Unsupervised anomaly detection via variational auto-encoder for seasonal KPIs in web applications

Unsupervised anomaly detection via variational auto-encoder for seasonal KPIs in web applications Xu et al., WWW’18

(If you don’t have ACM Digital Library access, the paper can be accessed either by following the link above directly from The Morning Paper blog site, or from the WWW 2018 proceedings page).

Today’s paper examines the problem of anomaly detection for web application KPIs (e.g. page views, number of orders), studied in the context of a ‘top global Internet company’ which we can reasonably assume to be Alibaba.

Among all KPIs, the most (important?) ones are business-related KPIs, which are heavily influenced by user behaviour and schedule, thus roughly have seasonal patterns occurring at regular intervals (e.g., daily and/or weekly). However, anomaly detection for these seasonal KPIs with various patterns and data quality has been a great challenge, especially without labels.

Donut is an unsupervised anomaly detection algorithm based on Variational Auto-Encoding (VAE). It uses three techniques (modified ELBO, missing data injection, and MCMC imputation), which together add up to state-of-the-art anomaly detection performance. One of the interesting findings in the research is that it is important to train on both normal data and abnormal data Continue reading

PenTest Edition: Cracking WEP, WPS, WPA, and WPA2 Wi-Fi Networks with the “Fern Wi-Fi Cracker” Tool

The Cybersecurity Man

Here’s a fun assessment you can perform on your home network. I’m running Kali Linux 2018.1 in a virtual machine using VMware Workstation Player. My wireless network adapter is an Alfa AWUS036NHA with a 9dBi omni-directional antenna. Penetration testers may use the Fern Wi-Fi cracker as a security auditing tool to test the security of an organization’s wireless network.

Disclaimer:

The information provided on the cybersecurityman is for educational purposes only. I am in no way responsible for any misuse of the information provided. All the information here is meant to provide the reader with the knowledge to defend against hackers and prevent the attacks discussed here. At no time should any reader attempt to use this information for illegal purposes.

The “Fern Wi-Fi Cracker” tool, from hereon abbreviated as “FWC,” is a security auditing and attack software program provided in the Kali Linux distribution. FWC has the ability to…

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A Peek Inside That Intel Xeon-FPGA Hybrid Chip

Last week at the Fujitsu Forum in Tokyo, Lisa Spelman, who is general manager of Xeon products and Data Center Marketing at Intel, did a soft announcement of the hybrid Xeon CPU-Arria 10 FPGA hybrid chip that the company has been talking about for years and that is now available to selected customers. …

A Peek Inside That Intel Xeon-FPGA Hybrid Chip was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at .

Podcast: Talking Data Privacy and GDPR with Todd M. Tolbert

“Let’s raise the bar on data privacy and make the Internet safer.”  With the imminent arrival of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), this was one of the points raised by Todd M. Tolbert, our Chief Administrative Officer, in an episode of the Non-Profit Tech Podcast published yesterday. Hosted by fusionSpan’s Justin Burniske, the 35-minute episode covered a wide range of topics, including:

  • the difference between data privacy and data protection
  • Todd’s thinking about the value the GDPR brings in terms of thinking about data
  • mistakes organizations make with regard to handling their data
  • resources for organizations to do more
  • how you can’t be liable for data that you don’t have in the first place
  • asking the question… do you really need to keep those 700 email addresses that no longer work?

And, of course, Todd being who he is, there were some Texan things mixed in to the conversation as well. I very much enjoyed the episode and found it a useful contribution to the ongoing privacy discussions that tomorrow’s GDPR deadline has generated.

Some of the resources Todd shared included:

IDG Contributor Network: Soil to sale, ranch to register: IoT connects producers, distributors, retailers and consumers

IoT, because of its flexibility and, let us admit, complexity, gives CIOs and business leaders in similar roles pause. And this anxiety about the pain of implementing comprehensive digital transformation is causing some foot dragging. Delaying however could put your business at risk, potentially causing your business to fall behind and ultimately fail.  Implementing IoT solutions offer the opportunity to sustain your business leadership, the ability to scale and create new types of sales/revenues, as well as cost savings.  No matter what the industry, there are partners aplenty eager to help enterprises transform their operations via the extraordinary power of fully deployed IoT systems.To read this article in full, please click here

20 hot jobs ambitious IT pros should shoot for

What should your next role in IT be? Maybe a security management expert? Or a change management guru?“Factors such as the proliferation of network-connected devices, adoption of cloud services and exponential rise in security threats are affecting hiring trends,” according to a survey released today by researchers at IDC and sponsored by Cisco about what IT roles will be hot in the future.[ Click here to download a PDF bundle of five essential articles about IoT in the enterprise. ] “Despite the central role that technology and the technology workforce play in this digital era, certain key roles stand out from the pack in terms of importance and opportunity. Not all roles are equal in the future,” wrote Mark Leary an intelligence analyst with Cisco Services in a blog post about the study.To read this article in full, please click here

Top 5 Recommendations for the IT Professional at DockerCon 2018

DockerCon 2018 is right around the corner and it’s not just a conference for developers! We’ve created experiences and activities designed with the IT professional in mind.

