Firefox Doubles Its Speed With Latest Release

November 29, 2017 by Joseph Martin

The new version of Firefox is out, and if you’ve moved away from the browser in recent years, it may be time to give it another look.

Dubbed “Quantum,” Firefox’s latest offering has been completely redesigned and has a lot to like, not the least of which is its raw speed. This latest version is twice as fast and now handily beats Google Chrome in speed tests, thanks in no small part to its next-gen CSS engine, and the fact that it is the first browser to fully utilize the power of multicore processors.

It also consumes 30 percent less memory and positively sips battery power, making it a great choice for laptop and smartphone users.

In addition to that, the revamped browser offers improved tracker blocking, built-in screenshot functionality and of particular interest, support for WebVR, which enables webmasters to take full advantage of the capabilities offered by virtual reality headsets.

You can get Mozilla’s latest offering from their website right now if you’re a PC user, though you’ll have to wait a bit if you’re on a smartphone. The latest release is scheduled to appear on the Google Play Store in a matter of days, but there is, as yet, no ETA on when it will be appearing in Apple’s App Store.

Speed is life in business, and if you’re looking to squeeze out a bit more efficiency and performance from the machines on your network, the new Firefox browser is definitely worth checking out. It’s only a matter of time before the other major players catch up, but until they do, Firefox’s Quantum browser looks to be the new reigning king of the hill and represents a big win for mobile users, given the power savings on offer. Kudos to Mozilla for an exceptional update!

Joseph Martin

President & CEO
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Be Careful Of Downloads – Google Play Store Sees Malware Increase

November 28, 2017 by Joseph Martin

Google’s Play Store is under siege. In recent month, there has been a sharp spike in malware campaigns launched against the store, with a shocking number of poisoned apps slipping past Google’s robust system of checks designed to prevent, or at least minimize such occurrences.

The spike in poisoned apps has been reported by three different security companies: Dr. Web, McAfee and Malwarebytes.

According to the latest McAfee report, 144 Play Store apps have been identified as containing malware. To give you a sense of the scope and scale of the attack, McAfee analyzed a sample of 34 of the malicious apps and found that they had been downloaded between 4.2 million and 17.4 million times.

Of the malware strains found to be present on the Play Store, far and away the most common is Grabos, which is designed to push fake notifications that trick unsuspecting users into installing other apps. Based on the observed behavior, it’s likely that Grabos’ authors generate revenue based on the number of installs achieved. Based on the sheer number of downloads, it’s a model that’s paying handsome dividends for the hackers.

The second most common malware strain identified in the McAfee report is AsiaHitGroup, which utilizes an IP blacklist to specifically target users in Asian countries. This malware was initially found in an app named “QR Code Generator,” and once it infects a user’s machine, it will download a second-stage threat in the form of an SMS Trojan, which auto-subscribes infected users to premium phone numbers using SMS text messages.

Since its initial discovery in QR Code Generator, the AsiaHitGroup malware has been found in a variety of other apps, including alarm clock, photo editor, and internet speed test apps.

The security firm Dr. Web found a third distinct malware strain called Android.RemoteCode.106.origin, which was found to be embedded on nine different Play Store apps that had been downloaded between 2.37 million and 11.7 million times.

This campaign opens an “invisible” browser page that shows ads and is the least intrusive of the malware strains found. It’s likely that the hackers controlling this one get paid via ad impressions which are spoofed on the invisible browser window.

In addition to these, ESET has identified a fourth threat, having identified eight different apps that are infected with the MazerBot banking Trojan. This one is potentially the most damaging of the recently identified threats.

Google’s Play Store is clearly a fair bit more dangerous currently than its users are accustomed to. Be very careful when downloading apps until Google can beat back these recent attacks.

Joseph Martin

Are You Taking Full Advantage of VoIP?

November 27, 2017 by Joseph Martin

The Capabilities of VoIP

Have you recently made the switch to VoIP? While you may be loving the price saving capabilities it offers your business, you may not have taken the time to check out the numerous features and advantages it offers and the tools at your disposal:

Unified Messaging

This tools provides a great all-in-one ability to reach voice mail and email. With this tool, you are able to have emails converted to voice messages, and have your voice messages converted to email messages. You can also set a priority list to ensure the most important messages from key correspondence is always at the top of the list.

