Archive for December 7, 2020

SAP & Consumer Products Companies Co-innovate Trade Claims Solution

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 7, 2020 by itnerd

SAP today announced the launch of the SAP® Intelligent Trade Claims Management solution, which enables consumer products companies to increase their financial efficiency. SAP Intelligent Trade Claims Management is a cloud native solution in SAP’s industry cloud that applies intelligent technologies to automate and improve the trade claims process between consumer products companies and retailers.

By utilizing SAP Intelligent Trade Claims Management, companies are able to auto-match deductions instead of the previous time-consuming, inaccurate and costly manual matching process. The virtual assistant uses a combination of machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate claims processing, to recommend actions to accounts receivable analysts for faster exception handling, and to provide visibility from the retailers to the consumer products company. The solution enables brands such as MapleLeaf Foods Inc. to save money, improve compliance and reduce financial risk.

The consumer products industry is expected to grow to $14 trillion by 2025, and brands spend at least 20 per cent of their gross revenue on trade promotions with retailers. Furthermore, trade promotions are the second line item on a consumer products company’s profit and loss statement, and they have a direct impact on key performance indicators. 

With an estimated 20 per cent of gross revenue tied up on the balance sheet, many companies write off thousands of small claims, aged deductions and invalid deductions. SAP Intelligent Trade Claims Management helps companies reduce their financial loss and reinvest the savings into growing their businesses. As this Harvard Business Review study notes, companies that survive economic downturns “master the delicate balance between cutting costs to survive today and investing to grow tomorrow do well after a recession.”

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New HP PCs Elevate Productivity for Business Users, IT Teams, & Creators

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 7, 2020 by itnerd

With more than half of worldwide employees working from home, employees and IT teams are adjusting to the new ways people collaborate and create – whether at home, in the office, or other remote locations. HP has announced new additions to its Personal Systems portfolio to help people stay connected, engaged, and productive.

The latest EliteBook 800 Series PCs, ZBook Firefly 14, and ZBook Firefly 15 feature new capabilities allowing business users, IT teams, and creators to:

  • Be productive anywhere. Stay connected and work virtually anywhere at the highest connection speeds possible with gigabit data rate Wi-Fi 6, 4G LTE or 5G. New AI-based noise reduction suppresses background noises and keyboard clicks during conference calls. HP QuickDrop helps users transfer photos, videos and files quickly and securely between an HP PC and phone.
  • Work with peace of mind. HP Elite PCs and HP Workstations are part of the world’s most secure and manageable PCs. Newly embedded Tile™ capability allows users (and IT) to easily locate the PCs whether nearby or far away. HPs new intrusion detection technology, HP Tamper Lock, locks your PC if it has been physically opened or compromised and notifies the user. Devices can be wiped down with common household cleaning wipes[ix] for easy sanitization and HP Easy Clean disables the touchscreen, keyboard, and clickpad at the touch of a button to clean without need of powering off. HP Sure View Reflect allows users to work discreetly, by showing a copper reflective finish when screen is viewed from the side.
  • Feel good about sustainably sourced materials. Driving support for more environmentally conscious products, the PCs are part of the world’s most sustainable PC portfolio and use ocean-bound plastics in the speaker enclosure, and the outer box packaging is 100% sustainably sourced.

New Premium PCs for Business Users and IT Teams

The HP EliteBook 800 G8 Series PCs are crafted with a lightweight and flexible design, and superb connection and collaboration for powerful business resiliency. Powered by up to 11th Gen Intel® Core™ processors,  the devices are designed to meet the demands of mobility around the home, office, and everywhere in between. 11th Gen Intel® Core™ vPro® processor-based systems coming in January 2021.

The HP EliteBook 800 G8 Series, available with 13.3″, 14″, and 15.6″ diagonal screens, users get a powerful, highly secure, and durable laptop with long battery life that keeps them connected and productive in any work setting. The HP EliteBook 850 G8 has an NVIDIA® GeForce® MX450 discrete graphics option for ultimate performance. Co-engineered with Intel, select configurations of the HP EliteBook 800 series have been tested and verified to meet standards for the Intel® Evo® Platform ensuring high-, responsiveness, battery life, fast charge and instant wake. Systems that have been tuned and verified to meet the requirements of the Intel® Evo™ vPro® platform based on 11th Gen Intel® Core™ vPro® processors are coming in January 2021. With not only users but IT teams working remotely, HP Patch Assistant​ helps IT monitor HP device health and security across employee devices by automating critical updates.

In addition to the features mentioned above, the HP EliteBook x360 830 G8 features a 360-degree hinge and 13.3” diagonal touchscreen display to adapt to the way users create, connect, and collaborate. The optional HP Rechargeable Active Pen G3 features a proximity alert that notifies users if they leave the pen behind.

