State Dept. expects email back online later Monday

The U.S. Department of State expects its main unclassified email system to be back in operation later Monday after security upgrades, but wider Internet access could take longer to get back online.The department, which says it fights off “thousands” of hacking attacks each day, took its system offline over the weekend “to ensure the integrity” of the network.“It was about further enhancing our security capabilities,” State Dept. spokeswoman Jen Psaki said at a regular briefing on Monday.She said it would take some time for the entire Internet system to be back online at the government department, but email would be the first step and is expected to return on Monday night.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft Dynamics CRM gets an analytics-infused update

Following the launch of Dynamics CRM 2015 last November, Microsoft on Monday announced a Spring update to the software that promises new social, mobile and analytics capabilities along with closer integration with Office 365.On the social front, for instance, the Spring ‘15 release of Microsoft’s customer relationship management suite offers a new social center where marketing, sales and service teams can monitor social topics and engage directly with communities. Companies can create end-to-end customer engagements from social posts, while social analytics tools now offer text mining, cloud visualization and a social activity map. Tying it all together, Microsoft said, is a redesigned user interface.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware opens up on Cisco

As Cisco and VMware run virtually neck-and-neck in the SDN market, the two continue the war of words on the mindshare battlefield. Cisco posted another blog item last month which included points critical of VMware’s NSX network virtualization platform -- Cisco believes VMware imposes restrictions on which version of Open vSwitch to use with the product and limits VTEP integration:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Networking’s open at last. Now what?

Networking hardware and spontaneous applause don’t often go together, but Facebook’s Omar Baldonado set off a round of cheering this week when he told engineers there’s finally an open-source hardware design that they can use to build switches.It was a goal the Open Compute Project had been working toward since mid-2013, and though the breakthrough happened late last year, Baldonado’s speech at the organization’s summit in San Jose, California, was a occasion for line-rate, no-packets-barred celebration.OCP had done the same thing for networking that it did for computing: Make hardware designs openly available, so vendors can build lots of different boxes easily and cheaply, and promote open software development to give IT teams a choice of what to deploy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple Watch app development pales in comparison to Android Wear

When compared side-by-side, the Apple Watch and Android Wear platforms have some similarities, but not many. A look at Apple's WatchKit, the programming tools used to create apps, gives a first impression that the Apple Watch's capabilities are currently limited.The first release of Google Glass gave developers limited access for building their apps, which captured developers' imaginations. Nine months later, Google released a comprehensive software development kit (SDK.) After listening to Augmate senior engineer Mike DiGiovanni's talk comparing WatchKit and Android Wear at the Wearable Tech Conference, the Apple Watch-like early Google Glass appears incomplete, and will likely get a comprehensive SDK update after Apple has field-tested WatchKit with its developer community.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

USB-C: What you need to know about Apple’s newest port

Apple's special media event last week wasn't solely focused on the upcoming Apple Watch. Per usual, Apple had a few tricks up its sleeve. Specifically, Apple surprised almost everyone when it introduced a new and incredibly thin 12-inch Retina MacBook. What makes Apple's new MacBook so fascinating is that it only comes with one port – USB-C. Just one solitary USB port to rule them all, as many people have jokingly characterized it. In other words, there's no MagSafe, there's no Thunderbolt, and there are no additional USB ports. All of the ports we've come to know and love are nowhere to be found on Apple's new super light and stylish MacBook.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

USB C – What you need to know about Apple’s newest port

Apple's special media event wasn't all about the upcoming Apple Watch. Per usual, Apple had a few tricks up its sleeve. Specifically, Apple surprised almost everyone when they introduced a new and incredibly thin 12-inch Retina MacBook.What makes Apple's new MacBook so fascinating is that it only comes with one port -- USB C. Just one solitary USB port to rule them all, as many people have jokingly characterized it. In other words, there's no MagSafe, there's no Thunderbolt, and there are no additional USB ports. All of the ports we've come to know and love are nowhere to be found on Apple's new super light and stylish MacBook.But just what is USB C, exactly, and why are so many people exceedingly excited about its inclusion on the soon to be released MacBook?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EU Parliamentarians visit U.S. to talk data protection, mass surveillance

Data protection and mass surveillance are high on the agenda for talks between members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and their U.S. counterparts in Washington, D.C., this week.A delegation of 11 MEPs, all members of the Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (LIBE), are in Washington to discuss major issues. One of them is the renewal of the so-called Safe Harbor deal that regulates the transfer of personal data of EU citizens to the U.S.In the wake of Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations about U.S. government spying, the European Commission—the E.U.’s executive branch—gave the U.S. 13 demands that it wanted met in order for the Safe Harbor deal to continue. So far, however, no agreement has been reached. A summer 2014 deadline was postponed and the Commission now hopes to conclude talks on the deal by the end of May.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ansible and MindPoint Group Deliver Automation for Government STIG Compliance

Ansible has teamed with security consultancy MindPoint Group to develop, release, and support a set of Ansible Roles that will save IT organizations considerable amounts of time when applying and maintaining security baselines such as the DISA STIG or CIS benchmark to IT environments.

