Privacy, Hacking and Virus Alerts

This is the second notice regarding an email scam
circulating
the Internet, in which the email sender
falsely affiliates himself with the Montana Secretary of State’s Office.

Are you ready for the "XP Apocalypse" on April 8?

Windows XP is widely used on workstations in nearly all of the electric and gas utilities in the U.S.

"(W)e strongly recommend that you create a new password for your Kickstarter account, and other accounts where you use this password," Strickler said in the blog post.

Beware of phone calls from 215-220-2321, said Anastasia Burton, deputy communications director for the Montana Department of Justice, which oversees the Office of Consumer Protection in Helena. Beware of the caller ID words "School District," as well.

If you see a $9.84 charge on your credit card statement, you should give it a hard look, the Better Business Bureau is warning.

"Companies get hacked every day and it’s important to remember that, for every company you hear about getting hacked there’s 99 others that you’re never going to hear about," Davidoff said.

Almost 2 million accounts on Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo and other social media and Internet sites have been breached, according to a Chicago-based cybersecurity firm.

The problem lies in the security verification process that has been used on the Google Play applications store since the release of Android 1.6.

"There’s no evidence this information was grabbed and taken," he said. "To date, we’ve not had reports of any individuals having problems."