Archive for August 31, 2019

| August 31, 2019
Comments Off on Are Your VPNs – Virtual Pwnd Networks

Are Your VPNs – Virtual Pwnd Networks

Updated October 21, 2019 – The U.S. and U.K. spy agencies have issued separate cybersecurity advisories on 10/21/2019 urging users to patch and mitigate the VPN holes discussed below. The NSA advisory (PDF) warns that “multiple nation-states advanced persistent threat (APT) actors have weaponized” the flaws. The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) advisory is here.

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Updated September 29, 2019 – SafeBreach Labs discovered a vulnerability in Forcepoint’s VPN client software. The flaw will give attackers unfettered access to its users’ Windows computers.

In its article detailing the bug, Forcepoint explained The flaw enables an attacker to insert their own executable which will run with administrative privileges, giving the attackers administrative access to the system. Forcepoint gave the bug a CVE number of 2019-6145 and a base severity score of 6.7. According to a  Forcepoint knowledge base article, the flaw is patched in version 6.6.1 of the Forcepoint VPN Client for Windows.

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Updated September 10, 2019 –  ZDNet is reporting that the Chinese state-sponsored hacker group APT5 is targeting enterprise VPN servers from Fortinet and Pulse Secure since the security flaws discussed below became public knowledge last month. FireEye reports (PDF) that APT5 has been active since 2007 and has targeted multiple industries.

APT5 was reportedly one of the first to start scanning the internet and then later attempt to exploit vulnerabilities in the Fortinet and Pulse Secure VPN servers. The attackers sought to steal files storing password information or VPN session data from the affected products. These files would have allowed attackers to take over vulnerable devices.

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Are Your VPNs - Virtual Pwnd NetworksEverybody loves their virtual private networks. SSL VPNs provide a convenient way for business users to connect to corporate networks while out of the office. A recent study by FlexJobs found 30% of workers have left a job because it did not offer flexible work options like remote work. Further, the report said, that 80% of staff would be more loyal to their employers if they had flexible work options and 52% of workers have tried to negotiate flexible work arrangements with their employer.

Great firewall of ChinaHackers love VPNs too

Last month VPNpro found that the majority of VPN services have close ties to China. CSO Online points out that if you are running a VPN that is developed and owned in China, then there is a serious chance that your information is not as private as you think. Every technology company that operates within China, including ISPs, are required to comply with any Chinese governmental request for data. That includes your data. The Chinese government has a long and well-documented history of hacking, favoring, and helping local businesses at the expense of foreign companies.

VPNpro also found that some Chinese firms own different VPNs split among different subsidiaries. For example, the Chinese company Innovative Connecting owns three separate businesses that produce VPN apps: Autumn Breeze 2018, Lemon Cove, and All Connected. In total, Innovative Connecting produces 10 seemingly unconnected VPN products, the study shows.

VPN attacksChina is not the only concern

VPNpro also found that seven of the top VPN services are owned by Gaditek, based in Pakistan. This means the Pakistani government can legally access any data without a warrant and data can also be freely handed over to foreign institutions, according to VPNpro.

VPNpro identified a further four companies: Super VPN & Free Proxy, Giga Studios, Sarah Hawken, and Fifa VPN, which together own 10 VPN services – where the parent company, and therefore the company of origin, is completely hidden.

If that is not scary enough – There are new reports that attackers are now targeting the devices used to attach VPNs to the network. Help Net Security reports that attackers are exploiting known flaws in Pulse Connect Secure SSL VPN and Fortigate SSL VPN installations.

Flaws VPN installations

These attacks could allow attackers to steal passwords and gain full, remote access to an organization’s networks. Attackers have been targeting two vulnerabilities:

  • CVE-2019-11510, an arbitrary file reading vulnerability in Pulse Connect Secure
  • CVE-2018-13379, a path traversal flaw in the FortiOS SSL VPN web portal.

Researchers Meh Chang and Orange Tsai at Taipei City, Taiwan-based consultancy Devcore reported the flaws to Fortinet on Dec. 11, 2018, and to Pulse Secure on March 22, 2019.

In an August 9, 2019 blog post the Devcore researchers recapped their Black Hat 2019 demonstration. Tsai told TechCrunch in an email, “The SSL VPN is the most convenient way to connect to corporate networks … it’s also the shortest path to compromise their intranet.”

