The users of millions of faulty Samsung Galaxy Note7s, already turned in, face a bigger potential dilemma than whether the devices might blow up: The fate of their personal data on the devices.Many of the users of some 3 million Note7 devices sold were told by Samsung and government officials to immediately stop using the devices. They most likely didn't have time to thoroughly wipe sensitive personal data like credit card numbers or medical information.Samsung hasn't divulged what it plans to do with the Note7s that were turned in, and didn't respond this week to a query about how it plans to ensure customer data is kept confidential.The company said earlier this week that it is reviewing options for environmentally disposing of the Note7 phones after Greenpeace demanded Samsung find ways to reuse rare materials in the phones, such as gold and tungsten.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you ever wonder why phishing scammers continue to try myriad ways of ripping people off you need look no further than this.The El Paso Times this week reported that the city had been scammed out of $3.2 million through a phishing scheme that targeted municipality’s street car development program.+More on Network World: FBI snags group that allegedly pinched 23,000 or $6.7 million worth of iPhonesTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Humans are often the weak link in any cybersecurity defense. People behave unpredictably because we are sometimes driven by emotion and by an innate desire to trust and please other people. Also, we tend to take the path of least resistance, even if that path inadvertently creates a cybersecurity risk.
Attackers understand these human traits, which is why they are frequently successful in exploiting people to get around more predictable machine-based defenses. As an example, consider phishing. It’s estimated that globally, 8 million phishing email messages are opened every day, and of those, 800,000 recipients of the malicious messages click on the embedded links. Ten percent of the people who click on a link actually give their information, such as login credentials for personal applications or their employer’s applications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The allure of IoT is strong. Companies are eager to explore the potential for connected products and business processes. But technologies and use cases for the IoT vary wildly, and the vendor landscape is rapidly changing, warns research and advisory firm Forrester. Adding to the hurdles IT teams face is the demand for IoT skills – including data analytics, security and wireless networking expertise – that are already in short supply in many organizations.
IoT technology uses new network protocols, hardware and specialized software, and successful deployments will require expertise in business transformation, data science, cybersecurity, and industrial automation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This folding keyboard from Microsoft pairs with any combination of 2 iPads, iPhones, Android, Windows tablets, and Windows Phones. It features a water repellent keyset and fabric to protect against accidents. Unfold to turn on, and fold to turn off. Pairs quickly and reliably with Bluetooth 4.0 technology. Its built-in rechargeable battery lasts up to 3 months on a single charge. It currently averages 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews) from nearly 200 reviewers, and its list price of $100 is currently reduced to $50. See the discounted Microsoft keyboard now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Everybody wants to be a winner. One way to get there is to follow the leaders.In networking these days, big cloud companies like Google and Facebook are at the top of their game. They run giant data centers, continually launch and modify large-scale applications, and don’t seem to be bound to big system vendors. Many ordinary enterprises would love what the internet heavyweights have: standardized networks that can support any application without administrators having to configure a lot of proprietary hardware.Conveniently, some of those cutting-edge companies offer parts of their technology to others through open-source specifications. But there are limits to how well a company in the insurance or machine-tool business can emulate world-changing tech giants. It turns out no one can just become Google, at least not overnight.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Analysts disagree drastically over the health of the smartwatch market. Some say the market is tanking. Others say there are favorable signs and predict healthy smartwatch shipments and sales in coming years.In late October, market research firm IDC said smartwatch shipments in the third quarter declined by 51% from the same quarter of 2015. The total shipped in the third quarter was 2.7 million, IDC said.By comparison, research firm Canalys on Thursday said smartwatch shipments were up 60% for the third quarter of 2016 compared with the same quarter a year ago. That resulted in 6.1 million units shipped in the latest quarter, Canalys said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft has changed the way it deploys patches, adding a new twist to an old problem. For many folks, Windows 7 Update scans still take hours—even days. How do you knock your Win7 machine upside the head, so it will find new patches in less than glacial time? We have a new Microsoft-sanctioned approach that only needs to be tempered a little.Note that, in the new patching paradigm, even those who manually download monthly security patches (“Group B”) still need to use Windows Update, if only for .Net patches, Office patches (for those who don’t have Office Click-to-Run), and other patches that don’t arrive as part of the Security-only Update. See, for example, this month’s KB 3200006 and KB 3199375, for Internet Explorer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Companies continue their migration of both applications and computing infrastructure to the cloud at a steady pace. They have moved 45% of their applications and computing infrastructure to the cloud already, and they expect well over half of their IT environment to be cloud-based by 2018, according to a recent IDG Enterprise survey of 925 IT decision makers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
The situation often dictates how to approach a new job. Did the company just have a humiliating experience with a data breach? Did they not have a CSO previously and that is why they are looking for security help to lock down their network?
