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A cookie is a small text file that contains information about you generated by the internet sites you're visiting. These cookies are sent to your browser (i.e., Internet Explorer or Netscape) and stored on your hard disk.
What's in the cookie? Usually personal information or web site related information. For example, let's say you visit a web site that wants your name, email address and age. You provide this information using a form on the web site. When you're done filling out the form, the web site will take the information you supplied, put it in a small file called a cookie and send it to your web browser for future use. When you surf to that site again, the cookie is called up to help the web site remember you.
Most cookies are used for valid reasons. | <urn:uuid:325a11d8-c4f0-4c88-a2f0-0e8cb90433a6> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | http://research.actiance.com/term_list.php?id=1 | 2024-09-15T01:14:41Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651601.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20240914225323-20240915015323-00531.warc.gz | en | 0.910694 | 164 | 3.453125 | 3 |
When you think of being a patient in the hospital, the last thing you may think about is the safety of your personal data. According to research findings by Michigan State University, the security of your personal information in U.S. hospitals is something to be concerned over. An article on UPI explores the study, showing just how important data protection is in the healthcare industry.
Researchers at MSU conducted a study analyzing data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, looking at data breaches among hospitals and healthcare providers.
Hospitals covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, are required by law to report data breaches affecting 500 or more patients within 60 days to the Department of Health and Human Services.”
The study found that over a seven-year period from October 2009 to December 2016, approximately 1,800 large data breaches containing patient information occurred in U.S. hospitals.
Taking a closer look at the data, of the 1,798 data breaches recorded, healthcare providers were responsible for reporting 1,225 of them. The remaining breaches over the seven-year period were reported by health plans, healthcare clearinghouses and business associates.
216 hospitals, including large teaching hospitals were responsible for reporting 257 breaches, with 33 hospitals reporting they had experienced more than one breach.
What can we learn from these findings? With hospitals being such prominent victims of data breaches, it is crucial that data protection is increased among the healthcare industry.
This study was published in JAMA Internal Medicine. | <urn:uuid:10f2780a-3640-4050-a165-47c78a9efcf2> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.hipaasecurenow.com/large-data-breaches-happening-at-u-s-hospitals/ | 2024-09-17T11:32:34Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651773.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20240917104423-20240917134423-00331.warc.gz | en | 0.974912 | 312 | 2.578125 | 3 |
If you’ve recently heard talk of a so-called ‘digital divide,’ you’re not alone. The term, highlighting the disparity in access to technology across society, has recently caught the attention of IT companies, policymakers, and international organizations.
What is the digital divide?
For those of us whose lives are intimately entwined with technology, both at home and at work, it may be challenging to imagine functioning in society without the technologies we rely on. However, despite the rapid evolution of technology across the past decades, there are still people all over the world who lack basic access to the internet and its associated technologies. This, in short, is the digital divide.
How wide is the divide?
In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reports that in 2017, 93.5% of the population had access to fixed terrestrial broadband of at least 25Mbps (download speed)/3Mbps (upload speed).
This figure represents a decrease in 18% of those who lacked internet access from the year prior. Despite these improvements, access isn’t universal: the data show that those living in rural areas and those in lower income households are significantly less likely to have internet access.
How do we bridge the gap?
So how do we bridge the divide? There are numerous initiatives already at play both in the US and abroad. For example:
- The FCC has retooled its approach to data collection to rely on geospatial data, ideally providing more granular information on gaps in broadband accessibility and allowing more focused efforts to promote access.
- Through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, the FCC will deliver a minimum of $20.4bn toward high-speed broadband in rural areas in the coming decade.
- With the help of a $1.45m grant from T-Mobile’s EmpowerEd Program, Atlanta Public Schools launched its Digital Bridge Program to mitigate the ‘homework gap.’ Sixth and seventh graders were given laptops, as well as a T-Mobile 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspot.
Worldwide, the World Bank, World Economic Forum, United Nations, and World Trade Organization have all identified the digital divide as a serious problem to tackle in the coming decade. With the consensus that the use of IT is giving nations a competitive edge, promoting access worldwide allows for greater progress toward economic and social parity between developed nations and the developing world.
As with many complex issues that have a broad socioeconomic impact, making sustained and meaningful progress toward bridging the digital divide will require funding, collaboration, and mobilization among many entities across the public and private sectors.
Want to keep up on digital transformation trends?
Apply for free membership in the 451 Alliance, the premier IT think tank. Do I qualify? | <urn:uuid:b1354dcd-0359-47e9-a90f-1dd8e12d9b39> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://blog.451alliance.com/building-a-bridge-across-the-digital-divide/ | 2024-09-20T01:02:01Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700652073.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20240919230146-20240920020146-00131.warc.gz | en | 0.938752 | 572 | 3.578125 | 4 |
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What Is IoT Storage?
Internet of Things (IoT) storage involves managing and processing the immense volumes of data generated by connected devices. These devices, ranging from simple sensors to complex industrial machinery, produce diverse, continuous streams of data that need to be stored for further analysis and real-time decision making. Efficient IoT storage solutions help maximize the value of IoT data.
IoT storage demands differ from traditional data storage, requiring highly scalable, durable, and accessible storage systems that can handle large volumes of high-velocity, unstructured data. This necessitates advanced storage architectures and technologies designed to meet the performance and scalability needs of IoT applications.
This is part of a series of articles about data lake.
In this article:
- Types of Data Generated by IoT
- IoT Data Storage Approaches
- Technologies Enabling IoT Storage
- IoT Storage Challenges and Solutions
Types of Data Generated by IoT
IoT devices can generate different types of data.
Sensor data, produced by devices like temperature sensors or motion detectors, is often raw and real-time. It requires prompt processing and analysis to be useful. The storage system must be able to handle high ingestion rates and provide instant access. Solutions often include time-series databases designed to handle this type of data, ensuring the data is actionable.
Data generated from the operation of devices themselves includes logs, system health data, and usage statistics. This data is crucial for monitoring, maintenance, and optimization of device performance. It typically requires storage that supports fast writing and reading speeds and can handle large volumes of data writes without degradation of performance. For example, NoSQL databases and in-memory data grids.
Information related to the users of IoT devices includes personal preferences, usage patterns, and interaction histories. This data aids in enhancing user experience and personalizing services. Privacy concerns are a major concern, requiring secure storage solutions that comply with data protection laws such as the GDPR. Encryption, both at rest and in transit, along with rigorous access controls, help protect user data.
IoT Data Storage Approaches
There are several technical approaches to store IoT data:
Edge storage involves storing data on local devices or near the data source, rather than transmitting it to a centralized data center. This mitigates latency issues by processing data close to where it is generated, reducing bandwidth usage on networks. Examples of use cases include manufacturing plants and autonomous vehicles.
Cloud storage is scalable and flexible, leveraging the cloud’s resources to store data remotely. This allows IoT deployments to expand storage capacity as needed without investing in physical infrastructure. However, relying solely on cloud storage can introduce latency issues due to data having to travel from the IoT devices to the cloud. Data caching and choosing cloud data centers located nearer to the data sources can help mitigate these latency problems.
Hybrid storage combines the advantages of edge and cloud storage, allowing data to be stored and processed both locally and in the cloud. This enables a balance between reducing latency and leveraging the scalable storage and advanced analytics capabilities of the cloud. It is useful for local decision-making, but where long-term data analysis can be offloaded to the cloud.
Technologies Enabling IoT Storage
Here are some of the technologies that support IoT storage:
- Database technologies: Databases support structured and semi-structured data storage for IoT systems:
- Time-series databases, such as InfluxDB and TimescaleDB, are optimized for storing sequential data generated by IoT devices. They offer efficient data compression and specialized query capabilities to handle large volumes of timestamped data.
- NoSQL databases like Cassandra and MongoDB provide flexibility, scalability, and high performance, managing the varied data from IoT devices. They support a schema-less data model, allowing them to handle different data types.
- File systems: Suitable for IoT environments requiring high throughput and low-latency data access, file systems like ZFS or Btrfs provide features like data integrity checking and snapshot capabilities. This is useful for IoT applications that may need to restore historical data states.
- Block storage systems: These ensure high-performance data access for IoT applications, especially for real-time processing and analysis. They are useful for data, requiring immediate storage and retrieval. Examples include iSCSI and Fiber Channel.
- Object storage solutions: These can handle unstructured data, such as video and images, from devices like surveillance cameras or drones. Solutions like Amazon S3 in the cloud and Cloudian for on-premises storage offer scalability and durability. Users can store, retrieve, and manage data non-sequentially.
- Data warehouses: These provide a structured format for querying and analyzing data, suitable for structured data in IoT scenarios where response times are important. They allow for complex queries and reporting on IoT data that has been processed and normalized.
- Data lakes: These offer a more flexible environment suitable for storing raw, unstructured data from IoT devices. Technologies like Hadoop or Azure Data Lake can handle large amounts of heterogeneous IoT data, enabling later refining and analysis.
Related content: Read our guide to data warehouse vs data lake
IoT Storage Challenges and Solutions
Here are some of the main challenges associated with storing IoT data and how to address them.
1. Data Volume and Scalability
The massive growth of IoT devices leads to data volumes that traditional storage solutions struggle to manage.
Scalable storage solutions like distributed file systems and cloud-based storage can accommodate this growth, enabling horizontal scaling to support changing data inflows.
2. Real-Time Processing and Latency
IoT applications often require real-time data processing to enable timely decision-making. High latency can severely impact the application’s effectiveness, making it crucial to implement storage solutions that ensure quick data access.
Edge computing models help by processing data closer to where it is generated, reducing latency. Integrating fast caching layers and in-memory databases can speed up data retrieval times, supporting real-time processing in IoT environments.
3. Security and Privacy Concerns
IoT devices are often susceptible to security vulnerabilities due to their distributed nature and the sensitivity of the data they handle. Privacy is another critical concern, especially with devices that collect personal data.
Implementing encryption methods for data at rest and in transit is essential. Access controls, regular security audits, and real-time security threat analysis can mitigate breaches and ensure data integrity. Data anonymization techniques and compliance with data protection regulations like GDPR help protect sensitive information and maintain user trust.
Learn more in the detailed guide to IoT security challenges
4. Interoperability and Standardization
Interoperability between different IoT devices and platforms can be challenging due to diverse manufacturers and differing standards.
Adopting universally accepted protocols and standards such as MQTT or CoAP can improve integration and communication between devices. Implementing APIs that enable different storage systems to interact seamlessly can help overcome data silos and enhance the efficiency of IoT systems.
Data Protection and Privacy with Cloudian HyperStore
Data protection requires powerful storage technology. Cloudian’s storage appliances are easy to deploy and use, let you store Petabyte-scale data and access it instantly. Cloudian supports high-speed backup and restore with parallel data transfer (18TB per hour writes with 16 nodes).
Cloudian provides durability and availability for your data. HyperStore can backup and archive your data, providing you with highly available versions to restore in times of need.
In HyperStore, storage occurs behind the firewall, you can configure geo boundaries for data access, and define policies for data sync between user devices. HyperStore gives you the power of cloud-based file sharing in an on-premise device, and the control to protect your data in any cloud environment.
Learn more about data protection with Cloudian. | <urn:uuid:697a4857-fa70-40a3-bd1c-d76ea477ce7e> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://cloudian.com/guides/data-lake/iot-storage-approaches-technologies-and-4-key-challenges/ | 2024-09-20T00:47:48Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700652073.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20240919230146-20240920020146-00131.warc.gz | en | 0.901167 | 1,622 | 3.171875 | 3 |
By Anthony Cusimano, director of technical marketing, Object First
In recent years, ransomware has become the most destructive cyber threat impacting industries of all sizes –in the first half of 2022, there were over 236 million ransomware attacks worldwide. Threat actors have launched ransomware attacks on various targets, including businesses, hospitals, supply chain infrastructures, and education systems, to extort money in exchange for stolen data.
According to a 2022 year-end report, schools sustained the same number of ransomware attacks in 2022 as in 2021, with the most significant attack being Los Angeles Unified School District, which included over 1,300 schools and 500,000 students. While the goal of educators is to establish secure learning environments for students – be it through online or in-person education – far too many are faced with the challenge of ever-increasing ransomware attacks that makes safeguarding IT environments to ensure data protection difficult.
Education systems shouldn’t have to suffer the continuous data theft and extortion that the past few years have burdened them with. By incorporating affordable ransomware-proof tools, these organizations can ensure the safety of backups and effectively defend against ransomware attacks without paying the ransom.
Why the education system continues to be a prime ransomware target
Schools have a wealth of sensitive information about their students and faculty on hand for cybercriminals to target. This includes information such as financial aid records, birth certificates, behavioral records, and addresses that, if left unprotected, can be stolen and sold on the dark web.
Ransomware attacks pose the most significant cybersecurity risk regarding operational disruptions and overall expenses for K-12 schools and districts. This is often because these school systems need more money and education to adopt proper security tools. Within school systems, allocating resources to defend against cyberattacks is restricted by a limited budget, resulting in inadequate IT infrastructure and smaller teams – further weakening visibility to detect potential threats before it’s too late. Because of this, when compared to other industries, the education system falls short of proper protection.
But that’s not all. While there are many reasons why ransomware attacks against education systems have been and continue to remain rampant, a primary reason for this surge is that the COVID-19 pandemic increased reliance on virtual platforms for students to participate in remote learning. This shift created an even larger threat landscape for an underprepared and under-resourced industry, expanding vulnerabilities while perpetuating increased data being stored electronically. This, paired with a strained IT budget and lack of dedicated resources to fight ransomware, has left schools open for attackers to capitalize on. | <urn:uuid:8b34ca72-c162-49f1-bfad-ec705d2c0842> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://educationitreporter.com/tag/protect-schools-against-ransomware/ | 2024-09-20T01:33:02Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700652073.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20240919230146-20240920020146-00131.warc.gz | en | 0.952276 | 525 | 2.640625 | 3 |
More and more companies and private individuals have been looking for better ways to keep their data secure in recent years. No one is truly safe, with huge companies like Facebook, Ticketfly, and T-Mobile suffering from devastating data breaches in 2018. With data breaches happening so frequently, many individuals are understandably worried about exposing their data and suffering from financial loss and must turn to multi factor authentication.
Key cybersecurity measures like enabling a firewall, installing antivirus software, and using encryption technology can only do so much against cybercriminals. Hackers have been using more sophisticated software to steal corporate and private data, so you should do everything you can to keep your data secure. One way of doing this is by enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) as an extra security measure.
In this post, we’ll be looking at everything you need to know about MFA.
How MFA Improves the Security of Your Accounts
In a nutshell, MFA is a security system that necessitates more than one way of authenticating a user. Usually, it combines two or more types of authentication credentials: something a user knows, something they physically have, and something they are.
The MFA creates an extra layer of security to make it harder for hackers or an unauthorized person to access your account. Since there is more than one way of accessing an account, any hacker who’s able to get through the first tier of security (like cracking your password) will be stopped in their tracks as they won’t have access to the other security factors you’ve enabled.
The Different Types of MFA
Below we’ve detailed the different types of MFA you can enable to keep your data secure.
This pertains to physical items that a user possesses to authenticate their login process. These could be a key fob, smartphones, USB drives, security tokens, or the phone’s SIM Card. For example, you might receive a notification on your phone asking if you’re authenticating the login of one of your accounts on a new device. One-time passwords (OTPs) also fall in this category since this is usually sent to your email or phone number.
What falls in this authentication factor category are passwords, PINs, or answers to secret questions. Whatever a user can recall and remember is considered a knowledge factor. This is usually the first level of security you’ll encounter when you try accessing your account.
To put it simply, anything that falls under this category is a part of a user’s body that can be used for authentication purposes. ‘Are Selfies the Next Best Security Tool?’ by HP highlights how companies have begun using facial recognition to improve the security of their products and services. For instance, numerous phone manufacturers like Apple and Huawei have installed facial recognition systems to map out a unique detailed depth map of your face — serving as a biological trait that can be used to confirm a login. Others that fit in this category are iris scans, voice verification, and palm scans.
Is MFA Perfect?
As with all security methods, nothing is 100% prone to vulnerabilities. In ‘The Security Downside of SMS-based Multi Factor Authentication (MFA)’ by George Mutune, he mentioned the security flaws of popular methods like SMS-based MFA. SIM swap attacks to SS7 network vulnerabilities, SMS-based MFA is far from being the perfect MFA method.
A Medium article by Stuart Schechter also illustrates the risks of enabling MFA. For one, you can permanently lose access to your account if you fail to answer a question on your chosen secondary MFA method. Another risk of enabling MFA is that it can make you careless since you now have the notion that your accounts are 100% secure. This can make you vulnerable to trusting unknown publishers and phishing scams.
Regardless, it’s still recommended to enable MFA on all your accounts — be sure to be on the lookout for security vulnerabilities that may compromise your data. If you want to learn more tips on how to practice cybersecurity, head on over to our article ‘Top 20 Cybersecurity Practices that Employees Need to Adopt’. | <urn:uuid:127c550f-ac2d-4bed-a21e-6b3716a9efdf> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://cyberexperts.com/a-guide-to-multi-factor-authentication-mfa/ | 2024-09-07T21:24:03Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700650920.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20240907193650-20240907223650-00331.warc.gz | en | 0.929631 | 864 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Labor Day! The words alone elicit the smell of burgers on a grill and the sights and sounds of intense cornhole games.
The day, which crowns a 3-day weekend, is recognized as the unofficial end of summer. Like so many other holidays, however, its true meaning gets lost in the festivities.
Celebrated the first Monday of September, Labor Day is a federal holiday dedicated to honoring the achievements and contributions of American workers. Its origins lie in the labor movement of the late 19th century, a time when industrialization was rapidly transforming the nation.
In the late 1800s, American workers faced harsh conditions. They often toiled for 12-hour days, 7 days a week, in unsafe environments for meager wages. Child labor was rampant, with many children forced to work in factories and mines to help their families survive. The burgeoning industrial economy required a large labor force, but there were few protections or rights for workers.
Not surprisingly, dissatisfaction grew, prompting the organization of labor unions. These unions sought to improve working conditions, reduce working hours, and secure fair wages. As the labor movement gained momentum, workers across the country went on strike and organized protests.
On September 5, 1882, in New York City, the Central Labor Union (CLU) organized what is widely regarded as the first Labor Day parade. Approximately 10,000 workers took unpaid leave to march from City Hall to Union Square, demanding better working conditions and celebrating their contributions to society. This demonstration was significant as it showed the unity and strength of the labor movement.
The success of that first parade inspired similar events in other cities. By 1884, the CLU had designated the first Monday in September as Labor Day and called for nationwide observance.
The labor movement was not without its conflicts. On May 4, 1886, a peaceful rally in Chicago in support of an 8-hour workday turned violent when a bomb exploded, killing several police officers and civilians. The incident, now known as the Haymarket Affair, heightened tensions between labor unions and authorities, leading to a crackdown on labor activities.
Despite the violence, the demand for labor reforms continued to grow along with public support for workers' rights.
The push for a national holiday to honor workers gained traction in the early 1890s. Several states had already adopted Labor Day as a holiday, but the call for federal recognition was growing. The turning point came after the Pullman Strike of 1894, which severely disrupted rail traffic and led to violent clashes between striking workers and federal troops.
In response to the unrest and as a gesture of reconciliation with the labor movement, President Grover Cleveland on June 28, 1894, signed legislation making Labor Day a federal holiday. The first national observance took place on September 3, 1894.
Similarly, the push to electrify America exposed lineworkers to comparable, harsh conditions, leading to the establishment of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in 1891.
Coosa Valley Electric works with the IBEW under a collective bargaining agreement. I can thankfully say we have a great relationship with the union. We have worked hard to ensure our employees are provided a fair and safe working environment and have opportunities to voice any concerns they have.
I can enjoy Labor Day with the best of them, but I still remember its greater meaning. It reminds me that our employees deserve fairness, decency and respect and that we must honor their contributions.
I hope you enjoy your Labor Day weekend. We look forward to seeing you on September 7 for your Annual Meeting at the International Motorsports Hall of Fame Speed Dome. | <urn:uuid:585f4134-a19f-4d26-a1c0-7b306ce49c77> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.coosavalleyec.com/news-releases/managers-comments-labor-day-more-than-just-backyard-bbq/ | 2024-09-09T01:43:57Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651053.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909004517-20240909034517-00231.warc.gz | en | 0.972237 | 736 | 3.953125 | 4 |
These days, almost every device we use is in some way a computer. From our vehicles to a small mobile device, buses, trains, watches, the television we watch each day. Computers are all around us.
Below all the eye-catching features and GUIs, the code is doing its job, letting its users do whatever it is they fancy. It’s the back end to every gadget and device we use. Codes and functions are responsible for making devices do what they are doing.
However, have you ever thought about where all the code that makes these devices work flawlessly -who wrote it? When an update needs to be made, is the installed Code or Function harmful, or is it for the benefit of the users? In short, Code Signing Certificates answer all these types of questions.
Let’s say as a software distributor; you distribute unsigned code/software. There’s a possibility that someone gets a hold of your software, makes some malicious modifications to it and starts circulating it with an intention to harm users. If your software is popular, this increases that risk substantially.
Understand Code Signing Certificate
Code Signing Certificates offer a digital signing technology that can assert publisher identity and assure users that the code is legitimate and unaltered. Using mathematic functions Code Signing gives a digital identity to the code, which allows users to know who the author is and provides a guarantee that it’s safe to use.
In other words, Code Signing Certificates Digitally sign scripts and executables. They confirm the identity of the software author and offers a guarantee that the code is genuine and has not been altered or corrupted since its signing. Ultimately it helps to build the reputation of the organization or the software developer as an individual, as it lets users download and install their software without any error or warning message.
Safe to Download
Unsigned Software Warning
You can say Code Signing is like shrink wrap of any CD or DVD purchased from a megastore. Remember those? Software would come wrapped in plastic to let users know it hasn’t been tampered with in any way or form. In the same way, code signing does this for software but in a digital format, which works as a unique fingerprint.
It uses PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) technology to create a digital signature based upon a private key & the contents of the program file, and packages that signature with the file or any associated catalog file.
Lastly, obtaining a Code Signing Certificate is easy for any legitimate software developer. Any reputable Certificate Authority like Comodo that sells Code Signing Certificates does not take the applicant’s word for their identity, rather they perform a thorough check-up of the company name, phone numbers and other required information to prove the identity which can take up to 1 to 3 days. That’s no problem if you’re a legitimate developer though. | <urn:uuid:d2424421-50e2-4f59-a6a3-24e8a0aacf3d> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://dev.codesigningstore.com/what-is-code-signing-certificate | 2024-09-10T08:18:18Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651224.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910061537-20240910091537-00131.warc.gz | en | 0.935661 | 605 | 3.109375 | 3 |
In this article, we will discuss information security issues. Also, let us know what those issues are so that we are aware.
Know About Information Security Issues
What are the information security issues? Information security refers to the procedures and practices.
That is in place to protect information from the following:
- unauthorized access
Information security involves protecting not only the data on a company’s computers. But also the computers themselves.
So information security is an integral part of every company’s overall business plan. Moreover, they must coordinate and integrate with other elements of their business.
Also, the information technology (IT) systems’ infrastructures. Information Security is a process that includes preventing that unauthorized access of information.
Know The Information Security Issues
There are many security issues that companies need to take into account. When they are considering information security for their businesses.
Information Security issues may include the following:
1. Security means the protection of our personal and official data from others. It is a process we need to follow for the safety of our data.
Also, we will make sure we follow this process and we need to take care of our important documents. Moreover, the documents which we want to keep safe like our birth certificates, PAN card, Driving Licence, Passport, etc.
if we don’t want these to be lost or stolen.
2. These days all of us use the internet for daily purposes like shopping, bookings, banking, etc. So it becomes important that we protect our identity.
Maybe, our account details from hackers. So hackers steal passwords and bank account details by just looking at your screen.
Therefore, you must choose a password that is hard to guess. It should contain uppercase letters, numbers, and special characters.
Also, you should change your passwords regularly. People sometimes forget their passwords because it is difficult to memorize them.
So instead of giving them easy passwords, they choose easier passwords. They are easy to steal.
3. Another issue is all kinds of malware or viruses. Malware can be installed on your device without your permission.
when you are browsing the internet through an infected link provided by someone. So it is recommended not to download any software from unknown sources.
Use Anti-virus software always on your device to protect yourself from viruses. Some viruses don’t need any user interaction to install on your device.
So they can infect your system when you connect your system with an infected device. It is advisable to connect your system to a trusted device through a USB cable.
Moreover, it is also recommended to always update your operating system. Also, anti-virus software so that you can stay protected from the latest threats.
So you should always scan your device for viruses if you think that your device is infected with a virus. This process is also known as anti-malware scanning.
You can do this by opening your anti-virus software. Then click on scan and then select full scan and click on the scan button.
4. Another issue is the use of public Wi-Fi. You can’t trust any Wi-Fi connection you come across.
It can be maliciously set up by hackers to trap unaware users. So you mustn’t access any financial websites while using public Wi-Fi.
Moreover, if you are using public Wi-Fi. Then it is better if you use a VPN service to protect yourself from cybercriminals.
Also, you should avoid using public Wi-Fi in case of using any confidential information. Like bank account details and passwords.
So these were the information security issues that we discussed in this article. | <urn:uuid:706a7f45-77bf-4e2b-82cc-54dfdd635749> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.ciso-portal.com/what-are-the-information-security-issues/ | 2024-09-10T08:30:08Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651224.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910061537-20240910091537-00131.warc.gz | en | 0.930596 | 763 | 2.828125 | 3 |
“In order to understand machines you need to understand humans and how humans and machines interact in increasingly complex ways,” says Nick Obradovich, one of the researchers behind a paper looking at machine behaviour and recently published in Nature.
The paper called for a new field of research — machine behaviour. The new discipline would take the study of artificial intelligence well beyond computer science and engineering into biology, economics, psychology, and other behavioral and social sciences.
Obradovich told Information Age that we wanted to investigate whether you “can take the methods and tools from behavioral sciences, such as social and biological science and apply tools developed to study the behavior of black box agents, such as humans and fish, and apply those tools to increasingly complex statistical machine learning models as if they are black box agents.”
He gave as an example the field of online trading: “Online trading — an heterogeneous area existing in an environment which is very complex and fast paced, and characterised by population level dynamics and emergent properties.” He said that while economists “may look at this area, the appropriate questions and methods can also fall into areas such as evolutionary ecology and population dynamics.”
The paper surveyed existing machine behaviour research, and found that “a number of different disciplines are doing work that falls within this realm but are not talking to each other.”
Previous studies have highlighted how cross fertilisation from different disciplined can throw new insight on problems. For example, in the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, it took a British biophysicist, Francis Crick, an American micro biologist, James Watson, building on the work of biochemist, Rosalind Franklin; and then for the physicist, George Gamow, to advance the work to explain how the four bases of the double helix could control the synthesis of amino acids.
“It’s not that economists and political scientists aren’t studying the role of AI in their fields currently,” said lead researcher Iyad Rahwan. “Labour economists, for example, are looking at how AI will change the job market, while political scientists are delving into the influence of social media on the political process. But this research is taking place largely in silos. Gathering varied, interdisciplinary perspectives is critical to understanding how to best study, and ultimately live with, these novel intelligent technologies.”
It seems then that the study of machine behaviour is being applied in silos. Maybe, machine behavior needs to have some digital transformation applied to it, after all, silos seem to represent the antithesis of digital transformation.
Four things we need to realise about explainable AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) and its capabilities are undoubtedly astounding, and they leave many people wondering “How does it do that?” The answer to that question drives the concept of explainable AI, which is sometimes called XAI.
More examples of machine behaviour
Obradovich provided Information Age with additional examples of machine behaviour at work.
“A development psychologist, specialising in children, may study how they play with animate objects with AI.” They may look at “what happens if you they put the robot in different conditions.
“What happens to the robot? Does the robot engage in harmful feedback loops? Does it let the child get away with treating it badly? Does the robot change the child’s behavior? Or, taking a longitudinal approach, the psychologist may want to know at the five-year or ten-year mark what the developmental outcomes were, compared with children who used inanimate toys.”
He also turned to the topic that has appeared in mainstream media with a vengeance, the echo chamber. He said: “We know from the study of social networks that we choose friends who are similar to us — homophiloy.”(The tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others, as in the proverb ‘birds of a feather flock together.’ )
30 years on and the internet is in crisis
Another example of behavioural science applied to machine behaviour, relates to bias in AI and indeed the issue of ethical AI.
In simple machine learning algorithms it may not be that difficult to understand why a machine behaved in a certain way. At a layered deep learning level, it is much harder.
Does your company have an AI ethics dilemma?
The ethics of Artificial Intelligence has been in the news — particularly with the creation and almost immediate collapse of Google’s AI Ethics board. But do companies that are new to AI tools need to be asking themselves: ‘Do I have to ‘care’ about ethics?’ asks Alexa Hagerty and Igor Rubinov.
Given this, how do we explain why an algorithm may select people of certain social groups for a specific job opening?
Obradovich says that you could gain greater understanding by borrowing tools from social sciences. In the example of a CV sorting algorithm, “interrogate the algorithms, putting them in different conditions, randomly assigning them, say black, white and hispanic sounding names and specifically characterise whether or not the one thing that you are permuting in that experiment was changing the machine learning system’s decision making.”
Joi Ito, MIT Media Lab director says“The Media Lab has long applied a wide range of expertise and knowledge to its research and study of thinking machines. I’m excited that so many others have endorsed this approach, and by the momentum now building behind it.” | <urn:uuid:ff2aeaf6-ba2e-4e88-9569-5022b9f7cab8> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.information-age.com/machine-behaviour-13632/ | 2024-09-12T16:26:42Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651460.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20240912142729-20240912172729-00831.warc.gz | en | 0.949984 | 1,150 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Data is an essential resource for any organization. Without accurate and timely data, organizations cannot make informed decisions or optimize their processes. To ensure that the data within an organization remains relevant and useful, a Data Steering Group may be established to provide guidance and direction. In this post, we will discuss what a Data Steering Group is and why an organization may want to have one.
Section 1: What is a Data Steering Group?
Definition: What is a Steering Group
A Steering Group, also known as a Steering Committee, is a group of individuals responsible for providing strategic direction, oversight, and decision-making for a specific project, initiative, or organization. The group typically includes representatives from various stakeholder groups and serves as a central point of communication and coordination to ensure the success of the project or initiative.
A “Data Steering Group” is a team of individuals within an organization responsible for setting and governing the data strategy, ensuring that data is used as effectively as possible. The group typically consists of representatives from across the business and will include roles such as Chief Information Officer (CIOs), Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), line-of-business heads, or departmental heads. In addition to technology experts, members of the Data Steering Group should also have broad business knowledge and experience. This ensures that decisions on data usage are taken with the wider context in mind.
The primary role of a Data Steering Group is to provide guidance on data initiatives, taking into consideration both short-term needs and long-term goals. It is responsible for setting data strategies and policies, including developing standards that ensure the quality of data. It also works to ensure compliance with relevant data security and information privacy regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA. In addition to this, the Data Steering Group is tasked with identifying opportunities for data-driven innovation, developing plans to implement them, and ultimately determining which initiatives should be pursued and which should be abandoned.
The Data Steering Group is typically chaired by a senior executive in the organization (such as a CIO or CTO), who will set the agenda for each meeting. Members of the group bring different skillsets and expertise to bear on decisions about how best to use data within an organization. Working together, they can create effective data strategies that benefit the organization as a whole.
In summary, a Data Steering Group is an important part of any organization and can be invaluable in helping to set data strategies that are both effective and compliant. By bringing together individuals with different skillsets from across the business, it can provide valuable guidance on how best to use data for the benefit of the organization.
Section 2: Why have a Data Steering Group?
A Data Steering Group (DSG) is an important organizational tool for ensuring data quality and security. It provides a forum for stakeholders from across the enterprise to come together and make informed decisions about data management issues. The DSG is responsible for setting the data governance strategy and ensuring it is aligned with the organization’s overall business objectives.
The benefits of having a Data Steering Group are numerous. By providing a forum for stakeholders to collaborate, the DSG can help ensure that all data initiatives, or business cases, are compliant with applicable regulations while also improving data quality. This improves trust in data-driven decision making and helps teams produce more accurate results. Additionally, the presence of an oversight body like a Data Steering Group leads to greater accountability for mistakes and ensures that important issues are addressed quickly and effectively.
Organizations such as Google, IBM, GE, Microsoft and Intel have implemented successful Data Steering Groups with positive outcomes. These organizations have seen improved data quality, more effective processes for data governance and compliance, and better alignment of data initiatives with business objectives.
In summary, having a Data Steering Group can provide significant benefits in terms of data quality, compliance, and alignment with business objectives. Organizations that have implemented DSGs have seen successful outcomes and results from their efforts. With the right stakeholders and commitment to collaboration, a Data Steering Group could be highly beneficial for any organization looking to optimize the management of its data resources.
Therefore, creating a Data Steering Group is an important step in ensuring proper data management in any organization or company. The DSG provides an oversight body that ensures data initiatives are compliant with applicable regulations and that data quality is never compromised. With the right stakeholders in place, a Data Steering Group can be an invaluable tool for improving data governance and achieving better alignment with business objectives.
Section 3: How to establish a Data Steering Group
The first step to establishing a Data Steering Group is to identify the stakeholders from within the organization who should be part of it. The group should include leadership from IT, operations, finance, marketing, and any other departments that are heavily reliant on data. Additionally, stakeholders outside the organization such as customers or vendors may need to be involved depending on the scope of the data initiatives.
Once all necessary stakeholders have been identified, a charter can be created which outlines the governance structure and objectives of the Data Steering Group. This document should clearly establish roles and responsibilities for each member as well as objectives for guiding data projects through their lifecycle. It should also include metrics that will measure progress towards these objectives in order to ensure accountability across the board.
Finally, the Data Steering Group needs to be effective and remain relevant over time. This can be done by regularly reviewing the charter and metrics to ensure they are still aligned with the organization’s objectives, addressing any changes that may need to be made. Additionally, ensuring open communication among all stakeholders is key for a successful Data Steering Group. Regular meetings should be held in order for members to share updates on their respective initiatives as well as discuss any potential obstacles or opportunities that have arisen. By doing this, the Data Steering Group will continue to make meaningful contributions in guiding data projects through their lifecycle and helping shape the future of an organization’s data-driven decisions.
Having a Data Steering Group is an effective way to ensure data quality and governance are managed in an organization. The group provides the oversight needed to manage data, identify issues, and make decisions that will improve data management practices. With the right resources in place, such as a Data Steering Group, organizations can have confidence that their data is well-managed and secure. Furthermore, having a Data Steering Group can lead to improved decision-making and greater efficiency within an organization. Organizations should consider establishing a Data Steering Group in order to reap the many benefits it has to offer. | <urn:uuid:94300ef7-ecba-4caa-aecc-191df5bc9d6f> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.dataopszone.com/what-is-a-data-steering-group-and-why-have-one/ | 2024-09-13T22:19:22Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651540.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20240913201909-20240913231909-00731.warc.gz | en | 0.949794 | 1,343 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Retail, CPG and Logistics
How route planning and optimisation reduce logistics and transportation costs?
In recent years we have become dependent on Google maps for travelling or “transporting ourselves” from one point to another. We use maps because they suggest the best route that saves time and money. This is an example of how route planning helps us on a personal level.
Now, consider the transportation function in a business. It is extremely complex. This is because of the multiple stages in which goods need to be transported. Let us take an example of a manufacturing unit. The unit procures raw materials which are transported through different stages of manufacturing until the final product is developed. The final product is usually transported for storage in warehouses from where it is finally transported to the buyer. So, detailed logistical planning is needed for smooth functioning of the unit.
Logistics planning, across sectors, entails detailed planning and organisation of seamless transportation and storage of goods so that a business is able to satisfy the needs of its customers in a timely manner.
Transportation and logistics can be a huge cost centre for a business. Besides, these functions play a vital role in the experience the business provides to the customer. Delays or damages caused at any stage of transportation from procurement to the final delivery can impact customer experience negatively. Therefore, route planning and optimisation are vital elements that can provide several benefits to the business.
Route planning optimisation entails developing the most effective route for the transportation of goods through various stages. An optimal route for raw material ensures that goods are transported by the best routes to avoid delays in manufacturing. Route planning is a natural offshoot of the Critical Path Method that considers the various alternatives for the transportation of goods and suggests the best path for transportation. Route planning is not just restricted to establishing transportation routes but optimising the placement of different units that work in tandem for production, storage, and delivery.
Benefits of Route Planning and Optimisation to a Business:
Reduces Fuel Costs:
An optimal route greatly reduces the fuel requirement by various transportation vehicles. With the spiralling fuel costs, any reduction in fuel consumption can prove to be a great cost saver for the business.
Minimises Vehicle Maintenance Costs:
When travel routes are optimised, the idling time of the vehicle is greatly reduced. This keeps the vehicles in a good condition and minimises the time and expenses of maintaining the vehicles.
Optimised routes avoid traffic congestion and ensure that the goods travel through traffic-free routes and reach their destination well within the stipulated time frame. Timely deliveries greatly enhance customer experience.
Helps Keep Customers Updated:
Efficient tracking of the goods enables the business to accurately estimate delivery schedules and provide customers with regular updates about deliveries. This further enhances the customer experience.
In a nutshell, route planning and optimisation enhance the efficiency of the transportation system. This not only helps reduce operational costs of the business but enhances the customer experience.
The next question is how to optimise logistics and transportation.
In the era of technology and innovation, you do not need to sit with a pen and paper and try to chalk out the best route for your goods. Route planning can easily be automated with the help of route planning and automation software. Automation software digitises the route planning process and offers end-to-end transportation management. Technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automate various routine elements of logistics planning. Artificial Intelligent (AI) analyses various data sets involved in transportation and suggests effective solutions to optimise logistics and transportation.
Automation bots also make route planning agile by offering alternate route options in case of sudden restrictions in routes or any other issues with the recommended routes. Bots are also capable of addressing unexpected changes in customer demands. These could be changes in delivery dates/times, cancellation of orders, etc. The software updates the system and suggests new routes that exclude the delivery location of such customers. This ensures that all other orders are delivered well on time.
As customers move from offline to online modes of shopping, an efficient logistics planning system becomes a critical factor for its success. Automation technologies are the most effective tools to optimise route planning to enhance the efficiency of transportation and logistics. With so much thrust on optimising logistics and transportation, it comes as no surprise that the size of the logistics process outsourcing company market size is expected to touch US $94.02 billion by 2026.
*For organizations on the digital transformation journey, agility is key in responding to a rapidly changing technology and business landscape. Now more than ever, it is crucial to deliver and exceed on organizational expectations with a robust digital mindset backed by innovation. Enabling businesses to sense, learn, respond, and evolve like a living organism, will be imperative for business excellence going forward. A comprehensive, yet modular suite of services is doing exactly that. Equipping organizations with intuitive decision-making automatically at scale, actionable insights based on real-time solutions, anytime/anywhere experience, and in-depth data visibility across functions leading to hyper-productivity, Live Enterprise is building connected organizations that are innovating collaboratively for the future. | <urn:uuid:c3006532-41bf-4fe8-8e32-fdd9cf9a797c> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.infosysbpm.com/blogs/retail-cpg-logistics/how-route-planning-and-optimisation-reduce-logistics-and-transportation-costs.html | 2024-09-16T08:30:38Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651682.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20240916080220-20240916110220-00531.warc.gz | en | 0.935648 | 1,048 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Navigating the world of computer parts can be daunting for the uninitiated. There are many different components like the hard drive, motherboard, RAM, and GPU, each with unique functions and many variations. But arguably, the most crucial component of them all is the CPU.
What is a CPU (in short answer)?
The term CPU stands for Central Processing Unit. In short, the CPU is electronic machinery that executes instructions from programs so you can call your friends, open your web browser, or write emails. Many people typically ask: “what is a CPU in a laptop or a desktop computer?” not realizing that CPUs are part of other modern devices like tablets, smartphones, DVD players, or smart washing machines too! Regardless of where you find it, the CPU will be completing calculations by utilizing its billions of transistors. These calculations run the software that allows a device to perform its tasks. For example, a CPU in a smart thermostat helps its software adjust heating and cooling temperatures by executing instructions.
What does a CPU do in a computer?
Just to clarify, any programable machine that automatically carries out logical operations or sequences of arithmetic is a computer. In other words, your laptops, desktops, tablets, gaming consoles, and smartphones are all computers. So, what does a CPU do in a computer? Well, it interprets binary signals to complete actions, calculations, and run applications in a three-step process:
- Fetch: The CPU fetches instructions from the computer’s memory and stores them in a part of its control unit called the Instruction Register (IR).
- Decode: The CPU sends the instruction from the IR to its instruction decoder. This combinatorial circuit decodes the instruction into signals.
- Execute: The decoded signals travel to relevant destinations in the CPU for the execution phase.
A CPU also works with other components. For example, it may take relevant data sent from a video game to a graphics card. The graphics card then processes the information to display on a monitor. Likewise, a CPU helps move data from a computer’s hard drive to its memory for faster access.
Is the CPU the brain of the computer?
Experts often refer to the CPU as the brain when describing computer components in layman terms and it is true, but there’s more to it. While this analogical comparison to a human body accurately depicts the critical nature of a CPU’s role, it doesn’t tell the whole story. A CPU doesn’t offer instructions; the software does. In truth, a computer’s software and CPU working together in harmony are the brains of the operation.
What makes a CPU good?
A clock speed tells you how many instructions a CPU can manage in a second and generally indicates how fast it is. From the 90s to the early 2000s, CPU clock speeds improved significantly with every new generation. However, advancements in clock speeds began to plateau due to extra heat generation and higher power consumption. Here, manufacturers found it more cost-effective to enhance CPUs in other ways, so much so that a modern processor can usually outperform a decade-old processor that has a higher clock speed.
The multi-core processor revolution began with dual-cores and quad-cores. Instead of focusing on advancing clock speed, manufacturers fitted multiple CPUs on one chip. Nowadays, premium CPUs are hitting 32 cores, 64 cores, and more. Such CPUs are an excellent choice for video editors, game streamers, and users of demanding applications, though they may be something of an overkill for the average user.
Hyper-threading is a technological innovation from Intel that allows a single processor core to perform like two by dividing workloads for simultaneous processing. To put it crudely, imagine dividing a hot dog into two and eating both pieces together for faster consumption instead of starting on one end and working your way to the other. Of course, Intel’s competitor AMD has its own version of hyper-threading.
Clock speed vs. Cores
It helps to think of a CPU with a higher clock speed as a sports car and a computer with more cores as a truck. While the sports car will reach its destination faster, a truck will carry more load. Whether you should select a fast processor or a processor with multiple cores depends on your workload. For example, while some apps benefit from multiple cores, others rely on higher clock speed and may not utilize multiple cores.
What does the CPU do in gaming?
The GPU on a graphics card or motherboard renders graphics for a game like landscapes and animations, while a CPU handles calculations for in-game mechanics, artificial intelligence (AI), and inputs from a mouse and keyboard. Not too long ago, games did not take advantage of multiple cores, but modern titles can efficiently utilize over four cores. So, if someone asks you what the best CPU for gaming is, you might tell them to pick a quick multi-threading processor with at least four, if not six cores, that falls in their budget.
Why is my CPU slow?
CPUs can slow down because of aging, overheating, inadequate power or poor ventilation. Some types of malware can also hijack system resources. Check out our article on how to protect your computer from malicious cryptomining to prevent bad actors from using your machine for their monetary gain.
How to maintain a CPU
To keep your CPU in good shape, ensure that your computer’s fans are clean and keep your machine in a ventilated location. For protection against CPU over-use from malware, use reliable antivirus/anti-malware software to protect against resource-stealers like cryptojackers. You may also want to remove some pre-installed software that could unnecessarily take up resources. If you have built your own computer and know how to work with hardware, according to Intel, you should also replace your thermal paste once every few years. Lastly, it also helps to recognize hardware problems that look like malware problems to troubleshoot issues more thoroughly as they arise. | <urn:uuid:bd563e68-91f3-4a39-ae3a-f18f9f5509d5> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.malwarebytes.com/cybersecurity/computer/what-is-a-cpu | 2024-09-17T14:53:42Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651800.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20240917140525-20240917170525-00431.warc.gz | en | 0.937644 | 1,248 | 3.890625 | 4 |
A new ocean observing system from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration now offers mariners free real-time information on water level, wind, and weather conditions for the Sabine-Neches Waterway of Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas.
The so-called PORTS system provides observations of tides, currents, water and air temperature, barometric pressure, and wind speed, gusts and direction through an easy-to-use Web portal and by phone.
NOAA officials say the system will significantly reduce the risk of vessel groundings and increase the amount of cargo moved though the waterway by enabling mariners to safely use nearly every inch of a channel. The system also allows big ships to time their arrivals and departures more efficiently.
There are 19 such other PORTS systems located throughout the nation. | <urn:uuid:767790d1-90ee-4e49-a548-3fbb87c95460> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://federalnewsnetwork.com/technology-main/2010/05/noaa-ocean-observing-system-improves-safety-and-efficiency-of-ships/ | 2024-09-20T04:14:03Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700652130.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20240920022257-20240920052257-00231.warc.gz | en | 0.933622 | 165 | 2.65625 | 3 |
As the new coronavirus outbreak spreads across China and several other countries around the world, fear, rumors, and speculations follow. However, the current scientific data does not support the alternative theories disseminated online. Even though this virus is new, event though evidence shows it was indeed discovered in China and reported by Chinese authorities, it is still part of the coronavirus family, a well-known group of viruses that affects both mammals and birds.
These types of viruses are normally found among animals like camels, cattle, cats or bats. A coronavirus can seldom pass from one species to another, for example from an infected animal to humans. This was the case with SARS between 2001 and 2003, and with MERS in 2012. It also seems to be the case with the current coronavirus outbreak.
Any new virus is a potential danger to those infected and, in certain situations, an outbreak can have an epidemic or pandemic capacity. Only science can help us paint a clearer picture of how the outbreak will evolve. Only researchers and physicians can establish the key elements that will help us assess if and how this outbreak can be contained.
What Do We Know About the Virus?
Basic information from China revealed that numerous people infected with the virus called 2019-nCov were somehow connected to a livestock market in Wuhan, China. Chinese authorities closed the market believed to be the epicenter of the outbreak and banned the selling of live animals at other food markets. However, the fact that the virus is already spreading throughout several other countries, along with the epidemiological analysis of these new cases reveals that transmission also takes place from one human to another.
The scientific community has yet to reach a conclusion regarding how easily the virus is transmitted. Early research suggests that the basic reproduction rate associated with the 2019-nCov virus may range from 2.0 to 3.1, while the World Health Organization (WHO) released a more conservative estimate of 1.4 to 2.5.
WHO classified the 2019-nCov outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern. However, the WHO Emergency Committee said it “believes that it is still possible to interrupt virus spread, provided that countries put in place strong measures to detect disease early, isolate and treat cases, trace contacts, and promote social distancing measures commensurate with the risk.”
How Is the Virus Transmitted and What Are the Risks?
The most likely way of transmitting the virus from human to human is through coughing or sneezing. Its mechanism is the same as that of the common flu and other respiratory infections. Good hygiene and safe food practices are essential in order to reduce exposure. Even so, the outbreak has already spread across continents after infecting thousands all over China. As the number of cases increased, the US State Department warned its citizens not to visit China and prevented foreign nationals from entering the country if they’ve recently traveled to China.
These measures were taken while laboratory-confirmed infections showed no consistency of symptoms or effects. While some people displayed almost no symptoms after contracting the disease, others—especially elderly people with other associated pathologies—we’re struck by serious illnesses, some of them even fatal.
However, the fatality rate of 2019-nCov remains low when compared to SARS, which resulted in no less than 774 deaths in eight months. The new coronavirus has a mortality rate of approximately 2%, while SARS killed 9.6% of those infected. The real cause of concern when talking about the new virus is not the mortality rate, but its rapid spread. In just one month, the number of those infected has exceeded that of SARS in total.
Although most of those who had contracted the disease have already made full recoveries, panic remains an issue, both online and offline. Business Insider quoted Amira Roess, professor of Global Health and Epidemiology at George Mason University’s College of Health and Human Services saying: “There’s the spread of infectious disease, then there’s the spread of panic.”
