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Top IT News of the Week (09/2022)

#ITnews

IT news #1: Microsoft Teams is coming to Office.

Topic: Microsoft, telecommunications

MS Teams will soon be available across Office.com and the Office app for Windows, as the company is looking to make the video conferencing software accessible to a broader audience. As part of the Microsoft 365 roadmap, users will be able to add apps built for Microsoft Teams to both Office platforms to help improve the user experience for Teams users whilst increasing productivity as users will no longer have to switch between platforms to access specific apps. The roadmap entry highlights how the feature could be a key selling point for many Office users due to the current switching process. The update is available in preview now for certain Microsoft Insider users while the company is looking to test the software for any glitches. Its estimated release date for all global Office users is December 2022.

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IT news #2: Vodafone UK introduces green initiatives.

Topic: Vodafone, unified communications

British telecommunications provider Vodafone UK has revealed changes that will encourage customers to repair, trade-in or recycle their old mobiles. Furthermore, the company will also expand its programme of refurbishing and reusing fixed line routers and TV boxes currently available in Germany, Portugal and Spain to various markets. Vodafone currently runs a trade-in scheme for old mobile devices accessible in the UK via the MyVodafone app; however, the available device support tends to fall short on such schemes. It’s been acknowledged by Vodafone that, for instance, keeping a phone headset for another year can significantly reduce its lifetime CO2e impact by up to 29%, while buying a refurbished mobile ends up saving around 50 Kg CO2e (about 20% or less than a new device) and eliminates the need to extract 164 Kg of raw materials. Vodafone also intends to start offering a comprehensive suite of services for these devices, such as insurance, support and repair and make it available across Europe from spring 2022.

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IT news #3: Microsoft launches new security measures for multicloud users.

Topic: Microsoft, cloud architecture

The newly released measures include an update to the Defender for Cloud platform, and the first service to come from its CloudKnox acquisition. Among the first features is the capabilities to change to Microsoft Defender for Cloud aimed at multi-cloud clients using Google Cloud services. Defender for Cloud, announced at last year’s Ignite conference, is a Cloud security posture management and Cloud workload protection solution able to identify configuration weaknesses across other providers’ services. With the addition of Google Cloud, Microsoft becomes the only Cloud provider to offer a native multi-cloud protection service for the top three platforms, including Google Cloud, AWS and Azure. Microsoft confirmed support for Google Cloud would result in a simplified onboarding experience, featuring more than 80 ‘out-of-the-box’ recommendations for users to secure their environments. It will also include a central ‘multi-cloud view’, allowing users to see and compare compliance status against critical benchmarks like the Center of Internet Security (CIS).

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IT news #4: UK businesses are more likely to pay ransom fees, study finds.

Topic: Cybersecurity, ransomware

According to the report, 82% of British firms facing ransomware attacks paid hackers to get their data back. The study revealed that the global average was 58%, making the UK the most likely to pay cyber-criminals. The research conducted by security firm Proofpoint also discovered that more than three-quarters of UK businesses were affected by a ransomware attack in 2021, with phishing attacks dominating the way web attackers access networks. Phishing is a type of attack that lures someone into clicking on a link in an email that contains malware, which instantly provides access to enter company networks. Ransomware happens when a hacker encrypts vital data and demands a fee to get the information decrypted. Negotiating with hackers is not advised by governments and industry and many organisations that have been victims of ransomware ended up paying the ransom fee several times. Despite that, only half of them regained access to data and systems after the first payment, with 4% of them unable to retrieve lost data.

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