BREAKING NEWS FBI warns of Malicious Software infecting Travelers’ Laptops

Beware all government, private industry, and academic travelers who rely on their laptops to not only stand in touch with friends and family but also keep up to date with work.     The Federal Bureau of Investigations is warning that “recent analysis demonstrates that malicious actors are targeting travelers abroad through pop-up windows while they are establishing an Internet connection in their hotel rooms.” 

They continue by explaining that “traveler was attempting to set up the hotel room Internet connection and was presented with a pop-up window notifying the user to update a widely used software product. If the user clicked to accept and install the update, malicious software was installed on the laptop. The pop-up window appeared to be offering a routine update to a legitimate software product for which updates are frequently available.”  They recommend “taking extra caution before updating software products through their hotel Internet connection. Checking the author or digital certificate of any prompted update to see if it corresponds to the software vendor may reveal an attempted attack. The FBI also recommends that travelers perform software updates on laptops immediately before traveling, and that they download software updates directly from the software vendor’s website if updates are necessary while abroad.  Anyone who believes they have been a target of this type of attack should immediately contact their local FBI office and promptly report it to the IC3’s website at www.IC3.gov.”

While there are so many things that can go wrong with any computer, it’s especially irritating when it may have been avoided. 

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