Helpful Colin

14 Pin & 15 Pin D Connectors on VGA Cables

1.8m 15 Pin VGA Cable

Introduction

I wanted to know what the difference is between VGA cables with 14 pin and 15 “D” connectors. I found the answer on the Instructables site/forum. The info I needed was contained in a reply to a query by onrust circa 2010.

Cooling Fan Lubrication For An NVIDIA GeForce GTS240

Preface

This post describes: My success at cooling fan lubrication on an NVIDIA GeForce GTS240 PC display adapter to silence it when it became noisy.

I Found Windows 10 Fast Startup Caused Problems

Introduction

The following post will describe how to turn Windows 10 Fast Startup OFF or ON. I usually turn it off on my PCs because I’ve had startup problems as described in the following sections.

Windows 10 File History Is Used To Backup My PC

Introduction

Since the introduction of Windows 10 version 1709, and acquiring a new backup drive, I have chosen to use Windows 10 File History to backup my PC. So far so good. I have used it to backup my data and to restore some..

I will describe how this tool is used from my point of view, but first I’ll give you my history regarding backing up.

Discussing Malicious Website URLs On Twitter

Introduction

I have recently come across an issue where good people wish to convey information about malicious websites to everyone. They’re doing very good work tying to keep us all safe and informed by discussing malicious website URLs (Universal Resource Locators), particularly on Twitter. Unfortunately Twitter creates a link in the text to anything looking like a URL. This means malicious websites that are mentioned by their URLs are given links allowing readers to accidentally go to them.

LastPass Password Phishing Exploit

The LastPass password phishing exploit could trick users into giving away their password.

If you use LastPass check this exploit out at The Hacker Blog and IT Pro. It involves unscrupulous people phishing for LastPass passwords.

Update for LastPass Password Phishing Exploit

This issue is now fixed for all the latest versions of Lastpass on Chrome & Internet Explorer at least.

Using A Digital Signature With Outlook

Introduction

This article covers some of the issues involved when using a Digital Signature. Each Digital Signature is generated from a Digital Certificate (otherwise known as a Digital ID) issued by a certifying authority.

All examples given are created using Microsoft Outlook 2010 on a PC using Microsoft Windows 10, but the principles apply to other versions of Outlook and other email clients.

Anyone using an Apple Mac can get appropriate certificate information in this article published by TechRepublic entitled: How to configure digitally signed email in Apple Mail.

This article has been written to compliment my previous article Make Safe Financial Transactions.

WordPress Fatal Error Out of Memory

How I Resolved ‘Fatal Error Out of Memory’ For A Single Post

After much editing of my WordPress post entitled ‘How A Toilet Silent Fill Valve Works’, since I wrote it in May 2014, (there must have been at least 150 edits, and I changed it from a page to a post too) I suddenly had this ‘Fatal Error Out of Memory’ script on the WordPress White Screen of Death when I tried to edit it:

Fatal error: Out of memory (allocated 54001664) (tried to allocate 49253 bytes) in /homepages/22/d382273723/htdocs/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 1380

Browser Choice In Microsoft Windows Ends

Microsoft's Browser Choice Screen

Browser Choice – What’s That About

In December 2009 the European Union obliged Microsoft to offer a choice of browsers to their European customers when they installed new versions of Windows. This browser choice was also delivered in updates to Windows and so the Browser Choice screen was born and has been with us ever since. See my featured image of Microsoft’s browser choice screen offering Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Mozilla Firefox and the Opera browsers amongst others.

Browser Choice Ends

It turns out that this requirement by the EU had a time limit of five years which has now expired. Consequently Microsoft have quietly withdrawn the option to choose other browsers and returned to providing Internet Explorer alone. People can of course continue to use other browsers with Windows as they see fit but Internet Explorer is now what comes out of the box.

Backdoor Trojan Regin Spying Since 2008

A recently discovered Backdoor Trojan Regin is a computer bug found by the software security company Symantec. Its purpose is to spy on the activities taking place on computers. It can collect passwords, capture screen images and even recover deleted files.

The Backdoor Trojan Regin has been made to operate in five stages the last two being encrypted to make it very difficult to discover and understand. If any stage were to be discovered it would say little about the other stages. Two stages are specifically given over to loading each other and the other stages. You can download a comprehensive PDF file from Broadcom describing Regin in detail at this Broadcom (previously Symantec) site. Selecting this link may automatically download the regin-top-tier-espionage-tool-15-en.pdf file into your download folder and display it in your PDF reader. To get access to this file manually go to:

https://www.broadcom.com/support/security-center/publications/whitepapers

and scroll down the page to the Frequently Visited section where you will find it listed as:

Regin: Top-tier espionage tool enables stealthy surveillance

Select that link on the page to download the file.

Backdoor Trojan Regin appears to have been developed as far back as 2008 and by its sophisticated nature was probably developed by a nation state as opposed to criminals. It appears to have been withdrawn from use by its masters in 2011 and a new version reintroduced in 2013.

Regin infections have been found in the following countries:

Afghanistan
Austria
Belgium
India
Iran
Ireland
Mexico
Pakistan
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia

All Regin infections have been shared by these sectors thus:

Airline – 5%
Energy – 5%
Hospitality – 9%
Research – 5%
Small Businesses & Private Individuals – 48%
Telecoms Backbone – 28%

The Backdoor Trojan Regin has been made extremely stealthy so that it is very hard to determine what it is up to even after discovery. It could go undetected for years. For those interested it uses RC5 encryption which isn’t commonly used.

Helpful Colin

Category: Computers

14 Pin & 15 Pin D Connectors on VGA Cables

Introduction

Cooling Fan Lubrication For An NVIDIA GeForce GTS240

Preface

I Found Windows 10 Fast Startup Caused Problems

Introduction

Windows 10 File History Is Used To Backup My PC

Introduction

Discussing Malicious Website URLs On Twitter

Introduction

LastPass Password Phishing Exploit

Update for LastPass Password Phishing Exploit

Using A Digital Signature With Outlook

Introduction

WordPress Fatal Error Out of Memory

How I Resolved ‘Fatal Error Out of Memory’ For A Single Post

Browser Choice In Microsoft Windows Ends

Browser Choice – What’s That About

Browser Choice Ends

Backdoor Trojan Regin Spying Since 2008

Regin infections have been found in the following countries:

All Regin infections have been shared by these sectors thus:

References