Empty DDoS threats earn extortion group over $100,000

Extorting money from companies under the threat of launching distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) against their online properties has proven lucrative for cybercriminals. So much so that one group has managed to earn over $100,000 without any evidence that it's even capable of mounting attacks.Since early March, hundreds of businesses have received threatening emails from a group calling itself the Armada Collective, asking to be paid between 10 and 50 bitcoins -- US$4,600 to $23,000 -- as a "protection fee" or face DDoS attacks exceeding 1Tbps.While many of them did not comply, some did; the group's bitcoin wallet address shows incoming payments of over $100,000 in total. Yet none of the companies who declined to pay the protection fee were attacked, website protection firm CloudFlare found.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Empty DDoS threats earn extortion group over $100,000

Extorting money from companies under the threat of launching distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) against their online properties has proven lucrative for cybercriminals. So much so that one group has managed to earn over $100,000 without any evidence that it's even capable of mounting attacks.Since early March, hundreds of businesses have received threatening emails from a group calling itself the Armada Collective, asking to be paid between 10 and 50 bitcoins -- US$4,600 to $23,000 -- as a "protection fee" or face DDoS attacks exceeding 1Tbps.While many of them did not comply, some did; the group's bitcoin wallet address shows incoming payments of over $100,000 in total. Yet none of the companies who declined to pay the protection fee were attacked, website protection firm CloudFlare found.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Empty DDoS threats earn extortion group over $100,000

Extorting money from companies under the threat of launching distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) against their online properties has proven lucrative for cybercriminals. So much so that one group has managed to earn over $100,000 without any evidence that it's even capable of mounting attacks.Since early March, hundreds of businesses have received threatening emails from a group calling itself the Armada Collective, asking to be paid between 10 and 50 bitcoins -- US$4,600 to $23,000 -- as a "protection fee" or face DDoS attacks exceeding 1Tbps.While many of them did not comply, some did; the group's bitcoin wallet address shows incoming payments of over $100,000 in total. Yet none of the companies who declined to pay the protection fee were attacked, website protection firm CloudFlare found.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SWIFT banking network warns customers of cyberfraud cases

SWIFT, the international banking transactions network, has warned customers of "a number" of recent incidents in which criminals sent fraudulent messages through its system.The warning from SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) suggests that a February attack on the Bangladesh Bank, in which thieves got away with US $81 million, was not an isolated incident.SWIFT is aware of malware that "aims to reduce financial institutions’ abilities" to find evidence of fraudulent transactions on their local systems, the organization said Tuesday. The malware has "no impact on SWIFT’s network or core messaging services," it added.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SWIFT banking network warns customers of cyberfraud cases

SWIFT, the international banking transactions network, has warned customers of "a number" of recent incidents in which criminals sent fraudulent messages through its system.The warning from SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) suggests that a February attack on the Bangladesh Bank, in which thieves got away with US $81 million, was not an isolated incident.SWIFT is aware of malware that "aims to reduce financial institutions’ abilities" to find evidence of fraudulent transactions on their local systems, the organization said Tuesday. The malware has "no impact on SWIFT’s network or core messaging services," it added.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Companies must stop designing proprietary locked-down services

On May 15, 2016, the company that runs Revolv (a smart-home hub) will be intentionally bricking (for all intents and purposes) every single Revolv hub device ever sold—by killing the server the device depends upon and not providing any ability to self-host that service.The company that’s shutting off this service and bricking these (not cheap) devices? Google. Essentially. Revolve was acquired by Nest. Nest was acquired by Google. Google then changed to Alphabet and made Nest one of the companies owned by Alphabet. So, in a nutshell, Google.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Emphasis on Data Wrangling Brings Materials Science Up to Speed

In 2011, the United States launched a multi-agency effort to discover, develop, and produce advanced materials under the Materials Genome Initiative as part of an overall push to get out from under the 20-year process typically involved with researching a new material and bringing it to market.

