Online anonymity is a lie: Research challenges privacy protection frameworks
Online privacy and anonymity seem farther away from our reach than ever. It is almost as if every new advancement and progress in technology further removes another brick from an already flimsy wall of privacy on the web.
Although legislations such as GDPR were designed to protect user privacy and anonymity, these guarantees hold little weight against powerful technologies like machine learning which -- researchers have found -- can piece together anonymized information to form your complete identity.
Now is the time to embrace Just-in-Time learning
End user adoption of enterprise software, such as the highly prevalent Office 365, should be a top priority for any IT organization. However, it can sometimes be hard to achieve max adoption through the use of traditional training or eLearning methods alone, which take employees away from their daily tasks for lengthy education sessions. Instead, companies could benefit from implementing tools and policies capable of providing "Just-in-Time Learning" (JITL) that provide workers with answers to their technology questions within their normal workflow. JITL addresses the performance and training needs of the modern technology-focused workplace and the stringent, on-demand information requirements of a rising millennial workforce.
Staying on top of training can be arduous, especially when we consider worldwide spending on information technology is expected to reach near-$4 trillion by the end of 2019 (Gartner). That’s a lot of new tech for employees to learn and leverage, just to get their jobs done. What’s more is that traditional training methods can quickly monopolize annual budgets. In fact, average training expenditures for large companies increased from $17 million in 2017 to $19.7 million in 2018 alone.
Avoiding expense overpayments in the NHS
With increasing innovation and investment in technology, the UK's National Health Service, the NHS, is currently in the throes of real digital transformation. The move to a paperless NHS is one part of the process that has been well documented but so have the doubts about when it will happen. While many industry voices agree that the NHS needs to cut out the paper, drive efficiencies and harness digital technology, there is a lack of consensus around when this will be achieved -- estimations vary from 2020 to 2027.
However, it’s important to put this into context. As the nation’s single biggest employer, with 1.7 million workers across the UK, the NHS is the fifth-largest workforce in the world. With this size and scale comes a myriad of processes which all need to be automated and digitized, especially for back office functions such as HR and payroll.
Netflix phishing tops all other attacks on streaming services
With nearly 151 million users worldwide, Netflix is the #1 streaming service in the world. It also has the distinction of being the most impersonated by hackers. For cybercriminals, Netflix phishing is a lucrative business. While other streaming services, including HBO NOW and Spotify, are also on the receiving end of phishing attacks, none comes close to Netflix.
Netflix’s 155 million subscriber base offers a lucrative supply of personal information, contributing to its favorability with phishers. In Vade Secure's quarterly Phisher’s Favorites report for Q2 2019, Netflix was the 4th most impersonated brand in phishing attacks, with 8.2 percent quarter-over-quarter growth in Q2 2019.
Google turns 21: How two Stanford University whiz kids accidentally built a tech empire
Google is everywhere. It's behind the world's most popular mobile operating system and map, one of the most successful email services ever, and has even expanded into the finance, wearables and transport sectors. What's more, it probably still serves as your browser home page (or just a means of finding out whether you're connected to the Internet or not).
The still-relatively-young company, which turns 21 today, has come a hell of a long way since its inception in the late 90s, and looks well capable of dominating each and every avenue it decides to enter. However, the company had very humble, and indeed slightly odd, beginnings.
How the new sharing economy has changed consumer behavior
We currently live in a Digital Age, which, unlike a couple of decades ago, gives us the ability to leverage one another, like never before, as resources for support in just a few clicks or taps. Nowadays, we congregate online to do so many important things, none more important than sharing our precious resources. Whether we're setting up a ride on Lyft or booking a room on Airbnb, we, as consumers, are putting our trust in the fact that we will get great service and a fair deal, even when we are dealing with people we do not know. It's a fascinating time when what used to quaintly be called "stranger danger" has rapidly given way to consumers learning to trust complete strangers to provide everything from reliable transportation, to comfortable lodging, to transparency into how donations are being used.
The aforementioned companies are now, probably much to our parents’ disdain, household names. And with this kind of brand familiarity comes an implicit sense of trust. We know that if our Lyft driver fails to show, there is a company we can contact to complain about it. We also know that if our Airbnb host doesn’t provide clean accommodations upon arrival, we can go complain on Yelp. Every day, each of the crowdfunding, crowdsharing, and crowdsourcing companies that we're becoming increasingly reliant upon, in turn, relies on one important thing to make sure their business is running as well as it ought to be: consumer feedback.
3 must-do tasks to make vulnerability management useful in today's environments
I recently heard an executive describe how his team essentially threw its vulnerability report in the trash every time they received one. This seemed a bit extreme, but he informed a group of conference attendees that it wasn’t because the vulnerability reports didn’t contain important information -- it was because they have become so overwhelming.
Vulnerability management vendors today are routinely scanning for more than 100,000 vulnerabilities. Imagine the strain that places on an organization if even only a fraction of these vulnerabilities are found within their network. Then consider the feeling associated with the knowledge that there is no possible way to address them all in an effective time frame that will ensure that you are not at risk.
