Experts worried about ransomware hitting critical infrastructure

Expect ransomware to grow more aggressive in the coming years, including higher ransom payments and attempts to go beyond attacking data -- by shutting down entire computer systems to utilities or factories.“I see no reason for ransomware to stop,” said Neil Jenkins, an official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “It’s shown to be effective.”On Monday at the RSA cybersecurity conference, experts gave a grim outlook on the future of ransomware, which they fear will spread. Through the attacks, cybercriminals have already managed to rake in US$1 billion last year, according to at one estimate.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Experts worried about ransomware hitting critical infrastructure

Expect ransomware to grow more aggressive in the coming years, including higher ransom payments and attempts to go beyond attacking data -- by shutting down entire computer systems to utilities or factories.“I see no reason for ransomware to stop,” said Neil Jenkins, an official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “It’s shown to be effective.”On Monday at the RSA cybersecurity conference, experts gave a grim outlook on the future of ransomware, which they fear will spread. Through the attacks, cybercriminals have already managed to rake in US$1 billion last year, according to at one estimate.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Many still want their software packaged

Motherboard has an interesting look at the somewhat surprising survival of physical software in shrink-wrapped boxes, which continues to account for roughly a third of software sales.This is true even though in most cases the boxes contain little or nothing. Most of these physical packages are virtually empty, with only a tiny piece of paper inside with a download link and an activation code. Companies who sell software this way (say) that including a DVD is often a useless endeavor, as new laptops lack optical drives. Even when companies do sell physical media, users would still need to download the latest version of the software, as opposed to the one that's on the optical disk.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nvidia Tesla Compute Business Quadruples In Q4

If Nvidia’s Datacenter business unit was a startup and separate from the company, we would all be talking about the long investment it has made in GPU-based computing and how the company has moved from the blade of the hockey stick and rounded the bend and is moving rapidly up the handle with triple-digit revenue growth and an initial public offering on the horizon.

But the part of Nvidia’s business that is driven by its Tesla compute engines and GRID visualization engines is not a separate company and it is not going public. Still, that business is sure making things …

Nvidia Tesla Compute Business Quadruples In Q4 was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Tokyo wants to make Olympic medals from old smartphones

Japan will kick off a drive this week to collect old smartphones and other portable gadgets so that they can be turned into medals for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.The project will be launched on Thursday by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government with a goal of collecting up to 2 million used devices to recycle.Gadgets like smartphones contain small amounts of precious metals in their chips and circuit boards. The quantities are tiny but they're valuable enough to make recovery worth the expense.In the case of a smartphone, there's about 0.048 grams of gold, 0.26 grams of silver, and 12.7 grams of bronze. To make the roughly 5,000 medals that will be awarded in 2020, organizers will need 10 kilograms of gold, 1,230kg of silver, and 736kg of bronze. (The amount of gold is much less because those medals are plated and not solid gold).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Inside the big Supermicro deal

Among the major companies that design and sell servers with their own brands, which are called original equipment manufacturers or OEMs, and those that co-design machines with customers and then make them, which are called original design manufacturers or ODMs, Supermicro stands apart. It does not fall precisely into either category. The company makes system components, like motherboards and enclosures, for those who want to build their own systems or those who want to sell systems to others, and it also makes complete systems, sold in onesies or twosies or sold by the hundreds of racks. —The Next Platform

The post Worth Reading: Inside the big Supermicro deal appeared first on 'net work.

IDG Contributor Network: Hackers show no mercy—even for pot dispensaries

Back when Apple was the plucky young upstart that dared to be different, the Mac was the machine for creative types and there was a perception that it wasn’t a target for hackers because of its cultural cool factor.You would expect the same rules to apply to the legalized marijuana market, but a major hack attack on a pot dispensary last month set that notion up in smoke.MJ Freeway, providers of popular medical marijuana tracking software, suffered a point-of-sale system hack that left over 1,000 marijuana dispensaries across 23 states unable to track their sales and inventories. Because of the state regulations regarding the sale of marijuana, some dispensaries were forced to close early or shut their doors completely. The disruption lasted weeks and caused patients to suffer long delays with obtaining access to their medicine.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Hackers show no mercy—even for pot dispensaries

Back when Apple was the plucky young upstart that dared to be different, the Mac was the machine for creative types and there was a perception that it wasn’t a target for hackers because of its cultural cool factor.You would expect the same rules to apply to the legalized marijuana market, but a major hack attack on a pot dispensary last month set that notion up in smoke.MJ Freeway, providers of popular medical marijuana tracking software, suffered a point-of-sale system hack that left over 1,000 marijuana dispensaries across 23 states unable to track their sales and inventories. Because of the state regulations regarding the sale of marijuana, some dispensaries were forced to close early or shut their doors completely. The disruption lasted weeks and caused patients to suffer long delays with obtaining access to their medicine.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

