Three steps to making a cloud smart investment
Today, many businesses are transitioning to cloud to modernize environments, improve system reliability, advance their digital business initiatives, and support the new realities compelled by the pandemic, such as working from home. According to Gartner, "cloud is the powerhouse that drives today’s digital organizations". In fact, its growth has been little short of meteoric, with a staggering $494.7 billion spend and 20.4 Percent predicted growth in 2022.
Cloud is driving increased security, increased performance, better customer experience and better value for money in tech investment, and it continues to be widely adopted by global business. But organizations are becoming more prudent and strategic in their cloud investments, centering desired business and technical outcomes when selecting the cloud model that best fits their individual needs.
Best Windows apps this week
Five-hundred-and-five in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.
The first feature update for Windows 11 is likely called the Windows 11 2022 Update. Whether that is Microsoft's new naming scheme for future Windows 11 updates remains to be seen though.
Ransomware attacks top 1.2 million per month
A new report from Barracuda finds the volume of ransomware threats detected spiked between January and June of this year to more than 1.2 million per month.
Researchers have also seen a spike in the number of service providers that have been hit with a ransomware attack. The main targets, however, are still five key industries: education, municipalities, healthcare, infrastructure, and financial.
Tackling cybercrime and the threat of 'script kiddies' [Q&A]
Major cyberattacks still have the power to make headline news, yet reporting and indeed conviction rates for cybercrime remain low. It's perhaps not surprising then that rising numbers of young people are getting involved in these illegal activities.
We spoke to Simon Newman, International Cyber Expo Advisory Council member and CEO of the Cyber Resilience Centre for London, to get his views on what needs to be done to improve reporting and change the mindset of 'script kiddies' for the better.
Microsoft releases KB5016691 update for Windows 11, fixing printing and Bluetooth problems, and adding admin options
Ahead of a wider release next Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released the preview version of the KB5016691 update for Windows 11. The update addresses a number of issues that have cropped up recently, including fixing problems with USB printers and also with Bluetooth headsets.
There are numerous other bug fixes such as addressing a problem with Microsoft Edge and a trust issue with Microsoft Store apps. There are also a handful of new features and options, helping to enhance security and giving sysadmins new controls.
LastPass suffers a security breach: hackers steal source code from password management company
LastPass, the firm behind the eponymous password management software, has revealed that it fell victim to a security breach two weeks ago. Although the company is quick to point out that passwords stored by users have not been exposed, the incident remains hugely significant.
The hackers were able to breach the security of a developer account and took advantage of this to steal "source code and some proprietary LastPass technical information". While LastPass is at pains to stress that it has seen "no evidence that this incident involved any access to customer data or encrypted password vaults" it is an incident that will nonetheless dent user confidence.
Samsung announces 990 PRO NVMe SSD and Satechi releases compatible USB-C enclosure
Are all NVMe M.2 solid state drives the same from a performance perspective? Technically, no, but nowadays, even the lower-speed offerings are still rather fast. In other words, no NVMe SSD is "slow" although I would still caution to stick with trusted brands if you value your data. After all, it doesn't matter how speedy your drive is if it dies and your files are lost.
Samsung is probably the most trusted name in solid state storage. Not only are its SSDs historically very dependable, but very fast too. While a Samsung SSD may cost a bit more than some other brands, it is absolutely worth the premium if you want the best.
3 major risks enterprises face in the era of digital interconnectivity
Today, enterprise-scale companies are more interconnected than ever. People, applications, servers, networks, and devices in different departments and even in different parts of the world are constantly exchanging information in both the public and private cloud. That’s not a bad thing. In fact, most organizations strive for this kind of silo-less interconnectivity. Desirable as it may be, however, it’s not risk-free.
There are cybercriminals ready to exploit any vulnerability in an organization’s digital defences. That much should be obvious from the 60 000-plus reports of fraud and cybercrime that came from UK businesses in 2021. It’s critical, therefore, that organizations do everything possible to understand and mitigate those risks.
Amazon's robot workforce could doom the American worker
The year is 2030. Most humans have been replaced by machines in U.S. warehouses and factories. Millions of Americans are out of work and struggling to find jobs as robots pack, sort, ship, and carry out the myriad duties that just ten years ago were the purview of living, breathing workers. There are little job prospects in sight for these workers as automation has completely taken over numerous industries.
As fictitious as this sounds, it is not a scene out of a science-fiction novel, but instead a scenario that could occur in the very near future. Take, for example, Amazon’s recent launch of Proteus -- the company’s first fully autonomous mobile robot. This should signal that much of the company’s workforce faces extinction by automation in the coming years.
Data maturity drives increased revenues
Data-mature enterprises see a three times improvement in revenue along with shorter time to market, greater profit, improved operational efficiency and great customer loyalty, according to a new report.
The study from IDC and sponsored by analytics specialist Heap shows that how well a company uses data and employs it in its decision making can provide up to a 2.5 times average increase in business outcomes across the board.
How to enable the amazing animation effects Microsoft has hidden in Windows 11
Every -- well, almost every -- new build of Windows 11 has new features, options or settings to explore. Some are obvious, some less so. With the latest release of Windows 11, Microsoft has hidden some seriously impressive new animations.
These animations appear in the Settings app; when you roll your mouse cursor over the icons to the left of the app, they now come to life. But the animations do not appear by default, Even if you have Windows 11 build 25188 installed, there are still steps you need to take to unlock the special animation effects.
Log4Shell still being exploited six months on
Six months after the Log4Shell vulnerability was made known, vulnerable instances remain accessible on the internet and people attempting to exploit them according to the latest Trustwave SpiderLabs Telemetry report.
Using data gathered from the Shodan device search engine, the report shows that as of June 9, 2022, 1,467 instances were vulnerable to Log4Shell. These vulnerable instances are from the Russian Federation, United States, and Germany with 266 (18 percent), 215 (15 percent), and 205 (15 percent) hosts, respectively.
DuckDuckGo's free email protection beta is now open to all
DuckDuckGo is best known as a privacy-first search engine, but the company also offers other privacy tools, and for the past year it has been testing out an email forwarding servicing.
If you wanted to try this feature out previously, you will have had to join a waitlist, but today the company announces that the beta is open for everyone. I’ve been using the service since day one, and I can definitely recommend it.
A third of cybersecurity professionals are kept awake by stress
A new survey of over 300 UK security professionals shows 32 percent of respondents say they are kept awake by job stress, 25 percent by lack of opportunity, but only 22 percent by their organization suffering a cyberattack.
The study from The Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISec) says organizations have been slow to adopt industry standards. Almost half (49 percent) don't follow the UK Government's Cyber Essentials practices, which provide basic best practice; and just 20 percent have formally adopted the NCSC's 'Ten steps to cyber security' guidance.
Apple's Self Service Repair program criticized for making 'MacBooks seem less repairable'
Some months after launching a self-repair program that gave iPhone owners the opportunity to fix their own devices, Apple expanded it to include MacBook air and MacBook Pro notebooks. On the face of things this is a great move, but the program has been criticized for not only managing to make MacBooks seem less repairable, but also for "presenting DIY repairers with an excruciating gauntlet of hurdles".
The criticism comes from none other than iFixit, a site well known for its device teardowns and the repairability ratings it assigns them. Singled out for particular attention is the process of replacing a MacBook Pro battery, the instructions for which stretch to an incredible 162 pages.
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