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Assange: CIA had lost control of its cyberweapon documents

Information about purported CIA cyberattacks was "passed around" among members of the U.S. intelligence community and contractors before it was published by WikiLeaks this week, Julian Assange says.The CIA "lost control of its entire cyberweapons arsenal," the WikiLeaks editor in chief said during a press conference Thursday. "This is a historic act of devastating incompetence, to have created such an arsenal and stored all in one place and not secured it."Assange declined to name the source who gave the information to WikiLeaks, but he seemed to suggest the 8,700-plus documents, purportedly from an isolated CIA server, came from an insider source.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Texas hospital struggles to make IBM’s Watson cure cancer

If IBM is looking for a new application for its Watson machine learning tools, it might consider putting health care providers' procurement and systems integration woes ahead of curing cancer.After spending more than four years and US$62 million on its Oncology Expert Advisor project, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas still looking for answers in all those areas.The fall-out from that project has now prompted the resignation of the cancer center's president, Ronald DePinho, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Basic training: Cybersecurity lessons inspired by an opportunistic developer

Today, not only do we see a significant increase in the number of cyber attacks, but by design the incidents are also more fearless and larger in their scale and impact to the business. According to Cisco, the frequency of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks has increased more than 2.5 times since 2013, with the current average DDoS attack large enough to take many organizations completely offline.RELATED: Machine learning offers new hope against cyber attacks Most businesses have cybersecurity initiatives, but how can we be sure the policies and people are keeping pace with the threats that are becoming more dynamic as technology progresses? TechRepublic reported that an estimated 90 million cyber attacks occurred in 2016, which means 400 attacks every minute. As data travels through a virtual ecosystem, security must extend beyond the device itself. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

22% off 4 Person Premium 72 Hour Survival Kit Backpack – Deal Alert

If you like to be prepared for the unexpected, consider this 4-person premium survival kit for disasters and emergency preparedness, which contains enough food, water and emergency supplies to last a family of 4 for 72 hours. Over 245 pieces that meet or exceed Red Cross guidelines for preparedness are packaged neatly in packs. The included food and water are U.S. Coast Guard certified, and the kit contains a hard-shell Lifeline First Aid kit and LifeGear LED Flashlight. Its typical list price of $179.95 has been reduced 22% to $139.95. See this deal now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Astro is an AI-powered email client with big dreams

If there’s one source of technological frustration at work, it’s email. Getting a job done often still relies on sending chains of messages back and forth to the extent that it would be nice to have an assistant to help deal with it all.That’s the idea behind Astro, a new app that applies artificial intelligence to email in an attempt to make life easier for its users. Its marquee feature is Astrobot, a chatbot powered by machine learning that’s designed to keep users abreast of what’s important in their inbox.For example, Astrobot will read through users’ emails and notify them when they’ve been asked important questions. It can also be used to unsubscribe from emails, clean out a user’s inbox and more. That functionality sits on top of a solid, modern email client, which entered public beta on Mac and iOS Thursday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Recent Amazon outage highlights need for cloud automation

As most internet users are aware, last week Amazon faced one of its largest service outages since the launch of Amazon Web Services (AWS). The list of disrupted businesses read like a dire who's who of the internet, from Netflix to Pinterest to Airbnb. The cause of the AWS S3 outage appears to be a fat-finger typo by an authorized Amazon system administrator who was troubleshooting an unrelated problem.It happens, and it happens often.According to research from Ponemon Institute in 2016, at least 22 percent of data center outages each year are caused by human error. Outages have far-ranging impacts, from business disruption and lost revenue, to end user productivity. The average cost of an outage has increased by 38 percent since 2010 from $505,502 to $740,357 in 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM technology moves even closer to human speech recognition parity

