Archive for September 14, 2022

Rogers Is The Target Of An Email #Scam…. And It’s Pretty Lame

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on September 14, 2022 by itnerd

I have to say that this phishing email which was brought to my attention by a reader of this blog is one of the worst phishing emails that I have even seen. This specific one is aimed at Rogers customers and here it is (click to enlarge):

Let’s dive in. It’s playing on the fact that Internet Explorer 8, or “the old version (IE) 8” is not supported anymore, and it’s trying to get you to upgrade your browser by logging into their phishing site using your Rogers ID. It tries to get you to do this by saying that you have 48 hours to do so. Otherwise your access to your account will be “restricted”. Creating a sense of urgency is a common tactic in phishing emails of this type.

Where this email falls off the credibility cliff is that it says this:

Protecting your information is important to us and we work continuously to strengthen our security against the threats targeting our Financial Institution.

Umm…. While Rogers does own a bank, this is targeted at their Internet users and not their bank customers. So it’s as if the rocket scientist behind this scam couldn’t decide what they were targeting, or they didn’t sweat the details.

But just for fun, I decided to go down the rabbit hole to see what their phishing website looks like. And here it is:

You’ll note that at the top, the URL or website address doesn’t go to Rogers. It goes to square.site. Which means someone set up a website on the Square platform to pull this scam off. Though the existence of this site may be short lived as I’ve informed Square about this and I suspect that it will be taken down shortly. The next thing that you’ll notice is that I entered some text in the email account and password section. Another hint that this is a scam is that the password is not not masked, as in you can see it in plain text which is not how passwords fields work. I suspect that this is the case because clearly the scammers behind this are too stupid to know how to do that. But just for fun, I pressed next and got this:

At this point you are pwned, and the scammers are going to take over your email along with whatever websites are associated with that email. Be it bank accounts, Amazon, whatever. The thing is, this is one of the most poorly executed phishing scams that I have seen in years. While I am sure that most people would never fall for this, there are some that will. However, the fact that I am publishing this will mean that even less will fall for it. And now that I’ve alerted both Rogers and Square about this, nobody will be falling for this. In the meantime if you get an email like this, delete it and move on with your life.

Hopefully you’ve learned something from this. Even though this scam is pretty lame, dissecting how this scam works will help you to avoid more “interesting” ones.

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HP Unveils New Systems To Create A More Seamless Hybrid Work Experience

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 14, 2022 by itnerd

Today at HP Amplify™ Executive Forum, HP Inc’s annual partner roadshow, the company announced new devices and solutions to help people thrive in their hybrid work environments.

With nearly half of workers having at least some flexibility in where they work in 2023, it’s critical for people to have the right technology to make personal connections and meaningful contributions while having an equal seat at the table. They want devices with personalized experiences that enable them to securely collaborate, create, and be productive no matter where they get work done. HP continues its commitment to provide the right tools for the ultimate work experience. New PCs include the HP Dragonfly Folio G3 – the hybrid-ready convertible PC for business, and the HP 34” All-in-One Desktop PC – a creative powerhouse that offers users a studio-like experience with support for dual video streams and camera switching. The new HP Z32k G3 4K USB-C Display provides an unprecedented level of detail, while the new HP 965 4K Streaming Webcam delivers crystal clear video. Enhancements to HP Proactive Insights empower IT to optimize the device experience for employees with the power of HP analytics.

Your new mobile office – HP Dragonfly Folio G3

HP continues to deliver premium experiences in its expanded Dragonfly portfolio. With a pull-forward design that seamlessly transitions from laptop to tablet, the HP Dragonfly Folio G3 empowers collaborative thinkers to create, capture, and share ideas whenever they strike. 

The HP Dragonfly Folio G3 makes brainstorming and whiteboarding ideas a personalized experience with natural and intelligent inking with the HP Dragonfly Folio Pen. The pen magnetically attaches to the device, features three programmable buttons, and can wirelessly charge to 100% in 30 minutes. Users can unleash even more creativity by using their pen on the display of the HP Dragonfly Folio to ink on a secondary connected display with HP Indirect Inking.