While for the time being there is no antiviral treatment for 2019-nCov virus, panic can and should be treated with correct information and scientific data. It is crucial to remember the fact that most of the people who died had other associated pathologies that resulted in complications after they were infected with the 2019-nCov virus. | <urn:uuid:03c32d04-974f-4361-9f95-587b0c18688c> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://healthcarecurated.com/editorial/coronavirus-is-causing-panic-despite-low-fatality-rate/ | 2024-09-09T04:35:56Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651072.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909040201-20240909070201-00331.warc.gz | en | 0.961612 | 909 | 3.703125 | 4 |
Computer Vision (CV) is nowadays one of the main application of Artificial Intelligence (eg. Image Recognition, Object Tracking, Multilabel Classification). In this article, I will walk you through some of the main steps which compose a Computer Vision System
A standard representation of the workflow of a Computer Vision system is:
- A set of images enters the system.
- A Feature Extractor is used in order to pre-process and extract features from these images.
- A Machine Learning system makes use of the feature extracted in order to train a model and make predictions.
We will now briefly walk through some of the main processes our data might go through each of these three different steps.
Images Enter the System
When trying to implement a CV system, we need to take into consideration two main components: the image acquisition hardware and the image processing software. One of the main requirements to meet in order to deploy a CV system is to test its robustness. Our system should, in fact, be able to be invariant to environmental changes (such as changes in illumination, orientation, scaling) and able to perform it’s designed task repeatably. In order to satisfy these requirements, it might be necessary to apply some form of constraints to either the hardware or software of our system (eg. remotely control the lighting environment).
Once an image is acquired from a hardware device, there are many possible ways to numerically represents colours (Colour Spaces) within a software system. Two of the most famous colour spaces are RGB (Red, Green, Blue) and HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value). One of the main advantages of using an HSV colour space is that by taking just the HS components we can make our system illumination invariant (Figure 1).
Once an image enters a system and is represented by using a colour space, we can then apply different operators on the image in order to improve its representation:
- Point Operators: We use all the points in an image to create a transformed version of the original image (in order to make explicit the content inside an image, without changing its content). Some examples of Point Operators are: Intensity Normalization, Histogram Equalization and Thresholding. Point Operators are commonly used in order to help visualize better an image for human vision but don’t necessarily provide any advantage for a Computer Vision system.</li>
<li><strong>Group Operators</strong>: in this case, we take a group of points from the original image in order to create a single point into the transformed version of the image. This type of operation is typically done by using Convolution. Different types of kernels can be used to be convolved with the image in order to obtain our transformed result (Figure 2). Some examples are: Direct Averaging, Gaussian Averaging and the Median Filter. Applying a convolution operation to an image can, as a result, decrease the amount of noise in the image and improve smoothing (although this can also end up slightly blurring the image). Since we are using a group of points in order to create a single new point in the new image, the dimensions of the new image will necessarily be lower than the original one. One solution to this problem is to apply either zero paddings (setting the pixel values to zero) or by using a smaller template at the border of the image. One of the main limitations of using convolution is its execution speed when working with large template sizes, one possible solution to this problem is to use a Fourier Transform instead.
Once pre-processed an image, we can then apply more advanced techniques in order to try to extract the edges and shapes within an image by using methods such as First Order Edge Detection (eg. Prewitt Operator, Sobel Operator, Canny Edge Detector) and Hough Transforms.
Once pre-processed an image, there are 4 main types of Feature Morphologies which can be extracted from an image by using a Feature Extractor:
- Global Features: the whole image is analysed as one and a single feature vector comes out of the feature extractor. A simple example of a global feature can be a histogram of binned pixel values.
- Grid or Block-Based Features: the image is split into different blocks and features are extracted from each of the different blocks. One of the main technique using in order to extract features from blocks of an image is Dense SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform). This type of Features is using prevalently to train Machine Learning models.
- Region-Based Features: the image is segmented into different regions (eg. using techniques such as thresholding or K-Means Clustering and then connect them into segments using Connected Components) and a feature is extracted from each of these regions. Features can be extracted by using region and boundary description techniques such as Moments and Chain Codes).
- Local Features: multiple single interest points are detected in the image and features are extracted by analysing the pixels neighbouring the interest points. Two of the main types of interest points which can be extracted from an image are corners and blobs, these can be extracted by using methods such as the Harris & Stephens Detector and Laplacian of Gaussians. Features can finally be extracted from the detected interest points by using techniques such as SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform). Local Features are typically used in order to match images to build a panorama/3D reconstruction or to retrieve images from a database.
Once extracted a set of discriminative features, we can then use them in order to train a Machine Learning model to make inference. Feature descriptors can be easily applied in Python using libraries such as OpenCV.
One of the main concept used in Computer Vision to classify an image is the Bag of Visual Words (BoVW). In order to construct a Bag of Visual Words, we need first of all to create a vocabulary by extracting all the features from a set of images (eg. using grid-based features or local features). Successively, we can then count the number of times an extracted feature appears in an image and build a frequency histogram from the results. Using the frequency histogram as a basic template, we can finally classify if an image belongs to the same class or not by comparing their histograms
This process can be summarised in the following few steps:
- We first build a vocabulary by extracting the different features from a dataset of images using feature extraction algorithms such as SIFT and Dense SIFT.
- Secondly, we cluster all the features in our vocabulary using algorithms such as K-Means or DBSCAN and use the cluster centroids in order to summarise our data distribution.
- Finally, we can construct a frequency histogram from each image by counting the number of times different features from the vocabulary appears in the image.
New images can then be classified by repeating this same process for each image we want to classify and then using any classification algorithm to find out which image in our vocabulary resembles the most our test image.
Nowadays, thanks to the creation of Artificial Neural Networks architectures such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Recurrent Artificial Neural Networks (RCNNs), it has been possible to ideate an alternative workflow for Computer Vision (Figure 4).
In this case, the Deep Learning Algorithm incorporates both the Feature Extraction and Classification steps of the Computer Vision workflow. When using Convolutional Neural Networks, each layer of the neural network applies the different feature extraction techniques at his description (eg. Layer 1 detects edges, Layer 2 finds shapes in an image, Layer 3 segments the image, etc…) before providing the feature vectors to the dense layer classifier.
Further applications of Machine Learning in Computer Vision include areas such as Multilabel Classification and Object Recognition. In Multilabel Classification, we aim to construct a model able to correctly identify how many objects there are in an image and to what class they do belong to. In Object Recognition instead, we aim to take this concept a step further by identifying also the position of the different objects in the image.
Modular robot used as a beach cleaner, Felippe Roza. Researchgate. Accessed at: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/RGB-left-and-HSV-right-color-spaces_fig1_310474598</a>
Bag of visual words in OpenCV, Vision & Graphics Group. Jan Kundrac. Accessed at:https://vgg.fiit.stuba.sk/2015-02/bag-of-visual-words-in-opencv/
Deep Learning Vs. Traditional Computer Vision. Haritha Thilakarathne, NaadiSpeaks. Accessed at: https://naadispeaks.wordpress.com/2018/08/12/deep-learning-vs-traditional-computer-vision/ | <urn:uuid:46dcd51b-e90a-4ed9-9ec9-3cf726b53e4e> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://resources.experfy.com/ai-ml/roadmap-to-computer-vision/ | 2024-09-10T10:55:27Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651241.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910093422-20240910123422-00231.warc.gz | en | 0.89863 | 1,842 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Legal Disclaimer: The resource assets in this website may include abbreviated and/or legacy terminology for HPE Aruba Networking products. See www.arubanetworks.com for current and complete HPE Aruba Networking product lines and names.
Most network devices such as APs, wireless routers, switches, and hubs are connected to a network backbone using Ethernet Ethernet is a network protocol for data transmission over LAN.. In enterprise networks, APs normally connect to a switch with an Ethernet uplink and at homes, an AP normally connects to an ISP Internet Service Provider. An ISP is an organization that provides services for accessing and using the Internet. modem or a small switch using Ethernet. Though Ethernet is the most common and widespread uplink used for APs, some remote networks in particular have certain special uplink requirements. The following are some of the factors that require the need for an alternative to the standard Ethernet uplink of APs:
- Redundancy—In remote deployments, organizations have limited or no IT support and require the network to be always up to ensure productivity. Such organizations often require a backup link when the primary uplink fails. Some examples of organizations that require uplink redundancy include:
- Energy companies having unmanned remote sites that have to be remotely accessible for monitoring purposes.
- Healthcare and retail companies having remote and satellite offices that are required to be always up and accessible to carry out business.
- Organizations with remote offices where employees depend heavily on centralized or cloud based services.
- Lack of Ethernet uplink—Sometimes, extending an Ethernet uplink to a location is expensive or impossible due to geographical factors. In such situations, organizations require alternative uplink capabilities to connect to the internet and corporate resources. Some examples where an alternate uplink is required include:
- Remote site where wired broadband services such as DSL Digital Subscriber Line. The DSL technology allows the transmission of digital data over telephone lines. A DSL modem is a device used for connecting a computer or router to a telephone line that offers connectivity to the Internet. and ADSL are expensive or unavailable.
- Road warriors who need an AP to connect multiple devices but have limited or no access to Ethernet uplinks.
- Mall Kiosks, mobile clinics, first response camps, and other emergency camps during catastrophic disasters.
A cellular uplink (4G Fourth Generation of Wireless Mobile Telecommunications Technology. See LTE./5G) can be configured as the primary uplink only if it is the sole uplink, with no other secondary uplink.
To configure 802.1X 802.1X is an IEEE standard for port-based network access control designed to enhance 802.11 WLAN security. 802.1X provides an authentication framework that allows a user to be authenticated by a central authority. authentication on uplink ports of an AP, complete the following steps in the WebUI:
- In the Aruba Central app, set the filter to a group that contains at least one AP.
The dashboard context for the group is displayed. - Under , click > .
- Click the
The tabs to configure APs are displayed.
icon. - Click
The details page is displayed.
, and click the tab.
- Click the accordion.
- Under Modem enter the details for the parameters provided in the following table:
- Select one of the following 802.1X authentication protocols to be used from the
- Select TLS Transport Layer Security. TLS is a cryptographic protocol that provides communication security over the Internet. TLS encrypts the segments of network connections above the Transport Layer by using asymmetric cryptography for key exchange, symmetric encryption for privacy, and message authentication codes for message integrity. (Transport Layer Security) authentication type from the drop-down list and then select one of the following Certificate Types from the drop-down-list:
- User - Select this option to configure the user-installed certificate for 802.1X authentication.
- TPM Trusted Platform Module. TPM is an international standard for a secure cryptoprocessor, which is a dedicated microcontroller designed to secure hardware by integrating cryptographic keys into devices. - Select this option to configure a factory-installed TPM certificate for 802.1X authentication.
- EST - Select this option as a Certificate Type.
will not be available if TPM is selected as Certificate Type.
- Select (Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol) authentication type.
drop-down list: - Select TLS Transport Layer Security. TLS is a cryptographic protocol that provides communication security over the Internet. TLS encrypts the segments of network connections above the Transport Layer by using asymmetric cryptography for key exchange, symmetric encryption for privacy, and message authentication codes for message integrity. (Transport Layer Security) authentication type from the drop-down list and then select one of the following Certificate Types from the drop-down-list:
- Check the check-box to enable or disable server certificate verification by the AP.
- Click .
- Reboot the AP for the configuration to take effect. | <urn:uuid:2f611029-ec28-4868-aa1a-c023a9251535> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.arubanetworks.com/techdocs/central/latest/content/aos10x/cfg/aps/config-uplink.htm | 2024-09-11T17:18:25Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651390.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20240911152031-20240911182031-00131.warc.gz | en | 0.883315 | 1,035 | 2.796875 | 3 |
A common question we hear everywhere these days is - ”Will AI/Robots replace humans?”
What do you think?
One of the last subjects Stephen Hawking wrote was not as widely reported as perhaps it should have been. The physicist, who had previously warned about the potential threat artificial intelligence posed, more recently suggested that humans faced an even greater and more immediate threat. Sometime in the foreseeable future, he said, the human race could divide into two: those with an average intelligence level by today’s standards and those with super intelligence. The latter breed will have bodies improved by genetic engineering and brains improved by artificial intelligence (AI). These “superhumans”, as they are called, will be relatively few in number, but will pose a serious threat to normal humans.
If “Super Humans” exist in future, the super intelligent might be few in number because genetic engineering of humans’ brains and bodies will be very expensive, and only the very wealthy (or wealthiest) will be able to afford it. The result will be the gradual consigning of most humans to the role of a subservient class, less healthy and less intelligent than the others. In a few generations the superhumans’ progeny will begin to inherit the enhanced traits and, so, medical intervention to engineer those enhancements will become less necessary.
Some experts believe AI is a serious threat because machines will eventually become conscious, develop more sophisticated brains than humans, and decide humans are dispensable. Yet despite such dystopian warnings about AI, nobody knows if machines will ever become conscious, indeed nobody really knows what consciousness is. The idea of machines becoming smarter than humans and threatening the human race is pure speculation and most experts believe it’s unlikely to happen this century, if at all. The creation of superhuman beings, however, is less speculative. Already, humans can be improved by genetic engineering and most experts accept that greatly improving the human brain’s cognitive abilities by both genetic engineering and electronic implantation will happen sooner than most people think. Hawking suggests that anticipated advances in genetics will enable people to acquire improved memory and intelligence, as well as improved disease resistance and longer lifespans.
Talking about “Super Humans”, two solutions floating across internet are - To give every person the same chance to become superhuman. The second is to ban the technology. Neither of these solutions will work. First one is simply not practical, not affordable and could be the biggest threat for human race. Later one will just stop human evolution. History is not reassuring on either count.
In summary, AI/Robots might not be a treat to humanity nor will replace humans, at least in this century. AI will augment human workforce.
The use of AI and Robots should be highly regulated knowing the potential they have, to create negative impact to humans and world at large. Regulations should also help in restricting inventions/discoveries that are a treat to human race, like “Super Humans”.Article published on becominghuman.ai – https://becominghuman.ai/ai-robots-do-not-threaten-humans-but-super-humans-do-21c29ea455db | <urn:uuid:44f81671-1283-42b2-9105-9bf64ebe1471> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.dataflix.com/ai-robots-do-not-threaten-humans-but-super-humans-do/ | 2024-09-14T01:37:14Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651540.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20240913233654-20240914023654-00831.warc.gz | en | 0.955694 | 656 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Defense in depth layers come in many shapes and sizes. This might become confusing for someone who is new to the concept, so please allow me to explain what they are and how they work. In my previous article on defense in depth cybersecurity, I went over its basic notions. To briefly recap, defense in depth is an information security approach that involves placing a series of controls and protocols throughout the network to create redundancy in the case of one system failing. It was based on an eponymous ancient military strategy that implied slowing down an attack with various lines of defense instead of focusing resources on one large formation. Another thing I briefly touched on in that post was the fact that defense in depth is a layered cybersecurity architecture. In this article, I will focus solely on the concept of defense in depth layers from this point on. So, let’s get into it.
Types of Defense in Depth Layers
Defense in depth layers can be classified by two separate sorting systems that sometimes intersect in terms of components. The two resulting categories are that of control layers and that of cybersecurity layers respectively.
Defense in depth can be divided into three control layers according to the point of focus. These are physical controls, technical controls, and administrative controls. Let’s have a more detailed look at each one before moving on to the next subcategory.
As the name suggests, physical controls are defense in depth layers that prevent physical access into an organization’s IT network. These are traditional fortifications that can be used for anything from home protection to military-grade security. They are not cybersecurity-exclusive. Examples include, but are not limited to:
- CCTV systems,
- reinforced fences,
- security guards,
- guard dogs,
- and locked doors.
Technical controls are software and hardware components meant to protect an enterprise’s system and data resources. They differ from physical controls in the sense that they protect the contents of a system rather than the physical system itself. Some instances of technical controls applied to an organization consist of:
- antivirus software,
- software or hardware firewall,
- disk encryption,
- authentication controls,
- and biometric scanning.
Finally, the notion of administrative controls refers to an organization’s IT network security policies and procedures. The intention behind this category of defense in depth layers is to provide proper cybersecurity guidance, as well as to ensure that regulations are respected within a company. The list for this subtype contains:
- security requirements,
- data handling procedures,
- hiring practices,
- digital code of conduct,
- and confidentiality policies.
The subcategory of cybersecurity layers consists of defense in depth layers that focus solely on the cybersecurity aspect, intersecting with the subcategory of technical controls within the larger control layer infrastructure.
Data protection is an example of defense in depth layers of cybersecurity. Its purpose, as the name implies, is to guard the integrity of information resources within a company network. Some processes pertaining to it that you can include in your strategy are data hashing, encryption at rest, and encrypted backups. Data hashing refers to the practice of transforming a string of characters into a shorter key with a fixed length. In fact, the hashes that result from this process are usually the same length regardless of how rich the initial information you feed into it is. Its most common use within a corporate computing environment is in the case of passwords, but it can be used as a cipher for various other bits of data. Next, encryption at rest deals with the protection of data at rest, which entails information or content that is stored locally on the devices in a network. By encrypting such files with a strong RSA or AES algorithm, you are ensuring that someone gaining unlawful entry into company systems won’t be able to read what is stored on them. Encrypted backups function after more or less the same premise, with the exception that they target data that is stored externally, either offline on adjacent devices or online in the cloud.
An essential part of the defense in depth layers infrastructure is the segment of access measures. These are procedures put into place through either policies or software that regulate who enters your company network and to what extent. Essential components include virtual private networks, authentication controls, biometric scanning, and privileged access management. A virtual private network, or VPN for short, routes traffic through an encrypted virtual tunnel, hiding a user’s IP address in the process. It acts as a barrier between the device and the Internet at large, protecting against external cyberattacks. The business version of a VPN secures your employees’ computers regardless of where they are connecting to the company network. Authentication controls handle how members of staff and other enterprise users confirm their identity when logging into the network. Requirements may include a token, a password, a PIN code, a public/private key, or biometric scanning. The latter refers to verification procedures that involve a bodily part, such as fingerprint, retina, or facial features. Using two or more of these methods in tandem creates a multi-factor authentication architecture. Finally, privileged access management enforces the principle of least privilege within a company, through which users in a network have the minimum access rights they need only. It is a way to securely manage privileged accounts that have access to critical and confidential resources within your enterprise. This type of accounts is prime real estate for cyberattackers, which is why I recommend enforcing PAM with the help of a solution such as our Heimdal™ Privileged Access Management.
System admins waste 30% of their time manually managing user
rights or installations
Heimdal® Privileged Access
Is the automatic PAM solution that makes everything
- Automate the elevation of admin rights on request;
- Approve or reject escalations with one click;
- Provide a full audit trail into user behavior;
- Automatically de-escalate on infection;
To automate the task of escalating admin privileges for a limited time to any employee that needs them, the modern workplace needs reliable privileged access management software. A lot of time and resources can be wasted while network admins occupy their days with manual approvals and installations. For this reason, PAM is a staple of a defense in depth cybersecurity strategy.
The practice of system monitoring consists of examining your company network to detect security gaps and prevent attacks. Processes in this category include vulnerability management, as well as both network logging and network auditing. Vulnerability management entails both scanning for security gaps that can be potential entry points for hackers, as well as closing these gateways. The latter is achieved by installing software updates and patches as soon as they are deployed by their respective third-party developers. The easiest way to solve this issue is with an automated software updater. Network logging and auditing is a two-part process that involves keeping records of events that occur in a system, then reviewing them to discover security gaps and other issues. It is carried out with the help of a network log that contains information on users, processes, access requests, errors, and so on. These are then analyzed during an audit.
Endpoint protection deals with defense in depth layers that apply to an organization’s workstations. These can be located on the company perimeter or outside it. Thus, these measures are designed to be equally efficient regardless of where in the world an employee is connecting from. The main software types in this subcategory are represented by antivirus, email protection, and DNS filtering. First things first, antivirus software is a form of endpoint protection that has been around since the 1980s, when the first computer viruses appeared in the wild. Over the years, AV has evolved to be efficient against various forms of malware, such as Trojans, worms, or exploits. However, traditional antivirus still can’t beat advanced threats like polymorphic malware. This is where next-generation antivirus (NGAV) comes in. A cutting-edge cybersecurity solution, NGAV adds sandboxing, as well as behavioral and backdoor analysis to the outdated code-based detection of regular AV software. What is more, it usually comes with an inbuilt firewall, which monitors traffic and blocks malicious entry attempts following a predetermined set of requirements. But more on that in the following (and final) section of the article. DNS filtering consists of monitoring incoming and outgoing traffic at the level of the Domain Name System, taking endpoint protection one step further. Implementing it as one of your defense in depth layers means that you will be able to not only detect threats but also actively hunt and prevent them. You can easily apply DNS filtering on company devices regardless of their location with our Heimdal™ Threat Prevention for Endpoints.
Antivirus is no longer enough to keep an organization’s systems secure.
Heimdal® DNS Security Solution
Is our next gen proactive DNS-Layer security that stops unknown
threats before they reach your endpoints.
- Machine learning powered scans for all incoming online traffic;
- Stops data breaches before sensitive info can be exposed to the outside;
- Advanced DNS, HTTP and HTTPS filtering for all your endpoints;
- Protection against data leakage, APTs, ransomware and exploits;
In terms of email protection, it is important to mention that most services nowadays already have an integrated spam filter that weeds out malicious contact attempts. However, if you want to stop advanced phishing attacks as well, you will need a progressive spam filter and malware protection system that can detect more well-disguised social engineering tactics.
Network protection deals with the online network perimeter of an enterprise. What you need to consider in this respect is first of all the firewall, then enhance its traffic filtering capabilities with an intrusion prevention and detection system. A firewall is a classic network security tool that acts as a barrier between incoming and outgoing queries and the Internet at large. As previously mentioned, it functions according to a predefined set of rules that allow it to identify known threats and block infiltration attempts. However, it can only act against threats that are known. This is where the intrusion prevention and detection system swoops in to boost your company’s defenses. By taking query filtering at the level at the DNS, an IPDS such as our Heimdal™ Threat Prevention for Networks logs all traffic and spots hidden threats through the power of artificial intelligence. In this way, your network will be guarded against previously unknown threats and infamous ones alike.
Defense in depth layers can be categorized in two main ways. But regardless of what you prefer calling them, their strength is in numbers. To successfully implement this cybersecurity approach within your enterprise, you will need to implement at least two of the aforementioned components, although I recommend aiming for a lot more than that. A holistic suite of solutions that creates an adequate balance between physical, technical, and administrative, as well as between network and endpoints is the best way to go. | <urn:uuid:1b9300a7-a0f6-48fa-a0cc-2bbfbc32d3bb> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://heimdalsecurity.com/blog/defense-in-depth-layers/ | 2024-09-20T05:49:41Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700652138.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20240920054402-20240920084402-00331.warc.gz | en | 0.945936 | 2,219 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Defense in Depth is a comprehensive security strategy that utilizes multiple layers of defense to protect data and systems from potential threats. Rather than relying on a single defensive measure, this approach utilizes a series of safeguards, each designed to address different aspects of security. In this blog, we’ll explore what it means, why it’s important, provide a basic example, list pros and cons and discuss layers and components of a Defense in Depth security strategy. Sophisticated solutions like Datto EDR, Datto AV and Datto Managed SOC are ideal choices for a robust Defense in Depth security buildout.
What is Defense in Depth?
Defense in Depth is a multilayered approach to security that ensures that if one layer fails, others will still be in place to thwart an attack. This method encompasses a wide range of strategies, including physical security, technical measures and administrative controls. The solutions chosen in a Defense in Depth strategy will be complimentary and overlapping in some areas to ensure there is always more than one barrier between cybercriminals and a point of entry to a network.
Why is Defense in Depth important?
Defense in Depth is crucial because it acknowledges that no single security measure is foolproof. By implementing multiple layers of defense, organizations can significantly enhance their security posture, reduce the likelihood of a successful attack and minimize potential damage if a breach occurs. This strategy is particularly important in today’s complex threat landscape, where cyberattacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, persistent and novel.
Defense in Depth compared to similar security models
While Defense in Depth shares similarities with other security models and architectures, it is distinct in its approach and implementation. Although these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, understanding their differences is crucial for designing effective security strategies. Here, we will compare Defense in Depth with two other well-known security models: Layered Security and Zero Trust.
Defense in Depth vs. Layered Security
Defense in Depth and Layered Security are often conflated because both involve multiple layers of defense. However, there are key differences between the two.
- Scope and focus: Defense in Depth encompasses a broader range of security measures, including physical, technical and administrative controls, whereas Layered Security primarily focuses on technical and network defenses.
- Implementation: Defense in Depth is a holistic strategy that integrates various types of security measures on a broad scale to protect against a wide array of threats. Layered Security, on the other hand, typically involves adding multiple security tools and techniques at different points within a specific environment (e.g., network, application).
- Philosophy: Defense in Depth is rooted in the idea that security should be multifaceted and comprehensive, providing redundant protections across different domains. Layered Security emphasizes the importance of having multiple, independent security mechanisms within a particular area to ensure resilience against attacks.
Defense in Depth vs. Zero Trust
Defense in Depth and Zero Trust represent different paradigms in cybersecurity, each with its own unique principles and methodologies:
- Core principles: Defense in Depth assumes that breaches are inevitable, therefore it is essential to have layers of security at every turn. In this strategy, it is important to ensure that each layer can independently protect against threats while complimenting other tools to shore up protection. Zero Trust, in contrast, operates on the principle of “never trust, always verify,” where trust is not granted by default to any user or system, regardless of their location within or outside the network.
- Trust model: Defense in Depth may still involve implicit trust within certain layers (e.g., internal network segments), while Zero Trust eliminates implicit trust altogether, requiring continuous verification of all entities.
- Access control: Zero Trust emphasizes strict access controls and segmentation, ensuring that users have the minimum necessary access to perform their tasks. Defense in Depth includes access controls as one of its layers but does not inherently enforce the same level of granular segmentation and continuous verification.
- Modernization: Zero Trust is often seen as a more modern approach that aligns with contemporary IT environments, including cloud and remote workforces. Defense in Depth, while still highly relevant, is a more traditional approach that can be adapted to modern contexts but requires thoughtful integration with newer models like Zero Trust.
What is an example of Defense in Depth?
Defense in Depth is about more than just network security. Consider the security of a corporate office building as an example of how the theory works in practice.
- Physical security: The building is protected by various defenses, such as fences, security guards and surveillance cameras.
- Access control: Employees must use ID badges to enter the building and access certain areas.
- Network security: The company’s network is protected by firewalls, intrusion detection systems and secure Wi-Fi.
- Endpoint security: Each computer has antivirus software and encryption.
- Data security: Sensitive data is protected by strong passwords, encryption and regular backups.
- Policy and training: Employees receive training on security best practices and are aware of company policies.
If an attacker manages to bypass one layer, the subsequent layers provide additional barriers to protect the organization’s assets.
Components of a Defense in Depth Strategy
The Defense in Depth model is structured around three main layers: physical controls, technical controls and administrative controls. Each layer addresses different aspects of security, ensuring a comprehensive and robust defense against various threats. Let’s explore each layer individually and discuss what goes into each.
It may not seem relevant to cybersecurity, but a building or office’s physical components are an important part of keeping networks and data safe. Bad actors aren’t always coming from a mysterious corner of the dark web. Sometimes, they come in through the front door with a thumb drive full of ransomware. Physical controls are the first line of defense in the Defense in Depth model, focusing on protecting the physical infrastructure and preventing unauthorized physical access to systems and data.
Components of physical controls:
- Locks and barriers: Secure doors, locks and barriers that restrict access to sensitive areas.
- Surveillance systems: CCTV cameras and motion detectors to monitor and record activities.
- Security personnel: Trained security guards who can respond to physical threats and enforce access policies.
- Access control systems: Badge readers, biometric scanners and other systems that regulate entry to restricted areas.
- Environmental controls: Measures to protect against environmental hazards, such as fire suppression systems, climate control and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS).
Technical controls, also known as logical controls, involve using technology to protect systems, networks and data from cyberthreats. These controls are what most people would think of when they think about cybersecurity. Technical controls are implemented through hardware and software solutions.
Components of technical controls:
- Firewalls: Devices or software that monitor and control incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules.
- Intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS): Tools that detect and respond to potential security breaches or policy violations.
- Antivirus and anti-malware software: Programs designed to detect, prevent and remove malicious software.
- Encryption: Techniques to protect data in transit and at rest by converting it into an unreadable format without the proper decryption key.
- Access control lists (ACLs): Rules that define which users or systems can access specific resources and what actions they can perform.
- Security information and event management (SIEM): Systems that provide real-time analysis of security alerts generated by network hardware and applications.
Administrative controls involve policies, procedures and practices that govern how an organization manages its security. These controls focus on the human aspect of security, ensuring that employees understand and adhere to security policies and best practices. Administrative controls are designed to shape user behavior and put human safeguards in place to mitigate and respond to system and data threats.
Components of administrative controls:
- Security policies: Formalized rules and guidelines that dictate how security is managed and enforced within the organization.
- Training and awareness programs: Initiatives to educate employees about security threats and best practices, ensuring they can recognize and respond to security incidents.
- Incident response plans: Procedures for identifying, responding to and recovering from security incidents to minimize damage and restore normal operations quickly.
- Access management policies: Guidelines for granting, reviewing and revoking access to systems and data, ensuring that only authorized individuals have access to sensitive information.
- Compliance and auditing: Processes to ensure that security measures comply with relevant laws, regulations and industry standards, and that they are regularly reviewed and audited for effectiveness.
By integrating these three layers — physical controls, technical controls and administrative controls — organizations can create a robust Defense in Depth strategy that addresses security from multiple angles and ensures that every vector has multiple security failsafes.
Layers and components of a Defense in Depth strategy
With a Defense in Depth strategy, organizations can create a resilient security posture that adapts to the evolving threat landscape, providing comprehensive protection against a wide range of cyberthreats.
- Physical security: Measures to protect the physical infrastructure, such as locks, security personnel and surveillance systems.
- Network security: Firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems and network segmentation to protect data in transit.
- Endpoint security: Antivirus software, endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions and device encryption to protect individual devices.
- Application security: Secure coding practices, application firewalls and regular updates to protect software applications.
- Data security: Encryption, access controls and data loss prevention (DLP) solutions to protect data at rest and in transit.
- Identity and access management (IAM): Strong authentication methods, role-based access control (RBAC) and identity governance to manage user access.
- Policies and procedures: Security policies, incident response plans and regular training to ensure a security-aware culture within the organization.
- Security culture: Continuous monitoring, security awareness training, access controls and promoting a positive attitude toward security procedures.
- Monitoring and response: Continuous monitoring, logging and incident response capabilities to detect and respond to security incidents.
Pros and cons of Defense in Depth
Every security strategy has advantages and disadvantages, and some may better suit an organization’s needs than others. Here’s a look at the pros and cons of pursuing a Defense in Depth strategy.
- Redundancy and resilience: One of the primary benefits of Defense in Depth is the redundancy it provides. If one layer of defense fails, other layers remain operational, ensuring continued protection against threats. This resilience is crucial for mitigating the impact of security breaches.
- Comprehensive coverage: Defense in Depth addresses various types of threats and attack vectors. By incorporating physical, technical and administrative controls, it ensures a holistic approach to security, protecting against both external and internal threats.
- Mitigation of risk: With multiple layers of defense, the likelihood of a successful attack is significantly reduced. Even if an attacker bypasses one layer, the subsequent layers act as additional barriers, lowering the overall risk.
- Scalability and flexibility: Defense in Depth can be tailored to an organization’s specific needs and resources. It can be scaled up or down depending on the organization’s size and the complexity of its infrastructure, making it adaptable to changing security requirements.
- Enhanced detection and response: With multiple layers monitoring for threats, the chances of detecting and responding to security incidents in a timely manner are increased. This layered approach offers the opportunity for stronger incident detection, investigation and response capabilities.
- Complexity: Implementing and managing multiple layers of security can be complex and resource-intensive. It requires careful coordination and integration of various security measures, which can be challenging for organizations with limited resources or expertise.
- Cost: Deploying a comprehensive Defense in Depth strategy can be pricey. The costs associated with purchasing, deploying and maintaining various security technologies as well as hiring and training the right IT professionals, can add up quickly. Smaller organizations might find it difficult to allocate sufficient budget for such an extensive approach.
- Potential for overlap and inefficiency: With multiple layers of defense, there is a risk of redundancy and overlap, which can lead to inefficiencies. Some security measures might duplicate the functions of others, resulting in wasted resources and potentially causing performance issues.
- User impact: Increased security measures can affect user experience and productivity. Employees might face additional steps and barriers to access systems and data, which can lead to frustration, shadow IT dangers and potential workarounds that compromise security.
- Maintenance and management: Regular maintenance and management of multiple security layers require continuous effort and vigilance. Keeping all layers up to date and ensuring they work seamlessly together can be challenging, especially in dynamic IT environments.
How does Datto support the Defense in Depth model?
Datto EDR and Datto AV are ideal solutions to include in a robust Defense in Depth security plan. Both complementary solutions offer innovations and automations that make cybersecurity and IT professionals’ lives easier. In fact, Miercom, a global leader in cybersecurity testing, found that Datto EDR detects and stops 99.62% of all malware when combined with Datto AV.
Datto EDR is an easy-to-use cloud-based endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution that detects threats that evade other defenses, enabling a quick response to minimize impact. Some of Datto EDR’s many capabilities are as follows:
- Eliminates alert fatigue: Datto EDR Smart Recommendations eliminate alert fatigue while the correlation engine reduces unnecessary noise.
- Detects fileless attacks with behavioral analysis: Datto EDR includes patented deep memory analysis to ensure you’re informed of even the most elusive threat actors.
- MITRE ATT&CK mapping: Alerts are mapped to the MITRE ATT&CK framework to provide context and helpful clarity, reducing the security expertise required to effectively respond.
- Click-to-respond: With our scalable remote response actions, you can isolate hosts, terminate processes, delete files and more from the dashboard without wasting precious seconds.
- Automated threat response: Easily and automatically interrupt the kill chain for threats with over 65 automated threat response actions that can isolate a host, kill a process or quarantine a file.
Datto AV is an AI-driven, next-generation antivirus (AV) protection solution that can handle zero day, polymorphic and other dangerous cyberthreats. Some of its many capabilities are as follows:
- Next-generation antivirus engine: Beyond signature-based security, incorporating AI and machine learning for dynamic threat response.
- Cloud security intelligence: Access to global threat intelligence through cloud-based infrastructure for enhanced security insights.
- Automatic quarantine and remediation: Quick identification, quarantine and thorough cleaning of infected systems.
- Protection and detection capabilities: Real-time scanning with advanced unpacking and detection for comprehensive malware identification.
Datto Managed SOC
Datto Managed SOC, powered by RocketCyber, is a 24/7 managed detection and response service that boasts our cybersecurity experts to stop advanced threats. This leading MDR solution provides instant visibility into the endpoint, network and cloud threat vectors.
- Continuous monitoring – Around-the-clock protection with real-time advanced threat detection.
- Advanced security stack – 100% purpose-built platform backed by more than 50 years of security experience, optimized to empower businesses and MSPs alike to fend off devastating cyberthreats.
- Breach detection – We catch sophisticated and advanced threats that bypass traditional AV and perimeter security solutions.
- Threat hunting – An elite cybersecurity team proactively hunts for malicious activities so you can focus on other pressing matters.
- No hardware requirements – Our cloud-based technology eliminates the need for costly and complex on-premise hardware.
Datto Endpoint Backup
Ensure that your data is safely stored and easy to access in case of an emergency with Datto Endpoint Backup. Here are some reasons why Datto Endpoint Backup is an efficient and effective product for security:
- Protect everything: Easily safeguard Windows servers, virtual machines (VMs), cloud instances, desktops and laptops from downtime and data loss.
- Recover quickly from ransomware or hardware failure: Recover individual files and folders or perform a full bare-metal restore of the old machine to the same or dissimilar hardware.
- Simplify recovery: Streamline recovery of the entire device configuration, setup and applications with image-based restore without reinstalling the OS or reconfiguring applications.
In this blog, we explored the concept of Defense in Depth and its importance in modern cybersecurity strategies. We discussed the three main layers of Defense in Depth: physical controls, technical controls and administrative controls. We also introduced Datto AV, Datto EDR and Datto Managed SOC as ideal solutions to enhance endpoint security within this framework, highlighting their key features and benefits. We also touched on leveraging Datto Endpoint Backup to support data security. To see how Datto’s endpoint security products can fortify your Defense in Depth strategy, request a demo today. Discover how Datto AV, Datto EDR, Datto Managed SOC and Datto Endpoint Backup solutions can provide comprehensive protection for your organization’s endpoints with a demo. | <urn:uuid:c818161f-17e1-49e3-99e1-1d935ebda9a8> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.datto.com/blog/defense-in-depth/ | 2024-09-09T09:16:47Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651092.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909071529-20240909101529-00431.warc.gz | en | 0.921542 | 3,546 | 2.78125 | 3 |
An engineer must configure traffic for a VLAN that is untagged by the switch as it crosses a trunk link. Which command should be used?
Click on the arrows to vote for the correct answer
A. B. C. D.D
The correct answer is D. switchport trunk native vlan 10.
When a VLAN is untagged, it means that the frames that belong to that VLAN are not encapsulated with the VLAN ID when they are sent across the trunk link. Therefore, the receiving switch on the other end of the trunk link will not know which VLAN the frames belong to.
To solve this problem, the switch needs to assign a native VLAN to the trunk link. The native VLAN is the VLAN that is not tagged when it crosses the trunk link. By default, VLAN 1 is the native VLAN for all trunk links.
To configure a native VLAN for a trunk link, the following command can be used:
switchport trunk native vlan <vlan-id>
In this case, the engineer needs to configure traffic for a VLAN that is untagged as it crosses the trunk link. Therefore, the correct answer is D. switchport trunk native vlan 10, where VLAN 10 is the VLAN that needs to be untagged across the trunk link.
The other answer options are incorrect:
A. switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q is used to configure the trunk link to use IEEE 802.1Q encapsulation, which is the default trunking protocol on Cisco switches. This command does not solve the problem of untagged VLAN traffic.
B. switchport trunk allowed vlan 10 is used to specify which VLANs are allowed to cross the trunk link. This command does not solve the problem of untagged VLAN traffic.
C. switchport mode trunk is used to configure the interface as a trunk port. This command does not solve the problem of untagged VLAN traffic. | <urn:uuid:fa6e0192-6203-4637-8c65-5fb4a90ad5fe> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.exam-answer.com/configure-traffic-vlan-untagged-trunk-link-cisco | 2024-09-09T09:38:01Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651092.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909071529-20240909101529-00431.warc.gz | en | 0.890152 | 408 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Empowering users to make informed decisions on the value of sensitive data
Awareness days are a great way to raise the profile of important issues that might otherwise go unnoticed and Data Privacy Day is no different. Held annually on January 28, Data Privacy Day encourages everyone to make protecting privacy and data a greater priority.
In 2014, there aren’t many businesses that don’t have some form of online presence, whether that’s e-commerce, social media, websites or even just corporate networks. With ever-increasing volumes of data to handle, the proliferation of communication channels and devices for accessing them, and the need to provide ready access to systems for customers and partners, organisations need to find more effective ways to protect their data. The continuous flow of data is an on-going security challenge for organisations that, by law, must protect sensitive personal data such as customer names and records from being leaked or lost.
During the past year alone there have been countless headlines about high-profile organisations losing data or inadvertently making sensitive information public. External threats to data are well-documented and generally well-understood, but in reality organisations must not only contend with cybercriminals, they must also deal with the “insider threat’, that is, the risk that their own employees and other stakeholders pose to their data security.
Again, headlines such as those generate by Edward Snowden last year mean that most people are aware of the threat posed by insiders who intend to leak information, but not all data leakage incidents are due to malicious activity, many are simply down to human error. An unfortunate auto-complete in email addressing can cause just as much damage as a whistle-blower. According to a recent Forrester report, inadvertent misuse of data from insiders topped the list of breach causes in 2013, at 36% of breaches. In the public sector and healthcare industry this percentage jumps to 44%.
Whilst everyone makes mistakes, it is the organisations and their officers that are penalised, so they must put in place robust strategies and technologies to ensure that sensitive data is not inadvertently lost or leaked. Many organisations are subject to regulations requiring them to protect data, enforced with penalties such as fines which, although painful for the bottom line, pale in comparison to the financial and reputational damage caused by the news of the breach and subsequent market reaction.
The 2012 Ponemon Institute “Aftermath of a Data Breach’ report quantified some of the key consequences of a data breach – 50% of respondents reported a loss of productivity, 41% reported a loss of customer loyalty and 25% reported a decline in company share price. In their 2013 report, Ponemon noted that human errors and system problems caused two-thirds of data breaches in 2012 and pushed the global average cost to $136 per record lost.
One of the best ways to ensure that data is effectively protected is through data classification. Data classification empowers users and businesses to assign a value to the data they create and handle so that informed decisions can be taken about how it is managed, protected and shared. A safety net is established helping prevent sensitive data from being distributed in error and enforcing data security policy and best practice across the organisation. Indeed data classification is cited as being one of the top IT security priorities for the next 12 months according to reports – with 15% stating it is business critical and 41% a high priority.
User-driven data classification captures the user’s knowledge of the context and business value of the data, which is then stored as visual and metadata labels on messages and documents, and can range from as simple as “Confidential’ labels to complex national security driven data classifications. This means that the user’s assessment of the importance of the data can travel with it, so that everyone handling that data is clear as to its sensitivity and safeguarding requirements.
Involving a user in the process of identifying and classifying data increases their understanding of the nature of such content and its safeguarding needs. One large Financial Services client of ours explained that they had specifically looked for a data classification solution that would be visible to their employees, so that they would be involved in and aware of data classification and their obligations around protecting valuable data. They actively sought to use their employees to safeguard their data, rather than be passively defended by a host of background data security products.
Employees have to interact with partners and customers for a business to succeed. They are the front line of the business, but without adequate training and education they will also become the weakest link.
Data Privacy Day is a great initiative to highlight and educate businesses on the importance of good data security practices, but the responsibility for educating staff will always remain firmly in the hands of the company. Technologies that empower users to take ownership of secure practices, such as data classification, will help organisations succeed where so many others have failed. | <urn:uuid:ddf0c787-4a50-4d91-beb8-57fa6b9c0280> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2014/01/28/empowering-users-to-make-informed-decisions-on-the-value-of-sensitive-data/ | 2024-09-10T15:17:55Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651255.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910125411-20240910155411-00331.warc.gz | en | 0.9534 | 997 | 2.65625 | 3 |
The General Data Protection Regulation’s (GDPR) security principles demand that firms use appropriate organisational and technical measures to ensure personal data is processed safely. In the following sections, we’ll explore encryption as a security solution for data protection.
What is the purpose of encryption?
Encryption is technically a mathematical function that can encode data in a way that means only users who are authorised can access it. Encryption is a method of safeguarding against unlawful or unauthorised processing of data and is an option for firms to demonstrate data security compliance. Encryption can protect information stored on static or mobile devices, but also during transmission.
What is Article 32?
Article 32 of the GDPR details further considerations for data processing. It specifies encryption as a suitable technical measure. The UK’s data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has stated it has witnessed multiple incidents where personal data has been subjected to unlawful or unauthorised processing, damage, loss, or destruction. In numerous cases, it adds that the distress and damage caused could have been avoided or reduced if the data involved had been encrypted.
The GDPR article states that encryption software is widely available and is a low-cost option for firms to deploy. It also adds that in an incident where data is destroyed or lost but was not encrypted, regulators can pursue action against enterprises.
Encryption for stored data
Encrypting data while it is stored delivers effective protection against unlawful or unauthorised processing. Companies can encrypt individual files or even create fully encrypted containers. Additionally, some apps and databases can be set to store data in an encrypted format.
Encryption for data transfer
Using encryption on personal data being transmitted provides powerful protection against third party attempts to intercept it. Firms should use encrypted channels for communications when sending any personal data via an untrusted network.
Companies can encrypt data before transmission over insecure channels and ensure it will still have protection. Remember that although a secure channel can provide assurance that a transfer’s content will be unintelligible if intercepted, without encrypting the data itself before transmission, the content can simply be encrypted during transit.
Keeping companies compliant with end-to-end encryption
At Galaxkey, we offer enterprises, educational institutions and local governments access to cutting-edge encryption that is designed to be user-friendly. Many encryption solutions can be overly complicated, leading them to be used ineffectively. Our system allows your team members to encrypt important data with a single mouse click but delivers three-layered government-approved encryption.
Whether personal and private data is being transferred, transmitted or retained, and whether on premise or in the cloud, it will remain encrypted and inaccessible to anyone without authorisation. The encryption we provide has been designed with compliance requirement in minds and can ensure your operation is acting in accordance with national and international GDPR security principles for personal data processes.
If you are ready to make sure your firm adheres to regulation with robust and reliable encryption, contact us today to book a free two-week trial. | <urn:uuid:95196921-d117-4e4d-88cc-c1c4b73448a6> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.galaxkey.com/blog/understanding-encryption-and-gdpr/ | 2024-09-11T19:49:28Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651400.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20240911183926-20240911213926-00231.warc.gz | en | 0.932458 | 626 | 3.4375 | 3 |
A new robot-drone communication system provides emergency response relief, in a method that looks to take emergency responders out of risky situations.
Created by Australian-based Advanced Navigation, the new mobile modem dubbed Cloud Ground Control uses 4G and 5G networks to link drones and robots, enable live streaming and provide remote control capabilities from a web browser.
The company says its design can “securely connect unlimited drones and vehicles into one holistic autonomous fleet across land, sea and air, regardless of manufacturer or model.”
The platform is intended to provide autonomous capabilities to operators in emergency and search-and-rescue missions and take human workers away from unnecessary danger.
The system has already undergone testing in the U.S. and Australia, with the company saying it could be used to mitigate damages from natural disasters such as flooding or bush fires, and even identify sharks.
“In the drone age, humans rely on drones and robotic vehicles to achieve physically demanding and even unattainable tasks,” said Xavier Orr, Advanced Navigation’s CEO. “For all the high expectations for what drones can do, there isn’t a simple solution developed for multi-drone operation, which is becoming more and more commonplace in our lives.”
“We are thrilled to bring forward our state-of-the-art technology CGConnect to demystify multi-drone operation,” Orr said. “By making the process more accessible for everyone, we are enabling optimal security, communication and coordination in drone operations.”
About the Author
You May Also Like | <urn:uuid:23e783a2-8e10-4168-ba07-0496bb3357b3> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.iotworldtoday.com/robotics/robot-drone-fleet-control-provides-emergency-relief | 2024-09-13T01:43:46Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651506.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20240913002450-20240913032450-00131.warc.gz | en | 0.934105 | 332 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Environmental Manager at Pilgrim's Enterprise, AL
Melissa Molaison’s commitment to caring for nature goes back at least seven generations, when her family first began farming the same land in Florida’s panhandle where she lives today.
Growing up outdoors, she would swim, fish and hike on the property. Now, after work as the environmental manager at the Pilgrim’s plant in Enterprise, Alabama, about 25 miles away, she never tires of hearing whippoorwills and frogs and watching fireflies from her porch.
Messila says part of the property was purchased by her great grandfather during the Great Depression “for a nickel an acre plus a fifty-pound bag of flour.” A family cemetery bears headstones dating back to the Civil War.
“It’s quiet and dark, and you can see the stars at night,” Melissa said, and she is glad that her job helps her keep nature that way for her daughter and future generations.
Graduating college with a degree in environmental science, Melissa had plans to be a park ranger. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would wind up working for the chicken industry or industry in general.”
Yet half a career later, seven of those with Pilgrim’s, she’s happy that she did.
“The job is an important part of what I want to do with my life … feeling like I am making a difference and protecting the environment,” she says. “I’m doing that in ways I never could have imagined.”
She’s making a 14,000-metric ton difference, to be precise, attributed to the annual reduction in greenhouse gases Melissa stands to achieve with her latest project: to improve the efficiency of an anaerobic lagoon, which treats wastewater from the Pilgrim’s plant.
It is being funded as part of JBS’s $1 billion capital investment to help achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2040.
