Apple sees weakness in FBI hearing request

A last-minute request by the FBI to call witnesses to next week's court hearing in the San Bernardino iPhone case indicates the agency might feel some weakness in its legal arguments, Apple says.On Wednesday evening, the FBI asked for an evidentiary hearing, which means the court will hear live testimony from expert witnesses from both sides. Apple agreed to the FBI's request on Thursday.Speaking on Friday with reporters, lawyers for Apple said the FBI's request was a surprise, and they don't understand why the government wants to present witnesses to the court.If lawyers believe they have a strong legal case, they typically want to get up and argue it without bothering with witnesses in these types of hearings, so the request perhaps indicates the FBI isn't as comfortable as it was in relying solely on legal arguments, an Apple lawyer said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 things you need to know about SSL

An uptick in cyberattacks and greater awareness about government surveillance have prompted calls for tighter security on the Internet, and a big part of that is encrypting  the traffic that flows to and from websites. Google, Facebook and Microsoft are among the many companies that have been pushing for wider use of SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security) encryption, though it can be tricky and expensive to implement. Here's the basics of what you need to know.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple engineers could walk away from FBI’s iPhone demands

Should the FBI prevail in getting Apple to offer a backdoor for an encrypted iPhone, the agency may have trouble getting anyone to build it.At least that’s the word from several current and former Apple employees—including security engineers—who spoke anonymously to the New York Times. Some said they’re refuse to do the work, or quit their jobs if necessary, rather than create what they believe is a major security compromise for all users.+ MORE: Tim Cook to Time: 'I feel like I'm in this bad dream' +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FBI warning puts car hacking on bigger radar screen

The FBI this week warned carmakers and owners that they need to pay much closer attention to automotive cybersecurity.The National Highway Transportation Safety joined with the FBI in warning consumer that the increasing number of computers in the form of electronic control units (ECUs) that control numerous vehicle functions from steering, braking, and acceleration, to the lights and windshield wipers make them vulnerable to potential cybersecurity problems.+More on Network World: World’s coolest concept cars+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Stuff The Internet Says On Scalability For March 18th, 2016


We come in peace. 5,000 years of battles mapped from Wikipedia. Maybe not.

 

If you like this sort of Stuff then please consider offering your support on Patreon.

 

  • 500 petabytes: data stored in Dropbox; 8.5 kB: amount of drum memory in an IBM 650; JavaScript: most popular programming language in the world (OMG); $20+ billion: Twitch in 2020; Two years: time it took to fill the Mediterranean; 

  • Quotable Quotes:
    • Dark Territory: The other bit of luck was that the Serbs had recently given their phone system a software upgrade. The Swiss company that sold them the software gave U.S. intelligence the security codes.
    • Alec Ross~ The principle political binary of the 20th century is left versus right. In the 21st century the principle political binary is open versus closed. The real tension both inside and outside countries are those that embrace more open economic, political and cultural systems versus those that are more closed. Looking forward to the next 20 years the states and societies that are more open are those that will compete and succeed more effectively in tomorrows industry.
    • @chrismaddern"Population size: 1. Facebook 2. China ?? 3. Continue reading

Cybersecurity Skills Shortage Impact on Cloud Computing

Look at any industry data and you’ll see a consistent trend – the march toward cloud computing continues to gain momentum.  According to ESG research, 75% of organizations are currently using public cloud services (note: I am an ESG employee).  This is dominated by the use of SaaS today but ESG research reveals that 38% of organizations use IaaS while 33% use PaaS.  The research also indicates that these numbers will continue to increase in the future.Now before you short HP and double-down on AWS, there is also a potential fly in the ointment – the global cybersecurity skills shortage.  ESG research indicates that 46% of organizations say that they have a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity skills in 2016, up from 28% last year.  ESG also asked survey respondents to identify the area where they have the biggest cybersecurity skills shortage.  Not surprisingly, 33% say that their biggest deficiency was cloud security specialists, followed by 28% who pointed to a deficiency with network security specialists, and 27% who have a shortage of security analysts – pretty scary stuff when you think about cloud security defense along with incident detection and response for cloud-based cyber-threats. Continue reading

Deutsche Telekom to boost security offering for European enterprises

"Bring your own device" can easily turn into bring your own disaster for corporate networks, if attackers use a compromised device as a bridgehead into a secure environment.That's one of the reasons Deutsche Telekom is partnering with two security companies to offer services to smaller companies that don't have the resources to install and operate their own MDM (mobile device management) or endpoint security systems.Internet Protect Pro and Mobile Protect Pro are rebranded versions of services from Zscaler and Zimperium, respectively. The CEOs of the two companies joined Deutsche Telekom executives on stage at the Cebit tradeshow in Hanover, Germany, on Thursday to announce the deals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The 10 Windows group policy settings you need to get right

One of the most common methods to configure an office full of Microsoft Windows computers is with group policy. For the most part, group policies are settings pushed into a computer's registry to configure security settings and other operational behaviors. Group policies can be pushed down from Active Directory (actually, pulled down by the client) or configured locally.I've been doing Windows computer security since 1990, so I've seen a lot of group policies. In my work with customers, I scrutinize each group policy setting within each group policy object. With Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2, for example, there are more than 3,700 settings for the operating system alone.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

x86-Based Switching at Ludicrous Speed on Software Gone Wild

Imagine you want to have an IPv6-only access network and transport residual IPv4 traffic tunneled across it. Sounds great, but you need to terminate those tunnels and encapsulate/decapsulate IPv4 traffic at multi-gigabit rate.

There are plenty of reassuringly-expensive hardware solutions that can do that, or you could work with really smart people and get software-based solution that can do 20 Gbps per CPU core.

Read more ...

Vehicles ‘increasingly vulnerable’ to hacking, FBI warns

The FBI and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned on Thursday that the rising use of computers in vehicles poses increasing risks of cyberattacks. The warning comes eight months after a high-profile demonstration published by Wired showed how a Jeep Cherokee could be remotely controlled over the Internet. Fiat Chrysler later recalled 1.4 million vulnerable vehicles. Manufacturers see great promise in designing vehicles with advanced networking capabilities for everything from entertainment to fleet management. But computer security experts have criticized the industry for not taking stronger steps to prevent software vulnerabilities that could have lethal consequences.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here