13Nov 2024 by nathan

November 2024 News and Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Upcoming End of Life for Windows 10 - We're officially under one year before the Windows 10 End of Life (EOL), currently scheduled for 14 October 2025. Prior to that date, you will need to make certain that all Windows 10 computers are either upgraded (Windows 11 Requirements) or replaced. Additional information is available from Microsoft here. Holiday Schedule Thanksgiving - We will be closed Thursday, 28 November and Friday, 29 November 2024 for the Thanksgiving holiday and the office will open for regular business hours on Monday, 2 December 2024. Christmas - We will be closed Tuesday, 24 December and Wednesday, 25 December 2024 for the Christmas holiday and the office will open for regular business hours on Thursday, 26 December 2024. New Year - We will be closed…
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31Oct 2024 by nathan

Email sent to Microsoft 365 is being incorrectly marked as phishing (Issue ID: EX921449)

CTC NEWS, Industry News
Microsoft has confirmed a bug in the Microsoft 365 Exchange component where emails to some users are being incorrectly marked as phishing emails and, in many cases, automatically deleted. Microsoft is aware of the issue and has taken measures to correct it but the issue is ongoing while the fix is moving through the Microsoft environment. This issue is impacting some emails into our helpdesk. We have taken steps to mitigate it but if you send an email to our helpdesk and do not get a response or acknowledgement within one hour, please call our office directly. I apologize for any inconvenience but, at this time, I believe that we are just waiting on the fix from Microsoft to make it's way through the Microsoft 365 environment but will post…
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09Oct 2024 by nathan

October 2024 News & Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters
Apple / Mac Security Updates - Once again, Apple is releasing an update to it's Mac OS 15 Sequoia to address a bug in last month's update that broke a number of security tools from vendors like CrowdStrike, SentinelOne and Microsoft. Basically, if you've got an Apple device, update it :) Project Lazarus - After the initial client testing of the Project Lazarus boot disk, the consensus is that it's not viable for non-technical users. The plan at this point is to keep it for internal use and we can provide a copy to any MyIT clients that would like one but the bulk rollout to all MyIT clients will likely be suspended. Client Forms - In an effort to make requesting support easier for common tasks (onboarding and offboarding…
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18Sep 2024 by nathan

September 2024 News and Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Apple / Mac Security Updates - In addition to the usual suspects, significant security updates have been released by Apple for multiple products including iOS / iPadOS 17.7, iOS / iPadOS 18, MacOS 13.7, 14.7 and 15, tvOS 18, watchOS 11, visionOS 2 and more. Additional info is available from CISA here. Basically, if you've got an Apple device, update it :) Microsoft Recall - The short version is that Microsoft Recall is apparently not as dead as we thought (hoped) that it was and I've not seen anyone state this better than Brian Krebs here. "...But last week, the software giant clarified that what it really meant was that the ability to disable Recall was a bug/feature in the preview version of Copilot+ that will not be available to…
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09Aug 2024 by nathan

August 2024 News and Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters
Labor Day - Cyber Tech Cafe will be closed on Monday, 2 September 2024 in observance of Labor Day. CrowdStrike - I've had a lot of conversations with folks on this and believe that, in addition to the takeaways in the original post, there are three things that could have been done different. First, test the changes before you deploy it. In the case of the CrowdStrike incident, that likely would have saved the day. Second, fail gracefully. The bug caused an error at a very low level in Windows that prevented Windows from booting and required physical access to impacted systems to revive them. The fix was a very simple fix but it required physical access. Allowing the application to fail gracefully so that the systems was able to…
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22Jul 2024 by nathan
After Action Report – CrowdStrike

After Action Report – CrowdStrike

Industry News, Tech news
As many of you know, an issue with an update to CrowdStrike, a security platform installed on literally millions (if not billions) of computers worldwide, caused a global IT Outage on Friday and many organizations (and IT workers) are still feeling the sting of that outage today. The root issue appears to have been a bad configuration update from CrowdStrike that prevented affected systems from booting. We are thankful that none of our clients were directly impacted but the incident provides an excellent opportunity to "sharpen the saw" and update our internal processes. In this email, I'd like to quickly summarize what happened, some key things that we took away from the incident and some changes that we're making in as a result. What happened? CrowdStrike released a corrupt configuration…
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10Jul 2024 by nathan

July 2024 News and Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters, Tech news
Client Forms - In an effort to make requesting support easier for common tasks (onboarding and offboarding users, for example), we are launching a number of forms that clients can use to request support. Links to the forms are located at the top of our website under Client Forms. Windows Recall - We received a surprising amount of feedback on the blurb about Windows Recall in last months newsletter and, not surprisingly, literally none of it was positive. The common thread in all of the feedback was basically what are the alternatives? We don't really have a plan, just yet, but we do have some ideas. Expect more on this next month and, if you're concerned about Windows Recall for whatever reason (privacy, regulatory compliance, etc.), keep an eye out…
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25Jun 2024 by nathan

Please update your FortiGate

Industry News, Tech news
What is this about? In February of this year, Fortinet disclosed multiple vulnerabilities in the FortiOS firmware, the operating system for their entire line of products. The vulnerability was highly publicized by Fortinet, The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), news outlets, message boards and on social media and we reached out directly to all of our MyIT Clients. The vulnerability is significant because it's position in a network, often running on the Internet facing firewall protecting that network from Internet borne threats, means it's exploitable from anywhere on the Internet and successful exploitation could give an attacker full access to a vulnerable device. It's also important to note that state sponsored threat actors are known to favor (and target) these types of vulnerabilities. What do I need to…
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14Feb 2024 by nathan

February 2024 News and Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Tech news
We're Moving Cyber Tech Cafe will be moving our office to 319 North Tennessee Street, Cartersville GA on 15 March 2024. Our mailing address will remain the same. Urgent Update from Fortinet - Fortinet disclosed on 8 February 2024 a significant vulnerability in basically their entire firewall product line. The vulnerability can allow an attacker with access to the VPN interface on the affected device the ability to run code on the device. According to reports, the vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild. If you are a MyIT Client, you should have received an email on Tuesday with details on the vulnerability and, in most cases, your firewall has already been updated. If you are not a MyIT Client, we would recommend installing the update immediately if at…
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16Jan 2024 by nathan

January 2024 News and Updates

CTC NEWS, Industry News, Monthly Newsletters
Election Year Antics - In the US, this year is an election year and it's safe to assume that criminals will leverage election related topics in their pretexting for attacks (phishing, vishing, smishing, all of the ishings), so be sure to consider that when planning your security awareness training. Updates Microsoft has hit the ground running with the January 2024 Patch Tuesday, releasing updates to patch 49 flaws including 12 remote code execution and two, one is a Windows Kerberos Security Feature Bypass and the other a Hyper-V RCE, are rated critical. Microsoft releases regular updates the second Tuesday of each month, often referred to as ‘Patch Tuesday’. These updates are categorized as Low, Moderate, Important or Critical. Details on the categories are available here. The updates can include any…
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