Some HTTPS inspection tools might weaken security

Companies that use security products to inspect HTTPS traffic might inadvertently make their users' encrypted connections less secure and expose them to man-in-the-middle attacks, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team warns.US-CERT, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, published an advisory after a recent survey showed that HTTPS inspection products don't mirror the security attributes of the original connections between clients and servers.HTTPS inspection checks the encrypted traffic coming from an HTTPS site to make sure it doesn't contain threats or malware. It's performed by intercepting a client's connection to an HTTPS server, establishing the connection on the client's behalf and then re-encrypting the traffic sent to the client with a different, locally generated certificate. Products that do this essentially act as man-in-the-middle proxies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Some HTTPS inspection tools might weaken security

Companies that use security products to inspect HTTPS traffic might inadvertently make their users' encrypted connections less secure and expose them to man-in-the-middle attacks, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team warns.US-CERT, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, published an advisory after a recent survey showed that HTTPS inspection products don't mirror the security attributes of the original connections between clients and servers.HTTPS inspection checks the encrypted traffic coming from an HTTPS site to make sure it doesn't contain threats or malware. It's performed by intercepting a client's connection to an HTTPS server, establishing the connection on the client's behalf and then re-encrypting the traffic sent to the client with a different, locally generated certificate. Products that do this essentially act as man-in-the-middle proxies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A cybersecurity risk assessment is a critical part of M&A due diligence  

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  As of mid-February, the plan for Verizon Communications to acquire a majority of Yahoo’s web assets is still on, despite the announcement of Yahoo having suffered two massive breaches of customer data in 2013 and 2014. The sale price, however, has been discounted by $350 million, and Verizon and Altaba Inc. have agreed to share any ongoing legal responsibilities related to the breaches. Altaba is the entity that will own the portion of Yahoo that Verizon is not acquiring.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A cybersecurity risk assessment is a critical part of M&A due diligence  

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  As of mid-February, the plan for Verizon Communications to acquire a majority of Yahoo’s web assets is still on, despite the announcement of Yahoo having suffered two massive breaches of customer data in 2013 and 2014. The sale price, however, has been discounted by $350 million, and Verizon and Altaba Inc. have agreed to share any ongoing legal responsibilities related to the breaches. Altaba is the entity that will own the portion of Yahoo that Verizon is not acquiring.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

String of fileless malware attacks possibly tied to single hacker group

Several attacks observed over the past few months that rely heavily on PowerShell, open-source tools, and fileless malware techniques might be the work of a single group of hackers.An investigation started by security researchers from Morphisec into a recent email phishing attack against high-profile enterprises pointed to a group that uses techniques documented by several security companies in seemingly unconnected reports over the past two months."During the course of the investigation, we uncovered a sophisticated fileless attack framework that appears to be connected to various recent, much-discussed attack campaigns," Michael Gorelik, Morphisec's vice president of research and development, said in a blog post. "Based on our findings, a single group of threat actors is responsible for many of the most sophisticated attacks on financial institutions, government organizations, and enterprises over the past few months."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

String of fileless malware attacks possibly tied to single hacker group

Several attacks observed over the past few months that rely heavily on PowerShell, open-source tools, and fileless malware techniques might be the work of a single group of hackers.An investigation started by security researchers from Morphisec into a recent email phishing attack against high-profile enterprises pointed to a group that uses techniques documented by several security companies in seemingly unconnected reports over the past two months."During the course of the investigation, we uncovered a sophisticated fileless attack framework that appears to be connected to various recent, much-discussed attack campaigns," Michael Gorelik, Morphisec's vice president of research and development, said in a blog post. "Based on our findings, a single group of threat actors is responsible for many of the most sophisticated attacks on financial institutions, government organizations, and enterprises over the past few months."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dutch researchers pull almost 43Gbit per second over a ray of light

An experiment by scholars at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands has demonstrated a wireless network based on infrared rays that can move data at speeds of 42.8Gbps.The system, which is the work of new Ph.D recipient Joanne Oh, uses light “antennas,” which don’t have any moving parts, translating signals from a fiber-optic cable into infrared light and beaming them to receivers in the same room, which can be tracked by their return signals – when a user’s device moves out of one beam’s area of function, another light antenna can take over.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Cisco security advisory dump finds 20 warnings, 2 critical + Raspberry Pi roundup: Pi Day, Remembrances of Pis Past, competitor corner, STEM and SKULLSTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dutch researchers pull almost 43Gbit per second over a ray of light

An experiment by scholars at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands has demonstrated a wireless network based on infrared rays that can move data at speeds of 42.8Gbps.The system, which is the work of new Ph.D recipient Joanne Oh, uses light “antennas,” which don’t have any moving parts, translating signals from a fiber-optic cable into infrared light and beaming them to receivers in the same room, which can be tracked by their return signals – when a user’s device moves out of one beam’s area of function, another light antenna can take over.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Cisco security advisory dump finds 20 warnings, 2 critical + Raspberry Pi roundup: Pi Day, Remembrances of Pis Past, competitor corner, STEM and SKULLSTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Rough Guide to IETF 98 — In The Loop: IETF Heads to Chicago

It’s almost here! Pack your bags (or start your remote participation browser) and get ready for IETF 98! Starting on Sunday, 26 March, the Internet Engineering Task Force will be in Chicago, Illinois, where about 1000 engineers will spend a week discussing the latest issues in open standards and protocols. As usual, the agenda is packed, and the Internet Society is providing a ‘Rough Guide’ to the IETF via a series of blog posts on topics of mutual interest:

Mr. Olaf Kolkman

Open Hardware Pushes GPU Computing Envelope

The hyperscalers of the world are increasingly dependent on machine learning algorithms for providing a significant part of the user experience and operations of their massive applications, so it is not much of a surprise that they are also pushing the envelope on machine learning frameworks and systems that are used to deploy those frameworks. Facebook and Microsoft were showing off their latest hybrid CPU-GPU designs at the Open Compute Summit, and they provide some insight into how to best leverage Nvidia’s latest “Pascal” Tesla accelerators.

Not coincidentally, the specialized systems that have been created for supporting machine learning workloads

Open Hardware Pushes GPU Computing Envelope was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Why great chief data officers are hard to find

Chief data officers (CDOs) are among the most highly sought-after executives among corporations for whom data analytics has become a cornerstone of digital strategies. But the rush to promote data-crunching experts to the CDO role has created a new challenge: Finding a leader who can use data to help drive a business transformation.Companies eager to establish data analytics have promoted managers to the CDO role based on their technical wizardry rather than their leadership capabilities, says Joshua Clarke, partner for executive recruiter Heidrick & Struggles, who highlighted the problem in "Choosing the right chief data officer," a new report detailing the rapid evolution of the CDO role.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here