Now’s the time to start working on your Halloween outfits, because you’ve only got three weeks to win the office costume contest. Feeling deadly? Get a Squid Game green tracksuit. Elegant? A ball gown and elbow-length white satin gloves from Bridgerton look great. Put some Yoda ears on your youngest and ride them in style in a floating egg. And these newsbits enjoy you shall.
News from VMworld. Smarter is gooder, so the new VMware “”Cloud-Smart”” approach for multi-clouds could help multiple ways. Cross-cloud services for all apps will deliver an accelerated journey to the cloud, cost efficiency, and flexibility and control across any cloud.
New features in the VMware Tanzu portfolio enable management and operation of apps at scale and help developers deploy on any cloud. The Tanzu Application Platform beta now offers supply chain choreography, developer tooling including IDE plugins, and much more.
Revving up acceptance of zero-trust security, VMware Security offers zero trust inside clouds and data centers, flexible cloud-to-cloud security, Kubernetes Security Posture Management, and more.
It used to be where the rubber meets the road, now it’s where the edge meets the network. Hello, VMware Edge Portfolio and a basketful of edge-native apps and services.
News from other name brands. Windows 11 (pictured) officially takes over this week, on 10/4 good buddy, both on new systems and a free upgrade on eligible Windows 10 PCs. Most major vendors have embraced the big blue swirly screen and are shipping Win11 systems in volume.
Starting the first day of November, Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services will be generally available. Several key features help combat financial crimes, and others manage compliance.
Dell’s PowerEdge line got multiple new models, including entry-level rack and tower units like the T150, T550, T350, R250, and R350. Powered by 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors and up to 37% smaller than the previous generation.
HP has a new unified PC and print solution designed to offer a strong hybrid work foundation to businesses and their employees named HP Work from Home. Secure, easily deployed and managed, and includes HP PCs, printers, and supplies.
Security news. WatchGuard released a series of new mid-range Firebox unified threat management appliances, including the M290, M390, M590, and M690.
Zyxel’s high-end Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Firewalls now support centralized cloud management with additional features through its Nebula Cloud Networking Solution.
Need first-hand cyberthreat insights? The new Kaspersky Ask the Analyst service has those along with malware sample analysis, malware family information, dark web intelligence, and more.
Cisco and Cohesity joined forces to integrate the Cohesity Helio data management platform with Cisco’s SecureX platform. Based on Cohesity DataProtect to help when facing ransomware threats.
PingOne Fraud (formerly SecuredTouch) from Ping Identity provides session-based online fraud detection. Its PingOne API Intelligence got beefier to learn traffic behaviors and automatically detect and block threats.
Network detection and response player ExtraHop announced expanded Reveal(x) Advisor services that provide hunting capabilities along with network assurance analysis.
Other product news. Epson introduced its EU-m30 Kiosk Thermal Receipt Printer (pictured in action), a compact kiosk-based device with an easy mounting kit that’s designed for self-checkout units.
FileCloud’s enterprise file sync, sharing, and data governance platform now integrates with Microsoft Teams in the best cloud-agnostic manner. Bridge file storage and secure sharing.
Cradlepoint’s fast WAN networks just got faster with LTE, 5G, and cellular updates designed to accelerate wireless WAN adoption. 5G makes WANs fiber-fast and cellular simple.
Like small walls of monitors? Medium-sized walls? Either way, the new VuWall VuScape VS10 Video Wall controller will help by powering up to 16 displays that can capture a wide range of feeds, all encoded and distributed in an AV-over-IP-only infrastructure.
Non-product vendor news. Unroll that red carpet in front of Ivanti for new CEO Jeff Abbott, moving up from president.
The welcome mat in front of BitTitan is for Joseph Nguyen (pictured), joining as director of information security.
At Gradient MSP, it’s incoming VP of channel Dave Goldie getting the welcome aboard treatment.
Over at Malwarebytes, the mat is out to welcome Amy Appleyard, coming in as senior vice president of global sales.
All the green eyeshades flying in celebration at Versa Networks are for Lalit Kumar, joining as the company’s first chief financial officer.
Zylo welcomes Scott Dorsey, who’s been appointed executive chairman.
Those attending the Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas next month should pencil in the Alliance of Channel Women’s ACWConnect Live! networking event at the Mandalay Bay. Register now!
