Category: Technical Resources

How to Stop SMS scams on your PHONE

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The SMS scams are in the news lately.  Here is what you need to know. In Australia, SMS scams have caused as much as 381m in losses.

SMS scam costs
https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/scam-statistics

While the Telcos and Government grapple with what best to do to reduce this, there are something you can do to stop spam on your mobile phone. You can block these spams by tagging them!

how to block sms spam ios

For iPhone, all you need is in Settings

Got a spammy-looking message in your Messages inbox? As long as you have iOS 7 or later installed on your iPhone, the steps are pretty simple. Open the message, tap Contact, then tap the little “i” button that appears.

Next, you’ll see a (mostly blank) contact card for the spammer who sent you the message. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap “Block this caller.” C-ya, spammer.

For Android, it’s a little more complicated

The SMS-blocking situation for Android is a bit more complex than for iOS—although to be fair, it wasn’t possible to block text messages on the iPhone at all until iOS 7 came around.

While the “stock” Messaging app won’t let you block SMS spammers, there’s a plethora of apps on the Google Play store that’ll do the job…or used to, anyway.

Working in tandem with the standard Messaging app, third-party SMS-blocking apps (like SMS Filter or Mr. Number) let you create and manage what’s called a “blacklist”—that is, a list of phone numbers that you don’t want to hear from again. Other anti-spam apps, like Postman and Spam Blocker, will go ahead and flag suspected SMS spam.

But thanks to a new restriction in the latest version of Android—namely, that only one app at a time may tap into your SMS messages—many of these handy SMS spam-blocking apps have been rendered useless.

Now, it’s very possible that your particular Android phone hasn’t been updated to Android “KitKat” yet, in which case you’re free to shop around for a dedicated SMS blocking app.

how to block sms spam android

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/436450/how-to-stop-sms-spam-on-your-android-or-ios-phone.html

How to Optimize Your Moodle Server

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How to optmize your moodle learning management systemTo increase the performance of your Moodle site, there are a number of ways to optimize your server. You should avoid enabling multiple filters, because this can increase the server’s load. Instead, consolidate features into smaller plugins and turn off filters that are rarely used. A great example is the Multi-Embed filter. It allows you to embed content from third-party websites and services and converts the URL into an embedded format.

To optimize your server, first, create a baseline benchmark. You can measure the performance of your system by looking at how long it takes to load a page. If the page is taking too long to load, try to decrease the number of sections that appear on a page. The smaller the pages are, the less RAM they take up, so this will increase your server’s performance. If you’re worried about RAM usage, you can use folders and core activities.

You should also make sure that your server can handle the load. Moodle requires a good amount of RAM and disk space. In addition, your host and browser must be high-performing. You should monitor the performance of each of these components monthly. If you don’t manage to achieve this, you might need to purchase a new computer. If you’re using Moodle on a server, the best way to optimize it is to purchase a powerful computer and upgrade it if necessary.

How to Optimize Maria SQL for Websites

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How to Optimize Maria SQL for websites

The first step in optimizing your MySQL server is to make sure it is using a secure connection, preferably HTTPS. This is important for your site’s security as well as for your website’s performance. You can optimize your server to run as fast as possible by ensuring it uses a secure connection. Once you have the right database server, you can begin working on your website. Here are some tips to optimize Maria SQL for your site.

First, make sure you’re using appropriate monitoring tools for your MariaDB database. There are many free tools available, including ClusterControl. This tool offers performance advisors, alarms, and alerts for MariaDB. Besides, it’s open source. If you’re planning to use the database for a large website, you should consider increasing the threadpool variable to a higher value. Once you’ve done that, you should increase your backlog to a minimum of 100MB and then add a new one for each table partition.

To make your MariaDB database run faster, you should allocate at least one KB of memory for each table. For best performance, allocate 1 KB per MB of memory. Alternatively, use mrr_buffer_size to make your tables larger. By adjusting the maximum heap size, you’ll be able to get a better performance. After all, you should always have a spare tire for your databases.

National Cyber Drill 2021

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REGISTER HERE:

Day 1 (November 24, 2021 ): National Cyber Drill 2021 (Day 1)

Day 2 (November 25, 2021): National Cyber Drill 2021 (Day 2) 

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT)-Cybersecurity Bureau will be conducting the fourth leg of its annual National Cyber Drill Exercise on 24 to 25 November 2021, with the theme, “Cybersecurity Starts with You: Building a CyberSecured Society.”

The conduct of this activity is part of the mandate of the Philippines National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-PH) as stated in the DICT Department Circular 003 series of 2020.

Through the CERT-PH initiative, this year’s cyber drill will focus on enhancing public awareness and assessing the public’s perspective on cybersecurity and their capacity to protect themselves from cyber threats and cyberattacks.

CERT-PH believes that a more holistic and inclusive approach in implementing the annual cyber drill is a step forward to creating a more proactive approach in addressing various cybersecurity threats in the country.

The two-day exercise will include a series of activities that will help assess and improve the participating organizations and individuals’ incident response capabilities to mitigate cybersecurity risks.

The first drill, conducted on the first day of the two-day activity, will be open to the public regardless of their age and background. The primary purpose of this activity is to make the public more involved to develop a better understanding of cybersecurity as a public concern.

On the other hand, the second part will cater to individuals and organizations with advanced cybersecurity knowledge. Like the previous years, the drill will also include simulations of cyberattacks and IT security incidents to test the participants’ readiness and capabilities to respond to various risks and threats. 

CERT-PH highlighted that familiarity with the given situations would strengthen each participants’ preparedness in solving issues relating to cybersecurity. This approach will also help them better understand how to handle the incidents in a specific case and be part of the cyber solution.

Participants who wish to be part of the National Cyber Drill  2021 will have to register separately for the two-day event.

Registration is OPEN from November 5 until November 17, 2021. 
This is a FREE event. E-Certificates will be provided upon completion of the drill.


For inquiries, send us an email to drill.cert-ph@dict.gov.ph.