The Microsoft Take on Containers and Docker

This is a guest repost by Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure (and novelist!). We all benefit from a vibrant competitive cloud market and Microsoft is part of that mix. Here's a good container overview along with Microsoft's plan of attack. Do you like their story? Is it interesting? Is it compelling?

You can’t have a discussion on cloud computing lately without talking about containers. Organizations across all business segments, from banks and major financial service firms to e-commerce sites, want to understand what containers are, what they mean for applications in the cloud, and how to best use them for their specific development and IT operations scenarios.

From the basics of what containers are and how they work, to the scenarios they’re being most widely used for today, to emerging trends supporting “containerization”, I thought I’d share my perspectives to better help you understand how to best embrace this important cloud computing development to more seamlessly build, test, deploy and manage your cloud applications.

Containers Overview

In abstract terms, all of computing is based upon running some “function” on a set of “physical” resources, like processor, memory, disk, network, etc., to accomplish a task, whether a Continue reading

Adobe patches important flaw in LiveCycle Data Services

Adobe Systems released a security patch for LiveCycle Data Services, a development tool used by businesses to synchronize data between back-end servers and rich Internet applications built with Adobe Flex or AIR. The hotfix is available for LiveCycle Data Services 3.0.0, 4.5.1, 4.6.2 and 4.7.0 and addresses a vulnerability that could lead to information disclosure. The flaw is tracked as CVE-2015-3269 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database and is rated important by Adobe. The issue is associated with parsing crafted XML entities and falls into a class of vulnerabilities known as XML External Entity (XXE).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How Adblock Plus could work as malware protection

Last week I discussed one of the pros of ad blockers – how they could significantly reduce the amount of network traffic consumed by pesky advertising, especially auto-playing videos.As I said then and will repeat now, it's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I don't blame users of ad blockers, now numbering close to 200 million worldwide. Ads are obnoxious. They aren't content to just be there, they have to grab you, oftentimes rudely. See also: Adblock Plus could improve network performance, too At the same time, Network World and every other tech news site lives and dies by ads, so I and everyone else published here (plus those folks behind the scenes) need you to see and click on those ads.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft issues emergency patch for zero-day IE flaw being exploited in the wild

Microsoft issued an emergency out-of-band security update on Tuesday to address a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer. All supported versions of Internet Explorer need to be patched as the remote code execution vulnerability is actively being exploited in the wild. While some publications have reported the hole is not being exploited, Microsoft listed "yes" under "exploited."MS15-093 is rated critical for Internet Explorer 7 to 11, which happen to be all supported versions of IE on Windows clients; it's rated moderate for Windows servers. The patch addresses the vulnerability by modifying how IE handles objects in memory.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

F5 iRules – What is a Program?

When I’m not working (boring right now), reading Everyday Feminism (fascinating*) or spending time with the family (awesome) I’m writing. I’ve three book projects on the go, two of which are taking far too long and rapidly become a chore. The third is the third edition of my F5 iRules book (I’m not shilling – […]

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Are Walled Gardens the Future of the ‘net?

From the very beginning, the walled garden has been the opposite of what those who work on and around the ‘net have wanted. The IETF, and the protocols it has developed over the years, have always been about free and open access to anyone who wants to learn networking, coding, or even just what the latest baseball score for their favorite team. Of course, a number of tech giants (remember Compuserve?) fought to build walled gardens using the tools of the Internet. A user would dial into a modem pool, and access the world through a small portal that would provide a consistent and controlled interface for their entire experience, from email to news to chat to…

The same battle rages in recent times, as well. Phone makers, mobile providers, and even social media networks would desperately like to make your only interface into the global Internet a single O/S or app. From this one app, you’ll be able to talk to your friends, pay your bills, save all your data, and, in general, live your entire life. And for those times when you can’t get to what you want outside the app or social network, they will gladly Continue reading

Worth Reading: New Port Mapper DDoS Attack

In hopes of warding off significant attacks, Level 3 Communications is trying to spread the word among ISPs of a major new distributed denial of service (DDoS) threat. The threat was identified after Level 3’s security monitoring detected unusual activity that appeared to be bad actors testing out and then using a new DDoS threat vector, Portmapper. via lightreading

