In addition, all five models of Biamp TesiraFORTÉ X and Devio SCX audio processors — the TesiraFORTÉ X 400, 800, or 1600 and the Devio SCX 400 and 800 — are now certified for Microsoft Teams using either Parlé Beamtracking ceiling or tabletop microphones. As a result, they offer multiple channels of AEC for further flexibility and customization in medium and large conference spaces.

Features of New Microsoft Teams Certified Solutions

“The Microsoft Teams certification of our complete line of conferencing bundles and audio processors notably expands our portfolio of Microsoft Teams certified solutions,” says Joe Andrulis, executive vice president of corporate development at Biamp. “Our TesiraFORTÉ X and Devio SCX audio processors are at the core of these solutions, providing excellent performance and innovative technology, including AI noise reduction and Biamp Launch, so that integrators and end users can be assured that their conferencing solutions will be easy to install, easy to use and result in extraordinary audio quality that is validated to work seamlessly within the rigorous standards of the Microsoft Teams platform.”

Medium and large room conferencing bundles from Biamp contain either a TesiraFORTÉ X 400 or a Devio SCX 400 processor, as well as Parlé Beamtracking microphones. These  track conversations from around the room — enabling remote participants to feel just as present as those in person — and are available in tabletop or ceiling models. They also include Desono C-IC6 ceiling loudspeakers, Biamp’s PoE-powered amplifiers, along with all necessary mounting accessories and category cabling to complete the installation in medium or large meeting spaces.

Advantages of the Biamp Solution

The newly certified Microsoft Teams bundles offer customers the advantages of a complete Biamp solution, including integrated Acoustic Echo Cancellation and cutting-edge AI noise reduction to suppress distracting sounds, as well as Biamp Launch automated system deployment and configuration. Biamp Launch identifies and configures every device in the system, performs a tuning cycle, measures acoustic characteristics of the room, applies recommended signal processing, echo cancellation, speaker tuning, noise reduction, and Zoom Rooms settings, then generates a dashboard highlighting performance settings before-and-after optimization.

Installers also benefit from Biamp innovation that extends far beyond superior audio, including minimal cable requirements with zero termination, zero network setup, automated EQ, and more. The Biamp bundles’ design feature plug-and-play installation, resulting in significant time savings for integrators. They also provide a consistent, high-quality audio experience for users across all conferencing spaces within a building, says the company.

Another version of this article originally appeared on our sister-site Commercial Integrator on October 22, 2024. It has since been updated for My TechDecisions’ audience.

The post Biamp’s Conferencing Bundles Earn Microsoft Teams Certification appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Microsoft releases SQL Server 2022

Microsoft has announced the general availability of SQL Server 2022, which it calls the most Azure-enabled release of SQL server yet with improvements to performance, security and availability.

The connections to Azure, including Azure Synapse Link and Microsoft Purview, allow customers to drive deeper insights, predictions and governance from their data at scale. Azure integration includes managed disaster recovery to Azure SQL Managed Instance, enabling database administrators to manage their data estates with more flexibility and minimal impact to end users.

Built-in query intelligence enhances performance and scalability, and the company says the solution is fortified with Ledger for SQL Server, which uses blockchain to create a tamper-proof track record of tie of all changes to the database.

Read this Microsoft blog to learn more.

Microsoft announces Teams Shared Device License

Microsoft says it is evolving its software offerings to accommodate new workplace use cases and is rebranding its Common Area Phone license to the Teams Shared Device license to enable broader functionalities involving shared devices.

The Teams Shared Device license will continue to support the existing user experience for phones in common areas, but the license will now also support use cases for Microsoft Teams Displays and Microsoft Teams Panels to address the evolving use cases for shared and common spaces that don’t need a full Teams Rooms license.

The rebranded license will be available at the end of 2022. Read this blog to learn more.

