U.S. Marshals warn against dual phone scams

The U.S Marshals are warning the public not to respond to two recent scams involving people fraudulently posing as Marshals making calls across the country.The first is a warning about a scam where the fraudster calls members of the public and alleging they, or their family members, have an active federal arrest warrant and demanding payment of fines.+More on Network World: Avaya wants out of S.F. stadium suite, not too impressed with 49ers on-field performance either+“Recently, there were reported attempts of a fraudulent caller who identified himself as a Deputy United States Marshal. This phony law enforcement officer informed the potential victims that warrants were being issued for them or their family member due to being absent from a federal grand jury they were previously summoned to appear before. The potential victims were then informed they could avoid arrest by paying a fine by electronic fund transfer or cashier’s check. The Marshals Service became aware of the scam after receiving information from several calls from alert citizens,” the service wrote.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

U.S. Marshals warn against dual phone scams

The U.S Marshals are warning the public not to respond to two recent scams involving people fraudulently posing as Marshals making calls across the country.The first is a warning about a scam where the fraudster calls members of the public and alleging they, or their family members, have an active federal arrest warrant and demanding payment of fines.+More on Network World: Avaya wants out of S.F. stadium suite, not too impressed with 49ers on-field performance either+“Recently, there were reported attempts of a fraudulent caller who identified himself as a Deputy United States Marshal. This phony law enforcement officer informed the potential victims that warrants were being issued for them or their family member due to being absent from a federal grand jury they were previously summoned to appear before. The potential victims were then informed they could avoid arrest by paying a fine by electronic fund transfer or cashier’s check. The Marshals Service became aware of the scam after receiving information from several calls from alert citizens,” the service wrote.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fileless Powershell malware uses DNS as covert communication channel

Targeted attacks are moving away from traditional malware to stealthier techniques that involve abusing standard system tools and protocols, some of which are not always monitored.The latest example is an attack dubbed DNSMessenger, which was analyzed by researchers from Cisco Systems' Talos team. The attack starts with a malicious Microsoft Word document distributed through an email phishing campaign.When opened, the file masquerades as a "protected document" secured by McAfee, an antivirus brand now owned by Intel Security. The user is asked to click on the enable content button in order to view the document's content, but doing so will actually execute malicious scripting embedded within.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fileless Powershell malware uses DNS as covert communication channel

Targeted attacks are moving away from traditional malware to stealthier techniques that involve abusing standard system tools and protocols, some of which are not always monitored.The latest example is an attack dubbed DNSMessenger, which was analyzed by researchers from Cisco Systems' Talos team. The attack starts with a malicious Microsoft Word document distributed through an email phishing campaign.When opened, the file masquerades as a "protected document" secured by McAfee, an antivirus brand now owned by Intel Security. The user is asked to click on the enable content button in order to view the document's content, but doing so will actually execute malicious scripting embedded within.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

25% off Xbox One Play and Charge Kit – Deal Alert

Forget disposable batteries and keep the action going with the Xbox One Play & Charge Kit. Recharge while you play or afterwards, even when your Xbox is in standby. The long-lasting rechargeable battery fully charges in under 4 hours. Compatible with the original Xbox One Wireless controller and the new white Xbox Wireless Controller. The typical list price of $24.99 has been reduced 25% to $18.74. See the discounted Xbox One Play and Charge Kit on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Stuff The Internet Says On Scalability For March 3rd, 2017

Hey, it's HighScalability time:

 

• $5 billion: Netflix spend on new content; $1 billion: Netflix spend on tech; 10%: bounced BBC users for every additional second page load; $3.5 billion: Priceline Group ad spend; 12.6 million: hours streamed by Pornhub per day; 1 billion: hours streamed by YouTube per day; 38,000 BC: auroch carving; 5%: decrease in US TV sets;


• Quotable Quotes:
  • Fahim ul Haq: Rule 1: Reading High Scalability a night before your interview does not make you an expert in Distributed Systems.
  • @Pinboard: Root cause of outage: S3 is actually hosted on Google Cloud Storage, and today Google Cloud Storage migrated to AWS
  • Matthew Green: ransomware currently is using only a tiny fraction of the capabilities available to it. Secure execution technologies in particular represent a giant footgun just waiting to go off if manufacturers get things only a little bit wrong.
  • dsr_: This [S3 outage] is analogous to "we needed to fsck, and nobody realized how long that would take".
  • tptacek: Uber isn't the driver's employer. Continue reading

Worth Reading: Current trends in machine learning

During the past decade, enterprises have begun using machine learning (ML) to collect and analyze large amounts of data to obtain a competitive advantage. Now some are looking to go even deeper – using a subset of machine learning techniques called deep learning (DL), they are seeking to delve into the more esoteric properties hidden in the data. The goal is to create predictive applications for such areas as fraud detection, demand forecasting, click prediction, and other data-intensive analyses. —The Next Platform

The post Worth Reading: Current trends in machine learning appeared first on 'net work.

Tata’s New Subsidiary NetFoundry Helps Enterprises Build a WAN

Developers can integrate NetFoundry technology on a per application or data flow basis.

