With authorities like the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) enforcing strict record-keeping mandates, regulatory compliance becomes more important. Recent enforcement actions and scrutiny from abroad have also prompted Asian regulators to tighten oversight measures.

Meanwhile, the widespread use of messaging apps like WhatsApp and WeChat for business presents compliance and security risks, compounded by the rising cyber-threats and data breaches. The shift to remote work has further intensified the need for improved business communications security.

The growing influence of messaging apps in Hong Kong businesses

Like many places around the world, messaging apps play an increasingly important role in business operations in Hong Kong, letting staff communicate with customers for inquiry and complaint handling, new product promotions, service consultations, and similar conversations.

The most popular messaging platform in Hong Kong used for business communications is WhatsApp. WeChat is also popular, especially for engaging with clients from mainland China.

Speaking of the use of messaging apps in Hong Kong for business, Vincent Wong, Assistant Product Manager at Hong Kong Telecom, explained that “the major business purpose in Hong Kong is for staff to handle daily inquiries from customers and promote new products and the latest market updates to customers.”

Hong Kong Telecom – LeapXpert collaboration for compliant communications

Hong Kong Telecom (HKT), one of the region’s telecommunications service providers, helps its enterprise customers ensure governance and security in client interactions amid an increasingly stringent regulatory environment. HKT has partnered with LeapXpert to deliver more secure and compliant digital communication solutions. This lets HKT provide its enterprise customers with a governed, compliant and secure framework to communicate with customers on messaging apps.

Wong described HKT’s offering as a “Cloud-based service based on the functionality of the LeapXpert platform.”

The LeapXpert Communications Platform lets enterprise employees engage with clients using popular consumer messaging channels, like WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram, WeChat, Signal, Line, and SMS, from platforms like Microsoft Teams, WeCom and Slack. The platform helps ensure regulatory compliance, enterprise governance and security.

According to Avi Pardo, Chief Business Officer at LeapXpert, the strategic partnership between the two companies positions HKT as “a premier provider of compliance-driven communication services, offering scalable solutions that support unified, secure and compliant cross-app communications tailored for business growth.”

Wong stated that “LeapXpert demonstrates strong capabilities in messaging compliance, enabling corporations to control and monitor conversations between staff and clients to ensure regulatory compliance and adherence to authority guidelines.”

Pardo said the integration of the LeapXpert platform with HKT’s services “creates a unique market differentiator that delivers significant value to enterprise customers, catering to the precise needs of modern, single-identity responsible business communication.”

Wong also said that, in addition to messaging compliance and archiving functionality, “HKT provides professional services, including configuration, user training and after-sales support.”

Strong market feedback

HKT targets banking and financial industries, investment traders, and some professional services industries, such as law firms and healthcare institutions. These especially require communications compliance and monitoring. The company also plans to target larger enterprises that use MS Teams for daily communication.

HKT has signed Bank of East Asia, a Hong Kong-based financial services group, as its first customer for the LeapXpert solution. The LeapXpert Communications Platform, underpinned by HKT’s connectivity infrastructure, allows BEA employees to communicate natively with customers over WhatsApp and WeChat in a manner that is governed, secure and compliant.

Business enablement and compliance

The LeapXpert platform, according to Pardo, lets businesses use messaging apps more securely, and ensure governance and compliance. He said this combination “enhances client engagement by allowing employees to communicate on their preferred platforms, improving efficiency by reducing the need to switch between apps.”

Pardo said advanced security features help protect businesses from risk, and HTK’s network provides reliability and local support. “This positions HKT with a unique compliance service throughout the region,” he said.

The post Next-level communication compliance: HKT and LeapXpert appeared first on TechWire Asia.

Hitachi Energy has completed a migration to Windows 11 on more than 40,000 desktops in 12 countries. The company used ManagementStudio to help it complete the task, which it began in November 2023 starting with a 500-device pilot. The full migration process began in March 2024, and was scheduled to end in October 2024.

ManagementStudio assessed the company’s assets to be 45,335 devices, with 43,568 devices determined as suitable for upgrade. Out of the 3,034 applications in use, 2,330 were deemed to be compatible with Windows 11 (76%).

Eventually, around 40,600 devices made the upgrade to Windows 11 (89%), and the remaining ineligible devices had to settle for an upgrade to the latest version of Windows 10.

ManagementStudio was also used by Hitachi Energy to support the company’s divestment from ABB in June 2020. The platform helped IT staff manage the exit from the Transition Service Agreements (TSA) with ABB inside three years, ending June 2023. The early exit helped the company avoid additional costs that would have been incurred had the transition been delayed.

