Microsoft Releases More Win10 Updates

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Paul Thurrott (http://www.thurrott.com) just reported that Microsoft has updated the shipping versions of Windows 10 again this month. It’s another Cumulative Update so you’ll need to reboot your machine after the update gets installed. With all the Bad Guy activity going on, it’s not really surprising to me. While it’s a pain in the rear to have to reboot so often, I take solace in the fact that Microsoft is ACTIVELY trying to keep the OS patched.

Paul has all the details of what’s included in the Update here:
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/120470/microsoft-updates-shipping-versions-windows-10-6?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-97Df9Gwmt8493Tt9ml8c0JrEM9vQ1-ipr3S4eli95oFcNNiKLKN3C2HGdPdItgqLiGDHqGNY1NPrgc1RIIsPUcV6hY3w&_hsmi=53681954

Another Day, Another Ransomware Attack: “Nyetya”

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The Bad Guys know no shame. It appears they’re going to try every one of the tricks that was leaked from the NSA tool kit. Oh, goody. I’m saying “nyet” to “Nyetya”.

If you have servers (or even one server) you need to make sure you have all the latest patches from your Server Software Vendor — besides Microsoft that also extends to Linux (and all the variants) and even Apple products. There is no “safe” operating system from these latest attacks. Your computer (workstation) is the perfect delivery mechanism for the server attack so it’s important you keep whatever Security Suite you have up to date and fully patched. (I’m assuming you’re already keeping up with all the Microsoft and other Operating System Vendor updates regularly, right?!?)

We can provide assistance with patching all of your equipment and we also sell the Trend Micro Security Suite. We can cover your servers and your workstations (even your mobile devices) with some of the very best protection available on the Internet. You can book us online at http://connect.daviestrek.net and we’d be happy to assist you in keeping the Bad Guys at bay.

Want to know more about this latest round? Here are a couple of really good informational sources.

From Trend Micro: https://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/large-scale-ransomware-attack-progress-hits-europe-hard/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWkdJMk16WXhOVFkyTkdFMCIsInQiOiJyTUtqZlJldHVOMVZIQjZMZDd1VGhzYVwvWTFLdGQ2Ym5CQWpIT2xPVUlJRTc4blRBdGVwelVFR1pPUW1RM0hocDYyS2loUnBPMXN0TWQ3V2hRbjl2WFwvRE9mRTd6OXJrT1dMTWQ5bmdxNGdzaWphTFwvWW5rV2tJUDNUMzZFbE1YSiJ9

From Cisco’s Talos Intelligence Group’s Blog: http://blog.talosintelligence.com/2017/06/worldwide-ransomware-variant.html

The New Normal? The Bad Guys and You Part 2: The Smack Down

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In Part 1 we talked about what the Bad Guys could potentially gain from targeting you and your “nothing worth stealing.” But I think you saw that maybe you do have something worth stealing after all.

“Great, guess I’ll throw out the computer and no more email!”
Probably not a good idea and certainly not practical. It’s better to understand what you can do to protect yourself. Please allow me to digress for a moment into an analogy. It used to be that one could leave their doors unlocked and not worry about getting robbed. You can still leave your doors unlocked, but if you do get robbed — what do you think is the first question the Police and Insurance Company will ask? How much help do you think they will really be?
So we all put locks on our doors. That involved us carrying keys. The hassle!! Some decided to leave them under the mat or in a fake rock (or fake dog poo) near the door. That’s pretty handy. The criminals think so too. That turned out to be almost as useless as just leaving the door open.
So we get fancier locks. Something with a punch code. That’s pretty great until the battery dies in the unit (you forgot to replace it) and you still need the key to get in. (Did I leave it under that suspicious looking dog poo?…)

“There’s no way to win so why bother?”
For the same reasons you still lock your door and hassle with the key, you should be taking the time to create yourself a password scheme that includes upper and lower case letters, special characters (!@#$%^&*), and numbers. Have a minimum of nine characters — 12 and above is much better. Having a passphrase is often quite helpful. Don’t include personally identifiable info in your password (e.g. names — yourself, significant other, kids, etc.) but make it meaningful to you. TheRock!3Mount@1ns is an example of an extremely simple passphrase. (Don’t use it — I just gave it to you and all the Bad Guys. I’m sure it’s in a list now used to crack passwords. If you were using it, I’m really sorry. I didn’t know!) The absolute BEST passwords are the randomly generated ones but that can get really hard to manage.

