Microsoft is adding an extra layer of security to Windows 10: it's blocking malware from tampering with Windows Defender. That's a security tool that's available commercially to businesses but is also built in to Windows 10 without extra cost. ... Tamper Protection tackles a rather cheeky tactic used by some malware creators, namely having the malware access Windows Defender and switch off key features. The idea is to reduce the likelihood of malware being detected in action. The feature has been in testing since April, 2019 and is now ready for a public rollout. Naturally Microsoft is keeping ... (view more)
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Google is introducing more options to deal with the Chrome browser using too much computer memory. It's implementing less severe options for users with multiple tabs open. The way Chrome was originally designed means every open tab uses up computer ... memory (RAM). That can mount up substantially if you are accustomed to having many tabs opened when Chrome is launched, or even with Chrome is idle. In turn this will significantly slow the computer down on older systems that don't have enough RAM to begin with. Since 2015 Chrome has had a feature called "Tab Discarding" that kicks in ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Shelby C. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am in a huge hurry to upgrade my machine to Windows 10 because there won't be any more security updates for Windows 7 in January 2020, when Windows 7 reaches its end of life. I have tried to ... upgrade using the Upgrade Assistant and Windows 10 media, but I keep getting ' SAFE_OS phase error during Replicate_OC operation ' error, whatever that means. Windows 10 simply won't install on my machine! I have looked at articles all over the Internet including one from the Windows Club and none of them work. I really need your help! Can you please ... (view more)
Malware creators are using new tactics to avoid their malicious Android apps being exposed. The scam involves hiding and even disguising apps as legitimate ones once they've been installed. Fake Apps Receive Fake Praise It's a twist on a ... well-established scam in which malware is distributed through apps that appear to perform a basic function such as reading QR codes, or turning the camera flash into a flashlight. Thanks to a host of bogus rave-reviews in the Google Play store, the only way to spot something is amiss is that the apps will ask for specific access permissions that are clearly ... (view more)
Dear Infopackets Readers, For the past 5+ years I've been writing articles about fake tech support scammers based in India. In fact, I just published an article about "Expert4Help" scam last week. Here's how the scam works: While browsing the ... Internet, you may suddenly receive a full screen "virus warning". The warnings appear even when browsing legitimate websites (Amazon.com, for example). The warnings are often accompanied by a computer-generated voice, which says that the computer is infected and that you must call "Microsoft support" to "fix" the "problem". These warnings are meant to be ... (view more)
A new piece of malware can intercept Internet traffic to spot people downloading legitimate installation files and replace them with "infected" copies. Security company Kaspersky went as far as calling it "impressive" from a technical, if not moral ... standpoint. Kaspersky has dubbed the malware "Reductor," after a term that appears in some of the code. It discovered the malware in April, 2019, so the fact it's only just going public suggests it took some serious analysis. (Source: securelist.com ) The malware's operation is exceedingly complicated, but one a machine is infected with ... (view more)
Twitter has apologized for using customer security contact details for advertising purposes. Its underwhelming announcing has gone down badly with privacy groups and could have legal consequences. The blunder involved Twitter's advertising services, ... specifically tools called "Tailored Audiences" and "Partner Audiences." It works like this: advertisers upload their own marketing lists of email addresses and phone numbers to Twitter, along with an ad. Twitter then compares the marketing list to its own database of customers. It then shows the ad only to people who appear on ... (view more)
The latest Windows 10 update is designed to fix problems with printers. Instead it seems to be causing more problems. The update in question is Microsoft patch KB4524147 , which is marked as a "critical" update for those users running Windows 10 ... version 1903. It addresses an Internet Explorer scripting engine security vulnerability (CVE-2019-1367) . Another highlight of this update is a fix for "an intermittent issue with the print spooler service that may cause print jobs to fail." Unfortunately some users report quite the opposite has happened with regard to their printers. Since ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Tricia B. writes: " Dear Dennis, I stumbled across your article on PC / Web Network Experts after researching Expert4help.com scam . A few weeks ago I was using my PC when suddenly I received a popup virus alert stating that my PC ... was infected. I called 1-833-257-8555 and spoke to a man with a thick Indian accent . They then connected to my PC remotely and installed some antivirus software to 'fix' the 'problems'. They then wanted me to sign a 3 year contract with them for $898 . I told them 'No,' and that I would pay $350 for a 1 year contract. They kept insisting that I ... (view more)
Google is making three changes to make it easier to control privacy while using its services. Now, Google Maps, YouTube and the Google Assistant have the option to control privacy settings in more detail. The company's privacy chief Eric Miraglia ... wrote that controlling privacy and security settings should be as easy as using the services themselves. That might provoke some skepticism from critics who believe Google wants to maximize the amount of data it stores about people. (Source: blog.google ) Google Maps Goes Incognito The first change is to Google Maps, which is now getting an " ... (view more)
