As smartwatches and other wearables gain popularity, experts are warning of potential data security risks in workplaces.Some employees have begun connecting their personal smartwatches with corporate Wi-Fi networks, which could mimic the problems caused when personal smartphones started showing up at work several years ago. That earlier bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend fostered an explosion of software products from various vendors for managing devices securely, alongside laptops and desktops.As wearables begin to flood the workplace, the risk to employers could begin to look like "BYOD on steroids," said Peter Gillespie, an attorney at Fisher Phillips, a national labor and employment law firm representing employers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Clear skies aheadImage by ThinkstockIt sometimes seems as if business travel is expressly designed to raise blood pressure. Cancelled flights, long airport security lines, even a misplaced receipt for your expense report can throw a monkey wrench into your trip. To help, we’ve rounded up several mobile apps designed to reduce travel stress in a variety of ways, from booking a flight or last-minute hotel room to finding a quiet airport lounge or secure Wi-Fi hotspot. With one exception, all of our picks are available for both iOS and Android devices, and many are free.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tesla Motors has been asked by a U.S. Senate Committee to brief it on the circumstances leading to a fatal accident that killed the driver of a Tesla Model S, while the vehicle’s Autopilot driver-assistance software was turned on.The request by the committee on Thursday comes on the same day that Consumer Reports, a product-testing and rating nonprofit, called on Tesla to disable hands-free operation in its cars until it can be made safer. Though advanced active safety technology in vehicles could eventually make roads safer, today "we're deeply concerned that consumers are being sold a pile of promises about unproven technology,” said Laura MacCleery, vice president of consumer policy and mobilization for the organization, in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Michael Sampson’s latest book, Re-Imagining Productive Work with Office 365, is a “must read” if you are currently using or planning to use Office 365. Michael is a brilliant author and approaches his overview of Office 365 not from the perspective of the individual technology elements, but from the perspective of the activities that “information workers” do every day:
Storing and sharing files
Profiling employee expertise
Co-authoring documents
Managing meetings
Holding discussions
Running team projects
Thinking productively
The focus on business activities instead of specific technologies provides a very practical way of consuming the information in this very well researched book. It will help you understand which aspect of Office 365 to use in a variety of business use cases and how you can best engage your colleagues to be successful with this technology suite. Though the features and capabilities of Office 365 are updated almost too quickly to be incorporated into a book, Michael has found a way to make sure the book’s content stays relevant by indicating where future updates will improve or enhance the experiences he describes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A new Trojan that can steal your payment data will also try to stymie you from alerting your bank.Security vendor Symantec has noticed a “call-barring” function within newer versions of the Android.Fakebank.B malware family. By including this function, a hacker can delay the user from canceling any payment cards that have been compromised, the company said in a blog post.Fakebank was originally detected in 2013. It pretends to be an Android app, when in reality, it will try to steal the user’s money.The malware works by first scanning the phone for specific banking apps. When it finds them, the Trojan will prompt the user to delete them and install malicious versions of those same apps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Privacy advocates, especially those outside the U.S., can rest a little easier now. A federal court has rebuked the U.S. government’s attempt to access emails stored on a Microsoft server in Ireland.But the legal battle may be far from over. Thursday’s ruling could affect how the U.S. conducts surveillance over suspected criminals and terrorists overseas, so expect the government to appeal, said Roy Hadley, a lawyer at Thompson Hine who studies cybersecurity issues.“There’s a fine line between privacy and national security,” he said. “And it’s a difficult line to walk.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Eleven gigahertz of high-frequency spectrum is now available for use in mobile broadband technologies, after the FCC on Thursday created the Upper Microwave Flexible Use service in the 28GHz, 37GHz and 39GHz band, along with a new unlicensed band, even higher up the spectrum, in the 64-71GHz range.The move was greeted with delight from the U.S. telecom industry, which said that the opening of new spectrum is a critical step on the road to 5G wireless technology. The millimeter-wave bands – those between 30GHz and 300GHz – are central to the development of 5G, and the U.S. is now the first country to designate those frequencies for commercial use.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
