Xpertfeed

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 i...

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 essentiall...

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 "...

The sound system maker will not allow existing customers to opt-out of the new privacy policy. Sonos has confirmed that existing customers will not be given an option to opt out of its new privacy policy, leaving customers with sound systems that may eventually "cease to function". It comes as the home sound system maker prepares to  begin collecting  audio settings, error data, and other account data before the  launch of its smart speaker integration  in the near future. A spokesperson for the home sound system maker told that, "if a customer chooses not to acknowledge the privacy statement, the customer will not be able to update the software on their Sonos system, and over time the functionality of the product will decrease." "The customer can choose to acknowledge the policy, or can accept that over time their product may cease to function," the spokesperson said. News of the changes was announced to customers in an email last week. ...

Microsoft is buying Cycle Computing, which develops software for orchestrating workloads in the Azure, Amazon, and Google clouds, for an undisclosed amount. Microsoft announced intentions to buy cloud-computing orchestration vendor Cycle Computing for an undisclosed amount. Microsoft is positioning the deal, announced on August 15, as a way for it to enable its customers to use high-performance computing and other "Big Computing" capabilities in the public cloud. From  Microsoft's blog post about the acquisition of Cycle Computing  from Azure corporate vice president Jason Zander: "As customers continue to look for faster, more efficient ways to run their workloads, Cycle Computing's depth and expertise around massively scalable applications make them a great fit to join our Microsoft team. Their technology will further enhance our support of Linux HPC workloads and make it easier to extend on-premise workloads to the cloud." Cycle Computin...

The newly formed IT services giant reported $245 million in earnings before interest and tax during its first quarter as DXC Technology. DXC Technology has reported its first quarter earnings for fiscal 2018, posting earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of $245 million and $173 million in net income on revenue of $5.9 billion. Global Business Services profit was $282 million on revenue of $2.267 billion, Global Infrastructure Services profit was $290 million on revenue of $2.969 billion, while the company's United States Public Sector segment brought in $77 million in profit off the back of $677 million in revenue. Overall, income before tax was $185 million in the first quarter, after outlaying $190 million in restructuring costs, $124 million in transaction and integration-related costs, and $120 million from the amortisation of acquired intangibles, the company said in its  report . The results are the first since the formation of DXC Technology in ...

Facebook will start ranking faster loading pages higher in News Feed, while showing fewer stories that take longer to load. Facebook has made yet another tweak to its News Feed algorithm as part of its ongoing effort to keep users interested in the content they see on the site. The social media giant said Wednesday that it will start ranking faster loading web pages higher in News Feed while showing fewer stories that might take longer to load. Facebook says the change will allow people to "spend more time reading the stories they find relevant," but it's also a way to push publishers to its Instant Articles format. Launched in 2016, Instant Articles lets publishers create faster-loading, interactive articles on the social network. The program has been somewhat controversial from the beginning, as publishers voiced concerns over how ad revenue would be shared between Facebook and those who produce the content. Facebook has recently tried to make Instant Arti...

Microsoft is going public with its step-by-step plan for removing Adobe Flash support in Windows by the end of 2020. Adobe finally has drawn a line in the sand, noting that  Flash will no longer be supported after 2020 . Microsoft officials said they'd do their part to wind down Flash support in the company's Internet and Edge browsers, so that  Flash support will be entirely removed from Windows by the end of 2020 , as well. Flash in Edge already is only click-to-run, as of the Windows 10 Creators Update. Today, Microsoft posted its timeline and plan for getting rid of Flash over the next three years. From Microsoft's post: Through the end of 2017 and into 2018, Microsoft Edge will continue to ask users for permission to run Flash on most sites the first time the site is visited, and will remember the user's preference on subsequent visits. Internet Explorer will continue to allow Flash with no special permissions required during this time. In mid to lat...