The new HP ZBook Firefly G8, available with a 14” and 15.6” diagonal screen, equips users on-the-go with the power and performance needed to design in 2D and review 3D iterations. Built for extreme mobility starting at just 2.98 pounds, the ZBook 14 is the world’s lightest mobile workstation with a color accurate display. It is engineered to take select high-end ZBook experiences into the mainstream while maintaining the thin, sleek design that is as light as a MacBook Pro 13”. Now today’s technical and creative managers, STEAM students, and product designers can tap into pro-level performance with curated creator experiences like color accuracy and ISV certifications, seamless collaboration with enhanced connectivity, and industry-leading security.

  • Enjoy a true color digital canvas with a DreamColor display boasting a billion on-screen colors with world-class visual fidelity. Creators will have confidence in their colors as new PANTONE® Validated displays meet Pantone’s color fidelity criteria in the simulation of the full range of real-world PANTONE Colors.
  • Keep remote workers productive. Get improved performance with new NVIDIA T500 professional graphics, featuring 4 GB GDDR6 VRAM, and up to 3X graphics performance over the previous generation, and 2.6x better performance than the Dell Precision 3550 – pull up schematics or designs and get the job done from anywhere, even while multi-tasking with conferencing or web applications. Additionally, be more productive while using multiple applications like video conferencing, web browsing, and streaming.
  • ZCentral Remote Boost brings users a revolutionary way to collaborate by taking advantage of remote access to even more powerful desktop workstations at the office. The real-time collaboration capability of this solution allows collaboration across teams and applications remotely with almost any device.

Additionally, the ZBook Studio and Create G7 will soon be available with Ubuntu 20.04 and data science tools preloaded to be productive on day one. This means data scientists can start training models with their new PC immediately instead of spending time tracking down and installing all the required tools. This hardware and software solution set will allow data scientists to augment and accelerate their workflows with the flexibility and portability of a ZBook. Find out more about how HP is simplifying data science workflows here.

Pricing and Availability

  • The HP EliteBook 800 G8 PC Series is expected to be available later in December. Pricing will be available closer to availability.
  • The HP EliteBook x360 830 G8 is expected to be available later in December. Pricing will be available closer to availability.
  • The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G8 is expected to be available later in December. Pricing will be available closer to availability.
  • HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 is expected to be available later in December. Pricing will be available closer to availability.

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Some Ransomware Gangs Are Now Phoning Victims Who Restore from Backups To Shake Them Down Further

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 7, 2020 by itnerd

So say you’re a company that got hit by ransomware. You make the correct decision to not pay the scumbags and you restore from known to be good backups. The world is great right?

Well, it is until you get a phone call from the ransomware gang.

In attempts to put pressure on victims, some ransomware gangs are now cold-calling victims on their phones if they suspect that a hacked company might try to restore from backups and avoid paying ransom demands. “We’ve seen this trend since at least August-September,” Evgueni Erchov, Director of IR & Cyber Threat Intelligence at Arete Incident Response, told ZDNet on Friday…

“We think it’s the same outsourced call center group that is working for all the [ransomware gangs] as the templates and scripts are basically the same across the variants,” Bill Siegel, CEO and co-founder of cyber-security firm Coveware, told ZDNet in an email. Arete IR and Emsisoft said they’ve also seen scripted templates in phone calls received by their customers.

The use of phone calls is another escalation in the tactics used by ransomware gangs to put pressure on victims to pay ransom demands after they’ve encrypted corporate networks. Previous tactics included the use of ransom demands that double in value if victims don’t pay during an allotted time, threats to notify journalists about the victim company’s breach, or threats to leak sensitive documents on so-called “leak sites” if companies don’t pay.

This is why companies need to employ firms like Mandiant to find out how the scumbags got in and force them out. That would make calls like this a joke. What would also help is if there is a blanket ban in places like US, Canada, UK, Germany and the like on paying ransoms. That would make ransomware attacks less viable.

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Gamer Gifts For The Win From Walmart

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 7, 2020 by itnerd

Here is a crowd pleasing collection from Walmart Canada, which includes practical gear for the seasoned players to classic throwbacks for the nostalgic gamers! Walmart has everything you need at every day low prices– both in-store and online.

Easter Eggs:

No Campers here:

Check these gifts in store at Walmart as well as Walmart.ca

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2020 Gone Phishing Tournament Phishing Benchmark Global Report Reveals Significant Rise In Phishing Simulation Click Rates, & Compromised Data

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 7, 2020 by itnerd

The latest edition of the Terranova Security Phishing Benchmark Global Report, drawing on results from 2020 Gone Phishing TournamentTM reveals a substantial year-over-year increase in participating end user click rates. It also details a significant rise in the percentage of users who would’ve potentially compromised their login data had the phishing simulation not been a safe security awareness testing environment.