ARM Gains Stronger Foothold In China With AI And IoT

China represents a huge opportunity for chip designer ARM as it looks to extend its low-power system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture beyond the mobile and embedded devices spaces and into new areas, such as the datacenter and emerging markets like autonomous vehicles, drones and the Internet of Things. China is a massive, fast-growing market with tech companies – including such giants as Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent – looking to leverage such technologies as artificial intelligence to help expand their businesses deeper into the global market and turning to vendors like ARM that can help them fuel that growth.

ARM Holdings, which designs …

ARM Gains Stronger Foothold In China With AI And IoT was written by Jeffrey Burt at The Next Platform.

Cisco, competitors infiltrate Avaya customer doubts

It is not surprising that Cisco, Mitel and others are targeting Avaya’s customers as the networking company goes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy but sometimes it is a bit startling in its boldness. For example, Cisco wrote: “Let’s not dance around it. Avaya’s recent announcements have put a lot of people into the decision process. Change and uncertainty usually do. So then, what to do next? I’m not bold enough to say, ‘Hey, come on over and write me a check right now.’ That’s not how this works. It’s not an overnight decision. You have to figure out who you trust with your unified communications and customer care solutions. And to get there means asking a lot of questions – and getting the answers you need.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco, competitors infiltrate Avaya customer doubts

It is not surprising that Cisco, Mitel and others are targeting Avaya’s customers as the networking company goes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy but sometimes it is a bit startling in its boldness. For example, Cisco wrote: “Let’s not dance around it. Avaya’s recent announcements have put a lot of people into the decision process. Change and uncertainty usually do. So then, what to do next? I’m not bold enough to say, ‘Hey, come on over and write me a check right now.’ That’s not how this works. It’s not an overnight decision. You have to figure out who you trust with your unified communications and customer care solutions. And to get there means asking a lot of questions – and getting the answers you need.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco, competitors infiltrate Avaya customer doubts

It is not surprising that Cisco, Mitel and others are targeting Avaya’s customers as the networking company goes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy but sometimes it is a bit startling in its boldness.For example, Cisco wrote: “Let’s not dance around it. Avaya’s recent announcements have put a lot of people into the decision process. Change and uncertainty usually do. So then, what to do next? I’m not bold enough to say, ‘Hey, come on over and write me a check right now.’ That’s not how this works. It’s not an overnight decision. You have to figure out who you trust with your unified communications and customer care solutions. And to get there means asking a lot of questions – and getting the answers you need.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco, competitors infiltrate Avaya customer doubts

It is not surprising that Cisco, Mitel and others are targeting Avaya’s customers as the networking company goes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy but sometimes it is a bit startling in its boldness.For example, Cisco wrote: “Let’s not dance around it. Avaya’s recent announcements have put a lot of people into the decision process. Change and uncertainty usually do. So then, what to do next? I’m not bold enough to say, ‘Hey, come on over and write me a check right now.’ That’s not how this works. It’s not an overnight decision. You have to figure out who you trust with your unified communications and customer care solutions. And to get there means asking a lot of questions – and getting the answers you need.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NANOG 69

Few parts of the Domain Name System are filled with such levels of mythology as its root server system. Here I'd like to try and explain what it is all about and ask the question whether the system we have is still adequate, or if it's time to think about some further changes.

Verizon revives its unlimited data plan after purging legacy unlimited data plan users

Verizon is just full of surprises. Over the past year, Verizon went negative on its legacy unlimited data customers by purging anyone using too much data. Now, the company wants more unlimited data customers—at least up to a point. Starting Monday, you can sign up for the company’s new unlimited data plan, called Verizon Unlimited.For $80 a month, Verizon customers receive unlimited 4G data on a single smartphone. Anyone with multiple devices can add two lines on Verizon Unlimited for $70 per line per month ($140 total), three for $54 ($162 total) per line, or four for $45 ($180 total) per line.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tim Cook: Augmented reality is the future, and fake news is ruining everything

While Apple CEO Tim Cook is looking forward to his company’s next big idea, which sounds like it’s going to be augmented reality-related, he’s also stunned by the tech industry’s inability to stem the tide of fake news.In between tours of schools and meetings with developers in a trip to Britain, Cook spoke excitedly about the potential of AR in Apple devices to The Independent, and was equally impassioned about the scourge of fake news in comments to The Telegraph.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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