Alleged NSA data dump contain hacking tools rarely seen

A stolen cache of files that may belong to the National Security Agency contains genuine hacking tools that not only work, but show a level of sophistication rarely seen, according to security researchers.That includes malware that can infect a device’s firmware and persist, even if the operating system is reinstalled.  “It's terrifying because it demonstrates a serious level of expertise and technical ability,” said Brendan Dolan-Gavitt, an assistant professor at New York University’s school of engineering.He’s been among the researchers going over the sample files from the cache, after an anonymous group called the Shadow Brokers posted them online.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Real-time web analytics

The diagram shows a typical scale out web service with a load balancer distributing requests among a pool of web servers. The sFlow HTTP Structures standard is supported by commercial load balancers, including F5 and A10, and open source load balancers and web servers, including HAProxy, NGINX, Apache, and Tomcat.
The simplest way to try out the examples in this article is to download sFlow-RT and install the Host sFlow agent and Apache mod-sflow instrumentation on a Linux web server.

The following sFlow-RT metrics report request rates based on the standard sFlow HTTP counters:
  • http_method_option
  • http_method_get
  • http_method_head
  • http_method_post
  • http_method_put
  • http_method_delete
  • http_method_trace
  • http_method_connect
  • http_method_other
  • http_status_1xx
  • http_status_2xx
  • http_status_3xx
  • http_status_4xx
  • http_status_5xx
  • http_status_other
  • http_requests
In addition, mod-sflow exports the following standard thread pool metrics:
  • workers_active
  • workers_idle
  • workers_max
  • workers_utilization
  • req_delayed
  • req_dropped
Cluster performance metrics describes how sFlow-RT's REST API is used to compute summary statistics for a pool of servers. For example, the following query calculates the cluster wide total request rates:
http://localhost:8008/metric/ALL/sum:http_method_get,sum:http_method_post/json
More interesting is that the sFlow telemetry stream also includes randomly sampled HTTP request records with the following attributes:
  • protocol
  • serveraddress
  • serveraddress6
  • serverport
  • clientaddress
  • clientaddress6
  • clientport
  • proxyprotocol
  • proxyserveraddress
  • proxyserveraddress6
  • proxyserverport
  • proxyclientaddress
  • proxyclientaddress6
  • proxyclientport
  • httpmethod
  • httpprotocol
  • httphost
  • httpuseragent
  • httpxff
  • httpauthuser
  • httpmimetype
  • httpurl
  • httpreferer
  • httpstatus
  • Continue reading

Intel Leverages Chip Might To Etch Photonics Future

Computing has gone through a few waves. There was human to human computing in the first few decades, and in recent years it has been dominated by human to machine computing with hyperscale consumer-facing applications, and we are on the cusp of a third wave of machine to machine computing that will swell compute, storage, and networking to untold zettabytes of traffic.

Under such data strain, there is an explosive need for bandwidth across datacenters as a whole, but particularly among hyperscalers with their hundreds of millions to billions of users. (Ironically, some datacenters are only now moving to 10

Intel Leverages Chip Might To Etch Photonics Future was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Cisco to shed 5,500 staff in refocus on IoT, security, and cloud

Cisco Systems plans to lay off about 7 percent of its global workforce in a restructuring that will see it further focus on hot IT areas such as the internet of things, security, collaboration, next-generation data centers, and the cloud.The move will cost the company around $700 million in redundancy payments to the roughly 5,500 staff who will be out of jobs in the coming months. The layoffs will hit some of Cisco's smaller and more mature business areas where long-term growth prospects are low, the company said."We expect to reinvest substantially all of the cost savings from these actions back into these businesses and will continue to aggressively invest to focus on our areas of future growth," Cisco said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco to shed 5,500 staff in refocus on IoT, security, and cloud

Cisco Systems plans to lay off about 7 percent of its global workforce in a restructuring that will see it further focus on hot IT areas such as the internet of things, security, collaboration, next-generation data centers, and the cloud.The move will cost the company around $700 million in redundancy payments to the roughly 5,500 staff who will be out of jobs in the coming months. The layoffs will hit some of Cisco's smaller and more mature business areas where long-term growth prospects are low, the company said."We expect to reinvest substantially all of the cost savings from these actions back into these businesses and will continue to aggressively invest to focus on our areas of future growth," Cisco said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco to shed 5,500 staff in refocus on IoT, security, and cloud

Cisco Systems plans to lay off about 7 percent of its global workforce in a restructuring that will see it further focus on hot IT areas such as the internet of things, security, collaboration, next-generation data centers, and the cloud.The move will cost the company around $700 million in redundancy payments to the roughly 5,500 staff who will be out of jobs in the coming months. The layoffs will hit some of Cisco's smaller and more mature business areas where long-term growth prospects are low, the company said."We expect to reinvest substantially all of the cost savings from these actions back into these businesses and will continue to aggressively invest to focus on our areas of future growth," Cisco said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco, Fortinet issue patches against NSA malware