IBM this week said its speech recognition system set an industry record of 5.5% word error rate, a percentage that lets a computer understand human conversation almost as well as the average person does.According to IBM human parity was considered a 5.9% word error rate but IBM who partnered with Appen, a speech and technology service provider, reassessed the industry benchmark and determined that human parity is lower than what anyone has yet achieved: 5.1%.+More on Network World: Gartner: Artificial intelligence, algorithms and smart software at the heart of big network changes+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: QNAP TVS-882T NAS piles on the features

We’ve seen a steady flow of multifunction NAS boxes over the years. What began as relatively straightforward uses of Linux software RAID and mildly customized hardware has blossomed into a crop of multifaceted appliances that sport a full-on rampage of capabilities. In some cases, the NAS functionality may be one of the more minor considerations. QNAP’s TVS-882T is a prime example of this new class of NAS.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Google machine learning gains Kaggle and more

Google has already carved out a niche for itself in machine learning with projects like TensorFlow and Google Brain. Now, it's adding data science provider Kaggle, which runs contests related to machine learning and provides services for data discovery and analysis, to the fold. The company also is moving ahead with other machine learning projects, including an API providing intelligence for video.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Profiling 10 types of hackers

Different shapes and sizesImage by ThinkstockHackers, like the attacks they perpetrate, come in many forms, with motivations that range from monetary to political to ethical. Understanding the different types of hackers that exist and what motivates them can help you to identify the attackers you are most susceptible to and properly defend yourself and your organization against cyberattacks. Travis Farral, director of security strategy at Anomali, outlines the top 10 types of hackers you should have on your radar.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bots: Biggest player on the cybercrime block

In the world of cybercrime, ransomware and DDoS attacks had the highest profile by far during the past year. There was an entire day devoted to a ransomware “summit” at the recent RSA conference in San Francisco.But when it comes to money being lost (and made), bot fraud is king – by a lot.Most estimates of losses in the US from ransomware during 2016 were in the $1 billion range. By contrast, a study published in January 2016 by White Ops and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) titled “Bot Baseline: Fraud in Digital Advertising,” estimated global losses in 2016 would be $7.2 billion.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Darktrace finds more attacks, cuts response time, saves money for Blackhawk Network

Blackhawk Network, a $1.9 billion multinational in the prepaid-card industry, was undergoing a consolidation of its security architecture in an effort to give better visibility into threats as they unfolded and that would also adapt to the threat environment as attackers changed their strategies. That included hiring a new head of cyber defense, Vari Bindra, in December of 2015, who wanted to create a central security operations center and consolidate the company’s varied data centers down to just two. As he set out on that mission, he came across the Enterprise Immune System made by Darktrace that uses machine learning to detect threats, including those it has never seen before.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hackers exploit Apache Struts vulnerability to compromise corporate web servers

Attackers are widely exploiting a recently patched vulnerability in Apache Struts that allows them to remotely execute malicious code on web servers.Apache Struts is an open-source web development framework for Java web applications. It's widely used to build corporate websites in sectors including education, government, financial services, retail and media.On Monday, the Apache Struts developers fixed a high-impact vulnerability in the framework's Jakarta Multipart parser. Hours later, an exploit for the flaw appeared on Chinese-language websites and this was almost immediately followed by real-world attacks, according to researchers from Cisco Systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Here’s your augmented & virtual reality: bloody vendor battles, expected iPhone support & seeing into IoT

As anyone who has sampled the immersive worlds of early augmented or virtual reality apps can attest, the experience can be downright exhilarating. So too will be the vendor battles that erupt and the commercial uses to emerge around the technologies.So says Tom Mainelli, program vice president for devices and AR/VR at IDC, which held its annual Directions conference in Boston this week. Mainelli is excited about the prospect that these eventually comingled technologies will enable us to “fundamentally rethink how we create information, share information and absorb information.”VIRTUAL REALITY Mainelli first dove into VR, which he said basically involves “leaving one reality for another.” A recent IDC survey of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers found that three quarters of them said they had heard of VR and knew what it was – not surprising in light of all the new technology rolled out last year from the likes of Samsung, Facebook/Oculus and HTC. So yes, VR has gotten off to a faster start than AR through gaming apps and low-end gear such as Google Cardboard, but it could eventually become a subset of AR, the industry watcher said.To read this article in full Continue reading

