In this issue:
Risk posed to financial industry by outdated software. Danes denied their Slurpee fix. Fallout from Microsoft change to VBA macro security. Windows and Windows Server news. IT events in Germany and The Netherlands. Tool to log user off automatically after period of inactivity. Getting started with Windows 365. Free online security tool from ReasonLabs. Snappy Comeback-as-a-Service. Cool magic videos. Finally something Canada can be proud of. Plus lots more — read it all, read it here on WServerNews!
As the old saying goes, “Wall Street begins at a river and ends at a graveyard.” And somewhere in the middle lies IT. Photo by lo lo on Unsplash
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Editor’s Corner
I get a kick out of following Wall Street ever since I read Michael Lewis’s book Liar’s Poker years ago. I’m also a big fan of bothmovies starring Michael Douglas about the strange world of stock and bond traders. That’s why my head turned this morning when I read this headline on Yahoo! Finance: Lombard Odier Adds ESG Screens After ‘Shocking’ Cyber Report. What’s this? An article about both favorite subjects: cybersecurity and Wall Street? Gotta read this!
And I wasn’t disappointed. The article reports how Lombard Odier, a Swiss private bank specializing in wealth and asset management, had reported they had uncovered “shocking” evidence that many companies that manage investment portfolios were running “outdated software” that posed serious cybersecurity risks for their customers. Wow, who would have thought that an industry that focuses on greed would underspend on cybersecurity?
The report also estimates that “by 2025, costs associated with cybercrime may well exceed $10 trillion, up from $6 trillion in 2021.” I suppose the aim of that statement is to strike fear into the hearts of portfolio management companies, prompting them to upgrade their out-of-date software and strengthen their cybersecurity defenses.
Greed and fear: two currencies Wall Street is skillful in trafficking. The question of course is whether anyone is listening, if anyone cares. With cyberthreats against industry (Hacker News), healthcare (SC Media) and governments (BetaNews) it’s only a matter of time until major players in the financial sector get seriously hacked. And the question lurking in the mind of traders on The Street is probably, “If it happens, how can we profit from it?”
Any bets?
We hope that you enjoy this week’s issue of WServerNews, feel free to email us your comments or questions about anything in this newsletter.
This Week in IT
A compendium of recent IT industry news compiled by Your Editors. Feel free to email us if you find a news item you think our newsletter readers might be interested in. And for more tech news coverage see the News section of our TechGenix website.
Lots of tectonic shifts happening in the IT industry lately. For example there’s tech manufacturers shifting from China to other locations (TechGenix) perhaps partly associated with the news that Nvidia and AMD will stop selling processors to China (TechGenix). Meanwhile, Gartner has issued a forecast that worldwide PC shipments will decline by almost 10 percent by end of year (Gartner). And J.P.Morgan saus that supply chain issues for computer chips are widespread and prevalent, causing reverberations across many sectors especially the auto industry (J.P.Morgan). Not sure when all this will settle down but it’ll likely take at least another year.
Meanwhile the scary news coming from the cybersecurity world just gets scarier. NetworkComputing has a rundown of today’s major adversaries that IT pros should be familiar with. REvil is obviously one of these bad actors and ITPro has a report that the ransomware gang has achieved their biggest prize yet by hacking Midea Group, a company with an annual revenue of over 50 billion dollars.
Then there’s the bad news for Slurpee addicts that 7-Eleven Stores in Denmark closed recently due to a cyberattack (BleepingComputer). And if that’s not bad enough, what about all those stunning photos from the James Webb telescope you can find online everywhere? Guess what? Some of them are loaded with malware (Dark Reading).
And on the DevOps side of things, Legit Security recently identified software supply chain attack vulnerabilities in open-source projects from Google and Apache. Along these lines we also want to mention that The New Stack will soon be publishing an ebook titled A Blueprint for Supply Chain Security so if your work involves you in the DevOps space then you might want to be notified when it becomes available.
Scary stuff. But otherwise business as usual for IT warriors.
Windows news
Microsoft’s decision to block VBA macros for security reasons when they’re found online continues to cause headaches for some IT departments (Günter Born). It’s not easy dealing with changes to long-established workflows. Have any of our readers been experiencing problems in this area?
Another interesting item we found on Gunter’s blog is news that Microsoft’s ex-UI chief has expressed shock concerning the Windows 11 start menu. That’s a very interesting article to read, and of course there are some alternatives you can use to replace the Start menu on Windows 11 (ZDNET).
News that’s still making the rounds since April is that researchers from Microsoft’s Detection and Response Team (DART) and Threat Intelligence Center (MTIC) have detected malware that is able to hide in Windows scheduled tasks in order to evade detection. If you haven’t read it yet you should read this post on the Microsoft Security blog explaining the problem and how to mitigate it.
Windows Server news
More on the server side of things a few news items have caught our attention which our readers should be aware of:
Microsoft adds virtual cores to Windows Server licensing (NetworkWorld)
NIC Certification updates in the Windows Server Catalog (Networking Blog – Microsoft)
SMB compression behavior & settings changes (Storage at Microsoft)
Microsoft Finalizes Plans to Fix Unfair Licensing in EU (Thurrott)
Upcoming webcasts, workshops and conferences
Got an event, conference or webcast you want announced in our newsletter? Email us!
Big Data Expo in Utrecht, The Netherlands on Sept 14-15 – Free tickets
European Cloud Summit in Mainz, Germany on Sept 26-28 – Buy tickets
Also be sure to check out the following event listings:
- Redmond Channel Partner’s calendar of upcoming Microsoft conferences for partners, IT pros and developers.
