Palo Alto Networks Releases Security Update for PAN-OS

Palo Alto Networks Releases Security Update for PAN-OS

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Dot gov

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

SSL

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock (lock icon) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Azure SQL News Update: August 2022

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Today Data Exposed goes live at 9AM PT on LearnTV. Every 4 weeks, we’ll do a News Update. We’ll include product updates, videos, blogs, etc. as well as upcoming events and things to look out for. If you missed the episode, you can find them all at https://aka.ms/AzureSQLYT. This month we’ll recap all the updates and announcements in the database space July.


 


You can read this blog to get all the updates and references mentioned in the show. Here’s the August 2022 update:


 


By the way, this was a special episode, because we filmed it live, for the first time in over two years, from the studios on Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA! If you missed the live stream, you won’t want to miss this in-person action: https://aka.ms/AzureSQLYT. Here are some of the references from our awesome guests:


 



 


Product updates


We technically discussed this in the last update, but I wanted to make sure everyone saw the important announcement and that is SQL Server 2012 has reached end of support. Please see the blog to see the four options you have if you find yourself with SQL Server 2012 instances.


 


The other big update (apart from the updates already covered by our guests) is the general availability of premium-series hardware for Azure SQL Managed Instance. This new hardware is what led to the study by Principled Technologies which shows how Azure SQL Managed Instance significantly outperformed Amazon RDS. Offering between double and five times the performance depending on workload, the three SQL Managed Instances tested also offer better price/performance by as much as 90.3%. The new hardware is available across different service tiers and might offer you more storage and more memory per vCore if you need it.


 


Other database updates


Starting in 2022 we’re trying to keep you updated on what’s going on with other database services at Microsoft, as we understand that oftentimes you’re using more than one service. Here are the updates I gathered from July 2022.


 














Azure Database for PostgreSQL-Hyperscale (Citus)



Flexible Server



General availability: Azure Database for PostgreSQL—Hyperscale (Citus) supports PostgreSQL minor versions (11.16, 12.11, 13.7, 14.3)


 


General availability: Citus 11 support for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Hyperscale (Citus)


 


Public preview: Cross-region read replicas for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Hyperscale (Citus)


 


Generally available: Basic tier updates for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Hyperscale (Citus)


 


Generally available: vCore compute options for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Hyperscale (Citus)



General Availability: Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server – On demand backups


 


Public preview: Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server data encryption with CMK


 


Generally available: New extensions for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server


 


Generally available: PostgreSQL 14 with Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server


 


Generally available: Same-zone high availability for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server



 


Videos


We continued to release new and exciting episodes this month. Here is the list, or you can just see the playlist we created with all the episodes!



  • Daniel Perlovsky: How to explore your data estate using the Microsoft Purview data catalog

  • [MVP Edition] Wolfgang Strasser: Track your data supply chain using Azure Purview

  • Aditi Gupta: Backup and Restore your Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server workload

  • Pieter Vanhove: Bringing the power of blockchain to Azure SQL Database and SQL Server with ledger

  • [SQL Insider Series] Stephen Giles: Azure SQL DB – Automating scale up and down


 


We’ve also had some great Data Exposed Live sessions. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see them all and get notified when we stream. Here are some of the recent live streams.



  • May the 4th be with Azure SQL (News Updates): this was a Star Wars-themed episode and it was so fun! Check it out for costumes, themed demos and slides, and fun!

  • Azure SQL & SQL Server 2022: Intelligent Database Futures

  • Azure SQL News Update: 2021 Year in Review

  • Welcome to SQL Server 2022 Live!


 


Blogs


As always, our team is busy writing blogs to share with you all. Blogs contain announcements, tips and tricks, deep dives, and more. Here’s the list I have of SQL-related topics you might want to check out.


