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Showing posts from March, 2018

windows 10 'S Mode' Coming Soon — For Security and Performance

Microsoft has confirmed that the company is planning to convert Windows 10 S from a dedicated operating system to a special " S Mode " that will be available in all versions of Windows. Windows 10 S, a new operating system designed for simplicity, security, and speed, was released by Microsoft last year. It locks a computer down to run applications only downloaded from official Windows Store, but the slimmed-down and restricted flavor of Windows did not exactly turn out to be a success. Therefore, the company has now decided Windows 10 S be offered as an optional mode rather than a dedicated operating system. Windows 10 S was developed to simplify administration for school or business sysadmins that want the 'low-hassle' guaranteed performance version. It has been designed to deliver predictable performance and quality through Microsoft-verified apps via the Microsoft Store. However, in a blog post published Wednesday, the corporate VP of Microsoft's oper...

New Cryptocurrency Mining Malware Infected Over 500,000 PCs in Just Few Hours

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Two days ago, Microsoft encountered a rapidly spreading cryptocurrency-mining malware that infected almost 500,000 computers within just 12 hours and successfully blocked it to a large extent. Dubbed Dofoil , aka Smoke Loader , the malware was found dropping a cryptocurrency miner program as payload on infected Windows computers that mines Electroneum coins, yet another cryptocurrency, for attackers using victims' CPUs. On March 6, Windows Defender suddenly detected more than 80,000 instances of several variants of Dofoil that raised the alarm at Microsoft Windows Defender research department, and within the next 12 hours, over 400,000 instances were recorded. The research team found that all these instances, rapidly spreading across Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine, were carrying a digital coin-mining payload, which masqueraded as a legitimate Windows binary to evade detection. However, Microsoft has not mentioned how these instances were delivered to such a massive audie...