DDoS attack from Mirai malware ‘killing business’ in Liberia

The malware behind last month's massive internet disruption in the U.S. is targeting Liberia with financially devastating results.This week, a botnet powered by the Mirai malware has been launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on IP addresses in the African country, according to security researchers.  These attacks are the same kind that briefly disrupted internet access across the U.S. almost two weeks ago. They work by flooding internet connections with too much traffic, effectively forcing the services offline.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DDoS attack from Mirai malware ‘killing business’ in Liberia

The malware behind last month's massive internet disruption in the U.S. is targeting Liberia with financially devastating results.This week, a botnet powered by the Mirai malware has been launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on IP addresses in the African country, according to security researchers.  These attacks are the same kind that briefly disrupted internet access across the U.S. almost two weeks ago. They work by flooding internet connections with too much traffic, effectively forcing the services offline.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft will shrink and speed up Windows 10 updates

Microsoft has revealed a Unified Update Platform that's designed to make it easier for devices to upgrade from one version of Windows 10 to another. The UUP encompasses a set of behind-the-scenes changes in Windows 10 that reduce the processing power needed to update, shrink the size of update files, and streamline updates on Windows smartphones.These improvements are designed to help Microsoft address user complaints about the update process. Because the company's vision for Windows 10 includes many updates, streamlining those procedures is important.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Microsoft Store is having a PC fire sale

New hardware means the old inventory has to go, and that's what Microsoft is doing. Hot on the heels of its big announcements in New York late last month, the company has put almost a dozen PCs sold through the Microsoft Store on discount. These aren't cheap whitebox products, either. We're talking desktops and laptops from Dell, Sony, HP, MSI, ASUS, Alienware and Lenovo. The complete list of items on sale is here, although some are already sold out. Some of the bigger deals include:Lenovo Z50-87 notebookOn sale for $349, $250 off its $599 price tag (42% savings)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Everything you’ve ever posted becomes public from tomorrow

As I sit here, ironically just wrapping up a privacy conference, scrolling my Facebook wall, I am seeing dozens of posts from smart, professional, aware people, all posting an apparent disclaimer to Facebook in an attempt to protect their personal privacy from the new Facebook privacy policy. This disclaimer, known as UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute, is in fact a hoax. It first surfaced in 2012 but is making the rounds again. The post encourages users to share a Facebook status which allows them to be immune from Facebook sharing any of their data uploaded to their platform. —Cloud Security Alliance

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Review: Google’s Home invasion

Google Home, the company's new voice-controlled interface to the internet, is hardly the first to appear on the consumer market. But it may be the best -- although "best" may not yet be good enough.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Report: Nearly 90 percent of smartphones worldwide run Android

Android just reached a new milestone in its worldwide dominance over iOS.According to new research from Strategy Analytics, 87.5 percent of smartphones in the world are now running Android. Shipments hit a total of 328.6 million for 3rd quarter of 2016, which is up 10.3 percent up year-on-year. While Android had always been hanging around the 80 percent mark, this latest number is a new high.Comparatively, Apple shipped 45.5 million iPhones, which is down 5.2 percent from the 48 million from last year. The real drop is in "others" (like Blackberry and Windows phone). Last year, 8.2 million units of "other" smartphones were sold in the 3rd quarter. This year, the number is 1.3 million.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Wired internet will be replaced by mobile

Seventy-five percent of internet use will be on mobile devices next year, according to a new study published by ad forecaster Zenith.The firm says that’s just the beginning. It reckons that some places, such as Hong Kong, will have 89 percent of total internet use being performed on mobile by 2018. The United States will marginally trail that at 83 percent in that year.+ Also on Network World: Desktop use off 11% in past year. Winner: smartphones + Smartphone penetration is the cause. Those devices have proliferated rapidly. In 2012, only 23 percent of individuals in Zenith’s 60-studied countries possessed smartphones. That number is now 56 percent and will be 63 percent globally by 2018. Some countries have adopted the devices more spectacularly; for example, Ireland is at 92 percent smartphone penetration.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Headcount: The Latest in Hirings, Firings And Retirings for October 2016

Our monthly summary of executive moves and changes.

Mobile subscriber identity numbers can be exposed over Wi-Fi

For a long time, law enforcement agencies and hackers have been able to track the identity and location of mobile users by setting up fake cellular network towers and tricking their devices to connect to them. Researchers have now found that the same thing can be done much more cheaply with a simple Wi-Fi hotspot.The devices that pose as cell towers are known in the industry as IMSI catchers, with the IMSI (international mobile subscriber identity) being a unique number tied to a mobile subscriber and stored on a SIM card. IMSI catchers can be used for tracking and in some cases, for intercepting calls, but commercial solutions, such as the Stingray used by the FBI, are expensive.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Mobile subscriber identity numbers can be exposed over Wi-Fi

For a long time, law enforcement agencies and hackers have been able to track the identity and location of mobile users by setting up fake cellular network towers and tricking their devices to connect to them. Researchers have now found that the same thing can be done much more cheaply with a simple Wi-Fi hotspot.The devices that pose as cell towers are known in the industry as IMSI catchers, with the IMSI (international mobile subscriber identity) being a unique number tied to a mobile subscriber and stored on a SIM card. IMSI catchers can be used for tracking and in some cases, for intercepting calls, but commercial solutions, such as the Stingray used by the FBI, are expensive.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CoreOS Creates ‘Operators’ for Stateful Apps in Containers

It's more than Puppet/Chef for containers, CoreOS says.