CompTIA launches Tech Job Posting Optimizer

IT Industry association CompTIA has launched the Tech Job Posting Optimizer, a new free web-based platform that provides a library of tech job templates and smart data tools to help employers optimize job postings for skills, qualifications and inclusivity oriented to the U.S. labor market. The tool also provides a check of bias language, salary curves and a job posting best practices guide.

The tool is free and available to any employer in any industry looking to recruit technology professionals.

Learn more about the Tech Job Posting Optimizer.

U.S. agencies warn of Hive ransomware attacks

The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services have issued a joint advisory on the Hive ransomware group that has victimized over 1,300 organizations globally, securing about $100 million in ransom payments. The group targets critical infrastructure, including healthcare, government facilities, communications, critical manufacturing and IT.

Read the joint advisory to learn more about the Hive ransomware group’s operations.

DDoS attacks up in October as ransomware declines

A new report from the NCC Group finds DDoS attacks are continuing to increase, with October seeing the highest number of incidents so far this year with 2,090, a 14% rise from September. This comes as ransomware attacks decreased by 7% in October from the previous month.

“We are seeing a vast growth in DDoS attacks, with the numbers in October hitting an all-time high,” says Matt Hull, global head of threat intelligence at NCC Group. “This shift is even more notable this month as overall ransomware attacks decrease.”

Read the report to learn more about cyberattack trends.

The post This Week in IT: SQL Server 2022, Teams Licenses, Tech Jobs, Cyberattacks appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Office becomes Microsoft 365

The company announced that the Microsoft Office app is becoming Microsoft 365 app, which the company defines as the home for productivity apps such as Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Also included are new apps such as Loop and any third-party apps organizations choose.

According to Microsoft, the 365 app is a secure, integrated experience built on the Microsoft Graph that brings together all of the user’s documents, files, contacts, meetings and more—with intelligent, personalized Graph-powered recommendations. The Microsoft 365 app will be available to customers across business, education and consumer segments.

New Cisco partnership

Teams has been a major focus of Microsoft since the pandemic, as the company’s flagship collaboration rivals Zoom and boasts more than 270 million monthly active users. The company says it has introduced more than 450 new capabilities in the past year alone, and the Ignite event served as another platform for more announcements of new collaboration features.

There are a handful of conferencing platforms organizations are using, with Teams and Cisco Webex among them. Interoperability has been an issue, with different organizations and departments standardizing on different platforms. However, Microsoft made a major move toward interoperability by announcing that Cisco is now a Teams Rooms certified device partner, meaning that Teams meetings will be available natively across certified Cisco meeting devices. This allows users to configure Teams as the default meeting experience.

In the first half of 2023, the companies will begin offering the availability to run Teams natively on Cisco Room and Desk devices that are certified for Teams. Six of Cisco’s popular meeting devices and three peripherals will be certified for Teams to start, including the Cisco Room Bar, the Cisco Board Pro 55-inch and 75-inch, and the Cisco Room Kit Pro for small, medium and large meeting room spaces, respectively. The Cisco Desk Pro and Cisco Room Navigator will follow.

The first peripheral — the Cisco Desk Camera 4K — is an intelligent USB webcam and will be available by the end of October 2022, followed by two headphones with a Teams button by early 2023, according to the companies.

Teams Rooms devices

To help make hybrid meetings more inclusive, the Microsoft is partnering with hardware manufacturer Yealink on the SmartVision 60, a 360-degree center-of-room intelligent camera that produces multiple video streams with intelligent active speaker tracking. That same AI technology will also soon bring people recognition, the company says.

The device was developed as part of a partnership between Microsoft, Yealink, Intel, NVIDIA and Ricoh. Read this Tech Community blog for other device announcements and Teams Rooms innovations.

Teams Premium

According to Microsoft, Teams Premium is a new meeting offering that includes several intelligent features, including intelligent recap, a new experience that creates tasks, generates chapters from the meeting and shares personalized highlights from the recording. The offering also features Live translation for captions, another AI-powered tool that delivers real-time translations from 40 different languages.