Conferencing

The traditional business conference just go a technology upgrade. With the VoIP conference abilities, you not only can not only hold a joint call, but participants are also able to exchange files, documents and calendars.

Find Me and Follow Me

This ability provides a single number forwarding tool that can ensure you and your employees are reachable regardless if you are at the office, at home or on the road.

Auto Attendant

This great tool provides music or prerecorded messages for incoming calls. As well as offering a voice mail support that can route calls to employees are give you the appearance of a corporate enterprise.

Joseph Martin

Black Friday Brings Major Increase In Fraud

November 26, 2017 by Joseph Martin

Retailers are gearing up for the year’s busiest shopping weekend, which runs from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, but another group is also gearing up.

Scammers.

Security experts are warning that retailers should brace for impact because the best estimates are that there could be as many as fifty million fraud-based attacks between those spectacularly busy shopping days.

The estimate is higher than it’s ever been and is driven in large part by the sheer number of high profile data breaches that have occurred over the last twelve months.

Account data for hundreds of millions of users flooded the Dark Web on the heels of those attacks. The scammers happily stocked up on them and are more than ready for the holiday season.

According to details provided by ThreatMetrix, the attack will shake out something like this:

• In advance of Black Friday, the scammers will use bots to test the stolen credentials they’ve purchased, tossing the ones that no longer work, and keeping the ones that are still active.

• Once they’ve culled their lists, they’ll spend a bit of time conducting a few million test attacks.

• After they successfully test their software with the valid IDs, they’ll launch large-scale fraud attacks with new user account registrations and attempted fraudulent payments.

According to security researcher Vanita Pandey:

“Many e-commerce merchants choose to accept a greater degree of risk on these key days in order to accept more transactions and reduce the chance that good customers experience friction when placing orders….fraudsters see peak shopping days as the opportunity to make larger purchases/attempt to redeem bigger basket sizes, which are less likely to be flagged as suspicious in among the sea of other high value purchases being made by good customers.”

The long and the short of it is that if you expect to see a spike in sales during the Black Friday – Cyber Monday shopping weekend, brace for a big spike in fraud attempts, too.

Joseph Martin

Apple Is On Track To Become A Trillion Dollar Company

November 25, 2017 by Joseph Martin

Recently, Apple’s stock closed at $175.88, giving it a market valuation slightly above $900 billion. A Drexel Hamilton analyst named Brian White predicts that over the course of the next twelve months, the company’s stock could be trading as high as $235 per share, and at that price, Apple’s market valuation would be over one trillion dollars, making it the only trillion-dollar company on the planet.

“With a market cap of over $900 billion, we believe Apple is on its way to becoming a ‘trillion dollar baby’ as reflected in our price target. We were the first on Wall Street to project that Apple would reach a $1 trillion market cap as reflected by a price target; our current price target of $235 equates to approximately a $1.2 trillion market cap.”

Mr. White is not alone. Another analyst, Amit Daryanani, working for RBC Capital Markets, has made a similar prediction, stating:

“In our view, Apple’s quarterly results will be less important this summer as investors are focused on the iPhone 8 this fall, along with the company’s raised capital distribution initiative, depressed valuation, and potential new innovations. We believe Apple remains among the most underappreciated stocks in the world.”

If you don’t yet own stock in the company, now would probably be a great time to buy. As Apple edges closer to the one-trillion-dollar threshold, it’s sure to generate an increasing number of headlines, which will increase interest in the company and push the stock price higher still, hastening the day when it hits the mark.

If you already own a stake in the company, hold onto it, and if you concur with Daryanani’s assessment, add to it as you’re able. You could soon be the proud owner of a tiny slice of investment history.

Joseph Martin

Apple’s New Face ID May Have Been Compromised

November 24, 2017 by Joseph Martin

Tech companies of all shapes and sizes have been on the hunt for the “Holy Grail” of security features since before the rise of the internet. So far, a number of strategies have been developed, but none have proved to be successful. Hackers have found ways around each and every one to date.

Apple recently made another attempt when they released their new iPhone X, complete with a new “ultra-secure” Face ID security feature, which was touted during the new phone’s September launch event. During that event, Apple’s Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller, had this to say about the new feature:

“Apple engineering teams have even gone and worked with professional mask makers and makeup artists in Hollywood to protect against these attempts to beat Face ID.”

