9 big small business social media no-nos

These days, just about every business, regardless of size, has a presence on social media. It might be just a Facebook or a Pinterest page, but chances are if you are a small business owner, especially a retailer, you have an account on one of the major social media platforms. And while having a Facebook and Pinterest (as well Twitter and Instagram) page can be beneficial, it can negatively impact your business if you make one (or more) of these nine small business social media mistakes.[ Related: Facebook, Snapchat and the future of live video ]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ciena’s Stock Rises on Q1 2017 Guidance & Order Backlog

It had an order backlog of $1.15 billion, "its highest ever."

BT Teams With Huawei on 5G Research

Huawei is a key partner for BT and helped build the company's optical network.

Docker Networking Cookbook is now available!

As many of you have noticed I’ve been neglecting the blog for past few months.  The main reason for this is that the majority of my free time was being spent generating content for a new book.  I’m pleased to announce that the book, Docker Networking Cookbook, has now been released! 

Here’s a brief description of the book…

“Networking functionality in Docker has changed considerably since its first release, evolving to offer a rich set of built-in networking features, as well as an extensible plugin model allowing for a wide variety of networking functionality. This book explores Docker networking capabilities from end to end. Begin by examining the building blocks used by Docker to implement fundamental containing networking before learning how to consume built-in networking constructs as well as custom networks you create on your own. Next, explore common third-party networking plugins, including detailed information on how these plugins inter-operate with the Docker engine. Consider available options for securing container networks, as well as a process for troubleshooting container connectivity.  Finally, examine advanced Docker networking functions and their relevant use cases, tying together everything you need to succeed with your own projects.”

The book is Continue reading

Ericsson Says Company Restructuring Is Ahead of Schedule

The accelerated schedule will result in higher-than-expected restructuring charges this year.

AT&T to cough up $88M for ‘cramming’ mobile customer bills

Some 2.7 million AT&T customers will share $88 million in compensation for having had unauthorized third-party charges added to their mobile bills, the Federal Trade Commission announced this morning. The latest shot in the federal government’s years-long battle against such abuses, these refunds will represent the most money ever recouped by victims of what is known as “mobile cramming,” according to the FTC. From an FTC press release: Through the FTC’s refund program, nearly 2.5 million current AT&T customers will receive a credit on their bill within the next 75 days, and more than 300,000 former customers will receive a check. The average refund amount is $31. ...To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T to cough up $88M for ‘cramming’ mobile customer bills

Some 2.7 million AT&T customers will share $88 million in compensation for having had unauthorized third-party charges added to their mobile bills, the Federal Trade Commission announced this morning.The latest shot in the federal government’s years-long battle against such abuses, these refunds will represent the most money ever recouped by victims of what is known as “mobile cramming,” according to the FTC.From an FTC press release: Through the FTC’s refund program, nearly 2.5 million current AT&T customers will receive a credit on their bill within the next 75 days, and more than 300,000 former customers will receive a check. The average refund amount is $31. ...To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: How to be a CTO in the age of digital disruption (and live to tell about it)

I’ve built my career in a field where trader voice technology has only improved incrementally over the past 40 years. After decades of building legacy technology, my co-founders and I set out to disrupt the industry we had helped build.Despite years of leading technology teams and large-scale product launches, I was presented with a unique opportunity to start from the ground up. I had to start from scratch with a new set of technology, build a team, create architecture that was future-proof, scalable, secure and compliant, and take on the task of educating our customers and my team about why WebRTC and the Amazon Cloud was the right technology for our stack. It was daunting task, but also a common set of circumstances for a modern startup CTO.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: How to be a CTO in the age of digital disruption (and live to tell about it)

I’ve built my career in a field where trader voice technology has only improved incrementally over the past 40 years. After decades of building legacy technology, my co-founders and I set out to disrupt the industry we had helped build.Despite years of leading technology teams and large-scale product launches, I was presented with a unique opportunity to start from the ground up. I had to start from scratch with a new set of technology, build a team, create architecture that was future-proof, scalable, secure and compliant, and take on the task of educating our customers and my team about why WebRTC and the Amazon Cloud was the right technology for our stack. It was daunting task, but also a common set of circumstances for a modern startup CTO.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

78% off Senso Bluetooth Sweatproof Sport Headphones – Deal Alert

These highly rated and inexpensive Bluetooth sport headphones from Senso promise high quality sound, sweatproof design, a comfortable fit, noise suppression, a long battery life and reliable Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity to your device. All for just $38 currently on Amazon, where the Senso sport headphones average 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 1,560 people (read recent reviews here). See the discounted headphones on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Linux Foundation adds an open source networking specialist to the team

In recognition of the increasingly central role open source technology has played for the networking sector, the Linux Foundation today named Arpit Joshipura as its general manager for networking and orchestration. Joshipura, a veteran tech executive who has worked at Dell, Ericsson, and Nortel, among others, is considered by the organization to be a foundational contributor to open source software in general and networking in particular. Currently, he’s the chief marketing officer for Prevoty, an application security startup in Los Angeles. + ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Say goodbye to MS-DOS command prompt | Trump’s plan for protecting IT jobs raises hopes, fears +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Vasona Rolls Out New Mobile Traffic Management Capabilities

Think of how a load balancer distributes network traffic, but for mobile.

