A ‘kill switch’ is slowing the spread of WannaCry ransomware

Friday’s unprecedented ransomware attack may have stopped spreading to new machines -- at least briefly -- thanks to a "kill switch" that a security researcher has activated.The ransomware, called Wana Decryptor or WannaCry, has been found infecting machines across the globe. It works by exploiting a Windows vulnerability that the U.S. National Security Agency may have used for spying.The malware encrypts data on a PC and shows users a note demanding $300 in bitcoin to have their data decrypted. Images of the ransom note have been circulating on Twitter. Security experts have detected tens of thousands of attacks, apparently spreading over LANs and the internet like a computer worm.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A ‘kill switch’ is slowing the spread of WannaCry ransomware

Friday’s unprecedented ransomware attack may have stopped spreading to new machines -- at least briefly -- thanks to a "kill switch" that a security researcher has activated.The ransomware, called Wana Decryptor or WannaCry, has been found infecting machines across the globe. It works by exploiting a Windows vulnerability that the U.S. National Security Agency may have used for spying.The malware encrypts data on a PC and shows users a note demanding $300 in bitcoin to have their data decrypted. Images of the ransom note have been circulating on Twitter. Security experts have detected tens of thousands of attacks, apparently spreading over LANs and the internet like a computer worm.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Detroit and San Diego Data Centers expand Cloudflare network to 26 North American cities

Cloudflare is excited to announce deployments in Detroit (Michigan) and San Diego (California), which are our 114th and 115th data centers respectively. They join Colombo, Sri Lanka and Cape Town, South Africa in the cohort of four new cities added just this week to our growing global network, which spans 57 countries and counting.

For over 6 million Internet properties, we now serve customer traffic from across 26 North American cities, including 22 in the United States alone. We're not going to stop building our network until we're within milliseconds of every Internet user, and to that end, data centers are already in the works in eight additional North American cities (and many others around the world).

Connections

Source: Baja Insider

Detroit and San Diego share something special, as they are immediately adjacent to international borders with Canada and Mexico respectively. Detroit has four border crossings to Windsor, Ontario, including the Ambassador Bridge, which was built in the Roaring Twenties, and accommodates over a quarter of all merchandise trade with Canada.

Founded in 1701, and best known for cars and Motown, Detroit eagerly awaits a 3,000 pound bronze RoboCop statue to watch over Delta City (track progress here). Continue reading

So, what did we get from Microsoft’s Build conference?

Microsoft is winding down its annual Build developers conference in Seattle, and a lot of news has come from the show. Some of it was expected; some of it was a surprise. And there were a few from out of left field. We speculated on what might make news and what would not, so let’s revisit the list and see how the predictions went.Operating systems As expected, Redstone 3 was discussed. It’s formally known as the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, a pretty blah name, and will be released in September. Microsoft gave a pretty deep dive on what to expect primarily with Project NEON, now known as the Microsoft Fluent Design System. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HPE is bringing Optane storage to Unix servers

In the next year or two, Hewlett Packard Enterprise will add support for Intel Optane memory and storage to its latest Unix servers.Optane is a new form of storage and memory that could replace today's SSDs and DRAM. It is significantly faster and denser than both.One new system that can be configured with Optane is HPE's new Integrity i6 server, which was released this week. Integrity i6 is based on Intel's Itanium 9700 processors, code-named Kittson, and runs the HP-UX OS. The server can also be linked to HP's all-flash 3Par storage arrays, which are due to get Optane support later.Optane has stringent hardware and OS requirements. The first Optane products were low-capacity storage drives for PC caching and worked only with Intel's Kaby Lake chips and Windows 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HPE is bringing Optane storage to Unix servers

In the next year or two, Hewlett Packard Enterprise will add support for Intel Optane memory and storage to its latest Unix servers.Optane is a new form of storage and memory that could replace today's SSDs and DRAM. It is significantly faster and denser than both.One new system that can be configured with Optane is HPE's new Integrity i6 server, which was released this week. Integrity i6 is based on Intel's Itanium 9700 processors, code-named Kittson, and runs the HP-UX OS. The server can also be linked to HP's all-flash 3Par storage arrays, which are due to get Optane support later.Optane has stringent hardware and OS requirements. The first Optane products were low-capacity storage drives for PC caching and worked only with Intel's Kaby Lake chips and Windows 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP rolls out patch to fix keylogging bug in certain laptops

Consumers with HP laptops that have been accidentally recording their keystrokes can easily address the problem with a patch from the PC maker.More than two dozen HP laptop models, including the EliteBook, ProBook and ZBook, have an bug in the audio driver that will act as a keylogger, a Swiss security firm said Thursday. A list of affected products can be found here. Fortunately, HP began rolling out fixes through its support page, and in a Windows update, starting on Thursday, HP Vice President Mike Nash said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP rolls out patch to fix keylogging bug in certain laptops

Consumers with HP laptops that have been accidentally recording their keystrokes can easily address the problem with a patch from the PC maker.More than two dozen HP laptop models, including the EliteBook, ProBook and ZBook, have an bug in the audio driver that will act as a keylogger, a Swiss security firm said Thursday. A list of affected products can be found here. Fortunately, HP began rolling out fixes through its support page, and in a Windows update, starting on Thursday, HP Vice President Mike Nash said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Improving peering relationships in Japan

Route servers are used by many Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) — including our own at Japan Internet Exchange (JPIX) — to facilitate multilateral peering among various members. To better understand the peering characteristics of our members, we recently studied the routing table of our route servers operating at JPIX Tokyo and JPIX Osaka. —APNIC

The post Worth Reading: Improving peering relationships in Japan appeared first on rule 11 reader.

