Wednesday 31 August 2016

VMware CEO talks up growth opportunities on back of Dell-EMC merger

With Dell set to close its acquisition of EMC on 7 September 2016, VMware CEO talks up the benefits of the deal for VMware and its customers

Security Think Tank: Blended attacks require blended defences

How can businesses best prepare their cyber defences in light of the fact that attackers are increasingly using malware designed to evade detection and analysis?

Cyber security breaches reported to ICO double in a year

An increase in cyber security incidents reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office is further evidence of the need to shift to automated, artificial intelligence-led defences, says Huntsman Security

Latest Broadband Forum spec offers faster route to gigabit speeds

The Broadband Forum’s new specifications for FTTdp management use software-based techniques to offer an easier and quicker route to gigabit broadband for comms providers

Challenger bank Fidor adopts attack formation

Computer Weekly talks to the man behind the digital challenger bank recently acquired by French retail banking giant BPCE

Evidence of DNS tunnelling in two-fifths of business networks

Cyber criminals are capitalising on the failure of many businesses to examine their DNS traffic for malware insertion and data exfiltration, according to Infoblox

IoT will help ease transition to renewables, says National Grid chief

The National Grid’s chief executive, Nicola Shaw, wants to use the internet of things to balance energy demand as the UK transitions to renewable energy sources

Tuesday 30 August 2016

Executive interview: Expanding banking through APIs

Western Union’s head of digital ventures, Khalid Fellahi, discusses how the money transfer service is embracing digitisation

Less than a third of organisations prepared for IoT security risks

The security industry needs to address the security basics with the growing number of IoT devices in corporate networks, according to security firm Tripwire

Apple faces record multibillion-euro tax penalty

Apple has been hit with a €13bn tax bill after European competition authorities ruled the company benefited from an illegal tax deal in Ireland

VMware makes case for IT's involvement in line of business cloud purchases

Cloud software company VMware claims IT departments should not fear the shift in technology buying power to line of business units, as their skills and experience will be in high demand

VMware to help enterprises manage AWS, Azure and Google cloud deployments

Virtualisation giant VMware offers enterprises a helping hand with managing multi-cloud environments, spanning AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform

Hewlett Packard Enterprise extends on-demand analytics

HPE adds a set of pre-built analytics functions on to its Haven OnDemand service to simplify business intelligence app development

Friday 26 August 2016

Forum to drive cloud adoption in the Philippines

An online forum has been set-up in the Philippines to promote cloud take-up in the country

Apple patches triple iOS security threat

Businesses and consumers are being urged to update their versions of Apple's iOS to fix three critical, zero-day vulnerabilities that enable attackers to spy on victims

EE pushes further into content delivery with Apple Music tie-up

Mobile network operator will offer six months of Apple Music free to new and upgrading customers as it expands into content provision

Law firms planning litigation market for GDPR

Businesses should be preparing for the storm of litigation that is likely to be unleashed when the GDPR goes into force, warns Stewart Room of PwC Legal

UK tech firms spend less, deliver more on training

Survey shows technology firms spend 46% of the national average on learning and development per employee, but deliver an above-average number of hours’ training

Samsung Pay used for 100 million transactions

Samsung reports that its mobile payments app, which will soon be available in the UK, has transacted 100 million payments in its first year of availability

Ramnit Trojan targeting UK banks reactivated

IBM X-Force researchers advise banks to use adaptive malware detection and real-time endpoint malware intelligence to counter the latest evolution of Ramnit banking malware

Rackspace sold to private equity house Apollo Global for $4.3bn

After weeks of speculation about its acquisition status, Rackspace confirms definitive agreement with private equity buyer

Thursday 25 August 2016

Data breaches: Different regions, very different impacts

The cost, scrutiny and pressure of dealing with a data breach will become more apparent in the near future as European legislation takes effect

UK organisations still not taking ransomware seriously

Security experts say UK organisations are not taking ransomware attacks seriously enough, after two studies reveal that tens of UK universities and NHS Trusts have been attacked

French submarine maker data breach highlights challenges of IP security

French naval contractor data breach proves that protecting intellectual property is challenging, say security experts

A quarter of financial sector data breaches linked to lost or stolen devices

Financial sector breaches in the US doubled in 2015 over the year before, according to a report by security firm Bitglass

Apple iPhones plagued by device failure and crashing apps, report claims

A report on mobile device performance produced by Blancco Technology Group says the performance of Apple iPhones is flagging compared with Android-based devices

Wednesday 24 August 2016

There is life in Finland’s IT sector despite Nokia and Microsoft layoffs

Regional development organisations in Finland describe how despite massive job cuts Nokia and Microsoft have provided the foundations for IT industry development

Zahid Group uses ERP to revolutionise business

As Saudi Arabia sets out to diversify its economy away from oil, the kingdom’s companies are undergoing rapid transformation

Singapore models entire country in 3D with smart map

Singapore authorities are creating 3D maps of the entire country to help organisations in the public and private sector make better planning decisions.