If during the job interview, there was a blunt plea for help then most new hires would come in guns a blazin’ to get things under control quickly. But in most scenarios, CSOs interviewed said there is a general time period to examine the culture of the company to help in getting a grasp of what needs to be done.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
MisstepsMachine learning isn’t confined to science fiction movie plots anymore; it’s fueled the proliferation of technologies that touch our everyday lives, including voice recognition with Siri or Alexa, Facebook auto-tagging photos and recommendations from Amazon and Spotify. And many enterprises are eager to leverage machine learning algorithms to increase the efficiency of their network. In fact, some are already using it to enhance their threat detection and optimize wide area networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Code.gov, a U.S. government website for promoting the sharing of custom-developed software code, was launched Thursday with listings of nearly 50 open-source projects from various government agencies.The move follows the announcement by the White House in August of a Federal Source Code policy that would promote reuse of new custom source code developed by government agencies across the federal government to prevent replication of work and expense. The agencies are also required to make some of the software available to the public under an open-source license.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New hardware means the old inventory has to go, and that's what Microsoft is doing. Hot on the heels of its big announcements in New York late last month, the company has put almost a dozen PCs sold through the Microsoft Store on discount. These aren't cheap whitebox products, either. We're talking desktops and laptops from Dell, Sony, HP, MSI, ASUS, Alienware and Lenovo. The complete list of items on sale is here, although some are already sold out. Some of the bigger deals include:Lenovo Z50-87 notebookOn sale for $349, $250 off its $599 price tag (42% savings)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google Home, the company's new voice-controlled interface to the internet, is hardly the first to appear on the consumer market. But it may be the best -- although "best" may not yet be good enough.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Android just reached a new milestone in its worldwide dominance over iOS.According to new research from Strategy Analytics, 87.5 percent of smartphones in the world are now running Android. Shipments hit a total of 328.6 million for 3rd quarter of 2016, which is up 10.3 percent up year-on-year. While Android had always been hanging around the 80 percent mark, this latest number is a new high.Comparatively, Apple shipped 45.5 million iPhones, which is down 5.2 percent from the 48 million from last year. The real drop is in "others" (like Blackberry and Windows phone). Last year, 8.2 million units of "other" smartphones were sold in the 3rd quarter. This year, the number is 1.3 million.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Seventy-five percent of internet use will be on mobile devices next year, according to a new study published by ad forecaster Zenith.The firm says that’s just the beginning. It reckons that some places, such as Hong Kong, will have 89 percent of total internet use being performed on mobile by 2018. The United States will marginally trail that at 83 percent in that year.+ Also on Network World: Desktop use off 11% in past year. Winner: smartphones +
Smartphone penetration is the cause. Those devices have proliferated rapidly. In 2012, only 23 percent of individuals in Zenith’s 60-studied countries possessed smartphones. That number is now 56 percent and will be 63 percent globally by 2018. Some countries have adopted the devices more spectacularly; for example, Ireland is at 92 percent smartphone penetration.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For a long time, law enforcement agencies and hackers have been able to track the identity and location of mobile users by setting up fake cellular network towers and tricking their devices to connect to them. Researchers have now found that the same thing can be done much more cheaply with a simple Wi-Fi hotspot.The devices that pose as cell towers are known in the industry as IMSI catchers, with the IMSI (international mobile subscriber identity) being a unique number tied to a mobile subscriber and stored on a SIM card. IMSI catchers can be used for tracking and in some cases, for intercepting calls, but commercial solutions, such as the Stingray used by the FBI, are expensive.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Wix, the provider of a widely used cloud-based web development platform, appears to have had a significant bug on its hands that could have paved the way for a computer worm to do serious damage to websites around world.The problem was related to an XSS (cross-site scripting) vulnerability that was found in websites built with Wix, according to Matt Austin, a researcher with Contrast Security.Though Wix says it has fixed the issue, it illustrates how a few lines of bad code can potentially do widespread damage.XSS vulnerabilities are common, and result from flaws in websites' coding. Hackers can take advantage of them to trick users' browsers into running malicious scripts that, for example, could download a computer virus or expose the internet cookies that are on their machines. Austin found the same kind of problem in websites from Wix, which builds websites and has 87 million users in Europe, Latin America, Asia.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Wholesale clubs BJ's and Sam's are among the latest retailers to share their Black Friday plans, and tech deals are aplenty.Black Friday watchers such as BFads and Best Black Friday have been tracking new ads closely.BJ's Wholesale Club Black Friday savings start on Nov. 18 and run through Nov. 29, though note that the stores are closed on Thanksgiving day.MORE: Black Friday isn't dead in 2016 | Dell, Amazon, Newegg beat Black Friday 2016 rushTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Ethernet is the network computing gift that keeps on giving. From its inception in 1973 as a 3 megabits/sec copper wired local area network technology, it has evolved to accommodate 40 gigabit/sec and 100 gigabit/sec speeds, fiber optic cabling, and wide area networking. The race is on to reach 400 gigabit/sec speeds and enable more on demand Ethernet-based services.Ethernet has achieved its success based on the foundation of openness and standardization and that is an ongoing process enabling continual innovation. Achieving end-to-end on demand Ethernet services that span multiple service providers is a key element in realizing the promise of software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) for geographically dispersed organizations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here