Other Teams Premium features include meeting guides that automatically set up the right meeting options, new safeguards for confidential information with advanced meeting protection, virtual appointments for personalized business-to-consumer communication and new webinar experiences.

Microsoft Places

In another move designed to enable organizations to adopt a more effective distributed work model, the company is launching Microsoft Places, a new product category designed to help employees understand who will be in the office when, where people are sitting, what meetings to attend in person and how to book office space.

Spaces can also help IT and facility leaders understand how office space is being used and optimize their real estate investments. Third-party partners can also build and integrate new and existing solutions on top of Places, the company says.

New Teams features, experiences

Microsoft says it is also rolling out several new features in Teams designed to make meetings more interactive, including Excel Live, rolling out next month, that allows participants to live-edit Excel files directly from Teams without having to open the file.

Meanwhile, the company says the preview of Teams Live Share can turn any app shared in a Teams Meeting into a real-time, multi-user collaborative experience where participants can interact, annotate, and collaborate directly in the meeting window.

Along with new capabilities in Together mode, a new hours and location feature to make it easier to schedule in-person meetings by allowing people to specify and adjust from hour to hour whether they will be available in the office or working remotely. This is also available in Outlook, the company says.

Microsoft is also rolling out new Teams channels and chat experiences designed for more focused collaboration, including new post types, AI-recommended replies, new emojis and video clips.

Visit Microsoft’s Book of News for more information on these and other announcements made during Ignite.

The post Microsoft Ignite 2022: Teams, Collaboration Announcements appeared first on My TechDecisions.

While it’s safer health-wise for team members to collaborate in-person again, it’s still not easy to get them together. Teams are more spread out than ever. In fact, Upwork indicates that more than 40 million Americans will hold fully remote jobs in the next five years. Finding ways to collaborate effectively in a hybrid work environment is paramount. 

Collaboration benefits business

Collaboration enables a business to go further faster by bringing together diverse experience, viewpoints, and strengths. While it’s tempting for leaders to think they can get to their destination faster if they are unencumbered by competing points of view, collaboration forces teams to slow down. Faced with the common constraints of time, money, and energy, collaboration allows each team member to bring forward their greatest strengths while relying on others to complement their weaknesses to arrive at better outcomes. 

In his book The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker said, “Effective executives make strength productive. They fill positions and promote based upon what a person can do — not to minimize weakness but to maximize strength.” A leader who has permission to lean into their natural strengths will yield a bigger return on their investment in time and energy. The only way they can do that is if their weaknesses aren’t holding them back. That’s why it’s beneficial to round out the team with others who excel at those weaknesses. 

The Hogan Assessment, a leading personality assessment tool, identifies five key roles for team effectiveness: results, pragmatism, innovation, process, and relationships. A team in which the majority scores high on process might be effective at focusing on planning and execution, but may struggle with tactical agility. A team that’s built with members who are less homogenous in scoring on process will be better equipped to balance planning and execution with tactical agility. 

Collaboration benefits employees

Collaboration doesn’t just benefit the business; it benefits employees. Collaboration decreases feelings of isolation in work. Amy Edmonson, a Harvard Business School professor who has researched psychological safety in teams for more than 30 years, identified Willingness to Help as one of the four most significant factors contributing to psychological safety. Psychological safety is the “secret sauce” for high-performing teams that click. When employees feel connected to others in their work, it increases the likelihood that they will ask for help when they need it, and offer it when others need it, rather than isolating themselves. 

Collaboration reinforces that no one should be carrying the sole burden on their shoulders. In my work as an executive coach, I remind my clients that best-selling authors and award-winning journalists have editors that help them hone the expertise they are most known for. If it’s part of their winning process, leaders in other fields and industries can give themselves permission to receive support from a team, as well. 

