AS HEARD ON WGAN - Intel's New Ads are Stupid and Misleading (Again)
Craig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity
Release Date: 03/24/2021
Craig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity
This was the biggest Patch Tuesday on record: Microsoft pushed close to 700 patches in a single month, roughly six times the usual volume. Craig's follow-up question is the one that actually decides whether a machine is exposed. Microsoft is patching Microsoft. Who is patching everything else? Windows Update never touches third-party software — it barely updates Windows itself, Craig said, and it does nothing for the average of 62 other programs sitting on a typical computer, many of which are being actively exploited right now. He named Adobe Reader and WinZip specifically: the current...
info_outlineCraig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity
Craig grew up in Canada and left in the 1970s, and this week he put numbers on why. A driver's license in Quebec cost $300 a year. Registration on the family station wagon cost $3,000 a year. Both figures in 1970s dollars. Auto insurance, by contrast, was free — which Craig turned into the sharpest point of the segment: his father remarried, his stepmother got her license at 26, and she totaled three cars. Craig's question was not about her driving. It was about what happens to the premium. "How much does insurance go up? How much is the risk? Zero, of course, because there is no insurance....
info_outlineCraig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity
On Monday, a client of Craig's was driving down the road when a prompt appeared in the authentication app on his phone: was he trying to log into the company VPN? He said no. It appeared again. He said no again. Craig's team got him on the phone, changed his passwords, and started digging. The login was coming from a data center in New York — until Craig looked at the actual net block, which traced back to China. The attacker already had the man's email address, his VPN contact information, and his password. The prompt on his phone was the only thing standing in the way, and it worked...
info_outlineCraig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity
Central Virginia has neighbors close to blows in the street over new data centers. Craig's number for the other side of the ledger: one community found that without the tax revenue a data center brings in, property taxes on every home would rise $5,800 a year. Add $250,000-a-year electrician jobs, emissions cut more than 90% once a site is required to generate its own power, and a mandated 20% energy surplus handed back to the grid, and the case against building locally gets a lot thinner than the protest signs suggest. Then the turn: Jeff points out that a lot of the people fighting these...
info_outlineCraig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity
The FBI, CIA, NSA, CISA and others issued a warning about active AI-driven attacks on American critical infrastructure. Craig, who ran the FBI's InfraGard online training program, explains what's actually exposed: old controllers that open and close valves, set flow rates, decide how much acid or base goes into the water — many of them reachable directly from the internet, on networks that have been comprehensively mapped for years. Several water systems have already been shut down; one town lost power along with its water. Josh, who works InfraGard in his own homeland security practice,...
info_outlineCraig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity
The detail that makes this scam land is not the fake website. It's what happens two seconds after you use it. Craig walks the whole sequence. Attackers use AI to build a pixel-accurate copy of a bank's site — he uses Bank of America as the example and is careful to say he's picking on the scammers, not the bank. They send a wide net of email claiming fraudulent activity on your account, knowing that some fraction of any list banks there. You click, you land on the copy, you enter your username and password. Then the clever part. They immediately redirect you to the real bank's site, which...
info_outlineCraig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity
The NSA, CISA, the FBI, the Department of Energy and the EPA put out a joint advisory last Wednesday, and the language is unusually direct: AI dramatically reduces the technical skill and the time required to attack industrial control systems. Those controllers run public works. A great many of them are reachable from the internet, and their locations are not a secret. That sets up the larger conversation. Ray Kurzweil wrote The Singularity Is Near twenty years ago, predicting broadly human-level machine intelligence by 2029 and human-machine integration by 2045. Elon Musk and others now say...
info_outlineCraig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity
Matt opens with a poll finding he calls one of the great PR failures of our time: people would rather have a nuclear power plant built next door than a data center. Pennsylvania's governor has now signed legislation that effectively stops data centers unless they clear a long approvals process. Craig's answer isn't a defense of data centers so much as a description of what a few counties actually did. They said yes — on conditions. Generate your own power, and 20% more than you use, fed back into our grid. And pay full property tax, none of the abatement deals. It worked well enough that...
