Archive for November 1, 2018

Sharing Sensitive Data With An Open Link Has Grown by 23% Since Last Year: McAfee

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 1, 2018 by itnerd

Enterprises everywhere take advantage of cloud for speed, scale, increased agility and collaboration. But the new Cloud Adoption and Risk Report from McAfee finds that this can leave data more exposed than organizations might think.

The report is based on anonymized cloud usage data for over 30 million McAfee MVISION Cloud users worldwide in industries including financial services, healthcare, public sector, energy and legal.

Key findings:

  • 22% of cloud users share files externally, up 21% year over year
  • The number of files shared in the cloud with sensitive data has increased 53% year-over-year (YoY)
  • Sharing sensitive data with an open, publicly accessible link has increased by 23% YoY
  • Sensitive data sent to a personal email address also increased by 12% YoY.
  • Threat events in the cloud, such as a compromised account, privileged user, or insider threat, have increased 27.7% YoY
  • Most organizations think they use about 30 unique cloud services, while findings demonstrate they use close to 2,000
  • 21% of all files in the cloud contain sensitive data, demonstrating a steady increase year-over-year (YoY)
  • Enterprise organizations have an average of 14 misconfigured IaaS/PaaS instances running at one time, resulting in over 2,200 individual misconfiguration incidents per month
  • 5.5% of AWS S3 buckets have world read permissions, making them open to the public
  • 80% of all organizations experience at least one compromised account threat per month
  • 92% of all organizations have stolen cloud credentials for sale on the Dark Web
  • Threats in Office 365 have grown by 63%YoY

You can read the full study here.

Survey Methodology:

For the Cloud Adoption and Risk Report, McAfee analyzed aggregated, anonymized cloud usage data for over 30 million McAfee MVISION Cloud users worldwide at companies across all major industries including financial services, healthcare, public sector, education, retail, high tech, manufacturing, energy, utilities, legal, real estate, transportation and business services. Collectively, these users generate billions of unique transactions in the cloud each day. The McAfee cloud service registry tracks over 50 attributes of enterprise readiness, which provides the ability to track behavior using detailed data signatures for over 25,000 cloud services. Additional contextual data was sourced from our 2018 survey of 1,400 security professionals in 11 countries, all using public or private cloud services.

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RocketLife Announces Light by RocketLife

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 1, 2018 by itnerd

RocketLife has announced today Light by RocketLife the world’s most creative lighting system. Light by RocketLife is an easy-to-use hardware and software system that adds dynamic lighting to almost anything. Unlike conventional systems that are limited to one color at a time or preset patterns, Light allows anyone to create multi-layered effects that blend and move with rich color transitions, sparkles, andnatural motion effects that tell a story. Light provides creative home and business lighting that’s perfect for animated signs, retail displays, holiday lighting, club and DJ lighting, sparkling DIY crafts, mobile bling for bikes and cars, flashing wearables for nightclubs and parties, creative costumes, PC mods, and dramatic works of art. Light’s integrated Bluetooth LE lets you control it all from your iOS or Android device with the included LightMobile app.

Light by RocketLife Photo 72dpi.jpg

Create a Mood, Enhance an Occasion, or Just Have Fun − Plug & Play Easy for Everyone to Use

Light by RocketLife is plug-and-play easy for everyone to use. Beginning users can simply connect the compact LightBox Bluetooth device to the included LED strip and choose a lighting effect on their phone for instant atmosphere. Or anyone can load a photo into the included Light Effects Designer Software, draw virtual lights on top, and quickly light up a home or other project.For more advanced users, designers, audio/video enthusiasts, lighting pros, makers, and other creative people, the Light hardware and software also include numerous options to add Light to interactive art, games, and other electronic projects.

Light by RocketLife includes:

  • LightBox: a compact Bluetooth device featuring RocketLife’s advanced LED animation hardware. LightBox is about the size of a small stack of business cards, with measurements of 3¾” (length) x 1-5/8″ (width) x 1″ (height).
  • 2 meter (6½ foot) strip of addressable LED lights: LightBox supports a wide variety of popular LED strips, discs, holiday strings, and grids. RocketLife will post a compatibility list on its site.
  • Light Effects Designer Software for Mac and Windows: a powerful, timeline-based animation editor with drag-and-drop simplicity.
  • LightMobile App for iOS and Android: features Bluetooth LE for instant remote control of LightBox to adjust lighting.

