ComputerWorld – Page 46 – Computer Security Articles

Credit to Author: Ed Tittel| Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2022 03:00:00 -0800

Microsoft Defender is the built-in anti-malware package that’s included with modern Windows operating systems. It’s alternatively known as Windows Security (it shows up under Settings as Windows Security) or Windows Defender (sometimes with Antivirus at the end of the name, as in this Microsoft Docs page). But whatever you want to call it, for many Windows users, this tool is the go-to default for handling security on their PCs.

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(Insider Story)

ComputerWorld Independent

February 2, 2022 admin

When biometrics can be outsmarted this way, we need to talk

Credit to Author: Evan Schuman| Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2022 06:43:00 -0800

It’s one of the sad facts of mobile authentication that the industry tends to initially support the least effective security options. Hence, phones initially supported authentication based on fingerprints (which can be impacted by prescriptions, cleaning products, hand injuries, and dozens of other factors) and then moved on to facial recognition.

In theory, facial recognition is supposed to be more accurate. Mathematically, that’s fair, as it is examining far more data points than scanning a fingerprint. But the reality in the real world is much more problematic. It requires a precise distance from the phone and yet offers no pre-scan markers for the user to know when they hit it correctly. That’s one reason I see facial recognition reject a scan roughly 40% of the time — even though it will approve a positive scan two seconds later.

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ComputerWorld Independent

March 17, 2020 admin

12 security tips for the ‘work from home’ enterprise

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2020 06:26:00 -0700

If you or your employees are working from home while our governments lurch awkwardly through the current crisis, then there are several security considerations that must be explored.

Your enterprise outside the wall

Enterprises must consider the consequences of working from home in terms of systems access, access to internal IT infrastructure, bandwidth costs and data repatriation.

What this means, basically, is that when your worker accesses your data and/or databases remotely, then the risk to that data grows.

While at normal times the risk is only between the server, internal network and end user machine, external working adds public internet, local networks and consumer-grade security systems to the risk mix.

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ComputerWorld Independent

March 17, 2020 admin

Take your time, get it right for March Patch Tuesday

Credit to Author: Greg Lambert| Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2020 11:41:00 -0700

This is a big update to the Windows platform for the Microsoft March Patch Tuesday release cycle. Consisting of 115 patches, mostly to the Windows desktop, with almost all of the critical issues relating to browser-based scripting engine memory issues, this will be a difficult set of updates to release and manage.

The testing profile for the Windows desktop platform is very large, with a lower than usual exploitability/risk rating. For this month, we do not have any reports of publicly exploited or disclosed vulnerabilities (zero-days), so my recommendation is to take your time, test the changes to each platform, create a staged rollout plan and wait for future (potentially) imminent changes from Microsoft.

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ComputerWorld Independent

March 17, 2020 admin

Come on, Microsoft! Is it really that hard to update Windows 10 right?

Credit to Author: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols| Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2020 07:47:00 -0700

Yesterday, on Patch Tuesday, as I was finishing up the column that follows lamenting the sorry state of Windows 10 patches and providing copious examples of things gone very wrong, a big, fat example landed in my lap (but happily not in my laptop). Word emerged that Microsoft had accidentally leaked news about a new Server Message Block (SMB) bug with a maximum severity rating, a.k.a. SMBGhost. The leak also said that this bug wasn’t patched in that day’s releases.

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ComputerWorld Independent

March 17, 2020 admin

Patch Tuesday’s tomorrow. We're in uncharted territory. Get Automatic Updates paused.

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2020 07:06:00 -0700

It’s always a good idea to pause Windows updates just before they hit the rollout chute. This month, we’re facing two extraordinary issues that you need to take into account. Wouldn’t hurt if you told your friends and family, too.

Take last month’s Windows patches. Please. We had one patch, KB 4524244, that slid out on Patch Tuesday, clobbered an unknown number of machines (HP PCs with Ryzen processors got hit hard), then remained in “automatic download” status until it was finally pulled on Friday. We had another patch, KB 4532693, that gobbled desktop icons and moved files while performing a nifty trick with temporary user profiles. Microsoft never did fix that one.

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ComputerWorld Independent

March 17, 2020 admin

Enterprise resilience: Backup and management tips for iOS, Mac

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2020 06:30:00 -0800

Apple’s solutions are seeing increasing use across the enterprise, but do you have a business resilience strategy in place in case things go wrong?

If you’re one of the estimated 73% of SMBs that have not yet made such preparation, now might be a good time to start.

Your data is your business

It’s challenging enough when a consumer user suffers data loss as precious memories and valuable information go up in the digital smoke. Natural disasters, technology and infrastructure problems or human-made problems such as burglary, cyberattacks or civil unrest can all impact the sanctity of your systems, whatever platform you use. It matters because in today’s connected world, your data is your business.

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