Gregg Keizer

Author Archives: Gregg Keizer

Apple exec takes to op-ed page, argues against turning back the clock to ‘less-secure time’

Apple's head of software engineering took to The Washington Post's op-ed page Sunday to reprise many of the arguments the company -- and supporters -- have made to contest a federal court order that would compel it to help the FBI break into a passcode-locked iPhone."The encryption technology built into today's iPhone represents the best data security available to consumers," asserted Craig Federighi, vice president of software engineering at Apple, in a piece published by the newspaper yesterday. But "the FBI, Justice Department and others in law enforcement are pressing us to turn back the clock to a less-secure time and less-secure technologies."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‘Serious risk’ that Apple-made iPhone cracking code will leak

Security experts yesterday said that there is a "serious risk" that the special iPhone-cracking software sought by the FBI would fall into the wrong hands if Apple is forced to assist the government in accessing the data on an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters."Keeping the Custom Code secret is essential to ensuring that this forensic software not pose a broader security threat to iOS users," seven security experts said Thursday in a "friends-of-the-court" brief filed with a California federal court. "But the high demand [for this software] poses a serious risk that the Custom Code will leak outside of Apple's facilities."+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD Apple v. FBI – Who’s for, against opening up the terrorist’s iPhone +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

N.Y. prosecutor wants Apple to turn back security clock to 2013

A New York prosecutor tomorrow plans to urge Congress to write legislation that would require Apple to roll back iPhone security to the model of 2013's iOS 7, according to prepared testimony published today.Cyrus Vance Jr., the District Attorney for New York County, will testify before the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow as one of three witnesses at a hearing to discuss encryption. The others include Bruce Sewell, Apple's general counsel, and Susan Landau, a professor of cybersecurity policy at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass.+ WHAT DO OTHERS THINK? Apple v. FBI – Who’s for, against opening up the terrorist’s iPhone +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple spells out what it would take to comply with government’s iPhone order

Apple last week argued that assisting the FBI in the agency's attempt to access an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers would be an undue burden that would require a staff of between six and ten people who would have to dedicate two to four weeks of their time to the task.In a motion filed Friday with a California court, Apple ticked off several constitutional arguments against helping the FBI break into the iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife, Tafsheen Malik, killed 14 in San Bernardino, Calif., on Dec. 2, 2015, before they died in a shootout with police.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Experts contend Apple has the technical chops to comply with court order

On a technical level, Apple can comply with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) request for help in accessing an iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the people accused of killing 14 in California two months ago, security experts said Wednesday."I believe it is technically feasible for Apple to comply with all of the FBI's requests in this case," said Dan Guido, the co-founder and CEO of Trail of Bits, a New York City-based security firm, in a Wednesday post on his firm's blog. "On the iPhone 5C, the passcode delay and device erasure are implemented in software and Apple can add support for peripheral devices that facilitate PIN code entry."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Man turns tables on scammers

Seth was weary of the calls from bogus Windows support technicians, and decided to, if not get even, at least give them a taste of their own medicine."I was really tired [of the calls], and I really hate computer scammers," said Seth, whose last name Computerworld withheld for privacy reasons. "I got fed up."Like millions of others, Seth had been on the receiving end of scammers' phone calls, who rang up and told him that they were with "Microsoft support" or "Windows support," then proceeded to claim that they had detected malware on his machine.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 6 simple tricks for protecting your passwords "I would get these calls three or four times a year," said Seth in an interview, adding that the calls would continue for a week or more, then end, only to resume months later. He would hang up on the callers or tell them he had no computer or was running a Mac.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Symantec partner caught running tech support scam

Tech support scammers are known for their cheek -- making unfounded claims that PCs are infected to scare consumers into parting with their money -- but a Symantec partner took nerve to a new level, a security company claimed last week.According to San Jose, Calif.-based Malwarebytes, Silurian Tech Support ran a scam in which its employees, who billed themselves as support technicians, used obscure but harmless entries in Windows' Event Viewer and Task Manager to claim that a PC had been overwhelmed by malware, then leveraged those bogus threats to sell overpriced copies of Symantec's Norton security software and an annual contract for follow-up phone support.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lapsed Apple certificate triggers massive Mac app fiasco

