Blog
A Website Image Could Crash Your Windows PC
This has been a tough month for people who are using older Windows Operating Systems, especially Windows 7 users. The global Wannacry ransomware attack centered mostly on Windows 7 users, and now, a new attack has come to light that is making the lives of those users miserable all over again. Actually, it would be […]
Time To Upgrade – Majority Of Wannacry Victims Were Running Windows 7
The recent “Wannacry” hacking attack was global in its scale, impacting companies in more than 150 nations before it was stopped by a security expert with a good eye. It was such a dangerous, widespread attack that Microsoft even took the highly unusual step of issuing an emergency patch for Windows XP users, even though […]
There’s A Good Chance You’re On This Hacked Passwords List
Security researchers have stumbled across a vast treasure trove of hacked user accounts residing in a completely unprotected database online. The database contains more than 560 million user names, email addresses, passwords, IP addresses, physical addresses and more. The database was discovered via the Shodan search engine, which searches the web for open ports and […]
Samsung Iris Scanner Not So Foolproof
It seems that every time a company works hard to provide greater device security, it’s not long before an enterprising hacker comes along to find a way around the new and supposedly fool proof system. The latest victim is Samsung’s new iris scanning technology, which has now been rolled out on their various smartphones. In […]
Ransomware Hits Medical Devices; Security Becomes Even More Important
As much attention as the recent, worldwide “Wannacry” ransomware attack got for bringing the UK’s health system to its knees and idling factories around the globe, it had another, less noticed, but no less important and terrifying impact. An unnamed source recently released a screenshot of a “smart” medical device that had been locked and […]
Popular Food Site Zomato Breached – 17 Million Users Affected
India’s largest online restaurant guide, Zomato, boasts some 120 million users. If you live there, or have employees in India, they may have been impacted, as the company has just reported that some 17 million of its user base saw their personal information compromised during a recent, large scale data breach. The as yet unidentified […]
New Google App May Help Thwart Malware On Android Devices
As good as Google is about reviewing the apps that find their way into the halls of the Google Play Store, malicious code still manages to find its way inside. Granted, not nearly at the same rate you see in third party app stores, but it still happens. Google takes that seriously, and has just […]
MP3 To Lose License – What Does That Mean For Music?
If you’re a music fan, you’ve probably got several hundred (or more) MP3 files on your computer. It burst onto the scene while the internet was still in its formative stages and has been the defacto standard for audio codecs worldwide for more than two decades. Yes, the codec had its problems and limitations. Yes, […]
HP Keylogger Malware Gets Patch Fix
Sometimes, legitimate companies accidentally create malware. That’s certainly the case in this latest example. It was an innocent mistake, but some debugging code was inadvertently left in the code of an audio driver used by more than two dozen models of HP laptops. As a result, unknown to the users of those machines, the audio […]
Google Fights Back Against Hackers Targeting User Data In Apps
The Empire is officially striking back, and hacking is about to get at least a little bit harder. Recently, there have been several high-profile attacks that relied on Google’s user data, the most recent of which was a large-scale phishing attack which attempted to gain access to Gmail accounts by tricking users into clicking on […]
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.
