When you get paid to assess computer security practices, you get a lot of visibility into what does and doesn’t work across the corporate spectrum. I’ve been fortunate enough to do exactly that as a security consultant for more than 20 years, analyzing anywhere between 20 to 50 companies of varying sizes each year. If there’s a single conclusion I can draw from that experience, it’s that successful security strategies are not about tools -- it's about teams.
With very good people in the right places, supportive management, and well-executed protective processes, you have the makings of a very secure company, regardless of the tools you use. Companies that have an understanding of the importance and value of computer security as a crucial part of the business, not merely as a necessary evil, are those least likely to suffer catastrophic breaches. Every company thinks they have this culture; few do.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
At St. Joseph Health, David Baker has made it his mission to give patients a more personalized and transparent experience in the way they communicate with the healthcare facility, either through interactions with their doctors or simply setting up their next medical appointment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Make a good phone even betterImage by Ryan WhitwamHTC knew it had something to prove with the HTC 10, and it's a very good phone. It has solid performance, excellent design, and the latest Sense interface is only a mild change from stock Android. Even with all its good points, you can make your new HTC 10 even better. We've got 15 tips and tricks to make the HTC 10 the best device it can possible be.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In theory, nobody should be paying any money to the ransomware extortionists. Doesn't everyone have backups these days? Even consumer has access to a wide variety of free or low-cost backup services.
But the headlines are full of reports about institutions such as hospitals and police departments, organizations that should have business continuity plans in place with solid backup strategies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With 10 interconnected knowledge areas that incorporate the use of 47 processes organized into five process groups, project management can be a multifaceted maze to navigate. Developing a deeper understanding of this discipline can be an all-consuming and intimidating task at times, and just trying to find out where to turn for training can feel overwhelming.5. Professional books and articlesTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
A recent test of pre-installed updater software on 10 laptops showed that every single one had security problems."We went and bought about 10 laptops," said Darren Kemp, security researcher at Duo Security. "And every single vendor had their own piece of software to perform software updates, including the Microsoft Signature Editions, and they were all pretty terrible."For example, some laptop manufacturers weren't using encryption in their updaters."We found exploitable vulnerabilities in every vendor," he said.We found exploitable vulnerabilities in every vendor.
Darren Kemp, security researcher at Duo SecurityTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Ecommerce vendors are increasingly under pressure to deliver the most relevant products to site visitors. As choices available to consumers increase, so too does the requirement to filter the myriad of options and offer the most relevant products in response to a consumer's search. It is for this reason that ecommerce search tools from companies such as SLI Systems are increasingly important.Another player in the space is stealth Israeli company Twiggle. Twiggle combines the buzzwords du jour—machine learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing—and delivers them within the context of ecommerce search.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
At the MIT EmTech Digital conference, startup Nervana announced plans to design and build a custom ASIC processor for neural networks and machine learning applications that the company’s CEO, Naveen Rao, claims will run 10 times faster than graphic processor units (GPU).The news comes after Google last week announced it had secretly deployed its neural network and machine-learning-tailored processors in its data centers about a year ago. The company reported that its custom processor had improved performance by an order of magnitude. Google’s approach and improvements in performance validate Nervana’s technical strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The wait for Intel's Kaby Lake chip will end in the third quarter this year, as the first PC with the 7th Generation Core chip was announced at Computex.
Kaby Lake, the successor to Intel's Skylake Core processor chips, will be in the Asus Transformer 3 tablet. The device is much like Microsoft's Surface Pro 4, and will ship in the third quarter starting at US$799, according to a blog entry on Microsoft's website.
