Back in December, we shared a statement on the SolarWinds Breach on our blog. Thankfully, the SolarWinds software that we provide to our clients was not a part of the corporate scale Orion system and our systems and the software we use was not subject to any data loss or breach.

SolarWinds recently reported a $3.5 million (pre-tax) loss, after paying for legal and other services to remedy the breach. And unfortunately, the company is still dealing with legality issues.

They’re hoping that security knowledge will heighten to avoid this destructive incident from happening again. MarketScreener shared statements and information by SolarWinds:

“Through our investigations into the Cyber Incident, we hope to understand it better, apply our findings to further adapt and enhance our security measures across our systems and our software development and build environments and share our findings and adaptations with our customers, government officials and the technology industry more broadly to help them better understand and protect against these types of attacks in the future. We refer to these adaptations and enhancements as “Secure by Design.”

Source: MarketScreener

If you have any questions regarding this incident, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Karls Technology is a nationwide computer service company with offices in many major cities. This blog post was brought to you from our staff at the Frisco Computer Repair Service, if you need computer repair in Frisco, TX please call or text the local office at (469) 299-9005.

Last year in September, we shared a blog post about Windows 10 forcing the Edge browser installation. There are ways to remove it. However, other than it possibly becoming a nuisance, the browser doesn’t cause any problems to the operating system.

Microsoft announced its end of support back in August of 2020 for Edge Legacy. While it is currently the default browser on Windows 10, downloading the new Edge browser is encouraged to keep ongoing support. The End of Life for Edge Legacy will be on March 9th, 2021. This means security updates will no longer be available.

On top of that, Microsoft 365 is ending support for Internet Explorer 11 in August. The Microsoft Tech Community states on its blog, “after the above dates, customers will have a degraded experience or will be unable to connect to Microsoft 365 apps and services on IE 11. For degraded experiences, new Microsoft 365 features will not be available or certain features may cease to work when accessing the app or service via IE 11. While we know this change will be difficult for some customers, we believe that customers will get the most out of Microsoft 365 when using the new Microsoft Edge. We are committed to helping make this transition as smooth as possible.”

Keep an eye out for more end of support updates here on the Karls Technology blog.

If you are needing help with Microsoft issues, please give us a call at 1-800-620-5285.  Karls Technology is a nationwide computer service company with offices in many major cities.  This blog post is brought to you from our staff at the Plano Computer Repair Service. If you need computer repair in Plano, TX please call the local office at (469) 299-9005.

It seems as though we have not seen the last of the attacker, who on December 14th, 2020, breeched the Orion platform in SolarWinds software.

According to Malwarebytes:

“We can confirm the existence of another intrusion vector that works by abusing applications with privileged access to Microsoft Office 365 and Azure environments. After an extensive investigation, we determined the attacker only gained access to a limited subset of internal company emails. We found no evidence of unauthorized access or compromise in any of our internal on-premises and production environments.”

Malwarebytes is a trusted name in cybersecurity. Although they do not utilize SolarWinds software in their company, they and other companies like Microsoft have been affected by it. They thank security companies, such as CrowdStrike and FireEye for their efforts in vividly recounting attacks publicly in hopes to avoid further issues.

Crowdstrike shared that malware coming from activity, called StellerParticle included SUNSPOT. SUNSPOT had been added to certain software builds (such as SolarWinds) as a backdoor. It then acted discreetly while replacing different source files with malware.

“The design of SUNSPOT suggests StellarParticle developers invested a lot of effort to ensure the code was properly inserted and remained undetected, and prioritized operational security to avoid revealing their presence in the build environment to SolarWinds developers.”

Source: Crowdstrike

For help with computer security issues, call us at 1-800-620-5285.  Karls Technology is a nationwide computer service company with offices in many major cities. This blog post was brought to you from our staff at the Denver Computer Repair Service. If you need computer repair in Denver, CO please call or text the local office at (720) 441-6460.

A new UI (user interface) for the Alarms & Clock app is currently in the works for Windows 10.

According to Windows Central, this UI has been unannounced as part of the “Sun Valley UI refresh”. Zac Bowden, a senior editor, stated on the blog, “The new app update is in testing now with Insiders in the Dev Channel, and will likely roll out to production machines sometime in 2021. I understand that this Alarms & Clock app update is part of the Sun Valley initiative, which aims to reinvigorate the Windows user experience with a refreshed design and new features in time for the fall 2021 release.”

It appears the devs are recreating simplistic apps, such as this one, to make them look more modernized with the other Windows 10 apps. There’s a definite difference in the current UI and the one in development.

The Alarm & Clock app is currently being tested by Windows Insiders.

If you are part of the Windows Insiders Program, you can update your computer before anyone else does – great for future reference. If you’d like to sign up, you can register here, accept the terms and you’ll receive a Welcome E-mail. Be sure to read the Important Notice before agreeing to join, as it adds a variety of risks to your computer.

For help troubleshooting Windows 10 issues, call us at 1-800-620-5285.  Karls Technology is a nationwide computer service company with offices in many major cities. This blog post was brought to you from our staff at the Mesa Computer Repair Service, if you need computer repair in Mesa, AZ please call the local office at (480) 240-2950.