Palo Alto Networks this week announced the immediate availability of Unit 42 Managed Detection and Response (MDR), a service providing on-call cybersecurity specialists to track and respond to security threats in real time.

The idea is to back Palo Alto’s existing automated Cortex extended detection and response (XDR) platform with human expertise, dedicating members of the company’s threat response team and others to minimizing unnecessary alerts and prioritizing those from serious threats. It’s a response, the company said in a statement, to an increasingly advanced and complicated threat environment—as well as an in-house security landscape that, in many cases, hasn’t matured to match.

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Let’s be honest – many of us parents aren’t big fans of gaming. In fact, some of us have probably even been known to roll our eyes or groan when we think about just how long our kids spend playing online games. But if there is one thing I’ve learned after 25 years of parenting, it’s that taking the time to look at a stressful family situation from the perspective of my children, can be very powerful. In fact, it can almost always fast track finding a mutually agreeable work-around for everyone – and gaming is the perfect example.  

Why Do Our Kids Love Gaming? 

We have all read about how online gaming can provide players with regular hits of dopamine  –  a neurotransmitter in the brain that becomes active when you participate in fun and pleasurable activities. Now I am not disputing this for a moment – I’ve witnessed it firsthand! However, it is important to remember that dopamine increases whenever we do anything enjoyable – pop a square of chocolate in our mouth or watch our favorite sporting team win – not just when we play online games. 

Many online games have cleverly designed built-in reward systems, and many experts believe that it is the combination of dopamine and reward that probably best explains why our kids are such gaming fans. Now, these reward systems are intentionally unpredictable so players are aware they will eventually get a reward, but they have no idea as to when or how often it is coming – so they are compelled to keep playing! Very clever! 

In my opinion, gaming also fills several other needs in our children – the need to belong, to feel competent and be independent. And while we may have had these needs addressed very differently in the 70’s and 80’s – hanging at the bus stop, mastering the Rubix cube and not being helicopter parented, our batch of digital natives will often use gaming as their go-to solution. 

Why You Should See Gaming Through The Eyes of Your Child 

When many of us parents think about our kids’ online gaming, our initial thought is ‘how do we make our kids stop’. But I can you this isn’t the right approach. Online gaming isn’t going anywhere. So, taking the time to see gaming from your child’s perspective and understand why it is such a big part of their life is where you need to focus your energy. I guarantee this will further strengthen your relationship with your child and help you introduce rules that they will better respect. 

Let’s take a moment to channel the great Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird and focus on his words of inspiration for us all: ‘“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Ah yes – very wise words! 

My Top Tips For A Happy Gaming Family 

So, if you are keen to stop gaming being a negative issue in your family, here are my top tips to help you get it under control and stop it causing family tension: 

1. Change Your Thinking 

If you find yourself thinking ‘how do I get my kids to stop gaming’, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Gaming isn’t going anywhere and as parents, we don’t want to drive an unnecessary wedge between ourselves and our kids. Instead, commit to having an open mind. Think ’Ok, let’s give this gaming thing a go’. 

2. Talk To Your Kids About Their Gaming – With No Tone 

When the time is right, ask your kids what their favourite games are and why. Your aim is to get them talking. You could even do your research in advance and drop in the names of a few popular games to ask them about. ‘My work friend’s son plays Roblox, do you know much about that?’ 

3. Play Along! 

Even if you aren’t that interested, I promise, playing along will open your eyes. You’ll better understand how the game’s reward system works and what it feels like to get a shot of digital dopamine! And most importantly, it will be great for your relationship with your child. By taking the time to play with them, you are showing that you are interested in their life and their hobbies.   

4. Educate Yourself About All Thing Gaming 

When your kids started their social media journey, chances are you spent a little time familiarising yourself with the various platforms they joined. Well, you need to adopt the same approach with their gaming life too. Here are a few areas to focus on:  

Check out Discord – an online community where a lot of gamers spend time sharing tips and ‘cheats’. Check out an article I wrote about Discord here. 
Suss out Twitch – it’s a live streaming video gaming site where loads of kids spend loads of time watching others game. Yes, this is a thing!  
Big time gamers are now considered ‘influencers’. It’s not uncommon for tweens and teens to watch then play on Twitch, subscribe to their YouTube channel, and then follow them on Instagram. They can have a lot of sway! 
Do your research on the games your kids play. Having an open mind about gaming doesn’t mean it’s OK for them to play games that are not age-appropriate.  

5. Introduce Fair, Age-Appropriate Rules Around Gaming 

Once you’ve taken the time to understand your child’s gaming life, cleared your mind of any unnecessary negative gaming thoughts and done your research, why not put together a set of family rules for gaming? You may like to consider a family tech agreement and have a separate section for gaming. Or you may prefer to keep it more casual and have the rules written on the fridge or shared in the family group chat. Regardless of what you choose, ensure that you introduce these boundaries when everyone is calm and in a good head space NOT when you’re in the middle of a verbal stoush! 