Customers of certain Cisco and Fortinet security gear need to  patch exploits made public this week after a purported hack of NSA malware.Both companies have issued fixes to address exploits that were posted online and after they found the exploits represent real threats to some of their products, including versions of Cisco’s popular PIX and ASA firewalls and versions of Fortinet’s signature Fortigate firewalls.Other exploits may affect WatchGuard and TOPSEC products, but those companies did not immediately respond to inquiries. When they do this story will be updated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco, Fortinet issue patches against NSA malware

Customers of certain Cisco and Fortinet security gear need to  patch exploits made public this week after a purported hack of NSA malware.Both companies have issued fixes to address exploits that were posted online and after they found the exploits represent real threats to some of their products, including versions of Cisco’s popular PIX and ASA firewalls and versions of Fortinet’s signature Fortigate firewalls.Other exploits may affect Watchguard and TOPSEC products, but those companies did not immediately respond to inquiries. When they do this story will be updated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco to jettison 5,500 jobs, will reinvest in cloud, IoT & more

Cisco today confirmed it will lay off about 7% of its workforce – about 5,500 jobs.Or as Cisco put it: "Today, we announced a restructuring enabling us to optimize our cost base in lower growth areas of our portfolio and further invest in key priority areas such as security, IoT, collaboration, next generation data center and cloud. We expect to reinvest substantially all of the cost savings from these actions back into these businesses and will continue to aggressively invest to focus on our areas of future growth."During its earnings announcement the company said total revenue actually increased 3% to $48.7 billion for its fiscal year ended July 30. Still, the company faces challenges in its core switching and routing business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco to jettison 5,500 jobs, will reinvest in cloud, IoT & more

Cisco today confirmed it will lay off about 7% of its workforce – about 5,500 jobs.Or as Cisco put it: "Today, we announced a restructuring enabling us to optimize our cost base in lower growth areas of our portfolio and further invest in key priority areas such as security, IoT, collaboration, next generation data center and cloud. We expect to reinvest substantially all of the cost savings from these actions back into these businesses and will continue to aggressively invest to focus on our areas of future growth."During its earnings announcement the company said total revenue actually increased 3% to $48.7 billion for its fiscal year ended July 30. Still, the company faces challenges in its core switching and routing business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco to jettison 5,500 jobs, will reinvest in cloud, IoT & more

Cisco today confirmed it will lay off about 7% of its workforce – about 5,500 jobs.Or as Cisco put it: "Today, we announced a restructuring enabling us to optimize our cost base in lower growth areas of our portfolio and further invest in key priority areas such as security, IoT, collaboration, next generation data center and cloud. We expect to reinvest substantially all of the cost savings from these actions back into these businesses and will continue to aggressively invest to focus on our areas of future growth."During its earnings announcement the company said total revenue actually increased 3% to $48.7 billion for its fiscal year ended July 30. Still, the company faces challenges in its core switching and routing business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco will jettison 5,500 jobs

Cisco today confirmed it will lay off about 7% of its workforce – about 5,500 jobs.During its earnings announcement the company said total revenue was $48.7 billion, an increase of 3% over last year. Still the company faces challenges in its core switching and routing business.“Product revenue growth was led by Security at 16%. Collaboration, Wireless and switching product revenue increased by 6%, 5%, and 2%, respectively. Service Provider Video, NGN Routing and Data Center product revenue decreased by 12%, 6%, and 1%, respectively,” Cisco stated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Cloud Startup that Just Keeps Kicking

Many startups have come and gone since the early days of cloud, but when it comes to those that started small and grown organically with the expansion of use cases, Cycle Computing still stands tall.

Tall being relative, of course. As with that initial slew of cloud startups, a lot of investment money has sloshed around as well. As Cycle Computing CEO, Jason Stowe, reminds The Next Platform, the small team started with an $8,000 credit card bill with sights on the burgeoning needs of scientific computing users in need of spare compute capacity and didn’t take funding until

The Cloud Startup that Just Keeps Kicking was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

33% off Hibermate Sleep Mask with Integrated Headphones – Deal Alert

Unlike most other sleep masks, this one from Hibermate has integrated speakers, allowing you to drift off in complete darkness while drowning out the world with relaxing music, sounds or white noise, without disturbing those around you. Fully adjustable and made from super-durable materials, the mask features a generous 3.3 feet of high quality Kevlar-coated cable for maximum reliability, durability and tangle free listening. Its speakers are super flat, fully removable, and produce loud, rich sound. The sleep mask with integrated audio averages 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews) and its typical list price of $59.95 has been reduced 33% to $39.97.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here