Multiple media reports today indicate that Amazon Web Service’s vice president of marketing, sales and support Adam Selipsky is leaving the company, marking a high-profile executive change at the leading public IaaS cloud vendor.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: IBM's big cloud win | Amazon remains top dog in Gartner's IaaS Magic Quadrant +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. presidential campaign has shined a spotlight on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade deal that's simmered on the back burner for years.Both major-party presidential candidates oppose the deal, negotiated in secret among 12 Pacific Region countries, including the U.S., Japan, Australia, Canada, and Singapore. China and Russia are notably absent from the negotiations.While negotiators approved the final language in October, the U.S. has not yet ratified the deal.Here are five important things to know about TPP:What's in the TPP?
The goal of the trade deal, with negotiations that began in 2008, is to lower trade barriers, including tariffs, between the countries. The deal also allows companies to ask for legal arbitration against countries they believe to be discriminating against their products.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a controversial trade deal supported by many U.S. tech companies, is on death row, with both major party presidential candidates opposed. It's a long shot, but some tech trade groups are hoping for last-minute clemency from Congress and outgoing President Barack Obama. The trade groups are pushing for Congress to vote to approve the deal after November's general election, in the lame-duck session before a new Congress and a new president takes office.The TPP, a free-trade deal negotiated among the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Region nations for seven years, has become a major presidential campaign issue in recent months. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The fast-growing Cerber ransomware earned nearly $200,000 in July despite a payment rate of just 0.3 percent as a result of its affiliate distribution model, according to a new report by Check Point and IntSights Cyber Intelligence.That puts it on track to make $2.3 million this year, said Maya Horowitz, group manager of threat intelligence at Israel-based Check Point Software Technologies Ltd..In the affiliate model, non-technical customers can run their own campaigns using the platform and get to keep 60 percent of the profits. Affiliates get access to easy-to-use management tools, Cerber's Bitcoin laundering system, as well as the ransomware itself. Each day, eight new Cerber ransomware campaigns are launched, she said, with over 150 affiliates at current count.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A ransomware strain has been making a pretty penny by opening its doors to unskilled hackers.
Security firm Check Point gained a rare look at the inner workings of the Cerber ransomware and found that its developers are building a network of partners to attack more targets -- and rake in more cash.
Check Point also warned that because of Cerber, more unskilled cybercriminals might choose to participate in ransomware schemes.
"Even the most novice hacker can easily reach out in closed forums to obtain an undetected ransomware variant," it said in a new report.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New school year, new school gearImage by GrovemadeWith classes back in session (or about to begin), hopefully you already have everything from your back-to-school list. Laptop? Check. The perfect bag for said laptop? Check. Schedule and text books? Check and check. Though your laptop and books are, of course, your school lifeline, there are some other gadgets you can add to your list to make your life easier. From practical picks (mice, keyboards, hard drives) to streaming sticks (hey, it’s all about that work/life balance!), our gear guide is full of recommendations designed to aid you in all the demands of student life.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Going to security conferences always stimulates my imagination. It makes me think outside of the box and remove the cruff that develops when I sit inside my lab too long—staring at vCenter monitors, 10 open bash sessions, security consoles, and emails from colleagues swallowing Xanax.+ Also on Network World: Cyber attacks are on the rise +If advanced persistent threats (APTs), certificate authorities (CAs) with IQs of 77, vendor patches bordering on oxymoronic, and hyper-aggressive agile development weren’t enough, I’ll summarize what I believe are your next 10 security pain points.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Both the securing of the Internet of Things, as well as the monetizing of it, are roles for blockchain technology, experts say.In one developing case, the Isle of Man, a self-governing British dependency located just off the U.K. mainland, is testing the use of a blockchain prototype to try to preemptively see-off IoT hacking, according to Financial News, which wrote about the island’s efforts.The island is a financial center and is looking to expand its offerings through fintech. It’s already involved in digital currency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you build it and it’s popular, they will come; it being an app and they being cyber criminals. This time it’s Pokemon GO ransomware which goes the extra mile by adding a hidden backdoor Windows admin account, spreading to other drives and creating network shares.Michael Gillespie discovered Hidden Tear ransomware disguised as a Pokemon Go app on a Windows Phone. But it’s not the standard ransomware. Bleeping Computer explained, “This developer has put in extra time to include features that are not found in many, if any, other ransomware variants.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you build it and it’s popular, they will come; it being an app, and they being cyber criminals. This time it’s Pokémon Go ransomware, which goes the extra mile by adding a hidden backdoor Windows admin account, spreading to other drives and creating network shares.Michael Gillespie discovered Hidden Tear ransomware disguised as a Pokémon Go app on a Windows Phone. But it’s not the standard ransomware. Bleeping Computer explained, “This developer has put in extra time to include features that are not found in many, if any, other ransomware variants.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Techify and Geekify those school supplies!It’s back-to-school time, and that means getting ready by stocking up on new clothes, school supplies (probably the only time you’ll be shopping for colored pencils and glue sticks) and finding the coolest backpack. But these days, it also means picking up new tech, as schooling relies on tech more than ever. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you were considering potential vacation locations, then the Android app Live Camera Viewer for IP Cams is purportedly “for travelers to have a spy sneak peek at travel destinations.” Yet children’s bedrooms would never occur to me as a travel destination. A heartsick mom in Texas found out her kids’ bedrooms were being live-streamed via the app.ABC News recounted a story which started with a mom and son duo from Oregon; they had been surfing satellite images of Earth. The Oregon mom found the Live Camera Viewer app while looking for more satellite feeds. That’s when she saw a broadcast from Houston, Texas, of a little girl’s bedroom.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Researchers have found a way to steal a PC’s data by using the mechanical noise coming from the hard disk drives inside.
