If you're one of the relatively few people who use Google+ in something other than an Enterprise setting, be advised that the clock is ticking.  Google has just announced that they're sunsetting the service.  It will be going offline for consumers at some point over the next ten months.

Change is coming to the way Microsoft handles search across its ecosystem.  If you use the home edition of Office, you're not likely to notice, but if you use Office 365, the changes will be significant.

Here's what's happening:

First of all, the search bar will get bigger, taking a more prominent and visible place on your screen's real estate.

Symantec's most recent statistics have revealed a disturbing trend.  Malware designed to compromise checkout pages is seeing a big spike in use, with the company reporting a staggering 248,000 attempts since August 13th of this year, with more than a third of them (36 percent) between September 13th through September 20th.

According to this year's Traveler's Risk Index, published by The Traveler's Indemnity Company, a majority of business owners have a somewhat fatalistic view of hacking and data breaches.

The index includes 52 percent of survey respondents indicating that they believe a cyber-attack is inevitable.

Firefox is upping the ante where digital security is concerned, having just announced the release of a new, free service called 'Firefox Monitor.'  The new service is designed with one specific goal in mind:  To assist users in finding out if their accounts were exposed via a data breach.

Windows 10 is far and away the fastest growing version of the OS in the company's history.  It recently hit an installation base of a staggering 700 million devices after about three years on the market.

Note that these installation figures include installs not just on PCs, but also on Surface Hubs, Xbox, HoloLenses and smartphones.

If you use the GovPayNet portal, be advised that your personal information is currently at risk. Although at this point, there's no indication that any hacker has made use of it.  The portal is run by Government Payment Service, and is used by many Americans to pay fines, fees and bills generated by more than two thousand different government agencies operating in 35 states.

Google is making a small but pivotal change as it relates to calls placed to 911 operators.  Having recently finalized a complex partnership with RapidSOS and West (two emergency technology companies) and T-Mobile, Google will now send location data from its "Emergency Location Service" when an Android user places a 911 call.

Google has recently made some changes and improvements to its G-Suite. It introduces new tools designed to allow managers and admins greater visibility into how the people in their organizations use the G-Suite.

Currently, the "Work Insight" tool is available in beta and displays information on how G-Suite is deployed at the team level.

Google scored a major coup in the auto industry. They just inked a deal that will put the Android OS in every car made by the global auto alliance Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi. It sold a staggering 10.6 million vehicles around the world last year.

The tech giant has struggled to get its foot in the door, primarily because auto makers have been hesitating on handing over the keys to their Infotainment and other computerized systems, in fear of being shut out of the data collected by those systems.