Flaw in Wix website builder risked computer worm

Wix, the provider of a widely used cloud-based web development platform, appears to have had a significant bug on its hands that could have paved the way for a computer worm to do serious damage to websites around world.The problem was related to an XSS (cross-site scripting) vulnerability that was found in websites built with Wix, according to Matt Austin, a researcher with Contrast Security.Though Wix says it has fixed the issue, it illustrates how a few lines of bad code can  potentially do widespread damage.XSS vulnerabilities are common, and result from flaws in websites' coding.  Hackers can take advantage of them to trick users' browsers into running malicious scripts that, for example, could download a computer virus or expose the internet cookies that are on their machines. Austin found the same kind of problem in websites from Wix, which builds websites and has 87 million users in Europe, Latin America, Asia.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Flaw in Wix website builder risked computer worm

Wix, the provider of a widely used cloud-based web development platform, appears to have had a significant bug on its hands that could have paved the way for a computer worm to do serious damage to websites around world.The problem was related to an XSS (cross-site scripting) vulnerability that was found in websites built with Wix, according to Matt Austin, a researcher with Contrast Security.Though Wix says it has fixed the issue, it illustrates how a few lines of bad code can  potentially do widespread damage.XSS vulnerabilities are common, and result from flaws in websites' coding.  Hackers can take advantage of them to trick users' browsers into running malicious scripts that, for example, could download a computer virus or expose the internet cookies that are on their machines. Austin found the same kind of problem in websites from Wix, which builds websites and has 87 million users in Europe, Latin America, Asia.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Join the Black Friday club: BJ’s Wholesale, Sam’s reveal tech deals

Wholesale clubs BJ's and Sam's are among the latest retailers to share their Black Friday plans, and tech deals are aplenty.Black Friday watchers such as BFads and Best Black Friday have been tracking new ads closely.BJ's Wholesale Club Black Friday savings start on Nov. 18 and run through Nov. 29, though note that the stores are closed on Thanksgiving day.MORE: Black Friday isn't dead in 2016 | Dell, Amazon, Newegg beat Black Friday 2016 rushTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BrandPost: The Ethernet path to Network on Demand

Ethernet is the network computing gift that keeps on giving. From its inception in 1973 as a 3 megabits/sec copper wired local area network technology, it has evolved to accommodate 40 gigabit/sec and 100 gigabit/sec speeds, fiber optic cabling, and wide area networking. The race is on to reach 400 gigabit/sec speeds and enable more on demand Ethernet-based services.Ethernet has achieved its success based on the foundation of openness and standardization and that is an ongoing process enabling continual innovation. Achieving end-to-end on demand Ethernet services that span multiple service providers is a key element in realizing the promise of software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) for geographically dispersed organizations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ixia’s Flex Tap Secure+ protects against injection breaches

We’ve probably all used the phrase “too much of anything is a bad thing.” Too much ice cream makes you fat, too many cats and you get called crazy, and too much NFL football on Sunday gets you banned to the doghouse by your wife. + Also on Network World: Network World annual State of the Network survey results + In IT, too much network traffic is certainly a bad thing. We need networks and rely on them to access cloud applications, call people on via videoconferencing and do a whole bunch of other tasks. However, too much traffic and the network becomes unusable and a source of frustration for workers. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ixia’s Flex Tap Secure+ protects against injection breaches

We’ve probably all used the phrase “too much of anything is a bad thing.” Too much ice cream makes you fat, too many cats and you get called crazy, and too much NFL football on Sunday gets you banned to the doghouse by your wife. + Also on Network World: Network World annual State of the Network survey results + In IT, too much network traffic is certainly a bad thing. We need networks and rely on them to access cloud applications, call people on via videoconferencing and do a whole bunch of other tasks. However, too much traffic and the network becomes unusable and a source of frustration for workers. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The future of Drupal could be cooking in this lab

Acquia Labs has no illusions of making self-driving cars or shooting things into space like Google X, but the budding applied research arm of enterprise open-source Drupal provider Acquia does have designs on a slew of new applications for what it anticipates will be an increasingly browserless world. Preston So, development manager at Acquia Labs and a 9-year veteran of the Drupal community, shared his vision for Acquia’s skunkworks-plus outfit at the company’s annual Engage event for customers held in Boston this week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Keys to NFVI Components Selection

In the move to the telco cloud, there are some crucial considerations in NFVI components selection.