A combination of common sense, backup, proactive protection, and automated removal tools is a solid defense against the growing scourge of ransomware. Ransomware doesn’t sneak into your PC like ordinary malware. It bursts in, points a gun at your data, and screams for cash—or else. And if you don’t learn to defend yourself, it could happen again and again, as the recent WannaCry outbreak is demonstrating. Read this article on protecting yourself. As always, The Goto Tech Guru is here to help!
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If you own a Windows XP or Windows 7 PC that's been hit by the WannaCry ransomware, there's good news: French researchers have created a software utility called wanawiki that can potentially unlock an infected PC. There are specific instructions on running this fix, so read the article carefully!
For help with installing and running wanawiki, contact The GoTo Tech Guru! Users of old Windows systems can now download a patch to protect them from this week’s massive ransomware attack. This week, Microsoft published a patch for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 8—all of them operating systems for which it no longer provides mainstream support. Windows 10 customers were not targeted in Friday’s attack. For information and to download the patch appropriate for your Windows version, read here. For assistance with installing this patch, contact The GoTo Tech Guru.
Today, a federal judge ordered Uber to stop using technology that a key executive downloaded before he left Waymo, the autonomous car company that was spun off from Google. The order filed Monday in a trade secrets theft lawsuit also forces Uber to return all downloaded materials by noon on May 31. The court order is a major setback to Uber's self-driving car program, which its CEO has said is the key to the company's future. Read here for the scoop!
In a twist to Uber's fate, Lyft is joining forces with Waymo, Google's self-driving car unit, to develop self-driving cars, company officials said. Read here for the details! Stingrays, also known as "cell site simulators" or "IMSI catchers," are invasive cell phone surveillance devices that mimic cell phone towers and send out signals to trick cell phones in the area into transmitting their locations and identifying information. To find out more and whether your state is using Stingray and what agencies are using it, read this article and this article.
By now, you've probably heard about the 75,000 Ransomware attacks that has hit 99 countries including the UK this past Friday, May 12, 2017. There are some reports of it hitting the USA as well. It is one of the broadest and most damaging cyberattacks in history.
For those not familiar with Ransomware, it is one of the most viperous forms on Malware that holds your computer hostage until you literally pay a ransom, usually $300-$500 USD. Even after you pay, it's often a scam and you never get they key to unlock your computer and it's files. What makes this particular attack so threatening, is that it did not require anyone to actually "click" on anything like an email attachment to affect them! Don't let this be you! In just the last year, Ransomware attacks have increased 50%, up from just 20% the prior year!!! It's a huge money maker for hackers, hence the growth. There are thousands of Ransomware's out there, some laying dormant on your computer until a specific date or action activates it! Things to help you prevent from being affected: 1) Keep up-to-date on all Windows patches 2) Keep all virus scan and malware scan software up-to-date 3) Don't open emails and attachments from even people you know if they look suspicious 4) Don't go to rogue or unknown websites. Even if you do the above, if you don't have the proper virus and malware scan software installed, you are quite likely still vulnerable. Due to this recent attack, for a limited time, I am offering a special: A quarterly checkup of your PC for just $225/year; less than $0.62 per day! This checkup includes a professional scan of your computer for virus/malware/ransomware PLUS an overall health check of your computer to determine other issues such as slowness and system aging issues. Enrolling in this offer will provide discounts to other services as well during your enrolled year! To make an appointment, contact: Manny The Goto Tech Guru manny@TheGoToTechGuru.com www.TheGoToTechGuru.com 240-670-GURU (business) 240-778-6730 (direct) Also visit us at: Twitter: @TheGoToTechGuru Facebook: @TheGoToTechGuru A company by the name of eSight has developed a high-tech set of glasses that may enable legally blind people to "see".
"The headsets from eSight [pictured above] transmit images from a forward-facing camera to small internal screens -- one for each eye -- in a way that beams the video into the wearer's peripheral vision. That turns out to be all that some people with limited vision, even legal blindness, need to see things they never could before. That's because many visual impairments degrade central vision while leaving peripheral vision largely intact." "Although eSight's glasses won't help people with total blindness, they could still be a huge deal for the millions of people whose vision is so impaired that it can't be corrected with ordinary lenses." Read this article on the future of these glasses. If there's an e-mail in your inbox asking you to open a Google Docs from someone, and you don't know who it is, don't open it. It's probably a phishing email disguised as a contact attempting to share a file from Google Docs, says Google. The email appears to come from someone inviting the user to share a document. The sophisticated email looks very similar to one sent by Google. For more information and details, see this article.
At the Facebook F8 developers conference in San Jose, CA on Wednesday, the company announced that it was working on a brain-to-text interface that would allow users to communicate silently, with their thoughts being written out into text. Get the scoop here!
Announced at its most recent 2017 annual F8 conference, a big part of Facebook's current maturation into a Fortune 500 corporate giant is that it's also going to be a maker of tools and services for businesses. Read here for the load down!
Intel has been long interested in the self-driving car market. This past Monday, Intel announced end more than $15 billion to acquire Israel's Mobileye NV, a software maker that processes the information cars see from cameras and sensors. It's the latest example of a major tech company making a splash in the race to develop autonomous vehicles. Here is a breakdown of big companies entering the autonomous car market, who they're partnering with and how much they're spending!
Shoelaces have been around since the early 1000's and tieing them only to have them unravel has been a frustration ... and mystery ... until now! Now the University of California has "unraveled" how this happens! But is it technical?? Why yes! Read on here!
It's hard to keep up with all the latest news, let alone the slang your teenager may use! Here's a guide to the top 20 slangs your teenager may be using!
