avoiding websites deemed unsafe.

3. Ignoring popped up messages at websites you do not know of.

4. Never opening attachments sent by email from unknown sources.

5. Scan flash drives from external sources to ensure their content is deemed safe by your antivirus.