I’m sure you’ve seen the news that there have been recent cyber-attacks from external attackers on various water systems in the United States.  Just the other day, PG&E changed out the gas smart meter at my home. All these smart devices provide a ton of benefit but also the potential for risk. Does your local […]

ON SECURITY By Susan Bradley OpenAI’s recent attack on another company’s cloud instances reminds me that sometimes we forget the basics. As we understand the situation at the moment, OpenAI’s test platform was meant to be isolated and not connected to the Internet. But because it needed to download certain items, it was given read-only […]

If you missed it the other day, SANS has a recording of its recent live-panel discussion of the OpenAI/Hugging Face breach. It points to nine questions to ask your security teams. But what about us as users of all of these systems where we don’t have a lot of control? For me, it gets back […]

PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Millions of people around the world have installed Internet-connected “security cameras” to monitor foot traffic around their homes and offices. Unfortunately, many of these video devices make it easy for unwanted persons to see your live feed and record whatever comes into view. It’s convenient to know who’s at your […]

ON SECURITY Tracking the attacker By Susan Bradley Recently, Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, and others released updates illustrating how much we are being impacted by AI. The three major vendors either sped up releases or released updates with a massive number of vulnerabilities. But does that make us more unsecure? Before I discuss some side effects […]

Some Dell devices with a specific Intel driver might experience poor performance Affected platforms Client Versions Message ID Originating KB Resolved KB Windows 11, version 25H2 WI1427598 KB5095093 KB5121767 Windows 11, version 24H2 WI1427599 KB5095093 KB5121767 After installing the June 23, 2026, Windows non-security preview update (the Originating KBs listed above), a limited number of […]

I’ve updated the master patch list here.  Please note I am not recommending installing updates at this time, we are just testing and reporting. I’ll be updating that page and monitoring for issues. So far there is a known issue that Microsoft is holding back updates for certain Dell machines that will have issues. It’s expected […]

Today is the day that a certain security researcher was supposed to drop something awful on the Windows ecosystem. It’s unclear to me if the “awful thing” has yet to be dropped or if it’s already been patched behind the scenes. Bottom line today is just like every other normal release date. We need to […]

ON SECURITY By Susan Bradley If you are a Windows 11 owner, it’s wise to review your security practices on a regular basis. Recently, I’ve come across a new tool that you may want to check out. The advantage? It uses only official Microsoft built-in techniques that are documented and approved. In addition, it comes […]

You probably saw in the news the story about the young man brought up on charges. I’ve seen more than a few folks on social media concerned about the privacy implications of a GDID. (More about that identifier here). I personally have a hard time putting up my gee whiz privacy outrage for a guy […]

NETWORKING By Simon Bisson Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) routers are more secure than you think — although they could do with a little help from their friends. Way back when we used dial-up to connect to the Internet, software firewalls such as ZoneAlarm were all we needed to protect our PCs — because slow-speed connections […]

The secure boot deadline day came and went and I don’t see massive gnashing of teeth, nor screams of computers not booting. That doesn’t mean I don’t see IT admins still working through issues about getting these certificates installed, but for consumers, your systems still worked just fine. On a German site (use the translate button), […]

ON SECURITY By Susan Bradley When I started writing this column, I planned to open with the forthcoming end of the Windows 10 ESU. Oops. On June 24, Microsoft changed its mind. It decided to extend the Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for another year, until October 12, 2027. You can find the […]

Per Microsoft: June security update might fail to install with error code 0x80070002 Status Resolved Affected platforms Server VersionsMessage IDOriginating KBResolved KB Windows Server 2016 WI1395301 KB5094122 – Microsoft received reports that the June 2026 security update (the Originating KBs listed above) might fail to install on some devices running Windows Server 2016. This issue […]

I’ve updated the master patch list here.  Please note I am not recommending installing updates at this time, we are just testing and reporting. I’ll be updating that page and monitoring for issues. As always, thank you all for supporting the cause! Remember we use the “name your price” model where you can choose how much […]

This month Microsoft released a record number of vulnerabilities.  208 in fact. We are on track to have a bumper crop of vulnerabilities. Is the reason we are having so many identified due to artificial intelligence? There’s no detail as to how the vulnerabilities were identified. The currently exploited bug in the form of CVE-2026-41091 […]

Chrome has had a zero day patched yesterday.  We had Microsoft Build last week (gee golly AI agents I can hardly wait), and Apple is also having their developer conference this week where AI is now in the search on Safari. Meanwhile in the real world of real users using actual operating systems, just a […]

ON SECURITY By Susan Bradley Normally, I like to give actionable information. This article won’t do that. Sure, I’ll give you a few tips here and there, but for the vast majority of this week’s column, I’ll be pointing out instances of vendor arrogance. I’m going to begin with Microsoft (of course, and deservedly so), […]

ON SECURITY By Susan Bradley Passwords. We’ve had them for a long time. They’ve served us well. But they are also subject to attacks — phishing and spoofing. Microsoft and many other vendors want us to move to passkeys. Unfortunately, the transition has not been easy or clear. Passwords are what we are used to. […]

ON SECURITY By Susan Bradley The “edge,” by which I mean the network hardware standing between the Internet and the PCs and devices on your network, is a first line of defense against attackers. What’s on your edge? At any point during the day, attackers are out to get someone. You may not be the […]