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Category Archives for "Network World SDN"

Cisco flexes its security muscle at Cisco Live

This week in Las Vegas, Cisco is hosting 28,000 of its best customers at Cisco Live, it’s annual, global user event. It’s hot in Vegas in July, which is fitting, as Cisco’s security business has been red hot of late. This is in stark contrast to the company’s position in security just a few years ago when many Cisco watchers questioned if it was serious about security. Over the years, Cisco has mastered the art of using market transitions to capture share, and it appears it is well on its way to doing so in the security market. The market transition that’s changing security is digital transformation. Earlier this year, I wrote a post highlighting the new rules of security in the digital era.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft fixes critical vulnerabilities in IE, Edge, Office, and Windows print services

Microsoft's new batch of security patches fixes 47 vulnerabilities across its products, including in Internet Explorer, Edge, Office, Windows and the .NET Framework.The patches, released Tuesday, are arranged in 11 security bulletins, 10 of which are for Microsoft products. The remaining patch covers Adobe Flash Player, which is bundled with Internet Explorer in Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows RT 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 10.Six security bulletins, including the Flash Player one, are rated critical and primarily cover remote code execution vulnerabilities that could lead to a complete system compromise.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bay Dynamics lands another $23 million to speed expansion

Security-analytics firm Bay Dynamics has pulled down $23 million more in venture funding to help the company speed up its international expansion and execution of its action plan to reach customers and differentiate itself from competitors.The Series B financing is led by Carrick Capital Partners and includes Series A investor Comcast Ventures.The company claims hundreds of customers including some of the Fortune 50.Bay Dynamics’ Risk Fabric ranks the riskiest users, devices, applications and other network entities, according to a report by Gartner on User and Entity Behavior Analytics, the category in which it places Bay Dynamics. The platform can discover insider threats as well as data theft, and can analyze likely attack surfaces in customer networks, Gartner says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Who’s got the best cloud latency?

For some applications, the public cloud is only as good as the slowest connection to it. Latency of cloud providers – the amount of time it takes for a cloud-based service to respond to a user’s request – is one of many critical factors that customers consider when choosing a cloud provider and monitoring their workloads. So which cloud provider has the best latency? +MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Who’s right behind Amazon in IaaS cloud revenue? Not Microsoft | 4 Tips for buying cloud management software +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: Promisec goes the extra step to secure PCs

In the past year we've seen an influx of endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools that promise to bring order, through greater visibility, to the wild west of endpoints within a large organization. The scenario is all too common: IT security usually doesn't know all of the hardware and software assets that need to be protected, yet has to protect them. Even as we struggle to put security controls in place for prevention, we know that many of these endpoints are already compromised by active threats that need to be detected, assessed, quarantined, and remediated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

OK, Google: 160 valuable voice commands for Android

Android has actually had a robust voice command system in place for ages -- and the number of things it can do for you is expanding all the time.In fact, Google may be preparing to unveil a newly rebranded and even more conversational version of its virtual assistant later this year, but you don't have to wait to start making the most of your mobile device's listening smarts.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: How to use public Wi-Fi hotspots safely Below, we've listed 160 commands that are fully functional and ready to be used right now. We've put words and phrases that are examples in [brackets]; additional explanations are in (parentheses). And when you see a command with two words separated by a slash (e.g., "Enable/disable battery saver mode"), you know to say just one or the other of the words, right? Thought so.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Feds to hire 3,500 cybersecurity pros by year’s end

Last October, the U.S. government began hiring 6,500 new cybersecurity IT professionals. It has hired 3,000 so far, and plans to hire another 3,500 by January 2017, the White House said Tuesday.The government is now trying to improve its recruiting and retention of cybersecurity professionals. This includes finding ways to improve government pay, which can be well below the private sector.ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: 8 ways to jumpstart your career This strategy was detailed Tuesday in a White House memo. In it, officials called for expanded job recruiting campaigns "in order to raise awareness of employment opportunities and compete for top cybersecurity talent," Shaun Donovan, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Beth Cobert, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management and federal CIO Tony Scott wrote in the memo.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IT service desk suites: The features users love and hate

IT service management (ITSM) tools typically focus on serving the needs of internal customers and solving their IT problems. Enterprise IT managers say the most important criteria to consider when choosing an ITSM vendor include customizable workflow automation, a system for creating trouble tickets and escalation mechanisms.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Fake Olympic tickets and Zika news apps scam users

