August 2018 – RenoGeek Computer Repair

August 27, 2018

New wave of fake anti-virus company calls hit’s Reno

Reno computer repair - fake antivirus warning — Reno computer repair – fake antivirus warning

Over the last few days the number of client’s either infected by or cold called by fake antivirus companies has increased by about 300 percent. While I have talked about these fakes for years now. It seems that more people get fooled with each new wave of attacks.

If anybody ever cold calls you about ANYTHING having to do with your computer hang up right away. It’s not a legitimate company trying to help you out.

If you get a popup on your computer telling you to call a toll free phone number to clean your computer, turn off your computer, wait a few minutes and restart it. If the popup does not come back you came across a infected website and may be okay.

If it comes back after restarting your system then you probably have an infection and you should call a computer technician ASAP for help.

August 24, 2018

T-mobile announces they have been hacked

Reno Computer Repair – T-mobile Hacked

It is being reported that on Aug 20th T-mobile was hacked and some customer information was compromised.

Quoting from their announcement…

“Our cyber-security team discovered and shut down an unauthorized access to certain information, including yours, and we promptly reported it to authorities. None of your financial data (including credit card information) or social security numbers were involved, and no passwords were compromised. However, you should know that some of your personal information may have been exposed, which may have included one or more of the following: name, billing zip code, phone number, email address, account number and account type (prepaid or postpaid).”

While claiming some of their customers “Important” data did not get hacked, it’s pretty obvious that the information that they did loose in the breach is more than enough to reset user accounts (email addresses and phone numbers) which would let even an unskilled hacker get access to many users accounts.

T-mobile claims that this breach affected less than 3% of its 77 million customers. But as always Renogeek recommends that ALL T-mobile users change their passwords to be on the safe side.

August 23, 2018September 3, 2018

Windows 10 version 1809 comes out next month

Microsoft has announced that the new update to Windows 10 will be coming out in September.

The new version “1809”, will have a number of improvements and security fixes. One of the new promises from Microsoft is that after this update, future updates will be much smaller then in the past.

Quoting from Microsoft…
“We’ll be bringing a new design for quality updates to the next major versions of Windows 10 and Windows Server,” wrote Maliha Qureshi, a Microsoft program manager. This design creates a compact update package for easier and faster deployment.”

As we all know Microsoft has a habit of falling behind on update releases. But even if they miss the reported date, it seems a safe bet that consumers should be seeing this update sometime this fall.

Update: 9/3/18

Seems as par for the course that Microsoft has pushed the date back for this update till Mid October at least.

August 22, 2018

Evidence the repeal of net neutrality is already hurting consumers

When the FCC ignored millions of comments and decided to repeal net neutrality, many thought that a floodgate of abuse would start by the major telcos and other communications companies.

While it seems they were smart enough not to hit everybody at once with higher rates and less service, there is a slow trickle of events that seem to point out how right consumer advocates were for being alarmed in the first place.

One case in point is Verizon’s throttling of the Santa Clara County Fire department during this summer’s Mendocino Complex Fire. California’s largest wildfire ever.

The fire department found that while an emergency response vehicle was deployed at the Mendocino Complex Fire, data rates were being throttled by Verizon to speeds that made the service unusable.

While this throttling may be just a minor headache on a weekend at a home trying to watch Netflix. I think anybody with average intelligence would be able to understand that being throttled in the middle of fighting a wildfire could turn deadly or at the very least cause widespread damage to property.

So as stated during the FCC hearings, net neutrality is not just an issue of convenience. In the 21st century where almost everything has to be connected to the Internet, it can be a matter of life and death.

August 16, 2018

New Intel chip flaws found

Reno Computer Repair Intel logo

Intel’s CPU’s have been discovered to have yet another hardware flaw that exposes them to a major new vulnerability.

The flaw being called Foreshadow, has been identified by security researchers that claim all Intel CPU’s released after 2015 may be affected. This new flaw may also affect cloud based systems (aka servers). And even extends to virtual machines. A new first for this kind of issue.

The flaw may let third parties or hackers access information on a Intel based CPU. The included list of affected CPUS include the company’s high-end Core and Xeon CPUs.

August 14, 2018

Google Tracks Your Location Even If You’ve Opted Out

Reno Computer Repair - Google Tracking — Reno Computer Repair – Google Tracking

The Associated Press is reporting that Google keeps tracking you even after you have turned off location history on your devices…

This report, confirmed by computer researchers at Princeton, have found privacy issues with Google’s Location History settings affecting most Android devices and even a large percentage of iOS devices (aka Apple) for consumers that use Google Maps or Google search. The investigation found that even when users “paused” Location History on mobile devices, Google services will continued to save user data.