IDG Contributor Network: How to handle risks of hypervisor hacking

Global cloud computing and digital systems today would not exist without virtualization and hypervisors. Virtualization and hypervisors are basic tools for implementing digital systems that respond from moment to moment to varying demands without slow and expensive physical reconfiguration of hardware and rebuilding of software execution stacks and heavy investment in hardware that is only used during peak loads.Last blog, I described the dangers of a hypervisor attack. How can such an attack occur? There are a number of ways.Resource simulations A hypervisor provides software simulations of basic computing resources — like CPUs, memory, storage and network connections — that isolate VMs from one another. But the isolation may have soft spots. For example, freed simulated memory for one VM might be the same physical memory the hypervisor allocates to another VM. If the hypervisor does not blank out the reallocated physical memory, the second VM has access to data from the first VM and a data breach ensues. All resource simulations are subject to dangerous implementation errors. Simulated CPU registers, storage buffers and network buffers, all present opportunities for coding mistakes that permit data or control breaches.To read this article in full or to leave Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: What Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods means for enterprise IT operations

Amazon has announced that it is buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. The implications of this upon the grocery business have been widely written about in a variety of publications including Forbes, and Business Insider. The point of this post is not to rehash what Amazon will or will not do to the grocery business but rather to focus upon the lessons of this acquisition for Enterprise IT Operations.Every business is a digital business At the recent IT Operations Strategies Summit, Gartner released the results of a survey that it had done with the CEO’s of its clients. The results were that by 2020 these CEO’s expected the following:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The inextricable link between IoT and machine learning

I met with a team of Microsoft AI researchers recently to discuss original adaptations of Resnet 50, a version of the convolutional network Microsoft used to win the Imagenet 2015 image recognition competition. The discussion about the scientists work caused me to reconsider the inextricable link between IoT and machine learning.Control loops are a fundamental principal of the internet of things (IoT.) If then, then that (ITTT) has a long history in conditionally controlling things dating to the invention of the electric relay in the 1830s. Over time, single relays were combined into state machines, and later, relays became transistors. During the glamorous growth of computers in IT, consumer and mobile sectors, less glamorous ITTT computers have been applied to many use cases such as controlling machines in factories and performing lab experiments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What is intent-based networking?

Cisco this week jumped head first into the intent-based networking market, saying the technology that uses machine learning and advanced automation to control networks could be a major shift in how networks are managed.But what exactly is intent-based networking?+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Why Cisco’s new intent-based networking could be a big deal +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What is intent-based networking?

Cisco this week jumped head first into the intent-based networking market, saying the technology that uses machine learning and advanced automation to control networks could be a major shift in how networks are managed.But what exactly is intent-based networking?+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Why Cisco’s new intent-based networking could be a big deal +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: The revival of standards

Standards… what a boring, old fashioned and backwards oriented term. How can the representative of a vendor that claims to be open, elastic and forward thinking use it in a headline? Be honest… this was one of the thoughts that ran through your mind while reading the title. Now relax and sit back, the following blog might surprise you. — ECI

The post Worth Reading: The revival of standards appeared first on rule 11 reader.

iPad Pro vs. iPad mini 4 vs. iPad: Which one should you buy?

So you’re in the market for a new iPad. Excellent choice—I couldn’t live without mine. It’s my companion when I’m catching up on news and email in the morning over tea, reading a comic book in the evening to unwind, or watching a movie while traveling on a plane. Update 6-22-2017: This article has been updated to include information about the new 2017 iPad, as well as the upgrades to the iPad Pro line.But these days, picking an iPad can be tricky. Apple currently sells four different models of iPad, with prices ranging from $329 to $1229. There are size, storage, color, and connectivity options to consider. All in all, there are 60 different variations of iPad from which to choose. So which iPad is right for you? Read on.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Echo Show Ships on Wednesday, Buy 2 and Get a $100 Discount Right Now – Deal Alert

The newly-announced Echo Show is available for pre-order in black or white and the shipping date is finally right around the corner: Wednesday, June 28. If you're interested, there are two things you need to know. Right now if you buy two of them and enter the code SHOW2PACK at checkout, you'll activate a $100 discount. So you'll get two new Echo Shows for the price of two standard Echos. Go in on this deal with a friend, or buy a few for yourself (they work very well in multiple rooms). The other thing you should know is that by selecting Prime 2-day shipping, Amazon will actually have the Echo Show on your doorstep the very day it's released. Echo Show brings you everything you love about Alexa, and now she can show you things. Amazon has announced an integration with some of the big names in wireless security cams, so you can simply say "Alexa, show me the front door camera". Echo Show should make a good kitchen assistant as well -- just ask for a recipe. You can watch news briefings, YouTube videos, ask for a weather forecast, video chat with family and friends (if they have Echos Continue reading

OpenVPN 2.3.17 on OpenBSD 6.0

On Jun 21, the OpenVPN team released an update for the 2.3.x and 2.4.x branches that resolved some newly discovered security vulnerabilities. The OpenVPN team recommends that users “upgrade to OpenVPN 2.4.3 or 2.3.17 as soon as possible“.

