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tech geek today
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April 14, 2019If you or someone you contact via e-mail uses Microsoft’s webmail services, such as Outlook.com, then it is possible that you have been involved in a data breach. Microsoft confirmed to TechCrunch this week that the firm’s webmail services have been a victim of a data breach. Data on customers was left exposed through a support agent’s credentials which were compromised, which cybercriminals used to access the data. Of the data affected, Microsoft noted that the following information was left exposed: Email addresses Subject lines of emails Names of people within conversations Custom folder names Microsoft noted that it doesn’t know which data has been viewed, or the reasons why, but that users may experience increasing phishing or spam emails as a result of the breach, therefore, it advises users to be more vigilant when checking their emails. The breach took place over a long period of time, from 1st January 2019 to 28th March 2019. It isn’t clear how many people have been affected, but it says it was a “limited” number of people. The company did confirm that enterprise users have not been affected. Microsoft has disabled the compromised account of the support agent to prevent more data being accessed. Via ONMSFT
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Whoa! Apple added an additional confirmation step for subscriptions. This new alert comes after you confirm with Touch ID/Face ID. I hope they address this in a more elegant way in iOS 13, but I’m thrilled Apple took a definitive step to curb scam subscriptions. ???????? @pschiller pic.twitter.com/oktaEVdx0o — David Barnard (@drbarnard) April 11, 2019 I decided to test Apple’s subscription confirmation on my iPhone 6S running iOS 10.3.3, and… I didn’t give Apple enough credit yesterday! The change was done server side, so it works on all iOS versions. It also cancels when you press the home button. Once again, ???????? @pschiller pic.twitter.com/48Jt2okEyZ — David Barnard (@drbarnard) April 12, 2019
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Disney on Thursday finally unveiled how it will compete in the streaming video business now ruled by Netflix. The Mouse House gave media types and investors a first look at Disney+ — its “family friendly” video streaming service — at its annual investors’ day on Thursday. It will start Nov. 12 and cost subscribers $6.99 a month The company’s foray into streaming has been a top priority for Disney boss Bob Iger as Disney+ is being launched into a saturated market dominated by Netflix and Amazon. Tech giant Apple has also announced plans to launch its own streaming service later this year. “Deciding how to navigate this was not easy for us,” said Iger, who spoke on stage at Disney’s Burbank, Calif., headquarters. Calling it an “exciting and challenging time” for Disney, Iger said the service will be built around five Disney properties: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, LucasFilm and assets it acquired from Twenty-First Century Fox, like National Geographic. It will be the only place to stream Disney’s biggest movies after they’ve run in theaters. It will include original content, too. Via New York Post
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April 11, 2019I got this email last night the prices on YouTube TV are now on par with Slingbox “We built YouTube TV to bring you a live TV service with the content you want through a reimagined TV experience. Effective today, April 10, 2019, YouTube TV includes channels from Discovery Inc. All members will now have access to Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, and MotorTrend. In addition, EPIX is now available for an additional charge. Finally, we’ll be including the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) later this year. To keep bringing you the best service possible, we are also updating our membership pricing. The price for new and existing members will be $49.99/month. The price for new and existing members billed through Apple will be $54.99/month. Existing members will see these changes reflected in their subsequent billing cycle after May 13. The updated pricing will continue to include DVR with unlimited storage space, up to 6 accounts per household, and 3 concurrent streams. No additional fees are required for broadcast, HD, set-top box, or DVR. You can find more information in the Help Center and blog post. Thank you for being a part of YouTube TV! The YouTube TV Team”
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Today is Patch Tuesday, and while that means that all supported versions of Windows 10 get updates, older versions of Windows get patches as well. The includes Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2. If you’re on Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, you’ll get KB4493472 as the monthly rollup. You can manually download it here, and it contains the following fixes: Provides protections against Spectre Variant 2 (CVE-2017-5715) and Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754) for VIA-based computers. These protections are enabled by default for the Windows Client, but disabled by default for Windows Server. For Windows Client (IT Pro) guidance, follow the instructions in KB4073119. For Windows Server guidance, follow the instructions in KB4072698. Use these guidance documents to enable or disable these mitigations for VIA-based computers. Addresses an issue that causes the error “0x3B_c0000005_win32k!vSetPointer” when the kernel mode driver, win32k.sys, accesses an invalid memory location. Addresses an issue in which netdom.exe fails to run, and the error, “The command failed to complete successfully” appears. Addresses an issue that may prevent Custom URI Schemes for Application Protocol handlers from starting the corresponding application for local intranet and trusted sites on Internet Explorer. Addresses an issue that may cause authentication issues for Internet Explorer 11 and other applications that use WININET.DLL. This occurs when two or more people use the same user account for multiple, concurrent login sessions on the same Windows Server machine, including Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Terminal Server logons. Security updates to Windows Kernel, Windows Server, Graphics Component, Windows Input and Composition, Windows Datacenter Networking, Windows MSXML, and the Microsoft JET Database Engine. Read More Via Neowin
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Patch Tuesday has also brought a new Cumulative Update (KB4493464) for the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, taking it to Build 17134.706. with a number of fixes and improvements. See the changelog below: IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES Provides protections against Spectre Variant 2 (CVE-2017-5715) and Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754) for VIA-based computers. These protections are enabled by default for the Windows Client, but disabled by default for Windows Server. For Windows Client (IT Pro) guidance, follow the instructions in KB4073119. For Windows Server guidance, follow the instructions in KB4072698. Use these guidance documents to enable or disable these mitigations for VIA-based computers. Addresses a stop error that occurs when attempting to start the Secure Shell (SSH) client program from Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) with agent forwarding enabled using a command line switch (ssh –A) or a configuration setting. Addresses an issue that may cause applications that use MSXML6 to stop responding if an exception was thrown during node operations. Addresses an issue that causes the Group Policy editor to stop responding when editing a Group Policy Object (GPO) that contains Group Policy Preferences (GPP) for Internet Explorer 10 Internet settings. Addresses an issue that occurs when you enable per font end-user-defined characters (EUDC). The system will stop working and a blue screen will appear at startup. This is not a common setting in non-Asian regions. Security updates to Microsoft Scripting Engine, Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Windows Storage and Filesystems, Windows Server, Windows Graphics, Windows Input and Composition, Windows Kernel, Windows Virtualization, Windows MSXML, and the Microsoft JET Database Engine. KNOWN ISSUES After installing this security update, custom URI schemes for application protocol controllers may not launch the corresponding application for the local intranet and trusted sites in Internet Explorer. After installing this update, there may be problems using the Preboot Execution...
