Technology

I don't know if you've heard, but hell hath officially frozen over. And you know I have to be serious, because I used the word "hath."

Yes, indeedly: Google and Apple, better known as Valjean and Javert (or maybe vice-versa, depending on your perspective), have set aside their differences and set out to work together — on a contact-tracing system for this current COVID crisis of ours.

The effort will introduce a standard programming interface to both Android and iOS that'll be capable of tracking what devices you come in contact with during the day (and/or night, if you're still being wild). Then, if someone you've been near identifies themselves as being sick with COVID-19, the system will alert you that you may've been exposed.

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Given that 113 updates arrived for April‘s Patch Tuesday, IT admins have a lot to do. For older systems, Adobe font issues (CVE-2020-0938,CVE-2020-1020) will should get immediate attention. Changes to the Windows Scripting handler and the browser-based Chakra scripting engine may require some additional testing for in-house applications.

This monthOffice updates are relatively low impact unless you are running SharePoint server - which will then require a number of updates, leading to a server reboot. With three (so far) zero-days and a number of critical memory-related patches to Windows, my advice is: don&t panic. Patch older systems first. Test core applications for scripting dependencies and then schedule the remaining updates according to your normal update cycle.

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Checkpoint Research recently warned that criminals are exploiting the COVID-19 crisis with a wave of attempts to trick people into sharing their security credentials with fake emails.

To catch a phish

Apple, the research claims, is the most widely impersonated brand.

Phishing is the practice of impersonating legitimate messages from a brand in an email or other message in an attempt to trick people into accessing that service via insecure servers, sharing their login passwords and credentials when they do.

Criminals can then use this information to undermine account security, dig deeper into your identity to get even more confidential data, or even sell your details on the black market to other hackers.

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