Researchers observed that the Emotet gang had incorporated a new “Red Dawn” template into their weaponized Word Documents delivered to users. Until recently, Emotet’s handlers had been targeting users with a iOS-themed document template for their malicious Word documents. The template explained that a sender had created the document on iOS, and it informed the […]… Read More
The post Emotet Switches to ‘Red Dawn’ Template in Weaponized Word Documents appeared first on The State of Security.
According to the National Human Genome Research Institute synthetic biology is:
"... a field of science that involves redesigning organisms for useful purposes by engineering them to have new abilities. Synthetic biology researchers and companies around the world are harnessing the power of nature to solve problems in medicine, manufacturing and agriculture."
Synthetic biology is not a new trend. About a decade ago it was hailed as the next big thing. But like so many technologies, it's taken a while for the reality to catch up to the early hype.
But a number of new bioengineering technologies and advances, and especially CRISPR, are enabling a wave of new synthetic biology products and companies.
Tech Crunch's Synthetic biology startups are giving investors an appetite reports on this trend. Key quote:
"There’s a growing wave of commercial activity from companies that are creating products using new biological engineering technologies."
The best known synthetic biology company is probably Impossible Foods.
They use plants and bioengineered additives to create plant-based food that looks and tastes like meat.
But the TechCrunch article mentions several other examples, with our favorite being Pivot Bio.
They are creating self-fertilizing cereal crops like corn, wheat and rice. This would eliminate the need for nitrogen fertilizers, which are major global pollutants.
Another interesting example is Bolt Threads. Among other things, they are creating a synthetic alternative to silk using the same proteins as spiders use.
And, not surprisingly, there are synthetic biology platform companies helping to build the industry. Another quote from the TechCrunch article:
"Platform companies like Ginkgo Bioworks and Zymergen have large libraries of metagenomic data that can be applied to products like industrial chemicals, coatings and films, pesticides and new ways to deliver nutrients to consumers."
Both of these firms already have multi-billion dollar valuations.
There's little doubt that, at some point, synthetic biology will fundamentally change the world. And it's starting to happen.
はじめまして、Citrixコンサルティングサービスの衛藤と申します。
このBlogを読んでいただいている企業さまの中には、従業員に支給しているパソコンをよりセキュアに利用させるため、証明書を内蔵したスマートカードを使って、支給パソコンのWindowsへログオンを行っている、というケースがあるかと思います。
万が一パソコンが第三者の手に渡ったとしても、社員が携帯する物理的なスマートカードを挿入しない限りWindowsへのログオンができないため、IDとパスワードを使った認証方式より更に強固なセキュリティが期待できる仕組みです。
実際にユーザーがWindowsへログオンを行うときは、物理カードを挿入した上で、予め設定を行ったPINの入力を行うことで、パソコンを利用することが可能となります。
今回のBlogでは、Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops環境において、そのようなスマートカードを利用したシングルサインオン（パススルー認証）について整理していきます。
まず、CitrixのVirtual Apps and Desktopsによる仮想化環境を導入した場合、ユーザーによる認証作業は一般的に以下の3回必要です。
1回目：クライアント端末(パソコン)へのログオン
2回目：
I.社内ネットワークからアクセスする場合：StoreFrontへのログオン
II.社外ネットワークからアクセスする場合：Citrix Gatewayへのログオン
3回目：仮想リソースを起動する際に行われる、仮想側Windowsへのログオン
※2回目の認証の際、アクセス元が社内ネットワーク経由か社外ネットワーク経由かによって、アクセスして認証を行うコンポーネントが異なります。本Blogではパススルー認証の検証を行うのが趣旨であり、社内ネットワークからのアクセスを前提としているため、シンプルなStoreFrontの構成を採用します。そのためCitrix Gatewayは対象外です。
これら３回のログオンを毎回ユーザーが手動で行うのは煩雑となるため、クライアント端末へのログオンを一度行うだけで、あとの2回目、3回目の認証は不要とする、パススルー認証を実現することが理想です。
また、Windowsのログオンにスマートカードを利用するために、Active Directoryのユーザープロパティーの設定で「対話型ログオン時にはスマートカードが必要」を有効としている場合があります。このときCitrixの仮想デスクトップや仮想アプリケーション(以下、仮想リソース)をユーザーが起動して利用する際の3回目の認証にもスマートカードが必要となる点が特に考慮すべきポイントとなります。
ここまでに記載した考慮点を踏まえて、スマートカードをご利用になる環境ではシングルサインオンとしての「パススルー認証」をどのように実現できるのか、検証結果をまとめていきます。
※本記事の結果は、弊社が準備を行った以下の環境により確認がとれた結果です。実際にご利用になる環境やスマートカードの種類などによって結果の差異が考えられるため、導入前には入念なPoCの実施を強く推奨致します。
＜検証環境＞
１．Active Directoryドメインに参加したWindows 10クライアント端末
２．Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 1912 LTSR
３．YubiKey(擬似的にスマートカードとして利用可能な製品)
→Windowsに特別なドライバーを入れることなく、スマートカードとして利用可能な製品を選択…
During the previous weeks, we provided a thorough overview of the EU NIS Directive, focusing on the Operators of Essential Systems (OES), the Digital Service Providers (DSP) and the compliance frameworks. Our review of the EU cybersecurity policy and strategy would be incomplete without mentioning the EU Cybersecurity Act. On 27 June, the European Cybersecurity […]… Read More
The post What Is the EU Cybersecurity Act and What Does It Mean for US-Based Businesses? appeared first on The State of Security.
