Security News
On this week’s Checklist, we’ll cover:
How Macs are perceived in the enterpriseAn addendum to last week’s T2 storyA checklist of security tips from the NCSA
Survey says…
Do you feel like your Mac is the best choice for security? You’re not alone.
A recent survey conducted by enterprise software management platform Jamf asked businesses—both ones that used Macs and ones that didn’t—what they thought about the Mac in terms of security.
Across the board, 77% of all organizations polled said that they believed the Mac to be more secure “out of the box”, though …
October 15, 2020 •
10 min read
Apple
Tuesday’s Apple Special Event introduced the iPhone 12 line and some cool new accessories as well. Here’s an overview of the new and upcoming product releases announced at the event:
iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini
The look of the new iPhone is reminiscent of past models: flat sides and a boxier appearance overall.
Technically speaking, probably the biggest change is compatibility with 5G wireless networks, which are currently being rolled out around the world. The 5G standard has two basic flavors: sub-6 5G and millimeter wave 5G. Apple says that the new …
October 14, 2020 •
5 min read
Blog
Amid growing concern about foreign interference in the November elections, military hackers at the United States Cyber Command have started attacking the Trickbot botnet. In this short article, we’ll tell you what’s happening and why it matters for the elections.
What is the Trickbot botnet?
Trickbot is botnet malware: malware that can be used to create networks of infected computers and then coordinate their activity. Originally a banking Trojan, the malware has evolved over the past several years and can now be used to spread ransomware and other forms of malware. It …
October 12, 2020 •
4 min read
Blog
The annual Virus Bulletin security conference was held last week; as has been the case with so many other events this year, the proceedings were fully remote, leading the organizers to call the 2020 instalment of the conference “VB2020 localhost”.
October 8, 2020 •
7 min read
Security News
This week’s big news: an “unpatchable” hardware vulnerability affecting Apple’s T2 security chip! But how serious is it, really? We spoke with Mac security expert Patrick Wardle to separate the facts from the clickbait headlines. We’ll cover:
the technical backgroundwho’s impacted (and what they can do)
Parsing the T2 story
The Apple security community was abuzz this week with news of an unpatchable vulnerability in the T2 security chip found in newer Macs.
To begin with, a quick refresher: The T2 chip is essentially a co-processor that handles much of the Mac’s security functionality, …
October 8, 2020 •
5 min read
Security News
An unnamed U.S. federal agency has been breached, according to a recent report by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and third-party analysts now believe that Fancy Bear, the notorious Russian Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group, is the likely culprit.
In this short article, we’ll provide some details about the incident, give you some more background to the story, and share some of CISA’s security recommendations for organizations.
What happened?
The CISA report did not disclose the date of the hack or the name of the agency affected. But it did describe …
October 6, 2020 •
6 min read
Blog
In this short article, we’ll introduce you to this emerging phenomenon, tell you how it works, and offer some thoughts about the future of privacy.
October 5, 2020 •
6 min read
Blog
October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and the National Cybersecurity Alliance has kicked things off by releasing some timely recommendations for 2020.
October 2, 2020 •
8 min read
Malware
Researchers at Amnesty International have just announced the discovery of FinSpy spyware variants that target macOS and Linux users. In this article, we’ll tell you what they found, share some technical details uncovered by Amnesty’s malware analysts, and explain what it means for security and privacy.
What is FinSpy?
FinSpy is commercial spyware, produced by a private company and sold to law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world. There are (arguably) legitimate uses of such monitoring software, for example in criminal and anti-terrorism investigations; however, FinSpy’s manufacturers have come under fire …
October 2, 2020 •
6 min read
Security News
On this week’s Checklist, we discuss a rapidly changing App Store story, we talk about streaming services and privacy, and we show you how to keep your wits in a cybersecurity emergency.
September 28, 2020 •
7 min read
Apple
Apple has issued its initial round of updates to iOS 14, just a little over a week after the new mobile OS was first released to the public. In addition, there were updates to macOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS as well.
September 25, 2020 •
4 min read
Blog
With the United States threatening to make good on its promise to pull them from U.S. app marketplaces, popular apps TikTok and WeChat are granted a last-minute stay of execution.
September 23, 2020 •
6 min read