Why MindPoint Group? That answer is simple. MindPoint Group has a singular focus which has led to an excellent reputation for delivering end-to-end security solutions to commercial and government clients alike.  This focus, coupled with their love of Ansible, made MindPoint Group a natural choice for partnering on the development of free-and-open security baseline roles and playbooks.

The best part? This relationship is already helping Ansible users.

STIG

The first Role is for the DISA STIG on RHEL 6 (and variant systems) and is now available in Ansible Galaxy. This Role enables customers to automate the application and management of STIG-compliant systems in their environments, all the while leveraging Ansible’s agentless management framework.  When applied using Ansible, the RHEL 6 STIG Role automates a significant amount of the manual and redundant scripting and remediation that IT organizations often rely on to ensure they meet the STIG OS requirements.

Releasing this important Role is just the beginning. Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Understanding mood is the next task for the Internet of Things

A few years ago, I can remember the disbelief from friends of the rapidly appearing slew of free internet services being bandied around. Facebook was free. Google Maps was free. "How can that be?" We all though. "Why don't the sites cost anything?"The smart ones delved in a bit deeper and found the answer: analytics.We all know the answer now. It took a few years, but pretty much the entire world now knows that the answer is simply that free isn't free. There's no such thing as a free lunch. We are in fact selling our souls for free Facebook and its ilk.TradeThat unfettered gift bag of online collectanea is provided through a trade: you give the online service insight into your behavior, which it can sell, and it'll give you free stuff, to keep you performing more behavioral actions. In other words, analytics.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Yahoo’s new on-demand password system is no replacement for two-factor authentication

In an effort to simplify authentication for its services, Yahoo has introduced a new mechanism that allows users to log in with temporary passwords that are sent to their mobile phones.If this sounds like a two-factor authentication system where users need to provide one-time codes sent to their mobile phones in addition to their static passwords, it’s not. Yahoo already had that option.Instead, the new log-in mechanism, which is based on what Yahoo calls on-demand passwords, still relies on a single factor, the user’s phone number.Yahoo users—only those based in the U.S. for now—can turn on the new feature from their account security settings on Yahoo’s site. They will need to provide a phone number and then confirm that they have access to it by inputting a verification code sent to them via SMS.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SAP and Deutsche Telekom join forces to connect machines

In a bid to give the local manufacturing industry a leg up, Deutsche Telekom and SAP have joined forces to create standards for what the Germans have dubbed Industry 4.0.At this year’s Cebit trade show, Industry 4.0 is the hottest buzzword. It’s an umbrella term for connecting every part of mainly the manufacturing industry, which is an important driver of the German economy. The term is related to the Internet of things, since sensors and machine-to-machine communications are an essential part of industrial connectivity. The concept covers connectivity for everything from development and production processes to logistics, services, and after-sales support.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Information Security: The Most Important IT Initiative in 2015

At an elementary level, IT is all about using technology to enable the business.  This really hasn’t changed, even back in the early days when IT was called data processing or management information systems. In today’s IT world, business enablement is driving a few meta-trends.  Cheap hardware and open source software is driving big data analytics to the mainstream.  Organizations are abandoning the costs and constraints of on-site IT systems as they move applications and systems to the cloud.  Mobile devices are becoming the primary compute platform for users, automating business processes and changing application development.Given the crazy activity around new IT initiatives like these, it may be somewhat surprising that information security was rated as the most important of all meta-trends in a recent ESG research survey (note: I am an ESG employee).  ESG asked 601 IT professionals working at mid-market (i.e. 500 to 999 employees) and enterprise (i.e. more than 1,000 employees) organizations in North America and Europe to rank 6 different meta-trends on a scale from 1 (most important) to 6 (least important).  The results were as follows:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Five Essential OpenSSL Troubleshooting Commands

OpenSSL Logo Troubleshooting SSL certificates and connections? Here are five handy openssl commands that every network engineer should be able to use. Bookmark this – you never know when it will come in handy!

