NSA suggests using virtualization to secure smartphones

The U.S. National Security Agency is now suggesting government departments and businesses buy smartphones secured using virtualization, a technology it currently requires only on tablets and laptopsThe change comes about with the arrival of the first virtualization-based smartphone security system on the U.S. Commercial Solutions for Classified list.CSFC is a program developed by the NSA to help U.S. government agencies and the businesses that serve them to quickly build layered secure systems from approved components.An HTC A9 smartphone security-hardened by Cog Systems using its D4 virtualization platform is now on that list, alongside devices without virtualization from Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and BlackBerry.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NSA suggests using virtualization to secure smartphones

The U.S. National Security Agency is now suggesting government departments and businesses buy smartphones secured using virtualization, a technology it currently requires only on tablets and laptopsThe change comes about with the arrival of the first virtualization-based smartphone security system on the U.S. Commercial Solutions for Classified list.CSFC is a program developed by the NSA to help U.S. government agencies and the businesses that serve them to quickly build layered secure systems from approved components.An HTC A9 smartphone security-hardened by Cog Systems using its D4 virtualization platform is now on that list, alongside devices without virtualization from Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and BlackBerry.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Save $45 on Amazon Echo Right Now When You Buy Certified Refurbished – Deal Alert

You can pick up Amazon Echo for far below list price, if you're comfortable buying refurbished. Which you can be -- certified refurbished products are tested and certified to look and work like new, and come with warranties. Amazon Echo is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more—instantly. All you have to do is ask. Echo has seven microphones and beam forming technology so it can hear you from across the room—even while music is playing. Echo is also an expertly tuned speaker that can fill any room with 360° immersive sound. When you want to use Echo, just say the wake word “Alexa” and Echo responds instantly. If you have more than one Echo or Echo Dot, Alexa responds intelligently from the Echo you're closest to with ESP (Echo Spatial Perception). Echo's typical list price is $179.99, and certified refurbished models list for $164.99. But right now with this deal Amazon has further discounted them to $134.99. See the certified refurbished Amazon Echo on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

I’m excited for a new Ubuntu release—for the first time in a long time

It's been many years since I regularly used Ubuntu. Back in "ye olden times" I would consider myself one of the most outspoken advocates for Canonical's Linux distribution—often proclaiming the (near) perfection of Ubuntu—but those times have long since faded into the mist. Nowadays, I use Ubuntu only when there is a good reason to review a new release—which has happened less and less. And even in those cases, I tend to use it sparingly. There were many reasons for that change. Mostly it boiled down to a general disagreement with the direction Ubuntu was taking.+ Also on Network World: Lessons learned from the failure of Ubuntu Touch + I wasn't a fan of their in-house developed desktop environment (Unity). I didn't like how slow it was. I didn't like how buggy it was. I didn't like how un-customizable it was. I guess it would be fair to say, "I didn't like it." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A Peek into the Internet’s Future

Windows Phone brought in just $5 million last quarter

I have avoided the steady drumbeat of bad news surrounding Windows Phone because after a while it gets repetitive and morbid, but this one makes it abundantly clear it’s time to draw a sheet over Microsoft’s mobile phone business. For its third fiscal quarter of 2016, ended March 31, Microsoft reported sales of just $5 million. It didn’t actually say it that way, though. For its 10-Q financial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft simply said "Phone revenue declined $730 million."And if you look at the same quarterly report from one year ago, it reported sales of $735 million. So, do the math. Just two years ago, its phone hardware revenue was $1.397 billion. That’s a collapse if ever I saw one.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cloud vs. on-premises: Finding the right balance

Greg Downer, senior IT director at Oshkosh Corp., a manufacturer of specialty heavy vehicles in Oshkosh, Wisc., wishes he could tip the balance of on-premises vs. cloud more in the direction of the cloud, which currently accounts for only about 20% of his application footprint. However, as a contractor for the Department of Defense, his company is beholden to strict data requirements, including where data is stored."Cloud offerings have helped us deploy faster and reduce our data center infrastructure, but the main reason we don't do more in the cloud is because of strict DoD contract requirements for specific types of data," he says.In Computerworld's Tech Forecast 2017 survey of 196 IT managers and leaders, 79% of respondents said they have a cloud project underway or planned, and 58% of those using some type of cloud-based system gave their efforts an A or B in terms of delivering business value.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cloud vs. on-premises: Finding the right balance

