Deception tools have been growing in popularity over the past several years, but customers need to ensure they are using the technology to its fullest potential. The concept behind deception is fairly simple to understand: Security teams deploy a fake target that is monitored closely, which hackers will attack. Once the target is breached, the security team is alerted to the threat. In my experience, the use of deception technology is relatively low compared to the amount of time, energy and money invested in traditional intrusion prevention systems. Part of the challenge of deception is that maintaining things such as decoys, breadcrumbs and honeypots can be difficult in environments that are always changing. However, networks are becoming more agile through the use of software, making deception technology more agile and easier to use. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Uber Technologies has agreed to provide next month its diversity data, which it had earlier declined to make public.Representatives of the ride hailing company will disclose the information at the PUSHTech2020 summit on April 19 in Silicon Valley.The move comes at a time when the company has run into a number of controversies, including sexism charges leveled by a former employee, the exit of some key executives and a lawsuit from self-driving car rival Waymo.The announcement follows a meeting Thursday between Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow Push Coalition, which has been demanding higher representation for minorities in tech companies, according to a statement issued by the coalition.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
FBI director James Comey has suggested that an international agreement between governments could ease fears about IT products with government-mandated backdoors, but privacy advocates are doubtful.Speaking on Thursday, Comey suggested that the U.S. might work with other countries on a “framework” for creating legal access to encrypted tech devices.“I could imagine a community of nations committed to the rule of law developing a set of norms, a framework, for when government access is appropriate,” he said on Thursday.Comey made his comments at the University of Texas at Austin, when trying to address a key concern facing U.S. tech firms in the encryption debate: the fear that providing government access to their products might dampen their business abroad.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Simple, intuitive and easy to use. The Wii Remote Plus is a unique controller for the Wii and Wii U video game systems, now with the increased sensitivity of Wii MotionPlus built-in. The button presses of typical controllers are replaced by the natural, fluid motion of your hand. The Wii Remote Plus senses your every action and makes you feel less like a player and more like you're part of the game. This Wii remote is highly rated, and currently discounted 32% on Amazon to just $27.15, saving you almost $13. See this deal now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft's push into the connected car space has moved up a gear with a new patent licensing agreement with Toyota. The world's second-largest auto maker will have access to a range of Microsoft patents as part of the deal announced this week.
Rather than trying to build a high-tech automobile of its own, Microsoft is focusing on providing carmakers with the tools they need to create smarter vehicles and the Toyota deal is the first of what it hopes will be a series of such agreements.
Microsoft offers an entire suite of cloud services aimed at aiding the development of internet-enabled automobiles and is also integrating its Cortana virtual assistant into cars alongside PCs, phones and other devices. In the future, a connected car could become a rolling extension of a user’s office, with Office 365 integrations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Step on the deck and go with Razor Hovertrax 2.0, the world’s smartest self-balancing electric scooter. Intelligently-engineered with EverBalance technology, Hovertrax 2.0 is the only board that auto-levels for a safer, easier mount and a smoother ride. Whether you’re coasting, racing, or commuting, Hovertrax 2.0 is always in balance. Indoors or out, Hovertrax 2.0 does the work so you can enjoy the journey. Hovertrax 2.0: technology so advanced, it’s simple. Once you learn how to ride, it becomes second nature. Razor was also the first U.S. brand to receive the UL 2272 listing for safety, ensuring that the Hovertrax 2.0 meets or exceeds the highest fire and electrical safety standards. The HoverTrax 2.0 has a list price of $459.99 has been reduced 20% to just 369.99. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A group of hackers threatening to wipe data from Apple devices attached to millions of iCloud accounts didn't obtain whatever log-in credentials they have through a breach of the company's services, Apple said."There have not been any breaches in any of Apple's systems including iCloud and Apple ID," an Apple representative said in an emailed statement. "The alleged list of email addresses and passwords appears to have been obtained from previously compromised third-party services."A group calling itself the Turkish Crime Family claims to have login credentials for more than 750 million icloud.com, me.com and mac.com email addresses, and the group says more than 250 million of those credentials provide access to iCloud accounts that don't have two-factor authentication turned on.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.In a recent Network World article Jon Oltsik noted that Incident Response (IR) automation is becoming a very hot topic in the info security world. Oltsik called out multiple factors driving demand for IR automation and orchestration, including the manual nature of IR work, the cyber skills shortage and the difficulty of coordinating activity between SecOps and DevOps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The cloud is full of free storage, if you know where to look.From Box to DropBox, Google to Apple, there’s plenty of free storage to be had in the cloud. Many companies use free cloud storage as a way to entice users into their clouds in hopes that they will pay more for additional storage.Below, in alphabetical order, are 18 free cloud services – but a word of warning: The market for free cloud storage is volatile and offers from these vendors can change frequently, including being eliminated with little or no warning.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: 7 ways to supercharge your personal cloud storage+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
HP is having a spring sale, and they've discounted the LaserJet Enterprise M506dh Printer by a whopping $1,100 if you use the special coupon code BMA165655 between now and 3/31. This HP Laser Monochrome Printer has a steadfast printing speed of up to 45 ppm -- perfect when you have a progressive printing system in mind. Its 1200x1200 dpi copy ensures sheer, precise copies in result. It’s an f2a71a#201 Automatic duplex printer that can absorb up to 250 sheets on its output bin, and does a 100-sheet on its multipurpose tray 1, while it can work suitably with 550-sheet on its 2 and 3 input trays. It can perform with 650 sheets on a standard paper input, and 250 standard paper output sheets. It can print out 150,000 pages on a monthly duty cycle. Use the coupon code BMA165655 to save big money for a limited time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The new Raspberry Pi Zero W was designed to be a board to make internet-of-things devices, but a key OS from Google won't work on the hardware.Google's Android Things IoT OS will not work with the small developer board, which is partly a wireless board, partly a gadget development tool. The Zero W is priced at US$10.The Zero W has a 1GHz single-core BCM2835 processor, which is based on the ARMv6 architecture.Android Things does not support ARMv6, so the OS will not work on the board. The OS is specially tuned to work with specific chipsets.The BCM2835 chip is the same in the original Raspberry Pi developer boards.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. CIA has had tools to infect Apple Mac computers by connecting malicious Thunderbolt Ethernet adapters to them since 2012, according to new documents purported to be from the agency and published by WikiLeaks.One of the documents, dated Nov. 29, 2012, is a manual from the CIA's Information Operations Center on the use of a technology codenamed Sonic Screwdriver. It is described as "a mechanism for executing code on peripheral devices while a Mac laptop or desktop is booting."Sonic Screwdriver allows the CIA to modify the firmware of an Apple Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter so that it forces a Macbook to boot from an USB stick or DVD disc even when its boot options are password protected.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. CIA has had tools to infect Apple Mac computers by connecting malicious Thunderbolt Ethernet adapters to them since 2012, according to new documents purported to be from the agency and published by WikiLeaks.
