FBI trained Geek Squad techs on law-enforcement tactics, new records show

The connection between the FBI and Best Buy's internal service and repair organization Geek Squad went a lot further than initially thought, according to newly unsealed records in a case involving a doctor charged with child pornography after bringing in a laptop for repair. The Orange County (California) Weekly has been all over a case involving a well-respected physician Dr. Mark A. Rettenmaier. Rettenmaier took his laptop to the Mission Viejo Best Buy in November 2011 after he was unable to start it. + Also on Network World: Why you shouldn't trust Geek Squad ever again + While performing a recovery scan of his data files, a Geek Squad technician found an image of "a fully nude, white prepubescent female on her hands and knees on a bed, with a brown choker-type collar around her neck." The technician notified his boss, who alerted the FBI. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FBI trained Geek Squad techs on law-enforcement tactics, new records show

The connection between the FBI and Best Buy's internal service and repair organization Geek Squad went a lot further than initially thought, according to newly unsealed records in a case involving a doctor charged with child pornography after bringing in a laptop for repair. The Orange County (California) Weekly has been all over a case involving a well-respected physician Dr. Mark A. Rettenmaier. Rettenmaier took his laptop to the Mission Viejo Best Buy in November 2011 after he was unable to start it. + Also on Network World: Why you shouldn't trust Geek Squad ever again + While performing a recovery scan of his data files, a Geek Squad technician found an image of "a fully nude, white prepubescent female on her hands and knees on a bed, with a brown choker-type collar around her neck." The technician notified his boss, who alerted the FBI. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pennsylvania sues IBM over troubled $110M IT upgrade

Pennsylvania is suing IBM over a $110 million IT project to upgrade its unemployment compensation system that the state says was never completed.The lawsuit alleges that state residents ultimately paid $170 million "for what was supposed to be a comprehensive, integrated, and modern system that it never got," Gov. Tom Wolf said in a statement last Thursday announcing the lawsuit.Asked to comment, an IBM spokesperson said: ""The claims alleged by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are without merit. IBM will vigorously defend itself against this lawsuit."But the odds were against this project from the start, according Jim Johnson, founder and chairman of Standish Group, which studies and consults on software project management. "Successful projects of this size are very, very rare," said Johnson.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

After rocky tenure, Mayer to leave Yahoo ‘tarnished’

After nearly five rocky years as CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer will be leaving her post with something of a tarnished image.As Yahoo continued to struggle under her tenure, so did Mayer's reputation as someone who could run a top-tier company. And that is likely to affect the jobs she'll look at taking on next."I think she'll end up on the boards of directors of several companies, but probably will not receive an offer to head up a top company anytime soon," said Dan Olds, an analyst with OrionX. "Her tenure at Yahoo has tarnished her brand, and it will need to be rehabilitated a bit before she gets another shot at the top slot in another tech firm."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Despite 5G, LTE will be even bigger five years from now

In 2022, even after 5G has officially launched, 4G will be bigger than ever.An ABI Research report released Monday reinforces what mobile operators and network builders have been saying about the move to 5G: It will be a gradual transition, not a wholesale replacement. Over the next decade or more, LTE will remain in use and and offer some of the same benefits as 5G. In some cases, it might be hard to tell the difference.LTE carries about 67 percent of all mobile traffic now, ABI says. By 2022, two years after 5G is expected to become commercially available, it will have an even bigger share, at 82 percent, ABI analyst Nick Marshall said in a press release about the report. Only about 13 percent of traffic will be on 5G.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 must-ask questions for evaluating EDR tools

Endpoint detection and response (EDR) products give IT staff visibility into endpoints for detecting malicious activity, analyzing data and providing appropriate response. EDR is part of a burgeoning security market, peppered with well-known vendors such as Carbon Black, Cisco, CrowdStrike and FireEye.Anyone looking at EDR today has come across the term "threat hunting," the process of searching through voluminous amounts of data to find signs of a threat actor or emerging attack rather than relying on known threat signatures. It's a combination of threat intelligence and big data analytics. Threat hunting is a critical component of a comprehensive EDR solution and a key differentiator from endpoint protection platforms (EPPs), with which they are often confused.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

10 must-ask questions for evaluating EDR tools

Endpoint detection and response (EDR) products give IT staff visibility into endpoints for detecting malicious activity, analyzing data and providing appropriate response. EDR is part of a burgeoning security market, peppered with well-known vendors such as Carbon Black, Cisco, CrowdStrike and FireEye.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Back up all your data to your NAS box without installing any software

If you know anything about NAS (Network Attached Storage), you know that it’s a great centralized backup receptacle for your PCs. If you didn’t know, we just told you. Actually, the name is bit of a giveaway: NAS is storage that you attach via ethernet or Wi-Fi and access across the network. What that doesn’t tell you is that most NAS boxes have the smarts of a PC, with a full-blown app environment that includes extensive backup abilities.But there are two things that even NAS-aware users might not realize: First, many NAS boxes are perfectly capable of backing up data from PCs running any type of operating system (e.g., Windows, OS X, or Linux) from anywhere, using nothing more than their integrated utilities. All you need to do is configure the PC to give up its data, and then use the NAS box to grab it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Back up all your data to your NAS box without installing any software

