The micro blogging service that could is rumored to be laying off 300 people…

Twitter is one of the bastions of social media on the internet. When people say, “all the social things” or “social networking,” you normally think of two things – 1. Facebook (obviously); and 2. Twitter. To be very honest, I don’t think that social networking would be as big as it is if not for Twitter. Its quick little 140 character messages have truly made the entire social networking platform what it is today… at least I think so.

Over the past year, the company has gone through a number of interesting changes. Its founder, Jack Dorsey has returned to the company as CEO. He was ousted from the company in 2008; but has returned after a successful stint at Square as founder and CEO to retake the helm of the fledgling service he started. Dorsey was expected to turn things around for the company quickly; but unfortunately, things haven’t rebounded as Twitter would have liked.

When things like this happen, its not unusual for the rank and file to expect organizational changes. According to a report from Bloomberg, Twitter is expected to cut approximately 8% of their current workforce, or about 300 people. The company had a similar RIF (reduction in force) in late 2015 when Dorsey returned. This latest layoff would bring the RIF total to 16% since Dorsey’s return.

My guess is that the recently cooling rumors of a buyout are fueling this latest development, as there aren’t currently any active, interested suitors – which included Salesforce, Disney and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) – for the company. Twitter’s shares were down a total of 4.9% on Tuesday morning, 2016-10-25.

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Amid all the Holiday Hullaballoo, malware attacks can be nasty. However, beware where the warnings are coming from.

You must have a malware scanner on your computer – Mac, Windows or Linux – don’t compute without one. Period. You also need to heed the warning dialogs they display. If you’ve got a bug, or if it catches one before it infects you, do what it tells you in order to get rid of it. However, do yourself a favor, mind where the dialog boxes are coming from.

Case in point, last year, my wife got hit by a nasty piece of malware that totally hijacked her computer, down to the BIOS level, making it useful as nothing more than a door stop. I couldn’t even replace the hard drive. The infection had corrupted the laptop’s BIOS. In the end, I had to replace the PC; and the lesson from this is CLEAR – when you’re surfing the internet and you see a dialog box popup informing you that you may already be infected, or are infected with malware, make sure that the dialog box is coming from your malware scanner.

Unlike Soft32, some download sites have software that are infected with malware. Some sites permit popups and pop-unders that advertise malware scanners that aren’t malware scanners at all. They’re really nothing more than applications that steal your personal information, and hijack your PC unless you either pay to get rid of them, or pay a subscription fee. The popups or pop-unders I’m referencing look like legitimate system utility or malware scanner dialog boxes.

Don’t trust them; or any of the information they contain.

Be sure you know which malware scanner you use. Insure that THAT program’s name is listed in the title bar of the dialog box you’re reading. My wife thought she was protecting herself and her computer. In the end, she lost not only her PC, but some pictures and videos we’ll never get back.

I was recently talking to a family member who had a similar issue happen to them. They knew enough to call me and ask me about what they were seeing before they clicked the OK button on the dialog box. It’s a good thing they did. We were able to bypass the dialog box and save their PC and data.

In the end, you need to be mindful of the following:

• The name of your malware scanner
• That program’s name will appear in the title bar of any dialog box that displays on your computer.
• Malware warning dialogs that come from your web browser can usually be considered as suspected, malware.
• When in doubt, click the “X” button that closes the dialog.
• Do NOT dismiss the dialog by using the OK or Cancel buttons on it.

Keep yourself safe. Become familiar with your malware scanner, allow it to update itself; and MOST of all, schedule regular scans, regardless of the time of day that they want to run. Better to suffer through a bit of performance lag than to lose all your data AND your PC.

If you want to download free antivirus and anti-spyware security software for Windows, pick one below…

Avast | AVG Antivirus | Microsoft Security Essentials

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