Новости за 08.12.2015

Microsoft released the latest version of its System Center Configuration Manager to the world on Tuesday, giving system administrators new tools to manage fleets of devices across their organizations. 

Google Fiber could be coming to Chicago and Los Angeles, where more than 6 million people live, Google announced Tuesday.

Consumers will see an increase in successful cyberattacks against their online health records next year; supercomputers like IBM's Watson will reduce patient deaths and treatment costs by 10% in 2018; and virtual healthcare will soon become routine.

On Tuesday, Microsoft updated their Certificate Trust List (CTL) after the private key for xboxlive.com was leaked to the Web. The company didn't explain how the leak happened, but the exposed certificates were immediately revoked and replaced.

Microsoft last week announced it will switch the licensing for next year's Windows Server 2016 to a per-processor-core basis, a move analysts said is at least partly a grab for more revenue.

The Windows 10 installed base continues to grow at a fast rate, but its actual usage is lagging far behind. That's the takeaway from the latest numbers by Net Applications.

Way to go! Congratulations on suffering through another year of deploying security patches. Microsoft released 12 security bulletins for the last Patch Tuesday of 2015, eight of which are rated as critical for remote code execution vulnerabilities. Hopefully none will result in exceedingly uncool changes like Microsoft snuck into Windows 10 last month to reset privacy settings and default programs.

Juniper Networks this week upgraded its edge routers with hardware and software designed to boost performance and enable network automation.

If you've ever seen the scary red pages in Google Chrome that prevent you from visiting a dangerous website, and wished you had them on your phone, then you're in luck: Google has extended Safe Browsing, the technology behind those security alerts, to Android.

Last summer, law enforcement agencies from 20 countries joined forces to shut down the notorious Darkode hacking forum. Organizers said they would be back, stronger than ever.

It's difficult to gauge exactly how large the gig economy is, but judging by the number of 1099-MISC forms received by the IRS -- which employers are required to file when hiring and paying freelance workers -- it's growing fast. Approximately 82 million 1099s were filed in 2010. By 2014 that number grew to an estimated 91 million.

IBM today got a multi-year grant from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) to build key components of what it calls a universal quantum computer.

From an event perspective, this is a busy week for Cisco (disclosure: Cisco is a ZK Research client). In my last post, I mentioned that the company is holding its third annual Internet of Things World Forum in Dubai. This week, Cisco is also running its annual Collaboration Summit in San Francisco.  

Cisco Systems is rethinking its collaboration tools from the bottom up, turning the lowly Spark text-messaging app into a cloud-based platform that includes videoconferencing and the core features of an enterprise phone system.

We cybersecurity professionals spend a heck of a lot of time in areas like endpoint security, network security, and overall threat management. In the dozen years I’ve been focusing on cybersecurity, this situation hasn’t changed. Unfortunately, this means that we haven’t paid enough attention to software security in the past, and we continue to maintain this basic status quo approach today.

The phenomenon of Shadow IT is not particularly popular among IT folks. They typically feel, with some justification, that users are simple-minded bottom-feeders with no sense of how their individual needs fit into the company's larger technology efforts.

Setting up and using the new Apple TV 4th generation gave me a chance to test and compare it to Google's Chromecast. Google and Apple are the TV streaming leaders, with Chromecast capturing 35% of last quarter's shipments and Apple TV grabbing 20%, according to Strategy Analytics.

While the power of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks has decreased in recent months, their number has spiked, a trend that could signal trouble for smaller companies and websites.

Mozilla has released a new content blocker for the iPhone and iPad, continuing its push to provide users with privacy options for their Web browsing.

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s unspeakably bigoted and un-American proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country – including U.S. citizens -- is rightfully garnering most of the outrage and headlines since it spilled from his fevered mind yesterday. But what this dangerous demagogue had to say about the Internet deserves a fair amount of attention as well, if for no other reason than it’s scary as all hell:  

The National Security Agency has significantly enhanced its capabilities for detecting cyber-threats in the two-plus years since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden pilfered and disclosed classified information. The multi-layered capabilities, which include user behavior analytics, now protect a private cloud that provides storage, computing and operational analytics to the intelligence community, CIO Greg Smithberger tells CIO.com.

According to McAfee Labs, attackers are linking stolen personally identifiable information (PII) sets together in Big Data warehouses, making the combined records more valuable to cyber-attackers. The coming year will see the development of an even more robust dark market for stolen PII and usernames and passwords, according to McAfee Labs.

More data breaches

Image by Flickr: Chris Marquardt

Hacking Team, Comcast, Ashley Madison… the list goes on of companies who became just another notch in the belt of cybercriminals. Like in years past, data breaches were top of the list for our year in review story. Here are some stories that made headlines in 2015.

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For nearly 150 years, Schindler Group has been moving people. The Lucerne, Switzerland-based company makes, supplies and services elevators, escalators and moving walkways. As it moves toward the future, Schindler is deploying smart equipment capable of sharing information with back-end systems and, among other things, sending alerts about maintenance needs to service personnel.

Millions of shoppers will navigate retail aisles this month in search of holiday gifts, many with smartphones in hand — ready to search for reviews, deals and offers before picking their presents. It might seem like a no-brainer for retailers to make a solid in-store Wi-Fi connection a priority in an era of mobile dominance. In reality, however, many have struggled to catch up to consumer Wi-Fi expectations and to take advantage of the growing number of ways Wi-Fi can help them connect with customers. Читать дальше...