Stealthy cyberespionage malware targets energy companies

Security researchers have discovered a new malware threat that goes to great lengths to remain undetected while targeting energy companies.The malware program, which researchers from security firm SentinelOne have dubbed Furtim’s Parent, is a so-called dropper -- a program designed to download and install additional malware components and tools. The researchers believe it was released in May and was created by state-sponsored attackers.The goal of droppers is to prepare the field for the installation of other malware components that can perform specialized tasks. Their priority is to remain undetected, gain privileged access, and disable existing protections. These are all tasks that Furtim’s Parent does well.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

One year after its demise, Windows Server 2003 is hanging around

Microsoft officially ended support for Windows Server 2003 a year ago, and there was a major push to get people off the aging operating system and onto something new all through 2014 and 2015. But the zombie OS lives on mostly because people feel no urgency to get rid of it.Spiceworks, the helpdesk and monitoring provider, released a survey focused on virtualization but with a few OS tidbits as well.Virtualization use According to Spiceworks' 2016 State of IT report, more than 76 percent of organizations today use virtualization, and another 9 percent expect to adopt it in the coming years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

One year after its demise, Windows Server 2003 is hanging around

Microsoft officially ended support for Windows Server 2003 a year ago, and there was a major push to get people off the aging operating system and onto something new all through 2014 and 2015. But the zombie OS lives on mostly because people feel no urgency to get rid of it.Spiceworks, the helpdesk and monitoring provider, released a survey focused on virtualization but with a few OS tidbits as well.Virtualization use According to Spiceworks' 2016 State of IT report, more than 76 percent of organizations today use virtualization, and another 9 percent expect to adopt it in the coming years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft and IBM in a deal to push Surface devices to enterprises

Microsoft says its Surface devices generate revenue of US$1 billion every quarter, and hopes to raise that number by putting the devices on more corporate desktops.The company is partnering with IBM, one of the world's largest software makers, to write applications specifically for Surface devices. The goal is to tailor Surface devices to meet the needs of financial, consumer goods and retail organizations.The deal is significant for Microsoft, which wants to make Surface devices more attractive to enterprises. IDC expects enterprise PC upgrades to pick up in the second half of this year, and Surface devices with tailored software could appeal to companies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Chef broadens its offering to cover all IT automation needs

Chef and Puppet are often held up as the two big names in the first generation of IT automation. About the same time that virtualization was growing to dominance, these two companies, and the open source initiatives they're involved with, sprung up to allow IT operators to automate their server setup and deployment.The rationale for these players was obvious: Since servers were no longer physical items that needed to be set up in person every time, it made sense that organizations could develop "recipes" for their servers, thus eliminating repetitive setup tasks and speeding up the deployment of servers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Salesforce expands encryption options with ‘bring your own key’

Salesforce.com is stepping up its efforts to woo security-conscious businesses by adding "bring your own key" encryption to its Salesforce Shield cloud services.Introduced a year ago, Shield offers encryption, auditing and event-monitoring functions to help companies build cloud apps that meet compliance or governance requirements. Encryption is based on keys generated by Salesforce using a combination of an organization-specific "tenant secret" and a Salesforce-maintained master one. Originally, secrets and keys in Shield were generated and managed through Salesforce's built­-in key-management infrastructure, accessed through a point-and-click interface.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon Prime Day is Today: Over 100,000 Products Currently Discounted – Prime Day Deal Alert

Today is Amazon's biggest event of the year – Prime Day. As you read this, over 100,000 products have been dramatically discounted for today only. Laptops, cell phones, gadgets, gear, and everything in-between has been slashed up to 40% or more. You need to be a Prime member to access the deals, but a free trial of Prime - Sign up here - gets you access just the same. Jump over to Amazon and explore the seemingly endless list of products on sale right now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon Prime Day is Today: Over 100,000 Products Currently Discounted – Prime Day Deal Alert

Today is Amazon's biggest event of the year – Prime Day. As you read this, over 100,000 products have been dramatically discounted for today only. Laptops, cell phones, gadgets, gear, and everything in-between has been slashed up to 40% or more. You need to be a Prime member to access the deals, but a free trial of Prime - Sign up here - gets you access just the same. Jump over to Amazon and explore the seemingly endless list of products on sale right now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon Prime Day is Today: Over 100,000 Products Currently Discounted – Prime Day Deal Alert

Today is Amazon's biggest event of the year – Prime Day. As you read this, over 100,000 products have been dramatically discounted for today only. Laptops, cell phones, gadgets, gear, and everything in-between has been slashed up to 40% or more. You need to be a Prime member to access the deals, but a free trial of Prime - Sign up here - gets you access just the same. Jump over to Amazon and explore the seemingly endless list of products on sale right now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Privacy Shield transatlantic data sharing agreement enters effect

