No surprise here: Adobe’s Flash is a hacker’s favorite target

Adobe Systems' Flash plugin gets no love from anyone in the security field these days. A new study released Monday shows just how much it is favored by cybercriminals to sneak their malware onto computers. It looked at more than 100 exploit kits, which are frameworks planted in Web pages that automatically probe for software vulnerabilities when a user browses to a page. Those who develop exploit kits are often hired by others to help distribute specific kinds of malware. Of the top 10 vulnerabilities found in the exploit kits, eight of them were targeted at Adobe's Flash plugin, used on millions of computers to play multimedia content, according to Recorded Future, a cybersecurity intelligence firm based in Somerville, Massachusetts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 11.09.2015

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Okta Mobility ManagementKey features: Updates include support for Android for Work, PCs, OS X, as well as private app store capabilities and a Safari iOS extension. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 11.09.2015

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Okta Mobility ManagementKey features: Updates include support for Android for Work, PCs, OS X, as well as private app store capabilities and a Safari iOS extension. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

6 super-defenses against super-user attacks

ID managementPrivileged Identity Management is based on a common link in the chain of almost every advanced threat: obtaining the credentials of an administrator, super-user or even a program with local admin rights. PIM tools lock down those special user credentials. Some PIM systems concentrate on auditing or anomaly detection so that even trusted insiders who have gone turncoat can be caught. Others look at the password aspect of identity management, cycling impossibly long randomized passwords. Some concentrate on Linux environments, while others are Windows-based. Almost all PIM tools embrace the concept of least-privilege, giving users only the level of access and privilege that they need to run a specific command. Read the full review.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: Stop insider attacks with these 6 powerful tools

Privileged Identity Management is based on the idea that a common element of most advanced threats involves obtaining the credentials of an administrator, super-user or even a program with local admin rights. Armed with those credentials, the attacker can turn internal systems against themselves, rewrite security policies and remain undetected.Privileged Identity Management tools lock down those special user credentials so that even successful breaches are only done against low-level endpoints that can’t do much harm. Should attackers on a compromised system attempt to elevate those privileges, not only will they be quickly detected, but any process that attempts to run will be blocked.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

The Numerous Levels of SDN Reality

A newbie exploring the mythical lands of SDN might decide to start at the ONF definition of SDN, which currently (November 2015) starts with a battle cry:

The physical separation of the network control plane from the forwarding plane, and where a control plane controls several devices.

The rest of that same page is what I’d call the marketing definition of SDN: directly programmable, agile, centrally managed, programmatically configured, open standards based and vendor-neutral.

Read more ...

Dangerous bugs leave open doors to SAP HANA systems

The most serious software flaws ever have been found in SAP's HANA platform, the in-memory database platform that underpins many of the German company's products used by large companies.Eight of the flaws are ranked critical, the highest severity rating, since attackers could use them to delete data, steal customer information and financial statements or change product pricing data."We found lot of stuff under the carpet," said Mariano Nunez, CEO of Onapsis, a Boston-based security company that focuses on protecting SAP systems.What is remarkable is that several of the 21 vulnerabilities found by Onapsis were remotely exploitable, meaning an attacker could gain access to HANA from afar over the Internet. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EMC, hospital to pay $90,000 over stolen laptop with medical data

EMC and Hartford Hospital have agreed to pay US$90,000 to Connecticut in connection with the loss in 2012 of an unencrypted laptop containing patient information of 8,883 residents of the state, according to the state's attorney general.The laptop was stolen from the home of an employee of EMC and was never later recovered, according to an "Assurance of Voluntary Compliance" signed by EMC and the hospital with Attorney General George Jepsen.EMC had been hired as a contractor to the hospital to assist it on a quality improvement project relating to analyzing patient data. The employee had been employed by a company that was acquired by EMC and received the laptop that was stolen from that company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco to MikroTik – command translation – BGP

 

In the world of network engineering, learning a new syntax can challenging especially if you need a lot of detail quickly. The command structure for RouterOS can be a bit challenging sometimes if you are used to Cisco CLI commands.  Most of us that have been in networking for a while got our start with Cisco gear and so it is helpful to draw comparisons between the commands, especially if you are trying to build a network with a MikroTik and Cisco router.

This is the first post in a series I’ve wanted to do for a while that creates a Rosetta stone essentially between IOS and RouterOS. We plan to tackle a number of other command comparisons like OSPF, MPLS and VLANs to make it easier for network engineers trained in Cisco IOS to successfully implement MikroTik / RouterOS devices. While many commands have almost the exact same information, others are as close as possible. Since there isn’t always an exact match, sometimes you may have to run two or three commands to get the information needed.

We plan to tackle a number of other command comparisons like OSPF, MPLS and VLANs to make it easier for network Continue reading

Cisco to MikroTik – command translation – BGP

 

In the world of network engineering, learning a new syntax can challenging especially if you need a lot of detail quickly. The command structure for RouterOS can be a bit challenging sometimes if you are used to Cisco CLI commands.  Most of us that have been in networking for a while got our start with Cisco gear and so it is helpful to draw comparisons between the commands, especially if you are trying to build a network with a MikroTik and Cisco router.

This is the first post in a series I’ve wanted to do for a while that creates a Rosetta stone essentially between IOS and RouterOS. We plan to tackle a number of other command comparisons like OSPF, MPLS and VLANs to make it easier for network engineers trained in Cisco IOS to successfully implement MikroTik / RouterOS devices. While many commands have almost the exact same information, others are as close as possible. Since there isn’t always an exact match, sometimes you may have to run two or three commands to get the information needed.

