Are InfoSec vendors ‘sowing confusion’ and selling ‘useless’ products?

As a journalist, you know the drill at media briefings. Hosted and paid-for by a vendor, and with speakers from the company - as well as (usually) an end-user or an academic, the idea is to bring journalists together with the experts to discuss the prominent matters in the industry. And if those issues and industry challenges can be resolved with one of the vendor’s solutions then everyone’s a winner.The vendor gets the business, the press coverage and the thought leadership, while the journalist gets the story, the contacts and the free lunch. The speakers get some media air-time. It’s no surprise then, that these are usually enjoyable, if tame, affairs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 hidden Android Nougat features you should be using

Nougat is here—finally! And we’re not just talking about the opt-in beta. Google has finally released Android 7.0 Nougat for Nexus users. With it comes a slew of new features, tweaks, and changes that should help make your Android experience even better than before.There’s been plenty of information published on Nougat’s new offerings—like its support for split-screen apps and direct reply messaging—but there are also a number of smaller features that are just as helpful that haven’t been touted as loudly. Here’s a look at some of those hidden features you should be using if you’ve got Nougat running on your Android device.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to spot signs your project is about to fail

Project management has many facets and anyone of them could derail even the best-laid plans. Recognizing the signs of an impending disaster can give a project manager the "heads up" before it happens. To help you spot the telltale signs, here are some of the more common signs grouped into three key categories.1. High-level objectives Missing strategic tie-in: Difficulty easily and clearly tie the project purpose and goals back to company-wide objectives is one of the biggest signals that project needs to be re-evaluated. Forging ahead without having a clear understanding of the project is beneficial to the company is a huge mistake in the making.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 apps to help you get more done in less time

Do you ever feel like there aren't enough hours in a day? If you're looking to get more out of your work day, here are five apps -- recommended by Chris Battles, vice president and general manager, communications cloud division at Citrix, that he uses to improve his own productivity.Plan your days ahead of time According to best-selling time management author Brian Tracy, "The more time you take to make a list of everything you have to do, in advance, the more effective and efficient you will be." Battles suggests trying Wunderlist to help you stay organized during the week. You can create, organize and share your lists before you start your day -- from your daily to-do list to managing multiple, ongoing projects and goals -- ultimately helping you to stay on track and focused.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Deception technology grows and evolves

Deception technologies such as honeypots are becoming increasingly popular with enterprises as the products get more flexible and the tools allow security analysts swamped with incident reports to zero in on cases of actual ongoing infiltration.According to a report released in August by research firm Technavio, the deception technology market is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 9 percent, and is predicted to reach $1.33 billion by 2020.The technology includes not only the traditional honeypots but also a new class of multi-layered, distributed endpoint decoys, according to Technavio analyst Amrita Choudhury.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Deception technology grows and evolves

Deception technologies such as honeypots are becoming increasingly popular with enterprises as the products get more flexible and the tools allow security analysts swamped with incident reports to zero in on cases of actual ongoing infiltration.According to a report released in August by research firm Technavio, the deception technology market is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 9 percent, and is predicted to reach $1.33 billion by 2020.The technology includes not only the traditional honeypots but also a new class of multi-layered, distributed endpoint decoys, according to Technavio analyst Amrita Choudhury.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to stop social media from being the gateway for malware

Easy to access, widely used, and outside of enterprise control, social media sites are gold mines for malicious actors. People share a lot of seemingly innocuous information, which is exactly the kind of data that hackers love to collect and use in phishing or spear phishing campaigns. A recent NopSec 2016 State of Vulnerability Risk Management Report found that organizations use inadequate risk evaluation scoring systems. The report claimed that social media -- which often isn't included in any risk evaluation system -- is now a top platform for cybersecurity.So, what's the correlation between social media and the rise in malware?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sophisticated malware possibly tied to recent ATM heists in Thailand

Security researchers have found a sophisticated malware program that may have been used recently by a gang of hackers to steal more than US$350,000 from ATMs in Thailand.A sample of the new malware, dubbed Ripper, was uploaded to the VirusTotal database from an Internet Protocol address in Thailand last week, shortly before local media reported that hackers used malware to steal 12.29 million Baht from 21 ATMs in the country.The incident forced the state-owned Government Savings Bank to temporarily shut down all of its ATMs made by one vendor so they could be checked for malware, the Bangkok Post reported last week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sophisticated malware possibly tied to recent ATM heists in Thailand

