BrandPost: Making the case for hybrid MPLS/IPSec VPNs

IDC recently made a strong case for enterprise adoption of hybrid network-based IP virtual private network (VPN) services that combine Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)-enabled VPNs for larger sites and IPSec network-based VPNs for smaller locations. Many enterprises rely on MPLS for high-performance, critical communications. With an ability to support multiple protocols and to direct traffic more speedily from point to point, such as between data centers and major office hubs, MPLS has been a preferred option for knitting together enterprise virtual private networks (VPNs) over wide area networks (WANs). But, as enterprises have decentralized their workforces, they have adopted IPSec VPNs to accommodate remote and mobile workers using a variety of devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BrandPost: Manufacturer tools up virtualized network functions

Moving fast is a fundamental requirement in today’s business environment; flexibility and responsiveness are essential. New Zealand manufacturer Fisher & Paykel is leveraging new networking technologies to help it keep up with market changes. “We have large manufacturing sites in five countries; we sell in over 50; and distribute around the world,” says Jon White, general manager of IT for Fisher & Paykel, which has been manufacturing high quality appliances since 1934. “Technology helps us where we have distributed design centers, so we can allow people to collaborate on designs, and also make sure we that we reduce costs,” says White.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fixing Double Sublime Text Icons on Fedora 25

In my previous post on how to install Sublime Text 3 (ST3) on Fedora 25, I mentioned that I have observed instances where launching ST3 via the subl command creates an additional icon in the Dash. While searching for a solution to an issue with LibreOffice icons, I found a fix for this problem.

The fix is to add this line to the sublime-text.desktop file (typically found in /usr/share/applications):

StartupWMClass=subl

This tells Fedora and GNOME that when a window with the WMClass of “subl” appears, it should be considered a Sublime Text window. Once you add this line to the sublime-text.desktop file, then launching ST3 either via the GUI or via the subl command should create only a single ST3 icon in the Dash.

Now, back to trying to figure out this LibreOffice icon issue…

Correlating OVS and Guest Domain Interfaces

I’ve written a fair amount about Open vSwitch (OVS), including some articles on using it with KVM and Libvirt. One thing I haven’t discussed in such environments, though, is the potential challenge of mapping network interfaces in a guest domain to the corresponding OVS interface (for the purposes of troubleshooting, for example). There is no single command that will provide a guest-to-OVS interface map (as far as I know), but this information is easily gathered using a couple commands.

Gathering Information About the Guest Interface

First, we’ll need to gather some information about the interface from the guest domain’s perspective. There are two ways we can do this: from within the guest OS itself, or by interrogating Libvirt.

Working from Within the Guest OS

Inside the guest domain (I’m assuming you’re using a relatively recent Linux distribution), you only need to use standard commands like ip link list or ip addr list. The goal is to obtain the MAC address assigned to the particular guest interface. So, for example, if you wanted to get the MAC address for the guest “eth0” interface, you’d run:

    ip link list eth0

To isolate only the MAC address from the output of that Continue reading

A.I. faces hype, skepticism at RSA cybersecurity show

Vendors at this week's RSA cybersecurity show in San Francisco are pushing artificial intelligence and machine learning as the new way to detect the latest threats, but RSA CTO Zulfikar Ramzan is giving visitors a reality check."I think it (the technology) moves the needle," he said on Wednesday. "The real open question to me is how much has that needle actually moved in practice?"It's not as much as vendors claim, Ramzan warned, but for customers it won't be easy cutting through the hype and marketing. The reality is that a lot of the technology now being pushed isn’t necessarily new.In particular, he was talking about machine learning, a subfield in A.I. that’s become a popular marketing term in cybersecurity. In practice, it essentially involves building algorithms to spot bad computer behavior from good.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A.I. faces hype, skepticism at RSA cybersecurity show

