• Article

Despite a sharp decrease of 19.2 percent observed earlier in the year, vulnerability disclosures in 2020 are expected to exceed 2019's level according to Risk Based Security.

The company's VulnDB team aggregated 23,269 vulnerabilities disclosed during 2020. Despite the initial disruption from COVID-19, the trend of total number of vulnerabilities suggests that business operations and routines have normalized as the gap has closed to 0.98 percent.

Continue reading →

A survey of over 120 developers and IT leaders from Reveal shows a 41 percent increase in demand for business intelligence solutions last year and 38 percent seeing increased revenue as the tech market shifted.

But while many took advantage of opportunities, 50 percent reported having to make do with less in 2020. Of those, 23 percent saw projects canceled or postponed, with some respondents indicating lost funding (14 percent) and staff reductions (14 percent).

Continue reading →

Twitter has confirmed that, even if he is re-elected as US president in 2024, Donald Trump will not be allowed to use the platform ever again.

The former president was unceremoniously kicked off Twitter towards the end of his leadership after concerns that his tweets were an incitement to violence. The company hit Trump with permanent suspension back in January, and has now made it clear that permanent really does mean permanent.

Continue reading →

Back in the day, computer builders would often buy sound cards for their rigs. This was because on-board audio used to be terrible. Going even further back, some motherboards did not even offer integrated sound, making a sound card a must.

Nowadays, however, most computers have on-board audio that isn't just passable, but quite good. Sure, there are still dedicated sound cards on the market, but they are usually reserved for audiophiles and/or gamers. These days, most computer users would be better served by a USB DAC -- a digital to analog converter. These offer superior audio for both laptops and desktops, and can reduce electrical interference and noise too.

Continue reading →

Windows 10 is actually a really great operating system. The problem? It is actually quite expensive at its normal retail price. Amazon sells Windows 10 Home for a whopping $130! Not to mention, Microsoft's desktop OS is quite resource intensive, making it a bad choice for those with aging hardware. For those with older computers, Linux-based operating systems are often a better option.

While many people associate Linux distributions with "free," the truth is, some can actually cost money. There is nothing wrong with paying for a Linux distro either -- it is a fine way to support the development. One such operating system, Linspire (formerly known as "Lindows") recently hit a major milestone -- version 10. Starting at just $29.99, the Ubuntu-based operating system is far cheaper than the expensive Windows 10.

Continue reading →

A serious vulnerability was recently discovered in the sudo tool which could be used to gain root access on Linux-based systems. It soon transpired that the very same issue also affects macOS.

The security vulnerability -- known as Baron Samedit and tracked as CVE-2021-3156 -- is a years-old heap-based buffer overflow bug, and Apple has now issued a patch that fixes the problem for users of Big Sur, Catalina and Mojave flavors of macOS.

Continue reading →

A new study from cybersecurity company Deep Instinct, finds that last year malware increased by 358 percent overall and ransomware increased by 435 percent as compared with 2019.

The report which analyzes millions of attacks taking place across the year finds distribution of the Emotet malware skyrocketed by 4,000 percent, while malware threats attacking Android phones increased by 263 percent.

Continue reading →

It's an unfortunate fact of life that over time all laptop batteries become less efficient. The machine that once got your through the day will eventually only last a couple of hours -- perhaps even less.

Age is one thing, but sometimes there can be a hardware or software problem that exacerbates the issue. And this is case for some MacBook Pro owners. But there's good news. Apple may replace your battery free of charge.

Continue reading →

Enterprises invest billions annually on SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) software and expect this investment to result in comprehensive threat coverage.

But a new report from AI-powered threat coverage platform CardinalOps shows that on average SIEM deployment rules miss 84 percent of the techniques listed in MITRE ATT&CK.

Continue reading →

Back on January 23, the New York Times published an Op-Ed piece by Kate Murphy titled America Has a GPS Problem, citing fear at the highest levels of government and industry that international bad actors might bring down the Global Positioning System satellite network, running your Tesla into a guardrail in the process. It’s just the sort of story you’d expect to read here, rather than in the Times, but what the heck. And the story is absolutely correct: we are all in danger. But Ms. Murphy, beyond wringing her hands, doesn’t say how the crisis will be averted or who will do the averting. I predict that Apple will fix the problem and save the day and they’ll probably do it this year.

The military and intelligence communities have long been worried that China or Russia could shoot down some or all of the 24 GPS satellites, blinding our strategic weapons in the process. It’s literal shooting-down, too, since the anti-satellite weapons demonstrated so far have been kinetic -- dumb rocks smashed into our satellites at incredible speed, knocking them from the sky and requiring incredible precision. So far only China and Russia have this offensive capability. But Ms. Murphy and the Times expand the population of bad guys beyond China and Russia to include enemies jamming, spoofing, or otherwise hacking GPS, which could be anyone -- Iran, North Korea, even groups of private individuals.

Continue reading →

We've seen a tidal wave of developer-enabling technologies over the last ten years. From DevOps, to CI/CD, to containers and microservices -- all of these best practices and technology patterns aim to speed up the process of shipping code fast from the developer into production.

But while software has become increasingly easy to package and deploy, the process of diagnosing and fixing bugs in production has become much more difficult. When services crash in the middle of the night, developers still find themselves in the world of logs, hotfixes and desperation -- but now with much greater surface area to investigate as applications span distributed systems.

Continue reading →

Whenever Microsoft releases updates for Windows, the company is always keen for as many people as possible to get the patch installed. But with this month's Patch Tuesday bug fixes, the company is encouraging Windows users even more than usual.

Referring to two Critical security issues and one Important one, all affecting TCP/IP, Microsoft says that "it is essential that customers apply Windows updates to address these vulnerabilities as soon as possible". The CVE-2021-24074, CVE-2021-24086 and CVE-2021-24094 vulnerabilities affect Windows 7 upwards.

Continue reading →

This Patch Tuesday -- the second Tuesday of February, yesterday -- Microsoft released fixes for a slew of Windows 10 flaws. Included among a total of 56 vulnerabilities is a critical zero-day which was being actively exploited to gain admin privileges on victims' systems.

But the fix for CVE-2021-1732 (Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability) is just one of 11 fixes for critical bugs this month. In addition, Microsoft has fixed two Moderate vulnerabilities, as well as 43 that are marked as Important.

Continue reading →

Living in Apple's ecosystem is a very rewarding experience. I know it is a cliché, but "it just works" is the truth. Are Apple products perfect and without issues? No. But when all of your gear is from Apple, it often works together brilliantly. An iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods together, for instance, is a trio that creates beautiful synergy -- especially when away from home.

If you are a road-warrior with both an Apple Watch and AirPods, Satechi has a new charger that you must check out. The elegant 2-in-1 USB-C charger connects to either a MacBook or iPad with USB Type-C ports and provides a mini charging pad that accommodates both AirPods or Apple Watch. Its small size makes it perfect to just toss in a bag. Best of all, since it charges both devices, you can potentially carry fewer chargers and ultimately reduce clutter.

Continue reading →

Nowadays, professional photographers with high-end camera equipment are embracing CFexpress storage cards more and more. The problem? Those cards are quite expensive. Not to mention, many photographers can get by without top of the line. And so, for many photographers -- amateur and professional alike -- good ol' SD cards are still more than fine.

Thankfully, companies are still putting out new SD cards, and today, Lexar launches its latest. The SILVER Series Professional 1066x SDXC UHS-I card is both fast and durable. Best of all, pricing starts at just $17.99, making it affordable for all consumers.

Continue reading →