Closed Monday, 4 September 2017 for Labor Day
Cyber Tech Cafe will be closed on Monday, 4 September 2017 for Labor Day and to spend time with family, friends and loved ones.
Code42 to End Support for CrashPlan for Home subscriptions
In a shocking announcement making its way across the tech world, Code42, the company behind the CrashPlan backup service stated earlier this week that they will be discontinuing their Home backup service. The reasoning the company gave behind the move away from the residential market was to "focus on business customers", which they claim have different needs that "have diverged from the needs of the consumer". While this may seem like a normal move for a company, it has left many in the industry scratching their heads, specifically because the CrashPlan backup service is NOT designed to be run on a server or a centralized location on your network. While this is not clearly laid out in black and white, based on years of experience and various official statements from…
August 2017 News and Updates
Updates Executive Summary - In addition to the normal Microsoft, Adobe and Oracle / Java updates, Google released an update to patch 10 critical bugs in the Android operating system and Mozilla released an update to patch 29 vulnerabilities in Firefox including making Adobe Flash objects Click-To-Enable. The excitement from WannaCry and Petya / Not-Petya seems to be calming down but it looks like the Mamba ransomware (gained fame in the end of 2016 by taking the San Francisco transit system offline) seems to be making a comeback. It only seems to be impacting Saudi Arabia and Brazil at the moment but it would be wise for blue teams to take note and make sure that you're ready (Are you all patched up? Network segmented to minimize the damage of…
July 2017 News and Updates
Updates Executive Summary - 2017 has been an explosive year for ransomware and a wake-up call for administrators of the importance of installing updates in a timely fashion. The WannaCry virus in May wreaked havoc when it took advantage of an already patched bug in Microsoft Windows. The Petya and Not Petya viruses struck in June, leveraging the same already patched vulnerability. Microsoft - Microsoft patched a total of 54 vulnerabilities this month in Windows, Edge, Internet Explorer Office and Exchange, 19 of which were rated critical, 32 rated important and three rated as moderate. Several of the critical vulnerabilities are remotely exploitable and could give an attacker full control with little or no action on the part of the user. Microsoft releases regular updates the second Tuesday of each…
Closed for 4th of July
Cyber Tech Cafe will be closed on Tuesday, 4 July 2017 in observance of Independence Day to enjoy time with family, friends and loved ones. We will reopen on Wednesday, 5 July 2017 at 9:00am ET.
“Largest Ever” Voter Records Leak Discovered; Approximately 198 Million Records
A poorly or unsecured Amazon Web Services server was the cause for what is being touted as the "largest ever known exposure of voter information to date." The data was stored on an Amazon s3 storage server that is operated by Deep Root Analytics, and the companies Co-Founder, Alex Lundry, has released a statement indicating that they take, "full responsibility for this situation." The data stolen includes voter's name, date of birth, home address, phone number, and voter registration details. Some outlets are even reporting that the information in the leak has predictions on which candidate a particular voter intends to vote for. For more information, check out some links to articles below. More Info: ZDNet UpGuard (Security Research Who Disclosed the Breach)
Official Launch of the new Cyber Tech Cafe Website
I'm excited to announce the official launch of the new Cyber Tech Cafe website. I expect that we'll be making some tweaks and changes over the coming days and weeks to wring out any bugs but welcome your feedback and input.
February Microsoft Updates Delayed till March!
[UPDATE] February Monthly Updates [UPDATE] Microsoft has officially announced that February's updates will be released next month as part of the March regularly scheduled updates. https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2017/02/14/february-2017-security-update-release/ We strongly recommend that users set a reminder and install the March updates as soon as possible following their March 14th release as there are several known vulnerabilities currently in the wild for several Microsoft products/services. **Cyber Tech Cafe MyIT Customers** To all MyIT customers, Java, Adobe, and other 3rd party software updates will continued to be installed this month as part of your regularly scheduled updates.
Last Minute Delay from Microsoft in February 2017 Updates
Updates Executive Summary - For the first time that I can remember, Microsoft has delayed the monthly updates for February 2017 because of a last minute problem that was discovered in the new process. Additional information is available here but there is no date (yet) for when the updates will be released. Microsoft - (crickets) Microsoft releases regular updates the second Tuesday of each month, often referred to as 'Patch Tuesday'. These updates are categorized as Low, Moderate, Important or Critical. Details on the categories are available here. The updates can include any supported Microsoft product from Windows to Office to Internet Explorer and server products like Exchange and SQL Server. If you have one or more of these products installed, especially if the update is listed as Important or…
January 2017 News and Updates
Updates Executive Summary - 2017 is starting out with a relatively low number of updates with only four bulletins from Microsoft (Edge, Office and Windows [LSA]) and two updates from Adobe (Flash, Acrobat & Reader) but all resolve issues that could allow an attacker full access (remote code execution or RCE) to vulnerable systems. Microsoft - Microsoft released 4 bulletins this month (MS17-001 through MS17-004). The bulletins affect Microsoft Edge (oddly enough, nothing mentioned about Internet Explorer), Microsoft Office, Adobe Flash and an internal component of Windows called LSA (Local Security Authority). The bulletins for Microsoft Office and Adobe Flash Player are rated critical and allow remote code execution (RCE) and the bulletins for Microsoft Edge and LSA are rated important allowing privilege escalation and denial of service respectively. Multiple…