Microsoft Windows 11 24H2 To Turn On BitLocker Encryption BY DEFAULT…. Sort Of

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 14, 2024 by itnerd

A reader sent me this Windows Latest article on the latest iteration of Windows 11 which is called 24H2. A lot of this was not that interesting. Then I spotted this:

BitLocker isn’t a new feature, and it’s typically turned on by default in Windows 11 version 23H2 on new flagship products, such as the HP Spectre.

Currently, it’s not turned on by default for most devices, but this changes with Windows 11 24H2, which turns on encryption automatically during reinstallation.

During the Windows 11 24H2 fresh/clean installation process, BitLocker encryption is enabled in the background, not just on Windows 11 Pro or higher editions but also on Windows 11 Home if the manufacturer has set a flag in the UEFI.

This encrypts all drives on the hardware and affects two editions of Windows 11: Home and Pro (Professional).

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a smart idea. But let’s dig into this a bit more:

It does not affect devices upgraded to Windows 11 24H2 using Windows Update.

That’s good. Microsoft likely didn’t want to anger a bunch of people who woke up one morning and found that BitLocker was turned on. That likely would not go over well. Next is this:

While automatic encryption starts during setup, it is only fully activated after the user signs in with a Microsoft Account.

Devices using local accounts won’t have automatic encryption, but users can still manually turn on BitLocker through the Control Panel.

That’s also good as well. But I still have a bit of a problem with this. Even though I believe that encryption of devices is a very good idea. The reason I have a bit of a problem with this is that Microsoft appears to be moving people down the road to having BitLocker turned on by default on every device that runs Windows. That’s not a good idea for home users who would be more likely to lose their BitLocker recovery key, meaning that if the need to recover data from an encrypted drive ever arose, they are screwed if they don’t have a back up. And a lot of home users don’t do backups, so you see where this is going. And some corporate environment want nothing to do with BitLocker, and choose self encrypting hard drives instead as they are perceived to offer better levels of encryption. That potentially means more hoops to hop through for those users to get the encryption that they want.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. While I don’t expect this level of pushback from users. I expect some to question why Microsoft is doing this. And Microsoft may have to answer some questions because of that.

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TELUS Esports Series is back!

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 13, 2024 by itnerd

TELUS Esports Series powered by TELUS Arena, a nationwide gaming platform that supports and empowers esport players, returns this fall. In partnership with Android, TELUS Esports Series is opening the tournament to gamers across North America for the first time, featuring Apex Legends, Rocket League, and Valorant. Canadian and American gamers aged 15 and up can register and qualify at www.telus.com/tes4 by September 22 at 11:59 p.m. EST to play for a chance to win from a $50,000CAD cash prize pool.

Since the first TELUS Esports Series in 2021, TELUS has been dedicated to creating products, services, and premier gaming events that provide Canadians meaningful opportunities to participate in organized esports. With its leading PureFibre Internet solutions to best-in-class award-winning 5G mobile networks, TELUS has become the preferred choice for Canadian gamers.

In addition to the tournament, TELUS is extending its digital literacy program, TELUS Wise™, to all gamers in Canada, offering online tips and tricks to foster healthy gaming habits. Players on TELUS’ PureFibre Internet network will also benefit from low latency and the fastest upload and download speeds, for the most responsive gaming experience.

Registration for TELUS Esports Series is now open to all players in Canada and the United States aged 15 and up. Players of all skill levels from casual gamers to seasoned professionals can join this inclusive gaming experience. To sign up for the tournament and learn more about prizing, visit www.telus.com/tes4.

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Sage Intacct expands its AI-driven AP Automation to support businesses globally

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 13, 2024 by itnerd

Sage, the leader in accounting, financial, HR, and payroll technology for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), today announces new enhancements and updates for Sage Intacct customers globally, to streamline financial operations and enhance security worldwide.

As part of this major expansion, Sage Intacct is rolling out AP Automation globally. In the US, businesses are already processing over 10,000 bills per month using this innovative tool, which utilizes AI to halve the time taken for accounts payable processes while saving organizations over $100,000 per year. AP Automation streamlines financial workflows by automatically creating draft bills from uploaded documents, promptly identifying issues such as duplicates, and significantly reducing data entry efforts and costs.  

