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    in Networking

    Boost Mobile to stay on Telstra network for another decade

    Boost Mobile will stay on the Telstra network in Australia for another 10 years, the company announced on Thursday. Saying it doubled its customer base in “recent years”, the virtual operator added the new deal would allow it to expand into postpaid mobile, mobile broadband, and NBN plans. “This is a major moment in Boost Mobile’s history as we further expand our longstanding relationship with Telstra,” Boost Mobile founder Peter Adderton said. “It has never been more important to have fighting brands like Boost Mobile in the industry, and today’s renewal and new benefits of this agreement will allow us to fight for the consumer on a whole new level. It will enable us to offer consumers more choice in more areas of the market than ever before.” In September last year, Boost Mobile killed off its international roaming option; it was one of the few virtual operators to offer that functionality. At the time, Boost said it was re-designing its roaming package, and would have a new product in the middle of 2021. However, given the continuing pandemic and delta surges leading to recent lockdowns across Australia, notwithstanding the nation’s borders not being open, Boost now has more time to ponder its changes. In November, Optus announced it was paying AU$250 million for Amaysim and its remaining mobile business, as well announcing it would launch its Singtel parent digital-only brand Gomo in Australia.

    Elsewhere on Thursday, TPG announced it would be boosting the capacity of its PPC-1 Australia to Guam subsea cable to 12Tbps. The cable has two fibre pairs covering 7,000 kilometres with repeaters around 92 kilometres apart. “We are increasing the capacity of this vital international link by 50% to meet the growing data requirements of our customers, which is being driven by booming demand for cloud computing and video streaming,” TPG Telecom executive general manager for mobile and fixed networks Barry Kezik said. TPG will be using Infinera kit for the upgrade. Earlier in the week, Hawaiki announced it sold itself to Singapore-based BW Group. The sale price was not disclosed. “Three years after Hawaiki’s commercial launch, it is time to write a new chapter of the company’s history and we believe BW is an ideal shareholder for this fast-growing business,” executive chairman of Hawaiki Rémi Galasso said. More telco coverage More

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    in Information Technology

    Hackers breach UC San Diego hospital, gaining access to SSNs and medical info of patients, employees, and students

    UC San Diego Health released a notice this week announcing that they suffered a breach that gave cyberattackers widespread access to information about patients, students and employees. UC San Diego Health’s executive director of communications and media relations Jacqueline Carr confirmed to ZDNet that the breach resulted from a phishing attack. From December 2, 2020 to April 8, 2021, hackers had access to data including names, addresses, claims information, laboratory results, medical diagnosis and conditions, Medical Record Numbers and other medical identifiers, prescription information, treatment information, medical information, Social Security numbers, government identification numbers, payment card numbers or financial account numbers and security codes, student ID numbers, and usernames and passwords.In an FAQ attached to the notice, the hospital said it discovered suspicious activity on March 12 but it took until April 8 for its security team to officially identify it as “a security matter.”The statement said the hackers gained control of employee email accounts for weeks before UC San Diego Health discovered the breach, terminated the accounts and contacted the FBI. A cybersecurity company is still investigating the incident and UC San Diego Health said the review will finish in September. “In addition to using sophisticated tools to parse and search the data, UC San Diego Health is also conducting a manual review of the affected data. This is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process that involves hundreds of hours of detailed review and analysis,” the hospital said.  “In addition to notifying individuals whose personal information may have been involved, UC San Diego Health has taken remediation measures which have included, among other steps, changing employee credentials, disabling access points, and enhancing our security processes and procedures.”