- TechRepublic’s 2022 tech conferences and events to add to your calendar.
- FOSS Force’s list of upcoming Open Source Events.
Got comments about anything in this issue?
Email us! We love hearing from our readers!
Meet the Editors!
MITCH TULLOCH is Senior Editor of WServerNews and is a widely recognized expert on Windows Server and cloud technologies. He has written more than a thousand articles and has authored or been series editor for over 50 books for Microsoft Press and other publishers. Mitch has also been a twelve-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award in the technical category of Cloud and Datacenter Management. He currently runs an IT content development business in Winnipeg, Canada that produces books, ebooks, whitepapers, case studies, courseware, documentation, newsletters and articles for various companies.
INGRID TULLOCH is Associate Editor of WServerNews. She was co-author of the Microsoft Encyclopedia of Networking from Microsoft Press and collaborated on developing university-level courses in Information Security Management for a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) program. Ingrid also manages Research and Development for the IT content development business she runs together with Mitch.
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IT Workshop – tools, guides and useful stuff
Got a product or solution or some other resource you’d like to tell our readers about? Email us!
Our TOOL OF THE WEEK is Lithnet Idle Logoff a simple utility that allows you to log off users, reboot, or shutdown a computer after a period of user inactivity, and optionally display a warning message before this happens. a utility from Lithnet
Need to learn how you should manage Windows updates in your environment? Check out this Ask the Experts video from The Blueprint Files by Microsoft.
Think that using one-time passcodes can enhance your organization’s security? You might need to think again after you read this article on KrebsOnSecurity.
Want to learn more about Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)? Check out this article on TechGenix.
GFI LanGuard enables you to manage and maintain end-point protection across your network by providing visibility into all the elements in your network, helping you assess where there may be potential vulnerabilities, and enabling you to patch them.
Tips and Tutorials
Got tips or tutorials you’d like to recommend for our readers? Email us!
Does your Windows PC log you off immediately after you try logging on? Check out this thread on Microsoft Answers for how to troubleshoot.
Want to learn how you can get started using Windows 365? Niall Brady has begun publishing a series of articles that can help, check them out:
- Getting started with Windows 365 – Part 1. Introduction
- Getting started with Windows 365 – Part 2. Provisioning an Azure Ad Joined Cloud PC
Stay tuned to his blog just another windows noob for more articles soon on this topic.
Freebies!!
Got a freebie you want to offer our readers? You can reach almost 200,000 IT pros worldwide with our newsletter—email us!
DuckDuckGo’s free email protection beta is now open to all (BetaNews)
ReasonLabs Launches Free Online Security Tool to Power Secure Web Experience for Millions of Global Users (Dark Reading)
Factoid: Snappy Comeback-as-a-Service
Our previous factoid was this:
Fact: Atari Turns 50: A Look Back on the Original Name in Video Games
Source:https://www.pcmag.com/news/atari-turns-50-a-look-back-on-the-original-name-in-video-games
Question: Did any of our readers own an Atari way back when? What did you use it for besides playing games?
Clint Chaplin who is Senior Principal Standards Engineer at Samsung Research America responded to this as follows:
Well, not exactly Atari, but Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created an arcade game called Computer Space before they split off and founded Atari. There was a cabinet of the game in the local mall, and I dumped a lot of quarters into it…
…and quarters were worth a lot in those days! Anyways, let’s move on to this week’s factoid:
Fact: Google to stop giving answers to silly questions
Question: Have you ever gotten a silly response from Google when you asked it a question?
Email us your answer and we’ll include it in our next issue!
Fun videos from Flixxy
Cell-Phone Magic – Two-time world champion of magic Soma Hajnóczy performs his famous cell-phone manipulation act.
https://www.flixxy.com/soma-hajnoczy-hungarian-master-of-cell-phone-magic.htm
Treadmill Levitation Magic – Topas shows his treadmill levitation magic on Penn & Teller’s Fool Us Season 8.
https://www.flixxy.com/treadmill-levitation-magic-by-topas.htm
Mind-Blowing Magic – Watch magician Nicolas Ribs’ polished multi-media magical performance on America’s Got Talent 2022 Semifinals.
https://www.flixxy.com/nicolas-ribs-performs-mind-blowing-magic-on-agt-2022.htm
Bending Metal – Award-winning magician Menny Lindenfeld performs his amazing ability to deform everyday objects for ‘Penn and Teller Fool Us.’
https://www.flixxy.com/menny-lindenfeld-bending-metal-with-his-mind.htm
And Finally
The odd, the stupid and the remarkable. Good for your mental health.
Deepfakes Pose a Growing Danger, New Research Says (CNET)
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/deepfakes-pose-a-growing-danger-new-research-says/
[How do I know this article wasn’t written by a fake human?]
Scientists develop first-of-its-kind air conditioner that uses solid refrigerants (Interesting Engineering)
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/first-air-conditioner-solid-refrigerants
[You mean, like, ice?]
Obsessively watching the news can make you mentally and physically sick (Study Finds)
https://studyfinds.org/watching-news-can-make-you-sick/
[I read that this morning on Drudge Report… Excuse me for a moment, I think I’m gonna throw up.]
New film BlackBerry to explore rise and fall of Canadian smartphone (CBC)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/blackberry-film-baruchel-1.6560875
[Finally, something Canada can be proud of!]
Hey reader! Got an amazing or weird or funny link you’d like to suggest for this section of our newsletter? Email us! But please make sure that it’s G-rated as in “Gee whiz”, “Golly!”, “Good grief!”, “Gaaahh!!” and so on. Thanks!
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