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Category Archives for "Network World SDN"

53% off Blitzu Cyborg Ultra Bright USB Rechargable Bike Light

The Blitzu Cyborg 168T Bike Tail light features 50 micro-LED chips emits up to 168 Lumens. It is Simple to install and you can mount this rear light anywhere you want in seconds, such as the handlebar, the seat post or anywhere on the frame.Stop Wasting Your Money and Never Buy Batteries Again. The Cyborg 168T bicycle rear light charges from your computer or any device with a USB port. Only takes 2 hours to fully charge.  The Blitzu Cyborg 168T Bike Light averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews) from over 1,000 customers.  Amazon indicates that its typical list price of $39.99 has been reduced by 53% to just $18.82. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Black Hat security conference trims insecure features from its mobile app

Black Hat has disabled features of its mobile application because attackers could have logged in as legitimate attendees, posted messages in their names and spied on the messages they sent.The problem was discovered by mobile security vendor Lookout who detail the problem in a blog that says the method of registration and password resets were flawed.“[W]e've removed user-to-user messaging functionality and activity feed updates out of an abundance of caution,” a spokesperson for the conference organizer UBM said in an email.The problems stemmed from the fact that new accounts were created without email verification, and that even when users reset their passwords, authentication tokens weren’t revoked. So attackers logged in already could stay logged in.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows 7 PCs with free OS upgrade are still available, for now

Many computer users have upgraded from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10 as part of Microsoft's free upgrade offer, which ends on Friday.After Friday, holdovers who want to upgrade from Windows 7 will have to shell out US$119.99 to $199.99 for a Windows 10 license.But for those who'd rather buy a new PC, Windows 7 laptops and desktops will still be available with the flexibility to upgrade to Windows 10 for free.PC makers HP, Lenovo, and Dell have stopped selling PCs with home editions of Windows 7. However, they are still selling PCs, loaded with Windows 7 Professional, that can be upgraded to Windows 10 Pro for free.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

First look: Vikings stadium caters to connected fans

U.S. Bank StadiumA striking vessel of steel and glass, the new home of the Minnesota Vikings is designed for fans with smartphones. The infrastructure and apps are in place: The stadium is blanketed with wireless access points built into handrails and a distributed antenna system to boost mobile coverage, and a Vikings stadium app keeps ticket-holders connected. Fans can order food and drinks from their seats, figure out which restrooms have the shortest lines, and watch instant replays on their own devices. Before they arrive, visitors can view parking availability, determine the least-congested entrance gate, and manage digital tickets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tech boosts the fan experience at U.S. Bank Stadium

The new $1.1 billion home of the Minnesota Vikings aims to deliver the space and technology for the ultimate fan experience. It has the requisite modern stadium features – slick club spaces, luxury suites, and a wide range of food and beverage options – plus some unique additions, including an interactive exhibit space that lets visitors test their athletic prowess, a fantasy-football video board so ticket-holders can keep tabs on all the league action, and a transparent roof that helps flood the space with natural light without exposing occupants to Minnesota’s bitter winter temps. "We didn’t want to get caught in the trap of saying this is the most advanced stadium around, because the reality is that a lot of what we're putting in the stadium, there are bits and pieces of it that are being used all over the world in some way, shape or form,” said John Penhollow, vice president of corporate & technology partnerships with the Minnesota Vikings. “That said, how could we bundle all of the stuff… in such a way that it enhances the experience?"To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SwiftKey’s typing predictions may have leaked users’ emails

SwiftKey, a popular keyboard app, has suspended a syncing feature that may have leaked users’ emails to strangers.The problem has been popping up through the app’s prediction bar. A few users on Reddit have noticed that it’s been offering strange suggestions -- including emails they’ve never seen and foreign language terms they’ve never used.“And now, I'm getting someone else's German predictions,” wrote one user, who recently rooted a Samsung Galaxy S6 phone. “I have never typed German in my entire life.”The problem might be related to how SwiftKey collects data on the words and phrases users type. That data is then analyzed and used to predict the customer’s typing habits, including what emails they tend to enter -- only in this case those predictions are possibly being shared to others.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

