American Computer Concepts LLC

05/31/2023

If you own a gigabyte motherboard, you have a BIG problem...
https://www.wired.com/story/gigabyte-motherboard-firmware-backdoor/

08/24/2022

If you own one of the 10's of millions of routers that use the Realtek RTL819X SOC chipset (and I have not found a list of all of them, but they include virtually ALL of the major manufacturers), then your router has a CRITICAL flaw. On a scale of 1 to 10, it rates a 9.8. There is a Stack buffer overflow vulnerability on the internet facing side of the router in which a single malicious UDP SIP packet addressing any arbitrary port, will allow the attacker to take complete control of your router. Realtek released a fix to manufacturers in March 2022, but a great many of these routers are out of warranty and are no longer being updated with new operating software. And hardly anybody updates their routers anyway. So there is an extremely high likelihood that your router is vulnerable, and may already have been attacked. At the Defcon conference last week, this vulnerability was discussed, almost immediately here were malicious scanners looking for vulnerable routers. If you can update your router's firmware, you need to do so NOW. If you can't, you need to get a new router.

Exploit code has been released for a critical vulnerability affecting networking devices with Realtek's RTL819x system on a chip (SoC), which are estimated to be in the millions.

08/19/2022

Clearly, adequate vibration testing was not done.

While I'm sure the HD and Laptop manufacturers learned a hard lesson here, there is still an important lesson that we all need to remember. Hd's are found in a LOT of things, car entertainment systems, cable boxes, surveillence/security systems. Vibration damping is critical for all of these systems. I spent 8 years designing and building shock and vibration resistant systems worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each. It isn't as easy as mounting stuff of rubber grommets.

08/17/2022

Bitlocker is the Debbil!

Windows users who have installed a new KB5012170 security update for Secure Boot have encountered various issues, ranging from boots failing with BitLocker Recovery prompts to performance issues.

08/17/2022

Do you use Microsoft Teams? Spotify? Discord? Or probably a million other apps that are based on Electron? If so, Houston, we have a problem....

We use cookies to help us enhance your online experience. If that sounds good, click “Accept All Cookies” or to review our Privacy and Cookie Policy click here.

08/17/2022

Microsoft was warned two years ago about a zero day vulnerability called "Dog Walk" that allows a bad actor to trick users into allowing a program to drop malware into the "Startup" folder. They however declared at the time that since it didn't elevate privileges it was working as designed. Now, this patch Tuesday they declared it a critical zero day vulnerability.

https://youtu.be/2jCmYph3vfQ

08/15/2022

If you like to travel by air, you can improve your network security and save money on travel at the same time. If you use a VPN that allows you to make it appear you are logging in from say Mexico, or Germany, or Saudi Arabia or something like that you will find that airlines will change the price of a flight depending on which country you appear to be logging in from. So get yourself a VPN and swap around your origin point and go shopping. I can't say which country is best, I suspect that changes from one airline to another. But good luck!

08/13/2022

New customers to MicroCenter can receive a new 250gb SSD, NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Then come see me and I will install it for you.

08/10/2022

I have been warning users to avoid Windows 11 ever since it came out. I have been vindicated yet again. Microsoft has recently announced that they have found a pattern of corrupted encrypted hard drives caused by a bad interaction between windows and the cryptographic engine built into the supported CPU's. They have devised a fix, however it causes a significant loss in performance.

I will say again, unless you have a strong reason why you MUST use Windows 11, don't.

06/28/2022

SOME KEY INFO FOR THE GULLIBLE:
1. The government will not robo-call you with an automated system giving you an option to speak with a representative.

2. If the government thinks that you owe them money, and they call you rather than using the US Mail, they will call you with a live human and they will address you by your name.

3. If the government thinks you have been a victim of identity theft or fraud, and is seeking to contact you to inform you and ask you some necessary questions, they will in fact call you... with a live agent (Typically the Secret Service is tasked with credit card fraud) and by your name.

4. If the government actually thinks they have hard evidence that you have committed a criminal activity, they will not call you on the phone, they will visit you in person, with an arrest warrant in hand.

5. Amazon/ebay/etc is not going to call you to warn you of a large impending purchase. They are happy as a clam for you to spend that much money. They are NOT going to call you to confirm. And they will NEVER ask to take over your computer.

6. McAfee/Norton/Microsoft is not going to generate a pop-up ad or send you an email from a Gmail address warning you of an infection and tell you to click on the link or call a phone number. That is called a phasing scam.

Please don't be a trusting fool, the world is a dark and scary place, view everything you see as a probable scam. Only after doing your research should you click on ANYTHING you see online, and even then, be wary. Many of us grew up trusting our fellow man. That is not the world we live in now.

06/20/2022

Microsoft has quietly released an undelete utility for Windows 10...

Recover deleted files without turning to a third-party program.

04/26/2022

If you have 7-Zip installed in your machine, a vulnerability that has been seen used in "the wild" uses the help file included in the program to give other files administrator privileges. The solution is to go to the installation folder of the program and delete the 7-Zip.chm file (the help file). It will not affect how the program works, it just disables the help function.