Blog
Microsoft Releasing Feature To Help With Malicious Files Like Ransomware
Microsoft recently announced a new change coming to Windows Defender in the fall called “Controlled Folder Access.” As the company describes the feature, it should enable Windows Defender to prevent files in specified folders from being modified (including encryption) by untrusted applications, which means that the new security measure would provide powerful defense against ransomware-style […]
New Mobile Fingerprint Sensor Can Detect Blood Flow And Heartbeat
Qualcomm has recently announced the release of their next-generation fingerprint biometric technology for mobile devices, and on its face, it seems to be a significant improvement. The problem that the current generation of fingerprint scanning technology suffers from is that hackers have been able to find a variety of clever, shockingly simple and devastatingly effective […]
Google Gets Huge Fine From EU For Manipulating Search Results
Google is in trouble with the EU. This is nothing new. The search engine giant has been fighting an ongoing battle with the European Union for a number of years now over a variety of claims that they’re unfairly using their dominance in search to skew results against selected competitors. What has changed is that […]
Internet Crime Has Become A Billion Dollar Industry
Anyone who works in IT or has any interest in data security at all can tell you that the number of hacking attacks is on the rise. Worse than that, though, is the fact that the hackers themselves are getting increasingly organized, and that organization is allowing them to share code and develop entirely new […]
A Third Of Former Employees Take Company Information With Them
How safe is your company’s data? According to a new survey released by tech giant Dell, it is not very safe. The statistics revealed by the survey are dismaying. Be sure you want to know before reading any further, because once you do, it may well change the way you view your own employees. The […]
Gmail Will No Longer Be Scanned To Serve Google Ads
On its face, Google’s announcement that it will no longer be scanning Gmail inboxes to serve up more tightly targeted ads looks like a big win for privacy advocates. Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll realize that the move is mostly smoke and mirrors designed to ease the concerns of Enterprise clients who are […]
Watch Out For Latest Hacker Phishing Attempt On Facebook
If there’s one thing that’s true about the world’s hackers, it is that they are tireless and relentless when it comes to finding new and increasingly inventive ways to infiltrate a user’s system, collect data, and cause mayhem in general. The latest trend to be on the lookout for is phishing attacks aimed at mobile […]
Unsecured Voter Database May Have Leaked 198 Million US Records
Since the 2016 election, there have been lots of hard questions asked about the sanctity of US elections, with mounting conjectural evidence that there was an active attempt by nation-state actors to influence the outcome of the most recent US Presidential election. Because of that, the security of US citizen voter data has been at […]
Ransomware Infects Hosting Company; Decryption Costs A Million Dollars
A South Korean web hosting company called NAYANA has been the victim of what appears to be one of the largest, if not the largest ransomware attacks in the history of the internet. According to the digital security firm Trend Micro, the ransomware used in the attack is called Erebus, and successfully infected all of […]
Banking Trojan Trickbot Sets Sights On Paypal Users
If you’ve never heard of a banking Trojan called Dyre, then consider yourself lucky. When Russian officials stormed the headquarters of the company that created it, it was heralded as one of the biggest takedowns in recent hacking history. It ended the rapid ascent of one of the fastest growing NextGen banking Trojans in recent […]
A Visionary Approach to Your Security
The purpose of an IT partner isn’t just to fix something when it is broken, it is to keep your people working and your data secure. Astral moves beyond traditional managed services by addressing all the key areas of cybersecurity in today’s complex landscape.
