8 ingredients of an effective disaster recovery plan

Earlier this month, a monkey caused a nationwide power outage in Kenya. Millions of homes and businesses were without electricity. Which just goes to show that “not all disasters come in the form of major storms with names and categories,” says Bob Davis, CMO, Atlantis Computing.“Electrical fires, broken water pipes, failed air conditioning units [and rogue monkeys] can cause just as much damage,” he says. And while “business executives might think they’re safe based on their geographic location,” it’s important to remember that “day-to-day threats can destroy data [and] ruin a business,” too, he says. That’s why it is critical for all businesses to have a disaster recovery (DR) plan.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Juniper NXTWORK – A New and Better Kind of Conference

Last November, I was invited to the inaugural Juniper customer summit, NXTWORK 2015, and it was a great event. I’m pleased to see that NXTWORK2016 is happening again this year, October 3rd – 5th, 2016 at the Santa Clara Marriott in Santa Clara, CA.

NXTWORK 2015

Rewind the clock to last year. For years, Juniper users have wanted a Juniper technical event if not to rival Cisco Live, then at least to offer some of the same benefits to the attendees. As anybody who organizes a conference will tell you, it’s no mean feat to get even a small event right — Cisco has had 26 years to get Live to where it is now — so I can only imagine how daunting it must be to set up the first Juniper customer event, knowing full well that everything you do will be compared to Cisco Live, just as I am doing now. Wisely, it seems that Juniper decided to look at the basics of what attendees would expect to be at the conference, then wrap those up in its own unique way. While there were a few minor inevitable teething issues, my overwhelming feeling at the end of the conference Continue reading

Best Deals of The Month – Deal Alert

Best Deals of The Month - Deal AlertCheck out this roundup of the best deals on gadgets, gear and other cool stuff we have found in the past month. All items are highly rated, and dramatically discounted.58% off RAVPower FileHub Wireless Hard Drive, WiFi Bridge & Sharing Media StreamerYou may find many uses for this versatile and powerful file hub from RAVPower, currently discounted 58% on Amazon from $75.99 down to just $31.99.  This hub Let up to 5 devices wirelessly connect to the FileHub wireless network, to access its SD card and/or USB storage to share files.  It also has Media server capabilities, allowing wirelessly connected devices to stream audio and video from any attached storage device.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

8 noteworthy improvements in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update

Since the initial release of Windows 10 last July, Microsoft has been working to improve the look and feel of its flagship desktop operating system and has solicited user input and feedback through the Windows Feedback app, which has been integrated into all Windows 10 versions. And the company shows every sign of reading, considering and often acting upon user requests for interface changes and improvements. Thus, you'll see lots helpful, if small, changes to the Windows 10 UI, as the company works to complete what is now called the "Anniversary Update," which will be released on August 2. Here are the most noteworthy of those changes and additions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Investing in your employees’ career growth drives satisfaction

Today's workforce is less concerned with perks like ping-pong tables, dry cleaning services and on-site massages than they are with their future, according to recent research. If your organization is struggling to attract and retain IT talent, perhaps it's time to rethink your benefits and perks strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

11 signs your kid is hacking — and what to do about it

I've shared a lot of security knowledge in my tenure as InfoWorld's Security Advisor. But what I've never shared before is that much of my initial computer security defense knowledge, which I turned into my first book, came from trying to stop my teenage stepson from being a malicious hacker.I was newly dating his mother and he was a precocious 15-year-old who liked messing around with electronics and computers. He and his closest friends also flirted with malicious hacking, including harassing "ignorant" users, DoS-ing popular computer networks, making malware, and all sorts of unquestionably illegal and unethical hacking behavior.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

11 signs your kid is hacking — and what to do about it

I've shared a lot of security knowledge in my tenure as InfoWorld's Security Advisor. But what I've never shared before is that much of my initial computer security defense knowledge, which I turned into my first book, came from trying to stop my teenage stepson from being a malicious hacker.I was newly dating his mother and he was a precocious 15-year-old who liked messing around with electronics and computers. He and his closest friends also flirted with malicious hacking, including harassing "ignorant" users, DoS-ing popular computer networks, making malware, and all sorts of unquestionably illegal and unethical hacking behavior.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Examining man-in-the-middle attacks

Caught in the middleImage by LookoutDoes the screen above look familiar? It should. Millions of people around the world connect to public Wi-Fi networks on their mobile devices as they travel and try to stay connected. The problem is, not all networks are official. The image above is that of a fake, or spoofed, hotel Wi-Fi network, but you can’t tell just by looking at it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Is your car secure? Maybe not, but enterprise users can still learn something

If you're looking for a good lesson in enterprise security, there might be a few sitting in the parking lot. The automotive field is a glaring example of "worst practices" in security, say several automotive experts. And, the problem is only getting worse, not better.Over the past few years, the cars have come under fire for many things -- constant recalls, safety hazards, and diesel-engine tricks to name a few-- but security experts have noticed a disturbing trend.While it might be hard to break into a BMW unless you have a rock handy, there hasn't been as much effort in protecting wireless signals, establishing standards, creating new regulations and laws, and patching much more aggressively.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Measuring cloud performance: A different approach needed

