BetaNews Staff

Rethinking browsers

Internet security with browser logos

With browsers often in the middle of many corporate activities, it’s no wonder that they are now subject to many of the same challenges encountered on desktops, smartphones and other hardware-based endpoints. Many IT pros wouldn’t consider browsers to be a critical network endpoint, but those pros would surely place importance on mobile devices, laptops, desktops and servers. Given the valuable role browsers play in accessing enterprise applications and information, it’s time to rethink how we classify them and, more importantly, how we manage and secure them.

Mobility and cloud computing are taking over today’s workforce, and the browser’s significance is trending. The majority of office applications -- such as Microsoft Office 365, Salesforce CRM, and the Zoho One business suite -- run in the cloud and are accessible via browser. These kinds of applications allow users to work from anywhere, at any time, using their laptops, smartphones and other browser-enabled devices.

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8 key factors for an effective Internet of Things (IoT) network

Internet of things

Connected devices, or the Internet of Things (IoT), are exploding on the market. Securing their access has become one of the major concerns in recent years. But security is only part of the equation. What good is a secure network if you cannot access it?

 As more and more devices connect together, the availability to connect becomes paramount. If your business is going to depend on an IoT infrastructure, it must be available, accessible, and safe from attack. If you cannot count on your infrastructure, you cannot depend on it. When selecting an IoT platform, these are the sort of issues that should be considered.

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Infrastructure is the missing piece to an autonomous future

Self Driving Car

Though you may have not noticed their arrival, autonomous vehicles are already here. While we currently experience automation’s convenience on a smaller scale -- like self-parking and lane-keeping capabilities -- fully-autonomous vehicles are projected to offer so much more. For example, fully-autonomous vehicles offer a potential for a 90 percent decrease in traffic fatalities. When you consider a stat like that, it’s no wonder many vehicle manufacturers and government officials are pushing for fully-driverless capabilities.

But a fully-autonomous future won’t become a reality on the efforts of vehicle development and manufacturing alone. Infrastructure updates, particularly in major U.S. cities, will be needed to accommodate these vehicles. As it stands, only six percent of these cities have a long-term infrastructure plan in place for autonomous vehicles to operate efficiently and safely. To create a safer tomorrow, infrastructure design needs to be addressed today.

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Email security threats that can ruin your company's holiday season

Most people understand that retail becomes a target for cybercriminals during the holidays. But even businesses not related to the retail sector will often find the holidays their most vulnerable time of year. After all, many individuals (that is, employees) are focused on wrapping up projects before the holidays truly start or are looking ahead to the coming year with the added distraction that the holidays bring.

Businesses need to protect themselves from potential cybersecurity threats during the busy holiday season -- many of which will come in the form of the world’s most commonly used utility, email. In this post, we will take a look at some of the biggest on-premises and cloud email security threats your business faces this holiday season.

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Real-time data center monitoring will continue to be the easiest way to cut costs in 2019

Energy costs are one of the fastest-rising expenses for today’s data centers and the global energy ecosystem as a whole. Not only do energy cost make up 70 to 80 percent of ongoing operational expenses, but data centers are projected to soon amount to the largest share of global electricity production, according to Huawei Technologies’ Total Consumer Power Consumption Forecast.

As new technologies enter the data center realm at an increasing rate, expectations for advanced operational environments capable of meeting energy demands are at odds with an ever-present demand to keep costs down. In fact, studies have shown that cost savings continue to be a main motivating factor when selecting data center management tools. While introducing new processes to data center operations -- like real-time data center monitoring -- is key to modernization at a low cost, researchers have found managers need the pressure of an imminent issue or decision to overhaul legacy tech to make the step towards adopting a data center manager tool.

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AI: Cybersecurity friend or foe?

Artificial intelligence

AI technology has become widespread and accessible to hundreds of thousands of IT security professionals worldwide. Human researchers are no longer behind their computers crunching the data and numbers, nor should they be when AI technology is available. The increase in computing power, especially through economical cloud solutions and easy-to-use tools, has allowed a much wider range of users to apply sophisticated machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to solve their problems.

At the same time, companies and security vendors have realized how difficult it is to fight cyber criminals who are constantly evolving to find new ways to infiltrate corporate networks without being spotted. For IT teams, updating and maintaining security solutions and policies to keep up with this volatile threat landscape is extremely costly and an unsustainable solution to protecting against incoming threats.