Pulse Secure VPNs

Pulse Secure logoPrivately held California-based Pulse Secure released an update on April 24, 2019, to address these flaws and urged customers to upgrade all affected products “as soon as possible.” The vendor warned that aside from patching, no workaround would protect systems, “Multiple vulnerabilities were discovered and have been resolved in Pulse Connect Secure (PCS) and Pulse Policy Secure (PPS).”

Cyber threat intelligence firm Bad Packets has warned about activity aimed at vulnerable Pulse Connect Secure endpoints. So far they have found nearly 15,000 Pulse Secure VPN endpoints vulnerable to CVE-2019-11510 across all sectors of the U.S. This includes:

  • U.S. military networks,
  • Hospitals,
  • Electric utilities,
  • Financial institutions, and
  • Fortune 500 companies.

Fortinet VPNs

Fortinet logo

Fortinet (FTNT) released a security advisory on May 24, 2019, to address these flaws and urged customers to update their firmware to safeguard themselves. In a blog post, the Devcore researchers wrote about the flaws they’d found in Fortinet devices, “In the login page, we found a special parameter called magic. Once the parameter meets a hardcoded string, we can modify any user’s password.”

Independent British security researcher Kevin Beaumont told BankInfoSecurity he was tracking attacks against Fortigate servers. Beaumont reported seeing “the Fortigate SSL VPN backdoor being used in the wild” against one of his honeypots.

ZDNet claims the number of vulnerable FortiGate VPNs is believed to be in the hundreds of thousands, although we don’t have an exact stat about the number of unpatched systems that are still vulnerable to attacks.

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This isn’t the first time that serious flaws have been found and patched in enterprise-grade networking gear. In 2016 researchers found a vulnerability in Fortinet’s FortiGate OS – that functioned as an SSH backdoor and researchers found an authentication bypass flaw in Juniper Networks (JNPR) ScreenOS firmware.

Patch your systemsIn April 2019, U.S. Homeland Security issued a warning about vulnerabilities in many major corporate VPN applications. The VPN apps from — Cisco (CSCO), Palo Alto Networks (PANW), Pulse Secure, and F5 Networks (FFIV)— improperly store authentication tokens and session cookies on a user’s computer.

Obviously, there is no time to waste: firms should update their vulnerable Pulse Connect Secure SSL VPN and Fortigate SSL VPN installations as soon as possible.

Security researcher Kevin Beaumont told BankInfoSecurity:

Lots of companies have the basics around patching Windows and Linux down, as they have vulnerability management platforms and agents … Those don’t extend to FortiOS and Pulse Secure. So they just don’t patch as they never see [vulnerabilities].

Maybe firms should get their VPN devices on a regular update schedule before they become Virtual Pwnd Networks.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| August 24, 2019
Comments Off on 8,200,000,000 Data Breaches

8,200,000,000 Data Breaches

8,200,000,000 Data Breaches2019 is on pace to be the worst year ever for data breaches. If things continue at the same pace 8.2 billion records will be exposed by the end of 2019. The threat intelligence firm Risk Based Security reports that during the first half of 2019 over 4.19 billion records were exposed in 3,813 reported breaches between January and July 2019.

Risk Based Security logoThose numbers work out to more than 20 data breaches a day. Eight mega-breaches that exposed more than 100 million records were reported. These web-based breaches were primarily the result of leaving databases accessible to third parties and failing to protect them. Forbes reports that these misconfigured databases and services accounted for 149 of the 3,813 incidents reported this year. According to Forbes, the mega-breaches exposed over 3.2 billion records and accounting for 78.6% of the total records exposed in the first half of 2019.

Largest data breaches

The 10 largest data breaches for the first half of 2019 are:

  1. Verifications.io (982 million),
  2. First American Financial (885 million),
  3. Cultura Colectiva (540 million),
  4. unknown organization in India  (275 million),
  5. unknown organization in China (202 million),
  6. Dubsmash (161 million),
  7. Canva (138 million),
  8. Justdial (100 million),
  9. Mobile Drip (80 million), and
  10. Unknown U.S. firm (80 million).

The Verifications.io, First American Financial, and Cultura Colectiva breaches are ranked among the top 10 breaches of all time based on the number of records exposed.

