Paradox Interactive have announced that Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise will hit the interwebs on 14 January 2014. Conquest of Paradise is the Europa … Read moreEuropa Universalis IV’s Conquest of Paradise begins in January
The Profile 5 comes with a 19-inch LCD screen and is now easier to maintain; Gateway also unveils "no-compromise performance notebook."
Gateway Inc. next month will start shipping new versions of its Profile all-in-one computer and its desktop-replacement notebook.
The Profile 5, which will ship Nov. 3, will offer new features that business customers have been telling the Poway, Calif., company are needed in the all-in-one, said Philip Osako, vice president of alternative form factor desktops at Gateway....
There's a price war going on among roaming SIM card providers, and anyone traveling overseas can benefit. For smartphone data users, the best bet right now is Telestial's Passport line of SIM cards, with data rates as low as 39 cents per megabyte. That makes it one of our Editors' Choices for roaming SIM cards, at least for the moment.
Most American phones either don't work in Europe, or carriers charge insanely high roaming rates to do so. While the cheapest way to go when traveling is to purchase local SIMs to slot into an unlocked phone, there are plenty of reasons travelers might not be able to. I've been there. I've arrived in Spain on Sunday when the cell phone shops weren't open. I've gotten a SIM card in China, all of whose instructions, and whose phone UI, was solely in Chinese. Special roaming SIMs, designed to be slotted into inexpensive unlocked phones, help with that. You can order them before you leave, they work in multiple countries, and they have clear, English-language instructions, robust websites, and technical support.
We tried a Telestial Passport SIM in an HTC Sensation 4G (4 stars) and an unlocked Huawei U9000 Android-powered smartphone. To activate the SIM, you log into a simple website before you leave the country; there you'll get your free U.S. number. The Passport SIM comes with a both a generic U.S. number and a U.K. number tied to Jersey Telecom. You want to hand out the U.S. number, as it's expensive to call Jersey Telecom phones from pretty much anywhere. SMS messages will appear to come from the Jersey number, although folks can reply to the U.S. number.
Popping the SIM into my Sensation, I got voice and data service immediately after landing in the U.K. I also had no problem in Spain. The U9000 required me to manually set the phone's data APN and choose the roaming provider, which Telestial provided a sheet of instructions for. There's also 24/7 customer service with local numbers in 17 countries.
Dialing is a hybrid of direct-dialing and the old callback system. You direct dial numbers, but then it immediately hangs up and you have to wait to receive a call to connect. I found this less annoying than the traditional callback system used by Cellular Abroad, which makes it impossible to use your phone's address book.
Beyond that, it was smooth sailing. The SIM offers voicemail and quick ways to get your account balance, recharge your card, or talk to customer service. I got 3G speeds in both the U.K. and Spain.
I spent two weeks with the Passport SIM, using it relatively freely with an Android phone with background data turned off—an absolute must if you're roaming with Android. Turning off background data prevents any app that isn't in the forgeround from using data. I spent $104, including the price of the SIM. That included about 80MB of data, 43 minutes of calls, and 32 outbound text messages.
Telestial's Web-based management page gives extremely detailed call and data usage records, which is a big help. Any data connection, no matter how small, will cost 5 cents—that's the rate for 100KB.
There are actually three varieties of the Passport SIM: Passport Lite ($5, including $5 in airtime), Passport ($19, with $10 airtime) and Passport Plus ($29, with $10 in airtime.) As you pay more up front, call rates per minute generally go down. There's one exception to this rule: Passport Lite's data rates are actually lower than the higher-ranked cards, with rates starting at 39 cents per megabyte, although its call rates are considerably higher.
The standard Passport card is a decent middle ground. Like all roaming SIMs, Telestial has highly tiered rates. Calling rates are competitive in several dozen countries, with outbound calls of 49 or 84 cents per minute and, most importantly, free incoming calls in 84 countries from Algeria to Zambia. Other SIMs may offer lower outbound rates, but I haven't seen other SIMs with quite such a wide range of places with free incoming calls.