So what happens to that old smartphone, computer, TV or other electronic device once you've thrown it out?
According to The World Counts, a website keeping a live tally of global e-waste: "Since the start of 2017, we have thrown out more than 6.4m tons of electronic goods. If past patterns are any judge, not much of this will get properly recycled: less than a sixth of the e-waste discarded around the world in 2014 was dealt with in this way, says the UN." The US recycled just 29% of the 3.4m ton of e-waste it produced in 2012, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, while the rest was sent to landfill or incinerated. In addition to lost money, there is also a negative environmental impact on our Earth. Read this article to learn more. Every twelve to eighteen months, computers double their capabilities, and so do the information technologies that use them.
Eighteen to twenty years out, technological advancements will be hundreds of thousands to a million times more advanced. Bio, nano, robotic and computer technology will become so rapid, so advanced, and so profound that today's limited understanding does not allow us to describe, within reason, what life will be like. In the early 2040's, the rapid pace of improved changes will be hundreds of millions of times faster than today as each year passes. Forty years out, with technology a trillion times more advanced then today. Fifty years out, the technology that is a quadrillion times more advanced than today will give us the ability to perceive a quadrillion. Go the the details as to why tech is progressing so fast, read here! Although not new news, I thought I'd repost this article. The next threat to your privacy could be hovering over head while you walk down the street. Hackers have developed a drone that looks for mobile devices with Wi-Fi settings turned on. It takes advantage of a feature built into all smartphones and tablets: When mobile devices try to connect to the Internet, they look for networks they've accessed in the past. The drone uses a signal pretending to be networks you've connected to in the past and hacks in that way. To find out more, read here.
Comcast’s Xfinity Internet service will make tens of thousands of households vulnerable to hackers and other security threats by converting thousands of customers’ modems into Wi-Fi hotspots. That means anybody with a Wi-Fi device could log into the Internet and possibly hack into your computer once the “hotspot” is activated. To make matters worse, Comcast is not asking customers whether they want their modem to become a hotspot or not. Instead, it is simply switching the service on, according to Houston Chronicle. Anybody who has a Comcast login number will be able to access the Internet via the home Wi-Fi hotspots. That means any Comcast customer could use your system if the Wi-Fi is turned on. The good news is that there a way to turn this off. Read this article for more information.
Apple is due to unveil the iPhone 8, the 10th Anniversary of its historic phone. Suspected additions and improvements include a curved edge-to-edge OLED display, wireless charging, USB-C connectivity replacing the lightening connector, enhanced water resistance and more. To get the latest, read here!
Lots of people with small businesses use Gmail or Yahoo email because it's free. There's a lot to be said for "free". But those perceived "savings" may actually be costing you lost business and thus, revenue. In a world where image is everything and perception is reality, an email with your own domain (e.g. manny@TheGotoTechGuru.com) gives your business that needed professional appearance. A well chosen domain name will give your company a more established and appearance it's larger than it really is v.s. using a @gmail account, and gives a message that you won't be disappearing anytime soon. In reality, having an email with your own domain can cost you less than $10 per year with as little as $5 per month for the email hosting. To understand more about how important it is to your business to have your own domain email, read here.
Some people, who aren't technical, shy away from getting a custom domain email. That's where TheGoToTechGuru comes in! We'll do all the setup work for you! You just enjoy the fruits and increased revenue! Contact us for more information! Windows 10 tracks a lot of what you do, even when you're not using a browser, any browser! Microsoft says they're doing this to make functionality more convenient for the user. The good news is you can turn these options off. Read here for more information and on how to stop Microsoft from tracking your every move!
The Republican led Senate moved Thursday to undo Obama-era regulations that would have forced internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon to ask customers' permission before they could use or sell much of their personal information.
Senators voted along party lines, 50-48, to eliminate the rules. The Federal Communications Commission, then controlled by Democrats, put the regulations in place in October. They're not in effect yet. The Trump-appointed chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, a critic of the broadband privacy rules and other Obama-era policies meant to protect consumers and promote competition, has said that privacy standards should be consistent for internet providers and internet companies. To find out more, get the details here! You've probably heard about people hacking into modern cars. Now Kaspersky Labs, a major developer of virus scan software, has test-hacked 7 cars to find their security vulnerabilities. In fact, they found it fairly easy. Although cars are not currently a major target, read this article for more.
You're probably heard that Facebook is implementing a way to flag fake news. But how effective is it and how does it work, if at all? Watch this video for the latest on Facebook's newest tool!
For the first time since 1979, there will be a total solar eclipse visible within the contiguous USA (ie. the "Lower 48")! A solar eclipse is when the sun, moon and earth are all in alignment, with the moon between the earth and our sun, thus blocking our view to the sun. It will occur on August 21, 2017, so mark your calendars! It will cast a 75-mile egg shaped shadow, traveling from Oregon to South Carolina at over 1,000 mph. Even if you are not in the direct path of the eclipse, you should be able to at least see 70-90% of the eclipse. The fully eclipsed sun will last for about 2 to 2.5 minutes. As always, never look directly at the sun without eye protection such as eclipse glasses. Don't miss this event because the next total solar eclipse across the contiguous USA isn't till April 2024!
Many of us use traffic apps like Waze to avoid bad traffic. But they're not always giving us what they seem, like the best route! It's become somewhat of a rival game between the app and the cities. Read here about how it's changed the way we navigate and how cities want to change that!
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Blog AuthorI love technology and how it enhances our lives! Just think, without the Apollo moon missions, we might not have calculators! Imagine!! Archives
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