George Racates’ Post

Google Launches New Maps Feature to Help Businesses Report Review-Based Extortion Attempts https://ift.tt/RiFDZIK Google on Thursday said it's rolling out a dedicated form to allow businesses listed on Google Maps to report extortion attempts made by threat actors who post inauthentic bad reviews on the platform and demand ransoms to remove the negative comments. The approach is designed to tackle a common practice called review bombing, where online users intentionally post negative user reviews in an via The Hacker News https://ift.tt/v5P4ItR November 07, 2025 at 03:15AM

This week's tip comes in the form of a warning ⚠️: Pay more attention to your address bar! I recently received an email that was asking me to log into an account. It looked very legitimate, but nonetheless, had one or two things that made me suspicious. 🧐 I did my due diligence and verified the sender...it looked legitimate! All looked well, but I STILL suspicious. I decided to try the link on a test environment and was led to this screen: what appeared to be a Google Login, but note that the address bar reveals it as an elaborate forgery. SO: please look at your address bar, especially when following links and especially when entering personal information and ideally set your browser to show the FULL address bar! This is pretty standard in FireFox and Chrome, but you do need to take an extra step in Safari to show the full URL bar.

The real challenge isn’t too few defenses, but too many disconnected ones. Our latest research uncovered the hidden cost of this fragmentation: ➡️ Users lose up to $868 a year to overlapping, underused tools ➡️ 46% disable protection due to alert fatigue ➡️ 38% stop reacting to threats altogether The takeaway: The more apps people use to stay safe, the less secure they feel. Read more here:  https://lnkd.in/gfJigwZ9

What's the most secure browser to use? 🌐 💻 Here's my breakdown: I excluded Safari from this list because it's I forgot to mention it lol. Lets go in order for least to most (excluding Safari) 1. Chrome - weakest privacy due to Google data collection 2. Edge - Microsoft protection layers, telemetry hurts privacy score 3. Firefox - Open-source, strong privacy controls, frequent patches, customizable (containers!!! which are awesome) 4. Brave - Blocks trackers, ads, fingerprinting; built-in HTTPS Everywhere 5. Tor - Maximum anonymity (very slow)

🛡️ Google Maps Adds Feature for Businesses to Report Ransom Demands Over Reviews | Read more: https://lnkd.in/gWBy7pRt Scammers are targeting businesses with a new extortion scheme, and Google Maps is fighting back with a dedicated reporting tool. Google has introduced a feature that allows business owners to report ransom demands directly to malicious actors who threaten them with fake negative reviews. Cybercriminals have developed a sophisticated plan to extort money from businesses through Google Maps reviews. The scheme begins with "review-bombing," where bad actors flood a business profile with fake one-star reviews designed to bypass Google's moderation systems. #cybersecuritynews

Did you know encrypted chats still reveal who you message, when, and how often? Even if your chats are encrypted, apps like WhatsApp still track when, how often, and who you message. This metadata builds a behavioral map - one that can reveal your routines, habits, and social circles. Encryption hides your words. Metadata exposes your world. But with peer-to-peer encryption like Pryvate’s, there are no central servers and no metadata trails to follow - your data never leaves your device. Control your trail before someone else does.

For anyone saying "Atlas is the new Google" - mate, it's just a browser. You'll gain a few features and security risks, but it is not a whole new "search machine". Atlas is built on Chromium (owned by Google). So the shock value of people discovering its search results resemble those of Google... well, has shocked my cynical soul to the core ;) ✨ A very entertaining thread on the bigger topic of it all: https://lnkd.in/dC2dfXPR ✨ The security risks: https://lnkd.in/dqFJx72w ✨ Why it's not even a revolutionary browser: https://lnkd.in/d-3FYvGX

#BrowserSecurity The vulnerability, dubbed Brash, can crash browsers within seconds by flooding the document.title API, and Google’s silence raises questions about its disclosure process. https://lnkd.in/gdWF58PM

AI-powered and traditional browser extensions pose diverse security risks across Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, and AI browsers. Multi-platform defense requires Secure Enterprise Browsing and user education. #BrowserSecurity #EnterpriseTech #USA link: https://ift.tt/7HrpxOC

After years of development, browsers finally became secure enough for us to trust with sensitive tasks. Now, with the rise of AI-powered browsers, we're back to square one on security. Brave Browser recently exposed a critical vulnerability in Perplexity's Comet called "Indirect Prompt Injection." Their video demonstration shows how easily attackers can manipulate the AI agent with Indirect prompts in website context and steal private information. Worth reading. Link in comments.