Stop the Churn, Avoid Burnout | How To Keep Your Cybersecurity Personnel [feedly]

Stop the Churn, Avoid Burnout | How To Keep Your Cybersecurity Personnel
https://www.sentinelone.com/blog/stop-the-churn-avoid-burnout-how-to-keep-your-cybersecurity-personnel/

-- via my feedly newsfeed

5 Things You Can Do with Chef InSpec Input [feedly]

5 Things You Can Do with Chef InSpec Input
https://blog.chef.io/5-things-you-can-do-with-chef-inspec-input/

-- via my feedly newsfeed

Apple Released Security Updates for iOS, Safari, macOS , tvOS, watchOS

https://gbhackers.com/apple-released-security-updates-4/

Comodo Antivirus Affected With Multiple Vulnerabilities

https://gbhackers.com/comodo-antivirus-affected-with-multiple-vulnerabilities-that-includes-privilege-escalation-and-denial-of-service/


Sent from my iPhone

CVE-2019-9510 flaw allows hackers to bypass Windows lock screen on RDP sessions

I found this interesting article via Newsfusion Cyber Security- I thought you might like it:
http://go.newsfusion.com/security/item/1448550

-------------------------------------------
Get the app: http://go.newsfusion.com/security/download


Sent from my iPhone

4 tips for getting the most from threat intelligence

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3397104/4-tips-for-getting-the-most-from-threat-intelligence.html

There's no doubt that threat intelligence is critical for any company trying to build a winning security strategy, but threat intelligence alone won't provide much value. In addition to knowing about potential vulnerabilities or new emerging threats, you also need the expertise to manage the flow of information, and the means to act upon it.

To read this article in full, please click here

Best new Windows 10 security features: Windows Sandbox, more update options

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3253899/the-best-new-windows-10-security-features.html

With the new era of Windows as a service, Microsoft is rolling out changes to the operating system twice a year. Many of those changes will allow you to improve your security posture and offer more security choices. You no longer have to wait for a new operating system to deploy new security features.

[ Learn how to identify, block and remove malware from Windows PCs. | Get the latest from CSO by signing up for our newsletters. ]

Below is a summary of all the new security features and options in Windows 10 version 1903, which features Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) enhancements, more options for enterprises to defer updates, and Windows Sandbox, which provides a safe area to run untrusted software. Bookmark this article, because we will be adding new security features as Microsoft releases future Windows updates.

To read this article in full, please click here

10 penetration testing tools the pros use

https://www.csoonline.com/article/2943524/17-penetration-testing-tools-the-pros-use.html

Penetration testing, also known as pentesting or ethical hacking, is like in the movie Sneakers, where hacker-consultants break into your corporate networks to find weaknesses before attackers do. It's a simulated cyber attack where the pentester uses the tools and techniques available to malicious hackers.

Back in ye olde days of yore, hacking was hard and required a lot of manual bit fiddling. Today, though, a full suite of automated testing tools turn hackers into cyborgs, computer-enhanced humans who can test far more than ever before.

To read this article in full, please click here

Sophos Acquires Rook Security to Bolster MDR Services

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com:443/news/sophos-acquires-rook-security-1/

British cybersecurity company Sophos has acquired Rook Security, a provider of managed detection and response (MDR) services. The privately owned Rook provides a team of cyber-threat hunters and incident response experts who "monitor, hunt for, analyze and respond to security incidents" for businesses. 

Combining Rook's services with its recently acquired DarkBytes technology platform, Sophos is planning to create re-sellable MDR services to approximately 47,000 channel partners worldwide. Addition to this, Rook's team of security investigators will be able to use Sophos' security technology and products for the company's customers. 

"Cyber-criminals are relentlessly trying to exploit organizations with techniques ranging from tried-and-true phishing emails to the more recent trend of 'hacker pen-testing' to find weaknesses in their surface area. As a result, businesses need 24-hour, seven-days-a-week monitoring and management of what is happening on their network, yet many of them do not have the expertise, can't keep up or don't have the security teams in house to optimally configure and manage security around the clock," says Joe Levy, chief technology officer at Sophos. "With MDR, Sophos' channel partners will be able to provide businesses of all sizes with expert services that continuously detect, hunt for and respond to security incidents."

J.J. Thompson, founder and CEO of Rook Security, says that the company is excited by the acquisition: "Together, we can implement faster and more effective threat detection and response capabilities to better protect businesses." 

According to a press release, Sophos is releasing no further details at this time.

Sophos has been splashing the cash in 2019 with the additional acquisition of Avid Secure earlier on in the year. The purchases were for MDR services and cloud infrastructure, bolstering the company's offering. 

Confusion Reigns as C-Suite Bemoans Lack of Security Resources

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com:443/news/confusion-reigns-csuite-lack-1/

Most C-level executives believe their organization is more exposed to potential security breaches because it lacks crucial technical, financial or human resources, according to new research from Nominet.

The .uk registry, which also offers DNS security services, polled 400 C-level executives in the UK and US to reveal boardroom attitudes to security risk.

Although most (76%) now understand that a breach is inevitable, 90% believe they're missing something that would help mitigate cyber threats. These include advanced technology (59%), lack of budget (44%) and lack of staff (41%).

Another challenge highlighted by respondents was senior management reluctant to accept advice (46%).

In fact, knowledge and responsibility gaps at the top could be severely hampering organizations' ability to respond to such threats. There's confusion over who is responsible for breach response, with over a third of respondents (35%) claiming it's the CEO, while 32% pointed to the CISO. The vast majority of respondents (71%) also admitted to having gaps in their knowledge, especially about malware (78%).

There's also confusion over breach reporting. Although 70% said incidents are initially reported to the security team, 61% do so to the executive team and 40% to the board. A third of CEOs even claim they would fire any employee responsible for a breach, despite the admission that such incidents are inevitable.

Only half of CISOs feel valued by the board in terms of brand and revenue protection, with 18% believing the board thinks they're an inconvenience. However, over half (52%) of directors said their CISO is a "must have."

This confusion could be responsible for the moderate to high stress levels that most (91%) CISOs experience, damaging the mental health of over a quarter (27%), according to separate findings from the same research released by Nominet in February.

"This research is very much a case of 'the good, the bad, and the ugly.' It's good to see that business leaders are aligned on the fact that cyber-attacks are pretty much an inevitable part of working life. Acceptance is the first step to protection. There's also a dedication to keeping customer and client data safe," argued Nominet CEO, Russell Haworth.

"But the bad comes with the power struggle at the top, with confusion over who should actually take responsibility in case of a data breach or cyber-attack, which is detrimental to the safety and security of the business. And the ugly is how CISOs feel within their organization."

Kali Linux 2019.2 Release

https://www.kali.org/news/kali-linux-2019-2-release/

Welcome to our second release of 2019, Kali Linux 2019.2, which is available for immediate download. This release brings our kernel up to version 4.19.28, fixes numerous bugs, includes many updated packages, and most excitingly, features a new release of Kali Linux NetHunter!

Kali NetHunter 2019.2 Release

Thanks to the tireless contributions from the vibrant NetHunter community led by re4son, binkybear, fattire, jmingov, jcadduono, kimocoder, and PaulWebSec, NetHunter now supports over 50 devices running all the latest Android versions, from KitKat through to Pie.
To celebrate this milestone, we have released 13 new NetHunter images for the latest Android versions of our favourite devices, including:

• Nexus 6 running Pie
• Nexus 6P, Oreo
• OnePlus2, Pie
• Galaxy Tab S4 LTE & WiFi, Oreo

These and many more can be downloaded from our NetHunter page. If you cannot find an image for your favourite device and you are interested in porting NetHunter, we would love for you to join our community and give it a crack. More information can be found at our new home on GitLab.

Tool Upgrades

This release largely features various tweaks and bug fixes but there are still many updated tools including seclists, msfpc, and exe2hex.

For the complete list of updates, fixes, and additions, please refer to the Kali Bug Tracker Changelog.

