Eliana Willis

Microsoft has warned Windows 10 and Windows 11 users that files might not be deleted after resetting the device using the “Remove everything” option. The issue stems from Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud file service and could mean files that were synced locally remain on a computer after a local or remote reset, which admins might do before handing the device to a new owner.  

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This issue can occur when attempting a manual reset from Windows or a remote reset from Intune or other mobile device management platforms, Microsoft warns.SEE: Best Windows laptop: Top notebooks compared”When attempting to reset a Windows device with apps which have folders with reparse data, such as OneDrive or OneDrive for Business, files which have been downloaded or synced locally from OneDrive might not be deleted when selecting the “Remove everything” option,” Microsoft says in an update to its known issues for Windows 11 21H2.  “OneDrive files which are “cloud only” or have not been downloaded or opened on the device are not affected and will not persist, as the files are not downloaded or synced locally.”Microsoft notes that some device manufacturers and some documentation might call the feature to reset a device, “Push Button Reset”, “PBR”, “Reset This PC”, “Reset PC”, or “Fresh Start”.Via BleepingComputer, the issue was discovered by Microsoft MVP Rudy Ooms, who found that user data was still readable in the “Windows.old” folder after completing a remote or local wipe of a Windows 10 device. Ooms details his findings in a blog post, including that data encrypted with Bitlocker is moved in clear form to the Windows.old folder after a Windows reset.Windows.old is a folder containing the previous version of Windows on a device. The issue affects Windows 11, version 21H2; Windows 10, version 21H2; Windows 10, version 21H1; and Windows 10, version 20H2, according to Microsoft.  The company is working on a fix for an upcoming release but in the mean time it does have a workaround for the file-persisting issue.  Admins can prevent the issue by by signing out or unlinking OneDrive before resetting a Windows device. Microsoft provides instructions to do this in the “Unlink OneDrive” section in the support page, Turn off, disable, or uninstall OneDrive.Users can also mitigate the issue on devices that have been reset by using the Windows feature Storage Sense in the Settings app. Storage Sense can be used to delete the Windows.old folder. Microsoft provides instructions for doing that in the support page KB5012334.  More

Australia’s national intelligence agencies have dismissed concerns surrounding laws currently before Parliament that would provide them with expanded data-gathering powers in circumstances where an Australian person’s safety is in imminent risk. The Bill in question, if passed, would enable national intelligence agencies to undertake activities to produce intelligence where there is, or is likely to be, an imminent risk to the safety of an Australian person, such as from terrorist attacks or kidnappings. It would also allow these agencies to seek ministerial authorisation to produce intelligence on Australians involved with a listed terrorist organisation rather than having to obtain multiple, concurrent authorisations to produce intelligence on individual Australian persons who are suspected of being involved with a listed terrorist organisation. Opposition of the Bill has primarily come from the Law Council of Australia (LCA), which told the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) it was unsure whether the expanded powers would be proportionate to their operational objectives. In a submission to the PJCIS, which is responsible for scrutinising Australia’s intelligence powers, the LCA said there are no safeguards to prevent agency heads from using its intelligence-gathering powers on an Australian in situations where they are not in imminent risk. “There is no requirement that the agency head must also assess the nature and degree of the imminent risk to the person’s safety, and be satisfied that it is sufficiently serious as to warrant the exercise of powers in the absence of a ministerial authorisation,” LCA wrote in its submission to the committee. “For example, there is no requirement to be satisfied that there is a risk of death or serious harm to the person.” The LCA added it was also concerned about expanding the influence of a single ministerial authorisation so it can enable intelligence-gathering of entire terrorist organisations due to the broad nature of such an authorisation. The council specifically noted the lack of an exhaustive list for what is deemed to be “involvement with a listed terrorist organisation”. “The Law Council notes that the concept of a person’s ‘involvement with’ a listed terrorist organisation has the potential to be extremely broad, covering both direct and indirect forms of engagement,” it said. “The Law Council suggests that consideration is given to placing more precise statutory parameters on the concept of ‘involvement with’ a listed terrorist organisation.” In response to these concerns, representatives from the Department of Home Affairs, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), and the Office of National Intelligence said these expanded powers would only be used in “niche circumstances”. “In an operational sense, when we kind of try to apply these new provisions to real-world situations what we’re trying to do is save minutes and possibly hours in operational circumstances where an Australian person has been kidnapped overseas,” ASD Director-General Rachel Noble said, when explaining the “imminent risk” powers. Noble said waiting for ministerial authorisations is not always possible in “imminent risk” situations as overseas kidnappings and mass casualty events can often occur in the middle of the night. Addressing the LCA’s concern regarding ministerial authorisations potentially being too broad for gathering intelligence on listed terrorist organisations, a Home Affairs representative said the authorisations would only be used by intelligence agencies to investigate members of the class that directly participate in listed terrorist organisations. Home Affairs electronic surveillance assistant secretary Paul Pfitzner said authorisations for agencies to perform intelligence activities on a listed terrorist organisation would only allow them to investigate individuals who recruit others, provide and receive training, provide financial or other forms of support, and advocate on behalf of the organisation. “We don’t want to pretend that we’ll necessarily be able to capture every scenario, situation, or circumstance that might arise in the course of an intelligence agency undertaking their work and finding how people may or may not be involved with a particular terrorist organisation,” Home Affairs electronic surveillance first assistant secretary Andrew Warnes added. In terms of accountability, Pfitzner said all intelligence agencies who collect data about terrorist organisation individuals through ministerial authorisations would have to keep a list of these identified individuals and provide reasons why they are classified as being part of those organisations.  Related Coverage More

