Archive for June 22, 2023

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Dasera Introduces ‘Ski Lift’ – At No Charge For Snowflake Users

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 22, 2023 by itnerd

Dasera, the premier automated data security and governance platform for top-tier finance, healthcare, and technology enterprises, is thrilled to unveil “Ski Lift,” a complimentary platform exclusively designed for Snowflake users. With “Ski Lift,” Snowflake customers can gain a panoramic view of their Snowflake environment while scaling their data security and governance controls.

Key features of “Ski Lift” include:

  • Find: Discover real-time insights into data security posture with automated classification and tagging
  • Flag: Continuously monitor threats with risk detection from user access, data usage, and misconfigurations
  • Fix: Auto-remediate security and compliance violations throughout the data lifecycle
  • Flow: Experience rapid risk assessments, automated alerts, and self-service deployment

In addition, Dasera is proud to announce its partnership with the Snowflake Partner Network. By joining forces, Dasera and Snowflake empower customers to address the increasing need for robust data protection in today’s interconnected world. With advanced data security measures, comprehensive governance controls, and Dasera’s powerful query analysis engine, organizations can confidently leverage their data to drive insights, make informed decisions, and achieve their strategic objectives.

Dasera’s query analysis engine automatically finds, flags and fixes unsafe queries in data warehouses, helping organizations proactively address data security and compliance concerns. By identifying potentially risky queries, Dasera minimizes the risk of unauthorized data access, ensuring data integrity and maintaining confidentiality. With Dasera, organizations can unlock the full potential of their data while maintaining compliance with industry regulations. Attendees of the Snowflake Summit at the Caesars Forum Conference Center in Las Vegas from June 26-29, 2023, can visit Dasera at Booth 2941-A to explore this innovative solution.

Snowflake customers can sign up for a 45-day “season pass” to “Ski Lift” at the Snowflake Summit or by filling out the form here.

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New Research From Fortra On Email Impersonation Attacks Is Eye Opening

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 22, 2023 by itnerd

Cybersecurity software and services provider Fortra has announced the findings from its latest research on email impersonation attacks, showing that so far in 2023, the volume of nefarious emails impersonating enterprises has reached a crescendo.

According to the research, email impersonation threats such as business email compromise (BEC) make up nearly 99% of reported threats. What’s more is that credential theft attacks are back on the rise, proving that malicious actors remain in search of sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers — all of which could harm the bottom line, and brand reputation.

You can read the research here.

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Women Struggling for Equal Opportunities in the Workforce: LinkedIn

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 22, 2023 by itnerd

LinkedIn has released findings from their Gender Gap Report, which was published today in collaboration with the World LinkedIn Economic Forum’s 2023 Global Gender Gap Report. The report sheds light on the challenges women face in the professional sphere, emphasizing the urgent need for equal opportunities. Some of the key insights from the report include:

  • The rate of leadership hiring for women had increased by approximately 1% annually worldwide over the past eight years. However, as fears of an economic downturn peak, we are observing a decline in the share of women hired into leadership for the first time since the COVID 19 pandemic, in Canada as well as in most major economies around the world 
  • Women remain significantly underrepresented in STEM roles globally, comprising only 29% of the STEM workforce worldwide, and 33% of the STEM workforce in Canada. 
  • Despite these findings, there has been positive development in Canada. Representation for women in STEM occupations has increased across entry to director levels. This may be attributed to transitions from non-STEM backgrounds, as higher-level positions require fewer STEM skills.   
  • Unlike in many other countries analyzed, in Canada, the growth in representation of women with STEM skills outpaced the growth in representation of women with non-STEM skills.  However, there is still room to grow, as men are 2x more likely to list a STEM skill in their LinkedIn profile than women are. 

Both the Global Gender Gap Report and LinkedIn’s data highlight the urgent need for systemic change to create fair and equal workplaces, ensuring that women’s careers are future-proofed and resilient in the face of labor market uncertainty. LinkedIn is also supporting women’s career progression through free LinkedIn Learning courses including: Fighting gender bias at work; Women transforming tech: getting strategic with your career; Introduction to Artificial Intelligence; Powerless to Powerful: Taking Control. 

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OVHCloud Announces Revised VMware on OVHcloud Offering

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 22, 2023 by itnerd

OVHcloud, the European cloud leader, announces the rearchitecting of its VMware portfolio in the Hosted Private Cloud universe. Closely following the needs of system integrators, SaaS providers, SMB and Enterprises, the new VMware on OVHcloud product line aims to address the main challenges in moving legacy apps to the cloud, developing modern apps or setting up a multicloud strategy. 