 



 


Events


We have several in-person and virtual events coming in the next couple months. Here are a few to put on your calendar and register for from the Azure Data team:

August 8-12: Visual Studio Live!, Microsoft HQ
September 19-22: Data Platform Summit, Virtual
September 24: Data Saturday Dallas
October 1:
Data Saturday Atlanta

And, if you can’t make it to our events, find new, on-demand Data Exposed episodes released every Thursday at https://aka.ms/dataexposedyt


 


Microsoft Learn module of the month


Jumping the gun on the pick of the month, but in the case that any of you are newer to Azure SQL, it’s been a long time since I highlighted the Introduction to Azure SQL module. In this module, you’ll start with a brief history of why and how Microsoft built Azure SQL. You’ll then learn about the various deployment options and service tiers, including what to use for your organization, and when. These options include Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server in an Azure virtual machine. Understanding what platform as a service (PaaS) encompasses and how it compares to a traditional SQL Server environment will help you understand what you do and don’t get when you move to the cloud.


 


Anna’s pick of the month!


OK this month my pick of the month is a new thing I’m dipping my toes into on TikTok. The goal is to start sharing database tips in a short, consumable fashion while I walk my dog. Check it out, follow along, and let me know what you think! It’s running on TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@analyticanna), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/analytic.anna/reels/), and Twitter (https://twitter.com/AnalyticAnna).


 


Until next time…


That’s it for now! Be sure to check back next month for the latest updates on LearnTV. We also release new episodes on Thursdays at 9AM PT and new #MVPTuesday episodes on the last Tuesday of every month at 9AM PT at aka.ms/DataExposedyt.


 


Having trouble keeping up? Be sure to follow us on twitter to get the latest updates on everything, @AzureSQL.


 


We hope to see you next time, on Data Exposed :)


–Anna and Marisa

CISA Releases Cybersecurity Toolkit to Protect U.S. Elections

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

CISA—through the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC)—has released a toolkit of free cybersecurity resources for the election community. The toolkit aims to help state and local government officials, election officials, and vendors enhance the cybersecurity and cyber resilience of U.S. election infrastructure. The toolkit resources, which come from CISA, JCDC members, and others across the cybersecurity community, focus on assessing risk and protecting election infrastructure assets commonly targeted by phishing, ransomware, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

CISA strongly encourages election community stakeholders to use the Cybersecurity Toolkit to Protect Elections to strengthen the cybersecurity and cyber resilience of U.S. election infrastructure. 

Released: August 2022 Exchange Server Security Updates

Released: August 2022 Exchange Server Security Updates

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Microsoft has released security updates (SUs) for vulnerabilities found in:



  • Exchange Server 2013

  • Exchange Server 2016

  • Exchange Server 2019


IMPORTANT: Updates are released in a self-extracting auto-elevating .exe package. Please see this post for more information. Older version of update packages can be downloaded from Microsoft Update Catalog.


These SUs are available for the following specific builds of Exchange Server:



The SUs address vulnerabilities responsibly reported to Microsoft by security partners and found through Microsoft’s internal processes. Although we are not aware of any active exploits in the wild, our recommendation is to immediately install these updates to protect your environment.


These vulnerabilities affect Exchange Server. Exchange Online customers are already protected from the vulnerabilities addressed in these SUs and do not need to take any action other than updating any Exchange servers in their environment.


More details about specific CVEs can be found in the Security Update Guide (filter on Exchange Server under Product Family).


Manual enablement of Windows Extended Protection


Addressing some of CVEs released this month requires admins to enable Windows Extended protection on your Exchange servers. To help you enable this feature, we have developed a script for this process. Please carefully evaluate your environment and review all known issues mentioned in the script documentation before enabling Windows Extended protection on your Exchange servers.


Please note that enabling Extended Protection (EP) is only supported on specific versions of Exchange (please see documentation for full list of prerequisites).


The current version of this script can be found at https://aka.ms/ExchangeEPScript and the documentation is at https://aka.ms/ExchangeEPDoc. For script and documentation changes and suggestions, please engage with us via GitHub to ensure proper issue and change tracking. The script provided to enable Extended Protection will automatically perform an automatic update if the computer on which it is executed has an internet connection (direct or via proxy). However, if you don’t have internet access, make sure to download the latest version of the script as we are continuously improving it.