These days not a headline goes by without some cybercriminal jumping all over it. Now, with the Olympics coming up and travelers wary of the Zika virus, scammers are creating fake websites and apps to steal money or to infect users with malware."There are actually sites that say they sell tickets, but never actually give you tickets," said James Pledger, research director at RiskIQ.Sometimes, it's easy to spot the fakes.INSIDER: Traditional anti-virus is dead: Long live the new and improved AV "One of the most common things is very poor English," he said. "Or they'll only accept payment in online currencies or wire transfers. Other indicators are that there are a lot of complaints, or they've been up for a very short time frame."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Taking a closer look at bots from Apple, Facebook and Google

"Bots" have been around for decades. Recently, however, it's become the norm for large technology companies to build, support and develop bots for a wide variety of uses. Because bots can be so many different things, it's often difficult to parse the bona fides from the wannabes — or even determine what bots do.What exactly are bots?  "A bot is an autonomous machine interface that's built to serve a purpose that traditionally was served by a human," says Michael Facemire, a principal analyst with Forrester Research.Bots can stimulate human conversation, but their greatest strength lies in the capability to simplify business processes that don't require human intervention, according to Adam Fingerman, chief experience officer at Arctouch, a mobile app design and development company. "From a utility point of view, bots will have an even bigger impact on how we work than how we live," he says.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FAQ: What the FCC’s 5G vote will mean

The FCC on Thursday will vote to identify and open new high frequency bands for use in the forthcoming 5G wave of wireless technology, clearing the way for development to continue on the next big jump in mobile data capabilities. Why? Netflix and Pokemon Go, mostly. Not exactly. Pokemon Go doesn’t use much data. Fine. It’s actually because FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler decided that now is the time to start the ball rolling on the process, which has been delayed in the past. Standards bodies and industry have begun to make noise on 5G of late, which means it’s probably a good thing that regulators like the FCC are getting in on the act.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Why 50 million people can’t call 911

Undoubtedly, the most common method used to contact emergency services is simply calling 911. While that will work just fine for most of us, for the 50 million citizens in the U.S. who are deaf, are deaf-blind or have a speech disability, dialing 911 on the phone is not an option. Think about that for a second. You are deaf and experiencing a medical emergency, or witnessing one, and you can't report it, at least not in a timely or efficient manner. Wait—didn’t we solve this problem decades ago? Sort of, but as it turns out, not completely. It is true that in the 1960s scientist Robert Weitbrecht proposed the use of surplus recycled Teletype (TTY) machines for communications devices for the deaf. The TTYs were modified to allow the use of acoustic couplers, which made them easy to attach to any telephone receiver. The BAUDOT tones that they transmitted could be carried as audio on phone lines. And despite the machines being not very portable, for the first time a deaf person could reach out and communicate over phone lines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fiat Chrysler launches bug bounty program for connected vehicles

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has launched a bug bounty program to attract white-hat hackers to spot out cybersecurity flaws in its products and connected services.The program is focused on FCA's connected vehicles, including systems within them and external services and applications that link to them.The move follows the remote hack and control of a Jeep Cherokee, one of the company’s products, by security researchers. That breach led to the recall of 1.4 million vehicles last year. Fiat Chrysler is also moving quite aggressively in the area of autonomous vehicles, announcing earlier this year the joint development of self-driven minivans with Alphabet's Google Self-Driving Car Project.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US Senator has privacy concerns about Pokémon Go’s data collection

The popularity of augmented reality smartphone game Pokémon Go has raised a variety of concerns, including a warning by the National Safety Council, urging drivers not to play the game behind the wheel and asking pedestrians to be careful while playing it.U.S. Senator Al Franken, a strong privacy advocate, has raised the inevitable question about the privacy of the extensive data the game collects from its users, including children, and whether the data is used for other purposes.“I am concerned about the extent to which Niantic may be unnecessarily collecting, using, and sharing a wide range of users' personal information without their appropriate consent,” Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, wrote in a letter Tuesday to John Hanke, the CEO of Niantic, the developer of the game.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

40% off APC Performance SurgeArrest Outlet with Phone Splitter and Coax Protection – Deal Alert