Meta, formerly Facebook, has announced it has restricted access to several accounts, including some belonging to Russian state-media organisations, in Ukraine. “We have been in contact with the government of Ukraine. At their request, we have restricted access to several accounts in Ukraine, including those belonging to some Russian state media organisations,” Meta VP global affairs Nick Clegg wrote in a tweet.

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“We are also reviewing other government requests to restrict Russian state-controlled media.” The steps taken by the social media giant are in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began four days ago. Meta added it has also established a special operations centre staffed by “experts” from across the company, including native Russian and Ukrainian speakers, to monitor its platform and respond to misinformation issues in real time. “We have teams of native Russian and Ukrainian content reviewers to help us review potentially violating content. We’re also using technology to help us scale the work of our content review teams and to prioritise what content those teams should be spending their time on, so we can take down more violating content before it goes viral,” Meta said. Additionally, the company outlined it has introduced new security features to keep people in Ukraine safe. These include giving users the tool to lock their Facebook profile in one step, temporarily removing the ability to view and search the friends lists of Facebook accounts in Ukraine, and rolling out notifications for screenshots and activating the disappearing messages feature on Messenger. “View once media” has also been enabled on WhatsApp to allow users to send photos or videos that can vanish after being seen, as well as “disappearing mode” to automatically erase all new chats after 24 hours. Russian-state media have also been blocked from advertising and making money on its platform, the company said. “Our thoughts are with everyone affected by the war in Ukraine. We are taking extensive steps across our apps to help ensure the safety of our community and support the people who use our services — both in Ukraine and around the world,” Meta wrote in a post. Clegg also wrote on Twitter that Ukrainians have suggested that Meta remove access to Facebook and Instagram in Russia. However, he said: “People in Russia are using FB and IG to protest and organise against the war and as a source of independent information”.”The Russian government is already throttling our platform to prevent these activities. We believe turning off our services would silence important expression at a crucial time,” he said. Twitter said it has also taken similar steps, including pausing advertisements in Ukraine and Russia “to ensure critical public safety information is elevated and ads don’t detract from it”. Meanwhile, Twitch and OnlyFans have reportedly blocked all users from Russia from accessing their accounts, preventing users from being able to withdraw money earned on their respective platforms, amid tougher sanctions being introduced against Russia.  Related Coverage More

Singapore has issued an advisory note highlighting the need for local organisations to bolster their cyberdefence amidst the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia. In particular, businesses should be on the lookout for possible ransomware attacks as such tactics are commonly used by threat actors. There were no immediate reports of any threats to local businesses related to the Ukraine conflict, but organisations here were urged to take “active steps” to beef up their cybersecurity posture, according to Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA). The government agency noted that cyber attacks on Ukraine and developments in the conflict had fuelled warnings of increased cyber threats across the globe. Organisations in Singapore should increase their vigilance and strengthen their cyberdefences to safeguard against potential attacks, such as web defacement, distributed denial of service (DDoS), and ransomware. 

