Infopackets Reader Mike B. writes: " Dear Dennis, I run a Windows Server 2003 box that has been fine until two days ago. Now, my CPU usage is 100% with multiple 'Update_Windows.exe' processes running. I've deleted the Update_Windows.exe tasks in ... Task Manager, but it keeps propagating. I did a virus scan, but it did not find anything; Malwarebytes antimalware also is not reporting anything. Prior to the infection, I installed the emergency May 2017 update to avoid the Windows SMB exploit / WannaCry ransomware infection . I understand Windows Server 2003 is no longer supported by Microsoft and ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Dan L. writes: " Dear Dennis, I imagine that you might soon be hearing from your users about Roboform having suddenly lost its toolbar feature in FireFox. If not, here's the answer: starting with the recently issued Roboform ... 8.3.7, the RoboForm extension will no longer include a full static toolbar above the content pane of Firefox . Instead, you get a button with a message that reads ("Click this button to show RoboForm commands") with a vertical menu, similar to how Roboform works in Chrome. I found an article at RoboForm that explains the changes - and it seems that ... (view more)

Political discussion on social media is often driven and manipulated by automated "bots," a university department claims. The word "bots" is a short form for "robot," and refers to online activity carried out using an automated program. The Oxford ... Internet Institute says it studied events in nine countries and found the bots played a role in every case. However, social media groups have questioned such studies saying they are often based on flawed research methods. The study looked at activity on Facebook and Twitter among users in Brazil, Canada, China, Germany ... (view more)

A man killed when his semi-autonomous Tesla car crashed ignored multiple warnings issued by the vehicle, newly-released documents show. The papers also suggest subsequent changes to the way the car's Autopilot feature works should prevent a repeat ... of the incident. Tesla's Autopilot feature is a brand name that covers a technology that's often classed as being "driver assistance," rather than strictly self-driving. The features in question covered a cruise control that kept the car at a constant speed while taking account of nearby vehicles, and an auto-steer function that ... (view more)

Google says it will use a combination of artificial intelligence and human expertise to combat online videos promoting hatred and terrorism. It's also going to tackle videos that follow the letter but not the spirit of its rules and will ... intentionally promote videos that can counter terrorist recruitment. The four steps are part of what Google and YouTube calls an ongoing program to enforce the principle that "there should be no place for terrorist content on our services." Step one is to improve the way Google's systems automatically spot videos that promote terrorism and ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve V. writes: " Dear Dennis, I came across your post on screenconnect.com, entitled ' Mono eating too much memory (Linux) ' and am having the same issue. It seems that ScreenConnect is uncontrollably eating memory - for ... example, when I click on client previews, the mono process eats 300mb+ of RAM and will continue to do so for each click. Surely this is not right! At this point I receive 'Internal error' on my ScreenConnect browser control panel (where I can view my clients). Ultimately, /var/log/messages reports 'Out of memory: Kill process xxxx (mono) score xxx or ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ian S. writes: " Dear Dennis, Recently I noticed through Task Manager that I have very high CPU usage, even with the computer idle. I looked at Task Manager and it says that 'IAStorDataMgrSvc' is eating 25% of my CPU constantly. I ... read that this is an Intel program and that my computer's BIOS may not be set up properly, which is causing the problem. I also read that if I set the BIOS improperly (in order to correct the issue), my computer may get stuck in a blue screen loop. I am afraid to make any changes for fear that it may screw something up. Can you help? " My response ... (view more)

Facebook has announced four changes to its Safety Check feature for dealing with local crises. The changes will offer more detail about what's currently happening, coordinate local help, and help make fundraising easier. Safety Check is a feature ... that lets people in the geographic area of a natural disaster, terror attack or other crisis quickly mark themselves as "safe." The idea is that this saves people exchanging a plethora of messages in order to check if somebody is OK. That's particularly important with voice calls and text messages, which can easily overload local ... (view more)

Microsoft has issued three updates to fix flaws in older, unsupported versions of Windows. It's an unusual move that follows the discovery that both the National Security Agency (NSA) and outside hackers are exploiting the flaws , similar to the one ... that allowed the WannaCry Ransomware worm to spread just a few weeks ago. The updates cover both Windows and Windows Server editions going right back to XP . They'll be issued through the usual automated updates, which means people on Windows 8.1 and later shouldn't need to do anything. Those on earlier systems may need to manually ... (view more)

Russian-backed hackers appear to have the ability to remotely shut down power stations, researchers claim. However, the cyber weapon appears to only have been successfully deployed once so far. Two companies, Dragos Inc and ESET, have revealed their ... analysis of malware that was used in an attack on a transmission station in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, last December. The outage lasted for an hour and blacked out buildings that normally use 20 percent of the city's electricity. (Source: washingtonpost.com ) Malware Easily Customized The researchers say the malware, which they've dubbed ... (view more)