Fidelity Computing & Communications

12/25/2023

I was very grateful for finding and being able to share this, as this gets the job done for recognizing what it is that we are really celebrating here, and enjoying as well!

Thank you to everyone in our lives, who have participated with and through everything and not only with us but with everyone else and the rest of the world too!

08/03/2023

Here's the greatest reward program ever!

(for those of you who don't know me, i'm very sarcastic)

Now, Mind you... Defender has come a long way, where honestly it was better to have nothing, than defender... but at the same time I don't think it's anywlhere near what it should be.....

"Get 500 Microsoft Rewards points for using Microsoft Defender"

Get rewarded for protecting your devices with Defender, included in your Microsoft 365 subscription.

Microsoft Rewards members have access to earning rewards for themselves, donating to causes they care about, and even saving while shopping.

As a Microsoft 365 subscriber, you get exclusive access to additional point opportunities. Now you have a chance to earn 500 Rewards points when you sign up for the Microsoft Defender app (offer exclusive to new users).1

Microsoft Defender is an easy-to-use security app2 for individuals and families that helps protect identities,3 data, and devices from online threats. With continuous scanning for online threats, Microsoft Defender works around-the-clock to maintain the security of your devices. And the best part is that it’s already included with your Microsoft 365 subscription.

Steps to earning 500 points:

Activate offer and download the Defender app.

Sign into the Rewards dashboard to check your balance, earn points, redeem rewards, and more.

12/19/2022

Windows Security Threat, those using Free Microsoft Windows Defender Anti-Vrus.....

There is a threat called the “Aikido” Vulnerability and what it's able to do is use Windows Defender to actually DELETE FILES.

The threat was announced earlier this month, then more recently verified.

Remember, Microsoft's Anti-Virus solution is only there to help with reducing the BLACK EYES that Microsoft Gets for ALL of the threats and harm caused against Windows Operating System, which is still the world's leader.

Yes it's 'good enough' but it is not 'great' and Microsoft isn't a security company and isn't going to focus on those concerns with all of their other products and services they provide.

As always, make sure Windows is updated, and get better security, and make sure your security solution, is NOT affected by the “Aikido” Vulnerability.

Feel free to contact us for better security options!

07/26/2022

Email Scams, there's an uptick in the following types:

You will get email, usually text only, no attachments, or anything else suspicious besides, most likely, it being poorly written, which that ALONE should peek anyone's interest....

The email will include something, about some service, or product, that you have been charged for, and they advise of your options to track the order, and/or cancel it....

You of course, if you are thinking clearly, and are NOT acting out of a sense of urgency, will know that you did not do this, and this is scam, and if you use any of the top 10 tips, on how to quickly check any email to see if it's even remotely legit, you will see that the email address from is most likely not related at all, with the service or product, and if you HOVER over the links, you will see there are LINKS that do not go to recognizable places on the internet.

I don't know how often this strategy works, but clearly it does or they wouldn't be doing it.

Their goal, at this time, is to get you to respond/interact mostly for the purpose of verifying that they have reached a good address/person, just by having you respond, or interact with anything they did include with links.

Then if you choose to interact with them, they may request more information, but at a minimum, they are going to continue to use your email address and any additional information they glean from that for other purposes.

Please people, take a few seconds before clicking on links, downloading attachments, opening things you have no idea or expectations of to see if it's legit!

07/15/2022

This is for us nerds out there!

The latest record-breaking distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack peaked at 26 million requests per second (RPS) this past June. This is just the latest in a string of massive botnet-induced attacks targeting service providers

Move aside, Amazon and GitHub — there’s a new DDoS attack that holds the heavyweight title of being the largest DDoS attack in history. Cloudflare reported in June 2022 that its services detected and halted a massive distributed denial of service attack in action that topped 26 million requests per second. Considering that Cloudflare reports that they served “over 25 million HTTP requests per second on average” in Q2 2021, that gives you an idea of the sheer scale of this attack.

Previously, Amazon Web Services (AWS) was recognized as holding the reigning title for defending against a colossal 2.3 -terabit-per-second (Tbps) distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack! At the time (February 2020), this made Amazon attack the biggest reported DDoS attack in history.