Employees help foster a collaborative approach

Feedback is a powerful tool to improve performance and business results. It takes a lot of courage to offer feedback when colleagues have not asked for it. Inviting feedback makes it much easier to overcome that hesitation,  because the giver knows the recipient wants to hear it. Bullet-proofing, a process developed by Keith Ferrazzi, invites challenge and support from within the team by embracing the shared belief that the process will strengthen the ideas and results. 

Early in a project, a team is more likely to be open to break frame ideas and divergent thinking. Closer to the deadline, the window for imaginative but non-essential ideas closes. The clearer the team is during a project’s early stages, the less likely they are to misinterpret what’s needed or welcome at any given point. Kaner’s Model brings this concept to life, and I encourage leaders to share this with their team and indicate where they are in the process. 

Businesses encourage workplace collaboration

Effective collaboration balances attention to the end result with the relationships within the team. This comes down to companies that are committed to living their values and building a culture that places as much emphasis on the way the team achieves success as it does the results. For example, setting realistic expectations for workload will increase the likelihood that team members will be able to extend support when others need it – a key attribute of psychological safety. When teams complete a project where they’ve been operating over-capacity, giving them a recovery period before starting another intense project will increase their openness to extending themselves beyond their defined roles and responsibilities. 

Results at the expense of relationships will make it harder to sustain or repeat results. Businesses need to make it clear that leaders who damage relationships on the path to results are not rewarded for their behavior. If, for example, a leader has consistently higher turnover within their group, it’s worth exploring the impact their leadership style has on relationships within the team. Also, double-check to make sure that leaders aren’t inadvertently rewarded for winning at the expense of relationships. One way to do this is through a 360-degree review process, either annually or in preparation for a promotion. 

Conversely, prioritizing relationships over results will make it challenging to reach the business’ potential. Make the measures of success clear while also demonstrating empathy for both the individual experience and bigger external forces. A leader can be understanding of a short-term family emergency without needing to accept indefinite missed deadlines or enabling someone to habitually skirt their responsibilities. 

Despite all the great resources to support virtual collaboration, many teams still place a premium on in-person collaboration. Prioritize the quality of the in-person gatherings over the quantity. For example, in April 2022, Airbnb released a plan that gave employees flexibility in working anywhere within their home country while also identifying select times when it was a priority for teams to convene in-person. The company suggested that teams would benefit from being physically together one week per quarter, which still extends enormous flexibility to their employees. A handful of in-person team sessions each year might provide the connection the team needs to continue working together effectively for months in between. 

Effective collaboration is not achieved through a single act, but rather through a series of commitments and behaviors that create the conditions for team members to come together to accomplish more than they could independently. 

Peter Gandolfo is a Professional Certified Coach at Evolution, a professional coaching and holistic leadership development firm.

The post How to Effectively Collaborate in a Hybrid Work Environment appeared first on My TechDecisions.

In the span of just a few short years, online collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams have become central to our working lives. And even as many of us return to the office, it’s become clear that these collaboration platforms will continue to play a pivotal role in how we communicate and share information with one another.

Of course, the ability to seamlessly share information in real time doesn’t come without a few unintended consequences. For legal and governance teams, the shift to these collaborative cloud-hosted hubs brings an array of new challenges and open questions. Do we need to preserve all the data stored in a platform like Teams? For how long? What will it cost to fulfill legal hold, collection and preservation requests?

And as many IT leaders have come to appreciate firsthand, such requests all too often become urgent tasks delegated to their team. What steps should IT take now to prepare for the inevitable legal obligations of tomorrow?

Legal Risks Create New IT Challenges

While there are dozens of online collaboration tools currently available, two products have emerged as the dominant players: Slack and Microsoft Teams. As the trailblazer in the category, Slack helped create a new paradigm for workplace collaboration.

However, over the past two years Microsoft has methodically chipped away at Slack’s market share, capitalizing on Teams’ inclusion in their 365 product and its integration with popular productivity applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Microsoft has now established a firm foothold in the collaboration market and is expected to reach an estimated 270 million users in 2022.

