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February 4, 2019 by Vertical Axion
This is just a reminder for anyone using Google Hangouts. The company is moving forward with its plans to discontinue the service, starting with GSuite users and then later moving to the broader consumer shutdown. If your company is currently making use of the messaging app for communications and you haven’t begun making plans to […]
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February 2, 2019 by Vertical Axion
If you’re like most people, no matter how careful you are when you surf the web, you seldom think to review the permissions browser extensions ask for when you install them. It’s just one of those things that’s easy to lose sight of, and unfortunately, hackers are aware of this. That’s why vulnerable extensions have […]
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February 1, 2019 by Vertical Axion
There’s a new zero-day vulnerability in Windows 10 you need to be aware of. As with all zero-day threats, this one is dangerous in the extreme, allowing a hacker to potentially execute code on your machine remotely. It was discovered by security researcher John Page, and reported to the company via Trend Micro’s Zero-Day Initiative […]
January 31, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Bad news is on the horizon if you’re one of the surprising number of people still using Windows 7. Microsoft is only offering one more year of free support. As of January 14th, 2020, you’ll no longer have access to critical security updates. While support will end entirely for individual consumers, businesses will still be […]
January 30, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Last year, the FBI issued a warning regarding BEC (Business Email Compromise) scams. Unfortunately, security professionals report that those types of scams are increasing in frequency, and worse, the most recent ones come with a disturbing new twist. The latest incarnation of the scam targets employees, seeking to move their direct deposited paychecks into accounts […]
January 29, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Some of our customers were affected by a Net2Phone outage yesterday and today. Since they don’t have a NOC site of their own at this time (something we’re asking them to implement), we figured we’d post an update here for customers and let them know the status of the outage. Net2Phone System Status Dear Valued […]
A recent court ruling handed privacy advocates a big, and much needed win. Prior to the ruling, law enforcement officials were in the habit of compelling “persons of interest” to unlock their phones via their face scan or fingerprint so that investigators could examine it. A US judge has now ruled that this is unacceptable, […]
January 28, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Microsoft has angered a portion of their user base with a change that’s coming in the next build of Windows 10. As of the next build, the OS will reserve a whopping seven GB of space on your hard drive, so that big updates don’t fail for lack of space. Unfortunately, the change means that […]
January 26, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Here’s some disturbing news: Hackers around the world are actively trying to exploit Valentine’s Day. This is according to new research from the Emerging Treats team at the security firm ProofPoint. The team has detected a massive new mal-spam campaign they’ve dubbed “The Love Letter Campaign.” Relying on basic social techniques, this campaign uses […]
January 25, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Cryptominers are among the most common type of malware in the wild today, based on the latest research by digital security company Check Point. While there are dozens of variants deployed by hackers, the cryptojacker “Coinhive” is the malware of choice this year. Once installed on a computer, it works in the background siphoning off […]
January 24, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Are you a Firefox user? If so, be advised that in Mozilla’s next release, Firefox 69, the company will be disabling support for the beleaguered Adobe Flash plugin. The change has been on the radar for quite some time, so it should not come as a surprise to anyone. It’s part of a systematic plan […]
January 23, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Here’s a side-effect of the government’s continuing shutdown that many people had not anticipated: Expiring TLS Certificates used for web security. Most people clearly see the impacts of national parks closing and the like. It’s worth remembering that the government’s IT staffed as been classified as ‘non-essential’ too, which means they’re currently sitting at home […]
January 22, 2019 by Vertical Axion
There’s a new strain of ransomware being deployed with increasing frequency. Believe it or not, it’s even more dangerous than the strains we’ve seen in recent months. Unlike other types of ransomware, this one not only encrypts your files and demands payment (which is bad enough) but it also attempts to steal your credit card […]
January 21, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Recent Windows 10 updates have been giving the company’s user base heartburn lately, with their tendency to delete files and cause at least as many problems as they solve. If you’re among the frustrated ranks, good news is on the horizon. The company is currently readying an update that will allow you to pause the […]
January 19, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Recently, Marriott Hotels informed the world that they had been the victims of a massive data breach. As it turns out, the breach was even more serious than was initially reported. As the company has learned more from the ongoing investigation into the matter, they’ve been doing an admirable job at keeping the public updated, […]
January 18, 2019 by Vertical Axion
There’s a new side channel attack to worry about. This one is after the target system’s OS page cache, where a variety of sensitive data that has been accessed by the device’s owner is stored for rapid retrieval. Perhaps the worst and most ominous aspect of this newly identified threat is the fact that it’s […]
January 17, 2019 by Vertical Axion
One of the exciting new features offered by the latest smartphones is facial recognition, which allows users to unlock their devices simply by looking at them. On paper, it’s a great feature and incredibly convenient, but there’s a problem. The issue was uncovered by a non-profit group called the Dutch Consumentenbond, which tested more than […]
January 16, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Two new critical flaws have been discovered in Adobe Acrobat and Reader that require your urgent attention. In fact, the flaws were rated as so severe that the company broke with its tradition of releasing security updates around the middle of the month in coordination with Microsoft’s “Patch Tuesday”. They released an update sooner this […]
January 15, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Google has been busy in recent weeks. They’ve removed a staggering 85 apps from their Play Store when they discovered that they were pushing highly aggressive adware to the users who downloaded them. The apps the company removed were wearing a number of disguises, passing themselves off as everything from games, to remote control simulators, […]
January 14, 2019 by Vertical Axion
It’s been the better part of two years since the outbreak of the Wannacry ransomware epidemic. Unfortunately, all this time later, some companies are still dealing with the fallout. According to the latest research, Wannacry is still infecting hundreds of thousands of computers around the globe. As grim as that sounds, it’s not all bad […]
January 12, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Are you still using Internet Explorer? Now you have a new reason to consider switching to a more up to date browser. As most people know, Microsoft essentially gave up on Explorer after it failed to gain ground against its major competitors in the browser ecosystem. They started fresh, with Microsoft Edge, designed as a […]
January 11, 2019 by Vertical Axion
According to Alexa, Amazon is the 4th most visited website in the United States and ranks 8th worldwide. To say that it gets a lot of traffic every day would be an understatement, which is why a newly discovered phishing campaign pretending to come from Amazon is so disturbing. Although Amazon sees heavy traffic every […]
January 10, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Google is taking additional steps to protect its Chromebook user base. Currently, if a hacker has physical access to your machine, he or she could insert a flash drive in the USB port and run malicious code from it. The company is adding a new feature called USBGuard, which blocks USB port access any time […]
January 9, 2019 by Vertical Axion
Chromebooks are fun, cool machines that are incredibly popular with students, hipsters, artists, and the like. However, the company hasn’t been able to penetrate the Enterprise market with their product. It’s not hard to understand why. Overwhelmingly, businesses use Windows-based machines. Many of the applications businesses rely on simply won’t work on a Chromebook, and […]