The real show here is data, though. Passport offers its lowest data rates, a luscious 49 cents per megabyte, in 26 countries: Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jersey, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the U.K.. Four others (France, the Isle of Man, Monaco and Switzerland) clock in at a competitive $1/MB.
Comparing Telestial's rates to competitors is difficult. I'll focus on our other Editors' Choice, Maxroam (4 stars). Telestial charges up to $30 more up front for its SIM, but Maxroam's data rates bottom out at 65 cents while Telestial has its 49-cent countries. (Truphone's Tru SIM (3 stars) has even lower data rates, but only in the U.K. and Australia; it's more expensive elsewhere.) Passport offers free incoming calls in more countries than Maxroam does.
But Maxroam's outbound call and SMS rates from Western Europe to U.S. numbers are lower than Telestial's, at 64 cents/minute and 17 cents per message as compared to 84 cents and 69 cents per message. Telestial also offers a free U.S. number; Maxroam charges $8 for a local number in countries other than the U.K.
With rates changing frequently, I found the two companies to be highly competitive. In Europe, heavy data users should still go with Telestial, while people who plan to make more outgoing calls should prefer Maxroam.
You also need to check rates for your specific countries of travel - outside Western Europe rates vary widely, and various companies offer deals in specific countries. (Both Telestial and Maxroam have different deals for people going only to the U.K., for instance.)
The Telestial Passport SIM competes with a steadily growing number of competitors, including Maxroam, Truphone's Tru SIM, and OneSimCard and WorldTravelSIM, which we haven't reviewed but which offer similar features and rates. The Passport costs up to $30 more up front than some Maxroam configurations, but you can make that back if you're a heavy smartphone data user.
The Passport SIM is reliable and easy to manage, and works in a wide variety of phones. It's worthy of our Editors' Choice, although it's going to have to share the award with Maxroam. Compare the two services for your specific trip to figure out which one is right for you, as the answer will vary.
Roaming geeks should also consider XCom Global's rental hotspot (4 stars), which has unlimited data in some countries. That device can connect not only your phone, but also your tablets and PCs. Finally, Boingo Mobile (3.5 stars) sells access to a huge number of Wi-Fi hotspots for an unbeatable $8 per month, but coverage isn't city-wide and varies dramatically from city to city around the world.
The Government has unveiled a scheme designed to give 20,000 disadvantaged kids in Oldham and Suffolk free PCs, with schools minister Jim Knight calling on local IT retailers to offer cheap hardware and software deals to all pupils aged seven to 18 in the two pilot areas.
The move is part of the Government&apos;s £300m &apos;Next Generation Learning&apos; scheme, which will see children between seven and 18 given a grant to cover the purchase of a PC, as well as software, one year&apos;s broadband access and three years&apos; technical assistance.
Families of children in the age group must earn less than £15,500 per year or be on income support in order to qualify for the trials, which start in February. Knight claimed that the scheme was important as a way of creating equal access to IT equipment and the internet.
"There has to be a culture where families see home access [to IT and the internet] is as important as making sure their children have pen, paper and calculator at school," he said.
The deal will also be open to those in alternative education or in care through local education authorities.
New data from RSA’s Future Impacts report has revealed 78 per cent of British IT, and computing SMEs do not believe Brexit is a threat to their business.
The commercial insurer’s study 1,000 SMEs also found 43 per cent of businesses believeleaving the EU will have a positive effect on their business. Despite these findings, there are three risks SMEs have identified: economic uncertainty, increasing market competition and financial resources.
Also addressed by the study is the emerging threat of cyber attacks against SMEs. Government figures show that two thirds of large businesses and three quarters of SMEs have experienced some form of cyber attack, but only nine per cent of businesses have cyber crime cover in place.
Schemes and deals director, regions and SME, commercial risk solutions at RSA, Russell White, said: “The technological landscape is changing at an unprecedented rate bringing businesses both new opportunities and new threats. Despite pushing these technological advancements, SMEs are also being left behind the curve when it comes to securing themselves against the risks presented by cyber development.
“It is interesting to learn that only 12 per cent of businesses in the IT and computing sector have cyber crime cover, despite them understanding the landscape.”
