Sunday Funnies–Adventures in Tech Support

A young support technician was leaving the office late one evening when he found the CEO standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.

"Listen," said the CEO, "this is a very sensitive and important document here, and my secretary has gone for the night. Can you make this thing work for me?"

"Certainly," said the young support tech. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button.

"Excellent, excellent!" said the CEO, ...

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2FA–When a Password Is Not Enough

Two Factor Authentication, also known as 2FA or TFA, is becoming an attractive, and more available option to using just a user name and password combination as your only online security.  Here’s why.

Typical security systems rely on some subset of the authentication triad:  something you know, something you have, or something you are.  Simple security methods rely on having one of the three.  This is the problem with simple security – an attacker simply needs to acquire the one bit ...

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FBI report Says to Expect More Breaches Like Target

Security researcher Brian Krebs, who broke the Target story back in December, continues to be one of the best sources of the continuing story.  He recently posted a report from the FBI that warns us to expect more breaches involving the BlackPOS exploit that has affected checkout operations at Target, Neiman-Marcus, and Michaels stores.

It appears that the breach at Target was the result of a compromised user and password that had been created for ...

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Edward Snowden Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize

Two members of Norwegian Parliament have nominated Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize.  While anyone can be nominated, this does mean that he will be considered for the prestigious award.  Nominations will be finalized by March 4th and the winner announced October 10th. 

So what is your opinion – is he a traitor or a hero?

Edward Snowden nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize

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Comcast Email Users–Time to Change Your Hacked Password

As a Comcast customer, this one hits me too.  A new post on Silicon Beat tells the tale of a group called NullCrew FTS hacked 34 of Comcast’s mail servers and posted proof of their exploit online.  There is no point in taking chances, just login and change the passwords to your email addresses.  You might as well change your master account login as well.

This is a shame on Comcast moment, as they had been aware of the ...

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My Computer Is Slow! How To Avoid Installing Crapware

Lately I have been spending my days UNINSTALLING largely unwanted and unnecessary programs for the computers of several clients who have been complaining about browser redirection, unwanted pop-up ads, slow Internet connections, slow system performance, and boot failure.  There is a great story on Sophos that explains why this happens

Usually I start by looking in the Control Panel under Programs and Features to see what is installed.  Below is a table showing what I removed from two different ...

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Yahooligans: It Might Be Wise To Reset Your Password

Some users of Yahoo email were advised the company that their user IDs and passwords may have been compromised in data that was stolen from a third party (Target perhaps?)  If you are the sort of person who uses on password all over the web, you might want to log on to your Yahoo account and change your password.  And then do the same thing everywhere else you have been using that password.

My standing advise to clients is to use ...

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The Threat of Banking Trojans–Zeus and Neverquest

I have been catching up on my reading, and came across an article on the new Neverquest banking malware on TechRepublic.  This article first discussed the Zeus Trojan exploit.  Zeus was released online in 2011, and was one of the first malware programs that required licensing.  Once installed on a victim’s machine it could detect when you went to your online banking website, record your user ID, password, and other banking procedures, and encrypt and transmit this information ...

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Sunday Funnies: Cold Enough For You?

I just got off the phone with a friend who lives up north in Wisconsin.

She said that since early this morning the snow has been nearly waist high and is still falling. The temperature is 32 below zero and the north wind is increasing to near gale force. Wind chill is -59. Her husband has done nothing but looking through the kitchen window and stare.

She says that if it gets much worse, she may have to let him in.

Thanks to ...

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Can My Wireless Access Point Be Hacked?

There is a recent spate of news surrounding the vulnerabilities that have been found in wireless routers and access points made by popular manufacturers such as Netgear, Linksys/Cisco and others.  The most recent center on remote access and control via port 32764.  A detailed article on this issue and two others that have come to light lately can be found on Computerworld.

There is a quick and easy way to check your wireless device for this flaw.  First get ...

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