Skype beta testers can now hold group chats with up to 50 participants
Microsoft has doubled the number of people that can take part in Skype group video calls. For beta testers involved in the Skype Insider Preview, the upper limit increases from 25 to 50.
While this may not be something that the average home user will be particularly interested in, it's something that will be welcomed by business users as it means they will be able to hold larger remote meetings for free.
Protecting email deliverability before and after a data breach
The financial impact of a data breach continues to climb for businesses. IBM’s 2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study placed the average total cost of a data breach at $3.86 million, an increase of more than six percent compared to 2017. Every stolen or lost record costs a company $148, putting a hefty price tag on breaches of any size.
Beyond immediate expenses, the required email notification to customers in the database can negatively contribute to a company’s ability to recover from the breach. FTC regulations require the company to contact every customer in their database via email or another method, such as direct mail. If there is a spike in undeliverable emails, mailbox providers (MBPs) will notice the spike, negatively impacting the company’s email deliverability. Thankfully, this impact can be reduced by minimizing unnecessary data before a potential breach and acting immediately after recognizing the breach.
Gearbest issues response to data breach
Following on from yesterday's story about eCommerce site Gearbest leaking customer data the company has issued an official response to ethical hacker Noam Rotem’s report.
It says that its own servers are secure but that, "external tools we use to temporarily store data" may have been accessed by others leading to security having been compromised.
A fifth of Americans don't trust anyone to protect their data
Around 20 percent of Americans suffer from security fatigue and don’t trust anyone to protect their personal data according to a new study.
The research from hardware security company nCipher Security reveals that many people want more control over their personal data privacy and most want tighter controls on how others handle and safeguard their personal data.
Zippyshare mysteriously blocked in the UK
The Zippyshare file hosting service is currently blocked for users in the UK. Anyone visiting the site will be presented with a '403: Forbidden' message when they try to access the site.
Users on a number of ISP forums are asking whether this is due to some blocking action on the part of service providers, but it appears that for some reason the site is blocking itself from UK IP addresses.
Apple bites back at Spotify's damning claims against it
A couple of days ago, Spotify filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission (EC), the regulatory body responsible for keeping competition fair and nondiscriminatory. It claimed the tech giant has, over the past few years, "introduced rules to the App Store that purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience -- essentially acting as both a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers".
Understandably, Apple is none too happy with Spotify’s claims, and today hits back, addressing the music streaming service's key grievances.
NETGEAR launches Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR300 802.11ac Wi-Fi Router
Gaming products are everywhere these days. Even if you aren't a gamer, these offerings are usually quite premium, making them a solid choice for anyone. For instance, a mechanical gaming keyboard can be excellent for typists, while a gaming mouse might provides accuracy, comfort, and durability. The problem? Many gaming products can be considered ugly, looking like alien spaceships or mutant spiders.
Today, NETGEAR launches its newest gaming router, and its appearance is surprisingly conservative. Called "Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR300," its design is wonderfully boring -- in a good way. In other words, it doesn't outwardly appear to be a gaming router, but make no mistake, the underlying DumaOS operating system (which is based on OpenWRT) is tuned for gamers and has useful features like QoS and geo-filtering. The dual-band 802.11ac router has a 1GHz dual-core processor, three antennas, and beamforming. Strangely, its USB 3.1 gen 1 Type-A port is on the front -- an odd placement for those that prefer to leave something connected to it.
Dropbox foolishly limits its free user accounts to a mere three devices
The cloud storage market is very crowded. With behemoths such as Google, Microsoft, and Apple all offering competitively priced offerings (not to mention free options), how can any other company compete? Dropbox, for instance, is a great service, but the writing is on the wall -- pundits and analysts have been predicting its acquisition by one of the aforementioned three companies for years now. True, Dropbox is still successful now, but it can't afford to offer cloud storage at a loss, while the big guys can if they choose. Capitalism!
With all of that said, Dropbox would be foolish to make any wrong moves that could drive users away. And yet, the company has quietly done just that. You see, as of this month (March 2019) Dropbox is now limiting its free users to a mere three devices. While that may be enough for some, it can add up very quickly. Want to use the free Dropbox with your phone, tablet, and laptop? Well, you are now at your limit. Got another computer in the household? Maybe a Linux box? Sucks for you, bro.
