July 2024
Download
Windows 11, version 24H2, will be out later this year. We recommend not installing it until others have found the bugs.
New features: HDR background support (better video on some monitors), energy saver, support for Wi-Fi 7, voice clarity, the ability to create 7-zip and TAR archives in File Explorer (in addition to ZIP), and improvements for connecting Bluetooth® Low Energy Audio devices.
Microsoft Recall software is not being released with the upcoming 24H2 release as was planned. It got a lot of negative feedback due to security concerns.
Windows 11 version 22H2 is supported for Professional and Home PCs until October.
QuickBooks is raising prices for QuickBooks Online. Prices increase for direct subscriptions in August and rise in September if billed through a QuickBooks Advisor.
Prices are also going up for online payroll:
As mentioned last month, QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Basic and Standard are no longer offered.
QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus, Premier Plus, Mac Plus, and Desktop Enhanced Payroll will continue to be supported for existing subscriptions. In some cases, it may be cheaper to convert to QB Enterprise Gold, which supports unlimited employees.
QuickBooks Desktop price increases starting September 1 for existing subscription renewals:
No new desktop subscriptions will be sold after September 30 – extended from the original cutoff date of July 31.
There have been a lot of complaints about price increases: Reddit, QB support, QB Support.
QuickBooks Ledger (online) is a new product for accountants – $10/Month.
If you turn off OneDrive sync for your PC’s documents and other folders, the copy is saved in OneDrive but removed from your PC. This is the opposite of what you might expect. It can cause the appearance of lost files when applications look for data in your documents folder.
Notify when available is a mechanism to tell Microsoft Teams that you’re interested in knowing when the presence status for another user changes to available.
The new Teams (2.1) client loses its “new” label because the Teams classic client reaches the end of support on July 1, 2024.
Microsoft will rename the Outlook desktop app as Outlook (classic) starting in July 2024 “to differentiate it from the new Outlook for Windows.”
Microsoft will require MFA for all Azure user accounts starting in July 2024. Azure is Microsoft’s cloud hosting service, which is linked to Microsoft 365 accounts.
According to a report by Microsoft, 99.9% of compromised accounts did not use MFA.
Synapse bankruptcy mess. Synapse provides services to connect various online financial service providers. They went bankrupt. The money held for clients is frozen, causing users to be locked out of multiple financial services, including YieldStreet, Lineage Bank, Evolve Bank & Trust, Yotta, Juno, and Copper.
Be careful when using online banking and financial services – many are not covered by banking regulations and are not FDIC insured.
AI
Meta to Train AI tools with Instagram & Facebook posts.
Apple unveiled a slew of AI features spread across the company’s most popular operating systems.
IOS 18 announced. Apple Intelligence is Apple’s AI. Near the end of the news release, Apple lists “iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPad and Mac with M1 and later as required hardware.” If you don’t have such hardware, Apple Intelligence is not supported.
Adobe is being sued over using content for AI, and for making it difficult to cancel your subscription.
The changes clarify that the company “may access your content through both automated and manual methods, such as for content review.”
AMMeBa: A Large-Scale Survey and Dataset of Media-Based Misinformation In-The-Wild.
AI-generated content was rare until the spring of 2023 when their presence in fact-check misinformation claims dramatically increased.
Deepfakes of Elon Musk are pushing crypto giveaway scams on YouTube Live.
Artificial intelligence is making scammers tougher to spot.
SECURITY
Microsoft’s e-mail system (Exchange Online, Outlook.com) was compromised by hackers. The hackers were able to read emails and also steal source code. This is contrary to what was first disclosed a few months ago when the incident occurred.
Security bug allows anyone to spoof Microsoft employee emails. Microsoft has not confirmed this, so no fix is available. This is another reason to be very cautious about links in emails.
Google leak reveals thousands of privacy incidents.
Adventist Health reports a major data breach, exposing the information of over 70,000 people in the Tulare County region.
Announcement from Adventist Health. The support center can be reached at 833-566-7793
Neiman Marcus has disclosed a data breach impacting 64,000 people.
TeamViewer Breached by Russian State-Sponsored Hackers (msn.com). Details.
There are no indications that the TeamViewer product environment or customer data could have been affected.
Prudential Financial now says 2.5 million were impacted by data breach.
Hacks at Santander and Ticketmaster via Snowflake accounts.
A single access code led to the exfiltration of potentially hundreds of organizations that stored their data with Snowflake, with the threat actor himself stating that 400 organizations were affected.
Snowflake at centre of world’s largest data breach:
Car dealership software platform CDK Global suffered multiple data breachs.
The attack led to a massive outage as car dealerships could not conduct their normal operations, including servicing or selling vehicles.
As of July 20, 2024, Kaspersky products may no longer be sold in the USA or to US citizens. This is according to a BIS (Bureau of Industry and Security) statement.
US sanctions Kaspersky Lab executives and board members over ‘cooperation’ with Russia.
The models affected include the following Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 models: XT8 (ZenWiFi AX XT8), XT8_V2 (ZenWiFi AX XT8 V2), RT-AX88U, RT-AX58U, RT-AX57, RT-AC86U, and RT-AC68U.
HUMOR
TORIAN GROUP
The price for the workstation agents we use for managed services will increase from $6.50 to $7 starting in July.
Microsoft has added some new security features to the way they protect MS 365 (Office) logins. We will be contacting you to provide more information if it is a good fit.