Newsletter Archives

• How to use two-factor authentication the right way

  Posted on May 9, 2022 at 02:43 CDT by Lance Whitney • Comment in the Forums

  SECURITY

  

  By Lance Whitney

  Two-factor authentication is still one of the best ways to protect your accounts. But there are right and wrong ways to use it.

  More websites and companies now offer two-factor authentication (2FA) to better protect your logins and accounts. The idea is to use a second form of authentication so that you’re not solely dependent on your password. The goal is to prevent your account from being accessed and compromised in case your password is ever leaked or stolen. And here’s how that can happen.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.19.0, 2022-05-09).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Multi-factor Authentication, security

• Is this the end of the road for Windows 7?

  Posted on April 11, 2022 at 02:41 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Vendors start to draw the line.

  Ahh, Windows 7. I remember when you first came out. I remember when people hated — truly hated — your User Account Control (UAC) system that required administrator approval any time they wanted to do something that had been perfectly normal in Windows XP. I remember that UAC was so annoying that Apple lampooned it (more like harpooned it) in several of its famous Mac-versus-PC TV ads.

  

  I went so far as having a cartoon made, urging people to “zip up” their UAC setting rather than disabling it, because I saw both users and administrators removing the UAC prompt entirely. But that represented a lowering of security for Windows 7. I thus urged people not to disable it, despite the annoyance. I told them to zip the slider all the way to the top. Remember the slider?

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.15.0, 2022-04-11).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, On Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Patch Lady Posts, security, Web Browsers, windows 7

• Ensuring your safety

  Posted on April 5, 2022 at 02:45 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 19.14.1 • 2022-04-05

  

  By Susan Bradley

  MailChimp was compromised by attackers. Here’s what you should know.

  This is breaking news.

  An article at BleepingComputer on Monday, April 4, 2022, revealed the news that the MailChimp email and marketing service had been breached. The report has also been picked up by many different online services and will probably hit the bigger publishers by tomorrow. The attack focused on MailChimp’s internal tools, which allowed the bad guys to steal audience data and launch phishing attacks.

  Read the full Plus Alert (19.14.1, 2022-04-05).

  AskWoody Plus Alert, Security AskWoody Alert, MailChimp, Patch Lady Posts, security

• Look who’s stalking 2: Apple responds to AirTag security threats

  Posted on March 7, 2022 at 02:45 CST by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 19.10 • 2022-03-07

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  The Apple AirTag, a $29 tracker the company started selling last year, has been criticized by experts for its weak protections against criminals who use the device to stalk people and pinpoint vehicles to steal. In response, Apple posted last month a response that promises only minor upgrades to the gadgets’ software.

  Meanwhile, a developer announced recently that he had built — using a few dollars’ worth of electronic parts — an AirTag-like clone that takes full advantage of Apple’s free and worldwide Find My communication network. As an illustration of the weakness of AirTags, the clone easily defeats all of Apple’s existing security and detection systems, including the new features the corporation said last month it was planning to implement in the future.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 19.10.0 (2022-03-07).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Newsletter 19.10.F (2022-03-07).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender AirTags, Apple, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, privacy, Public Defender, security

• Extra security for all your devices

  Posted on February 28, 2022 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  These days, I don’t have just traditional PCs that I must protect — I have iPads, iPhones, Kindles, Chromebooks, and others. And these don’t run Microsoft operating systems.

  Not to pick on her, but my sister used to randomly surf with her Windows PC and, after searching, would end up with some sort of infection or malicious browser plugin. But when she did the same on her iPad or iPhone, I was spared the chore of cleaning up those devices — they were less targeted and less likely to end up compromised.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 19.09.0 (2022-02-28).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, On Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft Defender, Patch Lady Posts, phishing, security

• Twenty years of trustworthy computing

  Posted on January 24, 2022 at 02:45 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ISSUE 19.04 • 2022-01-24

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Are we more secure now?

