Latest Technology News

Account takeover attacks and online fraud of all types have skyrocketed during the pandemic as consumers have shifted almost all of their most important transactions to digital channels.

We spoke to David Vergara, senior director of security product marketing anti-fraud and digital identity solutions company OneSpan, to discover more about the emerging technologies that banks are beginning to use in the fight against fraud, including artificial intelligence, real-time risk analytics and behavioral biometrics.

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Four-hundred-and-one 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 next feature update for Windows 10, version 20H2, is already available for download. While it is usually better to wait, those interested in installing the update right away may check out Mark's guide on how to do that.

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Back in March, at the height of the nationally imposed lockdown, Health Secretary Matt Hancock promised a solution in the form of a coronavirus tracing app that would see us all out of lockdown safely. Although the much-touted NHSX app was said to be at the heart of the strategy to contain the spread of Covid-19, months later, it was ditched due to security concerns, forcing the Government to change tack to work with tech giants Apple and Google on a new app, shifting its strategy to work with human tracers instead.

With measures easing and life now the most 'normal' it has been for quite some time, the newest iteration of the app is still yet to be released. It is clear that even in the midst of an international health crisis, the public sector has defaulted to looking only to big vendors to provide technical solutions -- and to its own detriment.

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Solid state storage technology is constantly improving. The truth, however, is while PCIe Gen 4 SSDs are now available, they are total overkill for most consumers. Hell, most people would be more than fine with a meager SATA drive. With that said, the previous-generation PCIe Gen 3 SSDs are now very inexpensive (and quite fast) making them a smart buy whether you truly need the extra speed or not. In other words, a SATA SSD should probably be avoided nowadays unless your PC simply isn't compatible with anything else.

Today, TEAMGROUP releases its latest NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD, and it is very affordable. Called "MP33 PRO," it isn't the fastest such drive, but it is certainly speedier than any SATA drive. While it lacks a fancy heatsink or flashy sticker, it will be offered in two PCB colors -- blue and black. While both colors are nice, the black is certainly the better looking of the two.

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There’s no doubt about it, we are living in a cloud enhanced world. No matter what is happening in life, whether it’s uploading pictures of the family, keeping track of friends on social media, or working remotely, the fact remains that the cloud is a part of our everyday lives in one way or another.

So why are organizations so hesitant to adopt a cloud infrastructure? From speaking with customers, the reason extends across infrastructure, business as well as, let’s face it, an overall new way of thinking about what is the best way to mitigate risk.

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IT professionals thinking about disaster recovery configurations for critical SQL Server deployments in Windows environments naturally think in terms of remote sites and recoverability. If the primary datacenter goes offline in a disaster, the organization needs to be able to fail over to a separate datacenter somewhere unaffected by the same disaster.

But disaster recovery and business continuity -- your ability to rapidly resume critical business functions during emergency events -- are not the same. Planning for business continuity is a much more holistic endeavor, and while disaster recovery is an important part of that plan, it is just that: part of the plan. Before you can effectively figure for disaster recovery, there needs to be agreement among your organization’s key stakeholders about which elements of your IT infrastructure are truly mission-critical. Once that’s been agreed upon -- and that’s not always an easy -- you’re in a position to implement a disaster recovery plan that will truly reflect the business continuity goals of the organization.

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Many books discuss the technical underpinnings and complex configurations necessary for cybersecurity -- but they fail to address the everyday steps that boards, managers, and employees can take to prevent attacks. The Cybersecurity Playbook is the step-by-step guide to protecting your organization from unknown threats and integrating good security habits into everyday business situations.

This book provides clear guidance on how to identify weaknesses, assess possible threats, and implement effective policies. Recognizing that an organization’s security is only as strong as its weakest link, this book offers specific strategies for employees at every level.

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With 11,121 vulnerabilities disclosed during the first half of 2020, as the year progresses the total is expected to exceed that of 2019.

Although the number of vulnerabilities disclosed in the first half of 2020 decreased by 8.2 percent compared to the same period in 2019 due to the impact of COVID-19, but the Q2 vulnerability report from Risk Based Security does suggest some signs of a return to 'normal' levels.

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Microsoft has released two new updates to the Windows Terminal app, starting off with version 1.2 for the main release.

But for those looking to try out the very latest features, the newly launched Windows Terminal Preview 1.3 is probably of more interest. A raft of new features and options have been added including a command palette and an advanced tab switcher for easier navigation.

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The Qbot trojan first appeared in 2008 as banking and credential theft malware, evolving over the years to deliver ransomware attacks, making it something of a Swiss Army knife of the malware world.

Researchers at Check Point have now uncovered a further evolution that allows Qbot to hijack legitimate email conversations from an infected user's Outlook email client, and then spam itself out using those hijacked emails to increase its chances of tricking other users into getting infected.

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In light of the Coronavius pandemic, Microsoft has thrown a lifeline to people who are doggedly hanging on to older versions of Windows.

Some people running Windows 10 version 1803 (also called Windows 10 April 2018 Update) have been granted an extra six months of support.  Version 1803 of the operating system will now reach end of service in 2021 rather than this year, but the extension does not apply to everyone.

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I consider myself to be rather privacy conscious, but I am not overly paranoid. Do I want Google having microphones in my home? Not really, but the convenience of being able to summon the Google Assistant with my voice outweighs my concerns. And so, I have a few Google Nest devices in my home -- including a Nest Hub smart display in my bedroom. Ultimately, consumers need to weigh the pros and cons before putting, say, an Amazon Echo or Nest Mini in their homes.

Now, Google is partnering with some hotels to put Nest Hub smart displays in their rooms. In other words, when guests enter their room, they will be confronted by the smart device. While some privacy pundits will decry this partnership, I welcome it. First of all, the functionality does not require the guest to login -- it will work without that. While the Nest Hub smart display has a microphone, it can be totally disabled via a hardware switch. Best of all, Nest Hub has no camera, so there is no risk of it recording video of your... adult activities. The search giant promises no audio recordings are stored either. Seems all good to me!

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It’s not going to be too long until Microsoft starts to roll out Windows 10 20H2 to users -- in fact you can already install the feature update now, should you choose to.

Insiders that prefer to be on the cutting edge today get a new Dev Channel build to play around with, although this one is mostly about fixes and general improvements.

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The latest update to Chrome has rolled out, and Google has done a lot to improve and evolve the browser. The company says that there are massive improvements to page load times as well as improvements to resource usage by open tabs thanks to Tab Throttling.

But this is not the only change to come to tabs. Google has also made tabs touch-friendly, added tab previews, and introduced a new option to collapse grouped tabs to save space. This last option is currently in beta, however, and you'll have to enable hidden setting to enable it.

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Software development today usually involves the use of third-party APIs, libraries or frameworks that are complex, rapidly evolving, and sometimes poorly documented.

Security testing solutions company GrammaTech is launching its new Swap Detector, an open-source checker that detects application programming interface (API) usage errors.

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