Hackers create more IoT botnets with Mirai source code

Malware that can build botnets out of IoT products has gone on to infect twice as many devices after its source code was publicly released.The total number of IoT devices infected with the Mirai malware has reached 493,000, up from 213,000 bots before the source code was disclosed around Oct. 1, according to internet backbone provider Level 3 Communications."The true number of actual bots may be higher," Level 3 said in a Tuesday blog post.Hackers have been taking advantage of the Mirai malware's source code, following its role in launching a massive DDOS (distributed denial-of-service) attack that took down the website of cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Om nom Nomulus: Google open-sources TLD registry platform

Google’s latest foray into open-source software is a cloud-based top-level-domain registrar platform called Nomulus, bringing a substantial chunk of the company’s gigantic internet infrastructure into the public eye.What Nomulus does, in essence, is manage the domain names under a top-level domain, or TLD, the largest divisions of the internet’s domain name system (.com, .org, .net, and so on). Nomulus tracks DNS and registry info, so that when domain names change hands, or someone makes a WHOIS inquiry, the system can manage this.ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: A dozen extensions to TCP/IP that optimize internet connections | Microsoft’s Nadella takes on privacy fears about LinkedIn, CortanaTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Flowspec is a step forward

Do you recall when service providers typically had to call upon Remote Trigger Blackhole (RTBH) to mitigate DDOS attacks? With RTBH, we only had two methods, source-based and destination-based. We would basically take the hardest approach. Either drop all traffic from the source or drop all traffic to the destination. This could be both wanted and unwanted traffic. —Netcraftsmen

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Microsoft’s Nadella takes on privacy fears about LinkedIn, Cortana

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella faced sharp questions from Gartner analysts Tuesday about the privacy-invading implications of its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, and its all-knowing virtual assistant, Cortana.Helen Huntley, one of the Gartner analysts questioning Nadella at a conference here, was particularly pointed about the fears.Cortana, said Huntley, "knows everything about me when I'm working. She knows what files I'm looking at, she knows what I'm downloading, she knows when I'm working, when I'm not working," she said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Patriots coach ‘done with’ Microsoft Surface

In a five-minute rant from a man famous for five-word answers, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick this morning tore apart and then swore off using the Microsoft Surface tablets that are provided to teams by the National Football League.“As you probably noticed, I’m done with the tablets,” Belichick told reporters. “They’re just too undependable for me. I’m going to stick with (paper) pictures, which several of our other coaches do, as well, because there just isn’t enough consistency in the performance of the tablets. I just can’t take it anymore. …”It was only two weeks ago that Belichick threw one of the tablets in frustration on the sideline during a loss to the Buffalo Bills.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Juniper Hires Outspoken Cloud Expert Randy Bias

The 'pets vs. cattle' guy is now with the OpenContrail team.

Facebook’s 100 GbE Wedge Switch Makes Strides

CloudVelox eases migration of core business apps to the cloud

It’s easy to get all “cloud first” when you’re talking about new, greenfield applications. But how do you get the core business applications running in your data center – so-called brownfield apps – easily and efficiently migrated to the cloud? That’s the problem startup CloudVelox set out to solve, with the larger mission of helping CIOs build “boundaryless” hybrid data centers. IDG Chief Content Officer John Gallant spoke with CloudVelox CEO Raj Dhingra about how the company has automated the migration of complex, traditional applications to Amazon Web Services (and Microsoft Azure in the near future). Dhingra explained how companies are using CloudVelox’s One Hybrid Cloud platform to not only migrate apps, but to build cloud-based disaster recovery capabilities and simplify a variety of test/dev chores.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

CloudVelox eases migration of core business apps to the cloud

It’s easy to get all “cloud first” when you’re talking about new, greenfield applications. But how do you get the core business applications running in your data center – so-called brownfield apps – easily and efficiently migrated to the cloud? That’s the problem startup CloudVelox set out to solve, with the larger mission of helping CIOs build “boundaryless” hybrid data centers. IDG Chief Content Officer John Gallant spoke with CloudVelox CEO Raj Dhingra about how the company has automated the migration of complex, traditional applications to Amazon Web Services (and Microsoft Azure in the near future). Dhingra explained how companies are using CloudVelox’s One Hybrid Cloud platform to not only migrate apps, but to build cloud-based disaster recovery capabilities and simplify a variety of test/dev chores.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Hackers hide stolen payment card data inside website product images

Attacks that compromise online shops to skim payment card details are increasing and growing in sophistication. The latest technique involves hiding malicious code and stolen data inside legitimate files.A Dutch researcher reported last week that almost 6,000 online shops, most of them built with the Magento content management system, have malicious code that intercepts and steals payment card data during online transactions. The online storefront of the U.S. National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) was among those websites until earlier this month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hackers hide stolen payment card data inside website product images

