Rumors of the death of HDD technology have been greatly exaggerated. The advancement of solid state technology and its increasing rate of adoption has been largely responsible for this, but don't count old school HDDs out just yet. They still have many important advantages, and recent breakthroughs should add further to the longevity of the tech. Right now, the biggest advantage that HDDs have over their solid-state counterparts is sheer size. While it would be prohibitively expensive to … Read more
IRS Labeled Email Could Contain Ransomware
There's a new strain of the "Rapid Ransomware" making the rounds, and because of how it's being transmitted, it's destined to have a higher than average rate of infection. The new strain was first discovered by Derek Knight. It is disturbing because it claims to come from the IRS, and will feature subject lines like "IRS Urgent Message-164." The body of the email then goes on to say that the recipient owes some amount of money in real estate taxes, and "helpfully" includes instructions for … Read more
40 Percent Of All Login Attempts Are From Bots
Here's a statistic that is as disturbing as it is frustrating. According to the latest "State of the Internet/Security" report for the fourth quarter of 2017, as published by Akamai, bot-traffic accounts for a staggering 43 percent of all login attempts. As bad as that figure is on its face, it's far worse for companies in the hospitality industry, where the figure is an almost unbelievable 82 percent. The reason? Hackers are increasingly using bots to perform "credential stuffing" … Read more
New Bug Discovered in iOS That Can Disable iPhone Apps
Last year, Apple had to fix a "special character" bug in their Message app that was more of an annoyance than anything. This year, a new special character bug has been found, but this one is much more serious and could allow an attacker to crash your phone and block access to a variety of messaging apps. The bug is specific to iOS 11, so if you've got an older version, you don't have anything to worry about. The company has already announced that it will be fixed in the upcoming release of … Read more
Microsoft Office Update Available To Only Windows 10 Users
There are big changes coming to MS Office which you need to be aware of, given how widely used "Office" is in most companies. First, the headline change: When MS Office 2019 is released, it will only run on Windows 10. If you've still got machines on older operating systems, and you want to keep your productivity suite up to date, then you'll need to upgrade those older systems. Also, be aware that when Office 2019 ships, it will only have "Click-to-Run" technology. No MSI, although … Read more
Vulnerability Found In Popular Grammar Checker
On February 2, Tavis Ormandy, a researcher on Google's Project Zero team discovered a critical flaw in the popular online grammar checking app, "Grammarly." Tens of millions of users make regular use of the app to improve the quality of their writing. The bug allowed a hacker to steal a Grammarly user's authentication token and use that token to log on and access every document they've run through the Grammarly system. This along with that user's history, logs and other data. They were able to … Read more
Some Smartwatches May Be Able To Diagnose Diabetes
That smartwatch you're wearing might save your life. Literally. A new study conducted by the University of California San Francisco, and a healthcare startup called Cardiogram revealed that smartwatches and other wearables were able to detect diabetes in previously diagnosed patients an impressive 85 percent of the time. The study monitored health statistics of more than 14,000 smartwatch wearers (both Android and Apple) over the course of several months. All health data that was … Read more
Blizzard Games Vulnerability Could Leave Gamers Open To Hacking
Do you play Blizzard online computer games such as World of Warcraft, Diablo III, Hearthstone, Starcraft II, or Overwatch? If so, there's a potential problem you need to be aware of. Tavis Ormandy, a researcher on Google's Project Zero team, recently discovered that the Blizzard Update Agent is vulnerable to hacking, via a technique known as "DNS Rebinding." The update agent is designed to accept commands to install, uninstall, change settings, update and perform other maintenance … Read more
2 Million Credit Cards Stolen From Popular Sandwich Shop
By now, we've seen enough large-scale Point of Sale (POS) credit card thefts that patterns are beginning to emerge. Some companies follow the general arc of the narrative better than others and deserve credit for doing so, but in the end, the story is about the same. That's certainly the case with Jason's Deli. Recently, they discovered RAM-scraping malware on a number of their POS terminals. This has happened at a total of 164 of their locations, scattered across 14 states. During the … Read more
Mac Computers Battling New Malware For Hijacking DNS
It's official, the first macOS malware of 2018 is here. Discovered by an independent security researcher and dubbed "OSX/MaMi," the code is functionally similar to DNSChanger malware. The researcher posted his findings on the Malwarebytes forum and none other than Patrick Wardle (an ex-NSA hacker) analyzed it, having this to say: "OSX/MaMi isn't particularly advanced - but does alter infected systems in rather nasty and persistent ways. By installing a new root certificate and hijacking … Read more