info_outlineCraig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity
The numbers carry this segment. Eleven hundred forty ransomware attacks on industrial companies in a single quarter, 740 of them against manufacturers. A recent Patch Tuesday carrying about 570 fixes. An Apple advisory telling anyone whose machine touches a coffee-shop network to update now. Craig's point is narrower and more useful than the headline count. Windows Update patches Microsoft software, and not all of it. The average computer is running roughly 60 other programs it never looks at. Older versions of ordinary things — Adobe Reader is the one he names — are what attackers are...
info_outlineCraig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity
Jeff's studio Wi-Fi had been misbehaving for weeks, so this segment became a clinic — and one you can follow along with on your own network, because Craig has Jeff run the test live. The two bands do different jobs. 2.4 GHz travels farther and gets through walls and windows better, but it carries only a few channels, so in an apartment building or a dense neighborhood your neighbors are stepping on you. 5 GHz has the room but not the reach. Anything older than about ten years doesn't have the choice, and Wi-Fi 6, 7 and the coming 8 handle the congestion far better than what came before. Then...
info_outlineCraig Peterson: [00:00:00] Ooh, what a week final preparations are in place for the improving windows security course, which is starting next week. My wife has put her foot down. We're going to make it happen. Today I was on with Mr. Matt gag now, and we spent a little bit of time talking about business, email, compromise, how that is.
[00:00:20] Talked about also ransomware, and it's near tripling and just in long, Hey, I'm Mac and how Intel's newest ads are absolutely ridiculous. It's obviously Apple and Intel going at it. Intel is just mad. That's the only explanation I can come up with. So here we go with
[00:00:47] Matt Gagnon: [00:00:47] Mr. Matt. It is 7:36 on the WGAN morning news. Craig Peterson, our tech guru, joins us now every week.
[00:00:54] And guess what? He's here again, Craig. How are you this morning?
[00:00:57] Craig Peterson: [00:00:57] Hey, good
[00:00:58] Matt Gagnon: [00:00:58] morning. Pleasure having you as always, of course, you hear Craig also on the weekends at one o'clock. If you want to hear about all these topics and more in more depth and detail, listen up Saturday at one o'clock, and you'll hear Craig Peterson's voice right here once again.
[00:01:10] So Craig, lots of stuff to get to here. Maybe a fun one to begin with. Apparently, Intel has hired Justin Long. And if you don't know who Justin Long is if you think back way back to the early two-thousands, he was doing these ads, the I'm a Mac actor. Remember that guy?
[00:01:26]Now he's in an ad to mock Macs. Yeah. And I, I've seen this in a, I think it didn't. Was it Verizon that hired the sprint guy or sprint hire the Verizon guy? I don't remember. Many of these actors were in these iconic roles, for some of these tech companies are getting snapped up to either make fun of or argue against their old essentially.
[00:01:46] It's funny to see this kind of thing
[00:01:47] Craig Peterson: [00:01:47] happen. Yeah, it is that I think you're thinking of the can you hear me now? Exactly. Yeah, this is interesting. And it's showing, I think, frankly, of some concern, maybe even fright on the part of Intel, you see what's been happening over the years, not just with Apple, but with other manufacturers is Intel processors are getting dropped.
[00:02:12] Out of our devices. We started seeing that with smartphones. If you have a smartphone today, it doesn't matter if it's Android or based on Apple's iOS. It does not have an Intel processor score. And we've seen more of that surface tablets without Intel. Some of them have them, some of them don't.
[00:02:32] And of course, all of these Google Chromebooks at all. So don't have it. So Intel has always been struggling to be recognized, and that's why they came up with a whole Intel inside campaign. However, they have also been one of the most expensive little CPUs little processor. If you want a professional Intel processor, it can cost you as much as $8,000.
[00:02:59] Just for the CPU. So Apple has decided we're getting rid of Intel entirely after Intel missed certain benchmarks for performance and battery usage and heat and everything else. And Apple started developing its own chipset here a few years ago, or the CPU is now completely moving away from Intel over the next two years.