We plan to tackle a number of other command comparisons like OSPF, MPLS and VLANs to make it easier for network Continue reading

Kubernetes: Basic Concepts

I have been diving into Kubernetes lately, for both personal and $dayjob reasons. With the combined effect of my attendance at a recent Kubernetes workshop by Kelsey Hightower (on his very last day at CoreOS no less!) and also having the amazing opportunity to attend the inaugural and sold-out Kubecon that starts today, I figured it’s high time I tackle a “basics of Kubernetes” post.

This blog post is meant to serve as a very high-level introduction to Kubernetes concepts and components. If you are looking to stand up your own cluster, I encourage you to read the exceptional Kubernetes documentation. No, really. They’re exceptionally good docs.

Scheduling 101

Within the context of computer operating systems, the “scheduler” is the component that manages the assignment of compute resources to running processes. Especially in the early days before parallel computing and multicore systems, it was crucial to very carefully manage how much CPU time was allowed for the various running processes, so that the user could have a seamless experience. Even today with multicore systems, this is important to ensure that each core is utilized as evenly as possible, or at least to meet certain SLA requirements.

With the Continue reading

Kubernetes: Basic Concepts

I have been diving into Kubernetes lately, for both personal and $dayjob reasons. With the combined effect of my attendance at a recent Kubernetes workshop by Kelsey Hightower (on his very last day at CoreOS no less!) and also having the amazing opportunity to attend the inaugural and sold-out Kubecon that starts today, I figured it’s high time I tackle a “basics of Kubernetes” post. This blog post is meant to serve as a very high-level introduction to Kubernetes concepts and components.

Kubernetes: Basic Concepts

I have been diving into Kubernetes lately, for both personal and $dayjob reasons. With the combined effect of my attendance at a recent Kubernetes workshop by Kelsey Hightower (on his very last day at CoreOS no less!) and also having the amazing opportunity to attend the inaugural and sold-out Kubecon that starts today, I figured it’s high time I tackle a “basics of Kubernetes” post. This blog post is meant to serve as a very high-level introduction to Kubernetes concepts and components.

Changing Passwords with cloud-init

Generally speaking, when launching instances in a cloud environment (such as AWS or an OpenStack-based cloud), the preferred/default way of accessing that instance is via SSH using an injected SSH key pair. There are times, though, when—for whatever reason—this approach won’t work. (I’ll describe one such situation below.) In such instances, it’s possible to configure cloud-init, the same tool used to inject SSH keys, to change passwords for user accounts. Here’s how.

Please note that this is a total hack. (Do NOT use this for any sort of production workload!) That being said, sometimes things like this are necessary to complete preliminary evaluations of a new technology, new product, or new architecture. In my case, I had a demo environment (using DevStack) that I needed to get up and running, and the instances would not have any external connectivity. This meant I was limited to console access only—hence, SSH keys are useless. The only means of access would be via password login through the console. So, I found this snippet of cloud-init code:

#cloud-config
chpasswd:
  list: |
    user1:password1
    user2:password2
    user3:password3
  expire: False

For this particular use case, I needed to change the default user on the Ubuntu Continue reading

Kubecon Liveblog: Opening Keynote

This is a liveblog of the opening keynote at the inaugural Kubernetes conference, Kubecon, taking place this week at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Brendan Burns, Senior Staff Software Engineer at Google, is delivering the opening keynote. Burns is a co-founder of the Kubernetes project.

Burns starts out with a quick review of a bit of Kubernetes history, and reviews the broad diversity of submitters that are participating in the development of Kubernetes. He doesn’t spend much time there, though, and quickly transitions into a “where are we going?” discussion.

He says that Kubernetes wasn’t really about containers, or scheduling; it was really about making reliable, scalable, agile distributed systems a CS101 exercise. Kubernetes is really about making it easier to build distributed systems, to scale distributed systems, to update distributed systems, and to make distributed systems more reliable. Burns demonstrates how Kubernetes makes this easier by showing a recorded demo of scaling Nginx web servers up to handle 1 million requests per second, and then updating the Nginx application while still under load.

After the demo completes, Burns takes a few minutes to break down the architecture behind the demonstration. “Loadbots,” managed by a Kubernetes replication controller, Continue reading

Teen hackers strike again, allegedly gain access to U.S. arrest records database

A group of teenage hackers going by the name of “Crackas With Attitude” (CWA) are on a rampage, breaking into federal systems to embarrass the U.S. government.After gaining access to the personal AOL email account of CIA Director John Brennan last month, the teenagers reportedly broke into the Comcast email account of FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliana’s wife, dumped personal details of thousands of government employees and then claimed to have gained access to the national Joint Automated Booking System, JABS, a database of arrest records, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center and the FBI’s Virtual Command Center.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Teen hackers strike again, allegedly gain access to US arrest records database

A group of teenage hackers going by the name of “Crackas With Attitude” (CWA) are on a rampage, breaking into federal systems to embarrass the U.S. government.After gaining access to the personal AOL email account of CIA Director John Brennan last month, the teenagers reportedly broke into the Comcast email account of FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliana’s wife, dumped personal details of thousands of government employees and then claimed to have gained access to the national Joint Automated Booking System, JABS, a database of arrest records, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center and the FBI’s Virtual Command Center.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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