Extreme weather will inflict chaos on infrastructure
In the coming years, extreme weather events will become more frequent and widespread, devastating areas of the world that typically don’t experience them and amplifying the destruction in areas that do. Exposing deficiencies in technical and physical infrastructure, these events will cause major disruption and damage to IT systems and assets. Data centers will be significantly impacted, with dependent organizations losing access to services and data, and Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) will be put at risk.
Widespread droughts will force governments to divert water traditionally used to cool data centers, resulting in unplanned outages. In coastal areas and river basins, catastrophic flooding, hurricanes, typhoons or monsoons will hit key infrastructure such as the electrical grid and telecommunication systems. Wildfires will lead to prolonged power outages, stretching continuity arrangements to breaking point. The impact of extreme weather events on local staff, who may be unwilling or unable to get to their workplace, will put operational capability in jeopardy. The magnitude of extreme weather events -- and their prevalence in areas that have not previously been prone to them -- will create havoc for organizations that have not prepared for their impact.
Three ways to automate business processes with no-code solutions
Business process automation has become a strategic enabler of business agility for present-day organizations, from helping to speed up business processes and reduce errors, to eliminating repetitive work. It has quickly become an essential tool that an increasing number of CIOs are utilizing across their organizations. Automation helps mid- to large-sized enterprises, dealing with various interrelated processes, to unify and streamline day-to-day work internally. The right automation tools can not only save time and money, increase productivity and enhance quality of work, but also streamline communication, improve management and retain customers.
The difference between no-code versus low-code solutions is that the latter requires technical "know-how" of the product and is extremely difficult for regular business employees to use. No-code solutions provide your average business employees the ability and independence to build solutions based on their own needs, without dependency on the IT staff. Below are three ways to automate business processes with no-code solutions:
The fax reborn: How COVID-19 gave new life to an unlikely technology
With stay at home orders and the sudden need to securely share sensitive documents from employee’s homes, there has been a significant demand for a surprising technology: the digital fax. Despite industry-wide efforts to digitally transform, the physical fax is still a very common and necessary piece of technology for many organizations.
In fact, 89 percent of small to medium-sized businesses still use faxes in one form or the other, and faxing still dominates communication in several fields. For example, faxing accounts for 79 percent of all communication in the medical industry. These same organizations have been scrambling to support the abrupt shift to remote work and have had numerous roadblocks in the process.
Open services leave business networks exposed
As cloud environments become more and more common the extra risks are mostly well understood but a new blog from Orca Security shows that businesses could be leaving their networks open via common configuration errors.
The use of external CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery) services means access control lists (ACLs) are often changed but this can inadvertently leave internal services open to the world argues Avi Shua, CEO and co-founder of Orca Security.
Lexar is making its own DDR4 RAM
We recently told you that Synology is selling its own solid state drives -- a surprising move. Today, another company is getting into a new market, and it is also quite unexpected. You see, Lexar is now manufacturing its own-branded DRAM (computer RAM). Seriously? Yup!
The company is offering both laptop and desktop memory, but none of it seems very impressive. Don't get me wrong, I am sure the RAM is fine, but it is nothing an enthusiast would get excited about. All of the memory is DDR4 2666 with a CAS latency of 19, which is passable, but nowhere near the fastest. There are no fancy heat-spreaders or RGB lighting either. With all of that said, pricing starts below $20. Ultimately, Lexar seems to be making basic memory that is affordable. And yes, there is absolutely a place for that.
Business email compromise attacks spike in March
In yet another sign that cybercriminals are keen to exploit the current world situation, in the second and third weeks of March business email compromise (BEC) attacks increased more than 430 percent according to email security specialist Abnormal Security.
In the early part of the year attacks on C-Suite executives decreased by 37 percent from Q4 2019 to Q1 2020, while the focus shifted to finance employees, attacks targeting them increasing 87 percent in Q1 2020 against Q4 2019.
Speedify delivers more reliable VPN connection for remote workers
The increase in remote and home working in recent months has shone a spotlight on the unreliability of many domestic internet connections.
The Speedify VPN service is updating its offering which allows users to link and seamlessly switch between multiple connections including home internet, mobile data and public Wi-Fi networks to provide a more reliable connection.
Microsoft issues advice for people with Storage Spaces problems in Windows 10 May 2020 Update
If you thought the problems associated with upgrading to Windows 10 May 2020 Update were over, think again. Microsoft has acknowledged an issue with some Storage Spaces configurations with Windows 10 and Windows Server version 2004 installed.