    The academic health system of the University of California, San Diego said it will send notices to the students, employees, and patients whose personal information was contained in the accounts by September 30. The hospital will offer free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services through Experian IdentityWorks for one year. A call center has been created for those who may be concerned about their information. Those affected can call 1-855-797-1160 from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. PT Monday through Friday and from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PT Saturday and Sunday. Questions about the incident can also be sent to iscommunication@health.ucsd.edu.The statement from UC San Diego Health also took time to deny that this breach was connected to the Accellion file transfer appliance vulnerability, which led to dozens of cyberattacks. This is not the first time UC San Diego Health has had to inform patients about a breach. In 2018, the hospital told 619 patients that their data was accessed after an attack on Nuance Communications, a third-party medical transcription provider. More

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    Qualcomm fiscal Q3 results beat expectations, says 'very happy' with Apple relationship

    Mobile chip giant Qualcomm this afternoon reported Q4 revenue and profit that topped analysts’ expectations, and an outlook for the current quarter that was higher as well. The report sent Qualcomm shares up 3% in late trading. CEO Cristiano Amon remarked that “in addition to leading the 5G transition,” Qualcomm is “on pace to deliver $10 billion of annual revenues across RF front-end, IoT and Automotive as our business continues to diversify.”Added Amon, “Our solutions are fueling the connected intelligent edge that is enabling the cloud economy, and we are seeing unprecedented demand for our technologies as the pace of digital transformation accelerates.”Qualcomm reaffirmed its existing view for the cellular market outlook: “For calendar 2021, we are maintaining our forecast for high single-digit-growth for global 3G/4G/5G handsets, with an upward bias to 5G forecast of 450 to 550 million 5G handset shipments.”During the conference call with analysts Wednesday evening, Amon was asked about the risk of Apple displacing Qualcomm’s modem chip with Apple’s in-house chip. Said Amon, “We’re very happy with a relationship with Apple. We’re just on their first phone. We have other phones to go, and we’re very happy with the way things are progressing.”Revenue in the three months ended in June rose 63%, year over year, to $7.99 billion, yielding a net profit of $1.92 a share, excluding some costs.

    Analysts had been modeling $7.53 billion and $1.91 per share. The adjusted, non-GAAP revenue number excludes Qualcomm’s QSI, or “Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives,” segment, which the company plans to divest.Within the results, sales from Qualcomm’s chip business, “QCT,” rose 70%, year over year, to $6.47 billion, while revenue from the licensing division, “QTL,” rose by 43% to $1.5 billion. Qualcomm’s sales into handsets rose 57% to $3.86 billion. The company attributed the rise to “the adoption of our 5G products in premium and high-tier devcies across all major OEMs.”Sales of radio frequency “front-end” chips more than doubled to $957 million. Sales into the automotive market and sales into the IoT market both rose by 83%, to $253 million and $1.4 billion, respectively, The IoT revenue was $100 million higher than Qualcomm had forecast. On the IoT front, Qualcomm said sales benefitted from “demand across consumer, edge networking and industrial platforms,” including, on the consumer side, emerging products such as XR, meaning, “extended reality,” including VR, and consumer wearables. In addition, the buildout of edge networking, including mobile broadband contributed, said Qualcomm, including “Continued momentum driven by the enterprise transformation of the home and the second wave of enterprise demand driven by return to the workplace” and “a rapid adoption of Wi-Fi 6 and increased demand for both 4G and 5G mobile broadband devices.” Industrial uses of IoT, via 5G, is just getting underway, the company said. For the current quarter, the company sees revenue of $8.4 billion to $9.2 billion, and EPS in a range of $2.15 to $2.53. That compares to consensus for $8.46 billion and $2.03 profit per share.That includes $7 billion to $7.5 billion of QCT chip sales.  

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    Qualcomm fiscal Q3 revenue, EPS beat expectations, outlook higher, shares rise

