​Google Cloud has announced that it will be joining a new alliance of data analytics companies that aims to support businesses and governments in recovering from the coronavirus pandemic.

Emer2gent is set to combine traditional economic, business, travel and retail data sets with behaviour and sentiment data, in order to facilitate the global economic recovery from the downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic. It describes itself as “an alliance of partners sharing data and expertise to build economic resilience”.

Led by Rolls-Royce, it already counts IBM, Leeds Institute for Data Analytics, The Data City, Truata, and ODI Leeds as its members.

Google Cloud is the latest to join the group and will provide its Public Datasets and BigQuery cloud data warehouse, which aims to assist businesses in making informed decisions quickly and ease their transformation.

Google Cloud’s manufacturing and industrial lead for the UK and Ireland, Rajh Das, said that the company is “proud to be involved in such an important project as we all work together to support business globally during these extraordinary times”.

IBM is to provide its public cloud, the IBM Cloud Pak for Data, and high-performance computing, as well as subject matter expertise from its Data Science Elite team.

“IBM looks forward to joining our existing partners and valued clients in this initiative,” said Andrew Brown, general manager for IBM Cloud & Cognitive Software Europe. “It is hoped IBM’s contribution will help accomplish the identification of proven use cases, to assist where recovery indicators emerge for countries, governments, state agencies and supporting companies to best respond to the next phase of the improvement in the pandemic.”

Caroline Gorski, global director for R2 Data Labs, the Rolls-Royce data innovation catalyst behind the alliance, expressed her hopes for the swift recovery of the world economy.

“Our data innovation community can help do this and is at its best when it comes together for the common good,” she said. “People, businesses and governments around the world have changed the way they spend, move, communicate and travel because of COVID-19 and we can use that insight, along with other data, to provide the basis for identifying what new insights and trends may emerge that signify the world’s adjustment to a new normal after the pandemic.”

Google Cloud’s announcement comes a month after the news that the company had joined Lloyd’s digital transformation project which aims to upgrade the UK bank’s IT systems to compete in the increasingly digitised world of finance.

An internal investigation by the Department of Defence (DoD) has found that the decision to award the JEDI contract to Microsoft was administered fairly, despite widespread reports of political interference.

The DoD’s Inspector General sought to review whether the decision to award Microsoft with a $10 billion cloud computing contract had been handled fairly and legally, as well as investigate reports that the White House pressured officials to reject a proposal from Amazon Web Services.

The report found that the process met the DoD’s standards, however, it was unable to review the deal in its entirety due to restrictions imposed by a «presidential communications privilege».

Since it was first announced, the Joint Enterprise Defence Infrastructure (JEDI) project has been marred in controversy. From its single-vendor nature, to accusations of bias, the bidding process has resulted in extensive legal action. Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched an appeal shortly after Microsoft were announced the winners, citing political influence, particularly that of US President Donald Trump which has been heavily reported.

Oracle, meanwhile, launched legal action in November after it claimed AWS itself had sought to influence the decision, claiming that two DoD officials had been offered jobs at AWS during the process, while a third was a former consultant for the company.

Although the DoD report said that the process had been handled properly, it revealed that several DoD witnesses were instructed by the General Counsel (OGC) of the agency to not answer questions about potential communications between White House and DoD officials regarding JEDI, according to the report.

«As a result, we could not be certain whether there were any White House communications with some DoD officials which may have affected the JEDI procurement,» the report stated.

«However, we believe the evidence we received showed that the DoD personnel who evaluated proposals and made the source-selection awarding Microsoft the JEDI Cloud contract were not pressured about their decision on the award of the contract by any DoD leaders more senior to them, who may have communicated with the White House.»

Media «swirl»

The report states that DoD witnesses were aware of media reports about the JEDI award, but they said they considered it «lobbying,» and «media swirl». These refer to statements reportedly made by Trump that criticised Amazon and its owner Jeff Bezos. However, the report said that these comments had no effect on the work of each witness.

Instead, the findings suggest that «inaccurate media reports» and stories of «lobbying» from competing cloud companies may have created «the appearance or perception» that the award process was biased.

