VPN
globenewswire | September 21, 2023
Automox, the leader in AI-powered IT automation, is proud to announce two new capabilities, FixNow and PowerShell Signing. Combined, these new features further extend Automox’s industry-leading automation, speed, and security to enable organizations to act immediately to enforce and audit configuration, remediate vulnerabilities, install or remove software, query devices, and more.
According to a 2019 IT Outage Impact Study, human error was the #1 cause of IT outages in the United States and Canada, and the #3 cause globally. Using FixNow for immediate testing and validation enables IT professionals to confidently automate configuration changes at scale and to minimize the potential for human error.
FixNow runs Automox WorkletsTM immediately at scale across IT environments without a VPN or servers. With a catalog of over 300 automations that span Windows, macOS, and Linux systems, FixNow runs securely in real-time on the devices you choose.
Early-access Automox customers are already confirming the value of FixNow. Matthew Rehm, Director of Information Systems at Methodist Theological School in Ohio said, “[FixNow] made updating some machines so much easier than having to schedule.” And David Thomson, IT Manager, St Andrew's First Aid in the UK said, “I use FixNow when evaluating new Worklets. The capability to execute instantly allows me to see instant results without cluttering up my existing policies.”
“The value of immediate and secure action at scale cannot be overstated. We know time is of the essence, and FixNow lets our users remediate fast,” said Tim Lucas, CEO of Automox. “FixNow is the fastest and most secure way to audit and fix hundreds or even thousands of devices immediately.”
According to a 2020 study by Cisco, PowerShell accounted for more than 33% of critical threats detected on endpoints. Automox PowerShell Signing will ensure script integrity and adherence to security best practices by enabling remote or all script signing to further reduce potential attack surfaces. Whether you automate or immediately execute PowerShell with FixNow, tasks like configuration, software deployment, and patching will be signed.
To ensure the integrity of scripts from Automox and enable IT teams to adhere to security best practices, all PowerShell commands and automations will be self-signed by Automox. Once enabled, organizations can enhance their security posture by disallowing unsigned and potentially malicious PowerShell from running in their environment.
“All Automox customers will be able to opt-in to sign every PowerShell command sent through Automox, so they can be confident that critical endpoint management tasks like configuration updates were unchanged in transit to managed devices,” said Jason Kikta, Automox CISO. “This is a major advance in security for IT teams. Dual-use and fileless PowerShell scripts comprise nearly half of the critical security threats on endpoints.”
FixNow is available to Automox customers today as a free preview, Secure Signing will be made available to all Automox customers shortly.
About Automox
Automox is the IT automation platform for modern organizations. It makes it easy to keep Windows, macOS, and Linux endpoints patched, configured, controlled, and secured – without servers or VPNs. Using AI-powered automation, IT professionals can fix critical vulnerabilities faster, slash cost and complexity, and win back hours in their days. Join thousands of companies transforming IT operations into a strategic business driver with Automox.
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Virtual Desktop Tools, Virtual Server Infrastructure
prnewswire | July 17, 2023
Broadcom Inc. a global technology leader that designs, develops and supplies semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions, received conditional approval today from the European Commission to complete its acquisition of VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW).
With this decision, the Commission recognizes the importance of this combination in enabling enterprises to accelerate growth and momentum in the multi-cloud ecosystem, and in expanding customer choice and creating more potential for increased innovation and competition.
Broadcom has also received legal merger clearance in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and Taiwan, and foreign investment control clearance in all necessary jurisdictions.
While Broadcom believes that its proposed acquisition of VMware will only increase competition and innovation in cloud computing, Broadcom provided the European Commission with a technology access remedy that preserves interoperability, a core principle that would not have changed as a result of this transaction. Broadcom did this to fully address the concerns expressed by the European Commission, and Broadcom welcomes the Commission's decision to accept this access remedy.
Broadcom looks forward to continuing to work constructively with regulators around the world. Broadcom is confident that when regulators conclude their review, they too will see that the combination of Broadcom and VMware will enhance competition in the cloud and benefit enterprise customers by giving them more choice and control over where they locate their workloads. Broadcom continues to expect that the transaction will close in its fiscal year 2023.
