Con artists pose as Microsoft employees in phone calls fishing for personal information

Con artists posing as Microsoft employees are calling people and trying to get them to pay for computer repairs.

A De Soto, Mo. woman was targeted by someone claiming to be from Microsoft. She says the scammer had an elaborate and convincing story about how her computer was used to hack a government website.

The man was offering to fix her computer and her neighbor’s computer for $200.

News 4 covered a similar story in November 2015.

Terrie Weaver of Spanish Lake, Mo. was contacted by someone pretending to be from Microsoft. That person said Microsoft Received information about an error on her computer and wanted to remotely access her computer to fix it.

"I've heard stories how they take control of your computer and I didn't want that to happen,” Weaver said.

The goal of the scammers in these cases is to not only get money, but also access to personal information. A company like Microsoft would never contact people asking to do this kind of work.

The best thing to do is hang up the phone.

View original article by kmov St. Louis here.

Cyberattack total is more than twice previously disclosed: IRS

Cyberattacks on taxpayer accounts affected more people than previously reported, the Internal Revenue Service said Friday.

The IRS statement, originally reported by Dow Jones, revealed tax data for about 700,000 households might have been stolen: Specifically, a government review found potential access to about 390,000 more accounts than previously disclosed.

In August, the IRS said that the number of potential victims stood at more than 334,000 — more than twice the initial estimate of more than 100,000.

"If somebody has all this information … we may see [a] resurgence next year of fraudulent tax returns," Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, told CNBC in 2015.

The IRS discovered an incident involving its "Get Transcript" application last May, and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration conducted a nine-month investigation. That review turned up the additional accounts that could potentially have been accessed.

Additionally, the IRS said there were 295,000 taxpayer transcripts that were targeted, but "access was not successful."

The agency said it will send mailings to affected taxpayers beginning February 29.

"The IRS is committed to protecting taxpayers on multiple fronts against tax-related identity theft, and these mailings are part of that effort," IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said in a statement. "We appreciate the work of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration to identify these additional taxpayers whose accounts may have been accessed. We are moving quickly to help these taxpayers."

View the original article by Everrett Rosenfeld with NBC here.

Stay safe from cybercrime during tax season

Tax season is prime time for online scams. National Cyber Security Alliance has put out a tip sheet on cyber safety during tax time. Make sure to protect your data and check out these tips!

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Ransomware takes Hollywood hospital offline, $3.6M demanded by attackers

February 14, 2016 - The computers at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center have been down for more than a week as the Southern California hospital works to recover from a Ransomware attack.

According to officials HPMC, they're cooperating fully with the LAPD and FBI, as law enforcement attempts to discover the identity of the attackers.

However, in the meantime the network is offline and staff are struggling to deal with the loss of email and access to some patient data.

The hospital's President and CEO, Allen Stefanek, said the situation was declared an internal emergency, telling NBC LA that the hospital's emergency room systems have been sporadically impacted by the malware.

Some patients were transported to other hospitals due to the incident. In other parts of the hospital, computers essential for various functions, including CT scans, documentation, lab work, and pharmacy needs are offline.

The hospital's network has been down for at least a week, forcing staff to rely on fax machines and telephones to get work done.

Registrations and medical records are being logged on paper and staff have been told to leave their systems offline until told otherwise.

Stefanek said the attack was random, but didn't expand on any of the technical details. Sources who spoke to NBC LA and Fox 11 in LA described the attack with descriptions matching a typical Ransomware infection.

The type of Ransomware responsible for shutting down the hospital remains unknown, but one local computer consultant said the ransom being demanded was about 9,000 BTC, or just over $3.6 million dollars.

Article Credit: Steve Ragan, CSO, Feb 14, 2016 3:43 PM PT

To view original article click here.

Feb 18, 2016
Here is an updated article on the hospital: Hospital Update

Columbia College Becomes STOP. THINK. CONNECT. Partner

Columbia College is proud to announce our partnership with STOP. THINK. CONNECT.

You can view the press release with information about the organization here: Press Release

Safer Internet Day

It's Safer Internet Day worldwide, and to celebrate below is a link to some safety tips posted on our Facebook.

Check out our safety tips album on Facebook here.

The history of Safer Internet Day (SID)

SID began as a project to take initiative worldwide for Internet safety. This project was adopted by Insafe in 2005 and is now celebrated in more that 100 countries worldwide each year on the 9th of February.

In the US specifically there has not been much coordination of the day until Spring 2013 when the event gained government support. The event, hosted in the US by iSafe, have many goals of how to raise awareness and create a collaborative environment for information and promotion of active participation in Internet safety.

Make sure you are checking your security knowledge this Safer Internet Day, and help us to keep the Internet safe for everyone! Ways you can start right now:

1. Subscribe to our new blog posts by entering your email in the right hand column. You can stay up to date on the most important and latest security news.

2. Follow the link to our Facebook album above and find tips on how to keep each of your social media profiles safe.

3. On the navigation bar above, select CCIS Policy and update yourself on the college's policy for security.

Happy Safer Internet Day, let's keep our Internet safe!

Free online cyber security courses for beginners

Looking to learn more about cyber security and how you can protect your data at work and at home? Thanks to Andra Zaharia at Heimdal Security, below I have provided the link to her list of 50+ cyber security online courses! At the top of her list, she starts with FREE courses for beginners, then on to more advanced and costly. Make sure you're security aware and take a look at these courses.

Check out the list here!