A new security audit has found critical vulnerabilities in VeraCrypt, an open-source, full-disk encryption program that's the direct successor of the widely popular, but now defunct, TrueCrypt.Users are encouraged to upgrade to VeraCrypt 1.19, which was released Monday and includes patches for most of the flaws. Some issues remain unpatched because fixing them requires complex changes to the code and in some cases would break backward compatibility with TrueCrypt.However, the impact of most of those issues can be avoided by following the safe practices mentioned in the VeraCrypt user documentation when setting up encrypted containers and using the software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It wasn’t long ago that the big spectator sport in IaaS cloud computing was to watch a leading provider such as Microsoft or Amazon Web Services announce price cuts and then ready for its rivals to follow suit.The new game in town plays out in a similar way, except now the vendors are matching or one-upping each other with new data centers and cloud computing regions.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Winners and losers from the AWS-VMware deal | Mapping the cloud: Where does the public cloud actually live? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The home Wi-Fi router space continues to gain momentum, with additional startups aiming to provide devices that do more than just sit there and route traffic. The latest device that has arrived at the Cool Tools testing zone is the Roqos Core.Roqos has three goals with its device: First, to provide an easy setup for its Wi-Fi router, making it so that “even grandma can set it up”; second, to provide parents with a control system that lets them pause the Internet at the press of a button, and also give filtering and blocking controls; and third, provide a cloud-based cyber-securitiy system that monitors all network traffic through Deep Packet Inspection.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google made a splash earlier this month when the company announced it would be shipping a dongle with every Pixel phone it sold that helps iPhone users migrate to its Android flagship.As a lifelong iPhone user, I decided to put Google to the test and find out how well that process really works. And after spending a weekend working through it, I came to a nuanced and messy conclusion. Broadly speaking, migrating works fine, but the nitty-gritty details of the process are painful to deal with.I expected the transition to be far from frictionless. After all, I use iCloud Photo Library to sync my photos, correspond with my friends using iMessage, track my exercise with an Apple Watch and use a Mac. Migrating wasn't going to be easy, but I wanted to give it a shot anyway and see whether the Pixel XL lived up to Google's hype.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Everyone talks about the issue of security in the cloud, but the problem is far more complicated than it first appears. More than just a simple matter of protecting data, it may also be about protecting security jobs.+ Also on Network World: Cloud security: A mismatch for existing security processes and technology +This inherent contradiction was apparent in the results of a recent survey of 140 attendees at the Microsoft Ignite 2016 conference last month. Performed by Lieberman Software Corporation, the survey addressed how IT security professionals felt about the changes in the technology and how it affected their jobs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Contrary to conventional wisdom, it's not older consumers who are most easily duped by technical support scams, a survey released today claimed.According to the poll's results, people between 25 and 34 were more than three times as likely to fall for the fake-out as those aged 55 to 64. And the youngest age group -- between 18 and 24 -- were little better than their slightly-older cohort; they were tricked by the scams more than two and a half times the rate of the group aged 66 and older.The survey, conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs this summer and paid for by Microsoft, queried 1,000 adults ages 18 and up in each of several countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany and India.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Just like companies need to maintain their public image and protect their brand, so does anyone with a career in technology -- or any industry, for that matter."Your online identity is a form of capital, much like your intellectual capital and financial capital. To that end, it can be grown slowly and steadily over time, which will eventually produce the positive results you want," says Ford R. Myers, career coach, speaker and author of Get the Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring.Technology has changed the way people find jobs and that it's become easier than ever for hiring managers and recruiters to search for top talent, rather than wait for them to submit a resume, according to Myers. That means, your dream job could easily come knocking at your inbox, but that is only true if recruiters and hiring managers can actually find you. By taking time to carefully craft your online identity and brand, Myers says you will stand out as a "tech-savvy, smart self-marketer." He offers six critical steps in crafting your online brand, so you can put your best professional foot forward and create the career you want.To read this article Continue reading
In an IT market starved for talent, it's not easy to find qualified candidates. In fact, only one out of every 100 candidates is hired, according to new research from recruiting and ATS software company Lever.Increasing your odds of success
What can you do to increase the odds in your organization's favor? Look at where your candidates are coming from. The research revealed that candidates referred to the company have a one-in-16 chance of getting hired; candidates submitted by a recruiting agency or firm have a one-in-22 chance while a proactively sourced candidate's chances are one in 72. Candidates who apply via a company's career site or job posting have the worst chance of being hired; only one out of 152 applicants land a job that way, the research showed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
ORLANDO -- Claiming a 78% accuracy rate based on prior years’ results, chief of research Daryl Plummer delivered Gartner’s 10 strategic predictions for the next three-to-five years at the company’s Symposium/ITExpo yesterday.The overarching theme, Plummer said, is digital disruption, which is not only happening, but is increasing in scale over time. Here are the 10 predictions:1. By 2020, 100 million consumers will shop in virtual reality.