This means that with every passing day, more communications are taking place directly within Teams, and the volume of Teams data being generated by organizations is increasing exponentially. That’s why it’s essential IT leaders begin thinking now about how Teams data – as well as the data generated by other collaboration platforms – may need to be used in litigation, investigations and other legal matters.

While eDiscovery requests might appear to be the responsibility of legal and compliance teams, in practice it’s often the IT team that must shoulder the burden. Many IT professionals may not fully appreciate that all data and communications that live in Teams are potentially discoverable in litigation.

The Rapid Evolution of eDiscovery

Discovery refers to the process in which both parties of a legal action are required to furnish relevant information to the other in a timely manner. Information can take the form of physical documents, email threads, and, increasingly, a broad range of electronic files and other digital communications that reside in today’s dynamic virtual environments.

Finding requested data within these systems can be an onerous and costly endeavor. While Teams has some built some advanced search functionality to facilitate this process, many organizations are learning that the conventional eDiscovery techniques they use to collect and preserve an e-mail chain don’t necessarily translate to an online workspace.

Recent case law demonstrates how these discovery requests are being mediated by the courts. In one case filed early in 2021 in California, the defendants in a lawsuit filed a motion to compel the plaintiff to produce a number of communications housed in Slack. The plaintiff responded by arguing that it would be an undue and unnecessary burden to produce these documents. They pointed out their Slack account contained roughly 30,000 messages, which could cost as much as $250,000 to process and review. However, the judge ultimately ruled in favor of the defendant, agreeing that their request to produce these records did not constitute an undue burden.

Related: LogMeIn Announces GoToConnect For Legal Pros

While such discovery requests are common, the increasing popularity of online collaborative platforms will undoubtedly bring new scenarios and questions to light. For instance, let’s say two employees are chatting within Teams and sharing documents that are being physically hosted on a separate cloud platform such as OneDrive or Dropbox. Should a document that’s actually embedded in the collaboration environment be treated the same as one that exists elsewhere and is simply linked to? Should the same retention rules apply to each?

3 Ways IT Can Ease the eDiscovery Burden  

In the discovery phase of litigation, opposing counsel can request any content, no matter where it’s stored, if it’s potentially relevant to a case. While all electronic data has its challenges in the context of eDiscovery, collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams have their own idiosyncrasies which can introduce new complexities and costs to what might initially seem like a simple request.

For example, when a Teams user receives a document via a one-on-one chat, that document is stored behind in scenes in the Teams user’s OneDrive file store. However, when a Teams user receives a document in a Teams channel chat, that document is stored behind the scenes in Sharepoint. This subtle difference does not impact the Teams user very much, since the document appears right in Teams, but for an IT administrator the difference related to preserving and collecting the data could be significant.

Here are three tactics IT leaders can adopt to facilitate the eDiscovery process when collecting and preserving data from a Teams environment:

#1 Build and Maintain a Data Map

Collecting, processing, and preserving data in an efficient manner can only be done if you know that it exists and where to find it. A data map serves as a living inventory of your data, recording the types and formats of the data, as well as the locations, custodians and record-retention requirements of the data itself.

It is important for IT administrators to understand their particular implementation of Microsoft Teams, since decisions around the use of one-on-one, group and channel chats can impact the way data is stored. For example, as we noted earlier one-on-one chat attachments are stored in OneDrive and channel chat attachments are stored in Sharepoint. This distinction is important to understand and appreciate.

#2 Ensure Your Teams Settings Are Properly Configured

Like most online applications these days, Teams includes distinct tiers of capabilities for its various subscription levels. For instance, the basic tier of service doesn’t include many of the integrated eDiscovery features that are included with the Premium version (Microsoft Purview).

