Independent – Page 18 – PossibleThreat Articles

Unused Gmail accounts head to the chopping block

November 30, 2023 0 Comments email clients, Google, Internet, Security

It’s the last call to keep any Gmail accounts you haven’t used recently.

Beginning December 1, Google will start deleting accounts that have been inactive for two years, including all associated photos, Drive documents, contacts, emails, and calendar entries. The tech giant first announced this change in their inactivity policy in May.

Google confirmed to Computerworld that it’s proceeding with the deletion plan. “We plan to roll this out slowly and in phases, not all at once,” spokesperson Christa Muldoon said. “We’ll be starting with accounts that were created and never used.”

Separate Gmail accounts held by the same user under different names are also subject to deletion, Muldoon said.

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Independent Krebs Security

Okta: Breach Affected All Customer Support Users

November 29, 2023 0 Comments Data Breaches, Latest Warnings, okta breach, The Coming Storm

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2023 19:41:14 +0000

When KrebsOnSecurity broke the news on Oct. 20, 2023 that identity and authentication giant Okta had suffered a breach in its customer support department, Okta said the intrusion allowed hackers to steal sensitive data from fewer than one percent of its 18,000+ customers. But today, Okta revised that impact statement, saying the attackers also stole the name and email address for nearly all of its customer support users.

ComputerWorld Independent

GenAI is highly inaccurate for business use — and getting more opaque

November 29, 2023 0 Comments Artificial intelligence, chatbots, Emerging Technology, generative ai, regulation, Security

Large language models (LLMs), the algorithmic platforms on which generative AI (genAI) tools like ChatGPT are built, are highly inaccurate when connected to corporate databases and becoming less transparent, according to two studies.

One study by Stanford University showed that as LLMs continue to ingest massive amounts of information and grow in size, the genesis of the data they use is becoming harder to track down. That, in turn, makes it difficult for businesses to know whether they can safely build applications that use commercial genAI foundation models and for academics to rely on them for research.

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ComputerWorld Independent

How to go incognito in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari

November 29, 2023 0 Comments Browsers, enterprise applications, Privacy

Private browsing. Incognito. Privacy mode.

Web browser functions like those trace their roots back more than a decade, and the feature — first found in a top browser in 2005 — spread quickly as one copied another, made tweaks and minor improvements.

But privacy-promising labels can be treacherous. Simply put, going “incognito” is as effective in guarding online privacy as witchcraft is in warding off a common cold.

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Independent Krebs Security

ID Theft Service Resold Access to USInfoSearch Data

November 28, 2023 0 Comments Data Breaches, experian, fake edr, hieu, jackiechan, kodex, martin data llc, matt donahue, scott hostettler, telegram, usinfosearch

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2023 15:57:38 +0000

One of the cybercrime underground’s more active sellers of Social Security numbers, background and credit reports has been pulling data from hacked accounts at the U.S. consumer data broker USinfoSearch, KrebsOnSecurity has learned.

ComputerWorld Independent

What is Contact Key Verification and how is it used?

November 27, 2023 0 Comments Apple, iOS, MacOS, messaging apps, Privacy, Security

Many business professionals require highly secure messaging solutions, particularly when they travel. Apple’s iMessage will soon offer a new secure identity verification system enterprise professionals might find useful. It’s called Contact Key Verification.

What is Contact Key Verification?

Apple actually announced the system in 2022. It is now expected to go live across the Apple ecosystem with the release of iOS 17.2 and updates for Macs and iPads.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Critical zero-day flaws in Windows, Office mean it's time to patch

November 17, 2023 0 Comments Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Security, small and medium business, Windows

We are now in the third decade of Microsoft’s monthly Patch Tuesday releases, which deliver fewer critical updates to browsers and Windows platforms — and much more reliable updates to Microsoft Office — than in the early days of patching. But this month, the company rolled out 63 updates (including fixes for three zero-days in Windows and Office).

Updates to Microsoft Exchange and Visual Studio can be included in standard patch release cycles, while Adobe needs to be included in your “Patch Now” releases for third-party applications.

The team at Readiness has provided a detailed infographic that outlines the risks associated with each of the updates for November.

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Independent Krebs Security

Alleged Extortioner of Psychotherapy Patients Faces Trial

November 16, 2023 0 Comments A Little Sunshine, antti kurittu, julius kivimäki, mikko hypponen, Ne'er-Do-Well News, petteri järvinen, vastaamo psychotherapy center, withsecure

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2023 19:59:14 +0000

Prosecutors in Finland this week commenced their criminal trial against Julius Kivimäki, a 26-year-old Finnish man charged with extorting a once popular and now-bankrupt online psychotherapy practice and thousands of its patients. In a 2,200-page report, Finnish authorities laid out how they connected the extortion spree to Kivimäki, a notorious hacker who was convicted in 2015 of perpetrating tens of thousands of cybercrimes, including data breaches, payment fraud, operating a botnet and calling in bomb threats.

Independent Krebs Security

Microsoft Patch Tuesday, November 2023 Edition

November 14, 2023 0 Comments cve-2023-36025, cve-2023-36033, cve-2023-36036, cve-2023-36038, cve-2023-36050, cve-2023-36413, cve-2023-36439, microsoft patch tuesday november 2023, sans internet storm center, security tools, Time to Patch

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2023 23:00:59 +0000

Microsoft today released updates to fix more than five dozen security holes in its Windows operating systems and related software, including three “zero day” vulnerabilities that Microsoft warns are already being exploited in active attacks.

Independent Krebs Security

It’s Still Easy for Anyone to Become You at Experian

November 11, 2023 0 Comments A Little Sunshine, experian, identity theft, Latest Warnings, scott anderson

Credit to Author: BrianKrebs| Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2023 17:59:07 +0000

In the summer of 2022, KrebsOnSecurity documented the plight of several readers who had their accounts at big-three consumer credit reporting bureau Experian hijacked after identity thieves simply re-registered the accounts using a different email address. Sixteen months later, Experian clearly has not addressed this gaping lack of security. I know that because my account at Experian was recently hijacked, and the only way I could recover access was by recreating the account.