About Broadcom Inc.
Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO), a Delaware corporation headquartered in San Jose, CA, is a global technology leader that designs, develops and supplies a broad range of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions. Broadcom's category-leading product portfolio serves critical markets including data center, networking, enterprise software, broadband, wireless, storage and industrial. Our solutions include data center networking and storage, enterprise, mainframe and cyber security software focused on automation, monitoring and security, smartphone components, telecoms and factory automation.
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Server Virtualization
businesswire | August 03, 2023
Tachyum® today announced that it has completed porting of all the software necessary for chip validation on the Prodigy FPGA prototype before it is sent for tape out with the successful running of the Xen hypervisor on a QEMU software emulator.
Xen is a type-1 hypervisor providing services that allow multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical host system, sharing resources such as memory, processing and devices. Its bare metal capabilities allow the Xen hypervisor to communicate directly from the host’s hardware, acting like a lightweight operating system. It supports four types of virtualization: paravirtualization, full hardware virtualization, full virtualization with a set of paravirtualization drivers, and paravirtualization with hardware virtualization support.
Tachyum demonstrated its support of XEN running in three different modes:
Standard “dom0” mode – the most privileged domain and the only virtual machine that has direct access to hardware by default. From dom0, the hypervisor can be managed and unprivileged domains (domU) can be launched.
Hyperlaunch – enabled seamless transition for existing systems that require a dom0. Provides a new general capability to build and launch alternative configurations of VMs, including support for static partitioning and accelerated start of VMs during host boot while adhering to the principles of least privileged.
Dom0less – a set of Xen features that enable the deployment of a Xen system without a control domain (dom0). It is a hyperlaunch-like configuration with static partitioning without using dom0. This means that there are no virtual devices and hardware resources are statically assigned to a specific virtual machine using the passthrough method.
“In order to assure that Prodigy truly becomes the means for transforming data centers into Universal Computing Centers, we need to ensure that it can properly handle any number of components, software and technology available now or in the future,” said Dr. Radoslav Danilak, founder and CEO of Tachyum. “By successfully running Xen in our Prodigy software emulator, we can confidently assure organizations that they will reap the full benefits of Prodigy when it becomes commercially available. I’m proud of the work of our highly skilled software team as they continue to complete the final components needed before tape out.”
Prodigy delivers unprecedented data center performance, power, and economics, reducing CAPEX and OPEX significantly. Because of its utility for both high-performance and line-of-business applications, Prodigy-powered data center servers can seamlessly and dynamically switch between workloads, eliminating the need for expensive dedicated AI hardware and dramatically increasing server utilization. Tachyum's Prodigy delivers performance up to 4x that of the highest performing x86 processors (for cloud workloads) and up to 3x that of the highest performing GPU for HPC and 6x for AI applications.
About Tachyum
Tachyum is transforming the economics of AI, HPC, public and private cloud workloads with Prodigy, the world’s first Universal Processor. Prodigy unifies the functionality of a CPU, a GPGPU, and a TPU in a single processor that delivers industry-leading performance, cost, and power efficiency for both specialty and general-purpose computing. When hyperscale data centers are provisioned with Prodigy, all AI, HPC, and general-purpose applications can run on the same infrastructure, saving companies billions of dollars in hardware, footprint, and operational expenses. As global data center emissions contribute to a changing climate, and consume more than four percent of the world’s electricity—projected to be 10 percent by 2030—the ultra-low power Prodigy Universal Processor is a potential breakthrough for satisfying the world’s appetite for computing at a lower environmental cost. Prodigy, now in its final stages of testing and integration before volume manufacturing, is being adopted in prototype form by a rapidly growing customer base, and robust purchase orders signal a likely IPO in late 2024. Tachyum has offices in the United States and Slovakia.
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VPN
Businesswire | July 18, 2023
The world’s efforts to secure digital communications from the threat posed by quantum computers took a significant leap forward today as a new standard for quantum-safe Virtual Private Networks (VPN) was ratified by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
The new protocol has already been used by Banque de France and Deutsche Bundesbank to secure payments messages, paving the way for full adoption by the Bank for International Settlements to secure communications between the world’s central banks.
