Security researchers have warned a notorious piece of malware has returned to Android. It's in disguise, posing as a legitimate and popular VPN application. Researchers at the security firm Bitdefender have dubbed the malware as "Triout," which was ... first spotted last August. It's a particularly nasty piece of malware as it carries out multiple hostile acts. (Source: bitdefender.com ) These include recording phone calls, reading incoming SMS messages, taking pictures and videos, and collecting location data such as GPS coordinates. Triout is designed to operate without being detected ... (view more)
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Russia may briefly disconnect from the Internet as a cyber-defense exercise. It's being billed as an attempt to see if the country could keep the benefits of the Internet without having to interact with the rest of the world, though critics suggest ... it is nothing more than political censorship. Russian officials are said to fear that other countries may be taking measures to block its country from the Internet. On paper there does not appear to be any such proposals, though NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) has threatened some form of sanctions over alleged cyber attacks by Russia ... (view more)
Google has developed a new type of encryption that could run on any Android device. It means added security even for the most basic phones, smart watches and smart TVs. The encryption in question isn't for transmitting data, but rather for data ... stored on a device. The data is controlled by unlock methods such as passwords, pin codes and fingerprints. The idea is that if somebody gets hold of a device and doesn't have the correct login credentials, they can't simply extract files from the device and access personal data. At the moment Android devices with encryption use Advanced Encryption ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Sam J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have an older TPLink TL-WDR3500 router and I would like to attach a USB or external hard drive to it using the ' Storage Sharing ' option so that I can share files through my network. This would be ... ideal for me so I can share my Roboform passwords across devices. The issue is that the Storage Sharing option will only work if I enable CIFS 1.0 protocol in Windows because that is what the router uses to make the attached storage appear as a network drive letter in File Explorer. It is my understanding that CIFS 1.0 has a massive security issue ... (view more)
A security researcher says he's found a major security flaw in the Mac's password storage tool. But he's refusing to publish the details as a protest against Apple's "bug bounty" program. Linuz Henze has produced a video showing what he calls an ... exploit of the Keychain feature in MacOS Mojave, the current edition of the operating system for Mac computers. Keychain is an application on Macs that lets users save passwords for online accounts and digital certificates so that they don't have to type them in again. Users can also open Keychain and access a full list of passwords. Normally every ... (view more)
Google has launched a new tool to make it easier to know if a password has been hacked. But the way it works has raised some questions. The tool is called "Password Checkup" and is an extension for the Chrome web browser. It's designed to deal with ... details that are known to be part of a security breach, rather than offering more general advice such as using long passwords. If a user installs Password Checkup, Google will run a check whenever they log in to any site (not just ones Google operates). If it matches any entries on a database of known breaches, Chrome will display a ... (view more)
Two organizations hired by Facebook to check facts in news articles have pulled out of the deals. The Associated Press (AP) and Snopes are both being somewhat vague about exactly why they are stopping the work. While financial considerations may be ... the cause, third-party reports suggest the organizations were upset with the way Facebook handled their fact-checking operations. The two groups were among the most high-profile of what Facebook says is 34 organizations checking facts across 16 languages. According to the BBC, the AP and Snopes withdrawal means only two organizations in the US are ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Jake J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently upgraded my PC to Windows 10 with the October 2018 update (version 1809, build 17763). Everything seems to be working fine, however the other day I needed remote support help from a friend ... of mine using TeamViewer. To get connected to my machine, he instructed that I go to the TeamViewer website and download the TeamViewer program, then run it. He then requested my ID and Password in order to connect to my machine, but I could not find where to obtain this information despite him sending me step-by-step instructions with screenshots ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Sally S. writes: " Dear Dennis, Last week I was using the web browser and suddenly I received an alert that my PC needed to be updated, and told me to call 855-558-9222 to fix the problem. I called the number and spoke to someone ... with an Indian accent . They connected to my PC and installed a firewall and some other programs. They told me it would cost $199 to fix it, or I could pay $350 as an 'upgrade' for a tech support contract (which I did). I am still receiving pop up advertisements on my machine and it appears that I am no better off than when I started. I have tried ... (view more)
The number of robocalls to Americans rose by nearly 50 percent last year, according to a newly-published estimate. It's consistent with other reports that suggest that 2019 will be the first year where half of all phone calls are marketing messages. ... The figure comes from Hiya, a "spam-monitoring service" and is based on data from 450,000 users of its phone app. There's reason for a note of caution on the raw numbers, as it's possible the type of people who would use such an app are getting more unwanted calls than the average citizen in the first place. That aside, Hiya says that if the ... (view more)
