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Outsourced IT workers ask Feinstein for help, get form letter in return

A University of California IT employee whose job is being outsourced to India recently wrote Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) for help.Feinstein's office sent back a letter addressing manufacturing job losses, not IT, and offered the worker no assistance.The employee is part of a group of 50 IT workers and another 30 contractors facing layoffs after the university hired an offshore outsourcing firm. The firm, India-based HCL, won a contract to manage infrastructure services.That contract is worth about $50 million over five years and can be leveraged by other university campuses -- meaning they could also bring in HCL if they so choose.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

12 hardware and software vulnerabilities you should address now

It's not a stretch to say that most organizations have at least some old hardware and software still in use. An old computer that's still chugging along, running an old operating system and perhaps an application that is hard to replace, doesn't necessarily raise a red flag with IT staff. Why spend money on new equipment or software if what's already in-house is adequate and functioning?Walker White, president of BDNA, a company that tracks and analyzes end-of-life (EOL) data for hardware, software and medical devices, says that the main problem with out-of-date software and legacy hardware is that once they pass their EOL cycle, the vendor no longer maintains or supports the products, resulting in security vulnerabilities and risk to organizations. As BDNA's State of the Enterprise Report (Q2 2016) indicates, many organizations are unaware of the potential liabilities, which can cost millions of dollars in the case of a successful attack after a vulnerability is exploited.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

10 Free Network Management Tools

These open source tools can be invaluable aids for managing and troubleshooting networks.

Leaky IoT devices help hackers attack e-commerce sites

Millions of IoT devices are misconfigured so that they can forward messages -- which, combined with default admin settings, allows them to be used to attack e-commerce and other websites, a new report says.The problem is well known and has been around for a more than a decade, said Ryan Barnett, principal security researcher at Akamai Technologies, which produced the report.The problem first came to Akamai's attention when the content delivery network noticed attacks against its customers where the attackers were checking to see whether particular user name and password combinations were valid on the site.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Leaky IoT devices help hackers attack e-commerce sites

Thousands of internet-connected devices are a security disaster in the making

Set and forgetImage by ThinkstockWe talked to a host of tech experts about the state of security in the internet of things world, and found out the good, the bad, and the very ugly.Under attack by ... cameras?Image by ThinkstockTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Thousands of internet-connected devices are a security disaster in the making

Attackers Exploit Weak IoT Security

Akamai researchers say attackers are using an old OpenSSH vulnerability to target IoT devices and launch attacks.

Record IoT DDoS attacks raise bar for defenders

Now that its source code has been released you can expect more attacks from Mirai, the malware behind the largest DDoS attack on record, which was powered by hijacked IoT devices.Since release of that code last week it has been responsible for smaller attacks that look like newcomers experimenting with the malware in preparation for bigger things, say security researchers at Imperva. “Likely, these are signs of things to come and we expect to deal with Mirai-powered attacks in the near future,” they say in their blog post.That concern is echoed by researchers at F5, who say, “we can definitely expect the IoT DDoSing trend to rise massively in the global threat landscape.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Record IoT DDoS attacks raise bar for defenders

Now that its source code has been released you can expect more attacks from Mirai, the malware behind the largest DDoS attack on record, which was powered by hijacked IoT devices.Since release of that code last week it has been responsible for smaller attacks that look like newcomers experimenting with the malware in preparation for bigger things, say security researchers at Incapsula. “Likely, these are signs of things to come and we expect to deal with Mirai-powered attacks in the near future,” they say in their blog post.That concern is echoed by researchers at F5, who say, “we can definitely expect the IoT DDoSing trend to rise massively in the global threat landscape.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Are enterprises successfully escaping Mainframe Island?

From time to time, a vendor's PR rep sends me a note about the "problem" that is caused by mainframe systems being at the hub of enterprise computing. In reality, these systems often offer more integrated processing power, larger memory capacity and more efficient database operations than a distributed, x86-based solution.The most recent pitch I received included this sentence: "How the dusty old legacy mainframe holds back cloud initiatives... and how it can be modernized."What are the real costs? Part of the reason mainframes won't die is that often they simply cost less to operate when all of the costs of ownership and workload operations are considered.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Are enterprises successfully escaping Mainframe Island?

