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I hope you don't have a recent HP laptop or a Western Digital My Cloud device.... Also, Apple iOS
First up, HP. Seems like they think their customers might enjoy a bit of spontaneous laptop combustion. They're having a problem with some of their laptop batteries bursting in to flames. Their solution is to issue a BIOS patch that will drain the battery and then prevent it from charging, then to replace the battery.
From the web site: " ( Read more... ) -
Yet another way to compromise computer information: sniff the WiFi connection for keyboard signals!
This is interesting, and I hadn't considered it. I would have thought that, while I am typing this email, that nothing gets sent across my WiFi connection until I hit Send. But obviously email programs, if they're web-based, save draft copies. In the case of email, I think it would be negated by using a PC-based email client, but I'm not certain ( Read more... ) -
MAJOR vulnerabilities in Windows 10 and iOS
First, Apple. An exploit was found and weaponized that can root an iPhone or, apparently, also an iPad. You need to update your devices RIGHT NOW is you're running iOS 9. It will update your devices to 9.3.5. It's a small patch, less than 40 meg, so a fairly quick and painless update ( Read more... ) -
Interesting hack via OS-X Yosemite's Spotlight search
Mac users are familiar with Spotlight. Most users might be familiar with web bugs, they're an invisible 1 pixel square graphic in an email that loads from a server that identifies you as a user and your ISP's IP address when you open an email (that's how you get email messages pleading 'Please don't go away!' from companies). In a nutshell, ( Read more... ) -
Computer users beware the POODLE attack!
This is more of a problem for Internet Explorer 6 users and sadly there are still some of them out there. This is a client attack, not a server attack. This exploits an SSL v3 connection and can happen if you're on a public WiFi network. Recent versions of Windows, i.e. 7 and 8 and probably Vista should be fine. computer vulnerabilitiesSnapchat photos being released by the gig
Snapchat is a picture message service with a difference: once viewed, the message is deleted, never to be seen again. Great for teens to sext each other, right? Wrong. Someone wanted persistence and set up a server to archive these pix. And that server got compromised. So now there are a huge number of what amounts to kiddie porn floating ( Read more... )Hack of the Day: USB devices
A couple of months ago I posted that security researchers had found a valid exploit to alter the microcontrollers on USB devices, making an attack vector that's almost impossible to detect or fix ( Read more... )The Shellshock worm: the latest computer security problem: a hole found in Bash
This is a little complicated. In Unix and Linux systems, there is an underlying interface called The Shell. Some systems use Bash, the Bourne-Again Shell, others use slightly different ones, some Linux systems can have multiple shells installed at the same time for the convenience of programmers and administrators. The shell is comparable to a ( Read more... )New ways to compromise smartphones, including iPhones
The Blackhat security conference is coming up very soon, and with it, advanced information about all sorts of wonderful problems. In this case, two new ways to compromise smartphones ( Read more... )A REALLY bad security threat: USB devices
Yes, USB devices can carry malware, we all know that. This is new and different. Basically, it is not difficult to hack the hardware that controls the USB device, be it memory stick, external hard drive, or possibly smart phone or tablet. Malware injected in to the controller is pretty much undetectable, and if it can't be detected, it can't be ( Read more... )