ComputerWorld – Page 38 – PossibleThreat Articles

Enterprise resilience: Backup and management tips for iOS, Mac

March 17, 2020 0 Comments Apple, iOS, Macs, Security, small business

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2020 06:30:00 -0800

Apple’s solutions are seeing increasing use across the enterprise, but do you have a business resilience strategy in place in case things go wrong?

If you’re one of the estimated 73% of SMBs that have not yet made such preparation, now might be a good time to start.

Your data is your business

It’s challenging enough when a consumer user suffers data loss as precious memories and valuable information go up in the digital smoke. Natural disasters, technology and infrastructure problems or human-made problems such as burglary, cyberattacks or civil unrest can all impact the sanctity of your systems, whatever platform you use. It matters because in today’s connected world, your data is your business.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Apple, the FIDO Alliance and the future of passwords

March 17, 2020 0 Comments Apple, iOS, Mobile, passwords, Security, smartphones

Apple is the latest firm to join the FIDO Alliance, an industry standards group developing more secure ways to log in to online accounts and apps using multi-factor authentication (MFA), biometric authentication and physical security keys. Computerworld's Lucas Mearian joins Ken Mingis and Juliet Beauchamp to discuss the Apple move, how different forms of authentication work and how far away we are from a password-less world.

ComputerWorld Independent

FIDO Alliance and the future of passwords

March 17, 2020 0 Comments Security

Credit to Author: Ken Mingis, Juliet Beauchamp, Lucas Mearian| Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2020 10:30:00 -0800

Apple is the latest company to join the FIDO Alliance, an industry standards group committed to finding more secure ways to log in to online accounts and apps. The FIDO Alliance pushes for multi-factor authentication (MFA) deployment, from biometric authentication to physical security keys. Computerworld’s Lucas Mearian joins Ken and Juliet to discuss why Apple joined the FIDO Alliance, how different forms of authentication work and how far away we are from a password-less world.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Mitigate your risk of getting hacked with help from with this online academy

March 17, 2020 0 Comments Security

Credit to Author: DealPost Team| Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2020 09:57:00 -0800

Cyber crime rates are on the rise. In fact, according to this 2019 Juniper Research paper, the financial burden of this global nuisance is expected to surpass $2 trillion in 2020 alone. But don’t panic. It turns out that education plays a major role in mitigating the risks, which is why grabbing a lifetime subscription to the CyberTraining 365 Online Academy is money well spent.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Verizon: Companies will sacrifice mobile security for profitability, convenience

March 3, 2020 0 Comments mdm, Mobile, Security

Credit to Author: Lucas Mearian| Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2020 03:00:00 -0800

Despite an increase in the number of companies hit by mobile attacks that led to compromises, four in 10 businesses sacrificed security to meet profit goals or avoid “cumbersome” security processes, according to Verizon’s third annual Mobile Security Index 2020.

It showed that 43% of organizations sacrificed security. More typical reasons for companies exposing themselves to risk, such as lack of budget and IT expertise, trailed “way behind” things such as expediency (62%), convenience (52%) and profitability targets (46%). Lack of budget and IT expertise were only cited by 27% and 26% of respondents, respectively.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Will pay by palm be a thing? Should it be?

March 3, 2020 0 Comments Mobile, Security

Credit to Author: Evan Schuman| Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2020 03:00:00 -0800

Amazon is experimenting with a way to allow shoppers to use a palm-print biometric to authenticate payments and to do so in physical stores far beyond Amazon-owned brick-and-mortars, (Whole Foods, AmazonGo, AmazonBooks, Amazon 4-Star and Amazon Pop-Up). Amazon is reportedly looking at QSRs (quick-service restaurants), especially coffee shops.

Palm prints have several advantages over more popular mobile biometric methods, such as fingerprint (prescription drugs, cleaning chemicals, burns and various other things can interfere with fingerprint readings) and facial recognition (finicky method that requires the face to be a precise distance from the scanner — not an inch too close or too far — and can suffer from hair growth, lighting, cosmetic changes, some sunglasses, as well as giving false positives to close relatives). And unlike my favorite biometric for security (retina scan), it’s far less invasive. It’s fairly accurate, convenient and (other than forcing customers to remove gloves, which could be a problem with outdoor shops in the winter) should be well-received.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Memory-Lane Monday: The cruelest password

March 2, 2020 0 Comments Security

Credit to Author: Sharky| Date: Mon, 02 Mar 2020 03:00:00 -0800

After a network manager unexpectedly tightens up the rules for passwords and forces the expiration of all user passwords on the main application system, calls flood into the help desk, reports a pilot fish on the scene. They’re having trouble because of the new complexity rules.

One of the calls:

User: I can’t seem to change my password.

Help desk tech: Your new password needs to contain letters, numbers and punctuation. Do not use any words such as you’d find in a dictionary.

User: OK. (Pause.) No, it still won’t let me change it.

Tech: What is the password you are trying to use?

User: April.

Tech: “April” is a word.

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ComputerWorld Independent

How and why you need HomeKit-secured smart homes

February 27, 2020 0 Comments Apple, Home Tech, iOS, Mobile, Security

Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2020 04:40:00 -0800

Once upon a time the Internet was amazing, enabling niche interests and connecting people. Apple’s iMac was the epitome of the era, while the iPhone became the prophet of change.

What is HomeKit-secured and why should you use it?

These days hackers break into home networks using our routers and smart home devices, which is why everyone must learn how to use HomeKit-secured routers to keep their connected homes safe.

Apple announced HomeKit-secured routers at WWDC 2019. The first few devices to support the tech recently began to reach market, including options from Linksys and (now) Amazon’s Eero routers.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Firefox starts switching on DNS-over-HTTPS to encrypt lookups, stymie tracking

February 26, 2020 0 Comments Browsers, Security

Credit to Author: Gregg Keizer| Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2020 11:11:00 -0800

Mozilla has started to turn on DNS-over-HTTPS, or DoH, as part of its overall strategy of stressing user privacy.

“We know that unencrypted DNS is not only vulnerable to spying but is being exploited,” wrote Selena Deckelmann, Mozilla’s new vice president of desktop Firefox, in a Feb. 25 post to a company blog. “We are helping…to make the shift to more secure alternatives [and] do this by performing DNS lookups in an encrypted HTTPS connection. This helps hide your browsing history from attackers on the network, helps prevent data collection by third parties on the network that ties your computer to websites you visit.”

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ComputerWorld Independent

Microsoft Patch Alert: February 2020 patches bring fire and ice but seem to have settled – finally.

February 26, 2020 0 Comments Microsoft, Microsoft Office, PCs, Security, Windows

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2020 09:44:00 -0800

The real stinker this month, KB 4524244, rolled out the automatic update chute for four full days until Microsoft yanked it – leaving a trail of wounded PCs, primarily HP machines, in its wake. The other big-time bug in this month’s patches, a race condition in the KB 4532693 Win10 version 1903 and 1909 cumulative update installer, hasn’t been officially acknowledged by Microsoft outside of a blog post. But at least it’s well known and understood.

Folks running SQL Server and Exchange Server networks need to get patched right away.

Win10 UEFI update KB 4524244 blockages

Patch Tuesday brought KB 4524244 for Windows 10 owners, a bizarre single-purpose patch apparently directed at one specific UEFI bootloader. I talked about it last week.

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