Category Archives: Security News
A free decryption tool is now available for all Bart ransomware versions
Antivirus vendor Bitdefender obtained the Bart decryption keys from the Romanian police.
Credit: Peter Sayer
Users who have had their files encrypted by any version of the Bart ransomware program are in luck: Antivirus vendor Bitdefender has just released a free decryption tool.
Over Half Of All Pcs Running Out Of Date Software
More than 50% of software installed on PCs including the most popular, critical and security related applications such as Chrome, Firefox, Java and Flash are out of date.
That’s according to Avast, anyway, who just released their Avast PC Trends Report January 2017. The report, based on the anonymous data of around 100 million users who have Avast security software installed, makes for unsettling, if unsurprising reading.
It’s the one thing millions of desktop and laptop users have in common. Avast state in a blog post that the reason so many people are leaving themselves wide open for a catastrophic system failure and leaving themselves exposed to the activities of cybercriminals, and vulnerable to malware and ransomware, is simple:
Microsoft Finalises Windows 10 For China
Microsoft (MS) has completed its government approved, specially adapted version of Windows 10 for the Chinese market.
Windows 10 is already widely available for domestic use in China. But crucially for Microsoft, it is banned for use on government systems. Given the way that China operates as a country, this means that Windows has been largely excluded from the enterprise market in China.
It’s been widely rumoured that Microsoft had to hand over the source code to Chinese government officials.
Big news for Microsoft?
Yes, very much so.
Phishing Scam Tricked Two US Tech Firms Into Wiring Over $100m
A Lithuanian man has been charged with defrauding two major US tech companies of $100 million via an email phishing scam.
In a statement issued this week, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said that Lithuanian native, Evaldas Rimasauskas masterminded a sophisticated phishing scheme that over the course of two years targeted US firms. The Eastern European managed to con the tech giants out of $100 million by pretending to be a legitimate Asian business partner of at least one of the victims.
Microsoft To End All Windows Vista Support On April 11
Less than two weeks before Windows Vista officially reaches ‘end of life’.
On April 11, 2017, more than 10 years after Microsoft officially launched Windows Vista, the much-maligned operating system that no one ever seemed to really like, will cease to receive any further technical support by Microsoft.
Haven’t I heard this before?
Kind of… Microsoft stopped mainstream support for Vista back in 2012 but continued to provide extended support for paying customers, mostly business users. But now regardless of how much money anyone has, there will be no more security or technical help forthcoming. Microsoft has warned anyone still using Vista that going forward, their systems will be more open to being compromised by attackers in the future, and that Microsoft’s own Security Essentials support will also no longer receive updates.
According to Stat Counter, Vista currently has a 1.12% market share among all Windows users.