  It’s been 20 years since Bill Gates wrote the “trustworthy computing” memo and had Microsoft’s developers take a coding pause so they could be trained in how better to write secure software.

  Twenty years later, are we more secure? Do you feel more secure?

  I’m not sure I do. You know I watch this every hour of every day, and it sure feels like we are doing the same updating and patching dance over and over, without feeling more secure. We are promised that the hardware and software we buy will meet the safety promises. We certainly deserve that — period.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 19.04.0 (2022-01-24).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 19.04.F (2022-01-24).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, On Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Bill Gates, Patch Lady Posts, security, Windows

• Click-to-run dribbles out changes

  Posted on December 13, 2021 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Office patches are handled differently than Windows patches, and they can be very disruptive as a result.

  Microsoft always releases security patches for Windows on the second Tuesday of the month, no matter what the actual date. It’s the reason that this month’s updates haven’t yet arrived — today is December 13, and Patch Tuesday is December 14. We won’t receive security patches until tomorrow!

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.48.0 (2021-12-13).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, On Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365, Office, Patch Lady Posts, security

• Why is printing so hard to get right?

  Posted on November 22, 2021 at 02:45 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ISSUE 18.45 • 2021-11-22

  Look for our special issue on November 29!

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  I work in an industry that keeps promising we are going paperless, but we still find ways to kill trees. Even though I regularly print to PDF, I continue to print to various desktop and network printers.

  Physical printing is still very important to me and many other professionals. Any problem with printing will affect productivity. Each month, when new updates come out, one of my top priorities is to test printing. Can I print? If I can, then I know I can keep the new patches installed. But why are we constantly fighting issues with printing, and why are we constantly patching our systems for printing?

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.45.0 (2021-11-22).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.45.F (2021-11-22).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, On Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Patch Lady Posts, Print Spooler, printing, security

• The first Google search result often leads to a virus

  Posted on October 11, 2021 at 02:45 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  ISSUE 18.39 • 2021-10-11

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  The top search result in Google is all too often a link to a website that’s been hacked to infect visitors’ devices with a virus.

  The culprit behind these infections is called “Gootloader,” a descendant of years-old malware that just keeps getting worse on Google — the only search engine that’s being targeted.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.39.0 (2021-10-11).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.39.F (2021-10-11).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Google, Google Search, security

• Becoming more security-aware

  Posted on October 11, 2021 at 02:42 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Windows 11 is now nearly a week old, and are we magically more secure? I’d argue not.

  An up-to-date operating system does help to make us more secure, so I cringe any time anyone wants to disable updates because they don’t feel that updates improve their security. But I’d also argue that installing Windows 11 isn’t a magic pill that, overnight, grants you the goodness of security.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.39.0 (2021-10-11).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, On Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, cybersecurity, Patch Lady Posts, security

• Share browsers without sharing their stored passwords

  Posted on September 27, 2021 at 02:45 CDT by Fred Langa • Comment in the Forums

  ISSUE 18.37 • 2021-09-27

  LANGALIST

  

  By Fred Langa

  Browser-based password managers have an obvious vulnerability on shared PCs: anyone with access to the browser might also have access to all its stored passwords!

  Today’s lead item discusses two separate ways to prevent unwanted password sharing. One is extremely secure but takes a little time to set up; the other takes only seconds but is less secure. Here’s the scoop!

  Plus: Improved searching for old content on AskWoody.com!

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.37.0 (2021-09-27).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.37.F (2021-09-27).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody Features, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, browsers, LangaList, security

• Kape Technologies, formerly Crossrider, now owns 4 top VPNs

  Posted on September 27, 2021 at 02:43 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  A holding company with a controversial history — Kape Technologies — announced this month that it had purchased a leading virtual private network, ExpressVPN, adding it to a collection of three other major VPN companies that Kape acquired in 2017 through 2019.

  This concentration of VPN services has raised concerns.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.37.0 (2021-09-27).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender, Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, privacy, Public Defender, security, VPN
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