Registration is open so secure your spot and begin planning your conference experience.

“What gets me excited about Docker is how liberating their platform is for technologists. As a technologist, Docker gives me the freedom, flexibility, and makes it extremely easy to run and deploy apps on modern infrastructure.” – Arjuna Rivera, I2 Labs Leader, Lockheed Martin

DockerCon is the premier container industry event, where you’ll see examples of Docker best practices that you can implement within your company, gain hands-on experience of the Docker container platform, including Kubernetes, security, networking and storage, plus learn how to bring the Docker container platform in to your organization to modernize applications and streamline your deployment and maintenance operations.

Networking is key benefit to a conference and at DockerCon we’ve made it easy to find peers in our Hallway Track. Whether you’re looking for somebody to help answer your questions, or you have wisdom to share with others, the Hallway Track is like your own custom breakout session.

Here are our top 5 recommendations for Continue reading

The future of storage is here

Sometime in the past couple of years, Gartner introduced a term called “Shared Accelerated Storage” (SAS) to describe what’s next for the industry after all-flash arrays. I’m not sure when they first used the term, but it was the very first bullet in its 2017 Storage Hype Cycle, indicating its relative newness as a market category.In its Hype Cycle, Gartner has a rather long and complicated definition of what SAS is. The easy way to think about it is that it brings the benefits of network-based systems and direct-attached systems together by leveraging a number of new technologies, most notably Nonvolatile Memory Express— or NVMe, as its more commonly known.  To read this article in full, please click here

Community Networks Can Bridge the Digital Divide, But Some Still Need to Be Convinced

Community networks can help bring connectivity to many of world’s population still without it, but some governments, ISPs, and some potential users need to be convinced of their benefits, connectivity experts said.

Community networks can bring huge economic, educational, and social opportunities to areas without Internet access, Raul Echeberria, the Internet Society’s vice president for global engagement, said Wednesday.

With nearly half the world’s population still lacking Internet access, “this is creating a huge gap of opportunities,” he said during a community networking roundtable discussion hosted by the Internet Society.

Through community network projects such as a year-old network in the mountainous region of Tusheti in the nation of Georgia, the Internet Society has seen the proof that existing technologies can bring Internet service to some of the most remote areas on Earth, Echeberria said.

After a year of operation, the Georgian network is providing new economic opportunities to inn keepers and other tourism-related businesses in the region, said Ucha Seturi, director of the community network project there. Demand for Internet service is growing, he added.

With the technology questions largely solved, a key piece of the puzzle for community networks is getting the buy-in of the unserved communities and Continue reading

Thanks, Arista! We’ll Leave a Light on for You

Wow.  Just, wow.  Here we were at Pica8, ten days away from announcing a screamingly simplified white box switching architecture for enterprise campus networks – one that makes legacy switch stack and chassis switch replacement with disaggregated white box switches ridiculously easy — when Arista suddenly pops up and says that the success white box switches are having in the data center is now well and truly annoying to them, so they are starting to plan a future expedition to the enterprise campus in search of replacing lost revenue.

But after blowing straight past total market validation for us – we already have a number of ongoing enterprise campus network deployments inside some of Cisco’s oldest and largest accounts – Arista then went on to articulate the changes they envision for their future campus network switching push and, in doing so, came very close to a one-to-one mapping with what we’ve just announced as an orderable solution with our new PicaPilot switch orchestration software (see link below). (I really must order a case of champagne for my friends over there.)

Just how close is the mapping?  Well, let’s start with solving the urgent requirement to simplify Continue reading

Thanks, Arista! We’ll Leave a Light on for You

Wow.  Just, wow.  Here we were at Pica8, ten days away from announcing a screamingly simplified white box switching architecture for enterprise campus networks – one that makes legacy switch stack and chassis switch replacement with disaggregated white box switches ridiculously easy — when Arista suddenly pops up and says that the success white box switches are having in the data center is now well and truly annoying to them, so they are starting to plan a future expedition to the enterprise campus in search of replacing lost revenue.

But after blowing straight past total market validation for us – we already have a number of ongoing enterprise campus network deployments inside some of Cisco’s oldest and largest accounts – Arista then went on to articulate the changes they envision for their future campus network switching push and, in doing so, came very close to a one-to-one mapping with what we’ve just announced as an orderable solution with our new PicaPilot switch orchestration software (see link below). (I really must order a case of champagne for my friends over there.)

Just how close is the mapping?  Well, let’s start with solving the urgent requirement to simplify Continue reading

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