More than 75% of Windows Phones in active use no longer receiving security updates

Over 70% of Windows phones still in use are running WP 8.1, says latest AdDuplex report

AdDuplex released its latest report for October 2017 for Windows Devices. The AdDuplex interactive page shows a variety of OS information on different Windows Devices. Their report gives a clearer picture on the “results of the first week in Fall Creators Update lifecycle and take a final snapshot of the Windows ecosystem on phones as we know it.”

Based on the AdDuplex Windows Phone October 2017 report, 73.8% of Windows Phone owners are still running Windows Phone 8.1, followed by Windows 10 Mobile at 20.9%, and Windows Phone 8.0 and Windows 7.x users in the bottom sharing single-digit usage percentages. AdDuplex did note an interesting tidbit about Windows Phone; that there hasn’t been a significant drop in “overall OS version share.” AdDuplex surmised that that might be because equal numbers of Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile users are switching phone platforms.

With Windows Phone being discontinued by Microsoft, it appears that a lot of users are not in any particular rush to switch platforms right away. From a recent OnMSFT poll, a majority of respondents are still waiting for the bitter end of Windows Phone. Since the only Windows Phones that will be receiving the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update are not of the phones in the chart above, it’s safe to say Windows Phone users will likely go to Android or iOS at a faster rate in the next few months.

Besides Windows Phone, the AdDuplex showed a sharp increase in installations of the Fall Creators Update on Windows 10 PCs and Surface devices. It is hard to say if the Fall Creators Update will continue the sharp rise that AdDuplex reports, since the Fall Creators Update was only officially released a week ago.

via onmsft

It’s Windows XP’s 16th birthday, yet this isn’t a cause for celebration

What’s the news?

Wednesday 25^th October marks 16 years since Windows XP was made generally available.

Are people still using XP?

Yes – despite its age, it is still one of the most widely used operating systems. It’s the fourth most popular overall, holding around 6% of the worldwide operating systems market. Organisations and public sector bodies still using XP are reluctant to upgrade their OS due to the amount of applications they have written on them. Examples include airline check-in systems or the computers used by mobile phone companies for signing up customers; it would be very costly and time-consuming for these organisations to have to rewrite their applications on a modern version of Windows.

Why is this an issue?

The lack of security updates and

patches means that computers running Windows XP are vulnerable to attacks, such as the WannaCry ransomware attack earlier this year that affected organisations including the NHS, which was still running the old OS. Though Microsoft were forced to make an exception to patch XP for this, otherwise XP users have not been able to benefit from updates since April 2014, when the operating system reached its ‘end of life’ and was no longer maintained by Microsoft.

To receive regular updates to protect computers, individuals and organisations will need to upgrade their operating systems to a newer, supported version.

What the experts are saying:

“It may seem surprising that even though the IT world has evolved so greatly, so many companies haven’t moved on from XP. The problem is that many organisations depend on custom software and applications that aren’t compatible with the latest versions, and upgrading can be hugely complex and costly. Some might not even have the time or technical know-how in order to do so,” explains Mat Clothier, CEO, CTO and Founder of Cloudhouse.

“While on the surface it may appear easier, cheaper and less time-consuming to stick with the old rather than bring in the new, there is now a middle ground – container compatibility software that can package up old applications and bring them across to newer, supported systems. This technology enables organisations to benefit from greater security, performance and all-round peace of mind without the constraint of complete rewrites.”

Windows 10 security: Here's how to shield your files from ransomware, says Microsoft | ZDNet

The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is rolling out now with a security feature that can prevent ransomware from encrypting your files.

With Microsoft making headway on the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update rollout, the new anti-ransomware feature, called Controlled folder access, is now becoming widely available.

It works by only allowing whitelisted apps to access files in the Controlled folder list. Users can add new folders to the protected zone and adjust which apps are authorized to access files in it.

Microsoft has been testing the feature with Windows Insiders since July but now it's making its way to the general public.

Consumers can enable the feature through the Windows Defender Security Center app by clicking the shield icon and toggling on Controlled folder access. It automatically protects Windows system folders and default locations such as Documents, Pictures, Movies, and Desktop.

Users can also add other folders and other drives by clicking the shield icon in the Windows Defender Security Center and clicking through to the Virus and threat protection settings.

The feature also issues alerts when an unapproved app attempts to access or modify files.

