John Lister

Nearly three in every four dollars paid to ransomware scammers goes to Russian-affiliated groups according to new research. The authors also accuse Russia of turning a blind eye to large-scale money laundering. The figures come from Chainalysis, ... which tracks crime involving cryptocurrencies. These are "virtual" currencies such as Bitcoin where all transactions are tracked on a public "ledger". The way cryptocurrencies work means its relatively straightforward to track the amount of money a particular user has spent or received. However, it's often difficult to prove who a particular user is. ... (view more)

Security experts have reminded users to take extra care when sourcing installation files for Windows 11. A look-alike "Microsoft" site was actually distributing some nasty malware. Normally such scams tend to mainly work on people who are either ... trying to get round paying for software or are trying to get early access without going through official test programs. That's not quite the case with Windows 11 where people running "incompatible" machines can still upgrade to the system by downloading official files and creating a USB installation. However, when some people came looking for Windows ... (view more)

Microsoft is testing a warning message for users running Windows 11 on unsupported machines. It's the first time such a warning has appeared after an upgrade rather than before. The situation with upgrades to Windows 11 has been complicated to say ... the least. Microsoft originally annoyed many users by insisting the upgrade was only available for machines with certain specifications and features. Some of these, such as a hardware component called a Trusted Protection Module (TPM v2.0), aren't on even some recently-manufactured PCs. Microsoft later clarified that "incompatible" machines can be ... (view more)

Microsoft is making it harder for scammers to distribute ransomware and other malware through Office documents. However, the tighter block on visual basic macros running by default may frustrate some users. A macro is a way of reducing a series of ... instructions to a single instruction, while VBA (visual basic language) is a way of handling macros in Microsoft programs. It's often used for frequently performed tasks. To give a hypothetical example, a user could create a macro in a spreadsheet that means pressing a couple of keys together which tells the computer to check two columns for any ... (view more)

Microsoft will forcibly upgrade some Windows 10 computers, even where automatic updates are switched off. The upgrade is between Windows 10 editions rather than to Windows 11. The move is designed to reduce the number of machines running unsupported ... editions of Windows 10 , something that could increase security risks as well as mean more people experiencing performance problems. In simple terms, Windows 10 gets two major updates each year and Microsoft usually supports the three most recent. Put another way, the longest users can go at a time without getting the latest update but still ... (view more)

Microsoft has warned users may need to leave computers on overnight to be sure of getting all security updates. It raises questions about how efficiently the update process works. The warning comes in a company blog aimed at IT professionals, though ... the findings also apply to the general public. Whether to leave devices running is a particular issue in offices where it would make sense from a power use perspective to get staff to shut down their machines at the end of the working day, particularly if it's only used for around eight hours a day. Microsoft says it's been investigating what may ... (view more)

Thirty five states have backed a legal challenge to the way Apple runs its app store. The specific case centers on a game but could affect the entire way app stores operate. Unlike other mobile systems, most users can only install software on ... iPhones and iPads through the official Apple app store. Apple not only takes a cut of the purchase price of any paid apps, but also requires developers to pass on 30 percent of any in-app purchases such as upgrading an app to remove ads or selling digital content. Epic Games, maker of the Fortnite game, tried to get round that rule by including a message ... (view more)

Californian laws requiring "net neutrality" have been found lawful by an appeals court. As so often on the topic, the legal argument is as much about who has the power to make laws as it is the legal measures themselves. While precise definitions ... vary between people with different viewpoints, the most common definition of net neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic (except that carrying illegal material) should be treated equally. One of the key issues for that principle in practice is whether Internet carriers can give priority to connections to specific sites or intentionally ... (view more)

Google has rethought its plans to overhaul the way targeted advertising works online . It's the latest attempt to balance user privacy and accurate targeting. At the moment a large proportion of online ads are powered by third-party cookies. That's ... where an advertiser or ad network operator uses cookies to track a user's online activity and try to figure out their tastes and interests. This data then powers the ads they see on many websites, which are shown specifically for them. It's good news for advertisers as they can theoretically do a better job of reaching suitable customers, but bad ... (view more)

Google says defamation laws could mean it has to "censor" search results. It's appealing a case in Australia where it was told to pay damages for a link to a newspaper article. The case involves a man arrested in 2004 on charges of conspiracy to ... murder. The charges were later dropped. Google's search results database included a link to an Australian newspaper article from the time of the arrest. In 2016 the man asked Google to remove the link but it refused to do so. The man then sued Google for defamation, arguing that linking to the article had the same effect as the article itself. He ... (view more)