Microsoft keeps a list of old and vulnerable drivers, which threat actors can use to sneak viruses, ransomware, and other malware into endpoints of their choosing.
However, the last update was in 2019 - until now. After two years of sitting idly, the list has finally been updated - but not for all Windows users at once, though.
In an announcement published on the company blog, Microsoft said that the blocklist used by the hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI) tool will, from now on, be updated once or twice a year.
More ways to update
“The blocklist is updated with each new major release of Windows, typically 1-2 times per year, including most recently with the Windows 11 2022 update released in September 2022,” Microsoft said. “The most current blocklist is now also available for Windows 10 20H2 and Windows 11 21H2 users as an optional update from Windows Update. Microsoft will occasionally publish future updates through regular Windows servicing.”
Users who always want the latest update to the driver blocklist can use Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) to apply the latest blocklist, the company further stated. For the sake of convenience, the company provided a download of the most up-to-date vulnerable driver blocklist, as well as instructions on how to apply it, found here.
Microsoft has been getting a lot of criticism lately for the lack of updates to the vulnerable driver blocklist - mainly because the number of attacks using this method skyrocketed.
The method is called Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD), and it’s quite a simple thing: a threat actor would trick a victim, usually through social engineering or phishing, into downloading a Windows driver that’s known for being faulty.
Being a signed driver, it doesn’t trigger any antivirus or endpoint protection services alarms. It just installs like any other non-malicious thing. The driver, being flawed, gives the hackers access to the device, which they can later use for any other attack they see fit - ransomware, botnets, data exfiltration, etc.
Global police agency Interpol said it was preparing for the risk that online immersive environments — the "metaverse" — could create new kinds of cybercrime and allow existing crime to take place on a larger scale. Interpol's member countries have raised concerns about how to prepare for possible metaverse crime, Madan Oberoi, Interpol's executive director for te...
It's almost November which means Christmas sales will be here before you know it, with deals from Amazon, Walmart, and Target on best-selling items like TVs, vacuums, AirPods, air fryers, and more. The Christmas sales event is an excellent opportunity to score a holiday gift at a record-low price so you can cross someone off your holiday shopping list and save money.
We've created this guide to bring you this year's best Christmas sales and stand-out deals. We'll be scouring all your favorite retailers to bring you the best offers and bargains on everything from tech gadgets, home appliances, clothing, toys, beauty items, and more.
Christmas sales typically begin right after the upcoming Black Friday deals event, with promotions launching the day after Cyber Monday on November 29. Christmas sales will run right up to Christmas Eve for last-minute shoppers, and then after Christmas, sales will kick off on December 26.
We'll update this guide as soon as offers begin to launch, so make sure to bookmark this page for all the best Christmas sales.
When do Christmas sales start?
We expect Christmas sales to start as soon as the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales end, which will be on Monday, November 28. Retailers want to extend the holiday shopping season with leftover deals from Black Friday and roll them into Christmas sales.
Christmas sales will run up until Christmas Eve, and then retailers will begin their after-Christmas sales on December 26.
What are the best Christmas sales
The best Christmas sales are from retailers offering a wide variety of categories, like Amazon, so that you can do all your holiday shopping in one place. Amazon's Christmas sales also offer impressive discounts and fast shipping, so you can grab record-low prices and last-minute gifts on tech gadgets, home appliances, clothing, toys, smart home devices, and more.
Walmart is another favorite retailer for Christmas sales with deals throughout its site, plus you can always order online and pick up in-store if you live close to the retailer. Target, Overstock, and Wayfair are also favorites for Christmas sales, and if you're after tech gadgets, Best Buy and Dell offer fantastic deals throughout the month of December.
Last year's best Christmas sales
Taking a look back at last year's Christmas sales can give us a good idea of what deals we can expect to see. You'll find our top picks below which included cheap TVs, AirPods, workout equipment, and mattresses to name a few.