Melissa’s is one of hundreds of funded projects proposed by team members to cut emissions. The $6-million lagoon investment will cut GHG emissions by 40% at the Pilgrim’s plant, putting it in first place among other facilities in the US on long race to road net zero.
Melissa is undertaking a complete overhaul of the six-acre pond that treats about one million gallons of wastewater each day.
Bacteria in the lagoon consume incoming waste, such as oils and grease. Methane, a potent GHG, is a natural byproduct from bacteria’s activity. Melissa will first clear the pond of years of build up to optimize its water treatment capability.
The cleaned lagoon will be covered with a huge 100-mils-thick black plastic sheet to create the anaerobic – meaning oxygen-free – conditions the bacteria need and capture the methane byproduct. The methane will later be captured to offset GHGs by powering water heaters or electrical generators at the plant.
“JBS is ahead of the curve with this kind of investment,” says Melissa. “And the culture here is all about getting it done.” | <urn:uuid:7ab21988-2fc1-427d-98bd-100b1d0b9e80> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://jbsfoodsgroup.com/our-purpose/net-zero/melissa-molaison | 2024-09-14T09:03:02Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651559.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20240914061427-20240914091427-00031.warc.gz | en | 0.957945 | 671 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Understanding cloud computing security architecture is crucial for any organization that makes use of cloud infrastructure or services. It consists of elements like secure data storage, secure network infrastructure, access control, encryption, and application security measures.
In this article:
Core Principles of Cloud Security Architecture
A cloud security architecture is not concerned with preventing unauthorized data and applications (confidentiality), but also ensuring the availability and integrity of cloud services. In addition, a basic aspect of cloud security is shared responsibility between cloud provider and cloud customer.
Confidentiality is about ensuring that the data stored in the cloud is only accessible to authorized individuals or systems. This is often achieved through measures like data encryption, secure access control, and strict authentication protocols. Confidentiality is more challenging in the cloud than in an on-premise data center, because cloud resources can easily become exposed to the public internet.
The principle of integrity ensures that the data stored in the cloud is accurate and complete, and it hasn’t been altered or tampered with in any unauthorized way. This is crucial for maintaining trust in cloud services and ensuring that the data used for decision-making is reliable. Measures like checksums, hash functions, and digital signatures are often used to maintain data integrity.
Availability ensures that the data and services in the cloud are always accessible when needed. This is crucial for businesses that rely on cloud services for their operations. Measures like data replication, redundancy, and disaster recovery protocols are often used to ensure high availability. Cloud computing environments make it much easier to ensure high availability, for example by deploying workloads in more than one availability zone (AZ) or geographical region.
The principle of shared responsibility recognises that both the cloud service provider and the user each have a role to play in ensuring the security of the cloud environment. The provider is responsible for security of the cloud infrastructure (security ‘of’ the cloud), while the user is responsible for security of the data and applications they deploy (security ‘in’ the cloud).
An important part of the cloud customer’s responsibility is to enable and correctly configure security and access control features for their cloud infrastructure or various cloud services.
Threats and Challenges Affecting Cloud Security Architecture
Here are some of the key security threats affecting cloud environments. Cloud security architectures aim to address these and other threats:
Data breaches are a significant threat to cloud security. They occur when unauthorized individuals gain access to sensitive data stored in the cloud. This can lead to loss of proprietary information, customer data, and even severe financial losses. Mitigating this threat involves implementing robust access control measures, data encryption, and regular security audits.
Insecure Interfaces and APIs
Interfaces and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are integral to cloud services, providing users with the ability to interact with cloud services. However, insecure interfaces and APIs pose a significant risk to cloud security. They can provide an attack surface for malicious actors, allowing them to gain unauthorized access to cloud resources or perform unauthorized actions.
Furthermore, as cloud services often interact with each other through APIs, a vulnerability in one service can potentially affect others, leading to a chain of security breaches. Therefore, securing interfaces and APIs should be a fundamental aspect of a cloud security architecture.
Malware and Ransomware Threats
Malware and ransomware constitute some of the most significant threats to cloud security. Malware is a malicious software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s consent. It can be distributed through various means, such as email attachments, software downloads, and even websites. Once inside the system, malware can perform a variety of destructive tasks, including data theft and system damage.
Ransomware, a specific type of malware, encrypts a user’s data and demands a ransom in exchange for the decryption key. It poses a substantial risk to cloud security as it can affect not only a single user but potentially an entire cloud infrastructure. Therefore, implementing robust anti-malware and anti-ransomware strategies should be a top priority in cloud security architecture.
Insider threats originate from within the organization and can be take several forms, intentional or accidental:
- Malicious insiders have legitimate access to the organization’s cloud resources, so their actions are often difficult to detect until it’s too late.
- Uninformed employees may inadvertently cause security breaches by falling victim to phishing attacks or by mishandling sensitive data.
- Compromised accounts are users who have legitimate access to cloud resources, and their credentials are compromised by attackers, who impersonate them to gain unauthorized access.
A cloud security architecture should incorporate strict access controls, network segmentation, and advanced authentication measures like multi-factor authentication (MFA), to reduce the risk of insider threats.
DoS and DDoS attacks
DoS (Denial of Service) and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are designed to overwhelm the cloud infrastructure with traffic, rendering it inaccessible to legitimate users. These attacks can disrupt operations, lead to loss of revenue, and even damage a business’s reputation.
To protect against these attacks, cloud security architecture often includes measures like traffic filtering, rate limiting, and IP blacklisting, as well as cloud-based DDoS protection services.
Learn more in our detailed guide to cloud vulnerability
5 Key Components of Cloud Computing Security Architecture
1. Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Identity and Access Management (IAM) involves managing who can access cloud resources and what actions they can perform. IAM systems can enforce security policies, manage user identities, and provide audit trails, among other functions.
IAM plays a pivotal role in mitigating insider threats. By implementing least privilege access and segregation of duties, organizations can limit the potential damage caused by malicious insiders. Moreover, IAM can also help detect unusual user behavior, providing early warning signs of potential security breaches.
2. Network Security
Network security involves protecting the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of data as it moves across the network. Network security measures include firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), intrusion prevention systems (IPS), and virtual private networks (VPN), among others. All cloud providers offer a virtual private cloud (VPC) feature which allows an organization to run a private, secure network within their cloud data center.
In a cloud environment, network security becomes even more critical as data often travels over the internet to reach the cloud. Therefore, organizations should prioritize implementing robust network security measures to protect their data in transit.
3. Data Security
In a cloud computing security architecture, data security involves protecting data at rest, in transit, and in use. It encompasses various measures, including encryption, tokenization, data loss prevention (DLP), and secure key management. A critical aspect of data security in the cloud is applying access controls and secure configuration to cloud storage buckets and cloud databases.
With the proliferation of data breaches and the advent of regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), data security has become a top priority for organizations, and has an additional compliance aspect. Failing to protect data in the cloud could result in costly fines and legal implications.
4. Endpoint Security
Endpoint security focuses on securing endpoints or user devices that access the cloud, such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets. Given the shift to remote work and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, endpoint security has become a critical aspect of cloud computing security. Organizations must make sure that users only access their cloud resources with devices that are properly secured.
Endpoint security measures include antivirus software, firewalls, and device management solutions that can enforce security policies on user devices. Moreover, endpoint security can also involve measures like user training and awareness, helping users recognize and avoid potential security threats.
5. Application Security
Application security is another vital part of a cloud security architecture. It involves securing applications running in the cloud against various security threats, such as injection attacks, cross-site scripting (XSS), and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF).
Application security can be achieved through various means, including secure coding practices, vulnerability scanning (in particular, container image scanning and infrastructure as code scanning), and penetration testing. Additionally, runtime application self-protection (RASP) and web application firewalls (WAF) can provide added layers of protection. Dedicated cloud native security solutions can help secure cloud native workloads like containers and serverless functions.Learn more in our detailed guide to cloud security solutions | <urn:uuid:e10d3ef2-0fba-4abf-a517-851fc98359b9> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.aquasec.com/cloud-native-academy/cspm/cloud-computing-security-architecture/ | 2024-09-15T10:40:33Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651622.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20240915084859-20240915114859-00831.warc.gz | en | 0.924282 | 1,740 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Did you know that fiber optics aren’t inherently faster than copper? How about the fact that almost all of the latency in your long distance links comes not from the actual connections, but from the equipment involved in them?
Did you know a line-of-sight wireless connection can be lower latency than anything else we currently run in production (copper and fiber optics)?
How about that SSDs can be slower than spinning disks? That putting more memory in a server can lower bandwidth (which can increase latency). That giving a VM fewer resources can lower latency and increase performance?
Do you know that the PCI-E port you plug a RAID card into can directly impact the bandwidth/latency of the drives connected to it? That where your users sit can cause VDI to be your savior or downfall? That if implemented improperly “the cloud” can induce so much latency that users can no longer work?
Latency is pretty much the root of all evil in IT… but why is that? In short, latency is what causes everything to be slow in IT.
Not enough throughput? Generally that means something can’t process data fast enough (because latency directly impacts how much can be done in any given second).
Storage too slow? Probably just means disk seek times (latency for finding data) are too high.
Every IT environment has some slowdown, somewhere in the system, which is frustrating people and is due to latency. Finding that constraint however, can be a very daunting and difficult task.
One of the key things about latency that helps find a problem is simple: if a pipe is full (be it Ethernet, Fibre Channel, SAS or PCI-E) then data gets queued, and latency increases. As that latency increases, perceived performance declines.
This white paper’s goal is to provide a reasonably comprehensive analytical guide to where this latency can occur, how it can impact production environments, and what common causes are. Hopefully this guide will help you to identify problems and change the way you solve them.
Now, this is a large document with lots of information in it, so you may experience some latency waiting for it to download.
Oops! We could not locate your form. | <urn:uuid:f954d1af-b2f8-4292-b3d3-a2cc359b24e8> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.mirazon.com/causes-of-latency-a-comprehensive-guide-to-understanding-its-menace/ | 2024-09-15T11:25:37Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651622.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20240915084859-20240915114859-00831.warc.gz | en | 0.946888 | 457 | 2.875 | 3 |
The Paris Olympics 2024 is set to be one of the most ambitious and technologically advanced games in history, with sustainability and efficiency at its core. As the world watches, the scale of energy management required for such an event becomes evident. The vast number of venues, the fluctuating demands of various activities, and the integration of renewable energy sources present a unique challenge. Enter AI and edge appliances—technologies that are revolutionizing how energy is managed in real time.
Real-Time Energy Monitoring: The AI Advantage
The heart of any energy management system is its ability to monitor consumption effectively. For an event as large as the Olympics, traditional methods simply won't suffice. AI-powered systems, integrated with IoT devices, are stepping in to monitor energy consumption across Olympic venues in real time. These systems gather data from various sources, including electricity, gas, and renewable energy inputs, allowing for a comprehensive view of energy usage.
The real-time analysis provided by AI algorithms is crucial. By identifying patterns and anomalies, these systems can alert operators to unexpected spikes in energy consumption. For instance, if a particular area within the Olympic Village suddenly experiences a surge in energy use, AI can quickly pinpoint the cause—be it increased occupancy, equipment malfunction, or even human error. Once identified, the system can suggest or even automate corrective actions, such as adjusting lighting or HVAC systems, ensuring that energy is used efficiently and sustainably.
Setting a Precedent for Future Mega-Events
The AI-powered energy management system at the Paris Olympics is not just about keeping the lights on; it's about setting a new standard for sustainability and efficiency. The insights gained from this event will serve as a valuable precedent for future mega-events, demonstrating how technology can be harnessed to meet the growing demands of modern society while minimizing environmental impact.
Moreover, the data-driven approach enabled by AI provides planners with a clearer forecast of various logistical aspects, from power requirements to camera placements and beyond. This holistic view ensures that every element of the event is optimized for efficiency, sustainability, and success.
As the Paris Olympics unfold, the world will be watching—not just the athletes, but also the groundbreaking technology that makes this global event possible. In doing so, the 2024 Games will not only celebrate sporting excellence but also technological innovation, paving the way for a smarter, more sustainable future.
The EAI-I133 from Lanner is an advanced industrial-grade AI inference system, perfectly suited for real-time energy management across large-scale venues. Built on the powerful NVIDIA® Jetson Orin NX/Nano platform, this compact yet potent device delivers up to 100 TOPS of AI processing power, making it capable of handling complex tasks such as energy consumption monitoring and predictive modeling. With its 1024-core NVIDIA CUDA GPU and 32 Tensor Cores, the EAI-I133 offers exceptional computational performance, ensuring that it can efficiently manage energy use across multiple sites. Its compact design and cost-effective nature make it an ideal solution for integrating AI-driven energy management into dynamic and demanding environments.
5G Edge AI Gateway with NVIDIA Jetson NX/Nano
CPU | NVIDIA Arm® Cortex A78AE v8.2 64-bit |
Chipset | SoC | | <urn:uuid:39b56aac-adea-451e-9fc5-f533f88baa82> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://lannerinc.com/ru/news-and-events-ru/eagle-lanner-tech-blog/deploying-ai-powered-energy-management-in-the-paris-olympics | 2024-09-20T11:41:46Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700652246.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20240920090502-20240920120502-00431.warc.gz | en | 0.924112 | 667 | 3.0625 | 3 |
With the rising number of security breaches and hacks, it is better to avoid losses by identifying and protecting sensitive data from exposure
Tokenization is defined as substituting a sensitive data element with a non-sensitive equivalent (token) that has no extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value. The token must bear no resemblance to the data and the security of the token relies on the infeasibility of determining the original data by the resulting token. Tokenization may use cryptographic methods to create the token, but the resulting token is not ciphertext and is in the same format and length as the original data.
While most Tokenization projects are focused on payment systems, specifically credit card payments between customers, merchants, and banks, there are additional uses for Tokenization solutions other than to satisfy Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards. Companies can benefit from Tokenization products by tokenizing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and any other sensitive information, protecting their customer data from exposure.
Why use tokens?
When tokens are used, the result is minimized exposure of sensitive data to accidental or unauthorized access. Tokens are stored in files and databases, instead of sensitive data.
Companies who are unfortunately hacked and have their data stolen can be assured that the tokenized data is worthless to the attacker.
Existing software applications can more easily operate using tokens, rather than expanding data fields and changing software to account for larger fields of encrypted data. Tokenization produces a token with the same character length and format as the input data. A real plus when dealing with existing software applications, saving time and money.
For employees who need to access sensitive data such as a social security number (SSN) for billing purposes or customer identity verification, tokenization products can either de-tokenize the sensitive data and reveal all or simply mask most of the original data and only reveal the last 4 characters, for example.
Protecting Tokenization Systems
A critical component of protecting sensitive data is to ensure attackers cannot de-tokenize the tokens to access the original data, and that involves protecting the tokenization system itself. The risk reduction benefits of tokenization require that the tokenization system is logically isolated and segmented from data processing systems and applications that previously processed sensitive data replaced by tokens. Only the tokenization system can tokenize data to create tokens or detokenize back to redeem the original data. Tokenization systems may be operated in-house within a securely isolated segment of the data center or outsourced as a service from a secure token service provider.
The security of the entire system including sensitive data capture and authorization, tokenization methodology; storage, use, and subsequent access is dependent upon the customer’s own tokenization implementation.
Companies should consider using Tokenization solutions to protect their sensitive data. With the rising number of security breaches and hacks, it is better to avoid losses by identifying and protecting sensitive data from exposure.
Those considering Tokenization Solutions should ensure that these systems are Common Criteria and NIST FIP140 certified to ensure that the systems being evaluated have actually been cryptographically tested and assessed.
Tokenization is simpler to use with existing software applications processing sensitive data, saving time and money by altering applications, files, and databases to use ciphertext. When combined with a secure implementation of an accredited solution, tokens can save a company and its customers’ data from exposure and theft. | <urn:uuid:1343347d-a160-451f-b91f-cc5ca3782193> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.kaizenapproach.com/consider-tokenization-to-secure-sensitive-data/ | 2024-09-09T12:51:26Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651098.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909103148-20240909133148-00531.warc.gz | en | 0.904425 | 685 | 3.15625 | 3 |
There’s no doubt that technology has become vital in today’s business world. The digital space has expanded significantly as more organizations leverage entirely remote and hybrid work structures, enabling successful online business.
But as digital activities increase, so does threat actors’ desire to take advantage of the vulnerabilities and opportunities. This has brought about new advancements in digital crime and computer security threats. Businesses of all sizes have had to bear the impacts of vast cybercrimes, including economic costs, reputational damage, and legal consequences.
Cybercriminals are becoming more strategic and innovative, and the only way around the constantly evolving threats is to implement a strong cybersecurity culture. Savvy organizations throughout the United States are now turning to cybersecurity training as part of their organizational culture.
Why Cybersecurity Training is Vital
Cybersecurity awareness coaching educates workers about the state of the digital security landscape. The programs use diverse learning methods to raise awareness of the available threats, reduce cyber risks, and enforce robust security compliance. All these are crucial for the following reasons:
Cyber Threats Are Getting Worse by The Day
Cybercriminals have become more intelligent, leveraging advanced approaches and tools to target victims’ systems and data. Moreover, it’s now harder to diagnose breaches.
On average, an organization may take about 228 days to identify a data security breach as it occurs and an additional 80 days to mitigate it. This shows how critical it is to implement a robust cybersecurity training program to keep staff prepared to contain any threats. While business insurance aids mitigation, the resultant downtime can be extremely costly.
Companies may also be at loggerheads with the law after data breaches because they’re obliged to take due diligence to secure sensitive client data. They could face potential legal intervention and fines.
Compliance Requirements Are Gradually Focusing On Staff Coaching
Compliance like PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council) and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) have rules emphasizing worker training. They acknowledge the importance of educating employees in all departments about cyber hygiene and best practices. The requirements also include letting every staff member understand their obligations.
Moreover, regulations like CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) also have similar directives. Companies risk hefty fines and damaged reputations without comprehensive awareness training on all these.
Most Workers Don’t Understand the Risks
Your workers are the primary targets for cybercriminals planning to breach critical systems in your business. Instead of trying to access a secure system or network externally, it’s now easier for them to impersonate authorized organization members. This allows them to inflict damage from within anonymously.
Unfortunately, most workers still don’t even see the importance of cybersecurity training. Even worse, up to 22 percent of employees feel they’re not obliged to secure their employers’ systems and data.
The Immense Dangers of Human Error
The latest IBM Cyber Security Intelligence Index mentions that up to 95 percent of breaches result from human error, yet firewalls can’t offer adequate protection from phishing emails. Even your cutting-edge data security solutions won’t matter if employees can’t identify cyberattacks and respond appropriately.
It’s easier for threat actors to create a phishing email than to investigate zero-day vulnerabilities for months. If your workers aren’t ready, your organization isn’t either. Therefore, a comprehensive training program will raise awareness of threat susceptibility, which benefits your company in the following ways:
- Enhancing your resilience against threats
- Shifting employee mindset and enabling behavior change
- Generating buy-in and commitment to cybersecurity initiatives
- Improving audit results critical in regulatory compliance
- Limiting human error and mitigating risks
What Makes for A Successful Cybersecurity Training Program?
So what does it take to deploy successful employee training? What are the key elements that you should include in the program?
Well, different approaches work for specific companies, and what might be effective in your business may not be feasible for the other. However, several core cybersecurity elements stand out, including:
Secure Network Connections Passwords and Access Privileges
Network security is the gatekeeper that grants access to authorized users while also detecting and preventing unauthorized access. It also secures your system against any activity focused on infiltrating the network to compromise or harm data. As such, it’s among the vital contributors to a strong cybersecurity culture and must be considered when creating an employee training program.
Your employees should be knowledgeable of the following critical network security fundamentals:
- Physical security
- Access controls
Phishing and Social Engineering
Fraudsters and hackers use these tricks to trick employees into divulging critical company data or unknowingly performing actions that grant unauthorized access to systems. Since infection relies on human interaction, your staff teams must be ahead of these cunning threat actors. So your training should cover the following techniques:
- Spear Phishing
Many organizations are prioritizing mobile initiatives to boost operations and productivity. But the different devices accessing your networks and systems from remote locations come with endpoint security risks. As custodians of these devices, employees must learn the leading risk factors and threats, including:
- Data leakage through malicious applications
- Internet of Things devices
- Lost or stolen devices
- Unsecured public WIFI
- Outdated operating systems
Cybersecurity Threat Reaction
An incident response plan helps mitigate the breach and recover from any losses and damages and is also a PCI-DSS requirement. As such, there’s every reason to enlighten your staff on the best practices after a cybersecurity incident.
The plan should address a suspected breach at different stages. Typically, your training program should cover the following threat reaction phases:
- Risk preparation
- Threat identification
- Breach containment
- Eradication of threat
- Learned lessons
Cybersecurity Experts Are Ready to Help
With data breaches, cyberattacks, and sensitive data leakages on the rise, governments and organizations must place more efforts on cybersecurity through effective strategies and training initiatives. But it’s not easy to nurture a strong cybersecurity culture, especially if tech isn’t your specialty.
Fortunately, Cyber Sainik’s security services and solutions offer a level playing field for organizations of every size and sector, and we’re ready to help you enhance your cybersecurity posture. Our cybersecurity team is ready to help you achieve end-to-end system and network security. So schedule a free consultation today. | <urn:uuid:1655306e-fc68-43bc-8f82-beb667f5a6d2> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://cybersainik.com/importance-of-staff-training-in-building-a-strong-cybersecurity-culture/ | 2024-09-13T04:07:16Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651507.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20240913034233-20240913064233-00231.warc.gz | en | 0.926922 | 1,350 | 2.53125 | 3 |
By Ken Sigler, Dan Shoemaker, and Anne Kohnke
As the number of industries, organizations, and educational institutions continue to recognize the scope and impact of cybersecurity, the means in which the crisis is approached cannot be made haphazardly. For many years cyber professionals have been able to apply consistency within practices aimed toward minimizing the effects of cyber-attacks by using international and domestically adopted standards, guidelines, and frameworks. These standards, guidelines, and frameworks aim to put into context how some facet of cybersecurity should be accomplished. While well-intentioned, this wide array of sometimes overlapping standards can be quite overwhelming to the practitioners and organizations that need them the most.
Organizations tend to fit into one of two categories when considering their adherence to standards and guidelines. Many take the unsystematic (and sometimes chaotic) approach by either ignorantly or willfully neglecting the value of standards and guidelines or by ignoring them entirely and just doing their own thing. It is those organizations that find themselves strapped with the complexities and budgets of recovering from data breaches, much less understanding of how the breach happened in the first place.
The second group of organizations successfully adopt applicable standards and guidelines and make valiant efforts to abide by them. The problem resides in the interpretation of those resources. These valuable resources are written by industry experts charged with providing detailed explanations of cybersecurity practices at a very concrete level. The organization is left to make their own interpretation that sometimes can lead them into a direction that will be more costly, compared to if they were not to have adopted the standard and guideline in the first place. Thankfully, recent books have been published that provide greater understanding into such cybersecurity areas as: understanding and applying the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework, standardized approaches for implementation of cybersecurity controls, understanding cybersecurity risk management and the implementation of risk practices using the NIST Risk Management Framework, implementing guidelines that support cybersecurity management throughout the entire supply chain, and how to make an organization truly cyber-resilient.
Similarly, educational institutions have struggled to find the right fit for how to prepare students for careers in cybersecurity. Since the turn of the century many Information Technology programs saw cybersecurity as solely the need to implement technology aimed at protecting information; hence the reason for the old way of referring to the field as “Information Security”. Programs taking on that understanding of the field prepare students with a narrow scope of simply presenting the technologies that protect information. And in many cases, those presentations are done through simulated approaches.
However, as the field of cybersecurity has evolved, educators cannot take as narrow of an approach to preparing students. Realistically, the field has become much more than just securing information. Rather it is becoming a discipline in and of itself, which encompasses a complete body of knowledge that requires standardized approaches (with well-defined outcomes) to introducing the expanded areas that make up the entire field of cybersecurity. No longer can someone be prepared for work within the field simply by understanding the difference between a router, switch, and firewall. Cybersecurity has expanded to the extent that data security, software security, component security, connection security, system security, human security, organizational security, and societal security should all necessarily be included (from an interdisciplinary approach) within cybersecurity curriculum in order to adequately prepare individuals for work within the field. And to that extent, organizations should endeavor to understand the interdisciplinary knowledge of the individuals that they hire.
To support the growing need for standardized and interdisciplinary approaches of educating future professionals in the entire cybersecurity body of knowledge, two standards have been developed to assist educational institutions in the development of their cybersecurity curriculum. NIST published the second version of the “National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Cybersecurity Workforce Framework” in 2017. NICE breaks the field of cybersecurity down into specialty areas and specifies what each area of the workforce should be doing to ensure that security functions of identification, protection, defense, response, or recovery are being carried out properly.
Similarly, later that same year, the Joint Task Force on Cybersecurity Education in association with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS), Association for Information Systems Special Interest Group on Information, Security and Privacy (AIS SIGSEC), and International Federation for Information Processing Technical Committee on Information Security Education (IFIP WG 11.8) was formed and published in December 2019 the Curriculum Guidelines for Post-Secondary Degree Programs in Cybersecurity Education (more commonly known as CSEC2017). The purpose of CSEC2017 is to provide a summary of the underlying topics that encompass eight knowledge areas that define the boundaries of the discipline of cybersecurity. The premise of the guideline is to provide educators an understanding of what topics should be included in the cybersecurity curriculum, a common set of outcomes and provides adequate flexibility into how the topics are introduced and outcomes realized.
Much like the earlier discussion related to whether organizations adopt cybersecurity industry standards, the same is true of educational institutions. It is a growing imperative that all cybersecurity curriculum provide a greater scope of instruction into the entire body of knowledge while providing hands-on approaches to introduce and dive deeper into each topic. While standards and guidelines provide the detail of what needs to be included in cybersecurity curriculum, books on NICE, such as A Guide to the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Cybersecurity Workforce Framework (2.0) and CSEC2017 The Cybersecurity Body of Knowledge The ACM/IEEE/AIS/IFIP Recommendations for a Complete Curriculum in Cybersecurity, have been published that provide specific examples into how they can be implemented successfully.
Cybersecurity is not a field that should be approached carelessly. Many organizations and educational institutions have taken that approach and failed to the extent of costing millions of dollars. In a time where many are being forced to rethink their cybersecurity strategies as a result of COVID-19, the use of standards and guidelines accompanied by numerous books that bring standardized topics into context, provide the capability of implementing cybersecurity instruction and practice in a manner that will circumvent the effect of attacks for years to come.
About the Authors
Ken Sigler, is a faculty member of the Computer Information Systems (CIS) program at the Auburn Hills campus of Oakland Community College in Michigan. His primary research is in the areas of software management, software assurance, cybersecurity risk management, and cybersecurity education. He Has spoken nationally on numerous topics related to cybersecurity and has served as the liaison for the college to the International Cybersecurity Education Coalition (ICSEC), of which he is one of three founding members. Ken is a member of the University of Detroit Mercy Center of Cybersecurity and Intelligence Studies Board of Advisors.
Daniel P Shoemaker, is a principal investigator and senior research scientist at the University of Detroit Mercy’s Center for Cyber Security and Intelligence Studies. Dan has served 30 years as a professor at UDM with 25 of those years as department chair. He served as a co-chair for both the Workforce Training and Education and the Software and Supply Chain Assurance Initiatives for the Department of Homeland Security and was a subject matter expert for the NICE Workforce Framework 2.0. Dan has coauthored six books in the field of cybersecurity and has authored over one hundred journal publications. Dan earned his PhD from the University of Michigan.
Anne Kohnke, is an Associate Professor of Cybersecurity and the PI for the Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense at the University of Detroit Mercy. After a 25-year career in IT, Anne transitioned from a Vice President of IT and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) position into full-time academia in 2011. Dr. Kohnke was also a tenured Associate Professor at Lawrence Technological University where she taught technical IT and cybersecurity courses. Dr. Kohnke’s research is focused in the area of cybersecurity, risk management, threat modeling, and mitigating attack vectors. Dr. Kohnke has recently coauthored six books and several peer-reviewed journal articles in this field of study. Dr. Kohnke earned her PhD from Benedictine University, an MBA from Lawrence Technological University, and courses in the Master of Science in Information Systems and Technology at the University of Michigan Dearborn. | <urn:uuid:5c2d8d98-4eae-4612-aa4a-448d396a513a> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.cyberdefensemagazine.com/cybersecurity-education-and-practice/ | 2024-09-15T17:07:57Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651632.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20240915152239-20240915182239-00031.warc.gz | en | 0.950194 | 1,677 | 2.875 | 3 |
Before diving into cyber security and how the industry is using AI at this point, let’s define the term AI first. Artificial Intelligence (AI), as the term is used today, is the overarching concept covering machine learning (supervised, including Deep Learning, and unsupervised), as well as other algorithmic approaches that are more than just simple statistics. These other algorithms include the fields of natural language processing (NLP), natural language understanding (NLU), reinforcement learning, and knowledge representation. These are the most relevant approaches in cyber security.
Given this definition, how evolved are cyber security products when it comes to using AI and ML?
I do see more and more cyber security companies leverage ML and AI in some way. The question is to what degree. I have written before about the dangers of algorithms. It’s gotten too easy for any software engineer to play a data scientist. It’s as easy as downloading a library and calling the .start() function. The challenge lies in the fact that the engineer often has no idea what just happened within the algorithm and how to correctly use it. Does the algorithm work with non normally distributed data? What about normalizing the data before inputting it into the algorithm? How should the results be interpreted? I gave a talk at BlackHat where I showed what happens when we don’t know what an algorithm is doing.
So, the mere fact that a company is using AI or ML in their product is not a good indicator of the product actually doing something smart. On the contrary, most companies I have looked at that claimed to use AI for some core capability are doing it ‘wrong’ in some way, shape or form. To be fair, there are some companies that stick to the right principles, hire actual data scientists, apply algorithms correctly, and interpret the data correctly.
Generally, I see the correct application of AI in the supervised machine learning camp where there is a lot of labeled data available: malware detection (telling benign binaries from malware), malware classification (attributing malware to some malware family), document and Web site classification, document analysis, and natural language understanding for phishing and BEC detection. There is some early but promising work being done on graph (or social network) analytics for communication analysis. But you need a lot of data and contextual information that is not easy to get your hands on. Then, there are a couple of companies that are using belief networks to model expert knowledge, for example, for event triage or insider threat detection. But unfortunately, these companies are a dime a dozen.
That leads us into the next question: What are the top use-cases for AI in security?
I am personally excited about a couple of areas that I think are showing quite some promise to advance the cyber security efforts:
Using NLP and NLU to understand people’s email habits to then identify malicious activity (BEC, phishing, etc). Initially we have tried to run sentiment analysis on messaging data, but we quickly realized we should leave that to analyzing tweets for brand sentiment and avoid making human (or phishing) behavior judgements. It’s a bit too early for that. But there are some successes in topic modeling, token classification of things like account numbers, and even looking at the use of language.
Leveraging graph analytics to map out data movement and data lineage to learn when exfiltration or malicious data modifications are occurring. This topic is not researched well yet and I am not aware of any company or product that does this well just yet. It’s a hard problem on many layers, from data collection to deduplication and interpretation. But that’s also what makes this research interesting.
Given the above it doesn’t look like we have made a lot of progress in AI for security. Why is that? I’d attribute it to a few things:
Access to training data. Any hypothesis we come up with, we have to test and validate. Without data that’s hard to do. We need complex data sets that are showing user interactions across applications, their data, and cloud apps, along with contextual information about the users and their data. This kind of data is hard to get, especially with privacy concerns and regulations like GDPR putting more scrutiny on processes around research work.
A lack of engineers that understand data science and security. We need security experts with a lot of experience to work on these problems. When I say security experts, these are people that have a deep understand (and hands-on experience) of operating systems and applications, networking and cloud infrastructures. It’s unlikely to find these experts who also have data science chops. Pairing them with data scientists helps, but there is a lot that gets lost in their communications.
Research dollars. There are few companies that are doing real security research. Take a larger security firm. They might do malware research, but how many of them have actual data science teams that are researching novel approaches? Microsoft has a few great researchers working on relevant problems. Bank of America has an effort to fund academia to work on pressing problems for them. But that work generally doesn’t see the light of day within your off the shelf security products. Generally, security vendors don’t invest in research that is not directly related to their products. And if they do, they want to see fairly quick turn arounds. That’s where startups can fill the gaps. Their challenge is to make their approaches scalable. Meaning not just scale to a lot of data, but also being relevant in a variety of customer environments with dozens of diverging processes, applications, usage patterns, etc. This then comes full circle with the data problem. You need data from a variety of different environments to establish hypotheses and test your approaches.
Is there anything that the security buyer should be doing differently to incentivize security vendors to do better in AI?
I don’t think the security buyer is to blame for anything. The buyer shouldn’t have to know anything about how security products work. The products should do what they claim they do and do that well. I think that’s one of the mortal sins of the security industry: building products that are too complex. As Ron Rivest said on a panel the other day: “Complexity is the enemy of security”.
Also have a look at the VentureBeat article feating some quotes from me.
Here is the list of topics I injected into the panel conversation:
Algorithms (AI) are Dangerous
Privacy by Design
Expert Knowledge over algorithms
The need for a Security Paradigm Shift
Efficacy in AI is non existent
The need for learning how to work interdisciplinary
Please not that I am following in the vein of the conference and I won’t define specifically what I mean by “AI”. Have a look at my older blog posts for further opinions. Following are some elaborations on the different topics:
Algorithms (AI) are Dangerous – We allow software engineers to use algorithms (libraries) for which they do not know what results are produced. There is no oversight demand – imagine the wrong algorithms being used to control any industrial control systems. Also realize that it’s not about using the next innovation in algorithms. When DeepLearning entered the arena, everyone tried to use it for their problems. Guess what; barely any problem could be solved by it. It’s not about the next algorithms. It’s about how these algorithms are used. The process around them. Interestingly enough, one of the most pressing and oldest problems that every CISO today is still wrestling with is ‘visibility’. Visibility into what devices and users are on a network. That has nothing to do with AI. It’s a simple engineering problem and we still haven’t solved it.
Privacy by Design – The entire conference day didn’t talk enough about this. In a perfect world, our personal data would never leave us. As soon as we give information away it’s exposed and it can / and probably will be abused. How do we build such systems?
Expert Knowledge – is still more important than algorithms. We have this illusion that AI (whatever that is), will solve our problems by analyzing data with the use of software systems that work with a cloud based database. Instead of using “AI” to augment human capabilities. In addition, we need experts who really understand the problems. Domain experts. Security experts. People with experience to help us build better systems.
Security Paradigm Shift – We have been doing security the wrong way. For two decade we have engaged in the security cat and mouse game. We need to break out of that. Only an approach of understanding behaviors can get us there.
Efficacy – There are no approaches to describing how well an AI system works. Is my system better than someone else’s? How do we measure these things?
Interdisciplinary Collaboration – As highlighted in my ‘expert point’ above; we need to focus on people. And especially on domain experts. We need multi-disciplinary teams. Psychologists, counter intelligence people, security analysts, systems engineers, etc. to collaborate in order to help us come up with solutions to combat security issues. There are dozens of challenges with these teams. Even just something as simple as terminology or a common understanding of the goals pursued. And this is not security specific. Every area has this problem.
The following was a fairly interesting thing that was mentioned during one of the other conference panels. This is a “non verbatum” quote:
AI is one of the poster children of bipartisanship. Ever want to drive bipartisanship? Engage on an initiative with a common economical enemy called China.
Oh, and just so I have written proof when it comes to it: China will win the race on AI! Contrary to some of the other panels. Why? Let me list just four thoughts:
No privacy laws or ethical barriers holding back any technology development
Availability of lots of cheap, and many of them, very sophisticated resources
The already existing vast and incredibly rich amount of data and experiences collected; from facial recognition to human interactions with social currencies
A government that controls industry
I am not saying any of the above are good or bad. I am just listing arguments.
Last week I was speaking on a panel about the “Use of AI for Cybersecurity” at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) conference on “Building an AI Powered Intelligence Community”. It was fascinating to listen to some of the panels with people from the Hill talking about AI. I was specifically impressed with the really educated views on issues with AI, like data bias, ethical and privacy issues, bringing silicon valley software development processes to the DoD, etc. I feel like at least the panelists had a pretty good handle on some of the issues with AI.
The one point that I am still confused about is what all these people actually meant when they said “AI”; or how the “Government” defines AI.
I have been reading through a number of documents and reports from the US government, but almost all of them do not define what AI actually is. For example the American AI Initiative One Year Annual Report to the president doesn’t bother defining AI.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one such technological advance. AI refers to the ability of machines to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence – for example, recognizing patterns, learning from experience, drawing conclusions, making predictions, or taking action – whether digitally or as the smart software behind autonomous physical systems.
Seems to me that this definition could use some help. NIST on their AI page doesn’t have a definition front and center. And the documents I browsed through didn’t have one either.
Sec. 9. Definitions. As used in this order:
(a) the term “artificial intelligence” means the full extent of Federal investments in AI, to include: R&D of core AI techniques and technologies; AI prototype systems; application and adaptation of AI techniques; architectural and systems support for AI; and cyberinfrastructure, data sets, and standards for AI;
I would call this a circular definition? Or what do you call this? A non-definition? Maybe I have focused on the wrong documents? What about the definition of AI by the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC). a group within the DoD? The JAIC Web site does not seem to have a definition, at least not one I could find.
In closing, if we have policy, legislative, or regulatory conversation, we must define what AI is. Otherwise we have conversations that go into the absolutely wrong directions. Does 5G fall under AI? How about NLP or automating the transcription of a conference presentation? If we don’t get clear, we will write legislation and put out bills that do not cover the technologies and approaches we actually want to govern but will put roadblocks into the path of innovation and the so fiercely sought after dominance in AI.
I was just reading an article from Forrester research about “Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Fraud Management”. Interesting read until about half way through where the authors start talking about supervised and unsupervised learning. That’s when they lost a lot of credibility:
Supervised learning makes decisions directly. Several years ago, Bayesian models, neural networks, decision trees, random forests, and support vector machines were popular fraud management algorithms. (see endnote 8) But they can only handle moderate amounts of training data; fraud pros need more complex models to handle billions of training data points. Supervised learning algorithms are good for predicting whether a transaction is fraudulent or not."
Aside from the ambiguity of what it means for an algorithm to make ‘direct’ decisions, SML can only take limited amounts of training data? Have you seen our malware deep learners? In turn, if SML is good at predicting fraudulent transaction, what’s the problem with training data?
What do they say about unsupervised approaches?
Unsupervised learning discovers patterns. Fraud management pros employ unsupervised learning to discover anomalies across raw data sets and use self-organizing maps and hierarchical and multimodal clustering algorithms to detect swindlers. (see endnote 10) The downside of unsupervised learning is that it is usually not explainable. To overcome this, fraud pros often use locally interpretable, model-agnostic explanations to process results; to improve accuracy, they can also train supervised learning with labels discovered by unsupervised learning. Unsupervised learning models are good at visualizing patterns for human investigators.
And here it comes: “The downside of UML is that it is usually not explainable”. SML is much more prone to that problem than UML. Please get the fundamentals right. Reading something like this makes me question pretty much the entire article on its accuracy. There are some challenges with explainability and UML, but they are far less involed.
As a further nuance: “UML is not itself good at visualizing patterns. Some of the algorithms lend themselves to visualize the output. But there is more to turning a clustering algo into a good visual. I mention t-sne in one of my older blog posts. That algorithm actually follows an underlying visualization paradigm (projection of multiple dimensions into two or three dimensions).
Reading on in the article, it says:
As this use case requires exceptional performance and accuracy, supervised learning dominates.
I thought SML doesn’t scale? Turns out, it actually does quite well, not least because you can run a learner offline.
This paper highlights the problem of needing domain experts to build machine learning approaches for security. You cannot rely on pure data scientists without a solid security background or at least a very solid understanding of the domain, to build solutions. What a breath of fresh air. I hole heartedly agree with this. But let’s look at how the authors went about their work.
The example that is used in the paper is in the area of malware detection; a problem that is a couple of decades old. The authors looked at binaries as byte streams and initially argued that we might be able to get away without feature engineering by just feeding the byte sequences into a deep learning classifier – which is one of the premises of deep learning, not having to define features for it to operate. The authors then looked at some adversarial scenarios that would circumvent their approach. (Side bar: I wish Cylance had read this paper a couple years ago). The paper goes through some ROC curves and arguments to end up with some lessons learned:
Training sets matter when testing robustness against adversarial examples
Architectural decisions should consider effects of adversarial examples
Semantics is important for improving effectiveness [meaning that instead of just pushing a binary stream into the deep learner, carefully crafting features is going to increase the efficacy of the algorithm]
Please tell me which of these three are non obvious? I don’t know that we can set the bar any lower for security data science.
I want to specifically highlight the last point. You might argue that’s the one statement that’s not obvious. The authors basically found that, instead of feeding simple byte sequences into a classifier, there is a lift in precision if you feed additional, higher-level features. Anyone who has looked at byte code before or knows a little about assembly should know that you can achieve the same program flow in many ways. We must stop comparing security problems to image or speech recognition. Binary files, executables, are not independent sequences of bytes. There is program flow, different ‘segments’, dynamic changes, etc.
We should look to other disciplines (like image recognition) for inspiration, but we need different approaches in security. Get inspiration from other fields, but understand the nuances and differences in cyber security. We need to add security experts to our data science teams!
Over the weekend I was catching up on some reading and came about the “Deep Learning and Security Workshop (DLS 2019)“. With great interest I browsed through the agenda and read some of the papers / talks, just to find myself quite disappointed.
It seems like not much has changed since I launched this blog. In 2005, I found myself constantly disappointed with security articles and decided to outline my frustrations on this blog. That was the very initial focus of this blog. Over time it morphed more into a platform to talk about security visualization and then artificial intelligence. Today I am coming back to some of the early work of providing, hopefully constructive, feedback to some of the work out there.
The researcher paper I am looking at is about building a deep learning based malware classifier. I won’t comment on the fact that every AV company has been doing this for awhile (but learned from their early mistakes of not engineering ‘intelligent’ features). I also won’t discuss the machine learning architecture that is introduced. What I will argue is the approach that was taken and the conclusions that were drawn:
The paper uses a data set that has no ground truth. Which, in network security is very normal. But it needs to be taken into account. Any conclusion that is made is only relative to the traffic that the algorithm was tested, at the time of testing and under the used configuration (IDS signatures). The paper doesn’t discuss adoption or changes over time. It’s a bias that needs to be clearly taken into account.
The paper uses a supervised approach leveraging a deep learner. One of the consequences is that this system will have a hard time detecting zero days. It will have to be retrained regularly. Interestingly enough, we are in the same world as the anti virus industry when they do binary classification.
Next issue. How do we know what the system actually captures and what it does not?
This is where my recent rants on ‘measuring the efficacy‘ of ML algorithms comes into play. How do you measure the false negative rates of your algorithms in a real-world setting? And even worse, how do you guarantee those rates in the future?
If we don’t know what the system can detect (true positives), how can we make any comparative statements between algorithms? We can make a statement about this very setup and this very data set that was used, but again, we’d have to quantify the biases better.
In contrast to the supervised approach, the domain expert approach has a non-zero chance of finding future zero days due to the characterization of bad ‘behavior’. That isn’t discussed in the paper, but is a crucial fact.
The paper claims a 97% detection rate with a false positive rate of less than 1% for the domain expert approach. But that’s with domain expert “Joe”. What about if I wrote the domain knowledge? Wouldn’t that completely skew the system? You have to somehow characterize the domain knowledge. Or quantify its accuracy. How would you do that?
Especially the last two points make the paper almost irrelevant. The fact that this wasn’t validated in a larger, real-world environment is another fallacy I keep seeing in research papers. Who says this environment was representative of every environment? Overall, I think this research is dangerous and is actually portraying wrong information. We cannot make a statement that deep learning is better than domain knowledge. The numbers for detection rates are dangerous and biased, but the bias isn’t discussed in the paper.
Before even diving into the topic of Causality Research, I need to clarify my use of the term #AI. I am getting sloppy in my definitions and am using AI like everyone else is using it, as a synonym for analytics. In the following, I’ll even use it as a synonym for supervised machine learning. Excuse my sloppiness …
Causality Research is a topic that has emerged from the shortcomings of supervised machine learning (SML) approaches. You train an algorithm with training data and it learns certain properties of that data to make decisions. For some problems that works really well and we don’t even care about what exactly the algorithm has learned. But in certain cases, we really would like to know what the system just learned. Your self-driving car, for example. Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually knew how the car makes decisions? Not just for our own peace of mind, but also to enable verifyability and testing.
Here are some thoughts about what is happening in the area of causality for AI:
This topic is drawing attention because people are having their blinders on when defining what AI is. AI is more than supervised machine learning, and a number of the algorithms in the field, like belief networks, are beautifully explainable.
We need to get away from using specific algorithms as the focal point of our approaches. We need to look at the problem itself and determine what the right solution to the problem is. Some of the very old methods like belief networks (I sound like a broken record) are fabulous and have deep explainability. In the grand scheme of things, only few problems require supervised machine learning.
We are finding ourselves in a world where some people believe that data can explain everything. It cannot. History is not a predictor of the future. Even in experimental physics, we are getting to our limits and have to start understanding the fundamentals to get to explainability. We need to build systems that help experts encode their knowledge and augments human cognition by automating tasks that machines are good at.
The recent Cylance faux pas is a great example why supervised machine learning and AI can be really really dangerous. And it brings up a different topic that we need to start exploring more, which is how we measure the efficacy or precision of AI algorithms. How do we assess the things a given AI or machine learning approach misses and what are the things it classifies wrong? How does one compute these metrics for AI algorithms? How do we determine whether one algorithm is better than another. For example, the algorithm that drives your car. How do you know how good it is? Does a software update make it better? How much? That’s a huge problem in AI and ‘causality research’ might be able to help develop methods to quantify efficacy.
Join me for my talk about AI and ML in cyber security at BlackHat on Thursday the 9th of August in Las Vegas. I’ll be exploring the topics of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to show some of the ‘dangerous’ mistakes that the industry (vendors and practitioners alike) are making in applying these concepts in security.
We don’t have artificial intelligence (yet). Machine learning is not the answer to your security problems. And downloading the ‘random’ analytic library to identify security anomalies is going to do you more harm than it helps.
We will explore these accusations and walk away with the following learnings from the talk:
I am exploring these items throughout three sections in my talk: 1) A very quick set of definitions for machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data mining with a few examples of where ML has worked really well in cyber security. Check cybersecuritycourses.com here for an overview of the best cyber security courses available. 2) A closer and more technical view on why algorithms are dangerous. Why it is not a solution to download a library from the Internet to find security anomalies in your data. 3) An example scenario where we talk through supervised and unsupervised machine learning for network traffic analysis to show the difficulties with those approaches and finally explore a concept called belief networks that bear a lot of promise to enhance our detection capabilities in security by leveraging export knowledge more closely. And if you plan to test the the vulnerability of your network, make use of Wifi Pineapple testing tool.
I keep mentioning that algorithms are dangerous. Dangerous in the sense that they might give you a false sense of security or in the worst case even decrease your security quite significantly. Here are some questions you can use to self-assess whether you are ready and ‘qualified’ to use data science or ‘advanced’ algorithms like machine learning or clustering to find anomalies in your data:
Do you know what the difference is between supervised and unsupervised machine learning?
Can you describe what a distance function is?
In data science we often look at two types of data: categorical and numerical. What are port numbers? What are user names? And what are IP sequence numbers?
In your data set you see traffic from port 0. Can you explain that?
You see traffic from port 80. What’s a likely explanation of that? Bonus points if you can come up with two answers.
How do you go about selecting a clustering algorithm?
What’s the explainability problem in deep learning?
How do you acquire labeled network data sets (netflows or pcaps)?
Name three data cleanliness problems that you need to account for before running any algorithms?
When running k-means, do you have to normalize your numerical inputs?
Does k-means support categorical features?
What is the difference between a feature, data field, and a log record?
If you can’t answer the above questions, you might want to rethink your data science aspirations and come to my talk on Thursday to hopefully walk away with answers to the above questions.
