Ian Barker

The risks of public Wi-Fi and how to stay safe [Q&A]

Public wi-fi

The demands of daily lives increasingly mean that we want to be connected wherever we are. Add in the shift to hybrid working and we’re likely to want to be in touch with the office all the time too.

That makes the lure of free public Wi-Fi, whether it's in a coffee shop, a hotel or an airport, hard to resist, especially if you have a limited data allowance on your mobile contract. But of course using public networks always comes with a side order of added risk.

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Google begins deleting inactive accounts

Starting from today, a new Google inactive account policy comes into effect which means that accounts that haven't been active for two years will be deleted.

So, what counts as 'activity'? Google provides a helpful list:

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Why you need a multi-layered strategy to secure the cloud [Q&A]

cloud security

Recent cyber attacks have seen not just the usual monetary motives but also the rise of espionage attempts with attacks on government officials.

So how can organizations, both public and private sector, protect their most valuable assets? We spoke to Glenn Luft, VP of engineering at Archive360, to find out.

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Demand for developers remains high

Despite difficult economic conditions, software development and quality assurance skills remain a priority for businesses, according to a new study.

Research from the Qt Group looks at the number of vacancies for 'software development', 'software testing', 'software engineering', and 'quality assurance' positions at 30 tech companies which have made the most redundancies this year.

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Brits reach for the phone when seeking support from businesses

New research finds that 69 percent of British adults will contact a business via phone call first before trying other methods when seeking assistance.

The study from telecoms company Gamma Communications shows 38 percent of 2,000 people surveyed say direct phone calls are their preferred method of communication with businesses over other channels such as emails, web chats, social media and video calls.

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Number of cyber extortion victims up by 46 percent

controlling hacker

The cyber extortion threat landscape continues to evolve quickly and the past 12 months have seen the number of victims globally increasing by 46 percent, marking the highest numbers ever recorded.

A new report from Orange Cyberdefense shows large enterprises were the victim in the majority of attacks (40 percent), with those employing more than 10,000 people seeing a steady increase.

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Cloud storage vulnerable to ransomware attacks

New research from Dig reveals that cloud assets like Amazon S3 buckets and Azure Storage accounts are being left open to ransomware attacks thanks to poor configuration.

It shows that only 31 percent of S3 buckets have versioning enabled, an essential for data recovery, while just two-thirds of sensitive buckets have logging enabled, a prerequisite for detection. In addition 72 percent of remote CMK buckets are not actively monitored.

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How the internet is keeping over 50s alive

We hear a lot about the negative aspects of the internet, but a new report from Atlas VPN shows that internet users aged 50 and older have a 33 percent lower risk of death than non-users.

Older adults who use the internet have a 19 percent lower risk of a stroke than those who do not, while internet use among individuals aged 50 and above is also associated with a 17 percent lower risk of diabetes.

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The challenges of securing the healthcare sector [Q&A]

The healthcare sector is particularly attractive to cybercriminals due to the amount of personal data held and the critical nature of many systems.

We spoke to Shankar Somasundaram, CEO of IoT risk management platform Asimily, to discuss healthcare systems and the challenges involved in securing them.

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IT leaders worry about security despite being prepared

business fear

While 92 percent of IT business leaders believe they've made the right security investments and 88 percent say they meet all compliance requirements, half still worry about their company's security.

New research by Propeller Insights for AppDirect shows top areas of concern include cybersecurity risk (58 percent), information security risk (53 percent) and compliance risk (39 percent).

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Almost half of developers think ML projects take up too much time

Before developers can generate machine learning insights, they need to configure different aspects of complex infrastructure, such as machine resource management, monitoring, and feature extraction, but many think this is too time consuming.

New research from Civo finds that of over 500 developers surveyed, 48 percent believe that ML projects take up too much time.

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Generative AI sparks excitement and uncertainty

A new survey from Betterworks shows that the arrival of generative AI has generated excitement, experimentation, innovation, fear, and uncertainty among employees and organizations.

The research, conducted by Propeller Insights, shows over half of employees are using GenAI at work for complex activities and believe it has the potential to reduce bias across a range of processes, despite the fact that only 41 percent of organizations are actively evaluating it or have made GenAI a priority.

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AWS launches its own thin client for enterprises

As more and more organizations turn to SaaS and cloud solutions, having a powerful PC as a desktop solution becomes hard to justify, not to mention the support and security issues that come along with it.

Step forward AWS with the launch of the Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client, aimed at enterprise workers in order to reduce an employer's technology costs and provide enhanced security.

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Information overload puts cybersecurity at risk

stressed overwork pressure

Over half of today's office workers are ignoring important cybersecurity alerts and warnings due to information overload from digital communication.

New research from CybSafe, based on a survey of 1,000 office workers, shows 54 percent have ignore warnings, while 47 per cent admitted to feeling the information overload is having an impact on their ability to identify threats such as suspicious emails.

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From castles to cities -- a modern approach to authorization [Q&A]

Corporate information security has traditionally used the 'castle' approach, using a strong boundary to keep everything secure.

But as we've moved to hybrid working and more sharing of information the castle is too restrictive and we've moved towards a 'city' model, allowing open routes to trade with assets widely distributed.

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