Bloomberg reports Microsoft Corp. said that the alleged hackers behind the impressive attacks on numerous U.S. government agencies also accessed the company’s internal source code. The company stressed that the hackers did not manage to make any changes to their source code, but acknowledged that they had access to it, without clarifying for how long or which programs the impacted files corresponded to.
“We detected unusual activity with a small number of internal accounts and upon review, we discovered one account had been used to view source code in a number of source code repositories,” Microsoft said Thursday in a blog post that it is continually updating with data on the attack investigation. “The account did not have permissions to modify any code or engineering systems and our investigation further confirmed no changes were made.”
A Microsoft spokesperson did not want to say what source code the hackers had access to. The source code shows how computer programs work and are used to create products. Accessing this code could have given hackers valuable information about how to exploit vulnerabilities within programs or avoid detection. Microsoft said that its security philosophy, or “threat model,” anticipates that its source code could be compromised and that defense tools are created with that in mind.
Previously Microsoft said it had received a malicious software update from the information technology provider SolarWinds Corp, which could have been used in the attack on government bodies and companies around the world. For the most part, the details are still unknown, such as the number of organizations that were victims and what type of information the hackers obtained. In December, Bloomberg News reported that investigators determined that at least 200 organizations had been compromised.
The cyber-attack could have begun in October 2019 and could still be active, according to US authorities, who consider it ‘enormously difficult’ to completely restore security to the affected systems.
Microsoft said that the hackers did not use the SolarWinds update to access the internal account, but refused to give details about how they gained access. The company also did not specify in its publication which code repositories they had access to, or how long the hackers had been on the company’s network, but reiterated that there is no indication that their systems had been used to attack others.
“This activity has not put at risk the security of our services or any customer data, but we want to be transparent and share what we’re learning as we combat what we believe is a very sophisticated nation-state actor,†the company said.
Can you believe November is already over? It’s been a wild year with lots of surprises (some better than others) but surely some of the best were brought to all of us by the tech industry, which never stops!Â
Here are the highlights of the November 2020 tech news:
The next release of Ubuntu Linux is Ubuntu 21.04 code-named Hirsute Hippo development begins. And the daily build .iso images are now available. We tried to find out the expected new features.
The new feature is part of Otter Live Notes, which was integrated into Zoom for some subscribers earlier this year. The feature will transcribe the speaker’s words and display them on screen in almost real-time, with a delay of about two seconds. Transcriptions can be browsed, highlighted and annotated live during the meeting.
The supposed 14th-gen range will have Gen13 graphics, the same as Intel’s DG3 discrete graphics card (which is also mentioned in the leak – remember that DG1 is just out in the form of Intel’s Iris Xe Max GPU for laptops, and DG2 will run with Xe high-performance gaming architecture next year, so it’s not yet clear where DG3 will fit in). Obviously, treat all this with a suitable degree of caution.
You can always count on the good folks at Tom’s Hardware to test out the latest CPUs and give a detailed review of their features and performance. this time it’s the turn of AMD’s Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X that according to the review has “set the new benchmark for high-end gaming and application performance, all while delivering incredible power efficiencyâ€
WordPress’ Core systems team had an eventful day when an error in the auto-update system caused sites to update to WordPress 5.5.3-alpha-49449, including live production sites with no auto-update constants defined.
Sites that were accidentally updated also installed all the default themes released over the last decade, as well as Akismet. Developers will need to manually delete the bundled themes that they don’t need.
The latest tech hearing was a study in contrasts. Contrasts between lawmakers who made an effort to stay on topic in a hearing ostensibly about social media and the 2020 election and those who… just talked about whatever was on their minds.
Also contrasts between then and now. Social media companies previously treated any attempt at Section 230 reform as radioactive; now, they’ve come around to cooperating so they’re not cut out of the conversation altogether.
The newly announced CPU is Arm’s first serious contender in the high-performance CPU market, currently dominated by Intel and AMD. The Arm Cortex-A78C is part of the Cortex-A78 family of CPUs that Arm unveiled earlier this year in May 2020. But while the A78 was pitched for mobile devices, the A78C is designed specifically for high-performance, always-on devices such as laptops.
A notice on Amazon Web Services’ status page said it was experiencing problems with Kinesis, its service that processes large streams of data, causing “increased error rates†for a number of websites. The outage also impacted its ability to post updates to the status page.
