ComputerWorld – Page 99 – Computer Security Articles

Credit to Author: Gregg Keizer| Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2018 10:13:00 -0700

Mozilla this week said that its Firefox browser will soon start to automatically block some ad tracking technologies that the company claimed impact page load performance and shadow users wherever they go.

“In the near future, Firefox will — by default — protect users by blocking tracking,” wrote Nick Nguyen, Mozilla’s top Firefox executive, in an August 30 post to a company blog.

Mozilla added what it dubbed “Tracking Protection” to Firefox 57, a.k.a. “Quantum,” last fall. Since then, the feature has remained opt-in, meaning people must manually enable it from the browser’s Preferences display if they want to use it. When switched on, Tracking Protection blocks a wide range of content, not just advertisements but also in-page trackers that sites or ad networks implant to follow users from one website to another. Such trackers are the reason why an ad for underwear from a specific vendor seemingly pops up wherever one goes after one has browsed the underwear selection at the seller’s website.

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ComputerWorld Independent

August 31, 2018 admin

Apple insists developers ramp up their privacy commitments

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2018 06:45:00 -0700

Apple recently told the U.S. Congress that is sees customer privacy as a “human right”, though the explanation didn’t at that time extend to how third-party developers treat data they get from iOS apps. Now it does.

Privacy for the rest of us

Starting October 3, Apple will insist that all third-party apps (including new apps and app updates) submitted to the App Store include a link to the app developer’s own privacy policy.

This is a big change as until now only subscription-based apps needed to supply this information – and it also extends to the privacy policy itself, which Apple insists must be clear and explicitly in explaining:

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ComputerWorld Independent

August 31, 2018 admin

Windows and .Net finally get their 'D Week' patches, as Intel microcode fixes go wacko

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2018 05:02:00 -0700

Time for the final August patching shoe to drop.

Late last night Microsoft released a flurry of patches, posting them on the Microsoft Update Catalog. Some are available through Windows Update, some aren’t.

As of early Friday morning, the Win10 patches are not available through WSUS, the update server service. It’s not clear if that’s a mistake, a hesitation — or if somebody just went home last night and forgot.

Let’s hear it for patching predictability. And transparency.

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ComputerWorld Independent

August 31, 2018 admin

You've got malware!

Credit to Author: Sharky| Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2018 03:00:00 -0700

Flashback to the early 2000s, when this non-IT pilot fish works in a building where the level of computer literacy is hovering near absolute zero.

“I was the only person in my department who had any computer skills at all,” fish grumbles.

“One day we all got an email notice from management about a virus that was going around, spread by email. We were warned about clicking links and opening pages and all the other standard warnings.”

Fish suspects that most people in the department will just delete the warning, since they don’t use their computers for anything but the bare minimum required by company business — and they barely understand even that.

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ComputerWorld Independent

August 28, 2018 admin

University-customized Alexa devices will answer students’ questions

Credit to Author: Matthew Finnegan| Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:17:00 -0700

Saint Louis University (SLU) has rolled out 2,300 Alexa-powered Echo Dot virtual assistants to all of its student living spaces to provide answers to university-related queries about events, speakers on campus and more.

The university also plans to extend use of the artificial intelligence assistant into classrooms and meeting rooms in future and aims to use the technology to support workplace productivity for its faculty staff, according to CIO, David Hakanson.

Students arriving at SLU this month can access a custom skill that answers questions relating to university services, such as “When does the library open?” or “Where is the registrar’s office?”

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ComputerWorld Independent

August 24, 2018 admin

Get serious about privacy with the Epic, Brave and Tor browsers

Credit to Author: Barbara Krasnoff| Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2018 03:00:00 -0700

Privacy is one of the hardest things to find today — and one of the most prized, especially online. Most people, even those not technologically adept, are concerned about the amount of personal information that is being harvested by governments, corporations, third-party advertising agencies and/or unethical hackers.

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(Insider Story)

ComputerWorld Independent

August 23, 2018 admin

Microsoft Patch Alert: Mainstream August patches look remarkably good, but watch out for the bad boys

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2018 14:01:00 -0700

So far this month we’ve only seen one cumulative update for each version of Windows 10, and one set of updates (Security only, Monthly Rollup) for Win7 and 8.1. With a few notable exceptions, those patches are going in rather nicely. What a difference a month makes.

We’ve also seen a massive influx of microcode updates for the latest versions of Windows 10, running on Intel processors. Those patches, released on Aug. 20 and 21, have tied many admins up in knots, with conflicting descriptions and iffy rollout sequences.

Big problems for small niches

At this point, I’m seeing complaints about a handful of patches:

The original SQL Server 2016 SP2 patch, KB 4293807, was so bad Microsoft yanked it — although the yanking took almost a week. It’s since been replaced by KB 4458621, which appears to solve the problem.
The Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 patch, KB 4456688, has gone through two versions — released Aug. 14, pulled, then re-released Aug. 18 — and the re-released version still has problems. There’s a hotfix available from the KB article, but you’d be well advised to avoid it.
Outlook guru Diane Poremsky notes on Slipstick that the version of Outlook in the July Office 365 Click-to-Run won’t allow you to start Outlook if it’s already running. “Only one version of Outlook can run at a time” — even if the “other version” is, in fact, the same version.
The bug in the Win10 1803 upgrade that resets TLS 1.2 settings persists, but there’s an out-of-the-blue patch KB 4458116 that fixes the problem for Intuit QuickBooks Desktop.
The Win10 1803 cumulative update has an acknowledged bug in the way the Edge browser interacts with Application Guard. Since about two of you folks use that combination, I don’t consider it a big deal. The solution, should you encounter the bug, is to uninstall the August cumulative update, manually install the July cumulative update, and then re-install the August cumulative update — thus adding a new dimension to the term “cumulative.”
The Win7 Monthly Rollup has an old acknowledged bug about “missing file (oem<number>.inf).” Although Microsoft hasn’t bothered to give us any details, it looks like that’s mostly a problem with VMware.

The rest of the slate looks remarkably clean. Haven’t seen that in a long while.

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