If you know anything about NAS (Network Attached Storage), you know that it’s a great centralized backup receptacle for your PCs. If you didn’t know, we just told you. Actually, the name is bit of a giveaway: NAS is storage that you attach via ethernet or Wi-Fi and access across the network. What that doesn’t tell you is that most NAS boxes have the smarts of a PC, with a full-blown app environment that includes extensive backup abilities.But there are two things that even NAS-aware users might not realize: First, many NAS boxes are perfectly capable of backing up data from PCs running any type of operating system (e.g., Windows, OS X, or Linux) from anywhere, using nothing more than their integrated utilities. All you need to do is configure the PC to give up its data, and then use the NAS box to grab it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 fatal flaws that dog the new Windows 10

Windows 10 will get better in the forthcoming Creators Update. That isn’t a hollow promise or more marketing drivel. It’s a straightforward observation, comparing the most egregious parts of the current version, Win10 1607 Anniversary Update, with near-final betas of the next version, 1703. While it’s too early to gauge 1703’s stability, the feature improvements are very real.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

AMD busts Ryzen performance myths, clearing Windows 10 from blame

Ryzen performance is the mystery that has launched a thousand conspiracy theories, performing like a champ in productivity and content creation tasks but occasionally delivering fewer frames than you'd expect in games. AMD debunked most of those conspiracy theories in a blog post Monday night. For starters, the company said Windows 10’s scheduler isn’t guilty. Internet hardware detectives had started to focus their blame on Windows 10 scheduler, the part of the operating system that doles out work to each individual core or thread in a chip. Many believe Windows 10 scheduler is throwing out work to the wrong cores or threads, hobbling performance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

7 tips for developing a powerful data disaster plan

Data disasterImage by ThinkstockThe massive amount of data enterprises deal with today has resulted in them facing many difficult challenges. Among these challenges are not only various types of data disasters themselves, but the difficulties associated with developing a strong plan to deal with and recover from such disasters. These plans need to be able to both recover growing amounts of data from an increasingly larger set of applications, and do so in alignment with service level agreements that meet the needs of their business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Continuous authentication: Why it’s getting attention and what you need to know

User authentication is one of the basic components of any cyber security program. Identifying an individual based on a username, password or other means helps companies ensure that the person is who he or she claims to be when accessing a system, application or network.But in some cases traditional authentication processes are not enough to provide strong security throughout a user work session. That’s where continuous authentication comes in. The concept is still relatively new, and experts say few products yet exist in the market. But it’s gaining more attention as companies look for ways to prevent unauthorized access to their critical business data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Continuous authentication: Why it’s getting attention and what you need to know

User authentication is one of the basic components of any cyber security program. Identifying an individual based on a username, password or other means helps companies ensure that the person is who he or she claims to be when accessing a system, application or network.But in some cases traditional authentication processes are not enough to provide strong security throughout a user work session. That’s where continuous authentication comes in. The concept is still relatively new, and experts say few products yet exist in the market. But it’s gaining more attention as companies look for ways to prevent unauthorized access to their critical business data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows Vista has just 30 days to live

In a month’s time, Microsoft will put Windows Vista to rest once and for all. If you’re one of the few people still using it, you have just a few weeks to find another option before time runs out.After April 11, 2017, Microsoft will no longer support Windows Vista: no new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options, or online technical content updates, Microsoft says. (Mainstream Vista support expired in 2012.) Like it did for Windows XP, Microsoft has moved on to better things after a decade of supporting Vista.As Microsoft notes, however, running an older operating system means taking risks—and those risks will become far worse after the deadline. Vista’s Internet Explorer 9 has long since expired, and the lack of any further updates means that any existing vulnerabilities will never be patched—ever. Even if you have Microsoft’s Security Essentials installed—Vista’s own antivirus program—you’ll only receive new signatures for a limited time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: NGINX ups the web app performance ante

NGINX isn’t what I’d call a sexy company. Its products are, by definition, solid and steady—and they need to be.NGINX offers an application delivery platform that powers a massive proportion of the world’s websites. Some 300 million sites rely on NGINX for its load balancing, web and mobile acceleration, security controls, application monitoring, and management needs. More than half of the internet’s busiest websites rely on NGINX, including Airbnb, Box, Instagram, Netflix, Pinterest, SoundCloud and Zappos.But NGINX, while undeniably having a huge footprint, isn’t alone in the space and needs to keep innovating to gain and retain market share. And so it does with the announcement of its latest release, NGINX Plus Release 12. R12 looks to upgrade NGINX’s load balancer, content cache and web server offerings to increase reliability, security and scale for its customers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to get diversity initiatives right

Despite the increased attention paid to diversity in tech, problem persists, according to new research from job search site Indeed, and that's negatively impacting companies' bottom lines. Addressing the issue requires a focus not only on diversity, but on inclusion to create a welcoming environment where talent can truly thrive.Indeed polled 1,002 U.S. technology workers in December 2016, and found that 24 percent of respondents felt they had been personally discriminated against at their current company. In addition, almost half (45 percent) of women said they witnessed non-inclusionary behavior, with 34 percent reporting they have been made personally uncomfortable. Over half (64 percent) of non-white respondents have felt personally uncomfortable, compared to 24 percent of respondents who identify as white.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

MapR unveils platform for IoT analytics at the edge

At Strata + Hadoop World in San Jose, Calif., Tuesday, MapR Technologies took the wraps off a new small footprint edition of its Converged Data Platform geared for capturing, processing and analyzing data from internet of things (IoT) devices at the edge.MapR Edge, designed to work in conjunction with the core MapR Converged Enterprise Edition, provides local processing, aggregation of insights at the core and the ability to then push intelligence back to the edge.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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