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How to avoid social engineering attacks

Social Engineering

Social engineering is a method of obtaining confidential information by psychologically manipulating or deceiving people to pursue a certain course of action. It is a popular tactic among hackers as it is easier to exploit human psychology rather than hacking a network or looking for security vulnerabilities.

The following are the most common forms of digital social engineering assaults:

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Samsung PM1731a SSD uses Zoned Namespace (ZNS) technology

There are many manufacturers of solid state drives, but in my experience, Samsung's SSD offerings are amongst the best. They are reliable, affordable, and quite often, blazing fast too. If your data is important to you, a reputable brand is a must, and you can never go wrong with Samsung in this regard.

How does Samsung continually provide excellent solid state drives? The enormous company is constantly pushing boundaries, likely due to large R&D budgets that other SSD makers can't come anywhere near matching. Today, Samsung unveils its latest groundbreaking SSD. Called "PM1731a," the 2.5-inch drive is notable for utilizing Zoned Namespace (ZNS) technology and the company's sixth-gen V-NAND flash memory.

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If you're unfortunate enough to be in the path of a hurricane, Amazon has a plan to help

Yesterday we celebrated Memorial Day, and this year it’s followed immediately by a more infamous day. June 1 of each year marks the start of hurricane season in the Atlantic and Pacific basins. It runs through December 1, but remember, mother nature doesn’t always follow our schedules and directions -- one hurricane already formed in mid-May. 

Most don’t reach land and those that do frequently amount to little, but then you also have the likes of Katrina or Sandy that can prove devastating. Maria knocked out power for months in Puerto Rico in 2017. 

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Kingston unleashes the FURY on PC gamers as the HyperX sale to HP completes

Earlier in the year, we shared some huge news with you -- Kingston was selling HyperX to HP for nearly $500 million. Shockingly, HyperX memory was not included in the deal, meaning HP pretty much only bought the accessory business -- keyboards, mice, and headsets -- and not RAM. Today, that acquisition is officially complete.

At the time, I was unsure how the branding would work moving forward. Would Kingston continue to use the "HyperX" name for its gaming RAM? Today we learn that will absolutely not be the case. You see, it seems like the name "HyperX" entirely belongs to HP. Going forward, "Kingston FURY" will instead be the new name of the gaming RAM. Yes, FURY was previously a type of HyperX RAM, but Kingston is simply reusing that name. There are three types of FURY memory kits -- Renegade, Beast, and Impact.

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Firefox 89 unveils a major -- and distinctly modern -- facelift

Firefox logo on blue background

When Mozilla switched its popular open-source browser from a rapid-release cycle of six weeks to an even-faster release cycle of just four weeks between major releases, it became easy to blur one release of Firefox into the next, as the version number ticked up ever more quickly. But it’s safe to say that the latest release -- Firefox 89 -- deserves the label of 'landmark' release, thanks to a radical makeover.

The slick new user interface is more befitting of the modern, minimalist UIs sported by Windows and macOS (as well as Android and iOS), along with rival browsers Chrome and Edge. The new look is very much "cleaner, more inviting, and easier to use" as Mozilla boasts, thanks in part to extensive study of how people used the browser, which informed its many changes and improvements.

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Fitbit announces a Minions activity and sleep tracker for kids

Fitness trackers can help keep children active and introduce ways of staying healthy, but they need to be fun to hold their interest.

Fitbit today introduces the Ace 3 Special Edition: Minions for kids 6+ starring Illumination’s Minions characters. The swim-proof device includes features such as daily activity goals and hourly move reminders.

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Login experiences are not delivering for consumers

remote work slow broadband

New research by YouGov for identity platform Auth0 finds that many businesses are falling short of consumer expectations on login technologies -- and risk frustrating their users, losing sales, and opening themselves up to credential stuffing attacks as a result.

The study shows that consumers around the world want greater choice in login technologies, and that they're willing to actively seek them out. Nearly half (49 percent) of consumers surveyed say they are more likely to sign up to an app or online service if a company offers multi-factor authentication (MFA).