Leveraging technologies and architectures already used, trusted and known by customers, the VMware on OVHcloud lineup offers a seamless experience built on VMware vSphere. It is both robust and flexible and takes advantage of a large unmetered 10 Gbps guaranteed public bandwidth as well as an improved and industry leading SLA of 99,95% for higher availability and resilience. The VMware on OVHcloud range is now comprised of four products: 

  • OVHcloud Managed VMware vSphere
  • OVHcloud Managed VMware vSphere, Hyperconverged Storage
  • OVHcloud Managed VMware vSphere, Network Security
  • OVHcloud Managed VMware vSphere, Software-Defined Datacenter

The perfect platform to migrate and build modern applications

The VMware on OVHcloud platform now allows application migration to the cloud without any refactoring, reducing risk and saving time, on top of the ability to perform infrastructure migration in lift & shift scenarios. It is ready to deploy VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid, making Kubernetes cluster management a breeze and paving the way for apps to evolve to a Cloud native model.

With VMware NSX-T available on select products, the overall security management of apps is streamlined, whatever their context (VM or Container). This also includes the ability to rely on a micro-segmentation strategy to reduce the risk of lateral movement attacks, such as ransomwares.

Staying in control of cloud spending

The rearchitected VMware on OVHcloud product line is designed to offer customers maximum flexibility, ensuring that they only pay for what they need. With costs rising around the world across most industries, and 80% of businesses concerned by the challenge of mastering cloud spending, this focus offers organisations the best possible performance – price ratio for their budgets and needs, further demonstrating the predictable pricing OVHcloud is known for.

A secure and sustainable offer

VMware on OVHcloud benefits from OVHcloud’s well-known expertise in infrastructure, offering a trusted Cloud in environmentally friendly datacenters. Totally integrated with other OVHcloud services through vRack Private Network, VMware on OVHcloud addresses the most stringent workloads when it comes to sovereignty. Being labeled as a VMware Sovereign Cloud Provider, VMware on OVHcloud comes with a host of certifications including HDS, PCI-DSS and the SecNumCloud qualification delivered by France’s National Information Systems Security Agency (ANSSI).


OVHcloud datacenters take advantage of a unique industrial model with a bespoke watercooling system that contributes to a truly sustainable Cloud, which allows customers to reach best-in-class PUE/WUE indexes. Greatly participating in helping businesses to reach their goals in sustainability, the VMware on OVHcloud offer is VMware Zero Carbon Committed certified.

Pricing and availability

All in all, the new VMware on OVHcloud lineup offers an unprecedented level of flexibility at the software and hardware levels, boasts one of the best performance-price ratios of the industry and benefits from a technical foundation designed to answer modern businesses challenges including cloud cost control.

VMware on OVHcloud is now available in Canada and Europe.

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iOttie Discloses Data Breach

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 22, 2023 by itnerd

iOttie, a manufacturer of car mounts and mobile accessories, recently revealed that its website was compromised for almost two months with malicious scripts, allowing for a data breach that could have disclosed customers’ names, PII, and payment information.

Lovely.

Pedro Fortuna, CTO and Cofounder, Jscrambler had this to say:

     “In the current digital era, companies need to be closely monitoring and managing their websites to keep track of potential malicious scripts. Malicious scripts, such as those used in this attack that iOttie fell victim to, can compromise the security of websites and gain unauthorized access to sensitive information, including accessing payment details and Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Failing to detect and prevent such malicious scripts can result in severe consequences for both businesses and users, leading to financial loss, identity theft, and breaches of privacy.  By prioritizing proactive and robust security procedures like constant vigilance, companies can maintain business continuity and demonstrate their dedication to their customers’ privacy.”

On top of that, I will note that the breach happened on 4/12/2023 but it wasn’t discovered until two months later. That’s bad. Companies need to do better in terms of notifying people when breaches happen. Or better yet, keep them from happening in the first place.

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The Australians Are Asking Elon Musk To Explain The Rise Of Online Hate On Twitter

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 22, 2023 by itnerd

Here’s another problem that Elon Musk will have to deal with. The Australians have issued him a ‘please explain’ notice in order to have him explain the rise of online hate in Twitter. Here’s the details:

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said about one-third of the complaints her agency received about online hate involved content on Twitter, noting a surge in harmful posts since the Tesla chief bought the platform last year.

Twitter has 28 days to comply with the “please explain” notice, or face fines of almost $700,000 for every day it misses the deadline.

Ms Inman Grant revealed she was particularly concerned about anti-Semitic content, and harmful posts directed at Indigenous Australians and members of the LGBTIQ+ community.

She cited research by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate suggesting Twitter was repeatedly failing to act on harmful content posted by Twitter Blue accounts, the platform’s subscription service.

