“Fake news” designed for malicious purposes is fairly common on social media, and because these pieces are often sensational, they tend to spread quickly. There are a few ways you can be sure something you’re reading on the internet is real. First, consider the source: Are they a well-known and credible provider of information? If […]

Vanity link shorteners such as bit.ly and goo.gl were once popular as a space-saving techniques on platforms like Twitter. They carry risks, though, since you cannot immediately see where they lead. Shortened URLs have been used in numerous scams. For example, a goo.gl address was central to a phishing campaign that pointed victims to a […]

Sometimes, the only way to repair a device that’s infected with malware is to completely wipe the storage drive and reinstall the operating system or perform a factory reset. This will destroy all the data inside and the malware with it. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to predict when malware will compromise your device, so you should […]

Free trials are great ways to learn about an antivirus suite’s features before purchasing it. However, you shouldn’t count on a trial version to keep you safe – it’s meant to be a purchase aide, not a comprehensive defense against malware. Be sure you upgrade to a full version to stay safeguarded.

Side-loading is the practice of downloading applications that have not been sanctioned by the operating system’s official app store. It’s ordinarily not worth the risk, as there’s no guarantee these apps have been scanned for malware. Best to only use the official channels.

A zero-day (also known as 0-day) vulnerability is a computer-software vulnerability that is unidentified to those who would be interested in mitigating the vulnerability (including the vendor of the target software). Until the vulnerability is ended, hackers can exploit it to adversely affect computer programs, data, additional computers or a network. An exploit focused at […]