A lapsed Apple digital certificate today triggered a massive app fiasco that prevented Mac users from running software they'd purchased from the Mac App Store. "Whenever you download an app from the Mac App Store, the app provides a cryptographically-signed receipt," explained Paul Haddad, a co-founder of Tapbots, the company behind the popular Tweetbot Twitter client, in an email reply to questions today. "These receipts are signed with various certificates with different expiration dates. One of those is the 'Mac App Store Receipt Signing;' that expires every two years. That certificate expired on 'Nov 11 21:58:01 2015 GMT,' which caused most existing App Store receipts to no longer be considered valid."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s advice: Hang up on tech support scammers

Microsoft's best advice to combat tech support scams? Hang up the phone."You get a call from someone that's unsolicited, talking about technical support, hang up," said David Finn, the executive director of Microsoft's Digital Crime Unit, during a hearing held by the U.S. Senate last week. "That's the first thing. That is not a legitimate effort to sell something to you."Finn was one of several people who testified last Wednesday before the Senate's Special Committee on Aging, which held a hearing on technical support scams, which disproportionately target the elderly.Such scams, Finn said during his prepared testimony, are the "single largest consumer fraud perpetrated in America today." They victimize an estimated 3.3 million people and rake in $1.5 billion annually. "This translates to a victim nearly every 10 seconds, with an average loss of $454 per consumer," Finn said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tech support scammers put Mac owners in crosshairs

Technical support scammers have begun targeting Mac owners, a security researcher said today, adding them to much larger pool of potential victims running Windows because Apple's operating system has been relatively untouched by malware."These scams aren't being done with cold calls, but by aggressive malvertising," said Jerome Segura, a senior security researcher with San Jose, Calif.-based Malwarebytes. In some cases, Segura said, legitimate online ad networks are being abused by criminals.Mac owners who browse to what Segura called "lower-quality websites" may encounter attack code or scripts that hijack the browser to display scary, but bogus, warnings that their machine is at risk, then offer a telephone number to call for technical assistance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dismal PC business contraction continues; no bounce yet from Windows 10

As expected, Windows 10 provided little if any bounce to PC shipments in the just-concluded September quarter, researchers at IDC and Gartner said yesterday. "Not in terms of driving volume, no," said Loren Loverde of IDC in a Friday interview when asked about Windows 10's impact. "The main inhibiting concern has been the continuing free upgrade." Rival research firm Gartner concurred. "The focus of the Windows launch in the quarter was to upgrade to Windows 10 on existing PCs, rather than ship on new PCs," the company said in a statement. Both IDC and Gartner pegged third-quarter PC shipments as down from the same period in 2014, although they differed slightly on the extent of the contraction. IDC said that shipments declined 11% year-over-year, while Gartner said it was closer to 8%. IDC put shipments at 71 million, Gartner, at 74 million. Part of the difference is how each defines the category: IDC does not include tablets with detachable keyboards, such as Microsoft's Surface Pro, while Gartner does.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Auction house puts pristine 39-year-old Apple-1 on the block

Auction house Bonhams will put a pristine Apple-1 personal computer on the block later this month, and has pegged the gavel price at between $300,000 and $500,000.Bonhams has experience selling vintage Apple-1 computers: One it sold last year went for the still-record $905,000 after commissions and taxes.The Apple-1, essentially a stand-alone circuit board sans keyboard, monitor or even power supply, was hand-built by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in 1976, and may have been one of the first lot of 50, according to a penned identifier on the back. That mark -- 01-0059 -- was probably an inventory number assigned by the Byte Shop of Mountain View, Calif., the first volume purchaser of the computer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What’s the deal with Apple-Cisco deal?

