Industry insight

 
Azure migration – the view from the DevOps Manager
Azure migration – the view from the DevOps Manager

Ed Broking is a wholesale insurance and reinsurance broker, sourcing policies and coverage across a broad range of industries. Based in London, Ed Broking operates a number of international offices to support their global operations. Faced with replacing an ageing hosted server system, Ed Broking took the decision to move to fully hosted Microsoft Azure platform. This is their story.

Media in the cloud
Media in the cloud

The cloud is driving change in the media industry at an incredible rate, thanks to benefits achieved by its scalability and affordability. In an exclusive roundtable interview, industry experts debate the unique needs of the sector and outline strategies for success in the years ahead. 

Hackers target Drupal servers chaining several flaws, including Drupalgeddon2 and DirtyCOW
Hackers target Drupal servers chaining several flaws, including Drupalgeddon2 and DirtyCOW

Security experts at Imperva reported an attack against Drupal Web servers running on Linux-based systems. Hackers exploited the Drupalgeddon2 flaw (CVE-2018-7600) along with other issues. The Drupalgeddon2 could be exploited to take over a website, it affects Drupal versions 6, 7 and 8.

IoT in the shadows
IoT in the shadows

BYOD is a thing of the past - or is it? Gary Cox, Technology Director for Infoblox in Western Europe, explores the troubling rise of Shadow IoT and how to detect it. With the Internet of Things (IoT) continuing to grow, and with employees connecting an increasing number of consumer devices to enterprise networks, IT teams find themselves faced with greater complexity and more security issues than ever before.

The currency of blockchain
The currency of blockchain

Blockchain is more - much more - than Bitcoin. Jonathan Wilkins, Marketing Director at EU Automation explains how blockchain can automate a range of business processes. Blockchain was invented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamato. He is thought to be a man living in Japan, born in 1975, but there remains speculation about the inventor's true identity.

"Give 110 percent" voted the most-hated office jargon of 2018
The survey, which was conducted at IP EXPO 2018, found that over a quarter (26 percent) of the IT professionals questioned selected “Give 110 percent” as their most frustrating office jargon of the year, followed by "Blue sky thinking" (19 percent), and "Low hanging fruit" (17 percent).
Flaws in several self-encrypting SSDs allows attackers to decrypt data they contain
Flaws in several self-encrypting SSDs allows attackers to decrypt data they contain

The encryption system implemented by popular solid-state drives (SSDs) is affected by critical vulnerabilities that could be exploited by a local attacker to decrypt data.

Poor User Experience? DNS Can Help
Poor User Experience? DNS Can Help

Today, the user experience of digital services has the greatest impact on the perception of an organisation’s ability to operate competently and successfully in a digital world. It is the key competitive differentiator, and is essential for avoiding the risk of customer churn.

Five key factors to delivering optimal user experience for AWS
Five key factors to delivering optimal user experience for AWS

Whether or not you literally “own” the infrastructure, application or networks that deliver your apps and services, as an IT leader or technology professional you own the outcome. Here are five factors that you should consider to deliver an optimal user experience while using AWS.

Will serverless fulfill the expectations of cloud?
Will serverless fulfill the expectations of cloud?

The term cloud computing became popular somewhere halfway the first decade of this century, short before the launch of Amazon S3 and EC2. In the little over 10 years since, we have come a long way. However, I believe we still have to uncover the full potential of cloud computing. Although not part of the formal characteristics of cloud computing, there have been are two simmering expectation of cloud computing that we have failed to meet up to now. 

Tackling security in the public and private cloud
Tackling security in the public and private cloud

The Challenge: Modern data centre's are changing rapidly. Thanks to virtualisation, more and more organisations are shifting to resilient, on-demand, private cloud environments, delivering applications faster and more cheaply than ever before. Software defined data centre's (SDDCs) are the new norm. 

CIO's are feeling the need for speed
CIO's are feeling the need for speed

The warnings have been out there: Mobile and social accelerating customer interactions. Big data providing deep lakes of potential knowledge. Billions of connected gadgets bringing forth a global Internet of Things (IoT).

