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TikTok is back up in the United States after Trump announced today that he would extend a 90-day deadline for the company to find a U.S. purchaser. [...]

TikTok shut down in the U.S. late Saturday night following the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the law that banned the company over national security concerns. [...]

Russian nation-state actor Star Blizzard has been running a new spear-phishing campaign to compromise WhatsApp accounts of targets in government, diplomacy, defense policy, international relations, and Ukraine aid organizations. [...]

**Microsoft vydal 14. ledna nové servisní aktualizace pro Windows **Do Windows 11 protentokrát nepřidává nové funkce **Opravil neobvyklých 161 děravých míst v kódu nejen Windows

Popular video-sharing social network TikTok has officially gone dark in the United States, as a federal ban on the app comes into effect on January 19, 2025. "We regret that a U.S. law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19 and force us to make our services temporarily unavailable," the company said in a pop-up message. "We're working to restore our service in the U.S. as soon as possible

Popular video-sharing social network TikTok has officially gone dark in the United States, as a federal ban on the app comes into effect on January 19, 2025. "We regret that a U.S. law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19 and force us to make our services temporarily unavailable," the company said in a pop-up message. "We're working to restore our service in the U.S. as soon as possibleRavie Lakshmananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced action against General Motors (GM) and its subsidiary, OnStar, for unlawful collection and sale of drivers' precise geolocation and driving behavior data without first obtaining their consent. [...]

​Earlier this week, Ubisoft released Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Assassin's Creed Origins patches to fix Windows 11 24H2 compatibility issues that caused crashes, freezes, and audio problems. [...]

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions against a Chinese cybersecurity company and a Shanghai-based cyber actor for their alleged links to the Salt Typhoon group and the recent compromise of the federal agency. "People's Republic of China-linked (PRC) malicious cyber actors continue to target U.S. government systems, including the recent

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions against a Chinese cybersecurity company and a Shanghai-based cyber actor for their alleged links to the Salt Typhoon group and the recent compromise of the federal agency. "People's Republic of China-linked (PRC) malicious cyber actors continue to target U.S. government systems, including the recent Ravie Lakshmananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

Genshin Impact developer Cognosphere (aka Hoyoverse) has agreed to a $20 million settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over its gacha loot box monetization and is now banned from selling them to teens under the age of sixteen without parental consent. [...]

Hotel management platform Otelier suffered a data breach after threat actors breached its Amazon S3 cloud storage to steal millions of guests' personal information and reservations for well-known hotel brands like Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt. [...]

A malicious package named 'pycord-self' on the Python package index (PyPI) targets Discord developers to steal authentication tokens and plant a backdoor for remote control over the system. [...]

In a few years, every new employee entering the workforce will already have become accustomed to using AI to solve problems and help with tasks – and they’re going to want the same tools at work as those they use at home. That’s the important take-away from new research that shows about a quarter of US teens have used ChatGPT for schoolwork.

We know, because we’ve seen it already; once powerful technologies take hold in the school room, they tend to proliferate across business markets later. We’ve seen it happen before with the Mac, the PC, iPad, and iPhone. We’ve seen it happen in the evolution of photo-sharing sites and social media. 

We’re going to keep seeing this happen in the future.  You don’t have to like it, but you have to accept that once a technology reaches critical mass in the schoolroom, it appears in business later.

Tomorrow’s world

Tomorrow’s employees have grown up with that tech, meaning Gen Z is also set to be Generation AI. This is going to become increasingly important to business users, who will need to make the right investments today to ensure they have appropriate tech (including experience and policy) in place. 

This is something that’s evidently important to device, service, and operating system vendors, as each and every one of them is now engaged in a rapid sprint to deploy AI in their offerings. Apple, of course, is a little unique in that it is attempting to weave privacy into the systems it provides, including Apple Intelligence, something that will be seen as of increasing importance to business users as they seek to lock down their information, both in competitive terms and also to meet data protection requirements. 

For digital natives, privacy is a currency they want to control

It’s interesting to see how Generation Z sees privacy. These digital natives want to control the digital narrative concerning their lives, have grown up with the internet, and are more likely to digest information in video than written form. 

They also understand how things work. That means they know about the privacy settings on their devices and are more likely than older generations to use them.  They are prepared to share personal information in exchange for personalized services, but are concerned about misuse, abuse, or tracking of them or their data — and don’t have much faith in the ability of companies to protect that information. 