Marco Rena, Global Head of End User Computing at Hitachi Energy, said the goal of Windows 11 migration was to “upgrade [Hitachi Energy’s] estate with minimal manual intervention and [avoid] the need to individually test every application. The scope was to undergo a readiness migration to verify application and hardware compatibility. This was achieved using ManagementStudio and integrating it with Intune, Active Directory, Flexera Service and ServiceNow. And, we also integrated ManagementStudio with PowerBI to generate […] reports.”

The timescale of the migration was reportedly faster than average. Hitachi Energy managed to upgrade nearly 10,000 devices in May 2024 alone, using the ManagementStudio platform to automate the migration process, following predefined criteria.

Reasons to and method of upgrade to Windows 11

Rena explained how Hitachi Energy implemented its Windows 11 upgrade using a ‘by exception’ approach. “By requesting pilot users from all areas of the business, Hitachi Energy was able to run the new operating system for a few weeks and catch any application issues that occurred. Once the pilot device was approved, its application portfolio could be considered compatible and used as the basis for confidently selecting more desktops throughout the business.”

The pilot helped ensure a reliable, smooth migration by resolving any issues early on, before the upgrade was rolled out on a larger scale.

As Windows 10 approaches its end-of-support in the Autumn this year, moving PC fleets to supported and secure operating systems will help lower the instances of cybersecurity issues. The March ‘Patch Tuesday’ update from Microsoft contained security updates to address 57 known flaws, including six actively-exploited zero-day vulnerabilities, and six vulnerabilities that were marked as ‘Critical’, each of which was a remote code execution vulnerability.

Given the ubiquity of Microsoft operating systems on enterprise desktops, organisations should be considering their options ahead of the cut-off in a few months. If more time is required for the upgrade to Windows 11, users can pay on a per-seat basis for a further 12 months support from Microsoft.

(Image source: “Old banger” by 70023venus2009 is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.)

The post Hitachi Energy upgrades 89% of PCs to Windows 11 with ManagementStudio appeared first on TechWire Asia.

• Strava closes the account of a runner who posted their activity in North Korea.
• Running in virtualised North Korea enough to earn enforced account closure.
• Strict T&Cs enforced beyond the letter of the law.

Users of the popular fitness-tracking app, Strava, need to be careful of where they exercise, and even where they pretend to exercise.

According to DC Rainmaker, a site that catalogues the owner’s runs, bike rides, and swims, one fitness fanatic has fallen foul of Strava’s Terms & Conditions. A keen ultra-marathon runner and YouTube channel owner had their Strava account locked by the company after posting details of a run she went on while visiting North Korea.

The individual affected lives outside North Korea, but is studying the country as part of her PhD thesis. During a recent visit to the country, she went for a run, and uploaded the activity once back in a country where there is access to the public internet, something that’s off-limits to the native North Korean populace.

After uploading the workout, she received a message from Strava stating her account had been terminated for violating the app’s T&Cs. According to a statement sent to DC Rainmaker from Strava, “In accordance with mandatory US sanctions and export controls, which prohibit the offering of online services to North Korea, Strava does not allow users to post activities occurring [in North Korea].”

In a later statement, the company added, “Strava’s controls are based on feedback from the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and we take a broad, zero-tolerance approach.”

The steps taken by Strava are a stricter interpretation of the US Department of the Treasury’s rules than those of other technology companies: Google’s YouTube and various social media feeds show thousands of clips, images, and comments made in and concerned with North Korea.

The rigidity of Strava’s policies (and the automated nature of its algorithmic source-checking) is exemplified by another incident, in which a Strava user went running on a treadmill but merely used North Korea as a virtual environment. They too received a ban from the platform – one that was overturned quickly after the individual’s objection.

The code of conduct that users seem to be in violation of are the parts of US rules around the prevention of exports to North Korea. In the ultra-marathoner’s case, that’s a draconian interpretation of the use of a service not remotely associated with trade with the pariah state.

It’s worth noting that the run was recorded via a Garmin (not Strava) smartwatch. Although smartwatches are officially not allowed inside North Korea, the authorities there are known to turn a blind eye to their use – it is allegedly the presence of geo-location data gathering that is frowned on – and similarly-equipped smartphones are permitted in the country when in the possession of visitors.

Tourism in North Korea is strictly controlled and visitors are carefully shepherded during their state-sanctioned stays. Presumably, going out on a run while enjoying the local scenery is something that’s approved of by the country’s authorities, but termed unacceptable behaviour by the US-based Strava.

Strava has had its fair share of controversy in the past, having given away the location of secret US Army bases and let users see the routes taken by Israeli military personnel when out running. Its erring on the side of caution in the form of rigorous implementation of self-penned Terms & Conditions is, therefore, perhaps understandable, especially in the current political climate in the US, where big tech companies have been quick to side with the ruling executive‘s ideology.

(Image source: “running” by renoleon is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)

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