Enhanced by HP Presence, the HP Dragonfly Folio G3 offers collaboration features for more productive and engaging video conferencing experiences. The 8MP camera ensures users show up naturally and the 100-degree field-of-view makes it easy for another teammate to join onscreen when collaborating in person. When users want to think on their feet, HP Auto Frame keeps them in frame when they want to stand, stretch, or move around – perfect for days with back-to-back meetings. HP Dynamic Voice Leveling automatically adjusts voice volume to maintain consistency whether users are close or far from the microphone. When working remotely, users can worry less about background sounds with AI-based noise reduction that filters outbound and inbound noises. For added security, the HP Privacy Camera allows users to disable the webcam with the touch of a button.

Powered by Intel vPro® with 12th Gen Intel® Core™ processors, the HP Dragonfly Folio G3 can handle resource-intensive projects and demanding business applications with ease. For increased performance, it features upgraded memory with LPDDR5 up to 32GB and storage up to 2TB. A new thermal solution optimizes PC performance without adding significant weight or thickness. The new HP Auto Screen Dimming features helps conserve battery power for long work days.

HP Wolf Security for Business provides a resilient defense against malware and hacking, while new seamless firmware ensure 50% reduction in update time and allows users to stay productive and continue working during BIOS and firmware updates. HP Privacy Alert lets users know when prying eyes are viewing their screen so they can quickly switch on optional HP Sure View to blur the screen from unwanted eyes.

When it comes to personalizing the mobile office experience, the myHP application provides a single dashboard to control and customize PC settings for excellent video, audio, and more. 

Your new home studio – HP 34” All-in-One Desktop PC

75% of end users today believe video quality matters for their job success. Combining powerful, easy-to-use technology with an impressive design, the new HP 34” All-in-One Desktop PC creates a studio-like experience with support for dual video streams and camera switching, so you can show yourself and your work at the same time.

The HP 34” All-in-One Desktop PC allows users to move the detachable, magnetic 16MP (4MP Binned) camera to multiple positions on the screen bezel to find the best field of view. Users can even point the camera towards their desk so they can share hand-written notes or documents live on video calls. The high-resolution camera, together with new software, HP Keystone Correction, will automatically crop and flatten the image of the camera feed, creating a crisp, digital image of pages or a whiteboard to share in real time. When users need a break during video conference calls, the HP Be Right Back feature lets them change their video feed to a still picture.

A creative powerhouse, the HP 34” All-in-One Desktop PC delivers an immersive experience with an uncompromising 34-inch diagonal 5K display with 21:9 aspect so you can fit more work into your imaginative process. Users can experience deeper picture and vibrant colors with a 5K WUHD (5120×2160) display and reduce blue light wave exposure with the TÜV certified HP Eye Ease low blue light panel. As the world’s most powerful commercial All-in-One PC,27 users can take on big projects utilizing multiple applications with Intel vPro® with 12th Gen Intel® processors28 and NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ graphics. The PC grows with the user with upgradable storage and memory up to 128GB DDR5.

Your new stunning digital canvas – HP Z32k G3 4K ​USB-C Display​

The HP Z32k G3 4K USB-C Display, the world’s first IPS Black display with Thunderbolt™ 4 technology, empowers creators and product developers to maximize their creative potential. Creators want an unprecedented level of detail, so it’s no surprise that 99% of creative pros and 90% of power users find color accuracy very important when purchasing a monitor. The latest Z performance monitor features IPS Black panel technology, which means deeper blacks, more vibrant colors, and a 98% P3 wide color range, all in 4K ultra-high resolution. Providing twice the contrast ratio of a traditional IPS panel, creations come to life and what is seen on the screen matches the imagination of the creator or product developer. With additional features like single power on, KVM switch, and Thunderbolt™ 4 with the ability to daisy chain a second 4K monitor with a single cable, the Z32k G3 delivers multi-device creative workflow versatility, all in a single solution.

