Thank you to everyone who came out and attended our Office 365 Lunch & Learn event. We would like to give a big shout out to Michael Kopsh From Microsoft for giving us a wonderful presentation on Office 365 and also Mark Bloom & Tommy Phan for letting us know about Unitrends. The food was delicious everyone learned so much and someone walked away with a brand new Microsoft Surface Pro 3. Also big thank you to Season’s 52 for helping us cater the event.
Have you ever seen a friend, cousin or a family member bearing financial losses as a result of a poor security policy? Are you afraid of the rising cyber crime rates and wish that you should never experience it? If yes, then read the article to know about the common cybercrime threats that the IT sector faces in 2015.
Many of you might have faced the ill effects of the poor IT security management, but you compromise with the situation by believing it to be in your destiny. Market research firms and IT experts claim that the year 2015 will see the cybercrime associated with the Internet of Things (IoT), social security details, financial information and many others. Experts state that the IOT attacks on businesses and the ever-rising computer hacking cases will shock the virtual users with plenty of new frauds, attacks and malicious software. Websense Security Labs predicts that the malware authors are working stringently to create some smart viruses that can escape from the AV detection tests and give rise to cyber bullying activities. The DDoS Attack Report for Q2 2014 by Prolexic Quarterly Global focuses on improving DDoS protection and enhancing multi-layered web security, meaning that 2015 will experience devastating cyber-attacks. Some major Information Technology companies also ensured that their AV products will carry some advanced features as the cyber crime doesn’t limit to financial losses.
1. Healthcare Sector
Tech experts state that the healthcare sector may experience an increase in data-stealing attacks as hackers are paying attention towards the personally identifiable information to commence major frauds. Physical information, health care details, and medical history will help malware authors to manage a huge web of attacks and give rise to various types of fraud. A hospital computer has a database of millions of patient records in a digital form, so managing and protecting the patient’s personal data will be a major challenge for healthcare IT professionals.
2. Mobile Threats
Since mobile devices are entering into the market at a rapid rate, managing their security and privacy has become a great challenge for security professionals. Malware authors design malicious codes that target credential information rather than collecting the stored data on the device. The auto-login feature of mobile apps makes the portable platforms highly dangerous as mobile devices now give rise to broader credential-stealing or authentication attacks and cyber bullying practices.
3. Attacks Associated to the Internet of Things (IoT)
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the future of computing, and the platform will allow things, humans, appliances, animals and other things communicate with each other over a local network. The connectivity amongst the devices can enhance the speed, efficiency and performance of everything, but the closely connected network can invite some major security flaws, affecting everything connected over a local network. The Internet of things expects to focus on businesses, not on consumer products, and rising cyber crime rates can also impact the new internet-connected device in a business environment. A majority of products and applications can give rise to the business attacks as attackers are likely to attempt establishing a control over all the simple connected devices.
4. Credit Card and Information Deals
Cybercrime and financial information have a strong bond as many malware authors create malicious codes just to fetch your financial information and use them for fraudulent purposes. Some IT experts state that the credit card thieves will soon get morphed into information dealers as financial institutions have already adopted Chip and PIN technology to trim down financial crime rates. They further added that the cybercriminals will now look forward to collecting a broader range of data about victims, consisting of multiple credit cards, geographic location data, personal information, and interests.
5. New Vulnerabilities Will Soon Emerge
Every year comes with new inventions, discoveries and technologies to impact user’s experience and their work environment. Some technologies like fingerprint, UltraHD, wearables and others enhance user’s experience in a positive manner, while some source codes like OpenSSL, Heartbleed and Shellshock make users worried. Software development is growing at a rapid rate and so does the cyber crime. Malware authors, software developers, and hackers may come up with new features and integrations to impact the base code and exploit the vulnerabilities to steal away your private information.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, cybercriminals will continue to adopt evasive techniques and methods to break through the security systems and enter into your devices to steal the valuable information. But, it becomes highly important to stop them right now as the future will experience interlinked things and impacting any one of them may lead to the violation of the whole environment. Some tech experts claim that the malware authors will continue innovating malicious codes that can effectively escape from AV tests, after analyzing recent cyber crime trends and tactics. According to the results derived from the common AV tests, experts predict that the year 2015 will see a tremendous increase in the Internet crime rates, but with greater frequency and sophistication. If you think that your devices don’t feature optimal AV protections, then simply research the web and find efficient online computer support companies to handle your PC security issues.
Storage devices like the hard drives are mainly used to store sensitive information in digital format. They are being used almost in every sector nowadays. When these drives are no longer needed, you may throw it at any dumpsite, enabling intruders to access all your confidential data.
With the advancement in the IT sector, data security, even while you are getting grid of it, is not a big issue anymore, unless you are not aware of how to go about it. It is important to hire a reputed and trustworthy data destruction service provider that protects all your sensitive data at any cost. Depending on the needs of the client, these companies offer the off-site and on-site destruction services.
If you want to keep top-level security for your data, you need to hire the services of a certified company, which can efficiently destroy the confidential data whenever necessary. There are a number of benefits of appointing a data destruction company. Read on to know more about how such companies can benefit you.
Ongoing Quality Control Checking
Data destruction companies set required standards and employ quality control checks, in order to destroy all your digital data safely. Some companies that destroy their own data do not set any standards and employ quality control checks. Due to this reason, there is no guarantee that all their data is destroyed safely.
Offers many more services
There are a lot of data destruction techniques that are used by professional companies. Crushing is one of the effective and widely used techniques to make your data unrecoverable. Because crushing guarantees that sensitive information does not leave the business premises, many companies prefer this approach. Degaussing is another technique that removes the magnetic properties of the HDD (hard disk drive).