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The challenge of keeping remote work secure

home working security

In a rapid and unprecedented shift, over 60 percent of Americans worked from home in 2020. But this has thrown up new challenges for businesses trying to keep their systems secure.

Authentication specialist Beyond Identity has produced an infographic looking at how vulnerable systems and applications can be in the work from home era.

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KB5003214 update for Windows 10 is causing taskbar problems -- but there's a simple fix

Windows 10 laptop

If you have installed the recent KB5003214 update for Windows 10, you may well have noticed problems with icon in the taskbar. Microsoft released a preview version of this update last week, and many of the guineapigs who opted to install it have experienced issues.

KB5003214 is due for a full launch later this month on Patch Tuesday, but there are plenty of eager Windows 10 users who install preview updates as soon as they are available. One of the key aims of this update it to bring News and Interests to the taskbar, but there have been numerous reports of problems with taskbar icons

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PNY unveils XLR8 Gaming NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and 3080 Ti graphics cards

If you are a PC gamer, you have reason to be very excited today. You see, following many leaks and rumors, NVIDIA has finally officially unveiled the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and 3080 Ti graphics cards. These GPUs will be both expensive and undoubtedly very difficult to get due to extreme demand.

Popular company PNY is launching new GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and 3080 Ti GPUs under its "XLR8 Gaming" branding. Both card types can be had in two body designs. Called "REVEL" and "UPRISING," each body style comes with three cooling fans for optimal cooling. The RTX 3070 Ti has 8GB of GDDR6X memory, while the 38080 has 12GB.

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Ubuntu-based Linux Mint 20.2 named 'Uma'

There are so many great Linux-based desktop operating systems nowadays. Actually, there are arguably too many Linux distros, but I digress. For instance, if you are an experienced Linux user, you can opt for something like Debian or Fedora, while novices are probably better served by Ubuntu or Linux Lite.

One of the best operating systems for beginners and Windows-switchers, however, is Linux Mint. This is a no-nonsense Ubuntu-based Linux distro that looks good, is very stable, and ultimately "just works" for many users. All versions of the operating system are named after women, and today, we learn what the upcoming Linux Mint 20.2 will be called.

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What does Apple's enterprise growth mean for IT administrators? [Q&A]

Apple logo iMac Pro

The use of Apple devices in the enterprise has grown exponentially over the past year. In fact, a recent report from IDC showed that macOS was the operating system of choice for 23 percent of computers at US companies with 1,000 employees or more in 2020, up from 17 percent in 2019.

As businesses continue to adopt Apple devices at work, Mosyle CEO Alcyr Araujo, wants to highlight how to seamlessly deploy, manage, maintain and protect these devices at scale. He believes simple, intuitive and automated mobile device management (MDM) and endpoint security are the key to solving new endpoint management and security challenges, we spoke to him to find out more.

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IRC Drama: Fedora and Ubuntu Linux move to Libera Chat following Freenode takeover

Who knew that IRC (Internet Relay Chat) would be making big news in 2021? Look, I spent a good part of my childhood chatting on IRC, but I haven't seriously used it in well over a decade. Well, folks, people are talking about IRC again, but sadly, it is because of drama. You see, Freenode IRC was purchased recently, and the implications have the open source community in a tizzy.

What do people do when they are upset about a change? They wisely jump ship when possible. Yes, many people are running from Freenode as fast as they can. Two of the most popular Linux distributions, Ubuntu and Fedora, utilized Freenode for their IRC server needs, and now they have both switched to Libera Chat. Ubuntu made the switch first, with Fedora following shortly thereafter.

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What is your backup solution now?

Data folders backup

For a while backup solutions were a dominant topic in the tech sphere. That was in the days when external drive sizes were growing rapidly and the cloud was becoming a thing. It seems the services have now become established and the frail weeded out. Most storage drives today are larger than most people need. 

If you’ve been around a while, as I have, you’ll remember when ZIP Drives -- like oversize floppy drives -- were the hot new backup product. Like all the "latest things", people invested a lot of money in that solution but it was short-lived. 

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Best Windows 10 apps this week

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

The latest builds of the upcoming next feature update for Windows 10 come without Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11.

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