Exchange 2010 end of support: How IT pros can leverage Microsoft’s impending deadline into new business
For businesses that still rely on Microsoft Exchange 2010, the time to upgrade is now.
That’s because on Oct. 13, 2020, Microsoft will discontinue support for Exchange 2010. This end-of-support deadline raises a host of potentially disastrous implications for organizations still using this software. There will be no more technical assistance from Microsoft regarding documentation, phone support or general troubleshooting. There will be no more updates for bug fixes or security patches to protect users and data within Exchange 2010, increasing the risk of ransomware and malicious cyberattacks. Finally, running outdated or unsupported software poses risk for being out of compliance, which can present legal issues for certain businesses depending on their industry’s regulation standards.
Cross-Site Request Forgery: How to protect your app from CSRF attacks
The rise of cyber-attacks in the last few years is stunning. The list of targeted organizations includes big name retailers like Macy’s, social sites like Twitter, banks, hospitals, utility companies, governments, military installations… no organization is exempt from this growing threat.
It’s a massive -- and expensive -- problem to fix. The cyber security market is predicted to grow from $150 billion in 2018 to $250 billion by 2023, to help protect apps and businesses from these risks. One of the most common, yet potentially highly dangerous, risks is known as Cross-Site Request Forgery or CSRF.
5G has arrived: What you now need to know
5G, the latest in mobile technology, strives to make mobile communication better and faster than ever before. However, a challenge 5G has that its predecessors did not, is the amount of devices, not just mobile phones, looking to benefit from the new technology. From smartwatches to internet-connected doorbells to even impending autonomous trucks, each of these devices will be looking to connect to the 5G network.
5G is already in use by several cities across the US with other countries not far behind. In fact, a recently released Ericcson Mobility Report predicted that by the end of 2024, there will be 1.9 billion 5G subscriptions, 35 percent of traffic will be carried by 5G networks and up to 65 percent of the global population could be covered by the technology. So the current questions are not when or what, but who will have access and how secure is it?
How a 0G network can make smart cities using IoT that much smarter
The IoT has the power to unleash the smart city, providing data-backed insights that can be used to inform sustainability initiatives, enhance operations and influence municipal planning and budgeting. However, the potential of this technology is currently capped by a few critical barriers -- namely, security and cost.
To capitalize on insights derived from the IoT and truly become "smart," resource-strapped cities need a solution that 1) requires lower upfront investment than traditional options, and 2) ensures top-notch security. What is that solution? It could be a 0G network.
WeChat and WhatsApp: How to safely embrace these business essentials
In today’s digital workplace, taking advantage of digital collaboration and social media tools is a business imperative. With global social media use greater than ever before, and still very much on the rise, it comes as no surprise that it has embedded itself into the workplace. Just like email, social media and instant messaging apps like WeChat and WhatsApp are becoming business essentials.
We’re all familiar with the shadow IT problem and how many IT departments are still unaware of all the applications and channels their employees are downloading and using for business conduct. Today, the social media channels and instant messaging apps needed to communicate with customers and cultivate new business are both easier for an average employee to use and come with much greater risks. This ease of use and popularity also means that several departments within a company like marketing and sales are both vulnerable to and responsible for preventing a variety of threats that they’re simply not equipped to handle.
What the 'Summer of Outages' showed us, and what we can do about it
Summer 2019 was a rough one for the internet, with systemic outages occurring frequently and in quick succession.
Some of these outages were caused by internal errors, others external, but two overriding causes emerged: greater network complexity and the frequency and pace of code change. In aggregate, these outages serve as a painful reminder of just how fragile the internet is, especially as networks and services grow increasingly interconnected and co-reliant.
Ashampoo releases Backup 14 with fuss-free cloud support
Although we understand backing up our data is essential, finding the right backup tool isn’t easy at all. Many are just too complicated, designed to offer every possible option to suit advanced users. Problem is, most people who need a backup tool just need to get things backed up, swiftly.
You could turn to the cloud yourself, and simply use the storage to keep your files secure, but this isn’t the right solution if you want a backup of your system drive. If you suffer from a ransomware attack or a system meltdown, you’d still need to go through the slow process of re-installing Windows and your applications. With this in mind, we recommend making a system backup rather than individual files and folders.
The breach prevention playbook
It seems like every day we hear of a new, high-profile data breach. No longer are we shocked when some major brand is exposed for having lost data at the hands of external bad actors or unwitting internal parties. The question has switched from 'will I be breached?' to 'when will I be breached?'
In football, there’s an adage that the best offense is a good defense. In the battle against cyber attacks, it’s all about choosing the right defense to combat the ever-changing tactics used by bad actors both outside and inside your organization. In order for a team to succeed, it must find and exploit weaknesses in the opposing team’s defense. Cybersecurity is no different.
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