Fitbit Sense:$299.95$190 at Amazon
Save $110 - Amazon has the Fitbit Sense on sale for a record-low price of $190 when you apply the additional $10 savings at checkout. The Fitbit Sense goes beyond everyday activity tracking to offer additional stress, skin temperature, and heart monitoring for a more holistic understanding of your health and fitness.View Deal
Ninja Professional 1000-Watt Blender:$87$69 at Walmart
Save $18 - Start off the new year with this top-rated blender from Ninja on sale for $69 at Walmart. The 1000-Watt blender features a full 72 ounce XL pitcher which is perfect for making large batches of margaritas, daiquiris, shakes, and smoothies.View Deal
Samsung 55-inch 4K Smart TV:$499$398 at Walmart
Save $100 – If you're looking for a mid-size TV deal, Walmart has the Samsung 55-inch 4K TV on sale for just $398. You're getting a stunning 4K Crystal display and smart capabilities, so you can easily stream all your favorite movies and TV shows from apps like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and more.View Deal
YnM Weighted Blanket:$49.80$39.80 at Amazon
Save $10 - Amazon has the top-rated YnM blanket on sale for $39.80 when you apply the additional $10 coupon at checkout. With over 44,000 positive user reviews on Amazon - it averages 4.6 out of 5 stars - it's incredibly popular. It's made from seven different layers, which contour to the shape of your body for a peaceful night's rest. View Deal
Eufy Smart Scale C1:$32.99$22.99 at Amazon
Save $5 - Get the Eufy smart scale on sale for $22.99 at Amazon. The Eufy Smart Scale C1 can measure your body's body fat ratio, BMI, bone mass, muscle mass, as well as your weight and gives you a more detailed way of checking in with your health and what that number on the scales actually means.View Deal
DEWALT 20V Max Cordless Drill Combo Kit:$999$599 at Amazon
Save $400 - Amazon is offering a massive $400 discount on this Dewalt Max cordless drill combo kit bringing the price down to $599. You're getting over ten tools, including; drill/driver, impact driver, blower, light, Bluetooth speaker, oscillating tool, grinder, circ saw, recipe saw, and a charger.View Deal
SuperFit 2 in 1 Folding Treadmill:$559.99$299.99 at Walmart
Save $260 - Walmart is offering a massive $260 discount on this handy folding treadmill from SuperFit. The 2 in 1 treadmill features a compact and foldable design and includes two sport modes that can be used as a running treadmill and an under-desk walking treadmill.View Deal
All-new Apple AirPods Pro:$249$197 at Amazon
Save $53 - Amazon has Apple's best-selling AirPods Pro in stock and on sale for $197. While we saw the earbuds drop to $159 over Black Friday, this is the best deal you'll find on these now. The all-new AirPods Pro includes a MagSafe Charging Case alongside the classic AirPods.View Deal
Beckham Hotel Collection Bed Pillows for Sleeping:$49.99$29.99 at Amazon
Save $20 - Another great idea, these top-rated pillows were a top-seller at this year's Black Friday sale and the queen-size pillow set is currently on sale for $29.99 when you apply the additional 40% coupon at checkout. With over 149,000 positive reviews, who wouldn't pass up that price?View Deal
Apple Watch 7 (41mm, GPS):$399.99$349 at Amazon
Save $50 - The Apple Watch is always a best-seller during the holidays and Amazon has the all-new Series 7 on sale for $349 - just $10 more than the record-low price. The smartwatch has a 20% larger screen than the Apple Watch 6, plus more tracking and color options, and faster charging.View Deal
Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless Headphones:$349.99$299.99 at Best Buy
Save $50 - Hands-down the best headphones on the market, these XM4s deliver class-leading noise cancellation, audio upscaling, superior comfort, and a sleek design. While they're certainly not cheap, this is the best price you can find right now, so they're definitely worth considering.View Deal
Instant Vortex Plus 7-in-1 Air Fryer Oven:$139.95$99.95 at Amazon Save $40 - Amazon has knocked $40 off the cost of this air fryer oven, which has a pull-down door and can hold two trays of food at the same time. While this isn’t the lowest price we’ve ever seen for this air fryer – it dropped as low as $69.95 on Black Friday – it’s still very good value, and we suggest you grab this deal while it’s available.View Deal
Insignia 70-inch 4K UHD Smart Fire TV:$749.99$549.99 at Best Buy
Save $200 - Best Buy has this 70-inch 4K TV from Insignia on sale for just $549.99. The Insignia set packs 4K Ultra HD resolution, DTS Studio Sound, and features the Fire OS for seamless streaming and a handy Alexa voice remote - all for under $600, which is an incredible value.View Deal
Nectar Memory Foam mattress: from $798 $499 + $399 free gifts at Nectar Sleep
Editor's choice - If you want to start the year off with a new mattress, Nectar's memory foam sits at number two in our mattress rankings and is exceptional value for money. It's extremely competitively priced, with a queen down from $1,298 to $799, and you'll get two free cooling pillows, sheets, and a mattress protector worth $399 added to your order. There's also a year-long risk-free trial to decide whether you like it, and a forever warranty.View Deal
The latest version of the programming language Python, 3.11 has been unveiled, with its development team claiming that the new edition might just be the best yet.