Premium features allow users to collect not only individual chat messages, but also group chats and team channels. Microsoft also has features as part of its risk and compliance solutions that enable IT organizations to both preserve and collect data with ease, and to use machine classifiers to proactively identify documents that contain sensitive information.

#3 Work with Your Legal Department

 Microsoft is adding a number of tools to make legal compliance and IT administration easier than ever. Microsoft’s eDiscovery, Purview and risk and compliance solutions provide and continue to add configuration options and automation to improve workflows around legal initiatives.

As helpful as these tools are, they are only useful when used in conjunction with your organization’s legal needs. It is best for IT management and legal department management to work closely together to ensure that the systems are configured to meet overall organizational goals and objectives.

The post What IT Leaders Need to Do Now to Prepare for the Looming Legal Challenges of Microsoft Teams appeared first on My TechDecisions.

As offices reopen as part of a distributed work strategy, IT teams are getting even more responsibilities as organizations look to build out new or refreshed conferencing spaces to accommodate their hybrid workers.

However, in this new environment where smaller conferencing spaces or huddle rooms are in demand to meet the needs of the hybrid workforce, not every conferencing spaces needs elaborate and complex videoconferencing systems. Especially as the software platforms are introducing more intelligent video and audio features, these smaller meeting spaces need only simple hardware solutions that IT can easily deploy and manage.

That is where all-in-one videoconferencing displays comes in. These devices, from manufacturers such as Microsoft, LG, Cisco, Neat and others, come packaged with everything an organization needs in their conference room. The displays typically include a high-quality display, camera, speakers and microphone all in one.

This takes the complexity and cost out of meeting room solutions, eliminating the need to install and integrate sperate displays, microphones, cameras and speakers.

Many  displays come with built-in intelligent audio and video features that filter out unwanted noise and automatically frame in-person participants so everyone is heard equally.

Click the links included in each slide to learn more about each product, including pricing and availability.

The post 8 All-in-One Videoconferencing Displays That Make Meetings Easier appeared first on My TechDecisions.

Microsoft Teams on Macs with Apple silicon

Microsoft will be rolling out a native Teams app optimized for Mac users with Apple silicon designed to make Teams run better on Mac computers.

In a short Tech Community blog, Microsoft says the move will bring about a significant boost in performance and ensure efficient use of device resources, even when using multiple high-resolution monitors during calls or meetings.

“Microsoft is committed to innovation and committed to the Mac, so we’re excited to bring this to our Mac users,” the company wrote in the blog.

All Mac users will be automatically upgraded with their most recent update to Teams, and the general availability version of the native Teams app on Mac with Apple silicon will be incrementally rolled out to customers over the next few months.

According to Engadget, the updated app comes about two years after Apple released its first Silicon-powered M1 devices, but Teams has run using Rosetta 2 translation, resulting in slow startup times, lag and other performance issues.

AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Continue Dominance

It’s not exactly surprising, but new research from tech market analysis firm Canalys shows that Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud combined to make up 63% of global cloud spending in the second quarter of 2022, and they collectively grew 42%.

AWS was the leading cloud service provider in the second quarter accounting for 31% of all cloud infrastructure services spend, growing 33% on an annual basis. Azure was next with a 24% market share after growing 40% annually. While Google Cloud grew 45% in the quarter, it ranked third with an 8% market share.

Meanwhile, worldwide spending on cloud infrastructure grew 33% year over year to $62.3 billion, driven by demand for data analytics and machine learning, data center consolidation, application migration, cloud-native development and service delivery.

VMware, Cisco Patches

IT giants VMware and Cisco have released security advisories urging users to immediately patch critical vulnerabilities that could result in a range of compromises.

VMware’s warning to admins says an authentication bypass vulnerability in VMware Workspace One Access, Identity Manager and vRealize Automation could allow an attacker to gain admin privileges. Other important bugs to patch quickly are remote code execution and privilege escalation flaws, according to a VMware blog.

Meanwhile, Cisco also disclosed several vulnerabilities in Small Business RV160, RV260, RV340, and RV345 Series Routers that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause denial of service.

