Latest Technology News

Kodi 21 -- codenamed 'Omega' -- is the next version of the hugely popular home theater software. The Kodi Foundation released the second alpha version of the program three months ago, with new features, fixes, and cleanups.

Today, a brand new build arrives, which will be more appealing to those users seeking greater stability from the software.

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Managing third-party cybersecurity risk across inter-connected supplier ecosystems is becoming increasingly more daunting. Software and systems that used to be managed in-house are now routinely delivered as hosted services by multiple vendors and contractors. Other third parties frequently get brought in at departmental level, often bypassing contracting procedures, and have access to applications that hold sensitive data and business critical information.

A single mistake anywhere in the supply chain could result in data breaches, compliance fines, as well as revenue losses, reputational damage, and a wide range of negative business consequences for months, or even years, down the line.

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Drivers have long been the source of problems for Windows users, with security flaws, compatibility issues and other bugs blighting the experience of getting hardware to work as it should. Now Microsoft has announced plans that will shake up how drivers work in Windows.

The company has announced plans to not only end support for third-party printer drivers in Windows, but also to stop the provision of printer driver updates via Windows Update. The change is a significant one which Microsoft is phasing in over a number of years to reduce the potential negative impact for hardware manufacturer and users alike.

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In the race to find storage solutions that deliver in terms of performance and capacity, Sabrent's Rocket 2230 NVMe 4.0 2TB SSD has emerged as a standout choice for enthusiasts and professionals alike. With devices like the Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and Surface Pro in dire need of spacious and rapid storage options, Sabrent's latest offering is a game-changer -- and it just became a whole lot more affordable.

The Sabrent 2TB 2230 SSD has been making waves in the tech community, especially in the past few months. Its popularity has skyrocketed, evidenced by the blink-and-you'll-miss-it sales events. And if you've been on the fence about securing one of these SSDs for your device, now might just be the perfect time to jump in.

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Taiwan-based company, iRocks, has added yet another mechanical keyboard to the already bustling PC peripherals landscape with its K74M. While it aims to serve both gaming and professional use-cases, the question remains: does it offer anything new?

The K74M comes equipped with PBT keycaps, which, on paper, might appear more durable than the ABS variety. They have incorporated the double-shot (dual-injection) technology that's becoming a common feature these days. Also, the floating keys design coupled with an aluminum plate seems to hint at easier maintenance.

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Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it would be retiring legacy troubleshooters in Windows 11. These built-in tools have helped users diagnose and fix common Windows problems since their arrival in Windows 7 back in 2009.

Now, the company has started the process of removing these troubleshooters.

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Five-hundred-and-fifty-nine in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Classic WordPad will soon no longer be a part of Windows. Microsoft changed the status of the rich text editor to deprecated. WordPad will be removed "in a future release of Windows" according to Microsoft's announcement.

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Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms are the centerpiece of many organization's security controls, but if these products aren't configured correctly they will produce too many false positives to be useful, and can even make overall threat detection worse.

Security analysts need to trust that their SIEM is detecting threats accurately. We spoke to Sanjay Raja from security analytics company Gurucul to discuss how SIEMs can be configured to offer accurate detection.

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Microsoft Paint has been the subject of ridicule for as long as it has existed, but much of the mockery is ill-placed these days. While it may not be the most advanced image editor in the world, there is a lot more to the app than it is generally given credit for.

Microsoft is not done with development of the app, updates rolled out to the latest Insider builds of Windows 11 show that the company is on the verge of bringing a Photoshop-level tool to Paint: background removal.

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A new report from Team8 shows that 56 percent of CISOs have had budget increases since 2022 despite the economic slowdown, while 25 percent saw no change and 19 percent cuts.

However, larger security departments have been most affected by budget cuts with 67 percent of those with 51-100 people seeing budget reductions.

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Spring Boot 3 brings more than just the powerful ability to build secure web apps on top of a rock-solid database.

It delivers new options for testing, deployment, Docker support, and native images for GraalVM, along with ways to squeeze out more efficient usage of existing resources. This third edition of the bestseller starts off by helping you build a simple app, and then shows you how to secure, test, bundle, and deploy it to production.

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It's crucial for organizations to have a complete and comprehensive view of all their cloud assets, but the process of discovery can be a difficult one, especially if multiple platforms are involved.

Cloud security platform Orca Security is launching a new AI-powered cloud asset search that is aimed at making the process more intuitive and available not only to security practitioners, but also developers, DevOps, cloud architects, and risk governance and compliance teams.

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The rise of AI has been nothing short of meteoric, especially with the advent of extensive language models like ChatGPT. We're witnessing a technological tide that might not only match, but even eclipse the transformative power of the internet. Every corner of our world, from the intricate complexities of finance to the foundational elements of education, is currently in the throes of a radical transformation catalyzed by artificial intelligence.

Yet, as we march forward in this brave new world of machine learning and digital cognition, there's an ever-looming shadow: the challenge of data privacy. Every digital query, every command we voice, and every interaction we have with these advanced systems invariably deposits bits of our personal information into vast databases. These repositories, managed by the service providers, become de facto vaults of our digital identities. The gravity of this concern hasn't been lost on the world's decision-makers. Countries not yet willing to take the blind leap have started sounding the alarm, and corporate behemoths have begun implementing restrictions on the use of such AI-driven tools.

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Decrypting HTTPS (TLS/SSL) traffic at the network perimeter is a vital step in protecting against malware and other online threats. Most of today’s web traffic is encrypted and presents an obvious hiding place for threat actors to deliver cyberattacks, since many network security controls aren’t set to inspect encrypted traffic. Consider recent findings from WatchGuard’s Threat Lab in its Q4 2022 Internet Security Report (ISR). While the report showed an apparent decline in overall malware volume, the Threat Lab analysts found a much higher prevalence of malware being delivered over encrypted connections when they looked closer at decrypted HTTPS traffic. These results came from a mere 20 percent of devices decrypting TLS and indicate the other 80 percent would also show malware volume is up, but hidden -- which mirrors findings from previous quarters.

Despite this trend, it’s common for teams not to enable decryption at the firewall due to the complications it can present. The process requires resources to decrypt and then re-encrypt traffic passing through a gateway device, as well as next-gen firewalls (NGFW) or unified threat management (UTM) appliances that use significant computing horsepower, all which impact network performance. Then, introducing decryption while managing the performance of other security tools and their varying uses could be difficult. Today, however, tabletop UTM/NGFW solutions can perform this process at the speed of the incoming WAN connection. So now, users’ main objection is the initial configuration of TLS/SSL decryption, and the need for exceptions for certain applications.

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The vast majority of software bugs are, almost by definition, a problem. A bug can cause unexpected behavior, reduce performance, and cause endless other issues. But there is a bug in Windows 11's File Explorer that actually makes it better.

If you've ever thought that File Explorer would benefit from a speed boost, there's some good news. A strange bug can be exploited to noticeably improve performance in a split second.

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