🚨 You’re infected

Hey there, it’s Saturday, {{first_name | friend}}. You know when people say it can’t be done? Steve Jobs treated that like a personal challenge. When Apple engineers showed him the first iPod prototype, he said it was too big. They pushed back, there was no way to make it smaller. So Jobs walked over to an aquarium and dropped it in. Plop.

🪼 What happened next proved the engineers wrong. Was it: A) The iPod floated, proving it was mostly hollow plastic, B) The water displaced exactly 500 ml, showing wasted space, C) Air bubbles rose to the surface or D) The screen shorted out, proving the seal wasn’t tight? Make your best guess. The answer will surface at the end. If you don’t get it right, there are no reef funds.

📻 Got plans this weekend? Join me. My radio show is on 510+ stations across the country. Find yours here, or listen commercial-free on Apple Podcasts, iHeart, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. I promise you’ll learn stuff I cannot fit in here! — Kim

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⚡ TL;DR (THE SHORT VERSION)

📖 Read time: 3 minutes

Your computer’s dragging. Pop-ups are breeding like rabbits. Your home page changed, and you didn’t do it. Programs you’ve never seen before run in the background.

Congrats. You’ve got malware. 

Hackers are using AI to pump out 560,000 brand-new malware variants every single day. Your free antivirus? It has no idea what hit you.

Malware attacks shot up 131% over the last year. Thanks, AI.

Cybercriminals type prompts into ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude, and boom, malware in seconds. They deploy it before your antivirus even knows it exists. Oh, it gets better. 

The first AI malware that thinks for itself is out: PromptFlux and PromptSteal. These nasty things rewrite their code every few minutes while they’re attacking you. Some 80% of phishing attacks use AI. Sleep tight!

Viruses are sold on the dark web like you’d buy Netflix. $4,500 gets you 1,000 malware installs. Monthly subscriptions run $100 to $1,000, with customer support, regular updates and a loyalty program. 

These marketplaces have product descriptions, reviews and, yes, sales.

Mac malware jumped 50% this year, targeting users through fake downloads. That “I’m safe because Apple” attitude? Hackers love it. Makes their job easier.

Why you? Credit cards saved in Safari. Banking apps. Maybe a crypto wallet. You’re not paranoid, you’re profitable.

Windows:

Mac:

🚩 Red flags: Sluggish performance. Pop-ups. Home page hijacked. PC or Mac running hot. Security software turned off. Programs you never installed.

I constantly evaluate my recommendations for you. I test, I compare, I switch when something better comes along. In 2026? Webroot is the best. It’s what I use.

I like free, but free antivirus (Microsoft Defender, built-in Mac protection and the others) only catches 60%-80% of threats. That means 20%-40% of malware waltzes right past it. Paid antivirus with real-time cloud protection? That stops 95%-99%. I like those odds better.

Here’s my other beef. Most antivirus programs are resource hogs. Norton, Bitdefender, Trend Micro, McAfee, etc. gobble up 2-4 GB of RAM. Webroot? Uses 1/6th the memory. Scans 6x faster. Stops modern threats on PCs and Macs with real-time protection. 

✅ Right now, I’ve arranged for you to get 75% off Webroot Essentials. You’re not going to find a better price anywhere else. I made sure of that. By the way, if you buy, I get no kickbacks or residuals. 

📤 Know someone whose computer is “acting weird”? Forward this. They’re probably infected and don’t know it. Or use the share icons below to post this.

🗂️ Cyber chief pastes secrets into ChatGPT: The guy running America’s cybersecurity agency uploaded sensitive documents into public ChatGPT. You can’t make this up. CISA’s acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, pasted documents marked “for official use only” into ChatGPT and triggered DHS leak alarms. Congress wants answers: What got exposed? Why did the nation’s top cyber cop need an AI shortcut for paperwork? This is the agency that tells the rest of us how to stay safe online. Lead by example, folks.

RAM heist at Costco: Thieves figured out they can pop RAM sticks out of display gaming PCs at Costco and walk out. No tools needed. One quick yank, and they’re $100-$200 richer. Some stores have caught on. They’re displaying pre-built gaming rigs powered on, RGB lights glowing with no GPU installed. That’s a graphics card worth $300 to $1,000+ missing from the display. Can’t steal what isn’t there. One alleged thief? An Instacart shopper. Picking up someone’s groceries and a little RAM on the side. Very 2026.

Sign in or else: Come here, Fitbit folks, I’ve got a tiny tech ultimatum for you. If you still log in with a plain old Fitbit account, Google wants you to switch to a Google account by Monday, Feb. 2. Miss the deadline, and your account and step history can get deleted, except whatever they legally have to keep. This was supposed to hit in 2025, but they kicked the can. Nice step history. Be a shame if something happened to it.

📘 Don’t get left behind by AI: It’s moving fast, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But you can't afford to ignore it. NetSuite’s free “Demystifying AI” guide breaks it all down simply. No jargon. Just facts you can use to help your business win. Download the guide for free right now.*

YouTube vs. your ad blocker: People are seeing a surge of “content unavailable” screens that magically disappear the second they turn off their ad blocker. That’s not an outage. That’s enforcement. YouTube quietly tweaked their backend scripts to detect when you’re blocking ads. Either watch the ads or stare at an error screen. Why the crackdown? YouTube Premium sign-ups aren’t where they want them, and your free ride is costing them money.

