Cloud storage providers could be breaching the Consumer Rights’ Act
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is to launch an investigation into whether cloud storage users are paying the right amount for their data storage service amidst concerns that cloud providers are hiking prices and are locking customers into pricey contracts.
The issue has arisen at a time when cloud storage is becoming ever more popular with consumers and businesses. The Office for National Statistics has estimated that 40 percent of UK adults now use cloud storage. Consumers often chose to store their photos and music on the cloud whilst businesses frequently depend on cloud application services, including as Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Cisco announces Firepower Next-Generation Firewall
Cisco has released a new firewall solution which aims to completely change how security services tackle cyber-threats.
The new product, Cisco Firepower Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), is built to detect threats on a system, and not keep the system on a lockdown. Here’s how Cisco explains the new product
The role of collaboration in GDPR compliance
As the European Union reaches an agreement on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will require companies to comply with state-of-the-art cybersecurity requirements, security firm Palo Alto Networks has surveyed businesses to see how much they know about cyber-security and where the responsibility lies.
The survey suggests much work still needs to be done, particularly in areas of collaboration and responsibility sharing.
Fujitsu, Toshiba and Vaio plan to merge PC divisions
Toshiba, Fujitsu and Vaio, which was recently spun off from Sony, have entered into the final round of negotiations to integrate their PC divisions.
If the three firms can reach an agreement, they plan on establishing a joint holding company with subsidiaries responsible for running each firm's PC businesses.
Your VoIP phone could be used to spy on you
You should be careful when running voice-over-IP (VoIP) phones, as weak passwords could turn your device into a covert spying tool.
Security consultant Paul Moore says he has discovered how default and weak passwords on enterprise-grade Snom VoIP phones could allow attackers to make their own calls using your service, or listen to your conversations.
Why peer to peer lending is a disruptive industry [Q&A]
In the last ten years, peer-to-peer lending has grown to be a serious disruptive influence in the financial services landscape.
Jaidev Janardana, CEO of Zopa, the world’s first and UK’s leading peer-to-peer lending platform, discusses why the industry has proved so disruptive and what the future holds.
Amazon Web Services buys NICE to strengthen cloud offerings, boost customer base
Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud computing arm, has bought the Italian software and service company NICE for an undisclosed sum. AWS is after NICE’s 2D and 3D desktop cloud virtualization software that allows 3D developers and game designers access to work remotely from any type of computer.
This works because the hardware required to render the 3D images is supplied by the cloud not the computer that the developer is using to access their designs.
Intel may soon launch 10TB SSDs
Intel’s SSDs may soon see a significant increase in their capacity and speed as a result of Micron’s latest chips, which could also be used to create competitive SSDs that are as small as flash drives.
Micron is responsible for producing the flash which is used in Intel’s SSDs and now it has begun manufacturing and distributing its 3D NAND flash in large quantities. The company’s 3D flash chips would allow tiny SSDs to reach a capacity of 3.5TB, and 2.5 inch SSDs could possibly hold even more than 10TB of storage.
Women are excellent coders, according to GitHub research
A survey back in 2013 found that only 11.2 percent of software developers were female. Working then on the premise that males would be prejudiced against female coders work, a group of students has now studied the acceptance rate of GitHub pull-requests by gender.
A pull-request is when volunteers submit work to a project and it receives some scrutiny by the project team, they often accept the work or reject it with some advice. What the study team has discovered is that 78 percent of work submitted by women was accepted, which compared favorably to only 74 percent for men.
Ransomware is lucrative -- almost half of all victims pay
I recently covered a story in which security firm Imperva said Cryptowall 3.0 was the most successful ransomware of all time, earning its creators $325 million (£225.7m) so far. Now another story about ransomware emerges, and this one comes from another major security firm, Bitdefender.
In its report, the company says almost half (44 percent) of all ransomware victims have paid to get their data back, with 39 percent saying they expect to be attacked again, in the future.
What you need to know about biometric security
Generally speaking, biometrics refers to the measure or statistical analysis of a person’s physical or biological characteristics. However, increasingly the term is being defined more narrowly, at least in a business context, to refer to biometric security.
Although passwords can be guessed and network vulnerabilities exploited, overcoming biometric security protocols is significantly more challenging. For example, how would a cybercriminal go about duplicating a fingerprint or an iris scan? As a result, the unique aspects that make up our physical features are increasingly being utilized for authentication methods by businesses all over the world.
IT security experts are confident they can spot a data breach
A new study by security firm Tripwire says IT security experts are very confident they can detect a breach, and that they can detect it quite fast. For automated tools, they do not share the same levels of confidence.
The survey questioned 763 IT professionals in various verticals, including retail, energy, financial services and public sector organizations in the US, about the seven key security controls that need to be in place in order to quickly spot an ongoing hack attack.
Should you use Amazon S3?
In any discussion about cloud computing, it is becoming harder and harder to ignore Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), the massively scalable, cost-effective cloud storage solution developed specifically to house the huge influx of data created by organizations worldwide.
Amazon S3 commands twice the market share of all its closest competitors combined and is likely to be the storage platform of choice for on-premise hybrid or private cloud deployments for some time to come.
The tech industry's greater responsibility
Today, Internet censorship is becoming a growing concern among dozens of developing countries. In the mid-1990s, China began blocking foreign websites and saw successful results, proving to other authoritarian countries wishing to control their constituents that these types of regulations are well worth the effort. Since then, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Azerbaijan, Syria and others have followed China’s footsteps and began implementing regulations censoring Internet activity.
This means that the people living within these countries are unable to access information from the outside world. Thus, they are fed filtered information that praises their leadership and government, and because they are not exposed to varying and contrary opinions, are susceptible to believing and accepting their government’s authoritarian policies. In western countries we often take our first amendment right for granted. We are allowed to say, write, and scream whatever we’d like about our government without the risk of being jailed or beaten. We’re allowed, even encouraged, to question policies and think differently. If only this were the case worldwide.
Rampant waste: the hidden cost of enterprise software
A new Flexera Software report reveals that most organizations are unnecessarily wasting significant portions of their enterprise software budget.
Consider these statistics: 75 percent of enterprises are out of compliance with regards to at least some percentage of their software, 44 percent of enterprises (compared to only 25 percent the prior year) paid $100,000 or more in true-up costs to their software vendors as a result of noncompliant software use; and for 20 percent (up from only 9 percent in the prior year) the software audit true-up costs were $1,000,000 or more! In addition, 93 percent of organisations report spending money on at least some software that is under-used -- i.e. shelfware.
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