@hobbit666 said in Microsoft to lay off thousands in sales, marketing reshuffle:

Will this include the cold calling centre? Had 4 calls from Dell yesturday

I've never heard of an MS cold call.

Taking BitCoin mining to a whole new level...

Sigh
More evidence that Microsoft have no idea what they are doing.

November 2015 They trumpeted that they were going to reduce your storage back to 5GB removing the camera roll bonus, and reducing the free tier from 15GB... unless you clicked a button.

Now they are dictating what you can store your stuff on. I know it's their service that they're offering and I don't have to use it but good grief, it's almost like they're doing a photobucket.

@msff-amman-Itofficer said in Intel Sees Irrelevance in Its Future, Turns to Legal Threats Instead of Technology:

Who needs an Cortex a57 server CPU ? it is sooo 2013 ...

One could say the same thing about the AMD64 family.

@Dashrender said in Users Suggest Microsoft Losing Its Way with Skype:

@Minion-Queen said in Users Suggest Microsoft Losing Its Way with Skype:

@scottalanmiller said in Users Suggest Microsoft Losing Its Way with Skype:

@Dashrender said in Users Suggest Microsoft Losing Its Way with Skype:

I've rarely ever used Skype for business purposes. The only time I can think of that I did use it is for talking to NTG.

Yeah, and MQ claims it's the only thing that customers use, but I never talk to any company that has it.

I had 4 customer calls with it this week. 2 of them were vendors. People request it as an option. I would guess cause of Headphone for their desktop.

Not that I can see why this really matters - but are these customers still making calls over the PSTN? or via direct SIP to SIP connections with you/others?

I'm not sure where you are going. But the conversation was that customers use Skype for calling long distance. Every company everywhere still uses the PSTN, but lots like to avoid it especially for desktop sharing since that doesn't support that. Skype doesn't do SIP, so if the point was that they were making Skype calls, it means by definition no SIP or PSTN.

Bahahaha! Stick that in ya pipe and smoke it. Good on CF for going the scorched earth approach.

I'm going to try this out. Looks interesting.

So I just came off of using Plasma 5 for a few months. It's not bad. It's not as in your face about everything as 4 was. However, dual monitor support seemed a little flaky.

@Dashrender said in Introducing NHSBuntu, UK's Ubuntu for Healthcare:

@scottalanmiller
I agree, though I also agree with the others I don't think it will matter for them in the slightest.
They will simply abandon doing updates on these as well.

Very likely.

@Tim_G said in Log Into Windows with a Biometric Ring:

@Dashrender said in Log Into Windows with a Biometric Ring:

So now you start stealing rings... lol

It's harder to steal a ring than credentials through phishing emails, as one example.

Quite a bit more 🙂 And easier to know when it has been stolen.

Now if the ring could read heart or other biometric and only work when on the right person's finger(s), even better.

After monitoring this new outbreak for 24 hours, I came to the conclusion we were dealing with cyber warfare, and not ransomware. Two separate reports coming from Comae Technologies and Kaspersky Lab experts confirm this now.

NotPetya is a destructive disk wiper similar to Shamoon which has been targeting Saudi Arabia in the recent past. Note that Shamoon actually deleted files, NotPetya goes about it slightly different, it does not delete any data but simply makes it unusable by locking the files and then throwing away the key. The end result is the same.

Someone is hijacking known ransomware families and using them to attack Ukrainian computer systems. Guess who.

You never had a chance to recover your files. There are several technical indicators that NotPetya was only made to look as ransomware as a smoke screen:

It never bothers to generate a valid infection ID The Master File Table gets overwritten and is not recoverable The author of the original Petya also made it clear NotPetya was not his work

This has actually happened earlier. Foreshadowing the NotPetya attack, the author of the AES-NI ransomware said in May he did not create the XData ransomware, which was also used in targeted attacks against Ukraine. Furthermore, both XData and NotPetya used the same distribution vector, the update servers of a Ukrainian accounting software maker.

Catalin Cimpanu, the Security News Editor for Bleepingcomputer stated: "The consensus on NotPetya has shifted dramatically in the past 24 hours, and nobody would be wrong to say that NotPetya is on the same level with Stuxnet and BlackEnergy, two malware families used for political purposes and for their destructive effects. Evidence is clearly mounting that NotPetya is a cyber-weapon and not just some overly-aggressive ransomware."

Cybersecurity has moved from tech to a CEO and Board-level business issue

You did not sign up for this, but today it is abundantly clear that as an IT pro you are have just found yourself on the front line of 21-st century cyber war. Cybersecurity has moved from tech to a CEO and Board-level business issue. I strongly suggest you have another look at your defense-in-depth, and make sure to:

Have weapons-grade backups
Religiously patch
Step users through new-school security awareness training.

@scottalanmiller said in The British Navy Runs on Windows XP:

This "defence source" definitely goes against the claim that a new OS was just created for this: "A defence source told the newspaper that some of the on-boar hardware and software "would have been good in 2004" when the carrier was designed, "but now seems rather antiquated"."

Indeed. But with most things, its outdated as soon as you ordered the kit. Probably spinning disks, rather than SSDs - gets hit by a wave in the wrong place and the head on for a few platters move... warship dead! But hey, they are cheaper - just like a particular type of cladding.

I often point out to people discussion Windows and Linux that they often do a cost comparison and figure that they are pretty close... but leave out licensing which is by far the biggest cost and risk of windows. They forget the time and risk in determining needs, record keeping, upkeep, monitoring, audits, fines, etc.

@Texkonc said in OSX and PPTP:

If you are a windows shop with RRAS and you have OSX endpoints, prepare for Doom!
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206844

RRAS was "never use PPTP" with Windows 2000. It's only an issue for shops set up before 1999.