Database securityConsumer Affairs says the Verifications.io, an email marketing company whose misconfigured database exposed 982,864,972 names, addresses, and Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram accounts. The information associated with the breach includes email addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, fax numbers, genders, IP addresses, and personal mortgage amounts. As a result of the incident, Verifications.io has ceased operations.

If you’ve bought a house, particularly in California, another breach may impact you. First American Financial Corporation exposed 885,000,000 records. Consumer Affairs writes that exposed data included real estate closing transaction records that contained names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, email and physical addresses, driver’s license images, banking details, and mortgage lender names and loan numbers.

Other interesting data breach infobits

  • The number of breaches also reached a new high during the first half of 2019.
  • The average number of records lost per leak was just 230.
  • The majority of breaches had a moderate to low severity score and exposed 10,000 records or less.

Thankfully RBS says more critical data was less commonly stolen during attacks.

  • Electronic recordsSocial Security numbers were stolen in 11% of attacks,
  • Addresses were stolen in 11% of attacks,
  • Account numbers were stolen in 10% of attacks,
  • Birth dates were stolen in 6% of attacks,

The sectors impacted

  • Healthcare 224 breaches,
  • Retail 199 breaches,
  • Finance and insurance 183 breaches,
  • Government and information 160 breaches each, and
  • Education 99 breaches..

Inga Goddijn, executive vice-president at Risk Based Security told ComputerWeekly.com,

It is hard to be optimistic about the outlook for the year … The number of breaches is up and the number of records exposed remains stubbornly high. Despite best efforts and awareness among business leaders and defenders, data breaches continue to take place at an alarming rate.

Phishing

Phishing

Phishing is a tried and tested first step for gaining access to systems and services, the report said. The phished data can be used to perpetuate attach. The most frequently stolen data are email addresses and passwords. These credentials are valuable to attackers because they can be used across multiple domains (because we know users don’t use unique IDs for each account) for credential stuffing. These credentials can also be changed by the attacker (or the Owner). The report points out that 70% of the known breaches included email addresses and 65% included passwords.

Phishing can also lead to other critical but less monetized data. The report said phishing can lead to the exposure of unusual or unexpected types of data, including electronic signatures, calendars, marriage certificates, and company-issued employee ID numbers, all valuable for social engineering or spear-phishing attacks.

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Script babyBusinesses need to get their security act together – they were responsible for over 2/3’s of the breaches by RBS. The garden variety cyber-criminal is a script-kiddie who will run automated scripts looking for unsecured databases in order to scrape up any data they can. The big breaches make the headlines, but the everyday incidents make the money for most attackers.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| August 15, 2019
Comments Off on Why Coffee Is Called “a Cup of Joe”

Why Coffee Is Called “a Cup of Joe”

Why Coffee Is Called “a Cup of Joe”Followers of the Bach Seat know that coffee is vital to life. And while there and many ways to have a coffee – drip, cold brew, cappuccino, Irish, lattes, macchiato, mochas, even worse – iced mochas. And many places to get your coffee from home, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, or the best – Tim Horton’s to get your morning pick-me “cup of joe.”

Tim's largeWhy do we call our morning pick-me a “cup of Joe?”  There are a number of theories why it’s “Joe.” The first theory dates back to 1898 when according to Driftaway Coffee‘s blog, Martinson Coffee trademarked the term “cup of joe.” Martinson Coffee was founded in New York in 1898 by Joe Martinson. The author speculates that the coffee may have locally been called “Joe’s coffee” or a “cup of joe.” As the company grew, “cup of joe” could have expanded from a local nickname to a more widely used term by the 1930s

Brooke Nelson at Readers Digest says the most popular origin story goes back to Josephus Daniels during World War I. Mr. Daniels was appointed Secretary of the U.S. Navy during World War I by President Woodrow Wilson.

USS Josephus Daniels DLG/CG-27Mr. Daniels, a teetotaler, and vehement white supremacist imposed General Order 99 that prohibited alcohol aboard U.S. Navy ships on June 01, 1914. According to this theory, the loss of easy access to booze aboard U.S. Navy ships led to increased coffee consumption by sailors. The sailors sarcastically called it their new beverage “a cup of Josephus” in honor of the man who had banned their booze. The snarky name stuck and eventually turned into “a cup of Joe” for short.

