How to benchmark your IT outsourcing vendor management skills

In the attempt to keep up with the pace of technology and business change today, most IT organizations are relying on a variety of external vendors. But orchestrating a mix of IT traditional providers, offshore outsourcing firms, and new cloud computing suppliers while keeping up with business demands requires a robust vendor management and governance practice.Outsourcing consultancy Alsbridge recently introduced a vendor management and governance self-assessment tool to help IT organizations gauge their effectiveness in the areas of contract management, financial management, performance management, relationship management, risk management and general strategy. Multi-sourcing management is an emerging discipline, says Alsbridge managing director Jeff Augustin, and companies are looking for ways to assess their own strengths and weaknesses in order to improve their service delivery management.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

After delays, Lenovo finally ships its first OLED laptop

After months of delays, Lenovo's first laptop with an OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen is now shipping, but it's unclear whether the PC maker will bring out additional OLED models anytime soon.The ThinkPad X1 Yoga with a 14-inch OLED screen is now shipping for US$1,682, which is a premium price compared to the same model with a conventional LED screen, priced at $1,394. Both laptops have Intel Core i5 Skylake processors.The laptop has the largest OLED screen available. HP's Spectre x360 Convertible Laptop and Dell's Alienware 13 gaming laptop have 13.3-inch OLED screens.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dropbox levels up its features for administrators

IT administrators managing Dropbox deployments are supposed to have an easier time with it soon, thanks to improvements that the company announced Wednesday.The company is rolling out a redesigned interface for examining logs of user activity within an organization, new folders that make it easier to create and manage a shared workspace for teams and mobile access management capabilities.The move is part of Dropbox's push to get its product used by more large organizations, in addition to its strong base of consumer users. The company recently announced that it has more than 200,000 organizations subscribed to its business offering, and improving these capabilities is not only a means of helping existing users, but also a way to prove to new ones that the company is serious about reaching businesses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Donald Trump encouraged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s email

U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has called on Russia to hack his rival Hillary Clinton’s email. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said during a press conference Wednesday. “I think you’ll probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” Trumps remarks came as reporters questioned him about ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Security experts and government officials have suggested Russian hackers were behind a breach at the Democratic National Committee that lead to WikiLeaks publishing unflattering internal campaign emails.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Donald Trump encouraged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s email

U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has called on Russia to hack his rival Hillary Clinton’s email. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said during a press conference Wednesday. “I think you’ll probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” Trumps remarks came as reporters questioned him about ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Security experts and government officials have suggested Russian hackers were behind a breach at the Democratic National Committee that lead to WikiLeaks publishing unflattering internal campaign emails.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump eggs on Russian email hackers. What must David Kernell think?

Do you remember David Kernell? If not, we’ll get back to him in a second.First, the Republican nominee for president of the United States, Donald Trump, this morning cheered Russian cybercriminals who are alleged to have hacked his Democratic opponent’s email and urged them to make public whatever they have stolen. Trump did this not over beers but in front of reporters at a press conference, after which he scolded one of the reporters to “be quiet” after she had the temerity to press him on whether a presidential candidate should be encouraging cybercrime.From a report on Talking Points Memo:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump eggs on Russian email hackers. What must David Kernell think?

Do you remember David Kernell? If not, we’ll get back to him in a second.First, the Republican nominee for president of the United States, Donald Trump, this morning cheered Russian cybercriminals who are alleged to have hacked his Democratic opponent’s email and urged them to make public whatever they have stolen. Trump did this not over beers but in front of reporters at a press conference, after which he scolded one of the reporters to “be quiet” after she had the temerity to press him on whether a presidential candidate should be encouraging cybercrime.From a report on Talking Points Memo:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump eggs on Russian email hackers. What must David Kernell think?

Do you remember David Kernell? If not, we’ll get back to him in a second.First, the Republican nominee for president of the United States, Donald Trump, this morning cheered Russian cybercriminals who are alleged to have hacked his Democratic opponent’s email and urged them to make public whatever they have stolen. Trump did this not over beers but in front of reporters at a press conference, after which he scolded one of the reporters to “be quiet” after she had the temerity to press him on whether a presidential candidate should be encouraging cybercrime.From a report on Talking Points Memo:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Blockchain to revolutionize elections?

Shell-shocked from the startling Brexit vote, followed by back-to-back political convention diatribes coddling Twitter streams and big screens, one could ask—surfacing briefly from a media device—have elections changed all that much over the years?The answer must be yes, and that’s partly because of the speed at which public opinion gets spread by social media. We all knew the Brits regretted Brexit within moments of the result being called. And we haven’t needed journalists to tell us what some, collectively, think of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.+ Also on Network World: Google wants you to be able to vote online +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Russian involvement in DNC WikiLeaks email heist unproven

Almost 20,000 emails were stolen from the Democratic National Committee’s Microsoft Exchange server. Not enough information has been made public, however, to determine if only the Russian state penetrated the DNC’s network and were the actor that stole the email files.I spent two days digging through WikiLeaks, monitoring the news, talking to security analysts and reading English and Russian message boards. The picture is incomplete because the DNC has not released enough data to conclude that the Russians stole the email files.  + Also on Network World: U.S. cyber incident directive follows DNC hack +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Rival gang leaks decryption keys for Chimera ransomware

