IDG Contributor Network: 7 steps to avoid getting hooked by phishing scams

High-profile hacking attacks might dominate the headlines, but one of the biggest risks to your security isn’t software vulnerabilities or malware—it’s phishing attacks. There were more than 1.2 million phishing attacks last year alone, up 65 percent over 2015, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG).+ Also on Network World: 25% to 30% of users struggle with identifying phishing threats, study says + Phishing attacks usually come in the form of a fake email that appears to be from a legitimate source, such as your bank, employer or a website you use frequently. The idea is to get you to hand over the keys to your accounts by prompting you to type your login details and password into a fake website front. Victims click the link in an email and get taken to a website that looks just like the real thing, but in reality, it has been created to steal information.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Inside the invisible war for the open Internet

But the war for the commanding heights of the internet is far from over. There are many players on this global chess board. Governments. Telecom monopolies. Internet giants like Google and Facebook. NGOs. Startups. Hackers. And — most importantly — you. The war for the open internet is the defining issue of our time. It’s a scramble for control of the very fabric of human communication. And human communication is all that separates us from the utopia that thousands of generations of our ancestors slowly marched us toward — or the Orwellian, Huxleyan, Kafkaesque dystopia that a locked-down internet would make possible. —Free Code Camp

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NFV: The Realization of Virtualization and Avoiding Cloud Turbulence

As NFV hits the road, finance will be the key driver.

Data time: Tracking sleep, tracking my car

Seagate and IDC recently issued a white paper that predicted an explosion of the amount of data that we’ll be dealing with by 2025. As more device makers create Internet of Things devices, these devices will create tons of data for people to analyze.Two devices I recently had a chance to test produce a bunch of data, but in different environments. The HumX system by Verizon tracks and analyzes data from your car, while the Live Sense sleep sensor tracks and monitors your body during sleep. Verizon The HumX by Verizon system includes an OBD reader, Bluetooth speaker (that clips onto a driver's visor) and smartphone app.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Instant messaging service Wire open-sources its server code

This is a good time for open-source communication systems.The decentralized, free software, Twitter-esque social network Mastodon seems to be doing rather well. And now Wire, the end-to-end encrypted instant messaging platform, is releasing the source code for its server.The source for the Wire client was already available. But now the company is releasing the server source code, as well—up on GitHub and licensed under the AGPL.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

People, process and technology challenges with security operations

These days, it’s tough for any organization to keep up with cybersecurity operations. Why? Well, the bad guys are pretty persistent for starters, launching a blitzkrieg of attacks and new types of exploits all the time. OK, hackers are relentless, but we’ve always know this, and their behavior isn’t likely to change anytime soon. What’s really disturbing, however, is that a lot of problems associated with cybersecurity are based upon our own intransigence. And organizations aren’t struggling with one issue, rather cybersecurity operations challenges tend to be spread across people, processes and technology. When it comes to security operations, it’s kind of a "death by a thousand cuts" situation. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

People, process and technology challenges with security operations

These days, it’s tough for any organization to keep up with cybersecurity operations. Why? Well, the bad guys are pretty persistent for starters, launching a blitzkrieg of attacks and new types of exploits all the time. OK, hackers are relentless, but we’ve always know this, and their behavior isn’t likely to change anytime soon. What’s really disturbing, however, is that a lot of problems associated with cybersecurity are based upon our own intransigence. And organizations aren’t struggling with one issue, rather cybersecurity operations challenges tend to be spread across people, processes and technology. When it comes to security operations, it’s kind of a "death by a thousand cuts" situation. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

People, Process, and Technology Challenges with Security Operations

These days, it’s tough for any organization to keep up with cybersecurity operations.  Why?  Well the bad guys are pretty persistent for starters, launching a blitzkrieg of attacks and new types of exploits all the time. Okay, hackers are relentless but we’ve always know this and their behavior isn’t likely to change anytime soon.  What’s really disturbing however is that a lot of problems associated with cybersecurity are based upon our own intransigence.  And organizations aren’t struggling with one issue, rather cybersecurity operations challenges tend to be spread across people, processes and technology.  When it comes to security operations, it’s kind of a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ situation. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: NetOps: Can networks be both available and agile?

Do you believe in a future where the leading source of value creation is through the experience of digital connections? If you don’t, you may want to compare the growth and value of AirBnB with many of the world’s largest hotel chains. And don’t think that this is a phenomenon limited to certain industries—evidence is mounting that across the landscape of public and private sectors, and across every industry segment, the future of business is digital business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: NetOps: Can networks be both available and agile?

