We take a deeper dive into VMware’s new CEO and Apple faces potential issues in China. We discuss these stories and more on this week’s Rundown.
Pure Storage Accelerate is a Marathon
Pure Storage is holding their annual Accelerate conference online this week, just like everyone else, but it’s more of a marathon than a sprint. The virtual event lasts five weeks!
Add a Cyrilic Keyboard to Defeat Russian Hackers
Did you know your keyboard could be the only thing standing between you and a ransomware infection? Brian Krebs reports on his site that almost all strains of common malware in the wild today have a built-in failsafe mechanism that prevents them from being installed on a Windows computer with a Cyrillic keyboard installed. This discussion highlights how the failsafe applies to Russian and Eastern European users primary as a way to prevent infection of computers in countries where cybercriminals are known to operate. By preventing infections on these machines they avoid internal investigations and “poisoning the well”.
Rubrik Takes On Ransomware with Auto-Recovery
During Rubrik’s virtual Forward conference this week, the data management company announced a new release aimed at helping administrators automatically recover from ransomware infections. The Polaris AppFlow software is designed to help IT teams recover in the event of infection of primary files and backups. This move tracks with other industry announcements to combat this security vector.
DarkSide Gang Quits Ransomware
Want to know the modern equivalent of “packing up and getting out of town” from the Old West? Look no further than DarkSide. The now-famous ransomeware provider has closed up shop very quickly and moved on to the safety of anonymity again. The servers run by the organization have been seized and shuttered and the Bitcoin wallets holding the company’s money have been transferred elsewhere. The message about their departure confirms suspected ties of the group of the more well known evil ransomware gang. Given the hasty apology after the Colonial Pipeline debacle, is this their attempt to evade the hammer of justice?
New Cryptocurrency Chia Grows Storage Prices
There’s a new cryptocurrency! Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia! The cryptocoin that grows all over your disks! And it eats your SSDs too! With the world going crazy over Chia, a new cryptocurrency that uses proof-of-time-and-space instead of proof of work, hard drives and SSDs are disappearing faster than spots under OxiClean! What’s the deal with Chia, and what does it mean for enterprise IT?
We interrupted the Rundown with a special report last week, as VMware named a new CEO. Raghu Raghuram is in, Sumit Dhawan moves up, and Sanjay Poonen is out at VMware. What does this mean for the company and the industry as a whole?
A New York Times report this week highlight some of the potential challenges that Apple faces in China. The tech giant reportedly has an issue with their iCloud service being available to Chinese authorities to investigate. The report mentions how this goes against the stated privacy mission of the Cupertino company, and opponents of their far-reaching stance on user privacy are using this situation as a cudgel against them in public. The Chinese government has strict rules regarding the availability of user data and Apple is complying with those laws as it must in order to be able to be allowed to sell products in the country.
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