Gloria Gangi asked:


Did you know that one quick and easy way for cyber criminals to access and steal a person’s details is through the download of wallpaper onto your iPhone? You ask how this is so? Well the wallpaper can hide malware. So any iPhone wallpapers not coming from Apple or from AT&T should be viewed with a certain amount of suspicion. But you ask what is malware?

The Definition Of Malware?

Malware includes viruses, spyware, rootkits, Trojan horses, keyloggers and adware. The best way to describe Malware is that it is a very broad classification of any kind of software that adversely affects your computer, PDA or cell phone that has internet access (like an iPhone). Malware can sometimes slow your computer, PDA or iPhone down – in the most extreme cases it can break into your personal data. Details such as account information and passwords are then transmitted back to the originator

Because mobile devises such as iPhone do not have the protection that your computer has, Internet security experts McAfee are saying that cyber criminals are concentrating on these types of devices to obtain the information they need. The quickest way for them to get the information is by tricking you into downloading a free iPhone wallpaper

Pop-Ups Are A No No

Beware of the popup, cyber criminals love to install malwares is in pop-ups for “free” iPhone wallpaper, ring tones”. How do these work? They work in a couple of ways, when you go to a web site and your browser suddenly opens up another window in order for you to see an add. Don’t click on any of these links as they can contain the malware . Most computers now have pop-up blockers as a standard feature. You should be able to manually turn the pop-up blocker off if you need to actually use the browser window that suddenly opens (such as to add a link in for your blog in Blogger). Those pop-up windows are not to sell stuff – you can safely use them.

In order to be sure that you are safe from any kind of malware, you need to have the latest versions of:

- an anti-virus program

- an anti-spyware program

- a firewall

- a spam filter for your email

- a pop-up blocker

Also remember to have tthe most recent updates of your OS (like Windows, Linux or Macintosh), and the most recent updates of your music playing software