Among the services that reported issues as a result of the outage were Amazon’s smart security subsidiary Ring, Roku, software maker Autodesk, fintech lending company Affirm, Target’s Shipt delivery service, and the subway status site operated by New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Tribune Publishing properties the Baltimore Sun and the Chicago Tribune also reported errors.
The latest 2020 Business Threat Landscape report from security firm Bitdefender has said that this could be the worst year in cybersecurity history, as, despite multiple warnings, many firms still aren’t ready to protect themselves.
Bitdefender’s report found that the “new normal” of remote working had led many businesses to face difficulties in ensuring their online protection, with 50% of organizations “completely unprepared” to face a scenario in which they had to migrate their entire workforce in working from home environment.
Thank you for reading. See you again in our December 2020 Tech News Roundup!
Up until a few years ago, many companies had a large, clunky iron box on which their calls depended. A lot of cables went in and out, fed by analog or ISDN lines at best. This way SMEs could get up to 30 voice channels if they could afford the high price tag.
Companies have replaced the now obsolete Analogical telephones or ISDN accesses with brand new IP telephones, making the process easier, cheaper, and more reliable than ever before. These are some of the advantages for which they have taken the step to VoIP:
Reduced Costs
Did you know that if your company has several branches with the same IP telephone provider, the calls made from one branch to another will be free? The same happens with calls to other customers of the same operator since within the same operator these calls are usually not billed. Thus, one of the most important reasons why SMEs are switching to IP telephones is because it lowers their monthly operations costs significantly.
The price per minute of a VoIP call is much cheaper than using a traditional telephone line. Thus, a call from a fixed line to a cell phone, lasting 5 minutes, could cost as much as 93% more if done from your usual analog phone, compared to the cost of the call from a VoIP. you don’t have to be a math genius to see the difference is worth it!
VoIP has better sound quality
Whenever you make a phone call using analog phones, usually you hear humming, interference, and other noises during calls from old systems or damaged lines, which makes conversations unpleasant in most cases. With the arrival of VoIP, all this disappeared and the sound quality has greatly improved.
Considering that the human voice ranges from 50 Hz to 8 kHz, it’s important to note that traditional telephone services only reach the 300 Hz to 3.4 kHz frequency range, while VoIP provides audio from 50 Hz to 7 kHz, which is a lot closer to the actual, natural sound of the voice.
Unlike traditional phone service, where channels were limited to the contracted lines, with a VoIP service you now can have as many simultaneous channels as you need. It is no longer necessary for someone to “free the line” in order to call.
For businesses or companies that have different departments that have to be constantly making phone calls, this is a great advantage because it’s so much easier to set a new line whenever a new member joins your team.
Make and receive calls from anywhere
Forget about call forwarding or people leaving you messages on an answering machine while you are away from your office. VoIP lets you use any smartphone with an IP telephony app (Softphone), allowing you to make and receive calls from anywhere.
You can use have a number associated with the app or have your office number’s extension added to your smartphone and phone number. This way, you can be available whenever you want, wherever you are.
Simple installation
IP phone services use the Internet to connect your calls, so you only need a line that provides an Internet connection. This translates to fewer cables, less maintenance, and less hassle when it comes to installation.
All VoIP communication is done through Ethernet cables, which you most likely already have since it’s the same one used for computers. So, if your workstations have a computer and a telephone, you won’t need to make any new installation: it is already done! The same type of cable used to connect your PC is the one you use for a VoIP terminal, you’ll just need to add a new one, so both your PC and VoIP phone have its own cable.
Do you constantly move around the office or share the same phone with other people? There are wireless IP phone terminals that make it easy to move around without being bound by cables, making it easy to move or pass the phone around without worrying about any cables attached to the receiver.
VoIP switchboards are always operative
With VoIP, the switchboard is in the Cloud, saving you space and time, especially if you need to reconfigure it. Need to switch from your current call to an incoming one? Change groups? Change schedules? No problem! You can easily do it using the web panel of the virtual switchboard. Your calls enter the virtual switchboard and, depending on the set configuration, they’ll be delivered to you in the form and to the extensions you choose.
If it is not within working hours, the switchboard will indicate it to the caller with a pre-recorded message that you can conveniently configure and record. If for any reason, whether it is a vacation or some other unforeseen event, you have to leave your business without power, the virtual switchboard will continue to pick up the calls and play the recorded message. This way, you can tell your customers when you’ll be back in service or set up a detour to a cell phone.
