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Technology has spawned a dizzying array of new technology security risks with complicated names such as phishing, social engineering and pretexting. Knowing about these new technology risks is already half the battle when trying to
avoid these pitfalls.
Phishing is the use of fraudulent emails or phone calls to get sensitive information, such as bank account numbers, credit card information or passwords. Here is how it works:
If you’ve ever gotten an email that says your account has been locked or that irregular activity was detected in your account, you may have been the target of a phishing attempt. These messages typically include a link to a legitimate-seeming website, where you’re asked to give account information or download malware (see more on that below).
A phishing email or phone call may ask you to call a number to discuss a problem with your account. You might then be asked to reveal account details over the phone.
Phishing is a type of social engineering, which is an attack that uses misrepresentation to get sensitive information.
Pretexting involves the creation of a fake identity or scenario to fool a person into disclosing information.
For example, a fraudster may email or call your company claiming to be a supplier, survey firm, municipal inspector or insurance company to get sensitive data. A pretext attacker could also pose as a computer technician responding to a call for service to access your network.
“They may ask for little bits of information that don’t raise red flags,” Abdulmughnee says. “But over time, bit by bit, they’re trying to build a profile that could let them steal your identity.” Continue reading
IT vendors have leaped on the artificial intelligence/machine learning bandwagon, spreading a level of confusion that threatens potential technology benefits with AI washing.
As many in the enterprise IT community will remember, technology suppliers succeeded in roundly confusing buyers in the early part of the millennium by “greenwashing” their products and services – or in other words, exaggerating the true extent of their environmentally-friendly credentials – thereby shooting themselves in the foot and, arguably, putting the brakes on the market.
But it seems that many have learned little from the experience. According to Gartner, the IT industry is now pursuing an equally self-destructive strategy of “AI (artificial intelligence) washing” – by applying the AI label too indiscriminately, suppliers are once again bamboozling potential customers, who are putting off making buying decisions as a result.
So just how true is this contention and, if it is valid, what impact is it having on the market to date? Nick Patience, research vice-president at 451 Research, believes that AI in the enterprise software space is certainly overhyped, and adoption has lagged behind uptake in the consumer market.
“A lot of startups are claiming to do AI when they’re using rules-based automation,” he says. “Suppliers also say they have AI systems, but it’s actually much more narrowly defined machine learning software that does image recognition or leads scoring.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s never going to be a robot that can do many of the things humans can do, so you have to cut through the hype to know what you’re getting.”
Emma Kendrew, AI lead for Accenture Technology, agrees that the hype cycle is reaching a peak, driven by busy corporate marketing machines hoping to take advantage of the possibilities opened up by big data and the cloud, as well as burgeoning customer interest. Continue reading
Rapid mobile application development vendors offer a variety of options, from low-code and no-code platforms to micro apps, workflow apps and more.
Rapid application development tools can help organizations more easily mobilize business processes and workflows.
The demand for enterprise mobile apps has never been greater, but it remains complex and expensive to build and deploy them. Rapid mobile application development tools aim to break down these barriers.
Some of these tools enable employees with little to no coding skills to build apps using a graphical user interface. Others create simple apps that perform only a few tasks — or even just one.
Several vendors on the market take these and other approaches. Let’s take a look at them and their rapid application development tools.
Alpha Anywhere, Alpha Software Corp.’s platform, provides both no- and low-code rapid application development tools. Developers and others can use these tools to create web apps, hybrid mobile apps — through integration with Adobe’s PhoneGap Build service — and mobile forms.
With Alpha Anywhere’s offline capabilities, users of apps built on the platform can save data on their devices if they don’t have internet connectivity. Also, IT can control how that data synchronizes with back-end applications and databases when a connection is restored.
State, county, & local governments are unique. From constricted budgets to needing to protect large numbers of devices and users, governments face a unique set requirement for data protection and business continuity.
Unitrends has a long history of protecting governmental IT assets, with customers ranging from small towns to major state agencies protecting the data and applications of thousands of employees.- Government data backup
Here are the challenges unique to state and local governments and how Unitrends meets them.
Governments create and manage large amounts of private data such as criminal records, tax reports, and court documents. Unitrends appliances can replicate data locally, to a remote site or to our highly secure Unitrends Cloud.
From any of those locations, data can be stored for long-term retention and/or used for disaster recovery purposes.
Most state, county, and local governments have few IT resources with little time to spend managing backups and
recovery. Unitrends’ products are designed for a set-it-and-forget-it style of use with emails that report backup results so you always know things are working properly. Continue reading
Human beings are a very odd species. They don’t regard themselves as just another group of the myriad creatures that share this spinning orb we call Earth. No – they are a super-species, reinforced by the notion that they have “rights”. No other species has rights (other than those “granted” by humans).
After millions of years of evolution, we have arrived at the point where the development of technology ensures the supremacy of humans to the detriment of most other species. Even so, Nature still applies the “survival of the fittest” rule, so the supremacy is not universally beneficial. This means humans have a quality of life that ranges from luxurious to pitiful. Some humans use technology to oppress, others become oppressed through being denied access to technology.
How do rights fit into this scenario? Why are rights necessary? They are there to protect individuals and communities from the actions of others that would be detrimental to the continued existence of said individuals and communities. Which presumes that some members of the species will behave in such detrimental fashion. So, humans need to be protected from themselves. As I said, an odd species. Continue reading
Good website: Even if your business doesn’t sell anything online, a good website has become a must-have in today’s marketplace. Your site will often be… Continue reading