Archive
Another Day… Another Virus (Backdoor.MAC.Elanor)
This one targets Mac systems. Heads up Apple users…!
As Macs and macOS become more and more mainstream, more and more virus and malware authors are going to be writing code that targets computers coming out of Cupertino. Case in point – a new piece of malware has been encountered in the wild, allowing attackers to hijack a Mac user’s machine.
The new malware has been named Backdoor.MAC.Elanor by researchers at Bitdefender. The software installs a backdoor onto an infected Mac that provides full access to a Mac user’s data, and full control over their web cam. The malware has been traced to the installation of an app called Easy Doc Converter.app.
Easy Doc Converter is a fake file conversion app that is apparently available from reputable download sites across the internet. The app installs a component that provides remote, anonymous access of an infected system’s command and control center. Additional components allow attackers to view, edit, rename, delete, upload, download and archive/copy off files from infected systems. They also have elevated privileges that allow them to execute commands and scripts.
This particular bit of malware allows attackers to watch computer users at their workstations via the computer’s web cam. Attackers make use of an included tool called “wacaw” to capture stills and video from infected systems, according to Bitdefender.
It was All a Marketing Stunt
The Italian ISP that deleted all of its servers… yeah, apparently… not so much.
Late last week, the owner of a small web hosting company in Italy said he “accidentally” executed some bad maintenance code on his servers, and they deleted all his servers.
Marco Marsala headed to a support forum and posted a cry for help claiming he made a big mistake,
“I run a small hosting provider with more or less 1,535 customers and I use Ansible to automate some operations to be run on all servers,” Marsala wrote. “Last night I accidentally ran, on all servers, a Bash script with a rm -rf {foo}/{bar} with those variables undefined due to a bug in the code above this line.
“All servers got deleted and the offsite backups too because the remote storage was mounted just before by the same script (that is a backup maintenance script).”
He got some sympathetic replies. However, most of the forum users basically told him he was an idiot and that since (as he further explained) that all of his onsite and offsite backup drives were also mounted to his servers at the time of execution, all of the sites that he ran (again, approximately 1535) all got permanently and irrevocably deleted.
Apparently, the delete was so destructive, that many users didn’t think that even an experienced data recovery company would be able to retrieve his data.
What’s in a Font?
Google unveils new logo – Internets burn down (story at 11..?)
Normally I wouldn’t comment on a company’s logo change. I mean, it’s not normally news or anything of importance. Unless of course, that company is Google, and then just about every time that company burps, its important. And honestly, that’s about what this logo change from most recent to new looks like.
It’s a font change.
That’s all… just a font change…
Microsoft Releases Windows 10 Build 10061 to Fast Ring Insiders
If you in the Fast Ring, you’ve got a new build to install…
Windows 10 Insiders have a new build to play with. If, they’re on the Fast Ring, that is. Build 10061 was released to Windows Insiders on 2015-04-22, but late in the day. This release comes a full three weeks after the release of Build 10049 to the Fast Ring. While builds 10051, 10056 and even 10061 leaked to the general public, neither build 10051 nor 10056 were official releases to either the Fast or Slow Insider’s Rings.
As this is a Fast Ring only build – at least for now – Microsoft isn’t releasing ISO’s for this build (files that can be used to burn DVD’s with). That only happens when a build is released to Slow Ring Insiders. Unfortunately, this is where the problems come in.
During any beta cycle, most experienced testers will want to do a clean install when a new build is released. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible with Build 10061, at least right now, for a few reasons.
Recent Microsoft Developments
There’s a lot going on in Redmond these days…
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had my head down at work; but I’ve also been hot and heavy with a review of the Fitbit Surge that’s still yet to be completed. When it comes to wearables, this new computing category really has many people curious and thinking about how and what it can and should be.
Over and above THAT, which has been more than enough in and of itself, I’ve been beginning some evaluations of Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac as well as dealing with some very serious issues with OneNote 2013 and Windows 10 … and yeah. I’ve been a little busy.
However, there have been a few new developments over at Microsoft, other than the ones I’ve mentioned, and I wanted to not only acknowledge them but comment on them just a bit as well. While this may not be ALL that’s hit the news wire lately, it is what has stuck in my head as I’ve got it buried under a bunch of stuff at the office as well as under a ton of research, screen shots and support thread posts.
Here they are in no particular order…
Apple & Samsung No Longer BFF’s: My Take on the Trial Results
I really expected the trial deliberations to go a lot longer than they did. The fact that the verdict came back so quickly speaks volumes about design, perception, and what the public believes when it comes to computing and the patent system. I’ve got a quick summary of the results and a couple of opinions on where the trial went south for Samsung.
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| The Results are in – Samsung: GUILTY as charged |
US Government Considering Tax Holiday
Of its $156B in cash, Apple has $138B (88.5%) banked overseas…
Apple has a lot of cash. $156B USD to be exact, and $138B USD of it, or just about 88.50% is kept in banks outside the US. To the unfinancially initiated, like me, this seems curious. However, when you consider the 35% tax hit ($48.3B USD) that Apple would be charged to bring the money back to the United States, it’s no wonder they don’t think twice about it. Spending $$48.3B to bring back just $89.7B isn’t worth the hit. So, the money stays outside the US, and Apple deprives the US of the tax revenue…
