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Worried about an NSA ChainOfFools/CurveBall attack? There are lots of moving parts. Test your system.

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 06:42:00 -0800

If you want to install the January Patch Tuesday patches, by all means, go right ahead. That said, I continue to recommend that you hold off installing the January Microsoft patches until we get a clearer reading on potential bugs.

The pro-patch-now argument generally goes something like this: Everybody is recommending that you install the patches to protect against the Crypto bug — almost all of the major security folks, the researchers, the big online sites, your local news station, your congresscritter, your neighbor’s nine-year-old, even the bleeping NSA. It’s a little patch. Why not just install it and be done with it?

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ComputerWorldIndependent
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Feds may already have found a way to hack into Apple iPhones

Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 14:05:00 -0800

After Apple turned down a request by U.S. Attorney General William Barr this week to unlock two iPhones used by a terrorist suspect in a recent deadly shooting, the FBI appears to already have the tools needed to access the smartphones.

Apple turned down a request from U.S. Attorney General William Barr saying it would  not help unlock two iPhones used by the shooter, 21-year-old Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani. He is believed to have acted alone when he shot and killed three service members and wounded several others at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla. last month.

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ComputerWorldIndependent
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Kadena launches Chainweb, a hybrid platform to connect public, private blockchains

Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 12:10:00 -0800

Brooklyn-based startup Kadena has launched a hybrid blockchain that can scale horizontally, enabling multiple electronic ledgers to talk to each other via smart contracts – and letting users transfer cryptocurrency between the chains.

Hybrid blockchains combine permissioned chains for businesses to transact in the background while connecting to a public blockchain (via an API) for consumers and others to make money transfers or access information about products moving across supply chains.

“Their hybrid blockchain model looks interesting, mainly because it enables interoperability via smart contracts that run on public chains and talk to/with private chains,” said Avivah Litan, a vice president of research at Gartner. “That way, enterprises can keep their private data and transactions limited to the private chain but benefit from the liquidity and cross-chain access available by leveraging smart contracts running on the public chain.”

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ComputerWorldIndependent
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Windows 7 end of support: Separating the bull from the horns

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 13:20:00 -0800

No, Windows 7 isn’t dead.

No, you don’t need to buy a Win10 computer. 

No, you don’t need to upgrade.

No, you don’t need to install the latest Win7 patches right away.

No, Microsoft isn’t withdrawing its unofficial nod-and-a-wink free upgrade from Win7 to Win10. At least, not right away.

No, the old Win7 patches aren’t disappearing.

No, your Internet Service Provider won’t kick you off your network for using Win7.

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ComputerWorldIndependent
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Patch Tuesday aftermath: The NSA Crypt32 threat is real, but not yet imminent

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 07:26:00 -0800

Get ready for your local news station’s weather reporter to start lecturing on the importance of installing Windows patches.

Yesterday we were treated to a remarkable Patch Tuesday. “Remarkable” specifically in the sense that the U.S. National Security Agency was moved to put out a press release (PDF):

NSA recommends installing all January 2020 Patch Tuesday patches as soon as possible to effectively mitigate the vulnerability on all Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016/2019 systems.

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ComputerWorldIndependent
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Breaking iPhone encryption won't make anyone safer

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 05:06:00 -0800

Imagine all your tax documentation could be examined by officials from any government merely on suspicion. That’s the future some governments are pushing for when they demand Apple puts security backdoors into its products.

Making no one safe

Think about the nature of security backdoors:

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IndependentKrebs
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Patch Tuesday, January 2020 Edition

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 02:31:50 +0000

Microsoft today released updates to plug 50 security holes in various flavors of Windows and related software. The patch batch includes a fix for a flaw in Windows 10 and server equivalents of this operating system that prompted an unprecedented public warning from the U.S. National Security Agency. This month also marks the end of mainstream support for Windows 7, a still broadly-used operating system that will no longer be supplied with security updates.

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