“As an industry, and as a government, we need to acknowledge this is not a fad. We should tread cautiously, but not fearfully,” Hume said on Monday morning. “If the last 20 or 30 years have taught us anything, it’s that all innovation begins as disruption and ends as a household name. Decentralised finance underpinned by blockchain technology will present incredible opportunities ‑- Australia mustn’t be left behind by fear of the unknown....

On Tuesday, cybersecurity researchers from Zscaler’s ThreatLabz said that a total of 11 apps were recently discovered and found to be “regularly uploaded” to the official app repository, accounting for approximately 30,000 installs between them. The Joker malware family is a well-known variant that focuses on compromising Android devices. Joker is designed to spy on its victims, steal information, harvest contact lists, and monitor SMS messaging. When malicious apps containing Joker land on a handset, they may be used to conduct financial fraud, such as by covertly sending text messages to premium numbers or by signing up victims to wireless application protocol (WAP) services, earning their operators a slice of the proceeds....

Even Microsoft Office power users with years of experience will be amazed to discover the new things they can accomplish with this suite, and regular users who have been getting along with the tasks they use most in the basic programs will be thrilled to find out how much time they can save every workday, from all the tips and tricks revealed in The 2022 Premium Microsoft Office Training Certification Bundle....

What ultimately drives Mann and her relentless race to the finish line, though, might surprise you. “What fuels me is making an impact,” Mann states with conviction. “I’m driven to use my platform to make a difference. Whether that’s inspiring young girls to pursue their own dreams or saving lives, the greater my career success, the greater my opportunity to make an impact.” The good news is you don’t have to wait until you make it big to make a big impact....

Christmas 2022 was shaping up to be the best one in years for our family. We’ve been finally getting back to normal and were preparing to host my entire side of the family for the holiday. The kids had been excited about seeing their cousins since we told them about it at Thanksgiving, we were going to make Christmas cookies and build a gingerbread house, we had tickets for the Nutcracker, it was even our first Christmas with a fireplace for the big man in red to squeeze through....

Even though VMware released a patch in December and has published extensive guidance on how to mitigate the issue, many implementations remain unpatched. Tony Lee, vice president of global services technical operations at BlackBerry, told ZDNet that his team has found evidence correlating attacks from Prophet Spider with the exploitation of the Log4J vulnerability in VMware Horizon. “When an access broker group takes interest in a vulnerability whose scope is so unknown, it’s a good indication that attackers see significant value in its exploitation,” Lee said....

APT35 is one of several state-backed hacking groups known to have been developing tools to exploit public-facing Java applications that use vulnerable versions of the Log4j error-logging component. Microsoft, which tracks the group as Phosphorous and has called it out for increasingly using ransomware in attacks, found it had operationalized a Log4j exploit for future campaigns less than a week after Log4Shell’s December 9 disclosure. SEE: Log4j zero-day flaw: What you need to know and how to protect yourself According to a further analysis by Check Point, APT35’s Log4j work was sloppy and “obviously rushed”, using a basic publicly available JNDI exploit kit (now removed from GitHub) for attacks that were easy to detect and attribute....

And while I really like the colossal capacity offered by behemoths, such as the new Zendure SuperBase V, sometimes I want something I can grab quickly to take with me on a job or in an emergency. The EcoFlow River 2 fits the bill exactly. Also: The 5 best portable power banks EcoFlow River 2 specs Capacity: 256WhNet Weight: Approximately 7.7lbsDimensions: 9.6 x 8.5 x 5.7inchesAC Input: 100-120V 50Hz/60Hz, 360W MaxSolar Input: 8A Max,11-30V 110WCar Input: 12V/24V, 8A, 100W MaxUSB-C Input/Output: 5/9/12/15/20V 3A, 60W MaxAC Output: 120V 50Hz/60Hz, 300W (Surge 600W)DC Output: 12....

One thing that is practically universal for all audiophiles is that we’re always chasing down the perfect sound. That chase is never-ending, as it will never be achieved. I cannot tell you how many hours I’ve spent adjusting cartridges on tonearms and tweaking various aspects of my system. Also: The best record players for your vinyl collection But there’s a particular area that doesn’t require nearly as much thought… keeping your stylus clean....

