Wednesday, September 16, 2020

A lot of Apple News from Yesterday, however still waiting on iPhone 12 and 5G. iPad Air 4 sounds great.

The Apple Watch and iPad launch event was typical Apple. Product upgrades that spur purchases, services to threaten multiple rivals and good price points across the portfolio.

The Apple event yesterday September 15th focused on the new Apple Watch 6, iPad Air and new service bundles including Apple TV, Apple Music and a new Fitness service to challenge Peloton's App.

Key fitness items include:

Blood oxygen measurements.

Background health metrics while you sleep.

Partnerships with academic institutions on studies.

Apple announced a new subscription model, Apple One that introduces various levels of service bundling which has already triggered responses from Spotify and other entertainment providers.

I have an Apple watch 3 and after reviewing details and what other reviewers are saying this a.m., I have no intention of upgrading my Apple Watch.  I'm waiting on the iPhone 12 with 5G.  

Yesterday's event was only a warm-up to spur sales prior to the iPhone 5G introduction which I'm sure will be available before Christmas.

I'm not going to lie though, I will purchase the new iPad Air 4 when available since I have kicked Comcast TV services out of my office and home.  I have a great IPTV service which runs on IOS.

Apple surprised iPhone users with a next-day iOS 14 release. App developers are pissed.

To read about all the product announcements from the Apple Event yesterday please click on the following link;

https://www.zdnet.com/article/everything-apple-announced-at-its-sept-15-event-apple-watch-series-6-se-apple-one-fitness-plus-and-ipad-ipad-air-lineup-updates/?ftag=TREc64629f&bhid=2219791&mid=13049704&cid=716603217








Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Apple Product reveal day is today, Windows Server severe bug patch, Emotet and Hackers on the rise.

 It's a big day in Tech world with the annual Apple new Device release event set for today.  Expect emphasis on new Apple watch 6 and iPad Air to take center stage.  But first let's deal with a huge security issue.

"Unbeknownst to many, last month Microsoft patched one of the most severe bugs ever reported to the company, an issue that could be abused to easily take over Windows Servers running as domain controllers in enterprise networks."

 If your organization runs Windows server there is an update that is imperative your IT support techs apply to your servers.  A flaw in the Netlogon authentication process allows an attacker to exploit the cryptographic algorithm used to verify identity of a computer on a domain network.

The update has been available since Patch Tuesday of August 2020, it is known as CVD-2020-1472 and if your server is behind in updates then you are vulnerable.  The flaw has received a severity rating of 10, the details are only coming out now more than a month after the update was released because the vulnerability was too dangerous to make public.

"But in a blog post today, the team at Secura B.V., a Dutch security firm, has finally lifted the veil from this mysterious bug and published a technical report describing CVE-2020-1472 in greater depth.

And per the report, the bug is truly worthy of its 10/10 CVSSv3 severity score."

For more info, please follow this link.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/zerologon-attack-lets-hackers-take-over-enterprise-networks/?ftag=TREc64629f&bhid=2219791&mid=13047656&cid=716603217

Apple Event.  Because of Covid-19, the 2020 Apple event will be held virtually at 10 a.m. PDT from Apple Park.  

You can add the event to your calendar and obtain a link to the event by going to;

https://www.apple.com/apple-events/

For insight into the new products and features, please visit the links below.

https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/14/apple-september-event-what-to-expect/

https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/14/heres-how-apples-fall-2020-ipad-ipad-air-and-iphone-12-features-will-compare/


COVID cybercrime: 10 disturbing statistics to keep you awake tonight

Not everyone has been sidelined by the Corona virus.  Hackers are out in force trying to steal your info/credentials and ultimately, finances.  9 out of 10 coronavirus related domains are scams and a half a million Zoom accounts have been compromised and are available on the Dark Web.

With so many new remote workers there has been a huge increase in desktop connections using RDP (remote desktop protocol) which has created a huge number of new targets for the bad guys.  The speed at which all these new connections have been created has led to mistakes in implementation and many remote devices are not secured.  This has led to a 400% increase in brute-force attacks.

In addition email scams related to Covid-19 were up 667% in March, 2020 alone.

The following is amazing to me but with so many people getting their news from social media, I guess I shouldn't be surprised;

In a test performed in late March, researchers found that users are three times more likely to click on a phishing link and then enter their credentials than they were pre-COVID. Of course, it doesn't hurt that those phishing emails often used words like "COVID" or "coronavirus, "masks", "test", "quarantine" and "vaccine."

Be careful;  for more details follow the link  below,

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ten-disturbing-coronavirus-related-cybercrime-statistics-to-keep-you-awake-tonight/?ftag=TRE-03-10aaa6b&bhid=27630927001468733386426006914379&mid=13046731&cid=1862926557







Say it's not so! Windows 12 is coming in 2024. Apple iPhone malware/exploits.

Windows 12 is coming soon in 2024 I've read too many emails and articles hinting at a new Windows in the months leading up to 2024 and n...