Microsoft is replacing the password -- what's taking its place?
It was supposed to have died a long time ago, but, for a near-cadaver, the password has managed to hold onto its last breath for over two decades. Bill Gates declared passwords passé way back in 2004, but it was only late in April that the company he founded introduced a replacement for the outmoded authentication system.
For years, organizations have sought to educate employees about the importance of secure passwords and of resisting phishing attacks -- and both efforts have failed. A Verizon report indicates that 63 percent of confirmed data breaches involved leveraging weak/default/stolen passwords in 2016. Meanwhile, a new report from Proofpoint says that phishing and similar attacks using e-mail were up 45 percent in the last quarter of that year. Clearly, the constant haranguing by security teams of employees to change their passwords and make them more complicated, as well as their pleas not to click on suspicious links/attachments, are falling on deaf ears.
Ransomware's biggest target is the healthcare sector
Ransomware grew 50 percent in just a year, according to a new report by Verizon. The Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) is based on the analysis of 79,000 security incidents and 1,945 confirmed data breaches, across 79 countries.
According to the report, ransomware also grew in popularity, and by a large margin. In 2014, it was the 22nd most common malware variety. Fast-forward two years, and now it’s fifth most common.
Hajime botnet controls nearly 30,000 devices
Hajime, a mysterious IoT botnet, now controls almost 300,000 devices, according to a new report by Kaspersky Lab. The report also states that the botnet's true purpose is still unknown.
Kaspersky says the malware, whose name means "beginning" in Japanese, first appeared in October 2016. Since then it has evolved into a decentralized group of compromised machines that discretely perform either spam or DDoS attacks.
How can businesses stop attacks when traditional security solutions are ineffective?
Anyone would think zero-day attacks are unpreventable following a recent claim from one leading cyber-security vendor. FireEye this year claimed to have discovered "29 of the last 53 zero-day attacks." 24 exploits remained undetected, yet this was still presented as some kind of monumental achievement. Such a statement leaves little comfort for the businesses who found themselves victims, so is it time to just give up completely and let the cyber criminals take over?
It certainly feels that way, even while threats intensify and Locky ransomware rears its ugly head in new forms with renewed malevolence.
There are four types of AI: Here's how you can recognize them
AI, or artificial intelligence, is becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s society, but many people don’t realize there are actually four distinctive types of artificial intelligence.
Keep reading to discover the types of AI and the differences among them and examples of how you might see each one play out in real-life scenarios.
Why businesses need to change their mentality when it comes to IoT
Two years ago the FTC released a report on the Internet of Things that recommended a series of concrete steps that businesses take to enhance and protect consumers’ privacy and security. Yet not much has changed. As people continue to reap the benefits from a growing world of Internet-connected devices, we’re still seeing security problems with devices in the home. It’s essential that manufacturers know where to begin when they develop software, especially consumer-focused companies.
I recently joined the millions of consumers entangled in the Internet of Things by adding a smart thermostat and solar panels to my home. The good news is I’ve already been able to help reduce my electricity usage. The bad news is that, as a security professional, I worry about the security of the devices in my house, the systems they communicate with and the chain of custody for my personal data.
IT leaders will struggle to meet future demands
When it comes to meeting future demands, IT leaders in the UK are lagging behind those in Germany and the US. This is according to a new report by Brocade, entitled Global Digital Transformation Skills Study. The report is based on a survey of 630 IT leaders in the US, UK, France, Germany, Australia and Singapore.
It says that organizations are "at a tipping point" -- a point in time when technology demands are just about to outstrip the skills supply. Consequently, those that train their staff now and prepare for the future in that respect are the ones that are setting themselves up for a successful future.
Many businesses don't have a digital transformation strategy
Four out of five business leaders think their industry will get positively disrupted by digital transformation within the next three years. This is according to a new report recently released by Microsoft and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services.
"A vast majority (80 percent) of the 783 survey respondents believe their industry will be disrupted by digital trends," the report states. "And most of those (84 percent) said their industry has either passed the inflection point of disruption or will pass it by 2020 -- just three years away."