National Science Foundation doles out $12M for wireless growth

The U.S. National Science Foundation yesterday handed out 11 grants, totaling $12 million, to researchers working on bringing the benefits of the public airwaves to more Americans than ever before.The awards went to researchers at a diverse range of educational institutions, including the U.S. Naval Academy, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin, and Texas A&M, among others. The research itself tended to center on work that makes spectrum sharing easier, freeing up space across the increasingly crowded airwaves.Specifically the NSF said the awards were directed at four major areas, including: Innovative radio hardware and access architectures to enable spectrum sharing. Harmonious co-existence of heterogeneous wireless technologies. Development of automated detection mechanisms and compliance certification methods. Spectrum access for science services. +ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: With help from Docker, Google's Go jumps in popularity + Wi-Fi vs. LTE could be the start of a mobile rollercoasterTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Game on: Alienware’s 20-year affair with gaming helps drive the future of VR

Alienware co-founder Frank Azor has fond memories of the comany's early days. It was a wild time of building kick-ass PCs, gaming, lots of sci-fi shows and generally, having a good time. "It was four guys in a tiny little office, sending in a couple of review machines, magazines saying they were great, and the phone beginning to ring very, very slowly. We would sell about one computer every day, maybe," Azor said. October 15 marks 20 years of Alienware's existence. Now a part of Dell, Alienware has matured into a PC gaming powerhouse. It is also driving big changes for virtual and mixed reality, which Azor believes will drive PC growth in the coming decades.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nurturing tomorrow’s techies STEMs from promoting technology in schools

With the school year underway, I’m reminded about the critical role that education and technology play in our future. Whatever your role—parent, teacher, student, mentor, employer, employee—technology literacy needs to be a priority. For those involved with elementary school students, the best place to start is emphasizing education that promotes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). + Also on Network World: STEM majors dominate salary-based college ranking +STEM programs offer an excellent opportunity to infuse technology into the learning process early on. Business and education experts agree that STEM education better prepares students and opens the door for greater career options. A STEM-based education is important because some element of science, technology, engineering and/or math is evident in most well-paying jobs. A recent article in Network World stated a majority of the highest-paying college majors are in engineering, led by petroleum engineers with a mid-career median salary of $172,000, according to Payscale. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google Graveyard: What Google has killed in 2016

RIPGoogle has rolled out plenty of new things in 2016, from its Android-powered Pixel smartphones to its Daydream virtual reality platform to its Duo Facetime competitor. But as always, Google has had to make room for its new stuff by ditching some old offerings. Here’s a roundup of products, services and more that Google rid itself of in 2016. (Look back at Google’s 2015 Graveyard too.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung cuts revenue and profit forecast after Note7 fiasco

Samsung Electronics has cut its revenue and profit forecasts for the third quarter, after the disastrous launch of its flagship Galaxy Note7, which eventually led to the company recalling the smartphones and stopping their production in the wake of reports of overheating batteries.The South Korean company said Wednesday that revenue for the quarter was likely to be about 47 trillion won (US$4.2 billion), down from the 49 trillion won that it had expected earlier this month in a preliminary forecast. Operating profit is expected to drop by about 2.6 trillion won to 5.2 trillion won.The company said it was revising its revenue and profit forecast because of the Note7 debacle.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Benefits of MPLS – Why MPLS is used ? – MPLS Advantages

Benefits of MPLS, Why MPLS is used on today networks and the Advantages of MPLS will be explained in this post. As an Encapsulation and VPN mechanism, MPLS brings many benefits to the IP networks. In this article most of them will be explained and design examples will be shared by referring more detailed articles on the website as […]

The post Benefits of MPLS – Why MPLS is used ? – MPLS Advantages appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

Do I Need Redundant Firewalls?

One of my readers sent me this question:

I often see designs involving several more than 2 DCs spread over different locations. I was actually wondering if that makes sense to bring high availability inside the DC while there's redundancy in place between the DCs. For example, is there a good reason to put a cluster of firewalls in a DC, when it is possible to quickly fail over to another available DC, as a redundant cluster increases costs, licenses and complexity.

Rule#1 of good engineering: Know Your Problem ;) In this particular case: