If you spend your day boppin’ or rockin’ or waltzin’ to the music in your earbuds, and have an Android phone, you can now play Apple Music’s lossless spatial audio streaming. You’ll need compatible earbuds or headphones, however. And know that some people with industry ears aren’t thrilled at the sound. However, each of the following newstips are Solid Gold.
News from Zoom, Microsoft, AWS, and SAP. Zoom still looms big on the screen of remote and hybrid workers, as it does for employees in many companies. So welcome Zoom Apps and Zoom Events. The former embeds third-party productivity apps, including polls, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey Enterprise, and more, inside the Zoom experience. The latter is a platform for running virtual meetings and conferences.
We all need flexibility, right, so check out the new SAP PartnerEdge Cloud Choice, flex model. Get a one-time commission, then boost profitability and enrich the customer experience by choosing to continue with post-sales services.
Microsoft, in order to harden up cloud security, acquired CloudKnox Security, a player in Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM).
Need that SAN feeling from your cloud? Amazon Web Services announced the general availability of Amazon EBS io2 Block Express volumes. High performance from block storage without the need for an on-premises SAN.
Security news. Now on the shelf is Falcon for GovCloud, CrowdStrike’s FedRAMP-authorized endpoint protection platform. The system protects endpoints through AI and comprehensive threat intelligence.
365 Threat Monitor, from Hornetsecurity, is a new mobile app for admins to detect and delete threats that breach the Microsoft 365 environment. Be one of the first 10,000 M365 admins who sign up and the app is free forever.
Sophos announced that its newest Sophos Central data center is now live in Montreal, Canada. At launch, it will support the Sophos Intercept X endpoint and server products, including Sophos XDR.
Boston-based Cybereason acquired Tel Aviv-based empow, a security analytics company. Will boost the Cybereason XDR offerings.
Rapid7 grabbed up IntSights Cyber Intelligence for approximately $335 million in cash to rev its community-infused threat intelligence.
In tests to protect critical infrastructure, MITRE Engenuity used software from Armis in its initial round of ATT&CK Evaluations for industrial control systems. Result? 100% visibility and 100% coverage, says Armis.
Other product news. Addigy announced that Splashtop is the exclusive default remote support solution included with Addigy subscriptions, giving users Apple-optimized remote access to managed Apple devices.
Scale Computing and IBM will collaborate to help organizations adopt an edge computing strategy for moving data and apps across hybrid cloud environments.
Curtain pulling reveals the new OpenText Cloud Editions 21.3, with a new customer data platform, new AI solutions to help with compliance, deeper integration into Microsoft Teams, and a few other goodies.
Gamers demand high-performance memory, so push the respawn button on Kingston FURY Renegade, Kingston FURY Beast, and Kingston FURY Impact. Choose modules in DDR4 RGB, DDR4 non-RGB, and DDR3.
Need to tier some hot or cold data? The new Chenbro RM25324 is its latest ultra-dense 2U storage server chassis. Holds 24×3.45″” side access hot-swap drives and other advances.
Granite Telecommunications implemented Neustar Trusted Call Solutions, including Certified Caller and Robocall Mitigation. Those shopping for an extended car warranty are out of luck.
Non-product vendor news. BitTitan welcomes new Vice President of Marketing Craig McDonogh (pictured).
The Welcome Wagon rolled over to CoreDial to greet Jason Harper as chief technology officer.
ScalePad, the asset lifecycle management players, announced a significant, non-controlling equity investment from Integrity Growth Partners.
Broadvoice made the call (bad, writer, bad! – editor) to acquire GoContact, a Portugal-based contact-center-as-a-service provider.
UPSTACK signed the papers to pick up DataCenterAndColation.com, a consulting firm advising midmarket enterprises on data center and colocation projects. In addition, Berkshire Partners put a $50 million equity investment in UPSTACK’s wallet.
Pax8 signed Qunifi to a global agreement to offer Call2Teams to MSPs.
The Sage Partner Cloud expanded, and added two new strategic hosting providers, Cloud at Work and Swizznet. In addition, Sage construction and real estate customers now have hosting access.
Spectrum Global Services promoted David Hand to vice president of global systems integrators for High Wire Networks, a new role aimed at growing strategic relationships.
