Zoom update brings a slew of new features to its desktop apps including gesture recognition
Over the course of the pandemic and COVID-related lockdowns, video conferencing tool Zoom went mainstream. The company is not resting on its laurels following its swelled popularity, and the latest update to the desktop apps illustrate this perfectly.
One of the stand-out additions will be familiar to anyone who has used Zoom on an iPhone or iPad: Gesture Recognition. This new feature brings new ways to interact with Zoom and your fellow meeting participants via your web cam, but it is far from being the only thing worth exploring in the latest update. There are also changes to breakout rooms and more.
Microsoft brings Autofill support to Authenticator to help you create strong passwords
To celebrate the first anniversary of its Autofill tool, Microsoft has added new capabilities to its password security utility.
Available to use with Microsoft Edge natively, on iPhones and Android devices via an app, and in Chrome using an extension, Microsoft Autofill makes it easy to store and sync passwords in the cloud and have them automatically entered in logon forms. A new update to Microsoft Authenticator app means that it can now be used to generate strong passwords on demand.
DuckDuckGo and Brave announce separate plans to fight back against Google's divisive AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) framework
Google's AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) project is designed to speed up the web for mobile users, but it has big privacy implications because it allows Google to further track user actions, as well as prioritize its own ads on pages.
Today, both DuckDuckGo and Brave announced changes to their respective products to protect against Google AMP tracking.
Does your Microsoft 365 need to be protected?
As organizations move to fully embrace cloud, the significant benefits of running IT infrastructure via cloud services are becoming even more evident. Not only do cloud-based services come at a far lower cost than physical platforms and deployments, IT leaders are also able to side-step much of the risk and 'heavy lifting' around tech investment and maintenance by moving this out of local data centers. They can also enjoy expert third-party systems management and reliable service delivery, without having to give up much of the control for end users.
Microsoft 365 is a great case in point. The procurement model for this ever-expanding suite of high-quality IT services is based around a price per user. It is easily scalable as teams and organizations grow and can therefore help to optimise budgets, avoiding payment for infrastructure that may go unused. It’s also growing, with new features and functionality added every day that will keep IT departments at the cutting edge of optimal business processes.
Shadow IT is top security concern around SaaS adoption
A new study shows that 69 percent of tech executives believe shadow IT is a top security concern related to SaaS adoption.
The report from automated SaaS management platform Torii reveals 41 percent of executives say challenges with SaaS spend visibility and optimization have impacted the way their organization operates.
Fraudsters better than customers at answering security questions
We're all used to those irritating questions you have to answer when you contact a company: the make of your first car, the town where you were born, the dog's maiden name, etc. But it seems that criminals may actually be better at answering them than we are.
Fraudsters are able to pass knowledge based authentication (KBA) questions 92 percent of the time, based on a national contact center case study, while genuine customers only pass KBA's 46 percent of the time.
Evolving attack techniques target cloud-native systems
Attackers are finding new ways to target cloud-native environments according to a new report from Aqua Security's Nautilus threat research team.
While cryptominers are the most common malware observed, with increasing frequency researchers have discovered an increased usage of backdoors, rootkits and credential stealers.
The essential ingredient to manage the complexity of energy models: AI
In just a few years, energy management has become a real headache. Not only must the growth in electricity consumption be taken into account, but also the reduction in fossil fuels, and the increase in the production of renewable energies, knowing that they operate intermittently -- a complexity that cannot be resolved without massive data collection, high computing capacity and AI algorithms.
While global warming should force us to reduce our energy consumption, on July 15, 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced an increase in global electricity demand of five percent in 2021 and four percent in 2022. This is a trend that is not ready to be reversed, driven by the increasingly abundant and electricity-intensive technology era, by a global population that should reach 10 billion in 2050 or even by the development of metropolises and megacities that are still energy intensive.
Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting the financial industry
Cybercrime tends to follow the money when it comes to selecting targets, so it’s perhaps not too surprising to learn that 63 percent of financial institutions admit experiencing an increase in destructive attacks.
The latest Modern Bank Heists report from VMWare surveyed the financial industry's top CISOs and security leaders on the changing behavior of cybercriminal cartels and the defensive shift in the sector.
Kaspersky releases free decryptor for Yanluowang ransomware
While the Russian security firm has fallen out of favor in recent months, Kaspersky has announced that it has managed to crack the Yanluowang ransomware.
Yanluowang was discovered by Symantec last year, and now Kaspersky has identified a vulnerability in the encryption algorithm it uses. This has enabled the company to develop a free decryption tool which can be used by ransomware victims to get their data back without having to pay a cent.
Microsoft is disabling SMB1 for Windows 11 Home users
Microsoft has announced that it is beginning the final phase of disabling the SMB1 file-sharing protocol in Windows. Having already disabled SMB1 by default in Windows 10 and Windows Server, the company is now doing the same for Windows 11 Home.
While conceding that the ditching of SMB1 may "cause a consumer pain among folks who are still running very old equipment" and acknowledging that this is a "group that's the least likely to understand why their new Windows 11 laptop can't connect to their old networked hard drive", Microsoft says that the time has come for the aging technology to be dropped.
Security researchers discover serious UEFI firmware vulnerabilities affecting millions of Lenovo laptops
A team of security researchers at ESET have unearthed a trio of vulnerabilities with Lenovo laptops. More than one hundred different models of laptop are affected, meaning that millions of owners are at risk.
Two of the vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-3971 and CVE-2021-3972) affect UEFI firmware drivers and are extremely worrying because of the potential implications of exploitation. CVE-2021-3970 is a slightly less serious memory corruption problem, but it remains concerning.
Netflix shares tumble as company reveals drop in subscribers, plans for ads, and price increases for account sharers
Shares in Netflix plummeted by more than a fifth after the streaming company reported a drop in subscriber numbers for the first time in more than a decade. In the first quarter of 2022, Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers and the prediction is for things to get much worse over the rest of the year.
For those subscribers who are sticking around, there is a double whammy of bad news. Not only is there the threat that Netflix will introduce advertisements, but also that it will charge higher subscription fees to anyone who shares their account with others.
Logitech Lift Vertical Ergonomic Mouse is good for your wrist and planet Earth
Would you rather have a computer mouse that is ergonomically correct or one that is good for the Earth? If you are like me, that is a very hard question to answer. Thankfully a new mouse from Logitech addresses both issues -- it is designed for both a healthy wrist and planet!
Called "Lift Vertical Ergonomic Mouse," it is available in two models -- one for right-handed users and one for lefties. The right-handed version of the wireless optical mouse can be had in your choice of three colors -- graphite (black), rose (pink), and off-white, while the lefty variant is limited to graphite. The mouse is partially made of post-consumer recycled plastic, the percentage of which varies by color.
Game developers shouldn't overlook Python's potential
Python is an object-oriented, general-purpose, and high-level programming language that was developed in 1991 by Guido van Rossum. Since its development, Python is one of the most popular programming languages worldwide. It often ranks high in surveys -- for instance, it claimed the first spot in the Popularity of Programming Language index and came second in the TIOBE index.
Python has gained its acclaim as a widely used tool with multiple purposes for various projects, from data analytics and visualization to artificial intelligence, language development, design, and web development. Python isn’t renowned for its use in video game development. But should this mean game developers should just disregard Python completely?
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