Windows 7 users should update to avoid cyber-security risks

Computer updates can be confusing, but the newest Microsoft Windows update is vital to keep you online information safe. The end of Microsoft 7 support will actually take place on Jan.14.While may seem harmless not to update your computer, it will actually open you up to things like viruses and hacking."If you don't upgrade to Windows 10, then over time security vulnerabilities will be found in Window 7 and since Microsoft is no longer offering support they won't be making patches for that, and that will open you up to vulnerabilities that hackers will take advantage of, "said Spencer Hayden, the owner of IT service company Conducive Data Hayden says users may receive a warning message if they are still using Windows 7, but they don't need to panic.

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Software Security

BT and Google Cloud Advance Cybersecurity With New Partnership

PR Newswire | October 16, 2023

BT and Google Cloud today announced a new partnership focusing on an enhanced commitment to cybersecurity innovation. Serving customers in more than 180 countries and with a team of 3,000 security professionals, BT works with the security industry's leading vendors to provide managed security solutions to private and public sector organisations around the world. As part of the partnership, BT will become a managed services delivery partner for Google's Autonomic Security Operations (ASO) offering based on Google Chronicle. ASO is a holistic framework that combines principles, practices, and tools that enable organisations to take an adaptive and automated approach to threat management. Underpinned by Chronicle's peta-byte scale detection, a data lake powered by Google Cloud's data and analytics platform BigQuery, and rich, compelling analytics via Looker, the solution decreases the time to detect and respond to threats—which is essential in the face of the increasing volume and complexity of cyber-attacks. Customers will benefit from the new partnership by gaining the technological capabilities of Google Chronicle, combined with BT's track record of delivering cybersecurity services to organisations with complex estates and requirements. Customers will be supported by experts from BT's Security Advisory Services team, who leverage BT's deep experience in security operations and integration to help organisations ensure that they have optimised their wider security architecture to fully align with their priorities and ambition. Combining Google Chronicle's capabilities with BT's view of global networks and experience of providing managed security services is a really exciting prospect. The ASO solution will help our customers to rapidly identify risks and automatically enhance their cyber defences—providing the speed that's essential to combating cyber-attacks. It represents the first step in our partnership with Google Cloud on cybersecurity, with both companies committed to providing new innovations and solutions that help organisations stay ahead of an increasingly threatening cyber threat landscape, said Tris Morgan, Managing Director, Security at BT. "Our partnership brings the best of BT's experience in deploying big data-based security platforms with Google Cloud's innovative security capabilities to help our multinational customers transform their approaches to cyber risk management in the face of a rapidly changing threat landscape," said Magali Bohn, Global Director, Partnerships & Channels at Google Cloud Security. The partnership builds on BT Group and Google's existing relationship to house BT Group's data in Google Cloud to support its analytics and AI ambitions. BT and Google Cloud will also seek to incorporate solutions from Mandiant, a market leader in threat intelligence solutions acquired by Google in 2022, as an additional aspect of the partnership. Finally, BT is working with Google Cloud to trial Google's Vertex AI and Duet AI capabilities.

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Cloud Security

Palo Alto Networks Announces Intent to Acquire Cloud Security Start-up Dig Security