You could choose to give your children a set amount of time they can use each week on gaming and then let them choose when to use it or you allocate a small time everyday once they’ve completed homework and chores. When my boys were younger, I didn’t allow gaming Monday – Thursday but after school Friday was always quite the gaming fest – a reward for getting through the school week. Do what works for your family!   

There’s no question that this digital parenting gig is complicated. Trying to help your kids find the right balance between embracing the online world and offline world can often feel hard to get right. But if you’re ever in doubt about whether you’re on track when it comes to managing your kids’ gaming, always ask yourself – have I kept an open mind? Have I taken the time to talk to my kids and understand their gaming life? Are the gaming rules fair? And, if you have answered yes, then I have every confidence that you have the right approach to ensuring gaming is a positive part of your family’s life.  

The post How To Get Your Head Around Your Kids’ Online Gaming Life appeared first on McAfee Blog.

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The TA likely used RAR and 7zip to archive files and folders from multiple directories

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The CIS Benchmarks development team has been hard at work preparing several brand new Benchmarks and updates for August 2022.

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Email scammers sent an Uber to the home of an 80-year-old woman who responded to a well-timed email scam, in a bid to make sure she went to the bank and wired money to the fraudsters.  In this case, the woman figured out she was being scammed before embarking for the bank, but her story is a chilling reminder of how far crooks will go these days to rip people off.

Travis Hardaway is a former music teacher turned app developer from Towson, Md. Hardaway said his mother last month replied to an email she received regarding an appliance installation from BestBuy/GeekSquad. Hardaway said the timing of the scam email couldn’t have been worse: His mom’s dishwasher had just died, and she’d paid to have a new one delivered and installed.

“I think that’s where she got confused, because she thought the email was about her dishwasher installation,” Hardaway told KrebsOnSecurity.

Hardaway said his mom initiated a call to the phone number listed in the phony BestBuy email, and that the scammers told her she owed $160 for the installation, which seemed right at the time. Then the scammers asked her to install remote administration software on her computer so that they could control the machine from afar and assist her in making the payment.

After she logged into her bank and savings accounts with scammers watching her screen, the fraudster on the phone claimed that instead of pulling $160 out of her account, they accidentally transferred $160,000 to her account. They said they they needed her help to make sure the money was “returned.”

“They took control of her screen and said they had accidentally transferred $160,000 into her account,” Hardaway said. “The person on the phone told her he was going to lose his job over this transfer error, that he didn’t know what to do. So they sent her some information about where to wire the money, and asked her to go to the bank. But she told them, ‘I don’t drive,’ and they told her, “No problem, we’re sending an Uber to come help you to the bank.’”

Hardaway said he was out of town when all this happened, and that thankfully his mom eventually grew exasperated and gave up trying to help the scammers.

“They told her they were sending an Uber to pick her up and that it was on its way,” Hardaway said. “I don’t know if the Uber ever got there. But my mom went over to the neighbor’s house and they saw it for what it was — a scam.”

Hardaway said he has since wiped her computer, reinstalled the operating system and changed her passwords. But he says the incident has left his mom rattled.

“She’s really second-guessing herself now,” Hardaway said. “She’s not computer-savvy, and just moved down here from Boston during COVID to be near us, but she’s living by herself and feeling isolated and vulnerable, and stuff like this doesn’t help.”

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), seniors are often targeted because they tend to be trusting and polite. More importantly, they also usually have financial savings, own a home, and have good credit—all of which make them attractive to scammers.

“Additionally, seniors may be less inclined to report fraud because they don’t know how, or they may be too ashamed of having been scammed,” the FBI warned in May. “They might also be concerned that their relatives will lose confidence in their abilities to manage their own financial affairs. And when an elderly victim does report a crime, they may be unable to supply detailed information to investigators.”

In 2021, more than 92,000 victims over the age of 60 reported losses of $1.7 billion to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). The FBI says that represents a 74 percent increase in losses over losses reported in 2020.

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Drawing from last year’s acquisition of RiskIQ, Microsoft is adding two new threat-intelligence applications to its Defender product family, and separately offering new detection and response capabilities for SAP ERP systems to its Sentinel SIEM (security information and event management) product.

Combining intelligence from the security research team at RiskIQ with existing in-house security findings, Microsoft has developed Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, a standalone library of raw adversary data. Microsoft says it is offering the library for free, accessible directly by all users, or from within its existing Defender family of security products, according to a blog post from Vasu Jakkal, a Microsoft vice president for security, compliance, identity, and management.

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