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September 9, 2016 by Vertical Axion
In some important ways, the media has a tendency to distort the reality where hacking and data breaches are concerned. The stories that tend to make the headlines are the external breaches that see hackers making off with tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of customer records. They’re good stories. They get clicks […]
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September 8, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Although a number of tech companies have been working hard to create new and ever more robust security and authentication protocols, a recent survey revealed that the American public in general remains highly skeptical of the new procedures, and only a tiny fraction of the population actually employs them. The survey results reveal that more […]
September 7, 2016 by Vertical Axion
You probably don’t know the name Benson Leung. He’s one of the internet’s unsung heroes, and in recent months, he’s been quietly waging a one-man war against manufacturers producing faulty USB-C chargers. Many users have reported having their smartphones fried by the faulty cables, which did not properly regulate the amount of current flowing through […]
September 6, 2016 by Vertical Axion
There has been an explosive growth in companies offering private cloud as part of a broader offering of managed services, and businesses are responding positively to the trend. Interestingly, while companies are moving to embrace the private cloud and managed services in general, overwhelmingly, the push to do so is being led by CIOs. This […]
September 5, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Sage, LLC, a British company providing business software solutions for clients around the world, was the latest victim of a data breach. This one, however, came from inside the company itself. This is an increasingly common problem, though not as widely reported as the high profile data breaches from hackers outside the company’s firewall. One […]
September 3, 2016 by Vertical Axion
What do you do when you get a popup window generated by some piece of software you use, informing you of a critical update? Do you stop what you’re doing right then and perform the needed update? Most people don’t, according to recent research. In fact, a full ninety percent of users simply close the […]
September 2, 2016 by Vertical Axion
You’ve probably seen the headlines. This year, hardly a week goes by that there isn’t a report of a company in some way connected to the health care industry falling victim to ransomware. If you think it feels like they’re being specifically targeted, you’re not imagining things. According to the latest research by FireEye, hackers […]
September 1, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Researchers at University College London have created a fascinating algorithm that can take a sample of hand-written text, and imitate it with eerie similarity. At first glance, that might seem like a silly, or even trivial thing to spend time on, but make no mistake. The problems being solved here are far from trivial. As […]
August 31, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Adobe’s beleaguered Flash player may finally be seeing its last days, at least if Google has anything to say about it. The player has been exceedingly popular, and at its peak, a vast number of websites relied on it heavily to display content and advanced features to website visitors. Unfortunately, in recent years, a number […]
August 30, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Microsoft is a company that definitely understands the need for better and more secure information systems. Like many other tech companies, they’ve been pushing hard for two-factor authentication protocols covering large swaths of their online ecosystem. Unfortunately, their approach has been rather messy and unfocused. They’re attempting to remedy that situation by announcing the rollout […]
August 29, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Remember not long ago, when the big credit card issuers went on at some length touting their latest advances in smart chip technology? The new tech was supposed to vastly improve the security of credit cards, rendering them virtually immune to hacking. Well, it turns out that might have been a bit of an overstatement. […]
August 27, 2016 by Vertical Axion
There have been a number of scams in recent years involving malware that creates false flag problems on your desktop. The faux problem is presented, along with a phone number you can call to get help resolving the issue. Consider this a kinder, gentler form of ransomware. Because it all looks very official, and the […]
August 26, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Printing company MOO Labs has just brought the humble business card into the information age. Employing the same NFC (Near Field Communications) technology that makes it possible to make a credit card purchase without actually having to swipe your card, the new MOO Labs business card takes the technology in a whole new direction, and […]
August 25, 2016 by Vertical Axion
The unfortunate reality is that most instances of hacking occur from within a company itself. It’s true that the high profile cases that make the news are successful breaches from outside the company, but the statistics bear out the fact that this is less common than internal breaches. Recently, an employee of Tampa General Hospital […]
August 24, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Do you trust what your eyes tell you? If you’re looking at a computer monitor, that trust might be misplaced. At a recent DEFCON presentation in Las Vegas, researchers demonstrated how it’s possible to hack into a monitor’s firmware and make changes to what a user sees on their computer, without actually breaking into the […]
August 23, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Does your company rely on Oracle Systems’ Micros to handle point of sale transactions? If so, you should change your password immediately. The company has recently reported that a sophisticated Russian cybercrime syndicate has successfully breached their system, exposing the account information of more than 330,000 Micros users. The potential impact to your business cannot […]
August 22, 2016 by Vertical Axion
In late 2016 or early 2017, Bluetooth 5.0 will be released, and by all indications, this will be the version of the technology we’ve all been waiting for. It’s about to take a giant leap forward in terms of functionality. At present, Bluetooth’s primary purpose is to wirelessly connect devices, and to track Bluetooth beacons, […]
August 20, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Battery life for mobile devices is their single biggest weakness. The greatest challenge in growing and managing the exploding “Internet of Things” isn’t the devices themselves, but rather, the power required to wirelessly transmit the data they’re reporting. Energy is money, and even as research continues to extend battery life to new horizons, there is […]
August 19, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Security researchers from Check Point have unearthed a new vulnerability dubbed QuadRoot that leaves potentially 900 million or more Android-based smartphones vulnerable. The attack manifests when a user unwittingly installs specially designed malware which executes the attack. This is often disguised as an app, which the user can be directed to via a variety of […]
August 18, 2016 by Vertical Axion
By now, it’s a familiar story. Conventional wisdom holds that you want to use a different password on every site or service you log into and that you want to change your passwords regularly, in order to maximize security. What if conventional wisdom isn’t true though? There’s a growing body of evidence that it isn’t. […]
August 17, 2016 by Vertical Axion
Ransomware has made some inroads into the realm of smart devices, but until quite recently, Android devices were the target of choice. That seems to be changing now. Increasingly, we’re seeing iPhone users targeted by this type of attack. This particular attack can manifest when the hacker gains a user’s Apple ID account information. Once […]
August 16, 2016 by Vertical Axion
In fact, your Microsoft Account Credentials are almost certainly vulnerable, but until the rise in popularity of Windows 10, it hasn’t been nearly as big an issue as it is today. The unfortunate reality is that Microsoft has known about the flaw in their software that allows this bug to function since 1997, and in […]
August 15, 2016 by Vertical Axion
USB drives. They’re ubiquitous. They’re everywhere. You probably have several floating around your office, or nearby. We tend to use them so often that we don’t even think about it, and that’s a potential problem. At a recent Black Hat hacking convention, a demonstration was performed that proved just how easy it is to gain […]
August 13, 2016 by Vertical Axion
If you have a Yahoo email account, you’re not alone. The company is one of the largest free email account providers on the internet, which unfortunately means that when they suffer a data breach, it tends to impact a lot of users. Back in 2012, Yahoo reported a data breach which they estimated impacted about […]