Late June, my alma mater organized an event in Brooklyn with the title: “ETH Meets New York”. The topic of the evening was “Security Technologies Enabling the Future: From Blockchain to IoT”. I was one of the speakers talking about “AI in Practice – What We Learned in Cyber Security”. The video of the talk is available online. It’s a short 10 minutes where I discuss some of the problems with AI in cyber, and outline how expert knowledge is more important than algorithms when it comes to detecting malicious actors in our systems.
Spark your interest? Don’t miss my talk at BlackHat next month where we will have an hour to explore the topics of analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in cyber. I recorded a brief teaser video to help you understand what I will be covering.
It's too easy to implement "AI" in your security product – algorithms are openly available. But the more important thing is a process of training, cleaning data sets, etc. And dealing with biases is super challenging – @raffaelmarty#TheSAS2018pic.twitter.com/eii5W0vrWr | <urn:uuid:b9b01a2a-4b18-4825-953e-68a699b868fc> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://raffy.ch/blog/category/artificial-intelligence/ | 2024-09-16T20:17:58Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651710.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20240916180320-20240916210320-00831.warc.gz | en | 0.952158 | 5,991 | 2.625 | 3 |
READ TIME: 4 MIN
There are approximately 7 billion humans on Planet Earth. Recently, over ten percent of them – 773 million of them, to be exact – now have their sensitive personal information released into public record. This is courtesy of what’s known as Collection No. 1, one of the largest collections of unique email addresses and passwords ever to be released.
Importantly, Collection No. 1 is not the result of a single data breach. Rather, it is a farrago – multiple separate and previously unheard-of data breaches accumulated into a single mass and released for public consumption.
Data breaches at this scale are illustrative. Not only do they show us how many people constantly reuse weak and insecure passwords across the internet, they also show us something about how data – emails, passwords, phone numbers, and so on – are used once it has been stolen. Here’s what the Collection No. 1 breach tells us about information security.
Most stolen data isn’t immediately useable. Even if a hacker successfully steals a list of email, username, and password combinations, they’ll usually find that the password is protected by something called a hash. A hash is a one-way cryptographic algorithm that renders passwords into a protected format. Most applications never store plain-text passwords – only the hash is stored. When you put your password into a login form, it gets hashed and then checked against the stored hash for verification.
Hashes are not unbreakable, and hackers are creative. If you have a weak password, hackers can find it through something called a rainbow table attack or a dictionary attack, in which they take an example list of weak passwords, hash them, and then check a stolen database for matching hashes.
Alternatively, hackers may find that they’ve stolen a list from a company that does not adhere to good password management practices. For example, they might be using depreciated hashes – hashes that are widely solved and easy to decrypt. A lot of companies still use the MD5 hash, even though it’s been known to be insecure since 2005.
Even though there are methods, de-hashing stolen data takes a ton of work – which is what makes the Collection No. 1 breach so notable. Each one of the millions of passwords that were released as part of Collection No. 1 have been de-hashed. That means that they are immediately available for hackers to use – and most likely, they’ve already tried to use them.
Data that’s stolen from companies and organizations doesn’t often get used right away. For example, criminals that steal data directly often don’t have any interest in or ability to de-hash it. That means that this data gets immediately sold. The buyer will then attempt to de-hash this data, and it takes time – stubborn hashes can take months or even years to decrypt.
Once the hashes have been decrypted, the hackers will attempt to use the resulting credentials – they’ll try to unlock bank accounts and steal money, or potentially use admin credentials to break into corporate networks and steal more information. Not all credentials will be easy to use – they might not be closely associated with either companies or bank accounts – and not all of them will still be valid by the time they’ve been decrypted.
Huge data dumps like Collection No. 1 are the end result of this process. This is the data that has either already been mined for immediate usefulness or can’t easily be mined for immediate profit. The only thing that’s left for attackers to do is use it for what’s known as credential-stuffing attacks: taking huge lists of various usernames and passwords and then running them through various services in the hope of finding a useful combination.
Expect to see a lot of credential-stuffing attacks using the data from Collection No. 1 (and subsequent collections) in the coming weeks and months.
Data breaches like Collection No. 1 highlight the need for companies to create secure password management strategies and protect their businesses from account hijacking. NexusTek can help with both. Our security experts will consult with companies in order to develop password protection schemes that use state-of-the-art cryptographic algorithms to protect user data. In addition, we offer monitoring solutions that can detect and mitigate the influx of login attempts that would accompany a credential stuffing attack. | <urn:uuid:56072803-501c-40cb-bb00-b46a11e6fc09> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.nexustek.com/blog/collection-no-1-has-anyone-not-been-pwned | 2024-09-20T12:42:40Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700652278.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20240920122604-20240920152604-00531.warc.gz | en | 0.947242 | 909 | 3.046875 | 3 |
The Department of Energy is poised to use its Frontier supercomputer to tackle 24 initial science and engineering problems with its applications and software stack.
The system, which is a keystone of the agency’s Exascale Computing Project, was late last month declared — albeit with some caveats — to have retaken the position as the world’s fastest exascale system.
The Department of Energy now plans to scale to about 9,400 nodes — separate computers that make up a high-performance computing (HPC) cluster, processing at a speed of 1,880 petaflops — of Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s exascale computer to simulate problems of national interest over the next 18 months.
Exascale Computing Project (ECP) has already been running on about 200 nodes of Frontier hardware since January, with one-and-a-half cabinets of the exascale computer’s 74 having been set aside for development teams to prepare for and identify last-minute issues with the transition.
“It’s crunch time, and we’re very excited,” Doug Kothe, director of the ECP, told FedScoop. “Within the next couple of months we’re going to be getting on Frontier and demonstrating very specific application capabilities and performance capabilities.”
Working with DOE sponsors, ECP chose the 24 initial science and engineering problems to focus on, though future possibilities number in the hundreds or thousands, Kothe said.
Problems span key national pillars: economic, national and energy security; scientific discovery; and even health care — so long as they’re exascale problems.
“An exascale problem is one that was really not solvable or approachable without this kind of power,” Kothe said. “It might mean that my concept-to-design cycle is a certain period, and to be able to simulate some phenomena in a design — with all the complexity I need to make a good solution — takes much longer than that design cycle.”
Engineers want results in days, hours or minutes, so months-long simulations aren’t practical. Exascale computers can simulate more complex phenomena with higher confidence while still allowing for much quicker hypothesis cycles.
Energy production is a core focus for DOE, so ECP will use Frontier to simulate fusion and nuclear fission reactors, wind energy farms, power grids, the clean combustion of fossil fuels like coal, and internal combustion engines used by land-based turbines and gas power plants. ECP has a power grid app for energy transmission and hopes to simulate a large portion of the nation’s interconnections.
ECP will also use Frontier to answer fundamental science questions around the origin of the elements in the universe including astrophysics, neutron star mergers and supernovae; the evolution of the universe known as cosmology; and the fundamental forces of nature like quantum chromodynamics.
Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory has an ECP project simulating how light sources interact with matter by shining photons from a free electron laser through biological samples or metal alloys to understand their structure.
Nontraditional apps include simulating genome assembly for microbiomes, how materials respond in extreme conditions like a radiation environment and COVID-19 virus docking scenarios.
“I’m pretty confident that we’re going to see some major discoveries come out of this exascale era with the applications that we’ve developed,” Kothe said.
ECP is part of the broader National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) begun by DOE in 2016, and its apps and software aren’t exascale-specific — meaning they run on laptops, desktops and clusters too.
The Extreme Scale Scientific Software Stack (E4S), released more than three years ago at E4S.io, is comprised of the libraries apps need to come up with solutions and sits atop a Hewlett Packard Enterprise operating system.
DOE leads NSCI, and its Industry and Agency Council targets five agencies: the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA.
DOE is working with NIH to develop machine learning to address cancer, called the Cancer Distributed Learning Environment (CanDLE), using Frontier.
Frontier apps may be built on multiple physical phenomena — fluid flow, heat transfer and material science — exportable to apps used by agencies outside the big five.
Developing Frontier was a codesign effort between ECP and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, as is the case with the Aurora and El Capitan exascale computers at the Argonne and Lawrence Livermore national labs, respectively. ECP set requirements for the systems.
“We understand very well the hardware that’s being deployed,” Kothe said. “And we’re tailoring our applications to run well and exploit that hardware.” | <urn:uuid:383548ad-bf48-4e3f-9bff-50ceb812c06b> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://fedscoop.com/exascale-computing-project-frontier-24-problems/ | 2024-09-10T21:37:33Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651318.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910192923-20240910222923-00531.warc.gz | en | 0.925879 | 1,030 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Extracting data from air-gapped computers via mobile phones
A group of researchers from the Department of Information Systems Engineering at Ben-Gurion University in Israel have demonstrated and detailed a technique that can allow attackers to exfiltrate data from an “air-gapped” computer.
More often than not, computers housing sensitive data – whether it belongs to the government, a business, or any other type of organization – are kept off the Internet and internal networks and have their Bluetooth feature switched off in order to prevent attackers easily reaching and compromising them and the information they hold.
Often, even those individuals that are allowed to access or simply be in the vicinity of these computers are prohibited of having a mobile phone with them, which is usually left in a locker somewhere on the premises, but not very near to the place where these computers are located. Still, this security procedure can be violated, by accident or on purpose, and mobile phones might be brought close enough to be used in an attack.
The researchers dubbed their technique “AirHopper.” The premise for making it work is that the attacker has already compromised the computer containing the sensitive data, and is now looking for a way to exfiltrate it in without anyone noticing.
“While it is known that software can intentionally create radio emissions from a video display unit, this is the first time that mobile phones are considered in an attack model as the intended receivers of maliciously crafted radio signals,” they explained in their paper.
They proved that a mobile phone with an FM radio receiver – whether it belongs to the attacker or to an individual working in the organization, oblivious that his phone has been compromised – can be used to extract the data by collecting the radio signals emanating from the compromised computer.
Their research proved that textual and binary data can be exfiltrated from physically isolated computer to mobile phones at a distance of 1-7 meters- The transfer of the data is relatively slow – 13-60 Bps – but still fast enough to extract things like passwords.
It is widely believed what this type of attack is already being performed by intelligence agencies, and the US NSA in particular.
There are ways to prevent this type of attack. “Countermeasures of the technical kind include physical insulation, software-based reduction of information-bearing emission, and early encryption of signals. Procedural countermeasures include official practices and standards, along with legal or organizational sanctions,” the researchers noted. | <urn:uuid:a330ba68-48ce-48dc-acc0-23ae2a87d373> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2014/11/04/extracting-data-from-air-gapped-computers-via-mobile-phones/ | 2024-09-10T20:01:05Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651318.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910192923-20240910222923-00531.warc.gz | en | 0.96049 | 507 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Ever since the day computing devices started becoming the mainstream of businesses, data has been the backbone of their operations. In fact, this data has a pattern, that acts as the key concept of every problem and every solution that’s out there. When the era of High-Performance Computers (HPC) came into the picture, there were challenges associated with analyzing and identifying those data patterns. This is where Pattern Computer, a pattern discovery company that discovers and generates valuable hypotheses and insights into complex data, is creating an impact in the industry. Pattern Computer is a pioneer in finding novel patterns in complex data that cannot be discovered using conventional techniques or tools, even on exascale computers.
Unlike traditional machine learning or artificial intelligence company, Pattern Computer developed a proprietary, end-to-end system for generating new hypotheses and insights from data to help transform the way research or business look at data. “An interesting mathematical and practical difference between our math and neural networks is that we can do very large runs. Our memory requirements are linear, not exponential, because our mathematics is different,” extols Mark Anderson, CEO, Pattern Computer.
According to Pattern Computer, neural networks are great at predicting. But they are almost useless in providing “how and why” because of what’s called “the blackbox problem.” However, Pattern Computer has developed a new, innovative, end-to-end system, the Pattern Discovery Engine, for generating new hypotheses and insights from high-dimensional data to help transform the speed, efficiency, and effectiveness of research, business operations or development of new materials or products and services. PCI’s hypothesis-generating engine is delivering true Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) today. This combination of innovations, the PDE, and true XAI, delivered on high dimensional data, dissecting real world problems is a ground-breaking new reality in analytics. These innovations and the analytical insights being delivered from them is prompting new ways of assessing and solving some of the most difficult and entrenched problems in the world today. Pattern Computer’s PDE with integrated XAI capabilities is the first and only analytical platform that transforms the Black Box into a Glass Box, and makes all the predictions and insights completely transparent.
Solving Problems with Ease
Today, Pattern Computer’s hypothesis-generating engine is prompting new ways of assessing and solving some of the most difficult and entrenched problems in medical research and other fields. Moreover, its results are helping forge partnerships with world-class organizations and experts in oncology, systems biology, precision medicine, and microbiome research. What’s really interesting is that the company’s platform is generating results that aim to advance industry standards in areas such as breast cancer treatments and prognostics, and in the detection of healthy versus disease-state pathways in microbiome and human gut disorders.
In addition to the PDE, PCI’s hypothesis-generating engine, the PCI team has developed new mathematics that is delivering true Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) today. This combination of innovations, the PDE, and true XAI, delivered on high dimensional data, dissecting real world problems is a ground-breaking new reality in analytics. These innovations and the analytical insights being delivered from them is prompting new ways of assessing and solving some of the most difficult and entrenched problems in our world today.
The key contributors to Pattern Computer’s success are its powerful and highly skilled core team. The company has brought together veterans and subject matter experts across a multitude of tech and scientific domains, with the mission of bridging the prevailing gaps in ML to deliver breakthrough discoveries, beginning in their first domain of personalized medicine. The team has designed an integrated system optimized—and have patents pending for proprietary methods—across all 3 processing areas, including data preparation and ingestion, the pattern discovery engine, and advanced visualization and transparent delivery of high-dimensional insights.
Redefining the way Businesses Utilize Data
Since opening its doors, Pattern Computer has been redefining the way companies look at data. While explaining the value proposition of the company, Anderson recalls an instance when the team assisted a top tier aerospace manufacturer. “The client company’s team were struggling with manufacturing quality control problems, deriving from failures in assembled parts on an airframe. However, the components were passing all their tests. The company shared their production data with Pattern Computer, and the data itself wasn’t perfect. But Pattern has the ability to see what are called latent variables, so we could see that some critical information was missing that was contributing to this problem. Our discovery engines were able to detect new correlative details of failure as important contributors to the final solutions.
“When it comes to explainability, we have that too. We’ve been using explainability, when no one else had it, because we created new mathematics to allow this from the beginning. So, in this case with this aerospace firm, we had explainability, and we could deliver an actual mathematical description, also human readable, of why these failures were happening,” adds Anderson.
Delivering Life-Saving Contributions
The company’s CEO Mark Anderson has built a long and distinguished career successfully forecasting some of the most significant technological and economic trends across the globe. He credits his success on using pattern recognition to discover key trends that will influence future conditions or events. With the rapid expanse of data, he knew the challenge and opportunity for designing and automating a system for pattern discovery—that harnessed the power of pattern recognition against complex, high-dimensional data—was upon us. And he formed this company to do just that: developing the world’s first Pattern Computer system. While the company could apply its solution toward any domain, Pattern Computer’s founders and employees universally expressed desire to focus first on the field of medical research, as it presents the most daunting yet immediate promise for life-changing and life-saving contributions to society. This under scores the company’s mission of solving the most pressing health and societal problems, as the global leader in pattern discovery.
Today at Pattern Computer’s innovation lab is all about creating Pattern Discoveries and explainable solutions, in addition to providing the highest accuracy in the lowest possible time frame. From an economic perspective, the company is also working on expanding partnerships, especially in the healthcare and drug discovery solutions domain. “We are not limited by technology or the hardware, software, or the math. The only thing we are limited by data and people. We would be able to go as fast as anyone thinks with these two components.
The company is also launching its ProSpectral™ system, which appears to be the fastest, most accurate and least expensive high-throughput Covid test system. “Even as we expand ProSpectral to detect more diseases, we’re working to launch in India, Australia, America, Chile and the EU, in addition to this technical expansion,” concludes Anderson. | <urn:uuid:f25461d8-6f43-4ca0-94fb-c5398a260da2> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://europe.iconoutlook.com/pattern-computer/ | 2024-09-12T02:09:40Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651420.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20240912011254-20240912041254-00431.warc.gz | en | 0.946154 | 1,438 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Google Cloud Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure introduces important concepts and terminology for working with Google Cloud. Through videos and hands-on labs, this course presents and compares many of Google Cloud's computing and storage services, along with important resource and policy management tools
- Identify the purpose and value of Google Cloud products and services
- Define how infrastructure is organized and controlled in Google Cloud
- Explain how to create a basic infrastructure in Google Cloud
- Select and use Google Cloud storage options
Who Can Benefit
- Individuals planning to deploy applications and create application environments on Google Cloud
- Systems operations professionals, solution architects getting started with Google Cloud, and developers.
- Executives and business decision makers evaluating the potential of Google Cloud to address their business needs.
- This section welcomes learners to the Google Cloud Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure course, and provides an overview of the course structure and goals.
Introducing Google Cloud
- This section identifies some of the key benefits of using Google Cloud. It's here that we introduce the components of the Google network infrastructure, and explore the differences between infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS).
Resources and Access in the Cloud
- This section explores how resources get organized with projects, and how access to those resources gets shared with the right part of a workforce through a tool called Identity and Access Management (IAM). It's also in this section that we identify different ways to interact with Google Cloud.
Virtual Machines and Networks in the Cloud
- This section of the course explores how Google Compute Engine works, with a focus on virtual networking.
Storage in the Cloud
- This section of the course showcases five core Google Cloud storage products: Cloud Storage, Bigtable, Cloud SQL, Spanner, and Firestore.
Containers in the Cloud
- This section of the course explores containers and how they can be managed with Kubernetes and Google Kubernetes Engine.
Applications in the Cloud
- The focus of this section of the course is developing applications in the cloud. It's here that we'll explore Cloud Run and Cloud Functions.
- This section looks at generative AI tools, how they work. We'll explore how to combine Google Cloud knowledge with prompt engineering to improve Gemini responses.
- In this final section, we review what was presented in this course and discuss the next steps to continue your cloud learning journey. | <urn:uuid:d8d387de-0653-4a03-a5f9-477bf1d5b642> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://portal.exitcertified.com/it-training/google-cloud/fundamentals-getting-started-google/fundamentals-core-infrastructure-56022-detail.html | 2024-09-13T07:53:59Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651510.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20240913070112-20240913100112-00331.warc.gz | en | 0.885285 | 498 | 2.625 | 3 |
We will continue to learn new ways we’re wrong about the environmental impact of our preferred caffeination methods. Our thinking about the impact of the data center has evolved similarly. From the pre-PUE days where it was typical for mechanical loads to equal IT loads, to the tradeoffs between energy and water, to the more recent focus on science-based targets and Scope 3 emissions, we have learned a lot, and will continue to.
PUE as the end-all sustainability metric
For some time now, power usage effectiveness (PUE) has been the data center efficiency metric used as a main conversation point on sustainability. Prior to the metric, it was widely accepted that facility loads would match or even exceed IT loads, making PUEs of 2.0 or more typical. Indeed, until we began to measure PUE you could argue that there really wasn't much of an effort to improve energy utilization within the data center industry.
It took a lot of collaboration between all stakeholders to come around to warmer supply air temperatures, but as data center users and operators became more comfortable with higher temperatures and various ways to economize, the thinking about PUE evolved, and operators began to target – and reach – PUEs well under 1.5. You could say that the focus on PUE in the data center industry has led to significant improvements in our understanding of a data center's environmental impact and overall sustainability. But as it only represents the energy used by the facilities' mechanical and electrical systems, PUE was never intended to be a broad measure of emissions impact, much less a holistic measure of sustainability.
What about water?!
More recently, the spotlight has been placed on the data center industry’s water use. Water usage effectiveness (WUE) is an important measure which, alongside PUE, does provide a more holistic view of a data center’s environmental impact. WUE represents an important evolution in how we think about the impact of the data center, because there are tradeoffs between PUE and WUE. In most instances, comparing sites with like-for-like operating conditions, adiabatically cooled mechanical systems use less power than those that are just air cooled, but they do so with significant water use. In some locations where water is scarce it may sound rational to avoid water use on site for the rejection of heat, but one must dig deeper.
How to strike the balance that will produce the most ‘sustainable’ outcome really depends on local factors. As Google’s Senior Vice President of Technical Infrastructure Urs Hölzle wrote recently in a post titled Our commitment to climate-conscious data center cooling, “There is no one-size-fits-all solution.” For example, given that renewable power generation uses less water than traditional Rankine cycle-based plants, a more power-intensive air-cooled data center using renewable energy could have a smaller total water footprint than an evaporatively assisted data center in the same location. Conversely, in locations where power is generated by way of a Rankine cycle, an evaporatively cooled data center could use less water than the air-cooled equivalent. That tradeoff analysis is particularly relevant in water-constrained markets like Phoenix, where some local policymakers have denied new data center permits because of water use concerns, despite the high water usage associated with gas and nuclear power generation (the predominant power sources in Phoenix).
Beyond PUE and WUE – science-based targets
The next step in the evolution of our thinking about sustainability is to holistically consider the data center’s environmental impact across its lifecycle. Paul Lin and Robert Bunger at Schneider Electric made a significant contribution to that thinking with their whitepaper, Guide to Environmental Sustainability Metrics for Data Centers.
The framework includes five categories with 23 metrics “for data center operators in various stages of their sustainability journeys to take control of sustainability goals”:
- Total energy consumption
- Power usage effectiveness (PUE)
- Total renewable energy consumption
- Renewable energy factor (REF)
- Energy reuse factor (ERF)
- GHG emissions (Scope 1)
- Location-based GHG emissions (Scope 2)
- Market-based GHG emissions (Scope 2)
- GHG emissions (Scope 3)
- Location-based carbon intensity (Scope 1 + Scope 2)
- Market-based carbon intensity (Scope 1 + Scope 2)
- Carbon usage effectiveness (CUE)
- Total carbon offsets
- Hour-by-hour supply and consumption matching
- Total site water usage
- Total source energy water usage
- Water usage effectiveness (WUE)
- Total water use in supply chain
- Total waste generated
- Waste landfilled
- Waste diverted
- Waste diversion rate
Land & biodiversity
- Mean species abundance (MSA)
Much of the industry’s focus is now on identifying GHG emissions and opportunities to reduce those, which encompasses energy efficiency in both mechanical and electrical systems. Most large companies have committed to science-based emissions reductions targets – in line with limiting global warming to well-below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Many have announced plans to achieve net-zero emissions or even be carbon negative by 2030.
Next stop: Scope 3 emissions
The first step on the path to becoming carbon neutral is developing a baseline of emissions. That’s difficult enough thinking about the data center in isolation; it’s exponentially more complicated when considering the entire value chain, known as Scope 3 emissions. Scope 3 reveals how much carbon is embedded in all facets of the facility – from batteries in the UPS to concrete and steel in the building – as well as emissions from upstream and downstream in the supply chain.
Schneider Electric’s Lin and Bunger argue that Scope 3 “is poised to become the most significant contributor to a data center’s overall GHG emissions.” The researchers’ latest whitepaper, Recommended Inventory for Data Center Scope 3 GHG Emissions Reporting, offers the first standardized data center-relevant framework for Scope 3 accounting and reporting. It includes nine emissions source categories and their data center specific subcategories:
Purchased goods and services
- Core and shell (materials)
- Cloud services
- IT equipment
- Power equipment
- Cooling equipment
- Others (i.e., rack, fire protection, lighting)
Fuel- and energy-related activities
- Fuels (i.e. diesel, natural gas)
- Energy (i.e. electricity, cooling)
Upstream transportation and distribution
- Shipments via road, rail, air, and marine
Waste generated in operations
- Solid waste management
- Wastewater management
- Air, rail, bus, and automobile travel
- Hotel night stays
- Automobile travel
- Public transport
- Others (e.g., telecommuting)
Upstream leased assets
- Leased vehicles
- Leased buildings
- Leased colocation data center space (i.e., U-space, rack-space, IT room, or even the whole data center)
Downstream leased assets
- Multi-tenant data centers
- Single-tenant data centers
Establishing a baseline for Scope 3 emissions, setting targets, and then achieving those targets is the most significant challenge in the industry today. Success requires collaboration across the value chain, which is one reason why Stream is proud to be a member of the iMasons Climate Accord, a “coalition united on carbon reduction in digital infrastructure” which has the mandate to “achieve global carbon accounting of digital infrastructure to influence market-based decisions and drive the industry to achieve carbon neutrality.”
It’s likely there are sources we still have not captured and it’s no doubt that our understanding of a data center’s environmental impact will continue to evolve. Still, we must take action to mitigate our environmental impact, and we must work together to do that. At Stream, in alignment with our guiding principles, we’re committed to supporting our customers’ climate action goals, and to working with our partners and even our competitors to advance our understanding of how best to mitigate the environmental impact of the data center across the value chain.
Stuart Lawrence is Vice President of Product Innovation and Sustainability at Stream Data Centers, which builds and operates for large and sophisticated enterprises and hyperscalers – 24 data center developments since 1999, with 90% of our capacity leased to the Fortune 100. | <urn:uuid:f876348d-2388-4297-950e-ed467c8e6309> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.datacenterfrontier.com/sponsored/article/33000137/stream-data-centers-what-we-dont-know-about-data-center-sustainability | 2024-09-13T07:28:13Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651510.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20240913070112-20240913100112-00331.warc.gz | en | 0.928936 | 1,770 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Preventing DDoS Attacks Amidst the Covid-19 Outbreak
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are one of the oldest and most effective forms of cyberattack companies must contend with today. Some of the most famous recent DDoS attacks have impacted major organizations like GitHub, Dyn, and BBC, but smaller companies remain even more vulnerable to these brute force cyberattacks. Preventing DDoS attacks should be a priority for every organization, regardless of its size.
DDoS Attacks and COVID-19
With the increased level of remote working arrangements and overall internet activity due to stay-at-home COVID-19 measures, it was perhaps inevitable that cybercriminals would exploit the situation to create disruption and undermine network systems. Much of this activity took the form of coronavirus-related scams, such as the widespread phishing schemes used to deploy Emotet malware. The goal of these attacks is typically to breach secure systems and steal potential valuable information. While they are potentially devastating, these attacks can be countered relatively easily with simple solutions like multi-factor authentication and increased employee awareness.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 crisis has also seen a severe increase in DDoS attacks. A Q1 2020 report released in early May by the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky found that DDoS attacks were both more numerous and more intense compared to the previous year. While the first quarter of the year commonly sees a spike in DDoS activity, few cybersecurity experts were prepared for the 80% increase in attacks or the 25% increase in attack duration.
Most of these attacks have targeted government agencies, educational platforms, and gaming services, all of which have experienced much higher usage rates due to COVID-19 lockdown measures. Nowhere was this more visible than in the early March DDoS attack on the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which attempted to overload the agency’s servers over a period of several hours.
What are DDoS Attacks?
One of the more common forms of active cyberattacks, a DDoS attack works by bombarding a server with a massive number of access requests. It does this by leveraging the inherent design of networking architecture, which involves sending data packets to a server to execute a command or request access to the system. Since every packet that arrives must be read and processed whether or not it’s rejected, too many such requests will impact performance as the system tries to read every one of them. The server first slows down as it struggles to keep up, and if the onslaught continues, it will simply crash, taking the entire network down with it.
Unfortunately, DDoS attacks are relatively easy to orchestrate. For many years, attackers used specialized malware to infect thousands of computers and create a botnet capable of launching an attack on a single target. These attacks stole portions of processing and networking power from infected computers to send coordinated access requests to the targeted system. Recently, attackers have transitioned to using powerful “booter” or “stresser” services that allow them to purchase and provision the processing resources to launch DDoS attacks.
Can DDoS Attacks be Prevented?
Combatting DDoS attacks has posed a number of challenges for both companies and authorities. On April 10, Dutch authorities arrested a 19-year-old hacker who launched an attack against government websites related to the pandemic response. A week earlier, they shut down 15 stresser services in a major raid that echoed a 2018 effort by the US Department of Justice that took down similar services operating in California and Alaska.
Unfortunately, the sheer number and easy availability of these illegal services (many of which are easily found with a conventional search engine) has made it almost impossible for authorities to curtail attacks. Until there is a broad, cooperative effort between law enforcement officials and technology companies to clamp down on DDoS attacks (such as de-indexing known stresser sites or restricting online marketplaces), organizations will continue to be forced to rely on their own mitigation strategies.
How to Prevent DDoS Attacks
There are a variety of tools networks can deploy to mitigate the impact of a DDoS attack. While manual incident response was once sufficient to combat them, today’s DDoS attacks are far too large and adaptive to be countered manually. Effective DDoS mitigation consists of four key steps and is often implemented through a variety of cloud-based services.
Step 1: Detection
The first step in stopping an attack is recognizing that it’s underway. Older forms of DDoS mitigation simply throttled down bandwidth when traffic volume spiked, but this could create performance issues, especially in the case of newly launched products or services that swamped networks with legitimate visitors. Modern DDoS mitigation software monitors traffic closely to identify known attack patterns and flag unusual activity as a potential threat.
Step 2: Response
Once the network knows something unusual is happening, DDoS mitigation platforms use a variety of scanning tools and machine learning capabilities to identify malicious botnet or booter/stresser service traffic and distinguish it from potentially legitimate traffic.
Step 3: Routing
Once the distinctive signature of malicious traffic is identified, it can be dropped entirely at the network edge before it has a chance to reach the server and impact performance. Remaining traffic can then be broken up into more manageable chunks to help the system process it more effectively and further screen out any malicious requests.
Step 4: Adaptation
The aftermath of a DDoS attack is often the most important step, allowing the system to identify and adapt to attack patterns, block malicious IPs, and scrutinize traffic from certain countries. This allows the system to fortify itself against future attacks to deliver superior levels of network uptime.
Protect Your Business from DDoS Attacks with Compuquip!
At Compuquip Cybersecurity, we help organizations protect their critical data and applications from risk. Our fully-managed security and incident response services provide the oversight and protection needed to guard against the latest generation of DDoS attacks. As a fully remote technology company, we understand the network risks that companies are facing as they work through the COVID-19 pandemic. Our team of cybersecurity experts is ready to help your organization implement the policies and controls necessary to keep your remote business secure and protect you from the disruptive risks of DDoS attacks. To learn more about our innovative threat management and virtual CISO services, contact our experienced security team today. | <urn:uuid:1e83522a-7cd8-467c-8810-06a90e033041> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.compuquip.com/blog/preventing-ddos-attacks-covid-19 | 2024-09-17T02:45:32Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651722.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20240917004428-20240917034428-00031.warc.gz | en | 0.95433 | 1,305 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Gain vs. Isolation
Can’t have one without the other. Well, maybe you can, but you may fall out of grace with your AHJ. Both NFPA & IFC fire codes require system gain to be set 20dB lower than system isolation. Why is isolation so important? Ever look at the output of a BDA that begins to oscillate? It’s not pretty.
Let’s start by explaining what we mean by isolation. Practically all Public Safety in-building coverage enhancement systems require a Bi-Directional Amplifier (BDA), also defined by the FCC as a Signal Booster device. These devices amplify weak signals received from the repeater site and reradiate them indoors. The challenging part is that they reradiate the same frequencies as they receive. To give an analogy, have you ever sat in an auditorium and the person giving the speech walks too close to the monitor with the mic causing an awful squeal that gets louder and louder until he moves farther away, or the sound guy reduces gain on that mic channel? That kind of feedback can happen in a BDA system as well and is known as oscillation. If an in-building system lacks isolation, it will begin to oscillate, or feedback into itself. As it oscillates, the BDA will get “louder” and “louder” until it either protects itself by reducing gain, shutting down, or burns up. What I mean by louder here is that the amplitude of the RF signal being re-radiated continues to increase until the BDA amplifier is driven into saturation. An amplifier operating in this non-linear region will produce ugly intermodulation products and unwanted noise that can seriously degrade the Public Safety repeater site performance and even interfere with adjacent cellular systems.
Where did the value 20dB come from?
Previous Code only required 15dB greater isolation than Gain. Changes to the 2016 NFPA 1221 code increased that value to 20dB. So why the change? Depending on the manufacturer and technology used, some BDAs can exhibit stable operation with only 10 or 15 dB less gain than isolation. It’s what we can’t control that may have lead code writers to revisit this value. For example, let’s say an office environment uses aluminum blinds that just happened to be closed during the AHJ walk-around testing and the system passes. Now the building becomes occupied and the new tenants open the blinds and in this 4-story L-shaped building we now have line-of-sight between in-building antenna and Donor antenna on building rooftop.
Let’s assume that we have lost 10dB isolation with the blinds open and the BDA automatically reduces its’ gain to avoid oscillation. If gain gets reduced, then it’s likely that your system will no longer comply with code. This reduction in coverage may go undetected until the next scheduled system test, or worse, during an actual life-threatening incident. Increasing the isolation requirement adds more margin to help absorb some of the changing RF environment factors that are difficult to emulate during AHJ testing. This is just one basic example of how isolation can be affected by something so seemingly trivial. Other scenarios affecting isolation could be: shipping dock doors opened, using donor antennas that lack sufficient directionality, poorly assembled/connectorized cables near the BDA or donor antenna, the use of multiple BDAs looping back on each other, reflective surfaces, ducting from vents, and possibly the most common is lack of RF attenuation between the donor antenna on the roof and indoor antennas one floor below.
Since many modern BDAs incorporate circuitry that helps prevent the ugly by-products resulting from oscillation, why worry about isolation at all? Unfortunately, It’s nearly impossible to predict how much isolation a system will achieve until it is installed. During the design phase we tend to design using a BDA’s maximum gain and maximum power values. However, a word of caution, with many BDAs on the market spec’d at 90 or 95 dB of gain, especially in the 700/800 MHz bands, achieving isolation of 110 to 115dB may prove challenging.
Let’s highlight the importance of isolation using actual numbers. Consider the case where a field tech measured the 800 MHz control channel at the rooftop during a site survey and determined that the RSSI into the BDA will be -65dBm. You, as the system designer, determine that a 20-channel simulcast system results in a 20dBm output power per channel level, this assumes the use of a 2W BDA (10*log(20 Ch’ls) – 33dBm = 20dBm). Therefore, the actual gain needed in order to reach the per-channel power is 85dB (20dBm-(-65dBm)=85dB). You submitted your design based on 20dBm per channel and you learn that you’ve been awarded the project. A short time later installation is completed and now it’s your turn to shine. You arrive at the site to optimize the system. You proceed to commission the system using Comba’s cool built-in system isolation measurement feature and the software displays 90dB of isolation. According to code, the gain must be set to 20dB less than isolation. In this case, your max gain can only be set to 70dB. If we add 70dB of gain to our -65dBm input signal, our output is only +5dBm, or 15dB less than our original design parameter. So now you’re in panic mode knowing you’ll never achieve necessary coverage at this level. What gives? Is there something wrong with the BDA? Or is it simply isolation issue? You can easily confirm isolation by shutting off the BDA, disconnecting the donor and DAS cables from BDA and perform your own test by injecting signal from Signal generator into either the donor or passive DAS systems and monitoring the other side with spectrum analyzer. Sure enough, you’ve confirmed the accuracy of Comba’s built-in signal generator feature to be spot-on and next step is to resolve isolation issue.
Start by using the same signal generator & analyzer configuration and methodically disconnect each floor until isolation improves. Once you’ve determined which floor(s) are causing the problem, you may be able to narrow down to a specific antenna. Adding an attenuator pad to an antenna or entire branch circuit may get isolation back to where it needs to be.
Bear in mind that while adding attenuation may fix isolation issues, degraded coverage might become collateral damage. Furthermore, if a Class A BDA is being used, Time Delay Interference (TDI) issues may surface when indoor signals no longer dominate donor signals.
If you suspect your application may have isolation issues, you might try the following:
- Use a high isolation donor antenna. Even though your donor site may be close and antenna gain is not needed, the use of a highly directional antenna, and thus high gain, offers the benefit of narrow beamwidth. Narrow beamwidth means more signal is directed away from the building rather than leaked into the building. The improvement in beamwidth alone may afford us 10-20dB more isolation and hence 10-20dB more gain.
Another bonus is the antenna gain. Inherently, high isolation antennas have more gain due in part to the more focused beam. In the example above, our RSSI was measured to be -65dBm. At this input level we determined that 85dB of gain is needed to reach max power-per-channel of 20dBm However, we could only achieve 70dB gain due to insufficient isolation. Using this same example, if we swap the donor antenna with a high isolation antenna having 10 dB more gain, the new RSSI into BDA becomes -55dBm. With -55dBm input, we now only require 75dB of gain to hit target output of 20dBm/channel. Reducing BDA gain means less isolation is required. Our new isolation requirement of 95dB (75dB gain + 20dB margin= 95dB target isolation) is 5dB over the previously measured value of 90dB. But wait. Once you’ve swapped the donor antenna for the high isolation antenna, re-run the isolation test and you’ll likely find that your isolation increased by 10-20dB. The resulting increased isolation combined with the need for lower gain may completely erase the isolation issue. There are true benefits to using high isolation antennas, however one tradeoff is cost. These high isolation antennas can be 5 to 10 times the cost of the more common 7-10dBi yagi antenna.
- If coverage is required throughout the top floors near the donor antenna location, then try designing using more antennas at lower power. More antennas mean more passive loss which ultimately improves isolation.
- As a last resort, try relocating the Donor Antenna to create more physical separation between the offending indoor antenna and Donor Antenna. If a maintenance or mechanical room exists on the rooftop, try mounting the Donor Antenna to facility walls in a manner that would increase isolation.
In summary, if you can’t meet the gain reflected in your link budget, suspect lack of isolation as the culprit. Better yet, if you suspect up front that your application may be a good candidate for isolation problems, bite the bullet and design in that high isolation antenna and add a few more antennas to those top floors. A few extra dollars spent on the front end may save you even more on the tail end.
…and if you’re in a pinch, call Comba. Public Safety in-building system solutions is what we do. | <urn:uuid:3e07fd1a-1cd3-421f-af29-adfcb01ecf40> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://combausa.com/pr/gain-vs-isolation/ | 2024-09-18T04:54:00Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651836.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20240918032902-20240918062902-00831.warc.gz | en | 0.922767 | 2,019 | 2.875 | 3 |
The Growing Threat of Mobile Malware Attacks: How to Protect Your Mobile Devices
Malware refers to any malicious software that can harm your device or steal important data such as passwords and credit card information. With the increasing reliance on mobile devices for personal and business purposes, there is a growing need to protect these devices from malware attacks.
These attacks are detrimental to individuals and pose a significant threat to businesses that store sensitive customer information.
As technology advances, so do the tactics employed by cybercriminals in their quest to exploit vulnerabilities in mobile devices.
In this article, we will explore the best practices and effective techniques that can be used to safeguard both personal and business data from malware attacks. It is crucial for everyone who uses a smartphone or tablet to understand how malware works and how it can be prevented.
On this page:
Understanding the Risks of Malware Attacks on Mobile Devices
Mobile devices have become an integral part of our lives, allowing us to stay connected with the world and perform various tasks on-the-go.
However, this increased reliance on mobile devices has also made them vulnerable to cyber threats such as malware attacks.
Malware is malicious software that can infect your device without your knowledge or consent and steal sensitive information or cause damage to the system.
The risks associated with malware attacks on mobile devices include data theft, financial loss, identity theft, and reputational damage.
As the number of mobile users continues to grow and more business activities are conducted through these devices, it becomes essential to understand the potential risks posed by malware attacks and take proactive measures to protect against them.
Identifying Signs of Malware Infection
Now that we understand the risks of malware attacks on mobile devices, it is important to know the signs and symptoms of a possible infection. Mobile malware can be sneaky and hard to detect, so identifying an attack early on is crucial in protecting your personal or business data.
Here are three common signs of malware infection:
- Slow device performance: If your phone suddenly starts running slower than usual, taking longer to open apps or respond to commands, this could indicate a malware infection
- Unexplained data usage: Malware often runs in the background without users noticing until they receive unusually high bills due to excessive data usage. Keep track of your monthly data usage and look for any unexpected spikes
- Pop-up ads and unfamiliar apps: If you start seeing pop-ups or random unfamiliar apps installed on your device, there’s a chance that malware has infected your phone
It’s important to note that these signs alone may not necessarily mean you have a malware infection, as they could also occur due to other reasons, such as outdated software or hardware issues.
However, if you notice multiple signs occurring simultaneously, it’s best to take action immediately by running antivirus software or seeking professional help from IT experts.
By proactively identifying potential malware infections, you can safeguard yourself against cyber threats and minimize the risk of losing sensitive information.
Updating your Devices Regularly
Keeping your mobile devices updated is crucial to ensure protection against malware attacks. Regular updates offer security patches to fix vulnerabilities and improve the device’s performance.
Hackers often target outdated software as they are more susceptible to attacks. By updating your device, you protect it from potential threats and enhance its functionality with new features and bug fixes.
It is recommended to enable automatic updates on all of your devices so that any available update can be installed promptly without delay. In addition, it is important to note that some older devices may no longer receive updates from their manufacturers, in which case it may be necessary to upgrade to a newer model for better security measures.
Always prioritize keeping your devices up-to-date for optimal protection against malicious activities.
Using Secure Wi-Fi Networks
After updating your devices regularly, another important step to protect them from malware attacks is using secure Wi-Fi networks.
Using public or unsecured Wi-Fi networks can be risky as they may allow hackers to intercept the data being transmitted and steal personal information such as passwords and credit card details.
Instead, it is recommended to use a virtual private network (VPN) which creates an encrypted connection between your device and the internet, ensuring that all data transmitted remains confidential.
Additionally, avoiding accessing sensitive information on public networks altogether can further reduce risk.
It is also crucial to ensure that home and work Wi-Fi networks are properly secured with strong passwords and up-to-date security protocols to prevent unauthorized access by outsiders.
By following these best practices for using secure Wi-Fi networks, individuals can greatly enhance their mobile device security and safeguard their personal and business data from potential threats.
Avoiding Suspicious Apps
When it comes to protecting your mobile devices from malware attacks, avoiding suspicious apps is a crucial step.
While app stores take measures to prevent malicious software from being distributed through their platforms, there are still instances where harmful apps slip through the cracks.
To avoid downloading potentially dangerous applications, be sure to stick with trusted sources such as Apple’s App Store or Google Play.
Before installing any new app, read reviews and check its permissions carefully. If an app requests access to sensitive information or features that don’t seem necessary for its intended purpose, consider finding an alternative option.
Additionally, be wary of third-party app stores or websites claiming to offer free versions of paid apps – these are often breeding grounds for malware.
By taking these precautions and using common sense when selecting which apps to download, you can significantly reduce the risk of falling victim to a malware attack on your mobile device.
Best Practices for Mobile Security
To ensure the security of mobile devices, avoiding suspicious apps alone is not enough. Best practices for mobile security require a multi-layered approach that includes:
- Updating software regularly
- Using strong passwords and two-factor authentication
- Encrypting data
- Being cautious when connecting to public Wi-Fi networks or opening email attachments from unknown sources
It is also important to only download apps from trusted sources like Google Play Store or Apple App Store and read reviews before downloading any app.
Additionally, users should be aware of phishing scams designed to trick them into giving away their personal information by posing as legitimate entities such as banks or social media platforms.
By following these best practices, individuals can better safeguard their personal and business data against malware attacks on their mobile devices.
Mobile devices have become an essential part of our daily lives, and they hold massive amounts of personal and business data. Therefore, it is crucial to take precautionary measures to protect them from malware attacks that can potentially compromise the security of this sensitive information.
This article has discussed the risks associated with malware attacks on mobile devices, including how to identify signs of infection and best practices for safeguarding your personal and business data.
It is imperative to keep your mobile device updated regularly, as software updates often come with new features or bug fixes that help prevent cyber-attacks. Additionally, using secure Wi-Fi networks can significantly reduce the risk of malicious infiltration into your device’s system.
Avoiding suspicious apps coupled with installing reputable antivirus software also goes a long way in keeping your device safe.
In conclusion, protecting your mobile devices against malware attacks should be at the top of your priority list. By following these best practices outlined in this article, you can ensure that both your personal and professional data are protected from potential cyber threats.
Remember always to stay vigilant about any unusual activity on your device and act quickly by seeking professional assistance if any threat arises. | <urn:uuid:4eb53e1f-408d-47db-8117-591122120ded> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.businesstechweekly.com/cybersecurity/mobile-security/mobile-malware-attacks/ | 2024-09-20T16:56:27Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725701419169.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20240920154713-20240920184713-00631.warc.gz | en | 0.937891 | 1,546 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Intellectual property (IP) rights serve as a linchpin for modern ingenuity, granting creators temporary monopolies to capitalize on their work and recover their investments. This legal safeguard promotes a cycle of creation, incentivizing pioneers to innovate across various fields such as literature and technology. The existence of IP rights is premised on the belief that the ability to profit from one’s innovations spurs further discovery and benefits society at large.
However, IP rights face scrutiny for potentially hindering the collaborative spirit essential to innovation. Critics suggest that idea monopolization might suppress the shared efforts that drive progress. Despite this, the prevailing argument is that IP rights form a necessary foundation for encouraging and sustaining the economic feasibility of creative endeavors. The balance between protecting creators’ rights and fostering cooperative innovation remains a pivotal discussion in the realm of intellectual property.
Balancing Innovation and Access
Navigating the needs of protecting intellectual property (IP) with promoting accessibility is challenging. The crucial task is to protect the outputs of creativity while ensuring they remain available for further innovation. Fair use strikes this balance, permitting limited use of copyrighted works without consent. This ensures continued innovation by building upon previous works.
However, IP laws are evolving alongside the fast-paced digital landscape, requiring adaptability to preserve the integrity of IP without stifling new creators. If IP regulations become too restrictive, they can inadvertently impede the free flow of ideas and invention. Therefore, a recurring examination of these laws is essential to maintain a harmony between safeguarding creator rights and nurturing the collective advancement of society. | <urn:uuid:f8b84fa1-d5dd-494f-874d-1bd0934840c7> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://legalcurated.com/tech-and-intellectual-property/is-intellectual-property-protection-key-to-innovation/ | 2024-09-08T13:02:40Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651002.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20240908115103-20240908145103-00895.warc.gz | en | 0.920482 | 312 | 2.9375 | 3 |
A virtual private cloud (VPC) is a “cloud within a cloud” configuration where an organization establishes a private virtual networking environment within a cloud service provider’s public cloud. This “private cloud in the public cloud” usually grants complete control over the private virtual space, security, and where resources are located depending on availability by the CSP. The major benefit of the VPC deployment is to offload infrastructure risk onto a CSP, with many subsequent benefits like reduced IT staff, and associated infrastructure and staffing costs, and future-proofing the organization's tech stack.
There are similar concepts that sometimes are crossed with VPCs, such as virtual private servers (VPS), and virtual private networks (VPN). Virtual private clouds are very similar to virtual private servers (VPS) but with significant differences. A VPS, like a VPC, exists in the cloud, but uses only a fixed portion of the server with fixed resources—when accessing VPS, users interface with it as if it were a local drive. A VPS lacks efficient scalability, which distinguishes it from virtual cloud models. A VPC, contrastingly, is not bound by the underlying infrastructure, but rather their architecture allows them to scale on-demand.
VPNs are not a server technology. Virtual private networks (VPN) allow users to securely access a company's intranet from outside the firewall, and can be said to make a secure line over a public network like the Internet. Likewise, a worker can use a VPN connection to securely connect to a company’s VPC from anywhere they can access the Internet. VPNs are used to secure connections and transmit and receive data privately.
Because virtual private clouds (VPC) are based in the public cloud space, VPCs have all the features expected from the public cloud—security, elasticity, scalability, and cost-planning and control. These are the key features cloud consumers expect from cloud service providers. VPCs, however, have additional security concerns, namely around how the CSP guarantees that a client’s VPC is isolated and protected from other partitions within the public cloud.
Isolating technologies include:
- Subnet Masks — Subnet masks reserve ranges of IP addresses that are off-limits to certain groups. By setting subnet masks, VPCs can have ranges of private addresses reserved for within the network, and completely invisible to the public Internet.
- Virtual Local Area Networks (VLAN) — A virtual local area network is a way to establish a group of computer devices that are logically segmented into VLAN that operates as a single network. Clients can be physically located anywhere.
