Is anti-virus software getting worse at detecting both known and new threats?Earlier this week, Stu Sjouwerman, CEO of security awareness training company KnowBe4, looked at the data published by the Virus Bulletin, a site that tracks anti-virus detection rates. And the numbers didn't look good.Average detection rates for known malware went down a couple of percentage points slightly from 2015 to 2016, he said, while detection rates for zero-days dropped in a big way - from an average of 80 percent down to 70 percent or lower.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Two moves by open networking vendors this week are likely to chip a little bit more off the monolith of proprietary, appliance-like equipment that still moves most packets around enterprise data centers.On Thursday, network OS supplier Cumulus Networks introduced turnkey switches based on standard hardware from Edgecore Networks running Cumulus software. They’re designed to allow customers who are new to open networking to get started quickly and easily.Earlier in the week, on the cutting edge of the movement, Barefoot Networks announced that Edgecore and another Taiwan-based manufacturer called WNC would start shipping switches that use the company’s fully programmable chips.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I’ve been following Cumulus Networks almost since its inception. The company was co-founded by J.R. Rivers, something of a legend in the networking space. Cumulus Networks’ raisan d’etre was to provide an open source operating system (eponymously called Cumulus Linux) that organizations could install on different networking hardware devices and, in doing so, gain all the benefits of software-defined networking (SDN) without any of the hassles of proprietary and locked-down software.It was a compelling story (at least for this commentator). And given the credibility that Rivers bought to the table, I was sold.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Enjoy the power and fun of a Polaroid camera without the Polaroid camera. This little standalone photo printer connects to your phone or tablet via Bluetooth, and is powered by a rechargeable lithium polymer battery, so it's designed to be portable, easy and fun to use. On a single charge the gadget will print 25 photos -- without ink. Instead, it uses heat to produce deep, vibrant colors that are completely smudge-proof, on 2x3 paper that is waterproof, tear-proof and backed with adhesive so you can peel-and-stick for added fun. Paper is easy to find on Amazon and comes in packs of 20, 30 or 50 (on sale here). A compact and protective carrying case is also available at what seems to be a reasonable price (found here). The Polaroid ZIP mobile printer currently averages 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 1,400 customers (read recent reviews). Its typical list price of $129.99 has been reduced by 21% to $102.14, a price you'll reveal only after adding the product to your cart. If you're looking for a fun and unusual summer gift idea for yourself or someone on your list, see Continue reading
Facebook has chosen Odense in Denmark as the site of its third data center outside the U.S.Denmark's moderate climate will allow the company to use outdoor air and indirect evaporative cooling to keep temperatures in the data center down, and servers will be powered entirely with renewable energy, the company said Thursday.Most of Denmark's renewable energy comes from wind power, a highly variable resource. On one day in 2015, it was able to satisfy the nation's entire electricity demand with wind power, and also become a net exporter of electricity. At other times, around a quarter of the country's electricity demand is met by wind power, according to the latest figures from Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
“Software engineer” might sound like a sedentary role, but it doesn’t have to be. Janice Lan schedules walking meetings to break the sitting habit.“Walking meetings are preferable for one-on-ones because it actually gives you a break from staring at a computer screen,” says Lan, a software engineer at Sift Science, which develops machine learning technology to detect fraud. “I walk with either a manager or a peer, usually when we talk about high-level things.”A walking meeting is just what it sounds like: a meeting that takes place during a walk rather than in a conference room or office. People can hold walking meetings on sidewalks and park trails or inside shopping malls and convention centers if the setting isn’t too noisy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft announced today that it has added support for the Intel-backed Clear Linux distribution in instances for its Azure public cloud platform.It’s the latest in a lengthy string of Linux distributions to become available on the company’s Azure cloud. Microsoft already supports CentOS, CoreOS, Debian, Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu in Azure instances.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Windows 10 peeping: Microsoft fails to understand the uproar + Oracle patches raft of vulnerabilities in business applicationsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Slack, the popular work chat app, has launched one of the features that users have been clamoring for over its entire lifetime: threaded messages.On Wednesday, the company began the process of rolling out the update to all of its users, which will allow them to keep conversations about a particular topic corralled into a single thread. The feature is designed to keep conversations on a particular topic out of the main flow of a chat channel, the company said in a blog post.Starting a thread just requires users to hover over a message, click the “Start a Thread” button, and type their response. Replies will be grouped into a sidebar thread, and a small link will appear below the original message showing who has replied to a thread and how many replies it has garnered.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Raspberry Pi's new Compute Module 3 has serious competition coming its way from the maker of the Pine64 board computer.The new SOPINE A64 64-bit computing module is a smaller version of the popular US$15 Pine64 computer.It was announced the same week as the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3, which is a smaller version of the popular namesake board, was released.At $29, the SOPINE A64 roughly matches the price of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3, which ranges from $25 to $30. The new SOPINE will ship in February, according to the website.The SOPINE A64 can't operate as a standalone computer like the Pine64. It needs to be plugged in as a memory slot inside a computer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Fraud attempts on digital retail sales jumped 31% from Thanksgiving to Dec. 31 over the previous year, according to a survey of purchasing data from ACI Worldwide.The fraud increase was based on hundreds of millions of online transactions with major merchants globally. Also, the number of e-commerce transactions grew by 16% for the same period, ACI said.Some of the fraud attempts came from the use of credit card numbers purchased in underground chat channels, ACI said.