Your new view into hybrid work – HP 965 4K Streaming Webcam

People want to make personal connections. With 73% of webcam users judging others based on video quality, and 75% judging others based on audio quality, the HP 965 4K Streaming Webcam empowers users to stream their most authentic self. Enhanced by HP Presence, the webcam delivers crystal-clear video in up to 4K resolution, while AI face-framing and autofocus makes it feel like users are in the room. User images and ideas stay vibrant with the 18mm F2.0 large lens and lowlight adjustment feature. Feel confident you are heard clearly with noise reduction and dual microphones. The webcam is also Zoom certified to deliver a superb conferencing experience with technologies designed to work seamlessly with Zoom.

Keeping employees productive and happy with HP Proactive Insights

HP Proactive Insights provides IT with advanced AI and actionable insights to help optimize the device experience for employees. The latest enhancements to the device fleet management service enable IT professionals and managed service providers to create and execute an optimized device strategy in a hybrid work environment. With many customers planning to upgrade to Windows 11, IT teams or channel partners managing on their behalf can run a Windows 11 Readiness Assessment to plan and implement an insights-driven migration strategy for their existing PCs. New, customizable analytics dashboards spot issues before they happen to help ensure firmware is up to date and devices stay connected. The new Digital Experience Scorecard enables HP Partners and IT to quantify the device experience for employees with key insights into device health, performance, and security across the fleet so that they can identify opportunities for improvement.

Pricing and Availability

  • The HP Dragonfly Folio G3 is available now for a starting price of $2,379.
  • The HP 34″ AiO Desktop PC is expected to be available in September for a starting price of $2,119.
  • The HP Z32k G3 4K USB-C Display is expected to be available in November. Pricing will be available closer to product availability.
  • The HP 965 4K Streaming Webcam is available now for $199 at HP.com.
  • HP Proactive Insights is available to customers and channel partners as a stand-alone solution or through HP Device as a Service.

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Zoho Continues Growth In Canada With New Office in Cornwall, Ontario

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 14, 2022 by itnerd

Zoho Corporation, a leading global technology company, announced today the opening of its new office in Cornwall, Ontario. This new office will build on Zoho’s regional Canadian approach to sales, support, marketing, and partner management—including bilingual sales and marketing—to facilitate a greater regional understanding of the specific needs of local customers, and to create closer relationships with surrounding businesses.

Zoho’s success in Canada has seen 35% and 15% growth in revenue and customers, respectively, and the company plans to expand the Cornwall office as those numbers rise.

Zoho’s Proven Philosophy: Transnational Localism

The new Cornwall office is part of Zoho’s global Transnational Localism strategy, which was first introduced more than 10 years ago as a means to create self-reliant local communities and economies. Since then, the initiative has grown to include new global offices, local hiring, partnerships with local organizations and government bodies to lower the technology adoption barrier for businesses, upskilling courses in association with educational institutes, language localization including RTL support for languages, and local pricing for several countries. 

This new Cornwall office is part of the Transnational Localism hub-and-spoke model, with larger offices serving as a hub to several dozen small spoke offices located in rural areas and towns around the world. This method of growth allows employees, like those in Cornwall, to stay in their hometowns and contribute to their local community while working for a leading, globally recognized technology company.

In the last two years, Zoho has opened 59 hub-and-spoke offices, improving access to both software and localized Zoho support. In addition to aggressive expansion into new territories and markets, including Canada, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia, Zoho has announced plans to add 100 new small-scale offices in rural districts across India in the next few years.

