The rise in cyber incidents is set to continue on its meteoric trajectory over the next decade. Ransomware attacks on a business, consumer, or a device are anticipated to take place every two seconds by 2031 -- a worrying escalation from every 11 seconds in 2021. And by 2025, damages are projected to reach a staggering $15 trillion annually, up from $3 trillion in 2015, according to Cybersecurity Ventures.

At the same time, users demand better performance and user experience year-after-year, and the subsequently increased threat landscape poses real challenges in connectivity and data security. 'Insider threat' also poses a considerable risk, with 80 percent of breaches involving privileged credentials misuse or abuse and malicious insider activity from recent employees.

The introduction of the cloud has brought a lot of change to the world. A big one for enterprises is that it’s no longer a necessity to guard data on-premises. Most organizations today rely on a hybrid approach to hosting their applications, with an average of three or more different clouds driving various applications in their infrastructures.

While the cloud has delivered plenty of benefits to these businesses and transformed the way they think about data and security, they’re not all properly managing and securing applications across the enterprise.

The top three priorities for IT professionals are improving IT security overall (52 percent), increasing IT productivity through automation (33 percent), and migrating to the cloud (32 percent), according to a new report.

A survey of almost 2,000 IT pros from Kaseya also reveals the main three challenges are cybersecurity and data protection (49 percent), insufficient IT budgets and resources to meet demands (29 percent), and legacy systems that hamper growth and innovation (21 percent).

Yesterday, Microsoft rolled out a new Windows 11 build for Insiders in the Dev Channel and two new versions of the popular Camera and Media Player apps.

The main new feature introduced into Media Player (version 11.2206.30.0) is support for CD ripping, because, yes, that’s apparently still a thing.

Netflix has previously confirmed plans to introduce an ad-supported tier that would provide a lower cost subscription entry point. Details have been somewhat lacking, but it has just been announced that Microsoft is partnering with the streaming video service as it introduces cheaper plans.

The company has signed a deal with Netflix, with the streaming giant describing Microsoft as "our global advertising technology and sales partner".

Word-guessing game Wordle took the world by storm, so it was little surprise when it was snapped up by a big name -- the New York Times. There were promises that the game would not be changed and that it would remain free, and players raised a collective eyebrow skeptically.

Anyone playing the game in the last few days will probably have noticed something. While the NYT is not going back on the promises it made, players are being encouraged to create a New York Times account. The carrot being dangled as an incentive is the ability to have game statistics synchronized between devices.

It is only a week since Microsoft released PowerToys v0.60.0, complete with various changes, fixes and additions -- many of which were focused on Windows 11. Now the company has pushed out the PowerToys v0.60.1 update with a handful of important fixes.

Microsoft describes this as a patch release, but this almost makes it seem unimportant when that is very much not the case. It addresses compatibility issues that existed with PowerRename and ImageResizer in Windows 11, as well as fixing context menu problems and crashes.

Wednesday is the day of the week when Microsoft typically releases new Windows 11 builds for Insiders on the Dev Channel, but Build 25158 with notification badging for Widgets isn’t the only new release from the software giant today.

Microsoft has another treat for Windows Insiders on the Dev Channel to play with -- a Camera app refresh and a Media Player update.

There was no new Windows 11 build for Insiders on the Dev Channel last week, but it’s business as usual again from today.  

The latest flight, Build 25158, comes with notification badges for Widgets, as well as a load of fixes and improvements.

System76's "Launch" keyboard has been wildly popular with the Linux community thanks to its open source firmware, ability to be customized, and excellent build quality (it's made in the USA). Many people love the "split" spacebar too. Even though System76 is a Linux-focused company, its keyboard is obviously compatible with Windows and macOS as well.

The Launch keyboard uses a USB-C connector to interface with the host computer, but you can utilize either a USB-C to USB-C or USB-C to USB-A cable to connect it -- depending on what ports you have available. Launch even serves double-duty as a USB hub, allowing you to plug USB devices directly into it. And yes, the keyboard features RGB lighting too.

Risk-based strategies are most successful in preventing security breaches, according to a new study from Skybox Security.

Of companies taking a risk-based approach 48 percent suffered no breaches, 50 percent were top performers in time to mitigate issues, and 46 percent top performers in response time.

The average enterprise now manages approximately 135,000 endpoint devices. But in spite of large budgets spent on endpoint protection, an average of 48 percent of devices -- or 64,800 per enterprise -- are at risk because they are no longer detected by the organization's IT department or because operating systems have become outdated.

A new study conducted by the Ponemon Institute for Adaptiva also finds 63 percent of respondents find that the lack of visibility into endpoints is the most significant barrier to achieving a strong security posture.

Companies with small security teams continue to face a number of unique challenges that place these organizations at greater risk than larger enterprises, according to a new study.

Research from Cynet, based on responses from 200 CISOs at small and medium businesses, finds 58 percent feel their risk of attack is higher compared to enterprises, despite the fact that enterprises are a bigger target.

The IPv6 protocol reached its 10th birthday in June this year. By using more address bits than the earlier IPv4 it opened up the way for more connected devices.

But IPv6 has other benefits too. We spoke to Akamai fellow and chief architect Erik Nygren to find out more about them and how they've changed the internet.

Windows 8.1 is very much in its twilight years, and it is only a matter of months before the operating system no longer receives updates from Microsoft.

There are, of course, still plenty of people using Windows 8.1, and they need to be made aware of the fact that they are using software that will not be supported for much longer. We knew the nag screens were coming, but following the installation of this month's updates for Windows 8.1, users can expect to see a warning screen informing them: "This version of Windows is nearing the end of support".