“Given the consistent and alarming uptick in fraudulent activity on key dates, merchants must be proactive in their efforts to identify weak spots and define short and long-term strategies for improved security and enhanced customer experience,” said Markus Rinderer, senior vice president of platform solutions at ACI.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With the iPhone celebrating its 10-year anniversary last week, there have been quite a number of interesting stories highlighting just how impactful Apple's iconic smartphone has been. While there's no denying that the iPhone helped create the modern day smartphone market as we know it, it's just as remarkable that the iPhone has remained the "smartphone to beat" for nearly a decade now.As time has marched on, we've slowly but surely learned more about the process that led to the iPhone's creation. As is well known now, Steve Jobs during the early iPhone development days tasked two separate teams to come up with varying iPhone designs. One such design was to be based on the iPod's clickwheel, while the other was designed to be a touchscreen running a variant of OS X. Ultimately, Apple wisely opted to go with the latter design.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
At CES, AMD launched its first Zen chips for PCs, called Ryzen. Next on deck is the 32-core server chip code-named Naples, which will ship in the coming months.Naples doesn't have an official name yet, but the expectations are high. While Ryzen is set up for success in PCs, it's a different story for Naples, which has to take on Intel's juiced-up Xeon chips, which are used in most servers today.AMD is trying to drum up excitement for Naples, which will be released in the first half of this year. It's promoting Naples using the same tactic as it did for Ryzen -- by talking about the performance benefits of the Zen CPU.The Zen CPU core in Naples will provide the same performance benefits as in the Ryzen chips. AMD claims a 40 percent improvement in instructions per cycle, an important metric to measure CPU performance, compared to the company's previous Excavator architecture.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's not common for a security-conscious internet company to leave a well-known vulnerability unpatched for months, but it happens. Facebook paid a US$40,000 reward to a researcher after he warned the company that its servers were vulnerable to an exploit called ImageTragick.ImageTragick is the name given by the security community to a critical vulnerability that was found in the ImageMagick image processing tool back in May.ImageMagick is a command-line tool that can resize, convert and optimize images in many formats. Web server libraries like PHP’s imagick, Ruby’s rmagick and paperclip, and Node.js’s imagemagick, used by millions of websites, are based on it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. government says Oracle routinely and systemically pays white men more than women and minorities and that it favors Asian candidates over others in product development and technical roles.The allegations are contained in a lawsuit filed by the Department of Labor that represents the results of a two-year investigation into hiring practices at the Silicon Valley company.The investigation was triggered by a regular compliance review by the government. As a federal contractor, Oracle is prohibited from engaging in discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.As a result, Oracle stands to lose millions of dollars in federal contracts if the Labor Department can prove its case and the company doesn't change its ways.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A cloud of 3D-printed drones big enough to bring down the latest U.S. stealth fighter, the F35, was just one of the combat scenarios evoked in a discussion of the future of warfare at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.Much of the discussion focused on the changes computers are bringing to the battlefield, including artificial intelligence and autonomous systems -- but also the way the battlefield is coming to computing, with cyberwar, and social media psyops an ever more real prospect.Former U.S. Navy fighter pilot Mary Cummings, now director of the Humans and Autonomy Lab at Duke University, delivered the first strike."The barrier to entry to drone technology is so low that everyone can have one, and if the Chinese go out and print a million copies of a drone, a very small drone, and put those up against an F35 and they go into the engine, you basically obviate what is a very expensive platform," she said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
No matter the height or thickness of any wall you might try to build, the unfortunate reality is someone will most likely be able to breach it. It’s really just a matter of when and how.Just as you close your doors and windows when you leave the house, you need preventative security measures in place to protect your systems. However, these measures themselves are not enough. If you assume the bad guys will find a way to breach your protective walls, it makes more sense to focus on threat detection and incident response as ways to mitigate damage when the inevitable breach occurs.3 security controls to improve threat detection
The following three security controls are surefire ways to strengthen the detective capabilities of your system.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In 2017, strong demand for IT talent will continue in several roles and industries. Understanding how to wring business value from vast stores of data, knowing how to protect that data from increasingly sophisticated threats and navigating the murky waters of freelancing will characterize the tech job market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Microsoft is betting that less is more in 3D design, with the acquisition of the Swedish developer of a 3D data optimization system, Simplygon.Simplygon takes 3D models in a number of formats, and reduces the volume of data used to describe them by taking out some of the detail -- somewhat like reducing the size of a JPEG image file by increasing the level of compression while leaving the resolution unchanged.That means the models can be rendered more rapidly or using less powerful hardware, something that will help Microsoft with the "3D for everyone" vision it outlined last October at the launch of Windows 10 Creators Update.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There are many reasons why IT professionals can be fired, but six out of the top nine are related to security, said a survey released this morning.For example, having a tech investment that leads to a security breach was considered a fireable offense by 39 percent of organizations, according to Osterman Research, which conducted the survey.A data breach that becomes public was a fireable offense for 38 percent of companies.Other fireable offenses included failing to modernize a security program, data breaches with unknown causes, data breaches that do not become public, and the failure of a security product or program investment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here