New software, designed by scientists at the University of Florida (UF), just might be the answer to thwarting the ever-growing problem of ransomware.

Ransomware is a form of malware used by cybercriminals to exploit users into paying significant sums of money to retrieve their own files. When an infection happens, the files on a user’s system are encrypted by the virus and the only way to regain access to those files is by paying a ransom to the hackers behind the attack.

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In a time when some really intelligent people are expressing fears over intelligent robots, the worst thing you can do is tell a bunch of scientists that robots that smart can’t be made.

Yet, that’s pretty much what shared services professionals said when they were polled by robotics and automation specialists Redwood Software, together with Shared Services Link, the online community for finance, shared services and outsourcing leaders.

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It seems that the constant expert warnings that legacy software should be avoided aren’t really resonating with businesses across the world. According to a new report by Spiceworks, more than half (53 percent) of companies all over the world have at least one instance of Windows Server 2003.

That wouldn’t be much of an issue if the operating system’s EOL (end of life) date wasn’t a year ago (July 14, 2015). After that date, Microsoft has officially ceased supporting the product, stopped releasing patches and new updates, which means that companies still using Windows Server 2003 are actually putting themselves at a lot of cyber risk.

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Dwindling demand for physical hard drives has already led Seagate to eliminate the jobs of 1,600 employees from its global workforce of 46,000 which spans across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas.

Now, the company has announced that it is planning to cut another 6,500 jobs or 14 percent of its remaining staff. The employees who have lost their jobs will be let go over the next 12 months and Seagate will end up paying out $164 million as a result.

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More than 400 businesses get targeted by CEO fraud scams every day, a new report by security researchers Symantec says. CEO fraud is a type of scam in which cyber-criminals target financial staff, often posing as CEOs or other executives, and request large money transfers.

Even though it sounds too simple to work, its success rate is actually quite high, and relies mostly on putting financial staff under a lot of pressure through a sense of urgency, not giving them enough time to think things through.

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Worldwide PC shipments are still in decline, but they’re showing slow signs of recovery, according to new and preliminary market research results by Gartner. In the second quarter of 2016, 64.3 million units were shipped, equating to a 5.2 percent decline compared to a year before.

This is the seventh consecutive quarter PC shipments have been falling, but Gartner says there’s no reason to despair.

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Industrial control systems (ICS) are not supposed to be connected to the Internet, Kaspersky Lab says, as it opens a sea of opportunities for hackers. Such systems are run by energy, transportation, aerospace, oil and gas, chemicals, automotive and manufacturing, food and drink, governmental, financial and medical institutions, and should be, for the sake of security, run in a physically isolated environment.

However, Kaspersky Lab says that is not the case, and that it has found 13,698 ICS hosts exposed to the Internet, which very likely belong to large organizations. More than nine in ten (91.1 percent) host remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities, and 3.3 percent contain "critical and remotely executable vulnerabilities".

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Autonomous driving is an exciting prospect, but it’s not without its problems and ethical dilemmas. Recently, two Teslas were involved in accidents (two separate incidents), and in one of them the driver was killed.

Such exciting technology also begs the question: who’s to blame when two autonomous vehicles collide, and what happens if someone gets killed in the process? The UK, which has stated on multiple occasions that it wants to be the global leader in autonomous vehicles, is tackling the issue from the insurance perspective.

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As you're no doubt already aware, Amazon Prime Day is upon us. You have to be a Prime Member to take part in this day of deals, but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial if you're not already a Prime subscriber.

The team over at TechBargains has prepared some of the best, longer lasting deals but be warned, this is a pretty crazy day and a lot of offers are going fast. For full coverage be sure to check out TechBargains for the most up to date coverage on the Lightning Deals which launch every 5 minutes and will have a limited supply and time limit, so act fast.

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Microsoft has updated its Microsoft Bot and Skype Bot platforms with a host of new capabilities to ensure that its Bot Framework is ready ahead of its official launch at the end of 2016.

The company first announced its Skype Bot Platform in March during its Build developer conference. Currently there are 30,000 developers building bots for its platforms according to Microsoft.

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Global IT spending is expected to be flat this year, hitting $3.41 trillion (£2.63tr), market analysts Gartner says. But an important factor hasn’t been taken into consideration.

Gartner says the global IT spending will be up from last quarter’s 0.5 percent negative growth. These changes are mostly driven by fluctuations in currency, so it should be business as usual. However, the forecast was made assuming the UK would not vote to leave the European Union. As we all witnessed, that surprise move has shaken global economy, so different outcomes are now also a reality.

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Researchers from Microsoft and the University of Washington managed to store a high-definition music video by OK Go into a DNA strain. This is actually much more serious than it sounds.

A team of scientists and researchers stored 200 megabytes of data on a molecular strand, and thus set a new record. A bunch of data was added, including digital versions of works of art, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in more than 100 languages, the top 100 books of Project Guttenberg and the non-profit Crop Trust’s seed database. Knowing IoT and Big Data are on the way, having a long-lasting and reliable data storage solution is essential.

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For many years forward thinking companies across the UK have been attempting to raise the numbers of women working in the IT professions. They make slow progress, and some might even say "no progress", since we know that around 20 percent of the IT workforce was female at the turn of the century and the number now languishes at about 17 percent. For those involved in the work to attract and retain women in the technical professions, the question arises: "What would the number be if we weren’t already taking action?"

When you look at it, the amount of activity to support the attraction and retention of women to the professions is astounding. It follows the lifecycle of girls and women. Many big organizations offer summer camps for girls (e.g. Apple, IBM, the bigger banks) to show them how exciting the digital world can be. Thousands of people are engaged in programs to talk to girls in schools about the technical professions as a career option.

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Google wants to help UK’s young start-ups make it big, and it’s kicking off a start-up camp to make it happen.

A nationwide search has kicked off, with the goal of finding 10 start-ups "who think big". Applications are now open and will remain so until July 29. The 10 start-ups that do get selected, will have access to "bespoke support", including insights from London’s most experienced mentors and investors.

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Data scientists can do no wrong, at least in the eyes of the companies that are clamoring to hire them. Every company wants them so they can use data to better understand and predict customer behavior. It’s why Glassdoor named data scientists as 2016’s hottest job.

However, what many organizations don’t realize is that a data scientist only sees part of the equation. Identifying and understanding patterns and using algorithms are a great start, but they aren’t the silver bullet businesses are looking for to instantly turn their data into insights that improve the customer experience.

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