Independent – Page 217 – Computer Security Articles

Credit to Author: DealPost Team| Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2018 07:08:00 -0800

This powerful micro-cut shredder from AmazonBasics turns a letter-sized sheet into 2,235 pieces of confetti, up to 6 sheets at a time (5/32 by 15/32 inches; security level P-4). Inserted one at a time, it also destroys credit cards, rendering them completely unusable. It features a generous 4.1-gallon waste bin that is easy to manage. This micro-cut shredder averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 1,900 people (72% rate a full 5 stars: read reviews). Its typical list price of $50 has been reduced 29% to $36. See it on Amazon.

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ComputerWorld Independent

January 22, 2018 admin

FAQ: Windows 10 LTSB explained

Credit to Author: Gregg Keizer| Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2018 03:52:00 -0800

Windows 10 will power to its third anniversary this summer, but one branch, identified by the initials L-T-S-B, remains an enigma to most corporate users.

LTSB, which stands for “Long-term Servicing Branch,” was among the pillars of Windows 10 in the months leading up to, and for months after, the mid-2015 roll-out of the operating system. For a time, it seemed that it had a shot at becoming the Windows 10 for enterprise because it was seen as a calm port in a storm of radical change.

That hasn’t happened, in part because Microsoft has steered customers away from LTSB.

Just what is LTSB? And what has Microsoft done to make it an afterthought?

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ComputerWorld Independent

January 22, 2018 admin

The people you call when you've had a breach | Salted Hash Ep 15

Rob Lee, faculty fellow at the SANS Technology Institute, talks with host Steve Ragan about his group's work to help companies out of sticky situations, plus the state of the security industry and predictions for 2018.

ComputerWorld Independent

January 19, 2018 admin

Patching meltdown: Windows fixes, sloppy .NET, warnings about Word and Outlook

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 09:28:00 -0800

On the heels of the Jan. 17 release of 14 Windows and .NET patches, we now have a huge crop of new patches, revised older patches, warnings about bugs, and a bewildered ecosystem of Microsoft customers who can’t figure out what in the blue blazes is going on.

Let’s step through the, uh, offerings on Jan. 18.

Windows 10 patches

Win10 Fall Creators Update version 1709 — Cumulative update KB 4073291 brings the Meltdown/Spectre patches to 32-bit machines. What, you thought 32-bit machines already had Meltdown/Spectre patches? Silly mortal. Microsoft’s Security Advisory ADV180002 has the dirty details in the fine print, point 7:

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ComputerWorld Independent

January 18, 2018 admin

Mozilla mandates that new Firefox features rely on encrypted connections

Credit to Author: Gregg Keizer| Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 10:37:00 -0800

Mozilla this week decreed that future web-facing features of Firefox must meet an under-development standard that requires all browser-to-server-and-back traffic be encrypted.

“Effective immediately, all new features that are web-exposed are to be restricted to secure contexts,” wrote Mozilla engineer Anne van Kesteren in a post to a company blog. “A feature can be anything from an extension of an existing IDL-defined object, a new CSS property, a new HTTP response header, to bigger features such as WebVR.”

Secure contexts, dubbed a “minimum security level,” is a pending standard of the W3 (World Wide Web Consortium), the primary standards body for the web. Secure contexts’ main purpose, according to its documentation: “Application code with access to sensitive or private data be delivered confidentially over authenticated channels that guarantee data integrity.”

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ComputerWorld Independent

January 18, 2018 admin

More Windows patches, primarily previews, point to escalating problems this month

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 06:39:00 -0800

Never give a sucker an even break. Yesterday, on a very out-of-band Wednesday, Microsoft released preview patches for Windows 8.1 (but not 7!), Server 2012, and Windows 10 1709 (for bricked AMD machines only), with preview cumulative updates for Win10 1703 and 1607. There are also nine different .NET preview patches.

What should you do? Nothing. More accurately, make sure you DON’T install any of them. Fortunately, all of these patches require that you download and install them — and you’d have to be crazy (or an admin trying to shore up some critical servers) to dive into the cesspool.

It’s the same advice I’ve been giving all month. There’s nothing here that you need right now — there are no known exploits for Meltdown or Spectre in the wild, in particular — and machines are dropping like flies.

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ComputerWorld Independent

January 18, 2018 admin

Throwback Thursday: What are the odds?

Credit to Author: Sharky| Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 03:00:00 -0800

Internet filter is installed at this site, and in the beginning, there are complaints from users who can’t get to their favorite non-business sites, says an IT pilot fish working there.

But after six months and lots of explanations to users, the complaints have stopped. “Then one Saturday evening, a user called me,” fish says.

“He called to report that something must be wrong, because he could get to his lottery numbers tonight.

“I told him thanks, and that I would inform the individual in charge of the filter on Monday morning, as it wasn’t stopping anything production-critical during the weekend hours.

“I still can’t decide which is funnier: the fact that apparently every day for nearly six months this user tried to get to his lottery numbers even though the page should have never loaded again — or that, when he actually was able to, he reported it as a problem.”

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Independent Krebs

January 17, 2018 admin

Some Basic Rules for Securing Your IoT Stuff

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2018 19:36:24 +0000

Most readers here have likely heard or read various prognostications about the impending doom from the proliferation of poorly-secured “Internet of Things” or IoT devices. Loosely defined as any gadget or gizmo that connects to the Internet but which most consumers probably wouldn’t begin to know how to secure, IoT encompasses everything from security cameras, routers and digital video recorders to printers, wearable devices and “smart” lightbulbs. Throughout 2016 and 2017, attacks from massive botnets made up entirely of hacked IoT devices had many experts warning of a dire outlook for Internet security. But the future of IoT doesn’t have to be so bleak. Here’s a primer on minimizing the chances that your IoT things become a security liability for you or for the Internet at large.