- Virtual Private Networks (VPN) — Virtual private networks (VPN) are not networks, but refer to the creation of a private connection to a network over the public Internet. VPNs use encryption to establish a secured “tunneled” connection and can be used to securely connect to a virtual private cloud.
- Availability Zones — Availability zones logically and physically isolate partitions of the CSPs infrastructure within regions with their own power, cooling, and connectivity. By avoiding a single point of failure, availability zones help bolster redundancy and fault tolerance within the system.
There are significant VPC benefits for companies that are considering establishing their own private clouds. With proper goals alignment, VPCs can prove to be a superior option over owning and operating a company’s private cloud internally.
- VPCs are Reliable, Elastic, and Scalable — These three characteristics refer to a cloud's capacity to deliver. Because VPCs are housed in the public cloud, they share the original public cloud value propositions, reliable uptime and data access, elastic capacity able to meet growing capacity demand, and scalability to meet current workload demand.
- VPC Security — Security is dependent on the needs of the system and compliance requirements. Leading public cloud providers with streamlined security processes can offer exceptionally convenient solutions to address security requirements. Providers that proactively upgrade their security measures also effectively provide VPC consumers insurance on future security needs.
- Cost Savings — Public clouds are lauded for their pay-for-usage plans that have allowed organizations to effectively cost plan while offloading responsibility.
Virtual private cloud architecture is built upon the same infrastructure other cloud models are. Including the technologies and practices that establish public cloud services, CSPs also use a three-tier architecture, and demilitarized zones to help organize VPC services.
- Three-tier Architecture — As it sounds, three-tier architecture creates three interconnected layers that divide software responsibilities—web or presentation tier, application tier, and database tier. The presentation tier receives web browser requests and returns web pages and data stored within the other two layers. The application tier is what is considered the heart of the application where the business logic lives and works. The database tier houses the databases that store the data that the application tier interacts with and eventually sends that data to the presentation tier to be consumed.
- Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) — Also called perimeter networks, DMZs are subnets established to create a buffer between the LAN, private cloud, or VPC, and the public Internet. DMZs provide access control, threat prevention, and detection of IP spoofing. The DMZ is protected from the Internet by a firewall, and then the enterprise LAN has a firewall that protects it from the DMZ. This configuration allows for resources to be exposed to the public, while also protecting the enterprise systems. If attacks do breach the DMZ, then they are stopped by the second firewall which is usually hardened against attacks.
A public cloud is a shared pool of IT resources delivered to cloud consumers over the Internet by a cloud service provider (CSP). Depending on the level of service, cloud consumers and CSPs enter into a service level agreement (SLA) contract that defines the cloud service and for which parts each party is responsible (e.g. who is responsible for data, infrastructure, application, etc.).
Contrastingly, a private cloud is a cloud deployment model where a single organization owns and administers its own cloud and the underpinning networking infrastructure to support it. This model creates central access to IT resources for departments and staff across multiple locations and potential regions. Private clouds are implemented behind the organization’s firewall which is the major distinguishing factor from other cloud deployments models. In the private cloud model, the organization that owns the private cloud is both cloud consumer and cloud service provider (CSP).
Adopting a private cloud strategy demands that companies consider the worth of the network based on its business use, the necessity of private resources, and the cost of maintaining the network and supporting infrastructure, versus alternatives such as virtual private clouds (VPC), that enable private clouds in a public cloud space.
Private clouds are traditionally on-premise infrastructures secured behind enterprise firewalls. Their greatest benefit is complete control over all aspects of the cloud environment, from the choice of infrastructure to configurations, organization, and policies. However, the main drawback is the total cost of ownership and responsibility for maintaining the private cloud.
VPCs are also private and fully controlled by the cloud consumer, but they are public cloud offerings, for that reason, they also grant the cloud consumer the advantages of the public cloud—security, elasticity, scalability, and cost-planning. | <urn:uuid:62f90b01-5668-4165-bf36-67be900ce54a> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/insights/faq/what-is-virtual-private-cloud | 2024-09-08T11:53:43Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651002.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20240908115103-20240908145103-00895.warc.gz | en | 0.938244 | 1,524 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Revolutionizing Cybersecurity: How AI is Changing the Game
In an era where digital threats evolve at an unprecedented rate, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) in cybersecurity processes is no longer a luxury, but a requirement.
Heads Up! If you are interested in AI & Cybersecurity we’d recommend you check out our resource dedicated to AI Conferences.
This post digs into AI’s transformative role in improving cybersecurity measures, providing insights into six compelling use cases that demonstrate its significance. As cyber threats get more complex, employing AI in cybersecurity becomes a vital technique for protecting sensitive data and guaranteeing strong network security.
This post would help anyone interested in the cutting-edge convergence of AI and cybersecurity, as it demonstrates how AI applications are critical in efficiently anticipating, detecting, and preventing cyber attacks.
- The Role of AI in Cybersecurity
- Detection and Prevention of Malware and Cyber Attacks
- Enhancing Threat Intelligence with AI
- AI in the Fight Against Phishing and Social Engineering
- Automating Security Operations with AI
- The Future of Cybersecurity: AI-Driven Innovations
- The Role of AI in Cybersecurity
Artificial intelligence has become an invaluable ally in the cybersecurity business, providing unrivaled capabilities for managing huge volumes of data and recognizing possible threats with pinpoint accuracy.
The application of AI in cybersecurity not only increases the efficiency of security personnel but also improves an organization’s entire security posture. AI systems can learn from previous instances using machine learning and deep learning, allowing them to discover anomalies and suspicious actions that would be difficult to notice with humans.
AI-powered systems are designed to continuously learn and adapt, resulting in increased effectiveness over time. This ongoing improvement is critical in the cyber arena, where adversaries are continuously changing their tactics.
The use of AI to analyze large datasets enables the detection of patterns and risks that humans would be unable to discern, dramatically lowering the time required to detect and respond to security issues.
Detection and Prevention of Malware and Cyber Attacks
One of the most significant benefits of using AI in cybersecurity is its capacity to detect and prevent malware and other types of cyber threats. AI algorithms can detect new malware strains and predict potential attack pathways by evaluating the properties of billions of security signals transmitted over the internet. This proactive approach to security not only avoids future intrusions but also saves significant resources.
Machine learning algorithms are particularly efficient at detecting minor signals of malware infection, frequently intercepting dangerous software before it can execute.
For example, Microsoft’s Cyber Signals program uses AI to sift through 24 trillion security signals every day, demonstrating the scale at which AI can function to protect digital environments from cyber attackers.
Enhancing Threat Intelligence with AI
AI greatly improves threat intelligence by automating the collection and analysis of data on emerging risks.
This enables cybersecurity experts to keep ahead of cyber attackers by giving actionable information about potential vulnerabilities and attack plans.
AI-powered threat intelligence tools can process and analyze data from several sources in real-time, ensuring that security teams have access to the most up-to-date information.
AI incorporation into threat intelligence not only accelerates threat detection but also improves threat assessment accuracy. Organizations can use AI to better prioritize their responses to risks, focusing their resources on the most important concerns first.
AI in the Fight Against Phishing and Social Engineering
Phishing and social engineering assaults are notoriously difficult to prevent because they rely on fooling people rather than exploiting technological weaknesses.
However, AI is making considerable progress in detecting these types of assaults by studying communication patterns and alerting any suspect content. AI technologies can also alert people to suspected phishing attempts in real time, thus reinforcing an organization’s human firewall.
By training AI models on a wide range of phishing emails and strategies, these systems can become extremely adept at detecting even the most complex phishing efforts. This not only decreases the risk of sensitive data breaches but also teaches staff about the changing strategies used by cybercriminals, making them more attentive.
Automating Security Operations with AI
The automation of security operations with AI is altering the cybersecurity landscape.
AI-powered security operations centers (SOCs) can monitor networks 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and respond to warnings faster and more accurately than ever. This automation extends to regular operations like patch management and network monitoring, allowing cybersecurity professionals to focus on more complicated security concerns.
AI’s involvement in automating responses to discovered threats is especially notable. Organizations can use AI to ensure that their reactions to security incidents are timely and precise, minimizing damage and preventing future breaches.
The Future of Cybersecurity: AI-Driven Innovations
Looking forward, the future of cybersecurity is inextricably related to advances in AI technology. As AI systems advance, their ability to predict and avoid cyber dangers will only grow. The cybersecurity sector is about to see the rise of AI applications that can react in real-time to new threats, providing a dynamic defense mechanism against cyberattacks.
The integration of AI into cybersecurity is not without obstacles, particularly in terms of ethical AI use and the possibility for adversaries to exploit AI for harmful reasons. However, the benefits greatly exceed the drawbacks, making AI a necessary component of modern cybersecurity efforts.
For further reading, be sure to read our interview with Jessica Gallagher: The State of AI in Cybersecurity.
- Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the cybersecurity landscape by improving threat detection, stopping assaults, and automating security processes.
- The use of artificial intelligence to prevent malware, phishing, and social engineering threats has dramatically improved enterprises’ security posture.
- AI-driven threat intelligence and automated security responses are critical for staying ahead of cyber attacks.
- The future of cybersecurity will rely heavily on AI innovations to properly combat growing cyber threats.
As cyber threats become more complex and large-scale, AI’s role in cybersecurity becomes increasingly important. The incorporation of AI into cybersecurity operations not only improves the ability to detect and respond to threats, but it also paves the way for a future in which cyber defenses can adapt and grow in tandem with evolving threats. | <urn:uuid:456b6896-a71f-4d80-b9e7-8c993388c469> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://infosec-conferences.com/hub/ai-use-case-in-cybersecurity/ | 2024-09-09T19:32:07Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651133.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909170505-20240909200505-00795.warc.gz | en | 0.934839 | 1,253 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Despite facial recognition misgivings, we seem ready to trust synthetic faces
The European Commission’s effort to create standards for the use of facial recognition is ongoing, but as important as that work is, should politicians be giving more attention to a mirror-image danger?
For all the very real concern about how accurately facial recognition algorithms can recognize a human face, new research finds that people not only get fooled by AI-generated faces, they trust deepfake faces more than authentic photos.
(There is a separate phenomenon involving people who welcome — or at least accept — dealing with synthetic leaders. More on that below.)
The researchers, Sophie Nightingale from Lancaster University and Hany Farid from the University of California – Berkeley, say the best deepfakes have become indistinguishable from real images.
Automated detection tools have been developed for spotting fakes, according to the researchers, but “current techniques are not efficient or accurate enough to contend with the torrent of daily uploads.”
Worse, their work suggests that people tend to trust deepfake images than those of actual people.
In one experiment, 223 participants rated on a graduated scale the trustworthiness of 128 faces taken from an 800-image dataset. Synthetic faces were judged more trustworthy 7.7 percent of the time.
Images of females were rated decidedly more trustworthy compared to images of males. There were no major differences between images of synthetic people of different races.
The researchers theorize that synthetic faces are more trustworthy because they are averages of physical attributes used to train AI facial recognition tools.
That theory is not being tested in South Korea, but something as interesting is. A political candidate there is being digitized in an effort to generate more votes.
According to the International Business Times, Yoon Suk-yeol has become his own deepfake — AI Yoon. The avatar is campaigning for the flesh-and-blood pol.
And actually, none of these efforts to fool/entertain people are new. When India’s current prime minister, Narendra Modi ran for top office in 2014, he put lookalikes out giving speeches.
At the time, media reports found that few if any Indian voters were put off by attending rallies with their almost-candidate. They often said they found the imposter trustworthy.
Of course, one of those lookalikes is now out campaigning for national office and attacking Modi’s policies. | <urn:uuid:faf6f406-23d8-4585-8b53-07e989abd9aa> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.biometricupdate.com/202202/despite-facial-recognition-misgivings-we-seem-ready-to-trust-synthetic-faces | 2024-09-09T18:12:18Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651133.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909170505-20240909200505-00795.warc.gz | en | 0.962862 | 499 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Wave 2 of 802.11ac also introduces a new feature called multi-user multiple-input, multiple-output (MU-MIMO), which utilizes “beamforming.” With MU-MIMO, a Wave 2 802.11ac access point (AP) can send and receive data from up to four radio clients simultaneously. Juxtapose this with a three-stream 802.11n AP or an 802.11ac Wave 1 AP, where each AP can talk to only one client at a time, one after the other. MU-MIMO makes the wireless network much more efficient.
The evolution of WiFi to 802.11ac Wave 2 is a significant step forward for wireless networks. Historically, the wireless network acted very much like a network hub where all of the clients accessing the network shared the available bandwidth. If one of the devices happened to access a bandwidth-consuming application, such as videoconferencing, it would degrade the performance of the network for all users.
The combination of increased speed and MU-MIMO enables 802.11ac Wave 2 APs to deliver performance similar to that of a network switch (Exhibit 2), where bandwidth can be dedicated to individual users. Now, workers can use any application on any device and be assured of consistent application performance. | <urn:uuid:7e5c18d0-d78b-45e1-adb9-0a4c413b305c> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.itworldcanada.com/assets/wifi-evolution-drives-the-need-for-multigigabit-networks | 2024-09-09T18:04:30Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651133.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909170505-20240909200505-00795.warc.gz | en | 0.921647 | 269 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Researchers are looking to pool more data from outside organizations to further refine it.
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology released a new mechanism to help information technology professionals better protect their organizations’ personnel from scams aimed at stealing their credentials.
Unveiled Thursday, the Phish Scale uses a NIST-crafted rating system to ultimately provide users with a firmer grasp of how their workforce may be vulnerable to phishing and other social engineering-type scams. Usually such scams involve calls or emails impersonating reputable sources to trick people into sharing personal or sensitive details such as passwords or financial information.
Those who made the Phish Scale now intend to team up with outside agencies and organizations to refine it further.
“Initial phishing exercise data collection began back in 2012, so this really is the result of many years of NIST data and research,” Kristen Greene, a cognitive scientist on the multidisciplinary NIST team behind the scale, told Nextgov Friday. “Although many general phishing tactics from past years are still very active and applicable today, there are some disturbing trends in increasing phishing sophistication. In particular, targeted phishing attacks, i.e. spear-phishing, are on the rise.”
In the paper published detailing NIST’s development of the scale and how to use it, researchers confirm that “phishing in particular, and social engineering in general, are active threats across all industry verticals.” And such fraudulent attacks, as Greene mentioned, continue to evolve and surface—for instance, employees at social media giant Twitter recently fell for a spear-phishing attack that resulted in more than 100 profiles being compromised to induce people to fork out money in a major Bitcoin scam.
Organizations often institute phishing training programs to prepare employees to vigilantly spot such scams, and chief information security officers and others who steer such programs generally focus on click rates, which present the frequency that users click on the fraudulent emails.
“Higher click rates are generally seen as bad because it means users failed to notice the email was a phish, while low click rates are often seen as good,” NIST’s release on the work notes, adding “however, numbers alone don’t tell the whole story.”
The Phish Scale provides users with a do-it-yourself method to determine why click rates implemented in their program are high or low. This, in turn, can help leadership puzzle out how to optimize and improve their phish-catching training initiatives.
According to a video the agency released spotlighting the effort, the scale aims to classify emails based on how difficult or easy it is to detect possible phishing attacks. It implements two main components: observable “cues” or characteristics that might prompt the user to notice trickery; and what NIST deems “alignment of the emails’ context to the user,” which involves a full rating system. The agency notes that “emails with fewer cues and more relevant context” are the ones that make it most difficult to pinpoint as phishing.
“We hope that people move beyond focusing solely on click rates, and also have a corresponding understanding of the difficulty of their phishing exercises, to really help get at the impact training is having on the organization,” Shaneé Dawkins, a computer scientist also on the team that created the tool, told Nextgov. “The Phish Scale is a first step in that direction.”
Dawkins’ research partner Greene added that while “much phishing research” is conducted over short timeframes and inside laboratory settings, the data that underpins the Phish Scale was gathered over many years in a realistic workplace setting. The research paper that accompanies the work comprehensively details the teams’ collection methods.
“The phishing exercises represented an important variety of tactics and ranges of difficulty, some of which were very targeted spear-phish,” Greene said. “All mimicked real-world attacks and threats.”
All of the data used to date came directly from NIST, but going forward the researchers hope to broaden that pool and guarantee that the scale works across diverse operational environments.
“We encourage phishing training implementers to tailor their programs to be representative of current real-world threats facing their respective organizations,” Dawkins said. “We’re actively working to improve and simplify the Phish Scale, and are looking for agency partners to share data and help us validate and test the scale.”
NEXT STORY: Treasury needs better cybersecurity tracking | <urn:uuid:d2e4a5cf-42e8-4bf3-aeaa-3f9ecdeff0d5> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2020/09/how-good-your-phishing-training-nist-launched-tool-figure-out/168612/?oref=ng-next-story | 2024-09-09T18:55:39Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651133.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909170505-20240909200505-00795.warc.gz | en | 0.95795 | 955 | 2.578125 | 3 |
It’s fairly often that a client will call and suggest that a software or hardware vendor needs them to “open a port” for their product to work. This is at best a misleading request and at worst a meaningless request as far as most smaller businesses are concerned.
The problem is, there are two sides of this equation 1) the port being “open” on the router and 2) a device inside of the network that accepts connections on that port. It is truly meaningless to have a port “open” if there is nothing to connect to on that port. Consider the description of open ports from Wikipedia:
“Ports are an integral part of the Internet’s communication model — they are the channel through which applications on the client computer can reach the software on the server. Services, such as web pages or FTP, require their respective ports to be “open” on the server in order to be publicly reachable.
The above use of the terms “open” and “closed” can sometimes be misleading, though; it blurs the distinction between a given port being reachable (unfiltered) and whether there is an application actually listening on that port. Technically, a given port being “open” (in this context, reachable) is not enough for a communication channel to be established. There needs to be an application (service) listening on that port, accepting the incoming packets and processing them. If there is no application listening on a port, incoming packets to that port will simply be rejected by the computer’s operating system.”
Almost all business networks use Network Address Translation (NAT) to share an internet connection. With NAT all of the computers on your network can use a single Internet connection and its associated IP address. For an “open port” to work on a router, some computer on the network has to do something with that port but, which computer? How does the router know? Enter Port Forwarding.
Port Forwarding is often what people mean when they say that a port needs to be open. PC World describes it like this:
“Your router stands between your devices and the internet, making sure that data coming in and going out is directed properly. Imagine your router as a wall that keeps out unwanted and harmful traffic while opening ports to permit useful traffic such as webpages, games, and file-sharing programs. Ports are like doors in the wall reserved only for useful traffic, and your router does a good job of automatically configuring most of the ports you need to safely use the internet. In some cases, however, you need to tell your router to open up a certain port so a program won’t be blocked. This is called port forwarding…”
Using Port Forwarding, a device on the network can provide services to devices on the Internet. Both the port and device are defined in the router.
If devices on the network are blocked from accessing ports on servers on the Internet, Port Triggering can be used to solve the problem. Again, this isn’t “opening a port”, it is a way for the router to dynamically track which device on the network is using the port. Clear as mud? This might help:
“Port Triggering sets up the router so that computers can access public services outside the network or on the Internet, such as web servers, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers, email servers, game servers or other Internet applications.
Another instance when you can use Port Triggering is when you can’t download files while connected to a Linksys router. This process of downloading files is called an FTP request. An FTP request uses Port 20 and Port 21, which by default, are closed in a Linksys router. Since the computer is connected to a Linksys router, both ports 20 and 21 have to be triggered by enabling Port Triggering.“
“Port Triggering is an advanced feature that can be used for gaming and other internet applications.
It is essentially a port forwarding rule (inbound firewall rule) that is not constantly active, but only becomes active when it is “triggered” by detecting certain specified outbound packets.“
It is possible that someone asking for a port to be opened means that they want a port forwarded. They may also want a port triggered — although NAT usually doesn’t require it. They may also be drawing at straws because something isn’t working and they know that port X is being used by the software or hardware.
With all of this said, opening a port on a server where the port is actually in use it completely legit. The difference is, the server firewall doesn’t have to send network traffic anywhere else, the service using the port is on the server itself. There is still the question of Internet access of that port (if needed) however that brings us right back to the router question.
So, in closing, if someone tells you that you need to “open a port” for something to work, you need a whole lot more information. On what device should the port be “opened”? What device listens on that port? Is this an inbound or outbound connection?
Without answers, the request is meaningless. | <urn:uuid:5af7f4c4-b0d5-4e1a-8c85-25ce33233456> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.bowesit.com/news/blog/infrastructure/2019/12/how-do-i-open-a-port/?et_blog | 2024-09-12T05:32:53Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651422.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20240912043139-20240912073139-00595.warc.gz | en | 0.952562 | 1,101 | 3.25 | 3 |
An app that monitors the health of coral reefs under threat from climate change will add AI functionality to help conserve a connected network of climate-resilient reefs.
Mermaid uses the open-source database Postgres to collect and manage real-time data on coral reef health. The new AI functionality will enable it to quickly analyze vast amounts of data collected from reefs, identifying patterns and predicting potential bleaching events before they become critical.
According to National Marine Sanctuaries, an agency that oversees the conservation of protected U.S. marine zones, coral reefs are home to around 25% of marine life. Climate change warms sea water, which causes coral to expel the algae that live in it, turning it white.
Mermaid was launched in 2018 and has been used by more than 2,000 scientists across 40 countries who collaborate and share their data. Together, they have submitted more than 50,000 transects—thin sections taken for analysis—from 5,000 coral reef sites around the world.
Having started life as a series of spreadsheets, Mermaid’s move to Postgres has improved efficiency by as much as five times, supporting scientists to empower local communities and government partners to protect coral reefs.
“There are two things that can help solve the global crisis for coral reefs: urgent policy action to halt climate change and leveraging underwater monitoring data to identify and conserve climate resilient coral reefs,” said Emily Darling, Mermaid co-founder and director of coral reef conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
“But collecting, managing and analyzing this critical data is time-consuming and complicated for coral reef scientists. That’s why we developed Mermaid and turned to Postgres.”
Postgres data and AI company EnterpriseDB recently sponsored the Mermaid AI update in a bid to support the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to conserve 30% of terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine areas by 2030.
“The democratization of data across users, environments, and applications is paramount in the age of AI, and even more critical when our world’s oceans are at stake,” said EnterpriseDB CEO Kevin Dallas.
“With over 35 years of active development, Postgres is the most extensible and flexible database, trusted by millions of nonprofits, government agencies and commercial enterprises alike. What we’re seeing here is that Postgres also has a powerful role to play in the future of our planet.”
About the Author
You May Also Like | <urn:uuid:433ba509-3138-4e54-a849-4aa4d2f339a3> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://aibusiness.com/data/ai-enhanced-app-helps-monitor-protect-the-world-s-coral-reefs | 2024-09-13T11:27:29Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651513.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20240913101949-20240913131949-00495.warc.gz | en | 0.933086 | 520 | 2.765625 | 3 |
We speak with Dr. Newton Campbell Jr. the Director of Space Programs at the Australian Remote Operations for Space and Earth (AROSE) Consortium.
The Australian Remote Operations for Space and Earth (AROSE) consortium is one of two successful teams chosen for Stage 1 of the Australian Space Agency’s flagship Trailblazer program.
The Trailblazer program will see Australia design, build, test, and operate an Australian-made lunar foundation services rover for NASA’s return to the surface of the Moon. NASA has asked Australia to provide the lunar rover due to our world-leading expertise in remote operations and automation technology, developed through our resources industry.
The Trailblazer program requires the rover to be operated remotely to collect lunar soil and deliver it to a NASA-provided processing facility to extract oxygen. This is a critical step to supporting a sustainable human presence on the Moon, Mars and beyond.
AROSE’s Trailblazer Stage 1 consortium is led by two amazing companies: Fugro, creators of Australia’s Space Automation, AI & Robotics Control Complex (SpAARC); and Nova Systems, an Australian-owned engineering services and technology solutions company.
Woodside Energy and Rio Tinto are also supporting the AROSE Trailblazer Stage 1 effort by providing knowledge transfer of their terrestrial robotic and automation capabilities. Additional support has been received from the Western Australian Government. | <urn:uuid:f9bc96ab-dbe6-41af-aa0a-6a46e0b741e6> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://mysecuritymarketplace.com/av-media/trailblazer-stage-1-grant-to-design-lunar-rover-for-moon-mission/ | 2024-09-14T17:42:32Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651580.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20240914161327-20240914191327-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.926852 | 284 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Microsegmentation: Enhancing Security Through Granular Network Segmentation
Microsegmentation is a powerful cybersecurity technique that divides a network into smaller, isolated segments, or "microsegments." This strategy allows organizations to implement more precise security controls, reducing the attack surface and limiting the potential impact of breaches. The image illustrates how microsegmentation works, depicting two distinct microsegments, each with its own set of resources and security controls. Let’s delve into the key concepts and benefits of microsegmentation.
What is Microsegmentation?
Microsegmentation involves creating secure zones within a network where each zone can have its own set of security policies. These policies are enforced by network firewalls, virtual firewalls, or other security appliances. Unlike traditional network segmentation, which might segment a network based on broad categories such as departments or functions, microsegmentation allows for more granular control, down to the individual application or workload level.
Components of the Microsegmentation Diagram
- Microsegments (Microsegment 1 and Microsegment 2)
- Function: Each microsegment represents a distinct, isolated portion of the network, containing specific resources such as browsers, software, cloud services, or databases. The resources within a microsegment can communicate with each other freely but are isolated from resources in other microsegments unless explicitly allowed by security policies.
- Benefits: This isolation helps prevent the lateral movement of threats within the network. If a breach occurs within one microsegment, it is contained, and the attacker cannot easily access resources in other microsegments.
- Security Controls (Firewalls)
- Function: Each microsegment is protected by its own set of security controls, typically implemented through firewalls or virtual firewalls. These controls enforce the security policies that govern which traffic is allowed to enter or leave the microsegment.
- Benefits: By applying security controls at the microsegment level, organizations can enforce strict access controls, monitor traffic closely, and quickly respond to suspicious activities. This approach enhances security by ensuring that only authorized users and applications can access sensitive data or critical systems.
- Connectivity Between Microsegments
- Function: The connectivity between microsegments is tightly controlled and monitored. Any communication between microsegments must pass through security controls that enforce the policies governing that interaction.
- Benefits: This controlled connectivity ensures that even if an attacker gains access to one microsegment, they cannot easily compromise other parts of the network. It also allows for secure interactions between different parts of the network, such as between a cloud service and a database, while maintaining strict security controls.
Benefits of Microsegmentation
- Enhanced Security: By isolating resources and applying granular security policies, microsegmentation significantly reduces the attack surface and limits the potential impact of breaches.
- Improved Compliance: Microsegmentation helps organizations meet regulatory requirements by ensuring that sensitive data is isolated and protected according to strict security standards.
- Reduced Lateral Movement: Microsegmentation prevents attackers from moving laterally across the network, containing breaches and protecting critical assets from compromise.
- Flexibility and Scalability: Microsegmentation allows organizations to apply security policies dynamically, adapting to changes in the network, such as the addition of new applications or services, without disrupting operations.
Microsegmentation is a crucial technique for modern network security, offering a higher level of control and protection than traditional network segmentation methods. By isolating different parts of the network and enforcing granular security policies, organizations can better protect their critical assets, reduce the risk of widespread breaches, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards. As cyber threats continue to evolve, adopting microsegmentation will be an essential part of a robust cybersecurity strategy. | <urn:uuid:d502db91-5416-4db1-b8d7-18d2e34e7f8d> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.commandlink.com/microsegmentation-enhancing-security-through-granular-network-segmentation/ | 2024-09-17T04:49:33Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651739.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20240917040428-20240917070428-00195.warc.gz | en | 0.909654 | 782 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Every business enterprise has its own terms and conditions about sales to ensure best practices. Pharmacies, hospitals, IT companies and other manufacturing companies vary in products and services. Therefore, guidelines about sale also have to vary.
In pharmacies, medicines are the main items sold. There are rules and regulation governing sales of medicines. To be more specific, over-the-counter drugs and control/prescription drugs cannot be sold in the same manner. For prescription drugs, there has to be a legal, signed document by the physician. Unless a proper prescription form is presented, control/prescription drugs cannot be sold. In a standard hospital, there should be compliance with instructions about where to keep control/prescription medicines. They must be out of reach of unauthorized personnel. Only few people must be allowed access to the stock. Moreover, while making sales proper documentation is recommended for best practices.
Documentation must include proper information, especially the date on the prescription form. Here is an example to explain the importance of this best practice:
With control medicines that are addictive, patients return at a later date with the previously dispensed prescription. Therefore, when sales are made, pharmacists dispensing must stamp “sold” on the prescription. The name of the patient must also be entered correctly. There have been cases where addicts send others to buy the medicine. Therefore, it is important that the patient presents proof of identity.
This also why, for best practices certified pharmacists must be employed to make sales of medicines. They know what medicines are over-the-counter drugs and those that need a prescription. Besides, these professionals are trained to identify medicines based on the generic components. Employing people who haven’t studied pharmacy can be a big risk. This is especially seen in African countries, due to economic crisis and high unemployment rate.
The consequence of this is drug abuse. Non-professional pharmacists work at the counter in most under and undeveloped countries. They dispense control/prescription medicines without knowing their pharmacological effects. Most control drugs are addictive and patients often start abusing these medicines.
In the United States, there are strict healthcare regulations about buying and selling control drugs. Moreover, to preserve best practices in pharmacies there are consequences. If one fails to ensure compliance with regulations it can give rise to legal issues. Before a pharmaceutical store can sell medicines, they have to be registered and licensed to do so. There are bodies that regulate compliance with pharmaceutical terms and condition.
Therefore, in healthcare having guidelines on terms and conditions about sales of medicines is a highly recommended best practice. Failure to do so is taking a huge risk and putting patients at an even greater risk. | <urn:uuid:a5f7b048-da17-4576-9f20-66f588e5fb79> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | http://www.best-practice.com/best-practices-regulation/health-regulations/healthcare-regulations-on-pharmaceutical-sales/ | 2024-09-19T15:39:26Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700652031.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20240919125821-20240919155821-00895.warc.gz | en | 0.942321 | 545 | 3.0625 | 3 |
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Reserve Your Seat TodayWhat is Simple Network Management Protocol? SNMP is an application layer protocol created in 1988 as a short-term solution to manage network elements for growing networks - like the Internet. Simply put, as an open-source protocol, it lets different SNMP-enabled devices communicate with each other to provide robust monitoring and management.
SNMP is a valuable network monitoring tool because it allows for the collection of data, as well as the management of equipment in a network. Since its beginning, it has achieved widespread acceptance and become a standard protocol for tons of applications.
SNMP is based on the manager/agent model. The model consists of the following pieces:
The manager and agent use a Management Information Base and a relatively small set of commands to swap information. The MIB file is a formatted text file that defines the data objects used by a particular piece of equipment. Each data object is defined with a unique Object Identifier (OID), and the manager and agent know what the OID corresponds to via the MIB.
As a NOC technician, you would load a MIB file into your SNMP manager so it knows how to communicate with its agents. They should have the MIB loaded already from the manufacturer. Installing MIB files in your manager is analogous to installing drivers on a PC to communicate with a printer, for example.
MIB tree used by DPS equipment, before it specifies a device and alarm point.
The MIB is organized in a tree structure with individual variables, such as point status or description, being represented as leaves on the branches. A long numeric tag or Object Identifier is used to distinguish each variable uniquely in the MIB and SNMP traps.
SNMP uses a few basic commands to communicate between the manager and the agent.
A few of the most common SNMP commands sent between an agent and the manager.
To get status information from the agent, the manager can issue Get and GetNext messages to request information for a specific variable. Once a Get or GetNext message is received, the agent will issue a GetResponse message to the manager. It will contain either the information that was requested or an error explaining why the request cannot be processed.
A Set message allows the manager to request a change be made to a managed object (i.e. a control relay). The agent will then respond with a Get-Response message if the change has been made or an error explaining why the change cannot be made.
Trap messages are initiated by the agent and are sent to the manager when an important event happens. This makes Traps perfect for reporting alarms to the manager - rather than wait for a status request from the manager when it gets around to polling the agent.
Inform messages are very similar to traps, except they are slightly more reliable. Inform messages are initiated by the agent, and once the manager receives it, it will send a response to the agent to let it know the message was received. If the agent doesn't receive the response from the manager then the agent will resend the Inform message.
SNMPWALK uses multiple Get-Next requests to retrieve an entire tree of network data from a managed object. These are especially useful when using a tool like iReasoning MIB Browser to view all OIDs an agent offers.
Aside from the small number of commands SNMP uses, it is considered simple because of its reliance on an unsupervised or connection-less communication link. This simplicity has led directly to its widespread use, especially in internet applications. SNMP is considered "robust" because of the independence of the managers and agents. Because they are typically separate devices, if an agent fails, the manager will continue to function, and vice versa.
Basic serial telemetry protocols, like TBOS, are byte-oriented with a single byte exchanged to communicate. Expanded serial telemetry protocols, like TABS, are packet-oriented with packets of bytes exchanged to communicate.
The packets contain header, data, and checksum bytes. SNMP is also a packet-oriented protocol. The packets are composed of the message types discussed earlier: Get, GetNext, GetResponse, Set, and Trap.
Each packet, or variable binding, contains an identifier, a type, and a value (if a Set or Response). The agent uses its MIB to determine whether the object is managed and changeable (if processing a Set). The manager uses its MIB to display the readable name of the variable and sometimes interpret its value for any techs who may need to take corrective action.
To send information, SNMP uses a layered communication model.
Layer 1 - Application layer (SNMP)
Layer 2 - Transport layer (UDP)
Layer 3 - Internet layer (IP)
Layer 4 - Network Interface layer (i.e., twisted pair copper, RG58 co-axial or fiber)
How data is transported through SNMP communication.
While this multi-layer model may seem a bit confusing, it effectively isolates the tasks of communication and ultimately assists in designing and implementing a network.
To illustrate the function of this layered model, let's look at a single SNMP GET request from the agent's perspective.
Step 1: The SNMP manager wants to know what the Agent's System Name is and prepares a GET message for the appropriate OID.
Step 2: It then passes the message to the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) layer. The UDP layer adds a data block that identifies the manager port that the response packet should be sent to.
Step 3: The packet is then passed to the IP layer, where the data block containing the IP address and Media Access addresses of the manager and the agent are added.
Step 4: The entire assembled packet gets passed to the Network Interface layer. The Network Interface layer verifies media access and availability. It then places the packet on the media for transport.
Step 5: After working its way across bridges and through routers based on the IP information, the packet finally arrives at the agent.
Step 6: Here it passes through the same four layers in exactly the opposite order as it did at the manager.
5-layer network model or Internet Protocol Suite.
Understanding this layered model makes it easier to troubleshoot communication problems. When there is a problem, you can simply trace it down, out one end, into, and up the other. LAN/WAN link and activity status indicators provide some visibility to the Network Interface layer.
While ICMP echo requests and responses (Pings) provide some information regarding the proper functioning of the IP layer, active SNMP processing indicators can be used to verify the passage of the packet through the UDP layer and the functioning of the Application layer. Each step can be verified independently until all steps are working correctly for end-to-end communication.
There are currently three commonly used versions of SNMP: v1, v2C, and v3.
The standards for the SNMP protocol are defined in documents called RFCs (request for comments), proposed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). You can take a look at the RFCs list for SNMPv1, v2c, and v3 here.
Like any advancement in technology, as newer versions of the protocol came out, the complexity of SNMP rose with them. Take a brief look at the differences between them:
If you'd like more information on how you can implement the best SNMP network monitoring software for your scenario, let us know what you're trying to accomplish and we'll design a perfect-fit solution for your needs. You'll have 30 days to free trial your monitoring device, and if you don't like it for any reason, simply return it for a full refund. | <urn:uuid:b786fcd1-5d30-4661-a163-6c22af88947a> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.dpstele.com/snmp/ | 2024-09-07T14:08:50Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700650883.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20240907131200-20240907161200-00195.warc.gz | en | 0.911995 | 1,677 | 2.75 | 3 |
What pandemic? It appears cybercriminals are largely unaffected by the ongoing global outbreak of COVID-19. At a time when computer networks and internet access have become more important than ever, cybercrooks are not letting up on their schemes. Ransomware and DDoS attacks are on the rise. New kinds of cyber threats have emerged. Hospitals and healthcare institutions have even become favorite targets.
Rising DDoS and ransomware attacks
A paper released by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (EUROPOL) reveals an unsurprising but still alarming behavior among cybercriminals. The agency discovered how crooks are stepping up their attacks even in the midst of a global pandemic. Hackers are also reportedly exploiting new vulnerabilities that have emerged in relation to the global response to COVID-19.
Most of the attacks are not necessarily new, but security experts see an intensification of cybercriminal activities. Bad players are said to be recruiting collaborators to defeat security measures more effectively. Concerted efforts to maximize the effects of attacks on institutions are becoming common.
The EUROPOL report suggests that the coronavirus pandemic is amplifying the impact of successful attacks on certain institutions. That’s why it’s becoming more imperative to have all of the necessary defenses including malware prevention and DDoS protection. Effective cyber resilience is particularly vital for organizations and facilities working to fight COVID-19.
The report notes a minimal increase in DDoS attacks immediately following the outbreak. However, the volume of these attacks is expected to rise in the short and medium term. On the other hand, there’s an upward trend in ransomware threats. Some inexperienced attackers are expected to resort to ransomware-as-a-service attacks, which may be less likely to succeed but should not be treated lightly. Additionally, EUROPOL also sees an uptick in malicious domain name registration.
Cybercriminals understand the importance of online connectivity, as lockdowns and community quarantines force people to stay at home and rely on the internet for their work, shopping, and entertainment. These cyber crooks escalate their attacks when businesses and organizations are more likely to succumb to extortion (through ransomware) as they desperately seek to recover and maintain their uptime. They may also attack (using DDoS) to disadvantage business competitors, pursue hacktivist ends, or advance political agendas.
As mentioned, attackers are becoming ingenious as they see more potential victims with more people staying at home and spending more time on the internet. The early months of the global COVID-19 outbreak have seen the rise of COVID-19 malware, which targets people who are eagerly looking for updated information about the pandemic.
This malware convinces people to install an application that supposedly provides a visual presentation of the global health problem along with numerous stats from different parts of the world. Its main objective is to trick victims into submitting their login credentials for Facebook, Netflix, and other online accounts. As soon as the victims interact with this malicious app, tabs or modal windows pop up, asking the user to sign in to their social media or other online accounts so they can access the information they need.
Another “enhanced” form of cyberthreat that rides on the coattails of the COVID-19 infamy involves a combination of ransomware and DDoS attacks. This may be referred to as RDoS. This threat often uses DDoS as a smokescreen so ransomware or other malware can be introduced into a system with less attention from an organization’s security team. In some cases, the DDoS itself is the main attack and the attackers tell the victim that they will only stop if the latter pays the ransom demanded.
Attacks on healthcare institutions
On March 13, a high-profile cyber attack hit the second biggest hospital in Czech Republic tasked with conducting COVID-19 tests. The hospital is managed by the Czech health ministry. It’s unclear how the attack affected the hospital’s systems, but it’s a clear reminder for the need to beef up cyber security.
The United States Health and Human Services (HHS) also suffered a similar attack to disrupt its services as well as to sow disinformation. The National Security Council said that the attack failed to impair the normal functioning of the HHS and federal networks. Efforts are underway to strengthen IT security across the board as attempts to undermine the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to intensify.
In the last week of March, the French cybersecurity agency revealed that the Paris hospital authority became the target of a cyber attack. The incident reportedly attempted to disable hospital services by overloading the agency’s computers.
These are just some of the many examples of the incessant and increasing attacks on hospitals and other healthcare facilities. The International Criminal Police Organization has issued a purple alert to all member countries on this matter, citing their detection of a considerable increase of cyber attacks on organizations involved in the ongoing pandemic response.
To combat the intensified attacks of cybercriminals, it’s important for businesses, institutions, government agencies, and individuals to step up. This does not necessarily mean the need for new software defenses and methods. The tools and strategies for fighting cyber threats then and now are mostly the same. What needs an upgrade is people’s cybersecurity vigilance and mindfulness.
It’s essential to have all the basic protection including antiviruses or anti-malware software, an updated operating system, updated apps, and VPNs (in some cases). Almost all of the leading antiviruses or malware prevention tools at present are multifunction, providing more than just basic virus detection and removal. They also include highly useful features like email attachment scanning, privacy management, link scanning, and real-time malware blocking (when accessing web pages). OS and app updating, on the other hand, is necessary to make sure that you are using software that has the latest security patches and bug correction.
More importantly, everyone needs to be more aware of the threats. Social engineering remains to be the most viable approach in successful cyber attacks, as it takes advantage of the infirmities of human judgment. That’s why it’s vital to be careful when clicking on links, downloading attachments, and installing applications. Security experts also advise against using unfamiliar web pages or doing browser-based app installation, especially if they were shared by unknown sources.
For organizations that run online services or operate interconnected computer networks, it may be necessary to sign up to security solutions such as DDoS protection, web app firewalls, bot management, API security, runtime application self-protection, and account takeover protection. Most businesses likely already have these, but the current security systems put in place may need reassessment and updating.
Enhanced and increased attacks from cybercriminals during crises are not unexpected. The only logical response to these is to be equally clever by anticipating the threats, installing all the necessary protective measures, and improving your cybersecurity knowledge and instincts. Stepping up against cybercrime does not always require new security solutions. In most cases, it’s enough to update your software, enforce security measures more strictly, and keep abreast of the latest threats and best practices. | <urn:uuid:fd6d2341-deb9-40fb-b119-c7ea65ff5b20> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://latesthackingnews.com/2020/04/19/cybercriminals-are-stepping-up-their-game-amidst-the-pandemic-and-so-should-you/amp/ | 2024-09-08T19:03:42Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651017.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20240908181815-20240908211815-00095.warc.gz | en | 0.950587 | 1,478 | 3.078125 | 3 |
A group at Singapore's Nanyang Technical University (NTU) has tested a strange, but simple idea: spraying the hot CPUs with dielectric cooling fluid, and allowing it to evaporate.
The team ran 12 servers in a box, and sprayed a dielectric fluid on the CPUs. The systems were kept cool more effectively than by conventional air cooling, according to a paper published in the journal Energy in April.
The team, led by NTU Associate Professor Wong Teck Neng, described the spray system as "a 'chillerless' novel spraying architecture which has the capability of performing high heat flux cooling, is highly scalable and easily adaptable by modern data centers."
The prototype system, built by research fellow Liu Pengfei, sealed a 24U rack, containing 12 servers, in a box. Nozzles sprayed dielectric fluid on each CPU, where it evaporated, cooling the server. The fluid was condensed and collected for reuse in a closed-loop system.
While most data centers are cooled by air conditioning systems, immersing the IT in dielectric fluid, proposed by vendors including Submer, GRC, and Asperitas, removes heat more efficiently and reduces the energy used. Other vendors including LiquidCool and Zutacore, have proposed two-phase cooling, in which the immersion fluid is allowed to boil in order to remove more heat.
The NTU team's approach eliminates the giant tubs of the immersion vendors, and the piping used by two-phase advocates, as well as heatsinks. However, the existing two-phase solutions currently use PFAS (poly-fluoroalkyl substances) which have been labeled a health risk.
Excerpts seen by DCD do not give details of the fluid used - we have requested a full copy of the NTU group's paper to find out more.
Data centers use some seven percent of Singapore's total electricity consumption, and the country has very little renewable electricity supply, so the government has been rationing permissions for new data centers. The Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF) runs a Green Data Centre Research Programme which supported the NTU work. | <urn:uuid:ff1349cc-5d39-4929-89d6-eb6e0e75b19b> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/singapores-ntu-proposes-cooling-servers-by-spraying-chips-with-fluid/ | 2024-09-11T02:56:12Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651343.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20240911020451-20240911050451-00795.warc.gz | en | 0.954027 | 444 | 2.796875 | 3 |
In February of 1997, Linux Bliss, the first virus for the Linux operating system appeared. Viruses had moved to yet another environment. Although Linux viruses are a rarity, they have evolved since their first appearance. Viruses which run in the background have been developed for Linux, as well as a number of viable Trojans for this platform. If Linux were even half as popular asWindows obtained, the number of viruses for Linux would be far greater than the actual number of viruses which exist for this platform.The release of Microsoft’s Office 97 was noteable for the fact that macro viruses almost immediately migrated towards this application. The limited payloads (or in some cases the total absence thereof) of macro viruses created for MS Word 5.0 and Excel 5.0 resulted from a completely new version of Visual Basic for Applications, VBA 5.0 which differed significantly from Word Basic and VBA 3.0. The first viruses for MS Office 97 turned out to be almost identical to their predecessors, simply converted into a new format. Nevertheless soon new macro viruses developed exclusively for MS Office 97 appeared.
March 1997 was notable for the appearance of the ‘ShareFun’ macro virus for MS Word 6/7 which started a new chapter in computer history It became the first virus of its kind to spread using email, in particular MS Mail.
In April of 1997 the Homer virus was detected; this was the first network worm which used FTP to propagate.June 1997 brought the first self_encrypting virus for Windows 95, Win95.Mad. The virus, of Russian origin, was sent out to several BBS stations in Moscow causing a major epidemic.The ‘Esperanto’ virus was born in November 1997. It was an attempt, fortunately unsuccessful, to create a multi-platform virus which would be able to infect DOS, Windows and MacOS.The development of the Internet, and in particular the appearance of mIRC (Internet Relay Chat) sparked a great deal of interest, including that of virus writers. It didn’t take long for the malicious programs to start appearing.In December of 1997, the antivirus world publicized the appearance of a fundamentally new type of computer worm which spread via IRC channels. An analysis of mIRC, one of the more popular IRC utilities showed a dangerous security loophole. The directory for files downloaded via IRC coincided with the directory which held the SCRIPT:INI command file. The SCRIPT:INI file , which contained the body of the worm, could therefore be transferred to a remote computer, where it would automatically replace the original command file. When restarted, mIRC would activate the malicious code, and the worm would then send itself to other users. This error was quickly corrected and the rather primitive IRC worms had disappeared by summer. However, multi-component IRC worms which actively searched for SCRIPT.INI files (in mIRC clients), EVENTS.INI (in pIRCh) clients, and others. later appeared, working in a similar way to email worms; the user would receive anEXE, COM, BAT, file, which when launched, would replace the original command file.One of the more important events of 1997 was the split-off of one of the KAMI firm’s divisions led by Evgenii Kaspersky. This division became an independent company known as ‘Kaspersky Labs’ which is, today, recommended as a recognized technical leader in the antivirus industry. Since 1994, the company’s main product, AntiViral Toolkit Pro, consistently shows high results in numerous tests conducted by various testing laboratories across the world. The formation of an independent legal entity allowed a small group of developers to become, within two years, one of the its own country’s domestic leaders in addition to being generally well-known internationally. Little time was required to develop and release versions with new antivirus security technologies for virtually all popular platforms, and create a network of international distribution and technical support.
In October 1997, Kaspersky Lab and Finnish company Data Fellows (later renamed as F-Secure Corporation) signed an agreement to licensing an antivirus engine in their newest development product, FSAV (F-Secure Anti-Virus). Prior to this, Data Fellows had been well-known as the developer of F-PROT antivirus.
1997 will also long be remembered as a year of petty squabbles. Several scandals evolved at the same time between some of the larger antivirus manufacturers. Atthe beginning of the year, McAfee announced that they had discovered a ‘bookmark’ in the programs of one of their main competitors, antivirus firm Dr. Solomon’s. McAfee’s announcement continued in saying that if Dr. Solomon’s antivirus program discovered several viruses during a scan-check, then it completed its work in an elevated mode. In other words, if the program worked in a normal mode in normal conditions, then in testing for several viruses it switched to an intense mode (or in McAfee’s words, a ‘cheat mode’) which allowed the detection of viruses previously invisible to Dr. Solomon’s in normal scanning mode. As a result, the testing of uninfected discs showed good speed results and the scan tests of virus collections showed good detection results.
Dr. Solomon’s response was not long in the waiting, and the company soon filed suit against McAfree’s recent marketing campaign which claimed that McAfee was, ‘The Number One Choice Worldwide. No Wonder The Doctor’s Left Town’. This was an obvious reference to Alan Solomon, the founder of Dr. Solomon’s who had in fact, earlier transferred control of his company to its senior management.
