What Is Ransomware?

Ransomware, as its name implies, is a type of malware that tries to extort money from computer users by holding their systems ransom. One of the newest types of malware to hit the scene, ransomware is an attractive choice for cyber criminals because it presents them with a very clear means of making money off their victims. Ransomware preys on the idea that computer systems and everything they hold (documents, photos, financial records, mp3 files, etc.) are of such vital importance to most people that holding them ransom is …

Researcher Creates Fix for Gatekeeper Problems

Can you count on Gatekeeper, Apple’s proprietary malware blocking tool, to keep your computer safe? The jury is still out on that question, but one researcher has at least done his part to make Gatekeeper a bit more efficient.

Last year, Patrick Wardle of the cybersecurity firm Synack discovered not one but two major security holes in the Gatekeeper tool. He showed how both of those holes could allow a piece of malware to bypass Gatekeeper altogether and infect a Mac computer.

How Gatekeeper Works

To understand how Wardle …

KeRanger Ransomware Takes Macs Ransom for Bitcoin – Ransomware Information & Removal Mac

BitTorrent Client Exposes Users to First Known Piece of OS X Ransomware

Unlucky BitTorrent users who installed the latest version of Transmission over the weekend unwittingly exposed themselves to the first known piece of ransomware seen in the wild for OS X. According to a report published on March 4th by the Palo Alto Networks Research Center, hackers figured out a way to bundle ransomware with two different installers for Transmission 2.90. Transmission bills itself as a “fast, easy, and free BitTorrent client.”

According to the Palo Alto Networks report, …

Apple Buys the Company That Built Mac Worm

Well, you could never say that Apple doesn’t take security threats seriously. Last year, a security firm called LegbaCore built one of the most serious threats yet to Mac computers. Typically, Macs have been known for having far, far fewer viruses and worms than PCs. For the most part, that lack of attacks has had more to do with market share than anything else. Hackers and cyber criminals can benefit more from creating viruses and malware for Windows PCs, simply because there are more Windows PCs out there than …

Passwords of 2015: How to Recognize Bad Passwords and Select Better Ones

Every year, SplashData compiles a list of the most common and least secure passwords. In January, the company unveiled their “Worst Passwords of 2015” list. Hopefully, the feature can serve as a sobering reminder to Apple users—and frankly, to everyone—that some passwords really are plainly, objectively weak.

As you will see from looking at the list, most of the worst passwords of 2015 were the weakest passwords in years past, as well. The top two (or bottom two) picks were “123456” and “password,” both of which were unchanged from …

Pintsized

• • Type:
  • Trojan Horse
• • Platform:
  • Mac OS X
• • Last updated:
  • 02/09/16 9:14 pm
• • Threat Level:
  • High

Description

Pintsized is a trojan horse.

Pintsized Threat Removal

MacScan can detect and remove Pintsized Trojan Horse from your system, as well as provide protection against other security and privacy threats. A 30-day trial is available to scan your system for this threat.

Download MacScan

A Brief Recap of Some of 2015’s Biggest Data Breaches

In a recent feature covering some of the biggest hacks and data breaches of 2015, ZDNet dropped a chilling statistic: “Almost every American has been affected by at least one data breach this year.” Indeed, it was the year of the data breach, a year that saw everyone from retailers to the government facing cyber security disasters.

The Data Breaches

On the retail or consumer end of the spectrum, drug stores like CVS, Walgreens, Costco, and Rite Aid were all hit, with customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, and credit information compromised in …

SecureMac Launches MacScan 3, Giving Its Flagship Mac Anti-Malware Software a Complete Makeover

Designed exclusively for Mac OS X, and including full support for Apple’s latest release of OS X 10.11 (El Capitan), MacScan 3 provides protection against the continued growth of malware by offering advanced detection and removal of security and privacy threats.

SecureMac, the leader in security solutions for OS X, today introduced MacScan 3, the next generation of its flagship anti-malware software for Mac users. MacScan 3 offers an all-new approach to the way we protect against security and privacy threats, including a streamlined user experience, new features, and major improvements …

The First Things You Should Do after Getting a New Mac

So you’ve just purchased a new Mac computer, be it a laptop or a desktop, and you can’t wait to dive in and start moving all of your files and data over to the new machine. Before you do any of that, though, there are a few steps you should take to ensure the overall safety and security of your new computer.

One of the great things about Mac is that Apple really designed them to be used right out of the box, providing users with a range …

Steps for Cleaning Your Mac before Selling or Donating It

For the 2021 version of this guide, covering both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, click here.