“I have too many passwords to remember as it is and now you want me to make them harder?! Are you CRAZY?!?!”
Well, I’m not quite right, but I wouldn’t call it crazy. 🙂
There are lots of ways to manage passwords. If you are like many of my home clients, you have a workstation or laptop that stays pretty much in one place and that’s where you go to access the Internet. I’m going to suggest something totally radical for you to use as a password manager: a small notebook kept in a drawer somewhere near (but not next to) the machine. Keep each site on a single page so you have room to change the password as you need to. I just made security nerds everywhere scream out in pain. Take heart security nerds, I’m suggesting the electronic solution next. This recommendation is playing the odds — I’m making the assumption that the chances of a physical break in and the criminal specifically looking for and taking that notebook is fairly low. (You had the door locked, right?!?) Way lower than the online Bad Guys.

“Fancy passwords are a real hassle”
There is an electronic management solution — lots of them actually. PC Magazine recently reviewed and proclaimed “The Best Password Managers of 2017“. Don’t want to invest in a management solution? There are free options like a product called Password Safe. Another even more secure option is presented by Felicia King at Quality Plus Consulting making use of Password Safe and a product called YubiKey. She outlines the strategy here.
If you use a product like Password Safe you will be able to randomly generate passwords and electronically store them in an organized fashion. It’s that notebook on your machine. Of course, you’ll want to keep a backup of your password file — but you’re backing up the important data on your machine regularly anyway, right?? Right??

“I’m still confused and need more help.”
You’re in luck — we can help. You can schedule an appointment online here.

The New Normal? The Bad Guys and You Part 1

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“How did this happen to me?”
I’m often asked “how did this happen to me?” when cleaning up a machine infected with whatever Bad Guy stuff that was installed. It happens often. Way too much really. The Bad Guys are ramping up their efforts as they find more success. It’s easy and quick to do. Like most criminals, they actively target the easy grab. Too much work is left to more motivated criminals.

“I have nothing worth stealing”
Another popular refrain. Obviously you do, or the effort to trick you into installing the Bad Guy stuff or infiltrating your network wouldn’t exist.

E-Mail: The EUREKA! moment
You likely are using your machine for e-mail. It’s pretty much mandatory these days for all sorts of services and communication. A valid, functional e-mail address might be worth $0.01 (I’m strictly guessing). Get 10,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000 of those valid e-mail addresses and you’re talking real money that they can get from spammers and the Black Market. If they’re slightly more motivated, they can lock you out and take over your email account.

You just became way more profitable.
Now that they have access and control of your email they also have control of all those other accounts. If you didn’t have them before you can bet you will now. They’ll spend time posting and creating as you so that they can sell off those accounts as well. A Facebook account might be worth $2. An iTunes account maybe worth $5. It’s starting to add up.

It gets worse
Now that they have your e-mail account, they can start REALLY stealing your identity. They can steal credit card info and make fraudulent purchases or simply sell off that information to the highest bidder on the Black Market. They can pose as you and spam any contacts in your email client and possibly trick those contacts into also becoming a victim.

“What am I going to do?”
Check back for “The New Normal? The Bad Guys and You Part 2: The Smack Down”

Wannacrypt? No thanks!!

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There’s a new Bad Guy in town and he’s holding us all up for a “King’s Ransom”. Especially if you dislike patching your devices regularly or you’re still steadfastly holding on to that old XP machine. But you ALWAYS update your machine when Microsoft releases patches, right??

According to Dictionary.com, Ransomware is:

“noun, Digital Technology.

1. malware planted illegally in a computer or mobile device that disables its operation or access to its data until the owner or operator pays to regain control or access.”
As reported yesterday (5/13/17) by ZDNet’s Danny Palmer (http://www.zdnet.com/article/wannacrypt-ransomware-microsoft-issues-patch-for-windows-xp-and-other-old-systems/) this one is SO BAD that Microsoft has actually released patches for the “dead” (AKA no longer officially supported without a REALLY expensive contract) OS’s — Windows Server 2003, Windows XP and Windows 8 (including RT).
If you’re using one of these systems, head over to Microsoft’s blog page on the subject (https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2017/05/12/customer-guidance-for-wannacrypt-attacks/) to get the patches you need.
Need help with this? Want more security advice? Contact Us and let’s talk!

Microsoft Win10 Anniversary Update to be released August 2nd

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MicrosoftMary Jo Foley at All About Microsoft reports that Microsoft will be releasing Service Pack 1 (oops — I meant Anniversary Update) on August 2nd just a few short days after the one year release date anniversary of Windows 10 and the end of the free upgrade offer.

Ms. Foley spoke with Terry Myerson (Windows and devices group executive vice president) last week and reports that there will be “…six major buckets of new features…”

Myerson, with whom I spoke last week about the coming update, said there are six major buckets of new features coming in the Anniversary Update. The six: More enterprise security features; Edge browser improvements, including extension support; Windows Ink for better pen use; new Cortana enhancements; and cross-device gaming support.