Light by RocketLife Features:

  • Easy to Use: choose from a huge list of dynamic programs and effects, or make your own.
  • Flexible Power: use Light anywhere with its internal rechargeable battery, or add an optional power adapter for continuous use. (Battery life depends on the type of effects.)
  • Works with a variety of LEDs: from light strips to grids, circles, discs, and holiday strings.
  • Expandable: Includes additional features for connecting different types of LEDs, sensors, and even audio peripherals for advanced makers.
  • Wireless: the easy Bluetooth app lets you change programs instantly from your phone or computer.
  • Advanced Effects: layer animations for smooth crossfades, sparkles, and highlights.
  • Powerful Layouts: load a photo into the software, draw lights on it, add some patterns, and create amazing custom lighting. You can even create groups of differently animated lights.
  • Universal: easily produces effects for home and business lighting, holiday lighting, arts, crafts, retail displays, signs, wearables, cars and bikes, PC mods, costumes, DJ lighting, parties, and much more.
  • Made in the USA: LightBox is designed and manufactured in the USA.

Pricing and Availability

Light by RocketLife will launch via Kickstarter on Tuesday, November 13, shipping Q2 2019 for $149.95 Suggested Retail Price. Early backers on Kickstarter can choose substantial early-bird discounts. To sign up for advance notice of the Kickstarter launch specials, visit www.rocketlife.com/light. Light by RocketLife comes with the LightBox Bluetooth LED animation device, a 2 meter (6½ foot) strip of addressable LEDs, Light Effects Designer software for Mac and Windows, and the LightMobile App for iOS and Android.

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Pulse Secure Earns Spot on Elite 2018 Red Herring List Of Top 100 Global Private Tech Startups

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 1, 2018 by itnerd

Pulse Secure today announced that the company has been recognized as one of the leading private technology startups in the elite 2018 Red Herring Top 100 Global ranking.

Digital transformation has forced IT organizations to further empower end-user computing and deliver dynamic provisioning of always-on access to business applications and information. This trend has increased endpoint and IoT threats, compliance exposures and operational expenditures – requiring organizations to reassess their technology stack that comprises Secure Access. Pulse Secure provides an integrated suite of software-driven Secure Access solutions that allow organizations to take advantage of hybrid IT in a zero-trust world.

Pulse Secure offers a simple, comprehensive and integrated set of Secure Access solutions spanning remote virtual private network (VPN) and cloud access security; mobile device management (MDM), network visibility, IoT security and network access control (NAC); and virtual application delivery control (ADC). Available as part of its Pulse Access Suite, the award-winning solutions allows organizations to ensure user experience while offering centralized management, real-time visibility and adaptive protection to mitigate data center virtualization and cloud computing access risks.

Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) recently distinguished Pulse Secure as a “Top Three” Secure Access vendor and the only vendor, among more than 60 assessed, to achieve the highest ratings across Hybrid IT categories. Frost & Sullivan also recently recognized Pulse Secure as being among the top four major NAC leaders in the SMB to Large Enterprise Segment by market share.

Red Herring’s Top 100 Global list has become a mark of distinction for identifying promising companies and entrepreneurs. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube and eBay would change the way we live and work.

Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated the companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track records and standing of startups relative to their peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models from around the world.

For more information, visit Pulse Secure online or download information on the award-winning Pulse Access Suite.

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Will These Extortion Phishing Emails Ever Stop?

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 1, 2018 by itnerd

While I am waiting to see what happens with that last extortion phishing email that I got my hands on and decided to have some fun with, I have another one for your reading pleasure:

Hi.. .

This won\’t take too much of your study time, and so right to the point. I obtained a footage of you makin\’ mayo while at the pornweb site you\’re stopped at, because of an incredible arse software program I have was able to put on a couple of websites with that sort of content material.

You press play and all the cams and a microphone start recording in addition it saves every damn detail from your computer, just like contact information, passkey and crap like that, guess exactly where i obtained this e-mail from?) So now we all know who my goal is to deliver that to, just in case you aren\’t going to negotiate this along with me.

I am going to place a account address down below so that you can send me 350 $ within Three dayz maximum via bitcoin. Notice, it\’s not that large of a sum to cover, suppose that makes me not that terrible of a man.

You are allowed to complete whichever the shit you want to, yet in case i will not see the total amount within the time period stated over, well… u by now know what could happen.

Therefore it\’s under your control right now. I\’m not going to move through everything and crap, simply ain\’t got time for that and you possibly know that internet is filled with emails like this, therefore it\’s as well your final choice to believe in this or not, there is just a proven way to discover.