In the release notes, Pablo Galindo Salgado, Python Steering Council member and the release manager for the current version, alongside fellow team members Steve Dower and Ned Deily, wrote the team has “put a lot of effort into making 3.11 the best version of Python possible”.
They also listed the keynote improvements in Python 3.11: “better tracebacks”, “faster Python”, “exception groups and except*”, in addition to offering various improvements to typing.
Python 3.11's latest improvements
The Python release team claimed in the release notes that Python 3.11 “is up to 10-60 percent faster than Python 3.10”, and reported measuring 1.22x speedups on average, courtesy of the Faster CPython Project.
Though it is worth pointing out this likely only applies to pure Python code, and Python itself has never been the fastest programming language out there, that’s still impressive.
Several Python Enhancement Proposals (PEPs) promise to offer more concrete quality of life improvements.
PEP 657, for example, will introduce more detailed error reports for tracebacks - reports detailing function calls within a python script, making debugging that much more straightforward. PEP 680, meanwhile, means that Python will be able to parse TOML files, commonly used for configuration files without the need for an external library.
However, as The Register reports, PYC files compiled by the Python interpreter are now, on average, 22% larger, and while the Python team stand by the change, they have issued an opt-out, in the form of “PYTHONNODEBUGRANGES”, a new environmental variable.
PEP 654, on the other hand, allows for handling several exceptions at once with the introduction of exception groups and the new except* syntax.
Python 3.11 should also encourage developers to use data types more, thanks to some new features, and more subtle changes that give developers more control in the backend.
Perhaps the best illustration of this is PEP 675, which allows users to declare arbitrary string types, but there’s also PEP 673 (the Self Type), an intuitive way to annotate methods that return instances of the same class. Finally, PEP 646 (Variadic Generics), allowing generics to store several types at once for assignment to objects later.
Apple's new iPhone 14 Pro Dynamic Island is now just a little more dynamic. iOS 16.1, which officially dropped on millions of iPhones this week, brought with it new gesture controls to Apple's innovative notch replacement.
Available only on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, the Dynamic Island not only moved the True Depth Module down from the iPhone's top edge, but it also created a fungible island of functionality. From a technical perspective, the Dynamic Island is actually two Super Retina Display XDR screen cutouts, one pill-shaped and the other wider and more cylindrical. Apple cannily uses the small bits of pixels between the two shapes to create what appears to be a lively and fully dynamic digital island.
Inside the Dynamic island are activity symbols to indicate if, for instance, your phone is locked, playing music, or delivering Map-based directions. It can appear to expand to offer more map details or conduct a Face ID scan. In other words, the Island, which also supports third-party apps, is designed to be many things to many people.
(Image credit: Future)
In iOS 16.1 it gets another trick. The Dynamic Island is already capable of displaying two running apps at once, but they generally sit as two distinct islands with home screen pixels separating them. Now, with a gesture, you can easily hide one activity. Apple confirmed that this feature, which first appeared in iOS 16.1 beta is now part of the public download.
For example, we launched Apple Music and started playing a song, then switched to Maps and set the navigation for home. On the home screen, the Dynamic Island displayed these activities in two separate, for lack of a better word, islands. If we place a finger on, for instance, the smaller music island and swipe to the left the music island is hidden, and we have just one original-sized Dynamic Island running our Map directions.
