Category: Security

Checking Your Adobe Account for Recent Hacking

Adobe attracts regular attention regarding the security of its products most notably its Adobe Acrobat Reader and Flash software. However, Adobe was caught out more recently for losing millions of customers information containing email addresses and passwords along with the password hints. The major problem that was uncovered after this came to light was the …

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Loss of Start Screen Tiles and Desktop Icons After Installing Bitdefender

Given that Microsoft Security Essentials has copped a bit of a pasting in the press lately I thought I would review both the current offerings and my stance on antivirus products. Of course, free is a good price for many plus it is an easy way for antivirus vendors to upsell you to other bundled …

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Scheduled Tasks and Windows Account Lock Outs

Just sharing a rather frustrating experience of mine from the last few days. As is the case with many large companies, the fleet of computers is managed via Active Directory and one or more domains. Users main interaction with AD would be in the form of authentication with a username and password but also for …

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Keep Your E-mail Address Private

Not too long ago I wrote about DoNotTrackMe from Abine which blocks all sorts of tracking cookies from being accepted by your web browser. It’s a good way to stop targeted advertising as well as companies building up a profile on your browsing habits. However, it can be just as bad when you have to …

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A Safer Way to Save Your Wi-Fi Passwords

The problem with Wi-Fi networks these days is that while you can control the password used on your own networks you can’t do the same for other Wi-Fi networks that are not under your control. This can make keeping track of passwords difficult particularly if you choose not to have your operating system remember them, …

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Go-Go-Gadget Passport!

Well, the Australian Passport Office have managed to turn around my passport a day earlier than anticipated which means I now have a passport with embedded biometric identification. In other words, there is a chip in the middle of the passport which stores a JPEG of each biometric feature (in this case only the photo …

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Store Secure Notes with LastPass

It’s so very tempting to write down sensitive information like passwords and PINs or store them in text messages in your mobile phone but it can’t hurt to take some extra security precautions to ensure that this information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Recently, I kicked off the passport renewal process given that my current …

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Check Your Router for Universal Plug and Play Vulnerability

In the news recently, it was discovered that a whole stack of consumer routers have copied and pasted Intel’s UPnP reference code into their router firmware. Unfortunately, the UPnP protocol was designed to be used on private networks in order to allow for the automatic configuration of port forwarding thus avoiding the need for regular …

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Wi-Fi Done Right @ The Peninsula Hotel, Bangkok

In the past, I have written about the woes of international travel when it comes to keeping connected online with many hotels choosing to slug guests heavily for Wi-Fi in rooms with little or no coverage in common areas of the hotel. Yes, I can hear some of you crying that being on holiday should …

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LastPass Sentry – Even More Password Protection

While this is a couple of months old I thought I would share this anyway as I thought this was a really neat feature. If you use LastPass as your password manager across your browsers you can execute a check of your account credentials through use of the LastPass Security Challenge. It will scan all …

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