BetaNews Staff

Remote work isn't going anywhere. The number of major companies announcing plans to allow their employees to work from home into the future continues to grow every week as Covid-19 prolongs the time away from the office and remote employees realize an improved work/life balance.

A switch to permanent remote work will also mean changes to the technology we use to work. Existing solutions were utilized early in the pandemic when there weren’t any other options, but as the projected time at home continued to increase it was clear that purpose-built solutions were needed to make an entirely remote office function properly.

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In October, the internet was shaken by the Facebook outage that affected dozens of big-name companies, as well as millions of brands and businesses that advertise on Facebook’s platform. Because of something as simple as a misconfigured Domain Name System (DNS) record, every device with the Facebook app integration started DDoS-ing recursive DNS resolvers -- DDoS meaning "Distributed Denial of Service." This, in turn, caused overloading in countless cases across the board.

You might be thinking to yourself, "So, what? A few sites were offline for a couple of hours." But the outage brought to light other issues. Communications for the very Facebook employees that could fix this issue were crippled. Some of these hindrances went so far that people were unable to enter buildings because the physical badge system wasn't even online.

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Digital transformations have taken over corporate America. Over the last few years, businesses of all sizes have discovered much of their success now relies upon the ability to quickly interpret incredible amounts of data. While the business intelligence space grows exponentially, traditional BI tools still struggle to keep pace with the need for quick, decisive interpretation of this information surge.

Embedded analytics has inserted itself into this dilemma as the nimble, robust solution.

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We all know the importance of backing up our data, and by far the simplest way to ensure that everything is safeguarded is to create system images that back up everything at once. You could buy expensive software to do this, or you could use the newly updated Macrium Reflect 8 Free.

This powerful backup tool is free for home usage and can be used to create images of Windows systems -- even when they are running. The latest version of the free edition of this software includes a number of improvements and enhancements, starting off with the ability to create WinPE 11-base rescue media which uses the Windows 11 kernel.

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Unsurprisingly, vaccines have taken center stage this year as researchers continue to work to find immunizations for COVID-19.

Here are six of the critical technologies -- from 3D printing to telemedicine -- spurring progress on those and other vaccination development efforts.

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It is no secret that ransomware has been on the rise in the last 12 months. In fact, the UK has been ranked number 10 on the list of countries worst affected by ransomware in a new report commissioned by Google.

Just days after the publication of Google’s research findings, Lindy Cameron, who heads up UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), warned that ransomware now presents "the most immediate danger to the UK” and went on to note that despite the increasing volume of attacks many organizations have no incident response plans in place and rarely test their cyber defenses."

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On almost an annual basis we see policy proposing the authorization of private-sector hack back, the latest of which has been legislation from two US senators. One of the main issues with policy proposals for hack back is that they rarely address how it would work in reality and how opportunities for abuse or unintended harm would be handled.

To address this, Senators Daines and Whitehouse have proposed that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "conducts a study on the potential benefits and risks of amending section 1030 of title 18, United States Code (commonly known as the 'Computer Fraud and Abuse Act') to allow private entities to take proportional actions in response to an unlawful network breach, subject to oversight and regulation by a designated Federal agency."

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IT systems run around the clock, and sometimes, so do the employees who support these systems. After all, our digital world is incredibly sensitive to system failures and downtime. But how does this perpetual stress affect IT professionals?

A recent study found that 83 percent of software engineers experienced professional burnout. And, the COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated the issue with 81 percent of software engineers reporting elevated fatigue due to growing pandemic-related workloads. Technology doesn’t have to be the root cause for this burnout, and in fact, tech can actually combat these issues. Let’s dive into what’s causing DevOps and site reliability engineering (SRE) teams to get burnt out in the first place and how solutions like AIOps can alleviate some of their stress.

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According to commonly accepted truisms within the app development world, consumers care most about functionality, and they’re perfectly willing to give up strong security if it means they get better features faster.

