Ransomware is one of the most successful and profitable weapons in the cyber criminal's armory, partly because it leverages an old-fashioned crime in a new digital format.

A new study by Barracuda Networks reveals that 92 percent of people surveyed are concerned about ransomware hitting their organization, and 47 percent of respondents have been a victim of ransomware themselves.

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Data breaches not only cost businesses money in the short term, they can cause long term reputational damage as stolen details turn up for sale in dark corners of the internet.

Cyber security company Comodo is offering enterprises with more than 1,000 employees a free 'Company Threat Analysis' to determine if their sensitive information is for sale on the Dark Web and, if so, how to prevent compromises from happening again.

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With the gradual evolution of the internet and e-commerce over the past 15 years, consumers have been gifted with the power of choice. With so many websites to crawl through, consumers are no longer restricted by where they purchase an item, who they get their content from or by what time they choose to do some digital "window shopping."

With this new found freedom, these consumers are now constantly evaluating your brand to determine whether it’s worth their money, support, and most importantly -- their time. Historically, companies have tried to win over and keep these consumers with traditional loyalty models of transaction first, benefits later, but that is proving to be unsuccessful today. With the creation of premium loyalty programs like Amazon Prime and the changing tastes of consumers, the status-quo loyalty program just isn’t enough to keep the modern-day customer from browsing at your competitors.

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Endpoints are often the weakest links in any IT system, but protecting them effectively now means much more than simply guarding against malware.

As businesses rely more on the cloud and on web-based applications, the endpoint provides a gateway that can be vulnerable to attack.

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The way we work is transforming at an extraordinary rate. Explosive progress in the technology industry, demonstrated by the fact that digital tech investment reached £6.8 billion last year, creating 1.64 million jobs as a result, is unavoidable. Despite this positive influx of job roles, there is a mismatch between the volume of positions available and the skills that are required to do them.

To be able to maintain a grasp of its competitive edge within a global marketplace, the UK must begin to tackle the ever-increasing skills gap.

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Businesses in the UK will waste £37 billion on failed agile IT projects in the next 12 months, according to a new report from 6point6. The report is based on a poll of 300 UK and US CIOs. They were asked about their experiences with agile, and how its principles are being applied and executed.

More than half of CIOs (53 percent) see agile development as "discredited," and three quarters (75 percent) don’t even want to defend it any more. Seventy-three percent of CIOs think agile IT is its own industry now, and 50 percent consider it an "IT fad."

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Around a quarter of banks are struggling to identify their customers when delivering digital and online banking services, according to Kaspersky Lab.

The latest findings from its Financial Institutions Security Risks survey show that 38 percent of financial institutions surveyed confirm that balancing prevention techniques and customer convenience is one of their specific concerns.

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A new report from information services specialist Neustar looks at the frequency and cost of DDoS attacks and what is being done to counter the threat.

In terms of revenue loss, three percent of organizations report average revenue loss of at least $250,000 per hour, with 51 percent taking at least three hours to detect an attack and 40 percent taking at least three hours to respond, that means an attack could cost over $2.5 million.

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Solid state drives are changing data centers for the better. These drives are not only faster, but more energy efficient too. While not necessarily more cost effective for businesses, prices are slowly on the decline. It is only a matter of time before mechanical hard drives are dead entirely. The death of HDD may not be in the immediate future, but make no mistake, it is coming.

Intel has been an SSD leader for a while, and the company has two new drives that are designed for data centers. Both the DC P4500 and P4600 feature 3D NAND, and can be had with two connection types -- a PCIe NVMe add-in card or 2.5-inch U.2. Both series of solid state drives offer capacities up to 4TB. Read speeds are up to 3270 MB/s, with write reaching 2100 MB/s -- depending on model and capacity, of course.

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The IBM mainframe has been a stalwart platform for enterprise computing for the last 50 years. There are not many technologies you can point to that have survived that long and remain a key component of many companies’ IT infrastructure. Its survival should be lauded, but the question remains: "Is it the only game in town for enterprise computing?"

That answer is a resounding "No." The mainframe is a combination of hardware and software that is arguably unique to all other computing offerings available in the marketplace today. That doesn’t make it a bad platform, but it does limit its opportunities for growth. It is a proprietary platform, only available from a single vendor -- IBM.

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Big Data is now a $57 billion market, according to a new report from SNS Research. Entitled The Big Data Market: 2017 - 2030 -- Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies, Industry Verticals & Forecasts, it says that vendors will be earning from hardware, software, and professional services revenue.

What’s more, the report says the investments are expected to grow at a CAGR of roughly 10 percent over the next four years, reaching $76 billion by the end of 2020.

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Healthcare data breaches hit an all-time high in 2016 resulting in the records of almost 16.6 million Americans being exposed as a result of hacks, lost or stolen devices, and unauthorized disclosure.

But the latest Healthcare Breach Report from data protection company Bitglass shows a sharp decline in breaches over the first quarter of 2017.

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Industrial robots make many of the things that we use in our everyday lives, from cars to domestic appliances.

If the world isn't to descend into chaos therefore, it's imperative that robots follow their programming. But a new report from the TrendLabs research arm of cyber security company Trend Micro reveals just how easily industrial robots can be hacked.

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Today, CISOs are facing a much different set of challenges than they were 20 years ago. From a marked increase in the risk of breach to the growing difficulty in filling security jobs these security leaders are facing an uphill battle. Add to that the pressure to provide security assurance to the board and it’s easy to see why more organizations are harnessing the power of the gig economy.

In the last few years the gig economy has flipped the job market on its head. From ordering groceries to renting a house for a week, the gig economy has opened up new revenue channels for businesses and income opportunities for individuals. But while the issues that have driven this market -- difficulty hiring, a distributed workforce, and people spending less time at companies -- are nothing new, it was the maturity of software that enabled the gig economy to really take off.

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When you need a laptop for your business, you can't go wrong with Toshiba's enterprise-grade Portégé Windows machines. These notebooks are extremely premium, offering durability and high performance. They often feature a pointing stick too -- a must for many business users. Quite frankly, I find these laptops to be superior to Lenovo's ThinkPad line nowadays.

Today, Toshiba makes its newest such model available. The Portégé X30, as it is called, has a magnesium alloy body and it is Mil-SPEC-810G certified. You can even get a battery that lasts up to 18 hours! The X30 is a bit pricey, but the old adage of "you get what you pay for" rings true -- the $1,449 starting price should be well worth it.

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