You thought it was buried. You forgot. Someone didn’t document it. A ping sweep didn’t find it. It lay there, dead. No one found it. But there was a pulse:It’s still running, and it’s alive. And it’s probably unpatched.Something probed it long ago. Found port 443 open. Jacked it like a Porsche 911 on on Sunset Boulevard on a rainy Saturday night. How did it get jacked? Let me count the ways.Now it’s a zombie living inside your asset realm.It doesn’t matter that it’s part of your power bill. It’s slowly eating your lunch.It doesn’t matter that you can’t find it because it’s finding you.It’s listening quietly to your traffic, looking for the easy, unencrypted stuff. It probably has a few decent passwords to your router core. That NAS share using MSChapV2? Yeah, that was easy to digest. Too bad the password is the same as the one for every NAS at every branch from the same vendor. Too bad the NAS devices don’t encrypt traffic.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Star Wars video gamesStar Wars, as an enormous building block of nerd culture, and one that got popular right when home computing was really taking off, has an unsurprisingly huge number of video games set in its universe. Some of them are very good, and some are the opposite of very good. Here’s a look at four of the former, and four of the latter.RELATED: Cool ways to celebrate Star Wars DayTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google is trying to save presentation audiences from having to sit through long rambling questions with a new feature it added to its Slides software on Wednesday. Slides Q&A will let audiences send text questions through the Web when listening to a presentation using Google's software. As a presenter is talking, she can see the questions and respond to them, without waiting for someone to speak into a microphone. Google
Google Slides Q&A's presenter view lets presenters see what people in their audience want to know. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As Director of Program Management for Azure at Microsoft, Corey Sanders heads the compute team which is responsible for the VM-based offerings on Windows and Linux, the new microservices platform, and container services, among other things. Sanders joined the Azure team about six years ago, before which he was a developer in the Windows Serviceability team. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix recently visited Sanders in his Redmond, WA, office to get a better sense of how Microsoft’s cloud business is taking shape.
Corey Sanders, Director of Program Management for Azure, Microsoft To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A quantum computer for the people isn't just a theoretical dream; IBM is trying to make it a reality.IBM has built a quantum processor with five qubits, or quantum bits. Even better, IBM isn't hiding the quantum processor in its labs -- it will be accessible through the cloud for the public to run experiments and test applications.The goal is to unwrap decades-old mysteries around quantum computers and let people play with the hardware, said Jay Gambetta, manager of quantum computing theory and information at IBM.IBM's qubit processor is significant because it'll be the first quantum hardware accessible to the public, even if only through the cloud. Users will be able to work with qubits, study tutorials, and run simulations, Gambetta said. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Developers longing to build more intelligent, more proactive, more personalized apps seem to gain more options with every passing day. With Haven OnDemand, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) has joined the applied machine learning fray, competing directly with IBM Watson Services, Microsoft Cortana Analytics Suite, and several Google ML-based APIs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
We know how it goes: You mean to practice safe computing habits, really you do. But when you fire up your computer, you just want to get stuff done -- and that's when even savvy users begin to cut security corners.We'd all do well to take a lesson from truly paranoid PC users, who don't let impatience or laziness stand in the way of protecting their data. Let's take a look at some of their security habits that you may want to practice regularly.After all, staying safe online doesn't have to be onerous or time-consuming. Invest an hour or two this weekend to put a few safeguards in place, consciously start to practice a few good habits -- and before you know it, your good intentions will become a daily reality.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Pricing in ads for broadband Internet access is too often misleading and needs tighter regulation.That's the verdict of the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority, which on Wednesday gave ISPs six months to clean up their act before it introduces new rules on how they can promote their services.The monthly cost of broadband Internet access bundled with fixed-line telephone service ought to be simple enough to determine.INSIDER: 5 tricks to improve poor TCP performance
However, after viewing a typical ad, only 23 percent of people could correctly identify the cost in a study by the ASA and the U.K.'s communications regulator, Ofcom.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
More than half (54 percent) of employees regularly take part in work-related videoconferences, but not all of them are eager participants, according to a recent report. In the survey of more than 230 full-time U.S. workers by West Unified Communications, 23 percent of the respondents said that videoconferencing makes them feel uncomfortable, and three-quarters said they still prefer audio to video. “There’s a definite fear factor among employees when it comes to using videoconferencing,” says Dennis Collins, director of marketing at West. “Just like listening to a recording of your voice makes people uncomfortable, many are uncomfortable with seeing themselves on camera.” To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Technology, social media and transactions over the Internet play key roles in how most organizations conduct business and reach out to prospective customers today. Those vehicles also serve as gateways to cyberattacks. Whether launched by run-of-the-mill hackers, criminals, insiders or even nation states, cyberattacks are likely to occur and can cause moderate to severe losses for organizations large and small. As part of a risk management plan, organizations routinely must decide which risks to avoid, accept, control or transfer. Transferring risk is where cyber insurance comes into play.What is cyber insurance?