Sage Intacct Product Release 3 2024 Enhancements Also Include:       

  • Elevated Time Entry Experience: This new Sage Intelligent Time feature, with enhanced AI assistance, supports customers with the creation of more descriptive activity card titles and the option for automatic time entry descriptions, improving clarity for approvers and users alike. 
  • Availability: US, Canada, Australia, South Africa and the UK 
  • Automated Employee Expense Submission—Early Adopter: Employees can email receipts directly from any device, while AI and machine learning enhance coding accuracy and adapt to user modifications for future submissions, significantly simplifying the expense reporting process. 
  • Availability: US 
  • Sage Intacct Financials Certified by AFNOR in France: Achieving NF 203 certification from Infocert, Sage Intacct meets stringent French standards, enhancing security and reliability while ensuring regulatory compliance. This certification offers our customers peace of mind, knowing their financial operations are supported by a system that adheres to the highest standards of data integrity and compliance required by French law.
  • Availability: France 
  • German Electronic Tax Submission: Simplifying tax compliance for German organisations, Sage Intacct now supports the DATEV file format, ensuring security and ease of financial data exchange. The seamless integration simplifies tax reporting and financial statements preparation, improving both accuracy and workflow efficiency.
  • Availability: Germany 
  • Enhanced Interactive Custom Report Writer (ICRW): New reports in ICRW, provides customers with deeper, actionable insights, facilitating compliance and operational efficiency. These customisable reports provide detailed views on order summaries, customer aging, and purchasing activities, empowering users to make data-driven decisions swiftly.
  • Availability: Globally 
  • Enhanced Email delivery and insights: The latest update introduces an enhanced email delivery service that leverages DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) to ensure emails reach their intended recipients securely and efficiently. This service also provides detailed email delivery logs for better visibility and supports multiple domains and sub-domains, making it ideal for businesses managing communications across diverse operational areas.
  • Availability: Globally  
  • Sage Intacct and Kanso Solution for Affordable Housing: Sage Intacct has partnered with Kanso, a housing management platform, to deliver a comprehensive cloud solution for public housing management, enhancing compliance, data accuracy, and property management. The solution, inspired by customer feedback, broadens Sage Intacct’s reach into diverse housing sectors, including public, native communities, and supportive housing.
  • Availability: US & Canada 
  • Hold And Resume Contract Schedules: Users can now simultaneously hold or resume billing, revenue, and expense schedules across multiple contracts, enhancing operational efficiency with a refined user interface. This updated interface features new filters like customer type, contract type, and transaction currency, all within a streamlined layout for improved navigation and action management.
  • Availability: US, Canada, Australia, South Africa and the UK 
  • Exporting Taxable Payments Annual Reports: Simplifying compliance with the Australian Tax Office, users can now export Taxable Payments Annual Reports (TPAR) files using this new feature. By eliminating the need for manual data reformatting, this functionality not only saves time but also reduces errors, ensuring compliance and enhancing efficiency for Australian businesses.
  • Availability: Australia  
  • Joint Checks Payment Method for Construction: Introducing a joint check payment method specifically for the construction industry. This new feature simplifies payments to downstream two-party construction vendors, reducing the risk of unpaid claims and rights. Construction companies can now easily create and track joint checks directly within Accounts Payable, eliminating the need for complex workarounds.
  • Availability: Australia, US, Canada & EA customers in the UK 
  • Boosted insights in Revenue Recognition: Enabling direct links between billing events and revenue recognition entries to source contract amounts, Sage Intacct’s Revenue Management now includes basic contract tracking as part of its subscription. This integration allows users to utilise the contract dimension in Order Entry transactions for detailed categorisation, tracking, and analysis—enhancing visibility, accuracy, and forecasting capabilities without requiring a full Contracts application subscription. 
  • Availability:  Australia, Canada, South Africa, UK and US  

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Horizon3.ai, FedHIVE Team to Revolutionize Public Sector Cybersecurity

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 13, 2024 by itnerd

Horizon3.ai today announced their partnership with FedHIVE, a leading cloud service offering for federal agencies, government contractors, and commercial organizations. FedHIVE, which holds an active Joint Authorization Board (JAB) Authorization to Operate (ATO) at the FedRAMP® High level, is set to incorporate Horizon3.ai’s NodeZero™ SaaS-based platform into their ATO framework.

The NodeZero autonomous penetration testing platform empowers the public and private sectors to continuously assess their exploitable attack surfaces. It is the flagship product of Horizon3.ai, founded in 2019 by former industry and U.S. National Security veterans. NodeZero helps organizations see their networks through the eyes of the attacker and proactively fix problems that truly matter, improve the effectiveness of their security initiatives, and ensure that they are prepared to respond to real cyberattacks.