Perhaps even more scandalous was the affair of the Taiwanese developer Trend Micro who accused two of the leading antivirus companies, McAfee and Symantec, of violating its patent on virus scan-checking technology via Internet and electronic mail. Shortly afterward Symantec leapt into the fray with its own accusations, alleging that McAfee was guilty of using code from Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus.
The year came to a close with MacAfee Associates and Network General announcing their intent to merge into a single Network Associates Inc (NAI) in order to diversify into other computer security systems as well (such as encryption, multi-networked screens, network scans, etc. However, at the end of 1999 NAI’s management decides to bring new life into the McAfee brand and line of antivirus products and the company reverted to its old name. | <urn:uuid:b2d853cd-234f-4182-ae80-c9b99bed3b03> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://encyclopedia.kaspersky.com/knowledge/year-1997/ | 2024-09-12T08:13:05Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651440.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20240912074814-20240912104814-00695.warc.gz | en | 0.963397 | 1,365 | 3.0625 | 3 |
A network of hurdles dominates the current data environment. Rapid data growth makes data difficult to manage. Meanwhile, cyber-attacks grow increasingly sophisticated and frequent, while remote work and cloud migration complicate the security landscape. Now, more than ever, cyber security and data governance best practices play a critical role.
In 2020, the world generated approximately 2.5 quintillion (that’s 2.5 billion billion) bytes of data. Data analytics hold a world of promise. However, the data comes so quickly and in such volume that organizations struggle to harness its value and keep it safe.
Data governance thus becomes a critical priority. Organizations must develop strong data governance programs, including robust cyber security, to turn data into a business asset rather than a costly liability. These best practices will help.
Understand Business Priorities and Risks
To ensure success, businesses should tailor security and governance strategies to match business goals and identified risks. With representatives of each major area of the company, begin by answering some key questions.
For instance, determine business priorities and problem areas from each department. That is, what goals can data help to solve, and what keeps the organization from gaining value from its data?
Additionally, discover the state of data security within the organization, identifying weaknesses. This will involve examining the company’s incident response plan and security procedures, including backups and encryption. A comprehensive risk analysis will help at this stage. Also, determine where data lives, who has access to it and what regulations govern its use.
Automate Data Governance Tasks
To ensure quality data and improve compliance, organizations need to find and catalog data and track its movement over time. Those processes can prove prohibitively time consuming with huge amounts of data entering the system from a wide variety of sources. Automated tools that use AI and machine learning can save time and money and improve data quality.
For instance, machines can scan data for errors or omissions in a fraction of the time it would take data analysts to perform the same task. Additionally, automating data discovery and data lineage with a combination of metadata and AI increases data visibility and accuracy.
Take Responsibility for Ensuring Security in the Cloud
By some estimates, 92 percent of businesses use cloud services in some form. While cloud migration has empowered remote work and business agility, it presents security challenges. Many organizations do not realize that the default cloud security tools offered by cloud providers do not provide sufficient security.
Organizations also need to understand that they share responsibility for cloud security with their cloud providers. For instance, depending on the type of services provided, the organization may be responsible for ensuring full encryption and managing user access to data. Companies should work closely with cloud providers to ensure appropriate data protection strategies.
Protect Data by Carefully Managing Data Access
When determining access, protect critical data by restricting user access to just the data and systems needed to complete their jobs. Too often, users have far more access than necessary, and that creates significant risk. Applying role-based access and the principle of least privilege helps to minimize that risk and ensure regulatory compliance.
In conjunction with least privilege, implement zero trust policies, which require authentication of all users and devices, every time. When organizations store data both on premises and in multiple cloud environments, traditional network boundaries disappear. Zero trust uses technologies such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) to verify identity.
Build Communication into the Process
Successful security and data governance programs depend on people, from executive champions to end users. Start by involving C-level executives and key stakeholders from the very beginning. Ensure engagement by clearly communicating the business value of clean, organized, and secure data, as well as the risks of insufficient data security.
Commit to ongoing transparency, communicating governance strategies, as well as progress against data governance goals and security challenges. This involves users from the executive level down to the summer intern. Conduct regular employee education to ensure that they understand data policies and their roles in relation to data, including data security.
Make Cyber Security and Data Governance Best Practices an Ongoing Priority
Ultimately, data governance involves creating data value by ensuring that data is well-organized, high-quality, and secure from attack. Commit to the long haul by regularly assessing and revising data governance and security goals and programs.
The data governance and security experts at Messaging Architects can help. With proven tools and methods for data management, cyber security, and compliance monitoring, they have helped hundreds of organizations reduce risk and realize data value. | <urn:uuid:c3e0abfa-fd1a-40d4-8c7a-65fdb8bbdd83> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://messagingarchitects.com/cyber-security-and-data-governance/ | 2024-09-14T20:16:54Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651580.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20240914193334-20240914223334-00495.warc.gz | en | 0.934254 | 918 | 2.53125 | 3 |
1.8 Million Students in India Join the Digital Revolution
Computer skills are becoming as important as math, language and science education, and governments around the world are looking for the most efficient ways to provide computing access for their students.
Students can now use computers for classwork in the school’s computer lab.
Andhra Pradesh is the largest state in Southern India with a population of roughly 70 million people. The government wanted to bring computing access to its school system, but had several critical challenges. First, funding for computer labs was very limited, so revolutionary approaches to providing wide-scale access were needed. Second, most of the schools were located in areas where electricity was unreliable, often only available for two hours per day. So an energy-efficient computing solution was required. Finally, since the schools were spread throughout a large geographically diverse area, planning, installing and supporting computer labs was going to be challenging. The government needed a breakthrough solution that was ultra low-cost, energy efficient, and easy to deploy.
NComputing: the Path to Success
The government evaluated various computing models, including virtual desktops. After an extensive evaluation, the government was convinced that a shared computing solution would meet their performance requirements, cost less to purchase, and use a fraction of the power.
The NComputing solution is based on a simple fact: today’s PCs are so powerful that the vast majority of applications only use a small fraction of the computer’s capacity. NComputing’s virtualization software and hardware tap this unused capacity so that it can be simultaneously shared by multiple students. Each student’s monitor, keyboard, and mouse connect to the shared PC through a small and very durable NComputing access device. The access device itself has no CPU, memory, or moving parts—so it’s rugged, durable, and easy to deploy and maintain. By spreading out the cost of the shared computer, schools can provide up to four times the number of stations for the same money.
The NComputing devices only use 1 watt of electricity, so the entire 10-seat computing lab uses 90% less electricity compared to an all-PC lab.
Installing 5,000 Schools in Record Time
Given the challenge of deploying in 5,000 schools, the government chose to use a BOOT model—build, own, operate, transfer—and engaged educational companies to build and equip the computer labs, hire and train teachers, operate the labs for 5 years, and then transfer them to the government at the end of the contract period.
NIIT, Educomp, Everonn, IEG, and a number of other education system integrators were awarded the contract to build and operate labs. NComputing worked with local PC OEMs, including HP, Acer and HCL, to install the X-series kits in their factories and ship them to each site. This teamwork approach resulted in most labs becoming operational within just a few months.
Enabling a Bright Future for India’s Students
Over 1.8 million students now have computer access. After initial training to teach basic computer skills, students quickly move to advanced courseware in math, science, and social studies. Access to the Internet allows students to perform research that could not be done with the limited resources available in a school library. This project was indeed the first big step in empowering the children of Andhra Pradesh to join the digital world. | <urn:uuid:141d9529-a33a-40fa-96ac-b5b39fc39554> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://site-qa.ncomputing.com/en/resources/customer-success/571678/18-million-students-india-join-digital-revolution | 2024-09-16T01:32:52Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651668.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20240916012328-20240916042328-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.963943 | 702 | 3.4375 | 3 |
True innovation is a disciplined approach to addressing a vital or valuable market need by building a new or refined form of technology. Some confuse innovation with experimentation. The concept of “experimentation” is a much less disciplined practice, typically intended to adapt an existing technology to a less well understood need in the hope that the experiment unearths a meaningful opportunity. The key difference is discipline. Disciplined approaches seek to avoid waste and maximize efficacy, while experimentation often leads to broader products that are less effective for particular purposes and frequently create confusion.
Changing economic conditions of all kinds alter the ground rules that favor success of one kind or another. When economic conditions are in expansion mode, experimentation becomes far more “affordable.” Entrepreneurs find it easy to raise capital cheaply from investors who need to deploy an ever increasing supply of risk capital to generate the returns their investors expect. The net result is that many somewhat questionable business models wind up being funded as stand-alone entities, or internal projects arise in search of new growth opportunities. In either case, some of these initiatives thrive; many others will fail.
For new firms, the net effect is excess business formation. For established companies, most attempt to expand more rapidly than they would otherwise. In either case, when capital is cheap, why not take a shot at a new market segment or product line expansion. Product management discipline is relaxed with the encouragement of CEOs and boards. And why not, if revenue multiples are high and the experiment works, the company’s valuation increases and everyone is rewarded. If not, just “pivot” and raise more capital.
Whatever the motivation, excess company formation and rampant product experimentation result in lower quality products and inferior product market fit at scale. Most pernicious of all, rampant experimentation causes the cost of everything related to innovation to increase as there is too much capital chasing the same employees, leaders and customers.
But then the party ends.
When economic contractions arrive, the first action almost every company takes is to reduce experimentation and cut extraneous spending. The gist is that discipline of all types returns, and innovative firms begin to net down on known solution areas and focus on making their products more attractive to their core markets.
Although frequently painful to the individuals affected, this shift has the effect of reducing the demand for labor and resources. As a result, the increased available supply, particularly of development resources, causes the cost of labor needed to innovate to at least stabilize (if not reduce), while simultaneously increasing the available quality. It cannot be stated enough that the more skilled the technical resource, the better the innovation outcomes.
The second positive effect of renewed focus is that the core attributes of the product improve more rapidly. In downturns, companies become hyper focused on retaining customers and growing new ones in a capital-efficient way. The best way to deliver both is to accelerate growth in solution utility and value.
The final effect is that weaker technologies become the first to be abandoned or deprioritized. This results in reducing the competition for awareness and customer consideration. Occasionally, bad luck kicks in and those that didn’t raise capital at the right time and in the right amount wind up excessively impacted, but that is less common as most well-advised firms have a sense when the capital party is coming to an end.
The net effect of all of this is that the excessively noisy markets of boom times quiet down, and innovators that can quickly focus on building awesome products garner greater interest in and awareness of the value those products deliver. It also has the effect of increasing the concentration of skilled talent working on meaningful projects.
Factors That Lead to an Innovation Uptick
In the right culture and with the right leadership, something magical happens when existential pressures appear. Teams begin to rally around “North Star” (highest value) goals. Execution becomes much more focused. Time-wasting arguments about ancillary pursuits disappear. Alignment between teams increases. And if the adjustments are communicated transparently and honestly, morale actually improves. All of these factors result in a more effective and nimble organization, which is critical to technical advancement.
Properly aligned organizations then start executing on refined goals. The formula is simple: Greater technical discipline plus stronger talent equals superior innovation outcomes. Moreover, by focusing on delivering value, product efficacy increases more rapidly than a bloated code base that confuses users in an attempt to serve evermore peripheral use cases. The outcome is that users see their needs being addressed more quickly and effectively than when times were perhaps too good.
A final point to consider is that lean times cause innovators to become more scrappy and to dispense with excess work in service of extraneous process. This isn’t to say process is bad in the least, just that all human endeavors that are not routinely examined develop endemic bloat when there is no political will to address. The same introspection that generates product/market focus also causes teams to discard political orthodoxy and begin to examine exactly what is needed to deliver in a more lean and scrappy world. Paring back overhead has the added benefit of creating greater satisfaction among technical talent who often feel stifled by the sort of bureaucracy that evolves during times of excess.
Weathering a Financial Storm
During the Great Recession, I witnessed the above firsthand at Zuora. Before the market fell apart, we had plans to address a number of peripheral opportunities in adjacent markets.
Then Lehman collapsed.
Quickly we focused on the core use cases we knew were going to be valuable no matter the market condition. We also looked at our customer base and realized that we were servicing two distinct segments — small to medium businesses and enterprise scale ones. The problem was the smaller ones were disproportionately affected by the downturn and were either failing entirely or were exiting the more experimental products they were planning to service using our platform. The larger firms did not show this dynamic. They had multiyear horizons, and while there were short term disruptions, their core businesses were solid. So we quickly shifted our focus to enterprises and the product requirements they demanded.
The outcome was a substantial success. We obviously managed to weather the financial storm. We also tailored our contracts so that we could use our customers’ rapidly declining weighted average cost of capital to offer discounts for multiyear prepayments that had the effect of eliminating our short and medium term capital raising requirements. The discounts exceeded our customers’ capital costs but were much cheaper than a dilutive equity raise in the depths of a recession for us.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Are Crucial for Long-Term Economic Development
Larger firms are freezing new hires, smaller firms are pausing unproven initiatives, and firms that over extended (experimented) during boom times are beginning to trim down to a more sustainable profile.
Financial markets have been described as oscillating between greed (boom time behavior) and fear (downturns). Given that so much of the technology market requires ongoing financing, the industry experiences similar swings, often of a magnified nature. As of this writing, we’re firmly in the fear cycle.
However, as soon as investors begin to circle in on how to value companies in whatever the new market norms look like, capital will begin flowing again. Firms that successfully innovated during down times will start to see others entering their markets. Success always attracts new entrants — some with better mouse traps, others just start to experiment.
Whatever the new pattern looks like, the successful innovators will likely be the emergent leaders in their particular space. Their valuations will form the basis of valuing newcomers, and a new generation of technological advances will become the object models for a new phase of growth. | <urn:uuid:ade1737b-66f0-4079-9093-e4a6f0c56fb1> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://digitalcxo.com/article/the-link-between-technology-innovation-and-the-economy/ | 2024-09-17T08:05:14Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651750.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20240917072424-20240917102424-00295.warc.gz | en | 0.962203 | 1,579 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Cyber criminals insights
- Cyber criminals will always be able to find their way into a system — a business’ job is to reduce the risk of a cyberattack as much as they can.
- To protect a business, the best steps are to create a plan, back up data, secure the network, schedule updates and install security software.
Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting access to data and devices on a computer network. The goal is to protect a business or organization from unauthorized access. Cyber criminals are experts at finding ways into these protected systems and exploiting the information they find. Many people believe cyber criminals only target large businesses, but the truth is that any business, no matter the size, can become a potential target.
The dangers of poor cybersecurity can go well beyond financial losses. Malware can erase entire systems, alter files, steal credit card and other identity information, and a lot more. The best way to protect your business from cybercrime is to learn about it and create a cybersecurity mitigation plan. Below are five tips to help protect your business from cybercrime.
Understanding cyber criminals
Cyber crime is considered any crime that occurs online. Cyber criminals target computer networks, devices, software and operating systems. The primary way for attackers to infect a system is with malware. Once the malware has infected a system, it begins to collect passwords for software and websites you and your employees visit. Once this data is collected, it is sent to cyber criminals who use the information to steal money, data or to gain further access into a system.
The primary reason cyber criminals target a business is to steal money. Always protect business and client financial data by using secure payment systems like ACH processing. Examples of cybercrime include email and internet fraud, identity theft, financial and credit card theft, theft of corporate data and cyber extortion using ransomware.
The methods used to gain access into a system vary, but usually involve viruses or malware. A business may also be attacked using a technique called denial of service (DoS) which overloads a website’s connections until the system fails or the attacker gains entry. Most cyberattacks are sophisticated and can be difficult to prevent. The best way to prevent an attack is to have a company-wide cybersecurity plan.
1. Create a plan
While most small businesses don’t have the resources for an on-staff cybersecurity expert, that shouldn’t stop you from creating a plan and developing processes and procedures to protect your business from cyber threats. A cybersecurity plan starts with the implementation of best practices to help protect a business from both external and internal threats. Once you develop a plan, always be aware that it must be adapted to counter new and emerging threats.
External threat protection can be implemented with tools that protect endpoints. These tools include antivirus software, virtual private networks (VPNs) and firewalls. Every business should have these tools in place, and they should be properly configured.
Internal threats require policies and procedures that detail proper network access and the use of technology within an organization. Remote workers needing network access may complicate security, making it necessary to install VPNs to allow secure access. Many companies have switched to cloud-hosted services that allow for secure access and distributed networks. Whether your system is hosted or locally managed, be sure that safeguards are in place to protect your business and employees from cyber threats.
2. Back up data
Regular backups should be a part of every business cybersecurity plan. There are several options for backing up data, including local and online backup solutions. Data backup is considered mission-critical for disaster recovery. Every business should develop, implement and maintain a complete data backup strategy. Part of your plan should consider the growth of data. A backup solution should be secure, but also allow for growth.
There are many backup storage options available, from tapes, to drives, to cloud solutions. No matter what you choose, be sure the solution is secure and available in the event of a disaster.
3. Secure your network
The easiest way into a system is by finding the weakest link. Typically, the weak link is the endpoints. An endpoint is where a network starts or ends. Many internet-connected devices, such as routers and modems, are improperly configured and not kept up to date. These often-neglected devices provide an easy way into a system.
Endpoint security protects data and devices as they connect to a network. Endpoint protection monitors data as it enters or leaves a system. Access is monitored, logged, and checked for unsafe or unauthorized access. If a malware or intrusion attempt is caught before entering or leaving your system, you may stop a crime before any damage occurs. Endpoint protection systems are available for cloud and server applications, which are scalable and easy to implement with existing computer architectures. To help protect your business, never overlook endpoint protection.
4. Schedule updates
Regular updates should be a part of every security plan. Computers, network devices, mobile devices and anything that connects to a network should always be kept up to date. Keeping software and devices up to date is a critical part of cybersecurity. When attacking a system, a cyber criminal will target vulnerabilities in devices, but also operating systems and software. If access cannot be gained through the operating system, then the attack turns to out-of-date software.
Modern operating systems, including MacOS, Windows, Linux, and Android, publish regular updates that should always be applied. Automating updates is a good solution, but system administrators should always make sure updates are being properly applied.
Software should also be routinely checked for updates and upgrades. Nothing should be left to chance, and any device including mobiles and tablets with software and operating systems should always be kept up to date.
5. Install security software
There are many affordable security software suites available for most any system. A security suite will offer more tools to help manage security on a system. These include antivirus, firewall, browsing, and malware protection.
Antivirus and malware software needs to be updated often as new and emerging threats arise. Firewalls are not updated as often but must be properly configured to work. Security suites allow for protection against multiple threats, but each piece of software can also be installed separately. No matter what approach you take, be sure to configure the software properly and keep everything up to date.
Original content can be found at ISAGCA. | <urn:uuid:92263b74-7c33-4215-92fd-adc8c9c17475> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.industrialcybersecuritypulse.com/strategies/5-steps-to-protect-your-business-from-cyber-criminals/ | 2024-09-17T07:31:37Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651750.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20240917072424-20240917102424-00295.warc.gz | en | 0.933713 | 1,309 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Digital Envelopes and Signatures
Enhance your email's security by sealing digital envelopes and affixing digital signatures.
August 31, 1996
Digital envelopes and digital signatures are two specific applications ofcomputer security technology that can enhance the functionality of electronicmail. A digital envelope (encryption) is the electronic equivalent ofputting your message into a sealed envelope to provide privacy and resistance totampering. A digital signature is the electronic equivalent of a signetring and sealing wax: You seal the message so that the receiver has a highdegree of confidence that the message really came from the purported sender andthat no one has altered it. (For more information on the role of encryption incomputer security, see Lawrence E. Hughes, "Secure Enterprise Email,"Windows NT Magazine, May 1996.)
These two security functions are mutually independent, and you can applyneither, either, or both to a message. Only the sender's private key (a binaryvalue 40-bits or more long) is required to create a signature. A secure mailclient will apply digital signatures by default, without affecting a person'sability to read the message through a mail reader without a secure mail client.In contrast, digital envelopes make the entire message gibberish to a recipientwithout an appropriate reader and the correct decryption key. Therefore, adigital envelope is never a default. However, a well-designed mail client canremember (or determine from a directory service) what recipients to use digitalenvelopes with, what type of digital envelope to use (many standards areavailable), and the particular key to use for each recipient.
Digital Envelopes (Encryption)
Encryption, or secret writing,has been around in one form or another since ancient times. Recently, encryptionhas become more complex with the availability of computers to escalate the gameof lock builder vs. lock picker.
Encryption provides privacy. You scramble information so that only theintended recipient can unscramble it. Encryption does not prevent third partiesfrom intercepting the message, but they intercept pure gibberish; theintercepted message is useless without the decryption software and appropriatekey. Most contemporary encryption schemes use a fixed, standard algorithm (e.g.,the Data Encryption Standard--DES), which produces a unique ciphertext(scrambled form) for each possible key (pattern of bits that modify the way thealgorithm does the scrambling). The more bits in the key, the more keys arepossible. For example, DES has 56 bits in each key, hence a total of 256or roughly 72 quadrillion distinct keys.
Two primary kinds of encryption are symmetric key and asymmetric key.Symmetric key encryption uses the same key to encrypt and to decrypt. Asymmetrickey encryption creates the key in two complementary pieces, like the two piecesof a raggedly torn dollar bill. One piece is the public key, because nosecurity is lost by publishing it for anyone to know, and the other is the privatekey, because you must guard it from discovery. If you encrypt with a givenpublic key, someone can decrypt only with the corresponding private key; noother key, including the public key used to encrypt the information, cansuccessfully decrypt it. That simple difference in key use is the mostsignificant breakthrough in security technology in 2000 years.
Unfortunately, asymmetric key algorithms are hundreds or thousands of timesslower than symmetric key algorithms and are suitable only for processing smallpieces of information (e.g., a 56-bit symmetric key). So, most digital envelopeschemes use an asymmetric key algorithm (e.g., Rivest-Shamir-Adleman--RSA--orDiffie-Hellman) to securely exchange a session key (a randomly generatedsymmetric key just for this one message or session; then you discard it) andthen use a symmetric key algorithm (e.g., DES or International Data EncryptionAlgorithm--IDEA) to encrypt the text by means of the session key.
The person sending a message in a digital envelope must randomly select asymmetric algorithm session key and then encrypt that session key by using therecipient's public key and an asymmetric algorithm. The sender encrypts themessage body (the plaintext) with the original (unencrypted) symmetricsession key, and then sends the encrypted session key and encrypted message body(the ciphertext) to the recipient.
The recipients of that message must decrypt the session key (using theirown private key) and then decrypt the rest of the message using the recoveredsession key to obtain the original message body (the plaintext). Only the holderof the recipient's private key (hopefully, only the recipient) can recover thesession key and the original message.
Digital signatures are a more recent conceptthan encryption and address issues of authentication (proof of identityof the sender) and message integrity (detection of changes to themessage). You can also use digital signatures for non-repudiation:proving that a particular individual really sent a particular message.
Most digital signature schemes depend heavily on asymmetric key technologybut need a trick to keep the amount of data processed with it to a minimum. Inthis case, you create a message digest with one of the many standards,such as the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) or Message Digest Algorithm 5 (MD5). Youfeed the entire contents of the message through an algorithm that is a functionof the entire content, including the order of all the characters. This algorithmcreates a residue (typically, 64 bits' worth, regardless of the size ofthe original message--even more condensed than a Reader's Digestcondensation of a book!). If someone alters the message and you run the resultthrough the algorithm again, the result is a different residue. The probabilityof getting the same residue from two different messages is one in 264power, which is millions of times less likely than your chances of winning alottery. This residue, or more accurately the cryptographic checksum, iswhat asymmetric key technology encrypts and then appends to the message tocreate the digital signature.
For a recipient to verify a digital signature, the receiving mail clientprogram must use the sender's public key to extract and decrypt the transmittedmessage digest. The receiver must obtain the public key, recalculate the messagedigest by passing the rest of the message through the message digest algorithm,and compare the transmitted residue with the newly calculated one. If theresidues match, no tampering with the message has occurred, and only the holderof the sender's private key can have created the digital signature (note thatanyone can verify a signature, as only the sender's public key isrequired).
If the residues don't match, either someone altered the message in some way(possibly the mail transport system innocently altered it by wrapping longlines), or someone other than the purported sender created the digitalsignature with some key other than the sender's private key, or both.Many digital signature schemes let you encode the message content to prevent themail transport system's innocent mauling from affecting the message digest, butthese schemes have the unfortunate side effect of making the message textunreadable without an appropriately equipped mail client program (you usedigital signatures with this feature only when sending mail to recipients thathave the appropriate capability).
Sometimes privacy and message integrity are essential, but who sentthe message is not important or is obvious from content. In this case, a digitalenvelope is necessary and sufficient. The interceptor first has to decrypt themessage to change it and then re-encrypt it using the same key originally usedto encrypt the message, so encryption prevents tampering. However,encryption alone does not provide any authentication.
At other times, who sees the information is not important, but thecritical concern is that it really came from the person who claims to have sentit, and that no one has tampered with it in any way. In this case, you can sendthe message in plaintext (no digital envelope) with a digital signature. Also,you cannot legally use encryption in certain situations, such as crossing mostinternational borders even if digital signatures are perfectly legal insidethose borders. When sending mail internationally or even within the borders ofmany foreign countries, find out what security technology is allowed and whatalgorithms and key lengths are permitted. Penalties can be severe if authoritiescatch you--assume that the National Security Agency monitors most digitaltraffic that enters or leaves the US.
Digital envelopes and digital signatures do not interact, and people oftenfirst digitally sign and then encrypt a message before sending it, takingadvantage of both privacy and authentication. Also, the digital envelopeprotects the digital signature. Finally, keeping the original digital signatureas part of an archived message is useful. For example, you can detectalterations while it is in storage or verify the identity of the sender again atany time.
To add a digital envelope to a message,the sender (or a mail program) must obtain the public key of the recipient.Likewise, to verify a digital signature, the recipient (or a mail program) mustobtain the public key of the sender. A simple way is to include thesender's public key in each message. You lose no security this way, but you geta lot of extra overhead and clutter that are often longer than the originalmessage. Adding to this overhead is the need for digitally signed certificatesthat guarantee that the public key belongs to the purported owner.
Today, a worldwide, distributed infrastructure (e.g., X.500 and LightweightDirectory Access Protocol--LDAP) is under construction to solve the problem offinding anyone's email address. This infrastructure will let you store andprovide access to everyone's public keys and entire chains of certificates (allthe way back to some unimpeachable source) on key servers, through theWeb. This infrastructure provides Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs).Schemes that embed the key in the message do not address CRLs. You can think ofCRLs as the secure email equivalent of the books that stores use to check forterminated credit cards. If your private key is compromised (someone elsediscovers it), you advertise this fact by adding your name to a CRL. A good keyserver or mail client will use such lists to ensure that a given key's owner hasnot revoked it.
Real-World Products and Standards
The Lotus Notes mail system,Notes Mail, provides all the features described above except for a key server,but in a proprietary manner that works only with other Notes Mail clients. Mailfrom a Lotus Notes mail client user arrives with a large amount of apparentlyextraneous cybercrud. This is the sender's public key andcertificate(s), plus a digital signature for that message, all in ASCII encodedform.
Microsoft Exchange offers the option of supporting advanced security,whichrequires you to install and manage yet another daemon process, a key server.Although Microsoft used some of the available standards, this approach worksonly if you do everything with Exchange Client and Exchange Server software. Inparticular, the overall proprietary design of Exchange Server makes translatingsecurity features into Internet-secure email standards via the InternetConnector impossible for users. This situation is a major reason why people areabandoning proprietary systems.
Riordan's Internet Privacy Enhanced Mail (RIPEM) is a commercial, secureemail client that implements the Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) standard. RIPEM'ssuccess is not widespread due to lack of acceptance of PEM and the delayedimplementation of the necessary PEM public key and certificate serverinfrastructure. In particular, email client vendors find creating interoperableproducts based on PEM difficult.
X.400-based mail systems can have all the security features mentionedabove, and the X.500 directory service can have very good support for public keyand certificate management and distribution, if you install the X.509 part.Unfortunately, X.400 does not specify the security features in enough detail tolet independent developers create products that interoperate with products fromother vendors (Exchange Server is an example of a product that supports X.400,although only via a gateway. Exchange currently has no support for X.500.).Also, X.400 in general and X.500 in particular require Open Systems Interconnect(OSI) network support (usually in addition to Internet-style TCP/IP support).Much of the world (especially the US) does not use OSI support.
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is not an email product but a standalone utilityavailable for many platforms, including DOS, Windows 95, NT, and Unix. PGP letsyou add or process security features such as digital envelopes and digitalsignatures on any file. ViaCrypt offers a commercial implementation ofPGP. You can use PGP with most existing email systems to accomplish the samefunctions as with an email package that has integrated security (albeit with aclumsy, additional step before sending and after receiving). Pegasus email, inparticular, has taken a step toward integrating PGP and is less clumsy thanother packages.
A fascinating aspect of PGP is the concept of decentralized trustrelationships (no central certificate authority is required), which makes PGPmore acceptable to individuals and for inter-organizational secure mail. Much ofthe world anxiously awaits the availability of a good, strong Internet emailclient with PGP functionality and good PGP public key and certificate servers.This goal is the email software developer's equivalent of the Great AmericanNovel.
The S/MIME standard is the most likely future of client-based secureInternet email, certainly in organizations that can implement centralizedcertificate management. S/MIME is a refinement and extension of the PEM conceptsthat RSA cleaned up with its Public Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS). Manyvendors have signed on to implement this standard (despite the Internetcommunity's reluctance to become so dependent on one company's technology).ConnectSoft E-Mail Connection 3.0 supports S/MIME.
Security Is Key
Digital envelopes and signatures are twoprevalent and safe methods for securing email privacy and integrity. Severalproducts support these methods and are making them easy to get and use. Anyonedeveloping email applications or even using email for business needs to knowwhat these technologies do, how to use them appropriately, and how they areevolving. Listing 1 has resources both on the Web and in print for moreinformation on email security and evolving products and standards. Emailsecurity is an area we cannot afford to ignore.
Contact Info |
Lotus Notes 4Lotus * 617-577-8500Web: www.lotus.comMicrosoftExchangeMicrosoft * 206-882-8080Web: www.microsoft.comRIPEMMarkRiordan [email protected]Web: www.cs.indiana.edu/ripem/dir.htmlX.400(an ISO standard)International Telecommunication Union (ITU) * Web:www.itu.chPretty Good PrivacyPretty Good Privacy *415-631-1747Web: www.pgp.comViaCryptViaCrypt *602-944-0773Web: www.viacrypt.comS/MIMERSA DataSecurity * 415-595-8782Web: www.rsa.com |
About the Author
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In life, we all have goals that we want to achieve. Whether it is getting a promotion, losing weight, or starting our own business, we all need to be accountable to reach our goals.
Accountability is the act of being answerable for your actions. It is a key ingredient for success in both personal and professional life. Accountability is a subset of responsibility, which means that accountability is built on responsibility. Responsibility is about doing what you are supposed to do, while accountability is about taking ownership of the results of your work.
When we are accountable for our actions, we are more likely to own up to our mistakes and learn from them. This can help us to improve our performance and avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
When we know that we will be held accountable for our actions, we are more likely to be motivated to do our best. This is because we know that we will be rewarded for our successes.
When we are accountable, others can trust us to do what we say we will do, which can lead to stronger relationships and more opportunities.
Here are some tips for increasing accountability:
- Set clear, realistic goals and deadlines for yourself.
This means being specific about what you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it. It also means making sure your goals are attainable and relevant to your values. When you have clear goals, you are more likely to stay on track and be accountable to yourself.
- Have a plan and track your progress.
Once you have set your goals, it is important to create a plan for how you are going to achieve them. This plan should include specific steps and timelines. It is also helpful to track your progress regularly so that you can see how you are doing and adjust as needed.
- Acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses.
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Being aware of your strengths and weaknesses can help you set realistic goals and develop a plan to achieve them. It can help you build self-confidence and resilience.
- Be willing to ask for help when you need it.
There will be times when you need help to achieve your goals. Do not be afraid to ask for help from others. This could be a friend, family member, coworker, or mentor.
- Seek out feedback from others on your work and where you need to improve.
Feedback can be a valuable tool for self-improvement. When you seek out feedback from others, you are opening yourself up to learning and growing. This can help you be more accountable to yourself by identifying areas where you need to improve.
- Be willing to take risks and learn from your mistakes.
Taking risks is essential for growth and success. When you are willing to take risks, you are opening yourself up to new experiences and learning opportunities. However, it is also important to learn from your mistakes. This means reflecting on what went wrong and making changes so that you do not make the same mistake twice.
- Take some time to savor your success, no matter how small.
When you achieve a goal, it is important to take some time to celebrate your success. This will help you stay motivated and keep moving forward. No matter how small the success, it is still a success and should be acknowledged.
Being accountable to yourself is a journey, not a destination. It takes time and effort to develop, but it is worth it. When you are accountable, you are in control of your life, and you can create the outcomes you want, and you can create a better future for yourself.
- Accountability is not about assigning It is about taking ownership of your actions and learning from them.
- Accountability is not about striving for It is about doing your best and being willing to improve.
- Accountability is not about beating yourself up for your failures. It is about motivation and growth.
Looking for an opportunity to join IFS? Find our job openings here: Careers and Job Vacancies | IFS
For more details check out About us – IFS | <urn:uuid:24b7ea23-6da7-4922-8e4f-878c6ad0b290> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://blog.ifs.com/2024/02/accountability-the-key-to-success-2/ | 2024-09-19T21:29:14Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700652067.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20240919194038-20240919224038-00095.warc.gz | en | 0.971083 | 824 | 3.125 | 3 |
Business Information Technology (IT) systems require specific care to remain reliable throughout its use. The volume of data storage demands on hardware continues to grow at a rapid speed. IT hardware Maintenance is imperative for securing all sensitive business data and hardware performance.
Dust, electrical fields, and extreme temperatures are dangerous to an IT hardware device, as they interfere with the performance of any hardware utilized for business processes. Heat, extreme cold, and humidity cause components to overheat or acquire moisture. Electrical fields from items such as magnets should be kept away from all devices. Damaged cables prevent hardware from communicating with other devices. Dust gets into the storage mechanism and other components, directly affecting the cooling fans’ ability to keep internal parts at the appropriate temperature.
All of the mentioned elements can be devastating to business systems running important daily processes. Basic IT hardware maintenance entails removing dust from all devices, keeping them in a temperature-controlled room, checking connections, and ensuring no items with magnetic fields are near the equipment.
IBM Storage: Equipment Preservation Practice
Caring for IBM storage devices is not difficult if the time is taken to learn appropriate maintenance procedures. Cleaning is required to keep a storage device properly maintained, and basic cleaning of all system parts should always be a priority. Defragmentation applications consolidate data files in one space to improve the speed and reliability of data. Windows operating systems provide this tool; however, others are also available to suit varying needs. Disk scanning may also be performed to fix any problems residing on the storage medium.
Every business needs to have a firewall installed to ensure all data is secure and not penetrable from outside sources. Virus applications prevent malicious programs from gaining access to sensitive business data. These applications are tools any business can use to increase the dependability of their most pertinent storage hardware. Many equipment providers also offer their own maintenance contract, leaving all critical servicing to the experts.
IBM storage comes in many forms, including traditional disk, NAS, SAN, and tape storage. Data may be stored on disk, either magnetically or optically. This is typically in the form of an external or internal hard drive. It is the most traditional method for saving data from various sources throughout a company.
Network Attached Storage, or NAS, allows data access over a network and operates much like a file server. A Storage Area Network or SAN operates as a dedicated access point for information consolidation. SAN setups make it easier for servers to access devices, such as disk arrays and tape libraries. A business may choose tapes for backups or other data storage processes, as tape drives perform all writing and reading functionality to the storing mechanism, and are a less expensive way to store huge amounts of data. Every device requires the same basic IT hardware maintenance.
The manufacturer may make additional recommendations to ensure proper care. If these guidelines are not followed in combination with basic computer maintenance procedures, performance may decrease, or the component will quit functioning altogether. | <urn:uuid:dbf4cd27-d00d-43fd-920c-1de17b19cc9e> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://navigatorsystem.com/it-hardware-maintenance-protecting-device-performance/ | 2024-09-08T22:10:55Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651035.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20240908213138-20240909003138-00195.warc.gz | en | 0.923416 | 593 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Table of Contents
In today’s digital age, businesses and individuals are increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats. These threats can range from phishing scams and ransomware attacks to data breaches and sophisticated hacking attempts. Understanding and managing these risks is crucial for safeguarding sensitive information and maintaining trust. One key aspect of this process is risk quantification – a method used to measure and assess the potential impact of cyber threats. This article will explore advanced techniques for quantifying cyber risks, providing insights into how organizations can better protect themselves.
Understanding Cyber Risk Quantification
Cyber risk quantification is the process of assessing the potential impact of cyber threats on an organization’s assets. This involves evaluating the likelihood of various threats and their possible consequences. Unlike traditional risk management, which may rely on qualitative assessments, cyber risk quantification uses quantitative methods to provide a more precise measure of risk.
The goal is to translate complex cyber risks into understandable metrics, enabling organizations to make informed decisions about their security measures. By quantifying risks, businesses can prioritize their resources and efforts to address the most significant threats. Engaging in comprehensive cyber risk quantification allows organizations to precisely measure and understand potential vulnerabilities, thereby enhancing their ability to implement targeted and effective security strategies.
Key Techniques for Risk Quantification of Cyber Threats
- Probability and Impact Analysis
This technique involves assessing both the likelihood of a cyber threat occurring and the potential impact it could have. The probability refers to how likely it is that a particular threat will materialize, while the impact measures the potential damage it could cause. To perform this analysis, organizations often use historical data and threat intelligence to estimate probabilities. For impact assessment, businesses can consider factors such as financial losses, reputational damage, and operational disruptions.
For example, if there’s a high probability of a phishing attack and a significant impact if it succeeds, the organization will need to invest in stronger email security and employee training. - Quantitative Risk Models
Quantitative risk models use mathematical and statistical techniques to estimate the potential impact of cyber threats. These models take into account various factors, including the value of assets, the effectiveness of existing controls, and the likelihood of different attack scenarios. One common model is the Annual Loss Expectancy (ALE), which calculates the expected annual loss due to a specific threat. It’s determined by multiplying the Single Loss Expectancy (SLE) – the financial loss from a single incident – by the Annual Rate of Occurrence (ARO) – how often the incident is expected to occur.
For example, if a data breach has an SLE of $100,000 and an ARO of 0.1 (meaning it’s expected to occur once every ten years), the ALE would be $10,000. This figure helps organizations budget for potential losses and invest in preventative measures. - Scenario Analysis
Scenario analysis involves creating and evaluating different “what-if” scenarios to understand potential risks. This technique helps organizations anticipate various attack vectors and their possible outcomes.
For instance, a scenario might involve a ransomware attack that encrypts critical data. The analysis would explore the potential financial impact, the cost of remediation, and the effect on business operations. By analyzing different scenarios, organizations can identify vulnerabilities and plan appropriate responses. - Monte Carlo Simulation
Monte Carlo simulation is a statistical technique that uses random sampling to model the probability of different outcomes. In the context of cyber risk quantification, it involves running multiple simulations to estimate the range of possible losses from cyber threats. This method is useful for understanding the variability in risk estimates and providing a range of potential outcomes rather than a single figure. For example, Monte Carlo simulation might show that the financial impact of a cyber attack could range from $50,000 to $200,000, with a certain probability for each outcome. - Risk Heat Maps
Risk heat maps visually represent the likelihood and impact of various risks. These maps use color-coded grids to highlight areas of high and low risk. By plotting risks on a heat map, organizations can quickly identify which threats pose the greatest danger. For example, a heat map might show that phishing attacks are highly likely and have a high impact, indicating a need for stronger defenses. Heat maps also help in communicating risks to stakeholders by providing a clear, visual representation of the risk landscape.
Implementing Risk Quantification in Your Organization
To effectively implement these techniques, organizations should follow a structured approach:
- Identify Assets and Threats
Begin by cataloging all valuable assets, including data, systems, and infrastructure. Identify potential threats that could affect these assets, such as malware, insider threats, or natural disasters. - Gather Data
Collect data on historical incidents, threat intelligence, and asset values. This information is essential for accurate risk assessment and modeling. - Choose Techniques
Select the risk quantification techniques that best suit your organization’s needs. Depending on your resources and goals, you may use a combination of methods, such as probability and impact analysis with Monte Carlo simulations. - Analyze and Interpret Results
Use the chosen techniques to analyze risks and interpret the results. Focus on understanding the potential impact of different threats and prioritize actions based on the findings. - Implement Risk Management Strategies
Develop and implement strategies to mitigate identified risks. This may involve enhancing security measures, conducting regular training, and establishing response plans. - Review and Update
Risk quantification is an ongoing process. Regularly review and update your risk assessments to account for new threats, changes in technology, and evolving business needs.
Challenges and Considerations
While risk quantification provides valuable insights, it also comes with challenges. Some common issues include:
- Data Quality: Accurate risk quantification relies on high-quality data. Inaccurate or incomplete data can lead to misleading results.
- Complexity: Advanced techniques, such as Monte Carlo simulations, can be complex and require specialized knowledge and tools.
- Changing Threat Landscape: The cyber threat landscape is constantly evolving, making it challenging to keep risk assessments up-to-date.
To address these challenges, organizations should invest in training, tools, and resources to support effective risk quantification. Collaborating with cybersecurity experts and leveraging threat intelligence can also enhance the accuracy and relevance of risk assessments.
Decoding cyber threats through advanced risk quantification techniques is essential for protecting organizations in today’s digital environment. By understanding and measuring the potential impact of cyber threats, businesses can make informed decisions and implement effective security measures. Techniques such as probability and impact analysis, quantitative risk models, scenario analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, and risk heat maps provide valuable insights into the risk landscape.
Implementing these techniques requires a structured approach, including identifying assets and threats, gathering data, choosing appropriate methods, and regularly reviewing and updating risk assessments. While challenges exist, investing in the right tools and expertise can significantly enhance an organization’s ability to manage cyber risks effectively.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
IPwithease is aimed at sharing knowledge across varied domains like Network, Security, Virtualization, Software, Wireless, etc. | <urn:uuid:533ab05d-716e-4637-a3de-4848cbd65419> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://ipwithease.com/decoding-cyber-threats-risk-quantification/ | 2024-09-16T06:26:31Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651676.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20240916044225-20240916074225-00495.warc.gz | en | 0.917562 | 1,450 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Code Protection: How to Protect Your Source Code
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Code protection refers to the measures and strategies used to secure and safeguard source code from unauthorized access, theft, and misuse.
Source code is the foundational intellectual property of the digital age. Protecting proprietary source code through various means, including obfuscation, encryption, environmental checks, and policy, has to be top-of-mind for data governance.
What Is Code Protection?
Code protection refers to the measures and strategies to secure and safeguard source code from unauthorized access, theft, and misuse.
These code protection measures include using software tools to encrypt or obfuscate the code, keeping it in secure and access-controlled repositories, monitoring for breaches or vulnerabilities, and implementing applicable legal methods like copyright, patents, and specific licensing agreements to safeguard intellectual property rights.
Code protection is key in maintaining the integrity and security of software applications while protecting a business's proprietary technology or know-how.
Why Do You Need Code Protection?
Code protection is a significant aspect of an organization’s software development security strategy. It enables the company to secure its valuable assets, maintain the integrity and stability of its software, and uphold its users' trust.
In addition, code protection is essential for several reasons:
- Protect Intellectual Property: Source code often constitutes the core intellectual property of a software development company. It contains unique algorithms, methods, and techniques that give a competitive advantage to the company. If this code is stolen or copied, competitors can replicate the software, resulting in financial loss and loss of market share.
- Prevent Software Piracy: Without code protection, software may be susceptible to unauthorized access, use, and modification. Encrypting or obfuscating the code can prevent software piracy, ensuring creators or developers receive credit and compensation for their work.
- Avoid Malware Exploits: Source code may have vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit to create malware or conduct cyber attacks. Code protection mechanisms help prevent such exploits by making it harder for malicious actors to understand and manipulate the code.
- Maintain Application Stability: Protecting the source code can help maintain the application's stability. Unauthorized modifications to the code can introduce bugs, crashes, or unintended behaviors that degrade user experience.
- Ensure Data Privacy: Source code can contain sensitive information, like API keys, encryption keys, credentials, etc., and their theft could compromise user data protection and privacy. Code protection includes techniques to safeguard such sensitive information.
- Compliance Requirements: In some industries, regulatory requirements dictate that businesses implement specific code protection measures to prevent breaches. This includes healthcare, financial services, and others where sensitive information is handled.
How You Can Protect Code with Data Loss Prevention Tools
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tools can help to secure your source code by implementing the following measures:
- Identifying Sensitive Data: DLP tools are designed to monitor, detect, and block sensitive data, including your source code, from leaving your organization's network. It automatically classifies sensitive content such as intellectual property or proprietary software code.
- Establishing and Enforcing Policies: With DLP tools, you can set detailed policies specifying who can access source codes, from where, and at what time. It allows the configuration of rules for accessing and sharing codes based on factors such as data type, location, and user.
- Monitoring and Blocking Unauthorized Activities: DLP systems monitor and log all activities related to your source code. If anyone tries to transfer or copy your source code outside the approved domains, DLP systems can immediately block such action and alert administrators.
- Encrypting Data: Some advanced DLP tools offer encryption which can protect your source code when it’s being shared or stored, making it unreadable to unauthorized users.
- Regular Scans: DLP systems can routinely scan and identify repositories where sensitive source codes reside and take necessary action when discrepancies are detected.
- Incident Response: DLP solutions provide mechanisms for swift incident response when there are attempts to violate policies related to your source code.
- Integrations: DLP tools can often be integrated with other security technologies, providing a layered defense for your source code.
- Training and Awareness: Many DLP solutions offer training tools to educate developers and staff about the importance of code security and how to handle sensitive data.
Overall, DLP tools provide a systematic approach to protecting source code by monitoring data activity, preventing unauthorized data handling, data governance, and responding to potential data breaches.
The Threats Within Code that Undermine Code Protection
There are numerous types of threats that can be discovered within source code, including:
- Buffer Overflows: Buffer overflow is a condition where an application tries to write data outside the boundaries of pre-allocated fixed-length buffers. This can lead to crashes, and incorrect data behavior, making it easier for an attacker to inject malicious code.
- Injection Flaws: These involve a user being able to inject code into the software to influence its execution. The most common example is SQL Injection, where an attacker can input SQL code to manipulate the database queries.
- Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): XSS happens when software allows unfiltered user input that’s subsequently used to generate output like web pages. Attackers can use this to inject malicious scripts and execute them in the user's browser.
- Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF): CSRF is an attack that tricks the victim into submitting a malicious request by exploiting a site's trust in the user.
- Insecure Direct Object References: This is where a reference to a file or database key is exposed without proper authorization checks.
- Misconfiguration: This occurs when security settings are defined, implemented, and maintained as defaults. This can allow hackers to access sensitive data or features.
- Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards: Without proper validation, attackers can redirect victims to phishing or malware sites or use forwards to access unauthorized pages.
- Security Misconfigurations: This entails poor security controls, insecure default configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, unnecessary features enabled, etc.
- Exposure of Sensitive Information: This includes the exposure of data such as passwords, credit card numbers, health records, personal information, etc. in the source code.
- Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities: Software often relies on many third-party components. If these components are not regularly updated or if they are misconfigured, they can present serious security holes.
These are just a few examples. These threats can often be discovered and mitigated using static application security testing (SAST), dynamic application security testing (DAST), or penetration testing tools and methodologies.
The Best Practices For Code Protection and Security
- Secure Coding Practices: Always implement secure coding practices and source code security best practices as they form the first line of defense. This includes avoiding common coding flaws like buffer overflows and SQL injection issues.
- Code Reviews: Regularly perform code reviews; it can help catch bugs and security issues before code deployment.
- Use of Security Libraries/Frameworks: Using security libraries and frameworks with inbuilt security controls can help prevent common security-related errors.
- Static Code Analysis: Implement automated tools that can scan the source code to detect potential data vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting (XSS), before they become a threat.
- Dynamic Code Analysis: Implement automated tools that can analyze code while in operation to help detect serious security flaws during a program's runtime.