Aside from the efforts of security researchers and antivirus companies, malware victims can sometimes also benefit from the fighting between rival cybercriminal groups.That happened this week when the creators of the Petya and Mischa ransomware programs leaked about 3,500 RSA private keys allegedly corresponding to systems infected with Chimera, another ransomware application.In a post Tuesday on Pastebin, Mischa's developers claimed that earlier this year they got access to big parts of the development system used by Chimera's creators.As a result of that hack, they obtained the source code for Chimera and integrated some of it into their own ransomware project, according to the Pastebin message.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Rival gang leaks decryption keys for Chimera ransomware

Aside from the efforts of security researchers and antivirus companies, malware victims can sometimes also benefit from the fighting between rival cybercriminal groups.That happened this week when the creators of the Petya and Mischa ransomware programs leaked about 3,500 RSA private keys allegedly corresponding to systems infected with Chimera, another ransomware application.In a post Tuesday on Pastebin, Mischa's developers claimed that earlier this year they got access to big parts of the development system used by Chimera's creators.As a result of that hack, they obtained the source code for Chimera and integrated some of it into their own ransomware project, according to the Pastebin message.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pakistan cybercrime bill: Misuse the internet, go to prison for 3 years

“Misusing the internet”—precisely what might that mean? Unfortunately, people in Pakistan may be about to find out, as the vague “misusing the internet” would be punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of one million Pakistani rupees (currently equal to about $9,550). That's according to an overview of the cybercrime bill written by the newspaper Dawn.That was just one example of what is in the controversial Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB) [pdf] that was approved by the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications. The country’s National Assembly previously approved the bill, and it will move on to the Pakistan senate for approval before it is signed into law by President Mamnoon Hussian.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pakistan cybercrime bill: Misuse the internet, go to prison for three years

“Misusing the internet”. . . precisely what might that mean? Unfortunately, people in Pakistan may be about to find out as the vague “misusing the internet” would be punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of one million Pakistani rupees (currently equal to about $9,550); that's according to an overview of the cybercrime bill written by the newspaper Dawn.That was just one example of what is in the controversial Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB) [pdf] which was approved by the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications. The country’s National Assembly previously approved the bill and it will move on to the Pakistan senate for approval before it is signed into law by President Mamnoon Hussian.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pakistan cybercrime bill: Misuse the internet, go to prison for three years

“Misusing the internet”. . . precisely what might that mean? Unfortunately, people in Pakistan may be about to find out as the vague “misusing the internet” would be punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine of one million Pakistani rupees (currently equal to about $9,550); that's according to an overview of the cybercrime bill written by the newspaper Dawn.That was just one example of what is in the controversial Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill (PECB) [pdf] which was approved by the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications. The country’s National Assembly previously approved the bill and it will move on to the Pakistan senate for approval before it is signed into law by President Mamnoon Hussian.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Mesos Reaches Milestone, Adds Native Docker

The battle between the Mesos and Kubernetes tools for managing applications on modern clusters continues to heat up, with the former reaching its milestone 1.0 with a “universal containerizer” feature that supports native Docker container formats and a shiny new API stack that is a lot more friendly and flexible than the manner in which APIs are implemented in systems management software these days.

Ultimately, something has to be in control of the clusters and divvy up scarce resources to hungry applications, and there has been an epic battle shaping up between Mesos, Kubernetes, and OpenStack.

Mesos is the …

Mesos Reaches Milestone, Adds Native Docker was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Russian DNC hack – A cybersecurity microcosm

According to ESG research, 31 percent of cybersecurity professionals working at enterprise organizations (i.e. more than 1,000 employees) believe the threat landscape is much worse today than it was two years ago. While another 36 percent say the threat landscape is somewhat worse today than it was two years ago.Why the cynicism? Look no further than the Russian hack of the DNC as this particular data breach is a microcosm of cybersecurity at large. This one incident illustrates a few important points: All data is at risk. Way back when, state-sponsored cyber attacks were government-on-government affairs, typically focused on military and intelligence.  The cyber theft of design documents for the F-22 and F-35 are perfect examples here. Unfortunately, state-sponsored attacks have gone beyond spooks and soldiers. China went after The New York Times, North Korea breached Sony Pictures, and Russia blew the lid off the DNC. When matched against sophisticated state-sponsored actors, pedestrian cybersecurity defenders are simply fighting out of their weight class. The list of adversaries continues to grow. Beyond China, North Korea and Russia, it’s fair to add Iran, the Syrian Electronic Army, and dozens of other countries investing in offensive cyber operations. There are Continue reading

Russian DNC Hack – A Cybersecurity Microcosm

According to ESG research, 31% of cybersecurity professionals working at enterprise organizations (i.e. more than 1,000 employees) believe the threat landscape is much worse today than it was 2 years ago while another 36% say the threat landscape is somewhat worse today than it was 2 years ago (note: I am an ESG employee).Why the cynicism?  Look no further than the Russian hack of the DNC as this particular data breach is a microcosm of cybersecurity at large.  This one incident illustrates a few important points:1.      All data is at risk.  Way back when, state-sponsored cyber-attacks were government-on-government affairs, typically focused on military and intelligence.  The cyber-theft of design documents for the F-22 and F-35 are perfect examples here.  Unfortunately, state-sponsored attacks have gone beyond spooks and soldiers.  China went after the NY Times, North Korea breached Sony Pictures, and Russia blew the lid off the DNC.  When matched against sophisticated state-sponsored actors, pedestrian cybersecurity defenders are simply fighting out of their weight class.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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