NetApp signed a definitive agreement to acquire CloudCheckr, a cloud optimization platform. Terms were not disclosed.
TD SYNNEX launched World of Inspiration, a virtual demo lab to visualize and collaborate on multi-vendor solutions and simulate various scenarios such as disaster management and return to school (kids says that’s a disaster, too). It’s part of the TD SYNNEX SMB Connect program.
Access management tightened up as One Identity acquired OneLogin to extend its Unified Identity Security Platform. Forgive 90s movie fans who say “”there can be only one!“” (and sing along with Queen). Terms were not disclosed.
Forcepoint revved up its Global Partner Program with an elite tier of Titanium partners and introduced a more efficient engagement model with broader incentives.
It seems appropriate that Halloween occurs during Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and this is also the time for Keeper Security to launch its cyberthreat resource center. Get detailed guides on the most common attacks and more.
Drawing on its experience explaining cybersecurity to corporate executives, Optiv has declared itself the leader in a market “”category of one””: cyber advisory and solutions provider. Plan is to help clients all the way from managing risk to cybersecurity implementation.
This week’s stats ticker:
Ivanti surveyed over 500 IT and security pros across North America for its Patch Management Challenges report, and learned that 71% find patching to be overly complex, cumbersome, and time consuming (and those are the safe for work comments). Over half, 57%, say remote work has increased the complexity and scale of patch management. Cringe-inducing revelations include discovering that four years after WannaCry, two-thirds of companies still haven’t patched their systems. Surprise, surprise, there was a 53% increase in the number of successful WannaCry attacks in the first quarter of 2021. 62% admit patching takes a back seat to other duties, and 60% say it causes workflow disruptions for users. Balance that with the 61% who report business admin push back against patches to avoid those disruptions, further delaying the process.
The 2021 State of SaaSOps from BetterCloud found organizations have embraced SaaS faster than ever before, moving from an average 80 apps per org last year to 110 apps, up 38%. Since 2015, SaaS apps are up 14x. But 55% say their top challenge is the lack of visibility into user activity and data. The next two are knowing all the SaaS apps in use and managing app configurations. 72% point to the everyday employee with good intentions who inadvertently exposes sensitive data, and 69% worry about unsanctioned SaaS apps. Almost half, 46%, have problems securing user activities within SaaS apps, and SaaS file security violations have spiked 134% this year. Six of ten respondents now use the term “”SaaSOps”” in their job title or description.
Untangle’s fourth annual SMB IT Security Report found that 80% of SMBs feel more secure this year than last. This comes from a survey of more than 740 SMBs, the largest pool to date. Only 28% of SMBs with under 25 employees have an IT annual budget in the low $1,000-$5,000 range. And while half have the majority of their employees back in the office, 41% have a quarter or more workers in the hybrid work category permanently. 28% of IT security respondents say employees not following guidelines have become their biggest security headache. 27% report budget constraints to good security, while 18% point to lack of manpower to monitor and manage. This leads 64% to tag breaches as their top security concern, while 73% say firewalls are their top security solution and 62% claim anti-virus and anti-malware software.
The new Hybrid Work Index from Cisco took a global look at the details of hybrid work. Employees like it, with 64% agreeing that “”work anywhere”” directly affects whether they stay or leave a job, but 47% worry their company will stop the program in the next 6-12 months. That could be tough, since an overwhelming majority of respondents agree that flexible work arrangements to preserve personal health and wellness are non-negotiables moving forward. Those using mobile devices while on the move to connect to meetings tripled this year to 27%. Of the 61 million meetings via Cisco Webex each month, 98% have at least one person joining remotely. Enterprises now view collaboration apps as the most critical for hybrid work success, and they’re now the #1 most monitored application type globally.
There’s lucky and then there’s this guy. Joseph Humphries of Virginia Beach, Virginia, was four times happier than the other lottery players after the September 8th Bank a Million drawing. He and his wife bought multiple tickets, and when the winners were revealed, he had a winning ticket worth $250,000. Then he found another winner, and another, and another. Total winnings added up to $352,112.
Yep, Mr. Humphries bought four winning tickets for the lottery. If you think there’s still some good luck left in his numbers, you can try them yourself: 3-6-9-20-24-40, and the Bonus Ball was 26. Good luck.
Photo: Virginia Lottery