The results in the latest version of the Phishing Benchmark Global Report underscore the need for all organizations, regardless of size, industry, or geographic location, to implement both an ongoing security awareness training program and consistent, up-to-date phishing simulations to strengthen their data protection infrastructure.

The results outlined in the Phishing Benchmark Global Report come at the tail end of what has been a tumultuous year for businesses worldwide. The global COVID-19 pandemic resulted in many organizations changing how they work and featured a spike in remote or remote-hybrid workforce adoption. However, distributed virtual offices have lessened the effect of technical data protection measures and consequently put employees’ ability to successfully detect and avoid phishing threats under a microscope.

This year’s Gone Phishing Tournament, which took place over 11 days in October 2020 to coincide with National Cyber Security Awareness Month, welcomed 57% more participating organizations than in 2019 and boasted a 90% increase in participating end users. The 2020 event also benefited from an extended global reach, with users completing the simulation in 98 different countries.

2020 Phishing Benchmark Global Report: Key Results

The results from the 2020 Gone Phishing Tournament underscored the potential consequences of a lack of phishing awareness. The data shows that nearly 20% of employees are still quick to click on phishing email links, a significant increase from the 11% posted during the 2019 Gone Phishing Tournament.

Other key data highlights include:

  • 67% of clickers (13.4% of overall users) submitting their login credentials, also up substantially from 2019, when just 2% submitted their credentials
  • The Public Sector and Transport domains struggled the most, posting a click rate of 28.4% and submission rate of 24.7%.
  • The Education and Finance & Insurance sectors performed considerably better than others, with rates of 11.3% and 14.2%, respectively.
  • Users in North America struggled the most with the phishing simulation, posting a 25.5% click rate and an 18% overall credential submission rate. This means a little over 7 out of every 10 clickers compromised their login data.
  • Users in Europe exhibited lower click and submission rates of 17% and 11%, respectively.

2020 Phishing Benchmark Global Report: Methodology

The phishing simulation email and web page templates used during the 2020 Gone Phishing Tournament were supplied by co-sponsor Microsoft. They reflected a real-world scenario that any user, especially those working remotely, may encounter in their daily lives.

Selected by the Terranova Security leadership team, the template measured several end user phishing behaviors, including clicking on a suspicious email link and submitting data using a webpage form. The template’s difficulty level was also increased compared to the 2019 simulation and was rated medium-high for complexity by the Terranova Security team.

Supported in 12 different languages, all participating users received the same phishing simulation over the same 11-day period, ensuring the data depicted in the Phishing Benchmark Global Report portrayed an accurate, apples-to-apples analysis of organizational performance. 

Download the 2020 Phishing Benchmark Global Report to get all the results and facts from the latest edition of the Gone Phishing Tournament.

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Guest Post: Average Ransom Payout Jumped 178% In A Year Says Atlas VPN

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 7, 2020 by itnerd

Ransomware is a type of malicious attack where a criminal encrypts, typically, sensitive files, then threatens to publish them unless a demanded ransom is paid. These attacks reached record-highs in 2020 as employees shifted to remote work, in turn creating more attack vectors for hackers. 

An Atlas VPN analysis found that average ransom payouts increased by 178% in Q3 2020 compared to Q4 2019. 

Rachel Welch, COO of Atlas VPN, shares her thoughts on the increase in ransomware payouts:

“The increase in average ransomware payout shows that hackers are successful in bigger-scale attacks or intrude into databases that contain extremely sensitive data, such as credit card details.”

Cybercriminals expect larger payouts when they target bigger companies, steal more data, or the information stolen is extremely sensitive. For example, instead of stealing user email addresses, hackers now target financial details, personal information like social security numbers (SSNs), and police reports. 

In the 4th quarter of 2019, the average ransom payout reached $84 thousand, while in the 3rd quarter of 2020, the number skyrocketed to nearly $234 thousand.

Number of ransomware attacks nearly doubled in 2020

Obviously, the fact that attacks are successful and victims pay out the ransom only encourages cybercriminals to continue these schemes. 

Not only is the average ransom payout increasing rapidly, but the frequency of attacks is reaching record highs. 

There were 78.36 million ransomware attacks detected in Q3 of 2020, while in Q3 2019, the number stood at 40.95 million. This constitutes a 91% jump in ransomware attacks in one year.

To read the full article, head over to: https://atlasvpn.com/blog/average-ransom-payout-jumped-178-in-a-year

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