[00:03:23] And in fact, if you buy a Mac mini, I have one in front of me right now. That doesn't have an Intel CPU in there. It has the new Apple, one chip Apple is just abandoning them. So they hired Justin Long. The I'm a Mac guy to show you, Oh, this is a, an Intel. Computer. And of course, it really has nothing to do with Intel, and he touches the screen and moves this finger around, and it isn't that neat.
[00:03:52] It pops up and, oh, look at this. We've got two screens on this computer, and I can touch them both. But this Mac book, I can't touch the screen and have it do anything. No, that has anything to do with him, Joe, Matt. It's crazy.
[00:04:07] Matt Gagnon: [00:04:07] Indeed, while we were talking to Craig Peterson, our tech guru, who joins us on Wednesdays at this time to go over what's happening in the world of technology in a more serious perhaps story here.
[00:04:16] the knowledge here that ransom payments have more than tripled is a pretty big deal. Ransomware gangs are apparently out there roaming around the internet and successfully milking. Many people out of cash, basically taking them hostage or taking their machines hostage, if you will. And then promising to give it back.
[00:04:34] If only you give them cash. Talk to me a little bit about the story.
[00:04:37] Craig Peterson: [00:04:37] Yeah. That's really driven up the price of Bitcoin because the ransomware gangs are demanding Bitcoin and payment. It's a little bit harder to trace, but it is still traceable depending on what it is and the FBI just yesterday. Yeah.
[00:04:53] Released another warning about ransomware attacking businesses, government entities, just on and on, but it has a huge impact on anybody that gets ransomware, and a man, the tripling of rent more attacks go hand in hand with people working from home. And that's why I've got this improving windows, securities core starting next week for everybody where we're.
[00:05:19] Helping you to clean it up because we're working at home. We're not as careful as we were at the office. Because of that, it now makes it even easier for them to get valuable information. So the best thing you can do is make sure your computer's patched up. Unfortunately, Windows does not. Ship a hasted care re-secured version of windows out of the box.
[00:05:44] You've got to go in; you have to do a bunch of things. That's part of what we cover in our newsletters every week. And then some of these courses, but these attackers are improving their techniques. 2020 was a great year for them. They've got this whole double extortion thing now where they will get on your computer.
[00:06:03] Particularly if it's a business-related computer, if you're on a VPN connection to the office, they will. Spread is not only inside your home to other computers but across the VPN to the office. And they'll start stealing your data before you even know it's happening, and they might be doing that for a week or more.
[00:06:23] And then once they've got your data, They'll go ahead and encrypt your machines so you can gain access to it. And then they'll say, okay, pay up sucker. And if you don't pay up, you don't get your data. If you do pay up, there's only a 50%. Yeah. Only half the time will you get your data back, even if you pay them.
[00:06:42] And by the way, their justice department says, if you pay them, you're supporting terrorism, and you might get criminal charges against you and to make matters even worse. They'll then say, Oh, okay. By the way, where we are another organization, we have your data. If you don't pay out, we will post your data online, and then you'll be in real trouble.
[00:07:06] Matt Gagnon: [00:07:06] And Craig, the other thing that's worth mentioning here in terms of. Businesses and people that are experiencing some financial extortion, if you will. A business email compromise is also a huge deal. And frankly, I've gotten the emails here about that in this Berry station; make sure that your email is being protected and that you're not falling for phishing scams and all this other stuff. And a lot of email compromised does happen and apparently accounts for a lot of money.
[00:07:30] Craig Peterson: [00:07:30] Yeah, it does. We're talking billions of dollars worldwide. Right now, the FBI estimates that this has cost over 16 billion.
[00:07:39] We're seeing here last year in the us almost $2 billion, and there are some easy ways to deal with this. And I'd put it in my newsletter here a couple of weeks ago when you can always email. Me@craigpeterson.com. I'll send you a link to it, but Google has a free website that you can use, and it has some examples of fishing it's designed for training.
