A live broadcast by Australia’s Channel Nine TV station was taken offline by a cyber attack on Sunday evening, the station has confirmed.

The incident affected several shows, including the Weekend Today programme, according to the BBC, with staff now working from home until further notice.

In a statement, the organisation said its IT teams were working “around the clock” to fully restore its services and that the attack also affected its corporate business units, its websites, and email systems.

Australia’s shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, told reporters: “These are very concerning reports. What we’re hearing about here is a serious, and sophisticated, targeted attack on a media organisation.”

The attack on Channel Nine coincided with “technical disruption” at Australia’s Parliament House where MPs and senators lost email access over the weekend. The issue was related to an unnamed external provider, according to the country’s minister for defence, Andrew Hastie.

As a precaution, the service was cut off from the rest of the government’s systems as soon as it was detected and Australia’s Cyber Security Centre has been brought in to investigate. At this stage, it isn’t clear whether the parliamentary outage and the cyber attack on Channel Nine were connected.

“This is a timely reminder that Australians cannot be complacent about their cyber security,” Hastie told News.com.au on Sunday. “Cyber security is a team effort and a shared responsibility. It is vital that Australian businesses and organisations are alert to this threat and take the necessary steps to ensure our digital sovereignty.”

Hastie added that Australia saw around 60,000 reports of cyber security and cyber crime incidents last year, roughly one every ten minutes, he said.

Despite the issues, Channel Nine’s broadcast was back up on Monday.

Slack has removed a capability that allowed users to customise external invites with a message after users expressed concerns that the function could subject users to harassment and unwanted messages.

The communications platform has said it “immediately” removed the function on Slack DMs, a new cross-organisational messaging service that only launched yesterday.

Slack DMs was designed as a new feature for Slack Connect, the platform’s external channel sharing feature that provides a secure way of collaborating with teams outside of an organisation, that first launched in June 2020. The DMs feature allowed users to connect with an external user by sending an invite with a bespoke message.

Shortly after its launch, Twitter product developer Menotti Minutillo revealed that the function could be used to send a seemingly unlimited number of malicious messages to external users. The feature would also email a copy of the invite to the target containing the message in full, which appeared to be impossible to block as they originated from a generic Slack address.

Following the initial backlash, Slack has now said that users will be unable to customise messages as part of the invite function.

“After rolling out Slack Connect DMs this morning, we received valuable feedback from our users about how email invitations to use the feature could potentially be used to send abusive or harassing messages,” said Jonathan Prince, Slack’s vice president of communications and policy. “We are taking immediate steps to prevent this kind of abuse, beginning today with the removal of the ability to customise a message when a user invites someone to Slack Connect DMs.

“We made a mistake in this initial roll-out that is inconsistent with our goals for the product and the typical experience of Slack Connect usage. As always, we are grateful to everyone who spoke up, and we are committed to fixing this issue.”

Slack DMs – and Slack Connect – is only available on paid businesses accounts.

This article originally appeared in Issue 14 of IT Pro 20/20, available here. To receive each new issue in your inbox, click here.

The great remote working experiment has been going on for so long that office life is slowly fading from memory. The banter, the pub lunches, cake on birthdays, it’s all too distant to recall now. But what about the people who have started a new job during the pandemic – how has the experience changed for them?

Nathaniel Ayling started working as a technology communications executive at Imagination Technologies in June 2020 having applied and interviewed for the role remotely. Several months into 2021, he is still yet to meet most of the people he works with in the flesh.

From virtual introductions to management meetings, Ayling takes IT Pro through his experience of remote onboarding. What worked, what didn’t and what felt just plain weird. 

Tools of the trade

“When it came to onboarding, the first step was the infrastructure, getting sent a laptop, or phone, all the kinds of technology that you use if you’re working from home,” Ayling explains. “And then there was the more HR learning side of onboarding.”

Laptop shipments have been increasing steadily during the pandemic, with Chromebook sales “through the roof”, according to analysts at Canalys. While it isn’t cheap to kit your organisation out, it isn’t unfeasible, either. Hot desking was a widely practiced strategy long before the outbreak of COVID and most businesses usually have ample laptop stocks. 

Due to the prolonged nature of the pandemic – and the prospect of some businesses never returning to the office – there may be other hardware needs to take into account, such as monitors, desks and chairs. Unfortunately your hardware allocations will be dependent on your employer; a work laptop is often the only tool you’ll get with a new job, as it’s all you need to get started, meaning you may well need to invest your own money in kitting out a home office.

