Your computer probably has a virus if you can answer “Yes” to any of the questions below:

Is your computer running quite slowly?

A virus often causes a computer to run slowly. But realize that this symptom can also mean that a computer needs more memory, or that the hard disk needs defragmenting. It can also mean spyware or adware is present.

Are programs automatically starting?

A virus may damage some programs. And in some cases programs might not start at all.

Are unexpected messages occurring?

A viral infection can make messages appear unexpectedly.

Does your Windows program suddenly shut down?

A virus can do this, too.

Is your hard disk or modem working overtime?

Ane-mail virus sends many duplicates of itself by e-mail. You can tell this might be happening if the activity light on your external modem or broadband is constantly lit. Another clue is that you can hear your computer’s hard disk constantly working.

These situations don’t always mean a virus, but they shouldn’t be ignored, especially if there are other problems occurring.

If you already have the latest version of a solid antivirus program, it should spot a virus that’s already in your computer and even a virus that’s about to be downloaded.

Antivirus software works best when it’s programmed to scan your computer at regularly timed intervals (this way you won’t have to remember to manually do it). The software should also automatically download updates to your computer for antivirus definitions.

A reputable antivirus software system should be able to detect a virus trying to get into your computer or one that’s already present. As viruses are always evolving, there may be an invader that your software does not yet recognize, but probably soon will, once an update occurs of a new virus definition.

When a reliable antivirus program spots a virus it will quarantine it. You’ll then be asked if you want to promptly delete it or set it aside. This is because there may be times when the antivirus software thinks that a legitimate program or file is a virus. You then get the opportunity to restore the program or file.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to TheBestCompanys.com discussing  identity theft prevention. For Roberts FREE ebook text- SECURE Your@emailaddress -to 411247. 

OpenSSL vulnerabilities are sticking around for a while. In fact, recently two new ones were announced: One allows criminals to run an arbitrary code on a vulnerable computer/device, and the other allows man-in-the-middle attacks. A more famous openSSL vulnerability that made headlines earlier this year is the Heartbleed bug.

Might cybersecurity insurance be a viable solution?

As reported in SC Magazine, Yes, says Hunton & Williams LLP. Cybersecurity insurance fixes the problems that these vulnerabilities cause—that technology alone can’t always mitigate.

Hunton & Williams LLP reports that GameOver Zeus malware infiltrated half a million to a million computers, resulting in gargantuan losses to businesses and consumers. The firm says that antivirus software just isn’t enough to prevent mass infection. The fact is, advances in malicious code have rendered antivirus software frightfully weak, continues the firm..While not everyone agrees on this point, Hunton & Williams recommends a proactive approach which includes assessment of risk transfer methods, e.g., insurance.

Laurie Mercer, from the security consulting company Contest Information Security, also believes in cybersecurity insurance. Mercer uses cars as an analogy. A car must stick to safety standards. The car gets serviced every so often. But the car also has various buttons and whatnots inside that can alert the driver of a problem.

Likewise, with cybersecurity, products can be certified with commercial product assurance accreditation. A website can get a regular security audit every so often. And like the interior buttons of a car, a website can have a response strategy to a cyber incident or some kind of detection for an attack. However, the car should still be insured.

At a recent SC Congress London, Sarah Stephens from Aon EMEA pointed out that cyber insurance is rising in popularity. But Andrew Rose, a security analyst with Forrester, noted that many threats can be resolved with adequate plans in place.

Data breaches need not be launched maliciously in order to be very troublesome, as was the case involving about 3,700 Medicare Advantage members. Freedom Blue and Security Blue members received risk assessment results that actually belonged to other individuals. The addresses, birthdates, member ID numbers and medical information of some members ended up in the hands of other members.

And how? An innocent mistake committed by a mailroom employee. Though there was no evidence of malicious use of this personal information, it just goes to show you how easily a person’s private information can end up in a stranger’s hands. Imagine receiving a stranger’s medical information in your mailbox. It would make you think twice about trusting the company with your personal information in the future.

Members were notified of this error after the insurer spent a month exploring how it happened. Though the unintended recipients received information about other members’ scores on mood tests, medications and results of frailty tests, at least the Social Security numbers weren’t revealed.

If a breach affects more than 500 people, law requires that the health industry alert the Health and Human Services Department, which will then launch an investigation. The affected consumers, and local news outlets, are also required to be notified.

Highmark Inc., the health insurance company whose members were affected by the mailroom breach, changed the member ID numbers of the affected members or those who might have been affected. Sixty-three members received forms pertaining to other people, and 233 never received a mailing, suggesting that their forms possibly went to other members.

As for the bumbling employee, that person was fired. The other employees are being retrained, and Highmark will implement a bar code system on all mailings, which is one proper way to track breach notification letter mailings to ensure the right pieces of mail end up in the right hands and avoid over-stuffing or mis-stuffing of envelopes.

Somewhere out there is a dictionary that when you look up the term wire money, the definition says scam! Even though legitimate money-transfer businesses exist like Western Union, a request to wire money for that new car or vacation package is most probably a rip-off.

And the crooks behind these rackets are figuring out ways to overcome the increased awareness of consumers to the money-wiring scams. They’ve come up with yet another way to steal your money. Thieves are requesting reloadable prepaid cards.

Would you hand a well-fed-looking masked man on the street your wallet? (Let’s pretend for a moment he’s not pointing a gun at you and is simply asking for your money). Of course you wouldn’t give it to him.

But this is what people essentially do when wiring money or sending in the prepaid cards.

