Politics blamed for feds’ reliance on old IT

The U.S. government is spending more than $81 billion on information technology. But only about 24% is spent overall on new systems, with the rest being used to maintain old systems.The Social Security Administration, for instance, has more than 60 million lines of Cobol, the agency’s Office of Inspector General reported last month.And the U.S. Defense Department is running some nuclear weapons support systems on an IBM Series/1 Computer, circa 1970s, the U.S. Government Accountability Office recently reported.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 26 crazy and scary things the TSA has found on travelers “Legacy IT investments across the federal government are becoming increasingly obsolete,” wrote the GAO in its report released in May. “Specifically, many use outdated languages and old parts.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why the attack on the DNC won’t be the last one like it

The great DNC email caperImage by REUTERS/Mark KauzlarichThe tech news cycle dovetailed with the political news cycle last week when first emails and then voice mails from the Democratic National Committee were released via WikiLeaks. And with the possibility of Russian involvement, the incident went from a domestic squabble to a potentially international incident.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why the attack on the DNC won’t be the last one like it

The great DNC email caperImage by REUTERS/Mark KauzlarichThe tech news cycle dovetailed with the political news cycle last week when first emails and then voice mails from the Democratic National Committee were released via WikiLeaks. And with the possibility of Russian involvement, the incident went from a domestic squabble to a potentially international incident.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

4 laptop security trends you should know about

For most business users, there’s one common device we all use that is still a common attack vector for hackers. We carry them with us everywhere, and we store most of our important files on the local drive, even if it’s just temporary. A laptop has more storage, more connection options, and more legacy apps than any smartphone or tablet.For any business, it’s important to take laptop security seriously, even if you already have an endpoint security product in place and teach enterprise users about best practices. Hackers are industrious; they develop new techniques and know that one of the easiest ways to steal passwords, break into file archives, and intercept a confidential email is through a laptop.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Insurers working to fill cyberinsurance data gaps

Insurance companies typically have decades of data, if not more, on which to base their risk estimates.That's not the case with cyber risk, however. There's very little historical data available, the data is not complete, and the threat landscape doesn't just change year by year, but day by day. There isn't even a standard set of definitions that everyone can agree on.That's starting to change, as insurers expand their services so that they can better educate their customers about cyber risk and even help them defend against attacks before they happen and deal with the fallout of when a breach does occur.I say potahto One of the first problems when it comes to buying cyberinsurance is that nobody knows exactly what it means. Corporate financial officers, security managers, and insurance brokers have different understanding of risk, for example.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Report: Only 3 percent of U.S. companies pay attackers after ransomware infections

Almost half of all companies have been the victims of a ransomware attack during the past 12 months, according to a new report. And while globally, 40 percent of them have paid the ransom, 97 percent of U.S. companies did not.Specifically, 75 percent of enterprise victims paid up in Canada, 58 percent in the U.K., and 22 percent in Germany, according to an Osterman Research survey of hundreds of senior executives in the U.S., Canada, German and the U.K.ALSO ON CSO: How to respond to ransomware threats This is partly due to the fact that, in the United States, the attacks were much more likely to hit lower-level employees. In the U.S., enterprises reported that 71 percent of lower-level staff were affected, compared to 29 percent in the U.K., 23 percent in Canada, and 14 percent in Germany.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Report: Only 3 percent of U.S. companies pay attackers after ransomware infections

Almost half of all companies have been the victims of a ransomware attack during the past 12 months, according to a new report. And while globally, 40 percent of them have paid the ransom, 97 percent of U.S. companies did not.Specifically, 75 percent of enterprise victims paid up in Canada, 58 percent in the U.K., and 22 percent in Germany, according to an Osterman Research survey of hundreds of senior executives in the U.S., Canada, German and the U.K.ALSO ON CSO: How to respond to ransomware threats This is partly due to the fact that, in the United States, the attacks were much more likely to hit lower-level employees. In the U.S., enterprises reported that 71 percent of lower-level staff were affected, compared to 29 percent in the U.K., 23 percent in Canada, and 14 percent in Germany.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to protect yourself from common hotel security threats

Hotels are digitally dangerous places these days. And that's not idle speculation. Security researchers have been sounding the alarm on sophisticated attacks directed at hotel users for years.Most of the earliest reports pointed to surgical strikes on high-profile executives or representatives of government agencies, but they could prove to be precursors for more wide-ranging attacks on the general public. Modern business travelers, with their treasure troves of files and personal information, will be prime targets, and they're also more likely to let their guard down after an exhausting journey.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Almost half of US businesses hit by ransomware, says study

The threat of ransomware is becoming widespread among corporations, with almost half of U.S. businesses suffering an attack from the nasty form of malware recently, according to a new survey.Security firm Malwarebytes sponsored the study, which found in June that 41 percent of U.S. businesses had at least encountered between one to five ransomware attacks in the previous 12 months.Another 6 percent saw six or more attacks.The study surveyed corporations in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Germany to gauge how ransomware affected their operations. The malware, which can infect a computer and take the data hostage, can be bad for business. 34 percent of the victim corporations in the countries surveyed reported losing revenue because the ransomware had prevented access to important files.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Almost half of US businesses hit by ransomware, says study