Ms. Nelson concludes that this origin story for “cup of Joe” is amusing, but probably not true. She points out that the term “cup of Joe” only appears in writing for the first time in 1930—long after the Navy’s alcohol ban. Barbara Mikkelso at  Snopes.com also points out that U.S Navy ships had been officially dry for enlisted men since the spirit ration was abolished in 1862.

Not so average Joe drinking coffeeAnother theory is that “Joe” refers to the average man and is often used as slang for “fellow, guy, or chap.” Snopes reports this usage dates to 1846 and is still present today. “Joe” is used to describe a typical guy who is interchangeable with any other guy:

  • “G.I. Joe,”
  • “Joe Blow,” or
  • “Average Joe.”

So “cup of joe” could be another way of saying “the common man’s drink.”

Another origin story holds that “joe” is a mash-up of two other slang words for coffee “java” and “mocha.” The mash-up led to “jamoke,” which combines the words “java” and “mocha.”  Eventually “cup of jamoke” was shortened down to a “cup of Joe.” People do love to shorten their slang terms, after all.

Not so average Marilyn drinking coffeeSnopes says jamoke is the best theory for morphing into joe. The British etymologist Michael Quinion found an early documented example from 1931 in the Reserve Officer’s Manual by a man named Erdman:

‘Jamoke, Java, Joe. Coffee. Derived from the words Java and Mocha, where originally the best coffee came from.’”

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So, where did this nickname really come from? No one knows for sure. No matter what you call it (or how you take it!), you can always count on a cup of joe to help you function in the morning.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| August 8, 2019
Comments Off on Symantec Sold

Symantec Sold

Updated 01/08/2020 – Broadcom is selling off parts Symantec less than 2 months after closing the deal. Reports have consulting giant Accenture buying Symantec’s Cyber Security Services unit for an undisclosed amount.

Under the deal, Accenture will take over Symantec’s global network of six security operations centers located in the U.S., the U.K., India, Australia, Singapore, and Japan. The SOC’s provide threat monitoring, analysis, and incident response services. Accenture says it will use the Symantec business unit to boost its managed security services.

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Updated 09/17/2019 – As predicted below, Symantec has started slashing jobs. According to reports, up to 230 Symantec employees will be terminated on October 15, 2019.

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Symantec SoldI could have saved a bunch of people a bunch of money– IF you had read this post – you would already have a doubt about this deal – before professional prognosticators Forester said the same thing on August 9th. In their report analyzing the deal, the market researcher cited Intel’s 2010 acquisition of McAfee and subsequent $3 billion loss spinning the security company to private equity in 2016. They said the deal should serve as a warning to CISO’s about the future of Symantec’s product portfolio under Broadcom. Well NO DUH

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Broadcom (AVGO) has acquired Symantec‘s (SYMC) enterprise security business for $10.7 billion in cash. The two firms consummated their hot-and-cold bromance M&A discussions in writing today (08/08/2018).

Symantec logoThe deal is expected to bring in over $2 billion in annual revenue for the San Jose, CA-base firm. Broadcom intends to fund the transaction with proceeds from new committed debt financing. The transaction is expected to close in Q1 of Broadcom’s fiscal year 2020.

Broadcom, historically a semiconductor business has been on an M&A tear in the past few years, buying its way into a broader market position. First, with the 2016 – $5.9 billion purchase of network equipment vendor Brocade. Next was the 2018 – $18.9 billion acquisition of CA Technologies. Followed by today’s $10.7 billion pick-up of Symantec. In the presser Broadcom CEO Hock Tan called the Symantec purchase, “... the next logical step in our strategy … expanding our footprint of mission-critical infrastructure software within our core Global 2000 customer base.”

Broadcom logoRumors of the purchase first appeared in the press on July 03, 2019, with “advanced talks” happening on July 15th for purchase all of Symantec for $22 Billion, but by July 15, Symantec had reportedly walked away from the table. Reports (which appear to be true) at the time were that Broadcom was after just the enterprise-cybersecurity software business; leaving the consumer the business as an independent company or a spin-off to somebody else.

ChannelE2E says the potential deal makes sense on paper. Broadcom is known for acquiring struggling or slow-growth enterprise technology businesses, stripping out costs and boosting profitability. They explain that Broadcom’s secret to M&A success is clearly communicating staff reduction plans to acquired businesses, investors, and associated end customers. Broadcom is known for swift M&A staff cuts that include reasonable severance packages for employees — rather than long, drawn-out, torturous headcount reductions.

