If you are a victim of ransomware, don’t pay!That has been the mantra of the FBI for several years now – one that was forcefully echoed by one of the nation’s highest-profile security bloggers – Brian Krebs – in a recent post.But based on the statistics, either a lot of people aren’t listening, or it’s a bit more complicated than that. The reality is that the success of ransomware isn’t just increasing. It’s exploding.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It is easier than ever, or so it seems, to open a new business, especially an ecommerce or tech business. But getting money to fund your startup, especially with so many new businesses competing for the same pool of seed money, can be tough. So which methods, or sources, are the most likely to get or give you the money you need to grow your business? Following are nine of the best, according to entrepreneurs and investors.“In the first six months of building my startup, Humblee, we participated and won the Make It in Brooklyn pitch competition,” says Zuley Clarke, cofounder, Humblee. “In addition to the prize money, we received valuable feedback from influential judges, made connections with investors and generated a buzz surrounding our business. Winning the pitch competition was incredible, but the benefits of simply entering [a pitch competition] are great too.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Trend Micro this morning released a report about the exposed cyberassets in the top U.S. cities and most critical industry segments -- and in many cases, it was the smaller municipalities that had the largest number of problems."Larger cities had fewer systems being exposed," said Ed Cabrera, chief cybersecurity officer at Trend Micro.Houston, for example, had 3,900,208 exposed devices, compared with 1,031,325 in New York City, even though New York has nearly four times as many people.But many of the cities with the highest numbers of exposed devices were even smaller. Sometimes, much, much smaller.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Network World increasingly has been writing about companies transforming their businesses via the Internet of Things rather than just tracking the latest IoT vendor announcements. But after taking a spin through our ongoing and interactive startup funding timeline, we figured it was a good time to round up some of the latest startups to rein in venture capital for their IoT-related businesses. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
7 features Linux distros should addImage by LinuxLinux (or, GNU/Linux, if you prefer) distributions are absolutely amazing—stable, fast, flexible. Your average Linux-based system is a veritable powerhouse of functionality—a tour de force of what computers can accomplish. But from time to time, other operating systems have some pretty great ideas. Here are seven of my personal favorites that Linux distributions might want to consider “borrowing.” Hint, hint. Nudge, nudge.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Researchers at IBM have developed a hub for wearables that can gather information from multiple wearable devices and share it with a doctor, potentially cutting down on the time patients need to spend in a hospital.The gadget, which IBM has dubbed a 'cognitive hypervisor,' funnels data from devices such as smart watches and fitness bands into the IBM Cloud. There, it's analyzed and the results are shared with the user and their doctor.The idea is that patients can be monitored reliably through the device so they can be sent home to recover from illnesses a day or two earlier than they might otherwise have been allowed. It also means that should a problem develop, a doctor can be alerted immediately and an ambulance dispatched if it's serious enough.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Some time ago I wrote about the Ring doorbell and concluded, as I wrote in a subsequent review of the company’s Stick Up Cam, that “While I liked the product conceptually, the startup lag (the time between detecting movement and when recording begins, usually a delay of a few seconds) is long enough that fast moving people like the Fedex guy can come and go before the device starts recording” and I lamented the so-so video quality. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If your organization has adopted a DevOps initiative, you’re likely already seeing improvements in culture and processes. Maybe you’ve automated manual tasks, built a continuous delivery pipeline, and improved collaboration between Dev and Ops. Team morale has gone up, and the number of 3 AM calls has gone down. You’re doing really well compared to many other organizations.Of course, DevOps is not one-and-done; it’s an ongoing journey. There’s always a way to achieve greater control, predictability and flexibility.Continuous Improvement is a new ebook by Puppet for anyone who's already tackled the fundamental DevOps practices and wants to go further. You’ll learn tips on improving cross-departmental collaboration, holding internal events like workshops and hackathons, and building in metrics and transparency to hold everyone accountable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A decade ago, there was much hoopla over the city of Munich discarding Windows desktops in favor of Linux, which were thought to be more secure and cheaper to deploy and maintain. Well, that experiment is coming to an end. TechRepublic reports the city is prepared to shift gears and allow users once again to choose Windows for their work PC instead of Linux after complaints of poorer productivity and compatibility issues. But it's not going to happen overnight; the Windows option won't come until 2021. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft today took the unprecedented step of postponing an entire month's slate of security updates for Windows and its other products just hours before the patches were to begin rolling out to customers."We discovered a last-minute issue that could impact some customers and was not resolved in time for our planned updates today," Microsoft said in a post to the MSRC (Microsoft Security Research Center) blog. "After considering all options, we made the decision to delay this month's updates."Today was set as Patch Tuesday, the monthly release of security fixes from Microsoft. Normally, Microsoft issues the updates around 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET). Although Microsoft did not time stamp its blog post, the SAN Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC) pointed out the delay at 8:22 a.m. PT (11:22 ET).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A new report from IANS Research shines a light on the current state of CISOs and their role in building in influence in leadership across an organization.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