The threat of ransomware is becoming widespread among corporations, with almost half of U.S. businesses suffering an attack from the nasty form of malware recently, according to a new survey.Security firm Malwarebytes sponsored the study, which found in June that 41 percent of U.S. businesses had at least encountered between one to five ransomware attacks in the previous 12 months.Another 6 percent saw six or more attacks.The study surveyed corporations in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Germany to gauge how ransomware affected their operations. The malware, which can infect a computer and take the data hostage, can be bad for business. 34 percent of the victim corporations in the countries surveyed reported losing revenue because the ransomware had prevented access to important files.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Wi-Fi, LTE-U enter new phase of coexistence debate

The long-running contretemps between the supporters of LTE-U and regular Wi-Fi, over the idea of the two wireless standards co-existing on the same frequencies, has moved into a new phase, as test plan parameters are expected to be rolled out at Wednesday’s coexistence workshop in San Jose.The workshop is a meeting of interested stakeholders from both parties. The LTE-U camp, primarily made up of Qualcomm, Ericsson and the major U.S. wireless telecoms, has long insisted that LTE-U technology will not interfere with existing Wi-Fi networks, despite using the same frequencies. Skeptics, which include the cable industry and many of the country’s biggest tech companies, including Google and Microsoft, are worried that the rosy coexistence picture presented by LTE-U’s backers is unrealistic.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

CloudFlare’s JSON-powered Documentation Generator

Everything that it's possible to do in the CloudFlare Dashboard is also possible through our RESTful API. We use the same API to power the dashboard itself.

In order to keep track of all our endpoints, we use a rich notation called JSON Hyper-Schema. These schemas are used to generate the complete HTML documentation that you can see at https://api.cloudflare.com. Today, we want to share a set of tools that we use in this process.

CC BY 2.0 image by Richard Martin

JSON Schema

JSON Schema is a powerful way to describe your JSON data format. It provides complete structural validation and can be used for things like validation of incoming requests. JSON Hyper-Schema further extends this format with links and gives you a way describe your API.

JSON Schema Example

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "name": { "type": "string" },
    "age": { "type": "number" },
    "address": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "street_address": { "type": "string" },
        "city": { "type": "string" },
        "state": { "type": "string" },
        "country": { "type" : "string" }
      }
    }
  }
}

Matching JSON

{
  "name": "John Doe",
  "age": 45,
  "address": {
    "street_address": "12433 State St NW",
    "city": "Atlanta",
    "state": "Georgia",
    "country":  Continue reading

Slideshow: LibreOffice ups its enterprise game in this major new release

A business-ready Office alternativeImage by LibreOfficeLibreOffice is a free and open source alternative to Microsoft's Office productivity software that boasts some 120 million users around the globe. Version 5.2 made its debut on Wednesday, and it's packed with new business features. Here's a look at what you'll find.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A different kind of technology recycling

You can find plenty of examples of sustainability on a quick spin around Wellesley College in suburban Boston, where solar panels shimmer above the athletic fields and Wells on Wheels supply water in an effort to dissuade disposable bottled water use. But when Wellesley College CIO Ravi Ravishanker blogged this past week about the "Creative (Re)Uses of Technologies," he focused less on environmental green and more on maximizing the green spent on various technologies.Ravishanker touted, for example, his team's resourcefulness in finding fresh uses for a drone acquired for teaching and learning -- and in fact, it was used by a college research team to film archeological sites in Greece. But since then, the drone has also been employed to map the school's Nehoiden golf course, and plans are to post the data online and maybe even work in some virtual reality technology to let people play a round remotely.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fun in the Lab: Setting up 3 Phones – Part 1 Prep Work

For those of you who know me I always kid that I’m afraid of UC.  But a few things conspired together to make me decide to attempt the plunge.

 

  • IWAN PreBuilt ReBuilt  ?  I completely tore down and destroyed the original IWAN PreBuilt Testbed so I could rebuild it.  Which meant I also lost my CallMgr and my voice/video phone setup I had inherited.
  • Voice/Video is typically in either 1st place or 2nd place as the most business critical application for the majority of customers i talk with.
  • NBAR2 interests me and I’d like to learn about and play some with QoS classification based on NBAR2 application recognition coming in.  Just finished reviewing a QoS chapter for the upcoming CiscoPress IWAN book and I just want to see, touch, and play.  ?
  • Documentation – I’m so incredibly tired of not knowing how to do this.  Voice/Video is such a perfect application and visual to help me knowledge share with co-workers and customer so very many concepts – QoS, AV, AVC, Application Recognition, business critical traffic, impairment avoidance… the list goes on and on.  I need to know how to build up a simple and Continue reading

Bitcoin exchange Bitfinex apparently loses $63 million to hackers

A digital currency exchange in Hong Kong has suspended trading after a security breach in which thieves made off with an apparent $63 million worth of bitcoin.The exchange, Bitfinex, reported the intrusion on Tuesday and said it was working with law enforcement.“We are investigating the breach to determine what happened, but we know that some of our users have had their bitcoins stolen,” the exchange said.Its statement doesn't say how many bitcoins are missing, but Zane Tackett, the site's director of community and product development, said on Reddit that the losses stand at 119,756 bitcoins. Bitfinex didn't immediately respond to a request to confirm that figure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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