The latest zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Systems' Flash player has been used over the last few days to distribute ransomware called Cerber, email security vendor Proofpoint said.Adobe said it would patch the flaw, CVE-2016-1019, on Thursday. The vulnerability affects all versions of Flash Player on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome OS.Ryan Kalember, senior vice president of cybersecurity at Proofpoint, said his company detected an attack trying to exploit the flaw on Saturday.One of Proofpoint's customers received an email with a document that contained a malicious macro that led victims through a series of redirects that eventually reached an exploit kit.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In an interview with Matt Wood, Chief product strategist at Amazon Web Services, one thing that stuck out was how big of an emphasis he placed on Lambda.Many people probably don’t know what Lambda is, or why it’s important. But Wood says it could usher in a new era of application development and cloud-based hosting. And perhaps most interestingly, it could be a replacement for one of Amazon’s core cloud services: Virtual machines.+ MORE AWS FROM NETWORK WORLD: Q&A with Amazon Web Service’s strategist on competing with Google and Microsoft and building the next big thing in the cloud +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Most mobile phone customers actually like when providers exempt selected video, music, and other online services from their monthly data caps, despite complaints that the practice violates net neutrality rules.Eighty-four percent of U.S. adults, and 94 percent of so-called millennials, are extremely or somewhat likely to try a new online service if it is exempted from their monthly data cap, according to a new survey commissioned by mobile carrier trade group CTIA.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: How to use public Wi-Fi hotspots safely
Eight-five percent of adults, and 94 percent of young adults, were likely to use more data if it was what CTIA calls "free data," according to the survey. Sixty-five percent of adults were likely to sign up with a new mobile carrier that offers data cap exemptions, the survey said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The days of go-go, double-digit growth for tech are long gone and do not appear to be on the way back anytime soon. Even though businesses are moving to the cloud and adopting new technology to stay competitive, global IT spending will be more or less flat this year and growth will remain sluggish through 2020, according to Gartner.The market research firm is forecasting worldwide IT spending to total US$3.49 trillion this year, a 0.5 percent decline from 2015. That's down from a forecast of 0.5 percent growth the company made last quarter. The change in the forecast is mainly the result of the dollar's growing strength against other currencies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s been a busy past couple of weeks in the IaaS cloud with Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft each holding major user events and announcing significant advancements, which continues to put pressure on the company many consider to be the market leader: Amazon Web Services.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Google and Microsoft make their pitch to unseat amazon in the cloud | Jeff Bezos letter to shareholders: At 10 years old, AWS is bigger than Amazon was and growing faster +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is one of the key building blocks of next-generation data centers. Originally, HCI was deployed primarily by small and medium-sized businesses that wanted a faster, easier way to deploy data center technology such as servers, storage and networks. Over the past few years, HCI adoption has skyrocketed and is now being deployed by large enterprises looking to shift to a software-defined model.Initially, HCI was driven by start-ups, most notably SimpliVity and Nutanix. But recently Cisco, VCE and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) have jumped into the market, and Juniper and Lenovo have formed a partnership that will likely lead to a combined HCI solution.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
President Obama won’t push for legislation that forces encryption vendors to decrypt when ordered to do so by a court, Reuters is reporting, essentially choosing to sit on the fence, at least for now.Combined with his comments earlier this year at South by Southwest Interactive, it seems that Obama, like many others, is torn between privacy and law enforcement’s desire to crack encryption to further investigations.White House sources say he will withhold public support for draft legislation that would force encryption vendors to help law enforcement to decrypt messages protected by their technology, Reuters says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
ONF
The non-profit Open Networking Foundation has announced that its annual software-defined networking (SDN) interoperability event, dubbed AppFest 2016, will be held in May in New Hampshire and will feature a Community Day intended to expand ONF's reach beyond members.The ONF, whose more than 130 members include big names like Brocade, Google and Microsoft, will put the focus on applications working together at AppFest 2016, which will be held at University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab May 16-19. The UNH-IOL is an authorized testing lab for OpenFlow, the SDN standard that the ONF is best known for having introduced.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
IT can trace its roots back to arguably the most important computer introduction made 52 years ago today. April 7, 1964 was the day IBM introduced its System/360, the first true mainframe for the masses, or at least that’s what it hoped on that day.IBM said on that day that it announced the S/360 to over 100,000 people gathered in cities across the country.+More on Network World: The (mostly) cool history of the IBM mainframe+It told them: "System/360 represents a sharp departure from concepts of the past in designing and building computers. It is the product of an international effort in IBM's laboratories and plants and is the first time IBM has redesigned the basic internal architecture of its computers in a decade. The result will be more computer productivity at lower cost than ever before. This is the beginning of a new generation - - not only of computers - - but of their application in business, science and government."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Even the most optimistic of Tesla enthusiasts couldn't have predicted how high demand for the Tesla Model 3 would turn out to be. In what would clearly be a sign of things to come, Elon Musk, when unveiling the Model 3 last week, said that more than 115,000 people had already plunked down $1,000 to reserve a car they hadn't yet even seen.In the days that followed, Musk would periodically take to Twitter to provide reservation updates. First the reservation tally hit 200,000, then 276,000, all with no signs of a slow down. Yesterday, Musk said he would provide an up-to-date reservation count sometime today. That said, Tesla earlier today put out a blog post boasting that reservations for the Model 3 have already topped 325,000.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Today only, Amazon is offering Dragon NaturallySpeaking software at discounts of up to 84%.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking is the world's best-selling speech recognition software. Dictate and edit documents, send email, search the Web and use social media with unparalleled speed, ease and comfort. Dragon literally gets smarter as you use it, picking up on the words, names and phrases you use the most to convert your voice into text and commands with up to 99% accuracy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Large organizations are embracing public and private cloud computing at a rapid pace. According to ESG research, one-third of organizations have been using public and private cloud infrastructure for more than three years, and more than half of organizations (57%) have production workloads running on cloud computing infrastructure (note: I am an ESG employee).Of course, cloud computing is very different than physical or virtual servers, which translates into a different cybersecurity model as well. And these differences lead to a variety of security challenges. ESG recently surveyed 303 cybersecurity and IT professionals working at enterprise organizations (i.e. more than 1,000 employees) and posed a series of questions about cloud computing and cloud security. When asked to identify their top challenges with cloud security:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
President Barack Obama's administration won't support legislation to force device makers to help law enforcement agencies defeat encryption, according to a news report.
