Big Switch Networks today unraveled a wide-ranging group of products aimed at mitigating security attacks, scrutinizing cloud and container environments and improving its existing SDN-based monitoring software.
In the security realm Big Switch rolled out its BigSecure Architecture, a high-performance cyber-defense platform that the company says will help enterprises protect against Terabit-speed attack.
+More on Network World: 20 years ago: Hot sci/tech images from 1996+
“What we are seeing is network attack by thousands of IoT devices [like the recent Dyn DNS attack that hit 1.2Tbps] using massive speed and bandwidth to take down resources. To mitigate against that kind of attack can be cost prohibitive but what we have implemented in BigSecure can help mitigate those attacks,” said Prashant Gandhi, vice president and chief product officer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
My very first technology article, back in 1987, was about MS-DOS 3.30. Almost 30 years later, I’m still writing, but the last bit of MS-DOS, cmd.exe — the command prompt — is on its way out the door.
It’s quite possible that you have been using Microsoft Windows for years — decades, even — without realizing that there’s a direct line to Microsoft’s earliest operating system or that an MS-DOS underpinning has carried over from one Windows version to another — less extensive with every revision, but still there nonetheless. Now we’re about to say goodbye to all of that.
Interestingly, though, there was not always an MS-DOS from Microsoft, and it wasn’t even dubbed that at birth. The history is worth reviewing now that the end is nigh.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Many network security cameras made by Sony could be taken over by hackers and infected with botnet malware if their firmware is not updated to the latest version.Researchers from SEC Consult have found two backdoor accounts that exist in 80 models of professional Sony security cameras, mainly used by companies and government agencies given their high price.One set of hard-coded credentials is in the Web interface and allows a remote attacker to send requests that would enable the Telnet service on the camera, the SEC Consult researchers said in an advisory Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If an AI could rule a world, would you trust it to manage your IT systems? German software company Arago is hoping you will.The developer of IT automation system Hiro (short for Human Intelligence Robotically Optimized) has been teaching its software how to play Freeciv, an open source computer strategy game inspired by Sid Meier's Civilization series of games, and in the process is learning to make IT management more fun.Hiro is an AI-based automation system that usually sits on top of other IT service management tools. Unlike script-based systems, it learns from its users how best to manage a company's IT systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google in 2012 announced a goal of running its operations 100% on renewable energy. Today the company announced that it plans to meet that target by the end of 2017, a year ahead of schedule.Google will purchase direct renewable energy and buy renewable energy credits that match the amount of power the company uses to power its global operations. That’s 2.6 GigaWatts of electricity, or 2,600 MegaWatts (MW).Google is just one of a handful of vendors, particularly those in the IaaS cloud computing market, who have committed to buying renewable energy to power their operations. Last week Amazon Web Services announced that it plans to be 50% powered by green energy sources by the end of next year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Startup culture introduced a lot of change to the traditional workplace by normalizing open office plans, fun break rooms, free food and flexible schedules. Part of these perks are a way to compete for the top tech talent, but they also serve as a way to keep current employees happy, encouraging them to stay with the company for the long haul.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
U.S. web-hosting giant GoDaddy has agreed to buy German company Host Europe Group in a move that will take the number of domain names it manages to 70 million.Host Europe, based in Germany, has 1.7 million customers and manages 7 million domain names, while GoDaddy has 14 million customers and 63 million domain names under management.The acquisition values Host Europe at €1.69 billion (US$1.79 billion) and will make GoDaddy market leader in small business cloud services in Europe, the U.S. company said Tuesday. It expects to close the deal during the second quarter of 2017.Both companies focus on services to small businesses. A deal will allow them to scale up existing systems to sell one another's products to existing customers, GoDaddy said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Few managers look forward to negotiating contracts. In large companies, there are many stakeholders to consult and it’s easy to make a misstep. And then there’s the expense involved in working with lawyers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
IBM believes blockchain technology, with its capability to create an essentially immutable ledger of digital events, will alter the way whole industries conduct transactions. To make that happen, Big Blue asserts, requires a complete ecosystem of industry players working together.To that end, IBM today said it is building a blockchain ecosystem, complete with a revenue sharing program, to accelerate the growth of networks on the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Fabric. IBM envisions the ecosystem as an open environment that allows organizations to collaborate using the Hyperledger Fabric.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With its enormous capacity, a new 14TB drive from Western Digital is unlike any seen before and is now being shipped to customers for testing.It's the highest-capacity hard drive developed yet, beating 12TB hard drives from WD and Seagate. It's a larger capacity version of the 12TB HGST Ultrastar He12 PMR hard drive, which also is shipping for testing.Hard drives ruled when it came to capacity, but this year were overtaken by flash-based SSDs. The 14TB drive, though setting a record for hard drives, comes nowhere close in capacity to Seagate's 60TB SSD, which was shown at the Flash Memory Summit in August.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Telecommunications giants Verizon and CenturyLink have each now sold off their data center assets, with Verizon being the most recent to offload its infrastructure operations to Equinix in a $3.6 billion deal.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Amazon's biggest re:Invent cloud announcements +Equinix operates data centers around the world for its colocation and interconnection business and is purchasing 24 sites that have a total of 29 data centers in 15 metropolitan areas. The acquisition brings Equinix’s total data center footprint to 175 in 43 metro areas. Verizon is keeping its data centers in 27 sites across Europe, Asia and Canada.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If there's one thing that Apple values more than most other tech companies, it's product secrecy. Whereas other big name tech companies like Google and Microsoft enjoy showing users what type of crazy new technologies they've been working on, Apple in contrast prefers to keep everything under wraps until it has a shipping product to show off.That said, a recent letter that Apple sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) finally gives us some concrete proof that the company has a strong and ongoing interest in self-driving car technology. Sure, it was no secret that Apple was working on a car initiative of some sort given its hiring spree of engineers with deep experience across the entirety of the car design and manufacturing process. Still, it was never entirely clear if Apple was initially looking into building a car of its own or, perhaps, focusing on ancillary software technologies instead.