UK second only to US in DDoS attacks

Distributed denial of service attacks on UK organisations have eased from a peak in the fourth quarter of 2015, but the UK remains the world’s second most targeted country

CW@50: Bugs, blunders and bad practices

Computer Weekly’s arrival on September 22, 1966 reflected a growing global industry and the hopes for British computing

London datacentre market enjoys pre-Brexit surge in demand for colocation space

CBRE's pre-Brexit look at the European datacentre market sees London reap the benefits of a surge in demand for colocation space during the second quarter

Tuesday 23 August 2016

Apache Spark grows in popularity as Hadoop-based data lakes fill up

Apache Spark is growing in popularity and finding real-time use across Europe, including in online betting and on railways, and with Hadoop

Tools of the trade to drill into behavioural data

Data science toolkits enable organisations to extract, manipulate and interpret data to boost their business intelligence

European law enforcement seeking smart ways to fight cyber crime

Cyber crime continues to increase in volume and sophistication, but European law enforcement is fighting back, using collaboration and industry partnerships to compensate for a lack of resources

DWP digital experts brought in to help assess plans for Government Digital Service

The new GDS chief Kevin Cunnington has turned to his former DWP colleagues to help as he prepares his plans for the team

Mixed reaction to Anderson review of bulk surveillance powers

While the Anderson review’s recommendation of a technical advisory panel has been welcomed, human rights groups say the opportunity to move to more targeted surveillance has been missed

How Middle East CIOs can steer business strategy

The perception of the role of CIO at organisations in the Middle East is gradually shifting from back-end support to business enabler

Australian census website failure spreads skepticism

The public post-mortem of the Australian census website meltdown continues as the IT industry gives its opinions

Bangkok Hospital recognised for its use of electronic records

Private hospital in Thailand is recognised for its effective use of IT by a global accreditation body

Microsoft and Lenovo deepen strategic ties

Microsoft announces another cross-licensing deal that will see its software pre-installed on millions of Android devices

Aviva partners with Silicon Valley accelerator to kick-start innovation

Insurance firm Aviva is partnering with Silicon Valley startup accelerator Plug and Play to gain access to new innovations

Cyber criminals target holiday-related P2P media platforms

Cyber criminals capitalise on the popularity of holiday-related media sites to spread malware

400 security events a second monitored on Olympics network

IT records as well as sporting records were set at the recent Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro

Trend Micro confirms rise of ransomware and whaling

Ransomware is confirmed as a pervasive threat and whaling emerges as a strong trend, according to the latest security report by Trend Micro

Friday 19 August 2016

Intel Developer Forum: Silicon Photonics boosts datacentre connectivity

Microsoft Azure datacentres increase connectivity to 100Gbps thanks to Silicon Photonics interconnect

Mobile phone sales drop as smartphone buyers bide their time

Slowing smartphone shipments contributed to an overall decline in mobile phone sales during the second three months of 2016, according to Gartner

Cisco confirms 5,500 lay-offs amid restructuring

Networking giant has confirmed it will cut more than 5,500 jobs in an effort to trim the fat in low-growth business areas and enhance its performance elsewhere

Three years left to prep UK’s mobile network infrastructure for 5G

The UK’s mobile networking infrastructure needs a radical overhaul to get ready for the first 5G mobile networks, says O2 CTO Brendan O’Reilly

BT and Nokia to work together on 5G research

BT and Nokia plan to work together on customer use cases, proof of concept trials, technology standards and equipment to support 5G

Australian 2016 census sabotage puts a question mark on private cloud

Industry experts question why the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ website for the 2016 census, which recently underwent a DDoS attack, was not run on public cloud

Number of students taking computing A-level rises but ICT popularity falls

Government describes rise in computing student numbers as encouraging, but boys still dominate tech subjects