The global legal services industry was worth $849 billion dollars in 2017 and is expected to become a trillion dollar industry by the end of next year. Little wonder that Steno, an L.A.-based startup, wants a piece.
Like most legal services outfits, what it offers are ways for law practices to run more smoothly, including in a world where fewer people are meeting in conference rooms and courthouses and operating instead from disparate locations.
Steno first launched with an offering that centers on court reporting. It lines up court reporters, as well as pays them, removing both potential headaches from lawyers’ to-do lists.
More recently, the startup has added offerings like a remote deposition videoconferencing platform that it insists is not only secure but can manage exhibit handling and other details in ways meant to meet specific legal needs.
It also, very notably, has a lending product that enables lawyers to take depositions without paying until a case is resolved, which can take a year or two. The idea is to free attorneys’ financial resources — including so they can take on other clients — until there’s a payout. Of course, the product is also a potentially lucrative one for Steno, as are most lending products.
We talked earlier this week with the company, which just closed on a $3.5 million seed round led by First Round Capital (it has now raised $5 million altogether).
Unsurprisingly, one of its founders is a lawyer named Dylan Ruga who works as a trial attorney at an L.A.-based law group and knows first-hand the biggest pain points for his peers.
More surprising is his cofounder, Gregory Hong, who previously cofounded the restaurant reservation platform Reserve, which was acquired by Resy, which was acquired by American Express. How did Hong make the leap from one industry to a seemingly very different one?
Hong says he might not have gravitated to the idea if not for Ruga, who was Resy’s trademark attorney and who happened to send Hong the pitch behind Steno to get Hong’s advice. He looked it over as a favor, then he asked to get involved. “I just thought, ‘This is a unique and interesting opportunity’ and said, ‘Dylan, let me run this.'”
Today the 19-month-old startup now has 20 full-time employees and another 10 part-time staffers. One major accelerant to the business has been the pandemic, suggests Hong. Turns out tech-enabled legal support services become even more attractive when lawyers and everyone else in the ecosystem is socially distancing.
Hong suggests that Steno’s idea to marry its services with financing is gaining adherents, too, including amid law groups like JML Law and Simon Law Group, both of which focus largely on personal injury cases.
Indeed, Steno charges — and provides financing — on a per-transaction basis right now, even while its revenue is “somewhat recurring” in that its customers constantly have court cases.
Still, a subscription product is being considered, says Hong. So are other uses for its videoconferencing platform. In the meantime, says Hong, Steno’s tech is “built very well” for legal services, and that’s where it plans to remain focused.
La mayoría de los clientes tienen en mente “ahorrar dinero” al pasarse a la nube. El “cloud deployment” de Google y encabezados de blogs y sitios de noticias están dominados por artículos positivos que ofrecen evidencia anecdótica de cómo la nube puede ahorrar dinero a los clientes. Más comúnmente, los consultores en la nube o […]… Read More
The post ¿Te mudas a la nube para ahorrar dinero? Piénsalo de nuevo … appeared first on The State of Security.
Now that the great Y Combinator rush is behind us, we’re returning to a topic many of you really seem to care about: no-code and low-code apps and their development.
We’ve explored the theme a few times recently, once from a venture-capital perspective, and another time building from a chat with the CEO of Claris, an Apple subsidiary and an early proponent of low-code work.
Today we’re adding notes from a call with Appian CEO Matt Calkins that took place yesterday shortly after the company released its most recent earnings report.
The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. You can read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.
Appian is built on low-code development. And, having gone public back in 2017, it is the first low-code IPO we can think of. With its Q2 results reported on August 6, we wanted to dig a bit more into what Calkins is seeing in today’s market so we can better understand what is driving demand for low, and no-code development specifically, and demand for business apps more generally in 2020.