Unfortunately, the new feature has proved to be somewhat less “ultra-secure” that was originally advertised. Just one week after Apple’s announcement, the Vietnamese security firm Bkav was able to unlock the iPhone X using a mask.

It cost the company roughly $150 to create the mask, which was built using a combination of 2d images, a bit of makeup and a few 3D-printed components, with special attention paid to the areas around the eyes, cheeks, and nose (which was printed on a 3D printer).

A spokesman for Bkav had this to say about their efforts:

“Many people in the world have tried different kinds of masks but all failed. It is because we understand how AI of Face ID works and how to bypass it. You can try it out with your own iPhone X, the phone shall recognize you even when you cover a half of your face. It means that the recognition mechanism is not as strict as you think, Apple seems to rely too much on Face ID’s AI. We just need a half face to create the mask. It was even simpler than we ourselves had thought.”

All that to say, don’t put too much faith in the new “ultra-secure” Face ID feature. It’s far from the bullet-proof security feature the company touted it as being.

Joseph Martin

Windows 10 Gets New Set Of Recommended Security Standards

November 23, 2017 by Joseph Martin

Microsoft has introduced a new set of standards designed to make computers running Windows 10 more secure.

Obviously, these standards are not industry requirements, and most of the off-the-shelf PCs you can buy will struggle to meet all of these requirements. In time, of course, that could change, but as things stand now if you’re interested in making your computer as safe and secure as it possibly can be, this is a road you’ll have to go down on your own and make the necessary mods and additions to your existing equipment. Here’s the summary, in a nutshell:

• 7th generation AMD or Intel Processors, because these contain MBEC (Mode-Based Execution Control)

• 64-bit processor architecture to take advantage of VBS (Virtualization-Based Security)

• Support for AMD-Vi, Intel VT-d, or ARM64SMMUs (this, to take advantage of Input-Output Memory Management Unit device virtualization)

• Purchase a Trusted Platform Module, if one is not already built into your existing chipset

• Make use of Platform Boot Verification to prevent the loading of firmware that was not designed by the manufacturer of your system

• A minimum of 8GB of RAM

• Use a system that implements UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) 2.4 or above

• Systems should also support the Windows UEFI Firmware Capsule Update specification

• All drivers used should be Hypervisor-based Code Integrity compliant

At first blush, this list seems a bit daunting, but the cost requirements to better secure the Windows 10 PCs on your network are really not as bad as they first appear. In fact, it is possible to find a few off-the-shelf PCs that meet the newly published security standards, so if you’re ready to replace some of your network equipment, you do have at least a few options that don’t require you to custom build.

In any case, although it’s true that the new standards aren’t a magic bullet, they will certainly go a long way toward making your network as a whole more secure, making them a welcome addition indeed.

Joseph Martin

New iPhone X May Be Susceptible To Burn-In

November 22, 2017 by Joseph Martin

Apple’s new iPhone X is a technological marvel that boasts the best display in the industry today, featuring Super Retina OLED display technology and offering a mind-boggling 1,000,000 to 1 contrast ratio.

Unfortunately, there’s a problem, as revealed by a new support document the company released on the iPhone X. In it, Apples states that users may experience shifts in hue and color, and burn-in with the new display, especially if they maximize the phone’s brightness and keep the same image displayed for long periods of time.

According to the support document itself:

“If you look at an OLED display off-angle, you might notice slight shifts in color and hue. This is a characteristic of OLED and is normal behavior. With extended long-term use, OLED displays can also show slight visual changes. This is also expected behavior and can include ‘image persistence’ or ‘burn-in,’ where the display shows a faint remnant of an image even after a new image appears on the screen. This can occur in more extreme cases such as when the same high contrast image is continuously displayed for prolonged periods of time. We’ve engineered the Super Retina display to be the best in the industry in reducing the effects of OLED ‘burn-in.'”

