Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service isn’t working

Amazon Web Services today acknowledged that its Simple Storage Service (S3), one of the company's most popular cloud-based products, is experiencing increased error rates, causing some sites across the Internet to stop working.AWS posted an alert on its Service Health Dashboard noting: “We've identified the issue as high error rates with S3 in US-EAST-1, which is also impacting applications and services dependent on S3. We are actively working on remediating the issue.”+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Battle of the clouds AWS vs. Azure vs. Google +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Intel will change its approach to PC chip upgrades

Intel is changing its view on how it upgrades chips.Rather than tying chip upgrades directly to the manufacturing process involved, Intel will look at delivering a sustained set of performance upgrades with each new chip architecture."We're going to be focused more on the generation by the amount of performance increment it will give us," said Venkata Renduchintala, president of Intel's Client and Internet of Things businesses and its Systems Architecture Group. "I don't think generations will be tagged to node transitions."The performance benefits will matter more, and the process technology that lives underneath is going to be less conspicuous, Renduchintala said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Border agents go all Monty Python on visa-holding software engineer

There have been more egregious episodes of U.S. border agents hassling and/or needlessly detaining citizens and valid visa-holders since the White House changed hands, but perhaps none has been more bizarre – or even darkly comical – than this one. Celestine Omin, a 28-year-old software engineer from Lagos, Nigeria, was traveling to the U.S. on Sunday as part of his job with Andela, a startup backed by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. Upon arrival at JFK Airport, he was questioned by one border agent, waited for an hour, and then was brought to a different room to be questioned by a second agent. From a LinkedIn story:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Border agents go all Monty Python on visa-holding software engineer

There have been more egregious episodes of U.S. border agents hassling and/or needlessly detaining citizens and valid visa-holders since the White House changed hands, but perhaps none has been more bizarre – or even darkly comical – than this one.Celestine Omin, a 28-year-old software engineer from Lagos, Nigeria, was traveling to the U.S. on Sunday as part of his job with Andela, a startup backed by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. Upon arrival at JFK Airport, he was questioned by one border agent, waited for an hour, and then was brought to a different room to be questioned by a second agent. From a LinkedIn story:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Into the Gray Zone: Considering Active Defense

Most engineers focus on purely technical mechanisms for defending against various kinds of cyber attacks, including “the old magic bullet,” the firewall. The game of cannons and walls is over, however, and the cannons have won; those who depend on walls are in for a shocking future. What is the proper response, then? What defenses are there The reality is that just like in physical warfare, the defenses will take some time to develop and articulate.

One very promising line of thinking is that of active defense. While the concept is often attributed to some recent action, active defense has been one form of warfare for many centuries; there are instances of what might be called active defense outlined in the Bible and in Greek histories. But it is only recently, in light of the many wars around Israel, that defense in depth has taken on its modern shape in active defense. What about active defense is so interesting from a network security perspective? It is primarily this: in active defense, the defender seeks to tire an attacker out by remaining mobile, misdirecting the attacker, and using every opportunity to learn about the attacker’s techniques, aims, and resources to reflect Continue reading

The Internet of Insecurity: Can Industry Solve It or Is Regulation Required?

15 unfilled tech jobs that cost the U.S. billions

Unfilled tech jobs that are costing the U.S. billionsImage by Thinkstock With IT industry unemployment hovering at around 2.8 percent (as of Q3 2016) and organizations struggling to land talent, many companies find themselves with unfilled jobs. That's a problem not just for individual companies, but for the U.S. economy as a whole, says Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor. "Filling open jobs doesn't just help workers. It also helps companies and the broader economy. Every job that's open is money left on the table, in the form of lost productivity for employers and earnings in consumers' pockets. When more open jobs are filled with the right people, economic gains include greater business productivity and consumer spending, thanks to more people earning wages, then saving, investing and spending those wages," Chamberlain says. In IT, a combination of rapidly changing markets, incredible demand for and short supply of talent means thousands of open, unfilled roles are costing companies -- and the economy -- money every day. In fact, the value of the approximately 263,586 unfilled IT jobs posted by employers in the U.S. adds up to $20.1 billion, according to the Glassdoor research. The value Continue reading

A new way to prevent cyberattacks on home devices

BARCELONA -- Homeowners worried about cybersecurity attacks on IP-connected devices like lights, baby monitors, home security systems and cameras, will soon be able to take advantage of a $200 network monitoring device called Dojo.The device was shown at Mobile World Congress here this week and will go on sale online in April. While the Dojo device isn’t intended to provide enterprise-level security, it could be used to help, in a small way, in warding off massive attacks like the one that used the Mirai botnet which took advantage of unsecure, consumer-grade cameras and other devices last October.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A new way to prevent cyberattacks on home devices

BARCELONA -- Homeowners worried about cybersecurity attacks on IP-connected devices like lights, baby monitors, home security systems and cameras, will soon be able to take advantage of a $200 network monitoring device called Dojo.The device was shown at Mobile World Congress here this week and will go on sale online in April. While the Dojo device isn’t intended to provide enterprise-level security, it could be used to help, in a small way, in warding off massive attacks like the one that used the Mirai botnet which took advantage of unsecure, consumer-grade cameras and other devices last October.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple stores now selling the LG UltraFine 5K Display again after Wi-Fi interference issues