“Any long-time Twitter user has seen since Elon Musk took over the company in October of last year that their feed looks a lot different, looks a lot more toxic,” she said.

“There have been a range of changes that have caused us great concerns about the current state of the platform.

“But the most important piece of evidence we have is that we have received more complaints about online hate on Twitter in the past 12 months than on any other platform, and we want to know how they’re enforcing their own terms of service on the issue.”

This isn’t good for Elon. The Australians are really good at forcing accountability from online platforms. So if he thinks that he can just flip this off and act like it doesn’t exist, he’s wrong. Thus if I were him, I’d be thinking of a really good response to this or he will find that his life will be more miserable than it already is.

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EnGenius Announces Power Distribution Line of Products

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 22, 2023 by itnerd

EnGenius Technologies Inc., a leading provider of cutting-edge connectivity solutions, expands its product ecosystem with a new Power Distribution Units (PDUs) line. The PDUs boasts built-in safety features and total cloud management and control, making them essential for protecting networking and data infrastructure.

ECP106-ECP214-Stack2.jpg

Safeguard your critical infrastructure

The EnGenius ECP series are UL-1449-certified professional-grade surge protected products, placing the products through months of rigorous 3rd party testing in the lab to ensure their safety.  They include a Fireproof MOV module built inside to protect all plugged-in devices from power surges and spikes. They also include a 15A circuit breaker to protect the PDU and everything connected to it from overcurrent and power overload. 

Powerful Monitoring and Remote Control​

With EnGenius Cloud, you can take control of your ECP series anytime, from anywhere. The ECP series provides real-time and historic energy usage information, giving you valuable insights into the normal operation of your connected devices and allowing you to act instantly when you notice something out of the ordinary.

The ECP series can also send alerts to your email or through the EnGenius Cloud-to-Go APP when an anomaly occurs. Get alerted of any power surges, overcurrent events, or if any outlet consumes electricity beyond a safe threshold you set in the UI. You can turn each individual outlet on or off in real-time through the cloud or schedule weekly power cycles for any outlet to manage your electricity consumption.

The ECP series can also monitor internet connection for any device connected to the network. If a loss of Internet is detected, the ECP series will power-cycle the outlet associated with the device in question for automated troubleshooting efforts.

Compact Design, Versatile Installation​

The ECP106 can be installed nearly anywhere, with 0U and 1U rack mounting options, as well as under desks and on walls. The ECP106 and ECP214 can be rack mounted at an angle looking up or down for ease of use when plugging in devices.

Each unit has an LCD screen that allows for easy on-site management. Alternatively, the device also sports two Gigabit Ethernet Ports, enabling you to connect your laptop directly and configure it through the local User Interface.

Key Features and Benefits:

  • Built In Surge Protection and Overcurrent Protection
  • Individually switchable NEMA 5-15R Outlets 
  • Real-Time power consumption information, alerts, and controls from anywhere with EnGenius Cloud
  • 1.3-inch LCD display for in-site information and controls
  • Network self-healing when devices go offline
  • Local and cloud management with power consumption reports by PDU or by outlet
  • Flexible mounting capabilities for any environment 
  • 15A circuit breaker for overload protection
  • Fireproof MOV for surge protection
  • Surge Protection certified with UL-1449
  • RESTFUL API and SNMP v1, 2c, and v3 support
  • Two Gigabit Ethernet ports

The EnGenius Cloud PDU (ECP) series consists of two models, consisting of a 6-outlet (ECP106) and a 14-outlet (ECP214) model. The ECP series will work with any third-party vendor network thanks to API integrations, as well as seamless integration within the EnGenius Cloud Ecosystem.

The ECP106 and ECP214 are available for pre-order now at an unmatched value of $599 and $799 MSRP respectively. For more information, visit https://www.engeniustech.com/power-distribution-unit-product-line.html

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Google Canada announces cohort for inaugural North American Google for Startups Accelerator: Cloud program

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 22, 2023 by itnerd

Today, Google revealed the 12 cloud-native startups that have been selected to participate in its inaugural North American Google for Startups Accelerator: Cloud program, involving startups from both the U.S. and Canada. Excited to share that two Canadian startups, Toronto-based healthcare startup, Oncoustics and Vancouver-based animal care startup, OneCup AI will join ten other cloud-native startups as part of the 2023 accelerator program.

This 10-week virtual accelerator is designed to prepare for the next phase of their growth journey. Participating startups will learn from the best of Google’s programs, products, people and technology, through cloud-focused deep dives and workshops on product design and customer acquisition, along with technical project support and leadership development for startup founders. 

The complete list of 2023 startups selected from across Canada and the U.S., along with a brief description of each, is below. 

