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Lockbit is by far this summer’s most prolific ransomware group, trailed by two offshoots of the Conti group.
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Posts tagged "Rise"
Microsoft delays Office 365 price rise once again
Microsoft has once again delayed its planned price increase of both its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 office software suites.
The price increase was first announced by corporate VP for Microsoft 365, Jared Spataro last August in a blog post and was set to come into effect at the beginning of this month. Now though, the software giant has pushed back the change until March 15.
Right when the price increase was set to go into effect, Microsoft announced a set of temporary discounts for cloud service providers (CSPs) that sell Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. CSPs currently have until 5pm PDT on March 14 or 12am UTC on March 15 to submit transactions and have them invoiced at the company's February 2022 pricing.
These temporary discounts are designed to allow CSPs “to clear the backlog of orders for these SKUs due to high demand in advance of the March 1 price increases” according to a Microsoft support document.
First substantive price increase
For those unfamiliar with Microsoft's pricing changes for both Office 365 and Microsoft 365, Microsoft 365 Business Basic will increase from $ 5 to $ 6 per user per year, Microsoft 365 Business Premium will go from $ 20 to $ 22, Office 365 E1 will go from $ 8 to $ 10, Office 365 E3 will go from $ 20 to $ 23, Office 365 E5 will go from $ 35 to $ 38 and Microsoft 365 E3 will go from $ 32 to $ 36.
Thankfully though, these pricing changes do not apply to the company's consumer or education products.
Read More
Back in August of last year, Spataro pointed to the fact that these pricing changes were the “first substantive pricing update” to Office 365 since its launch just over a decade ago. He also highlighted how the company has added 24 apps including Microsoft Teams, Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, Stream, Planner, Visio, OneDrive, Yammer, and Whiteboard to the software suite and released 1,400 new features and capabilities across three key areas: communication and collaboration, security and compliance and AI and automation.
According to The Register, Microsoft's revenues grew by a fifth to $ 51.7bn during the second fiscal quarter of this year while operating income increased by 24 percent from $ 17.89bn to $ 22.2bn. However, the company's Microsoft Azure cloud services and its server products have been the main drivers of its higher revenue recently. As such, Microsoft's Productivity and Business Processes segment, which includes Office 365, will need to bring in additional revenue to keep up with the company's other divisions.
- We’ve also highlighted the best online collaboration tools
Via The Register
What the Rise in Cyber-Recon Means for Your Security Strategy
Expect many more zero-day exploits in 2022, and cyberattacks using them being launched at a significantly higher rate, warns Aamir Lakhani, researcher at FortiGuard Labs.
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Office 365 price set to rise next year, Microsoft confirms
Microsoft unveils new pricing details for its subscription-based Office 365 suite.
The Evolving Role Of The CISO And Rise Of Digital Risk [WATCH On Demand}
View the Nick Savvides, Strategic Business Director, APAC, Forcepoint CSHub APAC Summit on-demand session now.
Energy news round-up: energy bills set to rise by almost £100, plus more from the last seven days
This week in energy: COVID-19 continues to impact energy customers in the UK in various ways, with warnings of a surprise energy bill at the end of the summer. We've also seen precautionary measures by energy suppliers to support prepaid meter customers; Bristol City Council’s intended sale of Bristol Energy after it ran up a major loss; and more. Here's our round-up of what happened in energy in the last seven days…
Customers could face surprise energy bills of around £94
Research conducted by Energy Helpline has reported that UK energy customers could be faced with a surprise £94 energy bill by the end of the summer. That's due to above-average energy consumption, thanks to the lockdown.
It seems that Brits have been consuming 30 per cent more energy than normal, while direct debits remain calculated on the basis of pre-lockdown usage. In some cases this could lead to customers being trapped in a debt-spiral.
The best way of resolving this, of course, is to run an energy comparison and switch energy supplier to take advantage of a cheaper energy deal. However, Energy Helpline is also advising customers to fit energy efficient lightbulbs, take shorter showers and avoid appliances being left on standby.
