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Update This WordPress Plugin Immediately To Prevent Security Risks
Do you have a WordPress site? Do you use the PHP Everywhere plugin?
If so, you’re not alone. More than 30,000 site owners have installed it. It’s an excellent plugin that dramatically enhances websites using it, because it allows webmasters to place PHP pretty much anywhere on the page to display dynamic web content.
This Plugin Could Put Your WordPress Site At Risk
The WP HTML Mail plugin has been installed on more than 20,000 websites. If you’ve built a WordPress site for your business and you use that plugin, be aware that you are at risk. A high severity security flaw was recently discovered in the plugin that could allow an attacker to perform a code injection style attack that allows the attacker to send phishing emails to the site’s registered users.
Update Your All In One SEO Plugin For Security Patch
Do you own and operate a WordPress website? Do you also use the “All in One” SEO plugin?
If you answered yes to both of those questions, then be aware that you’ll want to update that plugin as soon as possible.
Recently security researcher Marc Montpas from Automattic Security discovered and reported a pair of critical security flaws.
These flaws put any website using the non-upgraded version of that plugin at risk.
Microsoft Paint Got A Makeover After Recent Update
Microsoft has had a long and interesting relationship with its venerable “Paint” app.
Most people are familiar with Paint. It’s been around since the earliest versions of Windows and let’s be honest it was never a great application.
It allows users to do the basics but it was quickly eclipsed by more robust and feature-rich programs.
How many people would make the claim that Paint stacks up well against Photoshop, GIMP, or Paintshop Pro? Very few indeed.
Microsoft Excel Adding Useful Features For Developers
There’s great news in your immediate future if you’re one of the legions of Excel users. Recently Microsoft made some behind the scenes changes to the venerable spreadsheet application that allows developers to code their own custom data types for use inside the program. The upgrade isn’t aimed at business executives but rather at developers who need to incorporate metadata into Excel cells.
Microsoft Windows 7 And 8 OneDrive Support Is Ending
Are you a OneDrive user running Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1? If so be aware that on January 1st, 2022 your OneDrive desktop application will reach end of support.
The good news is that your OneDrive files aren’t going anywhere. So you don’t have to worry about finding a new cloud-based file storage system. This is definitely more than a minor inconvenience and yet another reason to strongly consider upgrading your PC and your OS to something more modern.
End To End Encryption Comes To Microsoft Teams
In a bid to further bolster security Microsoft has recently announced the roll-out of end to end encryption for one to one Microsoft Teams calls. Teams already encrypts user data both in transit and at rest and it allows IT admins to establish automatic transcription and recording of all video calls.
Hackers Turn To New Trick Called SEO Poisoning
Hackers have a new tool in their toolbox you should be aware of. Called SEO Poisoning or sometimes “search poisoning” the attack relies on Black Hat SEO techniques to optimize web content.
Researchers from Menlo Security have spotted two separate campaigns one linked to the SolarMarker backdoor and the other leveraging REvil ransomware to infect unsuspecting netizins.
Here’s how the attacks work…
Microsoft Teams Adds A Number Of New Features
Do you use Microsoft Teams? If you do then you’re going to love the August update. It offers a number of new high value features that will improve the quality of your online meetings. Here’s a quick overview:
1. Two New Presenter Options
2. Captioning and Transcription Changes
3. Calling Changes
4. Teams for Education
The bottom line is that there’s something for just about everyone in the August update. You won’t want to miss this one.
DNS Issue Caused Major Website Outage
The Akamai Corporation reported a major outage on Thursday (7/22/2021) that caused major disruptions on the internet in the United States for a period of several hours. A tweet from the company confirmed that the outage was caused by a software update. The update triggered a bug in the DNS system which caused the outage.
The good news is that the outage was not the result of a hack as had initially been feared.