RNC attendees expose identity in free Wi-Fi trap

So you go to a political convention. Do a little politicking and listen to some speeches. While taking a break from the handshaking and schmoozing you decide to do a little work on your laptop. Then you get hacked.During the Republican National Convention, IT security company Avast security set up fake Wi-Fi hotspots to see who would fall for their trick. As it turns out, a lot of people fell for it. Avast estimated more than 1,200 people logged into the fake hotspots, some with politically leaning names like "I VOTE TRUMP! FREE INTERNET," and "I VOTE HILLARY! FREE INTERNET," and some with an official ring to them like "Google Starbucks" and ATTWifi at GOP."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

U.S. IT employment grows, with IT services jobs leading the way

The U.S. IT sector added a total of 32,100 new jobs in June, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by technology industry association CompTIA, and continues to grow at a faster rate than overall national employment. Indeed, every category except technology manufacturing, experienced positive job growth.INSIDER: Network jobs are hot: Salaries expected to rise in 2016 CIO.com talked to Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s senior vice president of research and market intelligence, about what this labor data reveals about the state of the domestic IT services market, digital transformation as employment driver, why automation is likely to have a greater impact on American IT jobs than offshoring, and how IT outsourcing job growth will significantly outpace corporate IT roles.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

ISP groups appeal net neutrality court defeat

Trade groups representing many U.S. ISPs have filed an appeal challenging a court ruling that upheld the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules.Trade groups CTIA, USTelecom, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, and the American Cable Association on Friday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to rehear their challenge of the net neutrality rules after a three-judge panel upheld the rules in June. The challenge isn't to the FCC's rules prohibiting broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing web traffic, but to the agency's reclassification of broadband as a regulated, common-carrier service, the NCTA wrote in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows 10 upgrade: Don’t use Express settings if you value your privacy

When you’re setting up a new or existing PC with Windows 10, Microsoft will offer to install the operating system with "Express settings."Although Windows 10 Express settings will get you up and running quickly, that convenience comes at a cost: By skipping over custom settings, you’re agreeing to all kinds of data collection and behavior tracking, much of which didn’t apply in earlier versions of Windows.INSIDER Review: Enterprise guide to Windows 10 Here’s our advice: Instead of blindly enabling Express settings in Windows 10, take some time to understand what you’re agreeing to. Click the Customize settings link (in tiny text at the bottom of the setup screen), and disable the options you don't want.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New Android Trojan SpyNote leaks on underground forums

A new and potent Android Trojan has been leaked on several underground forums, making it available for free to less resourceful cybercriminals who are now likely to use it in attacks.The Trojan app is called SpyNote and allows hackers to steal users' messages and contacts, listen in on their calls, record audio using the device's built-in microphone, control the device camera, make rogue calls and more.According to researchers from Palo Alto Networks, SpyNote does not require root access to a device, but does prompt users for a long list of permissions on installation. The Trojan can also update itself and install other rogue applications on the device.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Telco central offices could be in for open source makeover

A first-of-its-kind gathering dedicated to re-inventing telco central offices as open source-infused data centers will take place on Friday at Google's Sunnyvale Tech Campus. CORD The CORD Summit, hosted by the Open Networking Lab (On.Lab) and The Linux Foundation, promotes the use of technologies such as Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), software-defined networking (SDN) and the cloud "to bring datacenter economics and cloud agility to service providers' Central Office." CORD is kind of an acronym for Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter, and is designed to benefit enterprise, residential and wireless networks. A mini version of this event was held in March as part of the broader Open Networking Summit.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Onyx: A Star Trek-like communication badge solution in search of a problem