How a logistics firm leverages SD-WAN for competitive advantage

A gamble on a relatively unknown technology four years ago is paying off for a logistics company, which is using the software to shave millions of dollars off its bandwidth connectivity costs. Today freight forwarding company JAS Global is leveraging a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) to run cloud applications, according to JAS CIO Mark Baker. Eventually, Baker hopes to use the SD-WAN as the backbone of a predictive analytics strategy to grow the business.SD-WANs allow companies to set up and manage networking functionality, including VPNs, WAN optimization, VoIP and firewalls, using software to program traffic routing typically conducted by routers and switches. Just as virtualization software disrupted the server market, SD-WANs are shaking the networking equipment market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How a logistics firm leverages SD-WAN for competitive advantage

A gamble on a relatively unknown technology four years ago is paying off for a logistics company, which is using the software to shave millions of dollars off its bandwidth connectivity costs. Today freight forwarding company JAS Global is leveraging a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) to run cloud applications, according to JAS CIO Mark Baker. Eventually, Baker hopes to use the SD-WAN as the backbone of a predictive analytics strategy to grow the business.SD-WANs allow companies to set up and manage networking functionality, including VPNs, WAN optimization, VoIP and firewalls, using software to program traffic routing typically conducted by routers and switches. Just as virtualization software disrupted the server market, SD-WANs are shaking the networking equipment market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft posts PowerShell script that spawns pseudo security bulletins

A Microsoft manager this week offered IT administrators a way to replicate -- in a fashion -- the security bulletins the company discarded last month."If you want a report summarizing today's #MSRC security bulletins, here's a script that uses the MSRC Portal API," John Lambert, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center, said in a Tuesday message on Twitter.Lambert's tweet linked to code depository GitHub, where he posted a PowerShell script that polled data using a new API (application programming interface). Microsoft made the API available in November when it first announced that it planned to axe the security bulletins it had issued since at least 1998.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft posts PowerShell script that spawns pseudo security bulletins

A Microsoft manager this week offered IT administrators a way to replicate -- in a fashion -- the security bulletins the company discarded last month."If you want a report summarizing today's #MSRC security bulletins, here's a script that uses the MSRC Portal API," John Lambert, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center, said in a Tuesday message on Twitter.Lambert's tweet linked to code depository GitHub, where he posted a PowerShell script that polled data using a new API (application programming interface). Microsoft made the API available in November when it first announced that it planned to axe the security bulletins it had issued since at least 1998.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google will review web apps that want access to its users’ data

In response to recent attacks where hackers abused Google's OAuth services to gain access to Gmail accounts, the company will review new web applications that request Google users' data.To better enforce its policy regarding access to user data through its APIs (application programming interfaces), which states that apps should not mislead users when presenting themselves and their intentions, Google is making changes to the third-party app publishing process, its risk assessment systems and the consent page it displays to users.Google is an identity provider, which means other web apps can use Google as the authentication mechanism for users accessing the app. Apps use the OAuth protocol to do this. These apps can also use Google's APIs to send users requests for information stored in Google's services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google will review web apps that want access to its users’ data

In response to recent attacks where hackers abused Google's OAuth services to gain access to Gmail accounts, the company will review new web applications that request Google users' data.To better enforce its policy regarding access to user data through its APIs (application programming interfaces), which states that apps should not mislead users when presenting themselves and their intentions, Google is making changes to the third-party app publishing process, its risk assessment systems and the consent page it displays to users.Google is an identity provider, which means other web apps can use Google as the authentication mechanism for users accessing the app. Apps use the OAuth protocol to do this. These apps can also use Google's APIs to send users requests for information stored in Google's services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 8 may actually be released on time

Over the past few months, we've seen an endless number of conflicting rumors regarding the iPhone 8's release date. Whereas some reports claimed that Apple's next-gen iPhone would hit store shelves in September, more ominous reports have relayed that the device may be subject to a multi-week delay. In fact, the most pessimistic projection has Apple releasing the iPhone 8 as late as November. According to scattered reports, the rumored iPhone 8 delay was rooted in manufacturing challenges and a shortage of advanced components such as the device's 3D camera sensors.Now to be fair, iPhone rumors are never in short supply, so part of the challenge is knowing which rumors are worth paying attention to. That said, one of the most reliable iPhone leakers in recent years delivered some welcome news for folks who can't wait to get their hands on Apple's next-gen iPhone. According to Steve Hemmerstoffe, who you might know better by his Twitter handle "OnLeaks", mass production on the iPhone 8 is slated to begin in August ahead of a September launch. Again, iPhone release date rumors are a dime a dozen, but Hemmerstoffe has a very strong track record with respect to Apple rumors, so Continue reading

Show 339: Cumulus & Web-Scale Techniques For Better Networking (Sponsored)

Todays Weekly Show is a conversation with JR Rivers, cofouner and CTO of Cumulus Networks, our sponsor for this episode. We talk Web-scale IT, automation, Free Range Routing & more. The post Show 339: Cumulus & Web-Scale Techniques For Better Networking (Sponsored) appeared first on Packet Pushers.

Microsoft Guns for Oracle Customers with Database Migration Service

Both Microsoft and Oracle claim to be the fastest growing cloud company.

Slinking Into a Session Entitled ‘What is OpenStack?’

I wasn't the only one seeking some OpenStack basics.

Radio MENQ, Voices of Armenia’s Blind, Selected as WSIS Prizes 2017 Champion