The report uses the infamous «screw Amazon» quote as an example. According to Guy Snodgrass’ book ‘Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis‘, the President directed defence secretary Mark Esper to review the JEDI procurement. According to the DoD, the book speculated that he tried to influence Esper and other DoD officials not to select Amazon. The report also suggests that media reports, singling out CNN, contributed to speculation that Trump may have attempted to influence the procurement against Amazon.

However, the investigation could not corroborate or disprove Snodgrass’ account. Mattis told the investigation he could «not confirm» Snodgrass’ statement and said he did not recall talking to the President about JEDI. Other DoD officials said they «did not recall any meeting like» the one that Snodgrass describes in the book.

The investigation was also unable to fully corroborate or contradict Snodgrass’ account of the small group meeting, as the officials named by Snodgrass were instructed by the OGC to not answer any questions about communications with the President. The report concludes, however, that whether or not the meeting happened as described, it did not influence Mattis’ actions toward the JEDI bidding process.

Standard Chartered has become the first major bank to ban the use of Zoom and Google Hangouts among its employees due to cybersecurity concerns.

In a memo seen by Reuters, CEO Bill Winters told managers not to use the popular video communication services, joining an array of companies and governments who have banned Zoom in the last weeks.

A Standard Chartered spokeswoman told Reuters that cyber security remains a top priority and that staff can use several authorized tools for audio and video conferencing.

Winters’ decision to warn employees against using Google Hangouts is rather unprecedented, as Alphabet’s platform for virtual gatherings has not earned the same reputation for cybersecurity issues as Zoom.

Zoom has been plagued by security concerns since it saw a surge in users following COVID-19 remote working boom. It’s been revealed that the company doesn’t use end-to-end encryption, despite specifically stating that it does on its website, while incidents of ‘Zoom-bombing’ have forced governments, businesses and schools alike to ban the use of the platform.

Last week, Zoom founder Eric Yuan told CNN that the company had «moved too fast» and should have done more to enforce password and meeting room security.

Neither Google Hangouts nor Zoom boasts the same level of encryption as more secure business-oriented communication platforms, such as Cisco WebEx or Microsoft Teams. Two employees who were not authorized to speak on the matter told Reuters that Standard Chartered uses the latter.

However, even the most secure platforms are not immune to security threats. The Cofense Phishing Defense Center recently discovered a new phishing campaign that aims to harvest WebEx credentials using a security warning for the application. The campaign has managed to successfully avert Cisco’s own Secure Email Gateway.

Last month, Microsoft Teams went down across Europe for two hours, causing mass frustration for the many remote workers who had begun remote working amid the coronavirus pandemic. The platform had gained 12 million users in just one week following a surge of remote working.​

There’s a growing list of companies and organisations announcing bans on the popular videoconferencing app Zoom over security concerns. 

A slew of businesses, organisations, and even countries, have banned the service after a litany of security flaws surfaced over the last few weeks. While the company and it’s CEO Eric Yuan have scrambled to patch the issues, its reputation is sinking fast.

Part of the problem is that the company, like the rest of the world, didn’t expect a global pandemic to force us all indoors. As such, videoconferencing services have become vital components of this new way of life, and Zoom is now one of the most popular. The app is simple to use and has a freemium option, which has seen a fairly big spike in enterprise usage – which is where the security issues are proving most concerning.

The two security issues that seem most concerning to businesses are ‘Zoom-bombing’ and the lack of end-to-end encryption. 

Google

Google has reportedly issued a company-wide memo telling employees who have the Zoom app on their work laptops that it will no longer work, although they can still use it on mobiles for personal use, according to an internal email leaked on 8 April.

The tech giant hasn’t specified why this decision was made, merely citing «security issues», according to reports.

The FBI

As the coronavirus became a pandemic in March, and more of the world dived into remote working, the FBI sent out a warning about hackers invading and disrupting video conference calls.

Zoom was one of the companies singled out by the Bureau, which said that reports had come in from around the country of hackers hijacking meetings and using them to spread hate speech and pornographic images.

SpaceX

A couple of days after the FBI’s warning, reports suggested that Elon Musk had banned SpaceX employees from using the software.