A cyber insurance policy, also referred to as cyber risk insurance or cyber liability insurance coverage (CLIC), is designed to help an organization mitigate risk exposure by offsetting costs involved with recovery after a cyber-related security breach or similar event. With its roots in errors and omissions (E&O) insurance, cyber insurance began catching on in 2005, with the total value of premiums forecasted to reach $7.5 billion by 2020. According to PwC, about one-third of U.S. companies currently purchase some type of cyber insurance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While many organizations are experimenting with the notion of eliminating traditional performance reviews, most companies are still doing annual or semi-annual reviews. The process can be nerve-wracking and cause anxiety if employees don't know what to expect or aren't prepared, but it doesn't have to be like this."The most important thing to remember is that these reviews are supposed to be a two-way street with communication flowing both ways, between employee and manager or supervisor. And while, yes, it can be an anxious event, in the end, remember that you both want the same thing -- success and productivity within the organization," says Dominque Jones, chief people officer and vice president of HR at Halogen Software. Here, Jones shares her tips for making sure your next performance review process is productive, fulfilling and successful.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Enterprises should have an easier time migrating from Windows 7 to Windows 10 than they did the last go-round when they left behind Windows XP, an analyst said, citing lessons both Microsoft and corporations learned."Microsoft has provided the option to roll out [Windows 10] using most of the same processes you used with Windows 7," said Steve Kleynhans of research firm Gartner in an interview Tuesday. "For that, you get a new OS, but you don't get new capabilities. Later, you can make the decision to, say, turn on the tighter security of Windows 10, or change the way that applications are distributed by turning on the Store."The migrate-but-then-do-more-later plan is one many enterprises will adopt, Kleynhans said, which should make the transition smoother and faster than the one businesses struggled to complete in late 2013 and early 2014 as they purged XP.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A 2013 study from Gallup found that as much as 70 percent of U.S. workers aren't actively engaged in their jobs. Engagement hasn't gotten much better since then, with Gallup's 2015 report showing nearly identical numbers and stagnant growth from 2014, as well as mostly flat growth since 2000. And for new hires, there's an "engagement honeymoon" period, according to another recent report from Gallup -- it found that employees perform the best and are the most engaged within the first six months of starting a new job, and after that there is a fast drop off.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Thursday, May 5, is World Password Day 2016. For the fourth year, you’ll surely see plenty of articles reminding you why you should change all your passwords, a strong and unique password for every site where you login, and to start using a password manager if you don’t do so yet. I still highly encourage you to get 2FA for Mother’s Day.Intel/McAfee is again trying to convince people to tweet a password confession. While I’m not encouraging you to do so, I would like to pick two as examples.World Password Day is as good a day as any to talk about password sharing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A tool used by millions of websites to process images has several critical vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to compromise Web servers. To make things worse, there's no official patch yet and exploits are already available.The vulnerabilities were discovered by Nikolay Ermishkin from the Mail.Ru security team and were reported to the ImageMagick developers who attempted a fix in version 6.9.3-9, released on April 30. However, the fix is incomplete and the vulnerabilities can still be exploited.Furthermore, there is evidence that people aside from security researchers and ImageMagick developers know about the flaws, which is why their existence was publicly disclosed Tuesday. The flaws can be exploited by uploading specially crafted images to Web applications that rely on ImageMagick to process them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
GameStop operates more than 4,000 stores in the U.S. and another 2,000 abroad. Between paying monthly rent, managing leases and searching for new properties, there’s a lot to keep track of for the company’s commercial real estate team.A few years ago GameStop began using a real estate management software as a service (SaaS), but Vice President of Enterprise Architecture Mark Patton says there was a problem. The software needed data from many of GameStop’s other business apps: ERP systems, financial platforms, etc.“We needed a way to glue these things together,” he says. “You need to be able to get data into and out of apps quickly.”Traditionally, the answer to this problem has been to use integration software on premises. In recent years a market has emerged in the cloud called integration Platform as a Service, or iPaaS, which offers a hosted integration platform that can be a central cloud for connecting many apps and cloud services together. Gartner estimates it could be a $1 billion industry in a few years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Robots will be managed and run by humans, at least to begin with, according an automation expert.And if you're the one controlling them, it begs questions such as how are you going to get along with these contraptions? It also prompts concerns such as how one stops the machine from misunderstanding, says Thomas B. Sheridan, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies humans and automation.Researchers need to become more active in addressing these kinds of questions rather than skimming over potential challenges, says Sheridan. He’s been reading up on the scientific consensuses on the subject and says his peers aren't doing enough research.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Star Wars Day – May 4th – brings out the creative sides of those who love the cinematic series and marketers who recognize a viral opportunity when they see one.Today, Japan’s ANA (All Nippon Airways) joins the fun with an innovative rendition of the classic opening theme song. A site called Luxury Launches (new to me) offers this description:
As seen in the video below it is a very thoughtful and beautiful compilation of sights and sounds which includes take offs, printing of the boarding pass, luggage on the conveyor belt, engine coming to life, air hostesses on the moving walkway and more of the typical activities you and me face and see on a flight. There is also a guest appearance by the newest member of the franchisee the BB-8 robot. The video is shot across 10 locations which include Tokyo’s Narita airport, maintenance centers, hangars and training facilities of ANA.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google, Verizon and others are partnering with NASA on an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) traffic management scheme. Microsoft has been working with universities on drone-enabled mosquito traps in an effort to stall infectious diseases from spreading. Cisco has shown off drones whose cameras feed into the company’s collaboration technologies. And AT&T, IBM and Intel have all demonstrated advanced drone-based research.All of this activity by enterprise IT vendors in the commercial drone field is a far cry from what was being done -- or at least being publicly discussed -- back in late 2014, when our efforts to get such vendors to share their ambitions largely went unheeded. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Federal Aviation Administration has granted approval for more than 5,000 so-called Section 333 exemptions to operate commercial drones over the past year, and among those getting the go ahead are familiar names in the enterprise IT and networking market. Apple, Microsoft, Motorola Solutions and Qualcomm are among those tech vendors we found in the approved petitions database, with stated operations/missions for commercial drones -- also known as unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) -- that include photography/videography, aerial mapping/surveying, research and development, and security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here