​Commonwealth Bank partners with Airtasker for identity verification

For Airtasker, this is the first step in a broader project around verifying identity, skills, certifications and achievements. We're creating a reputation passport, which will help people know exactly who they are dealing with and what they are qualified for," Airtasker CEO Tim Fung said.

In October, CBA entered into a memorandum of understanding with Alipay, Alibaba's online payment platform, to deliver payment solutions to Australian and Chinese consumers and retailers.

Under the agreement that saw CBA become the first Australian bank to secure a deal with Alipay, the Chinese giant will use the bank's digital payments infrastructure to enable Australian consumers to make purchases across Alibaba Group's ecommerce websites including AliExpress.

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Hacktivist hits Minnesota gov databases to protest Philando Castile verdict

A hacktivist Sunday breached Minnesota government databases and stole 1,400 email credentials, along with other information, to Protest the Philando Castile verdict.

On June 16, a jury acquitted the Minnesota police officer charged with manslaughter for killing Castile during a traffic stop prompting police brutality protests across the nation.

The stolen credentials reportedly give access to internal databases from the server admin.state.mn.us, which connects to other databases of the sites mn.state.us and mn.gov, according to Vice's 

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Bridging the Gap Between IT Security and IT Operations

Life for a CISO could be better. Too many today look out over an landscape overrun by poorly-deployed security tools consuming too many scarce resources, and a dynamic between IT and security that is skeptical at best and distrustful at worst.

This longstanding situation comes from a short-term, tactical and project-driven approach to IT security. For years, projects have been designed to deliver a point solution to a particular problem, resulting over time in an overabundance of solutions. Very often, these are only partially deployed or implemented, but each served a purpose once, either as a “tick-in-a-box” on some audit report, or as a pet project for a long-gone CISO.

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Calix Combines Edge, Access on AXOS

SAN FRANCISCO -- Calix today announced the latest leap forward for its AXOS Software-Defined Access, adding a Subscriber Management Module that combines access and edge functions, bringing intelligence closer to the customer and eliminating the need for broadband network gateways.

The announcement is just the latest in a series from Calix, and company executives are making it clear at a media and analyst gathering here that this is the new norm: With the AXOS Software-Defined Access platform in place, Calix can develop new functions much more rapidly -- its recent 10G EPON System for Cable being a prime example, as it was developed in 120 days.

"In reality, we will introduce more products this year than in our 17-year history," Geoff Burke, senior director of corporate marketing, told the analysts. "We are now a software and services company, and that is a fundamental change as a company and as a culture."

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EuroCACS: Understand Your Audit & Who Conducts It

In a talk at the ISACA EuroCACS Conference in Munich, London Chapter director external relations Raef Meeuwisse described a situation where he had completed a third party audit of a company, and how many of the ‘mega-breaches’ occur because companies fail on the basics.

He said that every major cyber-breach was down to three major or critical security safeguards which were either not in place, or were not fit for purpose. He asked: “Why is it we can identify problems, but not get buy-in to get these fixed?

“People spend a fortune on layers of security but leave something open. Every security department says ‘we’re not particularly good’ and they are doing a great job under the circumstances, in my top ten someone said that they were surprised security culture was not in there, and if there is a sharing culture you can enforce a good security practice, if not it goes the other way.”

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Rackspace Acquires Managed Cloud Firm TriCore Solutions

Rackspace has reached a deal to acquire consulting and managed cloud services company TriCore Solutions, adding its enterprise application management expertise and support, according to a Thursday announcement.

Financial details of the deal, which is expected to close in June, were not disclosed. TriCore provides management of Oracle and SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) products, as well as business intelligence and analytics, data warehousing and integration services.

These mission-critical applications manage core business functions, but are complex and expensive to run, according to the announcement, which leads companies to seek help managing and optimizing them.

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Computex Taps Security MSP President To Lead Sales Charge, Aims To Signficantly Grow Its Security Footprint

Computex Technology Solutions has tapped Matthew Brennan, the president of VirtualArmour, one of the country's top managed security providers, to lead the sales charge at the solution provider.

The appointment of Brennan as senior vice president of sales signals Computex's intent to significantly expand its security vendor partnerships and services offerings, CEO Frank Vitagliano told CRN in an interview.

"Matt is a strong leader that understands managed services and the services security market," said Vitagliano. "He is a perfect fit for us as we expand our security partnerships and services offerings."

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