Unfortunately, these bits of common knowledge about consumers’ attitudes towards mobile security are wrong, according to a recent Appdome survey of 10,000 mobile consumers from around the world. Far from accepting a "buyer beware" approach to mobile app security, consumers place a high priority on security and possess a sophisticated understanding of mobile security. In fact, 74 percent of all consumers would stop using an app if they learned it had been breached or hacked, and nearly half (46 percent) would tell their friends to do the same.

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Everybody has their two cents, and it’s easy to get lost in all the business advice and recommendations that are out there. While there are a ton of "musts", the insight about what not to do is of equal value. Being prepared for every scenario will not only save you a lot of time and resources but also make you better prepared for any kind of hardship along the way. 

As 20 percent of new businesses fail during the first two years of operation, and roughly half of all companies don't survive the first five years -- what will reverse these unfortunate statistics? Here are my do’s and don’ts of running an independent business of any size.

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The cat’s out of the bag. Windows 11 is here, more than six years after the release of its predecessor, Windows 10.

Microsoft has promised Windows 11 will be "the most secure Windows operating system yet" which, if true, will come as a relief for those plagued by ransomware and malware attacks.

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Now that so much of our workplace communication and collaboration has gone digital, businesses are taking steps to ensure that their teams are operating as efficiently as possible and that they’re able to serve customers’ needs. While many of the tech tools that companies have adopted or scaled up in the past couple of years have become essential lifelines to power productivity, there are potential risks that can arise if tools aren’t managed properly or if the business doesn’t have the right resources in place.

One specific challenge that poses a threat to productivity, customer experience and an organization’s bottom line is IT silos -- roadblocks that crop up when different teams use separate tools or apps that don’t integrate with others. IT silos can crop up when different groups adopt systems, apps or tools that are duplicative or unable to integrate with other digital resources. The silos are problematic for teams that need to share information and can negatively impact the team’s efficiency and effectiveness. Employees can become frustrated and burned out by the additional challenge of trying to communicate and work together with others. In addition, IT silos prevent teams from accessing the most accurate data. IT silos can take several forms, but there are action steps companies can take to address them.

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Supply chain attacks have dominated news headlines in 2021. From SolarWinds to JBS Foods, cybercriminals are actively targeting national and international supply chains, causing widespread disruption and financial impact. Attackers understand that organizations have less control over and visibility into the security controls of a supply chain -- controls that are typically limited to legal contracts rather than true and comprehensive security policies and procedures. Common cyber supply chain risks and threats include third-party access to IT systems and weak cybersecurity practices of smaller suppliers.

Now more than ever before, protecting every part of the supply chain must be a top priority for both public and private sector organizations globally. To do this effectively, it is important to remember that securing any supply chain cannot be successfully achieved through the work of only an IT department or team. While they do play a significant role, cyber supply chain risks touch upon many different areas. Therefore, a more comprehensive, shared responsibility approach is required.

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Through evolving legacy modernization, a clear need for automation arose to bring actionable insights to IT and DevOps teams.

Unified monitoring, log management and event management vendors are finding ways to embrace Observability in their tech stacks. And while the overall functionality doesn’t change, these adjustments have led to confusion between IT and DevOps teams. IT Operations and Service Management (ITOSM) professionals are skeptical that Observability is a marketing ploy rather than a tool that actually implements technological change. DevOps professionals, on the other hand, are hesitant of the idea of repurposing legacy tools. So what should vendors do when transitioning standard monitoring technology to use Observability in a meaningful way?

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The world as we know it has changed significantly in the past couple of years, and so have managed services. While IT infrastructure and security continue to be more important than ever with large numbers of companies across the globe implementing remote and hybrid working policies, this situation has created the need for additional services that go beyond the standard managed services package. As the future of work continues to evolve, so too will the offering of experienced managed service providers (MSPs).

Prior to the global pandemic, MSPs were primarily focused on IT security and infrastructure. Companies would often outsource all or part of their IT in order to keep costs low and ensure that they had the crucial expertise and systems at hand without having to hire in-house specialists. Ensuring that their IT systems are secure and working at optimal capacity makes it possible to focus on other tasks that will help move the needle and big-picture goals. This is why MSPs are still very popular with businesses of all sizes. Despite large in-house IT teams, an estimated 90% of Fortune 1000 companies use MSPs for part of their IT management.

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