    Mobile chip giant Qualcomm this afternoon reported Q4 revenue and profit that topped analysts’ expectations, and an outlook for the current quarter that was higher as well. The report sent Qualcomm shares up 3% in late trading. CEO Cristiano Amon remarked that “in addition to leading the 5G transition,” Qualcomm is “on pace to deliver $10 billion of annual revenues across RF front-end, IoT and Automotive as our business continues to diversify.”Added Amon, “Our solutions are fueling the connected intelligent edge that is enabling the cloud economy, and we are seeing unprecedented demand for our technologies as the pace of digital transformation accelerates.”Qualcomm reaffirmed its existing view for the cellular market outlook: “For calendar 2021, we are maintaining our forecast for high single-digit-growth for global 3G/4G/5G handsets, with an upward bias to 5G forecast of 450 to 550 million 5G handset shipments.”During the conference call with analysts Wednesday evening, Amon was asked about the risk of Apple displacing Qualcomm’s modem chip with Apple’s in-house chip. Said Amon, “We’re very happy with a relationship with Apple. We’re just on their first phone. We have other phones to go, and we’re very happy with the way things are progressing.”Revenue in the three months ended in June rose 63%, year over year, to $7.99 billion, yielding a net profit of $1.92 a share, excluding some costs.

    Analysts had been modeling $7.53 billion and $1.91 per share. The adjusted, non-GAAP revenue number excludes Qualcomm’s QSI, or “Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives,” segment, which the company plans to divest.Within the results, sales from Qualcomm’s chip business, “QCT,” rose 70%, year over year, to $6.47 billion, while revenue from the licensing division, “QTL,” rose by 43% to $1.5 billion. Qualcomm’s sales into handsets rose 57% to $3.86 billion. The company attributed the rise to “the adoption of our 5G products in premium and high-tier devcies across all major OEMs.”Sales of radio frequency “front-end” chips more than doubled to $957 million. Sales into the automotive market and sales into the IoT market both rose by 83%, to $253 million and $1.4 billion, respectively, The IoT revenue was $100 million higher than Qualcomm had forecast. On the IoT front, Qualcomm said sales benefitted from “demand across consumer, edge networking and industrial platforms,” including, on the consumer side, emerging products such as XR, meaning, “extended reality,” including VR, and consumer wearables. In addition, the buildout of edge networking, including mobile broadband contributed, said Qualcomm, including “Continued momentum driven by the enterprise transformation of the home and the second wave of enterprise demand driven by return to the workplace” and “a rapid adoption of Wi-Fi 6 and increased demand for both 4G and 5G mobile broadband devices.” Industrial uses of IoT, via 5G, is just getting underway, the company said. For the current quarter, the company sees revenue of $8.4 billion to $9.2 billion, and EPS in a range of $2.15 to $2.53. That compares to consensus for $8.46 billion and $2.03 profit per share.That includes $7 billion to $7.5 billion of QCT chip sales.  

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    in Information Technology

    Biden orders CISA and NIST to develop cybersecurity performance goals for critical infrastructure

    President Joe Biden signed a memorandum on Wednesday addressing cybersecurity for critical infrastructure, ordering CISA and NIST to create benchmarks for organizations managing critical infrastructure.The move builds on, and formalizes, an effort started in April around securing industrial control systems, which are now facing a barrage of attacks from both cybercriminals and state-backed entities. In a press briefing, a senior administration official explained that federal cybersecurity regulation in the US is sectoral, noting that the country has “a patchwork of sector-specific statutes that have been adopted piecemeal, typically in response to discrete security threats in particular sectors that gained public attention.” The official added that there is no strategic, coordinated requirement for the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure.  “To the extent, as I noted, there are mandatory cybersecurity requirements. They’re either sector specific — finance and chemical; they’re mandated under state or local law, like electricity ones; or they’re limited and piecemeal — water and bulk electricity are two that we’ve put a lot of work into studying in the last few weeks,” the official said. “So, our current posture is woefully insufficient given the evolving threat we face today. We really kicked the can down the road for a long time. The administration is committed to leveraging every authority we have, though limited, and we’re also open to new approaches, both voluntary and mandatory. Responsible critical infrastructure owners and operators should be following voluntary guidance as well as mandatory requirements in order to ensure that the critical services the American people rely on are protected from cyber threats.”The memorandum formalizes the Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative, which the White House said was a “voluntary, collaborative effort between the federal government and the critical infrastructure community to significantly improve the cybersecurity of these critical systems.”