Since patches are available for both companies’ products, admins should waste no time in applying them to protect their organization.

Cybersecurity threats per minute

Microsoft published an infographic that details how many kinds of cyberattacks are happening in any given 60-second window, including how many it blocks.

The results are alarming, but not necessarily unexpected.

According to Microsoft, there are 34,740 password attacks, 1,902 IoT-based attacks, 1,095 DDoS attacks and 7 phishing attacks every minute.

Meanwhile, the company says it blocks hundreds of thousands of attacks every minute, including 18,265 malware threats, 48,706 brute force attacks, 58,980 identity threats, 17,123 endpoint threats, 60,882 email threats and 1,065 open ports.

The post This Week in IT: Teams and Apple Silicon, Cloud Leaders, VMware and Cisco Patches appeared first on My TechDecisions.

The company unveiled the new capabilities during its annual Build conference, at which Microsoft introduced Live Share, a new feature that allows developers to use new preview extensions to the Teams software development kit (SDK) to easily extend existing Teams apps and create Live Share experiences in meetings. This can enable participants to watch, edit and create together in Teams meetings.

The feature is backed by the power of Fluid Framework, Microsoft’s “sophisticated synchronization of state, media and control actions with only front-end development.” The synchronization will run on Teams hosted and managed Microsoft Azure Fluid Relay service instance at no cost to customers, the company says.

Microsoft shared examples of the capabilities in action, including autonomous solutions firm Hexagon that allows engineers to annotate and edit 3D models and simulations while brainstorming in Teams meetings.

In addition, Microsoft announced the general availability of Fluted Framework and Azure Fluid Relay, a collection of open-source client-side Javascript libraries that underpin the Life Share real-time capabilities and a fully managed cloud service to support Fluid Framework Clients, respectively.

In a blog, Jeff Teper, corporate vice president of Microsoft 365 Collaboration, says developers are using Fluid Framework and Azure Fluid Relay to enable real-time interactivity on their apps beyond Microsoft Teams meetings.

Microsoft also announced the ability for developers to create Loop components and help employees work freely across Microsoft 365 apps. Developers can evolve an existing Adaptive Card into a Loop component or create a new Adaptive Card-based Loop component.

Adaptive Card-based Loop components can also be surfaced with Editor using Context IQ, Microsoft’s set of intelligent capabilities working in the background of Microsoft apps and services to stay in the flow of composing an email. Private preview of this capability starts in June.

Building on the Azure Communication Services interoperability with Teams, Microsoft announced the Azure Communication Services sample app builder to enable developers to build and deploy a sample application for virtual appointments without coding. This allows customers to book appointments powered by Microsoft Bookings and join a Teams meeting through a custom web app with company branding.

The company is also introducing enhancements to Microsoft Graph API to embed chats and channel messages into apps. The new APIs will reach general availability in mid-2022.

Other new developer features for Microsoft 365 include the general availability of the new Teams SKD that enables developers to build apps for Teams, Outlook and Office using a single application and deployment model.

“Developers can now upgrade to the latest Teams JS SDK v2 and App manifest v1.13 to build production Teams apps, and run full-scale pilots with users on the preview channels of Outlook and Office,” Teper writes.0” This will enable developers to get feedback and prepare for the distribution of their apps on Outlook and Office later this calendar year.”

The updates are backwards compatible, so all existing Teams apps will continue to work as-is in Teams with production-level support.

Other new capabilities across Microsoft 365 include a new Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code and command-line interface, collaboration control sin Power Apps, apps compliance automation for Microsoft 365, improved app management and discoverability, in-app purchasing for Teams apps and Teams app license management.

Read Microsoft’s blog to learn more.

The post Microsoft Introduces New Collaborative App Capabilities for Teams, Microsoft 365 appeared first on My TechDecisions.