Another quick left swipe on the far left side of the Dynamic Island unhides the music app, which ends up back on its own tiny island on the right.
Granted, it's a small change, but also an indication that Apple views the Dynamic Island, which already responds to taps, as a platform on which it can build a world of interaction.
We like the control and look forward to more.
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Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said that the new data protection bill will be "very simple and modern". He said the right to privacy and data protection are fundamental rights in India and the data protection bill will be very progressive in recognising and enshrining these rights. The new personal data protection...
Minister of State For Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Wednesday said he has spoken to Apple on reports of stores in the national capital running out of stock of the firm's latest phone offering iPhone14 Pro. The minister also said there has been a surge in demand for iPhone 14 Pro and Apple is addressing the supply constraints.
Microsoft has released its Windows Dev Kit 2023 (formerly known as Project Volterra) on general sale.
The device promises a compact all-in-one workstation for natively building, running and testing Windows apps, and faster artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads, owing to the new Neural Processing Unit (NPU).
The announcement follows its initial tease at Microsoft Build 2022, where the company outlined its vision for the new development kit, as well an Arm-native toolchain to keep application development local to a single device.
It’s delivered there, too. Previews of arm-native versions of Visual Studio 2022, the Windows App software development kit (SDK), and the VC++ Runtime are available now, while the .NET Framework 4.8.1 for Arm has been released with Windows 11’s 2022 update.
In addition, the .NET 7 toolchain, which claims to offer functional parity for ARM against x64 architecture, is now also available in preview, while Microsoft's Azure virtual machines (VMs) and Arm64EC are publicly available now, ensuring that development and app testing are now seamless.
Arm64EC offers a way to integrate native Arm code with x64 code as part of the same process. One potential use-case for this might be to gradually transition x64 apps to Arm architecture, rather than invest time in developing solely for one platform.
Visual Studio 2022 on Arm, which has been in monthly previews since July, now supports Desktop workloads, Windows SDK and Windows App SDK components (Win UI), and Web, Universal Windows Platform (UWP), Node.js and game development workloads.
And just to make sure users never feel the need to step away from their dev kits, several creativity, video conferencing, security, and benchmarking solutions have all been ported to Arm devices. There are a lot of names here, like Adobe, Zoom, Sophos, Cisco, PassMark - and Microsoft claim even more are on the way.
The hardware itself is exciting, too. As well as what was mentioned above, the device sports 32 GB LPDDR4x RAM and a 512 GB NVMe SSD fast storage, plus three USB-A, two USB-C port, and a Mini Display port for maximum device compatibility.
A major malvertising campaign has been discovered hijacking people’s internet searches, and adding affiliate links to websites.
According to the researchers that spotted the campaign, the developers generate plenty of income through affiliate commissions and search data sales.
Experts from Guardio Labs recently discovered as many as 30 browser extensions for both Chrome and Edge, active since at least mid-October 2020, and having been downloaded more than a million times.
Dormant Colors
When victims visit different sites offering video downloading services, they’re first forced to download the extension, in order to continue with the download, the researchers found.
The extension offers color customization options and comes with no malicious code, it was said, allowing it to pass antivirus scans. This is also why the researchers decided to dub the campaign “Dormant Colors”. However, after installation, the extension will redirect the user to a webpage that side-loads malicious scripts that tell the extension how to hijack search results and add affiliate links.
The extension would be instructed to return search results for queries from sites affiliated with the developers, that way generating income from ad impressions and search data sales.
What’s more, it comes with a redirect list of roughly 10,000 websites. Should the victim try to visit any of those sites, they would be redirected to it - but through a link with an affiliate link. As a result, any purchase made on those sites would earn the developers commission.
While the campaign might come off as a nuisance, it’s not exactly damaging to the victims and doesn’t steal money directly from their pockets. However, researchers are warning that the same methodology could be used to steal sensitive information, or login credentials, from the targets.
By redirecting the users to a phishing site, the attackers could obtain Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace passwords, and details from banking sites, or social media platforms.
