Daily Tech Briefing: May 22, 2014

Also, eBay officials stated that there has not been any increased fraudulent activity occurring on the website. The compromised database contained non-financial information and encrypted passwords. In light of this, the company is asking users to reset their passwords to minimize any risk.

Maty Siman, founder and CTO of Checkmarx, a code security vendor, told eWEEK that major organizations are compromised regularly, and consumers should expect more breaches to come.

IBM is targeting Microsoft’s Azure platform as a service by releasing its own BlueMix Platform as a Service. The BlueMix technology offers composable app creation and deployment capabilities in an open environment designed to reduce complexity.

It also has cloud integration services that enable a secure connection between an organization’s public applications and private data. What’s more, IBM is leveraging BlueMix’s foundation on SoftLayer for this expansion.

Cisco Systems announced plans to add to its cyber-security capabilities by purchasing ThreatGrid, a privately held New York-based company that provides malware analysis and threat intelligence both on-premise and in the cloud. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter and the companies didn’t disclose financial details. This is one of many things Cisco is doing to expand its role in the data center beyond networking.

Finally, the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index has been released, and it contained two particularly major stories. The first is that smartphone owners have given Samsung a higher satisfaction rating than Apple for the first time ever.

The second is that customer satisfaction with subscription TV and Internet service providers has reached an all-time low, just as the number of service provider merger proposals in the federal government’s inbox continues to increase.