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Keep these cybersecurity holidays marked on your calendar

It’s no happy day for enterprises when cyber thugs celebrate their favorite ‘holidays’—special days when they attack with even more cunning and fervor. Learn these days and get ready to respond to related exploitations.  Software Support Retirement / End of Support Day. This is the date when support ends for any OS or software package. Unsupported software leaves enterprises open to attack. Because the vendor will no longer make general releases of security patches, each new hole attackers uncover will remain vulnerable. To prepare for this day and defend the enterprise against such attacks, investigate the availability of extended support offered by the vendor at a premium. Weigh that cost against an investment in deploying the latest software product or version that replaces the older product. Either of these avenues is going to cost you.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Internet company Web.com hit by credit card breach

Hackers breached the computer systems of Internet services provider Web.com Group and stole credit card information of 93,000 customers.According to a website set up by the company to share information about the incident, Web.com discovered the security breach on Aug. 13 as part of its ongoing security monitoring.Attackers compromised credit card information for around 93,000 accounts, as well as the names and addresses associated with them. No other customer information, like social security numbers was affected, the company said.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 26 crazy and scary things the TSA has found on travelers According to the company, the verification codes for the exposed credit cards were not leaked. However, there are websites on the Internet that don't require such codes for purchases.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco: Flash exploits are soaring

Cisco is reporting that successful exploits of Flash vulnerabilities are soaring, partly because they are rapidly being incorporated in kits that take advantage of the flaws as well as because enterprises aren’t patching fast enough, which leaves them open to attack.For the first five months of 2015, the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project has reported 62 Adobe Flash Player vulnerabilities that resulted in code execution on user machines, Cisco says in its 2015 Midyear Security Report.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Datanauts 007 – Decoupled Storage Architecture

While cruising in our Galaxy-class starship to another data center, we’ve hit a storage scaling issue. There’s no way to add any more performance to our antimatter storage array! The chief engineer suggests that we perform a saucer separation to decouple capacity from performance, which will allow us to scale the two requirements individually. Release the docking latches, and let’s hope this maneuver can save us! Satyam Vaghani of PernixData joins the Datanauts for this discussion of decoupled storage.

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Alibaba to open data center in Singapore, amid $1 billion cloud push

Alibaba Group's cloud business is targeting the Southeast Asian market with a new data center that will go online in Singapore this September. The Singapore facility is Alibaba's second data center built outside China. The company has been pushing aggressively into cloud computing, with an eye toward international markets, including the U.S. Last month, Alibaba announced a US$1 billion investment to speed up those efforts. Other data centers are being planned for Europe, Japan, and the Middle East. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Biggest Problem of SDN

A few weeks ago I decided to join the SDN group on LinkedIn and quickly discovered the biggest problem of SDN – many people, who try to authoritatively talk about it, have no idea what they’re talking about. Here’s a gem (coming from a “network architect”) I found in one of the discussions:

The SDN local controller can punt across to remote datacenters using not only IP, but even UDP over MPLS

Do I have to explain how misguided that statement is?

Read more ...

Notes on the Ashley-Madison dump

Ashley-Madison is a massive dating that claims 40 million users. The site is specifically for those who want to cheat on their spouse. Recently, it was hacked. Yesterday, the hackers published the dumped data.

It appears legit. I asked my twitter followers for those who had created accounts. I have verified multiple users of the site, one of which was a throw-away account used only on the site. Assuming my followers aren't lying, this means the dump is confirmed.

It's over 36-million accounts. That's not quite what they claim, but it's pretty close. However, glancing through the data, it appears that a lot of the accounts are bogus, obviously made up things for people who just want to look at the site without creating a "real" account.

It's heavily men. I count 28-million men to 5 million woman, according to the "gender" field in the database (with 2-million undetermined). However, glancing through the credit-card transactions, I find only male names.

It's full account information. This includes full name, email, and password hash as you'd expect. It also includes dating information, like height, weight, and so forth. It appears to contain addresses, as well as GPS coordinates. I suspect that Continue reading
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