ARM Updates

For our ARM users, be aware that the first boot will take a bit longer than usual, as it requires the reinstallation of a few packages on the hardware. This manifests as the login manager crashing a few times until the packages finish reinstalling and is expected behaviour.

Download Kali Linux 2019.2

If you would like to check out this latest and greatest Kali release, you can find download links for ISOs and Torrents on the Kali Downloads page along with links to the Offensive Security virtual machine and ARM images, which have also been updated to 2019.2. If you already have a Kali installation you're happy with, you can easily upgrade in place as follows.

root@kali:~# apt update && apt -y full-upgrade

Ensuring your Installation is Updated

To double check your version, first make sure your Kali package repositories are correct.

root@kali:~# cat /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main non-free contrib

Then after running 'apt -y full-upgrade', you may require a 'reboot' before checking:

root@kali:~# grep VERSION /etc/os-release
VERSION="2019.2"
VERSION_ID="2019.2"

root@kali:~# uname -a
Linux kali 4.19.0-kali4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.28-2kali1 (2019-03-18) x86_64 GNU/Linux

If you come across any bugs in Kali, please open a report on our bug tracker. We'll never be able to fix what we don't know about.

macOS 0-Day Flaw Lets Hackers Bypass Security Features With Synthetic Clicks

https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/macOS-synthetic-click.html


A security researcher who last year bypassed Apple's then-newly introduced macOS privacy feature has once again found a new way to bypass security warnings by performing 'Synthetic Clicks' on behalf of users without requiring their interaction. Last June, Apple introduced a core security feature in MacOS that made it mandatory for all applications to take permission ("allow" or "deny") from

Security Onion Documentation now available in Book Format!

https://blog.securityonion.net/2019/05/security-onion-documentation-now.html

Many folks have asked for a printed version of our official online documentation and we're excited to provide that!  Whether you work on airgapped networks or simply want a portable reference that doesn't require an Internet connection or batteries, this is what you've been asking for.

Thanks to Richard Bejtlich for writing the inspiring foreword!

Proceeds go to the Rural Technology Fund!

This introductory price is good for a limited time only!






This book covers the following Security Onion topics:

• Getting Started
• Analyst Tools
• Network Visibility
• Host Visibility
• Elastic Stack
• Updating
• Customizing for your Environment
• Tuning
• Tricks and Tips
• Services
• Utilities
• Help
• Integrations

Q&A

What is the difference between this book and the online documentation?

This book is the online documentation formatted specifically for print.  It also includes an inspiring foreword by Richard Bejtlich that is not available anywhere else!  Finally, proceeds go to the Rural Technology Fund!

Who should get this book?

Security Onion users who work on airgapped networks or simply want a portable reference that doesn't require an Internet connection or batteries! Also anyone who wants to donate to a worthy cause like Rural Technology Fund!

How often will the book be updated?

Currently, we plan to release a new edition of the book every time we release a new version of our ISO image.

Where do we get it?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/179779762X

Chef Announcements: Making It Easier

https://blog.chef.io/2019/05/21/chef-announcements-making-it-easier/

These are exciting and often daunting times for IT organizations. The growth and competitiveness of every enterprise depends on digital transformation, but lurking below the buzzword is a complex tangle of manual effort and blind hope. Today Chef announceda host of product enhancements to the Chef Enterprise Automation Stack to make it easier for IT teams to overcome the barriers between them and digital success.

Three enhancements in particular promise to help. First, new dashboards offer greater visibility of the application lifecycle and simplified troubleshooting for infrastructure and application health. Second, new effortless infrastructure capabilities simplify infrastructure and security automation, allowing easy customization to enterprise-specific needs. And third, a new migration accelerator makes it easier than ever to re-platform legacy applications to the cloud.

DevOps dashboards for wider visibility and clearer insights

Expanding application portfolios are increasingly difficult to manage over their lifetimes. Operations teams must contend with a variety of applications, both new and old, and updates and changes to any one of these can cause unexpected problems. With the new application operations dashboard in Chef Automate, operations teams gain comprehensive and customizable visibility into the health of the services that make up the application. Now it's easier to understand what's degrading the health of your applications so you can keep them running smoothly.