    The first part of the initiative started with the electricity subsector, according to a statement from the White House. The pilot will now start a second round on natural gas pipelines. Water systems, as well as wastewater sector systems and the chemical sector will be next. The senior administration officials said the effort has already led to over 150 electricity utilities representing almost 90 million residential customers deploying or agreeing to deploy control system cybersecurity technologies.”These are the technologies that, had they been in place, would have blocked what occurred at Colonial Pipeline in that they connect the operational technology side of the network to the IT side of the network. The action plan for natural gas pipelines is underway, and additional initiatives for other sectors will follow later this year,” the official said. The White House acknowledged that each organization has different cybersecurity needs but it ordered CISA and NIST to work together on creating cybersecurity baselines “that are consistent across all critical infrastructure sectors,” and “security controls for select critical infrastructure that is dependent on control systems.”DHS has until September 22 to release the preliminary guidelines and one year to issue the final draft of the rules. The sector-specific rules will also be released within one year. “These performance goals should serve as clear guidance to owners and operators about cybersecurity practices and postures that the American people can trust and should expect for such essential services,” the memorandum said.  “That effort may also include an examination of whether additional legal authorities would be beneficial to enhancing the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, which is vital to the American people and the security of our Nation.”A report by cybersecurity researchers at Trend Micro earlier this month warned that ransomware is “a concerning and rapidly evolving threat to industrial control systems endpoints globally” with a significant rise in activity during the past year. Of all countries covered in the report, the US has the most instances of ransomware affecting industrial control systems. The White House said almost 90 percent of critical infrastructure in the US is owned and operated by the private sector.Recent attacks on Colonial Pipeline and meat processor JBS prompted the federal government to get serious about forcing cybersecurity measures on private companies running critical systems. The White House specifically mentioned both ransomware attacks as reasons why more stringent measures were needed.DHS unveiled a new security directive a week ago that forces owners and operators of important pipelines to put tougher cybersecurity protections in place. The memorandum comes one day after Biden caused a minor stir with his comments about the ability of a cyber conflict to turn into a physical war. “You know, we’ve seen how cyber threats, including ransomware attacks, increasingly are able to cause damage and disruption to the real world,” Biden told reporters on Tuesday. “I can’t guarantee this, and you’re as informed as I am, but I think it’s more likely we’re going to end up — well, if we end up in a war, a real shooting war with a major power, it’s going to be as a consequence of a cyber breach of great consequence. And it’s increasing exponentially — the capabilities.” More

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    Desktop as a service: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow

    When I started using computers, my computer was an IBM 360 mainframe, and I worked with it using a 3270 terminal. I was very lucky. My alternative was to do all my work with 80-column IBM Hollerith-style punch cards. Then, CP/ M, Apple, and IBM PCs starting in the late 70s and early 80s, changed everything. Computing power moved from distant DEC PDP-11 and VAX mini-computers IBM Big Iron to your desktop.  Forty years later, your IT work is moving more. This time, it’s moving from your PC to cloud-based Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) offerings such as Windows 365 and Chrome OS.

    I know some of you hate this idea. Too bad. With Microsoft and Google both backing their own distinct takes on DaaS, tomorrow’s desktop will be living mostly on the cloud and not on top of your desk. That said, the idea never really went away. After company, such as Sun and Oracle with the Sun Ray, company after company tried to keep remote desktops alive while  Lantronix, Aten, and Raritan are all still producing keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM) over IP that enables you to run multiple remote machines from your desktop. Other approaches, such as thin-client computing, which runs off a central server’s resources, still live on. For example, Dell will still happily sell you Wyse Thin Client hardware. Heck, you can still even buy dumb terminals, such as the ADM-3A, Televideo 922, and my beloved DEC VT-102, if you look for one hard enough. Why? Because much as you may love your PC, many managers still love the idea of central control. Rather than trust you with a $1000 PC on your desk, which at any moment you may infect with malware or waste your day on playing Fortnite, they’d rather you spent your time securely working on your spreadsheet. You know, if we’re honest, they have a point. And so it is that from terminals to Windows 365, the DaaS lives on. Now, let’s take a closer look at how this has, is now, and will play on in the future.YesterdayBack when I sunk my teeth into computing, dumb terminals were all we had. And, compared to flipping switches and feeding cards into an IBM 1442 card reader and hole punch, they were much better. Even my TI-Silent 700, a dumb terminal that used a built-in dot matrix printer and heat-sensitive paper for its “interface”, was an improvement over cards. Today dumb terminals live in businesses and agencies that will never, ever pay their technical debt. The IRS, for example, still uses, when I last checked, some dumb terminals for its antique COBOL programs running on equally old IBM mainframes. 