DIYers, photographers, and design pros share a common problem that can sometimes seem insurmountable: Finding an exact match for an existing color. Sure, you might remember what the flowers on the side of the road look like, but determining their precise hue is more challenging than you think. You don’t have to drive yourself crazy with trial and error if you have a portable color sensor like the Nix Mini V2....

The company is clearly aiming the Quest Pro, especially in its early days, squarely at business and enterprise users. Meta’s ambitions revolve around “collaboration and productivity,” with the Quest Pro’s new full-color AR capabilities powering a massive shift toward virtual workspaces, conference rooms, and collaborative design projects. To expand this effort, the company is bringing in Microsoft, Accenture, and others to create instant integration with well-known productivity solutions like Microsoft Teams....

With that in mind, I invited Michael Kagan, Chief Technology Officer of Nvidia, as my guest on episode 750 of the CXOTalk series of conversations on leadership, technology, and managing change. As Nvidia’s CTO, Michael coordinates technology architecture across the company, including the Omniverse, their collaboration platform for creating virtual worlds. To me, the most fascinating parts of the discussion centered on two areas: his explanation of the metaverse (or Omniverse, to use the Nvidia term) and his view of data centers as the core unit of modern computing....

Microsoft, IBM, Google, AWS, Cisco and others in the cybersecurity industry have been banging the ‘zero trust’ drum for the past few years. The case for zero trust was made clearer after this year’s software supply chain attacks on US tech firms, which came amid a mass shift to remote work that demonstrated the need to protect information inside and beyond a trusted environment in a world that spans BYOD, home networks, VPNs, cloud services and more....

Simultaneously, Microsoft has been rebranding a number of products from Windows-something to Microsoft-something (example: Windows Store is now Microsoft Store). Microsoft Defender is not the rebrand of Windows Security – which, to add further to the confusion, was formerly known as Windows Defender. For now, the Defender antivirus product is part of the Windows Security app that is built into Windows 10 and 11.

The Redmond giant’s latest round of patches, usually released on the second Tuesday of each month in what is known as Patch Tuesday, includes fixes for a total of four zero-day flaws, three of which are public. Products impacted by October’s security update include Microsoft Office, Exchange Server, MSHTML, Visual Studio, and the Edge browser. The zero-day bugs are tracked as CVE-2021-40449, CVE-2021-41338, CVE-2021-40469, and CVE-2021-41335. CVE-2021-40449 is being actively exploited....

Microsoft officials are saying for users on Windows 10, Meet Now using Skype will continue to be available (for as long as Windows 10 is supported – meaning at least until 2025, I would assume, though Microsoft didn’t provide an actual date). And officials are emphasizing that just because those Teams and Skype chat buttons are on the taskbar does not mean users still can’t opt for a different, non-Microsoft chat/video offering like Zoom....

Microsoft has been focusing on visual updates recently as it gears up core apps like Teams for hybrid work and revamps other desktop apps to align with the new look for Windows 11. Whiteboard is one of the apps that’s also getting treated to a user interface (UI) refresh. There are new features lined up for desktop, laptop and tablets, and separate updates that are available or coming soon to Android and iOS smartphones....

Microsoft announced the encryption feature was in the works in March at Ignite Spring 2021. E2EE means that neither Microsoft, nor anyone else can access the decrypted contents of a one-to-one call. Facebook in August rolled out E2EE for audio and video calls on its Messenger app. Enabling E2EE for Teams calls requires work from both end users and IT admins, whom need to enable it for their users. SEE: When the return to the office happens, don’t leave remote workers out in the cold E2EE works by encrypting information from one point to an intended destination and prevents anyone else from decrypting the transmission....

I have to admit I’m surprised but not mad Microsoft didn’t make at least the free version of Microsoft Teams a preload on Windows 11, given Microsoft’s positioning of Windows 11 as the best platform for hybrid home/work computing. Windows 11 will go to Insider testers next week and will start rolling out to mainstream users this fall and into early 2022. Windows 11 will be preloaded on select new PCs this holiday season....

Researchers with MITRE used the Triton malware to test the detection ability of five different cybersecurity products from ICS vendors. The results of the exam can be found here. Industrial control systems are used by many of the world’s most critical infrastructures, including energy transmission and distribution plants, oil refineries, wastewater treatment facilities and more. MITRE Evaluations created a “curated knowledge base of adversary tactics, techniques and procedures based on known threats to industrial control systems” and used it to test products from Armis, Claroty, Microsoft, Dragos and the Institute for Information Industry....