So you’ve decided to sell your old Mac, give it away to a friend or relative, or donate it to a school or nonprofit. Regardless of what you are planning on doing with a computer you don’t want to use anymore, there is one thing you definitely don’t want to do: sell it or donate it without first cleaning out the hard drive.

If you’re like most people, your Mac is a …

MacKeeper Customer Data Exposed

Some 13 million customers of anti-virus software, MacKeeper, had their personal data exposed recently due to a major security oversight on the developer’s database. The customer data included full names, usernames, emails, hashes of passwords, phone numbers, IP addresses, system info and other personal information.

Safely Downloading from the Internet

If you are using a Mac (or any computer, for that matter), it’s a concrete fact that you are eventually going to download something from the Internet. Whether it’s a new app from the App Store, a piece of free software from a third-party source, a movie or TV show, a song or album, an eBook, or even just an email attachment, the act of downloading and uploading files is something that most of us do every single day.

But how can you be safe about downloading from …

Protecting Your Privacy in an Increasingly Connected World

These days, everything and everyone is connected. At work, we communicate as much via email as we do face-to-face. At home, our primary means of interacting with friends and acquaintances is through social media. Add the ever-expanding “Internet of Things,” which connects everyday objects and appliances like refrigerators and even cars to the internet. Sure, all of this connectivity can be convenient at times, but how does someone maintain their privacy in a world where privacy is, largely, a thing of the past?

Luckily, there are steps you …

How Thinking Machines Can Change Our Future

With many of the “predictions” laid forth in futuristic films like Back to the Future and Minority Report coming true, it’s easy to feel like we are at a peak or plateau of the technological revolution in our society. However, while smartphones, social media, streaming music and video, and a slew of other inventions have changed our lives drastically over the past decade, the truth is that change is only going to continue as technology evolves further. The only question is, which big innovation will come next?

The Pros and …

What is Malware?

Malware is a generic term, referring to any program that can threaten the security of your computer. There are many different types of malware, including Trojan horses, keystroke loggers, hack tools, ransomware, spyware, and worms. Sometimes, these are combined to form ‘hybrid malware’, showing characteristics from two or more types.

Though often used in conversation as a synonym for ‘virus,’ malware is an abbreviated term that means ‘malicious software.’ The word can be used, therefore, to refer to just about any virtual threat designed to harm your computer. Malware …

Newly Discovered OS X Security Flaw Could Give Hackers an Easy Way to Take Control of Your System

If you by chance haven’t updated to Mac OS X 10.10 just yet (e.g., the Yosemite operating system update that first became available in October 2014), then you may want to hold off. According to a recent blog post by cyber security researcher Stefan Esser, Apple added a few features to the code of OS X 10.10 that have introduced some pretty serious vulnerabilities into the system. The issues, Esser noted, are present in both the current Yosemite release (OS X 10.10.4), as well as in the beta version …

Apple vs. Android: Who Wins in the Security Battle?

In a recent opinion piece for The Guardian, writer and technology professor John Naughton wrote about the ongoing war between Apple and Android for total dominance of the smartphone marketplace. The piece, titled “Security is the loser in the holy war between Android and Apple,” looked at how the battle between the iOS and Android operating systems has led to a marketplace where many smartphone owners are using phones that, in his words, “are riddled with security holes.”

While the title of Naughton’s article seems to suggest that the …

Why Protecting Your Child’s Identity Online Is Important

Parents raising kids today are at a disadvantage. Thanks to the internet and the advent of countless other digital and networking technologies, modern parents have to deal with challenges and dangers that their parents never had to deal with. Worse, many of these dangers are not often discussed in the public eye. Sure, we’ve all read a fair amount about cybercrime and online predators, but those threats are not the only ones that your kids are facing on the web.

The Child Identity Theft Problem

On the contrary, an equally …

Apple Boots Apps for Violating Privacy Policies

The Mac App Store recently booted 256 apps for violating store-wide privacy policies. According to a report from Tech Republic, Apple pulled the apps for their use of a “Chinese advertising software development kit.” Said another way, these apps were built in such a way that they collected a considerable amount of customer data. That data collection conflicted with the rules of the Mac App Store and has now resulted in the deletion of the apps in question.

A Sneaky Data Theft Operation

The silver lining for customers is that …

Monitoring Your Children Online

Modern parents face at least one challenge that their parents probably never had to deal with: the Internet. Kids these days spend a lot of their time online—whether researching for school assignments, playing games, or chatting with friends on social media—and all of this time spent in the digital world makes it more difficult for parents to know what their kids are doing at all times.

It used to be that parents could always be aware of where their kids were, what kind of activities they were participating …