1. Check the Connection

 openssl s_client -showcerts -connect www.microsoft.com:443

This command opens an SSL connection to the specified site and displays the entire certificate chain as well. Here’s an abridged version of the sample output:

MBP$ openssl s_client -showcerts -connect www.microsoft.com:443
CONNECTED(00000003)
depth=2 /C=US/O=VeriSign, Inc./OU=VeriSign Trust Network/OU=(c) 2006
 VeriSign, Inc. - For authorized use only/CN=VeriSign Class 3 Public
 Primary Certification Authority - G5
verify error:num=20:unable to get local issuer certificate
verify return:0
---
Certificate chain
 0 s:/1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.3=US/1.3.6.1.4.1.311.60.2.1.2=
     Washington/businessCategory=Private Organization/
     serialNumber=600413485/C=US/postalCode=98052/ST=Washington/
     L=Redmond/street=1 Microsoft Way/O=Microsoft Corporation/
     OU=MSCOM/CN=www.microsoft.com
   i:/C=US/O=Symantec Corporation/OU=Symantec Trust Network/
     CN=Symantec Class 3 EV SSL CA - G3
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
[...]
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
 1 s:/C=US/O=Symantec Corporation/OU=Symantec Trust Network/
     CN=Symantec Class 3 EV SSL CA - G3
   i:/C=US/O=VeriSign, Inc./OU=VeriSign Trust Network/OU=(c) 2006
     VeriSign, Inc. - For authorized use only/CN=VeriSign Class 3
     Public Primary Certification Authority - G5
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
[...]
 Continue reading

Act!

Part 1: Getting Inside the Loop
Part 2: Orientation
Part 3: Decide!

Once you’ve observed, oriented, and decided, it’s time to act. This might seem like a minor concept, but it’s actually really, really hard to act in a lot of situations. There are two elements here — the first is our willing suspension of belief, and the second is the doubt storm. Let’s talk about these two.

The willing suspension of belief. To find an example here, I’m going to fall back on my training in self defense. When you first find yourself in any situation that is “bad,” your first line of thought is going to be “this isn’t really happening,” or “why would this person want to hurt me?” In the same way, when your network is failing or under attack, the easiest thing in the world is to disregard the loop, roll over, and go back to sleep. Why would anyone attack my network? Why would this bug be hitting my control plane? Like Scrooge faced with a ghost, we say, “there’s more gravy than grave about you.” And this is a grave mistake. There’s a reason you’ve gone through all the trouble of Continue reading

Face of Chinese IT industry doesn’t please everyone at German trade show

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, made his first visit to the Cebit trade show 14 years ago, pitching Chinese products to Westerners from a small booth that attracted few visitors.Eight years ago, he returned, that time hoping to interest European companies in an online marketplace. That didn’t work out, because people saw the Internet and trade fairs as competitors.Now, though, Ma has it made. China’s tech industry, of which his company is one of the leaders, is a guest of honor at this year’s show, and Ma was the industry star of Sunday night’s Cebit opening ceremony, where he told the story of his previous visits.Feted during the opening ceremony, Ma would have been jeered on Monday morning had he been among the first through the gates. Two groups of protestors greeted visitors, one from Amnesty International, the other from Germany’s Society for Threatened Peoples. Both were unhappy about how the Chinese government orders companies to censor the Internet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Face of Chinese IT industry doesn’t please everyone at German trade show

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, made his first visit to the Cebit trade show 14 years ago, pitching Chinese products to Westerners from a small booth that attracted few visitors.Eight years ago, he returned, that time hoping to interest European companies in an online marketplace. That didn’t work out, because people saw the Internet and trade fairs as competitors.Now, though, Ma has it made. China’s tech industry, of which his company is one of the leaders, is a guest of honor at this year’s show, and Ma was the industry star of Sunday night’s Cebit opening ceremony, where he told the story of his previous visits.Feted during the opening ceremony, Ma would have been jeered on Monday morning had he been among the first through the gates. Two groups of protestors greeted visitors, one from Amnesty International, the other from Germany’s Society for Threatened Peoples. Both were unhappy about how the Chinese government orders companies to censor the Internet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Monday, March 16

BlackBerry teams up with Samsung and IBM on a secure tabletBlackBerry is returning to the tablet market—this time with the help of Samsung, IBM and Secusmart, the German encryption specialist it bought last year. The SecuTablet was developed for customers in German government and is a Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 LTE 16GB bundled with software from IBM and a MicroSD card that combines a number of cryptographic chips to protect data.Alibaba working on face recognition for payment authenticationTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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