IDG Contributor Network: Cyberattack prediction to improve drastically

False positives are a scourge in cyberattack detection partly because of the way machine learning detects attacks. It’s done through what’s called anomaly detection where the artificial intelligence (AI) searches for code that isn’t as expected.That “tends to trigger false positives,” says MIT News, writing about a new AI platform that its scientists say will alleviate the trip-ups.The way they want to do it is to simply add humans to the mix. “Distrust of the system” means results have “to be investigated by humans, anyway,” MIT News says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Sleep and other patterns pinpoint individuals in datasets, study finds

A human’s “real-world movements” are so unique that people can be distinguished by their patterns, a new study conducted by Columbia University and Google finds. And that’s even if the datasets are anonymized.Sleep cycles captured by fitness IoT products, commuting schedules stored by bots, the days of the week that one goes to work and other habits could all one day be used to discern one person from another, the study says.What’s more, the computer scientists say all you need is one dataset to obtain results, for example, a few bank card transactions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Personal data is exposed by older, shortened URLs

Services that convert long, cumbersome URLs, such as those found in mapping directions, to short URLs are publicly exposing the original URL.Original addresses can be obtained through brute-force scanning, researchers say. And that vulnerability allows foes to track an individual’s possibly sensitive movements, as well as see perceived-of-as-private documents.Additionally, the brute force-exposed cloud documents could allow “adversaries” to “inject arbitrary malicious content into unlocked accounts, which is then automatically copied into all of the account owner’s devices,” say Vitaly Shmatikov, of Cornell Tech, and Martin Georgiev, an independent researcher, in their paper (PDF). They made the discovery.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Personal data is exposed by older, shortened URLs

Services that convert long, cumbersome URLs, such as those found in mapping directions, to short URLs are publicly exposing the original URL.Original addresses can be obtained through brute-force scanning, researchers say. And that vulnerability allows foes to track an individual’s possibly sensitive movements, as well as see perceived-of-as-private documents.Additionally, the brute force-exposed cloud documents could allow “adversaries” to “inject arbitrary malicious content into unlocked accounts, which is then automatically copied into all of the account owner’s devices,” say Vitaly Shmatikov, of Cornell Tech, and Martin Georgiev, an independent researcher, in their paper (PDF). They made the discovery.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Almost all of IT budgets will soon be dedicated to cloud, Intel study finds

The cloud is exploding globally, with most of IT spending soon to be allocated to cloud, according to a new Intel report.The technology company predicts that virtually all IT spending (80 percent) will be on cloud in the next 16 months. One reason is that ever-increasing digital activities “are leveraging cloud computing in some way,” the company said in its press release.And it’s happening quickly, according to the survey of 1,200 IT executives in eight countries, which was conducted by market research provider Vanson Bourne on behalf of Intel.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Marines launch cyberspace warfare group

The U.S. Marine Corps intends to protect its networks and communications with a new cyberspace operations team. Notably, the organization said its new unit will have an “offensive” element.“The Marine Corps is seeing the need for defense of its networks and communications,” a press release on the Marines Corps’ website explained. That will include “what can we do to hinder an enemy,” said Sgt. Brian Mueller, a digital network exploitation analyst with the new Marine Corps Cyberspace Warfare Group (MCCYWG), in the release. He is referring to the “offensive” element.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Marines launch cyberspace warfare group

The U.S. Marine Corps intends to protect its networks and communications with a new cyberspace operations team. Notably, the organization said its new unit will have an “offensive” element.“The Marine Corps is seeing the need for defense of its networks and communications,” a press release on the Marines Corps’ website explained. That will include “what can we do to hinder an enemy,” said Sgt. Brian Mueller, a digital network exploitation analyst with the new Marine Corps Cyberspace Warfare Group (MCCYWG), in the release. He is referring to the “offensive” element.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Marines launch cyberspace warfare group

The U.S. Marine Corps intends to protect its networks and communications with a new cyberspace operations team. Notably, the organization said its new unit will have an “offensive” element.“The Marine Corps is seeing the need for defense of its networks and communications,” a press release on the Marines Corps’ website explained. That will include “what can we do to hinder an enemy,” said Sgt. Brian Mueller, a digital network exploitation analyst with the new Marine Corps Cyberspace Warfare Group (MCCYWG), in the release. He is referring to the “offensive” element.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Teens will sell their personal information for cash, research finds

The equivalent of about $20, or the cost of a large pizza, is the amount of cash British kids would accept in exchange for handing over their personal information, a study has found.IT solutions and managed service firm Logicalis found kids (aged 13-17) were “instinctively digital” and that they fully comprehended the value of their personal information. Not only were the young scoundrels completely au fait with how much their personally identifiable information (PII) was worth, they were quite happy to sell it—if it meant they didn’t have to work.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Wi-Fi-based positioning improves access point security

Imagine if your router could detect a user’s location to within a few inches? For one thing, hotspot password protection becomes redundant because geographic authentication takes over—the router can be configured to only allow access from within a location, an apartment, say. In-café users could be allowed access without passwords, yet freeloaders on the street get blocked.Researchers think they’ve worked out how to do it.The system “locates users by calculating the ‘time-of-flight’ that it takes for data to travel from the user to an access point,” says Adam Conner-Simons in a recent MIT News article. And it does it with a single access point. That’s unlike other setups that require four or five access points for triangulation-like measuring. One access point determining a user’s position means costs should be lower, and individuals or small businesses can take advantage of the tech.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Wi-Fi-based positioning improves access point security