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In an advisory note issued Sunday, Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCERT) pointed to the need to keep watch for ransomware attacks, which were one of the most common attacks launched by threat actors. “Falling victim to such attacks will adversely impact the operations and business continuity of any organisation,” said SingCERT, which sits within CSA. It said Singapore businesses should carry out necessary steps to secure their networks and review system logs to swiftly identify potential intrusions. These should include ensuring systems and applications were patched and updated to the latest version, disabling ports that were not essential for business purposes, and adopting strong access controls when using cloud services. In addition, system events should be properly logged to facilitate investigation of suspicious issues while both inbound and outbound network traffic should be monitored for suspicious communications or data transmissions, SingCERT said. It added that organisations also should have in place incident response and business continuity plans. Any suspicious compromise of corporate networks or evidence of such incidents should be reported to SingCERT. Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) this past week also issued an advisory note urging local organisations to adopt an “enhanced cybersecurity position” and boost their cybersecurity resilience in light of the heightened threat landscape. “There has been a historical pattern of cyber attacks against Ukraine that have had international consequences,” it said. “Malicious cyber activity could impact Australian organisations through unintended disruption or uncontained malicious cyber activities. While the ACSC is not aware of any current or specific threats to Australian organisations, adopting an enhanced cybersecurity posture and increased monitoring for threats will help to reduce the impacts to Australian organisations.”Also stressing the need for vigilance to ransomware attacks, the Australian agency advised local businesses to review and enhance detection, mitigation, and response measures. They should, amongst others, ensure logging and detection systems in their environment were fully updated and functioning and apply additional monitoring of their networks where required.The Ukraine government reportedly had sought volunteers from the nation’s hacker community to protect critical infrastructure and run cyber spying missions against Russia. Citing sources involved in the call to action, a Reuters report said requests for volunteers popped up on hacker forums on Thursday. RELATED COVERAGE More

Can technology go too far in disturbing your peace?
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The trend is inevitable.

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And, as with so many trends, there’s pain too.Business owners have embraced technology as the elixir that offers speed and money-saving. Which has led to their permissiveness of its invasiveness running rampant.It’s not surveillance, many insist. It’s security. Meanwhile, their customers are left wondering who’s guarding the guardians.I wafted to this subject because of a tweet by a writer and drag queen. Joe Wadlington seemed excited that there was a new boutique hotel in the Castro district of San Francisco.But then he perused the rules perpetrated by the hotel’s management company, Kasa. It insists on quiet hours between 9 pm and 8 am. One person’s quiet is another person’s having a lovely time.So one section of Kasa’s rules offers: “Kasa apartments are proactively monitored for compliance with this noise policy.”Few enjoy the concept of proactive monitoring. It smacks of proactive snooping.Yet Kasa insists: “Decibel sensors notify the Company of sounds in the Kasa that exceed 75 decibels (dB). You hereby consent to the use of sound level monitoring.”I can hear you grunting at a minimum of 72 decibels. These people have sensors to monitor your every sound level? Isn’t that excessively, well, personal?And wait, how loud is 75 decibels? The University of Michigan tells me normal human conversation scores around 60. Office noise is a 70. And an average radio or vacuum cleaner scores a 75.You may, like me, find all this perplexing. Could it be that if you play the radio after 9 pm you’ll get a warning notice? And if you do it twice, you get a $500 fine or be kicked out of the hotel? (Them’s Kasa’s rules, you see.)For those who may not have visited the Castro district, it’s the home of the gay community and is a vibrant and sometimes loud place to be. The Bold Italic pointed out that if you claim your hotel is “community powered” — as the Hotel Castro does — its “current guest policies sit as an odious dichotomy to that very sentiment.”I fear some, though, may feel torn about the general principle.For many people, one of the more painful aspects of hotel existence is the prospect of thin walls and/or noisy people in adjacent hotel rooms.How many haven’t, at least once in their lives, called the front desk to complain about excessive noise coming from another guest — or, indeed, guests?If noise is being automatically monitored by technology, is this necessarily a bad thing?Then again, can technology really assess the true impact of noise? Is this better left to human judgment? And what if the people next door rather like the noise and even knock on their neighbor’s door to see if they can partake?Of course, many hotels are tending toward resisting human intervention because they’re resisting hiring humans. Indeed, as far as I can judge, the Hotel Castro has a virtual front desk.Ergo, once you’re in the grip of technological oversight, you’ll find it in places you don’t expect.Just as guests in Airbnbs these days have to ask whether the homeowner has an active camera system installed, so perhaps hotel guests may begin to ask questions about how they might be surveilled too.Sometimes, it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep, isn’t it? Or, as Wadlington put it: “I’m….so creeped out.”

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