Here’s how it works: The thief makes a request to load your cash onto your card (to pay for whatever), and then send over the card number and PIN. This way, the crook can put your money onto their own cards. They then can go to an ATM and take out cash or spend your money at a store. Meanwhile you never receive the item you thought you were purchasing, like that adorable pedigree puppy you saw online.

But the scams don’t stop at buying puppies, vacation packages, cars or other common items. They can also come in the form of a notice that you won a prize, and that you need to send in a prepaid card to pay a processing fee. Sometimes the scam comes in the form of a utility company payment or even government payment.

Bottom line: Don’t send anyone prepaid cards!

In that same dictionary after the term prepaid cards is scam!

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com

If you think that retailers are the biggest target for cyber criminals, you have it more than a wee bit wrong. Hackers are really going after the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. In fact, “Will Healthcare Be the Next Retail?” is the name of a recent report released by BitSight Technologies, a security ratings firm.

The report claims that not all victims of healthcare hacking report breaches, so figuring out the total number of these attacks is difficult.  However, the Ponemon Institute released a report stating that hacking into healthcare and insurance companies has jumped 100 percent since 2010.

Why such a jump? It could be due to the fact that healthcare-type enterprises have gotten onto the BYOD (bring your own device) bandwagon. This is almost analogous to an employee infected with a stomach virus coming into the building and spreading the sickness.

Another dynamic: as more doctors use technology to stay connected to their patients, it won’t be surprising to see breaches become more common in the healthcare sector.

What distinguishes healthcare-industry hacking from retail hacking is that the retail hacker simply wants a credit card number. But the crook who cracks into medical records—that’s your patients’ individual profile chockfull of personal medical information.

Healthcare hackers may want to steal your patients’ identities to commit insurance fraud, so your records should be diligently monitored.

Robert Siciliano is an Identity Theft Expert to AllClearID. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen 

You’ve surely heard of “B2B” or business-to-business marketing. The new game plan is “B2C” – business to consumer marketing, particularly in the healthcare industry. The Affordable Care Act allows healthcare organizations to directly deal with consumers on a  massive scale for the first time. However, this comes with some challenges, namely, how to effectively reach potential consumers and differentiate their organization from the competition.

Organizations must take notice that potential enrollees aren’t just concerned about cost and coverage, but two less apparent concerns: privacy and security.

Consumers want reassurance that their data is protected. They can’t get all the data breach fiascos out of their mind. According to the TRUSTe 2014 U.S. Consumer Privacy Report, 92 percent of U.S. Internet users are worried about their online privacy. Of these, 47 percent are frequently worried.

So even though a potential enrollee may have complete faith in your service and reputation, they may be unnerved by the pathways of information exchange: the Internet, mobiles, wireless networks, computers. They know that their personal health data is out there in “space,” up for grabs.

If you want strong enrollment numbers and loyal customers, you must put the consumer’s concern for the protection of their personal health information at the top of the priority list. No way around this. If consumers don’t get assurance from you, they won’t stick around for it; they’ll take their business elsewhere.

So what will you do to put consumers’ apprehension at ease? One way to accomplish this is to facilitate a security and privacy program to ease consumer anxiety.

AllClear ID provides the following guidelines for healthcare insurers and providers:

• Continue to use state-of-the-art IT techniques to secure cloud services, access points, databases and mobile devices; and to better monitor systems for breaches.
• Improve security of corporate devices and employees’ personal mobile devices used for work.
• Enhance employee training at all levels to decrease errors, improve device security and ensure HIPAA compliance. Also train employees around how to comfortably talk to customers about how their data will be protected.
• Institute an identity protection program for enrollees to make them feel safe signing up with you and reduce the pain if there is a breach.

Beware of “Free Wi-Fi” or “Totally Free Internet,” as this probably IS too good to be true. These are likely set up by thieves to trick you into getting on a malicious website.

AT&T and Xfinity have provided many free hotspots for travelers to get free Wi-Fi: all over the country. Sounds great, right? However, these services make it a piece of cake for thieves to gain access to your online activities and snatch private information.

AT&T sets mobile devices to automatically connect to “attwifi” hotspots. The iPhone can switch this feature off. However, some Androids lack this option.

Cyber thugs can set up fake hotspots called “evil twins”, which they can call “attwifi,” that your smartphone may automatically connect to.

For Xfinity’s wireless hotspot, you log into their web page and input your account ID and password. Once you’ve connected to a particular hotspot, it will remember you if you want to connect again later in that day, at any “xfinitywifi” hotspot  and automatically get you back on.

If someone creates a phony WiFi hotspot and calls it “xfinitywifi,” smartphones that have previously connected to the real Xfinity network could connect automatically to the phony hotspot—without the user knowing, without requiring a password.

None of this means that security is absent or weak with AT&T’s and Xfinity’s networks. There’s no intrinsic flaw. It’s just that they’re so common that they’ve become vehicles for crooks.

Smartphones and Wi-Fi generate probe requests. Turn on the device’s WiFi adapter. It will search for any network that you’ve ever been connected to—as long as you never “told” your device to disregard it. The hacker can set the attack access point to respond to every probe request.

Your device will then try to connect to every single WiFi network it was ever connected to, at least for that year. This raises privacy concerns because the SSIDs that are tied with these probe requests can be used to track the user’s movements.

An assault like this can occur at any public WiFi network. These attacks can force the user to lose their connection from their existing Wi-Fi and then get connected to the attacker’s network.

Two ways to protect yourself:

#1 Turn off “Automatically connect to WiFi” in your mobile device, if you have that option.

#2 the best way to protect and encrypt all your data in your laptop, tablet, or mobiule is via Hotspot Shields software to encrypt all your data even if you automatically connect to a free WiFi.