IDG Contributor Network: Customization key to successful ITSM implementation

Axelos defines IT Service Management (ITSM) as the implementation and management of quality IT services that meet the needs of the business. IT service management is performed by IT service providers through an appropriate mix of people, process and information technology. A widely adopted framework for ITSM is IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).ITIL refers to a set of best-practice publications for IT service management. Owned by the U.K. Cabinet Office, ITIL gives guidance on the provision of quality IT services and the processes, functions and other capabilities needed to support them. The ITIL framework is based on a service lifecycle and consists of five lifecycle stages (service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation and continual service improvement), each of which has its own supporting publication.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Turn your iPhone into an even better digital camera

Since the time a mobile phone vendor first added a camera lens (creating the ‘camera phone’), we’ve seen improvements to the lenses, megapixels and software, but not much else on the outside. While you’ve likely given up using a regular digital camera in favor of your smartphone, for truly professional photographs you likely have invested in a larger DLSR-style camera (with the costs associated with that).If you’re looking for something that helps enhance your existing iPhone but not to the level of the DLSR space, Bitplay has some accessories that can help. The company recently sent me a bunch of their Snap! line of camera cases and accessories – the SNAP! Pro, the Snap! 7 and one add-on wide-angle lens.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

H-1B reform bill unites political opposites

Since 2005, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) has been introducing H-1B reform legislation in the House and getting nowhere. But with the bill he introduced today, he might have struck gold.Pascrell calls his bill bipartisan, but that doesn't quite do it justice. The co-sponsors of this bill, called the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2017, are about as far apart politically as you can get.This legislation, perhaps more than any other H-1B reform bill introduced in either chamber, illustrates the belief that visa reform is a strongly bipartisan issue that can bring together otherwise divided lawmakers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Infosec mourns over Howard Schmidt, who helped make the country a safer place

Howard Schmidt advised both President Brack Obama and George W. Bush on cybersecurity. He was a CSO at Microsoft and a CISO at eBay. He led several industry groups, and wrote books on cybersecurity.But when security professionals remember him, it is not so much for his technical accomplishments as for the impact he had on the people around him. He is remembered as a mentor, a communicator, and an educator."He does have a very storied path of accomplishment," said Mary Ann Davidson, CSO at Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle Corp. "From a security standpoint, he had a tremendous impact, the many roles he played, the work in the white house."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Infosec mourns over Howard Schmidt, who helped make the country a safer place

Howard Schmidt advised both President Brack Obama and George W. Bush on cybersecurity. He was a CSO at Microsoft and a CISO at eBay. He led several industry groups, and wrote books on cybersecurity.But when security professionals remember him, it is not so much for his technical accomplishments as for the impact he had on the people around him. He is remembered as a mentor, a communicator, and an educator."He does have a very storied path of accomplishment," said Mary Ann Davidson, CSO at Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle Corp. "From a security standpoint, he had a tremendous impact, the many roles he played, the work in the white house."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Are Virtual CISOs the answer to your security problems?

Chief Information Security Officers are a relatively rare breed. Information security is, after all, a relatively recent addition or subset to IT, and while most large organizations now do profess to having a CISO, CSO or head of information security, many still don’t. Indeed, it’s often the case that a company appoints its first CISO in the aftermath of a data breach - like Target did in 2014 or Sony in 2011.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

CloudScale ASICs on Software Gone Wild

Last year Cisco launched a new series of Nexus 9000 switches with table sizes that didn’t match any of the known merchant silicon ASICs. It was obvious they had to be using their own silicon – the CloudScale ASIC. Lukas Krattiger was kind enough to describe some of the details last November, resulting in Episode 73 of Software Gone Wild.

For even more details, watch the Cisco Nexus 9000 Architecture Cisco Live presentation.

IDG Contributor Network: Ensure your data infrastructure remains available and resilient

The fundamental role of data infrastructure is to protect, preserve, secure, serve applications and data, transforming them into information. Data protection is an encompassing topic, as it spans security (logical and physical), reliability availability serviceability (RAS), privacy and encryption, backup/restore, archiving, business continuance (BC), business resiliency (BR) and disaster recovery (DR).Recently, we've seen news about data infrastructure and application outages, including Amazon Web Service (AWS) Simple Storage Service (S3), Gitlab, and the Australian Tax Office (ATO).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Ensure your data infrastructure remains available and resilient

The fundamental role of data infrastructure is to protect, preserve, secure, serve applications and data, transforming them into information. Data protection is an encompassing topic, as it spans security (logical and physical), reliability availability serviceability (RAS), privacy and encryption, backup/restore, archiving, business continuance (BC), business resiliency (BR) and disaster recovery (DR).Recently, we've seen news about data infrastructure and application outages, including Amazon Web Service (AWS) Simple Storage Service (S3), Gitlab, and the Australian Tax Office (ATO).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Packet Blast: Top Tech Blogs, March 3

Pence used private mail for state work as governor, account was hacked

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence reportedly used a private email account to transact state business when he was governor of Indiana, and his AOL account was hacked once, according to a news report. Emails released to the Indianapolis Star following a public records request are said to show that Pence used his personal AOL account to communicate with his top advisers on issues ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe. A hacker seems to have got access to his email account in June last year and sent a fake mail to people on the former governor’s contact list, claiming  that Pence and his wife had been attacked on their way back to their hotel in the Philippines, according to the report. Pence subsequently changed his AOL account.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pence used private mail for state work as governor, account was hacked

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence reportedly used a private email account to transact state business when he was governor of Indiana, and his AOL account was hacked once, according to a news report. Emails released to the Indianapolis Star following a public records request are said to show that Pence used his personal AOL account to communicate with his top advisers on issues ranging from security gates at the governor’s residence to the state’s response to terror attacks across the globe. A hacker seems to have got access to his email account in June last year and sent a fake mail to people on the former governor’s contact list, claiming  that Pence and his wife had been attacked on their way back to their hotel in the Philippines, according to the report. Pence subsequently changed his AOL account.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here