Posted on Sunday October 21, 2018
Microsoft is including Google's mitigation for the Spectre Variant 2 speculative execution side-channel attack in the next release of Windows 10, currently codenamed 19H1. ZDNet reports: Google developed a software-based mitigation for Spectre Variant 2 called Retpoline that constrains speculative execution behavior sufficiently to mitigate an attack. Google's testing found its fix had a negligible effect on performance. Retpoline was implemented by Linux distributions such as Red Hat and SUSE, as well as by Oracle for Oracle Linux 6 and 7. And now, as MSPoweruser spotted, Microsoft's kernel engineers have confirmed that Retpoline will be part of the next version of Windows 10, 19H1, which is due out next year. Google's Retpoline plus Microsoft's own kernel modifications have reduced the performance impact to "noise level", according to Mehmet Iyigun of Microsoft's Windows and Azure kernel team. "Yes, we have enabled Retpoline by default in our 19H1 flights along with what we call 'import optimization' to further reduce perf impact due to indirect calls in kernel-mode. Combined, these reduce the perf impact of Spectre v2 mitigations to noise-level for most scenarios," wrote Iyigun. "The bad news is that Microsoft didn't include the Retpoline fix in the latest Windows 10 October 2018 Update Redstone 5, or RS5, release, even though, according to CrowdStrike researcher Alex Ionescu, it could have," reports ZDNet.
Posted on Saturday October 20, 2018
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Sensitive information belonging to roughly 75,000 individuals was exposed after a government healthcare sign-up system got hacked, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said on Friday. The agency said that "anomalous system activity" was detected last week in the Direct Enrollment system, which Americans use to enroll in healthcare plans via the insurance exchange established under the Affordable Care Act -- also known as Obamacare. A breach was declared on Wednesday. It's unclear why the agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, chose to not announce the incident sooner. Officials said the hacked portal is used by insurance agents and brokers to help Americans sign up for coverage and that no other systems were involved. The affected system has been disabled. CMS said it hoped to restore it before the end of next week. "I want to make clear to the public that HealthCare.gov and the Marketplace Call Center are still available, and open enrollment will not be negatively impacted," CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement. "We are working to identify the individuals potentially impacted as quickly as possible so that we can notify them and provide resources such as credit protection."
Posted on Friday October 19, 2018
Although Windows 10 is packed with wonderful new features, it's far from perfect. Users have complained about storage, connectivity, and update issues, among other things. If you've encountered any of these issues, no need to panic. We have listed down five simple fixes to the most common Windows 10 problems.
Posted on Thursday October 18, 2018
As a small- or medium-sized business (SMB) owner, you need to stay on top of IT trends to get ahead. However, many new IT solutions are quite confusing. One of those is app virtualization. To clear up the confusion, here is a quick overview of what it's all about.
Posted on Wednesday October 17, 2018
Now that digital collaboration is an integral part of any business, VoIP has become indispensable. Unfortunately, as it becomes more widespread, so do the threats against it. These attacks may not be as serious as ransomware or phishing, but they're just as dangerous to SMBs. Here are five ways to protect your VoIP network against these threats.
Posted on Tuesday October 16, 2018
Office 365 is already packed with the latest productivity features, but for premium perks, opt for the Office Insider program. This gives Office subscribers a heads up on upcoming Microsoft releases and updates before other companies do. Here's why Office Insider is perfect for business owners.
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