Facebook, Google, World Wide Technology near top of Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work 2017 list

Depending up on how loosely I define "enterprise technology vendor," I'd say about a third of the 2017 Glassdoor Best Places to Work in the U.S. list consists of companies that supply IT professionals and those they support.Facebook (hey, they sell Workplace collaboration tools) is all the way up to #2, rising from #5 last year, and Google (#4), system integrator World Wide Technology (#5) and Adobe (#9) are all among the top 10. Consulting firm Bain & Co., is #1 for the third time since 2012, and replaces Airbnb as top dog this time around in the 9th annual rankings.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Malicious online ads expose millions to possible hack

Since October, millions of internet users have been exposed to malicious code served from the pixels in tainted banner ads meant to install Trojans and spyware, according to security firm ESET.The attack campaign, called Stegano, has been spreading from malicious ads in a “number of reputable news websites,” ESET said in a Tuesday blog post. It’s been preying on Internet Explorer users by scanning for vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash and then exploiting them.The attack is designed to infect victims with malware that can steal email password credentials through its keylogging and screenshot grabbing features, among others.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Malicious online ads expose millions to possible hack

Since October, millions of internet users have been exposed to malicious code served from the pixels in tainted banner ads meant to install Trojans and spyware, according to security firm ESET.The attack campaign, called Stegano, has been spreading from malicious ads in a “number of reputable news websites,” ESET said in a Tuesday blog post. It’s been preying on Internet Explorer users by scanning for vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash and then exploiting them.The attack is designed to infect victims with malware that can steal email password credentials through its keylogging and screenshot grabbing features, among others.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Learning Environments for OVN

Over the last few days, I’ve added two new Vagrant-based learning environments to my GitHub “learning-tools” repository, both of them focused on Open Virtual Network (OVN). OVN, if you aren’t aware, is part of the Open vSwitch (OVS) project aimed at adding open source network virtualization functionality to OVS. If you’re interested in learning more about OVN, you may want to check out these new learning environments.

Here’s more details on the two new learning environments:

1. The first one, found in the “ovn” folder of the repository, just builds out a simple three-node OVN 2.6.0 environment running Ubuntu 16.04. This would allow you to run OVN commands like ovn-nbctl, ovn-sbctl, ovs-vsctl, and other related commands to better understand how the components interact with each other and how OVN works.

2. The second environment, found in the “ovn-docker-ansible” folder, builds on the first one by adding Docker Engine to each node in the environment and adding the OVN driver for Docker networking. In addition to being able to run various OVS and OVN commands, this environment allows you to build OVN-backed overlay networks between Docker containers running on any node in the environment. Continue reading

Verizon CEO Says 5G Pre-Commercial Trials Likely in 1Q

Final 5G standards could be available in 2019, not 2020.

Nokia Publishes a Templating System to Manage VNFs

It leverages the former Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBand.

59% off Kangora 300 Lumens LED Tactical Mini Flashlight, Pack of 5 – Deal Alert

Heavy duty, compact and tough as nails makes the Kangora tactical torch perfect for hunting, camping or your next search and rescue mission. An ultra Bright zoomable 300 Lumens LED illuminates up to 600 feet. Features high, low, and strobe modes and a sturdy belt clip. Operates off a single AA battery. Right now Amazon is selling a pack of 5 for the discounted price of $23.99.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Big Switch adds security perimeter around SDN data center

Big Switch Networks today unraveled a wide-ranging group of products aimed at mitigating security attacks, scrutinizing cloud and container environments and improving its existing SDN-based monitoring software. In the security realm Big Switch rolled out its BigSecure Architecture, a high-performance cyber-defense platform that the company says will help enterprises protect against Terabit-speed attack. +More on Network World: 20 years ago: Hot sci/tech images from 1996+ “What we are seeing is network attack by thousands of IoT devices [like the recent Dyn DNS attack that hit 1.2Tbps] using massive speed and bandwidth to take down resources. To mitigate against that kind of attack can be cost prohibitive but what we have implemented in BigSecure can help mitigate those attacks,” said Prashant Gandhi, vice president and chief product officer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Big Switch adds security perimeter around SDN data center

Big Switch Networks today unraveled a wide-ranging group of products aimed at mitigating security attacks, scrutinizing cloud and container environments and improving its existing SDN-based monitoring software. In the security realm Big Switch rolled out its BigSecure Architecture, a high-performance cyber-defense platform that the company says will help enterprises protect against Terabit-speed attack. +More on Network World: 20 years ago: Hot sci/tech images from 1996+ “What we are seeing is network attack by thousands of IoT devices [like the recent Dyn DNS attack that hit 1.2Tbps] using massive speed and bandwidth to take down resources. To mitigate against that kind of attack can be cost prohibitive but what we have implemented in BigSecure can help mitigate those attacks,” said Prashant Gandhi, vice president and chief product officer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: SF Subway Hacked

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) was hit with a ransomware attack on Friday, causing fare station terminals to carry the message, “You are Hacked. ALL Data Encrypted.” Turns out, the miscreant behind this extortion attempt got hacked himself this past weekend, revealing details about other victims as well as tantalizing clues about his identity and location. —Krebs on Security

The post Worth Reading: SF Subway Hacked appeared first on 'net work.

New oVirt Project Underway

As oVirt continues to grow, the many projects within the broader oVirt community are thriving as well. Today, the oVirt community is pleased to announce the addition of a new incubator subproject, Vagrant Provider, as well as the graduation of another subproject, moVirt, from incubator to full project status!

According to maintainer Marc Young, Vagrant Provider is a provider plugin for the Vagrant suite that enables command-line ease of virtual machine provisioning and lifecycle management.

