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The transition to PCIe 4.0 is in full effect, with more and more computers and motherboards having the new standard. Whether or not the user truly needs the benefits of PCIe 4.0 is debatable, but it is still cool regardless. After all, it is important to continually push boundaries.

One of the best aspects of PCIe 4.0 is faster solid state drives. For instance, today, TEAMGROUP unveils a new M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD. Called "T-FORCE CARDEA A440," this speedy gaming-focused SSD comes with interchangeable heatsinks -- a very unique cooling option. Essentially, you can opt for the giant aluminum heatsink if it fits in your computer, or the graphene heatsink if space is tight.

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Vehicle-tracking software has been evolving to a point where real-time data is not only available centrally but easily accessible to a mobile team of drivers and fleet professionals. On-board tracking, video, and sensors are now being combined with AI processors that interpret as well as record the road ahead. Simply put, our vehicles are now smarter than us -- in a good way.

By using data, connectivity, and AI-powered analysis, companies can have a huge competitive advantage if they can act on the issues at hand. Drivers have access to predictive technology that identifies road signage, driver behavior, weather conditions, and road condition to help guide them to the safest path through traffic, as well as the most efficient overall route.

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The need for organizations to recalibrate and reprioritize their Zero Trust efforts has been abundantly clear for years, and recent vulnerabilities like those with Microsoft Exchange and Google Chrome have further magnified the need for improvement. However, the conversations surrounding how to mitigate these threats and adopt a framework of actual Zero Trust have become increasingly oversaturated.

Rather than throwing around industry buzzwords and "talking the talk," the cybersecurity community must understand that the luck they’ve encountered playing one of security’s most dangerous zero day games is likely to run out in short order. Instead, they must focus their efforts on "walking the walk" by implementing a model of Zero Trust. Thanks to a recent industry survey and accompanying report, there are a handful of trends that are already in motion as organizations and cybersecurity professionals alike work towards adopting a true Zero Trust environment.

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Managed service providers (MSPs) are a prime target for cybercriminals as they offer a gateway to the networks of the organizations that they manage, allowing attackers to go after many businesses from one place.

A new report from Perch Security looks at major MSP-related security events and trends from 2020 and makes predictions for 2021 with contributions from MSPs, partners, and security experts.

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There's been a major increase in cloud adoption because of COVID-19, but there's also widespread misconception surrounding responsibility for backup and recovery of data in the cloud and a lack of confidence in the security of data held by public cloud service providers.

A new report from Arcserve company StorageCraft shows 47 percent of respondents accelerated adoption of cloud services for data management, 59 percent confirmed increased use of cloud backup services, 56 percent increased the use of the cloud for IT infrastructure (IaaS), and 39 percent increasingly rely on cloud services for data recovery.

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A new report shows that nation state cyberattacks are becoming more frequent, varied and open, moving us closer to a point of 'advanced cyberconflict' than at any time since the inception of the internet.

The report, sponsored by HP, is based on research conducted by Dr Mike McGuire, senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Surrey and finds that there's been a 100 percent rise in 'significant' nation state incidents between 2017 and 2020.

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For the most part, Android smartphones are pretty boring nowadays. LG has often been a risk-taker in the Android market, taking chances with unique phones that have funky designs and cool features. Sadly, LG has decided to leave the mobile market. Thankfully, Lenovo seems ready to take the reins with its brave new Legion Phone Duel 2 -- a drool-worthy gaming-focused 5G smartphone that is a successor to last year's model.

What makes the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel 2 so special? Well, it builds upon its predecessor with better specifications and a nicer overall design. It has a huge (6.92-inch) high-resolution (2460 x 1080) AMOLED HDR display, 44MP front camera, and 64MP rear shooter. The front camera pops out from the side of the phone, meaning there is no notch to interfere with the screen.

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If you run an Insider version of Windows 10, you’ll see a watermark on the bottom right-hand side of the desktop showing the version of Windows you’re running and the current build number.

This makes it easy to see which build you’re on, so you’ll know whether or not you’re up to date.

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When Donald Trump was removed from social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, the only real surprise was that it hadn't happened sooner. With the former president apparently planning to create his own social platforms, the story is far from over, and he sems likely to maintain an online presence.

But there is also the question about what to do with Trump's previous online content. One thing is certain – his tweets will not be appearing in the National Archives after Twitter denied NARA permission to resurrect deleted content from the suspended account.

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Due to some issues, Microsoft didn’t roll out a Dev Channel build to Insiders last week, but the bugs have been overcome and today a new build arrives, and this one sees a branch name change in the watermark at the lower right corner of the desktop.

Build 21354 comes from the CO_RELEASE branch, and the first additions to this flight are new personalization options for the 'News and interests' feed on the taskbar.

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Wow, 2020 was quite the year! Not just because of the pandemic that stopped the offline world, but because of some of the terrifying things that rocked our online world as well.

These are the ones that disturbed me the most:

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Imagine, for a moment, that you own a small business -- say, a regional dairy farm producing milk, ice cream, yogurt, and other products. And, like so many companies in the food manufacturing sector, you get hit by ransomware. You can’t access any of the data you need to run your business -- so you don’t know which products to ship, where to ship them, what prices you’ve negotiated, who’s paid and who hasn’t… everything is locked up. And, the clock is ticking -- you can’t tolerate extended downtime or products will spoil and customers will defect to other vendors.

The ransomware threat actor wants $50,000 to give you the decryption keys for your data. Your cyber insurance company tells you to just pay the ransom and they’ll cover most of it, as long as it doesn’t violate the rules set up by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) against paying ransom to gangs or nation states that are under economic sanctions. But, they do some research and determine the ransomware threat actor would fall under these rules, so they rescind the recommendation and will only partially offset what would be an enormously expensive IT consulting engagement to restore the systems in an acceptable period of time.

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There has been a lot written about leadership for the present day, but the world is changing quickly. What worked in the past won’t work in the future. We need to know how to prepare leaders who can successfully navigate and guide us through the next decade and beyond. How is leadership changing, and why? How ready are leaders today for these changes? What should leaders do now? 

To answer these questions, Jacob Morgan interviewed over 140 CEOs from companies like Unilever, Mastercard, Best Buy, Oracle, Verizon, Kaiser, KPMG, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Yum! Brands, Saint-Gobain, Dominos, Philip Morris International, and over a hundred others. Jacob also partnered with Linkedin to survey almost 14,000 of their members around the globe to see how CEO insights align with employee perspectives

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Four years ago, Microsoft announced plans to kill off Paint, a fixture of Windows since the operating system’s first release back in 1985. There was a huge outcry at the news and Microsoft eventually backtracked, stating its simple graphics program would live on, but in the Microsoft Store.

Paint failed to materialize in the Store after the announcement however, and two years ago the app was given a stay of execution, with Microsoft stating it would continue to remain part of Windows for the foreseeable future.

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Protecting legacy systems usually means segmenting them from points of compromise in the network. But the traditional approach using a legacy firewall for each machine is ineffective and costly.

Microsegmentation specialist Guardicore is announcing new capabilities for its Guardicore Centra product extending zero trust policies and granular microsegmentation to legacy systems including IBM iSeries AS/400 servers.

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