GE's industrial Internet of Things platform, Predix, is going to be available on the Microsoft Azure cloud, but not immediately. It will be globally commercial available in the second quarter of 2017.GE believes that Predix needs to be a complete product, from the edge (the sensor on the shop floor) to the cloud, or Azure in this instance. The upshot: It will be easier to integrate tools such as Microsoft's Cortana, the intelligent personal assistant, with Predix.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s time to face facts: Attackers are stealthy enough to evade your monitoring systems. If you’re sitting back waiting for alarms to go off, there’s a good chance you’re already hosed.Despite spending more than $75 billion on security products and services, enterprises are frequently compromised, highly sensitive data is stolen, and the fallout can be devastating. Worse, enterprises don’t discover they’ve been breached for weeks to months after initial compromise, taking between 120 to 200 days on average to even detect an attack. That’s a six-month head start on reconnaissance and exploitation -- more time on your network than most of your recent hires.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Acer Chromebook 14 for Work is part of a new generation of Chromebooks. This isn't a low-end laptop aimed at budget shoppers, nor is it Google's Chromebook Pixel, which originally sold for $1,299 and was designed for people who work in the cloud and want hardware as good as anything Apple produces.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Focus to detectionImage by Christer van der MeerenThe industry is now moving from a focus on prevention, in which organizations try to make the perimeter impenetrable and avoid being hacked, to a focus on rapid detection, where companies can quickly identify and mitigate threats that are within the perimeter already.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Millennials bring a lot to the workplace, whether they're pushing the boundaries of company culture or forcing companies to modernize. But there are a few risks associated with hiring recent grads -- especially if it's their first job in the industry -- and one of those risks is data security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Nexus phones are typically thought of as the ultimate form of Android greatness. They deliver timely updates straight from Google, are bloatware free, and get special perks like access to beta releases of Android.But there are many good reasons why you may want to go for something other than a Nexus phone. The Nexus 6P is an unwieldy beast unless you have sizable paws. The 5X is too plasticky and underpowered—it's affordable, but you sort of get what you pay for.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD The 14 most influential smartphones ever +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IBM is cranking up the security on its cloud-based blockchain service.
On Thursday it began beta-testing a new high-security service plan for IBM Blockchain, with dedicated infrastructure for each customer.
Until now, it has offered only a starter cloud service for developers who wish to experiment with blockchain technology. That service runs in a multitenant cloud, with infrastructure shared among hundreds of blockchains.
The new service plan is still cloud-based, but "you get your own resources dedicated to you," said IBM Vice President for Blockchain Technologies Jerry Cuomo.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Similar-looking ecommerce and media-oriented apps, like Facebook, are causing consumers to donate the same amount of attention to both kinds of apps. And that’s not very much, says Jampp, an ad placement network.So much so, that the firm says there’s been an 88 percent reduction in ecommerce app attention span year over year, based on the first quarter of 2016. Session length for ecommerce apps is down 35 percent.+ Also on Network World: Ecommerce needs to up its game, says UPS +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I suppose it was inevitable after 45 years of intensive but mostly futile investigating the FBI this week said it pulled the plug on the Dan “DB” Cooper hijacking/ransom case.
You may recall that in November 1971, between Seattle and Reno, Cooper parachuted out of the back of an airliner he'd hijacked with a bag filled with $200,000 in stolen cash. He's never been found, though some of the stolen money was recovered.
+More on Network World: FBI wants fresh set of eyes on DB Cooper mystery: Yours+
According to the FBI, the agency learned of the crime in-flight and opened an extensive investigation that lasted 45. Calling it NORJAK, for Northwest hijacking, the FBI interviewed hundreds of people, tracked leads across the nation, and scoured the aircraft for evidence. By the five-year anniversary of the hijacking, the agency had considered more than 800 suspects and eliminated all but two dozen from consideration. Over years the case has mostly grown cold.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Linux and Chromebook users now have new versions of Skype to play with.Microsoft launched an alpha version of a new client for Linux on Wednesday, in a push to get users of the open-source operating system to make video calls and send messages with Skype.There was a Linux client available for the service previously, but this launch is a move by the company to get users of the operating system on the latest version of Skype. Users will get a new interface, emoticons, and a file-sharing interface.Chrome users will be able to use web.skype.com to make calls from Google's web browser and desktop operating system starting Wednesday, too. Like the Linux client, the new Chrome client is still in alpha, so there are likely to be bugs, along with missing features. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft has announced a new enterprise program called "Surface as a Service," which is a nifty way of saying businesses can lease Surface devices that come with subscriptions to Office 365, Dynamics Azure and Windows 10.The company said this will allow customers to keep their hardware more current and up to date, since enterprises are not known for being bleeding edge when it comes to new hardware adoption.+ Also on Network World: Surface Books get major driver updates +Microsoft also expanded its list of Surface partners to include two IT heavyweights: IBM and Booz Allen Hamilton. Both firms sign on as Surface solution integrators. Microsoft already had secured HP and Dell, two companies it effectively competes with by selling Surface, as resellers last fall.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Shlomo Kramer
Recently, endpoint-protection startup LightCyber announced a second round of funding - $20 million – including an investment from an individual investor with an impressive track record backing successful security startups: Shlomo Kramer.Kramer, who is Israeli, has a long-term relationship with the company’s CEO Gonen Fink, who worked with him for years at Check Point Software where Kramer was one of the founders.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here