Area 1 Security stops phishing campaigns before they become attacks

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe.Anyone who has spent any amount of time trying to secure their organization’s endpoints or network would not be surprised to learn that phishing is now the #1 delivery vehicle for malware and ransomware.According to Mandiant, phishing was used in about 95 percent of the cases of successful breaches where an attacker has been able to get into a target network and do something malicious. A phishing campaign is likely to have a 90 percent success rate—i.e., someone takes the bait—when the campaign is sent to 10 or more people.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Area 1 Security stops phishing campaigns before they become attacks

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe.Anyone who has spent any amount of time trying to secure their organization’s endpoints or network would not be surprised to learn that phishing is now the #1 delivery vehicle for malware and ransomware.According to Mandiant, phishing was used in about 95 percent of the cases of successful breaches where an attacker has been able to get into a target network and do something malicious. A phishing campaign is likely to have a 90 percent success rate—i.e., someone takes the bait—when the campaign is sent to 10 or more people.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Shadow Brokers reveal details about June monthly dump service: 100 Zcash (about $23k)

The Shadow Brokers revealed pricing and other details about its monthly dump service which kicks off in June. Subscribers of the dump of the month club will not be shelling out bitcoins, but a different cryptocurrency: 100 (ZEC) Zcash. At the time of publishing, 100 Zcash was equal to $23,251.Over the weekend, the Shadow Brokers moved bitcoins worth about $24,000 to over 30 smaller wallets. The bitcoins had been received back when the group was trying to auction off the hacking tools. Mikko Hypponen noticed the change after an alert he set on their bitcoin wallet went off.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Shadow Brokers reveal details about June monthly dump service: 100 Zcash (about $23k)

The Shadow Brokers revealed pricing and other details about its monthly dump service which kicks off in June. Subscribers of the dump of the month club will not be shelling out bitcoins, but a different cryptocurrency: 100 (ZEC) Zcash. At the time of publishing, 100 Zcash was equal to $23,251.Over the weekend, the Shadow Brokers moved bitcoins worth about $24,000 to over 30 smaller wallets. The bitcoins had been received back when the group was trying to auction off the hacking tools. Mikko Hypponen noticed the change after an alert he set on their bitcoin wallet went off.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nextcloud 12 expands data storage to support large organizations

Online ("cloud") file storage services are undeniably handy—for individuals and large organizations alike.Being able to toss files (spreadsheets, images, backups, etc.) somewhere, especially if that somewhere is easy to share with those you interact and work with, is crazy convenient. It certainly beats the pants off tediously sending files to your co-workers via email (or, worse, sneakernet).RELATED: Engineering firm uses cloud storage to speed file loads, and then unplugs its MPLS net Services such as Google Drive and Dropbox are easy to setup and use. And as a result, just about everybody (and their dog) have an account on one or the other. Many companies even utilize one of these for storing files across their organization.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nokia NFV MANO Report Webinar Q&A: Automating Orchestration for Agile Services

Nokia NFV MANO Report Webinar Q&A Thanks to all who joined us for the Nokia NFV MANO Report Webinar: “Automating Orchestration for Agile Services”, where Nokia discussed integrating VNFs, automating VNF lifecycle management, and reliably constructing network service chains. After the webinar, we took questions from the audience but unfortunately ran out of time before we could answer everybody’s questions. You can read... Read more →

53% off Nulaxy Wireless In-Car FM Bluetooth Kit with Display and USB Charger – Deal Alert

Nulaxy's car transmitter works with Bluetooth enabled devices like smartphones and tablets to wirelessly transmit audio through your car's speakers. Its display will show incoming call & music information, and also features a USB charging port. Listed as a #1 best seller on Amazon, it currently averages 4.5 stars out of 5 from over 5,400 people (read reviews). The typical list price on Nulaxy's KM18 transmitter is $36.99, but right now it's discounted 53% to just $17.49. See this deal now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

33% off Prey for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 – Deal Alert

In Prey, you awaken aboard Talos I, a space station orbiting the moon in the year 2032. You are the key subject of an experiment meant to alter humanity forever – but things have gone terribly wrong. The space station has been overrun by hostile aliens and you are now being hunted. As you dig into the dark secrets of Talos I and your own past, you must survive using the tools found on the station, your wits, weapons, and mind-bending abilities. Right now you can get 33% off the listed price. See this deal now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Massive British Airways IT outage shows hacking isn’t the only enterprise risk

It was a busy holiday weekend, and Great Britain’s national flag carrier was forced to ground all flights out of London’s two main airports, Heathrow and Gatwick—which affected the airline’s operations around the world. Oh, and the incident also affected British Airways’ call centers and online booking sites, making the situation even more frustrating for stranded passengers.Most operations have now been restored, the airline says, but more than 1,000 flights were canceled and 75,000 passengers stranded. But here’s the thing: The problems weren’t due to some evil cyber attack or ransomware assault. Nope, it was just another “global IT system failure,” reportedly British Airways’ sixth such incident in the last year alone!To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Massive British Airways IT outage shows hacking isn’t the only enterprise risk

