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By zikalify · Posted
Microsoft 365 security in the spotlight after Washington Post hack by Paul Hill The Washington Post has come under cyberattack which saw Microsoft email accounts of several journalists get compromised. The attack, which was discovered last Thursday, is believed to have been conducted by a foreign government due to the topics the journalists cover, including national security, economic policy, and China. Following the hack, the passwords on the affected accounts were reset to prevent access. The fact that a Microsoft work email account was potentially hacked strongly suggests The Washington Post utilizes Microsoft 365, which makes us question the security of Microsoft’s widely used enterprise services. Given that Microsoft 365 is very popular, it is a hot target for attackers. Microsoft's enterprise security offerings and challenges As the investigation into the cyberattack is still ongoing, just how attackers gained access to the accounts of the journalists is unknown, however, Microsoft 365 does have multiple layers of protection that ought to keep journalists safe. One of the security tools is Microsoft Defender for Office 365. If the hackers tried to gain access with malicious links, Defender provides protection against any malicious attachments, links, or email-based phishing attempts with the Advanced Threat Protection feature. Defender also helps to protect against malware that could be used to target journalists at The Washington Post. Another security measure in place is Entra ID which helps enterprises defend against identity-based attacks. Some key features of Entra ID include multi-factor authentication which protects accounts even if a password is compromised, and there are granular access policies that help to limit logins from outside certain locations, unknown devices, or limit which apps can be used. While Microsoft does offer plenty of security technologies with M365, hacks can still take place due to misconfiguration, user-error, or through the exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities. Essentially, it requires efforts from both Microsoft and the customer to maintain security. Lessons for organizations using Microsoft 365 The incident over at The Washington Post serves as a stark reminder that all organizations, not just news organizations, should audit and strengthen their security setups. Some of the most important security measures you can put in place include mandatory multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users, especially for privileged accounts; strong password rules such as using letters, numbers, and symbols; regular security awareness training; and installing any security updates in a timely manner. Many of the cyberattacks that we learn about from companies like Microsoft involve hackers taking advantage of the human in the equation, such as being tricked into sharing passwords or sharing sensitive information due to trickery on behalf of the hackers. This highlights that employee training is crucial in protecting systems and that Microsoft’s technologies, as advanced as they are, can’t mitigate all attacks 100 percent of the time. -
By Case_f · Posted
Comments like these are genuinely fascinating to me because they're so far from anything I experience as a daily user of Win 11 since the first public beta. AI stuff? Have it turned off completely, never pops up anywhere. Forced MS account? Yes, they strongly recommend it and kinda push it lately during big updates and such, but it's still not forced. Pop up dialogs when you're not using Edge? Yeah, I vaguely remember seeing some reminders about using Edge a long time ago. I just clicked them away and kept using Vivaldi as usual (but frankly, I'd still much rather use Edge than Chrome - which I'm forced to use at work - I've grown to dislike Google a lot more than Microsoft lately, even if I am still deeply rooted in their ecosystem unfortunately). Awful context menus? A single simple tweak will get you the old context menus. Search in Windows using Bing? People use search in Windows for anything else than to search for local files or apps? Why? I just don't get a lot of the complains people have about Win 11. -
By PurSpyk · Posted
Nice, but if you change the colour, the folder no longer shows image preview on the actual folder icon. -
By David Uzondu · Posted
Taiwan hits Huawei and SMIC with new export restrictions by David Uzondu Taiwan has added Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, or SMIC, to its export control entity list. According to CNBC, this means companies in Taiwan now need a special license to ship certain high-tech goods to these two mainland Chinese firms. The conflict has been escalating for a while. The United States government, for instance, has been going after Huawei since at least 2019, putting the telecom equipment maker on its own Entity List over national security fears. The worry has always been about Huawei's connections to the Chinese government and the potential for its network gear to be used for spying. The United Kingdom eventually followed suit, ordering all Huawei 5G equipment to be ripped out of its networks by 2027. Remember, in December 2020, the US added SMIC to its Entity List over its alleged ties to the Chinese military. The goal was to choke off the chipmaker's access to the tools it needs to produce the most advanced semiconductors. Despite all the pressure, the two firms managed to collaborate and produce a 7nm chip for Huawei's Mate 60 phone, which annoyed some people in Washington who thought the sanctions had completely crippled China's chipmaking ambitions. This new blacklisting from Taiwan just tightens the screws even more. Last year, research firm TechInsights found a TSMC-made chip inside a Huawei AI training card. That was a huge "oh no" moment because it showed that, despite all the American restrictions, Huawei was still getting its hands on advanced Taiwanese silicon. That discovery led directly to the U.S. Commerce Department leaning on TSMC to shut down access for Chinese clients to specific AI chips. Huawei had cleverly exploited loopholes to hoard millions of GPU dies for its Ascend AI chip program, a direct attempt to build a homegrown alternative to Nvidia's dominant hardware. For Taiwan, this feels less like a trade issue and more like a matter of survival. The island's lead in chipmaking, largely thanks to TSMC, is often seen as its "silicon shield." The idea is that global reliance on Taiwanese chips makes any military action by China a huge risk for the world. Letting its most advanced tech reach the country that threatens its very existence could seriously weaken that shield. Source: CNBC -
By Case_f · Posted
Anything is "news worthy" if it's new and someone writes about it. Something like an inconsequential note about "correcting a typo in the readme file" buried deep in the changelog could become "news worthy". And, on related note, anything can be used as a justification to complain about something one is clearly already biased against. Say, if someone's biased against Windows 11, they could see even an inconsequential change like an added time display as a reason to rant about "Microsoft these days"... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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