Technologies

Online prices for bogus vaccine cards double after Biden mandate

The fake cards are the latest in a series of COVID-related scams.

For the most up-to-date news and information about the coronavirus pandemic, visit the WHO and CDC websites.

Online fraudsters are jacking up the price of false COVID vaccine cards in the wake of a new federal mandate, the latest in a series of scams that seeks to exploit widespread concern and misinformation about the deadly pandemic.

The average cost of a fake «registered» US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine card doubled to $200 in the days following President Joe Biden’s Thursday announcement that federal employees and others would be required to get a COVID shot, according to new research from Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies.

Oded Vanunu, Check Point’s head of products vulnerabilities research, says that when the company started monitoring the issue in January, COVID-related black market activity was mainly found on darknet websites geared toward dealers. Those dealers would buy the fake documentation in bulk and resell it.

Since then, the activity has shifted to groups on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app. The groups offer anonymity, as well as bigger reach and scale. Over the past month, the number of sellers on Telegram has jumped tenfold to about 10,000.

The number of people subscribed to those groups has jumped, too. Before Biden’s announcement, some bigger groups had as many as 30,000 subscribers and followers. After the news, those numbers surged, with some groups peaking at roughly 300,000 members, a number the researchers hadn’t seen before.

Representatives of Telegram didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

«Our expectation is that the black market for fake coronavirus vaccination cards will continue to thrive as more policy requiring vaccination proof gets rolled out,» Vanunu said in a statement released with the report.

The spread of fake vaccine documentation online is part of a broader problem authorities have tried to combat. Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites have batted false information about the disease since the early days of the pandemic. The FBI has warned about vaccine scams and has disrupted online frauds that used the pandemic to raise false donations.

And the Federal Trade Commission has cautioned consumers to be on the lookout for scammers pretending to be government authorities in an effort to get into victims’ bank accounts.

The Biden administration’s plan is designed to address both the surging delta variant and the slowing pace of vaccinations in the US. It mandates vaccines for all federal employees and contractors who do business with the federal government, as well as health care workers at Medicare and Medicaid facilities.

Businesses with more than 100 employees must also require their workers to be vaccinated or to get tested weekly for infection. In total, the plan could reach up to 100 million people, roughly two-thirds of the US workforce.

The plan also encourages entertainment venues such as sports arenas and concert halls to require proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test for patrons to gain entry.

The market for fake documents is expanding globally. Check Point researchers found documents for sale in nine new countries that it didn’t spot a month ago, bringing the total number of countries spotted to 28.

In addition to the fake CDC vaccination cards, the researchers also saw counterfeit versions of UK National Health Service cards, vaccine certificates for numerous other countries, European Union digital certificates and COVID PCR test results.

Technologies

WhatsApp’s New Update Lets You Encrypt Chat Backups Using Passkeys

Use your face, finger or code instead of a password or 64-digit key.

Face, finger or lock-screen code: These passkeys are all you will need to encrypt your WhatsApp chat backups in the near future, the messaging app announced Thursday. Meta-owned WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app in the world, said it would be rolling out the changes over the upcoming months.

«Now, with just a tap or a glance, the same security that protects your personal chats and calls on WhatsApp is applied to your chat backups so they are always safe, accessible and private,» the company said.

A representative for WhatsApp did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Passkeys are rapidly overtaking passwords as an easier and more secure way to allow computer users to log in or sign on. Instead of remembering our average of 301 passwords, passkeys use facial or fingerprint recognition — or a lock screen code — to sign in. According to recent research, passkey adoption is growing quickly, speeding up sign-in times and reducing IT help desk incidents.

What are passkeys?

We explain the concept in depth here, but the simplest explanation is that passkeys are password-less logins. To log in, you must look at the screen (facial recognition), tap on the screen (fingerprint recognition) or enter a multi-digit lock screen code.

Many smartphone users already use facial recognition or codes to get into their devices.

In 2021, WhatsApp initially allowed customers to secure their encrypted chat backup with either a password or a 64-digit encryption key.

How to do it, and why

Many WhatsApp consumers have a vast trove of messages, images, videos, and voice notes stored on their phones dating back years. They can either live only on your device or be backed up to Google Drive (for Android devices) or iCloud (for iPhones).

If you haven’t set up a backup schedule, here are the steps:

Go to Settings
Select Chats
Select Chat Backup
From there, you can back up to iCloud or Google Account, if you have one, and set your auto backup schedule.

You can still encrypt your chat backup now with a password or 64-digit key, but WhatsApp’s upcoming passkeys rollout will eliminate the need for those.

Technologies

Here’s How to Watch the New ‘Scream 7’ Trailer and Stream All the Past Movies

You like scary movies, right? The original Scream from 1996 is streaming for free with ads.

Do you like scary movies? Scream fans will recognize that line, and they received an early Halloween treat on Thursday with the release of a new trailer for Scream 7. Neve Campbell’s return as series heroine Sidney Prescott battling a new Ghostface killer could be the reason to revisit earlier spooky films in the franchise.

The upcoming Scream 7 revolves around Prescott’s facing a masked, knife-wielding murderer (yeah, you know what the mask looks like) who targets her family. It doesn’t hit theaters until Feb. 27, but if you’d like to get prepared and nab some Halloween scares, here’s how to stream Scream 1-6.

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How to stream the Scream movies on Halloween

Scream (1996) — Pluto TV (free with ads), Paramount Plus, Peacock
Scream 2(1997) — Pluto TV (free with ads), Paramount Plus, Peacock
Scream 3 (2003) — Pluto TV (free with ads), Paramount Plus, Peacock
Scream 4 (2011) — Tubi (free with ads), Paramount Plus, Peacock
Scream(2022) — Hulu, Paramount Plus
Scream VI (2023) — Paramount Plus
Scream 7 (2026) — Due out in theaters on Feb. 27, 2026.

