Kenya Insights

Tag: Microsoft

  • Microsoft Limits Employee Use Of Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 Over Data Retention Concerns, The Verge Reports

    Microsoft Limits Employee Use Of Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 Over Data Retention Concerns, The Verge Reports

    June 10 (Reuters) – Microsoft is limiting employees’ use of Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 because of the AI startup’s new data retention requirements, ​The Verge reported on Wednesday, citing sources.

    Anthropic on ‌Tuesday said it is rolling out Claude Fable 5, a public version of its Mythos AI model, with guardrails barring its use in risky areas ​such as cybersecurity.

    Claude Fable 5 is the most ​powerful model Anthropic has made available for wider use, ⁠with the company citing its performance in software engineering ​and analytics.

    Microsoft has told employees that its legal teams are ​evaluating changes to Anthropic’s data retention requirements, according to the report.

    The concerns center on customer data and confidential information, and it is not ​yet clear whether Microsoft’s legal teams will clear Claude ​Fable 5 for internal use, the report said.

    Under Anthropic’s data retention policy ‌for ⁠Mythos-class models, prompts submitted and outputs generated are retained for 30 days for trust and safety purposes on every platform where the models are offered.

    Anthropic retains inputs and outputs for ​up to ​two years if ⁠they are flagged by its trust and safety classifiers as violating its usage policy.

    Microsoft and ​Anthropic did not immediately respond to Reuters requests ​for comment.

    Anthropic ⁠last week said it had confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering but did not disclose the size or terms of ⁠the ​offering.

    It last raised $65 billion at a ​post-money valuation of $965 billion in late May, putting it ahead of rival OpenAI.

  • Microsoft Servers Hacked By Chinese Groups, Firm Says

    Microsoft Servers Hacked By Chinese Groups, Firm Says

    Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.

    China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.

    The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.

    “Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.

    The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.

    It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.

    Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.

    Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told the BBC it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.

    Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.

    A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.

    “This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.

    Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.

    Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.

    It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.

    Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.

    (BBC)

  • Trump Says Microsoft In Talks To Buy TikTok

    Trump Says Microsoft In Talks To Buy TikTok

    US President Donald Trump has said that Microsoft is in discussions to acquire TikTok and that he would like to see a “bidding war” over the sale of the social media app.

    When asked by reporters whether the US tech giant was preparing a bid, Trump replied: “I would say yes” – before adding that there was “great interest in TikTok” from several companies.

    Both Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden have been trying for years to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell its US operations on national security grounds.

    It comes as Trump signed an executive order last week to reverse a Biden Administration ban on TikTok that briefly took the app offline for its 170m users in the United States.

    Despite granting TikTok a 75-day reprieve from the ban, Trump had been the first president to start pressuring ByteDance to sell its app.

    In August 2020, ByteDance approached Microsoft as a possible buyer – something which the US company’s chief executive later described as “the strangest thing”.

    Later, TikTok chose rival Oracle as a potential partner – although that deal also never happened.

    Trump has previously said that he was in discussions with several parties about purchasing TikTok and expects to make a decision on the app’s future within the next 30 days.

    A spokesperson for Microsoft said the company had “nothing to share at this time”. The BBC has also reached out to TikTok for comment.

    Earlier on Monday, the US president had addressed a gathering of Republican politicians in Florida and spoke about the proposed sale of TikTok.

    “We’ll see what happens. We’re going to have a lot of people bidding on it,” he said.

    “If we can save all that voice and all the jobs, and China won’t be involved, we don’t want China involved, but we’ll see what happens,” he added.

    Previous names linked with buying TikTok include billionaire Frank McCourt and the Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary – a celebrity investor on Shark Tank, the US version of Dragon’s Den.

    The biggest YouTuber in the world Jimmy Donaldson – AKA MrBeast – has also claimed he is in the running after a number of investors contacted him following an earlier tweet signalling his interest.

    (BBC)

  • Samsung Partners With Microsoft To Knock Out iPhone’s Market Dominance

    Samsung Partners With Microsoft To Knock Out iPhone’s Market Dominance

    Samsung, a South Korean multinational coalescence and mobile marker headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul has invigorated its partnership with Microsoft Inc through a new series of apps and features such as OneDrive storage for photos and better syncing between the phone and computer in a move to take on the massive market dominance that Apple, the  iPhone maker has since enjoyed for decades.

    During the Unpacking event of the new rather, redesigned Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the new features will also help Samsung to better take on the Apple’s iPhone that launched their iPhone XR mid this year.