FedHIVE was​ the first small business provider to secure FedRAMP High Impact Baseline ATO for its SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS capabilities. This collaboration will allow more federal organizations to utilize Horizon3.ai’s NodeZero platform to view their environments from the attacker’s perspective, while adhering to the stringent requirements of federal customers.

The FedHIVE secure cloud service offering provides Government (Federal and State), Government Contractors and Commercial Customers a compliant, scalable, and secure IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS; enabling and supporting Governments’ mission platforms or software required for their business or mission success. FedHIVE is a Compliance company providing Compliance  as a Service (CaaS), secure hosting, storage and processing service; intentionally designed to meet and exceed the FedRAMP High Impact Baseline and DoD Cloud Computing Security requirements.

In 2023, there was a pivotal shift as both public and private sectors realized that solely relying on defensive cybersecurity strategies is no longer sufficient. For example, in November 2023, the Department of Navy Cyber Strategy outlined new plans to conduct realistic risk assessments by conducting regular program-driven automated and manual testing of security protections from an adversary’s perspective. In addition, in March 2024, the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network (JFHQ-DODIN) launched the Cyber Operational Readiness Assessment (CORA) program, which highlights continuous holistic assessments to boost operational effectiveness. This move towards ongoing defensive readiness assessments is now becoming a norm across various sectors.

As a result, demand for NodeZero is surging as autonomous penetration testing was recognized as a new category in the U.S. Department of Defense Tech Watchlist. Customers in 50 industries across 25 countries, including government, manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, education, and other industries currently use NodeZero to continuously assess their internal, external, and cloud infrastructures using the same tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) attackers use. 

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Myriad360 Joins Forces with VAST Data

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 13, 2024 by itnerd

Myriad360, a leading global systems integrator, today announced a new collaboration with VAST Data, the AI data platform company. By becoming a VAST partner, Myriad360 aligns with VAST Data’s mission to provide state-of-the-art data management software and will leverage its expertise in designing and implementing complex technology solutions to enhance the reach and impact of VAST Data’s offerings.

This collaboration is driven by Myriad360’s goal to enhance its storage solutions portfolio by offering VAST Data’s high-performance, scalable, and simple VAST Data Platform. By leveraging Myriad360’s industry expertise and customer relationships alongside VAST Data’s innovative technology, Myriad360 can deliver significant value to the enterprise by catering to their evolving data storage needs.

Key customer benefits of the Myriad360 and VAST Data collaboration include:

  • Access to Advanced Technology: Customers now gain access to the market disrupting VAST Data Platform, an innovative and advanced storage and data management solution, through a trusted reseller, ensuring they benefit from the latest advancements in data storage.
  • Integrated Solutions: Myriad360 can offer comprehensive, integrated solutions combining their expertise while leveraging the VAST Data Platform, leading to more efficient and effective IT infrastructure for end users.
  • Solutions and Services: Customers can take advantage of robust, innovative solutions, and support services from Myriad360, ensuring smooth implementation and maximizing the investment in VAST Data products.

Visit: https://myriad360.com/partners/ to learn more about Myriad360’s other partners.

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SITA CDE leverages transformative Cradlepoint cloud-based technology

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 13, 2024 by itnerd

SITA, a leading technology company in the air transport industry,  will be leveraging Cradlepoint, part of Ericsson, technology as part of its transformative cloud-based secure mobile to Wi-Fi solutions. 

SITA Mobile to Wi-Fi includes Cradlepoint routers and NetCloud Manager, a cloud-based network management platform, that will ensure best-in-class customer service and network performance through a fully managed service. SITA Mobile to Wi-Fi provides everything from initial ordering through delivery, implementation, support and on-going maintenance.

Some of the uses for this new solution will include: off-airport passenger processing operations, SDWAN backup for remote sites, quick access for new airline routes, pilot/crew access in cockpit and aircraft data connectivity.

Cradlepoint’s fixed and mobile routers leverage precision GPS, AVL and telemetry data to transform operational efficiency, improve management decision-making and other functions for on-time service sustainability, thus improving each passenger’s travelling experience. 

SITA will also be offering the new technology to clients across the travel and transport sector moving forward.