It’s currently unclear if this ban extends to Musk’s other companies, such as Tesla. ‘Zoom-bombing’ is thought to be the main reason for the company-wide ban.

The Ministry of Defence

The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) is also said to be anti-Zoom, following reports on 27 March suggesting the agency had advised government departments against its use.

However, it seems the message hasn’t been communicated as Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently revealed on Twitter that his cabinet has been using Zoom for meetings – with the ID of that meeting also unwittingly revealed in a photo.

The US Senate & Germany’s Foreign Office

Given that Zoom is a Chinese company, its lack of end-to-end encryption hasn’t gone down well in the Western world. Like Google and SpaceX, the US Senate is said to have told its members to avoid using the app, according to reports on 9 April. 

There are reports that the German government have placed restrictions on the software being used on fixed-connection computers.

According to Reuters, a memo to employees said: «Based on media reports and our own findings, we have concluded that Zoom’s software has critical weaknesses and serious security and data protection problems».

Taiwan

Taiwan is the first country to completely ban the service, blocking its public sector bodies from using it. The software platform falls under the nation’s Cyber Security Management Act, ushered in last year, that bans organisations using services that have been «associated with security issues». 

With the issues continuing to surface, Zoom has promised to become more security-focused – it has already hired Facebook’s former chief security officer Alex Stamos – but it will need to work quickly as its client list, stock and reputation are all in free fall.

Zoom customers will be able to choose which data centre regions their account can use for transmission of real-time meeting traffic, meaning that traffic now doesn’t need to be routed through China.

From 18 April, administrators and account owners of paid-for Zoom accounts can either opt-in or opt-out of a specific data centre region across the world, giving more control over how their traffic flows. 

The data of free users outside of China, moreover, will never be routed through China, with these users locked into data centres within their default region in which their account has been established.

The platform change has been implemented following a period of sustained criticism levelled towards the company for security concerns as well as privacy risks with its now extremely popular video conferencing platform. 

Last month, for example, it emerged that Zoom had been inadvertently sending a granular level of iOS users’ device data to Facebook through the mechanism of a sign-in integration. After this came to light, the company killed the integration and pledge to no longer transmit this data to the social media firm. 

In light of countless other complaints, the company last week moved to hire former Facebook chief security officer (CSO) Alex Stamos in a freelance advisory capacity to boost the platform’s integrity and robustness.

The backlash against the company reached a nadir last week after a host of organisations announced they were banning employees from using the platform. Even Taiwan distributed a declaration prohibiting government agencies and public sector employees from using Zoom, becoming the first country to ban the platform.

This ban was issued for security reasons, although many have suggested that, reading between the lines, the severity of the move was motivated by the revelation that some Zoom traffic was inadvertently routed through China. Diplomatic ties between the two nations are frosty, given that China does not recognise Taiwan’s independence. 

The swiftness by which Zoom has implemented changes to ensure traffic does not have to be routed through China, for both paid and free users, suggests the company is keen to mend its relationship with Taiwanese officials.

Paid-for Zoom users will be able to choose which data centre region their traffic is routed through, between the US, Canda, Europe, India, Australia, China, Latin America and Japan/Hong Kong. 

The Federal Communications Commission approved Google’s request to use part of a U.S.-Asia undersea telecommunications cable on Wednesday, April 8. Google previously warned that without approval from the FCC, the company would likely face significantly higher prices to carry traffic by other means. The FCC will allow Google to operate the segment for the next six months, pending a final disposition of the license application.

Google thanked the FCC for approving its request in a recent statement, noting that “dedicated global network deployment and operations [teams are] continually increasing capacity to meet the needs of our users, and that includes our subsea cable system.”

Google agreed to operate a portion of the 8,000-mile Pacific Light Cable Network System that runs between the United States and Taiwan. The company teamed up with Facebook to help pay for the construction of the telecommunications link, but U.S. regulators blocked its use.

This blockage forced Google to confront regulators earlier this year, telling them it has “an immediate need to meet internal demand for capacity between the U.S. and Taiwan, in particular, to connect Google’s Taiwan data centre to Google data centres in the United States and to serve users throughout the Asia-Pacific region.”