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The elements of cybersecurity hygiene and secure networks -- Part 1

The two fundamental building blocks in ensuring that your data is secure are physical infrastructure and network security. Understanding and protecting your information from threats and human error requires meticulously layered security protocols.

Last year, British Airways canceled over 400 flights and stranded 75,000 passengers because of an IT outage caused by an engineer who disconnected a power supply at a data center near London’s Heathrow airport. When it comes to data centers and networks, even minor human errors can have a major impact on businesses and their customers. With the exorbitant costs and human resources required to maintain an on-premise system, organizations should look to public cloud companies. These companies bring capital and expertise to the table to properly manage their data centers, which are better protected than those that most companies could put in place themselves.

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Edge computing changes everything, including your mobile strategy

Edge computing

It’s tempting to think of edge computing or the Internet of Things (IoT) strictly as something new that you’ll be adding to your enterprise architecture in the coming years. Your company has an enterprise architecture, and now thanks to the IoT revolution you’ll be adding lots of new internet-connected devices, which, depending on your line of business, might be actuators on a factory floor, sensors in a power station cooling tower, or GPS units on a fleet of tractor trailers.

But in reality, IoT and edge computing are not capabilities that are added separately to a company’s existing IT architecture and landscape. Rather, they need to be integrated into existing architectures to deliver on the company’s desired business outcomes.

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Robocalls on the rise: What you should know

Smartphone owners are increasingly accustomed to picking up their phones and hearing recorded voices on the other end, meaning they've received robocalls.

Often, the recordings are threatening and mention taking action to avoid arrests or financial penalties. A human representative never comes into the equation unless the person receiving the call wants further information, usually by pressing a button on the phone's touchscreen.

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Develop cross-platform apps using Google's Flutter

Speak to most app developers and they’ll tell you it’s much harder, more complicated and less interesting to produce an Android app, compared to iOS. Indeed, ask for a quote and both will be priced separately as both require separate development time and teams.

This might all be about to change with the final first release of a new cross-platform development tool from Google. Imagine a toolkit that you can use to program the functionality, allowing the UI framework to be provided to you separately and seamlessly.

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Uniblue closes its doors for good

There are some firms you look at with a kind of wary admiration primarily because they were a marketing pioneer of their time. Or that’s what we thought.

Uniblue is one of these companies and, you should believe this is no understatement, it used to be major software developer, with adverts in every location, as little as eight years ago. Before it all went horribly wrong. Now Uniblue has closed the company for good with no prior warning whatsoever.

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True Key by McAfee uses facial recognition to securely store your passwords

After listening to years of security advice, many of us now use different passwords to access various websites. Problem is, how do you store and synchronize this data across your devices? You can’t remember every unique password.

The secret is a password manager which enables you to store a central 'master password' (which you can remember) and then gain access to this securely stored data on any supported device. Problem is, can you trust a centralized password manager after previous security issues?

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The future of project management technology

Emerging technologies are set to revolutionize project management. That won’t come as much of a shock to the average reader -- there’s been plenty of media coverage about the extent to which new technology like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT) will transform industries from the bottom up.

However, people often struggle to isolate the challenges that emerging technologies will solve, and the specific practices they will change -- even within their own industries. There’s a tacit assumption that change will come -- but the 'what', 'how' and 'when' of these seismic shifts remains unclear. Project managers want to tackle the challenges and grasp the opportunities of today’s workplace faster and better than their competitors. It’s vital, therefore, that project managers not only understand the potential of emerging technology, but how to use it to best effect.

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How I infected my phone with a virus

Virus alert on Android phone

Smartphones are still shrouded by various myths. Reports say that long telephone conversations may cause tumors, your signal may weaken if you move too quickly, and strong signals from base stations could kill people. Whether or not these things are true remains a mystery, but one thing that we do know is real is the threat of mobile malware.

Malicious programs are able to steal funds from your bank account, extract personal information, lock your phone screen, and render a smartphone useless, among other things. According to Statista, as of March 2018, "the total number of Android malware detections amounted to over 26.6 million programs." All of this got me wondering about how easy it is to infect the phone with a virus, so I decided to try it out and document my journey.

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5 sure-fire ways to kill your company's innovation

Innovation is difficult to come by. It is a fleeting concept that eludes most companies. In fact, the odds of a new product idea reaching full commercialization are less than 4 percent. And that is the best case.

But, there are 5 sure-fire ways you can make certain innovation never sees the light of day at your company:

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