The APC Surge Arrest Performance series from APC offers the highest level of protection for your professional computers, electronics and connected devices, as well as provides surge protection for all of your data lines. The P11VT3 features 11 heavy duty outlets. Telephone and coax cable line surge suppression jacks are available to protect against dangerous surges traveling along data lines. Wiring Fault LED proactively notifies you of potentially dangerous building wiring conditions. Additional features like a ten foot power cord, safety shutters, status indicator, cord management, lifetime equipment protection policy and more make this their most complete surge offering. Over 1,100 customers on Amazon rate this item 4.5 out of 5 stars (read reviews) and Amazon indicates that its typical list price of $39.99 has been reduced by 40% to just $23.99. See this item now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

An online market that offered cheap hacked servers returns

A website that offered access to hacked servers for as little as $6 is back online.The market, called xDedic, went down last month on June 15 right after security firm Kaspersky Lab publicly exposed it. Access to more than 70,000 compromised servers from governments, businesses and universities had been sold through the site, in the two years it was in operation.Kaspersky Lab, however, reported its finding to law enforcement agencies and said that “several major” internet service providers helped shut the site down.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hacked 3D printers could commit industrial sabotage

3D printers can churn out toys, clothing and even food. But the technology also shows potential for use in industrial sabotage, researchers warn.Imagine a car maker using 3D printers to manufacture components, only to have the parts contain defects that are undetectable until it’s too late.A hacker with access to the 3D printers could make that happen, a team of researchers wrote in a recent paper. This could result in a "devastating impact" for users and lead to product recalls and lawsuits, said New York University professor Nikhil Gupta, the lead author of the paper. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon Dishing Up Dramatic Deals on PC’s and Accessories Right Now – Prime Day Deal Alert

As you read this, Amazon is discounting 100,000+ products for today only. It's Prime Day, their biggest day of the year. Here, we've rounded up some of the PC's and accessories currently on sale, but you can explore the full set of Prime Day deals here. As a reminder, Prime Day is for Amazon Prime members only, but a 30 day trial (if you sign up here) will work just the same and you can cancel before you get charged.  $250 off Lenovo Z70 17.3-Inch Laptop (Core i7, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB + 8 GB HDD, Windows 10) HP Pavilion 300-230 Mini Desktop (Intel Core i3, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD) iBUYPOWER AM-AR960 Liquid Cooling Gaming Desktop - Intel Core i5-6500, NVIDIA GTX 960 2GB, 8GB DDR4, 1TB HDD, 128GB SSD, DVDRW, 802.11ac Wi-Fi USB Adapter, Windows 10 Save $120 on Toshiba Chromebook 2 - 2015 Edition (CB35-C3350) Full HD, Backlit Keyboard 20% off Lexar 512GB Portable SSD  27% off SanDisk iXpand 64GB USB 2.0 Mobile Flash Drive with Lightning connector For iPhones, iPads & Computers 40% off Wacom Bamboo Smart Stylus for Samsung Galaxy Note TP-LINK N300 Wi-Fi Range Extender 30% off Targus SafePort Case Rugged Max Continue reading

24% off Samsung Curved 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV – Prime Day Deal Alert

For Prime Day, today only, Amazon has reduced the price of the Samsung UN55KU6600 Curved 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV by 24%, bringing its already low price of $1,047.99 down to just $799.99. With the KU6600 Curved TV, enjoy 4K Ultra HD resolution and High Dynamic Range (HDR) content that delivers greater depth and clarity with Auto Depth Enhancer and a fuller spectrum of color with PurColor. Access your favorite content quicker and easier with the new Samsung Smart TV platform powered by a Quad-Core Processor. See the discounted Samsung UN55KU6600 Curved 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV on Amazon now. And to see the seemingly endless list of deals Amazon is dishing up today, explore the full set of Prime Day deals here. As a reminder, Prime Day is for Amazon Prime members only, but a 30 day trial (if you sign up here) will work just the same and you can cancel before you get charged.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

20% off 3M Gold Privacy Filters – Prime Day Deal Alert

Discounted by 20% for Prime Day these 3M Privacy Filters for widescreen and standard LCD monitors are the perfect fit for people who want their private data to stay out of sight.  An unprotected screen can expose sensitive and private information, trade secrets and business plans. And the reality is, a visual hacker may only need one piece of valuable information to unlock a large-scale data breach. Check out these Discounted Privacy Filters at Amazon today for a special 20% discount.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here