Newsletter Archives

• 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

• Microsoft Defender could be your free antivirus fix

  Posted on October 21, 2024 at 02:44 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  Microsoft Defender — a free antivirus app that’s included in Windows — provides a highly rated service, but it’s rarely mentioned in comparative reviews of AV programs by security blogs. Why not?

  Ever since Windows 8 came out in 2012, a service originally called Windows Defender (WD) has been enabled by default in the OS. Prior to that, you might remember, was Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE), a free download that Redmond first released in 2009. MSE is no longer with us, because WD — renamed Microsoft Defender in 2018 — has completely replaced it to block viruses, rootkits, Trojan horses, spyware, you name it.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.43.0, 2024-10-21).

  Public Defender Antivirus, Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Security Essentials, Newsletters, Windows Defender

• The US has banned Kaspersky software — should you worry?

  Posted on October 14, 2024 at 02:45 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 21.42 • 2024-10-14

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  The popular Kaspersky antivirus program quietly disabled itself on computers in the US last month, making millions of users fear malware had struck them.

  The switcheroo was prompted by the US government banning Kaspersky Lab, a Russia-based company, from sending updates to American devices after September 29, 2024. Kaspersky had sent out an email — which many users didn’t read or felt was unclear — before its app shut down on September 19. Kaspersky then remotely installed on US computers a little-known antivirus alternative called UltraAV.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.42.0, 2024-10-14).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Public Defender Antivirus, Kaspersky, Microsoft Defender, Newsletters, Privacy, Security, UltraAV, Windows Defender

• Lessons learned from CrowdStrike

  Posted on July 29, 2024 at 02:45 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 21.31 • 2024-07-29

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  It’s been over a week since the technology meltdown that impacted airlines, some banks, and even my sister’s Starbucks order through Uber Eats on Friday morning.

  Despite the carnage, only a very small segment of computer systems was impacted. In the Official Microsoft Blog, the post Helping our customers through the CrowdStrike outage pointed out that less than one percent of all Windows machines were affected.

  So why was this so impactful? More important, what lessons have we learned from this event? Is there anything we can do better next time?

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.31.0, 2024-07-29).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  On Security BitLocker, Crowdstrike, CVE-2024-26184, CVE-2024-28899, Microsoft Defender, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Recovery, Recovery Keys, Windows 11 24H2

• DefenderUI — Windows Defender is great, when turned on fully

  Posted on July 29, 2024 at 02:42 CDT by Deanna McElveen • Comment in the Forums

  FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT

  

  By Deanna McElveen

  Microsoft’s first attempt at antivirus software was Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE), released in 2009 to Windows XP and later to Windows Vista and Windows 7.

  Then it was replaced by Windows Defender.

  MSE was not great. It updated just three times a day. Although its 2009 certification from AV-TEST was a big win for Microsoft, the certification was lost in 2012. That’s probably because it tagged Google Chrome as a virus in 2011, a memorable day at our computer shop. To make things even worse, in 2013 it received the lowest score possible for an antivirus product. It wasn’t until 2018 that MSE was able to win a top score, with an 80% detection rate from AV-TEST.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.31.0, 2024-07-29).

  Freeware Spotlight DefenderUI, Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Security Essentials, Newsletters, User Interface, Windows Defender

• Extra security for all your devices

  Posted on February 28, 2022 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  These days, I don’t have just traditional PCs that I must protect — I have iPads, iPhones, Kindles, Chromebooks, and others. And these don’t run Microsoft operating systems.

  Not to pick on her, but my sister used to randomly surf with her Windows PC and, after searching, would end up with some sort of infection or malicious browser plugin. But when she did the same on her iPad or iPhone, I was spared the chore of cleaning up those devices — they were less targeted and less likely to end up compromised.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 19.09.0 (2022-02-28).

  On Security Microsoft Defender, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, phishing, Security

• The case of the missing Win10 antivirus scan results

  Posted on October 25, 2021 at 02:44 CDT by Fred Langa • Comment in the Forums

  LANGALIST

  

  By Fred Langa

  Windows 10’s dialogs are sometimes laid out in funky ways and can lack headings and other visual cues to help you quickly locate what you’re looking for.

  That, coupled with Windows’ inconsistent and variable naming and labeling conventions, can be an annoyance to most of us — but can actually enrage some users, as you’ll see in today’s first item!

  Plus: An easy solution to a conflict between MS Office and LibreOffice. And: Finding a safe substitute for a laptop AC adapter.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.41.0 (2021-10-25).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList Antivirus, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList, Microsoft Defender, Windows

• Patch Lady – Defender not having a good week

  Posted on August 13, 2020 at 22:19 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  So the other day we had folks reporting issues with Defender and Western Digital drivers.

  Today Citrix Broker service was flagged as malicious and well.. a whole bunch of work from home remote workers weren’t working anymore.

  Bottomline the best antivirus is silent and does it’s job.  And when it doesn’t…. it often is very painful.  It’s a tight tap dance around our operating systems to determine what is malicious and what is not. And when the attackers try EXTREMELY hard to LOOK like a normal application doing it’s job.  Bottom line we depend so much on antivirus and curse at them when they don’t work.

  Windows Security Microsoft Defender, Patch Lady Posts

• Windows Defender becomes “Microsoft Defender”

  Posted on July 19, 2019 at 12:04 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Effective with Win10 version 20H1 (gawd, I hope they don’t call it version 2003), Windows Defender will get the new name “Microsoft Defender.”

  I first read about that in a Tero Alhonen tweet, but Martin Brinkmann has a thorough explanation in this ghacks.net post.

  One question has not been answered yet: why is Microsoft making the change? A likely explanation, and our colleagues over at Deskmodder seem to agree, is that Microsoft wants to use the Microsoft name for services and tools that are available on multiple platforms, and the Windows name if a service or tool is only available on Windows.

  Windows 10 Microsoft Defender, Windows Defender