ComputerWurx

As you will recall, there are 31 days in the month of January. Are you aware Microsoft released patches and/or updates on 15 days this past January? The situation has gotten to the point that you need to check and install patches and updates frequently for security reasons. Many of the patches were to fix security issues. Restart often.

Meltdown and Spectre: Here’s what Intel, Apple, Microsoft, others are doing about it Intel, Microsoft, ARM, and others have responded. We dig in.

Have you restarted your computer recently? You should restarted about weekly to be sure any pending updates are installed. Not doing so can lead to the computer behaving in an unpredictable manner. Restarting over the weekend is a good time.

A brief recap of the problem: modern processors perform speculative ex*****on. To maximize performance, they try to execute instructions even before it is certain that those instructions need to be executed. For example, the processors will guess at which way a branch will be taken and execute instructions on the basis of that guess. If the guess is correct, great; the processor got some work done without having to wait to see if the branch was taken or not. If the guess is wrong, no big deal; the results are discarded and the processor resumes executing the correct side of the branch.

Meltdown and Spectre: Here’s what Intel, Apple, Microsoft, others are doing about it Intel, Microsoft, ARM, and others have responded. We dig in.

Microsoft has suspended delivering the latest Windows update to certain systems with AMD processors after reports that the update was causing the machines to crash with a blue screen of death when booting. The update contains countermeasures against both the Meltdown and Spectre attacks; although AMD systems are not affected by Meltdown, they're vulnerable to Spectre.

Bad docs and blue screens make Microsoft suspend Spectre patch for AMD machines Blue screen crashes on decade-old AMD chips seem to be widespread.

Early last year, a piece of Mac malware came to light that left researchers puzzled. They knew that malware dubbed Fruitfly captured screenshots and we**am images, and they knew it had been installed on hundreds of computers in the US and elsewhere, possibly for more than a decade. Still, the researchers didn't know who did it or why.

Prosecutors say Mac spyware stole millions of user images over 13 years Fruitfly creepware turned on cameras and mics, automatically detected p**n searches.

Microsoft reveals how Spectre updates can slow your PC down It’s bad news for older Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/9/16868290/microsoft-meltdown-spectre-firmware-updates-pc-slowdown

Microsoft reveals how Spectre updates can slow your PC down It’s bad news for older Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines

It seems Microsoft pushed out updates yesterday. That means you should restart your computer today or Thursday. After that you may not have a choice of when the computer will restart. You don't want the computer to restart while you are making entries into Quickbooks, for example.

World's biggest botnet has sent 12.5 million ransomware emails Security experts from anti-virus software company Forcepoint, based in Austin, Texas, were among the first to raise the alarm about the malware, which targeted machines across the globe.