Fans of Star Trek know that its communicator device was iconic. Whether it was Captain Kirk on the original series asking Scotty for a beam-up (he never actually did say, “Beam me up, Scotty”), or Captain Picard tapping on his Starfleet insignia badge asking for a status report from Engineering, this was the way that instant voice communication would work in “the future.”Many devices seen on these shows have evolved into real-life products. While the communicator that Kirk used evolved into the flip-phone (which then evolved into the smartphone), the badge that Picard wore hasn’t hit the mainstream. Over the years I’ve seen a few products attempt to recreate this device (one company had success deploying a badge-like system via Wi-Fi, geared towards hospital doctors and nurses), but there hasn’t been a popular badge-like device.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Service providers see opportunity in enterprise WLANs

Somewhere there’s an alternate universe where service providers are so effective that they dominate the enterprise communications market.In that world: What cannot be delivered remotely over fiber, wires or wireless—a pervasive, shared communications grid—is installed on site and managed remotely by service provider engineers. Small businesses and large enterprises requiring wired or wireless communications look to these large service providers because they deliver all required services at the lowest cost, with high reliability and national reach. At the end of the month, a single bill covers all services consumed.+ Also on Network World: IoT-dedicated networks beginning to rollout +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Attack attribution does little to improve enterprise security

After every major data breach, the security community engages in a game of whodunit and attempts to figure out what entity or nation state carried out the attack. The North Koreans were behind the Sony breach, while China carried out the attack on the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Meanwhile, hackers linked to the Iranian government hacked a small dam in New York as well as the networks of AT&T, Bank of America and the New York Stock Exchange, among other major U.S. businesses. And now Russia is being singled out for supporting hackers who infiltrated the Democratic National Committee’s computers and disclosed sensitive files and emails.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Fixing the perception that enterprise IT is irrelevant

Continuing perception of IT being slow to innovate is reflected in a new report from consultancy Accenture. IT is no longer the body sought out by executives to perform business transformations, research has found. And IT doesn’t have the skills to adapt successfully to an as-a-service environment either.As-a-service is a term for cloud, software, tech services and so on that is delivered on-demand over the internet.+ Also on Network World: The IT skills gap is a reality, but doesn’t have to be +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

There are mobile and IoT companion documents for the CIS (Top 20) Critical Security Controls

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  Most people who have anything to do with cybersecurity are familiar with the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Critical Security Controls, also commonly known as the SANS Top 20, or more simply the Controls. This list consists of a recommended set of actions for cyber defense that provide specific and actionable ways to stop today's most pervasive and dangerous attacks.Implementing the Controls is no guarantee an organization will have a bullet-proof defensive posture, but it significantly reduces both the risk that a breach will happen and the impact to the organization if such an event were to occur. What's more, theControls constitute a minimum level of security that any organization that collects or maintains personal or sensitive information should meet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM’s Cloud CTO: ‘We’re in this game to win’

IBM saw from the get-go that the cloud was going to cause a major disruption to its business. "We knew it was a massive opportunity for IBM, but not in a way that necessarily fit our mold," said Jim Comfort, who is now CTO for IBM Cloud. "Every dimension of our business model would change -- we knew that going in." Change they have, and there's little denying that the cloud businesses is now a ray of sunshine brightening IBM's outlook as its legacy businesses struggle. In its second-quarter earnings report last week, cloud revenue was up 30 percent for the quarter year over year, reaching $11.6 billion over the preceding 12 months. Revenue from systems hardware and operating systems software, on the other hand, was down more than 23 percent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CSC announces layoffs in advance of HPE merger

Computer Sciences Corp. is laying off workers as it shifts some work overseas, according to a federal application for employment benefits.A federal Trade Adjustment Act (TAA) benefit application, filed on July 14, claims "CSC merging with HP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise) caused services to be shifted to India. This included teleworkers in the US."It says 500 workers are affected. The types of jobs are not described.In May, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise announced it would spin off its enterprise services business and merge it with CSC. This combined entity will have about $26 billion in revenue.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here