Technologies

ARC Raiders Beginner’s Guide: 7 Tips You’ll Need to Thrive Above Speranza

When a new extraction shooter drops, players quickly learn how brutal death can be. Here’s how to avoid the sting of losing hours of progress.

Developer Embark Studios’ ARC Raiders is the latest extraction shooter that’s set to take the gaming world by storm. As genre veterans and newcomers alike emerge from the underground town of Speranza to take on killer robots — and their fellow humans — players quickly learn how brutal it is to lose loot on death.

Luckily, ARC Raiders is the most «casual» extraction shooter I’ve ever played. That isn’t to say that it’s an easy game, but there are built-in mechanics that make the hardcore gameplay loop far more accessible to a wider audience.

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This guide will equip you with the knowledge you need to make real progress in ARC Raiders before, during and after a raid. Read on to find out about what keybinds you need to learn, what loot to focus on first and how you can quickly recoup some wealth after a string of failed runs.

Figure out your shoulder swap keybind before you ever load into a match

ARC Raiders is a third-person shooter with high-stakes player-versus-player combat. If you want to stand a chance against an enemy player in a serious firefight, you need to know how to swap your camera view from aiming over your character’s right shoulder to aiming over their left shoulder so you can peek around corners without exposing yourself too much.

The default bind for this action on PC is «X,» so get used to pressing that key — or swap it to something you’re more comfortable with. Switching the camera from shoulder to shoulder will help you peek around corners before you expose your body, eliminating blind spots and giving you a competitive advantage. In a game where one death could eliminate hours of progress, you certainly don’t want to give up crucial lines of sight.

Nothing to lose, everything to gain: Utilize the free loadouts

Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve just suffered consecutive squad wipes, you’ll never be without a gun, simple medicine and other basic supplies. You can opt to enter a raid with a «free loadout,» which will provide you with a hodgepodge of low-grade gear. Unlike in other extraction shooters (looking at you, Escape From Tarkov) there’s no cooldown period on taking a free loadout into a match — you can do so whenever you like.

You can’t carry as much weight or pack out as much loot as you’d be able to with any other class mod on, but this is a great way to try to hit a heavily trafficked zone without the risk of losing your good weapons. As a bonus, if you manage to extract with a free loadout, you can trade the «free loadout» mod for a basic green-tier class mod at the vendor named Lance in Speranza.

Focus on completing quests for the denizens of Speranza

ARC Raiders largely cuts you loose to raid, engage in gunfights with other players and loot whatever you like at the start of the game. But it’s highly recommended to follow the guided progression path to get some extra equipment, learn what activities you can get involved in topside and unlock harder missions with more valuable rewards.

Always check in with Speranza’s traders after each raid to see what quests you can take on (or turn in). Some quests will require you to bring certain items back from a raid, and others will have you battling ARC robots or completing objectives throughout the world. Make sure to keep completing quests in order to discover all of the secrets ARC Raiders has to offer.

Loot the dog collar ASAP

Scrappy is a rooster that sits around Speranza collecting crafting materials while you’re out fighting killer machines. He brings the scrap back home to you because he’s a very good boy. Reward him with a dog collar so he feels loved — and so that he levels up and brings you loot even more quickly.

The looting rooster can be upgraded multiple times, but you should focus on finding the dog collar while on a surface run to bring him up to level two at first. The dog collar can be found in random containers, but during the press previews I had the good fortune of finding one at The Dam map’s research and administration area.

When you’re searching for scrap, prioritize big pieces of loot

You’ll find lots of metal scrap, plastic tubing and miscellaneous wires as you rifle through loot containers topside. These are definitely worth stuffing into your pockets; they’re the bread and butter of crafting materials and something you’ll want to stash away early on.

You’ll probably run into what’s a «good problem» to have sooner or later: running out of carry space mid-raid. Raw materials can quickly overflow your inventory, forcing you to extract early. Instead, focus on larger pieces of tech like TVs, radios and big chunks of ARC robots.

Once you successfully extract these items from a match, you can break them down into their parts to gain a variety of crafting components. In a way, they act like compact storage units for multiple raw materials at once.

Grow your net worth. No, seriously

I know, this sounds like the mantra for a bad internet con artist. But building up a small nest egg in ARC Raiders is a great way to ensure you can throw together backup loadouts if you meet an untimely end multiple times in a row. This is bad enough on your own, but if you’re squadding up with friends, you don’t want to be the only one without a good loadout.

If you can’t find the specific materials you’re looking for during a raid, it’s well worth looking for valuables instead. Jewelry, vases and other creature comforts fetch a pretty penny when you sell them to the traders in Speranza. Once you’ve saved up a couple thousand coins, you can trade them in for new weapons, attachments and even stash upgrades.

Guns aren’t the end all, be all of ARC Raiders combat

While it’s incredibly gratifying to run into the thick of battle and wipe a squad out with a strong submachine gun or pick off straggling raiders from afar with a leveled-up bolt-action rifle, you can’t always rely on your guns to win a fight. ARC Raiders features tons of gadgets and deployable equipment that can quickly turn the tide of a fight if used correctly.

Grappling hooks and ziplines add a new level of verticality to gunfights, while high-explosive grenades can flush enemies out of cover. Deployable walls and smoke grenades can counter these tactics or let players safely blitz a wide-open area. If you want to get really clever, you can bring throwable noise lures that will cause ARC robots to converge on your enemies — the AI will do the dirty work and won’t even loot the bodies.

Your strategies are limited if you don’t bring a couple pieces of gear. Consider leaving that extra stack of shield rechargers in your stash — if you need 10 of them in a single match, you probably have bigger problems — and grab a couple of grenades for your next raid instead.