Items tagged with security
Nowadays, it is a matter of when, not if, a cybercriminal will breach a company or organization. It appears that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is figuring this out the hard way, as a threat actor has been sending emails from the FBI's system infrastructure since early this morning. While this should...
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This weekend, cyber-security firm Palo Alto Networks released a detailed analysis of an ongoing hacking campaign targeting technology, defense, healthcare, energy, and education industries. The attack targets Zoho's ManageEngine ADSelfService Plus password management system and uses vulnerability CVE-2021-40539 to...
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Google has attempted to answer why the fingerprint sensor on its Pixel 6 phones is, at times, noticeably sluggish. For some, however, the reason Google gives just does not match up, leaving them to wonder if there is more at play.
The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are the first in the family of Pixel phones to have an...
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When you open an app or website, location or GPS permissions are one of those things people tend not to allow. However, what if the app or site was able to extrapolate where you are without even needing new permissions? This is potentially happening on your Android device as security researchers have shown that motion...
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Nearly eight and a half years ago, Intel launched its 4th Generation Intel Core Processors, codenamed Haswell. In that time, researchers have discovered a number of security vulnerabilities that can typically be addressed via software and firmware updates. Unfortunately, Intel must ad one more to the list that...
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It's easy to think of hackers in the colloquial sense as being the enemies of society. People who break into computer systems and sabotage electronics to gain control of them or steal data; how could someone like that be of benefit to society at large? The answer is that a great many so-called "hackers" are in fact...
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Do you ever forget to type the TLD (like, ".com") for websites that you visit, then click the top result when the inevitable search comes up? We might recommend you to stop doing that in the future. At least on Google and Bing, the first few results are advertisements, and those advertisements might not be as safe as...
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Remember the old days of code pages and customized OSes for specific languages, like DOS/V? Unicode has more or less solved the biggest issue with displaying non-ASCII glyphs on computers, although it's still up to the operating system to implement support, of course.
Did you know you can write source in Unicode...
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If you thought being in the swanky C-suite of a major company kept you safe from hackers, think again. Those positions, among other high-ranking posts, are the latest targets in the ongoing infosec war between businesses and hackers. Many of us worry about getting our Amazon Prime account or our bank account hacked...
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Cheaters never prosper, especially when they are being targeted by ransomware-laden files scattered about the internet. Whether or not comeuppance like this is deserved, Japanese Minecraft players looking for alternate accounts to cheat or circumvent bans are being infected by the Chaos ransomware variant in a ghastly...
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If you were a threat actor, what better way to get a payload onto someone’s device than through a program that nearly everyone has installed like Google Chrome? Unfortunately, this appears to be what is happening with the Infostealer malware, masquerading as a legitimate update to the popular web browser from Google...
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One of the main reasons that the malware epidemic in the Windows XP days was so severe was because almost all those machines were configured with only a single user account that had administrative privileges by default. That meant that any malware running as that user would have free rein to do whatever it wanted on...
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Do you use BQE Software's BillQuick? If you do, go update it—immediately. Huntress ThreatOps identified nine zero-day vulnerabilities in BillQuick Web Suite, a time and billing software that the publisher claims is in use by over 400,000 users worldwide.
The most serious vulnerability is an all-too-common SQL...
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Malware on Windows devices has become a real problem in the last few years, specifically with a recent uptick in ransomware. It appears that Microsoft has been trying to combat this issue, though, with updates to Microsoft Defender, so it has more teeth than ever before. However, what if Microsoft is part of the...
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Everyone who uses an Android phone has probably had some security-conscious acquaintance ask, "don't you know how much data your phone is harvesting?" Most of us shrug it off as one of the unavoidable circumstances of modern life: you want a smartphone, you deal with data harvesting. Still, some folks aren't so...
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Attempting to upgrade a PC to Windows 11 when the system doesn't meet the minimum system requirements for any reasons elicits an ominous warning message foreboding potential doom and destruction. That's only a slight exaggeration. Part of the warning message states unsupported PCs are not entitled to receive updates...
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For at least the second time in 2021, hackers have breached Acer's servers, this time plundering more than 60 gigabytes of data. Acer has confirmed that names, addresses, and phone numbers belonging to several million clients have been compromised in the breach, as well as sensitive corporate financial and audit...
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Hey, guess what? Apple has finally decided to allow sideloading on iOS devices! Just kidding—anyone fooled has not been paying attention to the almighty institution that is Apple, the guardian of consumers and overseer of mobile security. Or something like that. It is, however, being pressured to follow in Google's...
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A couple weeks ago, we wrote about a potentially frustrating iOS 15 messaging bug that could permanently delete precious photos saved to your iPhone, in certain circumstances. This was even present on the iOS 15.1 beta 2 build, which made us nervous that a fix might still be a bit off in the distance. Fortunately...
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You might have read a story earlier in the week about a US Navy destroyer's internet connection being "hacked" and taken over to stream Age of Empires to Facebook. A tale like that is comical until you consider the national security implications of such a thing. Fortunately, this particular story remains comical in...
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Passwords have become part of our everyday life. It seems everything requires one and we are often left scratching our head trying to remember if it was “password123” or “123password”. Having a strong password, however, is the first line of defense for our digital lives.
Google is sharing how it is making your...
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Most people probably don't know this, but the big service providers like T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon contract out to third-party services to help with transmitting SMS text messages, both between carriers and abroad. One of the largest of those companies is called Syniverse, and it handles text messages sent using the...
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