AR & VR outlook: bloody vendor battles, iPhone support & peering into IoT

As anyone who has sampled the immersive worlds of early augmented or virtual reality apps can attest, the experience can be downright exhilarating. So too will be the vendor battles that erupt and the commercial uses to emerge around the technologies. So says Tom Mainelli, program vice president for devices and AR/VR at IDC, which held its annual Directions conference in Boston this week. Mainelli is excited about the prospect that these eventually comingled technologies will enable us to “fundamentally rethink how we create information, share information and absorb information.”VIRTUAL REALITY Mainelli first dove into VR, which he said basically involves “leaving one reality for another.” A recent IDC survey of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers found that three quarters of them said they had heard of VR and knew what it was – not surprising in light of all the new technology rolled out last year from the likes of Samsung, Facebook/Oculus and HTC. So yes, VR has gotten off to a faster start than AR through gaming apps and low-end gear such as Google Cardboard, but it could eventually become a subset of AR, the industry watcher said.To read this article in full Continue reading

Apple has already fixed most of the iOS exploits the CIA used

WikiLeaks is back at it again, this time with more than 8,700 leaked documents apparently from inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence. According to those documents, the CIA had knowledge of zero-day exploits it could use to hack iPhones. But Apple said many of those bugs have already been patched with the latest version of iOS.The WikiLeaks documents didn’t include details of the bugs or whether the CIA has actually used them, so it’s unclear if or how Apple knows the exploits have been patched. But the company released a statement to multiple media outlets following the WikiLeaks dump on Tuesday: “Apple is deeply committed to safeguarding our customers’ privacy and security. The technology built into today’s iPhone represents the best data security available to consumers, and we’re constantly working to keep it that way. Our products and software are designed to quickly get security updates into the hands of our customers, with nearly 80 percent of users running the latest version of our operating system. While our initial analysis indicates that many of the issues leaked today were already patched in the latest OS, we will continue work to rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities. We always urge Continue reading

20% off Pre-order of Mass Effect Andromeda – Deal Alert

Mass Effect Andromeda will be releasing on March 21, 2017 and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon. If you're an Amazon Prime Member (or have a free trial -- get one here) you'll see the price drop an extra 20% on Mass Effect Andromeda (PC, PlayStation 4 or Xbox One). Price drop activates when you add it to your cart, and sinks the price from $59.99 to $39.99.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook, Microsoft target faster services with new AI server designs

Facebook on Wednesday rolled out some staggering statistics related to its social networks. Each day, users watch 100 million hours of video, 400 million people use Messenger, and more than 95 million photos and videos are posted on Instagram.That puts a heavy load on Facebook's servers in data centers, which help orchestrate all these services to ensure timely responses. In addition, Facebook's servers use machine learning technologies to improve services, with one visible example being image recognition.The story is similar for Microsoft, which is continually looking to balance the load on its servers. For example, Microsoft's data centers apply machine learning for natural language services like Cortana.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM fits a bit on an atom, eyeing ever-smaller devices

While many IT departments grapple with big data, IBM says it has the smallest data in the world: one bit on one atom.Researchers at IBM’s Almaden lab in San Jose, California, have written and read a bit of data on a single atom using magnetism, a feat they say is a world first. It could lead to storage that’s hundreds of times denser than anything available now, able to hold the entire Apple iTunes library of 35 million songs on a device the size of a credit card, the company says.Much denser storage could mean smaller phones, PCs, and even data centers in the future.Current hard disk drives use about 100,000 atoms to store a bit. Other scientists have used single atoms for storage before, including in experimental devices that used the atoms’ location to store data. But magnetic storage, the technique already used in tapes, disk drives, and flash, has the advantage of being solid state, so it doesn’t require moving atoms around, said Christopher Lutz, the nanosciences researcher who led the IBM project.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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