Code name found in Equation group malware suggests link to NSA

As security researchers continue to analyze malware used by a sophisticated espionage group dubbed the Equation, more clues surface that point to the U.S. National Security Agency being behind it.In February, Russian antivirus firm Kaspersky Lab released an extensive report about a group that has carried out cyberespionage operations since at least 2001 and possibly even as far back as 1996. The report detailed the group’s attack techniques and malware tools.The Kaspersky researchers have dubbed the group Equation and said that its capabilities are unrivaled. However, they didn’t link the group to the NSA or any other intelligence agency, despite similarities between its tools and those described in secret NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook’s Open Compute Project starts to crack networking

The Open Compute Project says it has broken tight bonds between hardware and software that have kept networking closed for decades—and it took less than two years.Switches and routers traditionally have been “black boxes” with hardware and software from the same vendor and no way for others with new ideas to modify them. Networking is like Unix servers 15 years ago, with proprietary hardware and OSes ruling the day, said Omar Baldonado, Facebook’s manager of infrastructure software engineering. An OCP effort that began in May 2013 has now opened that world up a little bit, he told the OCP Summit in San Jose on Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New Chrome app puts Act-On’s marketing automation tools front and center for SMBs

Few would dispute marketing automation’s potential to benefit corporate marketing efforts, but with all the many and varied tools out there, keeping campaigns coordinated and cohesive can be difficult.With such challenges in mind, Act-On Software on Wednesday launched Act-On Anywhere, an application that makes the engagement data, assets and functionality of the company’s SaaS platform available from anywhere within the browser.An explosion of stand-alone tools has created a marketing climate in which fragmentation is a major problem, said Act-On, which targets SMBs with its platform. In fact, a full 83 percent of marketers cite fragmented systems as one of their most troublesome challenges, according to a study the company recently conducted with Gleanster Research.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google picks London for its first shop-within-a-shop

Google has opened its first shop-within-a-shop in London, yet another retail experiment by the company, which already has counters in third-party stores.The London shop is located inside the Currys PC World store on Tottenham Court Road, and it features Google’s Nexus devices, Chromebooks and other products. Currys PC World is the biggest consumer electronics retailer in the UK.Google’s shop is not a full blown retail outlet like Apple’s huge and sophisticated stores, but more of a modest test balloon for the search giant. It builds on dedicated areas Google has already in big electronics stores.Although not very big, the shop is prominently located by the entrance of the Currys store, so it’s impossible to miss. Shoppers can test and buy Google’s Android phones and tablets as well as Android Wear smartwatches and Chromebook laptops from partners such as LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility, HP and Asus.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google picks London for its first shop-within-a-shop

Google has opened its first shop-within-a-shop in London, yet another retail experiment by the company, which already has counters in third-party stores.The London shop is located inside the Currys PC World store on Tottenham Court Road, and it features Google’s Nexus devices, Chromebooks and other products. Currys PC World is the biggest consumer electronics retailer in the UK.Google’s shop is not a full blown retail outlet like Apple’s huge and sophisticated stores, but more of a modest test balloon for the search giant. It builds on dedicated areas Google has already in big electronics stores.Although not very big, the shop is prominently located by the entrance of the Currys store, so it’s impossible to miss. Shoppers can test and buy Google’s Android phones and tablets as well as Android Wear smartwatches and Chromebook laptops from partners such as LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility, HP and Asus.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tech groups renew push for cloud, email privacy protections

This may finally be the year that the U.S. Congress gives email and other documents stored in the cloud for several months the same privacy protections from police searches as newer files or paper records stored in a file cabinet, say backers of electronic privacy reform.A coalition of tech companies, digital rights advocates and other groups on Wednesday renewed their call for Congress to change a 29-year-old electronic privacy law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act [ECPA].Members of the Digital Fourth coalition have been pushing since 2010 for Congress to change ECPA by requiring law enforcement agencies to get a judge-approved warrant before getting access to a suspect’s digital files stored with a third party for more than 180 days.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

World’s Most Ethical Tech Companies: It’s all relative

T-Mobile is crowing about making a list as one of the 2015 World's Most Ethical Companies. My guess is that voting must have taken place after December, when the FCC announced that T-Mobile would be paying at least $90 for cramming -- that is, "for billing customers millions of dollars in unauthorized third-party subscriptions and premium text messaging services."Then again, it's all relative. AT&T got whacked earlier last year by the FCC for $105M for doing something similar. The State of California also nailed AT&T late last year for almost $24M in a hazardous waste dumping case. Verizon paid up for privacy violations and Sprint got fined last year for not honoring the do-not-call rules. And of course take your pick with Comcast: How about "borrowing" customers' routers to use as WiFi hotspots?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

World’s Most Ethical Tech Companies: It’s all relative

T-Mobile is crowing about making a list as one of the 2015 World's Most Ethical Companies. My guess is that voting must have taken place after December, when the FCC announced that T-Mobile would be paying at least $90 for cramming -- that is, "for billing customers millions of dollars in unauthorized third-party subscriptions and premium text messaging services."Then again, it's all relative. AT&T got whacked earlier last year by the FCC for $105M for doing something similar. The State of California also nailed AT&T late last year for almost $24M in a hazardous waste dumping case. Verizon paid up for privacy violations and Sprint got fined last year for not honoring the do-not-call rules. And of course take your pick with Comcast: How about "borrowing" customers' routers to use as WiFi hotspots?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Big data and battle tanks: Inside World of Tanks’ powerful infrastructure

