Norton 360 adds crypto mining

Once upon a time we all bought IBM 8088 computers. To that we all added the yellow box better known as Norton antivirus.

Over time we moved away from Norton to various other antivirus platforms to where it’s no longer the defacto antivirus we all use.

Now Norton 360 will be adding crypto mining to it’s antivirus suite.

Let me just say that I don’t think this is a good idea.  One of the ways you know a system isn’t doing well is when you experience slow downs, and other issues. This would just mask one of the ways we can tell if something is wrong with our systems.

Sorry, yellow box, I’m going to pass.

So?  What do you think?

The June 2021 Office non-Security Updates have been released

The June 2021 Office non-Security updates have been released Tuesday, June 1, 2021. They are not included in the DEFCON-4 approval for the May 2021 patches. Unless you have a specific need to install them, you should wait until Susan Bradley (Patch Lady) approves them and any problems have been reported.

Remember, Susan’s patching sequence and recommendations are based on a business environment that has IT support and may have time constraints on the updating process. Consumer patching should be more cautious due to limited technical and mechanical resources. The latter is the reason for the AskWoody DEFCON system.

Office 2016
Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB5001948)

Office 2013
Update for Microsoft Office 2013 (KB5001937)

There were no non-security listings for Office 2010 (which reached EOS on October 13, 2020).
On April 10, 2018, Office 2013 reached End of Mainstream Support. Extended Support will end for Office 2013 on April 11, 2023.
Office 2016 also reached  End of Mainstream Support on October 13, 2020. EOS for Office 2016 is October 14, 2025.

Updates are for the .msi version (perpetual). Office 365 and C2R are not included.

Security updates for all supported versions of Microsoft Office are released on the second Tuesday of the month (Patch Tuesday).

Securing sensitive files in OneDrive’s cloud

ISSUE 18.20 • 2021-05-31

LANGALIST

By Fred Langa

Does it feel like rolling the security dice when you save your files to a cloud-based service? When the files move out of your control and protection and into who-knows-what security measures the cloud-provider is using? You feelin’ lucky?

Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.20.0 (2021-05-31).
This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.20.F (2021-05-31).

Don’t click those pop-ups that say you’ve been infected!

PUBLIC DEFENDER

By Brian Livingston

It’s been said before, but it bears repeating — when you see a pop-up window on your desktop, laptop, or smartphone screen that says you’ve been infected with a virus and must act immediately, don’t click it!

These frightening warnings are invariably “bad ads” that use advertising networks to insert these pop-ups into websites and phone networks. Their goal is to get you to click a link and download malware, whether it’s a fake “antivirus program,” a malicious “virtual private network,” or some other backdoor into your personal life.

Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.20.0 (2021-05-31).

How to control the security of your Microsoft Account

MICROSOFT

By Lance Whitney

You can view and tighten many of the security settings associated with your Microsoft account to better protect it from compromise.

A Microsoft account not only serves as your login to Windows but also grants you access to Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Skype, and other key Microsoft apps and services. Due to the power of such an account, a hacker who gains access to your credentials or to any of your Windows devices could view sensitive information and even spoof your identity.

Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.20.0 (2021-05-31).

Good choices for your Windows-to-Linux transition

LINUX

By Sandra Henry-Stocker

If you’re a long-standing Windows user thinking about moving to Linux, there are several distributions in particular that you ought to consider.

In this article, we’ll take a quick look at Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Manjaro and then spend some time examining Ubuntu more closely. These three are some of the most popular Linux distributions and have a considerable user base, along with a very active support community. In fact, TechMint ranked Manjaro, Linux Mint and Ubuntu as the second, third, and fourth most popular Linux distributions of 2021, respectively.

Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.20.0 (2021-05-31).

A quiet month of May

PATCH WATCH

By Susan Bradley

21H1 is released. Quietly. With no fuss.

The big release of this month is not the security patches released earlier but rather the May appearance of Windows 10 version 21H1. Microsoft currently has released 21H1 to “seekers” — that is, those people who click on Check for Updates in the Windows update interface. The 21H1 release is a bit anticlimactic; it doesn’t contain many changes. 21H1 even shares the same “base” as 2004 and 20H2. On my test laptop, the install of 21H1 was very fast and caused no side effects.

Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.20.0 (2021-05-31).

What’s in your task scheduler?

Youtube here

This task for the weekend was inspired by Robtl’s post in the forum asking about black DOS boxes that would randomly pop up on his screen.

In my personal experience they typically are on boot – or right after boot and are triggered by vendors who have put tasks in the task scheduler to run their routines.

It’s a good idea to review and make sure you can identify all of the tasks in there and can determine what vendor stuck something in there. In the search box on your computer type in Task and then when you find the Task Scheduler, click on that. A window will pop up and you can review the tasks that have been put on your machine. If you use Chrome, you will for sure have a Google updater task in there. It’s okay to leave that in there because you want your browsers to update.

So are there any tasks you don’t recognize? Post up what you don’t recognize and we’ll sort it out for you.

Edge update triggers “specific startup page” bug

Over on Born’s Tech and Windows World  –  hopefully this is a temporary bug and not an intended feature – but if you set specific tabs to open in Edge after the recent update the settings are ignored. Appears you can set it with group policy (ugh) and it works if Bing is your search engine (ugh again).

I’m still a Pollyanna and willing to believe this is a bug not an intended “feature”.

edit – and yes it was a bug. Now fixed.

MS-DEFCON 4: It’s quiet out there

ISSUE 18.19.1 • 2021-05-27

By Susan Bradley

This month has been relatively quiet with respect to patching side effects. It’s now time to install the May updates.

Consumer and home users

Most of the issues and complaints have not been about the May update. Instead, there has been dissatisfaction with a new feature called News and Interests. As this feature rolls out, more and more people are asking how to remove it. I have provided a registry update file that will automatically disable News and Interests. The only known side effect is audio issues in some machines; these can be bypassed by using stereo settings.

More details will be provided in my upcoming Patch Watch article.

Business users

For small businesses that still have an on-premises Exchange email server, make sure you install this month’s Exchange patches, as described in KB 5003435.

Note that some users reported issues if they had manually removed the new version of Edge, proving once again that Microsoft doesn’t test the edge cases (pun intended).

Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Alert 18.19.1 (2021-05-27).

Got a Windows 7 Ultimate key lying around?

Ed Bott reports that you can use a Win 7 pro or ultimate key to upgrade your Windows 10 home to pro. I still recommend upgrading from Home to Pro because it exposes a lot more ways to defer updates. As we know the Targetreleaseversion registry key works with Windows 10 Home as well as pro, but I’m still a fan of having more ability to control updates, not less.

I think I just saw one of those plastic cases the other day buried in a box upstairs. You should see the cables and boxes I have and keep because you just never know….clearly I was anticipating a need for these keys

News and Interest are going to go wider

The optional update  (KB5003214) for Windows 10 for 2004, 20H2 and 21H1 is out today and it indicates several fixes to the News and Interests

“News and interests on the taskbar is now available to anyone who installs this update!

Improves the news and interests hover experience to prevent accidental openings.

Adds the Open on hover option (checked by default) to the News and interests menu. To access it, right-click a blank space on the Windows taskbar and open the News and interests menu.”

Note that ALL THREE of the recent releases are covered with this update showcasing that the recent release is minor and not a major release since it can share the same code base as the other two.

Microsoft Build – the developer conference started today and the news regarding Windows 10 is that they aren’t talking about Windows 10. We’re supposed to hear about the future of Windows “very soon.

Speaking of very soon, DefCon will be changing soon we’ll be sending out the alerts soon!