Google adds privacy-focused DuckDuckGo search engine to Chrome
Update to Chrome 73 and you might be in for a bit of a shock. With absolutely no fanfare whatsoever, Google has added DuckDuckGo to the list of search engines available in its web browser.
In fact, the company has updated the default list of search engines it offers in over 60 markets, but it is the addition of privacy-focused DuckDuckGo that comes as the most welcome surprise.
Gearbest security flaw leaks millions of order and user details
A badly configured server at Gearbest, the Chinese purveyor of technology and other stuff online, has leaked millions of user profiles and order details.
White hat hacker Noam Rotem discovered an Elasticsearch server that was -- indeed still is at the time of writing -- leaking millions of records each week. These include customer data, orders, and payment records. The server wasn't protected with a password, potentially allowing anyone to search its data.
Businesses plan to use more AI and machine learning in cybersecurity this year -- even though they don't understand it
The use of more artificial intelligence to improve security has been touted for a while. New research from Webroot reveals that a majority of business are now actively exploring the technology.
It finds 71 percent of businesses surveyed in the United States plan to use more artificial intelligence and machine learning in their cybersecurity tools this year. However, a worrying 58 percent say that aren't sure what that technology really does.
Analysis of Remote Access Trojans helps understand third-party business risk
Remote Access Trojans (RATs) are often used to steal information from enterprise networks. By looking at network metadata, analysts at threat intelligence firm Recorded Future have been able to identify RAT command-and-control (C2) servers, and more crucially, which corporate networks are communicating to those controllers.
This offers insight about third-party organizations that Recorded Future clients can use to get a better understanding of potential third-party risk to their own data.
What is a zombie (comatose) server, and why should I care?
Whatis.com states that "a zombie server is a physical server that is running but has no external communications or visibility and contributes no compute resources, that it consumes electricity but is serving no useful purpose."
In a time when a server was dedicated to running a particular application or performing a specific function such as the late 1990s or early 2000s, this definition of a "zombie" made sense. Generally speaking, zombie servers happened because they were forgotten, or never configured for the purpose for which they had been acquired (a dirty secret of the IT industry). In many cases, once plugged in, the server operating systems never allowed these servers to enter their sleep state, for fear that they would be too slow to respond. Identifying these systems as zombies was relatively easy -- their power consumption was constant (a flat line).
Western Digital releases affordable WD Blue SN500 NVMe SSD
Last month, I reviewed the HUAWEI MateBook 13 -- an excellent Windows 10 laptop. I was impressed with many aspects of that computer, including the very speedy Western Digital NVMe solid state drive. I’m usually a Samsung man when it comes to SSDs -- after all, its drives are always superb. But thanks to the respectable performance of the drive found in the aforementioned laptop, I am now intrigued by Western Digital SSDs too.
Back in January, Western Digital announced the WD Black SN750 -- an NVMe SSD for enthusiasts. Today, the company releases a budget-focused NVMe SSD aimed at upgraders that don’t necessarily need the absolute fastest storage drive. Called "WD Blue SN500", the 2-lane drive is significantly faster than an SATA SSD, but slower than performance-focused NVMe drives. Most importantly, the M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 x2 drive is very affordable, regardless of which capacity you choose.
GNOME 3.32 'Taipei' is finally here! The best Linux desktop environment gets even better
Whether or not a desktop environment is "best" is subjective. In other words, not all people prefer the same DE. Some folks like GNOME, others are KDE Plasma fans, and some Linux users choose something else. With that said, GNOME is the best. It is not debatable -- please accept this fact. GNOME simply offers the most sensical user interface while also being beautiful. Look, when Canonical killed the much-maligned Unity, what DE was chosen as the new default DE for Ubuntu? Exactly -- GNOME. Hell, GNOME bests both macOS and Windows 10 too.
Today, the best gets even better as GNOME 3.32 "Taipei" is finally here! The DE finally gets one of the most desired features -- fractional scaling. While technically just experimental for now, it will allow users to better scale their desktops when using a HiDPI monitor. Speaking of appearances, GNOME finally gets refreshed icons, and yes, that matters. They look amazing and modern. Also cool? The on-screen keyboard has an emoji picker! User images are now all circular too, lending to a more cohesive and consistent feel. The excellent GNOME Software is getting an update too, with more transparent details about app permissions.
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