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After 17 years, support for the last Windows XP variant comes to an end. Because of changes coming to Windows Update, users have until July to apply final patches. Extended support for Windows Embedded POSReady 2009—the last supported version of Windows based on Windows XP—ended on April 9, 2019, marking the final end of the Windows NT 5.1 product line after 17 years, 7 months, and 16 days. Counting this edition, Windows XP is the longest-lived version of Windows ever—a record which is unlikely to be beaten. Other enterprise-targeted variants of Windows XP have reached end-of-life recently, with Windows Embedded Standard 2009 reaching end-of-life on January 8, 2019. Windows Embedded for Point of Service SP3 and XP Embedded SP3 reached end-of-life in 2016, while support for Windows XP Home and Professional SP3 ended five years ago, on April 8, 2014. Despite the nominal end of support for Windows XP five years ago, the existence of POSReady 2009 allowed users to receive security updates on Windows XP Home and Professional SP3 through the use of a registry hack. Microsoft dissuaded users from doing this, stating that they “do not fully protect Windows XP customers,” though no attempt was apparently made to prevent users from using this hack. With POSReady reaching the end of support, the flow of these security updates will likewise come to an end. Via TechRepublic
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Microsoft finally made its new Chromium-based Edge browser available for Windows 10 users yesterday, and it’s currently possible to choose between two different channels, Dev and Canary. The company said that preview builds for the new browser would be coming soon for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and macOS, but it’s actually already possible to install the new browser on older version of Windows. As a matter of fact, the leaked Microsoft Edge build that was discovered last month already worked on Windows 7, and it looked pretty good with the Aero interface and built-in support for PWAs. As reported by Bleeping Computer today, the Edge Dev and Canary installers do work on Windows 7, it’s just that the .exe files are hidden when you visit the new Microsoft Edge Insider website with a non-Windows 10 PC. Fortunately, you should be able to find the installers on this download page, even when you visit it on a non-Windows 10 PC. Bleeping Computer had no issue running the Edge Insider Dev build on a Windows 7 PC, though the report notes that watching videos on Netflix didn’t work, probably because of missing DRMs on the OS. We don’t have a Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 PC around to test the new Edge browser on these versions of Windows, but it would be surprising if it didn’t work. ONMSFT
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Microsoft today released the first Edge builds based on Google’s Chromium open source project, the same browser that Google’s Chrome is based on. Microsoft is even adopting the same naming scheme that Google uses for Chrome development: It is debuting Canary (preview builds that will be updated daily) and Developer builds (preview builds that will be updated weekly) today. They can both be installed alongside the old Edge as well as each other. You can download these builds now from the Microsoft Edge Insider site. In December, Microsoft embraced Chromium for Edge development on the desktop, announced it is decoupling Edge updates from Windows 10 updates, and said that Edge is coming to all supported versions of Windows and to macOS. The company also promised that the first preview builds of the Chromium-powered Edge would arrive “in early 2019,” and while it is starting to deliver on that today, the first builds are only for Windows 10 64-bit in English. Microsoft confirmed today that Beta builds are coming “in the future” and that support for 32-bit, other languages, and other operating systems “will also come over time.” Microsoft gave us access last week to an early build of Chromium Edge. The browser feels snappy and stable for a preview. That said, don’t expect it to outperform Chrome or even the old Edge. “In these first builds we are very much focused on the fundamentals and have not yet included a wide range of feature and language support that will come later,” Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president in Microsoft’s operating systems group, said in a statement. “We look forward to people starting to kick the tires and will be refining the feature set over time based on the feedback we receive.” The Verge