IDG Contributor Network: 5 cybersecurity trends to watch for 2017

As 2016 draws to a close, we can reflect on a year where cybersecurity has played a major role. Even presidential campaigns haven’t been free from hacking scandals and data leaks. The average cost of a data breach for companies grew from $3.8 million last year to $4 million in 2016, according to the Ponemon Institute.Companies of all sizes have embraced the cloud and open source has become the standard for infrastructure software. Both pose their own blend of benefit and risk. A major datacenter attack or failure could be problematic for many companies, and we can certainly expect an increase in the number of cyber-attacks based on open source vulnerabilities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: 5 cybersecurity trends to watch for 2017

As 2016 draws to a close, we can reflect on a year where cybersecurity has played a major role. Even presidential campaigns haven’t been free from hacking scandals and data leaks. The average cost of a data breach for companies grew from $3.8 million last year to $4 million in 2016, according to the Ponemon Institute.Companies of all sizes have embraced the cloud and open source has become the standard for infrastructure software. Both pose their own blend of benefit and risk. A major datacenter attack or failure could be problematic for many companies, and we can certainly expect an increase in the number of cyber-attacks based on open source vulnerabilities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

On the Economics, Propagation, and Mitigation of Mirai

By Kirk Soluk and Roland Dobbins In late November of 2016, a new Mirai variant emerged that leveraged a propagation mechanism different from the Telnet-based brute forcing mechanism originally provided in the leaked Mirai source code. This new variant exploits vulnerable implementations of the TR-064/TR-069 protocol used by ISPs to remotely manage their customer’s broadband […]

10 game changing networking acquisitions of 2016

Game changers?Image by ThinkstockIn the networking industry, it seems that every year there’s a flurry of mergers and acquisitions. Turns out that 2016 was no different. Here are 10 that have the most game changing potential, since they have the potential to move the acquiring company into an entirely new market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 game changing networking acquisitions of 2016

Game changers?Image by ThinkstockIn the networking industry, it seems that every year there’s a flurry of mergers and acquisitions. Turns out that 2016 was no different. Here are 10 that have the most game changing potential, since they have the potential to move the acquiring company into an entirely new market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UNH InterOperability Lab fostering even more IoT togetherness

While the Internet of Things has started to become useful, many are still freaked out about devices not working well together and becoming security liabilities. The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) will attempt to address both of those concerns via its new IoT Testing Services. Test services will apply to devices for homes, industrial networks, smart cities and connected cars, according to UNH-IOL. What's more, testing will be offered for the IPv6 Forum's IPv6 Ready IoT Logo in the spring. MORE: Beware the ticking Internet of Things security time bombTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UNH InterOperability Lab fostering even more IoT togetherness

While the Internet of Things has started to become useful, many are still freaked out about devices not working well together and becoming security liabilities. The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) will attempt to address both of those concerns via its new IoT Testing Services. Test services will apply to devices for homes, industrial networks, smart cities and connected cars, according to UNH-IOL. What's more, testing will be offered for the IPv6 Forum's IPv6 Ready IoT Logo in the spring. MORE: Beware the ticking Internet of Things security time bombTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A hefty fine is just part of penalties for the Ashley Madison adultery site

A hefty judgement against Ashley Madison, the dating site for adulterers, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to penalties the company must pay as a result of the theft and public posting of its customers' data when the company was hacked last year.Ruby Corp., the parent company of Ashley Madison agreed to pay $8.75 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission and another $8.75 million to 13 states that also filed complaints. It will wind up paying just $1.6 million because it is strapped for assets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A hefty fine is just part of penalties for the Ashley Madison adultery site

A hefty judgement against Ashley Madison, the dating site for adulterers, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to penalties the company must pay as a result of the theft and public posting of its customers' data when the company was hacked last year.Ruby Corp., the parent company of Ashley Madison agreed to pay $8.75 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission and another $8.75 million to 13 states that also filed complaints. It will wind up paying just $1.6 million because it is strapped for assets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM releases GA of OpenWhisk – its serverless computing platform