This implies that, when they begin their working lives, they will prefer workplace solutions that provide both convenience and privacy. But as the digital transformation experience accelerated by the iPhone-led smartphone revolution showed, they will still use AI — even if companies don’t approve the services they prefer.  

This is why it is important today to test and rate existing AI systems against your own business security and privacy policies.

Invest in infrastructure

By the time your next generational employee intake takes place, you’ll want to ensure the use of AI across your organization has been tested, verified, and has become mature. Otherwise (and not for the first time), current generations will be leaving it to subsequent ones to figure out how to shave the corners off the wheel, giving those who’ve already figured out how to build better roads for those circular objects the edge when it comes to supporting any kind of customer journey. 

It remains to be seen the extent to which AI will either unleash the creativity and innovation its proponents promise us, or confine human endeavor to an Overton window defined by the people who build the AI systems we use. But we already seem unable to leave the vehicle. 

There is one more thing for business users planning their AI deployments to consider, and that’s Apple. You see, despite Siri, Apple already has a strong grip on Generation Z — its market share among US teens continues to grow. They like Apple and its services.

While they don’t see Apple Intelligence as a particularly big draw yet, in the fast-moving long game of AI deployment, so long as Apple focuses on things they care about — such as privacy — and delivers AI that does what it says it does, the company’s resurgence in enterprise markets will continue. That means demand for Apple in the workplace will continue to grow, and it will remain essential to open things up with employee choice schemes and consider Mac, iPad, and iPhone deployments across US business. 

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, Mastodon, and MeWe. 

​Microsoft has fixed a known issue that caused Microsoft 365 applications and Classic Outlook to crash on Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2019 systems. [...]

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned Yin Kecheng, a Shanghai-based hacker for his role in the recent Treasury breach and a company associated with the Salt Typhoon threat group. [...]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ordered U.S. telecommunications carriers to secure their networks following last year's Salt Typhoon security breaches. [...]

​Microsoft has started the forced rollout of Windows 11 24H2 to eligible, non-managed systems running the Home and Pro editions of Windows 11 22H2 and 23H2. [...]

Support for Microsoft 365 ends along with Windows 10

PixieMe/Shutterstock

Although Microsoft announced some time ago that Windows 10 will only be supported (free of charge) until October 14, 2025, the switch to its successor Windows 11 is only taking place slowly.

According to calculations by security provider Eset, 32 million PCs in Germany are still running Windows 10. The situation is similar in other countries. One reason for this is that although the switch to Windows 11 is free, there are stricter hardware requirements which , according to studies by Lansweeper, around 50 percent of computers in Germany do not meet.

Functional, but not supported

To urge more users to upgrade to Windows 11, Microsoft recently announced in a blog post that Microsoft-365 apps will no longer be supported on Windows 10 devices after October 14, 2025. “To use Microsoft 365 apps on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11,” it continued.

The blog post raised numerous questions, and has since been deleted by Microsoft. However, there was no correction or explanation.

What the software giant was actually getting at is shown by a support page on the subject that was updated in December. Here, too, Microsoft points out that Microsoft 365 apps will no longer be supported under Windows 10 after the end of support in mid-October. At the same time, however, the company explains that the applications will continue to work as before. However, to avoid performance and reliability problems over time, an upgrade to Windows 11 is strongly recommended.

The reasoning: “Microsoft 365 is subject to the Modern Lifecycle Policy, which requires that customers keep the product or service up to date according to maintenance and system requirements and use Microsoft 365 on a Windows operating system for which support is currently provided.”

License versions not affected

The situation is somewhat clearer for Office versions with a one-time license: Based on the Fixed Lifecycle Policy, “Office Home & Student”, “Office Home & Business” or “Office Professional Plus” will continue to be fully supported under Windows 10 — as long as they do not reach the end of support themselves. Support for Office 2016 and 2019 will also end at the same time as Windows 10.

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed three security flaws in Planet Technology's WGS-804HPT industrial switches that could be chained to achieve pre-authentication remote code execution on susceptible devices. "These switches are widely used in building and home automation systems for a variety of networking applications," Claroty's Tomer Goldschmidt said in a Thursday report. "An attacker