IDG Contributor Network: When phone systems attack

A telephony denial of service (TDoS) attack is a specific type of DDoS attack that originates from or is directed towards a telephone system with the intent of bringing down the targeted system. These attacks commonly focus on commercial businesses and may often include ransomware requests. In reality, these attacks can affect anyone, including our nation’s 911 infrastructure, because even it is not isolated from or immune from these types of attacks. And based on its mission, in many ways, it is more fragile.Unintentional TDoS attack Just last year, 911 centers across the country, including a site in Phoenix, Arizona, were the targets of allegedly unintentional 911 TDoS attacks when some malicious JavaScript code was published on a web page. The code, once loaded on a smartphone browser, would cause some devices to automatically dial 911 repeatedly without user intervention and without the user’s knowledge. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: When phone systems attack

A telephony denial of service (TDoS) attack is a specific type of DDoS attack that originates from or is directed towards a telephone system with the intent of bringing down the targeted system. These attacks commonly focus on commercial businesses and may often include ransomware requests. In reality, these attacks can affect anyone, including our nation’s 911 infrastructure, because even it is not isolated from or immune from these types of attacks. And based on its mission, in many ways, it is more fragile.Unintentional TDoS attack Just last year, 911 centers across the country, including a site in Phoenix, Arizona, were the targets of allegedly unintentional 911 TDoS attacks when some malicious JavaScript code was published on a web page. The code, once loaded on a smartphone browser, would cause some devices to automatically dial 911 repeatedly without user intervention and without the user’s knowledge. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How we made our DNS stack 3x faster

Cloudflare is now well into its 6th year and providing authoritative DNS has been a core part of infrastructure from the start. We’ve since grown to be the largest and one of the fastest managed DNS services on the Internet, hosting DNS for nearly 100,000 of the Alexa top 1M sites and over 6 million other web properties – or DNS zones.

CC-BY 2.0 image by Steve Jurvetson

Today Cloudflare’s DNS service answers around 1 million queries per second – not including attack traffic – via a global anycast network. Naturally as a growing startup, the technology we used to handle tens or hundreds of thousands of zones a few years ago became outdated over time, and couldn't keep up with the millions we have today. Last year we decided to replace two core elements of our DNS infrastructure: the part of our DNS server that answers authoritative queries and the data pipeline which takes changes made by our customers to DNS records and distributes them to our edge machines across the globe.

The rough architecture of the system can be seen above. We store customer DNS records and other origin server information in a central database, convert the Continue reading

NETCONF Agent(s) on Cisco IOS XE 16.x

Evgeny made an interesting observation while testing the NETCONF client on IOS XE 16.x (see also this comment on my blog):

The most interesting part: for unknown reason IOS-XE gives different answers about capabilities on ports 830 and 22.

Einar quickly explained the mysterious behavior:

Network Notes: OSI Reference

Hell has nine layers .... so does the OSI model. I know, I know, you have been taught that the OSI model has seven layers. See the illustration below for the proof. continue reading

Tech Timeline: The iPad first goes on sale

The iPad made it possible to leave your laptop at home and still stay productive. You could write emails, watch movies, and surf the web all through a 9.7-inch touch screen display. It wasn't the first tablet, but it was one of the most popular. Apple sold 300,000 units on the first day and that hit a million in the first month. The cheapest model started at $499 and came with 16 GB of memory. Yikes! To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tech Timeline: The iPad first goes on sale

The iPad made it possible to leave your laptop at home and still stay productive. You could write emails, watch movies, and surf the web all through a 9.7-inch touch screen display. It wasn't the first tablet, but it was one of the most popular. Apple sold 300,000 units on the first day and that hit a million in the first month. The cheapest model started at $499 and came with 16 GB of memory. Yikes! To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US dismantles Kelihos botnet after Russian hacker’s arrest

The arrest last week of a Russian man in Spain was apparently for his role in a massive spam botnet and not related to an ongoing investigation into foreign tampering with last year's U.S. election.The botnet, called Kelihos, has enslaved hundreds of thousands of computers, and distributed spam and malware to users across the globe. However, the U.S. has taken action to dismantle the illegal operation, the Department of Justice said on Monday.The arrest of 36-year-old Peter Yuryevich Levashov, the botnet's alleged operator, was at first thought to be related to the ongoing U.S. investigation of presidential election-related hacking, but the DOJ said on Monday that wasn't the case.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US dismantles Kelihos botnet after Russian hacker’s arrest

The arrest last week of a Russian man in Spain was apparently for his role in a massive spam botnet and not related to an ongoing investigation into foreign tampering with last year's U.S. election.The botnet, called Kelihos, has enslaved hundreds of thousands of computers, and distributed spam and malware to users across the globe. However, the U.S. has taken action to dismantle the illegal operation, the Department of Justice said on Monday.The arrest of 36-year-old Peter Yuryevich Levashov, the botnet's alleged operator, was at first thought to be related to the ongoing U.S. investigation of presidential election-related hacking, but the DOJ said on Monday that wasn't the case.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Security Threats Keep Network Teams Busy

Microsoft Acquires Container Software Company Deis

The Deis platform combines features and technologies from Google, Docker, and CoreOS.