In its response to Google’s statement, the Justice Department agreed that without temporary authority, “Google would likely have to seek alternative capacity at significantly higher prices.” 

With this approval, Google has also agreed to diversify its interconnection points throughout Asia and will continue establishing network facilities capable of delivering traffic to its ultimate destination, the department added.

Slack boss Stewart Butterfield has poured cold water over Microsoft’s figures for Teams adoption during the coronavirus pandemic. 

The CEO was speaking to Market Watch about his own company’s spike in users and the inevitable comparison to Microsoft Teams seemed to get under his skin. 

Butterfield said the week starting March 9 was the «most productive» in his company’s history with a surge of new users turning into a «steep vertical» in two weeks. It took the platform four years to reach 10 million users, but from 10 March to 25 March, that number had grown by 2.5 million. 

There are a number of cloud-based services that have seen a big spike in users following the spread of COVID-19. Videoconferencing tools have become vital tools for people to connect with friends, family and work colleagues and Slack is also benefiting from the lockdown. It has, however, also increased the scrutiny upon its rivalry with Microsoft, which seems to irk Butterfield. 

«You probably sense the frustration in my voice,» he said on Market Watch. «Microsoft has made a huge push the past three years with a free service, but can you find a single Slack enterprise customer who has switched to Teams?»

«If Microsoft is such a competitive threat to Slack as it says, we would not have grown in sales and $1 million customers. I mean, 44 million is an impressive number, but that is out of 200 million Office 365 customers. That’s about a 20% adoption rate.»

Butterfield’s comments come just two weeks after he announced a Teams call integration on Slack, that suggested the two would bury the hatchet, but the CEO and his company have a history of firing barbs at the enterprise giant. Butterfield previously called Microsoft’s behaviour «unsportsmanlike» and in a tweet, Slack referred to it as a «boomer». Despite recently going public, and also it’s rapid growth, Slack and Butterfield still see themselves as a startup taking on the corporate giant. 

«The smaller startup has an advantage against the large, established company because its focus is narrowed on doing one thing better,» Butterfield added. 

Cloud Pro has approached Microsoft for comment. 

The Mozilla Corporation’s first CEO Mitchell Baker has rejoined the company to serve as its next chief executive after Chris Beard announced his intention to resign in August last year.

Baker, who was instrumental in the creation of the Mozilla Foundation, has been serving as the company’s CEO on an interim basis since December 2019 when Beard officially stepped down from his position.

The company has been attracted to her “innate knowledge of Mozilla” alongside a sense of urgency and transparency and a focus on long-term development, which she’s demonstrated since taking over from Beard.

​Microsoft has announced that it will assist all UK schools in getting set up for remote learning, in order to help students continue to learn while at home.

The company has pledged to work with the 27,000 schools in the UK, helping them run lessons remotely using Microsoft Teams, Office 365, as well as software such as Minecraft: Education Edition, Flipgrid, Skype in the Classroom and InTune.

The tools are available to use on mobile devices, tablets, PCs and browsers, and focus on encouraging teamwork by allowing collaborations, communication and file sharing in real-time. Microsoft emphasised that the tools “offer a safe and secure learning environment, using intelligent security features enhanced by machine learning to protect data and identities”.

Microsoft UK’s director of education, Chris Rothwell, praised teachers for “showing incredible resilience, imagination, and passion to ensure that they can help keep children safe and can keep learning while they at home”.

“Technology is helping teachers keep in touch with students and to maintain a connection to the school and each other,” he said. “This offer to support any school get fully set up for remote learning is so that every school and pupil can benefit, and that learning can continue while schools are closed.”

In order to support teaching staff, Microsoft has also launched webinars aiming to promote the benefits of Teams. The topics covered include creating an online classroom, keeping students engaged with online meetings, as well as assisting IT Administrators in setting up Teams for online collaboration.

Schools across the UK have been closed since 20 March, allowing only vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers, such as NHS staff, to attend. Latest reports indicate that schools are not planning to reopen after Easter break.