ChannelE2E also correctly predicted the Symantec team could face job cuts, layoffs, or potential business spin-offs as a result of the deal. Right on queue, Symantec announced layoffs of roughly 7% of its more than 11,000 employees during FY 2020. The company also plans to downsize, vacate or close certain facilities and data centers in connection with the restructuring plan.

The Symantec name will be sold to Broadcom as part of the transaction. Interim Symantec CEO Rick Hill said the remaining consumer business contributed 90% of the company’s total operating income, and the company expects to be able to continue to grow revenue for its Norton LifeLock business in the mid-single digits going forward. CEO Hill tried to spin the sale as a win in a presser.

This is a transformative transaction that should maximize immediate value to our shareholders while maintaining ownership in a pure play consumer cyber safety business with predictability, growth and strong consistent profitability.

Symantec SoldSymantec’s struggles in recent years which may have lead to the buy-out are chronicled by Channele2e. Former CEO Greg Clark resigned in May 2019 amid weak enterprise cybersecurity software revenues. Executive team departures over the past year have also included Symantec’s CFO, chief operating officer, chief marketing officer and the head of its go-to-market teams. Board member Rick Hill has been interim president and CEO of the company since that time.

Symantec was late to cloud-and mobile-centric cybersecurity services, and faced intense competition from next-generation endpoint protection providers, including:

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Deja Vu All Over Again

Deja Vu All Over Again

The sense of deja-vu all over again you are experiencing is real. Intel and McAfee tried this nearly a decade ago. Intel purchased top Symantec competitor McAfee for $7.7 billion. The expected “synergies” (WTF that means) never materialized. Intel ended up spinning off McAfee to private equity firm TPG in a 2016 sale that valued the business at $4.2 billion.

Related Posts

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| August 1, 2019
Comments Off on The Secret to F-Keying at Work

The Secret to F-Keying at Work

The Secret to F Keys at WorkWe use keyboards at home, work and the car. The first keyboard to feature function keys was the 1965 Singer/Friden 2201 Flexowriter Programmatic as a standalone word processing system. Each of the function keys was programmable. The familiar 12 F-Keys were introduced in 1984 with the second generation Model M keyboard for the original IBM PC. It had 12 function keys in 3 blocks of 4 at the top of the keyboard. Over the years, various operating systems and applications have made use of function keys in different ways.

After you learn this list of F-Key secrets, you can improve your fun at work by F-Keying around in your cube as you work on your project.

F1• F1 – Universal – Opens a help or support menu in most programs.
• F1 – Apple macOS X – Reduces the screen’s brightness.
• F1 – Some computers  – Used it to enter BIOS setup during startup.
• F1+WIN – Microsoft Windows –  Opens the Microsoft Windows help and support center.

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F2

• F2 – Microsoft Windows – Renames a highlighted icon, file, or folder.
• F2 – Microsoft Excel – Edits the active cell.
• F2 – Apple macOS X – Increases the screen’s brightness.
• F2 – Some computers  – Used it to enter BIOS setup during startup (Acer, Asus, Dell, eMachines, Gateway, Lenovo, Sony).
• F2+CRTL – Microsoft Word –  Displays the print preview window.
• F2+ALT+CTRL – Microsoft Office – Opens the Documents Library.

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F3

• F3 – Microsoft Windows – Opens desktop search feature.
• F3 – MS-DOS or Windows command line – Repeats the last command entered.
• F3 – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome and IE) – Launches the Find bar.
• F3 – Apple macOS X – Opens Mission Control.
• F3 – Other programs – Will find the next search value after an initial search is performed.
• F3+CTRL – Microsoft Word – will lowercase any highlighted text.
• F3+SHIFT – Microsoft Word – Toggles between capitalizing each word, lower case and upper case for the selected text.
• F3+WIN – Microsoft Outlook – Opens the Advanced find window.

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F4

• F4 – Microsoft Windows 95 to XP – Open find window in Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer.
• F4 – Apple macOS X – Accesses dashboard.
• F4+ALT – Boss key – Microsoft Windows – Immediately closes the current program without saving. It can be used in an emergency to close browser windows you don’t want others to see.
• F4+ALT – Microsoft Windows – When no program is running it launches the Shutdown dialog box.
• F4+CTRL – Microsoft Word – Repeat the last action performed.
• F4+WIN  –  Closes the open window or tab in the active window.