    Good news, though! The IRS hopes to have modernized its systems by 2026. And, you wonder why your tax refunds are late! But, except for dinosaurs like the IRS, we’re never going back to dumb terminals.With the rise of fat graphical desktop operating systems such as Windows and OS/2, you might have thought that remote computing would have shrunk to almost nothing. You’d be wrong.As early as 1989, former IBM operating system guru Ed Iacobucci decided it would be possible even with networks limited to 10Mbps to run Windows remotely. So he founded Citrix to see if he could make this idea pay. He did.Rather than fight with Microsoft, Iacobucci partnered with the guys from Redmond to make sure its remote desktop take on MS-DOS and Windows would work. And, he also wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be overwhelmed by Microsoft in a legal battle. It worked. In 1992, Iacobucci persuaded Microsoft to license Citrix technology for Windows NT Server 4.0. This led to Microsoft’s first remote desktop product: Windows Terminal Server Edition.Unlike many companies, which tried to partner with Microsoft, Citrix was and still is successful. Today, with products such as Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and Citrix Managed Desktops, Citrix is still profiting from its approach to remote Windows desktops to the tune of several billion dollars a year.While Citrix was winning by partnering with Microsoft, Oracle took a very different approach, thin-client computing. This would fail for Oracle, but the concept of thin-client computing lives on. In 1993, Tim Negris, then Oracle’s VP of Server Marketing, and Larry Ellison, Oracle’s God-King CEO, came up with the term “thin client” to described dedicated terminals with more local smarts than a dumb terminal, but which still relied on a server for their real computing power. Such systems, which were also called network computers. Thin clients still live on in call centers, single-task worker offices, and highly security-conscious businesses. Companies including IGEL, ClearCube, and Teradici still offer thin-client systems to niche and vertical businesses. Oracle finally gave up on thin-client hardware. They found there simply wasn’t a big enough market for terminals, which did nothing but talk to Oracle DBMSs. Traces of this Oracle initiative lives on in Oracle’s Instant Client software line.  TodayAs first local area networks and then Internet speeds grew faster, interest developed in a variety of other remote desktop approaches. Instead of running programs on a server, these offered a hybrid approach of server and client-based computing resources. These remote desktop programs enable you to see and control a network-connected PC as if you were sitting in front of it. While remote desktop software has specialized uses, such as real-time collaborative work, technical support, and demonstrations, you can also use them to use remote software on your local PC. Remote desktops are both specialized programs for running desktops remotely and protocols and built-in operating system functionality for the same purpose. For the former, there are such programs as TeamViewer, Splashtop, and VNC Connect. There are also specialized remote desktop programs. These include GoToAssist, LogMeIn Rescue, and FixMe.IT. As their names suggest, they’re all about technical support. Then, there are the operating systems, such as Windows with the often renamed  Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection and Linux with a variety of programs. The Linux remote desktop programs include Remmina, TigerVNC, and Vinagre. Windows uses its proprietary Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to run virtual Windows sessions. While RDP-based programs only work on Windows, RDP clients enable you to run remote Windows sessions from almost any operating system. RDP is the descendent of Citrix and Microsoft’s Terminal Server. Today, Citrix supports both RDP and its own more network-efficient protocol, HDX. Citrix’s current family of applications, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, all use HDX. As for Linux, Unix, and macOS remote desktops, they almost all use the open-source Virtual Network Computing (VNC) protocol and its related programs. This is a graphical desktop sharing system. It uses the Remote Frame Buffer (RFB) protocol to transfer the desktop from a server to a PC or thin-client computer. So, what’s the difference between these two main approaches? Well, let’s start with what they have in common:Both enable you to access computers remotely.   Both require client-side and server-side software to work. And with both, the server must be configured to facilitate access and to deal with credentials. Both rely on peer-to-peer communication. Both support security protocols and provide user administration tools.But then they separate their courses.  Besides the obvious, RDP is proprietary, and VNC is open-source; their differences include:You and other users are logged into the server with RDP, whether it’s a Windows 10 PC, Windows Server 2019 server, or an Azure operating system instance. VNC, on the other hand, captures the desktop rendered on a remote desktop. The VNC client, or viewer, allows you to share the VNC server’s virtual desktop screen, mouse, and keyboard. In short,  VNC is a screen-sharing tool.RDP typically is faster, while VNC is more secure. Since both performance and security vary depending on your configuration, this is only a rough rule of thumb. Today/TomorrowAll the approaches above have several core problems. The first is they’re all bandwidth hungry. Users eternally complain about how much slower their remote desktops are than their local PCs. The second is that while the client-side can get so thin that there’s such a thing as zero-client desktops where there’s no local storage at all, it still requires specialized software or firmware to make it work. It may look like when, for example, you use Windows 10 Remote Desktop Connection to help a buddy fix his Windows 10 PC that there’s nothing to it; there’s actually a lot going on under the hood to make this work. 

