Newsletter Archives

• Planning for the unexpected

  Posted on March 10, 2025 at 02:41 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  We all have a tendency to take many things for granted.

  We take utilities, such as electricity and water, for granted. We assume fuel will be there on demand. We expect our computers and other devices to turn on every time. We assume that our software will run properly the next time we use it. Then comes the day when one or more of these things are impacted. Are you prepared? What can you do without?

  I’m going to discuss several items of technology that I rely on that suddenly failed last week. For some, I had ready backups. For others, I was reminded that I need to take better steps to have a Plan B.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.10.0, 2025-03-10).

  On Security Battery Backup, Disaster Planning, Electricity, Email, Internet, Microsoft 365, Newsletters, Outages, Password management, Patch Lady Posts

• Why is software security so hard?

  Posted on February 10, 2025 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  I’ve had discussions with developers about how and why software bugs get introduced into software.

  Most of the time, it’s because humans write the code, and then we humans use the code, often doing things that the software developer just didn’t think we’d do. But then there are those bonehead decisions that developers have made along the way — because someone decided it was faster or easier to do something that later proved to be a problem, rather than taking the time to do it right in the first place.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.06.0, 2025-02-10).

  On Security CISA, MFA, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, SecLists

• Protecting your identification

  Posted on February 3, 2025 at 02:41 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  There is some sort of unique code in every country and jurisdiction, usually a number, that identifies you to the government — especially for tax purposes.

  In the United States, it’s our Social Security number (SSN). But no matter where you live, protecting that ID is critically important. I’ll discuss that here in the context of the US, but the same caution applies similarly everywhere.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.05.0, 2025-02-03).

  On Security Backup, Federal Trade Commission, Government IDs, Multifactor Authentication, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Social Security Number, SSN

• Choosing your own domain name services

  Posted on January 13, 2025 at 02:41 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  There is a long-standing joke in enterprise technology: “It’s always DNS.”

  That’s because if something isn’t working, checking your domain name services to make sure they are set up and are working properly is a first step in diagnosing the problem. Misconfiguration has been the cause of many major outages — it’s not unheard of for incorrect DNS settings to take down entire firms or websites.

  Even for consumers, bad DNS settings can prevent access to the Internet.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.02.0, 2025-01-13).

  On Security DHCP, DNS, Domain Name Services, IP address, Newsletters

• Am I part of the attack bot?

  Posted on December 30, 2024 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  The other day, a headline popped up that made me stop and read the news story.

  It was all about the American government’s considering blocking the vendor TP-Link from selling routers. TP-link happens to be a vendor I rely on for my wireless access point, but it has also been called out by Microsoft and other vendors who say its products may be used in attacks.

  Many of these units not been updated by the vendor to fix issues that allow them to be used by other bad actors in group attacks.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.53.0, 2024-12-30).

  On Security DNS, Edge Devices, Exchange, Firewalls, Firmware Update, ISPs, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Routers, TP-Link

• Reviewing your subscriptions

  Posted on December 23, 2024 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  On an annual basis, I like to review those subscriptions and services that impact my bank account.

  Many times, vendors use the end of a year to change their focus or — as is apt to happen more recently — increase their prices. You should do the same. Review each and every subscription to make sure it’s delivering the value you expect.

  One recent announcement? YouTube TV just raised its price by $10 per month, a 14% increase.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.52.0, 2024-12-23).

  On Security Backup Software, Browser Protection, Endpoint Protection, Newsletters, Password managers, Patch Lady Posts, Software Subscriptions, VPN, Windows 10 ESU

• Is Recall in your future?

  Posted on December 9, 2024 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Don’t panic.

  Microsoft Recall, the new Microsoft technology that records what you are doing on a Windows 11 PC so you can review (“recall”) past actions in the future, is very much in beta right now and not coming to a computer near you.

  Importantly, Recall has a high bar as far as system requirements are concerned. First, a Copilot+PC is required. For some time, the only processors that could provide the necessary power were Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X series, Arm-based processors with the Hexagon neural processing unit. (If you want to learn more about NPUs, see IBM’s article What is a neural processing unit (NPU)?) On December 6, Microsoft announced Windows Insider preview build versions for AMD and Intel-powered Copilot+ PCs, a signal that a wider variety of hardware will soon be available.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.50.0, 2024-12-09).

  On Security AMD, Copilot, Copilot+ PCs, Intel, Newsletters, Qualcomm, Recall, Secured-core Standard

• Choosing the right device

  Posted on December 2, 2024 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Are you being bombarded from every corner by Black Friday and end-of-year deals — toys to technology?

  Of course you are. It’s that time of year. Whether it’s actual tech toys, smart TVs, PCs, tablets, phones, home tech, or anything else with a chip in it, vendors want to entice you in any way they can.

  Will you succumb? Well, probably — at least a little bit. The more important question is, what should you actually be looking for?

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.49.0, 2024-12-02).

  nt question is, what should you actually be looking for?

  On Security Chromebook, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Surface, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Qualcomm Snapdragon, QuickBooks, Remote Desktop, Windows 365, Windows 365 Link

• You clicked on that phish?

  Posted on November 11, 2024 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  It happens. You fell for it. You clicked on something you shouldn’t have. You followed a link. You entered your password on a site that wasn’t legitimate.

  In these instances, you didn’t suffer an intrusion to your computer. Instead, your login credentials were impacted. What should you do?

  First, don’t panic. In the case of many attacks these days, your operating system is still intact — not impacted in any way. The once standard reaction “I got hacked, so I’ll restore my computer from a clean backup or reinstall from scratch” probably isn’t necessary. In fact, it may be irrelevant to your response.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.46.0, 2024-11-11).

  On Security Adversary-in-the-middle, CISA, Credentials, Exchange, Microsoft Compliance Portal, Microsoft Purview portal, Multifactor Authentication, Newsletters, Passwords, Patch Lady Posts, phishing, Security, Trusted Devices, Two-factor authentication

• Are they attacking that?

  Posted on October 28, 2024 at 02:45 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 21.44 • 2024-10-28

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  When you use technology, one challenge is determining whether a vulnerability is actually being exploited.

  This is especially important if you are holding back, delaying patches and updates until you can determine whether a bug has been fixed. This is one of my strategies in determining which update recommendations I will make.

  I use many sources of information to help me make those decisions.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.44.0, 2024-10-28).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  On Security CVE-2024-30088, Intel Explorer, Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Digital Defense Report, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Threat Intelligence, Windows LAPS

• So your identity has been stolen? Again?

  Posted on September 30, 2024 at 02:45 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 21.40 • 2024-09-30

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Not a day goes by that I don’t receive some sort of notification that my name, address, email address, social-security number, credit card, or — well, you get the idea — has been stolen.

  So what, if anything, should you do to ensure your identity is safe? Should you subscribe to a dark Web monitoring service? Sign up for credit monitoring, which is typically offered when such an event occurs?

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.40.0, 2024-09-30).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  On Security Credit Monitoring, Credit Reports, Dark Web, Identity Theft, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Title Monitoring

• How my Internet outage caused security problems

  Posted on September 23, 2024 at 02:42 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  I live in a city with electricity, high-speed Internet, and all the other customary modern conveniences.

  In that same city dwell squirrels, birds (including beautiful hummingbirds), possums, kit foxes, bees, and too many others to mention. Although they’re lovely to have around, they are not necessarily the best of neighbors. Interaction with them doesn’t always work out, and sometimes that affects my technology — and even my security.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.39.0, 2024-09-23).

  On Security Insects, Internet, Internet connectivity, ISPs, Multifactor Authentication, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Performance, Security, Squirrels, Wiring, Xfinity
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