Monthly Archives: November 2020

• AskWoody Ultimate Utilities List — Fall edition

  Posted on November 22, 2020 at 21:05 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  UTILITIES

  By TB Capen

  Playing with new utilities for Windows PCs can be fun.

  Many are free, and they show an inventive range of solutions to common — and not-so-common — problems and tasks.

  And let’s face it: there are some apps built into Windows that are still rather … underwhelming. Photos? Groove Music? Mail? No thanks.

  The topic of essential utilities came up recently when I upgraded a relatively old ThinkPad.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.46.0 (2020-11-23).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Utilities AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Essential utilities, Third-party apps

• Windows 10 Quick Assist: Fast, simple, and free

  Posted on November 22, 2020 at 21:00 CST by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  REMOTE ACCESS

  By Will Fastie

  There are many options for remotely controlling another PC. For Windows 10 users, it’s quick and easy.

  Almost two decades before the Internet made connectivity commonplace, programs emerged that allowed two computers to be linked, primarily via a direct PC-to-PC connection. Long-time PC users will recall, for example, Traveling Software’s ground-breaking LapLink software and cable.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.46.0 (2020-11-23).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Remote Access AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Quick Assist, Remote control, Remote Desktop Connection, Tech support

• Tasks for the Weekend

  Posted on November 21, 2020 at 23:47 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  Tasks for the Weekend – November 21, 2020 – YouTube

  (link above hosted on Youtube)

   

  Video Player

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  Download File: https://www.askwoody.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Tasksforthweekend1.mp4?_=1

  00:00

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  Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume.

  I’m trying something out new.  I’m doing a small video tip about something important on your computer (or tech).  This is inspired by the British Gardening show Gardener’s World where they have “Jobs for the weekend”.  In these short segments they give tips for jobs you should be doing in your garden.

  So?  Do you like the idea/concept?  Should I do more?  Do you like the videos on youtube or on the askwoody.com site itself?  Or both?

  Tech Help Patch Lady Posts

• WSUS survey results

  Posted on November 19, 2020 at 12:11 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  For those of you that are patching admins, I recently did a survey on your attitudes towards WSUS.  The results in their raw form are located here and here.

  Lots of interesting comments.

  In the meantime I did a similar story about different Microsoft business patching options on Computerworld.

  Uncategorized Patch Lady Posts

• Easiest way to make it easy for attackers

  Posted on November 18, 2020 at 21:37 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-worst-passwords-of-2020-show-we-are-as-lazy-about-security-as-ever/

  We are really bad at picking passwords.  Truly we are.  I’ve also seen that many folks use the same passwords in many web sites.  So attackers only have to get a data dump from one hacked database and then they can try to reuse these passwords in other places.

  Do yourself a big favor:  Over the holiday season see if you can 1. pick better passwords (passphrases) and 2. see if the site allows you to add two factor authentication.

  Windows Security 2FA, Passphrases, Passwords, Patch Lady Posts, Two-factor authentication

• Security shouldn’t be political

  Posted on November 17, 2020 at 23:40 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  Tonight I heard on the news that President Trump fired Chris Krebs (no relation to Brian Krebs) who was head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.  If you aren’t familiar with CISA they send out a ton of good security information – most of which inspires me to write security articles.

  Mr. Krebs first came to government from Microsoft and was instrumental in developing relationships between business and government.

  Given the HUGE HUGE risk we all have from ransomware we need more people like Chris Krebs in government, not less.

  Then there's #Ransomware – we’re focused on ramping up a national strategic effort to combat this global scourge. We MUST improve defenses, break the business model, and take the bad guys out of the game. This is the most visible, disruptive cyber threat as I see it right now.

  — Chris Krebs #Protect2020 (@CISAKrebs) November 16, 2020

  Tonight, we fired that guy.  We need more defenses against ransomware.  We still make it way way too easy for attackers to get us.  Not a day goes by that bleepingcomputer.com doesn’t post up another ransomware nailed yet another business post.  I still see way too many malicious emails wiggle in.  Too many malicious sites.  Too many attacks.  We need more people pushing for solutions, not less.

  We need good people to help us in protecting us against ransomware.  Comments now turned off at this time and apologies for doing so.

