Email-based attacks exploit unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Word

Attackers have been exploiting an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Word for the past few months to compromise computers and infect them with malware.The first report about the attacks came Friday from antivirus vendor McAfee after the company's researchers analyzed some suspicious Word files spotted a day earlier. It turned out that the files were exploiting a vulnerability that affects "all Microsoft Office versions, including the latest Office 2016 running on Windows 10."The flaw is related to the Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) feature in Microsoft Office that allows documents to embed references and links to other documents or objects, the McAfee researchers said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spain arrests supposed Russian computer scientist at US request

A Russian man reported to be a computer scientist has been arrested and is being held in Spain, with a law enforcement source contracting news reports saying he was involved with a computer virus linked to U.S. President Donald Trump's recent election victory.The arrest of Piotr Levashov at the Barcelona airport on Friday was not tied to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, said the source, who is close to the investigation. That contradicts news reports from Agence France-Presse and other news outlets, which said Levashov's wife, Maria Levachova, was told his arrest was connected to Trump's election.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spain arrests accused Russian spammer at US request

A Russian man long connected with sending spam emails has been arrested and is being held in Spain, with a law enforcement source contracting news reports saying he was involved with a computer virus linked to U.S. President Donald Trump's recent election victory.The arrest of Piotr Levashov at the Barcelona airport on Friday was not tied to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, said the source, who is close to the investigation. That contradicts news reports from Agence France-Presse and other news outlets, which said Levashov's wife, Maria Levachova, was told his arrest was connected to Trump's election.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spain arrests accused Russian spammer at US request

A Russian man long connected with sending spam emails has been arrested and is being held in Spain, with a law enforcement source contracting news reports saying he was involved with a computer virus linked to U.S. President Donald Trump's recent election victory.The arrest of Piotr Levashov at the Barcelona airport on Friday was not tied to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, said the source, who is close to the investigation. That contradicts news reports from Agence France-Presse and other news outlets, which said Levashov's wife, Maria Levachova, was told his arrest was connected to Trump's election.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ticked at President Trump, Shadow Brokers dump password for NSA hacking tools

Ticked at President Trump, the Shadow Brokers hacking group released the password for the NSA hacking tools they previously tried to sell.In an open letter to President Donald Trump, the group asked, “Respectfully, what the f**k are you doing?” In broken English, they accused the president of “abandoning ‘your base,’ ‘the movement,’ and the peoples who getting you elected.”After a “quick review” of the tools unlocked with the password, Edward Snowden noted that “it’s nowhere near the full library, but there’s still so much here that NSA should be able to instantly identify where this set came from and how they lost it. If they can’t, it's a scandal.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ticked at President Trump, Shadow Brokers dump password for NSA hacking tools

Ticked at President Trump, the Shadow Brokers hacking group released the password for the NSA hacking tools they previously tried to sell.In an open letter to President Donald Trump, the group asked, “Respectfully, what the f**k are you doing?” In broken English, they accused the president of “abandoning ‘your base,’ ‘the movement,’ and the peoples who getting you elected.”After a “quick review” of the tools unlocked with the password, Edward Snowden noted that “it’s nowhere near the full library, but there’s still so much here that NSA should be able to instantly identify where this set came from and how they lost it. If they can’t, it's a scandal.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Curaçao and Djibouti – two new Cloudflare datacenters located where undersea cables meet

Cloudflare has just turned up two new datacenters (numbers 108 and 109). Both are around halfway between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator. They are located continents-apart, yet share something very-much in common as both of these new data centers are deployed and associated with where undersea cables reach land. Undersea cables have been and still are a growing part of the interconnected world that the Internet represents.

Curaçao, part of the Netherland Antilles in the Caribbean

CC-BY 2.0 image by Nelo Hotsuma

Curaçao is located in the Southern Caribbean Sea (just north of Venezuela) and has a strong Dutch heritage. Along with Aruba and Bonaire, Curaçao is part of the Lesser Antilles (they are called the ABC islands).

More importantly, Willemstad - the capital of Curaçao is where the Amsterdam Internet Exchange operates AMS-IX Caribbean. Why AMS-IX? Because of that Dutch relationship!

It’s AMS-IX’s goal (along with its local partners) to promote Curaçao as an interconnection location for the Caribbean. Cloudflare is there with all its services ready for that day!

Djibouti on the horn of Africa

Djibouti is a country of around 850,000 people with ~60% of the population living in the nation's capital, also Continue reading

How to improve Dynamic Lock in Windows 10 Creators Update

When Microsoft released Build 15031 of the Windows 10 Insider Preview on February 8, 2017, it added a new OS feature for Bluetooth-equipped devices. It's called Dynamic Lock, and lets you control access to your PCs based on how close they — and your Bluetooth-paired phones — are to them. That is, if the phone you've paired with your PC (it works for laptops, notebooks, tablets and desktops) is not found within radio range of your PC, Windows 10 turns off the screen and locks the PC after 30 seconds have elapsed. Thus, Dynamic Lock makes a dandy new security feature in Creators Update, one that most business users (or their IT departments) will find worth turning on and using.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to improve Dynamic Lock in Windows 10 Creators Update

When Microsoft released Build 15031 of the Windows 10 Insider Preview on February 8, 2017, it added a new OS feature for Bluetooth-equipped devices. It's called Dynamic Lock, and lets you control access to your PCs based on how close they — and your Bluetooth-paired phones — are to them. That is, if the phone you've paired with your PC (it works for laptops, notebooks, tablets and desktops) is not found within radio range of your PC, Windows 10 turns off the screen and locks the PC after 30 seconds have elapsed. Thus, Dynamic Lock makes a dandy new security feature in Creators Update, one that most business users (or their IT departments) will find worth turning on and using.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows Embedded’s future looks rocky

