Independent – Page 120 – Computer Security Articles

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2019 18:53:16 +0000

A reader forwarded what he briefly imagined might be a bold, if potentially costly, innovation on the old Nigerian prince scam that asks for help squirreling away millions in unclaimed fortune: it was sent via the U.S. Postal Service, with a postmarked stamp and everything. In truth these “advance fee” or “419” scams- – so-called because they violate section 419 of the criminal code of Nigeria where many such lures originate — predate email and have circulated via postal mail in various forms and countries over the years.

ComputerWorld Independent

September 18, 2019 admin

Why France and Germany fear Facebook’s cryptocurrency – and plan to block it

Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2019 03:00:00 -0700

Facebook’s plans to launch its own Libra cryptocurrency next year is getting resistance from France and Germany who have promised to block it and plan to create their own national cryptocurrencies.

Last week, the two nations said Libra could threaten the Euro’s value and unlawfully privatize money. Last year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank, announced a ban on the use of cryptocurrencies by any regulated financial entity because of risks associated with it.

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ComputerWorld Independent

September 18, 2019 admin

Wayback Wednesday: When you said ‘gone for good,’ I only heard ‘good’

Credit to Author: Sharky| Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2019 03:00:00 -0700

User comes to this support pilot fish complaining that his PC is acting strangely.

“It turns out he had gotten his computer so jammed up with spyware and Trojans that it was basically nonfunctional,” says fish. “We had to rebuild the computer from scratch.” They were able to recover much of user’s work and files, but some were irretrievably damaged — or just plain gone .

Fish explains what happened and points out the probable infection vectors. And he explains that they had recovered as much as they could, but some stuff was simply gone for good. There would be no way to get anything more.

“Two days later, he called to ask when I’m going to bring him the rest of his missing files.”

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ComputerWorld Independent

September 18, 2019 admin

How to monitor Windows to prevent credential theft attacks

Attackers are now enabling WDigest credential caching to allow them to harvest credentials. Here’s how to spot it.

ComputerWorld Independent

September 17, 2019 admin

Mozilla first reveals, then conceals, paid support plan for Firefox

Credit to Author: Gregg Keizer| Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2019 10:56:00 -0700

Mozilla earlier this month quietly outlined paid support for enterprise users of Firefox, but last week scrubbed the reference from its website, saying that it is “still exploring that option.”

The offering – labeled “Mozilla Enterprise Client Support” – was to start at $10 per “supported installation,” which likely referred to per-device, not per-user, pricing. It’s unclear whether that was an annual or monthly fee, and Mozilla declined to say which it was when asked.

In return for the fee, Mozilla said on the now-absent Firefox enterprise site – still visible through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine – customers would be able to privately report bugs via a new web portal and receive fixes on a timeline dependent on the impact and urgency of the problem. Customers would also be able to file requests for help with Firefox’s installation and deployment, management policies, functionality and customization.

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Independent Krebs

September 17, 2019 admin

Man Who Hired Deadly Swatting Gets 15 Months

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2019 15:59:02 +0000

An Ohio teen who recruited a convicted serial swatter to fake a distress call that ended in the police shooting an innocent Kansas man in 2017 has been sentenced to 15 months in prison.

ComputerWorld Independent

September 17, 2019 admin

All about U.S. tech antitrust investigations | TECH(feed)

Four large tech companies — Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook are under investigation in the U.S. for allegedly anticompetitive behavior. These antitrust investigations on both the federal and state levels are aimed at uncovering the practices these companies engage in to eliminate competition. In this episode of TECH(feed), Juliet discusses the House investigation into big tech and how Congress plans to investigate potential wrongdoing by these companies.

ComputerWorld Independent

September 16, 2019 admin

Now let me guess your password

Credit to Author: Sharky| Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2019 03:00:00 -0700

This pilot fish IT guy gets a call from an irate client one day complaining (incorrectly) that we had changed his administrative password on his Windows 2000 server without his knowledge.

“As I walked him through the logon process, I asked if the username in the login prompt was ‘Administrator,’ says fish. “His reply: “Oh, do I need to change that?”

Feed the Shark! Send me your true tales of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You can also subscribe to the Daily Shark Newsletter.

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