OpenBSD 6.0–which was released Sep 1 2016 and is still receiving security updates to the base system as per OpenBSD’s policy–shipped with a package for OpenVPN 2.3.11. Below you will find a patch and instructions for using the ports system to upgrade to version 2.3.11. Note that if you’re running OpenBSD 6.1, the ports tree has been updated to 2.4.3 so all you need to do is “cvs up” and “make install”.

Instructions:

  1. Follow the OpenBSD FAQ for instructions on how to download, verify, and extract the ports tree on your machine.
  2. Then:
% cd ports/net/openvpn
% patch < ~/openvpn-2.3.17p0.diff
% make install

Original article: OpenVPN 2.3.17 on OpenBSD 6.0

Copyright © 2017 Joel Knight . All Rights Reserved.

Apcela advises how to build a hybrid IT platform for better performance and stronger security

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe. To state the obvious, enterprises are moving their applications to the cloud, and this movement is happening at an accelerating pace. Many technology chiefs are working under a “cloud-first policy,” which means that if an application can be deployed as a service, then that should be the first choice for the way to go.While the applications themselves are moving to the cloud, the application delivery infrastructure is still stuck in the enterprise data center. Under the existing network architecture that most enterprises still have today, all traffic comes back to the enterprise data center before going out to the cloud. The on-premises data center is where the switching and routing, security, and application delivery controllers reside. This infrastructure is architected for a bygone era when applications were all in the data center.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apcela advises how to build a hybrid IT platform for better performance and stronger security

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe. To state the obvious, enterprises are moving their applications to the cloud, and this movement is happening at an accelerating pace. Many technology chiefs are working under a “cloud-first policy,” which means that if an application can be deployed as a service, then that should be the first choice for the way to go.While the applications themselves are moving to the cloud, the application delivery infrastructure is still stuck in the enterprise data center. Under the existing network architecture that most enterprises still have today, all traffic comes back to the enterprise data center before going out to the cloud. The on-premises data center is where the switching and routing, security, and application delivery controllers reside. This infrastructure is architected for a bygone era when applications were all in the data center.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apcela advises how to build a hybrid IT platform for better performance and stronger security

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe. To state the obvious, enterprises are moving their applications to the cloud, and this movement is happening at an accelerating pace. Many technology chiefs are working under a “cloud-first policy,” which means that if an application can be deployed as a service, then that should be the first choice for the way to go.While the applications themselves are moving to the cloud, the application delivery infrastructure is still stuck in the enterprise data center. Under the existing network architecture that most enterprises still have today, all traffic comes back to the enterprise data center before going out to the cloud. The on-premises data center is where the switching and routing, security, and application delivery controllers reside. This infrastructure is architected for a bygone era when applications were all in the data center.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Project Jengo: Explaining Challenges to Patent Validity (and a looming threat)

Project Jengo: Explaining Challenges to Patent Validity (and a looming threat)

We’ve written a couple times about the problem of patent trolls, and what we are doing in response to the first case a troll filed against Cloudflare. We set a goal to find prior art on all 38 Blackbird Tech patents and applications and then obtain a legal determination that Blackbird Tech’s patents are invalid. Such a determination will end Blackbird’s ability to file or threaten to file abusive patent claims, against us or anyone else.

Project Jengo: Explaining Challenges to Patent Validity (and a looming threat)CC BY-SA 2.0 image by hyku

The patent system exists to reward inventors, so it is no surprise that a patent has to claim something new — an “invention.” Sometimes the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) — the agency that administers the patent system — mistakenly issues patents that do not claim anything particularly new. The patent examiner may not be aware that the proposed “invention” was already in use in the industry, and the patent applicant (the only party in the process) doesn’t have an incentive to share that information. Often, the USPTO issues patents that are too vague and can later be broadly interpreted by patent owners to cover different and subsequent technologies that could not otherwise Continue reading

1 … 2,000 2,001 2,002 2,003 2,004 … 3,835