Cypac Blog

Honolulu drivers: the city's official parking app is Park Smarter, not ParkMobile - and any text message with a parking payment link is a known phishing scam. Here is exactly what to do instead.

This past weekend I got a phone call from a blocked phone number. It was of course, a scammer, who legitimately sounded like a police officer. He told me that I had missed a court date and needed to send him crypto or I would be arrested. Yes, I get these calls too 😅 These imposter scams have become more common, compelling and expensive than ever before. In a report released this week by the Federal Trace Commission, Americans lost over $3.5 billion last year to scammers pre

Honolulu businesses and residents face DocuSign scams that bypass spam filters by using DocuSign's own platform infrastructure. Learn how these attacks work, the exact red flags to watch for, and how to report them to the FBI and FTC.

Kyushu Electric Power Co. had a big problem last month that I think we can all learn from. Kyushu Electric is one of Japan's major regional electric utility companies. In an official announcement this week, the company explained how their IT team regularly performs server backups to external storage drives. Back in April, they took a backup of their customer's data, including names, addresses, phone numbers electrical usage and more, stored it on an external drive and put it

Matt and I did an episode on our Cybersecured podcast some time back on Facebook AI hackers, about how scammers use AI to deepfake people you might know to fool you into giving up passwords or financial information. This is a HUGE problem by the way. According to Interpol's March 2026 Global Financial Fraud Threat Assessment, impersonation fraud is one of the leading categories in cybercrime, contributing to more than $440 billion in global losses last year. Coincidentally, t

The bad guys are at it again! This week, the FBI issued a new warning about a cybercriminal group called Silent Ransom Group, or SRG, that’s been targeting law firms with a mix of phishing, fake IT support calls and even in-person visits. The scam usually starts with a phone call or phishing email from the attacker pretending to be from IT support. They may tell an you there’s a problem with your computer, an issue with an email or something that needs to be fixed right away.

I did a count of crypto ATM machines on Oahu - there are now 20! A crypto ATM lets you buy or sell cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ethereum using cash, a debit card, or a digital wallet, similar to how a regular ATM handles money but for digital currency. Why is this a problem? Because scammers are pretending to be a banks, government agencies, tech support workers and even a company executives, then pressure our local community to withdraw cash, go to a crypto ATM and then se

For those of you with kids, there's a good chance your school is using Canvas. This week they were breached and the fallout has been huge. What is Canvas used for anyway? Canvas (owned by Instructure, Inc.) is one of the most widely used learning management systems (LMS's) and is used heavily to post assignments, collect homework, manage grades, share class materials, send messages, and communicate between students, teachers and staff. What happened and why does it matter the

I was at Safeway the other day with my kids buying groceries and when it came to checkout I had a choice, pay by tapping my card or with my phone's Apple Pay. Which do you think is safer? The answer might surprise you. We did a KHON2 news segment this week on Ghost Tapping, the modern day version of a thief “bumping” your wallet. Except instead of stealing your card, they take advantage of its short-range wireless payment feature, near-field communication (NFC). KHON2 - Ghost

If you recently clicked a link, or went to a website you visit "all the time", but maybe typed a little too fast and did not check the spelling, you may have landed on a fake lookalike site. For example, someone meaning to visit: https://Google.com But instead might accidentally type something like: https://Goggle.com That tiny difference matters! If the page suddenly started showing scary pop-ups saying things like “Your antivirus has expired,” “Virus detected,” “Your comput