Unlike analog switchboards, which require almost continuous investment for maintenance, a virtual switchboard allows everything to work properly within its ecosystem. All parts that compose it are managed so that maintenance is transparent to you. This way you will always have a completely updated telephone system without having to worry about its maintenance.
Running VoIP on a Dedicated Server
Dedicated servers continue to be the economical choice for providing an exclusive set of resources solely devoted to your VOIP needs. Companies with dedicated bare-metal servers can give you increased performance, greater security, and exclusive use of the server’s system and network resources for all your VoIP needs.
By having your VoIP system on the same dedicated server as your website, lots of new options to communicate with users, clients, or visitors become available for your business.Â
Some of our all-time favorites features are:
Clients being able to make a direct call to your staff
Clients sending texts or call your mobile number
Sending emails with direct links to start a call from their computer to your business’ phone or sales team
Setting a clickable phonebook system to contact a specific person or department
These are just some of the things you can set by having a VoIP in a dedicated server with your website, the possibilities stretch far beyond this small list. One thing is sure, your level of ease and options to communicate with your clients will be far better with a VoIP system. The advantages are multiple and important; you will gain in price, quality, efficiency, versatility, and functionality. In the recent history of technology, it is like switching from analog to digital television.
If you’re on the lookout for a VoIP dedicated server provider, why not check what we have at ServerPronto? We’ve been supporting businesses that host or resell their own VoIP, Voice over IP, and IP telephony systems for over 15 years.
Our smart dedicated servers enable you to install your own VoIP server software, without limitation. Choose an open-source VoIP system like Asterisk, or any other IP PBX/SIP technology you prefer.
Spooky season is upon us as we get ready for the last stretch of the year. Certainly, 2020 presented many challenges most of us were not ready for, but the human ability to adapt and prosper knows no limits! Many tech industries and startups took the challenges the new normal posed and flipped them to their advantage, never stopping their developments and keeping the fire of innovation burning as bright as ever.
For our October news roundup, we bring you a mix of tips to take your zoom game to the next level, a guide to do if your hack (the first step is Don’t Panic!), news from Microsoft Security, how Google is working to improve their spell-checking, and information about new malware scam to keep an eye out for!
the search and advertising behemoth announced it will soon be rolling out a new spelling algorithm that promises even better suggestions for misspelled words.
Google made the announcement during its “Search On” event this week. During the same event, it also unveiled a new search feature that lets users search for a song by humming or whistling it. Google says that 15 percent of search queries each day are ones that it’s never seen before, and that’s largely because they’re straight-up misspelled.
Given that Google’s whole business is based on finding the information you need as fast as possible, it’s only natural the company would invest a lot in finding ways to improve the service bt taking user spelling errors into account and finding better ways to work around them, or, in this case, to fix them.
Zoom has become one of the most used digital communication tools out there amidst the whole pandemic times we’re living through, with many people spending a considerable chunk of their daily time using the video calling platform for work, getting in touch with family and friends, school, and even getting tech support!
If you want to take your mastery of this very useful tool, don’t miss these 10 tricks on how to get the most out of zoom and stand out at your next book club video conference or just to say hi to your grandma and show her your Halloween costume.
October is the month of horror, scary thrills, and all things spooky. Now, what’s scarier than a new malware scam?! and this one, even put on a costume.
“Devil in Disguise†is a new Malware Scam that comes trick-or-treating to your computer, as the name implies, disguised as a Windows 10 update. A report from Tech Radar asserts that a new Windows 10 update malware scam is buzzing up, and it’s mainly aiming the people through their e-mail accounts.
If you want to know more about it Tech news today explains how it works and how to avoid it. If you ask us, we prefer to get our thrills from scary movies rather than pc malware.
If that last bit about malware left you feeling a little scared for your online security, this one might cheer you up. Technology behemoth Microsoft is constantly looking for better ways to protect their user’s information from any online threat, and one of their latest developments towards a safer platform is the “Zero Trust Networking Security Management Modelâ€
According to Microsoft, the Zero Trust security model assumes that everything behind the corporate firewall is unsafe. It verifies each request, whether it is from a closed or an open network. Zero Trust always emphasizes the “never trust, always verify†motto regardless of what resource the system requests access. The model fully verifies, authorizes, and encrypts all access requests before they grant access.