The following is my btc wallet address- [BITCOIN ADDRESS REDACTED]

Have fun and just remember that wall clock is beating)

What was interesting is that this one used an email address that was spoofed from the University Of Sudbury. That implies that they have a bit of an IT security problem that they should address. Like right the hell now. I’ve reached out to them to let them know about that by the way. It also had a secondary domain that routes to a sample website but no clear owner. So I can’t contact the owner of that domain to give them a heads up. Other than that, there’s really nothing remarkable about this email. It looks like some guy who isn’t particularly skilled trying to  cash in on this craze of extortion phishing emails.

And by the way, this is now the ninth variant of this scam. But the last eight extortion phishing scams that I told you about in the last few months, there’s nothing worth investigating further. Instead, I’ll just put this out there so that if you get it, you can ignore it.

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New Rules Will Force Canadian Companies To Disclose Data Breaches

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 1, 2018 by itnerd

From the “it’s about time” department comes news that new rules kick in today that force Canadian companies to disclose data breaches:

Under the new regulations for organizations subject to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which come into force November 1, organizations must:

  • Report to the Privacy Commissioner’s office any breach of security safeguards where it creates a “real risk of significant harm;”
  • Notify individuals affected by a breach of security safeguards where there is a real risk of significant harm;
  • Keep records of all breaches of security safeguards that affect the personal information under their control; and
  • Keep those records for two years.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has published guidance to help businesses comply with the new requirements as well as a new reporting form.

Now by no means is this perfect and even the Privacy Commissioner admits that, but it is a step in the right direction as companies need to be fully transparent and held fully accountable for any data breaches that may take place. It may also force them to take steps to avoid being on the wrong side of a data breach headline as well.

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TCL Announces Roku Powered Lineup For Canada

Posted in Commentary with tags , on November 1, 2018 by itnerd

TCL today announced pricing and availability of its new TCL Roku TV models in Canada. The much-anticipated portfolio for Canada includes three lines of TCL TVs that merge superior picture quality with the industry’s best smart TV experience – the award-winning 6-Series boasting Dolby Vision HDR technology, critically acclaimed 4-Series with stunning Ultra HD picture quality, and the simply smart 3-Series featuring a high definition display, all running the Roku OS to deliver more than 150,000 movies and TV episodes.

While all TCL Roku TVs are powered by the Roku OS, each of the three series delivers a unique combination of design, features and performance to fit the needs of every consumer. Crowning TCL’s lineup, the premium 6-Seriesis available in a 55” model (55R617-CA) for $849 and a 65” model (65R617-CA) for $1249 at your favorite retailer. The other models are also available now, starting under $400 for the 43” 4-Series (43S425) screen size while the 3-Series starts with a 32″ model (32S325) at less than $200.

TCL Roku TV 6-Series: Powerful Performance

Elevating the home entertainment experience with enhanced voice capabilities through its first-class smart TV operating system, the new TCL 6-Series combines stunning 4K high dynamic rangepicture performance and powerful stealth metal design for a superior TV experience. The set supports Dolby Vision, a comprehensive and premium HDR solution, as well as open HDR and now boasts HDR Performance Package Pro to further elevate the experience. Leveraging the HDR technology that powers Dolby’s most advanced cinemas around the world, Dolby Vision on the 6-Series TV transforms viewing experiences in the home by delivering greater brightness and contrast, as well as a fuller palette of rich and detailed colors. Dolby Vision is an end to end ecosystem embraced by major Hollywood studios, global content distributors, and OEMs worldwide. More than 200 hours of episodic content and 240+ movies are available in Dolby Vision via OTT streaming or 4K UHD Blu-ray disc.

To achieve impressive High Dynamic Range performance, the 6-Series TVs deliver unmatched contrast ratio among LCD TVs using TCL’s Contrast Control Zones® technology to identify bright and dark areas in each frame of content and control each zone within the frame to yield striking contrast between light and dark areas. The new 2019 6-Series features an impressive 96 zones for the 55” model and 120 zones for the 65” model.

HDR Performance Package Pro on 6-Series televisions also feature Wide Color® Gamut with NBP Photon technology for even more realistic colors. TCL’s NBP Photon technology (Nano Band Phosphor) is an innovative combination of high-output LEDs with precision phosphors that deliver a palette on 6-Series TVs nearly matching the DCI-P3 reference color standard found in the professional equipment used by Hollywood content creators. Just as a director envisions the brilliant and saturated colors of a movie using the best camera and display technologies available, the color performance of the 6-Series accurately recreates the vibrancy of the director’s vision in your own living room.