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F5

• F5 – Microsoft Windows – Reload the page, document, or contents list in a folder.
• F5 – Microsoft Office – Open the find, replace, and go to window.
• F5 – Microsoft PowerPoint – Starts a slideshow in PowerPoint.
• F5 – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and IE) – Refreshes a web page from the cache.
• F5 – Apple macOS X – Increases the keyboard backlight.
• F5+CTRL – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and IE) – Forces a hard refresh of the web page from the server instead of the browser cache.
• F5+CTRL+SHIFT – Microsoft Word – inserts a bookmark in Word doc.

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F6

• F6 – Microsoft Windows desktop – Tabs from desktop files to the taskbar and the system tray icons.
• F6 – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and IE) – Move the cursor to the address bar.
• F6 – Apple macOS X – Decreases the keyboard backlight.
• F6 – Reduce laptop volume (on some laptops).
• F6+CTRL+SHIFT – Microsoft Office – Opens to another document.

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F7

• F7 – Microsoft Office Suite – Spell and grammar check a document.
• F7 – Mozilla Firefox – Places a moveable cursor in web pages, allowing you to select text with the keyboard (Caret browsing).
• F7 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to rewind media content.
• F7 – Increase speaker volume (on some laptops).
• F7+SHIFT – Microsoft Office Suite –  Runs a Thesaurus check on the word highlighted.

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F8

• F8 – Microsoft Windows – Enter the Windows Start Menu, to access Windows Safe Mode (if pressed during the boot process).
• F8 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to pause media content.
• F8 – Used by some computers to access the Windows recovery system, but may require a Windows installation CD.

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F9

• F9 – Microsoft Word – Refresh document.
• F9 – Microsoft Outlook – “Send and Receive All folders” email.
• F9 – Reduce laptop screen brightness (on some laptops).
• F9 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to fast forward media content.

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F10

• F10 – Microsoft Windows – Activates the menu bar of an open application.
• F10 – Browsers (Firefox and IE) – Shows the Menu bar.
• F10 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to mute the speaker.
• F10 – Some computers – Increase laptop screen brightness.
• F10 – Some computers – Used it to enter BIOS setup during startup (Compaq, HP).
• F10+SHIFT – Microsoft Windows – The same as right-clicking on a highlighted icon, file, or Internet link pops out the context menu.

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F11

• F11 – Microsoft Windows Explorer – Enter and exit full-screen mode.
• F11 – Microsoft Excel – Adds a graph of highlighted cells.
• F11 – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and IE) – Enter and exit full-screen mode.
• F11 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to decrease the speaker volume.
• F11+CTRL – Microsoft Excel – Adds a new macro to the workbook.
• F11 –  Used to access the hidden recovery partition when pressed during boot (Compaq, HP, Dell, eMachines, Gateway, and Lenovo).
• F11+SHIFT – Microsoft Excel – Adds a new sheet to the workbook.

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F12

• F12 – Microsoft Office –  Open the Save as window.
• F12 – Browsers (Firefox, Chrome, and IE) – Opens browser debug tool.
• F12 – • F11 – Apple macOS X – Can be used to increase the speaker volume.
• F12 – Used to access the list of bootable devices on a computer when pressed during boot, allowing you to select a different device to boot from (e.g., hard drive, CD or DVD drive, floppy drive, USB drive, and network).
• F12+CTRL – Microsoft Word – opens a document.
• F12+SHIFT – Microsoft Word – Saves the Microsoft Word document (like Ctrl+S).
• F12+CTRL+SHIFT – Microsoft Office – Prints a document (Like Ctrl+P).

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Newer Apple keyboards have F13, F14, and F15 keys for even more F-Keying around – in place of the Print Screen, Lock key, and the Pause key. They also have F16 – F19 keys above the number pad. Early IBM keyboards had F13 through F24 keys, but these keyboards are no longer used.

To access all the fun of F-Keying you may need to access Fn Lock key or the “Fn key”+“Fn Lock” key to strike F-Keying gold.

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Even Superman uses a keyboardThere’s nothing like F-Keying at  work to make you more efficient. It may feel somewhat strange the first time you try to control your computer from the keyboard since we’re so used to navigating with the mouse. But, you can’t beat the ability to keep your hands on the keyboard.

Related Posts

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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