At roughly the same time, the government was investing in other technology-driven initiatives to bolster competitiveness, with particular emphasis on manufacturing. While key areas in research were developing incredibly rapidly, it appeared that manufacturing, materials, and other more concrete physical problems were waiting on better solutions while genomics, nanotechnology, and other areas were …

Emphasis on Data Wrangling Brings Materials Science Up to Speed was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

Linux and the Quest for Underlays

I’m at the OpenStack Summit this week and there’s a lot of talk around about building stacks and offering everything needed to get your organization ready for a shift toward service provider models and such. It’s a far cry from the battles over software networking and hardware dominance that I’m so used to seeing in my space. But one thing came to mind that made me think a little harder about architecture and how foundations are important.

Brick By Brick

The foundation for the modern cloud doesn’t live in fancy orchestration software or data modeling. It’s not because a retailer built a self-service system or a search engine giant decided to build a cloud lab. The real reason we have a growing market for cloud providers today is because of Linux. Linux is the underpinning of so much technology today that it’s become nothing short of ubiquitous. Servers are built on it. Mobile operating systems use it. But no one knows that’s what they are using. It’s all just something running under the surface to enable applications to be processed on top.

Linux is the vodka of operating systems. It can run in a stripped down manner on a variety Continue reading

Save $105 on iRobot Roomba 880 Vacuum Cleaning Robot – Deal Alert

If you've been thinking about outsourcing some of the housework to robots, then this deal might be for you. The highly rated Roomba 880 is currently discounted by $105 on Amazon. It averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 1,300 people, with 70% rating it a perfect 5 stars (read reviews). With a regular price of $699.99, it can be purchased now for $594.99. Not exactly cheap, but this unit comes fully loaded to get the job done right:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dell adopts Aerohive WLAN management for its wired switches

Ethernet switches and wireless LANs are just two ways to get on the same network in most enterprises, so it makes sense to manage them together if you can.Wi-Fi grew up as a separate realm from wired networks, with different monitoring and management tools, but these worlds have started to collide in the past few years. Among other things, wireless specialist Aruba added Ethernet switches to its architecture and Meraki took administration of both network components into the cloud. Rivals Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco Systems snapped up both of those companies.Now Dell has gotten into the game, not by acquisition but through a partnership with WLAN vendor Aerohive Networks. On Tuesday, the two companies are introducing a unified management tool called HiveManager NG.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dell adopts Aerohive WLAN management for its wired switches

Ethernet switches and wireless LANs are just two ways to get on the same network in most enterprises, so it makes sense to manage them together if you can.Wi-Fi grew up as a separate realm from wired networks, with different monitoring and management tools, but these worlds have started to collide in the past few years. Among other things, wireless specialist Aruba added Ethernet switches to its architecture and Meraki took administration of both network components into the cloud. Rivals Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco Systems snapped up both of those companies.Now Dell has gotten into the game, not by acquisition but through a partnership with WLAN vendor Aerohive Networks. On Tuesday, the two companies are introducing a unified management tool called HiveManager NG.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Geek-themed Meme of the Week: Blame Game

Our next installment of “Geek-themed Meme of the Week” comes courtesy of the Twitter account of INE, Inc., and will be familiar to all network professionals. INE via Twitter How familiar? https://twitter.com/SDNgeek/status/723644359099322369 If you’d like to catch up on past “Geek-Themed Memes of the Week,” you can find the archive here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Geek-themed Meme of the Week: Blame Game

Our next installment of “Geek-themed Meme of the Week” comes courtesy of the Twitter account of INE, Inc., and will be familiar to all network professionals. INE via Twitter How familiar? https://twitter.com/SDNgeek/status/723644359099322369 If you’d like to catch up on past “Geek-Themed Memes of the Week,” you can find the archive here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Geek-themed Meme of the Week: Blame Game