A new gadget can turn WiFi signals into electricity. It could one day mean an end to charging phone batteries, though the power levels mean medical uses might be more realistic. The device is a new variant of a "rectenna," which is short for ... rectifying antenna. Traditionally it turns electromagnetic energy into direct current electricity. Although the rectenna was developed more than 50 years ago, it's not been widely used. At the moment the most common use is in contactless cards, where a wireless signal from a card reader can not only open communications, but provide just enough ... (view more)
An extremely creative form of malware on Android devices uses motion sensors to help stay undetected. It's designed to combat one of the key methods used by malware scanning tools. Trend Micro says it found the malware hidden in two Google Play ... Store apps named "BatterySaverMobi" and "Currency Converter," which claimed to provide functions as their names suggest. (Source: arstechnica.com ) Once installed, the apps downloaded malware in the background, then used a fake system update message to trick the user into giving permission to install it. The malware, named " ... (view more)
A messaging service owned by Facebook is purposely limiting the amount of times users can forward a message. It's an attempt to slow the spread of false information. The change to WhatsApp follows a six month trial in India sparked off by several ... cases where bogus stories led to lynch mobs. WhatsApp lets users send text messages, video, images and documents. One of its core functions is a group system that lets a set of friends, family members, work colleagues or people with a share interest send a single message that reaches everyone in the group. The maximum group size is 256. One Message ... (view more)
Google's use of data to personalize advertisements could cost it more than $50 million. It's been fined for breaching European rules on data protection. The fine comes under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a set of rules drawn up by ... the European Union and covering activity in 27 countries. It follows a complaint filed by privacy groups the day the rules came into force last May. The breach is all to do with Google's obligation to get user consent before using personal data to provide targeted ads - one of the key aspects of the company's business. Although Google does allow ... (view more)
CES (also known as the Consumer Electronics Show) is the biggest annual gadget show in the United States and is the place where top manufacturers show off their new devices for the first time. Many of the offerings seem implausible or unnecessary - ... this year saw virtual reality shoes and a notepad that works underwater - but others catch on and are genuinely useful. Here are some of the highlights from 2019: A "smart socket" power outlet detects the charge level in a plugged-in device and then cuts out once it's fully charged to reduce energy use. For now it's designed for mobile devices such ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Dave T. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently upgraded my motherboard and CPU, which meant having to reinstall Windows 10 from scratch. I have a USB fingerprint reader that I've been using for years prior to the hardware upgrade, and ... it worked flawlessly. However, since I have had to reinstall Windows, the fingerprint reader keeps saying 'your device is having trouble recognizing you' whenever I try to sign in to Windows 10. If I keep swiping, I keep getting the same error message and eventually I have to enter my PIN in order to login. How can I make my fingerprint recognize ... (view more)
A court says Dominos Pizza must make it easier for blind people to order online. It said legal principles should be applied, even though specific regulations aren't yet in place. The case was brought by would-be customer Guillermo Robles who ... attempted to use an iPhone to place an order. Although blind, he is able to browse websites using the iPhone's built-in screen reader software. According to Robles, both the Dominos app and website lacked "alt-text" labels, which are text that describe an image and which can be read out by the screen reader. Robles said the specific missing descriptions ... (view more)
A judge says police can't force a suspect to unlock a phone with a fingerprint or other biometric measure, including a suspect's face . It's the latest step in the way privacy laws interact with technological changes. This ruling came from a federal ... judge in a court in California and involved a review of a search warrant request. The case involved two suspects allegedly using Facebook Messenger to trying to extort a victim by threatening to publish an embarrassing video. (Source: gizmodo.com ) The police wanted permission to not only search a location where they believed they would find the ... (view more)
January 2020 marks the end of extended support for Windows 7 from Microsoft. This means Windows 7 users have just one year left to upgrade to either Windows 8 or 10 (or an alternative), before their systems become a major security risk. Support for ... Windows 7 comes in a two-stage process. The first is known as mainstream support, which means the system is under warranty and Microsoft offers free technical support over the phone and its online forums. During this time, Microsoft also continues developing new features, and users can get hot fixes which patch any performance or security problems ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Marcy O. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just installed Windows 10 October 2018 update (clean install) on my machine. Everything was working fine for a few days until I installed MS Office. Now, I have a bunch of blank white icons on my ... Windows 10 desktop . I understand that there is an 'icon cache database' in Windows that can go corrupt, which may be the reason why I have these blank white icons on my desktop. I searched Google on how to fix the problem, and a few posts suggested deleting the icon cache databases using the command prompt. I did that, however, the output I'm ... (view more)
