Month: April 2020

Microsoft Q3 strong as remote work propels Teams, Office 365, Azure

Microsoft crushed expectations for its third quarter as the company saw strong demand among its cloud services. Commercial cloud revenue was $13.3 billion, up 39% from a year ago.

The company reported third quarter net income of $10.8 billion, or $1.40 a share, on revenue of $35 billion, up 15%.

Wall Street was expecting Microsoft to report third quarter earnings of $1.26 a share on revenue of $33.66 billion.

Microsoft now at 75 million daily active Teams users despite supply chain constraints affecting its cloud business  

CEO Satya Nadella said Microsoft saw strong demand since the company is enabling of remote work, learning and cloud infrastructure. He said that Microsoft has “seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”

Simply put, Microsoft saw minimal impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the company did note that the full effects “may not be fully reflected in the financial results

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Cash use plummets during UK lockdown

Cash withdrawals in the UK have dropped by 60% as more people turn to contactless payments amid the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

According to research from ATM network provider Link UK, carried out by YouGov, there will be a long-lasting impact on the use of cash in the UK, with 72% of people saying the pandemic will affect their future use of cash.

Due to the risk of spreading Covid-19 through contact, the use of cash is currently advised against where possible.

The research revealed that there were 11 million ATM transactions, totalling £1bn in withdrawals, in a recent week during the UK pandemic lockdown.

But the use of cash seems to only be going in one direction, with 44% of consumers expecting to increase their use of contactless and digital payments over the next six months.

Other findings include 75% of consumers saying they are using less cash, with 58%

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This new Android mobile malware targets banks, financial services across Europe

A new form of Android mobile malware has emerged in the threat landscape with its eye on consumer and business financial data.

On Thursday, the Cybereason Nocturnus team said that EventBot appeared in March and combines a Trojan and information stealer capable of exfiltrating user financial application data, as well as conducting covert spying on victims. 

EventBot targets over 200 mobile financial and cryptocurrency applications, including those offered by PayPal, Barclays, CapitalOne UK, Coinbase, TransferWise, and Revolut. Financial and banking services across Europe and the United States are specifically targeted. 

The malware appears to still be under active development, with indicators including version numbers 0.0.0.1, 0.0.0.2, and 0.3.0.1, as well as IDs named with “test” in the codebase. 

EventBot abuses Android’s accessibility features to compromise devices. After being downloaded — which researchers believe will likely through rogue APK stores upon formal release, unless an operator is able to smuggle it

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Call for extension to European payment security standard deadline

Payments processors across Europe have called on the continent’s banking regulator to extend the deadline for meeting the Secure Customer Authentication (SCA) security standard as the Covid-19 crisis strains resources.

Businesses are directing all resources possible to surviving the current global crisis, with limited resources left for projects such as SCA compliance. This is being made worse by lockdowns and staff cuts.

On behalf of non-bank payment processors, which it represents, the European Payment Institutions Federation (EPIF) – made up of the likes of Visa and Mastercard – has written to the European Banking Authority (EBA) asking for more support, including a six-month extension to the deadline.

SCA is part of the EU’s Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2). It means that any online payments worth more than €30 would require two methods of authentication from the person making the payment, such as a password, biometic authentication such as a

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​Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) for business: Everything you need to know

[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2018. It has been extensively updated and revised to reflect changes introduced in April 2020.]

What is Microsoft 365?

As a product line, Microsoft Office dates back nearly three decades, with early versions essentially combining Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a discounted bundle. Microsoft 365 (previously known as Office 365), which has been available since 2011, differs from that old-fashioned bundle in two respects: First, it’s licensed as a monthly or annual subscription rather than as a perpetual license. Second, it combines a suite of online services, including business-class email, cloud file storage, and secure communication tools along with the traditional desktop apps.

Also: Microsoft 365 Family and Personal subscriptions now available for purchase

Because it’s a subscription offering, those desktop programs are updated automatically when a new version is available. If your subscription is current, you get the latest versions,

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Covid-19 will decimate fintechs, but those that survive will prosper

News of cuts of 30% of staff at an established financial technology company (fintech) is a sign of the massive impact the Covid-19 coronavirus is having on the sector, but after inevitable consolidation, the pandemic could be the spark that lights the next iteration of the entire tech startup industry.

According to analyst company Forrester, the current crisis will be no different from previous economic downturns in making investment funds – the lifeblood of fintechs – scarce.

It paints a bleak picture for the fintech sector, where thousands of small companies are currently existing on capital investments alone, with revenues at a very early stage. “The last two economic downturns saw a huge reduction in private financing,” said Forrester in a recent report. “This time won’t be different. Only fintechs that had market traction, were profitable or had secured a big funding round before Covid-19 struck will survive the upcoming

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