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Apple Promised A Lot With Their Medications Functionality In iOS 16 And watchOS 9…. But They Didn’t Deliver It Outside The US

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 14, 2022 by itnerd

During the WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference) keynote in June. Apple announced that watchOS 9 and iOS 16 would have new functionality to track your medications called Medications. This is how Apple described it during the keynote:

So the Medications app will check for drug interactions via a database lookup, as well as allow you scan your prescription bottle to allow you to accurately enter your medications into the Medications app. It sounds great and when iOS 16 was released on Monday, I decided to try it out. That’s when I discovered that what Apple promised in the keynote wasn’t what Apple delivered to me in the Great White North known as Canada.

I take a medication called Cequa which is the trade name for Cyclosporine which is an anti-inflammatory eye drop to treat the side effects of wearing the special contact lenses that I use to make up for the fact that I have an eye disease called Keratoconus which without said special contact lenses makes it difficult for me to see. I wanted to set up an entry for this drug where I would be reminded about taking this medication when I got up in the morning, and before going to bed. But when adding this drug, there was no ability to search for this drug. In fact the search function that Apple showed in the keynote was completely absent.

That’s #fail number one.

Second, there was no ability to scan the prescription label using your camera as Apple demonstrated in the video above.

That’s #fail number two.

Finally since my wife has a pharmacology and toxicology degree which gives her the ability to speak to drug to drug interactions, she gave me the name of a pair of drugs guaranteed to interact with each other. The drugs in question were Zoloft and Monoamine oxidase inhibitors. No prompts like the ones that were illustrated in the keynote video appeared when I entered them into the medications app.

#Fail number three. That’s three strikes and Apple is out to borrow a baseball analogy.

This bugged me so much that I went hunting for a reason why this functionality was missing. I found my answer in the press release of iOS 16:

In the US, users can simply point their iPhone camera at a label to add a medication, read about the medications they’re taking, and receive an alert if there are potential critical interactions with their medications.

Only US users get this feature is how I read that statement. I have to assume that this was done for regulatory reasons. Similar to when the ECG functionality was launched in the Apple Watch Series 4 which took a long time before Health Canada signed off on it and it was available here. Not to mention other places on the planet. But before you think that this is a “why doesn’t Canada get nice things” rant by The IT Nerd, it isn’t. I pinged an associate in the UK and he doesn’t have this functionality either. And he’s not happy about that either. The flip side of that is that it implies that Apple could bring this to other countries assuming they hop through the regulatory hoops to do so.

Apple with this functionality has really has come up with something that could legitimately save lives. But apparently this is only available to US users. Thus I am hoping that Apple is working towards rolling this in other countries. Though it would be nice if Apple speaks to that. But I suspect that they won’t as that’s not who Apple is.

Over to you Apple.

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Commvault Appoints Data Protection Industry Veteran Alan Atkinson as Chief Partner Officer

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 14, 2022 by itnerd

Commvault, a global enterprise leader in data management across on-premises, cloud, and SaaS environments, today announced that data protection industry veteran Alan Atkinson has joined the company as Chief Partner Officer. Atkinson will report to Riccardo Di Blasio, Commvault’s Chief Revenue Officer.

Atkinson brings a wealth of cloud and data protection experience to Commvault – from building the industry’s first, pre-eminent cloud service provider to leading WysDM Software until it was acquired to driving technology strategy and commercial sales at Dell. Under his leadership, Commvault will further strengthen the company’s strategic alliances with cloud partners and continue to galvanize and grow its partner program.

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Thousands of Hours Lost to Vulnerability Backlog Management Annually Due to Lack of Prioritization and Automation: Rezilion and Ponemon Report

Posted in Commentary with tags , on September 14, 2022 by itnerd

Rezilion, an automated vulnerability management platform accelerating software security, and Ponemon Institute announced today the release of “The State of Vulnerability Management in DevSecOps,” which reveals that organizations are losing thousands of hours in time and productivity dealing with a massive backlog of vulnerabilities that they have neither the time or resources to tackle effectively. 

