All news in category “Vendor and Hyperscaler Watch”

📌 AWS Config now supports 30 additional AWS resource types across services including Amazon EKS, Amazon Q, and AWS IoT. If you have enabled recording for all resource types, these additions are tracked automatically and are available in Config rules and Config aggregators. The expanded coverage improves visibility for discovery, audit, and automated remediation and includes types such as EKS::Nodegroup, QuickSight::Dashboard, Glue::Crawler, and IoT::TopicRule.

🔍 Most enterprise work now takes place in the browser, yet security architectures still center on endpoints, email, and network layers. Keep Aware calls this mismatch a "safe haven" that attackers exploit with user-driven flows that leave little forensic evidence. Common techniques include click‑prompt social engineering, malicious extensions, man‑in‑the‑browser variants, and HTML smuggling — all of which can appear legitimate to EDR, email security, or SASE. Without browser-level visibility, teams struggle to prevent, reconstruct, or learn from these incidents.

🚀 Starfish Space is using Google Cloud to accelerate development and validation of its autonomous satellite-servicing vehicle, Otter. The company runs millions of Monte Carlo simulations on Google Compute Engine and Google Kubernetes Engine to train and harden docking software in virtual orbital environments. Managed Kubernetes lets engineers scale high-performance compute for complex simulations and control costs by scaling down resources when not required. This software-first model supports contracts with NASA, the U.S. Space Force, SES, and the Space Development Agency.

🔒 A court filing shows the FBI's Computer Analysis Response Team (CART) could not extract a Washington Post reporter's iPhone because Apple's Lockdown Mode was enabled. The raid and seizure occurred in January during an investigation into leaks of classified information tied to a government contractor. The filing contrasts devices the FBI could access with the iPhone that resisted standard forensic tools, suggesting Lockdown Mode can impede common extraction techniques.

🔒 Samsung Knox provides built‑in, per‑app network controls, detailed access logs, and a Zero Trust Network Access framework that complements existing VPN deployments. Its firewall supports IPv4/IPv6 filtering, domain and subdomain rules, split DNS tunneling, and context-rich logging (app package, domain/IP, timestamp) to accelerate investigations and reduce false positives. Integrated device health signals and hardware‑backed lockdowns enable dynamic policy enforcement without multiple agents. Certified for SOC 2 and compatible with leading MDM/UEM and SIEM platforms, Knox simplifies deployment while improving visibility for security teams.

🔔 AWS has lowered costs for Network Firewall customers by extending hourly and data-processing discounts for NAT Gateways that are service-chained with both primary and secondary firewall endpoints. The service also removed the additional data-processing surcharge for Advanced Inspection TLS inspection that previously applied in select regions. These pricing improvements are applied automatically across all regions where Network Firewall is offered and require no customer action.

🧩 Amazon Connect Cases now supports CSV uploads to define conditional field option mappings, allowing administrators to specify which options appear based on other field values. Rather than manually configuring each dependency — for example, limiting defect type choices by product category — teams can upload a CSV to apply relationships at scale. This reduces onboarding effort and configuration time for complex case templates. The capability integrates with existing case templates and field settings and is available in multiple AWS regions.

📈 Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) now publishes two additional repository metrics in Amazon CloudWatch: RepositoryCount and ImagesPerRepositoryCount. These metrics, available across all AWS commercial Regions and AWS GovCloud (US) at no extra cost, provide per-repository visibility into repository creation/deletion trends and image count growth. Customers can detect anomalous behavior, build dashboards, and configure alarms to notify teams as usage approaches service quotas.

🚀 Amazon Web Services has made EC2 G6e instances powered by NVIDIA L40S Tensor Core GPUs available in the Middle East (UAE) Region. These instances support up to eight L40S GPUs (48 GB each), third-generation AMD EPYC processors, up to 192 vCPUs, 1.536 TB memory, 400 Gbps networking and 7.6 TB NVMe storage. They target machine learning and spatial computing workloads — from deploying large language and diffusion models to building immersive 3D simulations and digital twins. G6e instances are available via On‑Demand, Reserved, Spot and Savings Plans.

🚀 Amazon Web Services has launched Amazon EC2 G6e instances powered by NVIDIA L40S Tensor Core GPUs in the Middle East (UAE) Region. These instances offer up to eight L40S GPUs with 48 GB each, third-generation AMD EPYC processors, up to 192 vCPUs, 1.536 TB system memory, 7.6 TB local NVMe storage, and up to 400 Gbps networking. G6e is optimized for ML workloads including LLMs, diffusion models for image/video/audio generation, and large-scale spatial computing and digital twins. Instances are available across multiple regions and purchasable via On-Demand, Reserved, Spot, and Savings Plans.

