This section might look a little different today. We’re trying something new, and if it works out we’ll stick with it.
I’ve wanted a place to put commentary on topical subjects, but the main How-To Geek site really isn’t the place for an editorial column. So you guys (our awesome email subscribers) will get exclusive commentary and links that don’t appear anywhere else on our site at the moment. We might eventually copy these posts over to the forum, but for now, it’s better to leave them here.
Welcome to The Internet of Compromised Things
It’s becoming more and more common to see malware installed not at the server, desktop, laptop, or smartphone level, but at the router level. Routers have become quite capable, powerful little computers in their own right over the last 5 years, and that means they can, unfortunately, be harnessed to work against you.
This is the reality that we live in – routers are being compromised in order for the bad guys to inject lots of extra ads into all the pages you visit. There’s not an easy, simple way to know when you’ve been hacked because it’s not like your antivirus is going to let you know. Generally when they hack the routers, they simply point you to a malware DNS server that proxies to the real server and only returns bad results for certain things that are normally safe, like Google Analytics embedded into almost every website on the internet. So if you’re seeing a ton of *ahem* “adult” ads on sites that shouldn’t have them, your router has probably been hacked.
To keep yourself safe, make sure that you’ve got a strong password, remote administration isn’t enabled from the internet, WPS is disabled, and you’re running the latest firmware. If you’re running a really old, out of date router, it might be time to upgrade your router.
Google Announces Plans for New Operating Structure
So we are creating a new company, called Alphabet. I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as President.
What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google.
Google is reorganizing their company, which is actually normal when a company gets as big and spread out as they are. Now Google will be just one of the pieces of Alphabet, the new parent company.
All of their side projects, like Nest, and self-driving cars, really don’t fit into Google the advertising company. So it makes sense to split things up a bit.
If only they had called it Umbrella corporation.
HTC stored user fingerprints as image file in unencrypted folder
Researchers from FireEye have found that data that could be used to clone a user’s fingerprint was stored as an unencrypted “world readable” image file on HTC smartphones. Four security researchers discovered that the image file, which is clear replica of a user’s fingerprint, could be stolen by rogue apps or hackers.
Android is a security disaster. This is yet another example of why we recently recommended iPhone over Android for security reasons.
DISCUSS ON OUR FORUM
Previous Thoughts You Might Have Missed:
- Tuesday: Microsoft is Trying Really Hard to Shoot Themselves in the Foot
- Monday: The Best Upgrade for Your Surface Pro 3 is the SP4 Keyboard
- Saturday: First Impressions of the Apple TV: Lots of Entering Passwords Using the Remote
- Friday: Soon, Windows 10 Will Be Automatically Pushed Through Windows Update
- Monday: The Emperor Has No Clothes and Nobody Cares