It was preceded by GitHub, which sustained a 1.35 Tbps attack in 2018 — a one-two punch that was delivered without the help of a botnet. (Attackers used a method known as memcaching — more on that later.)

In January 2019, Imperva announced a new contender for the title — although they were looking at DDoS attacks from a slightly different angle. This undesirable recognition was awarded to an unnamed client of Imperva, which experienced a DDoS attack in which 500 million packets per second (PPS) were directed at their network or website. A few months later in April, Imperva reported an even larger PPS attack on another client that surpassed the January record — the newest attack peaked at 580 million PPS.

This was provided by our SSL Certificate and other premium services provider!

03/26/2022

Another rough day at the office.... lol
(no, just another satisfied client in San Diego, Ca)

A little computing, audio/video going in...

03/12/2021

On the Privacy Invasion TIP....

Sites Have a New Way to Track You—
Even If You Go Incognito
or Clear the Cache

To be extremely clear, the technique that we're about to explain for sites to track you across the web—even if you clear your cache or use an incognito window—is one that researchers found, not necessarily one that sites are actually using, especially not at scale. (Then again, there's not much these analytics companies won't do.) The technique works by focusing on favicons, the little icon that your browser displays to represent the site you're on. Because most browsers store those favicons separately from your browsing history and cookies, traditional means of avoiding tracking like using a private mode or clearing your cache don't affect them. Which in turn means, according to researchers from the University of Illinois, Chicago, that sites could use a unique series of favicons to identify you and track you across the web no matter what. Chrome, Safari, and Edge are all currently vulnerable to the attack, although Google and Apple have both said they're looking into it.

03/10/2021

10/14/2020

Here we go again....

Same old trick with Phishing Emails, please be on the look out, and don't be in a hurry and in a rush because you're too busy to double check if you should open an attachment, or click a link in an email you just received.

This appears to come from Intuit AKA Quickbooks, and many of us in business do receive these types of emails, but again everyone needs to PAY ATTENTION to what they are opening and clicking on.

In this case it is NOT an invoice, which would be either a PDF or link, it is a Malicious Excel Attachment with Macros enabled (the M in XLSM is for Macro which is a form of automation) in this case M could also be for MALICIOUS!

They quality of the emails are better than some, however some of the most typical generic issues are very clear here.

They don't have your real name, they don't list their real name or contact options, and in this case if you try to reply to their email, it will go to a no-reply address @ intuit.... Usually they will send it to the malicious sender's email so they can attempt to further attack you.

07/28/2020

Ok... we have a real David & Goliath (technical anti-edition[in this]story version, David is the bad guy, Goliath is the good guy]) going on right now....

Some of our customers, with enhanced email services may experience email delivery problems to their contacts....

At present the idiots @ Spamhaus Zen (A Type of Spam Monitoring Agency) has black listed Proofpoint Essentials.....

I would say it was a joke, if it wasn't so devastatingly Sad....

All possible efforts to resolve the issue, with Spamhaus have been taken by Proofpoint...

This is NOT an issue with our server, or your email, or your customers!

This issue can affect anyone (and there are millions and millions) of email addresses that are handled by Proofpoint.

The issue will happen intermittently with different contacts for an varying amount of time ranging from a few minutes, several hours, or more.

Hopefully this will be resolved, globally sooner than later!

More updates to follow, when there is more information available!

11/25/2019

One of my favorite telephone related support calls....

Client: 'whenever someone calls me they get a message that I am not available and they're forced to leave a message'

Me: 'that's usually because you're using what's called DND or do not disturb are you familiar with that '

Client: 'Yes, I know what that is and no I am not using it'

Me: 'ok, great, can you take a look at and tell me if you see anything that looks like d&d or any other symbols'

Client: 'no, there's nothing like that'

Me: ' ok. Great! Can you please take a picture of your phone display and send it to me?

Client (making disgruntled sound): 'yes, ok......sent it'

Me: as I'm looking at picture, thinking to myself, I knew it.....

Client: ' oh look, now I see it, ok I fixed it '

Me: 'ok thank you, have a great day!'

06/23/2019

Here we go people, please pay attention here, please.... It's NOT a Microsoft problem (this time) it's the support softwate, that comes preinstalled on computers.....

This was from Forbes