documents

Hackers have found a sneaky way to bypass antivirus software by intentionally corrupting documents. As always, human vigilance remains a key weapon against such tactics. Putting malware into file attachments and persuading people to open them ... remains one of the key ways attackers operate. Often such tactics involve taking advantage of known security flaws in popular software or in operating systems. The current attack is somewhat more targeted: the documents contain a QR code in the hope that either the user (manually) or the device (automatically) will scan them and open the associated ... (view more)

One of the world's largest libraries has been hit by a major ransomware attack. It's an example of an increasingly common "double-dip" attack. The attackers have not simply encrypted the British Library's files until they receive a payment, which is ... the usual core ransomware goal. Instead, they are threatening to auction off sensitive employee data seized in the attack. The library has an estimated collection of up to 200 million items, including a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom. It's also a key research facility for historians. Among other systems, the library has an ... (view more)

Internal Google documents suggest the company intentionally made it harder for users to stop it accessing their location data. The documents have become public through a lawsuit that claims Google broke data consent rules. The state of Arizona is ... suing over the way Google handles location tracking. Officials say that even when users switched off location tracking for specific apps, Google continued tracking in the background. It only stopped when users switched off a tracking setting for the entire Android system. That's led to the lawsuit, based on the logic that Google made profits from ... (view more)

A Californian city will pay $350,000 to two men it falsely accused of hacking its Dropbox account. Officials in Fullerton, California had actually sent a link that granted the access. The case involves two bloggers, Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee, ... who wrote about local government and regularly requested documents under public record laws. As some of these files were very large, officials would often upload them to a Dropbox folder and provide a link granting access. However, one such response in 2019 also mistakenly included a link giving access to a separate folder that included documents ... (view more)

Two different Windows 10 updates have caused a host of problems, including some files disappearing from the desktop, or deleted permanently. Microsoft has pulled one update and is investigating the other. The update with the more serious problems - ... which is the one Microsoft has withdrawn - is numbered KB4532693 and has a couple of major bugs. The first is that some users have discovered their desktop has returned to its default state. In other words, any customizations such as the arrangement of icons and short cuts, or a background image, have been removed. The most credible suggested ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Lynda F. writes: " Dear Dennis, I've been using Classic Shell (now called 'Open Shell') for many years and it's worked great. The best feature about Classic Shell is the ability to search and find files on my hard drive. For ... example: when I click on the Start Menu, I then type in part of the title of a document I have on my hard drive, and Classic Shell finds it instantly. In contrast, the default Windows 10 Start Menu simply can't find anything on my computer and tells me to go to Bing to find it. As if! Anyhow: the issue I'm having is that the search in Classic Shell ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Tina J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently did a clean install of Windows 10 May 2019 Update (version 1903) on my main PC. My C drive is an SSD and only has 120GB of available space. As such, I have modified my the location of my ... Documents, Pictures, Music, and Video so that it points to the D drive which has 2TB of available space. In the past this hasn't been an issue, but since the Windows 10 May 2019 update, I cannot redirect my Pictures or Documents folder to the D drive - though both the Music and Videos folders had no problems changing locations. When I try to move ... (view more)

Microsoft has fixed a problem with a Windows 10 update that inadvertently deleted user documents. Oddly the problem had been highlighted in early testing, but doesn't seem to have been fixed. The issue received widespread attention when the October ... 2018 Update started rolling out to the wider public. That's the second of the two big annual updates that bring new features to Windows 10, a system that replaces the old set-up of having service packs rolled out every few years. Some users discovered that after the update, everything they had stored in their Documents folders had disappeared. Some ... (view more)

Google has been locking users out of their online documents in what appears to be a glitch. The problem has raised questions over how and why Google scans the contents of documents. The problem is with Google Docs, a service that lets users store, ... edit and share documents online, rather than them having to be stored on a specific computer (and shared by physical media such as USB sticks if necessary). Multiple users are reporting that they've been unable to access files, instead seeing a message saying "This item has been flagged as inappropriate and can no longer be shared" or "We're sorry. ... (view more)

Users of Microsoft's Docs.com have been warned to review security settings on their account. Researchers found it was all too easy to search and find personal data contained in documents mistakenly made public. Docs.com is designed to make it easy ... to share documents with other users over the Internet, including PDF files and those in Office formats, regardless of the device and operating system they are using. The site includes a search feature that lets a user look for text in any document on the service to which they have access - something that's designed to make it much easier ... (view more)