Items tagged with Windows
One of the things Microsoft has been pushing since Windows 8/8.1 is touchscreen operation. Hardware makers are on board too, which is why there are so many 2-in-1 and convertible devices mixing it up with traditional clam shell laptops. But is there a security trade off? At least one researcher thinks so after discovering disturbing behavior on touchscreen-enabled Windows 10 PCs. Barnaby Skeggs, an experienced incident responder and digital forensic analyst, claims that Windows 10 PCs with a touchscreen may drop sensitive information into a special file, when the handwriting recognition feature...
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Those who enjoy streaming movies and television shows on their devices should always be cautious when downloading content. It has been revealed that several third-party Kodi add-ons for Windows and Linux contained cryptocurrency malware. The cryptocurrency miner is difficult to uncover and is believed to have infected nearly 4,700 users. ESET, a Slovak IT security company, discovered that Windows and Linux Kodi users who downloaded the third-party add-ons Bubbles, Gaia, and XvBMC, were the targets of the malware campaign. The add-ons contain malicious code that mines the cryptocurrency Monero...
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There are lots of computers out there that are still running Windows 7 even though Windows 10 has been out for a very long time and is now installed on 700 million devices globally. The reasons for staying on an old OS like Windows 7 are many and varied but some folks just feel their OS is working just fine and many end users don’t want to shell out money to replace something that isn't broken. In the enterprise realm, it can be a huge undertaking to move hundreds or thousands of PCs from one version of Windows to a new version, especially if there is proprietary software or apps that might...
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A former security researcher decided to go out with a bang after apparently deciding to retire from the security game and blog about traveling instead. Known on Twitter as SandboxEscaper, the researcher revealed in a tweet a zero-day vulnerability affecting Windows rather than submitting a bug report to Microsoft. The former security researchers also posted a link to a proof-of-concept on Github, in case anyone thought the vulnerability was not real. It is, and Microsoft is working on a fix. Here is the alpc bug as 0day: https://t.co/m1T3wDSvPX I don't fucking care about life anymore. Neither do...
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Apple is currently beta testing the next major version of its desktop operating system, macOS Mojave, which is due to arrive on Mac systems this fall. In the meantime, users are discovering some interesting features. One of them is an expansive migration tool that will make switching from a Windows PC to macOS Mojave easier than in previous versions. It is not a brand new tool, but a more capable version of Apple's existing Windows Migration Assistant. Twitter user @YRH04E posted a screenshot of the expanded tool showing that it is capable of porting over more data than ever before, including user...
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Microsoft has had its toes in the water of software as a service (SaaS) for a while now, with Office 365 being one of the most visible of these services. A new rumor is going around that claims Microsoft is eyeing a move to offering Windows as a Service as well. Reports are that the service will be called 'Microsoft Managed Desktop' and that Redmond will be driving the initiative vigorously. That service would allow a subscriber to lease a Windows 10 device that is automatically provisioned and kept up to date for a set monthly fee. There is no indication that this will be the only way Microsoft...
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Philips heavily invested into tech that it integrated with some of its higher-end TVs years back called Ambiglow or Ambilight. That tech put a backlight behind the TV that would glow to match the action on screen with light that filled the room. Watch a flick with the Incredible Hulk and your room would glow green. It is slick technology that not only improved immersion in a movie, but the light also helped to bias the eye to prevent flicker from the screen from straining your eyes in a dark room. Philips is now doing something similar for owners of its Hue lightbulbs with a new app called "Philips...
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Microsoft issued the Windows 10 April 2018 on Monday after holding off on the launch due to a last-minute bug. Although the release brought some new productivity-minded features for users, it has also introduced some incompatibilities with popular apps that users are now reporting. Such is the case with a bug that is causing random freezes in Google Chrome. A reddit discussion thread is currently filled with multiple Windows 10 users that have experienced freezes in Chrome after installing the April 2018 Update. For one particular user (the thread's OP), his computer completely froze...
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Microsoft has added new features to Outlook on Windows, Mac, web, and mobile devices. The software giant says that the changes are meant to help users manage their time and keep important stuff up front where it is easy to find. There are new features coming to Outlook for iOS and Android devices soon to help connect users to people, apps, and tech that improve productivity in the business environment. Among the changes are bill pay reminders in Outlook Calendar with the addition of bill payments to events that the calendar already tracks for users like travel reservations and package deliveries....
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Microsoft has stepped out to explain its side of a recent story here that made headlines and it underscores that it's never wise to jump to conclusions in legal cases unless you have a firm grasp on the particulars. This week, we reported on an e-waste recycler who was sentenced to prison for 15 months for selling unofficial Windows install disks. At first glance, it may have been easy to consider Microsoft the bad guy for its overzealous prosecution. In the company's recent blog post, Corporate VP of Communications Frank X. Shaw gives great detail on the case, based entirely on publicly available...
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Microsoft decided to file criminal charges against an e-waste recycler named Eric Lundgren. The case against Lundgren originally went to court months ago, but the man remained free as his appeal worked its way through the court system. A federal appeals court has now upheld the original ruling, meaning that Lundgren will serve a 15-month prison sentence and will be forced to pay a $50,000 fine. What led to this harsh prison sentence? Lundgren had taken to downloading free software that Microsoft offers to Windows users commonly called restore disks. Lundgren's idea was to make these discs available...
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Microsoft has done something that might surprise a bunch of people out there, it has open sourced the WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) to make it easier for Windows users to run Linux distributions. The WSL sample that is now open source allows distro maintainers to build WSL packages for the Microsoft Store and to create custom Linux distro packages for sideloading. The distro launcher repo is on GitHub right now. Microsoft says that the open source WSL will enable: Linux distribution maintainers to package and submit a Linux distribution as an appx that runs on WSL Developers to create custom...
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PC users out there who are part of the Skip Ahead program have an updated version of Windows 10 they can grab and try out. The new version is Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17623 and it has some cool bits in it, and one not so cool feature. The major new introduction comes in the form of support for the High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) in Windows 10. Support for that format has been rolled into the Windows 10 Photos app. If you are unfamiliar with HEIF, it is an image container that uses modern codecs like HEVC to improve image quality, compression, and capabilities compared to older...
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Microsoft's Windows Defender was working hard this week, and according to Microsoft, just before noon on March 6 the AV suite put the brakes on 80,000 instances of several sophisticated trojans. These trojans were especially dastardly because they had advanced cross-process injection techniques, persistence mechanisms, and evasion methods. All the trojans are new versions of Dofoil (also known as Smoke Loader) and they carry a coin miner payload. Microsoft wrote, "Within the next 12 hours, more than 400,000 instances were recorded, 73% of which were in Russia. Turkey accounted for 18% and Ukraine...
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