Volume 11, Issue 10 — May 28, 2019

May 28, 2019 | Volume: 11 | Issue: 10

There’s been a lot of news or our industry on the cybersecurity and software vulnerabilities front lately. I wrote about the issues with the OEM wireless presentation products discovered by security firm Tenable, which found vulnerabilities first in a Crestron product, which subsequently led researchers to seven other products on the market under different brands with the same problem.

I also got a tip recently (Thanks, Stefan!) about a patch Microsoft released for a vulnerability in Remote Code Execution (CVE-2019-0708) that affects some older version of Windows. This vulnerability is “wormable,” which means that it could be used to infect machines without any user action, and it can be done so remotely (similar to a ransomware called WannaCry, or WannaCrypt) that wreaked havoc on systems, primarily in Europe, in 2017 by encrypting files until a ransom was paid).

Microsoft has found this new vulnerability, now nicknamed BlueKeep, before anything malicious could happen, such as in 2017, when a similar vulnerability allowed a ransomware called WannaCry, or WannaCrypt wreaked havoc on systems, primarily in Europe, in 2017 by encrypting files until a ransom was paid. If you’re running any servers with Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008, you need to install this patch immediately (apparently it’s particularly important for Windows 7 and Server 2008). See Microsoft’s incident report with details on how to patch here. Read McAfee’s blog on why you need to patch here.

This issue has so much pre-InfoComm show news. If you’re going to InfoComm, don’t forget to register with our code RAVE to get in free. Were also helping InfoComm do a 5K on Friday before the show opens to benefit the AVIXA foundation, which you can register for here. Gary and Chuck Espinoza are also getting into some dunk tanks to help raise more money. You can donate to take some shots at them here. (Yes, really.)

Enjoy the issue.

-Sara Abrons

COLUMNS

+ De-stress at Work — The Three-Level To-Do List [Christopher Jaynes]

There are plenty of platitudes about the stressful life of an entrepreneur and most are true — but everyone in the modern workplace, not just entrepreneurs, find stress creeping into their day. As a founder, I have to balance my amazing family, two-to-three weeks of travel a month, board meetings, growing a tech company while remaining innovative on the product front. About two years ago I discovered an approach to managing this stuff that probably had the most impact on reducing the stress of anything I’ve tried (though our new yoga-at-work Mondays are pretty awesome). It’ll probably surprise you: I make analog to-do lists.

+ The Entire Digital Signage Market Could be Pummeled by the Stupidity of San Francisco [Gary Kayye]

The city of San Francisco, via its board of supervisors voted yesterday to ban on using facial-recognition technology. The actual ordinance deals specifically with city governmental organizations and divisions, but it will have long-lasting ramifications that could easily (and quickly) ben emulated all over the country.