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Bruce Schneier: Public-service technologists are needed to tame the IoT

The internet of things needs to be regulated and soon before it becomes even more of a tool to facilitate cyberattacks, and that means coming up with civic-minded technologists to help formulate government policies, security expert Bruce Schneier told an RSA Conference 2017 audience.+More on Network World: RSA: Watch out for a new weapon - your own data | Hot products at RSA 2017 +The problem is governments lack the technological expertise to understand the mindset of the makers of IoT devices and the markets in which they are sold.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bruce Schneier: Public-service technologists are needed to tame the IoT

The internet of things needs to be regulated and soon before it becomes even more of a tool to facilitate cyberattacks, and that means coming up with civic-minded technologists to help formulate government policies, security expert Bruce Schneier told an RSA Conference 2017 audience.+More on Network World: RSA: Watch out for a new weapon - your own data | Hot products at RSA 2017 +The problem is governments lack the technological expertise to understand the mindset of the makers of IoT devices and the markets in which they are sold.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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Why I Enthusiastically Switched from Cacti to Zabbix for System Monitoring

Cacti is a “complete network graphing solution” according to their website. It has also been a thorn in my side for a long time.

See what I did there? Thorn… because it’s a cactus… never mind.

When Cacti is in a steady state–when I could get it to a steady state–it was good. Not great, because there was a lot of effort to get it into what I consider “steady state”, but good. The rest of the time… thorny.

There are five major things that have driven me up the wall. In no particular order:

Round Robin Database (RRD) sucks

The concept behind RRD is cool: a fixed-size, circular database (oldest data overwritten by the newest data) makes good sense for the type of data that a network graphing solution collects. In practice, using RRD means:

  • Another software dependency that needs to be updated, patched, and integrated in the Cacti ecosystem
  • Manually managing all of the RRD files that are generated for all of the data sources you’re collecting. RRD stores its data in individual files on the file system, you see, and the more data sources you collect with Cacti, the more RRD files you have Continue reading

Microsoft launches Insider program for business users

The Windows Insider program has been an important program for Microsoft, soliciting feedback from thousands of individual customers to help with the development and debugging of Windows 10. Now the company has launched an equivalent program for corporate users.Dubbed the Windows Insider Program for Businesses — or WIP4Biz, for short -- Microsoft is aiming to get more business involvement in the feedback process. At its recent NexTech Africa conference, the company recommended that SMBs and enterprise customers should run Windows 10 Insider Preview builds on 1% of their systems to see what's coming in future builds and prepare for them.Now, at the company's Ignite show in Australia, Bill Karagounis, the Windows 10 OS Fundamentals Director, formally announced WIP4Biz. According to Neowin, which must have had someone at the show, a major goal of WIP4Biz is to "make Insider systems and capabilities more friendly and easier to fit into your business environments."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sophos CEO sounds the alarm on enterprise ransomware attacks

Ransomware is increasingly becoming a problem for companies, and the CEO of a leading computer security company says he fears 2017 could see entire companies shut down until they pay up, or risk losing all their data.Ransomware works by infiltrating a computer with malware and then encrypting all the files on the disk. The user is presented with a limited time offer: Lose all your data or send money with the promise your data will be unlocked. The fee typically varies from a few tens of dollars to hundreds of dollars and often has to be transmitted in Bitcoin.The problem began on a fairly small scale, targeting individual users, but has been growing. Last year, a hospital in Los Angeles admitted to paying $17,000 to get its system unlocked, and a report in October said ransomware cases were on course to quadruple in 2016 over the previous year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sophos CEO sounds the alarm on enterprise ransomware attacks

Ransomware is increasingly becoming a problem for companies, and the CEO of a leading computer security company says he fears 2017 could see entire companies shut down until they pay up, or risk losing all their data.Ransomware works by infiltrating a computer with malware and then encrypting all the files on the disk. The user is presented with a limited time offer: Lose all your data or send money with the promise your data will be unlocked. The fee typically varies from a few tens of dollars to hundreds of dollars and often has to be transmitted in Bitcoin.The problem began on a fairly small scale, targeting individual users, but has been growing. Last year, a hospital in Los Angeles admitted to paying $17,000 to get its system unlocked, and a report in October said ransomware cases were on course to quadruple in 2016 over the previous year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: 3 new information security jobs for the digital enterprise