It is important that you fully understand Windows Extended Protection prerequisites and all known issues before running the script in your environment. Enabling Extended Protection affects communication between your Exchange servers and between clients and servers.


Update installation


Update paths available:


Aug2022SUsV5.jpg 


Inventory your Exchange Servers / determine which updates are needed


Use the Exchange Server Health Checker script (use the latest release) to inventory your servers. Running this script will tell you if any of your Exchange Servers are behind on updates (CUs and SUs).


Update to the latest Cumulative Update


Go to https://aka.ms/ExchangeUpdateWizard and choose your currently running CU and your target CU to get directions for your environment.


If you encounter errors during or after installation of Exchange Server updates


If you encounter errors during installation, see the SetupAssist script. If something does not work properly after updates, see Repair failed installations of Exchange Cumulative and Security updates.


Known issues with this release


We are not aware of any known issues with this release.


FAQs


My organization is in Hybrid mode with Exchange Online. Do I need to do anything?
While Exchange Online customers are already protected, the August 2022 SUs do need to be installed on your on-premises Exchange servers, even if they are used only for management purposes. You do not need to re-run the Hybrid Configuration Wizard (HCW) after installing updates.


Do I need to install the updates on ‘Exchange Management Tools only’ workstations?
Servers or workstations running only the Management Tools role (no Exchange services) do not need these updates.


NOTE: This post might receive future updates; they will be listed here (if available).


The Exchange Server Team

OneDrive turns 15: Delivering new and intuitive experiences

OneDrive turns 15: Delivering new and intuitive experiences

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Today, we’re celebrating the 15th anniversary of OneDrive. We’re excited to share even more features to help you access everything you need, whether you’re working alone on a project, collaborating with your team, or sharing photos and videos with your family.

The post OneDrive turns 15: Delivering new and intuitive experiences appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Social Media, Azure Synapse & PowerBI

Social Media, Azure Synapse & PowerBI

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Make Insightful decisions with Social Media Analytics


Problem Statement


Imagine you are a product developer for a healthcare company who wants to find trending topics around your recently developed product. Or, you are a researcher for a company who wants to search around what is trending on the market to come up with new innovative product(s)..


You’ll first need to find a way to scrape different news sites and search popular social media platform, like Twitter, to find trending topics.


Also imagine, after all the scraping the company wants to map relevant geolocations, search through hashtags, find authors, translate languages in real-time and even run text analytics to retrieve sentiment analysis. Now you want to show this on a dashboard to make a case for your research to your business executive!


 


Possible solution…


In order to create this solution from scratch you’d need to create some sort of a web application to go and fetch different news sites (e.g. News API). Then authenticate/authorize yourself with Twitter and hit Twitter’s search endpoints. Store all this data and use it to hit the Bing Maps endpoint, then hit the Azure Cognitive Services to run translation and text analytics. Then, finally wrap it all up with mapping all the information on to the dashboard and visualize the result in PowerBI!

That’s a lot of time spent on development, integration, and design to get to the finished solution.


 


Enter… Social Media Analytics Solution!


DanielKim_0-1659975130586.png


 


 


Checkout the Github repo: microsoft/Azure-Social-Media-Analytics-Solution-Accelerator (github.com)


There will be a follow-up post with learnings!

Please comment for any questions.

Thanks for reading :smiling_face_with_smiling_eyes:

The AI-powered contact center, part 1: Create engaging digital experiences

The AI-powered contact center, part 1: Create engaging digital experiences

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Today’s customers expect more engaging, personalized service experiences from the brands they choose. They want intelligent self-service that offers always-on digital convenience. And they expect agents, whether human or virtual, to not just know who they are, but to already have an idea why they are reaching out and how to help.