Ah, Windows Embedded. The Microsoft operating system that millions of devices and machines are running, typically with a custom application or skin running on top of it so that users don't automatically notice the OS. The operating system that underpins hundreds of thousands of medical devices, automatic teller machines, kiosks at airports and other crowded public places, industrial machinery and control planes, set top boxes, game consoles.Windows Embedded is a relatively unheralded version of Windows whose existence might surprise you. But it seems like Windows Embedded's existence might also surprise a lot of folks up in Redmond. Here, at the Microsoft campus, despite all of the hullabaloo about Windows 10 and device updates -- and the new Creators Update and Redstone versions that will be coming down the pike at an almost breakneck speed -- Windows Embedded suffers from an opposite problem. It appears unfortunately stuck in a place where no future has clearly been laid out for it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

21 hot programming trends—and 21 going cold

Programmers love to sneer at the world of fashion where trends blow through like breezes. Skirt lengths rise and fall, pigments come and go, ties get fatter, then thinner. But in the world of technology, rigor, science, math, and precision rule over fad.That's not to say programming is a profession devoid of trends. The difference is that programming trends are driven by greater efficiency, increased customization, and ease of use. The new technologies that deliver one or more of these eclipse the previous generation. It's a meritocracy, not a whimsy-ocracy.[ Find out how to get ahead with our career development guide for developers. | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld's App Dev Report newsletter. ] What follows is a list of what's hot and what's not among today's programmers. Not everyone will agree with what's A-listed, what's D-listed, and what's been left out. That's what makes programming an endlessly fascinating profession: rapid change, passionate debate, sudden comebacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Enterprises get to work in the cloud

Enterprises are finding all sorts of reasons to moved their data and business processes to the cloud.Capital One Financial Corp., for instance, is using the cloud as it advances from a financial services provider to a tech company with collaborative workspace, IT workers with new skill sets, fast-paced apps, and a focus on leading with cutting-edge technologies.The American Heart Association is working with Amazon Web Services to set up a cloud-based system where scientists from around the world can store, share and analyze research data. Making that data available in the cloud could accelerate research and lead to a cure for cardiovascular disease, which is the top cause of death worldwide.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Predictive analytics can stop ransomware dead in its tracks

This past February marks the two-year anniversary when Livingston County, Michigan, was hit by ransomware. The wealthiest county in the state had three years’ worth of tax information possibly at the mercy of cybercriminals.As a local government, county CIO Rich C. Malewicz said they have been a target of ransomware, but in this instance they had backups at the ready. He said the most memorable ransomware attack was a result of a watering hole campaign using malvertizing to infect users visiting a local news website. “This attack was very clever in that all you had to do to get infected was visit the website, you didn't even have to click on the page. Once the user went to the local news website, they were immediately redirected to a site hosting exploit code and the infamous page appeared demanding a ransom with instructions,” he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Predictive analytics can stop ransomware dead in its tracks

This past February marks the two-year anniversary when Livingston County, Michigan, was hit by ransomware. The wealthiest county in the state had three years’ worth of tax information possibly at the mercy of cybercriminals.As a local government, county CIO Rich C. Malewicz said they have been a target of ransomware, but in this instance they had backups at the ready. He said the most memorable ransomware attack was a result of a watering hole campaign using malvertizing to infect users visiting a local news website. “This attack was very clever in that all you had to do to get infected was visit the website, you didn't even have to click on the page. Once the user went to the local news website, they were immediately redirected to a site hosting exploit code and the infamous page appeared demanding a ransom with instructions,” he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Despite political uncertainty, employers bullish on hiring

U.S. employers are optimistic about the second quarter, with the vast majority planning to increase hiring or maintain current headcounts, according to the ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey 2017, released on March 14.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

How to deal with the bot crisis on Twitter

You may have run into these bots a few times. What looks like an actual human being could have been a bot sending you Twitter spam...or even worse.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

How to deal with the bot crisis on Twitter

You may have run into these bots a few times. What looks like an actual human being could have been a bot sending you Twitter spam...or even worse.During the last election cycle and over the past few months in particular, it’s now widely known that Twitter bots -- many with zero followers -- promoted fake news stories. Often, the goal was to stir up dissension among voters, influence political viewpoints, and (more importantly) generate revenue when people viewed banner ads. Some would argue these bots helped elect President Trump or at least influenced people on social media to vote one way or another.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Swisscom Builds OpenStack Cloud Possibilities with Red Hat

A new case study discusses how Swisscom chose Red Hat to gain enterprise-ready open source technology and access to extensive guidance.

IDG Contributor Network: Authentic8 wants to protect users from bad websites

Many of us have experienced that moment of terror when clicking on a potentially risky link: Will it all be fine or will I start a torrent of bad outcomes from my action?But bad stuff sometimes happens and, sad as it sounds, sometimes the links we click on take us to dark places with bad outcomes. Authentic8 wants to limit those impacts by reducing the blast area of bad content.RELATED: Machine learning offers new hope against cyber attacks Authentic8, the vendor that created the secure, virtual browser Silo, today announced that its browser will enable organizations to selectively redirect particular URLs for safe rendering within an isolated browser. The idea of this approach is that rather than trying to block any suspect content, organizations can let it through, secure in the knowledge that it can do no widespread harm. Authentic8 was founded by the team from Postini (an email security product acquired by Google).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Managing the Cloud Network: CPM or APM?

We all know the future of enterprises is in flux with the consolidation or demise of Avaya/Nortel, Brocade/Foundry, Force 10, H3C and BNT assets. This speaks to the major trend of enterprise applications migrating to the cloud, any cloud be it public, private or hybrid. As this rapid transition prevails with efficiencies and scale, traditional applications and tools cannot meet the needs of exponential cloud growth.