    Finally, remote desktops don’t tend to scale well. For example, when you use an RDP or VNC approach, you often run a virtual machine (VM) for every remote desktop instance. These eat up server resources, whether your servers are physical or cloud-based like an elephant does peanuts.The keyword here is “cloud.” Clouds are all about automating, adding and removing compute, storage, and network services to meet your workload demands. So, just over a decade ago, Google reasoned that since it already had multiple popular regular business Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings such as Google Docs and Gmail, why not create a Linux-based thin operating system, Chrome OS, to access them? So, it was that Chromebooks were born.But, there was another aspect to the birth of Chromebooks. Google also worked out that the web browser itself was enough of an interface that there was no need for a specialized remote desktop client. The browser itself, Chrome, was more than enough. Thus, Chromebooks have been slowly but at an ever-increasing pace, becoming a major “desktop” player. Sure, traditional Windows continues to rule the desktop, but have you looked at its numbers lately? In 2021’s first quarter, Windows dropped to 75% of the global PC market from more than 80% in 2020, by IDC’s count. Windows hasn’t had such a small share of the desktop market since the 1990s. On the other hand, Chromebook shipments soared by 276% year-over-year from 2020 to 2021. True, its 1st quarter 2021’s 12 million unit sales are still way behind Windows laptop and PC sales of 84 million units for the same quarter; it’s not insignificant either.True, the COVID-19 pandemic which forced schools to use Chromebooks relying on Chromebooks, had a major effect in making Chromebooks popular. But, while the Coronavirus may finally fade into the background, the change to a work-from-home and hybrid work business world isn’t going to go away. Chromebooks, which tend to be cheaper than their Windows counterparts, are proving very attractive to business users. They also have the advantage that if your Chromebook gets run over by a truck, you only need to buy a new one, and you’re back in business again without a word of lost work. Finally, since they’re built for security thanks to their built-in sandboxing, Chromebooks are also attractive to CISOs. They’re also easy to manage remotely. In short, Chromebooks continue to grow in both the education and business world. Will they challenge Windows 10 and 11? Not anytime soon, but like Macs, they’ll grow into a substantial share of the overall “desktop” market.TomorrowI have seen the future of the desktop, and its name is Windows 365. With apologies to Jon Landau and Bruce Springsteen.  This Microsoft DaaS move has been coming for years. Yes, Windows has had remote and virtual desktops for even longer, but this is different. 

