Month: May 2019

May 21, 2019

Hosting Related, Security, Security Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

WhatsApp is one of the most ubiquitous and popular instant messenger apps these days, and it’s fair to say that there’s likely hundreds of thousands of people who have it installed on their smartphone and make frequent use of it. Well, no one’s about to tell you should stop doing so if you’re one of them, but it turns out that you may want to update it manually now - or perhaps even better delete and re-install it - due to recent developments that have just now gotten out into the media. Part of being a good Canadian web hosting provider is giving clients a heads up on such developments, and that describes 4GoodHosting to a tee if we may say so ourselves. Often times these sorts of things aren’t quite ‘newsworthy’ in that sense, but again considering how common WhatsApp is these days we decided to make it our topic for the week. Right then. So, despite encrypting every conversation and following best security practices, WhatsApp (which is owned by Facebook for those of you who care about those things) it seems has been the victim of a cyber attack. It recently announced that it found a vulnerability that was allowing shady types to infect WhatsApp users with spyware when they made - or even attempted to make - a call using the app. No Answer - No Problem Now most people aren’t ones to take notes of character and number chains, but it would seem this this WhatsApp vulnerability is going by CVE-2019-3568. What makes it especially noteworthy is that it allows attackers to infect the device, and have success doing so even if the user at the other end receiving the call didn’t answer it. The means by which these nefarious individuals did this was by exploiting a buffer overflow weakness in the app, one that enables them to hack into WhatsApp before doing the same on the device running the app. When asked about it, the security team at WhatsApp chose to refer to it as an ‘advanced cyber actor’ - a rare but very dangerous type of cyberattack. It is different from other malware attacks...

May 13, 2019

Security, Security Related

Reading Time: 7 minutes

One of the unfortunate realities for human beings is that as we get older, it’s not as easy for us to perform athletically like we once did. When we’re on the right side of 30 it’s not too challenging to run fast, jump high, and turn on a dime. The 30s are a bit of a transition, and once the 40s arrive it’s pretty clear we’re past our prime. Computers slow down as they age too, but that’s a situation that is remedied a lot more easily. You can take your OS back to it’s virtual 20s quite straightforwardly if you know what to do. That’ll be the topic of discussion here today, and for the world’s most common OS specifically – Windows 10. Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re a good Canadian web hosting provider like any other in that we can relate to how it’s frustrating to have to deal with a device – desktop, tablet, smartphone – that’s more putt-putt than vroom-vroom. What we’ve put together here today is 5 ways to speed up your PC running Windows 10, and they’re all fairly easy to implement. Change your power settings Those of you using Windows 10’s Power saver plan should be aware that you’re actually slowing down your PC. It reduces your PC’s performance in order to save energy (most desktop PCs will usually have a Power saver plan of some sort). Switching your power plan from Power Saver to High Performance or Balanced will provide you with an instant performance boost. Here’s how to do it in Windows 10; Launch Control Panel, then select Hardware and Sound > Power Options You’ll then see two options: Balanced (recommended) and Power Saver. (Certain makes and models will have other plans here as well, including manufacturer-branded ones with some.) Clicking the down arrow will show any additional plans that are options to the High Power setting. To change your power setting, simply choose the one you want, then leave then the Control Panel. High performance will provide the most oomph, but as you’d expect it uses the most power; Balanced finds a nice medium between power use and better performance; Power...

May 6, 2019

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

There’s been plenty of buzz and more than a little furor lately about how Google is apparently tracking users and collecting all sorts of data related to what you - and people like you - choose to do within the realms of the World Wide Web. As the old saying goes, where there’s smoke you can assume there’s fire pretty much every time and so it’s fair for Internet users to have concerns and be second-guessing their steps online. As to be expected, the world’s leading digital superpower company says there’s no such cause for concern, or at least concern to the extent that’s being seen amongst the common populace - the vast majority who still choose to use Chrome as their web browser of choice, and the many still who do their web surfing and more on a Chromebook or with a Pixel smartphone. Like any good Canadian web hosting provider, those of us here at 4GoodHosting will suggest that the truth to all of this is somewhere in the middle. It’s entirely logical to believe that actions undertaken on 4G - and soon to be 5G - networks are tracked and monitored, but often times it’s going to be based on much the same principles that Cookies are. That is, to define user behaviour patterns to offer a better and more straight-line A-to-B experience that users WILL want. Of course, there will still be those who’ll believe that the Internet giants are up to nefarious aims with all of this, and so with this in mind it’s interesting to note news from Google this past week that it’s going to enable to auto-deletion of location and web history with its browsers. Catering to Pressure from Privacy Advocates? Like Facebook, Google’s been dogged by privacy advocates to be more receptive to concerns related to its data collection policies, and has been the target of particular criticism for indefinitely holding on to users’ geo-location information on its servers. It seems they haven’t been able to remain entirely impervious to these pressures, and so Google has been making incremental changes to its data collection protocols, allowing users to have more power...