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Users who need to make sure they can get access to files stored in Dropbox while they're on the go and away from the web have a new feature to help with that. The company announced Tuesday that users of its mobile apps will soon be able to save files locally for use offline.It's a move by the cloud storage company to better compete with the other players in the cloud storage space, and provide users with functionality that will help them be more productive when they're on planes, out in low-connectivity areas or just want to save their cellular data quota for other purposes. Here's how it works: users select a file or folder in the Dropbox app, tap "Make Available Offline," then wait for the app to download the requested files. After that, those files will be available for viewing, even if the phone or tablet storing them is without a connection to the web. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A few weeks ago, Microsoft unveiled its Windows 10 Creators Update with a focus on the software’s benefits for end users when it launches next year. On Tuesday, the company showed a different side of the next major patch for its new operating system, showing off features that will help IT professionals.Next year, IT folks will get new features focused on security, device management, and upgrade improvements. For one, Microsoft’s advanced security suite for Windows 10 is gaining additional remediation, detection and threat intelligence tools. Administrators will also get new analytics to see how their organization is using the new operating system.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Supreme Court has invalidated a US$399 million infringement award against Samsung Electronics in a long-running design patent dispute with Apple.The court, in an 8-0 decision, kicked back the patent award to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, saying the lower court calculated the patent award based on the whole iPhone, while the design patents may cover only pieces of the device.The Federal Circuit's failure to consider a smaller damage award based on pieces of the iPhone "cannot be squared" with patent law, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the Supreme Court. The lower court, in its ruling, said it could not separate out the infringing pieces of the smartphones because they were not available for sale to the public, she noted.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Mirantis is well known as a pure play OpenStack vendor. The company is (was) entirely focused on offering organizations help leveraging the OpenStack open-source cloud computing platform.As we’ve seen over recent years, the OpenStack initiative, while popular in some areas (science and telco, for example) hasn’t seen the sort of service provider revenues that justify the massive valuations of venture-backed companies.So, while other vendors have gone to the wall and had to sell themselves off to the highest bidder, Mirantis seems to be making a determined effort to pivot into adjacent areas. No longer is this a pure-play OpenStack company; Mirantis now pitches itself as an organization that “helps top enterprises build and manage private cloud infrastructure using OpenStack and related open-source technologies.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A month before Apple is expected to enforce stricter security requirements for app communications in iOS, enterprise developers don't seem ready to embrace them, a new study shows.The study was performed by security firm Appthority on the most common 200 apps installed on iOS devices in enterprise environments. The researchers looked at how well these apps conform to Apple's App Transport Security (ATS) requirements.ATS was first introduced and was enabled by default in iOS 9. It forces all apps to communicate with Internet servers using encrypted HTTPS (HTTP over SSL/TLS) connections and ensures that only industry-standard encryption protocols and ciphers without known weaknesses are used. For example, SSL version 3 is not allowed and neither is the RC4 stream cipher, due to known vulnerabilities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Seagate expansion desktop drive provides extra storage for your ever-growing collection of files. Instantly add space for more files, consolidate all of your files to a single location, or free up space on your computer's internal drive to help improve performance. Setup is straightforward; simply plug in the included power supply and USB cable, and you are ready to go. It is automatically recognized by the Windows operating system, so there is no software to install and nothing to configure. Saving files is easy too-just drag-and-drop. Take advantage of the fast data transfer speeds with the USB 3.0 interface by connecting to a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port. This drive receives 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon, where its typical list price of $70 has been reduced 21% to $55. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Given recent cybersecurity incidents like the Google Android data breach, the DDoS attack on Dyn and the data breach of the DNC, President-elect Donald Trump will find cybersecurity policy a top priority when he takes office in January.What should Mr. Trump do and what should he avoid? In my last blog, I presented some recommendations for the “do” column. Alternatively, here is a list of things President Trump should eschew in his administration’s cybersecurity agenda. The “don’t” column includes the following:
Don’t obsess over cybersecurity intelligence sharing path. Public/private partnerships for cybersecurity cooperation have roots that go back to the Clinton administration’s original PDD-63 for critical infrastructure protection. In more recent times, congress struggled with CISPA then CISA as stand-alone bills before sneaking CISA into a federal spending bill in late 2015. Intelligence sharing is a good step but it’s been beaten to death and most large organizations have figured this out on their own. What’s needed is a concerted effort on best practices and sharing threat intelligence with small businesses. Yes, these things should happen but the feds should do so as part of CISA and not spin up Continue reading
These highly rated & multi-award winning Bluetooth headphones from LilGadgets are designed for kids. The Untangled Pro offers several fun color options, is durably constructed out of a high quality polycarbonate & stainless steel, and is covered with comfortable SoftTouch fabric. Fully charged, the Untangled Pro has a generous 12 hour battery life with 180 hours on standby. It features a 93db volume limiter for safe listening, and an integrated "SharePort" that lets multiple headphones connect and listen along. Each pair comes with a high quality microfiber travel pouch, a four foot premium nylon braided 3.5 millimeter audio cable with an inline microphone and a micro-USB charging cable. They are currently rated 4.7 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 1,700 people (84% rate 5/5 stars: read recent reviews). Its typical list price of $64.95 has been reduced 23% to $49.95. See them on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here