While NBP Photon technology helps ensure vibrant colors, an all-new iPQ Engine® intelligently tailors precise colors based on the capability of each TV to maximize coverage of the DCI-P3 Hollywood color reference standard. Using intelligence gained in TCL’s deep vertical integration throughout the production supply chain and employing this intelligence via an algorithm that monitors performance on each 6-Series, TCL’s iPQ Engine controls the colors so that each TV’s performance consistently delivers an accurate image across the color spectrum for an out-of-the-box experience that’s closer to reality.

Additionally, TCL utilizes HDR Pro Gamma technology to create a custom tone map for different environments to accurately reproduce details so they remain easily visible in any lighting condition. To deliver impactful HDR performance in any viewing environment – from dark home theaters to bright living rooms – TCL’s new HDR Pro Gamma feature ensures every detail is captured in HDR entertainment content and is perfectly visible. The 6-Series offers picture settings available for dark home theaters (HDR Dark), moderately bright living rooms (HDR Normal), and even the brightest sunlit spaces (HDR Bright) so that stunning HDR is available anytime and anywhere.

TCL Roku TV 4-Series: Stunning Picture

The 4-Series marries 4K high-dynamic range, which delivers bright and accurate colors for lifelike viewing, with a super slim elegant design for an upscale TV experience. Offering stunning Ultra HD picture quality with four times the resolution of Full HD, as well as 4K upscaling to display other content in near-Ultra HD quality, the 4-Series 4K HDR TCL Roku TV also includes a dual-band Wi-Fi to capture every moment.

TCL Roku TV 3-Series: Simply Smart

The 3-Series is TCL’s most versatile series with smaller sizes to fit every room in the house, even on a kitchen countertop. These models featurea high definition display, paired with an advanced refresh rate and dual-band Wi-Fi, housed in a sleek design so they look great powered on or off.

For additional product information please visit www.tclcanada.com for the full portfolio.

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Cisco Unveils 400G Switching Done Right

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 1, 2018 by itnerd

Bandwidth and scale. These are two of the biggest challenges facing data center customers today. How can they support data-hungry apps like streaming video, or apps that use artificial intelligence and machine learning? And how can they keep growing their networks, without having to replace them every time? To meet the need for bandwidth and scale, Cisco is launching new 400 Gigabit Ethernet (400G) switches that will give customers an edge.

The new 400G switches allow customers to create more powerful networks, more cost-effectively and in a fraction of the space. They provide four times the bandwidth and four times the scale of existing switches without using four times the power. And since the new switches are built on Cisco’s leading Nexus portfolio, customers can choose to deploy 400G in the way that best meets their needs. They can be used on their own or in combination with Cisco’s leading security, automation, visibility and analytics software. 

400GbE Done Right

Dell’Oro predicts the market for 400G will grow quickly, reaching $1.5B in 2019 and more than doubling by 2020. Cisco’s new Nexus switches provide customers with the most comprehensive and customizable approach to 400G. They are: 

  • Built for the most demanding environments: The new 400G switches are designed to support the signature capabilities the Nexus switching portfolio is known for, delivered at wire speed. This includes support for advanced telemetry for deeper app visibility, real-time analysis and troubleshooting. And smart buffers specially tuned for scale-out app traffic. Customers can also integrate the switches with Cisco’s leading Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), Tetration, and Network Assurance Engine software. Doing this allows them to increase app agility and improve data center security and automation, bringing 400G to Intent Based Networking.
  • Built for customer choice and flexibility: Flexible deployment options let companies of all sizes support their specific needs and workloads. Customers can choose the options that best fit their needs, whether they are a webscale company, running a high-density or intent-based network, or using specialized apps.
  • Built to last: Cisco is actively working with partners and third-party organizations to drive standardization and interoperability around 400G. Cisco collaborated in the recent 400G industry plug fests with interconnect and test solution partners and demonstrated cost effective 100G lambda optics modules for 400G.

Availability

Cisco is beginning early field trails with customers in December 2018, giving IT organizations planning time to set up trials as soon as possible. The new Cisco Nexus switches will be generally available in the first half of calendar year 2019.

Additional Resources

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You Will Spend Up Top $75K On Phones During Your Life: Flipsy

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 1, 2018 by itnerd

Headlines were made when $1,000+ iPhones were introduced last month by Apple. That made Flipsy wonder what the total cost of phone ownership is over a lifetime – and found out it adds up to more than $75,000!

Flipsy also mapped out how much people spend on phones over 10, 20, and 30 years, iPhone price inflation versus average wages, and the impact these costs could have on retirement savings.

You can check out their research here as it makes some interesting reading: https://flipsy.com/article/2729/75000-cell-phone-bill-5300-iphone-will-smartphones-rob-retirement

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OpenText to Acquire Liaison Technologies

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 1, 2018 by itnerd

OpenText who a global leader in Enterprise Information Management (EIM), today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Liaison Technologies, Inc. (Liaison), a leading provider of cloud-based enterprise application integration and data management solutions.

