Data tracking and the role that big tech companies play online has become one of the most concerning issues for parents in the U.S. — at 24% — yet is one of the least concerning for parents in
the U.K. at 6%, according to data released Thursday.
The issue centers …
With Microsoft closing the book on Windows 7 bug fixes, one solution provider says we’re unlikely to see history repeat itself with the shift from Windows 10 to 11.
At long last, we’ve reached the end of the line with Windows 7.
On Tuesday, Microsoft cut the cord on security updates for the long-persevering operating system, which was hugely popular with many businesses in its day — and for some users, up through the present day.
[Related:
Microsoft Seeing Exploits Of Windows Zero Day Vulnerability
]
While the official end of support date for Windows 7 arrived back in January 2020, Microsoft had consented to continue offering Windows 7 security updates to businesses willing to pay for them. (Microsoft understands that “everyone is at a different point in the upgrade process,” wrote Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, in a blog post in 2019.)
Those “extended” Windows 7 security updates, however, came to a close on Tuesday. That gave Windows 7, which launched in the fall of 2009, a more than 13-year run.
As much as many businesses relied on Windows 7, “it’s about time” that the operating system reach its finale, said Luis Alvarez, president and CEO of Salinas, Calif.-based Alvarez Technology Group.
“In so many ways [the extended security updates] were a false sense of security for a number of people,” he told CRN. “They believed they could keep their Windows 7 systems secure by paying an annual fee — but really, the underlying issues that caused those security vulnerabilities weren’t being patched.”
Alvarez said that his firm can now get the “last stragglers” within the client base off of Windows 7, and onto Windows 10, the successor to Windows 7, or the latest version of the operating system, Windows 11.
Looking ahead, Alvarez doesn’t believe that we’ll encounter this type of issue again with…
In 2016, Russia sparked our current era’s obsession with online information operations. By meddling in that year’s U.S. presidential election via a plethora of online tools, Moscow’s operatives illustrated what seemed like the boundless potential of digital manipulation.
Since then, social media companies and governments have made massive investments in catching these efforts. As a report published by Facebook parent company Meta at the tail end of 2022 illustrates, these efforts appear to have reached something of an equilibrium with Russian information operators. Russia, along with several other states, still run malign online information operations, but these campaigns to influence public opinion are detected and taken down with such speed that they rarely reach significant audiences.
This state of equilibrium means that it’s high time to ask more fundamental questions about online information operations and the resources being mustered in countering them. Such efforts — and the coverage of them — means that our collective attention is far more focused on content and mechanics, rather than real-world impact and our information ecosystem more broadly.
Six years into our collective preoccupation with information operations and how platforms wrestle with them, the question of whether they even work in the first place — and if so, how — has gotten lost. The incentives for all parties — platforms, governments and illicit actors alike — are stacked in favor of operating on the assumption that they do, while the science looks inconclusive at best.
Meta capped off 2022 by detailing how it has performed more than 200 takedowns of covert influence operations on its platforms, the culmination of a strategy first used against Russian actors in 2017. In a short five years, Facebook’s threat analysts have arguably served as the vanguard of a new industry — monitoring and countering malign activity online.
Five years on, this industry and those responsible for carrying out information operations — in particular, Russia — have become co-dependents….
In the lead-up to New Year’s, subscription scams are landing in people’s email boxes at a frightening rate. With the goal of making off with someone’s identity, cybercriminals are betting they can scam their share of the more than 40% of consumers who click on a link in a phishing email.
Subscription scams are a favorite of malicious actors because they know how to write an email so that it escapes an email server’s spam filters. You’ve probably received some of these “auto-renewal” emails yourself from companies masquerading as Norton, McAfee, Best Buy/Geek Squad, or Microsoft.
And, having received some ourselves, ConsumerAffairs can attest to how authentic they look. But not everyone may be as suspicious as we are and not be able to detect a real one from a fake one. Since much of the phishing action is tied to Norton-related emails, here are some telltale signs you can look for and things you can do to keep from getting fleeced.
Look for these mentions: “Annual Product Membership,” “Norton Total All Round Security,” “URGENT: Your Norton Subscription Expired,” and “Your Order Has Been Received.” When fact-checking website Snopes dug into the situation to find out if the Norton emails it received were fake or real, those subject lines or text in the emails were all found to be from fakers.
In its warning, Norton (the real one) emphasizes that use of the word “urgent” is a sign that the email is a scam. If the email sounds threatening in any way, that, too, is a red flag.
Look for “official” Norton email addresses:According to Norton, the only email addresses that should be trusted as being officials are:
[email protected], and
[email protected] (for China)
Before you do anything, confirm the email is legitimate. Never, ever click on any link in an email until you’ve confirmed that it’s legitimate, the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) suggests. And if in fact, the email is a spoof report it as spam, block the sender and delete the email.
Norton suggests the best way to authenticate whether an email is the…