Meet the team

We can all recognise that ‘new kid at school’ feeling on the first day of the job: You don’t know anyone and they certainly won’t have much information on you, so someone is given the task of showing you round and making introductions. Until last year, this was typically an in-person ritual of awkward smiles and handshakes (remember those?).

“The first thing you do in a lot of jobs is you go in on your first day, before you’ve started anything your boss says, ‘hello’, shakes your hand, and then you get walked around the office,” Aying says. “They introduce you to HR, this department, that department, whoever, and you obviously can’t do that when you’re remote.” 

Instead, Imagination Technologies attempted to recreate the welcome virtually, with an introduction video followed by recorded messages from team managers. This tactic has its benefits – Imagination Technologies has a global operation and Ayling was introduced to department heads from India and Argentina, whom he wouldn’t have met in person anyway. However, it has a significant flaw in that all the communication is one way: While Ayling met the team, the team didn’t get to meet Ayling. 

“We’ve been trying to get to know each other, but I think the one thing that you miss [when] working remotely, especially if you don’t know the people beforehand, is just the little vignettes of conversation,” he says. “Those more kind of informal moments where you might just end up on a topic of conversation, or just kind of down a rabbit hole and getting to know people. Those kinds of organic moments of interpersonal discovery aren’t quite there.”

Human Resources

Nearly all the tasks an HR department has to go through with a new starter can be done remotely, which was the case long before the pandemic and its resulting lockdowns. Correspondence over email, meetings on Microsoft Teams or Google Hangouts, personal details filed via any number of online platforms – thanks to the steady growth of HR-focused cloud services, there has been little difficulty in this area of onboarding. 

The process can still be a little surreal, given our preference for in-person meetings, but the reality is you may never actually meet the people responsible for your transition into the company. Depending on your employer’s plans for the future of office work, this can even mean that one-to-ones with line managers, meetings that assess your probation period or progress reports will be based entirely on how you’ve handled work remotely. 

“When people are working remotely, there’s got to be a lot more trust, but it also requires active communication,” Ayling explains. “Because if you’re new at another job, and you’re all set in the office, you can have those kinds of touch points where you get that informal, ad hoc feedback to make a point or just check in.”

“I think it’s potentially harder to prove your worth, if that makes sense. Because when you’re in the office every day, they can see that you’re up and about and moving, but when you’re working from home, there has to be an element of trust involved, because they obviously can’t just monitor you the whole time.” 

Beyond the pandemic

A study of between 6,000 and 7,000 UK residents during 2020 found that remote working increased 43% and with it a wealth of benefits for a greater life-work balance. From the employee perspective, 88% want to continue working from home beyond the pandemic. But whether they can stay at home is dependent on their employer’s discretion and, in some cases, the industry they work in. 

According to LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index, 38% of respondents said they felt their employer would call them back into the office on a full-time basis – reverting back to pre-pandemic life, so to speak. However, 43% said they believed their work would be a mixture of in-office and remote, while only 10% felt their jobs would be completely done from home. 

This suggests most new starters won’t encounter remote onboarding after the pandemic, with at least some of it done in person in a dedicated office. When this oft-promised post-pandemic world will arrive, however, is another matter. Even as restrictions look set to gradually lift over the coming months, most offices and workspace will be subject to strict social distancing measures for some time, meaning sitting near some from HR, so they can talk you through your benefits package might not be feasible for at least a year, or even two. 

“I wouldn’t say [remote onboarding] is better or worse, I think it’s … different,” Ayling says. “At the start of lockdown, everybody on LinkedIn was saying ‘well, looks like the office is dead forever’, but I do miss the office to an extent. I think what we’ll probably see going forward, rather than a complete closure of offices, is a much more flexible approach.”

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has appointed Salesforce executive Adam Selipsky as its new CEO. 

Selipsky will replace Andy Jassy, who himself is replacing Jeff Bezos as the CEO of AWS’ parent company Amazon. 

The appointment will see Selipsky return to AWS after leaving in 2016 to become the CEO of Tableau. He previously spent 11 years at the AWS as vice president of sales, marketing and support, but his return as CEO has still come as a surprise to some in the industry who expected the role to go to a current AWS executive. 

“Whilst on first glance, hiring Selipsky to replace Jassy is a surprising call given that many expected this to be an inside job,” said. Nick McQuire, chief of research and enterprise at CSS Insight.

“In reality, few AWS execs have the raw CEO experience of running a hyper-growth technology business,” he added. “Selipsky fits this bill of course but the fact that he has extensive experience of the AWS ‘secret sauce’ culture as well, makes him an obvious bet.”

