CISA Updates Advisory on Threat Actors Chaining Unpatched VMware Vulnerabilities

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

CISA has updated Cybersecurity Advisory AA22-138B: Threat Actors Chaining Unpatched VMware Vulnerabilities for Full System Control, originally released May 18, 2022. The advisory has been updated to include additional indicators of compromise and detection signatures, as well as tactics, techniques, and procedures reported by trusted third parties.

CISA encourages organizations to review the latest update to AA22-138B and update impacted VMware products to the latest version or remove impacted versions from organizational networks. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 at Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference

Microsoft Dynamics 365 at Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference

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

This June 6 to 7, 2022, we are excited to attend and exhibit in person at the Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference. The conference provides a forum where leading finance professionals gather to network, share best practices, and prepare their teams for an autonomous future. Today’s chief financial officers (CFOs) allocate 80 percent of new investment dollars for digital growth.1 Clearly, despite the challenges of the past two years, organizations continue to invest heavily in digital transformation.

Changing market and environmental conditions, varying from recession threats to technology innovations like the digital twin, impact finance professionals and the organizations they lead. To remain competitive and successful post-pandemic, CFOs need exposure to fresh thinking and timely insights in order to digitally elevate their platforms and drive the finance function forward to an increasingly autonomous future. This year, a central aim is to help CFOs leapfrog ahead on their digital journey by understanding what successful teams are and are not building, buying, and borrowing in the market.1

At the Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference, Microsoft will showcase how Dynamics 365 Finance helps organizations bring the future of finance into focus. We will cover how to:

  • Adapt faster by designing a digital roadmap that stays ahead of evolving business models.
  • Work smarter by balancing maximum profitability with accelerated growth.
  • Perform better at your business innovation and transformation initiatives.

To see how successful organizations are using digital platforms to innovate and grow, register to attend our June 6, 2022 session from 11:45 AM to 12:15 PM Eastern Time (details below).

Microsoft: The CFOs role in balancing business model innovation with growth acceleration

With global market volatility threatening profitability, CFOs must drive growth and innovation initiatives while accelerating margin improvement. Successful CFOs are continuing to push the limits of business model innovation across the entire operations experiencefinancial (the way you capture value), operational (the way you deliver value to your customers), and organizational (the way you align people to impact). Join us at our event session to hear how top business model innovation trends and technology can help you embrace disruption while keeping the focus on financial excellence.

The strategies we cover will also require solutions that reinforce decision-making with real-time data, predictive analytics, and additional AI capabilities, all of which help:

  • Future proof your business.
  • Innovate across the entire operations experience.
  • Facilitate and propel new business model trends.
  • Predict and gain insights through AI-driven analytics.

One way that Microsoft is helping organizations leverage AI to improve business insights for finance leaders is through our recent acquisition of Suplari. Suplari’s AI capabilities allow companies to:

  • Make comprehensive enterprise spend data and insights available to all.
  • Unlock new financial insights to help with strategic procurement decisions.
  • Get up and running with predictive insights in weeks, not months.

To learn more, check out our recent blog Microsoft acquires Suplari to strengthen business insight for finance and procurement leaders.

Engage with Microsoft

Register for the Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference and visit the Microsoft booth #208 on the show floor (Level 2 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center).

You can speak with Microsoft executives at our booth to discuss how Dynamics 365 drives digital growth and initiatives while accelerating margin improvement. Also, scan your badge at the kiosk to participate in the Microsoft Surface Headphones giveaway.

See you at the Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference

We hope to see you and your team at the conference and that you check out our session and visit our booth.

If you are unable to make it this year but are still interested in learning strategies that help you realize new product and service-based revenue streams, check out our comprehensive e-book, The Futurist CFO’s Guide to Business Model Innovation.


Sources:

1Gartner, 2022. Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference

The post Microsoft Dynamics 365 at Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

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

Enrich customer insights with affinity levels and share of voice

Enrich customer insights with affinity levels and share of voice

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

Enriched profiles in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights help you understand your customers’ brand and interest affinities so that you can provide the hyper-personalized experiences across touchpoints that today’s customers seek.

Brand and interest affinity insights are based on first- and third-party signals and data from people like your customers in age, gender, and location. This month we are announcing two enhancements to the Dynamics 365 Customer Insights enrichment feature:

  1. Affinity level. Every enriched customer profile now includes an affinity level, from low to very high. Levels are in addition to the existing affinity score, which is calculated on a 100-point scale. Either can be used to measure affinity and to aid easy segmentation.
  2. Share of voice. This information can be used to identify which brand or interest is highest for a given demographic segment. Share of voice is a comparison across brands and interests that you select.

Introducing affinity levels

We added the affinity levels enhancement to simplify the process of identifying a demographic segment’s affinity for a brand or interest. Previously, affinities were assigned a numerical score with no fixed scale. Affinity levels map directly to affinity scores and are designed to make the affinity scores more accessible. There are four levels:

  1. Low
  2. Medium
  3. High
  4. Very High

With this enhancement we also fixed the scale of the affinity score. It’s now calculated on a 100-point scale.

The setup experience for affinity enrichments hasn’t changed. Users will see the updated experience automatically.

The following image shows how the new affinity levels appear on the My enrichments > BrandAffinity and My enrichments > InterestAffinity views:

Screenshot of the brand affinity levels and interest affinity levels bar charts in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

Introducing share of voice

Share of voice identifies which brand or interest has the highest proportion of popularity. It’s an important measure because it helps you understand whether your customer is more likely to engage with you or focus on your competition. The affinity for a brand or interest is calculated as a ratio of its popularity for a given demographic segment (age, gender, location) as compared to other brands or interests.  