Update: LG's UltraFine 5K Display is now available to order again after Apple removed it from store shelves on Feb. 13. Apple is offering delivery as soon as March 8 for orders placed today. In-store pick-up isn't currently available.Last October, Apple announced the LG collaboration has as the go-to external Retina display for the new MacBook Pro after the company discontinued its Thunderbolt Display.But the UltraFine 5K Display was plagued by connection issues. Placing the display within six feet of a Wi-Fi router caused interference, resulting in continued disconnections and even the MacBook Pro freezing up. LG confirmed that these issues stem from “poor shielding.” According to 9to5Mac, future builds of the LG display will resolve this, but existing displays will require “retrofitting with additional shielding.” With new inventory in stock, it appears that LG has fixed its shielding issues—at least in hardware it's selling from this point on.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco tries to squash Smart Install security abuse

Cisco is playing down a security issue with its Smart Install switch management software that could allow unauthenticated access to customer configuration details.Cisco defines Smart Install as a legacy feature that provides zero-touch deployment for new switches, typically access layer switches.+More on Network World: Cisco Jasper grows Internet of Things reach, breadth+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco tries to squash Smart Install security abuse

Cisco is playing down a security issue with its Smart Install switch management software that could allow unauthenticated access to customer configuration details.Cisco defines Smart Install as a legacy feature that provides zero-touch deployment for new switches, typically access layer switches.+More on Network World: Cisco Jasper grows Internet of Things reach, breadth+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trend Micro report: Ransomware booming

The profitability of ransomware made it the top cyber threat last year in two categories: the number of attacks and the amount of money generated for crooks, according to a Trend Micro lookback on data collected from customers.Not only is the ransomware business booming, it’s innovating, with Trend Micro researchers identifying 752 new families last year, up from 29 in 2015.Add to this the rise of ransomware as a service (RaaS) and payments made to anonymous bitcoin accounts, and the result is a booming criminal enterprise worth $1 billion last year, according to TrendLabs 2016 Security Roundup. Neophyte crooks are being drawn in because it’s so easy to set up a ransomware operation, the report says. “Since RaaS is available in the underground, the service provides fledgling cybercriminals the necessary tools to run their own extortion campaigns,” it says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trend Micro report: Ransomware booming

The profitability of ransomware made it the top cyber threat last year in two categories: the number of attacks and the amount of money generated for crooks, according to a Trend Micro lookback on data collected from customers.Not only is the ransomware business booming, it’s innovating, with Trend Micro researchers identifying 752 new families last year, up from 29 in 2015.Add to this the rise of ransomware as a service (RaaS) and payments made to anonymous bitcoin accounts, and the result is a booming criminal enterprise worth $1 billion last year, according to TrendLabs 2016 Security Roundup. Neophyte crooks are being drawn in because it’s so easy to set up a ransomware operation, the report says. “Since RaaS is available in the underground, the service provides fledgling cybercriminals the necessary tools to run their own extortion campaigns,” it says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AI scheduling startup launches subscription for businesses

Setting up meetings can be a pain, since they often require folks to send emails back and forth figuring out a time before finally sending off a calendar invitation to block everyone’s schedule. A New York startup called x.ai wants to simplify that with a helpful bot, and they just launched a product aimed at serving businesses.The service provides users with access to x.ai’s assistant, which can go by Andrew or Amy Ingram, to automatically set up meetings with people inside a company and help schedule time with folks who work elsewhere. It’s an extension of the company’s existing service, which is built for individuals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

MediaTek will sit out the ARM race for Windows 10 PCs

Despite a turbulent past, Windows PCs with ARM are making a grand return later this year, but only with Qualcomm chips. Another big ARM chipmaker, MediaTek, is sitting out the opportunity to put its ARM-based chips in Windows PCs because the company sees it as a limited opportunity. MediaTek's chips are already used in Chromebooks, but ARM has had a turbulent history with Windows. That's another reason for the company to stay out. ARM getting into PCs is like Intel trying to get into smartphones -- it's a risky proposition, said Finbarr Moynihan, general manager of sales at MediaTek. PCs are dominated by x86 chips from companies like Intel and AMD. But Intel failed in its attempt to unseat a dominant ARM in smartphones, and ultimately quit making chips for handsets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Can a PC support multiple users? A few suppliers say yes

We have all watched a major cultural shift in the world of IT, from optimizing the use of the computer to optimizing the use of the developer and user.This move makes a great deal of sense. At one time, the computer, its memory and its storage were the biggest costs of supporting an IT solution. Over time, that changed. The drastic improvement in processing power and memory capacity, combined with amazing decreases in system and component prices, changed the ratio so that people, communications and power were all more costly than the machines and their components themselves.These factors, along with users' desire for graphical user interfaces, changed the world of IT. It is not really clear, however, if all of the changes were beneficial.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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Verizon’s Fixed 5G Service May Be Ready to Roll by Late 2018

But it won't be standards compliant.

This tool can help you discover Cisco Smart Install protocol abuse

For the past few weeks attackers have been probing networks for switches that can potentially be hijacked using the Cisco Smart Install (SMI) protocol. Researchers from Cisco's Talos team have now released a tool that allows network owners to discover devices that might be vulnerable to such attacks.The Cisco SMI protocol is used for so-called zero-touch deployment of new devices, primarily access layer switches running Cisco IOS or IOS XE software. The protocol allows newly installed switches to automatically download their configuration via SMI from an existing switch or router configured as an integrated branch director (IBD).The director can copy the client's startup-config file or replace it with a custom one, can load a particular IOS image on the client and can execute high-privilege configuration mode commands on it. Because the SMI protocol does not support any authorization or authentication mechanism by default, attackers can potentially hijack SMI-enabled devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here