The acquisition of Liaison is expected to further enhance OpenText’s offerings in digital ecosystem and business-to-business integration solutions, application-to-application integration and master data management capabilities. The proposed acquisition also expands OpenText’s capabilities within key verticals such as life sciences and healthcare. Additionally, the acquisition enables OpenText to address fast-growing adjacent market segments, including integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) with a managed services approach.

Terms of the Agreement The purchase price is approximately $310 million in an all-cash transaction. The transaction is expected to close within 90 days and is subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions.

More information can be found in our presentation at investors.opentext.com.

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Only 6% of Canadian Businesses are Digital Leaders: Dell

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 1, 2018 by itnerd

Just 6% of Canadian businesses are Digital Leaders, according to the Dell Technologies Digital Transformation Index (the DT Index). The DT Index, which was completed in collaboration with Intel, maps digital transformation progress of mid to large-sized companies and examines the digital hopes and fears of business leaders. While Canadian businesses have a ways to go before the majority are Digital Leaders, they are hopeful that they can get there with the study revealing that 31% of them believe they’ll disrupt rather than be disrupted.

The DT Index’s calculations are based on companies’ perceived performance in the following areas: delivering against the core attributes of a digital business**, their existing IT strategy, workforce transformation strategy and planned investments.

Two years after the DT Index’s initial launch in 2016, Dell Technologies and Intel have more than doubled the scope of the research, from 16 countries to 42 and benchmarked 4,600 businesses using the below groupings. Here’s how Canada ranks this year compared to 2016:

Screen Shot 2018-11-01 at 11.07.12 AM

While there is minimal growth in the Digital Leaders group, the Digital Transformation Index has tracked dynamic movement across other groups. For instance, 29% of businesses now are categorized as Digital Adopters (up 17% from 2016). These companies have advanced digital plans and innovations in place to power their transformation.

However, the Digital Transformation Index also reveals that too many Canadian companies are still coasting in the middle group or stuck in the bottom two groups meaning they’re either moving too slowly or don’t even have a digital plan in place.

Barriers to digital transformation

According to the research, 89% of Canadian businesses are facing major impediments to digital transformation today.

The top five barriers to digital transformation are:

  1. Lack of budget and resources
  2. Data privacy and cybersecurity concerns
  3. Information overload
  4. Lack of the right in-house skill sets and expertise
  5. Lack of the right technologies to work at the speed of business

These barriers are hampering digital transformation efforts. Regardless, there is a sense of urgency among business leaders and right now 83% of them believe that digital transformation should be more widespread throughout the organization. This figure has jumped 15% since 2016.  

Conquering their challenges

The research indicates that businesses are taking steps to overcome their barriers and combat the threat of being outmaneuvered from more nimble, innovative players. Progress is definitively being made and the below statistics explain the spike in Digital Adopters this year:

  • 28% of Canadian businesses have embraced agile software development allowing them to code and securely launch new applications within much shorter cycles (up 6% from 2016).
  • 50% are building security and privacy into all devices, applications and algorithms, up from 45% in 2016.
  • More companies are taking action to resolve the workforce skills gap by developing the right skills sets and expertise in-house, such as teaching staff how to code (42%; up 18% from 2016).
  • 45% of businesses are sharing knowledge across functions, by equipping IT leaders with business skills and business leaders with IT skills (up 25% from two years ago).

Investments in initiatives which enable digital transformation to occur is also up and is expected to continue rising. Below are the top five planned investments in the next one to three years, as indicated by Canadian business leaders:

  1. Cybersecurity
  2. Multi-cloud environment
  3. Artificial Intelligence
  4. Internet of Things technology
  5. A compute-centric approach to data centre design and workload enablement/optimization

Research methodology

This summer, independent research company, Vanson Bourne surveyed 100 business leaders in Canada from mid to large-size companies to gauge their organizations’ place on the Dell Technologies Digital Transformation Index. Vanson Bourne classified businesses’ digital business efforts by examining their IT strategy, workforce transformation initiatives and perceived performance against a core set of digital business attributes. The global results (based on 4,600 respondents from 42 countries) will be released in early 2019.

Additional resources

Attributes of a digital business

In 2015, business leaders defined a core set of digital attributes businesses must embrace to succeed over the next decade. These are:

  • Innovate in agile ways
  • Predictively spot new opportunities
  • Demonstrate transparency and trust
  • Deliver unique and personalized experiences
  • Always on, operate in real time

 

 

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