21 hot programming trends—and 21 going cold

Programmers love to sneer at the world of fashion where trends blow through like breezes. Skirt lengths rise and fall, pigments come and go, ties get fatter, then thinner. But in the world of technology, rigor, science, math, and precision rule over fad.That's not to say programming is a profession devoid of trends. The difference is that programming trends are driven by greater efficiency, increased customization, and ease of use. The new technologies that deliver one or more of these eclipse the previous generation. It's a meritocracy, not a whimsy-ocracy.[ Find out how to get ahead with our career development guide for developers. | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld's App Dev Report newsletter. ] What follows is a list of what's hot and what's not among today's programmers. Not everyone will agree with what's A-listed, what's D-listed, and what's been left out. That's what makes programming an endlessly fascinating profession: rapid change, passionate debate, sudden comebacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Enterprises get to work in the cloud

Enterprises are finding all sorts of reasons to moved their data and business processes to the cloud.Capital One Financial Corp., for instance, is using the cloud as it advances from a financial services provider to a tech company with collaborative workspace, IT workers with new skill sets, fast-paced apps, and a focus on leading with cutting-edge technologies.The American Heart Association is working with Amazon Web Services to set up a cloud-based system where scientists from around the world can store, share and analyze research data. Making that data available in the cloud could accelerate research and lead to a cure for cardiovascular disease, which is the top cause of death worldwide.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Predictive analytics can stop ransomware dead in its tracks

This past February marks the two-year anniversary when Livingston County, Michigan, was hit by ransomware. The wealthiest county in the state had three years’ worth of tax information possibly at the mercy of cybercriminals.As a local government, county CIO Rich C. Malewicz said they have been a target of ransomware, but in this instance they had backups at the ready. He said the most memorable ransomware attack was a result of a watering hole campaign using malvertizing to infect users visiting a local news website. “This attack was very clever in that all you had to do to get infected was visit the website, you didn't even have to click on the page. Once the user went to the local news website, they were immediately redirected to a site hosting exploit code and the infamous page appeared demanding a ransom with instructions,” he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Predictive analytics can stop ransomware dead in its tracks

This past February marks the two-year anniversary when Livingston County, Michigan, was hit by ransomware. The wealthiest county in the state had three years’ worth of tax information possibly at the mercy of cybercriminals.As a local government, county CIO Rich C. Malewicz said they have been a target of ransomware, but in this instance they had backups at the ready. He said the most memorable ransomware attack was a result of a watering hole campaign using malvertizing to infect users visiting a local news website. “This attack was very clever in that all you had to do to get infected was visit the website, you didn't even have to click on the page. Once the user went to the local news website, they were immediately redirected to a site hosting exploit code and the infamous page appeared demanding a ransom with instructions,” he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Singularity Containers for HPC, Reproducibility, and Mobility

Containers are an extremely mobile, safe and reproducible computing infrastructure that is now ready for production HPC computing. In particular, the freely available Singularity container framework has been designed specifically for HPC computing. The barrier to entry is low and the software is free.

At the recent Intel HPC Developer Conference, Gregory Kurtzer (Singularity project lead and LBNL staff member) and Krishna Muriki (Computer Systems Engineer at LBNL) provided a beginning and advanced tutorial on Singularity. One of Kurtzer’s key takeaways: “setting up workflows in under a day is commonplace with Singularity”.

Many people have heard about code modernization and

Singularity Containers for HPC, Reproducibility, and Mobility was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

How to deal with the bot crisis on Twitter

You may have run into these bots a few times. What looks like an actual human being could have been a bot sending you Twitter spam...or even worse.During the last election cycle and over the past few months in particular, it’s now widely known that Twitter bots -- many with zero followers -- promoted fake news stories. Often, the goal was to stir up dissension among voters, influence political viewpoints, and (more importantly) generate revenue when people viewed banner ads. Some would argue these bots helped elect President Trump or at least influenced people on social media to vote one way or another.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Managing the Cloud Network: CPM or APM?

We all know the future of enterprises is in flux with the consolidation or demise of Avaya/Nortel, Brocade/Foundry, Force 10, H3C and BNT assets. This speaks to the major trend of enterprise applications migrating to the cloud, any cloud be it public, private or hybrid. As this rapid transition prevails with efficiencies and scale, traditional applications and tools cannot meet the needs of exponential cloud growth.