Additionally, more powerful filtering and reporting in Chef Automate offers the ability to see how individual security and compliance controls are performing across a heterogeneous estate. This helps simplify compliance reporting and reduce the manual effort needed to address ad hoc requests. For instance, answering an auditor's request for verification against a specific compliance control can now be done in just a few clicks.

Making infrastructure and security automation effortless

In an increasingly complex IT landscape, configuring and securing infrastructure is difficult, particularly when done at scale. Chef provides powerful tools to address the most difficult enterprise scenarios, and with new Effortless Infrastructure capabilities, makes doing so easier than ever. Chef Infra and Chef InSpec can now take advantage of the application lifecycle management capabilities of Chef Habitat to simplify their deployment, management, and upgrades.

Extending this effortless pattern, Chef is making it possible to tune profiles and hardening cookbooks by simply turning on or off specific controls. In this way, organizations can customize infrastructure hardening to their individual needs, without having to write code. That reduces the skills and time required to deliver and maintain secure infrastructure.

Accelerating application migration

Business value lives in applications, and most enterprises maintain a large number of applications on older platforms. Some, like Windows Server 2008, are nearing their end of support date, and moving off those platforms is a priority, both in terms of risk and financial impact. To help, Chef announced a new EAS Migration Accelerator for Windows to scan existing .NET applications running on IIS to discover configuration and dependency details, then package the information as code. It provides a shortcut to build application packages in Chef Habitat in order to make applications portable. As a result, organizations can free themselves from older platforms and modernize how those applications are managed in any cloud or on prem environment.

If you are interested in learning more, or would like help assessing your readiness for application modernization or the effortless infrastructure pattern, be sure to visit chef.io/migration.

 

The post Chef Announcements: Making It Easier appeared first on Chef Blog.

Introducing the Contributor Entitlement Program

https://blog.chef.io/2019/05/21/introducing-the-contributor-entitlement-program/

Continuing our commitment to work in partnership with the Community, we are excited to announce the preliminary details to our Contributor Entitlement program.  At Chef, we recognize and value the Community's involvement and we are dedicated to enabling our contributors to use the very software they are helping to build.

Wondering what's in the "fine print" for what it takes to be eligible for a Contributor Entitlement?  Chef considers any of the following contributions to be qualifying:

• Publish and maintain at least 5 distinct content items
  • This could include Habitat Core Plans, InSpec Profiles, or Chef Community Cookbooks
• Submit, and have approved and merged, at least 5 PRs or Patches for the core Chef projects per year
  • We consider the core projects to be Chef Infra, InSpec, Habitat, and Automate
• Contribute and publish at least 10 meaningful contributions to official Chef documentation per year

Great news — you've checked off at least one of the items above (maybe more!) — and now you may be wondering what is included in your complimentary contributor license.  

Each qualifying account will be granted the equivalent of $15,000 USD of license entitlement (subject to review of your commercial relationship with Chef, should one exist). This gives our contributors the flexibility of deciding how best to apply the credit as it works for their business.  So feel free to use it on any combination of Chef products; we ask only that it be declared as part of the contract. We also require that entitlements be claimed within 12 months of the most recent qualifying contribution and be renewed annually. Thus, even though the entitlement expires annually, any ongoing contributions would qualify contributors to renew their contributor entitlement. 

With these details now finalized, our intent is to roll out the formal Contributor Entitlement program (and application process) by the end of June.  We are thrilled to be able to continue to closely collaborate with our Community and identify different ways to formally recognize these valuable contributions!

The post Introducing the Contributor Entitlement Program appeared first on Chef Blog.