Isaca holds first online infosec career fair

Information professionals’ organisation Isaca is to hold an online career fair to give cyber security job seekers direct access to employer organisations

Police arrest woman in connection with Sage data breach

A woman has been arrested on suspicion of fraud in connection with a data breach at accounting software firm Sage

Expect ransomware arrests soon, says bitcoin tracking firm Chainalysis

Law enforcement organisations are set to ramp up arrests of cyber criminals behind ransomware attacks, according to financial technology startup Chainalysis

No alternative to bulk surveillance powers, says Anderson report

The government welcomes a review of the controversial Investigatory Powers Bill that found there is no viable alternative to the bulk data collection powers proposed by the bill

Wednesday 17 August 2016

HPE boosts MSA and StoreVirtual with sub-$10,000 flash storage options

HPE launches new StoreVirtual 3200 entry-level array that can cost as little as $6,000, plus the SME-focused MSA 2042 array which has 800GB of flash embedded

Interview: Delivering the facts about Stem careers

Edwina Dunn, chair of the Your Life campaign, says the tech industry must work harder to make students aware of Stem careers if it hopes to recruit more young people

Cisco to cut one-fifth of its global workforce

Company reportedly plans to cut up to 14,000 jobs as it shifts focus from networking hardware to software and cloud-based systems

Ford promises to mass-produce an autonomous car by 2021

The world’s first high-volume, fully autonomous vehicle will operate in a ride-hailing or sharing service by 2021, says Ford

Intel Developer Forum: Out of the server room and onto smart devices

Augmented reality and building intelligence into IoT endpoints were among the highlights at Intel’s annual conference

Cyber attack recovery 300% dearer due to skills shortage

The improvement of specialist security expertise is one of the top three drivers for an additional investment in IT security, but many struggle to find people with the skills they need, a report reveals

Tuesday 16 August 2016

Cerber ransomware service reaps $195,000 profit in a month

Franchises such as Cerber are making highly profitable ransomware available to a broader range of cyber criminals, according to a report by security firm Check Point

TfL’s 24-hour tube API retains app compatiblity

TfL extends its open data API to support London’s 24-hour tube service, with TfL saying the API won’t break existing apps

Sunday 14 August 2016

Nordic CIO interview: Johan Tömmervik, SKF

Johan Tömmervik, CIO of Swedish-founded bearing and seal manufacturer SKF, tells Computer Weekly about the challenge of creating services for a diverse customer base

It’s not too late to turn the tide on Investigatory Powers Bill

The government has set David Anderson QC an almost impossible task in his review of the sweeping bulk powers proposed in the Investigatory Powers Bill – but it is not too late to make a difference

IDC: Global public cloud spend set to double by 2020

Market watcher predicts use of public cloud will soar over the next five years, with IaaS and PaaS leading the way

Google Fiber to expand tests of gigabit-speed wireless broadband

Google Fiber plans to expand tests of wireless broadband to accelerate the roll-out of low-cost superfast internet across the US

Saturday 13 August 2016

Care charity Avante enhances unified communications capabilities with 3CX

Kent-based residential care charity Avante Care and Support installed an IP PBX to manage telephony across multiple sites and a mobile workforce

Government announces digital apprenticeship service as part of apprenticeship levy guidelines

The government has released guidelines for the upcoming apprenticeship levy, including how businesses can access funds to train apprentices

Rackspace divests Cloud Sites as managed cloud services take off

Rackspace offloads ‘non-core’ Cloud Sites business as speculation about its future as a public company continues

Choosing the right colocation provider

Quocirca's Clive Longbottom runs through the list of items enterprise IT managers should look for in prospective colocation providers

Prisons to get power to remotely pull plug on illicit mobile phones

The Home Office is to give prisons in the UK new powers to cut off illicit use of mobile phones by inmates

Friday 12 August 2016

IT departments fear they lack skills to implement IoT

Adoption of IoT systems in enterprises is being held back by worries over skills, says a joint report by Capita and Cisco

Security pros split on government access to cloud data, survey shows

Despite rapid cloud services adoption, security and compliance concerns revolving around inappropriate use or access of sensitive cloud data continue to loom large, a survey has revealed

Nimble adds to all-flash arrays with entry-level AF1000

Nimble made its debut in all-flash in February 2016, but now adds an entry-level array, the AF1000, plus upgrades to its hybrid flash array products that up performance and capacity