Apple earlier this week expanded its push into enterprises, announcing a partnership with Cisco to sell more iPads and iPhones to businesses.But unlike the deal Apple struck with IBM last summer, the partnership with Cisco was outlined in only the broadest terms. The vagueness put off one analyst.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple rewards CEO Tim Cook with $58M for bang-up job on Wall Street

Apple CEO Tim Cook earlier this week was awarded 560,000 shares, worth approximately $57.7 million, receiving the full amount of a grant due him because of Apple's performance on Wall Street over the last two years. As it did in 2014, Apple withheld just over half of the total shares -- 290,836, worth about $30 million on Monday -- for tax purposes. The half-million shares were this year's allotment under a revised schedule designed at Cook's request in 2013. Then, Apple's board modified the executive's vesting plan, which had set two large stock handouts for a massive 1 million-share grant -- after last year's stock split, equal to 7 million -- when Cook assumed the lead role at the Cupertino, Calif. company just weeks before co-founder Steve Jobs' death.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

It’s alive! Patch Tuesday survives for Windows 10

Patch Tuesday, contrary to expectations earlier this year, survived after Microsoft yesterday delivered security updates not only for the legacy editions of Windows, but also for the new Windows 10.For now, Patch Tuesday -- Microsoft prefers "Update Tuesday" for some reason -- lives.In a large release yesterday, Microsoft issued 14 security updates for Windows PCs, distributed individually to older OSes like Windows 7 and 8.1, and as a six-bulletin bundle for Windows 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Patch halt looms for half of all IE users

With just over four months left before Microsoft stops serving security updates to most versions of Internet Explorer (IE) other than IE11, nearly half of all IE users are still running a soon-to-be-retired edition, new data released Saturday showed.In August 2014, Microsoft abruptly told virtually all IE users that they needed to be running IE11 by Jan. 12, 2016, or face a shut-off of security updates. After that date, Microsoft will support IE9 only on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008; IE10 only on Windows Server 2012; and only IE11 on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 R2.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft patches Windows zero-day found in Hacking Team’s leaked docs

Microsoft today issued one of its sporadic emergency, or "out-of-band," security updates to patch a vulnerability in Windows -- including the yet-to-be-released Windows 10 -- that was uncovered by researchers sifting through the massive cache of emails leaked after a breach of Italian surveillance vendor Hacking Team. The Milan-based vendor sells surveillance software to governments and corporations, and markets zero-day vulnerabilities that its clients can use to silently infect targets with the firm's software. Researchers have found several zero-days -- flaws that were not fixed before they went public -- in the gigabytes of pilfered documents and messages, including three in Adobe's Flash Player, since July 5.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Mozilla blocks all Flash in Firefox after third zero-day

Mozilla on Monday began blocking all versions of Adobe Flash Player from running automatically in its Firefox browser, reacting to news of even more zero-day vulnerabilities unearthed in a massive document cache pilfered from the Italian Hacking Team surveillance firm.Computerworld confirmed that the current production versions of Firefox -- dubbed v. 39 -- on both Windows and OS X now block Flash.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Free security tools you should try Mozilla engineers swung into action over the weekend after reports surfaced late Friday of another Flash zero-day -- the term that describes a flaw for which there is yet no fix, or patch -- discovered in the gigabytes of data and documents stolen from the Hacking Team. At the time, the bug was the second in Flash spotted in just five days.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft writes off $7.6B, admits failure of Nokia acquisition

Microsoft today wrote off billions of dollars related to its Nokia acquisition, saying it's taking an "impairment charge" of $7.6 billion, or nearly the full amount it paid for the Finnish firm's smartphone business and patents last year.The announcement slapped the failure sticker on the last major move made by former CEO Steve Ballmer, who pushed for the Nokia deal in his final months in office against objections by, among others, Satya Nadella before he was elevated to the chief executive's chair.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 10 (FREE!) Microsoft tools to make admins happier "It was a mistake to begin with," said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates. "A monumental mistake. Microsoft had no business being in the cut-throat, low-margin phone business. Who's making money in phones besides Apple?"To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Massive China market offers even more upside for Apple

Although Apple announced record revenue from its Greater China sales region this week, the company's strategy has enough legs to push the market into the No. 1 spot on its books, analysts said today."It may take a couple of years, but China can become Apple's biggest," said Jan Dawson, chief analyst with Jackdaw Research.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch The Americas, dominated by the U.S., remained Apple's largest sales region in the March quarter, generating $21.3 billion or 37% of the $58 billion total. But Greater China -- composed of the People's Republic, Taiwan and Hong Kong -- came in second with $16.8 billion, or 29%, supplanting the usual No. 2, Europe, for the first time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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