🍎 AWS Builder ID now supports Sign in with Apple as a social login provider, expanding existing Sign in with Google options and letting Apple users access AWS applications with their Apple ID. This reduces password management and forgotten credential issues while streamlining new registrations and returning sign‑ins. The integration applies to AWS Builder Center, AWS Training and Certification, AWS re:Post, AWS Startups, and Kiro, offering a more seamless entry point for developers and builders.

🔒AWS Builder ID now supports Sign in with Apple, expanding social login options alongside Sign in with Google. Developers and builders can use their Apple Account credentials to access AWS Builder Center, AWS Training and Certification, AWS re:Post, AWS Startups, and Kiro. The integration reduces password management overhead, lowers the risk of forgotten passwords, and streamlines both new user registration and returning sign-ins.

🔔 Microsoft will retire the Exchange Web Services (EWS) API for Exchange Online on April 1, 2027, after nearly 20 years. Beginning October 1, 2026, Microsoft will block EWS by default; administrators can temporarily preserve access via tenant application allowlists if configured by the end of August 2026, and Microsoft will pre-populate allowlists for tenants that do not create their own. The retirement applies only to cloud-hosted Exchange; Microsoft recommends migrating integrations to the Microsoft Graph API, which now offers near feature parity for most scenarios.

🖥️ Amazon WorkSpaces now offers 12 new Graphics G6, Gr6, and G6f bundles built on the Amazon EC2 G6 family, available for both Amazon WorkSpaces Personal and WorkSpaces Core. The bundles provide diverse vCPU-to-memory configurations and fractional GPU options to support workloads from graphic design and CAD/CAM to 3D rendering, seismic visualization, GIS, and ML training. They support Windows Server 2022 and BYOL for Windows 11 and are available in 13 AWS Regions.

🚀 Google Cloud has added Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 to Vertex AI, extending its curated model catalog for enterprise and agentic workloads. Opus 4.6 is positioned for complex coding, polished document and spreadsheet generation, advanced tool calling, and sophisticated multi-step agents. Feature highlights include GA support for adaptive thinking, an effort parameter, 128k output tokens, and previews for a 1M context window and compaction API. Google emphasizes managed agent tooling, governance, and infrastructure to deploy Claude-powered agents at scale.

🔒 Microsoft is supporting Operation Winter SHIELD, a nine-week FBI-led effort beginning February 2, 2026, that shifts focus from guidance to practical implementation so organizations can operationalize controls that actually reduce risk. Microsoft will provide technical resources and platform-backed guardrails — including Baseline Security Mode — to enforce phish-resistant MFA, block legacy authentication, and surface unsupported systems. The initiative emphasizes secure-by-default configurations and automation to turn recommendations into enforceable protections and narrow the execution gap attackers exploit.

🔗 AWS Glue has launched a native REST-based connector that enables customers to read from any REST-enabled data source and ingest that data directly into AWS Glue ETL jobs without bundling custom JARs or external libraries. This change removes the need to install, update, or manage connector libraries, reducing operational overhead and speeding onboarding of new sources. The connector is available in all AWS commercial regions and can be used via AWS Glue APIs, the CLI, or SDKs.

🚀 Amazon Web Services now offers EC2 I7ie instances in AWS Canada (Central). These high-density, storage-optimized instances use 5th Gen Intel Xeon processors and 3rd generation AWS Nitro SSDs to deliver up to 40% better compute, up to 65% improved storage throughput, and significantly lower I/O latency versus I3en. I7ie provides up to 120 TB local NVMe, up to 100 Gbps network bandwidth, and nine instance sizes for large-scale, low-latency storage workloads.

☁️ Amazon Web Services has made the EC2 High Memory U7i instance with 6TiB of DDR5 memory (u7i-6tb.112xlarge) available in AWS GovCloud (US-West). These 7th-generation instances are powered by custom 4th-generation Intel Xeon Scalable (Sapphire Rapids) processors and deliver 448 vCPUs, up to 100Gbps for EBS and network, plus ENA Express. Designed for mission-critical in-memory databases like SAP HANA, Oracle, and SQL Server, they enable higher transaction throughput and faster data loading and backups.

🔁 AWS has made cross-account sharing generally available for EC2 Capacity Blocks for ML, enabling organizations to share reserved GPU capacity across AWS accounts via AWS Resource Access Manager (RAM). Teams can purchase Capacity Blocks and provision them to multiple accounts at no extra cost, improving utilization and lowering costs. The feature is available in Regions where Capacity Blocks are offered, and administrators enable sharing by creating a RAM Resource Share and adding Capacity Block resources.