Week Commencing 12th December
There is no guessing what the big news of this week’s brief was going to be, however, it highlights how the cyber criminals are taking no mercy even in the festive season. This week’s article highlights and summarises some of the biggest and best news from the industry.
One Billion affected by Yahoo hack
Yahoo has announced that over one billion user accounts may have been affected by a hacking attack that happened 3 years ago in 2013. The data that was stolen was names, phone numbers, email addresses, passwords but not bank details or payment data.
The breach was uncovered as part of continuing investigations by authorities and security experts into the 2014 attack on the same company. Although bad luck, this breach is thought to be different to the 2014 attack.
Cyber Security expert Troy Hunt told the BBC: “This would be far and away the largest data breach we’ve ever seen. In fact, the 500 million they reported a few months ago would have been, and to now see that number now doubled in unprecedented”.
If you are a Yahoo user, it may be time to reset your password and check your account!
To read the full article, click here.
Joe Baguley Define’s Tomorrow
Joe Baguley is Chief Technical Officer EMEA and Vice-President for VMware, although he jokingly also refers to himself as the ‘Chief Talking Officer’ as this seems to be the most pivotal part of what his role involves.
We caught up with Joe after our Define Tomorrow™ event where he gave a keynote speech discussing virtualisation and how ease of use for the end-user must be the first priority when it comes to designing enterprise-level software.
So, Joe. What would you say are the biggest challenges facing IT departments today? And how can they be alleviated?
“That’s a big question! I think keeping up with users is the biggest challenge, it used to be keeping up with the business but times have changed.”
It terms of security, is it always the user who is the weakest link?
“Most definitely, it’s humans who are the weakest link. The majority of major security breaches you see, are human hacking of some sort. So, what you’re looking at now, is the fact that we used to trust users – but now we need to not trust users in the same way.”
This is obviously a Define Tomorrow™ event, but rather than tomorrow what about next year? What will we be talking about at the next in 12 months time?
“Haha, if I told you that I’d have to kill you! I think there will be a lot more conversations about how the emergence of AI is affecting our industry.”
To read the full interview with Joe and to watch his keynote presentation from Define Tomorrow, click here.
AWS opens UK datacentre region to meet “pent-up” demand for locally-hosted cloud
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has confirmed the long-awaited opening of it UK datacentre region, paving the way for enterprises across the across the country to start using its locally-hosted cloud offerings.
Gavin Jackson, MD at AWS for the UK and Ireland said “In the UK, we have more than 100,000 customers using AWS from other European regions, and we know there has been pent-up demand for certain types of applications they’ve been waiting for the UK region to come online for”.
These applications might have specific data soverignty or latency requirements that cannot be met using existing geographical regions.
To read the full article, click here.
AppSense CTO, Simon Townsend Interview
Simon Townsend is AppSense’s Chief Technologist and an all round expert when it comes to the management of physical, virtual and cloud based environments.
We picked his brains for a few minutes following his presentation at Define Tomorrow™ on things ranging from security to desktop transformation.
What would you say are the biggest challenges facing IT departments today?
“That’s a great question. I think there’s two things in fact. I think first of all the rate of change at the moment from a technological point of view is causing IT and organisations a really big challenge.”
In terms of security, is the greatest weakness always the end-user?
“I think today yes, it is the user. It’s the end-point and the user who are the weakest link. I think we need to look at that now from a slightly different angle, because technology can help secure an end point for example.”
What do you think we will be talking about at events like this in 12 months time?
“I think visibility is going to continue to be a key point within any organisation, as users become far more mobile and we start to use more devices, user-based analytics and business information will become important so we’ll be talking about that.”
To read the full interview and to watch Simon’s keynote presentation from Define Tomorrow, click here.
Microsoft to offer cloud users private network connections to UK datacentres
Microsoft cloud users in the UK can now access the software giant’s locally hosted, off-premise services via a private network connection to its datacentres.
The firm’s Azure ExpressRoute and PSN/N3 connectivity feature means Microsoft cloud users can opt out of having to rely on public internet connections to access services hosted in its UK datacentres.
Cindy Rose, CEO of Microsoft UK, said the launch is part of the company’s commitment to help shape the UK’s technology landscape. “We’ve been part of the UK’s tech landscape for over 30 years and we’re proud of the way this country leads the world in embracing technology and new ideas,” she said.
To read the full article, click here.
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