IBM today made its serverless computing platform named OpenWhisk – which is also an open source project – generally available in the company’s BlueMix cloud.Serverless computing is one of the most discussed emerging technologies in the IaaS public cloud market, so IBM making its flagship serverless product generally available marks a milestone for the technology.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Serverless use case: How this company runs its app without provisioning any servers or virtual machines +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Knowing the manager you really are

Nearly everyone thinks his or her performance is above average. You don’t have to be a statistician to know that nearly half of them must be wrong.Managers are no different when it comes to this distorted self-perception. The problem is that managers’ misconceptions prevent them from learning and becoming better at their jobs. Worse than that, their deficiencies impose burdens on so many others: subordinates, peers, supervisors and outside stakeholders. If you’re a manager, it’s worth investing some energy to make sure that you have an accurate picture of your strengths and weaknesses.Don’t worry about the psychological processes that can lead to such misperceptions. Although the debates about that are interesting, what is important is to know that it is overwhelmingly likely that you have unreliable beliefs about the quality of your management. I’m not saying that you are a terrible manager and don’t know it. In fact, you might be better than you perceive yourself to be. Either way, having an unrealistic self-assessment is not a weakness; it’s just part of being human.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft rushes out Windows 10 patch to fix broken Internet connections

An odd thing happened this morning. My Windows 10 PC notified me I had another system update ready and waiting for a reboot—the second update in less than a week! Turns out, this latest update fixes a big mistake that may (or may not) have rolled out earlier this month.Several Windows 10 users recently reported difficulty connecting to the Internet, with the presumed culprit being the December 9 update KB3201845.INSIDER Review: Enterprise guide to Windows 10 That may not be the case, however. Woody Leonhard, our colleague over at InfoWorld, says the connection issue pre-dates KB32018045 by several days. Microsoft has posted a banner warning across its entire support site that Windows 10 users with connection issues should first try and restart their PCs—a shut down and later cold boot won’t do.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Docker open-sources key tools for running containers

Docker is releasing Containerd (pronounced container-dee), a set of basic components designed to run containers, as part of an open source project.Containerd includes supervisor and executor components that work together to function as the core container runtime that underpins the company's Docker Engine software. It's designed to allow companies to build their own software for managing containers while using a consistent foundation.As the name implies, containers provide applications with a lightweight, constrained environment that makes them easy to migrate, scale up and scale down across different hardware. They've had increasing use over the past year, in part because they make it easier for developers to have a consistent environment for their software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 examples of the AWS path of disruption

How AWS has disrupted companies and sectorsImage by ThinkstockWhen Amazon.com launched Amazon Web Services a decade ago no one could have imagined that the business, viewed largely as a sideshow geared to serve the ecommerce company’s e-tailing interests, would become a significant player in corporate computing. But as CIO.com noted last week, AWS’ public cloud software, now a $13 billion business, has become a serious contender in the enterprise.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 examples of the AWS path of disruption

How AWS has disrupted companies and sectorsImage by ThinkstockWhen Amazon.com launched Amazon Web Services a decade ago no one could have imagined that the business, viewed largely as a sideshow geared to serve the ecommerce company’s e-tailing interests, would become a significant player in corporate computing. But as CIO.com noted last week, AWS’ public cloud software, now a $13 billion business, has become a serious contender in the enterprise.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ashley Madison to pay $1.6M settlement related to data breach

The company behind Ashley Madison, the adultery enabling website, has agreed to pay a US$1.6 million settlement related to a major data breach last year that exposed account details of 36 million users.Ashley Madison's operator, Toronto-based Ruby, is making the settlement for failing to protect the account information and for creating fake user profiles to lure in prospective customers, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday.In July 2015, a hacking group called Impact Team managed to steal the account details and then post them online a month later -- potentially damaging the reputation of the customers using the adultery website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here