Watchdogs detail Federal security tribulations

Security issues continue to confound many Federal agencies keeping tons of sensitive information at risk of unauthorized disclosure, modification, or destruction.That was one of the main conclusions of yet another Government Accountability security assessment, which focused on the Department of Education but included information about other agencies, to congress this week. Since fiscal year 2006, the number of reported information security incidents affecting federal systems has steadily increased, rising from about 5,500 in fiscal year 2006 to almost 67,200 in fiscal year 2014, the GAO noted.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to deal with the blind spots in your security created by SSL encrypted traffic

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

SSL/TLS encryption is widely used to secure communications to internal and external servers, but can blind security mechanisms by preventing inspection of network traffic, increasing risk. In fact, Gartner predicts that in 2017 more than half of network attacks targeting enterprises will use encrypted traffic to bypass controls.

With attackers preying on the security gaps created by encrypted traffic, let’s examine the five most common network traffic inspection errors made today:

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Reaction: Anonymity isn’t a bug

Despite the bad rap it sometimes gets, anonymity – and anonymity technology – is used all the time by everyday people. Think about it: just walking in a park without being recorded or observed or “going off the grid” are common examples of people seeking to disconnect their identity from their activities. via the center for democracy and technology

The problem with anonymity and the modern Internet is we tend to think of being anonymous as either “on” or “off” all the time. The only real reason we can think of to want to be anonymous is to do something evil, to hurt someone, to steal something, or to do something else considered anti-social or wrong.

But there’s a problem with this thinking — it’s much like pitting “the rich” against “the poor,” or any other time bound classification. There are times when I want to be anonymous, and there are times when I don’t care. It’s not a matter of doing that which is nefarious. It’s more about expressing opinions you know people won’t agree with, but which the expression of could cause you material harm, or about being able to investigate something without telling anyone about the situation. Continue reading

New Dell partnership throws doubt on traditional antivirus programs

A partnership announced by Dell on Tuesday shows how cybersecurity defenses are evolving, which could have wide-ranging effects on vendors like Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro.The PC giant has partnered with Cylance, an Irvine, California-based company that specializes in detecting and blocking attacks on endpoint computers.Early next year, Dell will wrap Cylance's Protect product in its Data Protection Endpoint Security Suite, said Brett Hansen, Dell's executive director of data security solutions. The suite is an integrated package with encryption capabilities, authentication features and malware detection.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Book Review: Design For How People Learn

Design For How People Learn, by Julie Dirksen (ISBN 978-0321768438)

Design_for_how_people_learn

I saw the title for this book roll across my Twitter feed — can’t remember from who, sorry — from someone who had a blog and was advocating for other bloggers to check this book out. When I read the abstract for the book, I immediately added it to my reading list.

“Whether it’s giving a presentation, writing documentation, or creating a website or blog, we need and want to share our knowledge with other people. But if you’ve ever fallen asleep over a boring textbook, or fast-forwarded through a tedious e-learning exercise, you know that creating a great learning experience is harder than it seems.”

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Don’t fall for drone registration scams, warns FAA

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration hasn't revealed its plans for drone registration yet, but that hasn't stopped at least one company from trying to make a buck from confusion about the rules.In early November, the FAA and Department of Transportation said they intend to set up a registry that will likely cover many small consumer drones, but it's yet to happen. A task force established to propose registration rules is due to deliver its findings on Friday, but even then the FAA will have to come up with formal rules and propose them.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 6 simple tricks for protecting your passwords "Owners should wait until additional details about the forthcoming drone registration system are announced later this month before paying anyone to do the work for them," the FAA said on Monday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth repeating: Entering your bank PIN in reverse does NOT summon police

Security vendor Kasperky Lab yesterday issued this reminder as part of its “fact or fiction” series: No matter what you may have read on Facebook, entering your bank PIN in reverse will not summon the police.From the Kaspersky post: This urban legend is over a decade old and consistently makes it’s rounds on the Internet. Surprisingly, a lot of social media users care so much about this topic that they continually share this old tale with their friends, urging them to READ IT RIGHT AWAY!As it goes with all urban legends, there is a grain of truth in this myth. The idea of ’emergency code’ for ATMs had been hatched some time ago and is obviously where the myth originated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Connecting Clouds with Spine Internetworking

As more and more modern applications move to hybrid or public clouds, the placement of these applications strains network infrastructure. It only makes sense to leverage the massive investments of public cloud providers. The need for public clouds to interact directly with data center resources requires the distributed deployment of cloud applications and appropriate networking...
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Arista looks to connect clouds

Arista Networks this week expanded its data center interconnect offerings with products designed to enable the interconnection of cloud networks.Arista is adding capabilities that extend its spine networking platforms, EOS operating system software and CloudVision management system to include cloud interconnect features. These capabilities include Spine Transit, Spine Interconnect and Spine Peering.+MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Arista adds security to cloud software+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Presentation: All You Need Are Two Switches

I was asked to present a data-center-related talk last week and decided to focus on one of my favorite topics: because most people don’t have more than a few hundred servers in their data center, they don’t need more than two switches (or a rack of servers).

Not surprisingly, an equipment reseller sitting in the room was not amused.

The video and the slide deck are already online, but there’s a minor challenge: the whole event was in Slovenian ;) However, I plan to record the same topic in English once my SDN travels stop.

Watch the slide deck
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