Taking control of the scary things: churn, incidents and downtime
Three little words herald major impact (and fear) for organizations: churn, incident, and downtime. Given that Gartner reports companies might be at risk of losing up to half a million USD each hour from severe incidents (based on losses and time to remediate), boards should take the health of a company’s digital operations seriously. Thankfully, those responsible for digital operations and incident response have a plethora of capabilities and services at their disposal that can drastically reduce the impact downtime and instability has on their organization.
With a long recession forecast for the UK, leveraging these tools to better understand, plan, and predict is crucial. Achieving this state of operational maturity means businesses are equipped with the right analytics, communications, understanding, and ability to take action to manage all threats and incidents -- and try to prevent as many as possible from occurring in the first place. True operational maturity goes beyond the technology in place to also cover the people and processes involved. These ‘human’ elements are no less vital since they are associated with important metrics and outcomes such as hours worked, staff burnout, and attrition.
Dealing with the threat of social engineering [Q&A]
Thanks to improved security technology, most cyberattacks now rely on some element of social engineering in order to exploit the weakest link, the human.
Phillip Wylie, hacker in residence at CyCognito, believes CISOs now need to take a step back and focus on the overall picture when it comes to security. This includes securing internal and external attack surfaces, and testing the security of these environments, as well as educating employees about the risks.
Microsoft is planning a huge overhaul of File Explorer including a redesigned look and new features
It is not all that long ago since Microsoft gave File Explorer something of a revamp with the addition of tabs. Now the company is planning something even bigger, with a dramatically restyled and updated version of the Windows 11 app due for release later this year.
While a precise release date has not yet been revealed, it is likely that the new version of File Explorer will ship as part of either the next Moment update for the operating system, or in Windows 11 23H2. So... what can you look forward to? Better cloud integration, a redesigned toolbar, a new Gallery pane, and a potentially controversial Recommended header.
Microsoft is investigating a massive global outage affecting Teams, Skype, Outlook and OneDrive
Multiple Microsoft 365 services have been hit by an outage that is affecting users around the world. The problems have disrupted access to a large number of services including Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and Outlook.
Microsoft says that it may have found the source of the issues, but they are yet to be resolved, and no specific details have been revealed. The company is also looking into Azure connectivity problems.
Microsoft suggests workaround for Start menu and search problems in Windows 10 and Windows 11
Microsoft has confirmed an issue in Windows 10 and Windows 11 that can leave the Start menu unresponsive, as well as causing problems with Windows Search and the launching of UWP apps.
The company is continuing to investigate the matter and says that it will provide a fix in a future update. In the meantime, however, Microsoft has provided details of a workaround.
Wine 8.0 lets you run Windows apps on Linux and Microsoft should be terrified
Back in the day, people often scoffed at the idea of switching to a Linux-based operating system due to a lack of software. While that is still true for some people -- especially business users -- it is less of a concern these days since so many things are done through the web browser. For many consumers, just having the Google Chrome browser on, say, Ubuntu, is more than enough to accomplish all of their wants and needs. Not to mention, there are many quality Linux apps like GIMP and DaVinci Resolve.
But OK, lets say you really want to use a Linux-based operating system, but there's some Windows-only software that you absolutely cannot live without. Thankfully, you may still be able to ditch Windows and upgrade to something like Freespire or MX Linux. How? Thanks to the excellent Wine! This compatibility layer can sometimes enable you to run certain Windows software on Linux. Today, version 8.0 is released, and Microsoft should be very worried.
Section platform makes it easier to deploy Mastodon servers
Following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, Mastodon has been the platform of choice for many of the people seeking to flee the blue bird platform, or just looking for a lifeboat in case Twitter finally sinks.
One of the strengths of Mastodon, but also one of its drawbacks, is its distributed, open source nature whereby people can stand up their own Mastodon servers. This means there's no central control, however, you need some technical expertise to create and run a server.
Insider threats become more frequent and harder to deal with
A new survey reveals that 72 percent of organizations report insider attacks have become more frequent (a six percent increase over last year), with 60 percent experiencing at least one attack and 25 percent experiencing more than six.
The study by Gurucul and Cybersecurity Insiders gathered responses from over 320 cybersecurity professionals and finds 75 percent say they feel moderately to extremely vulnerable to insider threats -- an increase of eight percent over the previous year.
Organizations need to do more to reassure customers about how their data is used in AI
A new study from Cisco finds that 92 percent of organizations believe they need to do more to reassure customers about how their data is used in AI.
The 2023 Data Privacy Benchmark Study shows that in spite of the difficult economic environment, organizations continue to invest in privacy, with spending up significantly from $1.2 million just three years ago to $2.7 million this year.
Every business must act like a tech business -- and it will start with modernization
It wasn’t all that long ago that we spoke about digital transformation as a nice to have, but the pandemic created an urgency for it that never previously existed. Today, digital is paramount to business success and table stakes for any successful enterprise.
While many eye emerging automation and cloud technologies as the quickest way to create the digital environments that delight customers and employees, the reality remains that the majority of the world’s IT workload runs on traditional technology companies have been using for decades, like mainframe, on-premise and traditional data centers. And while that technology has served businesses well -- and can continue to do so -- consumer expectations, security concerns and data volumes are only increasing.
Organizations not prepared for cyberwarfare
According to a new study, 33 percent of global organizations are not taking the threat of cyberwarfare seriously.
The report, from asset visibility and security company Armis, is based on a survey of over 6,000 IT and security professionals around the world and finds 24 percent feel under prepared to handle cyberwarfare. Indeed, the lowest-ranking security element in the eyes of IT professionals is preventing nation-state attacks (22 percent).
Creepy 'The Last of Us' Easter egg infects Google Search on desktop and mobile
I enjoyed playing both of The Last of Us games on PlayStation over lockdown, and I’m really enjoying the HBO Max series, the second episode of which aired on Sunday night and did something amazing -- improved on the stunning pilot episode.
Even if you haven’t played the game or watched the show, you’ll probably be aware of it, thanks to the advertising blitz that’s going on at the moment. The HBO series is everywhere, and now it’s infecting Google Search too.
You have just one more week to buy the Windows 10 download from Microsoft
The cut-off date for buying the download version of Windows 10 directly from Microsoft has been revealed. Even though the company will be offering support for Windows 10 until late 2025, you have just until the end of this month to purchase a downloadable license.
Microsoft is obviously keen for anyone still running Windows 7 or Windows 8 to make the move to Windows 11, and in cutting off one source of accessing Windows 10, the company is reducing options for users.
Now everyone can download the WhatsApp for macOS beta
While WhatsApp is most commonly used on iOS and Android devices, there are plenty of reasons for wanting to use the messaging service on the desktop. There has been a web-based version of WhatsApp for quite some time, but for many people this is a poor substitute for a dedicated app.
Windows users have been able to use a desktop app for ages, and now the same is true for those who are more at home on a Mac. There has been a beta version of WhatsApp for a number of weeks, but only through TestFlight which has a strict limit on user numbers. But now it is possible to download the macOS version of the beta direct from WhatsApp,
Xubuntu-based Freespire 9.0 Linux distribution now available
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution based on the Debian operating system. Xubuntu is an operating system that is based on Ubuntu, but using the Xfce desktop environment instead of GNOME. Freespire is an OS that is based on Xubuntu. What does this mean? Well, besides too many Linux distributions existing, it means Freespire is, very loosely speaking, sort of like the great-grandson of Debian.
Anyway, today, Freespire 9.0 becomes available for download. A 64-bit ISO of the Linux-based operating system can be had immediately. It is notable for using Xfce 4.18.
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