Interop at 30: New technology, new missions

The Interop conference convening this week will be a far cry from the gathering of a small group of technology pioneers who sought interoperability among Internet devices 30 years ago.Then, the 1986 invitation-only TCP/IP Interoperability Conference drew representatives from 65 tech companies.The 30th version running this week in Las Vegas features a trade show with more than 160 vendors displaying their wares and where its interoperability mission ventures far outside the show’s signature InteropNet Demo Lab. This year it is focused on promoting interoperability among Internet of Things devices, a category of gear unheard of that first year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Interop at 30: New technology, new missions

The Interop conference convening this week will be a far cry from the gathering of a small group of technology pioneers who sought interoperability among Internet devices 30 years ago.Then, the 1986 invitation-only TCP/IP Interoperability Conference drew representatives from 65 tech companies.The 30th version running this week in Las Vegas features a trade show with more than 160 vendors displaying their wares and where its interoperability mission ventures far outside the show’s signature InteropNet Demo Lab. This year it is focused on promoting interoperability among Internet of Things devices, a category of gear unheard of that first year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Docker at EMC World 2016

It’s the time again, this week EMC will welcome thousands of its customers and partners for EMC World 2016 in Las Vegas. Come visit Docker with the EMC {code} team in booth #1044 to learn about Docker is transforming modern … Continued

Microsoft Flow allows apps to all work together

Microsoft has tried in the past to make apps communicate, like with Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) in the 1990s. It worked, but in a limited fashion, allowing for linking data between Word and Excel. But if you wanted to share data from non-Microsoft apps, you were out of luck.Now, however, Microsoft has come out with a service (it's not right to call it an app) called Flow, which brings the If This Then That (IFTTT) functionality of the Web to desktop apps. IFTTT is a feature for Web services that generates actions based on conditions. It's how Twitter informs you when someone follows you, likes your tweet or responds to your tweet, for example.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: OVH—The biggest cloud vendor no one has heard of

At the OpenStack Summit in Austin recently, one of the companies invited to keynote on the first day was a cloud, hosting and services vendor from France, OVH. Like most of the people in the room, the name OVH raised my eyebrows. I've been covering the cloud world since it existed, and I'd never come across the company. Maybe they were a new startup or something?It turns out that, far from being a new startup, OVH is a mature and expansive vendor. It's just that they're primarily involved in Europe in general, and France in particular. That looks set to change, however, and I took the opportunity to sit down with Pascal Jaillon from OVH to hear what the company is up to. The OVH product line spans traditional hosting, hosted Microsoft Exchange, domain name provisioning, and, of course, cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EMC World kicks off with cloud backup and cheaper flash arrays

EMC is going back to basics -- but for a new generation of users -- on the first day of EMC World on Monday.This year’s annual user conference will be the last for EMC as an independent company, assuming Dell's pending US$67 billion acquisition goes through later this year as planned. Michael Dell will join EMC's Chairman and CEO on stage during the Monday keynote session.But EMC’s core storage business is likely to stay much the same in the short term, because it complements Dell, said Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Mark Peters.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Gone Fishin’

Well, not exactly Fishin', but I'll be on a month long vacation starting today. I won't be posting (much) new content, so we'll all have a break. Disappointing, I know. Please use this time for quiet contemplation and other inappropriate activities. See you on down the road...

The Rise of Threat Intelligence Gateways

According to ESG research, enterprise organizations continue to invest in all types of threat intelligence (note: I am an ESG employee).  For example, 60% of organizations have had a threat intelligence program in place for more than 2 years, 69% consume 6 or more open source or commercial threat intelligence feeds as part of cybersecurity analytics efforts, and 72% of enterprises plan on increasing spending on their threat intelligence programs over the next 12 to 18 months.Why is threat intelligence gaining momentum?  Security professionals know that since they can’t block every conceivable cyber-attack, they need to collect, process, and analyze all types of internal and external security data to improve their incident detection and response capabilities.  Many also want to use threat intelligence more proactively for threat prevention.  In fact, 36% of enterprise cybersecurity professionals say that their organizations intend to use threat intelligence feeds to automate remediation actions over the next 24 months.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Rise of Threat Intelligence Gateways