Plummer says the Pokemon Go phenomenon is the precursor to deeper experience and engagement on the part of consumers. The next step is head-mounted displays, followed by augmented reality. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2017, one in five major retailers will begin deploying augmented reality on their web sites. If you’re in retail, it’s something to think about.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Interesting news today from GoDaddy that it is aggressively moving into the WordPress space and looking to own a far bigger chunk of the market for small businesses hosting WordPress sites.WordPress is, of course, the open-source blogging platform that hosts an incredible number of different sites. Statistics show that over 25 percent of the top 10 million websites worldwide are built on WordPress. Not bad for a formerly small project with no real commercial focus. And for GoDaddy, the hosting platform, WordPress already has a big footprint. Over 50 percent of GoDaddy’s hosting customers use the platform.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New versions of VMware’s core management software including vSphere, Virtual SAN and the vRealize Suite expand support for application containers and make it easier for customers to manage workloads in IaaS public clouds from Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.The moves announced this week the company’s VMWorld Europe conference in Barcelona are significant because there’s been fodder in the market for years about what trends like increased use of the public cloud will mean for private cloud vendors and how the rise of application containers could kill virtual machines. Instead of fighting these innovations, VMware is embracing these innovations, says Raghu Raghuram, the company’s executive vice president of Software Defined Data Center.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In his book The Seventh Sense, Joshua Cooper Ramo makes the thought-provoking statement that networks compress time. Nowhere is this more visible than with Amazon. Amazon reportedly releases more than 20,000 new features, capabilities and services to their customers a day, making changes to production every 11 seconds. Facebook does multiple releases a day, and Google does a large package of releases every week or two.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The asylum granted to WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange by the government of Ecuador is not in question, despite possible differences of opinion between the two on the release of controversial documents by the whistleblowing site.Late Monday, the Ecuadorian government said that in the wake of speculation, it reaffirmed the continuation of asylum that it had extended to Assange for the last four years. It said that the protection would continue as long as the circumstances that had led to that decision continues.Assange was given asylum by Ecuador in 2012 after he slipped into the country’s embassy in London, where he continues to be holed for fear of arrest by U.K. police, who have said that they have to arrest Assange if he steps out of the embassy to meet an extradition request from Sweden.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
5G networks will be five times as fast as the quickest LTE technology by using the highest cellular frequencies ever, according to Qualcomm, which provided a glimpse of its next-generation modem plans on Tuesday.The X50 modem won’t ship until the first half of 2018, and 5G networks aren’t expected to go commercial until 2020. But Qualcomm will have a lot to say about the new technology at its 4G/5G Summit in Hong Kong on Tuesday. At the same event, it’s announcing plans around its gigabit-speed X16 LTE modem.The X50 will offer download speeds as high as 5Gbps (bits per second), where networks support them, using millimeter-wave frequencies and futuristic techniques for beaming signals to devices, according to slides prepared for the 4G/5G Summit. Qualcomm shared the materials in advance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
To say that CIOs have full plates – from guarding against breaches to cloud migration to embracing innovation – is an understatement. But given the growing recognition of IT’s importance to organizations of all kinds, it’s also a tremendous time to be a CIO despite the complications and demands of the job.These are among the findings of the Society for Information Management’s (SIM) 37th Anniversary IT Trends Study, which is being released to SIM members this week as a lead-in to next week’s annual SIMposium conference that’s taking place in Connecticut. Non-members can get a peek at the study next week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The DARPA-developed Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) will this week get a new permanent home in Australia with the Air Force Space Command where it promises to rapidly bolster the nation’s ability to more quickly spot and track faint objects in space.
The Air Force, says the SST features unique image-capturing technology known as a curved charge coupled device (CCD) system, as well as very wide field-of-view, large-aperture optics, and doesn't require the long optics train of a more traditional telescopes. The design makes the SST less cumbersome on its moveable mount, letting it survey the sky rapidly, the Air Force says. The telescope's mount uses advanced servo-control technology, making the SST one of the most agile telescopes of its size ever built.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. investigators are exercising a broad legal authority to force suspects to unlock their smartphones. In a recent case, they demanded that anyone found inside a California residence comply by surrendering their fingerprints.In May, the federal prosecutors made the request as part of a search warrant, according to a court filing uncovered by Forbes. Those fingerprints were crucial to unlocking the smartphones, the Department of Justice argued.However, the federal investigators went beyond asking for the fingerprints of one suspect. Instead, they the sought authority to "depress the fingerprints" of everyone located at the California property.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A fix issued this past Tuesday to address problems in the Anniversary Update to Windows 10 hasn't fixed the problem and is causing just as many issues with users, according to online reports.Cumulative update KB3194798, issued on Oct. 11, is failing to install on a number of computers for no particular reason. This update was supposed to repair systems running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (version 1607) and offer performance improvements and optimizations, as well as bug fixes to the OS. It's not doing any of those things for some people.What users see
This update is suffering from the same issues that affected previous cumulative updates. After attempting to install the update, a message pops up that the install failed and the operating system is undoing changes. The system reboots and users are brought back to the desktop where they are asked to install the update again.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Visible Light Communications (VLC), or Li-Fi, is a new optical wireless communications technology that promises spectacular amounts of new bandwidth for data transmissions. It uses visible light spectrum. Common lights could, indeed, be used to create the networked communications.However, there’s a drawback to this optimistically regarded tech, say scientists. The receivers need to see the light bulbs. That means the space in which this technology is used can’t be dark, and that's a problem if someone wants to sleep in the room. A solution is to dim LEDs or switch them on and off at high speeds, so the eye can’t see it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
WikiLeaks has continued to dump Clinton-related emails, such as three Goldman Sachs speeches that Clinton was paid about $225,000 to give, but a series of unusual tweets sent parts of the internet into a tizzy, claiming Assange had been killed and the tweets were triggered by a dead man’s switch.Yesterday, WikiLeaks’ regular tweets were interrupted by three tweets that contained hashes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here