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March 19, 2018 by Vertical Axion
If you have a Netflix account and children living at home, there’s a reason to cheer about the company’s most recent announcement. They’re rolling out some robust new parental control features that will allow you to exert much more control over what your children are watching. You can now set content-specific PINs to lock movies […]
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March 17, 2018 by Vertical Axion
By now, you’ve almost certainly heard of the “Spectre” and “Meltdown” security flaws that affect every Intel chip produced in the last decade. Users have been waiting for a fix for both of these since January, when the issues were first discovered. From the beginning, Microsoft agreed to include the fix for Spectre in its […]
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March 16, 2018 by Vertical Axion
The CEO of Trustico, a TLS certificate reseller based in the United Kingdom, finds himself at the center of a controversy that raises a number of disturbing questions about browser-trusted security certificates. The email in question was sent to Jeremy Rowley, an executive Vice President at DigiCert. The catalyst that prompted the fateful email was […]
March 15, 2018 by Vertical Axion
It looks like it’s going to be another bad month for Equifax. The company just can’t seem to get out of its own way. In 2017, the company announced a massive data breach that (it initially claimed) impacted some 140 million users. Several months after the official announcement, the company was forced to revise the […]
March 14, 2018 by Vertical Axion
Google has another new product out. A slimmed down, streamlined version of the Android OS called “Go.” Unfortunately, it’s release didn’t gather as much press as you’d expect when a new OS is released. The reason for that is simple. The new, slimmer, sleeker Android Go was designed for low-end phones with limited storage capacity, […]
March 13, 2018 by Vertical Axion
Do you have a Mi-Cam in your home? Even if you don’t have kids, you may have one. They’re a highly popular, inexpensive means of keeping tabs on the comings and goings inside your home when you’re not around. As with so many such devices these days, users have the option of installing either an […]
March 12, 2018 by Vertical Axion
By now, you’ve probably heard more than you ever wanted to hear about the critical Intel security flaw known as “Spectre.” The flaw is massive in scope and scale, impacting every chip that Intel has released over the past decade, and if exploited, would allow a hacker to take complete control over the vulnerable system. […]
March 10, 2018 by Vertical Axion
If you’re in the market for a new laptop but can milk a little more life out of the one you’ve got, 2019 will be the year to buy. The reason? 5G. AT&T is slated to become the first carrier to offer 5G network connectivity to small segments of its customer base this year (starting […]
March 9, 2018 by Vertical Axion
Depending on who you ask, Google’s Project Zero is either the thing that’s going to singlehandedly save the internet, or the bane of many companies’ existence. It’s easy to see both sides of the argument. On one hand, by uncovering previously undiscovered bugs in all manner of software and handing that information over to the […]
March 8, 2018 by Vertical Axion
AT&T has big plans for their future and yours. If they’re your carrier of choice, and if you live in the cities of Dallas, Atlanta, or Waco, then you stand to be on the cutting edge of the changes the company has in store. Those locations have been selected to be the first to receive […]
March 7, 2018 by Vertical Axion
Android users have a reason to cheer. According to the latest report by ESET, the number of ransomware attacks targeting Android devices declined in 2017. The decline represents a bit of an anomaly, given that in 2017, the most common type of malware attack (by a wide margin) was ransomware. Given that security researchers can’t […]
March 6, 2018 by Vertical Axion
SIM cards have long been a source of frustration for equipment manufacturers. With the relentless drive to produce smaller and smaller devices, the SIM card is a hurdle to be overcome. It’s relatively large, and when you account for the necessary housing, it becomes quite the design challenge. That challenge seems to have been met, […]
March 5, 2018 by Vertical Axion
Recently, another “exotic character” bug was found in iOS. If someone sends this particular character (a special character that’s part of the Indian language pack) to your phone via any messaging app, it will not only crash your phone, but cause a variety of messaging apps to stop functioning. When the bug was initially reported, […]
March 3, 2018 by Vertical Axion
Do you own a Mac? Do you use APFS “sparse disk images?” If so, be aware that under certain conditions, your trusty computer may allow you to copy important data into the void where it will be lost forever, without giving you a heads up first. This unusual error was recently discovered by Mike Bombich, […]
March 2, 2018 by Vertical Axion
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 […]
March 1, 2018 by Vertical Axion
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 […]
February 28, 2018 by Vertical Axion
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 […]
February 27, 2018 by Vertical Axion
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 […]
February 26, 2018 by Vertical Axion
Google is poised to make an important change to its Chrome browser beginning in July 2018. Here’s the summary from Emily Schechter, the Google Chrome Security Product Manager: “For the past several years, we’ve moved toward a more secure web by strongly advocating that sites adopt HTTPS encryption, and within the last year, we’ve also […]
February 24, 2018 by Vertical Axion
Image theft is one of the biggest problems on the internet. If you’re a photographer, you’ve almost certainly lost money because people find your work online and make a copy of it rather than paying for the right to use it. Unfortunately, Google has made that incredibly easy to do, but that’s changing. Until recently, […]
February 23, 2018 by Vertical Axion
Hackers are picky about their victims. They’ll target just about any group or organization, including the 2018 Olympics. Cisco’s Talos Group recently identified a new strain of malware they’ve dubbed “Olympic Destroyer” which is wreaking havoc in Pyeong Chang’s computer networks and causing downtime to internal WiFi and television systems. This has impacted the games’ […]
February 22, 2018 by Vertical Axion
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 […]
February 21, 2018 by Vertical Axion
Do you own a smart TV? More than half of all television sales in the US last year were smart TVs, so chances are decent that you own one. If you do, be aware that it may be collecting far more data about you than you think. Recall that last year, Samsung, (one of the […]
February 20, 2018 by Vertical Axion
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 […]
