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New Fake Antivirus Tech Support Scam Tricking Users

McAfee has long been a popular target of scammers, but recently, they’ve changed the nature of their game. In years past, they’d display a webpage informing you that any McAfee products on your computer are out of date and provide a link to the company’s virtual storefront where you could renew. Unbeknownst to the people […]

Uninstall Fake App Called “The Album by Google Photos”

If you take a lot of photos with your Android device, you’re probably constantly on the lookout for a better way to organize them and access them.  That’s exactly what the authors of the malicious app called “The Album, by Google Photos” are hoping for. The app put in a brief appearance on the Microsoft […]

HIPAA Fines For Data Breaches Continue To Grow

Anthem is one of the largest insurance providers in the United States. Unfortunately in 2015, they had the dubious honor of suffering the largest health data breach in history. It left protected health information of nearly 79 million of their customers exposed. As a result, a division of the US Department of Health and Human […]

Teens Now Are Using Instagram More Than Facebook

Move over Facebook. Where teens are concerned, Instagram reigns supreme, according to a recently published survey. Piper Jaffray has been tracking how teenagers use the internet for nearly twenty years, and the second report of this year has some interesting findings indeed.   Here are the highlights: 85 percent of teens report using Instagram at […]

Data Breach Affects Federal Healthcare System

You probably haven’t heard of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Systems. They’re a low-profile division of the Department of Health and Human Services responsible for administering the Affordable Care Act. Recently, the company announced that they detected anomalous activity in the systems related to the healthcare.gov website that brokers and insurance agents use to […]

Latest Windows 10 Update Causing Audio Issues

Microsoft hasn’t been terribly impressive lately when it comes to Windows 10 updates.  In fact, it’s fair to say that they’ve been a complete mess.  Just recently, they’ve issued updates that have deleted user files and caused crashes after creating incompatibilities with keyboard drivers. Now, (courtesy of the most recent Windows 10 update), many users […]

New Encryption Will Help Secure Your Android Device

Google is taking additional steps to bolster user privacy and better secure the data of the company’s legions of Android device owners.  The company recently announced a change to the Android Backup Service that will encrypt all user backup data stored on its cloud servers, such that even Google itself can’t read it. Google has […]

Malicious Messages In PlayStation Can Cause It To Crash

Gamers take the games they play seriously.  So seriously, in fact, that they’re not above resorting to dirty tricks to score a win. Recently, social media has been abuzz with reports of a messaging app bug on Sony’s PlayStation devices.  Specifically, there’s a bug in both the Android and iOS messaging apps that allow malicious […]

IP Spoofing Attacks Show Significant Increase

Gaming and Gambling are huge industries with a truly global footprint.  It’s no surprise then, that these industries have become an increasingly popular target for hackers. Interestingly, according to the latest report issued by ThreatMatrix, the attack vector of choice when it comes to these industries is IP Spoofing. It has increased by a staggering […]

Some iOS Users Report Call Issues After Latest Update

This hasn’t been a great month for two of the titans of tech.  Both Apple and Microsoft have been plagued with bug-riddled updates to their operating systems.  In Apple’s case, their new iOS 12 had to be patched just three weeks after its release because of all the bugs the company’s burgeoning user base discovered […]

A Visionary Approach to Your Security

The purpose of an IT partner isn’t just to fix something when it is broken, it is to keep your people working and your data secure. Astral moves beyond traditional managed services by addressing all the key areas of cybersecurity in today’s complex landscape.

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