Newcastle and Gateshead take public Wi-Fi network to the streets

Newcastle and Gateshead councils have extended their public Wi-Fi network for a further 10 years with assistance from BT and the government

Russia competition watchdog fines Google $6.8m over Android

As Google faces a fine of around $3bn for anti-competitive practices in Europe, Russian authorities have ordered the internet giant to pay $6.8m for abusing its dominant position with Android device makers

Financial cyber attacks increase as malware writers join forces

Financial malware attacks increased 16% in the second quarter of the year, driven by collaboration between the developers of two banking Trojans in the top the financial malware threats, says Kaspersky Lab

Wednesday 10 August 2016

UK well-equipped to protect data after Brexit, says new ICO head

The public sector, industry, civil society and the public at large all have a role to play in effective data protection regulation, says new UK information commissioner Elizabeth Denham

Security Think Tank: Forget Brexit, use GDPR to foster customer relationships

What are the pros and cons of Brexit for information security professionals and data protection?

Tuesday 9 August 2016

IT failure grounds Delta flights worldwide

US airline Delta has temporarily grounded flights worldwide after a power failure took key IT systems offline in its home base of Atlanta, Georgia

Australians vent census privacy concerns

The Australian census has triggered a privacy debate after it emerged that the citizen data it collects will be held for years

Affluent Singapore middle class turn to banking apps

Banks in Singapore risk losing customers if they fail to keep pace with the digital preferences of the affluent middle class in the country

Gen-Z visit stores to ‘validate’ product purchases

The younger generation are using physical stores to test out items before making a purchase, according to research by Vodat

Oracle Micros breach highlights PoS and supply chain security risks

Oracle Micros breach shows supply chain and point of sale systems continue to be popular avenues of attack for cyber criminals

Global infosec spending to reach £63bn in 2016, says Gartner

Athough security spending is moving to detection and response, Gartner expects preventive security to continue strong growth

E8 launches D24 NVMe PCIe SSD-based all-flash arrays

Startup E8 aims at high-end use cases with arrays built from commodity NVMe PCIe flash drives and performance figures that rival EMC’s high-end DSSD D5 rackscale flash

Monday 8 August 2016

900 million Android devices vulnerable to attackers

Enterprises and individuals need to install security updates for all devices with vulnerable Qualcomm chip drivers if they want to ensure attackers can‘t take control of them, warns Check Point

Security Think Tank: Brexit – An opportunity to clean house

What are the pros and cons of Brexit for information security professionals and data protection?

Tech for good’s Cast awarded £1m to give charities digital aid

The Centre for Acceleration of Social Technology (Cast) has been awarded £1.12m by the Big Lottery Fund to help charities build digital solutions

Head: Digital transformation needs mainframe DevOps

As organisations become more digital, CIOs must consider how best to tap into data held in mainframes

CityFibre nears end of Edinburgh fibre broadband roll-out

Urban fibre broadband supplier CityFibre is nearing the end of a 12-month, 150km network dig in Edinburgh, its largest project to date

Saturday 6 August 2016

Banner Health cyber breach underlines need for faster intrusion detection

A data breach at Banner Health has highlighted the importance of intrusion detection and prompted calls for greater cyber security investment in the increasingly targeted healthcare industry

Svitzer Marine tracks tugboats with 4G ship-to-shore Wi-Fi

Maersk-owned tugboat operator Svitzer Marine has deployed Cradlepoint rugged networking solutions to support its fleet operations in ports around the world

RBS abandons IT project for hiving off 300+ bank branches

RBS has abandoned a project to create an IT platform to support the sell-off of more than 300 bank branches

Rackspace ‘on brink’ of sale to private equity house – report

Reports suggest managed cloud company could be sold in a matter of days, ending its time as a publicly listed company

Singapore’s DBS Bank signs up to Amazon cloud

The latest move in the cloud journey of DBS bank in Singapore is an agreement with Amazon Web Services

Context warns of VoIP wars at Black Hat USA

A lack of understanding of modern VoIP and unified communications security opens many service providers and businesses to cyber attack, a Context IS researcher warns at Black Hat USA

Slow broadband causes widespread stress, campaigners claim

A report compiled for the ISP-led Fix Britain’s Internet campaign has said that millions of people are experiencing stress and anxiety because of slow and unreliable broadband

Security Think Tank: Infosec should not focus on Brexit at the expense of the here and now

What are the pros and cons of Brexit for information security professionals and data protection?