Do you believe in a future where the leading source of value creation is through the experience of digital connections? If you don’t, you may want to compare the growth and value of AirBnB with many of the world’s largest hotel chains. And don’t think that this is a phenomenon limited to certain industries—evidence is mounting that across the landscape of public and private sectors, and across every industry segment, the future of business is digital business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dridex gang uses unpatched Microsoft Word exploit to target millions

The gang behind the Dridex computer trojan has adopted an unpatched Microsoft Word exploit and used it to target millions of users.The exploit's existence was revealed Friday by security researchers from antivirus vendor McAfee, but targeted attacks using it have been happening since January. After McAfee's limited public disclosure, researchers from FireEye confirmed having tracked the attacks for several weeks as well.The exploit takes advantage of a logic bug in the Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) feature of Microsoft Office. It allows attackers to embed malicious code inside of Microsoft Word documents, with the code automatically executed when those files are opened.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dridex gang uses unpatched Microsoft Word exploit to target millions

The gang behind the Dridex computer trojan has adopted an unpatched Microsoft Word exploit and used it to target millions of users.The exploit's existence was revealed Friday by security researchers from antivirus vendor McAfee, but targeted attacks using it have been happening since January. After McAfee's limited public disclosure, researchers from FireEye confirmed having tracked the attacks for several weeks as well.The exploit takes advantage of a logic bug in the Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) feature of Microsoft Office. It allows attackers to embed malicious code inside of Microsoft Word documents, with the code automatically executed when those files are opened.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco fortifies storage throughput, analytics

Cisco this week took the wraps off several products aimed at helping existing Fibre Channel customers grow the speed, capacity and management of their storage environments.In particular, Cisco rolled out a 32Gb Fibre Channel module for its MDS 9700 storage switch family with baked-in storage networking analytics, a 32Gb Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter for the rack-mounted Cisco UCS C-Series server, as well as non-volatile memory express (NVMe) over FC support for flash memory appliances.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco fortifies storage throughput, analytics

Cisco this week took the wraps off several products aimed at helping existing Fibre Channel customers grow the speed, capacity and management of their storage environments.In particular, Cisco rolled out a 32Gb Fibre Channel module for its MDS 9700 storage switch family with baked-in storage networking analytics, a 32Gb Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter for the rack-mounted Cisco UCS C-Series server, as well as non-volatile memory express (NVMe) over FC support for flash memory appliances.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple is developing its own power management chips, says analyst

It appears that Apple is developing its own power management chips, according to a report from German private bank Bankhaus Lampe. The release of the report Tuesday led to a sharp drop in the shares of Dialog Semiconductor, the current supplier of these chips to the iPhone maker.“The teams of both companies collaborate very closely and thus, Dialog cannot be replaced by a third-party supplier. However, Apple itself could replace Dialog,” wrote analyst Karsten Iltgen.As evidence, the report cited 16 different job openings on Apple’s website for analog/power management engineers for the design center in Munich alone.“A search on social networks such as LinkedIn revealed that Apple has already poached about 20 chip designers, some of them with long-standing experience, from Dialog,” said the report, which estimates that about 40 power-management chip engineers are currently working at the design center in Munich, with a similar number working in the area at the center in California.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Inside look at Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s next-generation infrastructure

In the 18 months since the company split from its sister consumer business, Hewlett Packard Enterprise has been in an almost constant state of refining its strategy.The company backed out of the public cloud market; sold off its Enterprise Services Business to competitor CSC for $8.5 billion; dealt other “non-core” assets to Micro Focus in an $8.8 billion deal; and dumped its OpenStack and Cloud Foundry development efforts off to Suse. HPE also bought all-flash storage vendor Nimble storage for $1 billion last month and snapped up hyperconverged infrastructure vendor Simplivity for another $650 million in January.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Inside look at Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s next-generation infrastructure

In the 18 months since the company split from its sister consumer business, Hewlett Packard Enterprise has been in an almost constant state of refining its strategy.The company backed out of the public cloud market; sold off its Enterprise Services Business to competitor CSC for $8.5 billion; dealt other “non-core” assets to Micro Focus in an $8.8 billion deal; and dumped its OpenStack and Cloud Foundry development efforts off to Suse. HPE also bought all-flash storage vendor Nimble storage for $1 billion last month and snapped up hyperconverged infrastructure vendor Simplivity for another $650 million in January.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Inside look at Hewlett Packard’s next-generation infrastructure

In the 18 months since the company split from its sister consumer business, Hewlett Packard Enterprise has been in an almost constant state of refining its strategy.The company backed out of the public cloud market; sold off its Enterprise Services Business to competitor CSC for $8.5 billion; dealt other “non-core” assets to Micro Focus in an $8.8 billion deal; and dumped its OpenStack and Cloud Foundry development efforts off to Suse. HPE also bought all-flash storage vendor Nimble storage for $1 billion last year and snapped up hyperconverged infrastructure vendor Simplivity for another $650 million in January.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What it takes to become a security systems administrator

download What it takes to become a security systems administrator CSO 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... Read more →