The Transformer 3 was among a gaggle of PC and phone products announced by Asus at Computex. No other Kaby Lake PC has been announced yet, but expect Lenovo, HP, Dell and others to follow suit.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Nvidia has staked a big chunk of its future on supplying powerful graphics chips used for artificial intelligence, so it wasn't a great day for the company when Google announced two weeks ago that it had built its own AI chip for use in its data centers.Google's Tensor Processing Unit, or TPU, was built specifically for deep learning, a branch of AI through which software trains itself to get better at deciphering the world around it, so it can recognize objects or understand spoken language, for example.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Owners of WordPress-based websites should update the Jetpack plug-in as soon as possible because of a serious flaw that could expose their users to attacks.Jetpack is a popular plug-in that offers free website optimization, management and security features. It was developed by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and the WordPress open-source project, and has over 1 million active installations.Researchers from Web security firm Sucuri have found a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that affects all Jetpack releases since 2012, starting with version 2.0.The issue is located in the Shortcode Embeds Jetpack module which allows users to embed external videos, images, documents, tweets and other resources into their content. It can be easily exploited to inject malicious JavaScript code into comments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A recent study, Online tracking: A 1-million-site measurement and analysis, conducted by researchers at Princeton University discovered that Google is tracking users on nearly 80 percent of all of the Top 1 Million Domains. How are they doing this? Not surprisingly, they’re using a variety of tracking and identification techniques and they’re doing it for the obvious reason: To manipulate you. In the beginning tracking you was just about getting you to buy stuff; now, it’s evolving, and in the future, it will be all about subtle, insidious manipulation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
According to ESG research, 75 percent of organizations currently use a public cloud service, while another 19 percent have plans or interest in doing so. Furthermore, 56 percent of all public cloud-based workloads are considered IT production workloads, while the remaining 44 percent are classified as non-production workloads (i.e., test, development, staging, etc.).This trend has lots of traditional IT vendors somewhat worried, and they should be. Nevertheless, some IT veterans believe there are limitations to this movement. Yes, pedestrian workloads may move to the public cloud over the next few years, but business-critical applications, key network-based business processes and sensitive data should (and will) remain firmly planted in enterprise data centers now and forever.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Omron 10 series wireless blood pressure monitor averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 4,450 customers (read reviews). With a regular list price of $99.99, this 35% off deal puts it at just $64.99. The bluetooth monitor is compatible with Omron's free iOS and Android apps. It features multi-color indicator lights which show if your readings is in the normal (green) or hypertension (orange) range. BP level bar displays how your reading compares to normal home blood pressure levels. An Easy-Wrap ComFit Cuff inflates around your entire arm to avoid incorrect cuff positioning. It automatically takes 3 consecutive readings one minute apart and displays the average, following guidelines set by the American Heart Association. An easy-to-read display with extra-large digits & backlight make results easier to read. The unit stores 200 readings in device or 100 each for 2 users, and operates with an included AC Adapter or 4 AA batteries. See the discounted Omron 10 series bluetooth blood pressure monitor on Amazon now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Maybe you're in the middle of a software deployment and need advice from someone who's been there. Perhaps you're seeking a new mentor to help you carve out a career path or improve an existing skillset. Either way, navigating LinkedIn's waters, which are full of HR representatives, recruiters, jobseekers and managers, isn't always easy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
A proposal in the U.S. Senate to require smartphone OS developers and other tech vendors to break their own encryption at the request of law enforcement may be dead on arrival.The proposal, released as a discussion draft last month, may not be formally introduced this year because of strong opposition, according to a Reuters report.The draft bill, pushed by Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, would allow judges to order tech companies to comply with requests from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to help them defeat security measures and break into devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Data is the new natural resource of our time. Information that was previously thrown away is transforming every facet of business as organizations use technology to query and analyze data in real time to help them better understand their customers’ behaviour and markets. Such knowledge and insight is helping businesses make better decisions and improve performance.
Yet for data to be worth anything, organizations must have the ability to store it. With more data being created every 20 minutes than is currently held by the Library of Congress, many organizations are overwhelmed by petabytes (one petabyte is the equivalent of 20 million filing cabinets of text). As a result, companies are moving to the cloud—not only because of its flexibility, cost efficiency and reliability, but because of the impact of “data gravity.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Over the past week, computers throughout Europe and other places have been hit by a massive email spam campaign carrying malicious JavaScript attachments that install the Locky ransomware program.Antivirus firm ESET has observed a spike in detections of JS/Danger.ScriptAttachment, a malware downloader written in JavaScript that started on May 22 and peaked on May 25.Many countries in Europe have been affected, with the highest detection rates being observed in Luxembourg (67 percent), the Czech Republic (60 percent), Austria (57 percent), the Netherlands (54 percent) and the U.K. (51 percent). The company's telemetry data also showed significant detection rates for this threat in Canada and the U.S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Six technology companies, including Google, are working on trial projects in multiple U.S. cities to test out shared 3.5GHz spectrum wireless communications under an innovative model adopted recently by the Federal Communications Commission.The companies are working in an coalition that is tentatively being called the CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) Alliance, which borrows the CBRS terminology from the FCC. Some of the companies in the alliance have already demonstrated what they call OpenG technology, which uses 3.5GHz shared spectrum to improve indoor wireless communications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here