Apple unveils groundbreaking new technologies for app development

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/apple-unveils-groundbreaking-new-technologies-for-app-development/

Apple unveils groundbreaking new technologies for app development
Breakthrough SwiftUI Framework, ARKit 3 and New Xcode Tools Make Developing Powerful Apps Easier and Faster Than Ever
San Jose, California — Apple today unveiled several innovative technologies that make it dramatically easier and faster for developers to create powerful new apps. SwiftUI is a revolutionary development framework that makes building powerful user interfaces easier than ever before. ARKit 3, RealityKit and Reality Composer are advanced tools designed to make it even easier for developers to create compelling AR experiences for consumer and business apps. New tools and APIs greatly simplify the process of bringing iPad apps to Mac. And updates to Core ML and Create ML allow for more powerful and streamlined on-device machine learning apps. 
"The new app development technologies unveiled today make app development faster, easier and more fun for developers, and represent the future of app creation across all Apple platforms," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "SwiftUI truly transforms user interface creation by automating large portions of the process and providing real-time previews of how UI code looks and behaves in-app. We think developers are going to love it." 
SwiftUI 
The vision for Swift has always been about making development faster, easier and more interactive, and a modern UI framework is a huge part of that vision. SwiftUI provides an extremely powerful and intuitive new user interface framework for building sophisticated app UIs. Using simple, easy-to-understand declarative code, developers can create stunning, full-featured user interfaces complete with smooth animations. SwiftUI saves developers time by providing a huge amount of automatic functionality including interface layout, Dark Mode, Accessibility, right-to-left language support and internationalization. SwiftUI apps run natively and are lightning fast. And because SwiftUI is the same API built into iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS, developers can more quickly and easily build rich, native apps across all Apple platforms. 
Xcode 11 Brings SwiftUI to Life 
A new graphical UI design tool built into Xcode 11 makes it easy for UI designers to quickly assemble a user interface with SwiftUI — without having to write any code. Swift code is automatically generated and when this code is modified, the changes to the UI instantly appear in the visual design tool. Now developers can see automatic, real-time previews of how the UI will look and behave as they assemble, test and refine their code. The ability to fluidly move between graphical design and writing code makes UI development more fun and efficient and makes it possible for software developers and UI designers to collaborate more closely. Previews can run directly on connected Apple devices, including iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch and Apple TV, allowing developers to see how an app responds to Multi-Touch, or works with the camera and on-board sensors — live, as the interface is being built. 
Augmented Reality 
ARKit 3 puts people at the center of AR. With Motion Capture, developers can integrate people's movement into their app, and with People Occlusion, AR content will show up naturally in front of or behind people to enable more immersive AR experiences and fun green screen-like applications. ARKit 3 also enables the front camera to track up to three faces, as well as simultaneous front and back camera support. It also enables collaborative sessions, which make it even faster to jump into a shared AR experience. 
RealityKit was built from the ground up for AR. It features a photorealistic rendering, as well as incredible environment mapping and support for camera effects like noise and motion blur, making virtual content nearly indistinguishable from reality. RealityKit also features incredible animation, physics and spatial audio, and developers can harness the capabilities of RealityKit with the new RealityKit Swift API. Reality Composer, a powerful new app for iOS, iPadOS and Mac, lets developers easily prototype and produce AR experiences with no prior 3D experience. With a simple drag-and-drop interface and a library of high-quality 3D objects and animations, Reality Composer lets developers place, move and rotate AR objects to assemble an AR experience, which can be directly integrated into an app in Xcode or exported to AR Quick Look. 
Easier to Bring iPad Apps to Mac 
New tools and APIs make it easier than ever to bring iPad apps to Mac. With Xcode, developers can open an existing iPad project and simply check a single box to automatically add fundamental Mac and windowing features, and adapt platform-unique elements like touch controls to keyboard and mouse — providing a huge head start on building a native Mac version of their app. Mac and iPad apps share the same project and source code, so any changes made to the code translate to both the iPadOS and macOS versions of the app, saving developers valuable time and resources by allowing one team to work on both versions of their app. With both the Mac and iPad versions of their apps, users will also enjoy the unique capabilities of each platform, including the precision and speed when using their Mac's keyboard, mouse, trackpad and unique Mac features like Touch Bar. 
Core ML and Create ML 
Core ML 3 supports the acceleration of more types of advanced, real-time machine learning models. With over 100 model layers now supported with Core ML, apps can use state-of-the-art models to deliver experiences that deeply understand vision, natural language and speech like never before. And for the first time, developers can update machine learning models on-device using model personalization. This cutting-edge technique gives developers the opportunity to provide personalized features without compromising user privacy. With Create ML, a dedicated app for machine learning development, developers can build machine learning models without writing code. Multiple-model training with different datasets can be used with new types of models like object detection, activity and sound classification. 
Apple Watch 
With the introduction of watchOS 6 and the App Store on Apple Watch, developers can now build and design apps for Apple Watch that can work completely independently, even without an iPhone. 
Developers can also take advantage of the Apple Neural Engine on Apple Watch Series 4 using Core ML. Incorporating Core ML-trained models into their apps and on-device interpretation of inputs gives users access to more intelligent apps. A new streaming audio API means users can stream from their favorite third-party media apps with just their Apple Watch. An extended runtime API gives apps additional time to accomplish tasks on Apple Watch while the app is still in the foreground, even if the screen turns off, including access to allowed sensors that measure heart rate, location and motion. 
Fast, Easy and Private Sign In Using Apple ID 
Sign In with Apple makes it easy for users to sign in to apps and websites using their existing Apple ID. Instead of filling out forms, verifying email addresses or choosing passwords, users simply use their Apple ID to set up an account and start using an app right away, improving the user's time to engagement. All accounts are protected with two-factor authentication, making Sign In with Apple a great way for developers to improve the security of their app. It also includes a new anti-fraud feature to give developers confidence that the new users are real people and not bots or farmed accounts. A new privacy-focused email relay service eliminates the need for users to disclose their personal email address, but still allows them to receive important messages from the app developer. And since Apple does not track users' app activity or create a profile of app usage, information about the developer's business and their users remains with the developer. 
Other Developer Features 