Tracking the scores, progress and behavior of millions of players around the globe playing an online game is no laughing matter, according to T.J. Wagner, an executive producer and creative director for World of Tanks publisher Wargaming West, who spoke to Network World last week at PAX East.World of Tanks is a multiplayer-only online wargame, which features two teams of players duking it out in a vast array of mid-20th Century armored vehicles. Players gain access to more powerful tanks and better equipment by playing matches and, if they find the rate of advancement too slow for their taste, by paying real cash for in-game currency that can be used to purchase premium account status and new tanks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple’s app, iTunes, iBooks stores suffer outage

Some of Apple’s major online services for purchasing ebooks, music and apps were down as of Wednesday morning.Service for Apple’s App Store, iBooks Store, iTunes Store, and Mac App Store was lost around 2 a.m. U.S. Pacific time, and remained out as of 10:20 a.m., Apple posted on its system status page. Some users of these services worldwide may not be able to make purchases, downloads, or update apps.Service for Apple’s iCloud Mail and iCloud Account & Sign In was also lost around 2 a.m., but was restored by 6 a.m.It’s not clear what caused the outage. Apple did not immediately respond to comment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

First medical apps built with Apple’s ResearchKit won’t share data for commercial gain

As concern grows about data collection by mobile apps, Apple and companies involved with its new ResearchKit software development framework for medical studies say users of the first five apps have nothing to worry about.Access to health data collected by the apps will be restricted to approved medical researchers and barred from commercial use, and the apps won’t delve into the personal contents stored on a smartphone, according to the companies.Sage Bionetworks, a nonprofit biomedical research organization in Seattle, handles collecting, de-identifying and storing of the health data gathered from the five apps developed with ResearchKit, Christine Suver, principal scientist, head of open science data governance at Sage, said in an email interview.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

First medical apps built with Apple’s ResearchKit won’t share data for commercial gain

As concern grows about data collection by mobile apps, Apple and companies involved with its new ResearchKit software development framework for medical studies say users of the first five apps have nothing to worry about.Access to health data collected by the apps will be restricted to approved medical researchers and barred from commercial use, and the apps won’t delve into the personal contents stored on a smartphone, according to the companies.Sage Bionetworks, a nonprofit biomedical research organization in Seattle, handles collecting, de-identifying and storing of the health data gathered from the five apps developed with ResearchKit, Christine Suver, principal scientist, head of open science data governance at Sage, said in an email interview.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Outage hits Apple services, including iCloud and App Store

Reports of problems logging into a variety of Apple services, including the iOS and Mac app stores, iTunes, iCloud and even the company's support scheduler, washed across the Internet early Wednesday."I am trying to update one of my apps but when I get asked to sign into the Mac App Store I get a "Status_Code_Error" appear in red letters to the bottom of the login window," reported someone identified only as xXDivineSparkXx in the first message of a long thread on Apple's support forum, posted before 3 a.m. PT today.Several hundred others chimed in -- from locations across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia -- to report the same.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

3 reasons to be wary of the Internet of Things

According to a 2014 HP report, titled “Internet of Things Research Study,” 70 percent of the most commonly used Internet of Things (IoT) devices contain vulnerabilities involving password security, permissions and encryption. “While the Internet of Things will connect and unify countless objects and systems, it also presents a significant challenge in fending off the adversary given the expanded attack surface,” said Mike Armistead, vice president and general manager, Fortify, Enterprise Security Products, HP, in response to the report.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Now that’s rich: Why the gold Apple Watch costs $10K

As College Humor videos go, this is one of the more SFW ones I've seen (just a couple of naughty words).  Anyway, Apple once again begs for parody videos to emerge with the official, official, official introduction this week of its Apple Watches. Here's why the gold watch costs $10K, according to the humor site. An earlier Apple Watch parody video, too.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Smartphone video traffic will explode, report says

While many of us have taken to the concept of video over mobile networks on smartphones, you could argue that it's been more of a "yeah, really cool, I like that idea" flirtation, rather than a "Hey, when's trash day?" and "Anyone know how to get a 55-inch TV in a garbage can?" kind of amour.Just how many people are happy with stuttering, low-definition images on a pokey smartphone screen, one could ask? I for one am not watching a smartphone screen on an expensive, spotty mobile network in lieu of Wi-Fi media delivery via a big screen when I can help it.And has there been any indication that the non-tech segment of the population thinks differently? Is it not all the same inquisitive dabbling?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IPv4 QoS Markings Calculator

This is a quick calculator I came up that I could use in the CCIE lab to translate between various IPv4 header QoS markings. As long as I could remember how to draw out the calculator, all I had to do was some basic math and I could translate between markings quite easily.

This post does not explain what the header fields are, why there’s so many or what the significance of one QoS value is over another. I’m making an assumption that the reader is already familiar with QoS concepts.

Here’s the calculator:

x x x x x x x x
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 ToS
32 16 8 4 2 1 - - DSCP
4 2 1 2 1 - - - DSCP AF values (AFxy)
4 2 1 - - - - - IP Precedence
Enter 0 or 1 in each position

Each column represents one bit from the Type of Service (ToS) field in the IPv4 header. The right-most column describes what each row is for. The very last row is meant to be filled in by us; it’s the input into the calculator.

As an example, let’s say we Continue reading

Conventional IT security is failing: Continuous monitoring and mitigation can help

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.

All you have to do is read the headlines to know conventional IT security is failing. The number of security incidents among enterprises jumped 25% between 2011 and 2013, according to the 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers “Global State of Information Security Survey.” And in the past 12 months, 96% of enterprises felt the sting of a cyberattack, according to the 2014 IDG Connect Cyber Defense Maturity Report.

The question is no longer if or when you will experience a significant security incident, but how well your processes and controls address detection, analysis and response. Without a real-time, independent and comprehensive view of endpoint status, organizations have an incomplete understanding of their IT risk, and it shows.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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