October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month and Louisiana State Police say they are going to offer ways to reduce your risk of scams when you are online and/or connected to devices.
Each week, they say they will provide education on different topics on their Facebook here.
Here's some information on malware:
Did you know you can be infected with malware just by visiting a website?
This is called a drive-by download, and there are a few ways they can work:
The first and most dangerous type is called a passive drive-by download. This attack exploits vulnerabilities in browser plugins like Java or Flash Player to execute code without any user interaction at all. Hackers can also inject code into a vulnerable but otherwise legitimate site to spread malware without users’ knowledge. These are difficult to pull off, but they are still possible if you are using outdated browsers or plugins.
The second type is called an active drive-by download. In this attack, bad actors require some interaction from the user, and they have lots of ways to get it. They can email you a link that contains malware, buy up ad space on legitimate sites and host ads that contain dangerous payloads, or disguise a virus as a legitimate program and trick you into downloading it (also called a ‘Trojan Horse Attack’).
Drive-by downloads can be difficult to defend against since you can be exposed to them just by browsing the internet, but there are still some best practices you can employ. Don’t click on ads on websites; you don’t know where they could lead. If you get a pop-up, don’t click on the red X; close it from the taskbar at the bottom of your screen if possible. Browsers typically have configuration settings that will block popups and certain content from displaying. You may want to use some of these settings.
For more information, watch this video:
