The Bundestag, the lower house of the German congress, conducted a secret penetration test (pen test) against members of parliament by sending phishing emails that supposedly came from the Bundestag administration. While many MPs and their staff members passed the test,Spiegel(machine translated) says that several fell for the faked email and disclosed sensitive information like usernames and passwords. All representatives and their staff eventually received a letter explaining the penetration test, saying, “This is absolutely necessary for an effective defense against real phishing campaigns....

Today we have a great deal on a gaming monitor with a rapid refresh rate that’s ideal for superfast gameplay such as first-person shooters likeValorant,Counter-Strike, andApex Legends. Not only does the gameplay look smooth and fluid on a fast-refresh monitor, but higher frame generation makes it easier to get those vital shots in thanks to less motion blur and faster response times; don’t forget that you do need an appropriately powerful graphics card to make the most out of a high refresh rate monitor....

Hoto’s original 3.6v screwdriver is one of my favorite tools, for its function, design, and affordability (it’s currently on sale for around $32). So when the company debuted its SNAPBLOQ line of Lego-like snap-together tool kits, I was a bit underwhelmed, mostly because of the price. But now all three are on sale for Prime Day.The USB-C-chargingR-A04 Mini Cordless Rotary Tool,D-A03 Electric Mini Drill Pen, andS-A01 3.7V Mini Electric Screwdriversets are compact and color-coded so you know what you device you’re reaching for before opening the accessories box, and they all snap together via magnets so that you may keep a suprising amount of tools in a space about the size of a small soda bottle....

Gigabyte launched several new desktop and laptop parts, peripherals, and devices this year, giving gamers many options for building their ideal gaming rig. The company’s booth in Las Vegas showcased these new goodies. In addition to the30 new Nvidia and AMD Gigabyte GPUson display, we saw a new large desktop case, five laptops powered by Intel and AMD processors, and two new gaming monitors. First, the company showcased the Aorus C601 Glass, which features an all-new aesthetic and has a modular design that allows it to fit your specifications precisely as needed....

Your motherboard’s BIOS is responsible for setting up your system at the most basic level. Whether you want to monitor your hardware components, control fans, or tweak other essential settings, you first need to know how to enter the firmware interface. On every PC and laptop, hitting themanufacturer-specified keyduring the startup should do it. You can even enter the latest UEFI Utility from theWindows Recovery Environmentor from a specific section within yourmotherboard’s recommended software....

Here’s a fun fact: CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED is one of the few WindowsBSODs(Blue Screens of Death) that anyone can provoke at will – on Windows 10, anyway. If you kill the process named svchost.exe in Windows 10 (right-click in Task Manager, and pick “End process tree” from the pop-up menu), it asks for confirmation before showing an error screen (see above for error screen, below for confirmation window). Among other things, that means Windows won’t run unless the generic system process that hooks Windows services up with dynamic link libraries (DLLs) is operating....

Runninggpedit.mscin Windows opens the Local Group Policy Editor. This is an MMC (Microsoft Management Console) in Windows that allows users to access and modify system settings. Unfortunately, Group Policy Editor is only available on the Pro and Enterprise edition of Windows. Windows will give you a “Windows cannot find gpedit.msc” error message if you try to run thegpedit.msccommand in Windows Edition other than Pro and Enterprise. Although installing either Pro or Enterprise Edition will fix the issue that you face, there are some workarounds to rungpedit....

When logging into your account on Windows, the Operating System uses the user profile files in the C drive to load your Windows account. If these user profile files are corrupted, the OS cannot log in to your account. So, when the OS cannot access the desired user profile, we get the error message “The User Profile Service service failed the sign-in.” The OS will prompt us to the sign-in screen when we get this error message....

Most of us format a hard drive toget rid ofunwanted files and bloatware or to simply free up disk space. Also, some of us might be planning to give the drive away and want to know how to format it so that the data can’t be recovered later. Other than that, a newly installed hard drivecan’t be useduntil and unless it’s correctly formatted. This is because you haven’t yetinitialized the diskand specified a file system....

Ubuntu has a great System Monitor tool already built into the OS. And, there are also a plethora of terminal based alternatives such as htop, bashtop, or just plain ol’ top. These all work great but what if you want to try something different? Mission Center, created byRomeo Calota, is a more user-friendly system monitoring tool that covers CPU, GPU, RAM, disks (including SMART functionality), network and fan speeds for Linux machines....

While you’re watching a low-quality video on a high-resolution TV, the TV will try to upscale the resolution of the video to maintain its picture quality. However, the upscaling will make the picture look pixelated and you may encounter unwanted noise artifacts on your TV. If you are looking for ways to minimize those noises, I’ve got you covered. Before You Begin To begin with, I recommend you change the TV channel you are currently watching and see if other channels have the same issue....

You’ve probably tried tweaking Windows display settings once in a while. But what if you want to revert these changes? Well, Windows allows you to customize several display options, likescaling, resolution, application graphics, colors, fonts, and many more. Exploring these settings is fun until your display becomes nasty and you wish to revert immediately. Some users have complained that their display looked different after a recent update or whileupgrading to Windows 11....

Windows updates keep your system up-to-date. But, there are some instances where the latest updates can be glitchy or cause more problems. So, if your Windows update isn’t working properly as well, it may be because of corrupt update components. You may also encounter a repair required error notifying you that the update component is configured incorrectly. In this case, you can try resetting the Windows update component. We will guide you through the resetting process through this article....