According to Check Point Research, cybercriminals are meeting end users where they are, and these days that is on videoconferencing and collaboration platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack and Google Meet.

Hackers are using fake domains to conduct phishing attacks, and have been since the COVID-19 pandemic began pushing everyone to work from home and make use of those platforms to work remotely.

In just the last three weeks alone, about 2,500 new Zoom-related domains were registered, but 1.5% of them were malicious and another 13% are suspicious. This activity began around the middle of March, when working form home and using those applications became a reality for many people.

Read Next: COVID-19 Cyber Attacks Increase as Cybercriminals Capitalize on Coronavirus Fears

While Zoom may be getting headlines and national attention for the platform’s quick rise in popularity, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet are also being used to lure victims, according to Check Point.

And Zoom isn’t the only platform cyber criminals are impersonating – both Microsoft Teams and Google Meet have been used to lure victims too. Recently, victims fell prey to phishing emails that came with the subject “You have been added to a team in Microsoft Teams“. The emails contained a malicious URL ”http://login\.microsoftonline.com-common-oauth2-eezylnrb\.medyacam\.com/common/oauth2/” and victims ended up downloading malware when clicking on the “Open Microsoft Teams” icon that led to this URL.  The actual link for Microsoft Teams is “https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team”.

Then there are fake Google Meets domains like Googelmeets/.com, which was first registered on April 27, 2020. Of course, the link did not lead victims to an actual Google website.

Check Point also found that coronaviruis-related attacks have increased 30% compared to previous weeks. Those attacks include websites with “corona” or “covid” in its domain, files with “corona” related file names and files that have been distributed via email with coronavirus-related subjects.

To prevent these attacks, Check Point recommends the following:

• Beware of lookalike domains, spelling errors in emails or websites, and unfamiliar email senders.
• Be cautious with files received via email from unknown senders, especially if they prompt for a certain action you would not usually do.
• Ensure you are ordering goods from an authentic source. One way to do this is to NOT click on promotional links in emails, and instead, Google your desired retailer and click the link from the Google results page.
• Beware of “special” offers. “An exclusive cure for coronavirus for $150” is usually not a reliable or trustworthy purchase opportunity. At this point of time there is no cure for the coronavirus and even if there was, it definitely would not be offered to you via an email.
• Make sure you do not reuse passwords between different applications and accounts.

The post Report: Cyber Criminals Are Forging Zoom, Teams, Meet Domains appeared first on My TechDecisions.

As with any new technology, organizations must take steps to ensure that it is secure and safe from malicious actors and cybercriminals. That’s especially true for government and military entities.

To help those agencies make a decision on which platform to use, the U.S. National Security Agency published a security assessment of 13 popular communication platforms.

While the document is intended to help government and military agencies select a communication and collaboration platform that is secure enough for their needs, organizations of all sizes can benefit from learning about the security features of their platform of choice.

The NSA weighed nine criteria, including:

• End-to-end encryption
• Encryption standard quality
• Mutli-factor authentication
• Meeting invitation control
• Privacy policy
• Secure deletion of data
• Open-sourced code
• Security certification
• Country of origin

Judging by the NSA’s table below, some more popular platforms like Zoom, Teams, G Suite, GoToMeeting and Slack didn’t meet some criteria. Despite security concerns, many of those platforms are reporting a surge in users since the lockdown went into effect.

Related: U.S. Cybersecurity Officials Warn of Attacks on Hastily Deployed Office 365 Solutions

The NSA also advises users to use communication and collaboration platforms securely by following these steps:

• Use secure government-furnished equipment that is managed and intended for government use only.
• Only download platforms from official sources.
• Make sure encryption is enabled before starting a meeting.
• Keep meeting invites private and secure.
• Verify that only invited attendees are in the meeting before and during the start.
• Share only information intended for the participants when screen sharing.
• Be aware of your physical surrounding and make sure only authorized individuals can see the screen or hear the audio.

Read the entire NSA document

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