In early October, we paused the rollout of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update as we investigated isolated reports of users missing files after updating. We take any case of data loss seriously, and as I noted on October 9, we have thoroughly investigated and resolved all related issues. In addition to extensive internal validation, we have taken time to closely monitor feedback and...
Windows Defender Antivirus has hit a new milestone: the built-in antivirus capabilities on Windows can now run within a sandbox. With this new development, Windows Defender Antivirus becomes the first complete antivirus solution to have this capability and continues to lead the industry in raising the bar for security. Putting Windows Defender Antivirus in a restrictive process execution environment is a direct result of...
Ahead of its big iPad Pro and Mac event, Apple just announced that iOS 12.1 will be released tomorrow. It’s the first significant update to iOS 12 and includes the Group FaceTime feature that was removed from the initial release. Group FaceTime allows you to video chat with up to 32 people simultaneously and supports stickers, video filters, and Animoji/Memoji. The feature was held...
Firefox parent Mozilla is returning to back the Tor Project, its long-time ally, after it committed to matching all donations made to fund Tor, the open source initiative to improve online privacy which has just started its annual end of year funding drive. Tor announced Mozilla’s support today, extending the pair’s partnership which last year helped Tor raise over $400,000 from a similar campaign last...
Earlier this year, Apple updated iOS to block passcode cracking tools like GrayKey (used by police and government law enforcement officers). But the original iOS 11.4.1 patch wasn’t perfect, with researchers still finding ways around it. That seems to have changed with the release of iOS 12 last month, which a recent Forbes report notes appears to have completely blocked the GrayKey tool, preventing...
Microsoft on Wednesday described its Component Firmware Update (CFU) effort, which is a new open source protocol that Windows developers can leverage to keep their drivers and firmware properly updated. The CFU protocol is an open source project housed at the GitHub repository, providing driver and firmware code samples for testing. It’s the sort of thing that independent hardware vendors and original equipment manufacturers...
Earlier this year two major vulnerabilities were discovered which affected the core processes of the computer. Named as Spectre and Meltdown, these “speculative execution” vulnerabilities meant hackers could steal data by simply visiting a website. Though there were no known incidents of these vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild, the processor microcode patches could have up to a 30% impact on the performance of...
More and more, the internet is delivered wirelessly, but as bandwidth demand grows in each home — multiple TVs, smart devices, tablets and phones — current Wi-Fi standards are starting to fall short. Fortunately the FCC and wireless industry are prepared for this, and the former has just officially proposed opening up a wide swathe of spectrum to bring our Wi-Fi systems up to...
Facebook and Google have both been hit with lawsuits claiming that the Silicon Valley giants secretly track their users’ locations against their will and use the information to pad its advertising business. The class action complaint against Facebook, which was filed by Brett Heeger last Friday in San Francisco federal court, said the social network tracks its users even after they’ve opted out of...
It’s hard to deny that Netflix is a powerhouse when it comes to original content. The company wants to ensure it remains on top, though, and to do that it’s willing to go into debt. Netflix announced today that it plans to raise $2 billion in debt (rather than offering equity in the company) to fund “general corporate purposes, which may include content acquisitions,...
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