    Samsung and Microsoft have been working together to offer features that have now made the Galaxy Note 10 phones work more easily with PCs. The phones will include Microsoft’s Your Phone app by default, allowing text messages to sync between a phone and a Windows-powered PC.

    According to Samsung, their mobile users will be able to make and receive calls on the PC later this year too when finer detailed and upgraded features will be finalized.

    Samsung’s phones can also use Microsoft’s OneDrive service to store photos. And Microsoft’s popular Outlook email program, as well as its Office productivity suite of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint will be included with each Galaxy Note 10.

    “From calls and text messages to emails and photos, we’re making these everyday experiences great and the interactions between all the devices seamless,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said this at Samsung’s Unpacked launch event that was held in New York yesterday.

    This partnership, which expands on Microsoft’s previous work with Samsung, isn’t just a marriage of convenience, Nadella said. “The combination of Microsoft intelligent experiences and Samsung’s powerful, innovative new devices, like the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Book S, make this possible.”

    Tech is a field for the best innovators and makers. The battle between Apple and Samsung seems to have taken a different route, as it has been, Apple the iPhone maker has always had an upper hand with its sleek software updates and upgrades. iPhone’s handoff technology lets you start an email on an iPad and finish it on the Mac.

    Apple’s iWork productivity suite, including its Pages word processor, Numbers spreadsheet app and Keynote presentation software, is free to every Mac and iPhone user. According to genius tech minds, Apple’s iCloud Photo Library service is considered to be the best competitor to Google Photos.

    The features merger between Microsoft and Samsung can begin to bridge that gap and sooner or later, HiOS makers, which are the biggest global mobile distributors, can seat at the table and comfortably talk Tech with iOS markers.

    “The ability to take that magic between an iPhone and Mac and bring that to Samsung is big. The tie-up makes even more sense when you consider that most people tend to use whatever comes with their phone. So using Outlook email by default will give Microsoft a boost,” said Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi.

    “Microsoft has always struggled to do well in mobile and to have a strong mobile partner. Microsoft may also benefit from offering access to Microsoft services in a way that’s not just through an app, but rather directly integrated into the phone. It makes the Note a real productivity device,” said Anshel Sag, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

    Personally, I think that Microsoft will even, if not sooner, start selling Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 in its stores if everything goes as planned, which will be a genius step for the almost being irrelevant corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services.

  • Sh30B Lost As Cyber Attacks Rises To 11M In The First Quarter In Kenya

    Sh30B Lost As Cyber Attacks Rises To 11M In The First Quarter In Kenya

    Kenyan organizations have recorded an increase in viscous cyber attacks.

    According to Communications Authority of Kenya, local organizations were hit by 11.2 million cyber threats.

    This records a 10.1 percent increase in the number of incidences in the first quarter of 2019 when compared to the previous quarter.

    According to Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) data, its incident response centre detected growing cases of malware, web application attacks, system misconfiguration and mostly online abuse.

    In past 3 months, CA’s cyber sleuth team issued 14,078 cyber threat advisories to the affected organisations.

    Late quarter of 2018, the cyber security team from CA issue 12,138.

    A cyber fraud report conducted by Serianu Cyber security tech consultancy reveals that cyber attacks costed Kenya’s economy Sh29.5 billion.

    Increased Cyber threats has forced firms, especially in the financial sector that is affected the most, to be vigilant and created businesses opportunities for others.

    For instance, Safaricom #ticker:SCOM in January launched a cybersecurity solution targeted at Kenyan firms looking to protect their ICT systems.

    Microsoft are also interest in partnering with local companies to assist in securing their infrastructure.

    Microsoft Corp is set to launch a $100 million technology development center in Nairobi, Kenya .

    Microsoft’s independent report indicated that ransomware, a malicious software that blocks a user’s access to gadgets until a payment is made, is the popular method used by cyber criminals this year.

    “As local organisations increase investments in cyber security, it is becoming vital for them to also create awareness about these threats among their employees to ensure that they are able to notice some them,” reads part of Sebuh Haileleul report.

    Sebuh Haileleul is Kenya’s General Manager for Microsoft, East Africa.

    Polish cyber security firm, OnNet tech Services had warned Barclay’s Kenya and other financial institutions via a tweet published on 17th of April, stating that ‘SILENTCARDS’ group of hackers were planning to hack into their ATMs.

    OnNet services had also published on their blog a fortnight ago that they believe the hacking malware threat from SilentCards is still active in many other institutions.