It’s not a very practical hack, but the scheme has been designed for “air-gapped” systems, or computers that have been sectioned off from the Internet.
The researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel have been studying how to use sound to extract information from air-gapped computers. In June, they showed that even a PC’s cooling fans can be controlled to secretly transmit data, including passwords and encryption keys.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the wake of increased terror incidents Europe is starting to look seriously at ways to read encrypted messages that officials there say are instrumental to carrying out attacks.France and Germany apparently are teaming up to formulate a plan for enabling law enforcement there to read encrypted communications, according to a report in Le Monde. But it’s unclear exactly what the two countries will discuss.France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve says an international effort is needed to deal with the issue and he plans to meet with his German counterpart later this month to discuss it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Work “works” differently than it used to. More and more people are working as freelancers in the gig economy, and today 40 percent of the workforce does freelancing, contract work and part-time work. That means many more organizations have blended workforces with a variety of employees, including full-time, permanent employees, contractors and freelancers.Multiple factors are enabling the disruption of the traditional employer-employee model and the rise of the blended workforce. Technology enables people to work from wherever they are, societal attitudes towards work have changed, and competitive demands place more pressure on organizations to be agile. More than 30 percent of workers for nearly 40 percent of top-performing firms are already contract or freelance workers. In fact, these firms intend to hire even more freelancers in the future.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With September steadily approaching, we're inching ever closer to the grand unveiling of Apple's iPhone 7. While the iPhone 7 likely won't introduce a radical new redesign or futuristic features, the device will undoubtedly carry a number of internal enhancements along with much improved cameras on both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models.Last week, we detailed how Apple's iPhone will likely hit store shelves on Friday, September 16. And now comes word via Bloomberg that the device will officially be unveiled on Wednesday, September 7.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel's Atom chips are on their way out of mobile devices, and the next generation of the chip line will instead be targeted toward drones, self-driving cars, and IoT devices.The new Atom chips will retain the line's focus on low power consumption, with an emphasis on graphics and visual computing. The chip line, to be announced next week at Intel Developer Forum, will be used to maneuver cars, drones, and robots and to also help them recognize objects.Many Atom mobile and server chips have been on Intel's chopping block. The troubled chip's future now is in the growing markets of IoT and virtual reality. The chips will integrate into devices with the company's 3D RealSense cameras, according to a technical session description at IDF. That points to the chips also being used in low-power virtual reality headsets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Many titans of technology today have well-known reputations of being innovative and creative. However, new research based on the experiences of employees who work at these firms suggests external perceptions may not represent reality. Facebook, for example, doesn't prioritize creativity in the workplace as well as its peers, and Microsoft is more specific than Facebook and Google when it looks for certain traits in employees, according a report from Good&Co, a firm that surveys professionals on their work histories and tries to match people with appropriate employers. The company recently evaluated responses from 4,364 users who work at the tech companies featured in the study and compared findings to develop profiles of tech's biggest stars.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft just offered a masterclass on why building back doors into secure systems are a bad idea.
Two security researchers who go by the handles @never_released and @TheWack0lian on Twitter recently announced in a blog post that malicious actors can bypass Windows’ Secure Boot feature on vulnerable machines, as first reported by ZDNet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
“Privacy is dead,” has been a mantra, for different reasons, for generations. In the cybersecurity community, it has been conventional wisdom for at least a decade. But Edward Snowden and Andrew “bunnie” Huang apparently think they can revive it a bit, at least if you own an iPhone 6.
Their goal, they say in a white paper titled, “Against the Law – Countering Lawful Abuses of Digital Surveillance,” is to create an add-on hardware component that will protect “front-line journalists” in repressive regimes where governments have demonstrated the capability to track people through their smartphones even if the devices are set to “Airplane Mode.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here