Our focus area „Human Factors in Information Security“ found a place at  CEBIT in Hannover on June 12.-15. with the Live Phishing Training, right alongside the usual CEBIT standards. The OH Summit 2018 in Berlin was a special event this time and Code and Concept was there again as speaker – read our event report! A new, very current webinar on Filr 3.4 has been posted – and part II of our current Use Case Spotlight can also be found in this Code and Concept Monthly.

„Sikosh“ at CEBIT

This year’s CEBIT was announced as „Europe’s Business-Festival for Innovation and Digital Transformation“ and of course, the topic of security was also covered this year. The GDPR enforces measures for sensitization and training for employees. In light of recent events, Frank Weidemann presented the SiKoSH project („Sicherheit für Kommunen in Schleswig-Holstein“ – Security for Municipalities in Schleswig-Holstein) at the booth of the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein. The main focus of this presentation was our joint project around Live Phishing Training, which has already received coverage in the publications „<kes>“ and „Die Gemeinde“.

According to all experts, Live Phishing Training is the most effective method for strengthening the human firewall against phishing attacks, and leads to lasting results.

A phishing vector is part of the pattern in almost all successful attacks run on information security by cyber criminals. Sensitization for employees is an ongoing and permanent task, awareness of the problem must be created, correct and secure behaviour must be taught, and learning by doing must be made possible. Read more about this topic.

Review  – this year’s OH Summit 2018 on June 4.-7. in Berlin

Around the Open Horizons Summit 2018, much was different and not much stayed the same. Same-ness could be found in the great community, the outstanding organisation, the excellent catering, the high technical level and in much of the list of speakers. Of course, we once more ran a Hotlab around making Micro Focus Vibe your collaboration hub.

The changes already started with the subtitle of the conference, which was „Micro Focus Channel Community Conference“. According to this, the event targeted the channel, meaning the partners and distributors of licenses, as a counterpart to the customer-focused Micro Focus Universe event. Of course, customers and solution partners were welcome, and this led to a well-mixed crowd of twice as many delegates as 2017. Micro Focus covered the summit as sole sponsor, apart from the award dinner on Monday. The topics that were covered had a much broader range due to Micro Focus growing to over 300 products, having grown by HP Enterprise Software recently. This necessitated more tracks and more sessions to get the content covered in just four days. This wide spectrum let the keynote presentation suffer from missing depth-of-field, but the sessions and hotlabs were as focused and spot on as ever. This year, Filr and Open Enterprise Server have excited us most as products showing high amounts of progress and innovation, and with even more potential for the customer. Also, we encourage existing GroupWise and Open Workgroup Suit Customers to take a look at the upgrade licensing for Enterprise Messaging. In our view, that product suite has made a lasting positive impression.
The general atmosphere at the summit was a mixed bag – there was confusion, and astonishment, and criticism, but also a large amount of curiosity regarding new solutions and products. This thirst for information was quenched, and when Micro Focus made a commitment to products like Micro Focus Vibe that are well loved by the community, hope and confidence were instilled into the community. To find out more, you can peruse our more detailed conference review.

Use Case Spotlight: Micro Focus Vibe

In our Code and Concept Monthly for May ’18, the Use Case Spotlight covered a well-known problem in today’s IT world – the management and documentation of IP address assignment. We presented the first stage of a solution that enabled a centralised and versioned storage of data, but which did not yet fight the issues created by data silos. Now, we ignite the second stage of the solution.

The Solution – Stage Two

The solution’s second stage leverages the strong customisability of the Vibe platform. Every user can – when given the proper privileges – create their own entry types and forms, with only minimal training in the form of a short introduction. Yes, it’s true: Vibe is not limited to the existing entry types (file, discussion, task, calendar, milestone, poll, guest book, micro blog or photo entry), but lets you create your own data types after your own fashion, which are immediately usable in the system. The tool for achieving this is a browser based point-and-click editor, there is no need for any programming or for knowledge in HTML, CSS or JavaScript. Vibe even takes care of field validation to make sure proper data is entered in e.g. number, date or email address fields.

For the „IP address entry“ type, fields were added for information that was the most important to the customer, this being fields for the IP address, the main user (or owner) of the address, the device name, the physical location and some additional process-related information, like an expiry date for temporary use or assignment of an IP address. This way, IP addresses now can be released for new use easily, because it is easy to ask the owner before the expiry time to check if the address is still needed. As a replacement for work sheets, which represented sub-nets in the old spreadsheet files, we chose Vibe folders. Per sub-net, there is one Vibe folder which also holds sub-net and contact information, and in the folders, there is one Vibe entry per IP address. The end result is a system, in which every authorised user not only has an immediate view on the current state of the IP assignments, but in which Vibe Workflow Processes are used to request IP address assignments, grant or deny such requests, to revoke IP address assignments, but also to simply send automated email notifications before expiry of an address is imminent. All this is no problem with Vibe workflows, and it simplifies the life of IT administrators at the site immensely. Vibe frees data from its silos and makes it useful and easy to work with.

Contact us and we will talk to you about your use case – maybe your solution will be one of or future Use Case Spotlights!

Filr 3.4. Webinar: Deep Dive

The upcoming version 3.4 of Micro Focus Filr is on the starting blocks, the beta-phase is running at full speed, and many customers and partners help Micro Focus honing the product. After the release, product management will inform about the new features in a Community Webinar on Wednesday, July 25th, that was just announced. Depending on your preferred starting time, you can use the links below to register:

As we have grown accustomed to, the Filr product team will use the webinar to present and demonstrate the new features in 3.4, which on the one hand will make the Filr users more productive, and on the other will provide Filr administrators with new configuration options to make their lives easier.

For end users, these features are new:

  • File request for “Home Folders”
  • Filr Web Client being able to sense browser’s language to help users use Filr better
  • Linux Client on Ubuntu (Tech Preview)
  • Email notification & report when a new share is accessed for the first time
  • iOS app Files App integration enhancements (SSO, Native UI, etc)

Administrators will be happy to learn about these features:

  • It is now possible to define a global default expiration time for new shares
  • There is a function to hide the LDAP ID of users
  • Net Folders on the desktop: there is the ability to hide them, make them read only or make them read/write
  • New enhancements to Outlook plugin: support for unauthenticated download links
  • Attendees will also be shown the steps to use the software channel for upgrades.

 

Do you have questions or suggestions? Contact us!