Vendors at this week's RSA cybersecurity show in San Francisco are pushing artificial intelligence and machine learning as the new way to detect the latest threats, but RSA CTO Zulfikar Ramzan is giving visitors a reality check."I think it (the technology) moves the needle," he said on Wednesday. "The real open question to me is how much has that needle actually moved in practice?"It's not as much as vendors claim, Ramzan warned, but for customers it won't be easy cutting through the hype and marketing. The reality is that a lot of the technology now being pushed isn’t necessarily new.In particular, he was talking about machine learning, a subfield in A.I. that’s become a popular marketing term in cybersecurity. In practice, it essentially involves building algorithms to spot bad computer behavior from good.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bruce Schneier: Public-service technologists are needed to tame the IoT

The internet of things needs to be regulated and soon before it becomes even more of a tool to facilitate cyberattacks, and that means coming up with civic-minded technologists to help formulate government policies, security expert Bruce Schneier told an RSA Conference 2017 audience.+More on Network World: RSA: Watch out for a new weapon - your own data | Hot products at RSA 2017 +The problem is governments lack the technological expertise to understand the mindset of the makers of IoT devices and the markets in which they are sold.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bruce Schneier: Public-service technologists are needed to tame the IoT

The internet of things needs to be regulated and soon before it becomes even more of a tool to facilitate cyberattacks, and that means coming up with civic-minded technologists to help formulate government policies, security expert Bruce Schneier told an RSA Conference 2017 audience.+More on Network World: RSA: Watch out for a new weapon - your own data | Hot products at RSA 2017 +The problem is governments lack the technological expertise to understand the mindset of the makers of IoT devices and the markets in which they are sold.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

23% off EVGA Supernova G3 750W 220-G3-0750-X1 Fully Modular Power Supply – Deal Alert

Unleash the next generation in power with the EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G3 Power Supply. Based on the award winning G2 series Power Supplies from EVGA, This power supply features 80 PLUS Gold rated efficiency, and clean, continuous power to every component. The ECO Thermal Control Fan System offers fan modes to provide zero fan noise during low load operations. This provides improved efficiency for longer operation, less power consumption, reduced energy costs and minimal heat dissipation.  This power supply is highly rated with 4.6 out of 5 stars from over 3,000 people (read reviews). It's typical list price of $129.99 has been reduced 23% to $99.99 . See the discounted power supply now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why I Enthusiastically Switched from Cacti to Zabbix for System Monitoring

Cacti is a “complete network graphing solution” according to their website. It has also been a thorn in my side for a long time.

See what I did there? Thorn… because it’s a cactus… never mind.

When Cacti is in a steady state–when I could get it to a steady state–it was good. Not great, because there was a lot of effort to get it into what I consider “steady state”, but good. The rest of the time… thorny.

There are five major things that have driven me up the wall. In no particular order:

Round Robin Database (RRD) sucks

The concept behind RRD is cool: a fixed-size, circular database (oldest data overwritten by the newest data) makes good sense for the type of data that a network graphing solution collects. In practice, using RRD means:

  • Another software dependency that needs to be updated, patched, and integrated in the Cacti ecosystem
  • Manually managing all of the RRD files that are generated for all of the data sources you’re collecting. RRD stores its data in individual files on the file system, you see, and the more data sources you collect with Cacti, the more RRD files you have Continue reading

Worth Reading: How long does it take to steal a credit card number?

Using the discovered card details to make an international money transfer took just 27 minutes from creating the transfer account to cash in hand (in this case in India, from funds initiating in the UK). That’s fast enough that there’s very little time for a bank to detect fraud and reverse the payment. Digging a little deeper though, there are also some interesting lessons to be learned about unintended emergent behaviours in complex systems, misaligned incentives, and the state of card payment security in general. —The Morning Paper

The post Worth Reading: How long does it take to steal a credit card number? appeared first on 'net work.