  • Aiden Automotive (San Ramon, CA): Aiden is the first software solution to provide streaming 2-way communication directly with the vehicle and across vehicle brands. Aiden provides simple and intuitive 100% GDPR and CCPA compliant consent management, enabling car owners to choose which digital services they desire.
  • Binarly (Santa Monica, CA): Binarly’s agentless, enterprise-class AI-powered firmware security platform helps protect from advanced threats below the operating system. The company’s technology solves firmware supply chain security problems by identifying vulnerabilities, malicious firmware modifications and providing firmware SBOM visibility without access to the source code. Binarly’s cloud-agnostic solutions give enterprise security teams actionable insights, and reduce the cost and time to respond to security incidents.
  • Duality.ai (San Mateo, CA): Duality AI is an augmented digital twin platform that provides end-to-end workflows for predictive simulation and high fidelity visualization. The platform helps close data gaps for machine learning teams working on perception problems and helps robotics teams speed up design and validation of their autonomy software.
  • HalloAI (Provo, UT): Hallo is an AI-powered language learning platform for speaking. Press a button and start speaking any language with an AI teacher in 3 seconds.
  • Harmonic Discovery (New York, NY): Harmonic Discovery uses machine learning to design multi-targeted kinase drugs for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
  • MLtwist (Santa Clara, CA): MLtwist helps you bring your AI to the world faster. We give data scientists and ML engineers access to the easiest and best way to get out of the weeds of data pipelines and back to what they enjoy and do best – design, build, and deploy AI.
  • Oncoustics (Toronto, ON): Oncoustics is creating advanced solutions for low-cost and non-invasive surveillance, diagnostics, and treatment monitoring of diseases with high unmet clinical need through the use of patented AI-based solutions running on ultrasound scans. Using a handheld point of care ultrasound, Oncoustics’ first solution allows clinicians to obtain a liver health assessment within 5 minutes.
  • OneCup AI (Vancouver, BC): OneCup uses Computer vision for Animal Care. Our AI, BETSY, is the eyes of the rancher when the rancher is away.
  • Passio AI (Menlo Park, CA): Passio AI is a mobile AI platform that helps developers and companies build mobile applications powered by expert-level AI and computer vision
  • RealKey (San Francisco, CA): RealKey is the first collaboration platform for finance (starting with mortgages), automating documentation collection/review, tasks, and communication for all parties (not just borrowers) involved in transactions to reduce time, effort, and costs to close.
  • Sevco Security Inc. (Austin, TX): Sevco Security a leading IT asset visibility and cybersecurity company, that provides the industry’s first unified asset intelligence platform designed to address the new extended attack surface and create a trusted data repository of all devices, users and applications an organization uses.
  • VESSL AI (San Jose, CA): VESSL is an end-to-end MLOps platform aiming to be the next Snowflake for AI. The platform enables MLEs to run ML workloads at any scale on any cloud, such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud, and on-premises.

The full blog post is here.

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XONA Systems Appoints Ron Fabela as Field CTO

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 22, 2023 by itnerd

XONA Systems, the frictionless secure user access platform deployed on a Zero-Trust Architecture and purpose-built for operational technologies (OT), today announced the addition of a recognized ICS security expert as its Field CTO.

Ron worked onsite at power generation stations, offshore oil rigs, oil refineries, and more and is an expert in performing NERC CIP, NIST, and NEI 08-09 assessments. He also performed hundreds of vulnerability assessments, penetration tests, and threat assessments against live production systems in the Electricity and Oil & Gas sectors.  More recently, Ron applied his field knowledge to products and technologies that support security and industrial operators.

A key focus at XONA will be to ensure that the XONA Platform best reflects the needs of the OT operators and Administrators using our secure user access solution. In that capacity, Ron will work closely with our customers, prospects and cybersecurity experts across various critical infrastructure sectors, and our Field, Marketing, and Product teams. 

Before joining XONA, Ron was CTO & Co-Founder of SynSaber – creator of a highly regarded industrial asset and network monitoring solution that provides continuous insight into the status, vulnerabilities, and threats at the industrial edge.  For the past 25 years, he has held various ICS cybersecurity roles at companies such as Gravwell, Dragos, Lockheed Martin, and Booz Allen Hamilton and served active duty in the United States Air Force defending systems worldwide.  

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Hackers Take Over Legitimate Accounts in Latest Phishing Scheme to Reroute Direct Deposit Payments

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 22, 2023 by itnerd

Researchers at Avanan, A Check Point Company, have released their latest blog discussing how hackers are rerouting finances into different accounts. In this attack, hackers are taking over legitimate email accounts and sending out emails to the finance department or HR requesting to change banking information on payroll to the account of the hacker’s choice. 

You can read the blog post here.

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