The company also recommends a simple workaround users can employ to minimize the chances of this occurring. If it’s something you’re concerned about, simply adjust your phone’s brightness as follows:

• Go to Settings, and then into General

• From General, tap Accessibility, and then Display Accommodations

• Adjust to taste from there

Another simple thing you can do would be to set your phone to auto-lock after a shorter period of time. To make changes to that feature:

• Go to Settings

• From there, select Display & Brightness

• Then, go to Auto Lock and set whatever time period you deem appropriate

While neither of these is perfect solutions, they will certainly get the job done for the overwhelming majority of users.

Joseph Martin

Many Businesses Found To Be Running Old Microsoft Office Versions

November 21, 2017 by Joseph Martin

When an operating system reaches the end of its supported life, such as Windows XP, NT and Vista have, it’s big news. It makes headlines. When other forms of software reach the end of the line, there’s just not as much fanfare. It’s not that it’s not important; it’s just not something people think or care very much about.

They probably should, at least according to a recently released survey by Spiceworks, which revealed statistics that were both shocking and dismaying. Here are a few of the highlights:

• Fully 68 percent of businesses surveyed are still running instances of Office 2007, in spite of the fact that the software stopped receiving security updates in October

• Nearly 50 percent (46 percent to be exact) are still running Office 2003

• 21 percent are still running Office 2000

• 15 percent are running Office XP

• And three percent are amazingly still running some instances of Office 97

Of particular interest was the fact that most of the firms running outdated software are mid-sized companies employing between 100 and 1000 people. Large companies have the resources to keep their software up to date and smaller firms, recognizing their lack of resources, have readily moved to embrace Office 365, which is always up to date, and thus, saves them money and headaches.

Those firms stuck in the middle, though, and possibly your own company, find themselves in a tricky position. They’ve invested heavily in productivity tools, they found themselves in the unenviable position of not having the resources to keep them fully updated, and of course, are reluctant to lose their investment by switching to Office 365.

It’s undeniably a balancing act, but the reality is that if your company is using outdated productivity tools, your risks of a breach are higher than they should be. It’s something that’s too important to gloss over or delay. If you’re using an outdated version of Office or other productivity tools, find a way out of that box as soon as is feasible. Your data security staff will thank you for it, and it’ll give you peace of mind.

Joseph Martin

Latest iOS Version May Have Bug That Changes Your Letters

November 20, 2017 by Joseph Martin

If you’re using an Apple device running iOS 11.0.3 or 11.1, you may have noticed some oddities when sending text messages. For reasons that aren’t quite clear, the letter “I” is being replaced by the characters “A[?].” It’s not a game-breaking bug, but it is annoying, and if you’re not paying attention, it can make for some rather mystifying text messages.

Fortunately, Apple is on the case, and the company has announced that they’ll have a fix for the issue in their next release. If you’d rather not wait, there are several things you can do in the meantime to work around the issue. In no particular order, these are:

• Simply disable Apple’s predictive text auto-correct feature. If you rely on it frequently, this may slow you down some, but is probably the most straightforward approach to take at the moment.

• Install a third-party keyboard app because these use their own predictive text features.

• Or, take Apple’s recommendation and set up a text replacement rule (essentially replacing “I” with “I”).

If you opt for this last approach, you’ll want to go into your phone’s settings, look under the general tab, then keyboard, and choose “Text Replacement.”

Tap the plus sign (+), then, for “phrase,” type in an upper case “I”. For a shortcut, type a lower-case “I.”

Save that change, and you should be all set.

To reiterate, this isn’t a huge deal, and it’s hard to see how this could cause anything but a bit of annoyance and perhaps a few scattered miscommunications. Even so, if you send more than a handful of text messages during the course of a typical business day, it’s probably worth spending a few minutes implementing one of these simple workarounds until Apple can ride to the rescue with a permanent fix.

Joseph Martin

Firefox Doubles Its Speed With Latest Release

Be Careful Of Downloads – Google Play Store Sees Malware Increase

Are You Taking Full Advantage of VoIP?

The Capabilities of VoIP

Unified Messaging

Conferencing

Find Me and Follow Me

Auto Attendant

Black Friday Brings Major Increase In Fraud

Apple Is On Track To Become A Trillion Dollar Company

Apple’s New Face ID May Have Been Compromised

Windows 10 Gets New Set Of Recommended Security Standards

New iPhone X May Be Susceptible To Burn-In

Many Businesses Found To Be Running Old Microsoft Office Versions

Latest iOS Version May Have Bug That Changes Your Letters

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