New Year's resolutions for those in IT

no resolution

Ah, yes. Nothing like the crushing pressure of New Year’s resolutions to finally address everything we’ve been doing wrong for the past 12 months! (Or 24 months or 36 months or 48 months... who’s counting?) For many, the resolutions for the upcoming year will undoubtedly include healthier diets, more exercise, and less time staring at smartphones.

Of course, if joining the panicked masses overtaking the elliptical machines at the gym isn’t your style, think about the 'digital fitness' of your enterprise instead. Here are some things to keep in mind for better data practices in 2016 that won’t feel like pulling teeth (and speaking of dentistry, flossing regularly is always a great resolution too).

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All businesses share the same cloud security concerns

Secure cloud

All organizations have the same key concerns regarding the security of their data in the cloud, according to a new report.

The study by security-as-a-service specialist CloudLock reveals that every organization shares five primary cloud cyber security concerns, regardless of industry. These are: account compromise, cloud malware, excessive data exposure, over-exposed personally identifiable information (PII) and payment card industry (PCI) data, and collaboration.

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Apple hardware gains popularity in the enterprise

applelogoinhand

Apple devices are becoming an integral part of today's enterprise environment, with nearly all enterprise IT professionals saying that their internal teams provide support for Mac, iPhone and iPad devices.

This is among the findings of a survey amongst IT professionals by Apple device management company JAMF Software. It shows that 96 percent of teams support Macs, 84 percent iPhones and 81 percent iPads.

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McAfee's enterprise security software can be bypassed with a 'specially crafted username'

Security breach lock

A kind word will open any door, but a special kind word will open all doors to an otherwise safe computer system, a McAfee advisory says.

The advisory has said that "a specially crafted username" can get past the Security Information & Event Management logins without authentication, and without a password, "if the ESM is configured to use Active Directory or LDAP".

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SMBs lack the resources to protect themselves from cyber attacks

business-security

Only 37 percent of SMBs believe that their organizations are fully equipped to handle IT security according to a new survey.

The study by security company Webroot reveals that in most small to medium businesses, IT teams are expected to handle all cyber security management and concerns. IT employees at almost one in three companies (32 percent) juggle security along with their other IT responsibilities, which leaves them limited time to cope with security tasks.

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Myths and facts about backup, restore and disaster recovery

Myths myth facts fact

With the rise of digital data, changing technology, and common usage of personal devices, the IT world has become ever more complex with new challenges around every corner. In the wake of such quick changes and complexity, many individuals end up exaggerating the difficulties found within these new systems and thereby begin spreading some major falsehoods within this vast IT sphere.

Even though the influx of information and discovery has given way to the creation of several urban legends, below you will see what is true and what is not.

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ThoughtSpot gives companies a self-learning search capability

ThoughtSpot chart

Enterprises have lots of data that could be used to improve their operations and profitability, but it can often prove hard to access. By contrast, users are accustomed to being able to instantly find information on search engines like Google with minimal effort.

Business intelligence company ThoughtSpot aims to bridge this gap with the launch of ThoughtSpot 3, a major update to its search-driven analytics platform.

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New application delivers predictive personalization for Oracle users

Personalized mail

Marketing organizations are always keen to understand more about their customers so they can accurately target their efforts.

Machine intelligence-based marketing platform Boomtrain is launching a new application on the Oracle Marketing AppCloud offering predictive personalization to help businesses form better relationships with their customers.

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Retailers aren't doing enough to protect their data in the holiday season

Online Shopping Cart

Retailers believe they're doing a good job of protecting their sensitive data, but may in fact be ignoring major security holes.

This is among the findings of a retail risk report from threat protection company Bay Dynamics, based on a survey of IT decision makers in 125 large US retail organizations.

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New solution helps businesses offer single sign ons

Login screen

As businesses grow and expand their online presence, they can end up with customers needing lots of different logins for blogs, support portals, forums and more. This can lead to frustration among users and mean that businesses lose sight of their system interactions.

Software company Inversoft is launching a solution to this problem in the form of Passport. This not only allows a single sign-on between applications, games, forums, help desks, user accounts and other offerings, but also gives companies a comprehensive view of user activity.

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MapR launches global streaming for big data

Big data tablet graphs

The growth of the Internet of Things is providing businesses with ever larger volumes of data, that in turn places ever greater demands on the technology needed to process it.

Big data specialist MapR is launching its MapR Streams solution which connects data producers and data consumers across shared topics of information and across the globe.

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Businesses are in the dark on cloud costs and usage

Cloud fail

Whilst there are increasing levels of trust in running critical applications in the public cloud, many organizations struggle when it comes to providing details of their cloud costs and consumption.

This is according to a survey for analytics specialist Cloud Cruiser, carried out by Dimensional Research, which interviewed almost 350 IT professionals who attended the Amazon Web Services re:Invent shows in 2014 and 2015.

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Microsoft releases new Office 365 SMB plans

Microsoft brings mobile device management to Office 365

After announcing the subscription-based service in 2014, Microsoft has now made available three new Office 365 small/mid-size business plans to its existing business customers.

The three plans -- Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business and Office 365 Business Premium -- are replacing the current Office 365 Small Business, Small Business Premium and Midsize Business plans.

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Share files using public cloud and you might get fired

Boss firing employee message card

"You’re fired!" is a line we only really expect to hear from Alan Sugar these days, and even then, only for entertainment. Yet recent research reveals that file sync and share challenges could be putting UK employees at risk of hearing these words, or at the very least, of receiving a written warning.

It’s a familiar situation for most employees working in office environments -- you have some urgent files that need to be sent to a customer or partner on a tight deadline. The files are too big to be emailed and the person administrating the FTP-Server is, of course, on holiday. Being a hands-on, solution-oriented employee who is well versed with modern technology, you decide to share the files through a cloud-based file sharing solution like Dropbox or Box. With the job done and the customer happy, you might be expecting a pat on the back as a reward not a written warning, or even worse, a letter of termination, but that is the hidden reality for most UK employees.

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Hotel California and the Internet's future

Hotel-California

When the Eagles released "Hotel California" in 1977, they were singing about drugs and the grip that addiction can hold over people. "We are all just prisoners here of our own device" is a stark reminder of how our own actions can end up trapping us, from which "we can never leave". But in the 21st century, these lyrics have taken on a new meaning. Look around any crowded place nowadays and it’s quite clear that many of us have become prisoners of literally our own devices -- smartphones, tablets, laptops, anything and everything with an Internet connection. Our lifestyles practically require us to always be on and connected to everyone else.

The Internet is our digital drug, and while it has proven immensely useful as a communications utility and public good, it has also enabled a select handful of powerful companies to take advantage of that need by monopolizing the Internet and segmenting it -- and us with it -- into silos under their control.

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