As you can imagine, COVID-19 and the accelerating digital transformation are going to come up in our notes. But, first, let’s take a look at Appian’s quarter quickly before digging into how its low-code-focused CEO sees the world.
Appian had a pretty good Q2. The company reported $66.8 million in revenue for the three-month period, ahead of market expectations that it would report around $61 million, though collected analyst estimates varied. The low-code platform also beat on per-share profit, reporting a $0.12 per-share loss after adjustments. Analysts had expected a far worse $0.25 per-share deficit.
The period was better than expected, certainly, but it was not a quarter that showed sharp year-over-year growth. There’s a reason for that: Appian is currently shedding professional services revenue (lower-margin, human-powered stuff) for subscription incomes (higher-margin, software-powered stuff). So, as it exchanges one type of revenue for another with total subscription revenue rising a little over 12% in Q2 2020 compared to the year-ago quarter, and professional services revenue falling around 10%, the company’s growth will be slow but the resulting revenue mix improvement is material.
And most importantly, inside of its larger subscription result for the quarter ($41.4 million) were its cloud subscription revenues, worth $29.6 million for the quarter and up 30% compared to the year-ago period. Summing, the company’s least lucrative revenues are falling as its most lucrative accelerate at the fastest clip of any of its cohorts. That’s what you’d want to see if you are an Appian bull.
Shares in the technology company are up around 45% this year. And with that, we can get started.
In what felt like strange timing, Salesforce has confirmed a report in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that it was laying off around 1000 people or approximately 1.9% of the company’s 54,000 strong workforce. This news came in spite of the company reporting a monster quarter on Tuesday in which it passed $5 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time.
In fact, Wall Street was so thrilled with Salesforce’s results, the company’s stock closed up an astonishing 26% yesterday, adding great wealth to the company’s coffers. It seemed hard to reconcile such amazing financial success with this news.
Yet it was actually something that president and chief financial officer Mark Hawkins telegraphed in Tuesday’s earnings call with industry analysts, although he didn’t come right and use the L (layoff) word. Instead he couched that impending change as a reallocation of resources.
And he talked about strategically shifting investments over the next 12-24 months. “This means we’ll be redirecting some of our resources to fuel growth in areas that are no longer as aligned with the business priority will be now deemphasized,” Hawkins said in the call.
This is precisely how a Salesforce spokesperson put it when asked by TechCrunch to confirm the story. “We’re reallocating resources to position the company for continued growth. This includes continuing to hire and redirecting some employees to fuel our strategic areas, and eliminating some positions that no longer map to our business priorities. For affected employees, we are helping them find the next step in their careers, whether within our company or a new opportunity,” the spokesperson said.
It’s worth noting that earlier this year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff pledged there would be no significant layoffs for 90 days.
The 90 day period has long since passed and the company has decided the time is right to make some adjustments to the workforce.
It’s worth contrasting this with the pledge that ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott made a few weeks after the Benioff tweet, promising not to lay off a single employee for the rest of this year, while also pledging to hire 1000 people worldwide the remainder of this year, while bringing in 360 summer interns.
Security continues to be a top priority for organizations, and protecting data is increasingly challenging, with attack methods constantly changing. Having users properly authenticated is a key focus area. After all, users can share passwords with others. Password character type …
With the increased focus on remote working and customers’ accelerated shift to the cloud, Citrix has experienced strong growth. To support these strategic areas, we are hiring more than 600 software engineers to join the Citrix Engineering and Security teams.…
Red Hat’s OpenShift Operator is an open-source toolkit designed to package, deploy, and manage Kubernetes-native applications in a more effective, automated, and scalable way.
An API gateway acts as the single entry point for your APIs and ensures secure and …
North Korea’s BeagleBoyz team resumed its efforts to target banks worldwide with fraudulent money transfers and ATM cash outs. On August 26, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published Alert (AA20-239A) in coordination with the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). The four entities […]… Read More
The post North Korea’s BeagleBoyz Resumes International Attacks Targeting Banks appeared first on The State of Security.
According to its own website, FedRAMP serves three different of partners: federal agencies, Cloud Service Providers (CSP) and third-party assessment organizations. This article will focus on CSPs and how a good CSP can provide services that provide monetary savings for your agency. Cloud Service Providers (CSP) and FedRAMP FedRAMP’s defines Cloud Service Provider Partners as […]… Read More
The post ExpertOps Federal: Managed Services in a FedRAMP Certified Cloud Has Arrived appeared first on The State of Security.
Recent times have certainly changed the way we greet family, friends, and colleagues. At Citrix, we believe in greeting our users with a seamless experience. That’s why we’re saying olá (hello in Brazilian Portuguese) to our latest Citrix Workspace …
