Online Safety

How to Spot Malware Hidden Inside Productivity Apps: The TamperedChef Threat If you’ve ever downloaded a productivity app from a site that wasn’t the developer’s official page or a trusted app store, you might have encountered something more dangerous than a buggy program. A new malware campaign called TamperedChef is using signed productivity applications to deliver information stealers and remote access trojans (RATs) to Windows and possibly macOS systems. The twist: these apps carry valid code‑signing certificates, making them look trustworthy to both users and security software. ...

How to Use AI Without Sacrificing Your Privacy, According to Proton’s CEO Artificial intelligence tools are now embedded in everything from email to photo editing, and they often ask for a lot of data to work well. Many users worry this trade-off is unavoidable. Proton’s CEO, Andy Yen, disagrees – but he also points to one risk that keeps him up at night. ...

How Malware Is Hiding in Signed Productivity Apps—and What You Can Do About It Intro When you download a productivity app—whether it’s for editing documents, managing spreadsheets, or running video calls—you probably assume it’s safe if it carries a digital signature. That trust is exactly what the attackers behind the TamperedChef campaign are counting on. Recently reported by cybersecurity sources, TamperedChef delivers information stealers and remote-access Trojans (RATs) through signed versions of popular productivity software. For everyday users, this makes a traditionally reliable safety cue (the signature) unreliable. Here’s what happened, why it matters for your privacy and security, and—most importantly—how you can spot and avoid these threats. ...

Privacy in the AI Era: What Proton’s CEO Says Really Matters for You Every time you type a question into ChatGPT, upload a document to an AI summarizer, or let an app rewrite your email, your data travels somewhere. The question is: where, and who else gets to see it? As more people adopt AI tools for work and daily life, the trade-off between convenience and privacy is becoming hard to ignore. In a recent interview with Spiceworks, Andy Yen, CEO of Proton (the company behind Proton Mail and Proton VPN), shared what keeps him up at night when it comes to AI and privacy—and offered some practical guidance for users who want both. ...

How to Spot Malware Disguised as a Signed Productivity App If you use apps like Microsoft Teams, Slack, or Notion, you probably trust them because they come from well-known companies. That trust is exactly what a new malware campaign called TamperedChef is exploiting. The malware hides inside seemingly legitimate productivity applications that have been digitally signed—sometimes with stolen certificates, sometimes with fake ones. Once installed, it delivers information stealers and remote access trojans (RATs), giving attackers control over your system. ...

How to Protect Your Privacy When Using AI Tools: Advice from Proton’s CEO AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Microsoft Copilot are now part of daily life for millions of people. They help us draft emails, summarize documents, brainstorm ideas, and even code. But every time you paste a block of text or ask a question, you are handing over data that can be stored, analyzed, and possibly used to train future models. ...

Privacy in the AI Era: What Keeps Proton’s CEO Awake—and How You Can Protect Yourself In a recent interview with Spiceworks, Proton’s CEO Andy Yen offered a refreshingly frank take on privacy in the age of AI. On one hand, he believes that meaningful privacy is still achievable—even as AI tools become embedded in our daily workflows. On the other, he pointed to a specific threat that keeps him up at night: the way AI providers are quietly shifting from being tools to being data brokers. ...

Privacy in the Age of AI: Proton’s CEO Explains the Real Risk The rapid adoption of AI tools over the past year has reshaped how people work, search, and create. But for many users, the excitement is tempered by a growing unease about what happens to the data they feed into these systems. In a recent interview with Spiceworks, Proton’s CEO offered a blunt assessment of where we stand—and what genuinely worries him. ...

How TamperedChef Malware Turns Trusted Productivity Apps Into Stealthy Threats If you download a popular app like TeamViewer, Slack, or Zoom and see that it’s digitally signed, you probably assume it’s safe. That assumption is understandable, but it’s no longer reliable. A recent malware campaign called TamperedChef is showing exactly how attackers are abusing signed productivity applications to slip past traditional defenses and install information stealers and remote access trojans (RATs). ...

What Proton’s CEO Fears Most About AI Privacy — and How to Protect Yourself Six years after the launch of ChatGPT reshaped how people interact with technology, Proton CEO Andy Yen says privacy in the AI era is not only possible but necessary. But there is one thing that keeps him up at night. In a recent interview with Spiceworks, Yen pointed to a specific risk that many users overlook while they tap into convenient AI tools. ...