Google blocks "Computing Machinery" because of alleged malware

Stop - Pixabay[German]Google has been blocking the Computing Machinery (acm.org) website for several hours due to malware, triggering corresponding warnings in Chrome and Firefox browsers. Visitors can then only visit the pages at their own risk. I tracked it down – it looks to me like this is a false alarm on Google's part – because on Virustotal, the acm.org site is listed as clean. Here is a brief overview of this issue.

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Confluence Security Advisory 2022-07-20

Sicherheit (Pexels, allgemeine Nutzung)[German]Confluence released Security Advisory 2022-07-20 on July 20, and updated it today. The security advisory addresses Confluence accounts with hardcoded credentials created by Questions for Confluence. This affects the Confluence app for Confluence Server and Confluence Data Center.

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Microsoft Cloud down for hours (July 21, 2022)

[German]Quick note to readers: If you had problems accessing Microsoft's cloud services like OneDrive, SharePoint Online, Skype for Business, Office for The Web or the complete Microsoft 365 suite this morning (July 21, 2022), you weren't alone. There was a major disruption in the Microsoft Cloud – some readers emailed me to let me know (thanks for that).

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Solution for access/performance issues with an Access database using an ODBC driver

[German]There are users who still access Access databases with older applications via ODBC drivers. Sometimes, when switching to newer hardware/Windows versions, access and especially performance problems occur – the database accesses are slow. A blog reader emailed me with such a case and the solution he used. The approach may be of interest to other users.

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Heat wave brings Google and Oracle cloud to its knees in UK

[German]The high temperatures in Europe suddenly show just how vulnerable our IT infrastructure basically is after all. Cloud services and servers hosted by Google and Oracle in the UK have gone offline due to cooling issues as the country experiences a record-breaking heat wave. That's according to The Register, and it's also according to status updates from Google.

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Why ISL Online: Critical factors when choosing a remote desktop solution

[Sponsored Post]In the rapidly evolving IT world, choosing the right remote desktop software is critical for organizations that value security, ease of use and reliability. One provider of secure remote access that has been on the market since 2001 is ISL Online, which presents some considerations for choosing such software below. More ...


Windows: Printer issues after July 2022 patchday and fixes

Windows[German]As of July 12, 2022, Microsoft has also fixed printing vulnerabilities as part of its security updates. As expected, users and administrators encounter printer issues after installing the July 2022 security updates. Below, I summarize some reports of problems. In addition, two pieces of information about fixing printing issues have come to my attention, which I'll also briefly outline.

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Fix for Access ACCDE/MDE bug (VBA library bug)

[German]Something is happening for troubled users of Microsoft Access, who have been suffering for weeks from an Access ACCDE/MDE bug introduced by an update. When using forms, Access reports that the requested class library or wizard is not a VBA project. Microsoft seems to have found the bug and is in the process of gradually rolling out a fix for the various Microsoft Office versions. However, at the time of writing this post, not all fixes had been released.

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CISA: Windows vulnerability CVE-2022-22047 must be patched by Aug. 2, 2022

Windows[German]U.S. Cyber Security Administration (CISA) has set a deadline of August 2, 2022 for U.S. institutions to fix the CVE-2022-22047 vulnerability, which is rated with a CVSS index of 7.8. This vulnerability in the Client Server Runtime Subsystem (CSRSS) affects virtually all versions of Windows and was fixed in the July 2022 updates.

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Outlook.com issues (July 18, 2022)

Stop - Pixabay[German]Microsoft's outlook.com service currently experiencing a number of problems. There is not only the problem that private outlook.com email accounts are deactivated because of suspicious activities for POP3 and IMAP. Business users currently also seem to have problems accessing their mailboxes via the web interface. The login is denied. In addition, during a research today I noticed some people where Outlook as a client is on strike and can't access the mail servers. It always asks for credentials.

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Outlook.com 'account suspensions' due to unusual sign-in activities – is Microsoft's AI running amok, or are accounts compromised?

[German]Brief information to users who use private Microsoft accounts (i.e. no self-managed company accounts). Are you currently receiving security warnings for Outlook accounts, stating that these accounts are now blocked due to suspicious activities? Often with the note that suspicious logins to the Microsoft account have been detected. A blog reader just contacted me about this and shared a theory. After a short investigation, I found numerous reports since a few days, where people observed, that their outlook.com accounts are being synced from foreign IPs (despite 2FA). It's not clear, whether it's a service issue or a security flaw.

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