5 reasons CEOs need to start caring about data governance
Business leaders everywhere now recognize information as a strategic asset. Many executives value data governance as a powerful tool that reduces risk and supports data-based decision making. But what is data governance, what does it do, and what day-to-day support does it offer to CEOs?
A company’s digital wealth requires consistent, company-wide information management. Data governance is an umbrella term for the standards and practices that guide how information is managed and used in businesses. It provides a framework, which ensures that important data assets are used consistently throughout the organization. But wait, you say, isn’t information management the CIO’s role? Yes, but inconsistent data management can affect a company’s ability to meet its business goals. That’s when it’s time for a CEO to monitor and guide company-wide data governance policies and practices. Here are some examples of when CEO attention and guidance would be required.
Best Windows apps this week
One-hundred and ninety-three in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 8.x and Windows 10 in the past seven days.
This week saw quite the flurry of articles about the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Find out how to disable ads and tips, fix update related issues, or slow Internet speed after applying the update.
Facebook starts to take more notice of your preferences to personalize your newsfeed
Facebook's constant tinkering with newsfeed algorithms has a tendency to leave people asking what on earth is wrong with a simple chronological display of posts. But the social network -- driven by ads -- feels that it knows better and likes to play with the code that determines what you see.
Having made changes to ensure that you see more posts from the people you know (well, Facebook is supposed to be about friends and family...) the latest change sees the social network aiming to bring you posts that are "more personally informative".
Russia fines Google over breaking antitrust rules with Android
Google has been fined 438 million rubles ($6.75 million) by the Russian antitrust authority for abusing its market position following a complaint by Yandex, Russia’s biggest search engine.
Google has been found guilty of forcing Android smartphone makers to install its search engine on their devices, which has been seen to breach "protecting competition" laws.
Ad blockers find a way to circumvent Facebook's ad blocking circumvention
Facebook's announcement that it would start to punch through ad blockers to make sure everyone sees ads was met with understandable condemnation and consternation. One of the best known ad blockers, Adblock Plus, soundly criticized the move, saying that it was an example of 'cat-and-mouse games'.
And so it begins. Facebook may have said that it will circumvent ad blocking tools, but now ad blockers are fighting back. The open source community has worked is magic and come up with code that circumvents Facebook's circumvention. How meta...
Here we go again! Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14901 for PC arrives on the Fast ring
Windows 10 Anniversary Update rolled out to all users last week, but the Windows team doesn’t rest on its laurels for long, and is already working on new builds.
Today those Insiders who elected to stay in the program, and not switch back to the current branch, get the first new release for the Fast ring -- Build 14901 for PC.
Many students are interested in starting a business
A third of students are either considering starting a business, or already have one, new research from Santander Universities says. This equates to a total of 518,000 students, who generate £913 million every year, the report adds.
However, it’s not (just) money that motivates these people. Instead, they’re more interested in pursuing a hobby or personal interest (70 percent). Financial gain is only placed second (58 percent), right before work experience (26 percent).
Microsoft gives Intel Skylake users even more time to upgrade to Windows 10
In an attempt to get more users to upgrade to Windows 10, Microsoft announced early this year that it would drop support for Intel Skylake processors on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 after July 17, 2017. The controversial policy was short lived though, as a few months later the software giant gave its customers a one-year reprieve, pushing the deadline to July 18, 2018.
But, as you can see, that is not the end of the story, as Microsoft has changed its mind once again. Today, it announces that Intel's sixth-generation processors will actually be supported for an even longer period of time on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 devices. That is good news for those who are not planning on upgrading to Windows 10 in the foreseeable future.
PC users install Windows updates, but don't patch programs
Microsoft is doing its part protecting its users from hackers, but it can’t do everything on its own.
According to new figures released by Secunia Research in its Country Reports, covering Q2 2016 for 12 countries, the number of unpatched Windows machines is on the decline. Compared to Q1 this year, when 6.1 percent of systems were unpatched, only 5.4 percent are not up to date now. Same time last year, the figure was 10.3 percent.
How data APIs accelerate creation of analytics apps
One way to access data efficiently and accelerate the development and deployment of analytics apps is to build an API. APIs are a natural way to access data, whether it be personalization scores for web content or a service to assess the risk of a part failing.
There are a number of benefits to using an API for data access. First, it restricts the user to efficient requests. Google Analytics is a prime example. A query API gives you access to the rich data in your Google Analytics instance. While the API is fairly flexible, it allows Google to more accurately describe the types of queries that can be performed efficiently.
Linux vulnerability lets 'anyone in the world' hijack Internet traffic
Security researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have uncovered a major Linux vulnerability that enables hackers to hijack Internet traffic which, if exploited, can be used to intercept communications, launch targeted attacks, and lower Tor's anonymity. The vulnerability impacts iterations of the open-source kernel released in the past four years.
The security researchers believe that this security issue "affects a wide range of devices and hosts" -- the open-source kernel is well known for powering a significant number of servers and being at the heart of Android, the most popular mobile operating system today. The vulnerability was introduced in a TCP specification that is found in Linux versions starting with 3.6, which was released in September 2012.
Predictive risk technology helps fight phishing
Phishing attacks are on the increase and are becoming increasingly sophisticated. This means that older technologies such as blacklisting known phishing sites are struggling to keep up with the threat. The Anti Phishing Working Group detected a 250 percent jump in phishing sites between October 2015 and March 2016.
Fraud protection company Easy Solutions is helping to combat the problem with the public beta launch of its Swordphish predictive phishing and malware risk assessment technology.
Moon Express gets FAA 'approval' for Moon mission
Last week Moon Express, a contender for the Google Lunar X-Prize (GLXP), announced that the company had received interagency approval from the White House, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department of State and other U.S. government agencies "for a maiden flight of its robotic spacecraft onto the Moon’s surface to make the first private landing on the Moon".
This heady announcement got a lot of press including this story I am linking to because it was in the New York Times, the USA’s so-called pape of record. If the Times writes "gets approval to put robotic lander on the Moon" it must be true. Only this story isn’t true. Yes, the FAA kinda-sorta gave Moon Express permission to land on the Moon. But by the same token, the FAA has no power to deny Moon Express -- or anyone -- the right to land on the Moon. It’s not in their jurisdiction.
Samsung Pay vulnerability can enable fraudulent payments
During the recent Defcon hacking conference, held last week in Paris, a hacker demonstrated how he could make fraudulent payments through Samsung Pay.
Samsung says it knew of this and considers it an acceptable risk. It claims the method is almost too difficult to pull off, and no different than fraud methods we see today with credit cards.
Over half of security pros say cloud vendors shouldn't give governments data access
There are a number of concerns that companies have over migrating to the cloud, but one of the key ones is who else might have access to the data.
Cloud security company Bitglass has released the results of its latest Mitigating Cloud Risks survey in conjunction with the Cloud Security Alliance, which shows that potential government access to encrypted data is an issue.
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