Previously, affinities and interests appeared next to each other in the My enrichments dashboard. While there’s a natural tendency to compare them against each other, they’re not directly comparable. Share of voice calculates comparatives across your selected brands or interests using a 100-point scale.

The share of voice numbers for configured brands always add up to 100% and are grouped into four levels:

  1. Less than 25%
  2. 25% to 50%
  3. 51% to 75%
  4. Greater than 75%

The share of voice enhancement doesn’t require any additional setup. As with affinity enrichments, users will see the updated share of voice experience automatically.

The following figure shows the aggregate share of voice for configured brands and interests:

Screenshot of the brand share of voice and interest share of voice bar charts in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

You can also see share of voice for configured brands and interests on individual customer pages:

Screenshot of the customer page in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.
Screenshot of the brand share of voice and interest share of voice bar charts for a customer in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

More information

Learn more about Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

For more information about these new feature enhancements, see the brands and interests enrichment documentation.

Sign up for a free Dynamics 365 Customer Insights trial to experience how you can enrich your customer profiles with affinities and share of voice. We invite you to try these new feature enhancements and let us know about your experience.

The post Enrich customer insights with affinity levels and share of voice appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

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

Use Microsoft Certified: Fundamentals to help open new career paths

Use Microsoft Certified: Fundamentals to help open new career paths

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

We’re pleased to announce the new Microsoft Certified: Fundamentals site, designed exclusively for the community of learners who want to pursue a Microsoft fundamentals certification. Are you looking for a way to stand out as you start on your career path? Want to switch jobs and pivot to something fresh? Or master the basics as you advance in a challenging role? Explore the Microsoft Certified: Fundamentals site to learn how certification can help you achieve your goals. Earning a fundamentals certification differentiates you as someone who’s willing to learn and takes concrete steps to make their goals a reality.


 


Who needs a fundamentals certification?


Whether you’re a technical professional, student, or business professional, a fundamentals certification is designed to help you accelerate your progress, boost your career, and stay current with evolving technology trends. It can be the first step on your journey for role-based or specialty certifications, but it isn’t a prerequisite for any of them.


 


Use Microsoft fundamentals training and certification to highlight your skills and to show prospective employers your drive and determination to learn. Take it from Chris Dinnel, a system administrator with a cybersecurity background, who wanted to move his career to cloud infrastructure. He earned a Dynamics 365 Fundamentals certification and got a job as a Dynamics 365 administrator/IT technician at SBS CyberSecurity. He comments, “Certification is a great way to show people that you can take initiative and communicate that kind of abstract concept, like self-motivation, which is otherwise hard to show on a résumé.”


 


Use fundamentals certifications to validate the skills that you’ve worked so hard to hone. Plus, earning fundamentals certifications can give you the confidence to pursue higher-level certifications as you move forward in your career journey. A Global Knowledge survey notes that 87 percent of IT professionals have at least one certification, while nearly 40 percent are pursuing their next certification. April Dunnam, a developer with many certifications, reports that when she learns a new technology, she often earns a fundamentals certification just to get a broad understanding. For example, when she was learning Microsoft Power Platform, she earned the fundamentals certification, recalling, “It seemed like a good starting point because it’s about the basics.”


 


A fundamentals certification on your résumé can make a difference as you launch your career.  An IDC white paper points out that those who earned a certification prior to their first IT position were promoted 23 percent sooner than their counterparts who didn’t earn one.   Use your fundamentals certification to build practical, workplace skills for in-demand jobs and to gain an edge in a competitive labor market. When you study for a fundamentals exam, you learn industry-standard technology from an industry leader, in addition to earning marketable proof of your knowledge.


 


If you have a passion for technology and are switching to a more technical role, earning a fundamentals certification can help ensure that you’re up to speed. According to The Nigel Frank Careers and Hiring Guide: Business Applications Edition 2022, 68 percent of respondents believe that certifications help you stand out in a competitive job market. Respondents who received a salary increase after they earned a certification said that their take-home pay rose by an average of 20 percent.


 


Get started


Begin by going to the new Microsoft Certified: Fundamentals site to gather information and make your learning plan. Each certification’s landing page includes a journey map that offers a visual explanation of the steps you need to take. If you want to work with an instructor, read About Microsoft Learning Partners.


 


Choose a certification path


Depending on your skills and interests, the new fundamentals site will help you choose the fundamentals certification that’s the best fit for you.


 


NancyTandy_0-1653509147157.png


 


Find a community


Join a community to network with others who have a passion for Microsoft technology, share ideas, and ask questions. You can also find news about Microsoft events and learning opportunities.


 



 


Celebrate with the world: Post your badge on LinkedIn


Once you earn your fundamentals certification or learn a new skill, celebrate your accomplishment with your network. It often takes less than a minute to update your LinkedIn profile and share your achievements, highlight your skills, and help boost your career potential.


 


Explore related blogs



 


Turn your aspirations into opportunities


The new Microsoft Certified: Fundamentals site offers you even more support as you move ahead on your learning journey. Join the community of professionals who have earned a Microsoft Certification and get what you need to land that first job, advance your career, or shift your focus to a new and exciting technology.


 


 


Sources


IDC white paper, Impact of Certifications and Training on Career Milestones, #US45090619, June 2019