That’s why we launched the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platforman open, extensible, and collaborative platform for delivering seamless, omnichannel customer engagement at scalebuilt with AI at its heart, powered by Nuance technologies.

Bringing the power of AI to the contact center

AI is fast becoming an essential part of every contact center strategy, helping improve customer experiences while reducing costs, and helping contact center leaders accomplish their customer acquisition, retention, and revenue goals.

And now, enterprises have even more ways to optimize their digital experience strategy with AI.

The launch of the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform shows our commitment to putting our customers first. It brings together innovation from Nuance and Microsoft to power unmatched self-service experiences, live customer engagements, collaborative agent experiences, business process automation, advanced telephony, and fraud prevention capabilities. In this series of articles, we’ll outline how Nuance solutions enable the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform to deliver value across every engagement channelstarting with digital.

Creating standout digital experiences

As we enter a new, AI-powered era for the contact center, we look forward to stories from enterprise customers about how they’ve optimized their digital engagement strategies with the capabilities of Nuance’s intelligent engagement solutions and Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Power Platform, and Azure.

Flexibility and choice, with an open platform

Many enterprises want to augment their digital capabilities to provide intelligent, omnichannel experiences. But they also need to protect the investments they’ve made in their existing customer engagement solutions, contact center platforms, and back-office systems.

The Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform uses open, vendor-agnostic Nuance digital engagement solutions to offer complete flexibility and investment protection for organizations that want to:

  • Integrate best-of-breed virtual assistant or live chat solutions with a third-party customer relationship management (CRM) from any vendor.
  • Have a third-party virtual assistant, but need to integrate it with an industry-leading live agent platform.
  • Add powerful new messaging capabilities to a third-party agent desktop.
  • Surface third-party product recommendations, next best actions, knowledgebase information, tech support, or order management systems to their agents on a unified desktop.

And now that Microsoft and Nuance innovations are on a single platform, it’s even simpler for organizations currently using the Nuance Digital Engagement Platform to benefit from everything the Microsoft cloud has to offer, including CRM, knowledge management, case management, collaboration tools, and many other services.

A proven track record of increasing self-serviceand driving sales

The Nuance solutions on the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform have a strong record of enabling intelligent self-service and increasing containment.

For example, the AI-powered targeting engine behind Nuance Virtual Assistant and Live Assist uses customer profiles and purchase history to engage customers with personalized incentives and relevant offers at the right moment in their journey. That creates more valuable upsell and cross-sell opportunities, helping increase sales in digital channels. Esurance, for instance, generated live chat incremental sales of $4.4 million in just one quarter after implementing Nuance Live Assistand also saw 86 percent increased customer satisfaction with live chat.

Advanced capabilities built on decades of contact center AI experience

The powerful functionality of Nuance digital solutions comes from long experience in delivering AI-powered innovations for all customer engagement channels.

With Nuance AI on the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform, organizations can use proactive targeting to deliver the right kind of engagement for each customerat exactly the right time. They can enhance digital experiences by using rich media widgets in messaging channels. They can reduce the time and cost of ramping up new agents by delivering real-time guidance and recommendations straight to the agent desktop. The list goes on.

Plus, Nuance biometric authentication and intelligent fraud prevention solutions help streamline customer experiences and protect every interaction. And everything is delivered through a highly secure, compliant, and capable web interface that meets the stringent data privacy and security standards that regulators, businesses, and customers demand.

A roadmap for the future of the digital contact center

It’s an exciting time to be working with customer engagement leaders. We’re developing an evergreen roadmap for the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform, and while we’ll continuously add new capabilities, we’ll also ensure our customers’ existing investments are protected, enabling them to migrate seamlessly to our combined platform at their own pace.

Together with our trailblazing customers, discover how Nuance and Microsoft can offer limitless flexibility, unmatched operational efficiency, amazing customer and agent experiencesand better business outcomes with the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform.

The post The AI-powered contact center, part 1: Create engaging digital experiences appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.