Yahoo has the dubious honor of having been on the receiving end of the largest data breach in history. As a consequence, the company has recently agreed to pay $50 million in damages and provide free credit monitoring services to its impacted users. The company actually suffered a pair of breaches in 2013 and in 2014, although this information was not disclosed by the company until 2016. All of the company's 3 billion users were impacted, and more than 200 million of them saw losses arising … Read more
Deleting Your Google Search History Will Soon Be Easier
Google is rolling out some important changes that will make it easier for people who use their services to control their data. They're starting with their most widely used service, which is search. In the weeks ahead, it will be easier than ever for users to delete their search history, on both PC and Android devices. The official company announcement reads, in part, as follows: "Today, we're making it easier for you to make decisions about your data directly within the Google products … Read more
IBM Invests Billions To Purchase Popular Red Hat Linux
IBM has recently announced what is to be the largest open source acquisition in history. They're buying Red Hat for a staggering $34 billion dollars. This, as the saying goes, changes everything. IBM has lagged behind its competitors for years in the area of cloud computing. When the ink dries on this deal, they'll move from a virtual non-entity in the market to the world's #1 hybrid cloud provider. If you're a Red Hat supporter, don't worry that the company is going away. The company … Read more
Uninstall Fake App Called “The Album by Google Photos”
If you take a lot of photos with your Android device, you're probably constantly on the lookout for a better way to organize them and access them. That's exactly what the authors of the malicious app called "The Album, by Google Photos" are hoping for. The app put in a brief appearance on the Microsoft store, where it claimed to be from Google but it's clearly not. Unfortunately, the authors have gone to great lengths to make it appear legitimate, and as such, it has been downloaded and … Read more
Data Breach Affects Federal Healthcare System
You probably haven't heard of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Systems. They're a low-profile division of the Department of Health and Human Services responsible for administering the Affordable Care Act. Recently, the company announced that they detected anomalous activity in the systems related to the healthcare.gov website that brokers and insurance agents use to assist people who apply for healthcare coverage. The abnormal activity was detected in the Federally Facilitated … Read more
Latest Windows 10 Update Causing Audio Issues
Microsoft hasn't been terribly impressive lately when it comes to Windows 10 updates. In fact, it's fair to say that they've been a complete mess. Just recently, they've issued updates that have deleted user files and caused crashes after creating incompatibilities with keyboard drivers. Now, (courtesy of the most recent Windows 10 update), many users are reporting that they've got no sound due to corrupted or incompatible audio drivers. The company has made hasty corrections to their … Read more
Some iOS Users Report Call Issues After Latest Update
This hasn't been a great month for two of the titans of tech. Both Apple and Microsoft have been plagued with bug-riddled updates to their operating systems. In Apple's case, their new iOS 12 had to be patched just three weeks after its release because of all the bugs the company's burgeoning user base discovered almost immediately after updating. Unfortunately, the 12.0.1 patch seems to have created almost as many issues as it solved for some users. In particular, some users are reporting … Read more
Another Data Breach, This Time At The Pentagon
As many as 30,000 people made up of a mix of both civilian and military personnel have had their personal and financial information exposed. This exposure is what has been reported as a major security breach of the Pentagon. This is proof positive that no organization is safe from watchful hackers scattered all around the world. The Associated Press report on the incident includes: "The department is continuing to gather additional information about the incident, which involves the … Read more
New Windows 10 Update Pulled For Unintended Data Deletion
Microsoft is having problems, and those problems are spilling out onto the company's massive user base. In a highly unusual move, the company pulled its latest Windows 10 update after receiving numerous complaints from users about missing files. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time the company has had problems with updates to their OS. Back in April, the company delayed a planned update because at the last minute, Blue Screen of Death issues were discovered. In another instance, they … Read more
Newest WiFi Version Will Be Called WiFi 6
Most people don't know what the latest version of WiFi is called. That's the fault of the Wi-Fi Alliance, the group that manages the implementation of WiFi. Since their earliest days, the group has insisted on a highly unconventional version numbering scheme. If you're curious, the current version is 802.11ac. The group's numbering system isn't very user friendly, which makes WiFi support fairly user un-friendly too. All that is changing, however. The next version of WiFi will simply be … Read more