More on Vagrant Provider

The Vagrant provider plugin will interface with the oVirt REST API (version 4 and higher) using the oVirt provided ruby SDK 'ovirt-engine-sdk-ruby'. This allows users to abstract the user interface and experience into a set of command-line abilities to create, provision, destroy and manage the complete lifecycle of virtual machines. It also allows the use of external configuration management and configuration files themselves to be committed into code.

As Young explains in his project proposal, the "trend in configuration management, operations, and devops has been to maintain as much of the development process as possible in terms of the virtual machines and hosts that they run on. With software like Terraform the tasks of creating the underlying infrastructure such as Continue reading

Say goodbye to MS-DOS command prompt

My very first technology article, back in 1987, was about MS-DOS 3.30. Almost 30 years later, I’m still writing, but the last bit of MS-DOS, cmd.exe — the command prompt — is on its way out the door. It’s quite possible that you have been using Microsoft Windows for years — decades, even — without realizing that there’s a direct line to Microsoft’s earliest operating system or that an MS-DOS underpinning has carried over from one Windows version to another — less extensive with every revision, but still there nonetheless. Now we’re about to say goodbye to all of that. Interestingly, though, there was not always an MS-DOS from Microsoft, and it wasn’t even dubbed that at birth. The history is worth reviewing now that the end is nigh.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Say goodbye to MS-DOS command prompt

My very first technology article, back in 1987, was about MS-DOS 3.30. Almost 30 years later, I’m still writing, but the last bit of MS-DOS, cmd.exe — the command prompt — is on its way out the door. It’s quite possible that you have been using Microsoft Windows for years — decades, even — without realizing that there’s a direct line to Microsoft’s earliest operating system or that an MS-DOS underpinning has carried over from one Windows version to another — less extensive with every revision, but still there nonetheless. Now we’re about to say goodbye to all of that. Interestingly, though, there was not always an MS-DOS from Microsoft, and it wasn’t even dubbed that at birth. The history is worth reviewing now that the end is nigh.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tech Talent Shortage Holding Back Business

Backdoor accounts found in 80 Sony IP security camera models

Many network security cameras made by Sony could be taken over by hackers and infected with botnet malware if their firmware is not updated to the latest version.Researchers from SEC Consult have found two backdoor accounts that exist in 80 models of professional Sony security cameras, mainly used by companies and government agencies given their high price.One set of hard-coded credentials is in the Web interface and allows a remote attacker to send requests that would enable the Telnet service on the camera, the SEC Consult researchers said in an advisory Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Backdoor accounts found in 80 Sony IP security camera models

Many network security cameras made by Sony could be taken over by hackers and infected with botnet malware if their firmware is not updated to the latest version.Researchers from SEC Consult have found two backdoor accounts that exist in 80 models of professional Sony security cameras, mainly used by companies and government agencies given their high price.One set of hard-coded credentials is in the Web interface and allows a remote attacker to send requests that would enable the Telnet service on the camera, the SEC Consult researchers said in an advisory Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Arago teaches an AI to play games, the better to manage IT systems

If an AI could rule a world, would you trust it to manage your IT systems? German software company Arago is hoping you will.The developer of IT automation system Hiro (short for Human Intelligence Robotically Optimized) has been teaching its software how to play Freeciv, an open source computer strategy game inspired by Sid Meier's Civilization series of games, and in the process is learning to make IT management more fun.Hiro is an AI-based automation system that usually sits on top of other IT service management tools. Unlike script-based systems, it learns from its users how best to manage a company's IT systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Arago teaches an AI to play games, the better to manage IT systems

If an AI could rule a world, would you trust it to manage your IT systems? German software company Arago is hoping you will.The developer of IT automation system Hiro (short for Human Intelligence Robotically Optimized) has been teaching its software how to play Freeciv, an open source computer strategy game inspired by Sid Meier's Civilization series of games, and in the process is learning to make IT management more fun.Hiro is an AI-based automation system that usually sits on top of other IT service management tools. Unlike script-based systems, it learns from its users how best to manage a company's IT systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google says it will reach 100% renewable energy goal by end of 2017

Google in 2012 announced a goal of running its operations 100% on renewable energy. Today the company announced that it plans to meet that target by the end of 2017, a year ahead of schedule.Google will purchase direct renewable energy and buy renewable energy credits that match the amount of power the company uses to power its global operations. That’s 2.6 GigaWatts of electricity, or 2,600 MegaWatts (MW).Google is just one of a handful of vendors, particularly those in the IaaS cloud computing market, who have committed to buying renewable energy to power their operations. Last week Amazon Web Services announced that it plans to be 50% powered by green energy sources by the end of next year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Reaction: Openflow and Software Based Switching

Over at the Networking Nerd, Tom has an interesting post up about openflow—this pair of sentences, in particular, caught my eye—

The side effect of OpenFlow is that it proved that networking could be done in software just as easily as it could be done in hardware. Things that we thought we historically needed ASICs and FPGAs to do could be done by a software construct.

I don’t think this is quite right, actually… When I first started working in network engineering (wheels were square then, and dirt hadn’t yet been invented—but we did have solar flares that caused bit flips in memory), we had all software based switching. The Cisco 7200, I think, was the ultimate software based switching box, although the little 2ru 4500 (get your head out of the modern router line, think really old stuff here!) had a really fast processor, and hence could process packets really quickly. These were our two favorite lab boxes, in fact. But in the early 1990’s, the SSE was introduced, soldered on to an SSP blade that slid into a 7500 chassis.

The rest, as they say, is history. The networking world went to chips designed to switch Continue reading