Author Archives: mike

Firewall Vulnerability Alerts

We are just about to enable something that will email people when there is a critical firewall alert relating to an attempted exploit. During normal web browsing activity (although not when the web site is encrypted with https), the firewall keeps … Continue reading

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Have You Received An Invoice Spam?

  The following is one of a number of spam messages that I received yesterday; all carefully filed away in the spam folder. To Whom It May Concern, Please find attached an invoice relating to Penalty Charge Notice Number IA54236946 … Continue reading

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OSX Malware: Yes It Does Exist!

One of the messages that we are regularly trying to push is that malware on Apple devices can and does exist. We have even encountered a few infected Apple laptops! It is easy to overlook amongst the ever rising flood … Continue reading

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Who Would Want To Hack My ${Device} ?

One of the most common things you hear when talking about security to ordinary people is a variation on the question asked in the subject: Who would want to hack my desktop, laptop, phone, router, intelligent thermostat, smoke detector, etc. … Continue reading

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Forged @port.ac.uk Emails

As many are undoubtedly aware, there have been a number of instances where email has been forged so that it appears to be from someone with an email address ending in @port.ac.uk. In the cases IS has investigated, the email forgeries … Continue reading

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The Xcode Ghost In Your Apps

We are seeing a number of instances where people have installed legitimate applications from the Apple App store, and their phone is communicating with the Xcode Ghost malware infrastructure across the network. This sort of malware infection is a bit unusual … Continue reading

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What Do You Do With Your Old Phone, Tablet, and Laptop?

In the case of devices provided by the University, it is of course the University’s responsibility to maintain device security. But for your own personal devices? That responsibility belongs to you. Wiping a phone may seem like a waste of … Continue reading

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Mail Diagnostics: Getting The Original View

When dealing with problematic emails, it is vitally important to get a proper view of the message headers. Mail clients (such as the Google Mail client on the web) typically hide this view, and only show the interesting headers such … Continue reading

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Time For WordPress Updates Again! And Automating Backups …

Today, WordPress announced a critical security update that should be applied to all installations of WordPress. Whilst you are hopefully applying updates to the main WordPress installation automatically, now would be a good time to log in to the control … Continue reading

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Are You Ready For 2015-06-30 23:59:60?

Yes there really is such a time as 23:59:60 … at least there is on the 30th June 2015, when a leap second is inserted into standard time (I’ll gloss over exactly what that is as the full details would … Continue reading

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