Don't click on every Gmail alert you receive

The months-long espionage campaign against US political targets allegedly orchestrated by hackers working for the Russian government hinged on a simple, yet effective, hacker trick: booby-trapped emails.

In some cases, such as with the hack on John Podesta or Colin Powell, the phishing emails were designed to look like Gmail alerts containing a Bitly link that led to a fake webpage to harvest the victim’s password. Podesta and Powell were fooled, but don’t think only baby boomers aren’t good at spotting malicious emails.

In fact, one in two people click on phishing links, according to some estimates. And, of course, some look more credible than others.

For example, you probably wouldn’t click on this email I got a few weeks ago, even if it contained the name of your mother, as it’s the case here.

Last week, the journalists who work for the independent investigative project Bellingcat received a series of messages that looked like legit Google security alert emails. They didn’t click on them, but would you have been able to spot that they were malicious?

This one used Google’s own style and look for a security alert. To a distracted or untrained eye, there would be no difference between this and the real thing. Imagine you get this in the middle of the day, while you’re stressed at work. Would you have clicked on it? Would have spotted that the hackers misspelled “Montain View” and “Amphithaetre”?

The hackers actually used three different types of phishing attempts, in an attempt to fool the targets. All of them prompted the would-be victims to change their passwords, and enter them in a website under the control of the hackers.

Ask yourself: would you have clicked on these emails?

Luckily, if you’re worried about phishing emails like that, and you don’t trust yourself, there’s an easy way to make these attacks much harder to pull off. Turn on two-factor authentication on Gmail or your webmail provider of choice (and do it for your social media accounts too).

With two-factor or two-step authentication, even if you click on a booby-trapped link and then give up your password to the hackers, they still can’t get in, unless they have hacked your phone too or have control of the phone network—something not all hackers can do.

 

 

John Glenn: 1921 - 2016

 

 

Who is a Project Manager ? Webinar

 

An good, but a little long, video about the roles of a project manager. Indian Project Managers should surely watch this, maybe they will learn something for once.

 

They destroyed Inferno

Been very busy nowadays, at a new job in a new role. So it was after a long time I got the time to watch a movie. Inferno. Yep, based on the novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks returns as Langdon. And Ron Howard as director. Which is why I was confused as to why they made this movie. This is the same team which made Apollo 13.

To be honest, the source material wasn't that strong to justify this movie. I was unimpressed with the book when I came out, and remember feeling Brown has lost his touch. In Inferno, the subject matter is not mainstream, the legends and history is not something which would attract public attention. The Lost Symbol, which had some American history conspiracy in it, would have been a better choice. Not many know about the importance of Florence, or have heard of Dante.

I think they should now stop making these movies. Brown's plots just gets clumsier , and clumsier. And now its totally predictable. Every novel has Langdon waking up in a hotel/hospital/room , being chased by police/secret service/FBI/CIA and bad guys/mafia/crazy cult. He is helped by a young , attractive and super-smart female, and the whole story gets over in like..24 hours. And I still don't buy the fact that Langdon is able to keep all those details of symbology in his head, he practically knows every work of literature created by the great artists.

In addition, they changed the story. Which was the biggest disappointment for me. In the book, Zobrist does not create a plague, but a virus which renders half of the human population infertile, so that there is some population control in the coming generation. But the movie version paints him as a foolish genius, who wants to kill people.

So right when I thought they could not go wrong with making Inferno, they have managed to mess it up completely.

All of Westworld’s secret was out, thanks to the internet

 

The Internet is amazing. Ever since the first episode of Westworld came out, people have been discussing, and sharing ideas, hunches and numerous clues which appeared on the show. Thanks to some very sharp eyed viewers armed with magnifying glasses, nearly every secret on the show was leaked. By episode 2, fans had worked out that William is the younger version of Man in Black in an ealier timeline, and that Bernard Lowe is Arnold Weber. A redditor called it out as early as episode 4. There are still other secrets they had called out, but I guess these two are the grandest of them all. Reddit is really a curious place, full of spoilers.  When today’s episode reveled that Bernard is actually build in Arnold’s image by Ford, I guess it really didn’t surprise most fans. Now the only secret remaining is what is Dolore’s role in this whole time.

The creators of Westworld had already revealed that they have written enough of the story for five seasons. I had assumed that their plan was to expand this whole storyline across 5 seasons. But now that they plan to reveal most of the secret in this first season itself, I wonder what more they have in store for us.

Dolores' scenes from episode nine were spread across three different time frames in the "Westworld" universe. In chronological order, the scenes with her in a blue dress were the earliest - likely about 35 years ago.

I am sure Maeve will escape from the facility, along with some more of the hosts. But still not sure what Dolores plans to do. She still has no idea she is a host…just that she keeps on confusing her memories with her real life in the park.