Two senior members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have been floating draft legislation to require device makers and other tech companies to provide workarounds for encryption and other security features, but the White House won't offer public support for the proposal, according to a report from Reuters.
FBI Director James Comey has long pushed for encryption workarounds, and just last month, Obama called for tech companies and the government to work together to allow police access to suspects' smartphones protected by encryption.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
UPDATE: Underwriters Laboratory has requested comments, which are appended at the bottom.Today, Underwriters Laboratory announced the UL CyberSecurity Assurance Program. I won’t call it an oxymoron, but I’m deeply worried about it. While I have faith in UL, I’m not sure if they realize the breadth and depth of what they’re getting into.UL is the reason there are only small holes in appliances and CE gear. Why? So an average toddler can’t stick something inside and become electrocuted. UL helps product vendors have liability insurance within sane ranges. They promulgate standards that vendors are responsible to adhere to for insurance sake. Test labs do the rest, ensuring that First Article Samples (and then, perhaps subsequent production samples) of products adhere to a bevy of standards—all designed to make products safer but at least insurable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Modern cars contain tens of specialized computers that control everything from infotainment functions to steering and brakes. The pressing need to protect these computers from hackers will likely open up a new market for car-related software security products.Karamba Security, a start-up based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is one of the companies that has stepped up to answer this demand. The company's anti-malware technology, unveiled Thursday, is designed to protect externally accessible electronic control units (ECUs) found in connected cars.These controllers, like those that handle handle telematics, infotainment and on-board diagnostics, can be accessed via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or even the Internet, so they can serve as entry points for hackers into a car's network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
11 mobile tools for hardcore IT pros on the goImage by WikipediaThe need to provide more services, with fewer colleagues to help cover them, has meant being able to respond to user needs from nearly anywhere on earth at nearly any hour of the day. To this end, I’ve been collecting tablet-based IT tools that work well over lower-speed connections to ensure the work gets done wherever I roam.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Devops staple Puppet, formerly Puppet Labs, is upgrading its Puppet Enterprise IT automation platform and offering new and expanded support for infrastructure like Docker containers and Kubernetes container management.Puppet automates the software delivery process to bridge traditional infrastructure with more contemporary technology, including public and private clouds and microservices architectures. It even has been suggested as a tool for users to build their own PaaS clouds.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When Mark Pickett was a captain in the Marines, he knew he couldn't be there to make every decision for his soldiers.
"You can't rehearse every scenario, and there will be times when you can't communicate," he explained. "You want to groom your Marines to be able to rely on themselves and their unit."
It's not so different in the business world in this era of big data.
Now senior director for online analytics and business intelligence at Sears, Pickett has been an early champion of the so-called citizen data scientist movement, by which employees in multiple parts of an organization are empowered with the analytics tools and skills to get the answers they need from their data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As a company, Intel has been as notoriously stable as its chips. You didn't hear about much turnover there. Many staff, especially executives, followed in the career path of former CEO Paul Otellini – join the company right out of school and retire from it decades later. That's because Intel was good about promoting people, and they didn't have to jump around the Silicon Valley to get a promotion or a raise.That, however, is changing, as one of the most insular company's in the Valley is seeing some real turnover in its executive suite. The latest shakeup involves the departures of Kirk Skaugen, the head of the Client Computing Group, and Doug Davis, who ran the IoT group, said they would leave the company to pursue new opportunities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Recent declines in oil prices have hit the world economy hard. Alberta, Canada’s major oil region, has witness increased unemployment due to declining commodity prices. In January 2016, Saudi Arabia increased the price of gasoline for its citizens by 50 percent given the situation. With major fluctuations in prices and the high cost of energy projects, quality information has never mattered more.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 15 big data and analytics companies to watch
The energy industry uses data science to cut costs, optimize investments and reduce risk. Reducing costs with data science is a popular application in the industry: much work has focused on improving maintenance and equipment monitoring. Optimizing investment decisions takes several forms including better internal resource allocation and assisting investors. Data science also contributes to improving public safety by providing better monitoring and oversight.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here