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Donald Trump “Interviewed” By Elon Musk On Twitter After Musk Sorts Out His Technical Issues

Posted in Commentary with tags , on August 13, 2024 by itnerd

You might remember that Elon Musk tried to organize a launch event for then presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, and that turned into a train wreck next to a dumpster fire from a tech perspective. Well, it’s happened again with current presidential candidate Donald Trump. This “interview”, note the quotes because Elon is really trying to help Trump’s floundering campaign and not ask the tough questions, started about 42 minutes late as evidenced by Tweets like this:

Now I didn’t watch the interview. Because to be frank, there’s zero need for me to do so. But if you want a recap, here’s one option, and here’s another. But back to whatever issues that Elon had getting this interview going. He said it was a cyberattack that caused his tech issues. I call BS on that. What likely happened is that the same issues that Elon had in terms of the platform being able to scale to meet the volume of people who wanted to watch the DeSantis launch reappeared here. Highlighting the fact that if you fire 90% of the people in an organization, and you don’t spend money to be able to deliver services reliability, bad things happen. But I guess it’s better for Elon’s fragile ego to blame a cyberattack rather to admit that his decisions are at the heart of what happened last night.

Regardless, what last night guarantees is that no organization will want to broadcast anything on Twitter because the platform can’t handle it. And you have to wonder if this will affect advertising on Twitter by pushing more advertisers out the door. Time will tell on that front.

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Donald Trump Screws His Own Investors By Going Back To Twitter

Posted in Commentary with tags , on August 12, 2024 by itnerd

The stock associated with Trump Media & Technology Group which is the company that owns Truth Social has been in free fall for while now. Evidenced by this:

And chances are that the stock price isn’t going to improve with this Tweet from Donald Trump.

Yes you read that correctly, I said Tweet:

He has since posted six other Tweets today. Including one hyping up the fact that he’s going to be “interviewed” by billionaire narcissist Elon Musk who thinks he’s a journalist all of a sudden. I for one will not be watching this even though it is likely to be a train wreck next to a dumpster fire as Elon’s stunts tend to end up being.

Anyway, seeing as Trump owns Truth Social, posting on a competing social media platform should be something that he should be avoiding as I assume he wants to make money from his own platform. But I’m guessing that this is a desperate attempt to gain back some ground on the Democratic ticket who have been responsible for having his poll numbers crater. But that’s just a guess. What isn’t a guess is that this move is likely to see his stock value tank more than it already has. And make his campaign more of a farce than it already is.

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Fortra Discovers A Critical Vulnerability In Windows 10 And 11

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 12, 2024 by itnerd

Cyber security company Fortra has published details about a vulnerability they discovered in Microsoft’s Windows 10 and 11.

Fortra Principal Exploit Writer Ricardo Narvaja uncovered a vulnerability in the Common Log File System (CLFS.sys) driver of Windows, caused by improper validation of specified quantities in input data. This flaw leads to an unrecoverable inconsistency, triggering the KeBugCheckEx function and resulting in a Blue Screen of Death (BSoD). The issue affects all versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11, despite having all updates applied.

This has been published on Fortra’s new Security and Trust Center page: https://www.fortra.com/security/advisories/research

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iBUYPOWER Expands Services And Product Offerings To Canada

Posted in Commentary with tags on August 12, 2024 by itnerd

iBUYPOWER has announced a major expansion of its services and product offerings for the Canadian market. As part of its 25th anniversary commitment to ensuring customer excellence, the company is now entering into several partnerships with some of Canada’s top retailers in the gaming and technology space and is celebrating these new campaigns by attending the Canadian National Exhibition 2024, commonly known as CNE, which runs from Aug. 16 to Sept. 2.

iBUYPOWER Gaming Systems Now Available Across Canadian Retailers

iBUYPOWER makes its biggest push into Canada, as while iBUYPOWER will continue to build and sell gaming systems to Canadian customers directly online, those same customers can now access, try out, and purchase new PCs directly from the country’s most popular retailers. These include currently active partners like Costco Canada andBest Buy Canada alongside other major retailers, including Staples Canada, Visions Electronics and Newegg Canada.

iBUYPOWER is celebrating this expansion by attending the Canadian National Exhibition 2024 at Booth 6215 from Aug. 16 to Sept. 2, where it will show off its latest line-up of prebuilt gaming PCs at the 2024 Gaming Garage sponsored by Intel for attendees to discover and experience.

iBUYPOWER partners with Toronto-based Distributor ASI to Support Canadian Customers

As part of its 25th anniversary plans, iBUYPOWER is further supporting Canadian iBUYPOWER PC owners who are looking to troubleshoot and diagnose issues with their system. Thanks to a collaboration with ASI, a leader in the distribution of IT products for nearly four decades, iBUYPOWER aims to further improve its customer service capabilities with expedited repairs and servicing for customer purchases whether they purchased their system from a retailer or directly from iBUYPOWER’s website starting today.

WEBSITES

To learn more about iBUYPOWER’s offerings at various retailers, please visit:

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