There will apparently be two new Enterprise features with this update.

On the enterprise front, Enterprise Data Protection, which has been renamed “Windows Information Protection,” will debut as part of Windows 10. This enterprise feature, which Microsoft officials have been touting since 2014, provides file-level encryption for business data and apps in the name of data separation and leak prevention.

The other major, brand-new enterprise security feature which will ship as part of the Anniversary Update is the Windows 10 Defender Advanced Threat Protection threat-intelligence and attack detection service. Sources had told me Microsoft was aiming to make this service available some time in the third calendar quarter of 2016. Extensive testing — by 300 enterprises and with 700,000 endpoints — resulted in the service being ready to roll with the Anniversary Update, Myerson said.

And one more fun promotion from Microsoft for students.

Microsoft also announced today a new back-to-school promotion via which students can get $300 off when buying an Xbox One and Surface together at Microsoft Stores through August 14.

 

So Long Quicktime, It was fun.

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We’re recommending you remove the Quicktime Player from any machines you have it installed on.

It was a not so “quick” ride that has come to an end. Windows 8 & 10 haven’t played well with Quicktime anyway. In fact the plugin was deactivated with the last Quicktime update received this past January. Trend Micro recently discovered two major security flaws in the software. When they reported it to Apple they were told that there would be no more development of the product and the solution was to simply remove the product from your Windows machines. This came as a surprise because there had been no announcement about depreciating the software. As reported by The Register:

“We’re not aware of any active attacks against these vulnerabilities currently. But the only way to protect your Windows systems from potential attacks against these or other vulnerabilities in Apple QuickTime now is to uninstall it,” said Christopher Budd, global threat communications manager at Trend Micro, on Thursday.

“In this regard, QuickTime for Windows now joins Microsoft Windows XP and Oracle Java 6 as software that is no longer being updated to fix vulnerabilities, and subject to ever-increasing risk as more and more unpatched vulnerabilities are found affecting it.”

The flaws were reported to Apple on November 11, 2015, and acknowledged the same day by Cupertino. The following March, Apple told Trend Micro that “the product would be deprecated on Windows and the vendor would publish removal instructions for users.”

There’s a whole new world of video playing available these days from Flash (also a security headache) to the HTML5 standard. It’s time to upgrade from XP (also depreciated and unpatched) and make the leap to a newer system. Yes, there’s a learning curve but that’s true no matter what you buy.

Have Evernote files you want to transfer to OneNote?

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I still maintain that OneNote is the best FREE tool you’re not using. Especially if you have a touch or pen device — but any device will do. There’s a OneNote App for that (really!). One of the arguments against switching over to OneNote was the lack of ability to move those files over easily. Well, here goes that argument.

Microsoft has released a tool that will import your Evernote files into OneNote from the Evernote Plus ($25/yr) and Evernote Premium ($50/yr). No word on the ability to import from the Basic (free) or Business ($120/yr/user) versions.

This is version 1 of the tool, so I’m sure there will be glitches and imperfections. I would also anticipate that, if successful, the tool will be upgraded to include all versions. In order to use this new tool, you’ll need Windows 7 or later. There currently is no Mac version of the converter tool.

Once you’ve run the tool, the files you import will be available across all devices (Win, Mac, iOS, and Android). Microsoft offers up a graph with the features gained by doing the import.

Microsoft also provides more details on how to use OneNote importer on this support page.

Remember – -this is a Version 1 tool. Your mileage may vary — but I still suggest you do it!

Source: Mary Jo Foley from All About Microsoft

Happy International Women’s Day

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Microsoft is celebrating International Women’s Day (March 8th) by celebrating the creators and inventors with their #MakeWhatsNext campaign.

A new video from Microsoft shows the lack of awareness girls today have about women inventors and reminds them to celebrate those women’s accomplishments and be encouraged to follow in their footsteps.

Microsoft, as part of its longstanding efforts to encourage girls to build technology skills and learn about careers in technology, is also offering free resources for girls to learn to code and meet female role models at DigiGirlz events happening around the globe, and is also offering free online coding tutorials to make strides in closing the considerable gender gap in computer science education and the tech industry at large. In addition, Microsoft is announcing a new patent program focused on inviting select young female inventors to receive support from the company’s patent law resources to help them file for a U.S. patent.

These efforts are part of Microsoft’s broad commitment to computer science education, with programs and resources offered through Microsoft Philanthropies YouthSpark initiative to increase access for all youth to learn computer science, empowering them to achieve more for themselves, their families and their communities.

Source: http://news.microsoft.com/features/its-time-for-more-girls-to-makewhatsnext/