    With Windows 365, you’ll be able to stream all your personalized applications, tools, data, and settings from the cloud across any device. And it means any, including Chromebooks, Macs, Linux PCs, Android devices, and even iPads.  No matter what you’re running, you’ll get the same Windows experience. Well. Maybe. Microsoft also says Windows 365 will run better when hosted on a Windows system. What exactly will that mean? Stay tuned, and we’ll find out. It also means, said Wangui McKelvey, Microsoft 365’s General Manager, “You can pick up right where you left off because the state of your Cloud PC remains the same, even when you switch devices.”Microsoft claims, of course, that this last feature is brand new. It’s not. You’ve been able to do that with Chrome OS since day one. But, it’s a major shift for Windows. It also shows that Microsoft is taking the threat of Chrome OS seriously and that the people from Redmond also believe that the future belongs to hybrid work. This is a killer feature when your staffers may be working from their kid’s Chromebook over the weekend, their Mac when they’re at the office on Monday through Wednesday, and their corporate Windows laptop when they’re on the road for a business trip.What’s different about Windows 365 from what has gone before is that it vastly simplifies the virtualisation process while it’s built on Azure Virtual Desktop. It will handle all the setup details for you. In other words, it’s going to act more like how you expect a cloud service to act. You ask for more resources or set it up, so more resources are made available automatically,  without worrying about the details.For instance, thanks to a Twitter screenshot, we know that a small business with up to 300 users can pay $31 per user per month for a 2vCPU, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage Windows 365 instance. This SKU also comes with Office apps, Outlook and OneDrive; Microsoft Teams; Visual Studio, Power BI, and Dynamics 365. The administrators can also scale the processing power as needed. Say it turns out that the programmer using Visual Studio needs more vCPUs; you can easily give them those extra CPU horses.  It also has tools to monitor the overall performance to make sure your users are getting the best experience.  As Microsoft puts it, “you can also upgrade them at the touch of a button, which is immediately applied without missing a beat. Our new Watchdog Service also continually runs diagnostics to help to keep connections up and running at all times. If a diagnostic check fails, we’ll alert you and even give suggestions for how to correct the issue.”All of this is much easier than the old-school ways of setting up virtual desktops and servers, with, of course, the exception of Chrome OS. Will this next generation of remote desktops put an end to PCs? No, there will be niches, such as gaming, video editing, and programming, where you’ll need all the power you can get on a local PC. But, just as many users have abandoned home PCs for their smartphones, many businesses will leave traditional PCs behind for their office workers. And, so we will have come full circle. We started with mainframes, and dumb terminals, then moved to PCs, and now, thanks to the combination of the cloud and the web, we’re heading back to a centralized managed computing paradigm. I, for one, am going to be very interested in seeing how this all works out. Brace yourselves people, I may still not have a clear idea how this will all work out, but I know for certain that major change is coming to the office desktop. Related Stories:

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    Average organization targeted by over 700 social engineering attacks each year: report

    A new report from cybersecurity company Barracuda has found that IT staffers and CEOs continue to face a barrage of phishing attacks throughout the year.Barracuda analysts examined more than 12 million spear phishing and social engineering attacks impacting more than 3 million mailboxes at over 17,000 organizations between May 2020 and June 2021. The “Spear Phishing: Top Threats and Trends Vol. 6 — Insights” report found that 43% of phishing attacks impersonate Microsoft and the average organization is targeted by over 700 social engineering attacks each year. Nearly 80% of BEC attacks target employees outside of financial and executive roles, with the average CEO receiving 57 targeted phishing attacks each year and IT staffers getting an average of 40 targeted phishing attacks annually.Cryptocurrency-related attacks also grew 192% between October 2020 and April 2021, and the researchers noted that the number of attacks rose alongside the general price of various cryptocurrencies. Almost 50% of all socially engineered threats the company saw over the past year were phishing impersonation attacks, and nearly all included a malicious URL. “Although phishing emails are nothing new, hackers have started to deploy ingenious ways to avoid detection and deliver their malicious payloads to users’ inboxes. They shorten URLs, use numerous redirects, and host malicious links on document sharing sites, all to avoid being blocked by email scanning technologies,” the report said.  

