10 tech stories you may have missed: Security and its discontents

March 13, 2019 12:12 PM

FreshBooks adds bank rec, LinkedIn’s new video broadcast service, and eight other things that happened in technology this past month and how they’ll impact your clients and your firm.

Note: Some of these stories also appeared on Forbes.com.

1. Severe vulnerabilities are uncovered in popular password managers.

A new study published last month by Independent Security Evaluators, which investigated the true security posture of password storage services, reveals several vulnerabilities that can result in valuable user credentials being stolen. (Source: ZDNet)

Why this is important your firm and your clients: ISE, which documented the results of tests in software on Windows 10 devices involving popular password managers 1Password, Dashlane, KeePass, and LastPass, says, however, this doesn’t mean people have to abandon their favorite password managers yet. It says a password manager is still a better alternative than always using the same simple, easy-to-crack passwords. Your takeaway should be that although password managers help, they’re not a 100 percent reliable security solution.

2. Microsoft study shows poor employee habits threaten cybersecurity.

Last month, Microsoft Ireland released the results of a study showing that poor cybersecurity habits within large public and private sector organizations in the country increase the risk of data breaches and intellectual property loss. An investigation of how employees of large Irish companies — with staffs of 100 or more — access and use sensitive data in and out of the office revealed that only 54 percent of respondents reported receiving annual cybersecurity training, only 16 percent have updated their passwords in the past year, 40 percent recycle their work passwords, and 44 percent recycle their personal passwords. (Source: Silicon Republic)

Why this is important your firm and your clients: OK, it’s Ireland so it’s probable that some of the respondents to this survey had a few too many Guinnesses. Who can blame them? Seriously, this issue isn’t restricted to Ireland. It’s a worldwide problem and I bet a problem in your business. Most breaches happen because of employee error. Get training!

3. FreshBooks adds bank rec and double-entry accounting.

FreshBooks has announced it will offer bank reconciliation and double-entry accounting to help its fastest-growing customers realize their goals. This new offering includes a general ledger, chart of accounts, accountant access, bank reconciliation, and more — so growing service-based businesses can confidently scale on FreshBooks, work more easily with their accountant, and be better prepared for tax time. With this offering FreshBooks aims to help the 70 percent of accountants and bookkeepers who — in a recent company report — said that small-business owners find accounting software intimidating and the 83 percent who said it’s typical for owners to make mistakes when using such software. (Source: CPA Practice Advisor)

Why this is important your firm and your clients: For years FreshBooks has been a popular, cloud-based way to do billing, collect payments and manage cash. But frankly, it always lacked the full accounting functionality that would allow it to compete more aggressively against products like QuickBooks. No more! With these new capabilities FreshBooks can now go head to head with other well-known accounting brands and – judging by the positive feedback many of my clients give me about the product – can provide an excellent accounting alternative for small businesses.

4. Trend Micro survey finds 80 percent of U.S. businesses expect a critical breach in 2019.

Cybersecurity solutions company Trend Micro Incorporated released the results of its Cyber Risk Index — a survey of more than 1,000 American IT security professionals. The survey found 80 percent of IT business leaders anticipate a critical breach or successful cyberattack over the coming year. (Source: Business Insider)

Why this is important your firm and your clients: How comforting! Eight out of 10 IT experts expect to be the victims of a “critical breach” this year. So how vulnerable is your network? There’s no way to fully protect yourself from this, only to minimize the risks of serious business interruption. Budget for an IT security firm to upgrade your software, provide training and backup your data frequently. Have a disaster recovery plan. Update your cyber insurance. For now, that’s the best you can be doing.

5. LinkedIn debuts LinkedIn Live, a new live video broadcast service.

What, another one? In addition to Amazon’s new “live” service, LinkedIn launched a beta version of live video in the U.S. so individuals and organizations can broadcast real-time video to select groups or to the larger LinkedIn world. Called LinkedIn Live, the service will be by invitation only now and then later opened up to others. (Source: Tech Crunch)

Why this is important your firm and your clients: It’s obviously a rival to Facebook Live and geared towards businesses that want to either produce or sponsor video content to this community of other businesses. Initial live content that LinkedIn hopes to broadcast aligns with the kind of subject matter already seen in LinkedIn’s news feed, such as conferences, product announcements, Q&As and other events led by influencers and mentors, office hours from large tech companies, earnings calls, graduation and awards ceremonies, etc.