39% off Vastar Professional Breathalyzer Digital Breath Alcohol Tester – Deal Alert

The Vastar breathalyzer is used to measure the concentration of alcohol in the human body. With a sensitive semi-conductor sensor, it takes only 5 seconds to show whether you can drive or not after drinking. It will show you high accuracy test results (up to 0.01mg/l). Four units of measurement can be converted (%BAC , ‰BAC, mg/l, mg/100ml). This breathalyzer is space-saving, lightweight and portable. Just put it in your pocket.  With the current 39% off deal you can pick it up for just $18.99, a significant discount from its typical $32.99 list price.  See the Vastar breathalyzer on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Raspberry Pi 3 gets Microsoft Cortana with Windows 10 Creators Update

You will very soon be able to use Microsoft's Cortana voice assistant with the Raspberry Pi 3 and make cool devices that can accept voice commands.But for that, you'll need to upgrade the popular developer board, which can run Windows 10 IoT Core, to the Creators Update of the OS.You'll be able to use Cortana on Raspberry Pi similar to the way it works on PCs. You'll be able to ask for weather, time, traffic, or stock prices.Users will also able to build smart devices using Raspberry Pi 3 that will be able to accept Cortana's commands. But the devices will need to be based on Windows 10 IoT Core, not Linux-based OSes.Customized commands can be programmed for devices and could be related to reminders, look-ups, mapping, events, news, dictionary, and other "skills." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Latest Shadow Brokers exploit dump poses little threat

A group of hackers that has been trying to sell exploits and malware allegedly used by the U.S. National Security Agency decided to make the data available for free over the weekend.The security community was expecting the password-encrypted archive that the Shadow Brokers group unlocked Saturday to contain previously unknown and unpatched exploits -- known in the industry as zero-days. That was not the case.As researchers started to analyze the exploits inside, it became clear that while some of them were technically interesting, the large majority were for old and publicly known vulnerabilities. Some appeared to have actually been sourced from public information and affect software versions that are several years old.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Latest Shadow Brokers exploit dump poses little threat

A group of hackers that has been trying to sell exploits and malware allegedly used by the U.S. National Security Agency decided to make the data available for free over the weekend.The security community was expecting the password-encrypted archive that the Shadow Brokers group unlocked Saturday to contain previously unknown and unpatched exploits -- known in the industry as zero-days. That was not the case.As researchers started to analyze the exploits inside, it became clear that while some of them were technically interesting, the large majority were for old and publicly known vulnerabilities. Some appeared to have actually been sourced from public information and affect software versions that are several years old.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

35% off Universal Waterproof Dry Phone Bag for Devices, 3-Pack – Deal Alert

Bring your phone and use it when you go swimming in the summer or skiing in the winter.  This waterproof bag (3-pack), currently discounted by 35% on Amazon from $19.99 down to just $12.99.  Great for using during outdoor activities including boating and swimming. It's flexible clear waterproof bag allows you to use your smartphone while keeping it safe and secure in the bag. They are IPX8 Certificated: Fully submersible and waterproof, it is designed for extreme condition. For more information and buying options, see the discounted waterproof bag on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Could Amazon become an enterprise collaboration contender?

Microsoft has for decades owned the intersection of collaboration, productivity and communication. However, as these services shifted to the cloud, it opened pathways for greater competition and flexibility in how organizations deployed applications for their workforce. Through G Suite, Google has stretched its resources and refined its family of apps for enterprise. The market is far from locked up, however, and analysts see at least some room for new players to emerge to challenge Google and Microsoft.Could Amazon be the dark horse of enterprise collaboration? The company has a dominating position in cloud-based infrastructure, but its moves in the application market, albeit reserved, have yet to deliver similar impact. But what if it decides to focus on the collaboration market?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US FCC kills plan to allow mobile phone conversations on flights

Imagine a fellow airplane passenger sitting next to you and yelling into his mobile phone for six hours during a cross-country flight.If simply thinking about that scenario gives you a headache, you're not alone. On Monday, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission killed a plan to allow mobile phone calls during commercial airline flights.Since 2013, the FCC and the Federal Aviation Administration have considered allowing airline passengers to talk on the phones during flights, although the FAA also proposed rules requiring airlines to give passengers notice if they planned to allow phone calls.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NANOG 70 Hackathon

Microsoft buys open-source container developer Deis

Microsoft today announced it is acquiring Deis, a company that has been building open-source tools for rapid and easy creation and management of applications on Kubernetes, the open-source container cluster manager for automated deployment, scaling and management of containerized applications. This is not Microsoft’s first foray into containers. It announced plans to work with Google, which created Kubernetes before turning it over to a consortium, back in 2014. In February of this year, Microsoft made Kubernetes generally available on its own Azure Container Service.+ Also on Network World: Containers: IT history seems to be repeating itself + Containers are an alternative to virtual machines in that they let organizations build, deploy and move applications to and from the cloud without a full virtual machine. Containers have a much smaller footprint and thus take up fewer resources.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here