Reports which suggest that Samsung has made it impossible to delete Facebook from its smartphones turn out to be slightly overblown. In fact, the app isn't actually on the handsets in the first place. Many media outlets have followed up on a report ... by Bloomberg that was sparked by Internet forum complaints. Bloomberg cited the case of a man who, like many others, was surprised to discover that it wasn't possible to delete the Facebook app on his Samsung Galaxy S8. The app had been there from the day he first used the phone. (Source: bloomberg.com ) The man noted that it was only possible to ... (view more)
Microsoft will soon "reserve" seven gigabytes of hard drive space to make sure Windows 10 works reliably. But the setup may not work as planned. The change is scheduled for the next major twice-yearly update, expected in April, 2019. It's called ... "reserved storage" and involves earmarking part of the PC's hard drive as a place to store "updates, apps, temporary files, and system caches." These files are separate to the permanent ones used for Windows itself. (Source: microsoft.com ) 7GB Figure Could Increase According to Microsoft, the move will have two benefits. The first is to make sure the ... (view more)
Microsoft may have to pay more than a thousand dollars to a user whose PC was upgraded to Windows 10 without permission. The money covers damage after allegedly breaking the computer. The case is in Finland where the Finnish Consumer Disputes Panel ... ruled on a complaint by a user. Local media reports say that companies usually pay up in such cases. (Source: mspoweruser.com ) The claim followed an unwanted update from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 in March 2016. That's when Microsoft was using the Windows Update service to download the Windows 10 files and then automatically install it on a restart ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Philip S. writes: " Dear Dennis, We are running Windows 10 on our office machine which has Microsoft SQL (MS SQL) installed. On that machine we use Microsoft SQL Server Manager to enter in data into our databases, though other ... machines can access the Microsoft SQL databases through the network using MS Access DSN files. A few years ago we hired someone to set up our databases; however, we are now running out of space on the C drive as the databases have grown significantly in size. We would like to move the MS SQL databases and then set up a RAID to make the data redundant ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Eugene C. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a very strange and perplexing problem. I am running Windows 10 and Acronis True Image 2016 on my desktop PC and my laptop. A few days ago, both machines updated with a Windows 10 update, and ... now Acronis True Image 2016 won't open its main page. The program appears to load when it's launched: it shows the True Image icon on my task bar; however, when I hover my mouse over the icon all I see is a blank page for thumbnail. If I click the True Image 2016 icon on the task bar, it does nothing. When things are working properly, True Image ... (view more)
The way Twitter handles 'dormant' accounts has been hijacked to promote terrorist material, according to a report. It's all to do with the way Twitter associates its accounts with email addresses. The report comes from TechCrunch and follows a ... sudden upsurge in posts that don't seem connected to the account in question, but instead appear to come from members or supporters of Islamic State. (Source: techcrunch.com ) The problem appears to stem from the fact that Twitter doesn't delete accounts even if they aren't regularly used and may even have been abandoned by their original users. ... (view more)
Mozilla says a promotional message that appeared on Firefox's "new tab" page was not a paid ad. It says it was instead an experiment. A "new tab" page appears when the user either presses CTRL +T on the keyboard, or clicks the tab with a plus sign ... to start a new browser tab. The message appeared at the bottom of the screen on the new tab page and offered a $20 Amazon gift card to users who clicked on a link and then reserved a hotel room on Booking.com. It's reminiscent of a few years back when the new tab page was made up of several tiles, mostly linking to some of the ... (view more)
20 popular Android apps are sharing user data with Facebook without permission, according to a new report. Privacy International says the data sharing happens even if the user doesn't have a Facebook account. The organization tested 34 apps, each of ... which have been installed at least 10 million times on Android devices. It looked at data that was transmitted through the Facebook Software Development Kit (SDK). The kit is a set of tools that are designed to help app developers coordinate their apps with the Facebook system. This is more commonly associated with retrieving data from ... (view more)
Google says it removed "millions" of bogus reviews and ratings for apps in a single week. It's tweaked its approach to detecting fake feedback to avoid mistakenly flagging legitimate reviews. The company says it wants to address three problems with ... user reviews in the Google Play store. One is to address reviews that are "genuine" but contain hateful or profane language or aren't relevant to the app in question. The second problem is "fake" ratings that are part of a campaign to manipulate the overall average score rather than being a real verdict by a ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Paul K. writes: " Dear Dennis, We use VMWare Workstation 14 at work as the hypervisor for a number of virtual machines that run on our server. A few days ago we lost power on the server while our database virtual machine (VM) was ... running. I have since tried to start that virtual machine, but VMWare Workstation keeps popping up with an error message that says ' This virtual machine might have been moved or copied (pic). In order to configure certain management and networking features, VMWare Workstation needs to know if this virtual machine was moved or copied. If you don't ... (view more)
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