A woman waits for an elevator behind a Samsung Electronics Co. logo displayed at the company's Seocho office building in Seoul. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

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6. Galaxy S10 chip kills it in early Snapdragon 855 benchmarking tests.

Samsung launched its next flagship phone — the Galaxy S10 — last month, and CNET’s test of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset it uses showed the phone to perform 45 percent faster than the Galaxy S9. Qualcomm typically lets a few journalists run a number of common benchmarking tests on a “reference device” phone — a working prototype Qualcomm uses to test the latest Snapdragon chip with the camera, apps, 5G network trials, etc. (Source: CNET)

Why this is important your firm and your clients: While the reference device isn’t a finished phone destined to sell under a brand name, it’s very useful for seeing how a phone running on the Snapdragon 855 might act. To me and other business users of a smartphone it’s all about speed, speed, speed. Hey Verizon: When can I exchange my S8?

7. eMarketer predicts digital ads will overtake traditional spending in 2019.

According to the latest forecast from research firm eMarketer, this will be the first year that the amount spent on digital advertising will be greater than that spent on traditional ads. It predicts that U.S. digital ad spend will increase 19.1 percent in 2019, to $129.3 billion, while traditional advertising will decrease 19 percent, to $109.5 billion. As a result, digital will account for 54.2 percent of the total and traditional 45.8 percent — with most of the digital ad money going to Google and Facebook. (Source: Tech Crunch)

Why this is important your firm and your clients: If more than 50 percent of ad money is predicted to go digital this year, does that correlate to your advertising budget? You don’t have to be selling things online to benefit from the increased traffic to your website and leads generated by advertising there. Both Google and Facebook have pretty affordable options for small businesses. Yes, there are limitations depending on your industry and the products or services sold, but you need to have an online marketing strategy.

8. Goldman Sachs leads $45m funding round for business credit startup Nav.

Goldman Sachs just announced it is leading a $44.8 million Series C funding round for Nav — a business financial management app that helps small companies get better financing by giving them free access to credit reports. (Source: Finextra)

Why this is important your firm and your clients: Nav plans to use the money to develop its technology platform, expand enterprise partnerships, and sign up additional small-business owners – perhaps your clients? There are already more than a million them who have access to their credit data and insights through the startup’s app, which simplifies their getting financing.

9. Workplace messaging app Slack to go public.

Last month, California-based workplace messaging startup Slack said it had filed a confidential registration for an IPO. The company claims to have 10 million users in 150 countries and has raised more than $1 billion from investors, meaning it is now valued at $7.1 billion and is one of the most richly valued “unicorns” in the country. (Source: France 24)

Why this is important your firm and your clients: The workplace collaboration market is worth billions and Slack has, for years, been the undisputed leader in that space. But the company faces stiff competition from others – most particularly Microsoft Teams – and will likely see its market share decline a bit in the coming years. But no matter, I’m sure the markets will agree that Slack’s application is great and the future is bright for workplace collaboration technologies like it. That should give you confidence to try one of these apps in your business too. (Full disclosure: My company is a Microsoft partner).

10. Microsoft: Almost all our commercial cloud revenue is sold through partners.

Last month, Microsoft executives revealed that the company has thousands of partners around the world and that 95 percent of its $9 billion in commercial cloud revenue is sold through these partners. Currently, the transition from self-managed data centers to cloud providers has created huge opportunities for Microsoft’s partners to help businesses make the sometimes-difficult move by building custom technology services on top of Azure to help clients move their workloads and data into the cloud. In addition, hundreds of software companies offer their wares directly within Azure through the Azure Marketplace. (Source: Geek Wire)

Why this is important your firm and your clients: If you’re thinking of going to Microsoft for a Microsoft product, you’re actually going to the wrong place. Microsoft is a partner-driven company. The best place to get advice, support and to buy Microsoft products is actually through their channel.