   

  Windows Security Patch Lady Posts

• Patch side effects November updates – Domains only

  Posted on November 17, 2020 at 23:05 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums
  Hat’s off to EP for spotting these:
  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4594439/kerberos-authentication-and-ticket-renewal-issues
  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4594438/kerberos-authentication-and-ticket-renewal-issues

  Addresses issues with Kerberos authentication related to the PerformTicketSignature registry subkey value in CVE-2020-17049, which was a part of the November 10, 2020 Windows update. The following issues might occur on writable and read-only domain controllers (DC) :

  • Kerberos service tickets and ticket-granting tickets (TGT) might not renew for non-Windows Kerberos clients when PerformTicketSignature is set to 1 (the default).
  • Service for User (S4U) scenarios, such as scheduled tasks, clustering, and services for line-of-business applications, might fail for all clients when PerformTicketSignature is set to 0.
  • S4UProxy delegation fails during ticket referral in cross-domain scenarios if DCs in intermediate domains are inconsistently updated and PerformTicketSignature is set to 1.

  The issue ONLY effects those with domains (businesses).  It will not impact peer to peer or standalone computers.  I expect to see more of these fixes for other platforms.

  Spotted another one… https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4594442  November 17, 2020—KB4594442 (OS Build 17763.1579) for 1809 Out-of-band  (uh no that’s not an out of band patch for security the way I define out of band…)
  And more (thanks EP):KB4594441 for Win10 v1607:
  https://support.microsoft.com/help/4594441

  KB4594443 for Win10 v1903 & 1909:
  https://support.microsoft.com/help/4594443/

  KB4594440 for Win10 v2004 & 20H2:
  https://support.microsoft.com/help/4594440/

  Windows Security Patch Lady Posts

• Apple – Big Sur big problem?

  Posted on November 17, 2020 at 00:18 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  Apple has released Big Sur and already I’m seeing vendors urge you to not upgrade at this time.

  Furthermore I’ve seen several posts about issues bypassing firewalls and VPN protection.

  Just like with windows, don’t be too quick to upgrade without doing your homework.

  Apple Patch Lady Posts

• Freeware Spotlight — PingStatus

  Posted on November 15, 2020 at 21:15 CST by Deanna McElveen • Comment in the Forums
  

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  In our neck of the woods, high-speed and reliable Internet connections can be a rare commodity.

  It’s not uncommon to report Internet issues to your provider via the phone, only to have a tech show up while everything is running fine.

  If this sounds familiar, then Bakidok’s PingStatus is the tool for you.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.45.0 (2020-11-16).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Network testing, Ping

• Why does Windows still generate registry junk?

  Posted on November 15, 2020 at 21:10 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  LANGALIST

  By Fred Langa

  And why does Win10 still not have a built-in tool for deleting dead, empty, obsolete, or useless registry data?

  Win10 has capable options for removing file-related debris on drives. But to thoroughly clean the registry, you need a third-party tool.

  Plus: Test your security smarts with this free online quiz!

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.45.0 (2020-11-16).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Registry cleaning, Security quiz

• RIP Office 2010? Not so fast!

  Posted on November 15, 2020 at 21:05 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  PATCH WATCH

  By Susan Bradley

  Well … we thought we’d seen the last of Office Version 2010.

  But Microsoft surprised us by pushing out a batch of November updates for its suite of productivity apps. Note that this isn’t a completely novel event. Microsoft has dribbled out patches for other products that have reached their end of service.

  Going forward, Office 2010 will become more dangerous to use — especially when it comes to email phishing attacks.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.45.0 (2020-11-16).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Patch Watch AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microcode, Office patching, Win7 vulnerabilities, Windows patching

• Business cyber insurance: A sea change

  Posted on November 15, 2020 at 21:00 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  SMALL-BUSINESS COMPUTING

  By Amy Babinchak

  For IT businesses — and by extension, their clients — adapting to a rapidly shifting technology environment has been a challenge.

  Not the least of those changes is insuring for data-related privacy and security losses.

  Not that long ago, insuring my business was relatively simple. We were covered primarily for liability and errors/omissions. Today, the array of events covered by my policy is mind-boggling — much of it focused on data security and privacy.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.45.0 (2020-11-16).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Small Business Computing AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Business insurance, IT changes, Privacy, Security
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