The finds 47% of security leaders report that they have a backlog of applications that have been identified as vulnerable. More than half (66%) say their backlog consists of more than 100,000 vulnerabilities and 54% say they were able to patch less than 50% of the vulnerabilities in the backlog. Thus, most respondents (78%) say high-risk vulnerabilities in their environment take longer than 3 weeks to patch, with the largest percentage (29%) noting it takes them longer than 5 weeks to patch.

Among the factors that keep teams from remediating are an inability to prioritize what needs to be fixed (47%), a lack of effective tools (43%), a lack of resources (38%), and not enough information about risks that would exploit vulnerabilities (45%). More than a quarter (28%) also said remediation is too time-consuming.

Expensive and time-consuming hours are lost trying to wrangle massive backlogs on both the production and development side of software applications. The survey finds 77% of respondents say it takes longer than 21 minutes to detect, prioritize, and remediate just one vulnerability in production. This represents more than an hour of time spent on one vulnerability on the production side.

On the development side, more than 80% of organizations spend longer than 16 minutes to detect one vulnerability in development. Prioritization and remediation times are also long as 82% of respondents say it takes longer than 21 minutes to remediate one vulnerability in development and 85% say it takes longer than 16 minutes to prioritize one vulnerability in development. 

Overall, a majority of respondents say it is either very difficult (36%) or difficult (25%) to remediate vulnerabilities in applications. 

There are some tools and strategies that businesses are relying on with success to move the needle on backlog management. For example, a majority (56%) said they use automation for vulnerability remediation and, of those who do, most say it has yielded significant benefits. When asked how automation has impacted the time it takes to remediate vulnerabilities, 43% said there was a significantly shorter time to respond.

Download a copy of the report today at https://www.rezilion.com/lp/its-about-time-ponemon-survey/.

And on a related note, Rezilion has done research on the Log4Shell vulnerability. That research can be downloaded here https://www.rezilion.com/lp/log4shell-4-months-later/. That is worth a read as well.

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A Company Called FishPig Has Been Pwned… And This Could Lead To The Pwnage Of 200K Websites That Use Their Software…. Yikes!

Posted in Commentary with tags on September 14, 2022 by itnerd

A reader of this blog brought the story of a company called FishPig. I’m not sure that’s the best name for a company, but whoever. Anyway, they were apparently pwned by hackers and here’s the fallout from that:

FishPig, a UK-based maker of e-commerce software used by as many as 200,000 websites, is urging customers to reinstall or update all existing program extensions after discovering a security breach of its distribution server that allowed criminals to surreptitiously backdoor customer systems.

The unknown threat actors used their control of FishPig’s systems to carry out a supply chain attack that infected customer systems with Rekoobe, a sophisticated backdoor discovered in June. Rekoobe masquerades as a benign SMTP server and can be activated by covert commands related to handling the startTLS command from an attacker over the Internet. Once activated, Rekoobe provides a reverse shell that allows the threat actor to remotely issue commands to the infected server.

“We are still investigating how the attacker accessed our systems and are not currently sure whether it was via a server exploit or an application exploit,” Ben Tideswell, the lead developer at FishPig, wrote in an email. “As for the attack itself, we are quite used to seeing automated exploits of applications and perhaps that is how the attackers initially gained access to our system. Once inside though, they must have taken a manual approach to select where and how to place their exploit.”

FishPig is a seller of Magento-WordPress integrations. Magento is an open source e-commerce platform used for developing online marketplaces.

Well that concerns me right out of the gate as this blog runs on WordPress. I only run a handful of plug-ins and none of them are from this company as far as I recall. But I’ll be checking the few plug-ins that I use on this site to ensure that I personally haven’t been pwned. If you run a WordPress site or use Magento, you might want to do the same thing. Like now. The article that I linked to can help you with that if you’re unsure as to what you should be looking for and doing.

This is your classic supply chain attack. And it illustrates why you need to be on top of everything that you use in your software stack. As well as being on top of what your vendors use in their software stack. Because anything that you use, or they use, no matter how minor, can lead to you getting pwned by hackers.

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