Our next installment of “Geek-themed Meme of the Week” comes courtesy of the Twitter account of INE, Inc., and will be familiar to all network professionals. INE via Twitter How familiar? https://twitter.com/SDNgeek/status/723644359099322369 If you’d like to catch up on past “Geek-Themed Memes of the Week,” you can find the archive here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IoT Security Worries IT Pros

IDG Contributor Network: Zscaler provides secure remote access without the need for a VPN

Traditionally the way an organization gives its remote employees access to corporate applications is via a Virtual Private Network (VPN). VPNs have never been a whole lot of fun to use, but as the world moves to ever higher numbers of discrete applications and a huge variety of access devices, the traditional VPN model is looking tired.Zscaler aims to change that with Zscaler Private Access, a new service that promises organizations to provide access to internal applications and services while ensuring the security of their networks.Zscaler is an internet security company. The company offers a secure web gateway, fully from the cloud. In doing so, Zscaler is helping to move security further out into the internet backbone. Indeed, Zscaler is operated from over 100 data centers globally. Zscaler covers a host of security needs, including internet security, next-generation firewall, web security, sandboxing/advanced persistent threat (APT) protection, data loss prevention, SSL inspection, traffic shaping, policy management and threat intelligence.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Zscaler provides secure remote access without the need for a VPN

Traditionally the way an organization gives its remote employees access to corporate applications is via a Virtual Private Network (VPN). VPNs have never been a whole lot of fun to use, but as the world moves to ever higher numbers of discrete applications and a huge variety of access devices, the traditional VPN model is looking tired.Zscaler aims to change that with Zscaler Private Access, a new service that promises organizations to provide access to internal applications and services while ensuring the security of their networks.Zscaler is an internet security company. The company offers a secure web gateway, fully from the cloud. In doing so, Zscaler is helping to move security further out into the internet backbone. Indeed, Zscaler is operated from over 100 data centers globally. Zscaler covers a host of security needs, including internet security, next-generation firewall, web security, sandboxing/advanced persistent threat (APT) protection, data loss prevention, SSL inspection, traffic shaping, policy management and threat intelligence.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

U.S. efforts to build next-gen supercomputer take shape

For decades, the U.S. took for granted the doubling of supercomputing power every 10 years, roughly in line with Moore's Law. But once a petascale system was reached in 2008, it gradually became clear that the next leap -- a system 1,000 times more powerful -- would be difficult.Initially, some believed such a system -- an exascale computer -- was possible in 10 years, or by 2018. But problems emerged. It took too much power, and it required new approaches to applications to utilize an almost unimaginable level of parallelism involving hundreds of millions of cores. Another problem to solve was the need for resilience, or an ability to continue to working around multiple ongoing hardware failures expected in a system of this size.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

U.S. efforts to build next-gen supercomputer take shape

For decades, the U.S. took for granted the doubling of supercomputing power every 10 years, roughly in line with Moore's Law. But once a petascale system was reached in 2008, it gradually became clear that the next leap -- a system 1,000 times more powerful -- would be difficult.Initially, some believed such a system -- an exascale computer -- was possible in 10 years, or by 2018. But problems emerged. It took too much power, and it required new approaches to applications to utilize an almost unimaginable level of parallelism involving hundreds of millions of cores. Another problem to solve was the need for resilience, or an ability to continue to working around multiple ongoing hardware failures expected in a system of this size.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 tips for defending against advanced persistent threats

The aptly named advanced persistent threat (APT) is a type of network attack in which an attacker selects a specific target, uses social engineering and advanced technologies to break into a network and then focuses on that target for weeks, months or years until the attack has successfully played out (or been thwarted). Once inside a network, the attacker's goal is to remain undetected while using some type of malware to capture confidential information, which is ultimately sent to a different location for analysis and then sold on the black market.APTs are highly organized, sometimes with a complete staff, and have plenty of monetary and technological resources. Although APTs may use common hacker tools, they more often employ sophisticated, customized software that's less likely to be picked up by a security protection system. Types of APTs or delivery mechanisms include zero-day attacks, phishing, advanced malware and a variety of Web compromises.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)