The fatal clock timing flaw that causes a variety switches, routers and security appliances to crash and die after about 18 months of service is apparently part of some Juniper products.Cisco was the first vendor to post a notice about mortal clock fail earlier this month saying the notice includes some of the company’s most widely deployed products, such as certain models of its Series 4000 Integrated Services Routers, Nexus 9000 Series switches, ASA security devices and Meraki Cloud Managed Switches. Clock components are critical to the synchronization of multiple levels of a given device.+More on Network World: Cisco: Faulty clock part could cause failure in some Nexus switches, ISR routers, ASA security appliances+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Groundbreaking peak download speeds of 930 Mbps were obtained last week at the operational launch of Telstra’s Gigabit LTE network. Peak upload speeds of 127 Mbps were obtained at the same event.The ultra-fast service has now rolled out in major Australian Central Business Districts (CBDs), Qualcomm says in a blog post. That includes the CBDs of Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, according to Android Central.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Amazon today announced Chime, a unified communications as a service (UCaaS) offering hosted in Amazon Web Service’s cloud.Amazon is entering a crowded market of UC solutions, some of which are already cloud-based and others that run on customer premises. Nevertheless, analysts who track Amazon say the company has an opportunity here.Chime uses a mobile or desktop application that is available across iOS, Android and Windows environments. It uses noise-cancelling wideband audio, which Amazon says allows it to deliver high quality audio and video experiences. When a meeting starts, Chime calls all the participants, who can join by clicking a button; there is no PIN required. Chime shows a visual roster of all attendees, which Amazon says eliminates the “who just joined” questions that can occur on conference calls. Any user has the ability to mute a noisy participant. Advanced editions of Chime allow IT to centrally manage users and settings, including integrating it with existing corporate directories.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In IT circles, actor Christian Slater is known for the very popular USA Network show "Mr. Robot", so fans of that show might like watching him in this short film, sponsored/created by HP. The film, titled "The Wolf", showcases the security vulnerabilities found at companies through the connected office printer.It’s certainly a clever way to get people to think about printer security, especially as more of them become connected not only to the office network, but the Internet. Plus, Slater is really good here.Enjoy!
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No Microsoft patches today, but have you looked at your Office 365 Secure Score? It is one step Microsoft has taken to help customer mitigate risks. And at RSA, the company called on tech companies to be a “neutral Digital Switzerland” and to be committed to “100 percent defense and zero percent offense.”No patches on February Patch TuesdayMicrosoft opted not to release patches on Valentine’s Day, which should have been Patch Tuesday.The “delay” was announced by MSRC:
Our top priority is to provide the best possible experience for customers in maintaining and protecting their systems. This month, we discovered a last minute issue that could impact some customers and was not resolved in time for our planned updates today.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Toshiba is more than a laptop maker, but the vast Japanese conglomerate shrunk on Tuesday under a wave of bad news.In one day, the company lost its chairman, said it will stop building nuclear power plants, wrote off about US$6.2 billion relating to that business, and postponed its fourth-quarter earnings report for a month.Its financial problems were no secret: Two weeks ago, it revealed plans to sell stakes in its memory chip and SSD businesses to cover the nuclear write-offs.Last June, it sold an 80 percent stake in its domestic appliances business, Toshiba Lifestyle, for $450 million. Before that sale, it had been planning to develop a series of smart appliances that could link up with its TVs and PCs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel's Itanium chip is hanging by a thread, and after more than three years, the company is now shipping the next and possibly final version of the processor, which is code-named Kittson.The chip is now shipping to test customers, and volume shipments will commence later this year, a company spokesman said.Itanium chips have been used in mainframes and mission-critical servers. Hewlett Packard Enterprise will ship servers with Kittson later this year.Itanium has been dying a slow and painful death, and Kittson will likely be the end of the line. Support for the chip has been dwindling, and software development has stalled.Intel may be happy to see Itanium sink as it looks to drop irrelevant products in its pursuit of profitable markets. Intel has been openly lobbying customers to switch from Itanium to x86-based Xeon chips, which commands a server chip market share of more than 90 percent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security researchers have discovered a macOS malware program that's likely part of the arsenal used by the Russian cyberespionage group blamed for hacking into the U.S. Democratic National Committee last year.The group, which is known in the security industry under different names, including Fancy Bear, Pawn Storm, and APT28, has been operating for almost a decade. It is believed to be the sole user and likely developer of a Trojan program called Sofacy or X-Agent.X-Agent variants for Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS have been found in the wild in the past, but researchers from Bitdefender have now come across what appears to be the first macOS version of the Trojan.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's been a year or so since I last caught up with Komprise, the data management vendor that was founded by Krishna Subramanian, a well-respected Silicon Valley veteran who has successfully founded, built, merged and acquired businesses -- both as founder/CEO of a startup backed by tier-one VCs and as corporate development leader at Sun.Her previous startup, Kaviza, was focused on eliminating the cost and complexity of my personal pet hate, virtual desktops, and -- notwithstanding my distaste for the space -- was acquired by Citrix in 2011. Subramanian then did her obligatory two years of duty within Citrix before embarking on her new thing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here