Friday 5 August 2016

How Action for Children improved IT service delivery

Children's charity Action for Children has rolled out Citrix remote access on tablets and is using ITIL to drive IT efficiencies

British breakthrough for IoT- based business applications this year

Internet of things-based business applications could be mainstream tools in the UK by the end of this year

Italian-based Android RAT spies on mobiles in Japan and China, say researchers

Researchers discover an Italian-based Android RAT designed for spying that is targeting mobile devices using their unique identification codes

Artificial intelligence takes centre stage in cyber security

Artificial intelligence-led cyber security technology has been in the spotlight at two major industry conferences in Las Vegas, signalling a firm trend in cyber defence research

Thursday 4 August 2016

Gap between biggest and smallest cloud infrastructure firms is growing

Synergy Research Group's second-quarter cloud infrastructure services tracker reveals that the gap between the market's biggest and smallest players is getting wider

Government awards blockchain G-cloud contract to startup Credits

The government awards a contract to startup firm Credits to supply public services with blockchain platform as a service

MTR Crossrail overcomes tech hurdles to roll out beacons

Rail operator deploys one of Europe’s largest beacon roll-outs across its stations to accommodate new audit and driver apps

One in five businesses hit by ransomware are forced to close, study shows

More than half of UK companies have been hit by ransomware in the past year, a study on the impacts of this popular attack method has revealed

Ofcom comms survey shows changing nature of UK network use

Brits are spending more time online than ever before, according to Ofcom’s annual Communications Market Report

Why Asean SMBs increasingly opt for SaaS

Region is seeing a rapid take-up of cloud-based business software driven by SMBs and large firms expanding in Southeast Asia

Bitcoin exchange hack highlights security weaknesses

The breach of the Bitfinex bitcoin exchange highlights the need to follow best practices and to improve security around exchanges and wallets, say security experts

Wednesday 3 August 2016

Sky suffers national broadband outage

Nationwide service outage has affected users of Sky’s fibre-based broadband services

Saudi Telecom Company builds out NFV capabilities

Operator continues roll-out of network function virtualisation-based services as networking trend sweeps Gulf region

Nordic CIO interview: Liv Fiksdahl, DNB

CIO of Norwegian bank tells Computer Weekly how Indian outsourcing partners help her keep costs down and digitise the business

Threat intelligence key to fighting cyber crime, says CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike develops new cyber crime intelligence services by studying the ecosystem and tools that enable criminals to set up and run their cyber attack operations

Ransomware is a mature business model for cyber criminals, says report

Ransomware is now an established business model for cyber criminals as malware increasingly uses evasion techniques, second quarter research by PhishMe reveals

Swedish fuel supplier replaces multiple systems with single ERP application to free up IT

Preem is in the middle of a project that will see it replace about 40 business systems with off-the-shelf ERP

MI5 wrongly told staff it was exempt from privacy safeguards

Security service MI5 carried out a rearguard attempt to avoid requirements to seek independent approval for accessing the public’s internet, web, email and phone records

Windows 10 Anniversary Update ramps up Defender security

Microsoft has added a full biometrics-powered password manager to support website authentication

Linux botnets on the rise, says Kaspersky DDoS report

DDoS attack data collected by Kaspersky Lab shows a greater proportion of attacks are coming from hijacked Linux servers and attacks are tending to last longer

Hacker attacks following Verizon purchase of Yahoo

A hacker has claimed to have stolen 200 million user account details from Yahoo

DDoS attack disrupts 123 Reg services despite DDoS protection

UK domain name and hosting service hit by distributed denial of service attack, underling the importance of adequate mitigation systems

Monday 1 August 2016

Canadian government reveals ‘right cloud’ adoption strategy for public sector organisations

Government plans G-Cloud-like resource to help public sector CIOs procure cloud services more easily

A day in the life of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal

Britain's most secretive court combined the surreal with the deadly serious, as it debated the legality of bulk data collection by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ

Uber plans own Google Maps amid merger with rival in China

Uber forges ahead with own digital mapping project as it cuts its losses in China by merging with local rival Didi Chuxing

Take the initiative on digitisation

We look at what is available to help businesses further digitise their operations to improve service, efficiency and profit