As Lord Kelvin almost said, "To measure is to know." But this simple dictum is surprisingly hard to follow. For it really has two meanings.The first meaning is obvious: You cannot really know about something without measuring it. If you want to know how quickly an application works, for instance, take some key functions of the application and measure how long they take. "Good performance" is defined by the function taking less time than the acceptable threshold, and poor performance is defined by the function taking more time.+ Also on Network World: Measurement is key to cloud success +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Computers will soon analogize—like humans

Analogies help people understand things. Examples include such clarity as: hard drives are like closets, and defragmenting a hard drive is like cleaning a closet.They’re popular, and work for humans, but scientists are now asking whether the comparisons could also work for computers as the machines take on new roles that involve learning. Scientists at Northwestern University think so. Computers, too, will learn through analogies, they believe.Indeed, future computers are going to learn just like humans do, and that will include spontaneously using analogies to solve problems, including moral dilemmas, they say.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EU plans $2B investment in cybersecurity research

The European Union is stumping up €450 million ($500 million) to fund research into cybersecurity -- and wants industry to contribute three times that.The EU's executive body, the European Commission, is concerned about the vulnerability of the EU economy to cyberattacks, warning in a report Tuesday that they "could undermine the digital single market and economic and social life as a whole."The $2 billion cybersecurity public-private partnership (cPPP) is intended boost cross-border research into cybersecurity, and to aid development of security products and services for the energy, health, transport and finance industries, the European Commission said Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Networking Advances That Improve Storage Performance

10 advanced endpoint protection tools

Endpoint protectionThe days of simple endpoint protection based on traditional anti-malware tools are over. There are now advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools that go beyond proactive monitoring and endpoint protection. They evaluate threats in a larger ecosystem, combining the best aspects from network intrusion detection and examining the individual process level on each computer. That is a tall order, and the 10 products tested are all very capable. However, no one product does everything. You will have to make compromises, depending on what other security tools you already have installed and the skill levels of your staff. Here are capsule reviews of 10 advanced endpoint protection products (see the full review):To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Top 10 advanced endpoint protection tools

Endpoint protectionThe days of simple endpoint protection based on traditional anti-malware tools are over. There are now advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools that go beyond proactive monitoring and endpoint protection. They evaluate threats in a larger ecosystem, combining the best aspects from network intrusion detection and examining the individual process level on each computer. That is a tall order, and the 10 products tested are all very capable. However, no one product does everything. You will have to make compromises, depending on what other security tools you already have installed and the skill levels of your staff. Here are capsule reviews of 10 advanced endpoint protection products (see the full review):To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

7 trends in advanced endpoint protection

After extensive testing of 10 advanced endpoint protection products, we have identified a series of broad industry trends:1. Virus signatures are passé. Creating a virus with a unique signature is child’s play, thanks to the nearly automated virus construction kits that have filled the internet over the past several years. Instead, many of today’s advanced endpoint protection products make use of security news feeds that report on the latest attacks such as VirusTotal.com and other reputation management services. Some, like CrowdStrike, have a long list of integrations with security and log management tools to make them more effective at spotting attack trends.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to buy endpoint security products

In our testing of 10 endpoint security products, we found that no one product does everything. You will have to make compromises, depending on what other security tools you already have installed and the skill levels of your staff. While there is no single product that can suit all situations, endpoint configurations and IT requirements, there are a few key things to consider in your purchase:1. Going agent or agentless. A few of the products we tested don’t require endpoint agents, but the trade off is that you will need to setup LDAP or clean up your Active Directory domain and make use of network switch SNMP management and other connections to your network fabric.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

10 cutting-edge tools that take endpoint security to a new level

The days of simple endpoint protection are over. Scanning and screening for malware has become a very complex process, and most traditional anti-malware tools only find a small fraction of potential infections.Nowadays there are numerous advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools, all claiming to find and block the most subtle attacks, even ones that don’t leave many fingerprints.As we wrote last fall, there are two basic approaches: hunting (looking for some odd behavior) and sifting and gathering particular trends or activities (which has its roots in traditional anti-virus).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cutting through the IPv6 Requirements Red Tape

Few years ago a bunch of engineers agreed that the customers need a comprehensive “IPv6 Buyer’s Guide” and thus RIPE-554 was born. There are also IPv6 certification labs, US Government IPv6 profile and other initiatives. The common problem: all these things are complex.

However, it’s extremely easy to get what you want as Ron Broersma explained during his presentation at recent Slovenian IPv6 meeting. All it takes is a single paragraph in the RFP saying something along these lines:

The equipment must have the required functionality and performance in IPv6-only environment.

Problem solved (the proof is left as an exercise for the reader… or you could cheat and watch Ron’s presentation, which you should do anyway ;).

Basics: What is Ternary Content Address Memory (TCAM) ?

Note: You should read about Content Addressable Memory (CAM) before reading this post.  Today’s networking hardware operates a Layer 2, Layer 3 and Layer 4 of the OSI model. The device might switch Ethernet frames, route IP packets and implement filters based on the TCP segments. A MAC Address is always an exact match and […]

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