🧳 Google’s new AI travel planner: Ever feel like planning a trip is a second job? The group chat debates, the 47 open browser tabs, the spreadsheet someone made that nobody’s updating. Exhausting. Google’s trying to help. Google Arts and Culture added AI features. Tell it your interests and schedule, and it’ll suggest landmarks and live events. Google will also generate a comic strip about your trip starring your selfie. Why? I don’t know. Maybe Google thinks your vacation isn’t real unless you’re a cartoon character in it. Weird. 

🥳 You ask, I deliver: By popular request, you can listen to the entire show, commercial-free, in a single podcast episode. No more queueing up each hour. Push play, sit back, relax and let me take it from there.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Forgot to lock your car and you’re already halfway across the parking lot? Don’t walk back like a sucker. Hold your key fob under your chin, press lock and listen for the beep. Your skull acts like an antenna and amplifies the signal. I know it sounds ridiculous. I know you’ll feel silly doing it. Try it anyway, it works.

💲 Is your phone bill over $100? Then you’re overpaying. Full stop. Big carriers count on you being too lazy or too nervous to switch. They love that you think it’s complicated. It’s not. You’re paying a loyalty tax for nothing. If you’re 50+, Consumer Cellular is a no-brainer. Same 5G networks the big guys use. Same coverage. Way less money. Two lines for $30 each line, and your second month is free. What are you waiting for?*

Hands on the wheel: Looking down at your phone while driving is a great way to ruin your day and everyone else’s. Let your car read messages to you instead. iPhone with CarPlay: Go to Settings > Notifications > Announce Notifications and turn it on. Siri will read incoming messages out loud. Android Auto: Open Settings > Android Auto > Messaging and turn on notifications. When a message comes in, say, “Hey, Google, read my messages.” Now you can ignore that group chat safely.

🎨 How to make better AI images: Stop typing “a cool picture of a dog” and wondering why your results look weird. Use a formula: subject + setting + style + lighting. Like this: A golden retriever on a beach, golden hour, photorealistic, shallow depth of field. A few more tricks: Tell it the aspect ratio (1:1 for square, 16:9 for widescreen). Say what you don’t want (“no text, avoid extra faces in background”). Include exact text if you need words in the image. The more specific you are, the less you’ll fight with the AI.

Sounds good to me: You can host podcasts, produce bedroom beats or fine-tune the songs you generated with AI, all for free. Don’t buy expensive software to record and edit audio. Audacity works on Windows and Mac, and it’s open-source, which means passionate audio nerds worldwide keep improving it. Music to my ears.

Your Kindle isn’t just for books: That Kindle collecting dust on your nightstand? It’s also a document reader. PDFs, Word docs, articles you’ll “read later,” send them straight to your Kindle. Here’s how: Go to amazon.com/sendtokindle in your browser. Sign in with the same Amazon account linked to your Kindle. Drag and drop your files. Make sure Add to your library is toggled on, hit Send. Open your Kindle, check your Library, and there they are. Way easier on the eyes than staring at your laptop for another hour.

👂 Listen up! Tune into my award-winning radio show, airing this weekend on 510+ stations. Find yours via our awesome station finder. You can also listen commercial-free on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts.

💻 Got a tech problem? Book an appointment to speak with me here, and you could get your answer on air. So cool! 

Love the show? Tell your local station! Hit their “Contact Us” page or send a social media shout-out. Your 30 seconds keeps the tech talk coming to your city. Thank you!

⛔ Your A+ paper failed the AI test: Aaron aced his final paper at LSU, then Turnitin flagged it for cheating. Spoiler: He didn’t use AI. His choice now? Forfeit the paper or fight an incomplete grade. He’s not the only one. Tons of students are getting falsely accused. Hear what happened.

👇 Use the links below to listen on your schedule.

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

Service dogs can open doors, alert to seizures and literally save lives. But when it comes to smart home tech? They’ve been stuck mashing buttons designed for humans with thumbs. Not exactly fair.

The Dogosophy Button fixes that. It’s a dog-first appliance switch, round, blue, textured for wet noses and easy to press without opposable digits. Ten years of development. Twenty service dogs helped design it. Finally, a focus group that gets belly rubs.

Dogs can use it to trigger lamps, fans or other smart home devices on command. For service dog owners, that’s a game changer. It’s about $130, not cheap, but you’re basically buying tech co-designed by a very good boy who probably tried to eat the prototype.

🔜 Tomorrow: A young engineer flew overseas for what he thought was a dream IT job. It was a trap. What he saw inside, and what he risked to expose it, will make your stomach drop. Beatings. Starvation. A $2,800 ransom no one paid. And an escape you won't believe. This is one of the most harrowing stories I've ever shared. Don't skip tomorrow's email.

🫧 The answer: C) Air bubbles escaped. When Steve Jobs dropped the original iPod prototype into a fish tank, tiny air bubbles floated to the surface, revealing hidden space inside. He pointed at the bubbles and famously declared, “That means there’s space in there. Make it smaller.” Talk about pressure, and not only under water.

Fun fact: Steve Jobs wasn’t afraid of confrontation, but guess what he was afraid of? Public speaking. According to his biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs would get super stressed before keynotes, obsessively rehearsing. Still, he dropped some of the most iconic presentations in tech history.

You know it’s coming. What contaminated the fish tank? Baby shark doo doo doo doo dooo. 🦈

🔥 Your tech smarts are on fire. I hope you learned a few great things today. I sure had fun putting this newsletter together! — Kim

Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily

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Photo credit(s): ChatGPT, Toloco, The Open University

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