Should you buy or build your own software?
The build versus buy conundrum is without doubt a big decision for any company looking to adopt a new piece of software; each route has its own merits and both will be a costly exercise so it’s very important to make the right decision.
Although packaged software has now been used for decades there are still many systems developed in-house, perhaps increasingly so now that development skills are on the increase and coding is getting easier and even being taught to children in schools. In fact, IT analyst IDC recently predicted that most of 2017’s IT spending will go on "application development and deployment." However, by 2020 it expects software purchases to "edge out" app development costs as the largest spend. Clearly the balance is starting to shift with more skilled developers available to bolster in-house teams, but for the more complex applications such as the procurement arena, the jury is still out over the decision of whether to develop or buy.
Put the BI in Big Data by going data native
Customer drop-off, supply chain problems, lack of competitor awareness -- there are a plethora of critical business problems out there, but the answer is a panacea -- actionable big data. For any company struggling to understand what direction to take its business decisions, there is often a disconnect between its business intelligence (BI) and its big data.
Companies are amassing more data than ever, with Gartner predicting it will continue to grow by 800 percent over the next five years -- yet 80 percent will be unstructured. Herein lies the breakdown -- companies need robust storage, processing, and analysis to get that unstructured data to be actionable and, therefore, capable of stopping critical business problems in their tracks. But many companies’ existing data architecture investments are holding them back. They are hamstrung by their legacy business intelligence and data visualization tools that aren’t geared toward solving complex big data problems.
How to optimize your app for the App Store and Google Play
The app-economy competition is fierce. Facebook owns four out of the five most downloaded apps worldwide, but startups are still leaping into the fight to claim new and old markets. For these startups, Facebook is often the least of their worries as, according to research from Gartner, we only actually use between six and ten apps on average and end up neglecting or deleting the rest. It’s tough for app developers to break through the noise, let alone get into that top ten.
So what does this mean for startups trying to break into the space? You have to put your best foot forward to make sure users will not only find your app, but keep it.
WeWork launches store for services and software
WeWork wants to make sure you never leave it, and it's trying to keep you as a customer by releasing its own tools store. Called Services Store, the new offering gives users simple access to a wide variety of tools and apps, and sometimes even exclusives.
Once logged in, users can search, purchase and download a wide variety of enterprise apps. They can also leave reviews for different products, to help others find the perfect app for their business.
Most businesses will migrate to Windows 10 by the end of 2017
Businesses will move to Windows 10 faster than they have moved to previous operating systems, according to a new report by Gartner. Surveying businesses everywhere, Gartner believes 85 percent of businesses will have migrated to Windows 10 before the year ends.
First of all, Gartner’s research director Ranjit Atwal says the time to evaluate and deploy Windows 10 has come down, from 23 months to 21 months. Large businesses that are yet to start the migration, are delaying because of legacy applications.
Four million Brits can't work from home because of poor connectivity
If your telecom's poor connectivity is preventing you from working from home, you're not alone. There are four million Brits suffering from the same woes, according to new research from uSwitch.com, the price comparison and switching service.
In the past year, almost half (43 percent) of employees in the UK have worked from home at least once. Among the younger workforce, those aged 18 - 34, the percentage jumps to 55. Yet, 58 percent have suffered from slow speeds and poor call quality. The problems were so pervasive that 46 percent of those with issues believe they can no longer work from home until something changes.
What do we know about bad bots?
In 2016, approximately 185 million new Internet users went online, with the vast majority of these coming from nations like India. This represents a huge increase in the market. However, while the Internet population continues to grow, there has also been an increase in bots as well. The word "bot" covers a wide variety of automated programs: while some source data for search engines and help people match their queries with the most appropriate websites, others are not so helpful.
In the past year, bad bots accounted for 19.9 percent of all website traffic -- a 6.98 percent increase over the same time in 2015. Bad bots interact with applications in the same way a legitimate user would, making them harder to prevent. However, the results are harmful: for example, bad bots can take data from sites without permission while others undertake criminal activities such as ad fraud and account theft.
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