    “Phishing impersonation attacks have also been trending upwards. These attacks made up 46% of all social engineering attacks we detected in June 2020 and grew to 56% by the end of May 2021.”Business email compromise attacks only made up 10% of the attacks Barracuda analysts saw but have cost companies in the education, healthcare, commercial, and travel sectors millions.Hackers are also continuing to use many of the same tactics, including using brands for phishing impersonation attacks. Microsoft, WeTransfer, and DHL are the top three brands used in impersonation attacks going back to 2019. Because of the company’s ubiquity, Microsoft was used in 43% of phishing attacks in the past 12 months. Often cybercriminals will “send fake security alerts or account update information to get their victims to click on a phishing link.” The same goes for WeTransfer, which went from 9% of all phishing attacks to 18% by 2021. The rest of the top ten impersonated brands includes Google, DocuSign, and Facebook.Don MacLennan, senior vice president of Email Protection at Barracuda, said cybercriminals are now targeting employees outside the finance and executive teams, looking for weak links in organizations. “Targeting lower level employees offers them a way to get in the door and then work their way up to higher value targets,” MacLennan said. “That’s why it’s important to make sure you have protection and training for all employees, not just focus on the ones you think are the most likely to be attacked.” More

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    One third of cybersecurity workers have faced harassment at work or online – this initiative aims to stamp it out

    Around a third of cybersecurity professionals have personal experience of facing harassment and abuse either online or in person – and a new initiative is aiming to provide support to victims while also encouraging action to help stop bullying and abuse across the industry. Set up with the aim of taking stand against all forms of harassment in the cybersecurity industry, Respect In Security is encouraging organisations to formally pledge their commitment to creating a workplace and professional community free from harassment and fear. Research by Sapio Research on behalf of Respect In Security found 32 percent of 302 cybersecurity professionals surveyed have experienced harassment online via email, LinkedIn, Twitter or other social media platforms, while 35 percent have experienced it in person at industry events, the office or work socials. “As an industry we spend a lot of time online and probably a lot more so than other industries… so I think in that respect we are quite unique in that we are more exposed to some of the online stuff,” said one of the co-founders of Respect In Security, Lisa Forte, partner at Red Goat Cyber Security. In an interview with ZDNet Security Update, Forte said she has been sent unsolicited explicit videos, had fake profiles set up using her name, and been threatened via messages on social media. SEE: A winning strategy for cybersecurity (ZDNet special report) | Download the report as a PDF (TechRepublic)  Respect In Security’s research revealed that male, female and non-binary people have all faced abuse. 

    “This is a broad industry wide issue. It affects men and women, affects people of all sexual orientations, affects people of all skin colours,” Rik Ferguson, VP of security research at Trend Micro and a co-founder of Respect In Security told ZDNet Security Update. “We are here to make a stand for a fair and for a more respectful industry and if we ever hope to professionalize cybersecurity, which is where we need to go, this is job zero on the list to get done,” he said.”I think people will walk away from [the industry], and I think a lot of people might be put off, you know, deterred from entering it,” Ferguson added. Respect In Security is encouraging organisations in the information security industry, as well as other organisations with cybersecurity teams to sign its pledge and help to build a more tolerant and respectful industry.  The pledge not only represents a commitment from companies to build a respectful environment, but also a promise to publish a grievance policy externally, so in the event of harassment taking place, there are systems in place that mean it can be reported. “Like a vulnerability claim procedure if you think you’ve discovered a vulnerability in someone’s product, there’s a process to go through that those companies will publish; here’s how you contact us, here’s how we’re going to deal with it, here’s what you can expect – we want to see that with regards to harassment and abuse as well,” said Ferguson. You can watch the full interview here.MORE ON CYBERSECURITY More