Selipsky’s tenure at Tableau saw the company’s value quadruple as he lead its move from perpetual licenses to subscriptions. In 2019 the firm was acquired by Salesforce, where Selipsky became a member of its executive leadership board while continuing as Tableau’s CEO.  

“Adam brings strong judgment, customer obsession, team building, demand generation, and CEO experience to an already very strong AWS leadership team,” Jassy wrote in a statement. “And, having been in such a senior role at AWS for 11 years, he knows our culture and business well.

“With a $51 billion revenue run rate that’s growing 28% YoY, it’s easy to forget that AWS is still in the very early stages of what’s possible. Less than 5% of the global IT spend is in the cloud at this point. That’s going to substantially change in the coming years. We have a lot more to invent for customers, and we have a very strong leadership team and group of builders to go make it happen. Am excited for what lies ahead.”

Selipsky is set to start his new role as AWS CEO on 17 May. 

Cloud service Box is reportedly exploring a sale amid growing pressure from investors that are thought to be unhappy with its stock performance during the pandemic.

The San Francisco-based company has been in discussions with potential buyers, including private equity firms, according to CNN sources. 

The sources requested anonymity because the issue is confidential, but there have been reports that Box shareholder Starboard Value has already begun preparing a board challenge against the firm. 

Last week, the company extended the deadline for director nominations to its board from the middle of April to 11 May. However, Starboard is calling for Box to do more to boost its value, with many thought to be unhappy that the cloud company hasn’t fully capitalised on remote working during the pandemic. 

Box, which was founded in 2005, was thought to be well placed to grow during the pandemic as it offers file-sharing and cloud storage services to businesses. While it has benefited from the shift to working from home over the last 12 months, its growth has been far lower than rival cloud businesses. 

The company’s fourth-quarter earnings beat analyst expectations, but with revenues of $189.9 million, it had only seen 8% growth year-over-year.

The company has continued to grow since going public in 2015, but the pace of that growth has declined each year. In comparison, smaller file-sharing service Dropbox has doubled its net income during the pandemic, which may suggest that this market has a ceiling. 

Similarly, Google and Microsoft, which offer file-sharing products within their business packages, have seen accelerated growth due to the global situation. It’s thought that if Box is seeking a sale, these hyper-scale companies could offer a lifeline; both have sought partnerships with Box, with Microsoft recently announcing tighter integration with its Office 365 platform.

Zoom has launched new tools for developers to help them build video-based applications and websites with fully customisable, native user interfaces. 

The Zoom Video SDK will now be made available via a free subscription service and will allow developers to build video-based applications and interactive features such as on-the-go live streaming with interactive chat, the company says. 

The Video SDK is part of Zoom’s Developer Platform, which features various resources such as dev tools, infrastructure support and access to a dev community. Developers can now access the SDK via a new “Buy Now” option which will come with no initial charge for up to 10,000 minutes per month, with additional minutes being charged on a per-minute basis. There will be a full paid tier, with a plan that starts at $1,000 a year and includes 30,000 session minutes per month.
 
As well as specific features for Zoom users, the firm hopes more business applications will be created. This could include functions for retail organisations with “unique” shopping experiences and tailored customer services via video. 

A good example of what developers can do with the SDK is Lingmo, a cloud-based AI translation software provider that built a feature for instant captions in meetings that let users converse in different languages. 

“Zoom’s fully customisable Video SDK was a good fit for us because it worked seamlessly with our technology and enabled us to assist enterprise customers in a new way. Zoom’s Video SDK allowed us to accelerate the development of our solution, and gave us the flexibility to enhance our product offering for our customers,” said Danny May, CEO of Lingmo International.

As well as the SDKs, developers can access APIs, chatbots, webhooks and even an analytical platform that can provide real-time data on their builds, such as customer engagement and performance figures. 
 
The announcement comes shortly after the anniversary of the UK’s first lockdown where the country switched to working remotely. Zoom was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic, seeing a 355% increase in adoption as consumers and businesses adopted its simple and cheap video conferencing. 

The founder of OVH, which owns the French data centre that perished in a fire last week, has said the incident highlights a need for the data centre industry to offer backups as a standard for all customers.

Octave Klaba said his company will start providing secure backups for its data centre customers by default rather than as an additional paid service.

Klaba said that the fire at OVH’s data centre site in Strasbourg earlier this month, that destroyed one building and partially damaged another, should serve as an industry-wide wakeup call.