• PencilKit makes it easy for developers to add Apple Pencil support to their apps and includes the redesigned tool palette.

• SiriKit adds support for third-party audio apps, including music, podcasts and audiobooks, so developers can now integrate Siri directly into their iOS, iPadOS and watchOS apps, giving users the ability to control their audio with a simple voice command.

• MapKit now provides developers a number of new features such as vector overlays, point-of-interest filtering, camera zoom and pan limits, and support for Dark Mode.

• In addition to language enhancements targeted at SwiftUI, Swift 5.1 adds Module Stability — the critical foundation for building binary-compatible frameworks in Swift.

• Powerful new Metal Device families facilitate code sharing between multiple GPU types on all Apple platforms, while support for the iOS Simulator makes it simple to build Metal apps for iOS and iPadOS.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple's four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple's more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it. 
Press Contacts
Alex Bender,Apple, alex_bender@apple.com,(408) 862-6559
Stephanie Saffer,Apple, ssaffer@apple.com ,(408) 974-5160 
Apple Media Helpline,media.help@apple.com,(408) 974-2042

watchOS 6 advances health and fitness capabilities for Apple Watch

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/watchos-6-advances-health-and-fitness-capabilities-for-apple-watch/

watchOS 6 advances health and fitness capabilities for Apple Watch
Introducing Cycle Tracking, Noise app, Activity Trends and App Store Right on the Wrist
San Jose, California — Apple today previewed watchOS 6, which empowers Apple Watch users to better manage their health and fitness, and gives access to dynamic new watch faces and the App Store directly on Apple Watch. 
"Apple Watch has become an indispensable part of our customers' everyday lives, from helping users stay connected to the people and information they care about, to inspiring them to live a better and more active day," said Jeff Williams, Apple's chief operating officer. "watchOS 6 extends our commitment to helping users better manage their health and fitness with powerful and personal new tools." 
Health and Fitness 
The new Cycle Tracking app gives women the ability to log important information related to their menstrual cycles and see predicted timing for their next period and fertile window using the convenience of Apple Watch.¹ The daily log function enables the quick addition of information related to the menstrual cycle, including current period, flow, symptoms, results from ovulation prediction kits and other elements of fertility tracking. The new Cycle Tracking feature is also available in the Health app on iPhone with iOS 13. 
Maintenance of hearing health positively impacts the quality of life and studies have shown that hearing loss has been associated with cognitive decline.² With the optimal position of Apple Watch on the wrist, the Noise app helps users understand the sound levels in environments such as concerts and sporting events that could negatively impact hearing. As the sound levels change, the app's decibel meter moves in real time. The watch can send a notification if the decibel level reaches 90 decibels, which can begin to impact hearing after four hours per week of exposure at this level, according to the World Health Organization. 
Customers are passionate about closing their Activity rings and the new Trends tab in the Activity app on iPhone now gives users a long-term view of their activity behavior to help them understand their progress. At a glance, the tab shows whether the trends are up or down for key metrics such as active calories, exercise minutes, walking pace and others. If the last 90 days of activity shows a downward trend relative to the last 365 days, the Activity app offers coaching to help the user get back on track. 
App Store and Apps 
For the first time, watchOS 6 brings the App Store directly to Apple Watch. Users can easily install third-party apps, search for apps using Siri, dictation or Scribble and view app product pages designed for the watch screen right from the wrist. Developers can build Apple Watch-only apps, created to work independently on Apple Watch without an iOS app. 
Additional watchOS 6 Updates 

• watchOS 6 introduces dynamic new watch faces and customization options offering more personalization and access to favorite apps, contacts and information. These include: Modular Compact, Solar Dial, California, Gradient and Numerals faces.

• New developer tools include an audio API to stream music, radio and podcasts, an API to give extended runtime to session-based tasks, such as physical therapy and meditation, and Core ML now uses the Apple Neural Engine on Apple Watch Series 4, enabling faster processing of on-device inputs.

• The popular Voice Memos app is now available on Apple Watch.

• Audiobooks purchased on Apple Books are now available to listen to directly from the new Audiobooks app on the watch.

• The new Calculator app helps with tip calculations and splitting checks right from the wrist.

• Siri search queries can display webpage results in full on Apple Watch.

• Apple GymKit compatibility extends to manufacturers Octane Fitness, TRUE Fitness and Woodway, connecting Apple Watch to more cardio equipment in clubs around the world.

Privacy 
All Apple Watch features are designed to protect user privacy. None of the audio or sounds in the environment are saved by the Noise app or sent to Apple — only the decibel level is sampled. The information from Apple Watch health features, including the new Cycle Tracking app, will be visible within the redesigned Health app on iOS 13. All data is encrypted on-device and if iCloud back up is selected by the user, data is encrypted in iCloud. 
Summer Watch Bands 
New colors of the Sport Band and Sport Loop in Canary Yellow, Dragon Fruit and Cornflower are available beginning today, along with a new Pride Edition Sport Loop with a donation being made to the following LGBTQ advocacy organizations: Encircle, Gender Spectrum, GLSEN, ILGA, PFLAG, the National Center for Transgender Equality and The Trevor Project. 
Pricing and Availability 

• The developer preview of watchOS 6 is available to Apple Developer Program members at developer.apple.comstarting today. New software features will be available this fall as a free software update for Apple Watch Series 1 or later paired with iPhone 6s or later running iOS 13 or later. For more information, visit apple.com/watchos-preview. Features are subject to change. Some features may not be available in all regions or all languages or on all devices.

• New Apple Watch band colors are available to order on apple.com and in the Apple Store app, and will be available later this week at Apple Stores, as well as select Apple Authorized Resellers and carriers in the US and over 35 countries and regions.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple's four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple's more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it. 
¹ Fertile window predictions should not be used as a form of birth control.
² JAMA Internal Medicine, 2013. 
Press Contacts
Lance Lin,Apple,lance_lin@apple.com,(408) 974-5036
Nikki Rothberg,Apple,nrothberg@apple.com,(408) 974-4427
Apple Media Helpline,media.help@apple.com,(408) 974-2042

Sent from my iPhone