The moment of reckoning is on its way for companies that collect or store data on European Union citizens. Last week EU legislators signed data privacy regulations into law, creating what may be the most stringent data protection law in place today. The requirements will not be easy for many companies to meet and will demand financial and personnel resources. There is sure to be criticism that the EU stifles technology innovation. In reality, the GDPR demonstrates a progressive approach to data transactions and the digital economy. The introduction of the regulation states, "The protection of natural persons in relation to the processing of personal data is a fundamental right…".

Essentially, the law codifies the concept that data transactions come with responsibility on the part of the collector. As technology continues to advance, establishing this foundation of trust is a necessary step. Complying with the regulation may seem onerous, but think from the consumer’s perspective. Organizations gather more data than ever. Huge headaches and hardships arise when data is  stolen or lost. The regulation puts in place best practices to ensure companies offer a necessary level of security and treat personal data with the respect it deserves.

Continue reading →

World Password Day is apparently a day for “taking our passwords to the next level”, so here are five traditions the crooks and password crackers really, really don’t want us to start.

In 2007, Dinei Florencio and Cormac Herley at Microsoft Research looked into the password habits of half a million users in their large-scale study of website password habits. They found that the average user needed about 25 distinct passwords but only had about six.

Continue reading →

In an effort to remain competitive with rival messaging platforms, BlackBerry has decided to bring video calling to its cross platform BBM messaging apps.

Last week, it was unveiled that the Android variant of BlackBerry Messenger would be receiving the ability to make video calls as a beta feature. Now the company has announced that this feature will also be appearing on Apple’s iOS.

Continue reading →

Microsoft has just announced that it has acquired the IoT service Solair -- based out of Italy -- though the financial details surrounding the transaction have yet to be released.

The company was founded in 2011 and it uses Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to deliver its services. This will allow Solair to easily be integrated into the Azure IoT suite.

Continue reading →

People would gladly take banking services from tech companies such as Google, Amazon or Facebook, a new survey has shown.

According to a new Europe-wide study by Fujitsu, the digital transformation keeps disrupting the financial industry, and if traditional service providers fail do adapt on time, tech disruptors will step in.

Continue reading →

Almost a quarter (25 percent) of OS X developers don’t use file sharing in the cloud -- at all, according to a new survey.

German-based Fournova surveyed more than 7,000 OS X developers in more than 100 countries to see which tools, services and technologies are the most popular ones.

Continue reading →

Over the last month, Nest has been under a lot of scrutiny over their decision to shut down Revolv, as made famous by a viral Medium post earlier in April. The discussion around this issue raises an important question: what are IoT companies' obligations to their customers?

If you make a hardware product that is connected to the internet and relies on a web service for its operation (i.e. an Internet of Things product), you’ll likely see that reliance as an asset. "We have an ongoing relationship with our customers", you might say. "We can improve the product's functionality, we can deliver new features, we can fix bugs, and we can generate customer insights to make the product better over time". This feels like a win for both your company and for your customers.

Continue reading →

In the last couple of weeks we have seen consumer messaging giants WhatsApp and Viber retrospectively add end-to-end encryption technology to their communications platforms. The notion of providing users with improved security is certainly to be applauded, and seeing messaging apps adopt encryption as a necessity as opposed to simply a nice-to-have feature, is long overdue.

However, the manner in which providers are increasingly introducing encryption technology within apps as an afterthought is potentially providing a false sense of security to the billions of people that use them on a daily basis.

Continue reading →

The Internet of Things (IoT) opens up a sea of new opportunities for revenue and growth, but it is also a security challenge, IT pros have said.

If the new Spiceworks IoT report is to be believed, 85 percent of IT professionals in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa) believe IoT will create new security and privacy issues in the workplace.

Continue reading →

Almost a half (43 percent) of UK companies did not experience a security breach in 2015, a new report suggests. Released by IT management software provider SolarWinds, it includes answers from 109 IT practitioners and managers from small, medium-sized and large UK companies.

According to them, just 30 percent suffered a breach last year. Quite surprising.

Continue reading →

Hackers are targeting specific countries with their malware now, new research from security firm Sophos shows.

The security firm analyzed millions of devices worldwide and has come up with the conclusion that it seems to be more lucrative if the malware is specifically designed to target certain cultures or countries.

Continue reading →

IT trends often come and go, some dominating the hype cycle for years, others exiting the mainstream with more of a whimper. Security is having a moment right now in which it is dominating the market in terms of press, thought leadership and excitement. But, in this case, it’s no trend, it’s reality.

As long as there have been networks, there have been concerns over security. That is true now more than ever, as networks have grown larger, more complex, and crucially, more critical to business function.

Continue reading →

Microsoft has upgraded its Operations Management Suite and has made a new preview of System Center 2016 available, in an effort to aid system administrators in tackling the increasingly complex cloud environments and data center resources.

The company’s System Center is as a suite of systems management tools, that includes System Center Configuration Manager and System Center Operations Manage, all aiming to help companies manage on-premises data centers. Operations Management Suite on the other hand, is designed to aid companies in gaining control of hybrid cloud environments.

Continue reading →

The pace of change within IT has accelerated rapidly in recent years and, according to new research from IT resourcing firm Experis, many organizations now believe they have fallen behind the competition.

The report found that tech leaders believe their departments are a whole four years behind their most innovative competitors, whilst also believing that 29 percent of their teams need to be changed in order to drive digital transformation.

Continue reading →

With SharePoint 2016’s general release on the horizon, many companies are contemplating what the path to migration will look like. But before making the switch, organizations should take into account what’s unique to SharePoint 2016 and how new features will affect business functions.

The most notable difference in SharePoint 2016 is that this release has been derived from SharePoint Online’s source code. While previous releases looked first to on-premises solutions to define what SharePoint’s cloud offerings looked like, SharePoint 2016 was built out of the cloud. In the years since launching SharePoint Online, Microsoft has learned quite a bit about operating and supporting SharePoint at a massive scale.

Continue reading →