- Least Privilege Principle: Ensure applications run with the least privilege possible to minimize potential damage from security threats.
- Input Validation and Sanitization: Validate and sanitize all user data inputs. Don't trust any data without validation, as this is a common source of vulnerabilities.
- Patch Vulnerabilities: Maintain software dependencies up-to-date and patch vulnerabilities as soon as they are discovered.
- Encrypt Sensitive Data: Encrypt all sensitive data to make it unintelligible if intercepted. Use strong encryption methods and frequently rotate keys.
- Secure Authentication and Session Management: Apply built-in security features for managing user sessions and authentication.
- Developer Training: Training developers in secure coding practices can help them better understand the common security threats and how to protect against them.
- Secured Code Repository: Use secured code repositories with necessary access controls in place to protect the code from unauthorized access or alteration.
- Testing: Conducting regular penetration testing can help identify weaknesses in the code and system as a whole.
- Response Plan: Have a response plan in place in the event a security incident is discovered. This includes both technical measures, such as how to patch and mitigate the incident, and non-technical measures, such as who to inform about the breach.
Learn How Digital Guardian Can Help Secure Your Source Code
Schedule a demo today to learn how to fortify your source code protection. | <urn:uuid:ca76ec82-cda4-45d2-aacc-4526a88a3f84> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.digitalguardian.com/blog/code-protection-how-protect-your-source-code | 2024-09-16T05:26:34Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651676.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20240916044225-20240916074225-00495.warc.gz | en | 0.893177 | 1,852 | 3.140625 | 3 |
A new way to determine if it's actually you trying to access your phone.
Fingerprint sensors—once a rarity—are now fairly common on smartphones. South Korean researchers have now given the fingerprint scanner an upgrade.
This new scanner is a clear sensory array, meaning that it could be hidden underneath the display rather than accessed as a button. It can also check the temperature of the fingerprint pressing into it to add an extra layer of security, CNET reports.
So why would your phone need to detect your temperature? It's not for your health. Instead, it helps ensure that someone else isn't using a fake hand or some other form of artificial fingerprints to get access to your phone.
Researchers from the Samsung Display-UNIST Center at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea published an article on Tuesday detailing how they developed the sensor.
"This fingerprint sensor array can be integrated with all transparent forms of tactile pressure sensors and skin temperature sensors, to enable the detection of a finger pressing on the display," the researchers wrote.
The researchers also confirmed that the sensor does this at a resolution that satisfies the FBI's criteria for extracting fingerprint patterns. | <urn:uuid:69be5f54-7ecb-4ca4-8c57-ba4bbcda3dee> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2018/07/smartphone-fingerprint-scanner-gets-heat-sensing-upgrade/149491/ | 2024-09-17T12:17:28Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651773.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20240917104423-20240917134423-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.919441 | 239 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Handwriting code is quite a laborious task, even for a seasoned developer. If you can believe it, all that your computer does is dictated by ones and zeros, which organize space, issue commands, and redirect resources based on their order.
Code like C++ abstracts those zeroes and ones into mathematical operations. Low code platforms further abstract the language of computers into logical components. Now, we can all democratize software development.
Learn logic, not languages
If this input is detected, then do something interesting. That’s an example of simple programmable logic.
Why logic helps:
- Emerging tech needs more creative talent
- Marketers can use web-based software tools
- Artists can design experiences with game engines like Unity
It’s much easier than calling a Listener() function and passing through a local string and integer variables. While using Java or C++ can give you more granular control and better performance, visual programming platforms are better for creatives or people looking to make simple applications.
Attempting to handwrite your code from scratch is a terrible idea when you have the power of low code platforms that allow your team to drag and drop code segments so they can focus on the design rather than the bugs.
By utilizing common sense to build apps, these platforms allow developers to think their way through problems instead of getting stuck in the research hole. This gives the designers more control over what gets implemented and how each feature is built because low code platforms make things more readable across the board.
Low-code platforms are great educational tools
Low-code tools are an excellent introduction to the foundations of computer logic that follow a similar trend across traditional coding platforms. This makes low code platforms a great go-between for new developers who want to advance their skills.
Additionally, low code platforms allow students to see their results immediately which leads to better and more accurate feedback loops which help advancement tremendously.
Why low code platforms are superb educational tools:
- They are a great introduction to computer logic
- They give students the ability to see immediate results
- They help acclimate designers to development processes
Give designers more control
Low code programs enable artists, designers, and non-coders to have complete creative control. This is an especially good setup for teams without the resources to hire developers.
Low code platforms are becoming more popular because they level the playing field of development help more companies to release better apps. These platforms help to democratize the development system by giving more control to more developers and allowing them to use logic instead of rote memorization.
Many low-code and no-code platforms like Microsoft PowerApps automate the AI development process and recurring processes, streamlining development by reducing redundancies.
Businesses of any size can release powerful and functional apps regardless of their technical personnel thanks to low code platforms. Thankfully, these platforms make it easier for marketing teams to release branded apps that help grow the brand of the business.
- Access template apps for business use
- Release simple mobile apps (like apps made for customers to access your company’s store)
- Create apps for advertising or marketing purposes
Many low code platforms offer app templates from which designers can build their custom apps. Much of the legwork is out of setting up the front and backend of simple applications.
Low code platforms also simplify the development workflow by taking care of basic maintenance and upgrading automatically. They also speed up the development process by providing a myriad of app templates that can be used to create the framework of a custom app.
Each of these benefits simplifies the working environment which frees up more time to focus on the product. More importantly, these low code platforms allow more companies to release apps across a wider spectrum of industries.
Furthermore, low code platforms are great educational tools as they simplify and organize the process of coding into digestible segments, making it easier for everyone to learn.
Of course, it’s the greatest benefit to new developers is the introduction it provides to the development process overall which can be confusing if attempted on higher-level platforms. Low code platforms are blowing up because they make it possible for every designer and developer to make great apps regardless of technical wizardry. | <urn:uuid:ff4efade-da8b-4d70-8546-7f210b6dbb95> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.kovair.com/blog/why-low-code-platforms-are-blowing-up/ | 2024-09-07T20:51:30Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700650920.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20240907193650-20240907223650-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.934692 | 861 | 3.296875 | 3 |
In today's interconnected world, cybersecurity has become a critical concern for every sector. However, one industry stands out as the number one target for cyberattacks: the healthcare industry. The increasing digitization of patient records, medical devices, and telehealth services has presented new opportunities for cybercriminals, putting the sensitive information of millions at risk.
The Growing Threat
With valuable patient data, including medical histories, insurance details, and social security numbers, healthcare organizations have become prime targets for cybercriminals. The personal nature of this information makes it highly lucrative on the black market, fetching a high price for those with malicious intent.
“Healthcare is the sector most likely to pay ransom—at 61%; other sectors average 46%”
Moreover, the very nature of healthcare delivery is time-sensitive, making quick access to patient information crucial. Cybercriminals take advantage of this vulnerability, aiming to disrupt operations and extort hospitals by demanding substantial ransom payments to regain control of their systems.
Vulnerabilities in Healthcare
Several factors contribute to the healthcare industry's vulnerability to cyberattacks. One primary concern is the lack of proper cybersecurity infrastructure and practices within many healthcare organizations. To focus on patient care, IT security often takes a back seat, leaving critical systems exposed.
“48% of data breaches in healthcare facilities are caused by insiders”
Source: Finances Online
Moreover, the rise of connected medical devices has further increased cybersecurity risks. Many of these devices lack the necessary security measures, making them easy entry points for hackers to gain access to the network. From pacemakers to insulin pumps, any connected medical device becomes a potential gateway to compromising patient data.
A successful cyberattack on a healthcare organization can have severe consequences. Not only does it compromise the privacy and security of patients, but the attack can also disrupt critical services, putting lives at risk. Imagine the chaos and potential harm if a hospital's systems were to be held hostage during a pandemic, depriving patients of care or interrupting the distribution of vital vaccines.
To address the growing threat of cyberattacks on the healthcare industry, immediate action must be taken. Healthcare organizations need to prioritize cybersecurity and invest in robust infrastructures capable of defending against evolving threats. Regular security assessments, timely software updates, and employee training on best practices are vital steps in mitigating risks.
Additionally, collaboration among healthcare providers, government agencies, and cybersecurity experts is crucial. Sharing threat intelligence and best practices can strengthen the industry as a whole and create a united front against cybercriminals.
Watch our latest on-demand webinar about the Healthcare Cybersecurity Best Practices that helps you understand the best practices of cybersecurity and 405(d) HICP rule.
The healthcare industry has become the number one target for cyberattacks, endangering patient privacy and the integrity of healthcare delivery. As technology advances and attackers become more sophisticated, it is imperative that healthcare organizations take proactive steps to safeguard sensitive data and secure their systems.
How CompliancePro Solutions Can Help?
As a leading cybersecurity firm specializing in protecting healthcare organizations, we are here to assist you in safeguarding your sensitive data and securing your systems. Our team of experienced professionals understands the unique challenges faced by the healthcare industry when it comes to cybersecurity.
We provide comprehensive security services tailored specifically for healthcare organizations, including security consulting, risk assessments, penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, security infrastructure implementation, and employee training. With our expertise, we can help you identify vulnerabilities, develop robust defense strategies, and ensure your regulatory compliance.
Take the first step in protecting your organization and the patients you serve. Contact us today by scheduling a free consultation and learn more about our specialized cybersecurity services for the healthcare industry. Together, let's secure the future of healthcare. | <urn:uuid:4d32fea4-dce1-4754-9a10-e3e71d199077> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://cps.genzeon.com/the-number-one-cybersecurity-target-healthcare-industry | 2024-09-10T07:28:25Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651224.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910061537-20240910091537-00195.warc.gz | en | 0.936022 | 763 | 2.84375 | 3 |
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Reaction to Chemicals!Low Energy, Poor Sleep, Chronic Allergy & Asthma Attacks from Household Chemicals? Unfortunately, Yes.
Chemical fumes and odors are all around us in the home, office, art studios, workshops, and so many other places. As a result, many people have unexplained headaches, eye, nose, throat irritation, sleepless nights, or more serious respiratory conditions / overall body weakness and don't realize that the cause could be the chemical residues present in the air they breathe on a daily basis. For some people, even odors from cooking or carpets can bring on symptoms similar to a reaction to chemicals--severe headaches, such as migraines, muscle aches, weakness / fatigue, and more. One of the biggest dangers to our health is VOC's. VOC's (volatile organic compounds) are often found in paints and lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials and furnishings, office equipment such as copiers and printers (that smell when you're making copies), and the list goes on and on.VOC's are also often used as components of household products such as varnishes, cosmetic supplies, hobby products, fuel of various types, and even dry cleaned clothing. All of these products can emit organic compounds as gases while you are using them, and when they are stored under the sink, in the basement, closets, etc. When we the open that drawer, put on that suit, or open a door, we get a fresh dose of chemicals. Even if they don't immediately cause a reaction, studies have shown that VOC's not only cause allergic reactions, but can contribute to generalized ill health over time and it's unnecessary. If you have a gas stove, wood burning stove, or kerosene/LP gas heaters, there's a good chance harmful gases like carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, are being generated, which are all poisonous to humans. Even hair and nail salons also have a lot of chemicals / solvents floating around in the air, which can be harmful to employees and customers. So how do we prevent a reaction to chemicals? Obviously, you can throw out the chemicals in some cases, but when the source cannot easily be eliminated (such as a work environment or the chemicals are used in the home / office on a regular basis), the only real solution is a professional-grade air HEPA air filter with an activated carbon filter. Here are some top-notch air purifiers that we sell and highly recommend (the W / Pro models are for workshops/source capture, the D or DX models offer more activated carbon for heavy chemical concentrations; for lighter chemical / odor issues, we recommend the Blueair units): |
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A LOWER PRICE? WE'LL MEET IT OR BEAT IT* *Can Choose Price Match or Promotional Code, Not Both. Occasionally Cannot Match Volume Sellers such as Costco. No Retro-Active Price Matching After 30 Days From Purchase* | | <urn:uuid:621905f8-07c0-4be5-b760-034337e3dde7> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.airpurifiersandcleaners.com/reaction-to-chemicals | 2024-09-10T07:48:50Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651224.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910061537-20240910091537-00195.warc.gz | en | 0.913852 | 833 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Sage combines machine learning with data from edge sensors to provide on-the-spot detection, monitoring and analysis of a burning area.
Wildfires can travel across grassland as fast as 14 miles each hour. The California Thomas Fire in 2017 spread a rate equivalent to a football field every second. A fire can completely engulf a house within five minutes, according to Ready.gov.
To help natural resources managers better detect and mitigate wildfires, researchers developed a platform that combines edge sensors with machine learning to provide on-the-spot detection, monitoring and analysis of a burning area.
In a demonstration of the Sage platform in Kansas, researchers from Argonne National Laboratory collected almost 60 DVDs worth of data from cameras, microphones, rainfall, temperature and humidity sensors as well as weather and air quality stations on the progression of smoke and fire during a controlled burn of the Konza tallgrass prairie.
The data will be used to train a machine learning algorithm that can make determinations of the behavior of other fires in real time.
Sage uses low-power processors, sensors, cloud computing and Waggle, an Argonne-developed open-source wireless sensor platform, in its sensor nodes that can actively analyze and respond to data collected at the network edge.
Because Sage allows for on-the-spot detection, monitoring and analysis of a burned area, scientists and natural resources officials could use the quickly analyzed, multi-instrumented data to get ahead of forest fires.
“When it comes to forest fires, time is absolutely of the essence,” Argonne computational scientist Rajesh (Raj) Sankaran said. “Often, there’s no time to move data from the field — where high-speed connectivity might be an issue — to the lab. With Sage, we’re getting the pertinent information we need when we need it.”
With Sage’s intelligent, or software-defined sensor network, researchers will be able to better collect and analyze data that is essential for understanding the impacts of not just wildfires but also for applications related to water level detection in streams to vehicle tracking and climate change.
Researchers plan to deploy Sage in California, Colorado, Illinois and Texas and hope to set up a continent-spanning network of smart sensors running the technology.
The team is also partnering with a University of Oregon researcher who is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to build wildfire monitoring stations in the Pacific Northwest.
Sage is funded by the National Science Foundation and developed by the Northwestern-Argonne Institute for Science and Engineering, a partnership between Northwestern University and the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. | <urn:uuid:ae4ee092-5abe-494f-95b7-931ef8efbc0b> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2022/07/preventing-wildfires-could-start-data-controlled-burns/375118/?oref=ng-author-river | 2024-09-10T07:45:53Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651224.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910061537-20240910091537-00195.warc.gz | en | 0.911572 | 544 | 3.25 | 3 |
How to configure a device that uses a proxy server.
Proxy Server Configurations
Many organizations use a proxy server to manage and monitor internet traffic. A proxy server acts as an intermediary between a client and the external network. Popular proxy servers include ProxySG and Squid, among others.
There are two typical configurations: caching and transparent. The most common is a caching proxy. A caching proxy requires that the client is configured to use the proxy. This can be done through DHCP or manual configuration. As an example, the web proxy for a client is set to 10.0.0.2
with port 3128
. The network is then configured to only allow traffic outbound from 10.0.0.2
and not directly from the client.
In a transparent proxy, the client does not need to know about the proxy server. It most often runs in line with the router. No client-side configuration is needed.
Proxy Evaluation Order
If the proxy is set, an attempt is made to use it. If it is unreachable, the next proxy is checked.
The order of proxy evaluation by Automox is as follows:
Windows Only: IE Proxy (Dynamic via PAC file)
Windows Only: IE Proxy (Static)
Note: The agent runs as a local system. The proxy settings must be configured at the system level, not the user level.
Follow the examples for configuring the environment variables.
Automox Client Configuration: Linux
The Automox client needs one of the previously mentioned proxy settings configured. For example, if you are using HTTP_PROXY
, these can be set in your current session using export HTTP_PROXY=http://10.0.0.1:3128
and export HTTPS_PROXY=http://10.0.0.1:3128
with your proxy server address and port. However, since the Automox agent will run automatically at startup, the best practice is to ensure that this is set globally in the file /etc/profile
Begin by editing either the file
or creating a file/etc/profile.d/automox.sh
.To verify the setting, you can log out of your session, log in again, and run
Automox Client Configuration – Windows
The Automox client requires that a system environment variable is set. This is not a profile environment variable but rather a system environment variable. For Windows clients, Automox supports the use of PAC files for proxy deployments and will attempt to use your IE proxy settings.
In the Control Panel, click System and Security.
Click Advanced System Settings.
Click Environment Variables.
Under System variables, click New.
As an example, you can configure variables as follows:
For Variable name enter:
For Variable value enter: the IP/Name of your proxy server and port.
Repeat steps 5 and 6 for the
variables. NOTE Be sure to leave the protocol as http, leaving out the "s", forHTTP_PROXY
Your Automox Agent is now configured to use your proxy server. | <urn:uuid:f1f7798d-a0e8-4d61-8f69-35a36df2aa11> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://help.automox.com/hc/en-us/articles/26665881309076-Using-the-Automox-Agent-With-a-Proxy-Server | 2024-09-13T21:36:50Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651540.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20240913201909-20240913231909-00795.warc.gz | en | 0.828734 | 633 | 2.78125 | 3 |
No matter what your job is or how many devices you end up using, every one of us depends on a quick and reliable internet connection. As technology advances and the world will become more interconnected through the internet, the importance of fast and dependable connectivity will only keep increasing. This is important to the rise of fiber networks, which are great at providing fast internet to various users at once. What could fiber networks do to improve your connectivity? Read on to learn more about the unique benefits they do provide.
Light Speed Internet Connection
The speed of fiber networks is due to how they function. Optical cables consist of bundles of long, narrow strands of glass that will transmit light over long distances. Because information that passes through these cables at light speed, the network’s speed is just as fast. This speed will immensely help in improving connectivity that needs uploads and downloads to coincide. With fiber networks, both could happen simultaneously and quickly.
Resistance to Any Outside Forces
Fiber cables will also improve reliability and connectivity due to their resistance to factors such as electromagnetic interference, temperature fluctuation, water damage, and more. This is because the cable core acts like an insulator, preventing the electric current flow.
Cloud Support Services
The adoption of cloud technology is only expected to increase in the future years. Fortunately, fiber networks will also provide users with faster access to data that is stored in the cloud. This will help you remain connected without having to sacrifice the convenience of cloud technology, too.
Decreased Latency Level
Latency is the delay before the transfer of any data begins. Fiber networks decrease the possibility of this delay, which can often slow down the download or upload speeds. Latency could significantly affect big files and videos, and as video consumption is expected to increase, it is best to have a network ready to handle these big files.
Reliable Signals Over Long Distances
A few alternatives to fiber, such as copper signals, could worsen as time passes, but the internet signal of a fiber network is always constant. Fiber-optic transmissions have less attenuation than copper cabling, which means that your internet connections will be very consistent, regardless of how far the signal has to be transmitted.
Fiber networks will improve connectivity and provide users with a much higher bandwidth that enables the transmission of more data than ever. You could rest assured that your fiber network is equipped to handle everything you need it to do so that your internet connection is both fast and reliable.
En-Net Services Can Help Today
Experience a superior method of getting the public sector technology solutions you need through forming a partnership with En-Net Services. Our seasoned team members are familiar with the distinct purchasing and procurement cycles of state and local governments, as well as Federal, K-12 education, and higher education entities. En-Net is a certified Maryland Small Business Reserve with contract vehicles and sub-contracting partnerships to meet all contracting requirements. | <urn:uuid:f715f6e5-90fb-4da2-af43-528e6f2e43ed> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.en-netservices.com/blog/how-fiber-networks-work-for-improving-connectivity/ | 2024-09-15T03:17:43Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651614.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20240915020916-20240915050916-00695.warc.gz | en | 0.954757 | 596 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Math and science are everyday subjects covered by students from around the world, from kindergarten to high school, but as multiple tragic events have taught us in recent years, it’s imperative to remain aware of the security plans put in place to help keep students, faculty and staff out of harm’s way. Whether it’s a fire drill or a procedure designed to handle an active shooter situation, educational institutions are being forced to continually update and improve their emergency communication systems to create and maintain safe learning environments.While a recent article published by American School & University magazine stated that incidents of nonfatal victimizations at schools have declined 82 percent since 1992, a recent study also found that the majority of public schools will still have to deal with a violent incident:
“The (Indicators of School Crime and Safety 2015) crime report says that during 2013-14, about 65 percent of public schools had one or more violent incidents take place—an estimated 757,000 incidents.”
That’s one reason why more and more schools are taking proactive steps to protect everyone on campus. According to the article, these initiatives include:
- 7 percent of schools say they provide phones in most classrooms, up from 44.6 percent in 1999-2000.
- 6 percent of schools use an electronic notification system to deliver notifications during an emergency; the government didn’t collect this data in 1999-2000.
That’s why Code Blue offers dynamic emergency communication solutions designed to bolster the safety and security of any school environment. From our powerful emergency speakerphones to our award-winning mass notification software, Code Blue products are designed to provide direct contact with first responders, who can react in a swift and effective manner and provide students with help when they need it most. In addition to contributing a faster reaction for safety personnel, there also are a wide range of useful applications for non-emergency services, like car problems and assisting visitors looking for information or directions.
The goal is to keep the focus can be on a lesson plan – and not on potential security concerns – because a strong emergency plan is already in place. | <urn:uuid:7c1856c3-1b6d-4ab2-a2a2-a2a3ecd447b0> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://codeblue.com/es/security-school-environments/ | 2024-09-18T22:48:58Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651941.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20240918201359-20240918231359-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.961197 | 434 | 2.71875 | 3 |
It is easy to attribute catastrophic outcomes and insidious, unintended side effects to failures of governance. Or, more often, to a lack of governance. In practice, however, all organizations are governed, either formally or informally. Formal governance involves discretely defined accountability and expectations encoded in principles, policies, and processes. Informally—and more influentially—organizations are governed by the behaviors and norms modeled and rewarded by their leadership and peers.
Why is this important? Simply put, ethical organizations have governance, and so do unethical organizations. It is not the presence of governance that makes an organization ethical or responsible. Rather, a company’s ethos shapes its governance.
You may or may not agree that early AI missteps were inevitable or, to an extent, unavoidable. You may attribute such errors to genuine naivety, willful ignorance, a lack of due diligence, maladjusted business priorities, or a general failure of imagination. Regardless, the evidence is in. Harm has been incurred. The very real implications and potential limitations of these technologies are now well-understood.
So, what differentiates an organization that will use these technologies ethically and responsibly (however you define those terms) from those that will not? It is the extent to which the objectives under governance reflect the virtues being trumpeted: societal, environmental, or other.
The Role of Governance
Governance enforces established culture and norms. Governance can also promote a desired culture and norms. But governance, in and of itself, won’t enforce a specific stance without desired outcomes being explicitly identified. To that end, an organization’s ethics informs the form and function of its governing structure.
Stated another way, governance may not engender an ethical or responsible bent, but an ethical bent can engender good governance. Ultimately, it comes down to intention. When expanding beyond historical boundaries, are your objectives clear? Do you explicitly promote the attributes the organization trumpets as philosophical priorities? Do emergent considerations have equal weight with established business metrics? When rights-based concerns or potential harms are identified, do you move to mitigate or avoid? Which outcomes, benefits, or risks are given weight? Are stated principles and enabling practices reflective of how executives and others are rewarded? To what are the organization and its members held accountable?
The Power of Governance
The pace at which an organization moves to adopt new perspectives and codify new expectations into its culture and norms can be bolstered or stifled by its approach to governance. But the mandate for change comes from outside the governance framework—as does the foundational expectation that members will actively pursue new knowledge and avenues to bolster existing governance frameworks. Such norms can be empowered by governance and decision-making practices that support discourse and continuous improvement. But, here again, it’s culture that leads to responsive, adaptive governance, which in turn amplifies the culture. It’s a virtuous cycle when done well. Just don’t expect governance by its very existence to set the initial tone.
This is particularly important as policy and law lag the implementation of rapidly evolving technologies such as AI. Too often, formal strictures come about only after wrongdoing or harm has occurred, and frequently at a scale or impact that cannot be ignored. And, in many cases, what passes as doing the right thing (i.e., being ethical) is in fact couched as “not doing wrong” (i.e., legal and regulatory compliance).
On a practical note, an algorithm’s world view is defined entirely by the data to which it is exposed. In the same way, an entity’s governance purview is intrinsically shaped by the ethics and norms the organization espouses. It is often easier to extend, rather than reinvent, existing structures. Leveraging existing governance mechanisms from risk management processes to bioethics standards is to be encouraged. When expanding to new domains, incumbent processes may be sufficient. Incumbent objectives, metrics, and corresponding standards very likely are not. | <urn:uuid:d070c1d0-3f24-45a1-80d1-6495e3fc384a> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.dbta.com/BigDataQuarterly/Articles/Governed-Doesnt-Always-Equal-Ethical-%20or-Responsible-152211.aspx | 2024-09-20T03:37:11Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700652130.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20240920022257-20240920052257-00295.warc.gz | en | 0.951757 | 820 | 2.625 | 3 |
Below is a summary of this post:
- State-sponsored cybercrime involves nation-states or their proxies engaging in illegal cyber activities, such as espionage, sabotage, and disinformation.
- Motivations for state-sponsored cybercrime include strategic advantages in military, economic, or diplomatic matters, disruption of rival nations' critical infrastructure, and manipulation of public opinion.
- Notable examples include the Stuxnet attack on Iran's nuclear program, North Korea's involvement in high-profile hacks, and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
- The growing prevalence of state-sponsored cybercrime has led to an escalating digital arms race among nations.
- Attribution challenges in cyber-attacks complicate diplomatic efforts to address state-sponsored cybercrime.
- The threat to digital infrastructure and erosion of trust in the online environment has led to calls for stronger cybersecurity measures and legal frameworks.
- International cooperation and collaboration between governments, private organizations, and individuals is crucial to counter state-sponsored cybercrime.
- Addressing state-sponsored cybercrime requires a comprehensive approach, including bolstering cybersecurity and upholding the rule of law in cyberspace.
State-sponsored cybercrime has emerged as a significant and growing threat to global security in the digital age. As nations increasingly rely on digital infrastructure and networks to power their economies, government-backed hackers have turned to cyber-espionage, sabotage, and disinformation to further their strategic goals. This article provides an overview of state-sponsored cybercrime, its motivation, and its potential impact on international relations and cybersecurity.
Defining State-Sponsored Cybercrime
State-sponsored cybercrime refers to the use of cyber tactics by a nation-state or a group acting on behalf of a nation-state to conduct illegal activities. These actions can range from cyber-espionage and data theft to disrupting critical infrastructure and spreading disinformation. State-sponsored cybercriminals often operate with the explicit or implicit support of their government, making their actions difficult to trace and prosecute.
Motivations Behind State-Sponsored Cybercrime
- Espionage: Cyber-espionage allows nation-states to gather sensitive information from rival governments, private businesses, and research institutions. This intelligence can provide a strategic advantage in military, economic, or diplomatic matters.
- Sabotage: By targeting critical infrastructure or digital networks, state-sponsored hackers can disrupt essential services and create chaos in rival nations. This can lead to economic harm, undermine public confidence, and weaken an enemy's overall capabilities.
- Disinformation: Cyber tactics can be used to spread false information, manipulate public opinion, and incite social unrest. Disinformation campaigns can destabilize targeted governments, discredit opposition movements, and create confusion in international relations.
Notable Examples of State-Sponsored Cybercrime
- Stuxnet: Believed to be a joint effort by the United States and Israel, Stuxnet was a computer worm that targeted Iran's nuclear program in 2010. This highly sophisticated cyber-attack damaged Iran's uranium enrichment centrifuges and set back the country's nuclear ambitions.
- North Korean Hacks: North Korea has been implicated in numerous cyber-attacks, including the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, the 2016 Bangladesh Bank heist, and the WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017. These attacks demonstrate the regime's intent to inflict economic damage and gather intelligence on its enemies.
- Russian Election Interference: During the 2016 United States presidential election, Russian state-sponsored hackers were accused of hacking into the Democratic National Committee's computer networks and releasing stolen information. This interference campaign sought to influence the election outcome and sow discord in American society.
The Impact of State-Sponsored Cybercrime on International Relations and Cybersecurity
State-sponsored cybercrime has serious implications for international relations and global cybersecurity. Nations are increasingly investing in their cyber capabilities, leading to an escalating arms race in the digital realm. The difficulty in attributing cyber-attacks to specific nation-states complicates diplomatic efforts to address the issue.
Moreover, state-sponsored cybercrime threatens the security of digital infrastructure and erodes trust in the online environment. This has led to calls for stronger cybersecurity measures, greater international cooperation, and the development of legal frameworks to address state-sponsored cybercrime.
As the digital landscape becomes increasingly interconnected, state-sponsored cybercrime will continue to pose a significant threat to global security. Understanding the motivations and tactics of nation-states engaging in cybercrime is crucial in developing effective countermeasures and fostering international cooperation. Addressing this growing threat will require a concerted effort by governments, private organizations, and individuals to strengthen cybersecurity and uphold the rule of law in cyberspace. | <urn:uuid:2e113dbc-c55b-44df-9479-b321b1487136> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.haekka.com/blog/state-sponsored-cybercrime-a-growing-global-threat | 2024-09-09T04:41:45Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651072.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909040201-20240909070201-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.918396 | 944 | 2.890625 | 3 |
How to Enable Secure Authentication in Mobile Applications
In this article, we’ll describe common authentication types and their main weaknesses. We will also provide some insights on the most effective mechanisms and methods to implement multi-factor authentication.
Password-Based Authentication in Mobile Applications
Performing the main authentication function, login and password have become two pillars of an overall login system and the core of information security. Additional methods of identifying a user and preventing an unauthorized access usually complement this “authentication pair”. Thus, a PIN code is considered as a good protection mechanism applied to support the classic scheme of authentication, but not to fully substitute it.
But why not to remove a password field in mobile applications and apply login only? It is actually possible but not viable. To guarantee that no one figures out the user’s login and accesses private data without being noticed, some complexity will be added anyway. The reason is that we often enter logins in the request and report forms and share it with the third parties like support services. Besides, login may be required to demonstrate the account info publicly. In this case, complicated and hidden logins will not differ much from passwords because then, another field should be added, e.g. nick.
Moreover, we are more accustomed to logins and passwords than other authentication methods. First, every smartphone user has at least one pair of logins and passwords. Second, programmers often use “a password input-field” as a specific control component in each development environment that contains a password hidden under asterisks.
Although this method has ingrained in the overall authentication system as an essential one, it demonstrates serious weaknesses like password storing and sharing. At the same time, the most common preemptive ways described below cannot entirely protect the password’s integrity from new brute force or dictionary attacks.
How to Secure Authentication and Data Transmission through Encryption
Balancing Hardware and Software Encryption
With the emergence of computer networks, sharing a password openly with anyone has become threatening. Even an inept hacker could capture it and get access to the person’s data. Thus, the encryption was implemented giving rise to Digest Authentication and NTLM. Since then, data has been encoded and transmitted in more secure ways.
The importance of encryption for mobile devices has grown with the tendency of users to store confidential business data on their smartphones. According to Ponemon Institute research, 55% of surveyed respondents confirmed that confidential business documents could be accessed through their smartphones.
Therefore, mobile data encryption is applied in two main directions:
- Full encryption of stored data on the device.
- Encryption of shared data from one device to another.
To protect data on the device, both hardware encryption and software encryption are normally implemented.
Hardware encryption is based on the encoding of the entire file system (OS and user data) written to flash memory. When the data is accessed by an authorized user, the system is decoded and read to main memory. In terms of authentication, when the device is unlocked, all data and applications can be easily accessed since the system is automatically decrypted. Hence, the sensitive data in a specific application can be endangered with the low-security rate of a chosen unlock method.
In this case, software encryption can add another layer of protection safeguarding an access to business important applications like emails, confidential documents, financial files, etc. It can be used for one particular application or a group of connected apps to encrypt and decrypt selected confidential data.
Those who are seriously concerned with sensitive data transmission apart from on-device encryption can also utilize encoding of the shared data between devices. Some software providers (Symantec, Data Motion, Proofpoint) already support mobile email encryption compatible with almost all email clients. The same feature is available in iMessages that allows encrypting messages and sending them directly to the recipient.
Pros and Cons of Main Encryption Methods in the Authentication Process
Encoding and decoding of data are realized with the same shared key which can be any number, a meaningful word or a random string of letters and digits. Only authorized parties can have access to the key and transmitted message.
- Rather low complexity;
- Easier to implement in hardware;
- Faster cryptography;
- Less processing power needed.
- The same key is used for both encryption and decryption;
- A reliable communication channel is needed to remotely share a private key;
- A new key is created for another receiver complicating management of multiple keys.
This technique is based on two different keys for encryption and decryption. A public key encrypts data, verifies a holder of a private key and establishes secure channel for the exchange. Whereas a private (aka “secret”) key decrypts data and is never shared.
- No need to search a secure communication channel;
- Fewer key-management issues;
- Applicable to data authentication through digital signatures.
- Requires high computational power;
- More complicated and slower;
- No built-in authentication method;
- An encrypted message can be modified and compromised.
Compared to other aforementioned encryption methods hashing is more secure. First, the hash function is based on the mathematical algorithm that makes it impossible to be altered. Second, the password is stored not as a plaintext but as a hash digest, a value represented in the alphanumeric message.
- Authenticates a user by comparing a hashed password of a user with the stored hash;
- One-way hash function eliminates the risk of the old password being restored and obtained by a hacker.
- Simple hashing of passwords can be cracked through a dictionary attack or direct access to the database of common strings.
How to Manage and Store Passwords in Mobile Applications
The growing number of applications one person used a day soon made it difficult to keep in mind multiple logins and passwords. Besides, entering an application had to be simplified to improve user experience and decrease customer attrition after a few access fails.
Today oAuth and Single-Sign-On (SSO) enable the seamless access to the same mobile application at any time the user needs.
Instead of requesting a user to enter another pair of login and password, you can use the most common pattern of oAuth 2.0 Protocol accessing a trusted server like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, etc. to enable secure but simplified authentication process. The authentication begins when on behalf of a user the application requests an access token from the trusted server, e.g. Google Authorization Server. Upon receiving a token, which grants an access to particular resources or data described in the token request, the application sends it to the Authorization Server. Thus, the whole mechanism allows validating an access to the user’s credentials but not the stored password.
For more details, view the following communication flow between all the parties of the oAuth process.
oAuth has become especially helpful for the repeated transmission of authenticating credentials. Thus, an application requests the user’s credentials with each new inquiry, which allows securing data exchange between a mobile application and a remote server.
Single-Sign-On (SSO) functions in a slightly different direction. For web, all applications share the user’s credentials if they are located on the same trusted server for oAuth authentication, e.g. websites with Google, Microsoft, Twitter or other accounts. It means that entering login and password in one application the user is already identified in another one.
Considering mobile applications, this approach works in the same way but with some reservations and requires additional efforts of developers.
The main difference is that the user’s credentials must be maintained on the devices to extract them when running an application next time. Other applications that share an access to these credentials will use the same extraction method for the automatic authentication.
The Place to Store Passwords
Although password storing becomes unnecessary and obsolete with the applied oAuth pattern, we should still consider the classic authentication approach and safe methods for keeping sensitive data.
Logically, the place where logins and passwords are stored must be highly secure against any potential attacks. Depending on the platform and technologies, this place can have different names, yet frequently we address it as KeyChain (iOS, Android). There, the stored data is encrypted; hence, an access to it is restricted. Most importantly, the security of this place on the device is ensured at the OS level.
Where Passwords Must Not Be Stored
Any database, as well as system log, would be the most unprotected places to store the user’s logins and passwords. Using public variables for this purpose even temporary is also unacceptable. At the moment, extracting such data from KeyChain when necessary is the best alternative.
How secure are password, PIN, and pattern against attacks?
When users face the need to secure their corporate email system on the phone, the authentication method becomes critical. For instance, to enter Outlook email system, you will be required to choose one of mobile screen lock types if you have none. At the screenshot, you can see some lock types with their security rate. These types can be also used to safeguard the access to any critically important mobile application.
The fact that patterns are less secure against onlookers than passwords or PINs has been also confirmed by the security researchers from the US Naval Academy and the University of Maryland, who have come up with a simple explanation that the human brain can remember patterns better than digits with letters.
Another study reports that a hacker can also crack the pattern to your phone by taking a video of your fingers swiping on the screen from almost 2.5 meters and applying computer vision algorithm to identify “fingertip movement trajectory”. The researchers from three world-famous Universities hacked 95% of over a hundred patterns in five attempts. Hence, in terms of locking and unlocking a device, the security rate of a pattern could be described as “low to medium”.
Comparing a PIN code to a pattern, we cannot claim that a good hacker will not be able to crack your phone also using video and computer vision algorithm. However, Microsoft has recently reported that their TPM (crypto processor) chipped PIN code can be even better than a password implemented in Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. Their main point is that such PIN is keyed to a particular device whereas a password is transmitted to the server and thus, can be compromised in the interim of a communication. MS PIN is flexible and can be turned in a password regarding its length and complexity. Besides, such PIN is an obligatory option to be able to switch to biometrics in Windows Hello. Yet, the problem of PIN security is still under a question since it is not backed up with another authentication factor.
We have accustomed to the fact that a four-digit PIN is less safe than a strong password. However, the length and complexity of a password cannot provide the highest level of protection. For instance, 14-character alphanumeric password is possible to crack in about 160 seconds by the use of rainbow tables.
The need to strengthen password protection created different factors of authentication such as 2FA, 3FA, 4FA, and multi-factor authentication.
Multi-factor authentication is a confirmation method that permits a user to access an application only after he successfully presents 2 to 3 factors (evidence) successfully confirming his/her identity.
Multi-factor authentication can be based on a variety of protocols including Kerberos, which is used for authentication and secure data transmission in an open distributed network. Highly secure systems can utilize MFA authentication and OTP (one-time password) in a Kerberos protocol to establish reliable communication and verification channel between a client and a server.
The nature of authentication factors can be different but the main purpose of each should be to verify the identity of a user. The most common factors are connected to three categories:
- Knowledge factor is verification of what user knows, e.g. a password, a secret phrase, or an answer to the previously agreed question, etc. A PIN code is also used as an additional authentication channel, e.g. mobile applications for banking. Of course, it has certain limitations for a corporate network, namely the user’s phone becomes an insecure intermediary to the sensitive data of a company.
- Possession factor is verification of what a user obtains (logical or physical token), e.g. a software-based token that generates a one-time password, a key or certificate encrypted on the smartphone, a SIM card in the phone, ID card, etc.
- Inherence factor is verification of the user’s physical characteristics called biometrics, e.g. fingerprints, facial recognition, voice recognition, retina or iris scanning, etc.
The implementation of an inherence factor in mobile applications greatly increases the security of logins and passwords and attracts more users to purchase an app with the integrated biometrics.
The following points represent currently applied factors.
Touch ID / Fingerprints
It is a well-known fact that any person possesses unique fingerprints primarily used by dactylography (a scientific study integrated with a criminal investigation to authenticate the person’s identity). However, with the arrival of new technologies, biometric authentication has become a mainstream method to safeguard the integrity of data through secure verification. Governmental organizations and enterprises have begun to widely implement fingerprint scanners for electronic voting, entering buildings and rooms instead of ID cards, online payments, sales operations, e.g. paying a subscription fee, SIM registration, customer onboarding, and validation of employees’ identities accessing corporate computer and other devices.
Another implementation approach has appeared with an in-built fingerprint reader in a smartphone. The much-talked-of fingerprint sensor Touch ID of iPhone 5S was the first to solve some major authentication problems, e.g. shoulder surfing of passwords when a user unlocks a phone in a crowd and phone hacking after the phone is stolen.
In 2017, the popularity of iPhones among consumers has reached 216 million of sold units worldwide. Although we cannot refer these figures to Touch ID solely, still the consumers’ interest to fingerprint biometrics has urged other manufacturers like Samsung, Google, LG, Sony, HTC, Huawei, etc. to implement this method in their models, e.g. Samsung Galaxy S8.
The success of a fingerprint scanner has been further implemented in mobile applications. Today you can open your Gmail or any messenger using a fingerprint instead of the alternative password or pattern lock. Moreover, modern smartphones with the integrated fingerprint sensor allow users to authenticate their app and game purchases in Google Play Store or make a transaction via one of banking apps (e.g. Bank of America, Chase, etc.) or bill payment systems (Mint Bills, Robinhood, etc.).
However, there are some apparent disadvantages of fingerprint biometrics considering safe authentication:
- Lack of accuracy since a fingerprint sensor is prone to false acceptance or false rejection;
- High chances of biometrics data security breaches and examples of fingerprint theft;
- High costs for maintenance of a fingerprint database;
- Necessary integration with a complex security program.
The face recognition technology is enabled by the front camera, facial 3D map, and infrared image. A good example to demonstrate how it works is to view Face ID unlock feature of a much-talked-of iPhone X. Its front camera projects 30,000 dots on the person’s face to make a unique and accurate geometry-based pattern. The infrared camera that also catches an image to identify a person in any lighting and adapt to daily changes in the person’s appearance (make-up, glasses, hat, beard, etc.) reads the pattern and sends it to the neural engine. Then, images are transformed into a mathematical representation to match it with the initial facial pattern of the user.
Although the advanced technology behind Face ID allows being recognized from any angle and in total darkness, it still requires refinement. There were some cases of failed recognition when the camera distinguished close relatives and other unrelated people of the same race as owners of the identical face. Perhaps, the algorithm behind the technology was less tested to discern all existing races.
Hence, these crucial gaps mean that Face ID cannot fully substitute 2F authentication and function as a single authentication factor.
Blockchain is a distributed ledger of any transactions built on the consensus mechanism. A record in this network can contain any kind of information. The stored data has no single location because a database is shared and constantly reconciled by the parties that do not need to trust each other. A third party or central unit is no longer needed to control transactions since data is distributed and hosted by all network users at the same time.
The security of contained data in each block of the ledger is ensured by the hash function. The hash is a unique fingerprint of a block and any changes in the block of information will change the hash too, which, as a result, will belong to a newly created block. Besides, each block also contains the hash function of a previous block connected to the ledger. Hence, the blockchain network is distributed, public, and transparent to each participant whereas the maintained data is impossible to alter or edit.
The blockchain technology has a variety of possible applications. Authentication is potentially the most interesting area since blockchain can totally transform the login system.
At the moment, Sony Corporation is aiming to build a blockchain-based authentication system by combining standard MFA procedure (a token generates authentication code) with two different blockchain-based platforms. According to the published patent, one blockchain platform would generate the codes and another would validate the user’s ID.
Another good example is a passwordless user authentication system that protects any vehicle’s network developed by Infopulse and REMME. It can be also potentially implemented in mobile applications. The access is safeguarded by a certificate in the hardware key obtained by the owner. The hardware key can create the mesh connection to a car to control it remotely with the help of SSL/TLS connection. After creating such connection, the car can check the revoked state of the certificate key with the Blockchain internal light node. This solution allows a car owner to securely share an access to the vehicle with any family member, another driver, a technician, etc. for a certain period of time in particular area or distance.
Summarizing the main points of the article, the multi-factor authentication (MFA) demonstrates more strengths than other possible methods due to its complexity and almost foolproof factors to identify a user. All biometrics types, despite their promising perspectives, still require improvement and additional testing to be able to replace the existing authentication mechanism completely. Therefore, currently, biometrics can supplement MFA as another authentication factor additionally securing the verification process. | <urn:uuid:f31c96ca-2a0c-4729-90fd-15a9a242aa05> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.infopulse.com/blog/how-to-enable-secure-authentication-in-mobile-applications | 2024-09-10T10:06:27Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651241.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910093422-20240910123422-00295.warc.gz | en | 0.922162 | 3,855 | 3 | 3 |
Cyber resilience is not a luxury, it's a necessity. No organization is immune to cyber-attacks. If you're not prepared, you could be the next victim. What worked to protect your organization yesterday may not be enough today.
Cyber resilience is the ability of an organization to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse conditions, stresses, attacks, or compromises. It's not just about preventing cyberattacks, but also about being able to respond to them quickly and effectively.
Cyber threats and risks are a growing problem for organizations of all sizes. Businesses are constantly under attack from malicious actors who are looking to steal data, disrupt operations, or cause financial damage.
What are cyber threats and risks?
Cyber threats and risks are any actions or events that could potentially harm an organization's information assets. These assets can include data, systems, networks, and applications. Some of the most common cyber threats and risks include:
The consequences of a cybersecurity breach can be far-reaching and long-lasting. Some of the most common consequences include:
Cyber resilience is not a one-time project. It's an ongoing process that requires constant attention and improvement. But by investing in cyber resilience, you can help protect your organization from the ever-growing threat of cyberattacks.
At the heart of any robust cybersecurity strategy is a sophisticated detection and monitoring system. This principle involves the implementation of cutting-edge tools and technologies that constantly monitor an organization's digital environment for any signs of suspicious activities or potential threats. Organizations need to leverage advanced threat detection mechanisms, such as intrusion detection systems (IDS), security information and event management (SIEM) solutions, and anomaly detection algorithms, to gain real-time insights into potential vulnerabilities. You should also have a clear understanding of cyber risks, so that you can focus their detection and monitoring efforts on the most critical areas.
Proactive monitoring enables swift identification of potential cyber incidents, helping security teams stay one step ahead of cybercriminals. Early detection allows for timely interventions and mitigating actions to prevent attacks from escalating to minimize damage and potential downtime.
Despite taking all the necessary precautions, no organization can guarantee complete immunity from cyberattacks. Therefore, having a well-defined and tested incident response plan becomes crucial. This principle involves establishing a structured framework that outlines step-by-step procedures to be followed when a cyber incident occurs. The incident response plan should include roles and responsibilities of key personnel, escalation paths, communication protocols, and containment strategies.
A successful incident response plan focuses not only on quickly containing and neutralizing the threat but also on a robust recovery process. This involves having regular backups of critical data for restoring systems to a pre-attack state efficiently. By swiftly responding to cyber incidents and efficiently recovering from them, you can minimize financial losses and maintain your reputation among customers and stakeholders.
The threat landscape is constantly evolving, so it's important for organizations to be able to adapt their cyber resilience efforts over time. The principle of continuous improvement and adaptation emphasizes the importance of staying up-to-date with the latest cyber threats, trends, and security best practices, such as regular assessments and evaluations of existing security measures to identify weaknesses and areas of improvement.
By actively seeking feedback from security experts, conducting penetration testing, and engaging in simulated cyberattack exercises, organizations can better understand their vulnerabilities and enhance their cyber defense capabilities. Additionally, staying informed about emerging cybersecurity technologies and adopting them when necessary ensures that an organization's security posture remains resilient against the latest threats.
An organization's cybersecurity is only as strong as its weakest link – and more often than not, that weakest link is human error. The principle of building a cyber-aware culture emphasizes the significance of educating employees about cybersecurity best practices and fostering a security-conscious mindset throughout the organization.
Regular cybersecurity training sessions, workshops, and awareness campaigns can help employees recognize common cyber threats like phishing emails, social engineering, and ransomware attacks. When employees are well-informed and vigilant, they become an essential part of the organization's defense against cyber threats.
As cyber threats continue to evolve, ensuring the resilience of your digital defenses has never been more critical. But how do you know if your current cybersecurity measures are up to the task?
The first step in assessing your cyber resilience is to conduct a thorough risk assessment. This involves identifying and understanding potential cyber threats and vulnerabilities within your organization. Work closely with your IT and security teams to analyze your digital infrastructure, data storage systems, and application vulnerabilities. Additionally, assess the potential impact of cyber incidents on your business continuity, financial health, and reputation.
Review your organization's existing security policies and procedures to determine their effectiveness and relevance in the face of current cyber threats. Assess if your policies cover essential aspects such as data protection, access controls, incident response, and employee training. It's essential to align these policies with industry best practices and relevant regulatory requirements to ensure compliance.
Involve key stakeholders from different departments to gain diverse perspectives and validate the practicality of your security measures. This evaluation will help you identify gaps and potential areas for improvement.
Regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing are crucial to understanding how well your systems can withstand potential attacks. Engage ethical hackers or security experts to simulate real-world cyberattacks on your digital assets. This process will help identify weak points and potential entry points that malicious actors could exploit.