Boost your company reputation
Some security violating techniques such as data breaching can lead to very serious problems, and greatly affect your company’s reputation. Data destruction companies employ personnel who are good at handling procedures related to destruction of personal consumer data. Proper demolition of sensitive information helps to achieve utmost security, which in turn boosts your company’s reputation.
Responsible disposal
It is very important to collect the stuff and dispose it in a responsible way. A professional destruction company will help a lot to dispose it off in a more responsible way. In addition to this, they also ensure a safer and cleaner environment.
Cost Effectiveness
By hiring experienced and well-known data destruction firm, you can save a lot of your time and money. However, it is important that you research well about the company, before hiring them.
Whether you like it or not, Cloud computing is here to stay. For many businesses, both big and small, it is making us all more connected and improving office procedures and upping our collective productivity. Whilst the early days of cloud computing may have been all about security, the latest vibe is how it is pushing business forward and, in the process, saving a good deal of money on IT support.
There’s no doubt that this growth has been supported by our increasing use of a number of portable devices such as smartphones and tablets. That means your cloud desktop is now a thing that operates on the move, travelling with you across the world, keeping you in contact with the office, business associates, and consumers whether it’s at home in Brighton or 5am in Beijing.
In short, we are no longer tied to one PC at a desk but can network and develop and collaborate anytime and anywhere we wish. For those of you who remember the humble floppy disk, we’ve come a long way in the last twenty years or so. Cloud hosting has grown for both consumers and businesses and, for many of us, has become part of our daily online lives – we save photos, post messages, swap data and provide solutions at much greater speed than we ever have before.
Benefits of a Cloud Service for SMEs
For small and medium sized businesses, having a cloud desktop is one of the most practical operational decisions that can be taken. It’s cheaper and more flexible than investing in onsite hardware without the capital expenditure and therefore a more eco-friendly way of operating. Disaster management, an important component for many businesses nowadays, is also taken care of because all data is held safely away from the business which means it can be easily recovered if something terrible happens to the office environment or equipment such as mobile phones.
The rise in cloud subscription platforms also gives many businesses access to feature rich products that would be more costly if they were installed separately. That means employees can have access to a wide variety of software for just a set monthly fee that doesn’t break the bank and can be adjusted depending on individual needs. Finally, one of the main advantages of a cloud desktop is that it allows for a greater degree of collaboration with users able to work with each other whilst outside the office.
With the enhanced security that comes with cloud services nowadays, SMEs get all the power they need from their operating platform at a fraction of what it would cost them back in the old days.
Moving to a system like the M2 Cloud gives businesses all the flexibility and security, as well as useful tools such as Microsoft Office 365, which dramatically improves connectivity and productivity. Provisions can be tailored to individual businesses which means they don’t end up with programs that have little operational value and only pay for what they really need.
Five years after rolling out Office 2011 for Mac, Microsoft has made a first public preview of its successor, Office 2016 for Mac, available to testers for download.
Microsoft already has updated OneNote and Outlook (available in limited preview form) available for the Mac. On Thursday, the company is delivering refreshed public previews of those two apps in addition to the first public previews of the 2016 versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and is making all five apps available to anyone running Yosemite (Mac OS 10.10).
The Office for Mac 2016 preview is available for download from Microsoft’s Office.com preview site, and can be run alongside Office for Mac 2011.
Microsoft plans to deliver regular updates to the preview, and will let testers know via a notification from the Office for Mac Auto-Update tool. Every new preview build will expire roughly 60 days after it’s posted. The final preview build will continue to function for roughly a month after Office 2016 for Mac becomes generally available, sometime this summer, officials said. That’s likely to be several months ahead of the Office 2016 for Windows release in the second half of 2015. Officials said they’d have more news to share soon about opening up the Office 2016 for Windows suite publicly. (The Windows version has been in private testing for several months.)
Microsoft’s goal with Office 2016 for Mac is to make it look and feel more like Office for Windows (and other Office suite flavors), while not losing the styling that makes the suite feel like it’s built for Mac OS X, said Eric Wilfrid, director of Office product marketing.
The updated Mac suite includes a newly designed Ribbon that’s similar in formatting and organization to the Office for Windows Ribbon. The suite includes full support for retina displays and is built to be “cloud connected,” so it’s tightly integrated with OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint and Office 365.
Office 2016 for Mac allows users to access files across all their devices running Office by signing in with their Office sign-in credentials. This way, a user could start writing a document on Office for Android, access it later on Office 2016 for Mac and then finish it on Office for iPad, while always having access to the most up-to-date version.
In the new version of Word 2016 for Mac, Microsoft has added threaded comments to improve coauthoring. In Excel, there’s now support for the same keyboard shortcuts as Office for Windows users have. The PowerPoint 2016 for Mac update adds the same presenter view as is available in PowerPoint for iOS.
So far, as is the case with the Office 2016 for Windows private preview, new features and functionality seem rather limited for the next version of Office for Mac. So what took Microsoft so long to bring the coming version to market?
Wilfrid said that Microsoft shifted gears after rolling out Office 365 and decided to focus on Office 365 and prioritize some of the new Office mobile releases, such as Office for iOS.
Office’s focus is now on cloud connectivity, he said, noting that anyone who has a current Office 365 subscription with support for downloadable versions of the Office suite apps will get Office 2016 for Mac as soon as it is released for no additional cost. Microsoft is not yet releasing Office 2016 for Mac pricing for those who don’t have an Office 365 subscription.
This story originally posted as “Microsoft delivers first public preview of Office 2016 for Mac” at ZDNet.
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