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Cortana Software Could Help Anyone Unlock Your Windows 10 Computer

Cortana Software Could Help Anyone Unlock Your Windows 10 Computer
Jun 13, 2018
Cortana, an artificial intelligence-based smart assistant that Microsoft has built into every version of Windows 10, could help attackers unlock your system password. With its latest patch Tuesday release , Microsoft has pushed an important update to address an easily exploitable vulnerability in Cortana that could allow hackers to break into a locked Windows 10 system and execute malicious commands with the user's privileges. In worst case scenario, hackers could also compromise the system completely if the user has elevated privileges on the targeted system. The elevation of privilege vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-8140 and reported by McAfee security researchers, resides due to Cortana's failure to adequately check command inputs, which eventually leads to code execution with elevated permissions. "An Elevation of Privilege vulnerability exists when Cortana retrieves data from user input services without consideration for status," Microsoft explain

Microsoft Cortana Can Now Read Your Skype Messages to Make Chat Smarter

 Microsoft Cortana Can Now Read Your Skype Messages to Make Chat Smarter
Oct 10, 2017
Microsoft today announced built-in support for Cortana—an artificial intelligence-powered smart assistant—in Skype messenger on Android as well as iOS devices. What purpose does it serve? Microsoft wants its AI-based smart assistance to understand your conversations and help you with quick suggestions, ideas and information right inside your chat window. "Cortana can also help you organize your day—no need to leave your conversations. Cortana can detect when you're talking about scheduling events or things you have to do and will recommend setting up a reminder, which you will receive on all your devices that have Cortana enabled," Skype said in a blog post . In other words, it typically means — Microsoft's Cortana can now read your private Skype conversations. Should You Worry About Your Privacy? Yes, Cortana needs continuous monitoring of your private chats in order to come up with useful suggestions such as movie bookings, travel plans, nearby restaura

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future
Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu

Hackers Can Silently Control Siri, Alexa & Other Voice Assistants Using Ultrasound

Hackers Can Silently Control Siri, Alexa & Other Voice Assistants Using Ultrasound
Sep 07, 2017
What if your smartphone starts making calls, sending text messages, and browsing malicious websites on the Internet itself without even asking you? This is no imaginations, as hackers can make this possible using your smartphone's personal assistant like Siri or Google Now. A team of security researchers from China's Zhejiang University have discovered a clever way of activating your voice recognition systems without speaking a word by exploiting a security vulnerability that is apparently common across all major voice assistants. DolphinAttack (Demo): How It Works Dubbed DolphinAttack , the attack technique works by feeding the AI assistants commands in ultrasonic frequencies, which are too high for humans to hear but are perfectly audible to the microphones on your smart devices. With this technique, cyber criminals can "silently" whisper commands into your smartphones to hijack Siri and Alexa, and could force them to open malicious websites and even

Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

cyber security
websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.

Microsoft Collecting More Data of Windows 10 Users than Initially Thought

Microsoft Collecting More Data of Windows 10 Users than Initially Thought
Jan 07, 2016
After several controversial data mining and privacy invasion features within Microsoft's newest operating system, Microsoft continued convincing its users that Windows 10 is not spying on anyone and that the company is not collecting more data than it needs. In addition, Microsoft also updated its privacy policy in order to clear how and when Windows 10 utilizes users' data. But wait, before you convinced yourself by this statement, just have a look on the milestones (listed below) that Microsoft recently announced, revealing that Windows 10 is now actively running on 200 Million devices . Also Read:   Microsoft WARNING — 'Use Windows 7 at Your Own Risk' Microsoft Tracks Your Every Move Here's the list of milestones that Microsoft just achieved: People spent over 11 Billion hours on Windows 10 in December 2015. More than 44.5 Billion minutes were spent in Microsoft Edge across Windows 10 devices in December alone. Windows 10 users aske

Microsoft Responds To Windows 10 Spying Concerns, But It will Still Collect Your Data

