Apple fixes another actively exploited zero-day vulnerability on iPhone and iPad - Related to handy, geforce, laptop, another, vulnerability

Apple fixes another actively exploited zero-day vulnerability on iPhone and iPad

In a nutshell: Since last fall, Apple has released multiple critical security updates for its devices. The latest enhancement addresses targeted attacks that can disable a security feature Apple first introduced for iPhones and iPads several years ago. The patch is also available for Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. After updating, consumers should check if Apple Intelligence is enabled.

consumers who haven't updated their iPhone or iPad firmware since late January should do so now. The iOS and iPadOS [website] improvement fixes an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability. The security improvement is also available for iPadOS [website], watchOS, macOS, and visionOS. The patch supports all devices going as far back as iPhone XS, iPad Pro [website] (3rd generation), 11-inch (1st generation), iPad Air (3rd generation), iPad (7th generation), and iPad mini (5th generation).

's security support page, the flaw (CVE-2025-24200) enabled a sophisticated physical attack targeting specific individuals that could disable USB Restricted Mode. The enterprise credits Bill Marczak of the University of Toronto's Munk School's Citizen Lab for the discovery.

Apple introduced USB Restricted Mode in 2018 to protect against device cracking or other malicious hardware. It disables USB data transfers to iPhones and iPads if the devices haven't been unlocked in a week, allowing connections only for charging.

A similar function, called "inactivity reboot," debuted with iOS [website] late last year. It causes devices to reboot after three days of inactivity, preventing thieves and law enforcement from cracking them. Apple also not long ago removed dozens of iOS apps found to contain malware that could read screenshots to steal cryptocurrency wallet info.

There is one possible minor hitch with the update. Some users reported that macOS Sequoia version [website] re-enabled Apple Intelligence. Those affected saw the welcome screen after rebooting their devices. Users who disabled Apple Intelligence, Apple's built-in answer to ChatGPT, should check if the feature stayed disabled after installing the updates by navigating to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri.

Apple Intelligence became opt-out with the OS security updates released in late January, including iOS and iPadOS [website], drawing complaints from customers wary of GenAI. Cupertino's take on the technology allows customers to receive summarized notifications, automatically rewrite text, and generate images. However, Apple disabled news summaries after criticism from the BBC over hallucinations.

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You can preorder a GeForce RTX 50 series laptop on February 25

Nvidia revealed the next generation of gaming laptops powered by RTX 50 series GPUs at CES this year, and now we have a date. On February 25, manufacturers will open up preorders for laptops powered by RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090 GPUs.

GeForce RTX 50 Series Laptop pre-orders start Feb 25 from OEMs. 👀 Stay tuned.

, the RTX 5070 will deliver RTX 4090-level performance in a $1,299 laptop. In other words, he’s promising that your new laptop GPU will run games as well as a flagship desktop GPU from just two years ago — and it’s AI that makes this possible.

Nvidia has been improving its Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) tech for years now, and it seems like the corporation is planning to do crazy things with it for these gaming laptops. With DLSS 4 and fifth-gen Tensor cores to power it, Huang promises boosts in both quality and efficiency. The GPU in your laptop will render and ray trace a much lower resolution version of a game, resulting in higher FPS, lower latency, and all-around superior performance — and then the neural model will generate the remaining pixels needed to achieve your desired resolution.

The crazy part is that judging by Huang’s proposes, it seems that Nvidia has refined the tech enough now that it can achieve high-quality results even when upscaling from a very low resolution — however low is needed to hit RTX 4090 levels of performance on a laptop. If that sounds utterly insane to you, you’re not alone — I can’t wait to see if this really works as advertised.

As for the more expensive GPU models in the lineup, I’m not even sure what to expect from a $2,899 laptop with 1,850 AI TOPS. It will be super interesting to compare the performance of the RTX 5070 to the RTX 5090 and see just how much of a difference that extra AI power can make.

In terms of specific models, plenty of manufacturers showed off their RTX 50 series gaming laptops at CES, including MSI, Acer, Alienware, Asus, Lenovo, and Razer.

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Handy Backup 8.5 Professional review: Full-featured backup with cloud support

At a glance Expert's Rating Pros File backup and sync, disk imaging, disaster recovery.

Online storage support Cons Wouldn’t connect to Google Drive online.

System recovery plugin was non-functional and recovery disc requires separate download and Rufus.

Pricey Our Verdict Handy Backup might’ve garnered an Editors’ Choice award had it been entirely glitch-free and a bit easier to learn. We still say “take a look” as the mainstay attributes are top-notch. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today.

Best Prices Today: Novosoft Handy Backup [website] Pro.

Retailer Price Novosoft $89 View Deal Product Price.

