Mesh Networking: An alternative internet?
Currently, in order to exchange information on a computer or smartphone, we transfer it over the internet. This may take many different forms -- a web browser, email client, app or cloud storage -- but at the end of the day, you’re sending packets of information to another computer via the now-ubiquitous internet. Since we interact with this system all of the time, we no longer think about "going online". For many people, it’s just a natural state.
If you step back a little bit, you’ll remember that the internet isn’t the only way to transfer computer information. Disks, CDs and other physical media once dominated this space, and the term "sneakernet" was even coined to refer to physically transferring media from place to place. There were phone-based communication systems known as bulletin boards (BBSes), and larger endeavors like America Online or CompuServe, which used phone modems. These were limited to a maximum of 56 kilobits per second (kbps) over telephone lines and had a limited number of simultaneous users.
The 'age of automation' can benefit the security landscape
Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and automation are technology trends dominating discussions in many different industries at the moment and cyber security is no exception.
As cyber criminals become more advanced and the threat landscape continues to develop, businesses are looking to new technologies that can help secure their organization in a more proactive way.
C programming language showing signs of weakening in 2016
Created in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie, C is a dinosaur among computing languages. It’s large, powerful, and has dominated the programming ecosystem for over three decades. Technology changes every few years, and today there are hundreds of programming languages. It’s remarkable that one language has been able to remain so popular over the years, and there’s a reason for that.
Software developer Daniel Angel Munoz Trejo sums up C’s benefits well when he writes, "its closeness to the hardware, great portability and deterministic usage of resources make it ideal for low-level development for such things as operating systems kernels and embedded software. Its versatility, efficiency and good performance make it an excellent choice for high complexity data manipulation software...C is still unsurpassed when performance is the priority".
AWS could become Amazon's biggest business
Holiday sales from Black Friday and Cyber Monday could very well help Amazon hit its target of $134 billion in annual sales, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) could make up for $12 billion of it
The company began offering web services to its customers over 10 years ago and in recent years this division has grown from a small to significant portion of the online retailer's business. AWS currently operates in 38 availability zones within 14 geographic locations and large companies such as Netflix, Adobe and Spotify have turned to the company for hosting and operating their websites and services.
Deutsche Telekom hack affects 900,000 customers
German telecommunications giant and T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom was the victim of a cyber-attack over the weekend, which left some 900,000 users affected, the company confirms in a blog post.
This weekend, a hacker (or more likely, hackers) infiltrated the company, and tried to infect users' home routers with malware. Deutsche Telekom said its network was not affected "at any time".
The cloud can be a driving force for your startup
Amazon Web Services (AWS) turned ten earlier this year and posted some pretty impressive figures to go with it (which have continued to impress in subsequent quarters). The public cloud provider revealed it is on course to generate more than $10bn in 2016, which highlights the success of the public cloud.
Organizations from all over the world are tapping into this success, but could it also be the driving force behind successful start-ups? If so, what can enterprises learn from start-ups flourishing in the cloud?
Mitigating the risks of third-party access to your data
If your office was broken into, you would fear what the intruders might take. Being so concerned about the possibility, you fit all the right locks and alarms and have good door and window security. However, do all the service providers that access your office do the same? If they’re not as security conscious, and they get broken into, the intruders could get hold of the access card or key to your office and then they’re in.
It would be galling because, despite having done all the right things to protect your company’s assets, your defenses were still breached. There was a weakness but it wasn’t your security. You gave a vendor the means to access your business to do you a service, and that access was exploited by someone with the skills to take advantage of their weak security.
Two factor authentication is not enough
The general consensus appears to be that two-factor authentication (2FA) is the answer to our authentication needs. Be that from usage of consumer sites in our personal lives or as part of our daily requirements when signing into enterprise infrastructure and applications at work.
However the cyber-attack on Three's customer upgrade database is yet another example of how 2FA is not enough. Organizations must move away from relying solely on usernames and passwords, as once again access was gained with a stolen employee login.
Samsung considering advice to split in two
Samsung is currently deciding whether or it not it should follow the advice of the US hedge fund management firm Elliott Management that has proposed that the company split its business in two, with one holding company for ownership and another for operations.
Elliott first proposed the split in October with the aim of boosting shareholder value. However, this move would also benefit the Lee family that owns Samsung as it would grant them tighter control over the company.
The benefits of thin clients for IT administrators
IT administrators should no longer be shackled to the desktop, trapped in permanent rounds of helpdesk visits, security patches and upgrades. The future could be an estate of efficient and remotely managed desktops and mobile devices; freeing IT administrators to focus on deploying IT innovation for competitive advantage.
For many IT administrators the feeling of being shackled to the desktop will be all too familiar. An endless round of responding to helpdesk tickets raised by users, running security patches and rolling out upgrades. "Surely there must be more to life than this?", they ask as they trudge off to solve another user issue. And thank goodness there is.
UK businesses unprepared for virtualization security challenges
For UK companies with at least 1,000 PCs, virtualization is a "strategic priority", however, they are yet unprepared for all the different security challenges this approach brings. This is according to a new report by Bitdefender.
Surveying 153 IT decision makers in the UK, working in such companies, the report says hybrid infrastructures are the major common architecture in enterprise environments, as CIOs all over the world being to increasingly adopt them. The report sheds some light on the biggest fears and concerns IT decision makers have with the new infrastructure approach.
Security tips for 2017
In an increasingly digital world, criminals have the information and the means to ensure that high profile security breaches, involving major household names, continue to make the headlines.
As technology evolves, so do the threats being developed by hackers who have a whole host of motivations for wanting to disrupt businesses of all sizes. It’s a constant battle but thankfully one that has resulted in increasingly sophisticated security tools coming to the market.
Tech Deals: This year's best Cyber Monday deals on electronics, TVs and more
If you didn't manage to pick up the tech bargains you were hoping for on Black Friday, the good news is you get a second chance with Cyber Monday!
Courtesy of our partners at TechBargains, our selection of great Cyber Monday deals include laptop and desktop computers, televisions, media streamers, tablets, games consoles, vacuum cleaners and much more.
One in four Wi-Fi hotspots is a security nightmare
A quarter of the world's Wi-Fi networks are so insecure that the only thing stopping hackers from abusing them is their own lack of will. This is according to a new, extensive research by security experts at Kaspersky Lab, which have analyzed more than 31 million public Wi-Fi hotspots all over the world.
Basically, 25 percent aren’t using any type of encryption or password protection, meaning the information going through these networks is wide open for everyone to see. Another three percent are using WEP, which is a protocol that can be cracked "within minutes, using tools that are freely available on the internet".
HPE, IBM and T-Systems compete for Cern cloud platform contract
Cern is currently searching for a potential supplier for its €5.3 million Helix Nebula hybrid cloud platform and T-Systems, IBM and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) have made it to the last round.
Initially, 28 different firms from 12 countries submitted bids for the lucrative contract to develop a hybrid cloud platform that will be built upon commercial cloud services, publicly funded infrastructures and each firm's own IT resources.
Cern has narrowed down its list of bids down to the four firms based on the design ideas they have submitted for the project. The scientific organisation will eliminate one more firm and the remaining three will be required to build a prototype platform.
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