Researchers say they discovered eight security flaws in the way Android handles voice calls through the Internet. Unlike most such bugs which involve specific apps, these problems were with Android itself. The good news is that the researchers ... reported all of the bugs to Google while carrying out the project and most have now been fixed. However, it does raise concerns about the development and design of the system itself. (Source: github.io ) The researchers looked at the three latest Android versions (7, 8 and 9), specifically addressing the components that allow Voice Over Internet ... (view more)
The word "hacked" is worth 16 points in Scrabble. It's also what appears to have happened to a database of 218 million users of the popular online game "Words With Friends." A few weeks ago game creators Zynga said it "recently discovered that ... certain player account information may have been illegally accessed by outside hackers." It didn't give any detail on numbers, but went on to say that account login information may have been accessed. (Source: zynga.com ) Now a hacker has come forth and is attempting to sell the details of 620 million Zynga game accounts, of which 218 million ... (view more)
Microsoft has issued an emergency patch for Internet Explorer. In the most extreme circumstances, a user simply visiting a website could give a hacker complete remote control of a computer. Between Chrome's dominance and Edge becoming the default on ... new Windows machines, Internet Explorer is far from popular and is now used on around 8 percent of desktop computers. However, that still means around a hundred million machines could be affected by this bug. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) It's a sign of how serious the problem is that Microsoft has issued an emergency patch, or as it calls it, an out-of- ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Steve T. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am running Centos 6 32-bit (i386) on a virtual machine and recently I started having 'PYCURL ERROR 22' every time I use 'yum list updates' or 'yum -y update' to list and download updates. The ... error message says ' [Errno 14] PYCURL ERROR 22 - The requested URL returned error: 404 Not Found '. I have gone to the wiki.centos.org/yum-errors as the error message suggests, but have not been able to find a solution to this problem. Can you help? " My response: I asked Steve if he would like me to connect to his virtual machine using my remote ... (view more)
Google has won a major victory over "right to be forgotten" rules . When it agrees to delete 'outdated' search results, it will no longer have to do so outside of Europe. The latest ruling is part of a long running saga that began when European ... courts tried to find a balance between the competing rights to free speech and privacy. It all began with a Spanish man whose house was forcibly sold to settle a debt - an incident that was reported in a local newspaper. Eleven years later he asked the newspaper to delete the archived report, saying it was the top search result for his name and the ... (view more)
Google is making several changes to the way it handles audio collected from phones and smart gadgets such as the Google Home speaker. It follows revelations that humans listened to recordings collected by several tech giants. Amazon, Apple and ... Google were all hit by claims that they'd not done enough to make clear that staff or contractors listened to recordings to check the accuracy of automatic speech recognition. In several cases, human engineers heard sensitive material which appeared to have been collected unintentionally, rather than the user meaning to make a spoken query or request. ... (view more)
Researchers have discovered that many smart gadgets (such as smart TVs and streaming sticks) send data to tech companies, even when idle. The purpose of the experiment was to determine if devices were being used to monitor users, or could ... potentially leak data about the user to a third party. The research was a joint project between Northeastern University and the UK's Imperial College London. They examined 81 devices under the broad category of the Internet of Things (IoT). The study included security cameras, home automation devices such as WiFi plugs, Smart TV sets, smart speakers and home ... (view more)
Users have highlighted two more problems with the latest Windows 10 Update, released September 10, 2019. It's messed up sound for some users, while others can no longer get online. For those keeping track, the problems are with the Windows 10 update ... KB4515384 , which has already given some users a broken Windows search tool and others a mysterious red or orange hue to their screen. Ironically, that update was designed partly to fix problems with a previous update ( KB4512941 ) which broke the Windows Search for some users, and also caused constant high processor demand for others. One of the ... (view more)
Password manager LastPass has suffered an embarrassing security glitch that reveals a user's last used password, though some security experts argue that pulling off the exploit would have been difficult at best. The purpose of LastPass is to solve ... the problem of people having too many passwords to remember, but not wanting to reuse passwords across multiple sites. Once somebody signs up to LastPass, they create a single master password which is completely secret. Even LastPass itself doesn't store this password, so if a user forgets it, they are out of luck. The master password then stores ... (view more)
It's becoming something of a pattern that Microsoft issues a Windows 10 Update that causes a problem , then issues a follow-up that fixes it, but then introduces new problems. And it's happened again. Just last week Microsoft issued an update ( ... KB4512941 ) that fixed problems in the Windows 10 May 2019 Update (version 1903), but introduced new bugs with some users finding the Windows search tool didn't work at all, or their processors were under constant strain. Microsoft has since release a new bug fix (KB4515384) for the previous bug fix, but users are reporting new problems. At the time of ... (view more)