It was a busy holiday weekend, and Great Britain’s national flag carrier was forced to ground all flights out of London’s two main airports, Heathrow and Gatwick—which affected the airline’s operations around the world. Oh, and the incident also affected British Airways’ call centers and online booking sites, making the situation even more frustrating for stranded passengers.Most operations have now been restored, the airline says, but more than 1,000 flights were canceled and 75,000 passengers stranded. But here’s the thing: The problems weren’t due to some evil cyber attack or ransomware assault. Nope, it was just another “global IT system failure,” reportedly British Airways’ sixth such incident in the last year alone!To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

I want to talk for a moment about tolerance

This post is in response to this Twitter thread. I was going to do a series of tweets in response, but as the number grew, I thought it'd better be done in a blog.


She thinks we are fighting for the rights of Nazis. We aren't -- indeed, the fact that she thinks we are is exactly the problem. They aren't Nazis.

The issue is not about a slippery slope that first Nazi's lose free speech, then other groups start losing their speech as well. The issue is that it's a slippery slope that more and more people get labeled a Nazi. And we are already far down that slope.

The "alt-right" is a diverse group. Like any group. Vilifying the entire alt-right by calling them Nazi's is like lumping all Muslims in with ISIS or Al Qaeda. We really don't have Nazi's in America. Even White Nationalists don't fit the bill. Nazism was about totalitarianism, real desire to exterminate Jews, lebensraum, and Aryan superiority. Sure, some of these people exist, but they are a fringe, even among Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: What secrets does the recent HP Officejet 8715 firmware update hold?

Jumping in the wayback machine and going back to 2015, we all can remember that HP issued a printer firmware update that locked printers into only using HP ink cartridges. This meant that printers would sense the use of recycled cartridges or third party cartridges and would present an error and stop working.When asked, HP offered this comment: HP is constantly improving security for its products and customers. Beginning in late 2015, HP implemented updates to the firmware related to the security chip in HP OfficeJet, OfficeJet Pro and OfficeJet Pro X printers that maintains secure communications between the cartridge and the printer. The purpose of this update is to protect HP’s innovations and intellectual property. These printers will continue to work with refilled or remanufactured cartridges with an Original HP security chip. Other cartridges may not function. In many cases this functionality was installed in the HP printer and in some cases it has been implemented as part of an update to the printer’s firmware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft discusses progress in GitHub migration

Just last month, Microsoft announced it planned to close its CodePlex code hosting service in favor of GitHub, which it had been using more and more frequently anyway. This week, the company announced the progress it has made in making the move and issues that cropped up along the way. Microsoft staffer Brian Harry said in a blog posting that the Windows repository is the largest Git repository in the world. Weighing in at 300GB and 3.5 million files, the Git repository catches 8,421 pull requests and 1,760 official builds a day. Overall, Microsoft has nearly 4,000 engineers working on Windows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A Skunk Works with tractors: Inside John Deere’s IoT-innovation unit

John Deere’s Intelligent Solutions Group is at the forefront of an IoT-based revolution in agriculture and the cutting edge of the firm’s aggressive development of technology to turn farming from an art into a science – a remarkable transformation for a company founded 180 years ago selling a self-scouring plow.The ISG, as Deere employees generally refer to it, has been around for about 15 years, and one of its first projects was to wire the company’s machines with cellular modems. According to John Deere director of technology John Teeple, the idea was what he called an “interior-focused value proposition” – the plan would have been to collect metrics from those modems in-house to study usage patterns.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s DNA storage tech may fit in an enterprise

Microsoft has apparently firmed up its plans for a DNA-based storage device that it expects to be commercially available within about three years.The software giant originally unveiled its research into DNA as an archival storage medium last year; it described the technology being able to store the amount of data in "a big data center compressed into a few sugar cubes. Or all the publicly accessible data on the Internet slipped into a shoebox."That is the promise of DNA storage -- once scientists are able to scale the technology and overcome a series of technical hurdles," the company said in a 2016 blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s DNA storage tech may fit in an enterprise

Microsoft has apparently firmed up its plans for a DNA-based storage device that it expects to be commercially available within about three years.The software giant originally unveiled its research into DNA as an archival storage medium last year; it described the technology being able to store the amount of data in "a big data center compressed into a few sugar cubes. Or all the publicly accessible data on the Internet slipped into a shoebox."That is the promise of DNA storage -- once scientists are able to scale the technology and overcome a series of technical hurdles," the company said in a 2016 blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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