Ian Barker

Musk about to snap up Twitter for $43 billion [Updated]

We reported two weeks ago that Tesla and SpaceX tycoon Elon Musk had put in a bid to buy Twitter, though it seemed at the time that the company’s board wasn’t too keen on the idea.

Fast forward to today and it seems that Musk's $43 billion offer is likely to be accepted. Financial site Bloomberg reports that a deal is close with negotiations in their final stages.

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SaaS and what it can teach us about human behavior [Q&A]

SaaS

Software-as-a-service has become increasingly popular and the market for it is still growing -- expected to reach $264 billion (£207 billion) by 2026.

SaaS sales are being driven by more companies continuing to digitize their operations in a post-COVID-19 world. We spoke to Paul Quigley, CEO and co-founder of predictive, real-time media monitoring platform NewsWhip, to discover how using SaaS can improve operations for a company, help grow the business, and even offer insights into human behavior.

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Agriculture under threat as ransomware attacks go against the grain

I've got a brand new combine harvester

The FBI has warned food and agriculture companies to be prepared for ransomware operatives to attack agricultural entities during planting and harvest seasons.

The FBI warning notes previous ransomware attacks during these seasons against six grain cooperatives during the fall 2021 harvest and two attacks in early 2022 that could impact the planting season by disrupting the supply of seeds and fertilizer.

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SMEs more ready to switch their CRM providers post-pandemic

CRM jigsaw

More small and medium businesses are prepared to switch their CRM provider than five years ago, according to a new report.

The study from Workbooks of over 200 SMEs finds the most common reason for wanting to change is a 'poor fit to our needs' (37 percent), followed by 'complexity of integration' (35 percent).

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How IT can fix the employee experience [Q&A]

home working

The world of work has changed quite considerably over the past few years, driven by a number of factors, not least the pandemic.

Many of these changes have been positive, but some, in particular the shift to hybrid working, have brought challenges too. Some tasks are simply more difficult to do remotely.

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Cloud-native development is the future... Erm, what's cloud-native development?

developer

While 72 percent of respondents to a new survey expect that the majority of their apps will be created using cloud-native development by 2023, only 47 percent of them say they know a lot about it.

The survey of over 500 IT leaders and developers across industries, carried out for low-code development specialist OutSystems, shows that selecting the right tools/platforms (52 percent), and architectural complexity (51 percent) are the top two challenges, even for those currently using cloud-native.

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New platform aims to stop weaponization of phishing domains

Phishing

New phishing sites are launched on a regular basis, even back in 2017 1.4 million were launching every month according to Webroot, and most of them exist for less than 24 hours.

This makes it hard for security teams to pre-empt attacks, but email and brand protection company Red Sift has come up with an answer in the launch of a new platform that proactively uncovers impersonation domains and takes them down before they can be exploited.

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Shadow IT is top security concern around SaaS adoption

Shadow IT

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.

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Fraudsters better than customers at answering security questions

call center

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.

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Evolving attack techniques target cloud-native systems

Cloud

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.

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Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting the financial industry

Piggy bank theft

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.

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More than half of DevOps professionals see their cloud provider as a threat

Broken umbrella in storm

Over 50 percent of DevOps professionals and leaders say their cloud service provider is already a competitive threat to their B2B or B2C business or is expected to become one according to new research.

The study, carried out for cloud provider Linode, by Techstrong Research surveyed over 500 development professionals, managers and senior managers across 20 industries, and finds 75 percent say that their IT infrastructure will be cloud-based by the end of this year.

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Enterprises poorly protected against third-party risks

Risk dial

A new report from compliance and risk management firm Kiteworks shows 51 percent of organizations are inadequately protected against third-party security and compliance risks related to sensitive content communications.

It also reveals that most organizations share sensitive content with a long list of third-party entities. Two-thirds do so with more than 1,000 third parties, while one-third have over 2,500.

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Good backups are critical to recovering from ransomware

Backup key

A new report from Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), sponsored by Keepit, shows that granular and air-gapped backup are critical to data recovery when businesses are hit by ransomware.

Of more than 600 respondents to the survey, 79 percent have experienced a ransomware attack within the last year, with 17 percent experiencing attacks weekly and 13 percent daily.

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Outsmarting the new generation of online fraudsters [Q&A]

Fraud

Millions of dollars are lost to online scams each year and the fraudsters are getting ever more sophisticated in the targeting of their attacks.

Much of today's fraud is executed using information about the consumer's habits and personal details, usually captured in phishing attacks or data breaches. The fact that we’re conducting more of our transactions online as a result of the pandemic has created even more opportunity for fraudsters.

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