“This incident will change our way of delivering these services, but, also, I believe it will change the industry, which will increase the securities of backups by default, without any payment,” Kalaba said in a video. “This will be our strategy, our answer to this incident.”

Several OVH customers affected by the fire were unable to bring their applications back online due to a lack of backups. Klaba suggested there was some confusion over service terms and that some of its customers hadn’t fully understood what they had brought from OVH. The French cloud firm did offer 500GB of free backup storage with every dedicated server and customers could pay to ramp that up to 10TB.

“It seems that globally, the customers… understand what we are delivering, but some customers, they don’t understand what exactly they bought,” Klaba said in the video.

The CEO added that he would post another video on Friday 19 March with an update on the ongoing investigation into the cause of the fire. Thermal images used by firefighters suggested the building’s uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system was a possible cause. Klaba said that investigators had taken the UPS units and all its batteries and fuses – along with video footage – for analysis.

Dropbox will make its password manager, ‘Dropbox Passwords’, available for free from next month. 

The feature was launched last year for paying customers but will be made available to anyone that has a Dropbox account, the company announced.

Dropbox Passwords generates unique passwords for new sign-ups and autofills credentials on apps and websites. The service is based on zero-knowledge encryption, which means users don’t have to reveal the password for verification. What’s more, the company said it will soon release a feature that lets users securely share passwords with friends and family.

There are a few limitations, however. Dropbox Passwords users will only be able to store up to 50 passwords up to three devices to access those credential via the cloud.

“Last year, we launched Dropbox Passwords for all paid Dropbox plans to make signing into websites and storing your passwords seamless,” the firm said in a statement. “The Passwords app remembers your usernames and passwords on all your devices – so you don’t have to. And zero-knowledge encryption ensures only you know your passwords, not Dropbox.”

Using password managers have been touted as a best practice for businesses for years and they are now seen as a crucial part of remote working due to the increase in services needed.

The importance of these services was recently highlighted by the widespread backlash to LastPass‘ announcement that its free tier will no longer offer users unlimited access to stored passwords on both desktop and mobile devices.
 
“If you are not using a password manager then you are dangerously leaving yourself more open to cyberattacks,” said Jake Moore, ESET’s cyber security specialist. “It is vital to implement a password manager into your work and home life to remain protected from attacks, but many people mistakenly think of it as a more unsecure way of protecting accounts.
 
“Most people have dozens of accounts and this number is only going to get bigger, for example with one-time purchases, so it can be easy to reuse known passwords. But this is where threat actors often capitalise, seeking out those overused non-complex passwords and then compromising other accounts with the same credentials.”

AMD has unveiled its third-generation Epyc Milan data centre CPUs, which is claims are the “world’s fastest” server processors. 

The hardware, which is already available, is the first set of AMD chips for the server market to be built on the company’s powerful 7-nanometer Zen 3 architecture. 

AMD claims Epyc Milan produces twice the power of Intel’s rival Xeon Cascade Lake Refresh chips in HPC, cloud and enterprise workloads, and claims it offers a better price-to-performance ratio.

AMD’s confidence comes from as a result of its Zen 3 architecture, which is a microarchitecture that has brought similar benefits with AMD’s Ryzen 500 series of chips, which have become increasingly popular in the desktop PC space. 

“With the launch of our 3rd Gen AMD Epyc processors, we are incredibly excited to deliver the fastest server CPU in the world. These processors extend our data centre leadership and help customers solve today’s most complex IT challenges, while substantially growing our ecosystem,” said Forrest Norrod, senior vice president and general manager, Data Center and Embedded Solutions Business Group. 

“We not only double the performance over the competition in HPC, cloud and enterprise workloads with our newest server CPUs but together with the AMD Instinct GPUs, we are breaking the exascale barrier in supercomputing and helping to tackle problems that have previously been beyond humanity’s reach.”

‘Zen 3’ refers to cores of which there are 64 within the 7003 series that is said to deliver up to twice the performance for HPC workloads compared to the competition. For cloud providers that need more computing power and security, the 7003 series has the “highest core density”, according to AMD, and also includes AMD Infinity Guard protection.

Already, the AMD Epyc Milan series is being used by some of the biggest names in tech in a variety of ways. AWS will add it to its core Amazon EC2 instance families later this year, and it will also feature in Dell‘s new PowerEdge XE8545 server. Google Cloud will embed the EPYC 7003 series processors in a new compute optimised virtual machine and Microsoft has announced multiple virtual machine offerings that will be powered by the 7003 series. 

Other uses cases include Lenovo, Oracle, HPE, VMware, Tencent and many more.