Imagine if your router could detect a user’s location to within a few inches? For one thing, hotspot password protection becomes redundant because geographic authentication takes over—the router can be configured to only allow access from within a location, an apartment, say. In-café users could be allowed access without passwords, yet freeloaders on the street get blocked.Researchers think they’ve worked out how to do it.The system “locates users by calculating the ‘time-of-flight’ that it takes for data to travel from the user to an access point,” says Adam Conner-Simons in a recent MIT News article. And it does it with a single access point. That’s unlike other setups that require four or five access points for triangulation-like measuring. One access point determining a user’s position means costs should be lower, and individuals or small businesses can take advantage of the tech.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Home IoT devices are wide open, security provider discovers

Reverse-engineering a password in a Wi-Fi-driven WeMo light switch by using the decryption code from the device is among the security debacles uncovered by IoT security hardware solution firm Bitdefender.To add insult to injury, Bitdefender told the device maker about the discovered vulnerability last fall, when it discovered the problem, and as of February, it still hadn’t been fixed, Bitdefender says in its study Risks in the Connected Home.And the WeMo wasn’t the only IoT device Bitdefender found lacking.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Home IoT devices are wide open, security provider discovers

Reverse-engineering a password in a Wi-Fi-driven WeMo light switch by using the decryption code from the device is among the security debacles uncovered by IoT security hardware solution firm Bitdefender.To add insult to injury, Bitdefender told the device maker about the discovered vulnerability last fall, when it discovered the problem, and as of February, it still hadn’t been fixed, Bitdefender says in its study Risks in the Connected Home.And the WeMo wasn’t the only IoT device Bitdefender found lacking.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Banks are failing to capitalize on Big Data, says financial IT expert

Banks are neglecting to analyze the highly useful data being generated by new kinds of consumer-facing products, like apps, says an expert in the financial IT sector.Many financial institutions are overlooking key intelligence and indicators that they could be taking advantage of to re-invent themselves and ultimately compete with future disruption, thinks Deanne Yamato-Tucker, who heads Xavient Information Systems’ banking and financial services practice. Banking disruption could include peer-to-peer, blockchain and services like Bitcoin, for example.“Banks need to address the threat from new entrants such as PayPal, Google, Amazon, Apple, and P2P FX,” Yamato-Tucker told me in an e-mail. But they’re not managing their data properly to do so, she thinks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Light will ultimately secure the Internet, scientists say

The Internet will eventually be secured from hackers by a technology called quantum photonics, say researchers. Single light particles will ultimately be used to exchange information in secure systems, they think. The technique is part of quantum computing. And now that a limitation has been overcome, the scientists at the University of Sydney say that the ultra-secure system is one step closer to realization. It’s been guessed at that photonics will be the future of security, however figuring out how to create a single photon has been holding back the forward movement in the research, the team says in a news release on the university’s website. They now think they’ve figured out how to do it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Grow lunar-based solar panels to eliminate fossil-fuel reliance, says kid

IDG Contributor Network: Grow lunar-based solar panels to eliminate fossil-fuel reliance, says kid

Nearly 200 countries signed the fossil fuel ramp-down agreement in Paris at the end of last year. New goals are now in place to end the use of fossil fuels worldwide. No more global warming could be in the cards.Sounds good, right? Well it probably is, but there’s a slight problem: Just how are we going to power our smartphones, homes, factories, and Internets without coal and gas? That’s a lot of solar panels and windfarms needed—and needed quickly.One high school kid reckons he’s got the answer, reported Popular Science magazine a few weeks ago: Just stick a bunch of solar panels on the moon and beam the power back down to Earth by microwave.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Add more antennas to base stations for 5G efficiencies, say researchers

Samsung, Huawei and others maybe barking up the wrong tree, or wrong cell tower, when it comes to 5G, if researchers at two universities in Europe are correct.The scientist there think that it might not be necessary to shift mobile networks up the frequency spectrum and into the millimeter bands to gain efficiencies, and thus serve more users with increasing speeds and bandwidth.+ MORE ON 5G 5G: A look at radios and spectrum +All you need do is create bigger antenna arrays, the scientists from the University of Bristol and Lund University believe. With a “massive antenna system,” existing microwave frequencies would work just fine for 5G, they surmise.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Half of Americans now stream video, says consultant

Streaming and binge watching have taken over from live television consumption among some demographics, a major consulting firm says.A significant 70% of American consumers overall “now binge watch an average of five episodes at a time,” says Deloitte in a press release about its 10th annual, and latest, Digital Democracy Survey (Summary PDF).Half of consumers (46%) now “subscribe to streaming video services,” the consultant says it’s found.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Small cell deployment to rapidly grow, says report

Small cells, the low-powered radio access nodes, are being deployed at ever increasing rates, says a study. Sixty-percent of enterprises will have deployed the signal-enhancing devices by the end of 2017, the Small Cell Forum says. It commissioned the study from Nemertes Research. The study, published in February, discovered that 14% of businesses have already introduced the technology. The reason for the growth is to fulfill a need for better mobile coverage in hard to reach spots not covered by regular mobile service. + ALSO: 10 top reasons for integrating Wi-Fi radios in small cellular cells +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here