Microsoft says that some users may experience problems accessing Storage Spaces, and warns that partitions may show up in Disk Manager in RAW format. There is an important warning for anyone affected by the issue, as well as some advice about what steps to take.
Lockdown drives boom in mobile shopping apps
Just because people can't go out to stores doesn't mean they've stopped buying things and a new study by app marketing specialist Liftoff and fraud prevention firm Adjust shows a boom in mobile shopping apps.
Engagement has surged 40 percent, with 14.7 percent purchase rates compared to last year's 10.5 percent. Looking at data over the past two years and the trend is even more apparent, with purchase engagement up a huge 110 percent.
Google teams up with Parallels to allow Chromebooks to run Windows apps
Initially derided as a limited modern take on netbooks, Chromebooks have gathered loyal followers over the years as app support grows. In addition to web apps, there is also support for Android and Linux apps, but Chromebook owners have long dreamed of the day they can run Windows software.
Thanks to a partnership between Google and virtualization specialist Parallels it will not be too long before Windows apps in Chrome OS becomes a reality. The bad news is that there is a slight caveat.
Half of security professionals had no plan for a pandemic scenario
New research from Bitdefender shows that half of information security professionals didn't have a contingency plan in place -- or didn't know if they did -- for a situation like COVID-19 or similar.
Yet 86 percent admit that attacks in the most common vectors have been rising during this period. Cyberwarfare and IoT as an attack vector were reported to be up by 38 percent, and APTs, cyberespionage IP theft and social media threats/chatbots by 37 percent -- all of which could turn 2020 into a bumper year for breaches.
Microsoft releases off-schedule patch for printing problems in Windows 10
As we reported a few days ago, two recent Windows 10 updates started to cause problems with printing for many users. Following an investigation into the KB4560960 and KB4557957 updates, Microsoft has now released an out-of-band update to address the issues.
For now, Microsoft has published patches for versions 1909, 1903, 1809 and 1803 of Windows 10 with the promise that "other affected versions of Windows will have updates released in the coming days".
AMD slam dunks on Intel with new Ryzen 3000XT processors and B550 chipset
Both Intel and AMD make great processors, but for the most part, Intel has long been the market leader for enthusiasts. When building a gaming PC, consumers have historically chosen Intel for its superior performance in games -- particularly when multi-core doesn't matter. In 2020, however, things have changed. Many enthusiasts and gamers are turning to AMD for its excellent Ryzen and Ryzen Threadripper chips. Not only does AMD rule multi-core computing, but in many gaming benchmarks, it is on par with Intel nowadays. And so, now is the time for AMD to shine and for Intel to take a step back.
AMD seems unwilling to rest on its laurels, however, as today it launches a trio of new Ryzen 3000XT processors which have higher boost frequencies. These Zen 2-based 7nm processors are AMD's first desktop CPUs to to carry the "XT" branding. This is significant, as "XT" is typically reserved for AMD's Radeon graphics cards. It seems like AMD really wants PC gamers to consider these processors for their next build. Ultimately, it looks like Ryzen 3000XT is AMD's way of slam dunking on the competition. In other words, AMD is giving Intel the Frédéric Weis treatment...
Silicon Power unveils extremely fast US70 M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD
The solid state drive market is evolving very fast lately. Not only do we now have an M.2 drive with a huge 8TB storage capacity, but PCIe 4.0-capable motherboards are becoming more prevalent. Why is PCIe 4.0 so important? Bandwidth, baby. Compared to PCIe 3.0, the new 4.0 has double the bandwidth. From a storage perspective, this means PCIe 4.0 solid state drives will provide insanely fast speeds.
Today, Silicon Power unveils an all-new SSD that uses PCIe 4.0. Called "US70," the company promises some impressive performance. For instance, read speeds can reach 5,000 MB/s, while write can go up to 4,400 MB/s.
Linksys MAX-STREAM AX1800 (MR7350) is an affordable Wi-Fi 6 mesh router
For a while, Wi-Fi 6 (aka 802.11ax) was the future of wireless connectivity, but now, it is the present. Yes, with more and more devices having Wi-Fi 6, it is time to finally buy a compatible router now. If you already have a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) router that you love, you probably don't need to run out and upgrade immediately. However, if you find yourself needing a new wireless router, it would be foolish not to go with 802.11ax -- there is no downside.
Today, Linksys unveils its latest wireless router, and it is very affordable. Called "MR7350," it supports Wi-Fi 6 and has a USB-A port on the rear for connecting a USB storage device. In other words, the MR7350 can pull double-duty as a makeshift NAS. Best of all, it has mesh support baked in, so you can set up a mesh network using other compatible Linksys products.
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