Cyberspies stole secrets from industrial giant ThyssenKrupp

Germany-based industrial conglomerate ThyssenKrupp was hit by a cyberespionage attack earlier this year that resulted in data being stolen from its industrial solutions and steel producing units.An investigation revealed that the attack was carried out by a professional group of hackers from Southeast Asia and targeted technological know-how and research, according to the group,While hackers managed to steal some information, its exact nature is not clear, with the exception of certain project data from an engineering company, ThyssenKrupp said in an emailed statement Thursday. As a result, at this time there's no reliable estimation of the damage to the company's intellectual property.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cyberspies stole secrets from industrial giant ThyssenKrupp

Germany-based industrial conglomerate ThyssenKrupp was hit by a cyberespionage attack earlier this year that resulted in data being stolen from its industrial solutions and steel producing units.An investigation revealed that the attack was carried out by a professional group of hackers from Southeast Asia and targeted technological know-how and research, according to the group,While hackers managed to steal some information, its exact nature is not clear, with the exception of certain project data from an engineering company, ThyssenKrupp said in an emailed statement Thursday. As a result, at this time there's no reliable estimation of the damage to the company's intellectual property.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

November 2016: The month in hacks and breaches

On November 13, the breach notification site LeakedSource disclosed that FriendFinder Networks, Inc., which operates such websites as Adultfriendfinder.com and Penthouse.com, had been hacked and over 400 million customer accounts were compromised.In addition to being the largest leak of 2016 (the 360 million records from leaked from MySpace in May comes in second), this data breach also marked the second time in 2 years that FriendFinder users had their account information compromised.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

November 2016: The month in hacks and breaches

On November 13, the breach notification site LeakedSource disclosed that FriendFinder Networks, Inc., which operates such websites as Adultfriendfinder.com and Penthouse.com, had been hacked and over 400 million customer accounts were compromised.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Fighting ransomware: A fresh look at Windows Server approaches

Ransomware is evil, and it continues to prey upon thousands of businesses every year. Most infections are fairly quiet affairs: A small business gets infected, almost always by some employee opening an email attachment he or she mistakes as legitimate but that really contains the payload of a virus. Then several undetected hours later, all of the business' files -- at least those the employee had access to, which in a lot of businesses without good security and permissions policies is all of the files -- are encrypted, and demands for payment of a ransom in Bitcoin are made in exchange for the decryption key.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Fighting ransomware: A fresh look at Windows Server approaches

Ransomware is evil, and it continues to prey upon thousands of businesses every year. Most infections are fairly quiet affairs: A small business gets infected, almost always by some employee opening an email attachment he or she mistakes as legitimate but that really contains the payload of a virus. Then several undetected hours later, all of the business' files -- at least those the employee had access to, which in a lot of businesses without good security and permissions policies is all of the files -- are encrypted, and demands for payment of a ransom in Bitcoin are made in exchange for the decryption key.Of course, secure email use and employee behavior is a problem in businesses of all sizes, and there have been some high-profile ransomware infections. Most recently in the news was the attack on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), or Muni as it is known by Bay Area residents. Muni had to give free trips to all comers over the Thanksgiving weekend while it worked to restore access to its machines. The hacker who infected the utility also claims to have access to 30GB of stolen Muni data; the utility disputes this claim, Continue reading

Fighting ransomware: A fresh look at Windows Server approaches

Ransomware is evil, and it continues to prey upon thousands of businesses every year. Most infections are fairly quiet affairs: A small business gets infected, almost always by some employee opening an email attachment he or she mistakes as legitimate but that really contains the payload of a virus. Then several undetected hours later, all of the business' files -- at least those the employee had access to, which in a lot of businesses without good security and permissions policies is all of the files -- are encrypted, and demands for payment of a ransom in Bitcoin are made in exchange for the decryption key.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

What the rise of social media hacking means for your business

A product marketing manager at your company just posted a photo on LinkedIn. The problem? In the background of the image, there’s a Post-It note that contains his network passwords. You can barely see it, but using artificial intelligence algorithms, hackers can scan for the publicly available image, determine there are network passwords, and use them for data theft.According to data security expert David Maynor, this is not rocket science. In fact, the AI program is easier to use than a search engine. “The AI can identify objects in an image and the environment of the photo, guess at a description of the image contents as well as your likely age, gender, facial expression, and more,” says Maynor. “And these tools are becoming increasingly powerful with every image they scan, learning and becoming more accurate.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here