Microsoft launches Insider program for business users

The Windows Insider program has been an important program for Microsoft, soliciting feedback from thousands of individual customers to help with the development and debugging of Windows 10. Now the company has launched an equivalent program for corporate users.Dubbed the Windows Insider Program for Businesses — or WIP4Biz, for short -- Microsoft is aiming to get more business involvement in the feedback process. At its recent NexTech Africa conference, the company recommended that SMBs and enterprise customers should run Windows 10 Insider Preview builds on 1% of their systems to see what's coming in future builds and prepare for them.Now, at the company's Ignite show in Australia, Bill Karagounis, the Windows 10 OS Fundamentals Director, formally announced WIP4Biz. According to Neowin, which must have had someone at the show, a major goal of WIP4Biz is to "make Insider systems and capabilities more friendly and easier to fit into your business environments."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sophos CEO sounds the alarm on enterprise ransomware attacks

Ransomware is increasingly becoming a problem for companies, and the CEO of a leading computer security company says he fears 2017 could see entire companies shut down until they pay up, or risk losing all their data.Ransomware works by infiltrating a computer with malware and then encrypting all the files on the disk. The user is presented with a limited time offer: Lose all your data or send money with the promise your data will be unlocked. The fee typically varies from a few tens of dollars to hundreds of dollars and often has to be transmitted in Bitcoin.The problem began on a fairly small scale, targeting individual users, but has been growing. Last year, a hospital in Los Angeles admitted to paying $17,000 to get its system unlocked, and a report in October said ransomware cases were on course to quadruple in 2016 over the previous year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sophos CEO sounds the alarm on enterprise ransomware attacks

Ransomware is increasingly becoming a problem for companies, and the CEO of a leading computer security company says he fears 2017 could see entire companies shut down until they pay up, or risk losing all their data.Ransomware works by infiltrating a computer with malware and then encrypting all the files on the disk. The user is presented with a limited time offer: Lose all your data or send money with the promise your data will be unlocked. The fee typically varies from a few tens of dollars to hundreds of dollars and often has to be transmitted in Bitcoin.The problem began on a fairly small scale, targeting individual users, but has been growing. Last year, a hospital in Los Angeles admitted to paying $17,000 to get its system unlocked, and a report in October said ransomware cases were on course to quadruple in 2016 over the previous year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: 3 new information security jobs for the digital enterprise

The responsibilities of information security are rapidly changing as enterprises digitize. Technology now enables business strategy and is transforming product, channels, and operations. In this new context, information security is expected to take a strategic role by helping business leaders understand the security implications of their digital strategies; support a quicker pace of technology exploitation and experimentation; and govern a larger, more varied project portfolio.Digitization has spurred three company-wide shifts, creating the need for three associated new information security roles.Shift 1: Strategy over governance Information security increasingly plays a larger role in advising business partners on strategy. A key driver is the growing difficulty of executing digital strategies securely. Technology enablement of product, channel, and operations introduces new potential vulnerabilities that can only be spotted by information security’s keen eye. More business leaders are recognizing security’s centrality; in fact, CEB data shows that 81 percent of boards of director review information security matters in most or every meeting (disclosure: I work for CEB).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: 3 new information security jobs for the digital enterprise

The responsibilities of information security are rapidly changing as enterprises digitize. Technology now enables business strategy and is transforming product, channels, and operations. In this new context, information security is expected to take a strategic role by helping business leaders understand the security implications of their digital strategies; support a quicker pace of technology exploitation and experimentation; and govern a larger, more varied project portfolio.Digitization has spurred three company-wide shifts, creating the need for three associated new information security roles.Shift 1: Strategy over governance Information security increasingly plays a larger role in advising business partners on strategy. A key driver is the growing difficulty of executing digital strategies securely. Technology enablement of product, channel, and operations introduces new potential vulnerabilities that can only be spotted by information security’s keen eye. More business leaders are recognizing security’s centrality; in fact, CEB data shows that 81 percent of boards of director review information security matters in most or every meeting (disclosure: I work for CEB).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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