With the Covid-19 pandemic forcing many countries to go into lockdown, people are having to talk to their friends and family or customers online rather than in person. The good news: Most messenger apps are secure, but be careful with Facebook Messenger and Telegram – they're not secure by default.
[German]Microsoft has admitted that the hackers who introduced the SolarWinds backdoor into the Orion software had access to project source code. Code could allegedly not be changed, however.
That's what I wish all blog readers – and also health and happiness – and of course no New Year's hangover.
Microsoft has published the final release of Security Baseline package for Windows 10 version 20H2 and Windows Server version 20H2. The announcement has been made in this Techcommunity blog post. The Security Baseline package is a set of tools, that allows enterprise security administrators to download, analyze, test, edit and store Microsoft-recommended security configuration baselines for Windows and other Microsoft products, while comparing them against other security configurations. The Microsoft Security Compliance Toolkit 1.0 can be downloaded for free.
Just a small reminder for users of Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. Adobe and Microsoft will retire the Flash Player today (December 31, 2020) – Flash has reached the end of the product's lifecycle.
[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 ...
[German]Are you using an older CheckPoint VPN Client and/or a CheckPoint Endpoint Security Client before version E81.20? Since a certificate expires at the turn of the year, the CheckPoint software in question will no longer work after Jan. 1, 2021. Especially silly: anti-bot, forensics and firewall blade may stop working without being reported. An update has been available since August 2019.
[German]In many Zyxel products (firewalls) there is a vulnerability CVE-2020-29583 in the form of an undocumented user. The manufacturer has since released firmware updates to fix the vulnerability.
[German]The cruise company Aida Crusies has canceled all New Year's Eve trips on its cruise ships. The reason are mysterious IT outages that lead to restrictions on board the cruise ships. The company is keeping a low profile, prosecutors are investigating cybercrime, and there are suspicions that the cruise line may have been the victim of computer sabotage.
[German]Are the GUI components for drivers (e.g. for Intel Graphics or Waves MaxxAudio settings) suddenly missing after Windows 10 setup? A crude bug causes the driver GUI components originally installed as a UWP app during setup from the Microsoft Store to be removed during the OOBE phase. Here's some information on this issue, which was detected in Windows 10 version 1809 but affects all Windows 10 builds up to Windows 10 version 2004 – it's only fixed in Windows 10 20H2.
[German]The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the FBI has already published a warning about Chinese spyware activities against German and other foreign companies that maintain business relations in China.
MVP:
2013 – 2016
WIMVP:
2017 – 2020