PR Newswire | November 01, 2023

Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW), the global cybersecurity leader, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire cloud security start-up Dig Security, an innovative provider of Data Security Posture Management (DSPM). Today, almost 70% of organizations already have data stored in the public cloud1. With increased interest and adoption of generative AI, sensitive data is often even more spread out across cloud services, including distributed databases, vector databases, PaaS services, and more. Organizations need help identifying sensitive data, effectively managing user access, and implementing robust security measures to protect against internal and external threats. Simultaneously, the relentless surge in the volume and impact of cloud data breaches persists2, causing significant damage to enterprises. This underscores the critical role that DSPM will play within a comprehensive cloud security strategy. Dig's DSPM solution enables organizations to discover, classify, monitor, and protect sensitive data across all cloud data stores, which will give Palo Alto Networks' customers visibility into and control of their multi-cloud data estate. After the close of the proposed acquisition, Dig's capabilities will be seamlessly integrated into the Prisma® Cloud platform to provide near real-time data protection from code to cloud. Dig was founded by entrepreneurs Dan Benjamin, Ido Azran, and Gad Akuka. They will continue leading their teams in joining the Prisma Cloud team at Palo Alto Networks after closing. Lee Klarich, Chief Product Officer for Palo Alto Networks: "As companies build AI-enabled applications, there will be a substantial increase in the amount of data transferred to the cloud. Dig's highly innovative DSPM technology helps safely enable this shift, and its dedicated team will complement and help advance Palo Alto Networks' strengths across cloud security. The announcement of our intent to join forces with Dig reinforces our longstanding commitment to our team in Israel and to continue growing our footprint with its talented and dedicated cybersecurity professionals." Ankur Shah, SVP Products, Prisma Cloud for Palo Alto Networks: "Data protection was the top priority for cloud security cited in the 2023 The State of Cloud-Native Security Report. Upwards of 75% of respondents noted that the number of point tools they use creates blind spots. Dig lets security teams see and secure their data across multi-cloud environments. This visibility and security is becoming increasingly important in the age of generative AI. Dig's innovation, coupled with Prisma Cloud's leading code-to-cloud intelligence highlighted in the recent Darwin release, will create what CISOs need to drive complete cloud security and data protection with a single, integrated, cloud-native platform." Dan Benjamin, Co-Founder & CEO, Dig Security: "Modern cloud applications leverage a broad set of data stores to meet the complex needs of businesses. We developed an award-winning DSPM solution to alleviate this strain by providing a centralized offering to monitor and manage the security of these cloud data stores. Integrating Dig's technology with Prisma Cloud will enable customers to effectively manage the security of their diverse data stores in modern cloud applications and reduce the risk of data breaches. My co-founders and I look forward to continuing our innovation journey with Palo Alto Networks to make the world safer."

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Security Audit and Compliance

Lumen Enhances its SASE Solution with New Security Features Addition

Lumen Technologies | September 13, 2023

Lumen Technologies announces the launch of key security enhancements to its industry-leading secure access service edge product. The company’s SASE Solutions represents a first-of-its-kind, fully digital experience for purchasing, configuring, and overseeing enterprise SASE. The latest features incorporated into Lumen SASE Solutions are security service edge and cloud-hosted gateways. On September 12, 2023, Lumen Technologies, a leading provider of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solutions, committed to advancing human progress through technology facilitating the connection of people, data, and applications, announced the addition of key enhancements to its landmark SASE product. The addition of new features makes lumen SASE solutions even more simplified and flexible for customers. Lumen SASE Solutions represents a pioneering, entirely digital experience for purchasing, configuring, and managing enterprise SASE. This is a significant step in Lumen's ongoing efforts to drive innovation and foster growth. Notably, the SASE product improvements launch are a direct outcome of valuable customer feedback. The Lumen SASE approach focuses on simplification in order to deliver flexible, secure, and scalable SASE solutions to organizations of all sizes and industries. Senior Director of SASE Product Management at Lumen, Darren Wolner, said, There has been a rapid adoption of cloud-based services as more organizations implement hybrid work, but security is paramount to any cloud-based experience. This means savvy organizations soon realized a whole new set of requirements and challenges. We quickly enhanced the product to fit their requirements. [Source – Cision PR Newswire] Darren mentioned that Lumen has a strong focus on meeting customer wants and needs. He cited the latest SASE updates as a prime illustration of this commitment. The new capabilities added to Lumen SASE Solutions include: Security Service Edge (SSE) SSE encompasses a suite of integrated, cloud-centric security capabilities, which feature cloud-hosted gateways. These capabilities are designed to ensure secure access to websites, facilitate the safe sharing of sensitive data, and manage user permissions for software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications. These solutions are delivered in partnership with prominent SD-WAN and security providers. Cloud-hosted Gateways Cloud-hosted gateways offer organizations the flexibility to adopt 'grow as they go' network and security management features as they scale without the necessity of on-premises equipment. In addition to the global expansion of Lumen technologies, customers based in the US can now deploy premise-based SASE services to locations in EMEA and Canada. Pete Finalle, Research Manager with IDC, stated, The new, hybrid perimeter – encompassing the main office down to the remote workforce – has collided with multi-cloud resources. This has created numerous networking and security complexities that are difficult to solve without a customer outcomes-based approach, which few companies can provide. [Source – Cision PR Newswire] Finalle pointed out that Lumen has a distinctive position to deliver real business outcomes through a comprehensive, cloud-based network security stack. This stack significantly benefits from Lumen's presence in both network and cloud infrastructure. Additionally, he mentioned that the company's digital customer experience and managed approach to resolving the intricate security and networking challenges allow them to mitigate the deployment and management difficulties that frequently hinder the adoption of SASE.

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