[00:08:04] You can use it for yourself at home. It's wonderful. It gives you a real interactive. Pieces of email that you can see on your screen. It is not going to compromise you at all. This is all online because, with these latest business email compromise attacks, people are getting extortion. It might be tech support romance scams, which have been very big here during this lockdown because people are frankly lonely.
[00:08:35] And they'll do things like being friends. People will be friends, you may be, and we'll say, Hey, listen, my aunt really needs surgery. Eventually, get around to asking you four or five grams to help with this whatever family problem is. And you're romantically involved online, maybe even had a video chat with them.
[00:08:57] So you don't realize that some kid in a basement somewhere over in Eastern Europe, but man, it has gotten awful. So be careful with this BC-type attack and take a minute. You can even Google's phishing scam website, and it'll really help you out a lot. All
[00:09:19]Matt Gagnon: [00:09:19] That's been Craig Peterson, our tech guru who joins us on Wednesdays at this time.
[00:09:22] Thanks a lot, Craig, as always, appreciate it. And we will talk to you again, sir, next week.
[00:09:27] Craig Peterson: [00:09:27] Take care. Bye-bye. You bet. No, my dad used to say you bet all the time. I haven't heard that expression in a very long time. Hey, if you are a windows user, you've got to make sure you spend a few minutes and sign up on my newsletter list, and you can get that to go into Craig peterson.com.
[00:09:49] I will be doing. Windows training here. I've got a course coming up. This is a phenomenal course. I think I explained the why behind what you're doing. So you understand it, you understand the reasons. And then I get into the details of the how, so this is a course. I think everybody needs to get it. So I've got some special deals for you guys.
[00:10:18] If you. Request information on the course, if you've already requested it by responding to one of my emails, my newsletters, and saying, yeah. Tell me more about improving my windows security. I'm going to be giving you guys a coupon that is going to give you two-thirds off. And those coupons are going to be good for you to share with your friends as well for two months.
[00:10:47] Okay. So this is going to be a real quick launch next week. It's only going to be open. You can only buy this course. I think Monday is when we're planning on opening, and it will. And Thursday night. So you guys that asked about it beforehand, you signed up before you will get this coupon to help out your friends.
[00:11:09] So when they're saying, Hey, how do I improve this window security thing? You can give them that code. And as I said, it was good for 60 days. Nobody else is going to get that code. So if you're on my regular email list, you are not going to get that code. The only people who will get it are the people who have already expressed interest by responding to one of my newsletters in advance of me starting this course on Monday or opening the cart on Monday.
[00:11:41] So it's going to be a huge win for you. It's going to be $200. Off. Okay. I'm trying to make this affordable for everybody. And on top of it all, I have promised this for four months. Again, talking about Karen, putting her foot down, she said, I got to do something for all of these people have been asking for it.
[00:12:02] And I haven't got it out yet. So this is going to be great. It is months in the making, and I really think you're going to enjoy it. I'm finishing, loading it all up. Bye, I'm actually reactivating all of the videos because I wouldn't say I liked the way the captioning was working. I have all of these videos captioned.
[00:12:24] So if you can't, I can't hear it. Or if you want to have it running without the sound on at work or wherever it's burned right into the video. Okay. But the captioning, which is a transcription of me speaking. Okay. That captioning was getting cut off at the top. So I thought that might be distracting.
[00:12:45] So I'm, re-editing all of the videos to put the captioning a little bit lower down on the screen. And the way I did it is the desktop slides. All of the examples are below the camera optioning. So the captioning is not going to block—any part of the video. So you'll be able to see the screenshots and see the slides and everything else with the full caption because I know a lot of you guys like to sit there in front of the computer and do this, and of course, you're able to do it on as many computers as you want, because you're going to have access to this program for six months.
[00:13:28] And I think that's going to be an excellent thing. And it's about five-week. Program is how it's designed. And anyway, so w so if you sign up in advance, there's a little bit of a trick. You can get the coupon; you can share it with anybody good for it. Two months. Nobody else gets that. All right.
[00:13:50] Everybody take care, and I'll be back on Saturday. And then Monday, expect the opening email to let you know that I'm opening the cart to improve Windows security. Of course. All right. Take care, guys.