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Microsoft is using this week's Ignite conference to try to help clarify its collaboration-tool strategy. Here's how SharePoint, Teams and Yammer figure in the mix. Choice is good. But too much choice, especially when it comes to collaboration tools, has been a problem for Microsoft. This isn't news to customers, partners or Microsoft execs themselves. But at the company's Ignite IT Pro conference in Orlando this week, Microsoft execs took a step to try to clarify the company's strategy and messaging in this area. Microsoft Office 365 Marketing chief Ron Markezich kicked off the conference this week with a slide entitled "Microsoft 365 Teamwork: Where to Start a Conversation." That slide attempts to do what  Microsoft initially attempted with a 60-plus-page whitepaper : Clarify which collaboration tools customers should use when. The slide, which features SharePoint -- and its files, sites and content storage at the center -- is broken down into t

Dozens of documents reveal detailed maps and configurations of internal Verizon servers. Security researchers have found yet another data exposure at Verizon. Confidential and sensitive documents, including server logs and several instances of credentials for internal systems, were found on an unprotected Amazon S3 storage server controlled by a Verizon Wireless customer, discovered by  security researchers at the Kromtech Security Research Center . The server contained several files, mostly scripts and server logs -- some appeared to show usernames and passwords to internal systems. Other folders contained internal Verizon documents, many of which were marked "confidential and proprietary materials," include detailed server and infrastructure maps, server IP addresses, global router hosts, and several scripts that could be used to gain elevated privileges within the system. A portion of the files were shared for verification. The files largely appear to refer

BlueBorne is a set of Bluetooth security holes that just keeps on hitting. Besides smartphones and Windows, it seriously impacts Linux desktops and servers. The security company  Armis  has revealed eight separate Bluetooth wireless protocol flaws known collectively as BlueBorne . This new nasty set of vulnerabilities have the potential to wreak havoc on iPhones, Android devices, Windows PC, and, oh yes, Linux desktops and server, as well. While BlueBorne requires a Bluetooth connection to spread, once the security holes are exploited, a single infected device could infect numerous devices and computers in seconds. Attacks made with BlueBorne are silent, avoid activating most security measures, and require nothing from new victims except that their devices have Bluetooth on. Armis CEO Yevgeny Dibrov explained: "These silent attacks are invisible to traditional security controls and procedures. Companies don't monitor these types of device-to-device connections in the

Oracle is shutting down SPARC and Solaris. Good bye, Sun. It was nice knowing you. Officially,   Oracle   hasn't said a thing. Unofficially, if you count the cars in Oracle's Santa Clara office, you'll find hundreds of spots that were occupied last week now empty. As   many as 2,500 Oracle, former Sun, employees have been laid off . Good bye, SPARC. Good bye, Solaris. Your day is done. None of this is a real surprise.   Oracle had cut former Sun engineers and developers by a thousand employees   in January. In Oracle's most recent   SPARC/Solaris roadmap , the next generation Solaris 12 had been replaced by Solaris 11.next and SPARC next -- incremental upgrades. Former Sun executive Bryan Cantrill reported, based on his conversations with current Solaris team members, that   Oracle's latest layoffs were, "So deep as to be fatal:   The core Solaris engineering organization lost on the order of 90 percent of its people, including essentially all manageme

The spambot has collected millions of email credentials and server login information in order to send spam through "legitimate" servers, defeating many spam filters. A huge spambot ensnaring 711 million email accounts has been uncovered. A Paris-based security researcher, who goes by the pseudonymous handle  Benkow , discovered an open and accessible web server hosted in the Netherlands, which stores dozens of text files containing a huge batch of email addresses, passwords, and email servers used to send spam. Those credentials are crucial for the spammer's large-scale malware operation to bypass spam filters by sending email through legitimate email servers. The spambot, dubbed "Onliner," is used to deliver the Ursnif banking malware into inboxes all over the world. To date, it's resulted in more than 100,000 unique infections across the world, Benkow . Troy Hunt,  who runs breach notification site Have I Been Pwned , said it was a "