Getting hacked is probably one of the scariest things that can happen to you online. If you’ve been a victim of these internet ghouls or just want to read ahead to prepare yourself if the time ever comes, this quick guide posted in Popular Mechanics can help you take back control over your accounts and information.
How do you know if one of your accounts has been compromised? In a classic scenario, that could include unusual activity on your bank account, but there’s a good chance you may also receive alerts from Google, Facebook, or Apple that a sign-in attempt has been made on your account. That doesn’t necessarily translate to a hacked account, but it’s certainly a red flag if those sign-in attempts didn’t come from you.
After what some people have called a disastrous tenure in the startup sphere, Quibi, a short-form mobile-native video platform, is shutting down, according to a newly published support page on their site. The startup, co-founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, had raised nearly $2 billion in its lifetime as a private company.
We finally reached the last quarter of 2020, as the tech industry keeps moving forward and making headlines. Giants like Google and Facebook are jumping into new projects to connect the world in better ways, Nvidia is acquiring Ai company Arm while they also prepare to launch new products, and Amazon is offering safer ways to get your groceries home. Read all about it in this month’s news roundup!
We enter the final quarter of 2020 with a new sense of accomplishment. Overcoming this year has been a real challenge for most people and the tech industry is not the exception. Adapting to the new normal, tech companies have brought innovation to consumers, and this is are some of the highlights for August 2020!
It’s that time again, a new version of Python is imminent. Now in beta (3.9.0b3), we will soon be seeing the full release of Python 3.9.
Some of the newest features are incredibly exciting, and it will be amazing to see them used after release. In this New HackerNoon entry, Gajesh Naik covers the following:
A few months ago, Japanese engineers imagined and designed a smart facial mask connected to an app that makes it capable of transcribing dictation, amplifying the wearer’s voice, and translating speech into eight different languages (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, English, Spanish and French.)
Called “C-Mask,†the unit is made of white plastic and silicone. It carries an integrated microphone that connects to the wearer’s smartphone via Bluetooth.
The new button is currently showing up on the Netflix app for TV devices, much to many users’ surprise. Some users thought the addition could be fun or useful, while others just seem confused.
When pressed, Netflix will randomly play content it thinks you’ll like. This could be a movie or show you’re currently watching, something you’ve saved to your list or a title that’s similar to something you’ve already watched, the company says.
The Justice Department released a complaint Thursday describing a thwarted malware attack against an unidentified company in Sparks, Nevada, where Tesla has a factory. And Elon Musk confirmed in a tweet that Tesla was the target: “This was a serious attack.â€
Customers can now deploy parts of their application that require ultra-low latency at the edge of 5G networks using the same AWS APIs, tools, and functionality they use today, while seamlessly connecting back to the rest of their application and the full range of cloud services running in an AWS Region.
By embedding AWS compute and storage services at the edge of 5G networks, AWS Wavelength enables developers to serve edge computing use cases that require ultra-low latency like machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and video and game streaming.
There can be a dozen reasons why someone should move their websites or apps to another host. Keep reading to find a few of the top reasons, and if any of the following sound familiar to you, you might want to think about changing to a new provider.
1. Slow Website
When you first decided to get your hosting provider, you may have picked one from a quick search on the internet, as many people do; but as your website grew and traffic became higher the web hosting provider you picked first might not be enough for your current needs.
Slow loading speed can negatively affect your website’s usability, increasing the chance of users abandoning the site, creates an increased bounce rate -meaning users and potential clients leave your site after visiting a single page- and considerably affects your SEO ranking, which is never a good thing.
Shared hosting servers can give you this type of problems, since the server is hosting many sites, the resources are being used by all those sites, sometimes causing slow loading speed, among other issues. A dedicated server, on the other hand, only hosts a single tenant and allocates all the resources to it, which can translate into faster loading speed.
2. Lots of Downtime:
Downtime is only a good thing when it implies you having a relaxing moment. Having your website down? Not relaxing at all! If the service provider you currently have is experiencing lots of downtimes, that is a major red flag and a sign that you should move your business to another place.
At any given moment, downtime is a bad thing but if it happens during your website’s busiest hours, it’ll be especially harmful to your business. You can end up losing website visitors, leads, impact customer experience, and lose revenue! Another awful consequence of too much downtime is affecting your SEO, making your search raking drop.