After months of uncertainty, businesses will once again have a simple, legal way to export the personal information of European Union citizens to the U.S. for processing from Aug. 1.Privacy Shield, the replacement for the defunct Safe Harbor Agreement, ensures an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the EU to self-certified organisations in the U.S., the European Commission ruled Tuesday morning. It plans to notify the governments of the EU's 28 member states of its adequacy decision later in the day, at which point Privacy Shield will enter effect, although it will still be a few more weeks before companies can register their compliance with it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Privacy Shield transatlantic data sharing agreement enters effect

After months of uncertainty, businesses will once again have a simple, legal way to export the personal information of European Union citizens to the U.S. for processing from Aug. 1.Privacy Shield, the replacement for the defunct Safe Harbor Agreement, ensures an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the EU to self-certified organisations in the U.S., the European Commission ruled Tuesday morning. It plans to notify the governments of the EU's 28 member states of its adequacy decision later in the day, at which point Privacy Shield will enter effect, although it will still be a few more weeks before companies can register their compliance with it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft is selling a HoloLens ‘enterprise edition,’ but it’s not what you think

Microsoft’s HoloLens has been available to developers for some time, but what's less well known is that its augmented reality headset also comes in an 'enterprise edition.'CEO Satya Nadella talked up the HoloLens at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner conference in Toronto Monday, along with an app that Japan Airlines is using to train its engineers."We now have HoloLens available both as a developer edition as well as an enterprise edition," Nadella said.The reference to an enterprise edition caused some confusion initially, as Microsoft watchers speculated that the company had two versions of the product -- one for large businesses and another aimed at individual developers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Seagate will cut 6,500 staff despite uptick in hard disk demand

Seagate Technology will cut about 6,500 jobs worldwide, or 14 percent of its workforce, with most of the cuts in manufacturing jobs, it said Monday.The data storage maker had said in June that it was aiming to cut 1,600 employees, or 3 percent of its global workforce, by the end of the September quarter to trim costs, but the new announcement suggests that the company feels the need to reduce costs further as its hard disk drives battle in a slowing PC market amid the emergence of flash storage in devices.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD 2016 tech industry graveyard +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The top features Windows 10 users want in the Anniversary Update

Windows 10: What users wantIf you’re still running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, you probably have a good idea of what’s “wrong” with Windows 10—some of which may be the reason you haven't upgraded yet. But time’s running out on that free upgrade offer. Microsoft has said it’s willing to make changes to the OS based on user feedback, but how do you know it’s fixing that one key feature that bothers you?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Clinton: It’s ‘heartbreaking’ when IT workers must train H-1B replacements

Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, on Monday criticized the replacement of U.S. IT workers with foreign labor but stopped short of offering a plan to fix it. In a videotaped interview with Vox published Monday, Clinton appears empathetic and sympathetic to IT workers who have trained their foreign replacements as a condition of severance. She mentioned IT layoffs at Disney, specifically. "The many stories of people training their replacements from some foreign country are heartbreaking, and it is obviously a cost-cutting measure to be able to pay people less than what you would pay an American worker," said Clinton in the interview.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How one CIO is migrating 18,000 users to Office 365

Product migrations are often the stuff of nightmares. But for Richard Cross, CIO of U.K.-based multinational engineering company Atkins, the decision to migrate 18,000 users from their familiar desktop productivity applications to Office 365 in the cloud wasn’t a difficult one to make.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

6 high-tech ways thieves can steal connected cars

On the internet superhighwayImage by Henrik SchnabelOur vehicles contain critical personal information such as our personal contacts, registration and insurance details, financial information and even the address to our home – making entry, theft and further damage even more of a possibility. Our vehicles are truly an extension of one’s connected self and the technology associated with them offers substantial benefits.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

6 high-tech ways thieves can steal connected cars

On the internet superhighwayImage by Henrik SchnabelOur vehicles contain critical personal information such as our personal contacts, registration and insurance details, financial information and even the address to our home – making entry, theft and further damage even more of a possibility. Our vehicles are truly an extension of one’s connected self and the technology associated with them offers substantial benefits.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 Innovative Network Security Startups

Automate the Exceptions

Every time I have a network automation presentation (be it a 2-day workshop or a 45 minute keynote) I get the same question afterwards: “How do we deal with exceptions?”

The correct answer is obvious: “there should be no exceptions, because one-offs usually cost you more than you earn with them,” but as always the reality tends to intervene.