The responsibilities of information security are rapidly changing as enterprises digitize. Technology now enables business strategy and is transforming product, channels, and operations. In this new context, information security is expected to take a strategic role by helping business leaders understand the security implications of their digital strategies; support a quicker pace of technology exploitation and experimentation; and govern a larger, more varied project portfolio.Digitization has spurred three company-wide shifts, creating the need for three associated new information security roles.Shift 1: Strategy over governance Information security increasingly plays a larger role in advising business partners on strategy. A key driver is the growing difficulty of executing digital strategies securely. Technology enablement of product, channel, and operations introduces new potential vulnerabilities that can only be spotted by information security’s keen eye. More business leaders are recognizing security’s centrality; in fact, CEB data shows that 81 percent of boards of director review information security matters in most or every meeting (disclosure: I work for CEB).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: 3 new information security jobs for the digital enterprise

The responsibilities of information security are rapidly changing as enterprises digitize. Technology now enables business strategy and is transforming product, channels, and operations. In this new context, information security is expected to take a strategic role by helping business leaders understand the security implications of their digital strategies; support a quicker pace of technology exploitation and experimentation; and govern a larger, more varied project portfolio.Digitization has spurred three company-wide shifts, creating the need for three associated new information security roles.Shift 1: Strategy over governance Information security increasingly plays a larger role in advising business partners on strategy. A key driver is the growing difficulty of executing digital strategies securely. Technology enablement of product, channel, and operations introduces new potential vulnerabilities that can only be spotted by information security’s keen eye. More business leaders are recognizing security’s centrality; in fact, CEB data shows that 81 percent of boards of director review information security matters in most or every meeting (disclosure: I work for CEB).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AWS Roundup: IoT buttons hit the enterprise, Directory launch and more

Amazon Web Services got off to a slow start in January, taking its time to sleep off the New Year’s festivities. But the cloud provider got up to speed by the end of the month, launching a handful of new products for its customers to work with.Last year, the cloud provider launched 1,017 new features, according to the fourth-quarter earnings report Amazon released last month. Here’s the breakdown of what you need to know about Amazon’s January news:IoT Buttons dash into the enterprise Last year, Amazon launched Dash buttons to consumers, small devices that people could program to reorder household products from the online retailer with a press. Now, the company is letting enterprises create their own.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Discovering Great Talent with Path Forward

Cloudflare's Path Forward Candidates with Janet

In the fall of 2016, I was just beginning my job search. I’d been lucky to lead HR at a number of great cutting-edge technology start-ups, and I was looking for my next adventure. I wanted to find a company that wasn’t just a great business--I wanted one that was also making a positive impact on the world, and one that had a mission I felt passionately about.

During my two decades running HR/People organizations, I’ve spent a lot of time working with--and talking to--parents in the workplace. I’ve been motivated to do so for a few reasons. According to the US census, mothers are the fastest-growing segment of the US workforce. Companies struggle to retain talented workers after they’ve become parents, especially mothers. It’s been reported that 43 percent of highly qualified women with children leave their careers. Millennials (who make up the majority of the US workforce) are reporting that they want to be more engaged parents and are placing a high value on companies that allow them to parent and still get promoted. Ultimately, I’ve come to believe that the skills you acquire while parenting are extremely relevant and valuable to the workforce.

So when Path Continue reading

How Google reinvented security and eliminated the need for firewalls

SAN FRANCISCO -- In some ways, Google is like every other large enterprise. It had the typical defensive security posture based on the concept that the enterprise is your castle and security involves building moats and walls to protect the perimeter.Over time, however, that perimeter developed holes as Google’s increasingly mobile workforce, scattered around the world, demanded access to the network. And employees complained about having to go through a sometimes slow, unreliable VPN. On top of that, Google, like everyone else, was moving to the cloud, which was also outside of the castle.In other ways, Google is unlike any other company. Without much of a detailed business plan or cost/benefit analysis, Google execs gave the green light to an ambitious project aimed at totally reinventing the company’s security infrastructure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Yahoo warns users of account breaches related to recent attacks

Yahoo has begun warning individual users that their accounts with the service may have been compromised in a massive data breach it reported late last year.The warning, in email messages sent from Yahoo CISO Bob Lord, tell users that a forged cookie may have been used to access their accounts in previous years.The warning to Yahoo users come at the same time that news reports suggest that Verizon Communications, in negotiations to buy Yahoo, may be seeking a discount of US$250 million because of the data breaches.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Yahoo warns users of account breaches related to recent attacks

Yahoo has begun warning individual users that their accounts with the service may have been compromised in a massive data breach it reported late last year.The warning, in email messages sent from Yahoo CISO Bob Lord, tell users that a forged cookie may have been used to access their accounts in previous years.The warning to Yahoo users come at the same time that news reports suggest that Verizon Communications, in negotiations to buy Yahoo, may be seeking a discount of US$250 million because of the data breaches.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here