Handy Backup Pro is clean, efficient, and easy to use — once you figure it out. In its professional version it’s also one of the most capable backup software suites I’m aware of. I was impressed, and would’ve remained so if it weren’t for several non-fatal bumps in the road.

Read on to learn more, and then see our roundup of the best Windows backup software for comparison.

Basically, Handy Backup is a straightforward-looking utility that can perform file backup, file sync, as well as disk imaging. That puts it in the upper tier when it comes to capabilities.

Handy Backup [website] puts its three main tasks front and center.

Most of the options you find with other programs are present: restore, compression, encryption (256-bit AES is max), scheduling as granular as an hour, before and after commands that may be executed and even run on device insertion.

Note that when I stated Handy Backup supports online storage, I mean both as source and destination. Many backup programs only support the latter. Indeed, I was able to sync a folder from Dropbox to OneDrive with ease.

Other supported services include Amazon S3, S3 compatibles, Google Drive (local only), OneDrive for Business, Dropbox for Business, Yandex Disk, [website] Hotbox and Icebox, VK Cloud, Backblaze, and Box. 4Shared is supported, but for some reason is under the “Other” heading. Handy Backup also supports network locations, WebDAV, and FTP/FTPS/SFTP.

I expressed Handy Backup is easy to use, but it’s not intuitive in every aspect. Each job in Handy backup is handled by a plugin. Fine, but it threw me off a hair, as it puts the imaging functions (disk/system recovery) under the source selections, when they’re normally treated as a methodology.

In other words, instead of selecting an imaging job, you select Disk Clone from the source menu, then either disk image or system recovery. You’re then presented with a list of local disks and partitions. Make sure you only select what you want, because by default the program will make images of the drive AND partitions if you simply select the drive.

Handy Backup is easy to use, but it’s not intuitive in every aspect.

The kicker here is that you must run the program as Administrator for this function to work. There’s actually a button to reboot in admin mode, but you’re advanced off setting this in file properties/compatibility for [website] Why Novosoft doesn’t set this property for you in lieu of the button I don’t know.

Handy Backup [website] running from its disaster recovery disc.

Handy Backup does offer a disaster recovery disk, however — the Create Recovery Drive command in the File Menu simply directs you to instructions on the organization’s website to download the .iso. At this point you can use Rufus or another boot disc creator. Novosoft and I both recommend Rufus.

Once upon a time there was a free version of Handy Backup. No more. But there is a 30-day trial of the program available. Beyond that, the standard version is $39, the professional version (which adds the imaging functions) reviewed here is $89, the small business version that backs up various business software and databases is $249, and there is a server version for $487 that adds Linux and remote functionality. See the the complete feature chart to compare options.

In terms of value, Handy Backup is facing a lot of competition in the form of R-Drive Image, Acronis True Image, Easeus ToDo Backup, and others available at similar or lower price points.

With files, Handy Backup was very quick. Imaging? Err… I spotted one error right off the bat, with the program claiming it was about to copy three files of [website] total size. In actuality, it was three files totaling about 10GB on a disk that was only 1TB in size, which the program subsequently noticed.

Handy Backup mistook the amount of data to be backed up.

That introduced, the operation only took about three minutes, as fast as anything I’ve tried. However, this was only after I discovered that, by default, the selection of a drive creates images of the drive, and the separate partitions, which for some reason totaled well over 80GB, took 34 minutes. Be careful to deselect redundant entries when you use this plugin.

While you can create images using Clone Disk for system recovery, the dedicated System Recovery plugin (show below), was non-functional. Novosoft was seemingly aware of this and recommended using Clone Disk. My advice to Novosoft? If something is known not to work — don’t include it.

Sadly, this plugin didn’t work, simply spinning its wheels in an endless loop.

I also found the program frustratingly slow to respond when I wanted to kill operations. While not putting escape checks in a loop can speed operations, it can also result in a lot of time wasted performing operations that the user wants to cancel. I understand this logic during the delicate restore operation, where it must complete or risk data loss, but not during backups where cancelling won’t damage anything.

On that note, the program could deliver a bit more information such as, “You will not be able to access the drive being restored from an image until the process is complete.” Instead, it expects you to understand that. Fair enough, but there are clients out there who won’t.

The only bug that truly irked me was Handy Backup being denied access to Google Drive, despite my successful log-on. Other services were fine, but that’s a very, very common online storage repository. You must install Google Drive and back up the local copy.

Handy Backup [website] connected to all the online storage services I tried besides Google Drive.

I quite like Handy Backup with its myriad capabilities and top-notch performance. I even grew to enjoy its foibles — once I sussed them out. Its bugs I consider minor inconveniences, but I’ve dinged other programs for less, so… I still think it’s worth a looksee as you might mesh with its idiosyncrasies as I did.

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