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August 13, 2020 by Vertical Axion
The most recent company to have fallen victim to hackers is Havenly. They are a US-based interior design firm with an interactive website that allows users to get interior design help from certified professionals. The company reported the breach on August 2nd, 2020 but it was first discovered by researchers at BleepingComputer, on July 27th. […]
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August 12, 2020 by Vertical Axion
Recently, security researchers at Checkmarx discovered a pair of serious vulnerabilities in the popular online meeting website Meetup. According to the researchers, a hacker could combine cross-site scripting (XSS) with cross-site request forgeries (CSRF) to gain admin privileges on the site. This would allow them to do anything from changing the details of any user’s […]
August 11, 2020 by Vertical Axion
Do you use Cisco’s Data Center Manager Software? If so, be advised that the company recently issued an advisory concerning a serious security flaw. The advisory reads, in part, as follows: “The vulnerability exists because different installations share a static encryption key. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by using the static key to craft […]
August 10, 2020 by Vertical Axion
Do you have a Netflix account? If so, you’re certainly not alone. Since the start of the pandemic, the company has experienced unprecedented growth, and is now the video streaming service of choice for tens of millions. If you’re one of those, be aware that an as yet unknown group of hackers has developed an […]
August 8, 2020 by Vertical Axion
For more than five months, the internet breathed a collective sigh of relief as one of the most notorious strains of malware, Emotet, went dark and ceased all activity. It was as though the hackers in control of the code had simply pulled the plug. All good things, however, inevitably end. On July 17th, 2020, […]
August 5, 2020 by Vertical Axion
If you use Microsoft Edge on Windows, macOS, iOS, or Android, you’ll probably want to install the July 2020 update as soon as possible because it contains a raft of improvements to the browser. First and most importantly, Microsoft Edge is joining the FastTrack Ready Partner Program, beginning in August. If you’d like to help […]
August 4, 2020 by Vertical Axion
Do you make use of a Garmin wearable device? If so, then you’ve probably noticed that your device isn’t working the way you expect it to. That’s because the company is experiencing what there are now describing as a global outage. The notification on the company’s website reads, in part as follows: “We are currently […]
August 1, 2020 by Vertical Axion
How would you like to get your internet signal from outer space? You can! Elon Musk’s SpaceX company has moved another step closer to offering internet connectivity via its Starlink service. However, at the moment, there’s an important catch and caveat. Starlink has recently emailed fans to get their home addresses in anticipation of the […]
July 30, 2020 by Vertical Axion
A number of prominent hacking groups made a gentleman’s agreement with research labs that are attempting to develop a vaccine for the deadly COVID-19 virus currently ravaging the planet. The agreement was promising that no attacks against research facilities would be made. Unfortunately, not everyone is playing by those rules. Recently, intelligence agencies in the […]
July 28, 2020 by Vertical Axion
Do you own a pair of Amazon’s Echo Buds? If so, and in case you didn’t get an email from the company, be advised that Amazon recently discovered a potential safety risk. To address it, the company is asking all Echo Bud owners to perform a software update on their gear. In a nutshell, the […]
July 25, 2020 by Vertical Axion
In 2015, a new image format was born of a collaboration between Cisco, Google, and Xiph.org. Dubbed AVIF, the format is based on the Av1 video codec. It is royalty-free and widely regarded as the most highly optimized image format to be developed to date, superior to old standbys BPEG, PNG, and even the newer […]
July 24, 2020 by Vertical Axion
If you aren’t normally in the habit of installing updates when companies release them, you’ll probably want to make an exception for KB4484439. It is a non-security update for Windows Installer editions of Office 2013 and 2016 products. If you use Office 2016, and frequently edit Word documents that feature custom XML values, these will […]
July 20, 2020 by Vertical Axion
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 […]
July 18, 2020 by Vertical Axion
Apple users are in a state of absolute uproar. Recently, battery life has taken a hit, with batteries draining more quickly than ever, sending legions of iPhone users on a hunt to track down the culprit or culprits. Early indications are that more than one app is responsible for the drastic reduction in battery life, […]
July 17, 2020 by Vertical Axion
Malware Lab’s researcher Maciej Kotowicz has made an intriguing discovery that makes the Trickbot banking trojan even more of a threat. The most recent strain of the malware he looked at is sporting a new feature that allows the code to check the resolution of the screen on the machine it’s running on. If it […]
July 16, 2020 by Vertical Axion
Mark the date August 12th, 2020 on your calendar if you’re a GSuite user. Google has warned users that unless they update their GSuite iOS and Android apps, they may stop working by the date referenced above. The company’s announcement concerning the matter reads, in part, as follows: “In 2018, we began making changes to […]
July 15, 2020 by Vertical Axion
If you have one or more illegal copies of Apple software on your Mac, be aware that there’s a new threat to be concerned about. An info-stealing, data wiping malware strain known as ThiefQuest has been found embedded in torrents of illicit software written for macOS. While ThiefQuest isn’t as commonly seen as some other […]
July 13, 2020 by Vertical Axion
The University of San Francisco (UCSF) is the latest organization to fall victim to hackers, running afoul of a group utilizing the Netwalker ransomware strain. UCSF is a research university whose recent efforts have been focused on health sciences generally and COVID-19-related research specifically. On June 3rd, 2020, Netwalker published a notice on a site […]
July 11, 2020 by Vertical Axion
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 […]
July 10, 2020 by Vertical Axion
Hackers are constantly on the lookout for new ways of causing mayhem and stealing data. Recently, researchers have unearthed a new technique to be on guard against. A few hackers have begun embedding credit card stealing scripts inside favicon meta data. If you’re not familiar with the term, you definitely know what a favicon is. […]
July 9, 2020 by Vertical Axion
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 […]
July 8, 2020 by Vertical Axion
If you have computers on your corporate network that rely on NVIDIA hardware and software, be advised that the company recently released security updates to address serious security vulnerabilities found in CUDA and GPU Display drivers and Virtual GPU Management software. These are security flaws that could lead to an escalation of privileges, denial of […]
July 7, 2020 by Vertical Axion
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 […]
July 6, 2020 by Vertical Axion
Eleven years ago, Microsoft embarked on a bold experiment to emulate Apple. They opened a number of brick and mortar retail stores. Unfortunately, their stores never caught on quite the same way that the Apple Store did, and the rise of the global pandemic only made matters worse for the tech giant. In light of […]