Open source as the basis of enterprise
Open source as the basis of enterprise

We think of Enterprise organisations as closed societies, working in isolation in pursuit of the advantage over their competitors. It might come as a surprise then to think about how much Open Source software is used within even the largest and most secretive companies around the world.

The convergence of data science and software development
The convergence of data science and software development

There is no need for data scientists to be outright software experts thanks to emerging tools for using data delivered through the cloud. Making use of the cloud as a shared platform ensures the delivery of the right data to the right people at the right time, without the inefficiency of workflows passing through many hands through hand-overs.

Good logging - the foundation of operability for serverless and IoT
Good logging - the foundation of operability for serverless and IoT

Serverless is an emerging “new normal” for web-based applications and services where the unit of deployment and billing is a single function a few lines of code in length. Serverless enables radical transparency in billing and radical ease of use for developers; when combined with with marketplace (“app store”) offerings from cloud vendors like AWS. 

Hacking the Blockchain
Hacking the Blockchain

Due to its cryptographic background, a common perception is that blockchain is inherently secure. But blockchain is not un-hackable or hidden from potential manipulation.

It's time to stop ignoring IoT security
It's time to stop ignoring IoT security

Smart homes and smart cities will likely be top of mind in conversations around the Internet of Things (IoT), but the application of IoT is becoming far more widespread than these two areas as a growing number of industries adopt IoT devices.

Exploring an AI foundation for the network in the IoT age
Exploring an AI foundation for the network in the IoT age

With the soaring number of mobile and IoT devices, and the onslaught of new apps that businesses are faced with on their wireless network, it is time for innovation that can help IT scale and meet these new requirements. 

Blood diamonds to voter fraud - do you know what Blockchain is capable of?
Blood diamonds to voter fraud - do you know what Blockchain is capable of?

Our recent research uncovered that just over a third of Brits (35%) would not trust an organisation using blockchain technology to keep their information secure. But with so many uses beyond recording cryptocurrency transactions, we think people need to wake up to the real potential for blockchain. Here are five of the most interesting use cases for blockchain from the last year. 

Five ways AI is augmenting our lives
Five ways AI is augmenting our lives

AI and robotics are going to create almost 60 million more jobs globally, that’s according to a new report from the World Economic Forum. The Swiss think tank released its Future of Jobs report to put facts behind the much-debated topic of AI and job displacement.

Workplace of the future: collaboration of human and AI
Workplace of the future: collaboration of human and AI

Today the world faces one of its most daunting, but also exciting tasks - how organisations will transition into the future with Artificial Intelligence entering the workplace. However we look at it, AI directly threatens a large portion of the global workforce whose jobs will be competing with digitisation, automation, and continuously improving AI. 

Blockchain workforce development
Blockchain workforce development

With the explosion of cryptocurrency over the past of years, many have been debating the longevity and legitimacy of cryptocurrencies in our global economy. However, those with a keener eye were fascinated with something far more useful and widely applicable: Blockchain — the technology that made cryptocurrency possible in the first place.

Poison pixels
Poison pixels

Stegware, the weaponisation of steganography by cyber attackers, is on the rise. Find out why this is bad news for IT professionals. 

Thinking like a cyber adversary
Thinking like a cyber adversary

In a world of sensitive data and tightening regulations, discover what you should do as an organisation!

The social good of AI and advanced analytics
The social good of AI and advanced analytics

On any given day AI is both the saviour and the doom of human kind. Opinion on the technology can change as quickly as the wind. But behind the curtain of doubt AI programs are already making incredible benefits to our lives, often without us even realising.

Cybersecurity in the NHS – separating people from passwords
Cybersecurity in the NHS – separating people from passwords

Troublesome political climate has put the NHS, like many other Public-Sector organisations, under immense pressure to cut costs and drive operational efficiencies whilst simultaneously embracing new digital methods, in a bid to improve services. As a result, proper and necessary data security controls have not yet been totally embraced…

Hospital closure ranks top for british cyber fears
Hospital closure ranks top for british cyber fears

From ransomware and exploding power plants to AI and identity theft - new survey from IP EXPO Manchester uncovers the cyber fears of the UK.