IDG Contributor Network: Authentic8 wants to protect users from bad websites

Many of us have experienced that moment of terror when clicking on a potentially risky link: Will it all be fine or will I start a torrent of bad outcomes from my action?But bad stuff sometimes happens and, sad as it sounds, sometimes the links we click on take us to dark places with bad outcomes. Authentic8 wants to limit those impacts by reducing the blast area of bad content.RELATED: Machine learning offers new hope against cyber attacks Authentic8, the vendor that created the secure, virtual browser Silo, today announced that its browser will enable organizations to selectively redirect particular URLs for safe rendering within an isolated browser. The idea of this approach is that rather than trying to block any suspect content, organizations can let it through, secure in the knowledge that it can do no widespread harm. Authentic8 was founded by the team from Postini (an email security product acquired by Google).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Authentic8 wants to protect users from bad websites

Many of us have experienced that moment of terror when clicking on a potentially risky link: Will it all be fine or will I start a torrent of bad outcomes from my action?But bad stuff sometimes happens and, sad as it sounds, sometimes the links we click on take us to dark places with bad outcomes. Authentic8 wants to limit those impacts by reducing the blast area of bad content.RELATED: Machine learning offers new hope against cyber attacks Authentic8, the vendor that created the secure, virtual browser Silo, today announced that its browser will enable organizations to selectively redirect particular URLs for safe rendering within an isolated browser. The idea of this approach is that rather than trying to block any suspect content, organizations can let it through, secure in the knowledge that it can do no widespread harm. Authentic8 was founded by the team from Postini (an email security product acquired by Google).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Skytap launches new container management solution

It was only a handful of years ago that the only time the topic of containers came up were at obscure open source conferences or, more usually, when someone was looking for a place to put the bulk load of gourmet kale they’d just opened for their on-site employer-supplied kitchen. Containers were plastic things with lids and, while handy, didn’t generate much excitement.But then Solomon Hykes, looking to pivot away from his ultimately unsuccessful platform as a service (PaaS) play, dotCloud, happened upon an existing technology that was in need of both some tech and some marketing luster. Docker (the project and the business) was borne, and Hykes went from being suave, motorcycle-jacket-wearing technologist to something of a playboy who was defining a new approach towards technology. (OK, playboy is a relative term. But given the dearth of sex symbols in the technology infrastructure space, Hykes will just have to do.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The IoT of bricks: Someone is bricking insecure IoT devices

I can’t justify the vigilantism, but someone is bricking vulnerable IoT devices. I ponder the morality of it all. It’s called BrickerBot. It finds IoT devices with dubious security and simply bricks/disables them.Insecure dishwashers, teapots, refrigerators, security cameras—all become part of vast botnets. The botnets can do many things, and we’ve seen them become the armies behind the largest internet attacks in history. How to cleanse these devices has become the crux of many cries, including numerous ones in this space.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The IoT of bricks: Someone is bricking insecure IoT devices

I can’t justify the vigilantism, but someone is bricking vulnerable IoT devices. I ponder the morality of it all. It’s called BrickerBot. It finds IoT devices with dubious security and simply bricks/disables them.Insecure dishwashers, teapots, refrigerators, security cameras—all become part of vast botnets. The botnets can do many things, and we’ve seen them become the armies behind the largest internet attacks in history. How to cleanse these devices has become the crux of many cries, including numerous ones in this space.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fight firewall sprawl with AlgoSec, Tufin, Skybox suites

New and innovative security tools seem to be emerging all the time, but the frontline defense for just about every network in operation today remains the trusty firewall. They aren’t perfect, but if configured correctly and working as intended, firewalls can do a solid job of blocking threats from entering a network, while restricting unauthorized traffic from leaving.The problem network administrators face is that as their networks grow, so do the number of firewalls. Large enterprises can find themselves with hundreds or thousands, a mix of old, new and next-gen models, probably from multiple vendors -- sometimes accidentally working against each other. For admins trying to configure firewall rules, the task can quickly become unmanageable.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

Fight firewall sprawl with AlgoSec, Tufin, Skybox suites

New and innovative security tools seem to be emerging all the time, but the frontline defense for just about every network in operation today remains the trusty firewall. They aren’t perfect, but if configured correctly and working as intended, firewalls can do a solid job of blocking threats from entering a network, while restricting unauthorized traffic from leaving.The problem network administrators face is that as their networks grow, so do the number of firewalls. Large enterprises can find themselves with hundreds or thousands, a mix of old, new and next-gen models, probably from multiple vendors -- sometimes accidentally working against each other. For admins trying to configure firewall rules, the task can quickly become unmanageable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Fight firewall sprawl with AlgoSec, Tufin, Skybox suites

New and innovative security tools seem to be emerging all the time, but the frontline defense for just about every network in operation today remains the trusty firewall. They aren’t perfect, but if configured correctly and working as intended, firewalls can do a solid job of blocking threats from entering a network, while restricting unauthorized traffic from leaving.The problem network administrators face is that as their networks grow, so do the number of firewalls. Large enterprises can find themselves with hundreds or thousands, a mix of old, new and next-gen models, probably from multiple vendors -- sometimes accidentally working against each other. For admins trying to configure firewall rules, the task can quickly become unmanageable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Fight firewall sprawl with AlgoSec, Tufin, Skybox suites

New and innovative security tools seem to be emerging all the time, but the frontline defense for just about every network in operation today remains the trusty firewall. They aren’t perfect, but if configured correctly and working as intended, firewalls can do a solid job of blocking threats from entering a network, while restricting unauthorized traffic from leaving.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)