Attacks that compromise online shops to skim payment card details are increasing and growing in sophistication. The latest technique involves hiding malicious code and stolen data inside legitimate files.A Dutch researcher reported last week that almost 6,000 online shops, most of them built with the Magento content management system, have malicious code that intercepts and steals payment card data during online transactions. The online storefront of the U.S. National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) was among those websites until earlier this month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

WikiLeaks blames US for cutting Assange’s internet connection

WikiLeaks is accusing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry of trying to stop the site from publishing stolen emails from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Citing "multiple U.S. sources,"  the site tweeted on Tuesday that Kerry had asked the Ecuadorian government to prevent WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange from releasing more documents.   Assange is currently residing in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been helping to run the WikiLeaks site. But on Saturday, the Ecuadorian government shut down his internet connection. WikiLeaks claimed that Kerry had private negotiations with Ecuador last month. However, the U.S. Department of State is denying any involvement with cutting Assange's internet connection.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

WikiLeaks blames US for cutting Assange’s internet connection

WikiLeaks is accusing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry of trying to stop the site from publishing stolen emails from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Citing "multiple U.S. sources,"  the site tweeted on Tuesday that Kerry had asked the Ecuadorian government to prevent WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange from releasing more documents.   Assange is currently residing in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been helping to run the WikiLeaks site. But on Saturday, the Ecuadorian government shut down his internet connection. WikiLeaks claimed that Kerry had private negotiations with Ecuador last month. However, the U.S. Department of State is denying any involvement with cutting Assange's internet connection.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Down the rabbit hole, part 4: Securing your email

As I strive to make my life safe and secure from prying eyes, one area stands out as being astoundingly critical: email.Heck, you can barely go 24 hours without another example of leaked or hacked emails being released to the public. Add to that the recent revelations that Yahoo has been working secretly with United States government agencies to scan all email going through their system, and it quickly becomes clear that the majority of us have email accounts that are not even remotely private or secure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Here’s how Zenefits is trying to reinvent itself

Zenefits had a rough year. The company -- previously a darling of Silicon Valley -- was rocked by a massive insurance scandal in February and has been fighting to regain the trust of customers and regulators since.David Sacks, the Yammer cofounder and former Zenefits COO, has been leading the charge after taking over the CEO role in February. The company made its biggest announcement under his tenure Tuesday, unveiling Z2, a redesign and upgrade of its capabilities.The marquee change of Z2 is a design that brings the app store model popularized by smartphones to the world of human resources. Zenefits's offerings, like vacation tracking, offer letter generation, and employee insurance, are still available as apps in the new Z2 platform. But now, users will also be able to add third-party integrations from a set of 17 services. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

On the ‘net: Software Patents

What should we do with software patents? I’ve seen both sides of the debate, as I work a great deal in the context of standards bodies (particularly the IETF), where software patents have impeded progress on a community-driven (and/or community-usable) standard. On the other hand, I have been listed as a co-inventor on at least 40 software patents across more than twenty years of work, and have a number of software patents either filed or in the process of being filed. —CircleID

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Senet Expands LoRaWAN IoT Network to 10 New Markets

Senate's LoRa IoT network competes with Ingenu and Sigfox.

Docker Containers: Coming to a vSphere Data Center Near You

The "brain of vSphere" becomes a virtual appliance.

Half of US adults are profiled in police facial recognition databases

Photographs of nearly half of all U.S. adults -- 117 million people -- are collected in police facial recognition databases across the country with little regulation over how the networks are searched and used, according to a new study.Along with a lack of regulation, critics question the accuracy of facial recognition algorithms. Meanwhile, state, city, and federal facial recognition databases include 48 percent of U.S. adults, said the report from the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law. The search of facial recognition databases is largely unregulated, the report said. "A few agencies have instituted meaningful protections to prevent the misuse of the technology," its authors wrote. "In many more cases, it is out of control."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Half of US adults are profiled in police facial recognition databases

Photographs of nearly half of all U.S. adults -- 117 million people -- are collected in police facial recognition databases across the country with little regulation over how the networks are searched and used, according to a new study.Along with a lack of regulation, critics question the accuracy of facial recognition algorithms. Meanwhile, state, city, and federal facial recognition databases include 48 percent of U.S. adults, said the report from the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law. The search of facial recognition databases is largely unregulated, the report said. "A few agencies have instituted meaningful protections to prevent the misuse of the technology," its authors wrote. "In many more cases, it is out of control."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here