One of the documents, dated Nov. 29, 2012, is a manual from the CIA's Information Operations Center on the use of a technology codenamed Sonic Screwdriver. It is described as "a mechanism for executing code on peripheral devices while a Mac laptop or desktop is booting."
Sonic Screwdriver allows the CIA to modify the firmware of an Apple Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter so that it forces a Macbook to boot from an USB stick or DVD disc even when its boot options are password protected.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A “Top News” tweet from TechCrunch, pictured above, informs me that Alaska Airlines is killing off Virgin America … and Richard Branson?Clicking through reveals a less gruesome reality. TechCrunch
If you’re interested in Alaska Airlines’ reasoning, which does not threaten Richard Branson, here is a company blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I’ve been a fan of the work of the GNOME team for quite some time. They put together one heck of an excellent Linux desktop environment. But of late, I’ve found myself gravitating towards some of the more lightweight environments. MATE (which is a forked version of GNOME 2) and xmonad. I like my systems to be light on resource usage and highly responsive—those are two absolutely critical things for the way I use my computers. With this week’s release of GNOME 3.24, I decided to jump back into the world of modern GNOME desktops and kick the tires again. In order to give it the best possible shot, I did a clean install of openSUSE Tumbleweed (the rolling release version of openSUSE) and then installed GNOME 3.24 on top of it. (Side note: 3.24 was not yet available in the default repositories when I wrote this article, but it should be shortly.) To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Andy Traba is Vice President of Behavioral and Data Science at Mattersight, a company that spun out of eLoyalty about six years ago to pursue the idea that you can identify communication preferences through speech analysis and use that knowledge to improve call center performance. Traba, who runs the team that is responsible for generating algorithms that turn freeform conversations into data, as well as the team that builds applications around those datasets, explained how it works to Network World Editor in Chief John Dix. Mattersight
Andy Traba, Vice President of Behavioral and Data Science, MattersightTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel's artificial intelligence efforts have been scattered over many different units but are now being united into a single operating group.The Artificial Intelligence Products Group will focus on the development of chips and software products tied to machine learning, algorithms, and deep learning.The new group could become Intel's single most important group as companies implement machine learning into operations. Intel is tweaking more chips and developing software to take on workloads like analytics, image recognition, and automation.Intel is designing a new Xeon Phi chip code-named Knights Mill that will focus on machine learning. Additionally, it is applying its wide portfolio of FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) to artificial intelligence. Intel also offers many software tools for deep learning, like its Deep Learning SDK.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Senate has voted to kill broadband provider privacy regulations prohibiting them from selling customers' web-browsing histories and other data without their permission.The Senate's 50-48 vote Thursday on a resolution of disapproval would roll back Federal Communications Commission rules requiring broadband providers to receive opt-in customer permission to share sensitive personal information, including web-browsing history, geolocation, and financial details with third parties. The FCC approved the regulations just five months ago.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Steven Bay, a former defense contractor, knows a thing or two about insider threats. For a brief period, he was the boss of Edward Snowden, the famous leaker who stole sensitive files from the U.S. National Security Agency.Recalling the day he learned Snowden had been behind the NSA leaks back in June 2013, Bay said he received texts about the breaking news while in a leadership meeting at a church. The first text said "Sorry man, looks like your worst nightmare came true."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you're trying to improve your ability to attract top talent without sacrificing your commitment to diversity and inclusion, consider using a "candidate persona" strategy.The concept is similar to creating "buyer personas" in marketing, says Maren Hogan, CEO of Red Branch Media, in a session at SourceCon, last week in Anaheim, Calif."A candidate persona is a fictionalized representation of your ideal hire for a specific role. This should mostly be based on data, but it also requires a bit of intuition and even some guesswork. Think about who you are looking for; who is this person? What do they do with their days? What are their primary concerns, inside and outside of work? What hobbies and activities are important to them? What's keeping them up at night?" Hogan says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here