Assistance for prepaid meter customers
Money Saving Expert (MSE) has advised this week that some people who are self-isolating may experience difficulty in topping up their prepaid meters, but a number of energy companies have said they will assist if necessary.
The Government and energy suppliers have agreed to implement a set of emergency measures specifically to assist prepaid meter customers. These measures include the provision of cards loaded with emergency credit, adding discretionary credit to meters and enabling others to top meters on behalf of those using them. Ofgem has also said it expects providers to support prepaid meter customers, including those in vulnerable circumstances.
Vulnerable customers can also join the Priority Services Register in order to receive various services for free, including advanced notice of planned power cuts, priority support in emergencies and regular meter reading services.
- Read more: Money Saving Expert
Coronavirus impacts on smart meter installation
MSE has also reported that energy providers have temporarily suspended the installation of smart meters in homes during the lockdown period. This means that engineers will only attend homes if there is an emergency situation, for example involving a loss of energy supply.
However, as lockdown restrictions are eased, providers will again allow engineers to attend homes for meter installation. E.on, Npower, Ovo and SSE have all resumed installation, but this is only in England and only on a limited basis. Clearly, they will not install a meter in any household where someone is self-isolating, at higher risk or has experienced symptoms over the last month or so.
Providers are also letting customers know that an engineer will only attend their home where residents feel comfortable with them doing so.
- Read more: Money Saving Expert
Bristol City Council to sell Bristol Energy
BBC News and other media have reported that Bristol City Council will now sell its council-owned company Bristol Energy following losses of more than £30 million. Some councillors have called for an inquiry into the matter, which has also been the subject of considerable discussion on social media.
The council finally took the decision to sell Bristol Energy following a recommendation from accountant Ernst and Young. Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees said that he was disappointed that it hadn’t worked.
- Read more: BBC
Rise in zero-day exploitations in 2019 in Middle East compared to three years ago
Cybersecurity firm FireEye has seen as an increase in zero-day exploitations in 2019 than the previous three years in the Middle East.
Speaking to TechRadar Middle East, Alister Shepherd, Director for Middle East and Africa at Mandiant, a unit of FireEye, said that there are more private security companies investing a large amount of money, apart from governments such as state-sponsored actors, to develop offensive cyber capabilities and services to make additional income.
As a wider range of actors appears to have gained access to these capabilities, he said that there is going to be a greater variety of actors using zero-days, especially as private vendors continue feeding the demand for offensive cyber weapons.
“Unsophisticated threat actors have been able to buy malicious tools from the dark web for some time – you can buy access to a network and then buy the ransomware, and you just take the risk to deploy it. We’re now seeing this being mirrored at a higher level, as Governments who have not developed their own capability, or who wish to extend their capability, can now buy off the shelf with sophisticated capabilities,” he said.
According to industry reports, espionage groups such as Stealth Falcon and FruityArmor have targeted journalists and activists in the Middle East, between 2016 and 2019, by buying malware sold by NSO, an Israeli software company, which leveraged three iOS zero-days.
Becoming increasingly commoditised
Shepherd said that SandCat, suspected to have links with Uzbekistan state intelligence, has been using zero-days in operations against targets in the Middle East.
BlackOasis, which could have acquired zero-day from private company Gamma Group, has demonstrated similarly frequent access to zero-day vulnerabilities in the Middle East.
“We believe that some of the most dangerous state-sponsored intrusion sets are increasingly demonstrating the ability to quickly exploit vulnerabilities that have been made public. In multiple cases, groups linked to these countries have been able to weaponise vulnerabilities and incorporate them into their operations, aiming to take advantage of the window between disclosures and patch application,” he said.
Even though financially-motivated groups continue to leverage zero-days in their operations, he said that they are less frequent than state-sponsored groups.
“Countries with the strongest capabilities are Russia, China, North Korea, the US, Iran and Israel, apart from other countries. We typically see Russia and China deploying these tools most broadly,” he said.
Moreover, he said that access to zero-day capabilities is becoming increasingly commodified and state groups will continue to support internal exploit discovery and development.
However, he said that buying zero-days from private companies may offer a more attractive option than relying on domestic solutions or underground markets.