CloudBlue revved up its Go-To-Market (GTM) Fast-Track program to accelerate time-to-market by up to 50% for global solution providers. Includes virtual showrooms and access to customer growth and consumption information.
Sherweb says it will hold its Accelerate Cloud Summit on October 18-20, both in Hollywood, Florida and online.
The cloud workspace folks over at IGEL welcomed NVIDIA as a collaborator in the IGEL Ready program, its ecosystem of cutting-edge hardware, software, and peripheral tools.
This week’s stats ticker:
Thanks to COVID-19, last year was all about security and cloud, right? Datto’s latest Global State of the MSP Report agrees. A giant 99% of the 1,800 MSPs surveyed now offer managed security, versus 75% a year ago. Half the respondents said their clients now have 50 to 75% of workloads in the cloud, and another 40% said 25 to 50% of customer workloads are online. The most popular cloud services among survey participants are infrastructure design and management (offered by 97%), productivity software services (93%), and business continuity and disaster recovery (88%). Challenges persist, though, and the top four are competition (cited by 34%), revenue growth (27%), profitability (24%), and acquiring new customers (23%).
Keeper Security’s new 2021 Ransomware Impact Report had a depressing statistic: nearly one-third of employees never heard the word “”ransomware”” before their company was attacked. Skip training much? About half of ransomware incidents started with a phishing email, another indication that training was either lacking or ignored. The report surveyed 2,000 U.S. employees. 49% of attacked companies paid the ransom, while another 22% refused to say, so the percentage could be much higher. 78% of employees in companies that paid the ransom were told how much money was involved. After, 93% noticed budgets got tighter. On the horse/barn door spectrum, 87% added stricter security protocols after the attack, and 83% of companies performed major tech upgrades afterwards. 71% felt the updates impacted their ability to carry out daily tasks, and an additional 64% permanently lost login credentials or access to important documents as a result.
Email defender Vade released its Phishers’ Favorites report for H1 2021, recording a 281% spike in phishing mails since the start of the year in May and another 284% in June. There were 4.2 billion phishing emails detected in June alone, out of 49 billion emails scanned by Vade. Leading vendors impersonated were, in order, Credit Agricole, Facebook, and Microsoft. 6.5 million COVID-themed emails targeted corporate accounts. Microsoft had been #1 for the last four quarters but dropped to third. However, one sneaky phishing version leveraged public logo and background images to display corporate branding on fraudulent Microsoft 365 login pages, triggered by a simple API call. Other faked corporate sites include Netflix, Adobe, and DocuSign. Facebook still leads the social media section, with a 137% increase in Q1 2021 after a slower Q4 2020. Facebook struggled with twice as many phishing URLs as did #2 WhatsApp. #1 phishing launchpad? Brazil.
Kaspersky studied anonymized metadata voluntarily provided by Kaspersky MDR customers for Q4 2020 and found 9% prevented cybersecurity incidents that could have caused major disruption of customer assets. 72% were of medium severity, meaning data misuse or affected performance would have occurred if the attacks were missed. High severity incidents hit the public sector (41% of all incidents were in this industry), IT (15%), and financial (13%) verticals. 30% were human-driven targeted attacks, and 23% of high severity incidents were high impact malware outbreaks, including ransomware. 27% of organizations faced them. Recommendations include dedicated services like effective endpoint protection, along with threat detection and incident response products to detect and remediate threats. Oh, and provide your staff with at least basic cybersecurity protection training.
Woke coke. If your sales model includes, “”give the customer what they want,”” you have to admire the marketing savvy of some of the drug dealers in England right now. Their clients, perhaps hooked in college or before, have grown up and embraced organic and even vegan lifestyles.
So, what did the drug dealers do? Advertised “”ethically sourced woke coke”” for these health-conscious druggies. For a price, of course, at £200 a gram.
The product comes with tags claiming the cocaine is “”environmentally friendly”” and promises that it’s produced by well-paid farmers. And you have to trust your cocaine dealer, right?
Police laugh and say it’s just a marketing ploy to get more money from middle-class and wealthy customers. The customers, by contrast, are sure it’s legit, since their coke comes in reusable canvas tote bags.
