If you or your parents are 62 or older, you should know about what's called a reverse mortgage. It's become popular because it represents a way to turn the equity in a home into tax-free monthly payments. It's a government insured loan that helps seniors obtain financial independence as the money can be used for almost anything. This would include paying off an existing mortgage (which is required) eliminating credit card debts, paying off medical bills or for just improving your quality of life. How much could you borrow? If you or your parents are considering a reverse mortgage there are three factors you need to use to determine how much you would get. They are: • The value of the home • The interest rates currently being charged • The age of the youngest borrower The way these loans generally work is that you tell the lender the value of the home, as you understand it. This number is used to calculate your initial loan amount. However, a real estate appraiser will then visit your home to independently determine its value.
New evidence suggests that the Russia-linked threat actor Gamaredon is a hack-for-hire group that offers its services to other advanced persistent threat (APT) actors, similar to crimeware gangs, according to security researchers with Cisco's Talos division. Also referred to as Primitive Bear and active since at least 2013, the threat actor has been long associated with pro-Russia activities, showing a focus on Ukrainian targets. However, the group targets victims worldwide for espionage purposes and is not as stealthy as other major APT actors. Despite being exposed several times in the past, the group has continued operations unhindered, gathering information on intended targets and sharing the data with other units, likely more advanced threat actors. In addition to offering services to these APTs, however, the gang is conducting its own, separate activity as well. The tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) employed by Gamaredon, Talos says, are commonly observed in the crimeware world, and include the use of trojanized installers, self-extracting archives, spam emails with malicious payloads, template injection, and the like.