Archive for October 26, 2021

Guest Post: Frances Haugen’s Evidence Reminds Us That Online Harm Thrives In The Absence Of Transparency, Says GlobalData

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 26, 2021 by itnerd

Following Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s appearance in front of MPs investigating online harm, 

Laura Petrone, Principal Analyst in the Thematic Research team at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view:

“Haugen’s testimony shows that social media companies must become more transparent. Until platforms such as Facebook can be held accountable for the content they post, online harm will continue to thrive. Social media companies must be forced to clearly state their rules on speech and make them consistent with established human rights legislation.

“Facebook has forged an ad-funded business model centered on opaque algorithms that determine what content users see. Online harm and misinformation are side effects of ad-funded platforms that aim to hold the user’s attention for as long as possible, with little care for the harm they do to society, including children. Regularly publishing transparency reports for content moderation and conducting annual risk assessments will help tackle the proliferation of harmful content.

The UK’s proposed online harms legislation, which introduces a duty of care on social media platforms, is certainly a step towards ensuring greater social media accountability. However, it remains to be seen to what extent it will tackle the most pressing issues, such as the ability to check the algorithms tech companies use to tailor their content.”

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Check Point Software Brings Infosec Institute’s Award-Winning Security Awareness Training To Leading Cyber Solutions Platform

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 26, 2021 by itnerd

Infosec Institute, a leading cybersecurity education company, today announced it has partnered with Check Point Software Technologies to bring its award-winning security awareness training and phishing simulator to the Check Point Technology Partner Alliance. Check Point Software is a leading provider of cybersecurity solutions to governments and corporate enterprises globally.

The new partnership equips Check Point Software clients with additional resources to secure the human element of cybersecurity with access to over 2,000 Infosec IQ awareness training modules, phishing simulations, assessments, supporting resources and more. More than 100,000 organizations can now purchase Infosec IQ with Check Point learning credits to boost employee security awareness, reduce business risk and meet compliance.

A Leader in the 2020 Forrester Wave for Security Awareness and Training, Infosec IQ equips organizations with everything needed to prepare employees to detect, report and defeat cybercrime. The platform also features the newly released Infosec IQ Cybersecurity Culture Survey, an innovative way for Check Point customers to measure security culture by analyzing employee attitudes and perceptions towards cybersecurity and security training efforts.

Check Point Cybersecurity Learning Credits (CLCs) enable customers to maximize their cybersecurity investment and easily purchase credits for multiple services. Check Point Software clients can redeem CLCs for many enablement packages, including certification training, pentesting training, exam vouchers, CPX,  consulting, optimization, virtual labs, security awareness and more.

 www.checkpoint.com/training/smartawareness/ to enroll in Infosec IQ and Check Point’s Security Solutions.

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Metallic Accelerates Data Management-As-A-Service Momentum With New MSP Partners & MSP Portal

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 26, 2021 by itnerd

Commvault today announced three new Managed Service Provider (MSP) partners are joining the Metallic MSP ecosystem, growing the number of MSPs offering Metallic Data Management-as-a-Service (DMaaS) solutions, while increasing the reach by bringing access to the industry’s leading data protection solutions to more organizations in more geographies. New partners Veristor, GM Sectec, and Data Management Professionals South Africa (DMP SA) join global design partner SoftwareONE in delivering Metallic-powered solutions to customers through the new, easy-to-use Metallic MSP partner portal.

The need for cloud-based managed services continues to rise, with many MSPs moving to a SaaS model for their offerings. Building on Commvault’s already strong commitment to MSPs as well as its recent MSP design partnership with SoftwareONE, today’s news amplifies the company’s focus on helping customers drive their digital transformation. Metallic for MSPs helps customers solve for resource constraints and simplify management of data wherever that data lives – from hybrid cloud datacentre workloads like SAP HANA and Oracle, to SaaS apps like Office 365 or Dynamics 365, to endpoints. With Metallic for MSPs, Metallic is offering MSPs the unique opportunity to have a single solution of coverage across the broadest set of workloads to solve their customers’ toughest data challenges – all while reducing infrastructure and management overhead costs and providing a quick time to value through accelerated services.​

Metallic’s SaaS offerings alongside its Metallic MSP Portal and Metallic Hub enables MSPs to deliver the gold standard in DMaaS. Metallic offers partners a globally available, scalable, always up-to-date, secure and monitored platform, so that partners can focus on what is most important – their customer’s data needs. Built on Commvault industry-leading technology, Metallic offers data protection for a wide range of workloads, helping customers to avoid data loss and downtime, to safeguard against cyberthreats, and to meet growing data demands for data compliance and governance – with simple SaaS delivery and fast onboarding. ​

To learn more about Metallic’s portfolio of solutions for MSPs, please visit: https://www.metallic.io/msp-partner

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Vendorship Inc. Offers Advice for Minority Businesses Trying to Secure Government Contracts

Posted in Commentary with tags on October 26, 2021 by itnerd

Each year $660 billion is awarded in government contracts. This offers private businesses a significant opportunity to secure a promising amount of work and bolster revenue. However, the bidding process can be a complicated maze of red tape and time consuming especially when bidding as a member of a disadvantaged or marginalized business group. In light of Global Diversity Awareness Month in October, Vendorship Inc., a company that specializes in helping businesses identify and secure government contracts, examined data they say shows not everyone has the same advantages bidding on this work. According to Zippia’s data science team:

  • The most common ethnicity of government contractors is White (77.4%), followed by Hispanic or Latino (14.4%) and Black or African American (3.5%).
  • Only 8% of all government contractors are LGBT.
  • There’s a gender pay gap, with women earning only 89¢ for every $1 earned by men.

Vendorship Inc. provides these tips for diverse businesses:

  • Know where to go. Research county, state and federal contracting portals and agencies to find opportunities to submit bids and proposals.
  • Get certified. Obtain the right certification as a woman owned small business (WOSB) or economically disadvantaged woman owned small business (EDWOSB), minority owned business, veteran owned business and include this designation in all documents and materials.  
  • Get registered. Find out eligibility requirements for becoming a preferred supplier for registration on procurement sites accessed by both governmental and non-governmental agencies to be considered during their bidding processes.
  • Network. Attend seminars on government contracting and find peer-network groups that can help form strategic supplier-partner or client-partner relationships.
  • Reach out. If you need help, reach out to companies like Vendorship Inc. who specialize in helping companies secure revenue-generating contracts with governmental and non-governmental agencies.

Vendorship Inc. helps companies secure revenue-generating contracts by providing access to more than $660 billion in projects with city, state, and federal government agencies. They make government contracting easy with a customized, methodical, interactive, proprietary, and transparent program. And a knowledge transfer prepares their clients for successful proposal submission time after time.

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