TechNet Blogs posts:Four ways to keep your kids safer online

It is in the news all the time it seems that someone is bullied or some tragedy has occurred because of online bullying and abuse.

With a significant number of young people using the internet compared to their adult counterparts, and over 80% of teens regularly using a cell phone, chances are your children are vulnerable to online dangers.

Whether it’s your child joining the more than 50% that have experienced cyber bullying, or falling victim to malware attacks, being online can be a risky place for children.

Take a look at their article.

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Sophos SFOS 15.01.0 MR-3 Released

Our own Matt Shafer just posted to us that Sophos has just pushed out a new maintenance release for the XG firewall, including a number of fixes for open issues.

Please direct your customers to the Sophos Community Blog for XG Firewall to review the release notes and share their feedback.

As a reminder, our communications plan for all maintenance releases like this is to publish notifications and release notes on the Sophos Community Blog, so we encourage everyone, such as yourselves and customers, to subscribe to the blog – you'll get immediate notifications via email whenever an XG Firewall or UTM firmware update is available. Complete instructions on how to subscribe are located in this blog article.

Download full release notes: Sophos XG Firewall V15.0.1.0 MR3 Release Notes.pdf

If you’re wondering how to do firmware updates or roll-backs on your XG Firewall, we’ve got a new video for you, covering everything you need to know to keep your firewall up to date.

New Lenovo Phones for anyone interested

Our own Michael Hunter posted two links about the new Lenovo Phone products offerings:

The Modular Moto Z Range Has Arrived

Project Tango Comes to Mobile With The Lenovo Phab 2 Range

Windows Store is a disaster

Windows Store is a "disaster?" That's what one source close to Microsoft says, dishing out a number of troubling comments about Microsoft's cross-platform play ambitions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kun6sXUCqRM

Another issue with WAZE

I had read an earlier article about how to prevent Snoops from stalking you in Waze with “ghost” drivers on Naked security that discussed an paper published by a team of researchers from the University of California at Santa Barbara claiming they can track a Waze driver’s exact route using thousands of simulated “ghost” vehicles in the app.

If you’re not familiar with Waze, it’s a Google-owned app that relies on crowdsourcing as people report accidents, traffic jams, and speed and police traps, while its online map editor gives drivers updates on roads, landmarks, house numbers, and the cheapest nearby fuel.

Naked Security has a take on another problem that has been reported with this Google Application. It appears a quiet neighborhood in Takoma Park, Maryland has been invaded by drivers trying to find a shortcut around a construction area. One of the residents then tried to turn the tide by posting bogus traffic data to trick the app into sending motorists away from his area.

He lasted about two weeks before Waze kicked him out for reporting bogus data. Take a look at the article it has a lot if interesting detail.

Good discussion on Password Security

Our own Carnegie Mellon’s Security and Privacy Institute tested a group of people to determine their understanding of what makes a strong password. Naked Security’s ArticleNaked Security’s Article posted yesterday discusses this and the main thing that I took from the article is the following:

CyLab’s respondents knew passwords are more secure when you:

• Capitalize the middle of words rather than the beginning
• Place digits and symbols in the middle rather than the end
• Use random digit sequences instead of obvious ones, like years
• Choose words other than common first names
• Avoid words that are personal to you, like your child’s name
• Avoid words that are obviously related to the site or account you’re trying to protect

So when you are creating a new password to secure a site you may want to take direction from above.

Here is a video from Naked Security on how to pick a proper password:

Has TeamViewer been compromised?

There is been a lot of discussion here at the office lately about whether or not TeamViewer has been hacked, so I have been keeping my eye out for any confirmation from some of the sources that I trust as to whether or not this actually has happened. One of the sources I trust is Sophos’s Naked Security Blog has finally come out with a an article discussing this.

The article discusses what TeamViewer does and how it's being compromised will affect you if you are using this application. Click on the link above to see the full article.

ArsTechnica three days ago posted a report that confirms there was a number of abused user accounts and that the number is significant as reported by TeamViewer themselves.

On Sunday, TeamViewer spokesman Axel Schmidt ack he nowledged to Ars that the number of takeovers was "significant," but he continued to maintain that the compromises are the result of user passwords that were compromised through a cluster of recently exposed megabreaches involving more than 642 million passwords belonging to users of LinkedIn, MySpace, and other services.

TeamViewer thinks that the compromise  that they use another applications  comes from individuals reusing passwords that have been compromised.They are suggesting that you use the two factor authentication to control any type of issue with the accounts that are using this program. This is a smart thing to do in any case with almost any application that you are using.Take a look at the ArsTechnica article to get the more in depth view conversation that they had with  the people at TeamViewer.