Controlled folder access may be trickier for enterprises to deploy as it's a new technology and could block legitimate apps from working.

To assist enterprises, Microsoft suggests admins run Controlled folder access in audit modeto test its impact.

See also: Ransomware: An executive guide to one of the biggest menaces on the web

Admins can enable Controlled folder access via the Windows Defender Security Center, Group Policy, PowerShell, or via a mobile device management configuration service provider. They can also manage which folders are protected and which apps are whitelisted through these tools.

Microsoft automatically allows a set of apps it considers trustworthy to access files protected by Controlled folder access. Admins can use Windows Defender Security Center app or Group Policy to add and remove apps that can access these files.

In the enterprise, Controlled folder access is one of four components of the Fall Creators Update's Windows Defender Exploit Guard, along with Attack Surface Reduction (ASR), Network protection, and the EMET-based Exploit Protection.

ASR requires enabling Windows Defender antivirus and can prevent common techniques used in malware, by blocking hidden macro code and stopping Office apps from creating executable content.

PREVIOUS AND RELATED COVERAGE

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READ MORE ON RANSOMWARE

• Ransomware: Security researchers spot emerging new strain of malware
• This ransomware-spreading botnet will now screengrab your desktop too
• Think cybercriminals are happy about the rise of ransomware? Think again
• Ransomware: The smart person's guide (TechRepublic)
• Ransomware attack is cover for something far more destructive (CNET)

Direct Download Windows 10 ISO/ESD from official site

Finally Microsoft released Windows 10 publicly for free download on 29th July 2015. It gives free upgrade over genuine version of Windows 7, Window 8/8.1. Microsoft provides two ways to download Windows 10 – using Media Creation Tool and Direct ISO from Microsoft’s site. The media creation tool also allows us to:

• Upgrade PC
• Directly to your USB
• ISO file for later usage

Media creation tool downloads Windows 10 in background and if some error happened in the middle of the download, we need to restart whole download from the beginning. Most of the users like to download files using their favorite download manager with resume support.
So let us see the ways to downloading Official ISO directly using your favorite download manager with resume support. It’s legal to download direct downloading offline ISO from Microsoft’s servers and nothing has been said here as illegal. Here is the official download page:

1. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 (via Media Creation Tool).
2. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/techbench (Official ISO)

If you are visiting 1st link using either windows 7, 8/8.1, it will give an option to download Windows 10 via Media Creation Tool (since they are upgradable to Windows 10). If you are using Windows XP, Vista, Mac OS or any linux PC, the page divert to Official Offline ISO download page. That is the above said page detects your OS and divert page accordingly. Hence you can try these operating systems or mobile phone to get download link, so that you can download it from PC.
Open above link and you will be have the option to select versions:

• Windows 10
• Windows 10 KN
• Windows 10 N
• Windows 10 Single Language

Each of this ISO file contains Windows 10 Home and Window 10 Pro editions and you can choose which one to be installed during installation. You will get option to select 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) ISO before starting download. Note that each download link is valid for only 24hrs. If the link is expired, then try downloading new ISO, replace old download link with new download link and resume. Most of the download manager tools allows the option to replace download links of partially completed downloads.

Finding direct download link from Media creation Tool
As said above, Media Creation Tool is an online installer, which is slow and resume unsupported. How it would be if you get direct download link for the version you are selecting to download from this Media Creation Tool? Yes, it’s possible with the help of any packet filtering tool such as Wireshark.

This method is not only applicable to with Media Creation tool, but it also helps you to get direct download links from most of the online installer tools. The main advantage of this method is that the downloaded file is in ESD (Electronic Software Download) format and which is around 25% compressed than ISO. It will definitely saves your data usage and time. FYI: The ESD file of OS can be find at C:\$Windows.~WS\Sources, which is in .tmp extension during download.

Steps to find direct download link:

1. Open Wireshark and start capture
2. Run Media Creation Tool, select OS version and start download
3. Apply filter http.request.method == “GET” in Wireshark. It will list all the HTTP request GET from your computer and you can find official link of ISO from them.
4. Click on the packet from the list and expand “Hyper Text Transfer Protocol” and there you will find the request URI as blue coloured.
5. Right Click on it >> Copy >> Value and now you copied the direct download ink of ESD file.
6. Download it with your download manager and use any tool such as ESD Decrypter to convert it into ISO

Watch video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWjd5ecbprg