Nearly half a million users have been infected with "The Joker" malware through the Google Play store. The malware is particularly nasty and works by signing users up to premium services without their knowledge. The malware, spotted by researcher ... Aleksejs Kuprins, was found in 24 apps with a combined 472,000 downloads - though more apps may be found later. As of this writing, the 24 known apps have been removed from the Google Play store. (Source: techradar.com ) Infected Apps Need to be Removed If you have any of the following apps installed on your phone, they should be removed ... (view more)
Mozilla is to make an important change to Firefox browser security. It could reduce risks for users, but has raised concerns among governments and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), as it could limit their tools for filtering and monitoring online ... activity. The change has to do with a feature called DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH), and will first affect users in the US. It's already possible to enable DoH in Chrome, but it takes some technical know-how because the feature currently isn't widely used. DoH is all to do with the DNS (Domain Name System), which is effectively the phone book of the Internet ... (view more)
The latest Windows 10 update ( KB4512941 ) has produced two different problems. Some users report the search function is no longer working, while others have found their processors under immense strain. The problems stem from an update which itself ... fixed several problems with a major Windows 10 Update release in May, also known as Windows 10 version 1903. Note that users who do not have Windows 10 version 1903 won't have KB4512941 installed. You can find out which version of Windows 10 you have by clicking Start, then type in "winver" (no quotes) and hit enter. It will say the ... (view more)
Microsoft has changed its mind about phasing out support for Adobe Flash, which is used to help web browsers view multimedia. Both Internet Explorer and the current edition of Edge browsers will continue to support the technology by default until ... the end of 2020, in contrast to other browsers. Adobe says it's ditching Flash at the end of next year, largely because it's become redundant with website designers now preferring to create multimedia and interactive elements in HTML 5, rather than with Flash. HTML 5 works in modern browsers without the need for plug-ins like Flash. Chrome and ... (view more)
Google has released a security update fixing a major flaw in the Chrome browser. While Chrome normally updates automatically, it's a serious enough problem that it's worth manually checking for updates to the browser in order to be certain. The bug ... was highlighted by the Center for Internet Security, a non-profit organization that crowd sources security problems and fixes. It says the flaw could be exploited simply by the user visiting a compromised web page. It says that: "Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the ... (view more)
Facebook is taking new steps to prevent misleading political ads following the Cambridge Analytica scandal , which had millions of Facebook profiles harvested and used without consent for political advertising purposes. It says it's tightening the ... rules on buyers, which must now not only prove their identity, but also the organization they are associated with. Since 2018, anyone paying for an advertisement on Facebook relating to elections, politics or social issues has had to prove their identity to Facebook. They also have to include a disclaimer in the ad marked "Paid for by...", which is ... (view more)
Google Calendar users have been hit by a spate of spam "events" that are nothing more than dubious web links. Users have several ways to stop the problem, but with some drawbacks. The problem involves mysterious entries appearing in Google Calendar, ... sometimes seeming to have been added by friends. Speaking from experience, I had several entries appear for an "event" which was supposedly a time-limited offer to pick up a free iPhone, along with a link to confirm I wanted to take advantage. Although I did not click on the link, it's a safe bet it would not have taken me to the Apple store. ... (view more)
Infopackets Reader Neil W. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your interesting article on whether a VPN is safe for online banking . However, one question I can't seem to find the answer to is: do I need VPN on a public network? Do I need a VPN on a ... private network? What about a VPN on a shared network? An example might include a student doing banking at a university shared network. What do you think? " My response: Short answer: A VPN, or virtual private network is useful in a few cases - for example: hiding your tracks online (to some extent, but with major limitations) or accessing geo- ... (view more)
Chrome may soon warn users if their passwords have been compromised. It works by checking inputted passwords against those exposed in public data breaches. The feature is already available for Chrome from an official Google extension known as ... Password Checkup, but users need to actively install this extension to use it. Web browser Mozilla Firefox already has a similar feature built-in. Now a similar feature named "password leak detection" has been spotted in the code of Chrome Canary. That's a version of Chrome that includes test features planned for release in the main Chrome edition in a ... (view more)
Users of both Apple devices and the VLC media player should watch out for potentially serious security bugs. The former is a particular embarrassment for Apple. It turns out the company fixed a security bug in iOS 12.3 in April, then accidentally ... removed the fix in iOS 12.4, which it released last month. It now plans to fix it imminently in an emergency update to be titled iOS 12.4.1. The bug is very serious as it potentially allows a rogue app to "execute arbitrary code with system privileges." That effectively means malware could have complete control over an iOS device, something that's ... (view more)
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