Critical steps to ransomware protection in the cloud
The ransomware threat is very real with attacks growing in size and frequency, in part, because of the acceleration of digital transformation initiatives and the move to embrace digital services as well as the rapid implementation of hybrid ways of working.
As new digital systems required multiple access points for customers, partners, and employees, this has created a vastly expanded attack surface. This has hastened the rise in ransomware attacks, as attackers quickly took advantage of the increased number of possible attack vectors.
More than half of DevOps professionals see their cloud provider as a threat
Over 50 percent of DevOps professionals and leaders say their cloud service provider is already a competitive threat to their B2B or B2C business or is expected to become one according to new research.
The study, carried out for cloud provider Linode, by Techstrong Research surveyed over 500 development professionals, managers and senior managers across 20 industries, and finds 75 percent say that their IT infrastructure will be cloud-based by the end of this year.
Enterprises poorly protected against third-party risks
A new report from compliance and risk management firm Kiteworks shows 51 percent of organizations are inadequately protected against third-party security and compliance risks related to sensitive content communications.
It also reveals that most organizations share sensitive content with a long list of third-party entities. Two-thirds do so with more than 1,000 third parties, while one-third have over 2,500.
Forget Windows 11, Microsoft is still pushing Windows 10 to more users
While some versions of Windows 10 are reaching the end of support and many people are making the upgrade to Windows 11, Microsoft continues to push newer editions of Windows 10 to users.
For those people who either do not want to upgrade to Windows 11 -- or find that the hardware requirements mean that they are simply not able to -- there is Windows 10 version 21H2 (Windows 10 November 2021 Update as it is also known). Microsoft has just announced that this particular edition is now designated for broad deployment.
Good backups are critical to recovering from ransomware
A new report from Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), sponsored by Keepit, shows that granular and air-gapped backup are critical to data recovery when businesses are hit by ransomware.
Of more than 600 respondents to the survey, 79 percent have experienced a ransomware attack within the last year, with 17 percent experiencing attacks weekly and 13 percent daily.
HBO Max scores a hot box office movie for early online streaming
Over the past couple of years, we’ve grown used to movies going straight to streaming. It was necessary during the height of the pandemic because theaters were closed and there were films already produced and ready to go. With the exception of James Bond: No Time to Die, which stubbornly pushed back its release date, not once, but twice.
Theaters are now open, and late in 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home, broke box office records worldwide. Now, HBO Max has secured a deal to begin streaming another recent theater success, The Batman, from today. The movie raked in $751.1 million worldwide as of the most recent count.
Turn Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 'Debbie' into 5 'Elsie' with LMDE Upgrade Tool (Beta)
Last month, Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) 5 was released to the world. Code-named "Elsie," many fans of the operating system probably did a fresh install right away. Understandably, however, some users are still running the previous version of the distribution, LMDE 4 "Debbie."
If your computer is still running Debbie, but you want to easily move onto Elsie, I have some great news. Today, the Linux Mint developers officially release the new LMDE Upgrade Tool in Beta. It is important to note this tool is only to be used with LMDE at this time, and not the "regular" Ubuntu-based Linux Mint.
Outsmarting the new generation of online fraudsters [Q&A]
Millions of dollars are lost to online scams each year and the fraudsters are getting ever more sophisticated in the targeting of their attacks.
Much of today's fraud is executed using information about the consumer's habits and personal details, usually captured in phishing attacks or data breaches. The fact that we’re conducting more of our transactions online as a result of the pandemic has created even more opportunity for fraudsters.
Third-party widgets for Windows 11 may be coming to the Microsoft Store soon
Widgets in Windows 11 have proved somewhat divisive, but it is safe to say that the feature has not proved as popular as Microsoft would have hoped.
Part of the problem is the lack of interesting and useful widgets that are available, and Microsoft has previously hinted that it may offer support for creations from other companies which could be installed and updates via its own software store. Now further evidence has emerged that Windows 11 users could soon be able to install third-party widgets via the Microsoft Store.
Lessons learned from 633 destructive ransomware events
The threat landscape continues to see rapid evolution, especially as the digital world grows increasingly connected and more organizations outsource business services. Adversaries are getting smarter, and their techniques are getting more advanced by the day. This has put a spotlight on the security of our global supply chain and how unstable and unprotected it is.
In fact, software supply chain attacks have tripled in 2021. The potential ripple effects of risks and disruptions within an organization’s supply chain that could ultimately impact their business are immense. Research shows that a data breach affecting multiple parties causes 26X the financial damage of the worst single-party breach.
DuckDuckGo says it hasn't removed pirate sites from its index
On Friday, we reported how it appeared that privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo had begun following in Google’s footsteps and removing copyright infringing links from its search results. As noted by TorrentFreak, sites affected included The Pirate Bay, 1337x.to, and popular YouTube downloader youtube-dl.
However, DuckDuckGo says the firm hasn’t removed the sites from its index, and goes on to explain the reason for the issue.
Microsoft is preparing to hit Xbox users with in-game ads: report
Over the years, Microsoft has found a variety of ways to bombard its customers with ads. As well as using Windows 11 to promote its own Edge web browser, the company has also used the Start menu to "recommend" apps to people.
And now it seems as though Xbox gamers are next. A new report says that Microsoft is working on a program that will display third-party ads in Xbox games. So, what is going on, and is it as bad as it sounds?
Pay up or play different? Five tips for beating ransomware with backups
When it comes to ransomware, sometimes the cost of downtime can exceed the cost of paying up. Companies with frozen data and systems face loss of revenue, productivity, customer departures, damaged reputations, never mind the cost of the ransom itself. Take an organization like Colonial Pipeline, which should have had healthy backups in place to quickly recover from their attack and most likely did. However, they opted to shell out $4.4 million in ransom because they didn’t know how long it would take to get up and running again.
And according to ITIC's 2021 Hourly Cost of Downtime survey, one hour of a server being inoperable costs $300,000 or more for 91 percent percent of mid-sized and large enterprises.
Fighting cybercrime: What's next for Microsoft 365
It has been over a decade since we were first introduced to the Microsoft 365 brand -- and now it is one of the most used lines of subscription services in the world. Last year marked the 10th anniversary, and if we take a look back since its early days, the service has only expanded its scope and capabilities especially when it comes to the Security & Compliance Center.
The swift ascension of Microsoft 365 hardly comes as no surprise, given the hybrid world we now find ourselves in. However, as the number of M365 users continues to increase at a rapid pace, the security risks for both users and admins will only grow as well. To break it down, between January and December 2021 alone, Microsoft Azure Active Directory blocked more than 25.6 billion malicious attempts to hijack enterprise customer accounts by brute-forcing stolen passwords.
Microsoft brings new power user options to the Windows 11 Task Manager
A few days ago, Microsoft released a new build of Windows 11; while this was primarily a problem-fixing release, there were a handful of new additions and changes.
For many people, having issues addressed is the most important feature of any update to Windows 11, but new tools, toys and options are always welcome. With the release of Windows 11 build 22598, Microsoft has some treats for users of Task Manager -- power users in particular.
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