‘Harvest Now Decrypt Later’ (HNDL) attacks currently represent the greatest quantum cybersecurity threat. These attacks see hostile actors steal encrypted data now which can be decrypted once a sufficiently mature quantum computer comes online. The new US Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act states that the HNDL risk presents the highest threat to humankind and stipulates that quantum migration must start now. Deploying a VPN based on new post quantum cryptography is the easiest way to protect data-in-transit from such attacks.
The new IETF standard specifies how VPNs can exchange communications securely in the quantum age. The novel approach prioritises interoperability by making it possible for multiple post-quantum and classical encryption algorithms to be incorporated into VPNs. Combining both old and new encryption is essential to ensure no disruption to the functioning of existing IT systems, and to protect data from attack by both classical and quantum computers.
This is a particularly important milestone for internet connectivity and security as we are transitioning from an era where the world relied upon just one or two algorithms (RSA and Elliptic Curve), to a situation where different nation states are deploying a wide variety of different post-quantum algorithms. This new IETF standard is the glue that allows parties using different public key encryption algorithms to talk with one another.
The new IETF standard was proposed and designed by Post-Quantum, a British cyber security company that’s built a portfolio of market-ready quantum-safe cyber security products. Post-Quantum’s own Hybrid PQ VPN uses the new IETF standard and is already in use by NATO to secure its communications from quantum attack, supporting interoperable communications between NATO members.
CJ Tjhai, CTO, Post-Quantum and original author of the new IETF standard said: “I’d like to thank all the technologists that collaborated with us on this IETF standard. Much of the focus has been on NIST’s new post quantum encryption algorithms themselves, but this is insufficient unless you have a protocol that defines how the connectivity is done. The easiest way to prevent Harvest Now Decrypt Later attacks is to deploy a PQ VPN based on the new IETF standard. NIST’s new algorithms are only useful if we have agreed standards for their use and mature products that can accommodate them.”
Andersen Cheng, Executive Chairman, Post-Quantum added: “CJ and his collaborators have completed important work that makes it possible for tech companies to build quantum-safe VPNs that communicate to one another. We are entering a period where different countries are now recommending different encryption algorithms, so engineering our communications infrastructure to be interoperable and backward compatible is absolutely crucial. That’s the value our own VPN is bringing to organisations like NATO, a diverse member organisation with a variety of post-quantum algorithms in use.
“In the commercial sector, we are pleased that Banque de France and Deutsche Bundesbank have also recently completed their project in transmitting payment messages using our protocol, which will pave the way for the Bank for International Settlements to build a complete chain of trust for central bank applications to counter any HNDL risks they already face today.”
José María Lucía Moreno, Lead Partner, EY Wavespace and a Post-Quantum partner added: “Our agreement with Post-Quantum is an important step in helping EY and its clients to become quantum-safe. We’re increasingly consulting with our clients to identify where they use traditional encryption that will need to be upgraded, and to help them prepare for the quantum era. Post-Quantum’s approach is particularly interesting because they have modular software-based products like the VPN, which can be implemented together, or as standalones within existing environments, to offer protection today.”
The IETF is the non-profit organisation with responsibility for developing the standards that define how the internet is built and used. Now that the IETF has ratified this work, VPN providers will adapt their protocols to match it, making this a defining standard for the future of cybersecurity as the world transitions from classical to new post-quantum encryption. Ratification represents the culmination of work dating back to 2017 when Post-Quantum took the lead in creating the original proposal for this standard.
About Post-Quantum
Post-Quantum is upgrading the world to next-generation encryption. Our quantum-safe platform includes modular software for Identity, Transmission and Encryption that protect organisations across their entire digital footprint. Products are interoperable, backward compatible and crypto-agile - ensuring a smooth transition to the next generation of encryption.
Post-Quantum works with organisations in defence, critical national infrastructure and financial services, including a multi-year relationship with NATO to ensure its communications are secure against quantum attack.
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