If you’ve encountered downtime issues, we strongly suggest you switch to a hosting provider with guaranteed uptime to ensure you don’t lose any traffic or sales.
3. It’s just not working for You:
This one sounds like a bit of a no-brainer but sometimes it’s not. You might have some reasons to keep trying to make things work with your current hosting provider but at the end of the day, if it’s giving you more problems than benefits, is it really worth it?
The most simple and common reason to change your hosting provider to another is precisely that. When your hosting it’s just not giving you what you need to smoothly run your websites or apps, it’s time to consider a change of provider.
Another valid reason to consider if the costs of the hosting services; maybe it’s become too expensive for you and you can’t keep affording it, you can always opt for a provider that offers a lower price. ServerPronto, for example, has dedicated servers with premium features at affordable prices. When choosing a hosting service provider, it’s important to find one that has all the features you need, and also suits your budget.
Google has bought North, a company focused on building augmented reality glasses. The companies announced the news earlier today, saying that North’s “technical expertise†will help Google invest in its “hardware efforts and ambient computing future.â€
The company will stay in Kitchener-Waterloo, Canada, after its Google acquisition, and Google says it’ll continue to work on ambient computing or building a world in which tech “fades into the background.â€
The streaming behemoth announced the first $35 million of that money would be allocated into two areas: $25 million will be used to establish the “Black Economic Development Initiative,†a fund that will invest in Black financial institutions and aid Black community development corporations.
The other $10 million will be administered to Hope Credit Union to help provide new economic opportunities to underprivileged communities in the Deep South. Netflix has yet to detail how it will disburse the other $65 million.
AT&T’s low-band 5G network is expanding to 28 new regions today, including Austin, Miami, Dallas, and Salt Lake City. If you’ve been waiting for a slight speed boost over your current LTE connection and have a 5G-compatible phone, you might want to check if your neighborhood is part of this latest expansion
Amazon says its online cloud, which provides the infrastructure on which many websites rely, has fended off the most massive DDoS attack in history.
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are designed to knock a website offline by flooding it with huge amounts of requests until it crashes.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) said the February attack had fired 2.3Tbps. That is a little under half of all traffic BT sees on its entire UK network during a typical working day. The previous record, set in 2018, was 1.7Tbps.
“This is huge news for people in the industry,” said Lisa Forte, from Red Goat Cyber Security, warning it was “enormous” compared with the previous all-time high.
Biggest attack to date
“It is like comparing a moped to a super-car,” said Lisa “They are totally different beasts” she added, also stating that “These are outliers,” and reminded people that “as always with cyber-threats, we are in an arms race against attackers every day” and “This will definitely be an alarming revelation to many and could be a warning that we should not ignore.”
In a formal report about its DDoS protection service, AWS Shield, the company said the peak of the attack had been 44% larger than anything the service had seen before and resulted in a three-days of “elevated threat” status. Still, it did not identify what the attack had targeted website or online service.
Hard to track
DDoS attacks are relatively simple and rely on their sheer scale to be effective. They often utilize large numbers of machines compromised by malware to launch attacks, which can be purchased online from cyber-criminals relatively cheaply.
They have been used by groups such as the hacktivist collective Anonymous to target the websites of companies or local governments they disagree with.
However, protection services such as AWS Shield, Cloudflare, and Akamai, among others, have been used by many major online services in an attempt to limit their effectiveness.
Cloud hosting vulnerabilities
As a result of connectivity problems, billing issues, and more, developers are starting to retreat out of cloud environments and back to reliable dedicated hosting like ServerPronto.
There’s also the issue of security. The NSA says there are four classes of security vulnerabilities in the cloud, which include shared tenancy vulnerabilities, supply chain vulnerabilities, poor access controls, and misconfigurations.
These just a few of the reasons web developers across the country are leaving cloud environments like AWS and jumping back to traditional computing resources.
Dedicated Servers: a More Reliable Option
Dedicated servers have become the norm for hosting many business-class websites, especially those that include a variety of data transfer and e-commerce functionalities. Dedicated servers remain popular because they tend to come with better cost-contained payment plans with rates set by ongoing competition in the marketplace.
Classic dedicated servers are a favorite of web administrators looking for consistency and predictability when it comes to operations and payments. They are still the best option for administrators who routinely create low-performance environments for testing and want to save money while doing so.
At ServerPronto, we offer several Dedicated Server options to fit any business need. Make sure to check them out!