Got big data? Check out these 100 best practices for keeping it secure

Big data is best known for its volume, variety, and velocity -- collectively referred to as the "3 Vs" -- and all three of those traits make security an elusive goal. Targeting companies grappling with that challenge, the Cloud Security Alliance on Friday released a new report offering 100 best practices.As its name would suggest, the CSA focuses on promoting the use of security best practices within the cloud computing world; corporate members include VMware, Microsoft, AWS, and Red Hat. In an earlier report, the CSA broke down big data security risks into a set of the top 10 major challenges. Now, for each of those, it presents 10 best practices designed to help enterprises keep their information safe.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Got big data? Check out these 100 best practices for keeping it secure

Big data is best known for its volume, variety, and velocity -- collectively referred to as the "3 Vs" -- and all three of those traits make security an elusive goal. Targeting companies grappling with that challenge, the Cloud Security Alliance on Friday released a new report offering 100 best practices.As its name would suggest, the CSA focuses on promoting the use of security best practices within the cloud computing world; corporate members include VMware, Microsoft, AWS, and Red Hat. In an earlier report, the CSA broke down big data security risks into a set of the top 10 major challenges. Now, for each of those, it presents 10 best practices designed to help enterprises keep their information safe.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BrandPost: Bringing flexibility to the WAN

MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) VPNs (Virtual Private Network) have long been recognized as a preferred option for dedicated, high performance connectivity over a wide area network (WAN), such as linking data centers or branch offices that require high volume and reliability. Often these MPLS VPNs would use a broadband internet connection, either DSL, Cable or LTE, as a backup option.  It has become more common recently to leverage that broadband for internet offload.  In fact, the broadband internet is also being used as the primary VPN link for many locations and is even being combined with single user remote access options.  Regardless of the use case for the broadband VPN, it uses the IPSec protocol to encrypt the VPN traffic to keep it secure. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM Cloud Fuels AI Ambitions in Korea

The Pangyo facility will be developers' gateway to Watson.

Agile

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Distil Networks uses device fingerprints to detect malicious web bots

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  Who's that coming to your website? Is it friend or foe? Is it a customer wanting to buy your products, or someone or something wanting to steal your web content? Is it a community member that wants to post a relevant comment, or a spammer intent on planting junk links and content in your open comments section? Is it a real person clicking on an ad, or a web bot driving up fraudulent clicks?Web applications are increasingly being subjected to automated threats such as click fraud, comment spam, content scraping, abusive account creation, and more. These and other illicit or unwanted activities are described in detail in the OWASP Automated Threat Handbook for Web Applications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Distil Networks uses device fingerprints to detect malicious web bots

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  Who's that coming to your website? Is it friend or foe? Is it a customer wanting to buy your products, or someone or something wanting to steal your web content? Is it a community member that wants to post a relevant comment, or a spammer intent on planting junk links and content in your open comments section? Is it a real person clicking on an ad, or a web bot driving up fraudulent clicks?Web applications are increasingly being subjected to automated threats such as click fraud, comment spam, content scraping, abusive account creation, and more. These and other illicit or unwanted activities are described in detail in the OWASP Automated Threat Handbook for Web Applications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Private Equity Firm Buys Rackspace for $4.3B

Cloud company will become privately held when deal is complete.

5 security practices hackers say make their lives harder

Whether they identify as white hats, black hats or something in-between, a majority of hackers agree that no password is safe from them — or the government for that matter. Regardless of where they sit with respect to the law, hackers mostly agree that five key security measures can make it a lot harder to penetrate enterprise networks.At the Black Hat USA 2016 conference in Las Vegas earlier this month, Thycotic, a specialist in privileged account management (PAM) solutions, surveyed more than 250 attendees who self-identified as hackers (respondents remained anonymous). Eighty-four percent of respondents identified as white hat hackers — security researchers that help organizations uncover and remediate vulnerabilities. And 15 percent identified as black hat hackers, who penetrate networks with criminal intent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 security practices hackers say make their lives harder

Whether they identify as white hats, black hats or something in-between, a majority of hackers agree that no password is safe from them — or the government for that matter. Regardless of where they sit with respect to the law, hackers mostly agree that five key security measures can make it a lot harder to penetrate enterprise networks.At the Black Hat USA 2016 conference in Las Vegas earlier this month, Thycotic, a specialist in privileged account management (PAM) solutions, surveyed more than 250 attendees who self-identified as hackers (respondents remained anonymous). Eighty-four percent of respondents identified as white hat hackers — security researchers that help organizations uncover and remediate vulnerabilities. And 15 percent identified as black hat hackers, who penetrate networks with criminal intent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Autonomic offerings set to transform IT, but outsourcing customers beware

Wipro has Holmes, Tata Consultancy Services introduced Ignio, Syntel is selling Synbots. HCL Systems calls its Dry Ice. And Infosys is promoting Mana. With traditional IT outsourcing revenue streams at risk to automation, a number of IT service providers are responding by developing their own homegrown systems which are designed to perform routine tasks and operations otherwise performed by humans.The good news is that CIOs now have a number of automation options to choose from. The bad news? The array of choices can be confusing and the unproven systems can be risky. It may not be immediately clear how these new automation options from traditional IT service providers differ from the solutions of the more well-established robotic systems companies like IPSoft or BluePrism.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cloud player Rackspace goes private in $4.3B deal