Greg Downer, senior IT director at Oshkosh Corp., a manufacturer of specialty heavy vehicles in Oshkosh, Wisc., wishes he could tip the balance of on-premises vs. cloud more in the direction of the cloud, which currently accounts for only about 20% of his application footprint. However, as a contractor for the Department of Defense, his company is beholden to strict data requirements, including where data is stored."Cloud offerings have helped us deploy faster and reduce our data center infrastructure, but the main reason we don't do more in the cloud is because of strict DoD contract requirements for specific types of data," he says.In Computerworld's Tech Forecast 2017 survey of 196 IT managers and leaders, 79% of respondents said they have a cloud project underway or planned, and 58% of those using some type of cloud-based system gave their efforts an A or B in terms of delivering business value.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Strategy first: How to do mobile dev right

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a company that was finally doing business on the web. Its developers were exhausted after spending years learning about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery, and dealing with all the various browsers the company’s silly partners and customers wanted to use instead of the company’s Gold Standard, Internet Explorer 6.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Believe your employer doesn’t know about your legal problems? Think again

An employee gets stopped over the weekend for a DUI. Unbeknownst to him once his name hits the police’s public database, his employer will know about it soon after – whether the conviction has any impact on the employee’s job performance or not.That is just one scenario in which enterprises are checking up on their employees to make sure their private lives don’t impact the companies bottom lines. It is not uncommon for companies to do background checks on prospective employees, but some businesses are carrying that through while employees still punch the clock.Security company Endera explained that employers want to know if an employee is on a criminal watchlist, is booked or arrested, loses a key certificate, is in financial distress or is involved in a lawsuit. An employee roster is loaded into the continuous monitoring system, and that system provides 24/7 scanning of thousands of external data sources. The employer receives real-time, secure alerts for further investigation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Career Watch: Be wary of IT employment contracts

Jeffrey Scolaro, an attorney at Daley Mohan Groble PC in Chicago and a member of Legal Services Link, answers questions about employment contracts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Career Watch: Be wary of IT employment contracts

Jeffrey Scolaro, an attorney at Daley Mohan Groble PC in Chicago and a member of Legal Services Link, answers questions about employment contracts.Are employment contracts for IT workers negotiable, or are they one-size-fits-all? The axiom that “everything is negotiable” should be where all IT professionals begin their assessment of proposed employment contracts. However, the IT industry in particular can be especially rigid in its collective enforcement of employment agreements.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

17 tips and tricks to make your Samsung Galaxy S8 or S8+ even better

With so many features, where do you start?Image by Ryan Whitwam/IDGSamsung has packed a crazy amount of features into the Galaxy S8 and S8+. It's nowhere near the insane level of software bloat we have seen in some past Samsung devices, but there are a great many options to explore here. You could tap through menus for hour after hour, hoping to stumble upon all the cool stuff the phone can do. Or you could read this guide to learn all about the best tips and settings to make the most of your new Galaxy S8.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How the insurance industry could change the game for security

The recent growth in the cyber insurance market is already improving cybersecurity in some industry segments, and has the potential to do more -- if the industry is able to address its data problem.One area where cyber insurance has already made an impact is in the retail space, said David White, founder and COO at Axio Global, a cyber risk company.After the 2013 Target breach, it became very difficult for retailers to get a decent price for cyber insurance unless they had completely switched over to end-to-end encryption, or had a definite plan in place for doing that.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How the insurance industry could change the game for security

The recent growth in the cyber insurance market is already improving cybersecurity in some industry segments, and has the potential to do more -- if the industry is able to address its data problem.One area where cyber insurance has already made an impact is in the retail space, said David White, founder and COO at Axio Global, a cyber risk company.After the 2013 Target breach, it became very difficult for retailers to get a decent price for cyber insurance unless they had completely switched over to end-to-end encryption, or had a definite plan in place for doing that.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network Automation with Python: Getting Started

Using Batch Files to Record Network Throughput

Network monitoring tools: Features users love and hate

Managing the health of the corporate network will directly affect the productivity of every user of that network. So network administrators need a robust network monitoring tool that helps them manage the network, identify problems before they cause downtime, and quickly resolve issues when something goes wrong.Five of the top network monitoring products on the market, according to users in the IT Central Station community, are CA Unified Infrastructure Management, SevOne, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM), and CA Spectrum.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Network monitoring tools: Features users love and hate

Managing the health of the corporate network will directly affect the productivity of every user of that network. So network administrators need a robust network monitoring tool that helps them manage the network, identify problems before they cause downtime, and quickly resolve issues when something goes wrong.Five of the top network monitoring products on the market, according to users in the IT Central Station community, are CA Unified Infrastructure Management, SevOne, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM), and CA Spectrum.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Network monitoring tools: Features users love and hate

Managing the health of the corporate network will directly affect the productivity of every user of that network. So network administrators need a robust network monitoring tool that helps them manage the network, identify problems before they cause downtime, and quickly resolve issues when something goes wrong.Five of the top network monitoring products on the market, according to users in the IT Central Station community, are CA Unified Infrastructure Management, SevOne, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM), and CA Spectrum.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)