Microsoft Responds To Windows 10 Spying Concerns, But It will Still Collect Your Data
Sep 29, 2015
After a number of controversial data mining features and privacy invasions within Microsoft's newest operating system, Microsoft finally broke the ice, almost two months since the launch of Windows 10. Microsoft has finally responded to the growing privacy concerns around its new operating system to regain the trust of the users who are concerned about their online privacy related to Windows 10. In a blog post published Monday, Windows chief Terry Myerson describes three ways in which Windows 10 collects and uses its users data – although he did admit that the OS does regularly phone home by default. 1. Data used for Safety and Reliability Data This data includes anonymous device ID, device type and crash logs. It does not contain any content or files from your computer that directly identifies you. What else? Myerson claims that everything Microsoft collects is " encrypted in transit to [its] servers and then stored in secure facilities. " The

Facebook M: Facebook's Answer to Siri, Cortana and Google Now

Facebook M: Facebook's Answer to Siri, Cortana and Google Now
Aug 27, 2015
Microsoft's 'Cortana', Google's 'Google Now', Apple's 'Siri', Now meet Facebook's 'M.' Facebook's announcement to introduce their Personal Digital Assistant "M" comes with powers within the Facebook Messenger. It is a similar virtual assistant like Google Now, Apple's Siri and Microsoft's smart digital assistant Cortana. It seems that all the intelligence that resides within the personal digital assistants already in the market are nothing in front of M's capabilities, according to the Facebook post by David Marcus , Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook. Three days ago, Microsoft had boosted the powers of Android users by making Cortana accessible on Android devices. Now listening to Facebook's launch of 'M', rival companies would have definitely face-palmed! What Can I Help You With? The virtual assistant software "M" is truly going to support you by doing the

Microsoft Launches Cortana App For Android Users

Microsoft Launches Cortana App For Android Users
Aug 25, 2015
Yes, she is here! Android users can now talk to Cortana – the first personal digital assistant – which is a patented product of Microsoft. She is available on all the devices running Windows 10 . Earlier in May, Microsoft said they will make Cortana available for Android and iOS users . Therefore, a beta version of Cortana has been rolled out by Microsoft for public. Yesterday, Microsoft made an announcement stating the availability of Cortana for the rival Android platform. This will enable the Android phone users to replace the Google Now shortcut by pressing and holding the home button in order to activate Cortana instead. Microsoft is Opening and Spreading its Wings Everywhere Cortana maintains the same user interface and functionalities as it has in Windows devices. Now the users will get choices between whom to choose, Cortana vs. Google Now . People might like the change, as Cortana is largely appreciated by Windows users. As it is the beta relea

Windows 10 Doesn't Stop Spying You, Even After Disabling It's Creepy Features

Windows 10 Doesn't Stop Spying You, Even After Disabling It's Creepy Features
Aug 14, 2015
In our previous articles, we raised concern about Windows 10 privacy issues , including its controversial Wi-Fi Sense feature . Also, to cope up with these issues, I provided you a one-click solution to fix  all privacy compromising features that allow Microsoft to track users. But unfortunately, all those efforts got wasted because Microsoft still tracks you, even after you harden your Windows 10 privacy to an extreme level by disabling all privacy-infringing settings. This time the culprits are – Cortana and Bing search . Windows 10 features, including Cortana and Bing search, continue communicating with Microsoft's servers and sending it data, even after you turned the features off. A Technical Analysis done by Ars showed that even when you tell Microsoft to not to make any Internet-related inquiries by changing various privacy settings, it appears that Windows 10 still communicate with the software giant's servers for different information. Cortana

Despite Issues, 6 Reasons Why Windows 10 is Best Windows Ever

Despite Issues, 6 Reasons Why Windows 10 is Best Windows Ever
Aug 03, 2015
Windows 10 is built with the power features of Windows 7 and 8.1, which makes it a robust operating system. It gained 65 million users in the first three days after its release. Still counting and making Windows 10 as a universal platform for all the devices running the same operating system. By Introducing " Windows as a service " utility, The Microsoft is offering Windows 10 Free Upgrade to all the users running Windows 7 or 8.1 as a Windows update, and not as a separate product. From now on, the company will provide regular updates for Windows in the same manner Apple does with its Mac OS X operating system that gets regular updates on a yearly basis and has been known as OS X for over 15 years. Despite some privacy issues , including " Wi-Fi Sense " and " Bandwidth sharing for Windows Update ", and few more, Windows 10 offers a bevy of new and advanced features that makes the operating system unique from others. Also Read: How to Fix 35+ Windows 10 Privacy Iss
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