According to ESG research, enterprise organizations continue to invest in all types of threat intelligence (note: I am an ESG employee).  For example, 60% of organizations have had a threat intelligence program in place for more than 2 years, 69% consume 6 or more open source or commercial threat intelligence feeds as part of cybersecurity analytics efforts, and 72% of enterprises plan on increasing spending on their threat intelligence programs over the next 12 to 18 months.Why is threat intelligence gaining momentum?  Security professionals know that since they can’t block every conceivable cyber-attack, they need to collect, process, and analyze all types of internal and external security data to improve their incident detection and response capabilities.  Many also want to use threat intelligence more proactively for threat prevention.  In fact, 36% of enterprise cybersecurity professionals say that their organizations intend to use threat intelligence feeds to automate remediation actions over the next 24 months.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SmartThings security flaws revealed

Researchers from the University of Michigan and Microsoft Research took aim at Samsung’s SmartThings and came up with four proof-of-concept attacks that they believe should make SmartThings owners a bit paranoid by thinking about worst-case scenarios in which hackers remotely take control of your home.If a hacker could unlock your door while you are sleeping, then your safety is at risk. If the door is unlocked while you are away, then you might have come home to discover all your cool tech is gone. If a hacker could continually set off your smoke alarm, then your sanity might be tested.None of those examples is out of the realm of possibility, as the researchers exploited SmartThings framework design flaws and developed attacks that included stealing door lock PIN codes, changing the lock code, triggering a fake fire alarm and turning off vacation mode “all without requiring SmartApps to have capabilities to carry out these operations and without physical access to the home.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SmartThings security flaws revealed

Researchers from the University of Michigan and Microsoft Research took aim at Samsung’s SmartThings and came up with four proof-of-concept attacks that they believe should make SmartThings owners a bit paranoid by thinking about worst-case scenarios in which hackers remotely take control of your home.If a hacker could unlock your door while you are sleeping, then your safety is at risk. If the door is unlocked while you are away, then you might have come home to discover all your cool tech is gone. If a hacker could continually set off your smoke alarm, then your sanity might be tested.None of those examples is out of the realm of possibility, as the researchers exploited SmartThings framework design flaws and developed attacks that included stealing door lock PIN codes, changing the lock code, triggering a fake fire alarm and turning off vacation mode “all without requiring SmartApps to have capabilities to carry out these operations and without physical access to the home.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Researchers take aim at SmartThings security, develop 4 proof-of-concept attacks

Researchers from the University of Michigan and Microsoft Research took aim at Samsung’s SmartThings and came up with four proof-of-concept attacks that they believe should make SmartThings owners a bit paranoid by thinking about worst case scenarios in which hackers remotely take control of your home.If a hacker could unlock your door while you are sleeping, then your safety is at risk. If the door is unlocked while you were away, then you might have come home to discover all your cool tech is gone. If a hacker could continually set off your smoke alarm, then your sanity might be tested.None of those examples are out of the realm of possibility as the researchers exploited SmartThings framework design flaws and developed attacks which included stealing door lock PIN codes, changing the lock code, triggering a fake fire alarm and turning off vacation mode “all without requiring SmartApps to have capabilities to carry out these operations and without physical access to the home.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Craig Wright claims he is bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto

Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright is bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, he claimed on his personal blog and in media interviews on Monday. Within hours, skeptics were pointing to flaws in his claims. Wright was first outed as the developer of the cryptocurrency by Wired magazine in December, but would not confirm the magazine's claims at the time. Days later the magazine said fresh evidence pointed to another possibility it had raised: that Wright may be a sophisticated hoaxer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s IE loses top browser spot to Google’s Chrome

Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) last month lost the No. 1 spot to Google's Chrome, marking a major milestone not only in IE's 21-year lifespan, but a dramatic changing of the desktop browser guard.According to U.S. analytics vendor Net Applications, IE and Edge -- which the firm tossed into a single bucket labeled "IE" -- fell 2 percentage points in April, the fifth straight month of a loss greater than a point, and the 16th of any size -- to end at 41.4% of the total global browser user share.Meanwhile, Chrome climbed 2.6 percentage points to take a narrow lead with 41.7%.Previously, Computerworld had forecast -- using long-term trends portrayed by Net Applications' data -- that Chrome would wrestle the No. 1 position from IE by the end of May.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Android at work: 38 business-worthy apps

"Android" and "enterprise" are two words that traditionally haven't gone together. But with Google beefing up its Android for Work initiative -- and getting ready to launch more enterprise-friendly features with the upcoming Android "N" release -- the notion of companies considering Android for employees no longer seems far-fetched.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here