With 49 per cent of these companies not insured against any of these risks – 58 per cent lower than the national average – 88 per cent of insurance brokers think a lack of insurance is a persistent problem amongst their SME clients.
White added: “The onus is not only on SMEs themselves to better manage their risks, but also on brokers and insurance providers to proactively raise awareness of the protection gap and help SMEs to better understand the risks they face, and what they can do to protect themselves against them.”
54 per cent of SMEs say that they haven’t felt any effects – positive or negative – on their business
Thrip’s modus operandi is to use a combination of custom malware and legitimate tools in its attacks. The pieces of malware used by the group include Trojan.Rikamanu, a Trojan designed for stealing credentials and other information from compromised systems, and Infostealer.Catchamas, an evolution of Rikamanu that includes improved data theft and anti-detection capabilities. Symantec has also seen the group using Trojan.Mycicil, a keylogger offered on Chinese underground marketplaces but which has not been seen often, and Backdoor.Spedear and Trojan.Syndicasec. The last two have been seen in the group’s older attacks and campaigns.
As for the legitimate tools used by the cyberspies, the list includes the Windows SysInternals utility PSExec, PowerShell, the post-exploitation tool Mimikatz, the open source FTP client WinSCP, and the LogMeIn remote access software. All of these tools, barring Mimikatz, which is almost always used maliciously, have legitimate uses. For example, PowerShell is widely used within enterprises and the vast majority of scripts are legitimate. Similarly, PsExec is frequently used by systems administrators.
In January of this year, Symantec researchers were alerted to an attack on a large telecoms operator in Southeast Asia. It was observed that the attacker was using PsExec to move laterally between computers on the company’s network. It was this malicious use of a legitimate process that caused alarm. Symantec researchers, with the assistance of machine learning threat detection software, were quickly able to determine that the attackers were attempting to remotely install a previously unknown piece of malware on computers within the victim’s network. After a bit of analysis, it was determined that the malware was an updated version of Trojan.Rikamanu. Malware that the group had been using since 2013.
It was then discovered that Thrip was targeting a satellite communications operator. The group seemed incredibly interested in the operational side of business looking for an infecting computers running software that monitors and controls satellites. This suggests to us that Thrip’s motives go beyond spying and may also include disruption. Another target was an organization involved in geospatial imaging and mapping. Again, Thrip seemed to be mainly interested in the operational side of the company. In order to steal this information, the group targeted computers running MapXtreme GIS (Geographic Information System) software. Such software is used for tasks such as developing custom geospatial applications or integrating location-based data into other applications. It also targeted machines running Google Earth Server and Garmin imaging software.
From the researchers' analysis, it was determined that group had also targeted three different telecoms operators, all based in Southeast Asia. In all cases, it appeared that the telecom companies themselves and not their customers were the targets of these attacks. Last, but certainly not least, the group targeted a defense contractor. None of the companies targeted have been named specifically. This is probably because they are clients of Symantec and the firm would not want to prejudice any of their clients.
Greg Clark, CEO of Symantec, believes Thrip’s most recent campaign is most likely for espionage purposes. Clark further stated,
“The Thrip group has been working since 2013 and their latest campaign uses standard operating system tools, so targeted organizations won’t notice their presence. They operate very quietly, blending into networks, and are only discovered using artificial intelligence that can identify and flag their movements. Alarmingly, the group seems keenly interested in telecom, satellite operators, and defense companies. We stand ready to work with appropriate authorities to address this serious threat.”
When APT groups use “living off the land” tactics the task of detecting the threat is made infinitely harder. By creating fewer new files on the hard disk, or being completely fileless, means less chance of being detected by traditional security tools and therefore minimizes the risk of an attack being blocked. This is where security firms adopting artificial intelligence and machine learning could be at a major advantage. Automated AI has the potential of drastically reducing time frames; if done right what would take researchers thousands of hours can be done in a matter of hours. This, in turn, leads to faster detection and analysis time with regards to cybersecurity.
A setting that some people could use to prevent people from finding their Timeline will soon be gone