Microsoft October 2020 Patch Tuesday, Alexa IT Headache and new iPhones.

Microsoft October 2020 Patch Tuesday fixes 87 vulnerabilities

Fixes for 21 remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities included for products like Excel, Outlook, the Windows Graphics component, and the Windows TCP/IP stack.

Microsoft has released today its monthly batch of security updates known as Patch Tuesday, and this month the OS maker has patched 87 vulnerabilities across a wide range of Microsoft products.

 It's a monthly thing, sometimes no gain, only pain but with much of the U.S. and the world working remotely it is now more important to apply your OS updates than ever.  Hackers are concentrating their efforts on the RDP protocols.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-october-2020-patch-tuesday-fixes-87-vulnerabilities/?ftag=TRE-03-10aaa6b&bhid=2219791&mid=13109479&cid=716603217

Amazon's Alexa is driving IT managers crazy

"The danger is that these devices aren't typically secured by design," Grimm told me. "They can basically be like an open door or window to the network that an attacker uses as a means to get on the network and look for more valuable resources -- intellectual property, personal information, and more."

https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazons-alexa-is-driving-it-managers-crazy/

See also: Amazon's Alexa gets a new brain on Echo |  Alexa, why should I upgrade my Echo?  | Which Echo to buy? How to pick the best Alexa device for your needs | Why Amazon needs to stop selling us new Echos

Apple just announced the iPhone 12 lineup, and it's packed full of features and new capabilities, at a range of price points.

I've been telling Verizon and AT&T clients for over a year now, just because your phone displays 5G in he upper right corner, if you don't have a 5G phone you are operating at 4G.  Well 5G iPhones are finally here.

All four iPhone 12 models are capable of connecting to 5G networks. In the US, that means they include Sub6 and mmWave compatibility. The phones will have a Smart Data Mode that will decide whether or not a 5G connection is required for a task, and when it's not, it will use a 4G LTE connection instead. Doing so will save battery life. 

New iPhone models and dates of availability:

iPhone 12 Mini: Nov. 6 preorders, Nov 13 availability

iPhone 12: Oct 16 preorders, Oct. 23 availability 

iPhone 12 Pro: Oct. 16 preorders, Oct. 23 availability 

iPhone 12 Pro Max: Nov. 6 preorders, Nov 13 availability

https://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-12-all-the-models-launch-date-pricing-and-specs/

This article (link) has me thinking about keeping my iPhone 7 a little longer.

iPhone 12 has 5G, but Apple still has us questioning why we need it

For now, the biggest reason to buy a 5G phone is FOMO -- and future-proofing.

https://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-12-has-5g-but-apple-still-has-us-questinoing-why-we-need-it/

Global Microsoft Outage, Apple Woes, Cybercrime, Nvidia RTX 30 series graphics cards.

Global Microsoft outage brings down Teams, Office 365 and Outlook

Microsoft says a recent update has affected the processing of authentication requests, making cloud-based services inaccessible.

Microsoft Blames Software ‘Code Issue’ For Office 365 Outage

“It’s amazing to me that a change in code could cause a platform as big as Azure to go down,” says a senior executive for one of Microsoft’s top partners, who did not want to be identified. “It sounds like someone wrote some code that was merged into a production environment and it broke authentication. That’s ridiculous. If you can’t get into email or documents for five hours it’s pretty bad.” CRN

The outage affected users between the hours of 5:25 pm EST to 10:25 pm EST.  I did not hear from a single user concerning any issues.  Fortunately for us the outage occurred after normal business hours and from what I read, users who had a session established were okay.  It was only those who tried to log in during that period of time who were affected.

Microsoft attributed the Azure service outage to a “recent configuration change impacted a backend storage layer, which caused latency to authentication requests.” CRN.

https://www.crn.com/news/cloud/microsoft-blames-software-code-issue-for-office-365-outage

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/29/major-microsoft-outage-brings-down-office-365-outlook-and-teams?ref=hvper.com

https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Office+365+Outage&qpvt=office+365+outage&FORM=NWRFSH

Apple News

Who'd have thought... Apple makes mistakes too.  Read the link below, 

iOS 14.0.1: The battery and connectivity woes continue

iOS 14.0.1 fixes some things. Breaks other things.

The bottom line is that we're into that messy period at the beginning of an iOS launch where there will be a lot of bugs and fixes and new bugs. I suspect iOS 14.0.2 is not that far away, and that it won't be long until iOS 14.1 is released, likely to be the iOS version that ships on the new iPhones.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ios-14-0-1-the-battery-and-connectivity-woes-continue/?ftag=TRE-03-10aaa6b&bhid=2219791&mid=13076371&cid=716603217

iPhone 12 64GB model incoming, says leaker, shipments start next week

A new report from serial Apple leaker Jon Prosser states the iPhone 12 will be getting a 64GB storage option, despite previous reports Apple was ditching the configuration.

https://www.imore.com/iphone-12-64gb-model-confirmed-shipments-start-next-week

Cyber Crime

Cyberattack hobbles major hospital chain's US facilities, staff forced to use paper records

https://www.foxbusiness.com/healthcare/cyberattack-hobbles-major-hospital-chains-us-facilities-staff-forced-to-use-paper-records

A computer outage at a major hospital chain thrust healthcare facilities across the U.S. into chaos Monday, with treatment impeded as doctors and nurses already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic were forced to rely on paper backup systems.

Universal Health Services Inc., which operates more than 250 hospitals and other clinical facilities in the U.S., blamed the outage on an unspecified IT “security issue” in a statement posted to its website Monday but provided no details about the incident, such as how many facilities were affected and whether patients had to be diverted to other hospitals.

Google removes 17 Android apps caught engaging in WAP billing fraud

The 17 apps were infected with the Joker (Bread) malware, which Google described in January 2020 as one of the most persistent threats it dealt with since 2017.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-removes-17-android-apps-doing-wap-billing-fraud-from-the-play-store/

The FBI's most wanted cybercriminals

https://www.zdnet.com/pictures/the-fbis-most-wanted-cyber-criminals/

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Graphics Cards

Nvidia announced their new RTX 30 graphic cards on September 17th.  The GeForce RTX 3090 was released September 24th.  I was at the Marietta Micro Center store on the 23rd of September and saw this scene that I had to take a picture of;

I first thought it was the line to get in due to the Pandemic, (there usually is a line on weekends due to restrictions on the number of people allowed in at one time), but then I saw people going into the store bypassing the line.

Once inside I asked the lady what was going on, she replied "they are camping and waiting for the release of the Nvidia graphics card tomorrow."  WOW, not only are these people going to fork over $1500 for a video card but they can afford a whole day of their life devoted to this purpose, and they don't need to work, they have the money.  SMDH.

Read more about the new Nvidia cards and while at it, be sure to buy a DForce Gaming computer.

Thanks for reading!

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/introducing-rtx-30-series-graphics-cards/

DFORCE Gaming Rigs, Ultra-fast performance, Powerful and expandable!