Monthly Archives - July 2020

Billions Of Breached User Credentials Are Available For Purchase

admin2020-11-17T14:05:40-08:00 On a regular basis, we see headlines talking about how this or that company got hacked and X number of employee or customer logins got exposed. However, since those headlines happen in isolation, it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. A trip to the Dark Web will reveal just how big of a problem the world faces. If you dare venture into those waters, you'll find literally billions of user accounts for sale. In fact, by scouring various...

Microsoft Will Add Plagiarism Checker To Word Program

admin2020-11-12T16:50:25-08:00Microsoft to add Plagiarism Checker to Microsoft Word Recently, Microsoft announced a small but important improvement to one of its signature products, Microsoft Word. The company is planning to roll out a plagiarism checking tool bundled with a virtual writing assistant powered by the company's increasingly powerful AI/Machine Learning code. If you're interested in trying it out, it's currently available to customers using Microsoft 365 EDU A3 and A5. The plan is to make it available to all Microsoft 365 customers beginning...

If 123456 Is Your Password, Change It Immediately

admin2020-11-16T11:46:07-08:00 You probably aren't familiar with the name Ata Hakcil. He's a computer engineering student who recently conducted one of the largest password security surveys currently available. To conduct his research, he collected a number of username and password "data dumps" from the Dark Web and analyzed the passwords he found there. Hakcil was able to analyze a massive collection of more than a billion passwords, looking for trends and commonalities. IT Security Professionals have long known that password security is an...

VMware Patches Many Security Issues To Fix Certain Vulnerabilities

admin2020-11-12T15:55:53-08:00VMware Patches Many Security Issues To Fix Certain Vulnerabilities Does your company make use of VMware products? If so, be advised that a pair of researchers from Synacktiv recently reported a series of critical security flaws in VMware's ESXi, Workstation and Fusion products. The recent discovery prompted the company to issue an emergency security patch to address those issues. The most serious of the bunch, which earned a 9.3 CVSSv3 severity score, is being tracked as CVE-2020-3962. It is a flaw in...

VMware Patches Many Security Issues To Fix Certain Vulnerabilities

admin2020-11-18T15:52:25-08:00 Does your company make use of VMware products? If so, be advised that a pair of researchers from Synacktiv recently reported a series of critical security flaws in VMware's ESXi, Workstation, and Fusion products. The recent discovery prompted the company to issue an emergency security patch to address those issues. The most serious of the bunch, which earned a 9.3 CVSSv3 severity score, is being tracked as CVE-2020-3962. It is a flaw in the SVGA device that could allow an attacker...

New Powerful Malware Is Targeting Windows-Based Machines

admin2020-11-17T12:39:51-08:00 Researchers have discovered a devilishly clever new stain of malware currently in use by hackers around the world. The new strain is appropriately called "Lucifer," and has been making life quite difficult for IT professionals managing Windows environments. The malware exploits critical vulnerabilities in Windows-based systems to launch DDoS attacks and install cryptojacking code. The latest version (2.0) of the code was discovered by researchers Durgesh Sangvikar, Zhibin Zhang, Chris Navarrete, and Ken Hsu, on May 29, 2020. They discovered it...

Update Your Webex Desktop App To Avoid Security Threat

admin2020-11-17T09:32:04-08:00 Do you rely on Cisco's Webex Meetings app for video conferencing? If so, be advised that the company found and addressed a pair of high severity security flaws that could allow hackers to remotely execute code on vulnerable machines. The two issues are being tracked as CVE-2020-3263 and CVE-2020-3342. They impact Cisco Webex Meetings Desktop App releases 39.5.12 and earlier. They also impact lockdown versions of Cisco Webex Meeting Desktop App for the Mac, version 39.5.11 and earlier. In both cases, the issue...

Google Meet Now Available On Gmail Using Mobile Devices

admin2020-11-16T12:03:25-08:00 Google recently published a blog post that didn't get much attention, but that outlines a major change to the way the company's video collaboration tool "Meet" works. The blog post reads in part, as follows: "In the coming weeks, you'll soon notice a new Meet tab on your phone's Gmail app where you can see upcoming meetings scheduled in Google Calendar, and easily join them with a single tap....If you don't want Meet to appear as a tab in the Gmail...