Security researchers have found a sophisticated malware program that may have been used recently by a gang of hackers to steal more than US$350,000 from ATMs in Thailand.A sample of the new malware, dubbed Ripper, was uploaded to the VirusTotal database from an Internet Protocol address in Thailand last week, shortly before local media reported that hackers used malware to steal 12.29 million Baht from 21 ATMs in the country.The incident forced the state-owned Government Savings Bank to temporarily shut down all of its ATMs made by one vendor so they could be checked for malware, the Bangkok Post reported last week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Up to 45% off Waterproof Compression Dry Bags – Deal Alert

Infityle waterproof Dry Bag sacks & smart phone Case creates a perfect combination of waterproof bags for any adventurer, it's soft, flexible & strong, even in the harshest of conditions, whether you are in the freezing conditions of Alaska or in a desert keeping the dust out. Thermo welding technology ensures the strong seams are watertight. Reinforced construction at all stress points make it even tougher. Don't worry about your outdoor gears and fishing gear -- its taken care of. This bundle includes an Infityle Water proof dry tube, a waterproof smartphone bag, and a multifunction survival pocket tool. Averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from Amazon (read reviews). It's typical list price of $36.99 has been reduced by up to 45% depending on size and color. See the discounted compression bag bundle now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco DevNet Scavenger Hunt at GSX 17

At Cisco’s GSX conference at the start of FY17, the DevNet team made a programming scavenger hunt by posting daily challenges that required using things like containers, Cisco Shipped, Python, and RESTful APIs in Cisco software in order to solve puzzles. In order to submit an answer, the team created an API that contestants had to use (in effect creating another challenge that contestants had to solve).

This post contains the artifacts I created while solving some of the challenges.

Tools Used

  • Postman
  • Browser (for reading docs and such)
  • Python 2.7 (for Challenge 2)

Challenge 2: UCS Manager API

Your customer has been asked by their Help Desk Manager to make it easier on his first line engineers when requests come in related to UCS Server problems. Today, they have to train engineers on UCS Manager to get details like blade status, firmware levels, and uptime.  He is asking how they could embed those details in their help desk system.  Create some sample code leveraging the Python SDK for UCS Manager.

  • There is a Service Profile with a dn of org-root/ls-gsx-minihack1. Find its int_id.
Answer

Challenge 5: ACI REST API

Congratulations! Your customer has selected ACI Continue reading

New products of the week 8.29.16

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.ASG-Mobius 6.0Key features: ASG-Mobius 6.0 is a purpose-built content management system with proven scalability supporting platform, device and data independence. New AWS support enables cloud based solutions, on premise or hybrid implementations. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 8.29.16

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.ASG-Mobius 6.0Key features: ASG-Mobius 6.0 is a purpose-built content management system with proven scalability supporting platform, device and data independence. New AWS support enables cloud based solutions, on premise or hybrid implementations. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft Excel is ruining scientific papers with its autocorrect feature

The iPhone's autocorrect feature is often a help, but also a major source of embarrassment. So much so there is a whole website dedicated to nothing but embarrassing autocorrect moments.Those are merely embarrassing moments. Microsoft Excel, the de facto spreadsheet application in the world, is making a mess of scientific papers all over the world thanks to the software's own auto-format and autocorrect functions.According to the BBC, a report from the Melbourne, Australia-based academic institute Baker IDI, found four 704 errors in genetic names in 3,597 published scientific papers. That's almost 20 percent of all papers. For example, Excel changed the name of a gene called SEPT2 (short for Septin) to a date, September 2.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: IT security’s reality distortion field

Despite increasing data breaches (a whopping 4.7 billion data records worldwide being lost or stolen since 2013) and mounting regulatory and customer pressures around data protection, IT decision makers worldwide continue to ignore reality and rely on the same breach prevention strategies when it comes to protecting customer data and information. Today’s IT security professional clearly has a “reality distortion field” when it comes to the effectiveness of perimeter security. According to a recent survey of IT decision makers worldwide, one-third of organizations experienced a data breach in the past 12 months. Yet, while 86 percent of organizations have increased perimeter security spending, 69 percent are not confident their data would be secure if perimeter defenses were breached. This is up from 66 percent in 2015 and 59 percent in 2014. Furthermore, 66 percent believe unauthorized users can access their network, and nearly two in five (16 percent) said unauthorized users could access their entire network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: On-screen security alerts don’t work

Pop-up alerts on computer screens don’t work because they arrive at the wrong times, scientists say.Despite the popular belief—cultivated perhaps mainly by bosses—that humans can multitask, many believe they can’t. And that hypothesis may be proven, in part, by the discovery that on-screen alerts generally don’t achieve action if one is busy doing something else. The result is an increase in security vulnerabilities.Computer users are engrossed in tasks when the randomly timed alerts arrive, and it makes them less likely to respond.+ Also on Network World: How to craft a security awareness program that works +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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