A private equity firm has signed an agreement to buy major cloud player Rackspace for $4.3 billion.Rackspace announced today that Apollo Global Management, a U.S.-based investment manager, will acquire the company in a deal that will give Rackspace shareholders $32 per share."Our board, with the assistance of independent advisors, determined that this transaction, upon closing, will deliver immediate, significant and certain cash value to our stockholders," said Graham Weston, co-founder and chairman of Rackspace, in a statement. "We are also excited that this transaction will provide Rackspace with more flexibility to manage the business for long-term growth and enhance our product offerings."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UC As A Service Gaining Steam

iPhone 7’s headphone jack removal draws critique from Woz

The big rumor surrounding Apple’s iPhone 7 is that it will completely abandon the 3.5mm headphone jack, a familiar port that has been around in one form or another for decades on end. Needless to say, Apple’s decision won’t be met without controversy. While alternatives like lightning-based audio and Bluetooth do exist, getting rid of a port that’s ubiquitous and as exceedingly reliable as the headphone jack is undoubtedly a risky move.Recently, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak chimed in on the iPhone 7 and articulated that Apple may be going down the wrong path. During an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Woz said that Bluetooth technology isn't yet suitable as a replacement to a wired headphone solution.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

OPNFV Defends Its Place in the World as an NFV Integrator

The Colorado code release is slated for September.

IDG Contributor Network: Bluetooth rising

We are used to external developments driving progress in enterprise networking. An obvious example is the modern smartphone, born in the consumer market but now the primary client for enterprise WLANs.Another is the move towards white-box networking, an extraordinary change in the way enterprises build data centers that would not have happened but for the activities of the big consumer internet companies.So, it is natural to look to other markets for technologies that may become important in the enterprise over the next few years. In wireless, Bluetooth is the one to watch.Bluetooth Low Energy: wireless technology of choice Bluetooth has enjoyed an extraordinary rise since re-inventing itself with BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy, also called Bluetooth Smart and Bluetooth 4.0) in 2010. Its main benefits are very low-cost chips and very low power, enabling inexpensive battery-powered devices that run for years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Go versus Python performance

It may be that I’m doing something in Python that’s an obvious don’t do or that I’m simply using a very computationally expensive way to achieve my goal, and any experienced Python programmer would suggest I did it a different way. However, for something so simple to see an order of magnitude difference between the two languages either makes Python look very slow, or Go look very fast, or maybe a bit of each, at least for this particular calculation. —Moving Packets

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31% off Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim 2TB Portable External Hard Drive – Deal Post

The Backup Plus Ultra Slim Portable Drive is one of Seagate's thinnest and most eye-catching portable hard drives. Available in stunning gold and platinum colors- style meets storage- and easily slips into your backpack along with your other essentials. At 9.6mm thin, capacity is not sacrificed with 1TB and 2TB options-bring your most important files and head out the door. Back up and manage your favorite files from your computer, tablet and mobile devices using the Seagate Dashboard. Run a one-click backup or schedule an automatic backup plan to help protect your files. Convenient tools for local, mobile, cloud and social media backup at the ready. With high-speed USB 3.0 and 2.0 connectivity, you can depend on seamless plug-and-play functionality. And the USB bus-power eliminates the need for an external power supply, letting you access your files while on the move. The Lyve mobile and desktop app gives you the ability to access a single, consolidated and personalized photo and video library. When you purchase a Backup Plus Ultra Slim Portable Drive, you get 200GB of OneDrive cloud storage for 2 years (US$95 value).   The Backup Plus Portable Drive averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Continue reading

Mozilla launches free website security scanning service

In order to help webmasters better protect their websites and users, Mozilla has built an online scanner that can check if web servers have the best security settings in place.Dubbed Observatory, the tool was initially built for in-house use by Mozilla security engineer April King, who was then encouraged to expand it and make it available to the whole world.She took inspiration from the SSL Server Test from Qualys' SSL Labs, a widely appreciated scanner that rates a website's SSL/TLS configuration and highlights potential weaknesses. Like Qualys' scanner, Observatory uses a scoring system from 0 to 100 -- with the possibility of extra bonus points -- which translates into grades from F to A+.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Mozilla launches free website security scanning service

In order to help webmasters better protect their websites and users, Mozilla has built an online scanner that can check if web servers have the best security settings in place.Dubbed Observatory, the tool was initially built for in-house use by Mozilla security engineer April King, who was then encouraged to expand it and make it available to the whole world.She took inspiration from the SSL Server Test from Qualys' SSL Labs, a widely appreciated scanner that rates a website's SSL/TLS configuration and highlights potential weaknesses. Like Qualys' scanner, Observatory uses a scoring system from 0 to 100 -- with the possibility of extra bonus points -- which translates into grades from F to A+.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here