Your organization's incident response capabilities play a pivotal role in cyber resilience. Evaluate how well your team detects, analyzes, and responds to security incidents. Review historical incidents to determine response times, containment efficiency, and recovery success.
Conducting post-incident reviews can help your team learn from past experiences and continuously improve their response capabilities. Implement any necessary adjustments to ensure a more agile and effective incident response framework.
The human factor remains a significant aspect of cyber resilience. Assess the level of cybersecurity awareness among your employees through training programs and simulated phishing exercises. Measure their ability to identify and report suspicious activities accurately.
An informed and vigilant workforce can act as a strong line of defense against social engineering attacks and other human-centric cyber threats.
Sometimes, an objective external perspective is crucial in identifying blind spots. Consider engaging third-party cybersecurity consultants or auditors to conduct an independent assessment of your cyber resilience. They can bring fresh insights and provide valuable recommendations based on their expertise.
From Detection and Monitoring to Building a Cyber-Aware Culture, we highlighted essential aspects that can fortify an organization's digital defenses and safeguard against the relentless tide of cyber threats.
While assessing your current cyber resilience is crucial, it is equally essential to take proactive measures to strengthen your cybersecurity posture continuously. AppSecEngineer can be your partner in bolstering your organization's security capabilities. We offer Instructor-Led training to ensure that the specific needs of your organization are addressed. Not only that! We have targeted training approaches depending on the industry that you're in:
By leveraging the power of AppSecEngineer, businesses, and organizations can educate their workforce about cybersecurity best practices and empower them to recognize and respond to potential threats effectively. Our cutting-edge training modules and simulated exercises enable employees to learn in a safe and controlled environment. Through interactive learning experiences, employees can develop practical skills to protect against phishing attempts, social engineering attacks, and other cyber risks. | <urn:uuid:f52b23b7-2a2b-42bf-97d9-6562207aa252> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.appsecengineer.com/blog/the-key-principles-of-cyber-resilience-for-building-a-secure-future | 2024-09-14T00:46:50Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651540.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20240913233654-20240914023654-00895.warc.gz | en | 0.942837 | 1,488 | 2.984375 | 3 |
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E-Waste: Always a Problem
IT assets can include servers and storage devices, but also computers, tablets, cameras, and even our phones. When these assets are discarded, it’s called e-waste.
What Is E-Waste?
E-waste is the term applied to consumer and business electronic equipment that is near or at the end of its useful life. There is no clear definition for what is included in e-waste. There are many household appliances that may be considered e-waste by some, but not by others. Business e-waste includes:
• Computers, scanners, servers, storage systems, routers, switches, smartphones, tablets
• Cameras and media players
• Printers, monitors, external hard drives, FAX machines
• IoT endpoint devices
• Gaming consoles
Disposing of Electronic Devices
When your electronic devices are being replaced or coming to the end of their life, you have several options:
• Throw away devices without regard to disposal regulations, environmental impact, or security problems you create
• Give away still-functional electronic devices to someone who could use them or to a charitable organization
• Recycle devices through refurbishment and maintenance to extend their life for you or for someone else who may want to purchase them
• Dispose of devices through a disposal service
Destroying the devices may solve your security issues, but you still have to dispose of them in a manner that is compliant with regulations for disposal. There are disposal services that will take care of all the issues. These services providers may destroy devices or refurbish them and recycle them. They can also take care of security issues around having sensitive information stored on the devices.
Did You Just Give Away Data?
Information stored on IT devices can lead to the loss of other sensitive business information, as data elements are often linked together. A company’s reputation can be damaged. Repairing that reputation can be very costly, time-consuming, and may not even be possible. A vendor could lose intellectual property information, which in turn could cause severe revenue damage.
Data Security Issues
The National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center’s (NCCIC) mission is to reduce the risk of systemic cybersecurity and communications challenges. It recently released a security tip that pertains to the proper disposal of electronic devices. NCCIC, as part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is the national hub for cyber and communications information, technical expertise, and operational integration.
This tip recommends methods to:
• Backup data
• Delete data from any device that stores data locally
• Overwrite data
• Destroy data with degaussers, solid state, CD, and DVD
For more information on this, access the “NIST Special Publication 800-88 Guidelines for Media Sanitization.”
In the U.S., there are federal and state requirements for disposing of e-waste. More than two dozen states currently have legislation that dictates how to dispose of or recycle e-waste. In Texas, disposing of a PC with eight different kinds of hazardous metals can cost thousands of dollars per unit per metal. The poor disposal of one PC could cost well over $10,000 in fines. There are regulations for some industries in the U.S., including healthcare and financial services, that require compliance for e-waste.
The UN report ”The Global E-waste Monitor 2017” states that the U.S. produces about 14%, or 6.3 million tons, of the world’s electronic waste. Globally, there was about 45 million tons of electronics disposed in 2016. It was estimated that only 20% was recycled in some shape or form. The remaining 80% ended up in landfills, creating environment damage.
The Forbes article titled, “Recycling Is Not The Answer To The E-Waste Crisis” contends that recycling is outpaced by the continued production of new electronic devices. “We are currently losing ground in the battle to reduce the environmental impact of our electronic equipment,” Forbes contributor Vianney Vaute wrote.
The article goes on to conclude that recycling should not be used as a cover-up of the e-waste pollution model. Recycling is useful, however, there is a real need to recognize the limitations of electronics recycling and to look hard at the root of our growing e-waste problem in order to develop more effective approaches.
Reuse, refurbishment, and maintenance are even more important than recycling. Extending the life of the devices currently in existence can have a meaningful effect on their environmental impact. Producing products that are easy to repair improves the probability of reuse. Buying refurbished electronics instead of new devices is another solution. For more information and guidance, visit the EPA website “Electronics Donation and Recycling.”
You may consider your effort in disposing of electronic devices to be a small part of the problem. But if everyone assumes that position, the problem will be greater. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes regulations to force people to follow the best policies. Complying with the regulations is cheaper than ignoring them. You should create a policy within your organization that focuses on what you do with electronic devices and how you dispose of them. | <urn:uuid:3ccdd11e-239d-4c59-bd5f-a2583fff8513> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.nojitter.com/privacy-compliance/e-waste-always-problem | 2024-09-15T07:53:12Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651616.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20240915052902-20240915082902-00795.warc.gz | en | 0.943742 | 1,151 | 2.515625 | 3 |
“Virtualization is like a game of chess – it requires strategy, careful planning, and a forward-thinking mindset to stay ahead of the game.” – Bill Gates.
Virtualization technology has revolutionized the IT industry, allowing organizations to optimize their infrastructure, reduce costs, and enhance business continuity.
Just like in a game of chess, where players must anticipate their opponent’s moves and plan several steps, businesses must carefully consider their virtualization needs and choose the platform that aligns with their long-term goals.
Making an informed decision about which virtualization platform to use can help businesses optimize their IT resources, improve efficiency, and stay competitive in an ever-evolving technological landscape.
VMware and Hyper-V are two leading virtualization technologies that provide a comprehensive platform for creating and managing virtual machines.
Whether you are a small business or a large enterprise, this blog will provide valuable information to help you decide which virtualization technology to choose.
What Is Hyper-V and How Does It Work?
Hyper-V is a product of Microsoft. It is a native hypervisor available as an optional add-on to Windows Server. Hyper-V first became available in the year 2008 with Windows Server 2008.
Today, Hyper-V is also available with the Enterprise editions of Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows 11, as well as the x64-bit Pro.
Hyper-V is now also available as a standalone server. The Hyper-V server is available for free from Microsoft, but it comes with a restricted set of functionalities.
It is essential to point out that Hyper-V is a type-1 hypervisor (or what is also known as bare-metal). Hyper-V directly runs atop the computer hardware and underneath the guest and host virtual machines. It has proven capabilities that can benefit companies operating in any sector. Moreover, Microsoft, a reputable software company with a dominating market presence, supports Hyper-V.
A Hyper-V-supported infrastructure has the Hyper-V installed on the host operating system. Accordingly, this becomes the parent VM. The guest VMs or virtual machines may operate on different operating systems. These are known as child VMs. The guest and host virtual machines draw from this infrastructure’s server resources. Yet, the parent VM is designed in such a way that it can allocate computing resources to the guest VMs.
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Hyper-V uses VMBs as a transmission route between the Virtualization Service Provider of the parent virtual machine and the Virtualization Service Provider of the guest virtual machines. This transmission occurs independently without IT intervention on the guest or parent VMs.
Why is Hyper-V used?
Hyper-V is used for several reasons, including:
Server consolidation: Hyper-V allows organizations to consolidate multiple physical servers into one physical server with several virtual machines running on it. It’ll lead to significant cost savings in terms of hardware, power, and cooling.
Resource optimization: Hyper-V allows users to allocate resources such as CPU, memory, and storage to virtual machines, which can be adjusted dynamically to meet changing workloads resulting in optimizing resource utilization and improving performance.
Test and development: Hyper-V provides a sandbox environment for developers to test and deploy applications, configurations, and patches without affecting the production environment. It can help reduce downtime and minimize risk.
Disaster recovery: Hyper-V supports a range of disaster recovery options, including failover clustering, virtual machine replication, and backup and recovery ensuring business continuity and minimize downtime in the event of a disaster.
Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI): Hyper-V can be used to host virtual desktops, enabling users to access their desktops and applications from any device, anywhere, while ensuring data security and compliance.
Hyper-V is used because it provides a robust and flexible virtualization platform that helps organizations reduce costs, optimize resources, improve performance, and enhance business continuity.
Benefits of Hyper-V
Hyper-V has a host of essential features to help businesses make the most of virtualization:
Hyper-V comes equipped with a tool for remote connection. The device supports Windows and Linux and is called Virtual Machine Connection. The tool enables console access that lets administrators supervise guest VMs even before booting is complete.
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Hyper-V ensures that a VM migration can occur without issues. It supports live and storage migration and import/export facilities to enable uninterrupted Connectivity.
The top security feature in Hyper-V is called Secure Boot. It is a comprehensive security solution that protects data stored on virtual machines from unauthorized access and other forms of breach.
Hyper-V is entirely BCDR (Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery)-enabled. It creates copies of VMs and backs these up on servers located elsewhere. These copies can be retrieved at times of interruption, such as natural disasters. Hyper-V supports two methods for data backup. One employs saved states; the other uses Volume Shadow Copy Service or Volume Snapshot Service (VSS).
What Does Hyper-V Consist of?
Hyper-V is a hypervisor-based virtualization technology that comes as a role within Microsoft Windows Server operating systems. It allows users to create and manage virtual machines on a single physical server, with each VM running its own operating system, applications, and network configurations.
Hyper-V consists of the following components:
Hyper-V Manager: This is the primary management console for Hyper-V, providing a graphical user interface (GUI) for creating, configuring, and managing virtual machines, virtual networks, and virtual storage.
Virtual Machine: This is a software-based representation of a physical machine with its own CPU, RAM, storage, and network interfaces. Hyper-V supports a wide range of operating systems for virtualization, including various versions of Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD.
Virtual Switch: This software-based network switch allows virtual machines to communicate with each other and the external network. Hyper-V supports external, internal, and private virtual switches, enabling users to create a variety of network topologies.
Virtual Disk: This virtual hard disk is used to store the operating system, applications, and data for each virtual machine. Hyper-V supports several virtual disk formats, including VHD, VHDX, and VMDK.
Integration Services: These are drivers and services that enhance the performance and functionality of virtual machines running on Hyper-V. Integration Services are installed on each VM, providing time synchronization, mouse and keyboard input, and network acceleration features.
Hyper-V provides a comprehensive virtualization platform tightly integrated with the Windows Server operating system.
With its support for a wide range of operating systems, flexible network configurations, and powerful management tools, Hyper-V is a popular choice for organizations looking to consolidate their server infrastructure and reduce costs.
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What Is VMWare and How Does It Work?
Unlike Hyper-V, vSphere by VMware is an all-in-one virtualization platform. It means vSphere comprises various virtualization products, including the VMware ESXi hypervisor. It is a type-1 or bare-metal hypervisor that can compete against Hyper-V. vSphere 7, the latest vSphere version, is a virtualization platform that can efficiently manage complex Kubernetes workloads. It’ll make it an excellent choice for software developers to test-run code.
The hypervisor component in vSphere 7 is VMware ESXi. This hypervisor can also directly access the computing resources of single hardware and split it across multiple guests virtual machines. In vSphere 7, host VMs run on a highly specialized cluster file system. It is called Virtual Machine File System.
Why is VMware used?
VMware offers several benefits to organizations, including server consolidation, resource optimization, high availability and disaster recovery, test and development capabilities, and virtual desktop infrastructure.
With VMware, organizations can consolidate multiple physical servers into a single server or cluster of servers, which can host several virtual machines. This approach can result in significant cost savings regarding hardware, power, and cooling expenses.
VMware also offers a sandbox environment for developers to test and deploy applications, configurations, and patches without affecting the production environment. This feature ensures that the testing and development process does not impact the company’s live systems.
Another advantage of VMware is its ability to dynamically allocate resources, such as CPU, memory, and storage, to virtual machines, allowing for optimized resource utilization and improved performance
VMware is used because it provides a robust and flexible virtualization platform that helps organizations reduce costs, optimize resources, improve performance, enhance business continuity, and simplify IT management.
Benefits of VMware:
VMware has an interface based on HTML5 called VMware vSphere Client to connect to vCenter remotely.
VMware features vMotion that allows the live migration of VMs without fear of interruption. Storage vMotion enables the migration of virtual disks as well.
VMware guarantees zero latency by replicating copies of workloads on multiple servers that can be restored as per need,
VMware is equipped with VMware Virtual SMP that allows the simultaneous use multiple processors by guest VMs.
What does VMware consist of?
VMware is a leading virtualization technology that enables users to create and manage virtual machines on a single physical server or across multiple servers in a data center. Here is a brief overview of what VMware consists of:
VMware vSphere: This is the core virtualization platform that provides a set of tools and services for creating and managing virtual machines. It includes features such as vMotion, High Availability, Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), and Fault Tolerance, which help optimize resource utilization, improve performance, and ensure high availability and disaster recovery.
VMware ESXi: This hypervisor runs on the physical server and provides a platform for creating and managing virtual machines. ESXi is a lightweight and secure hypervisor optimized for virtualization and can run multiple virtual machines concurrently.
Virtual Machine: This is a software-based representation of a physical machine with its own CPU, RAM, storage, and network interfaces. VMware supports a wide range of operating systems for virtualization, including various versions of Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Virtual Network: This software-based network allows virtual machines to communicate with each other and the external network. VMware supports several types of virtual networks, including virtual switches, virtual network adapters, and virtual network interface cards (NICs).
Virtual Storage: This software-based storage is used to store the operating system, applications, and data for each virtual machine. VMware supports several virtual storage options, including Virtual Machine File System (VMFS), Network File System (NFS), and iSCSI.
VMware vCenter Server: This management tool provides a centralized management platform for virtual machines and infrastructure. It allows users to create, configure, and manage virtual machines, networks, and storage from a single console.
VMware provides a comprehensive virtualization platform widely used in data centers and cloud environments. With its advanced features, flexibility, and scalability, VMware is a popular choice for organizations looking to optimize their IT infrastructure, reduce costs, and enhance business continuity.
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Hyper-V vs. VMware: Features to Compare
Management Tools: Hyper-V has a dedicated management tool, while VMware boasts a reliable one.
Storage Deployment: Hyper-V uses ReFS for storage deployment, which can be complex and challenging to manage. In contrast, VMware uses Virtual Machine File System (VMFS), which has desirable clustering capability and is much simpler.
Snapshot Technology: Hyper-V’s snapshot technology allows 32 snapshots per VM. On the other hand, VMware allows 64 images per VM and can efficiently run snapshots while still in production with persistent checkpoints having migration capabilities.
Memory Management: Hyper-V has a simpler and more efficient memory management system using Dynamic memory. VMware has a complex and less efficient memory management system that relies on various memory management techniques.
Operating System Support: Hyper-V supports only Windows and a few more operating systems like FreeBSD and Linux, whereas VMware supports more operating systems, including macOS, Linux, Unix, and Windows.
CPU and Memory Capacity: Hyper-V accommodates more physical memory and virtual CPUs per host and per VM, while VMware can handle more logical and virtual CPUs per host.
Security Protocols: Hyper-V has extensive security protocols like Active Directory that manage overall security concerns. At the same time, VMware implements data encryption during storage and motion but has a less comprehensive security suite than Hyper-V.
Pricing Model: Hyper-V pricing is based on the number of cores per host, while VMware pricing is per processor.
Hyper-V vs. VMware: A side-by-side Comparison
The competition between Hyper-V and VMware is heating up.
Both products come with a range of comparable features and benefits. But when choosing one over the other, suitability to specific business requirements takes precedence.
Hyper-V | VMware |
Has a dedicated management tool | Boasts a reliable management tool |
ReFS, or Resilient File System, for storage deployment, is complex and challenging to manage | Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) has enviable clustering capability and is much simpler |
Better snapshot capability. Can efficiently run snapshots while still in production with persistent checkpoints with migration capabilities. Allows 64 images per VM | Has snapshot technology (32 snapshots per VM) that allows point-in-time copies of VMs to prevent data loss |
It has a simpler and more efficient memory management system. Uses a single memory management technique called Dynamic Memory to boost RAM usage in VMs | Has a complex and less efficient memory management system that relies on various memory management techniques like oversubscription, page sharing, and memory compression to ensure optimal RAM usage in VMs |
Supports only Windows and just a few more operating systems like FreeBSD and Linux | Supports more operating systems than Hyper-V. These include macOS, Linux, Unix, and Windows |
Accommodates more physical memory and virtual CPUs per host, per VM | Can handle more logical and virtual CPUs per host |
Has extensive security protocols, such as Active Directory, that manage overall security concerns | Implements data encryption during storage and motion. Has a less extensive security suite as compared to Hyper-V |
Pricing is based on the number of cores per host | Pricing per processor |
Hyper-V and VMware have key differences in management tools, storage deployment, snapshot technology, memory management, operating system support, CPU and memory capacity, security protocols, and pricing models. Hyper-V has a dedicated management tool, a simpler memory management system, and extensive security protocols like Active Directory. At the same time, VMware boasts a reliable management tool, better snapshot capability, and support for more operating systems. Hyper-V also accommodates more physical memory and virtual CPUs per host and VM, while VMware can handle more logical and virtual CPUs per host.
Lastly, Hyper-V pricing is based on the number of cores per host, while VMware pricing is per processor. Ultimately, the choice between Hyper-V and VMware depends on specific business needs, budget, and existing technology infrastructure.
Hyper-V vs. VMware: Summing Up
Whether a business chooses Hyper-V or VMware comes down to its unique needs and basic expectations. Ultimately, there is no clear winner between the two as both have features that can be understood as tremendous or not-so-great, depending on what one is looking for. For instance, VMware supports many operating systems, while Hyper-V primarily supports Windows. Hyper-V is the logical choice if a business is a dedicated Microsoft user. Similarly, VMware’s pricing model benefits larger companies, while Hyper-V can be more cost-effective for start-ups.
Get 7 Day virtualization free trial now! | <urn:uuid:202f2a5e-9c56-4527-ab2b-79119d6ec343> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.acecloudhosting.com/blog/hyper-v-or-vmware/ | 2024-09-16T12:17:13Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651697.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20240916112213-20240916142213-00695.warc.gz | en | 0.910336 | 3,310 | 2.8125 | 3 |
According to a new study, the human brain undergoes significant changes during spaceflight, with longer missions resulting in more pronounced effects.
NASA-funded research, which examined the brains of 30 astronauts before and after space travel, found that the duration of a mission, the time between missions, and the number of previous missions all influenced the nature and degree of these changes.
"Spaceflight induces widespread changes in human brain morphology," the study, published in Scientific Reports journal, found.
One key finding of the study was that space missions lasting at least six months led to a remarkable expansion of the cerebral ventricles — fluid-filled cavities at the brain's center — which cushion the brain and the spinal cord.
"Mission duration was associated with pre- to post-flight increases in left lateral ventricle volume, right lateral ventricle volume, and third ventricle volume," the researchers said.
Age-related enlargement of the ventricles could be associated with cognitive decline.
Interestingly, two-week-long missions resulted in smaller changes in ventricle volume compared to missions lasting six months or longer, meaning that short-term space tourists may not be affected.
The study said that most expansion occurred during the first six months in space and then appeared to taper off for longer missions.
Researchers also found that it took three years for the ventricles to fully recover after spaceflight, noting that shorter intervals may not be enough for the brain to regain its compensatory capacity.
The study also explored differences between novice and experienced astronauts but found no significant variation in post-flight brain changes between the two groups.
However, the extent of previous spaceflight experience did appear to impact the brain's response to future spaceflights. "Crewmembers who had completed multiple previous missions tended to show free water decreases within the brain," the study found.
The findings provide important insights into how current and previous spaceflight experience impacts the brain and may influence guidelines for future mission planning.
However, the scientists caution that they had a small sample of long-duration flyers and that further research is needed to understand these effects fully.
It could be crucial as humans continue to push the boundaries of space exploration with potential multi-year missions to Mars.
"Determining whether brain changes continue throughout prolonged microgravity exposure or plateau at some point during flight will help us to better understand the nature and mechanisms of these changes," the researchers said. | <urn:uuid:c68d93ca-93b2-437e-9d1c-69928a5e3ef9> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://cybernews.com/tech/spaceflight-causes-widespread-brain-changes/ | 2024-09-19T01:27:43Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651944.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20240918233405-20240919023405-00495.warc.gz | en | 0.956402 | 499 | 4.125 | 4 |
Imagine at work you had an important meeting with several coworkers to draw up a business plan. The business plan would be sketched out on a whiteboard and take several days to complete, meaning it would be left overnight where others could access it. However, unless you wrote it with permanent marker, it would be quite easy for someone to come by and erase it or modify it. You could put a note on the whiteboard to tell everyone not to erase it, but people may miss the note or just ignore it.
One way you could protect the whiteboard would be to put a piece of glass over it. Anyone who tried to write over or erase it would only affect the glass, the whiteboard behind the glass would be protected. When you come back the next day you can just wipe off the glass and your business plan would remain intact.
This is similar to how Mirror Shielding™ works. When NeuShield Data Sentinel is installed it adds a barrier to your protected files preventing them from direct changes. When an application tries to modify a protected file, it gets redirected and the file modification is stored on an overlay, keeping the original file intact. Later, if you want to go back to the original file you can simply delete the data on the overlay. This process of deleting data on the overlay is called reverting changes.
Reverting is useful for undoing changes to your files that you don’t want. For instance, if you accidentally save a new document over the top of an existing document you can go back to your original document. It is also useful in cybersecurity by allowing you to reverse undesired changes that ransomware or other malware does. When ransomware tries to encrypt your files, the encrypted files are stored on an overlay, but the underlying files are never changed. You can simply revert changes, which will delete the encrypted data, allowing you to access your original, unencrypted files again.
This method of recovering files is also useful for performance. It is significantly faster to delete a file than to copy or restore a file, which is what a backup does. Because of this NeuShield Data Sentinel can recover data almost instantly, no matter how much data is being protected.
But it is not just reverting files that is quick. Since the overlay only stores file changes, which need to be written to the disk anyways, there is virtually no performance overhead on your actual disk. NeuShield Data Sentinel can protect files allowing you to instantly revert undesired changes with virtually no impact to your computer’s overall performance. | <urn:uuid:515a3a7e-a783-4a60-b72b-866ae4713cbf> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://support.neushield.com/hc/en-us/articles/360044336454-Mirror-Shielding | 2024-09-19T01:09:50Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651944.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20240918233405-20240919023405-00495.warc.gz | en | 0.960468 | 517 | 2.703125 | 3 |
This variable has meaning only on graphical systems such as Windows. It gives you control over the Close action that appears on the System menu in a graphical environment. You may use the QUIT_MODE variable with only the main application window. All other windows return the CMD-CLOSE event when they are closed. QUIT_MODE has no affect on windows created with the NO-CLOSE phrase. See formats 11 and 12 of the DISPLAY Statement, in the ACUCOBOL-GT Reference Manual for more information.
Many COBOL programs should not be shut down in an uncontrolled manner. This is especially true of any application that updates several files in a row. If the program is halted after updating the first file, but before updating the last, the files are left in an inconsistent state. For this reason, ACUCOBOL-GT allows you to control the Close action.
To do this, you set QUIT_MODE to a non-zero value. The value that you specify affects the Close action as follows:
-2 | Disable Close: disables the Close action entirely. The Close menu item will appear gray on the System menu, and the user will not be able to select it. |
-1 | Close only on input: the runtime disables the Close action except when it is waiting for user input. This prevents the user from stopping the runtime in the middle of a series of file operations, but still allows the user to quit the application any time that the application is waiting for input. |
0 | Always Close: the runtime halts the program whenever Close is selected from the system menu. |
>0 | Program controlled Close: when a positive value is used, the Close item becomes a standard menu item with an ID equal to the value of QUIT_MODE. You may then handle the Close item just like any other menu item. |
For example, if you set QUIT_MODE to 100, then your program will receive exception value 100 when the user selects the Close item. If you wanted to call a special shutdown program when the user selected Close, you could assign the Close action to a hot-key program:
MENU_ITEM Hot_Key ="shutdown" 100
In this example, the "shutdown" program might pop up a small window to confirm that the user wanted to exit and, if so, do a STOP RUN.
If you start your program in safe mode with the -s runtime option, then QUIT_MODE will be initialized to -2 instead of 0. This prevents the user from using the Close menu item. A QUIT_MODE entry in the configuration file takes precedence over the default handling of -s.
If a user attempts to end the Windows session when it is not allowed, a pop-up message box asks the user to terminate the application first. You can customize the message that appears in the box by setting the TEXT configuration variable, message number 18. | <urn:uuid:e0ef64d4-ae10-4e24-b762-c90be599a721> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.microfocus.com/documentation/extend-acucobol/1001/BKUSUSCONFS234.html | 2024-09-20T06:14:10Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700652138.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20240920054402-20240920084402-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.841747 | 607 | 3.078125 | 3 |
By Darren Watkins, managing director of VIRTUS Data Centres
Moore’s Law had been the bedrock of modern computing for the last forty years. Until now, companies have crammed more and more functionality into devices, and we come to expect it unconditionally of every new generation. We only need to look at the iPhone as a good example.
Sadly, the Law is in its twilight years and if the speed of processing power is to continue to develop (especially in today’s digital world of Big Data) other areas of computing need to be looked if it is to progress and improve. We have come to the tipping point when the technology industry will have to become far more inventive without Moore’s Law and its guaranteed path of invention.
Drawing on vast numbers of crunching resources in the cloud is one of the main ways that computing can carry on advancing. By sharing computer capacity, processing capability improves which enables businesses to be more effective and innovate.
I am old enough to remember SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) when it was big in the 90’s. It was software that you could download so when you were offline your computer capacity could be shared with systems around the world and mine massive data to search the universe for extra-terrestrial intelligence. This is one of the first examples of cloud – using shared resource.
The principle is the same for public cloud today. Rather than having 20 owned computers in a data centre, by connecting to a multitude of other systems through the cloud, people can share the benefit of combined processing power.
So how does this relate to Moore’s Law? The cloud has to live somewhere and the data centre is its home.
Cloud has been one of the most talked about subjects in the tech industry for over 10 years, and it has taken that long to become mainstream. But now it is, the take up is meteoric. For a long time, there was an oversupply of data centre space in the market, but space will quickly be consumed if data centre companies don’t continue to build. Today, capacity needs have increased exponentially and companies don’t buy what they used to a few years ago when the average take up was a couple of hundred kW. Now businesses are buying multiple megawatts in one go. And there aren’t many data centre providers who can deliver that kind of space.
Moore’s Law is about the doubling of processing power every two years. If you look at the consumption of cloud to satisfy the future of computing, Moore’s Law still applies at the data centre level. If we think of a data centre as a silicon chip (because it effectively provides processing), capacity will need to continue to double year on year. VIRTUS is a good example. It has gone from 6MW when it had one site, to 40MW and three sites in 18 months. In these terms, VIRTUS will need 80MW or more of data centre capacity in a further 18 months. Data centre organisations need to work very closely with cloud providers to understand their prolific growth rates if they are to be able to meet the demands of the future of computing.
But how else can data centre providers prepare for the potential end of Moore’s Law for microprocessors? In the UK we don’t have an abundance of real estate on which to build data centres, so we need to look to new technologies if we are to improve computing capacity. Increasing speed and the availability of power will be major factors.
Photonics is already being looked at to increase processing speed, albeit at the early stages of research. Some labs, for example, Intel in Texas, are testing photonics which uses light so data is processed more quickly with no resistant losses. This stops heat being generated and enables processing at the speed of light, reducing the need for so many processors because they are much quicker. This will further enable Moore’s Law to increase processing capabilities, thus starting the cycle again.
For any computer to work, it needs power, and data centres need lots of it. If Moore’s Law applies to data centres, so it will apply to power. The danger is that the UK could face a power shortage in the future because of the rate of consumption and the time it takes to build power plants. The most innovative data centre providers are mitigating this potential risk by future-proofing their energy requirements. At VIRTUS, this is an area we are already focused on. We are investing time and resource to look into self-generation of power by standard means and alternatives such as nuclear batteries. By looking ahead, we can continue to aid the future of computing.
So, Moore’s Law may be coming to an end in terms of microprocessors, but it is only moving along the supply chain and the future of computing will continue to improve. Thinking outside the box can only be a good thing and we are entering a new era of technological innovation.
Darren began his career as a graduate Military Officer in the RAF before moving into the commercial sector. He brings over 20 year’s experience in telecommunications and managed services gained at BT, MFS Worldcom, Level3 Communications, Attenda and COLT. He joins the VIRTUS team from euNetworks where he was Head of Sales for the UK, leading market changing deals with a number of large financial institutions and media agencies, and growing the company’s expertise in low latency trading.
Additionally, he sits on the board of a one of the industry’s most innovative Mobile Media Advertising companies, Odyssey Mobile Interaction and is interested in all new developments in this sector. Darren has an honours degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from University of Wales, College Swansea. | <urn:uuid:059283c6-a452-45a5-8bcf-3f4c932fb375> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://datacenterpost.com/the-future-of-computing-its-processing-power-but-not-as-we-know-it/ | 2024-09-08T03:33:02Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700650958.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20240908020844-20240908050844-00595.warc.gz | en | 0.952721 | 1,184 | 2.875 | 3 |
Insights from the Australian Public and Healthcare Professionals
Tobacco smoking is the single most important preventable cause of ill health and death in Australia,1 and smoking cessation is the only intervention with the potential to reduce tobacco-related morbidity and mortality in the short and medium-term.
Australia is considered a global benchmark for tobacco control policies, which include significant increases in tobacco excise and import duty, world-leading plain packaging laws, and smoking restrictions in public places. Between 1991 and 2016, the national smoking rate approximately halved from 29.5% to 14.9%,2 which some commentators at least partially attributed to these
policies. However, the most recent statistics indicate no statistically significant reduction in the smoking rate between 2013 and 2016.>sup>3
Given ongoing population growth, this presents the possibility that the number of smokers may have actually started to increase. | <urn:uuid:cae880e2-c3fa-4bb8-ab0f-2bcba81d176a> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://dev.frost.com/growth-opportunity-news/understanding-of-and-attitudes-towards-tobacco-harm-reduction-products/ | 2024-09-09T09:02:24Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651092.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909071529-20240909101529-00495.warc.gz | en | 0.935416 | 179 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The current industry buzz is that the Java utilities to create a GUI are not powerful enough for industrial-strength applications. This is correct if you disregard two major issues. One is the advent of the JavaBeans specification by JavaSoft, a division of Sun Microsystems. The other is the widespread availability of powerful GUI JavaBeans components from a variety of software vendors.
This article provides an overview of the JavaBean specification and gives examples of JavaBean components from several vendors. After reading this article, you might consider creating your own JavaBeans or procuring some from a JavaBean supplier. Whatever you do, you will see that the JavaBean technology will significantly impact Java development. The simplicity of the JavaBean specification will enhance the progression of Java as the object-oriented (OO) language of choice.
Unless you've been marooned on some tropical island in the middle of the Pacific, you are aware of the visual programming techniques in widespread use today. AS/400 programmers are most familiar with Visual Basic (VB) or perhaps Visual RPG, but C++, PowerBuilder, and other programming environments, including Java, also provide visual development tools. The ability to visually build graphical applications lessens the technical expertise necessary to design and create them. Besides, building a visual interface by coding with traditional text editors is silly; visual applications should be designed using visual design tools.
Most major Java Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) come with a visual editor. IBM's VisualAge for Java calls its the Visual Composition Editor. A visual editor presents a toolbar of visual components that you can drop onto a visual representation of a panel under construction. Standard Java comes with a package of GUI components called the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) that provides basic graphical components. Java IDEs such as Asymetric's SuperCede, Symantec's Visual Café, and IBM's VisualAge for Java provide toolbars that contain the standard AWT components (e.g., label, text field, text area, button, check box, radio button, list, choice, horizontal scroll bar, vertical scroll bar, and canvas).
With these components, it is possible to visually design the application, and, for the most part, eliminate the need to write Java source code-the IDE automatically produces the code to enable the components you place into the application. However, the AWT components do not provide the power, flexibility, and robustness of other graphical programming environments, such as those that target Windows. This is where JavaBeans can help.
When JavaSoft first began creating the JavaBeans specification, the company offered the following mission statement: "Write once, run anywhere, reuse everywhere." As a result of JavaSoft's efforts, the JavaBeans specification is available today as a standard method for Java component design.
Components are reusable pieces of software that you can easily assemble to create applications, thereby providing greater development efficiency than you'd have if you developed the software yourself. If you program in VB, you are familiar with OCXs and their VBX predecessor. OCXs are powerful components often written in C++ to follow Microsoft's component strategy. JavaBeans are similar to OCXs, but they have the notable advantage of having been developed entirely from scratch, with no limitations imposed from a prior technology. JavaBeans also have the advantage of being able to "run anywhere," literally on any machine with a Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
Before I discuss the JavaBean specification, let's look at some example JavaBeans from an example provider. Stingray Software has a group of JavaBeans lumped into one product, ObjectiveBlend. These JavaBean components are not unique; they are similar to what many other JavaBean suppliers provide.
Figure 1 shows VisualAge for Java's Visual Composition Editor with VA's parts palette sporting Stingray Software's JavaBeans. The second column of the parts palette shows the four JavaBean components that I selected from ObjectiveBlend: a Tabbed Dialog, a Tree, a MaskEdit, and a DateEdit. These standard graphical components are very useful tools to a graphical programmer. For example, the Tabbed Dialog allows you to effortlessly create tabbed dialogs similar to those of Windows 95. As an experienced Windows GUI programmer, I would not want to program Java GUIs without tabbed dialogs-they simply improve the intuitive nature of an application too much to design without them. The Tree allows you to create a tree graphic similar to that of Windows Explorer. You might use a tree to display something like a bill-of-materials to support visual expansion and compression of selected assemblies. The MaskEdit-well, I'll get to that later. The DateEdit JavaBean does just what you would expect but then surprises you with the ability to pop up a calendar month dialog that allows visual selection of a date.
Stingray Software is simply one of many JavaBean suppliers that has catered to the C and C++ markets for years, with OCXs and other component technologies; there are many other JavaBean suppliers. You can search an expanding list of JavaBeans-based products by name, company, or category at http://java.sun.com/beans/directory/.
Many of the vendors listed at this site have converted their C and C++ component technologies to 100-percent-pure JavaBean code that is fully compliant with the JavaBean specification. Some JavaBean vendors have created Java classes that simply enclose existing C++ components. Such components were built with specific operating system technologies, such as Microsoft's ActiveX. They work fine as long as you don't mind confining your Java application to Windows 95 or NT
workstations. But, if you want your application to "run anywhere," stick with JavaBeans that are 100-percent-pure Java.
Note that one significant vendor of JavaBeans is JavaSoft, the creator of Java. JavaSoft recently announced a powerful set of components known as the Java Foundation Classes (JFC). The JFC is a complete GUI toolkit of JavaBeans that dramatically extends and otherwise improves the original AWT with a comprehensive set of classes and services-bad news for the other JavaBean suppliers because JFC is expected to become an integral part of Java 1.2. (By the time you read this, the beta JDK 1.2 should be available for download from the Web.)
Of the four components presented in the parts palette in Figure 1, I described only three. I purposely left out one of the simple components-the MaskEdit JavaBean. This component sets numeric editing, similar to the edit word of AS/400 DDS. Figure 1 shows VA's Visual Composition Editor with a MaskEdit JavaBean dropped into the visual editor panel. The Property Editor shown allows you to set the "properties" for that implementation of a MaskEdit. Properties are kept internal to the JavaBean as private object member variables to store the states that represent and control the behavior of the JavaBean. In this case, I have set the mask to list a dollar sign and thousands separators and to allow only two decimals.
The first thing I wanted to do when I saw this JavaBean was to create my own JavaBean to provide an RPG-like edit code. Rather than enter a mask property, we RPG veterans would prefer to specify a simple edit code. This proposed JavaBean could easily inherit from the MaskEdit's JavaBean classes to expedite delivery of the component, but we also have the alternative of writing it from scratch. Actually, you would be surprised at how easy it is to create an EditCode component and other simple JavaBeans. This brings me to my next discussion-the JavaBean specification.
By following JavaSoft's JavaBean specification when developing my hypothetical EditCode JavaBean, I can create a component that is compact, easy to use, fully portable, built on the inherent strengths of Java, and adaptable to any Visual IDE that supports Java 1.1.
A full-featured JavaBean is required to support the following major services: event handling, property management, introspection, persistence, and IDE support. Property management relates to the JavaBean method of exposing a component's data members. A JavaBean exposes its object's data members through object functions known as getter methods and setter methods. These accessor methods must follow naming conventions, but they are really nothing more than encapsulation techniques considered standard in many OO programming languages. The accessible data members are known as properties.
I studied JavaBeans before I started to learn about the new event-handling model of Java 1.1. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the JavaBeans' event-handling methods were exactly the same as Java 1.1's. This immediately broadened the impact of my newfound knowledge. The primary goal of the event-handling model in the Java 1.1 API is to provide an extensible means of sending event information from one component to one or more other components or applications.
The Java 1.1 event-handling mechanism adopted by the JavaBean specification follows the source/event/listener design pattern (Figure 2). An object that is capable of generating events is
considered an event source. An application or object that reacts to an event is considered an event listener. And the event itself is encapsulated as an actual Java object. That event object contains data members that clarify the event. An event source registers event listeners with a simple function call. When the JavaBean event source generates an event, a specified function is called on the event listener with an event object as a parameter. For instance, with my proposed EditCode JavaBean, I would have a text entry object as the event source. One event might be the KeystrokeEvent that holds the value of the character pressed, which the EditCodeListener receives and reacts to by editing the value. This separation of listener and source seems overkill for the EditCode bean, but, by following the JavaBean specification, I enable runtime extensibility of the JavaBean.
It is not my intent to publish the complete JavaBean specification, as you can download it from http://www.javasoft.com. Nevertheless, I would like to list the property specification design patterns to give you a taste for the simplicity of the overall JavaBean specification.
The JavaBean specification is formalized through a set of design patterns. Design patterns are a hot topic in OO circles. If you aren't familiar with the concept of design patterns, think of them as formal descriptions of solutions to recurring computing problems. The following design patterns are used as templates for the naming of the JavaBean get and set accessor functions for simple atomic properties, Boolean properties, and arrays of properties:
Simple Atomic Properties
public void set( PropertyType p);
public boolean is();
Arrays of Properties
public get(int I);
public get();
public void set(int i, p);
public void set( p);
The notation is the notation used by the JavaBean specification to mean "insert your whatever name here." For instance, my EditCode JavaBean might have three properties: a float Value, a Boolean Positive, and the character array Digits. I would then define the following functions:
// to retrieve a value
public float getValue ();
// to change a value via.float parameter
public void setValue (float p);
// to return a boolean query of whether the value is positive
public boolean isPositive ();
// to retrieve the character at index i
public char getDigits (int i);
// to retrieve character array of digits
public char getDigits ();
// to change the character at index i to value p
public void setDigits (int i, char p);
// to change the character array to values of the passed array
public void setDigits (char p);
Some of a JavaBean component's properties can be defined as bound or constrained properties. A component with a bound property sends change notifications to objects that are registered with the JavaBean and are, in effect, listening for property changes. These "listener" objects can then react to modifications to the property's value. A constrained property also has change notifications sent, but its JavaBean must then be prepared to handle change rejections from the
listening objects by reverting the property back to its previous value.
I would have to specify both bound and constrained properties for my hypothetical EditCode JavaBean. The numeric value that the EditCode JavaBean is editing would be bound to a function that wants notification when the value changes. That function "listens" for change notifications from the EditCode JavaBean and then perhaps updates an associated database field with the new value. But I would also impose constraints on the value within the EditCode bean- after all, I am editing it. My EditCode JavaBean would have to support the registration of Vetoable Change Listeners and provide for the handling of potential vetoes to changes. An example of a veto might be a case in which someone typed one too many decimals or in which the value exceeded a range. EditCode's value property's set accessor method would be designed to broadcast notifications of changes to all the registered Vetoable Change Listeners. The Vetoable Change Listeners may choose to veto a change by throwing a Java exception. EditCode's set accessor methods must also be coded to catch or handle the exceptions and to revert the changed properties back to their original values.
So far, I have given you a flavor for how JavaBeans are programmed to allow access to properties. I have also covered a good bit about bound properties and even a little about constrained properties. You also now know that these techniques are exactly the same as in the Java 1.1 event-handling mechanism. You might then think that I have not talked about anything specific to JavaBeans. But I have; by following the event source, event, and event listener object design patterns, I have enabled the JavaBean introspection services. The JavaBean introspection facilities enable IDEs to query a JavaBean for its internal structure. The IDE then becomes aware of that bean's data properties and functional API. Introspection of a JavaBean is mostly done simply by examining the bean's get and set accessor functions. This approach greatly simplifies JavaBean construction, because you do not have to laboriously define the component's properties and interfaces as you would when creating components with OCX and OLE technology.
A Java IDE that supports JavaBeans can invoke the introspection services to expose a JavaBean's properties and methods visually. The JavaBeans inspector simply looks at a new JavaBean for implementation of JavaBean design patterns. For instance, any get and set accessor methods implementations tell the introspector the name and data type of the properties in a bean. The JavaBean specification does have explicit methods of exposing the properties and services of a JavaBean to IDEs with its BeanInfo class, but the implicit ability of the JavaBean introspection facility often makes defining a BeanInfo class unnecessary.
One of the major services that a full-featured JavaBean is required to provide is persistence. Persistence is simply the capability of an object to save and restore its object state (data members) to and from storage. We are used to making data persistent with a database file, but a software component does not fit into the database scheme. The persistence facilities of Java do. The persistence mechanism was built in to Java to allow objects to save their properties to external storage through a process known as serialization. Once the object has saved or serialized its properties to a file, it is considered persistent because it transcends the invocation of the program. Serialized objects are important for Web applications, because they can be transferred across a network.
Where do you keep your JavaBeans? In a JAR (or Java Archive), of course. JavaBeans are distributed with JAR files, which are nothing more than JavaBeans compressed using the ZIP
format. Using JAR files is the preferred method of distributing JavaBeans, but it is also a way to improve download performance for Java applets from the Web using HTTP. The Bean Development Kit (or BDK, which is available as a free download from the JavaSoft Web site) comes with a JAR tool that has a variety of options for packaging and compressing JavaBeans to a JAR file. When the JAR utility is executed, it automatically creates and stores a Manifest file that contains meta information about the JavaBeans being compressed. This Manifest file is then used by Java IDEs when installing JavaBeans into the interactive programming environment.
The IDE installation procedure for JavaBeans may vary somewhat from vendor to vendor. For some products, it may be as simple as copying a JavaBean JAR file to the jars directory for the IDE.
The installation procedure for IBM's VisualAge for Java does not follow this method, but it is, nonetheless, trivial. VisualAge allows you to import JAR files with the File menu's Import option. The Import facility then prompts you to specify the name and location of the JAR to import (Figure 3). VisualAge then adds the JavaBeans in the JAR file to its object repository. Then, you add them to your toolbar by selecting the following from the menu: Options, Modify Pallette, and Add New Category (Figure 4) followed by Add to Pallette (Figure 5). Figure 6 then shows the Visual Composition editor with RogueWave's CellGrid JavaBeans added.
RogueWave's CellGrid is just one example of a wide variety of grid components. Third-party vendors have been selling grid components for years, because their grids are far more powerful than any component delivered from most graphical language's IDEs.
I have programmed two applications that used grids from a third-party vendor. One used RogueWave's CellGrid and another used Stingray's ObjectiveGrid. To date, a grid is as close as your Java IDE can come to mimicking an AS/400 subfile. Grids also have some interesting additional features that exceed what your AS/400 subfile could ever do. Your database records retrieved from a DB2/400 file can be placed in grid rows with a column for each field you wish to display. But with a grid, you can also specify a different JavaBean for each column to do a variety of edits. For instance, a grid's dollar field column might have one JavaBean specified but then a date field's column could have a date JavaBean assigned. As this article goes to press, SunSoft's AWT replacement components package, Java Foundation Classes (JFC), is in beta; it too contains a powerful grid. Look for an upcoming Java article on subfile programming techniques using SunSoft's JFC JTable grid and IBM's AS/400 Java Toolkit.
Whether you make or buy your JavaBeans, JavaSoft's JavaBean specification will improve your development process. JavaBeans allow you or a JavaBean supplier to shrink-wrap powerful components that are compact, easy to use, and fully portable. The JavaBean specification is relatively new, but, at a recent Netscape development conference, 65 major companies disclosed support for JavaBeans. These companies include such names as IBM, Oracle, Sybase, and Hewlett-Packard (HP). It is obvious that JavaBeans are here to stay, judging by the financial backing of such powerful companies, the recent availability of JavaBeans from vendors like Stingray and RogueWave, and the ease with which we can develop our own JavaBeans.
Don Denoncourt has worked on the AS/400 since its inception. He has 15 years experience in RPG and COBOL, 10 years experience with C, and 5 years object-oriented programming experience with C++. Don feels that Java is the future of object-oriented application
programming on the AS/400. He can be reached at | <urn:uuid:9aa2e484-fa9e-4868-ba51-d773ecb13da9> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.mcpressonline.com/programming-other/java/java-gui-design-with-javabean-components | 2024-09-10T15:14:56Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651255.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910125411-20240910155411-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.904631 | 4,190 | 2.609375 | 3 |
StickyKeys are good for everyone
Keyboard shortcuts are not just for use by our differently-abled friends. They can be quite useful for those of us who have all of our digits. Keyboard shortcuts can save you a lot of time by putting files or commands you use often right at your fingertips. Some keyboard shortcuts, however, require you to hold down three keys at a time. If you want to use a keyboard shortcut but find it difficult to hold down two or three keys at the same time, StickyKeys makes it easy. When a shortcut requires a key combination, the StickyKeys feature in Microsoft Windows lets you press a key, such as SHIFT, CTRL, or ALT, and keep it active until another key is pressed. StickyKeys is also helpful when you want to type uppercase letters without holding down SHIFT while you press each letter key. To activate StickyKeys:
- Press the SHIFT key five times. A dialog box opens with instructions on how to set up the StickyKeys feature.
- Click Yes.
An icon (a group of squares, highlighted in red below) appears in the notification area.
With StickyKeys enabled, you can press and release the SHIFT, CTRL, ALT, or Windows logo key, and Windows XP will hold the key down for you until you press the next key. For example, to type a capital A, you could press and release SHIFT, and then press and release the A key. To turn off StickyKeys, press the SHIFT key five times, and then click Cancel in the StickyKeys dialog box.
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Many small and mid-size businesses must protect their assets from various threats. This includes cyber threats, which are often underestimated. More companies need to start learning about potential dangers and how to implement the best cybersecurity practices.
A tough cybersecurity policy can make network infrastructure more secure and employees less likely to be targeted in online attacks. Even better, a robust cybersecurity architecture isn’t as expensive as many business owners believe.
Cybersecurity is an essential component of any business. It determines how network infrastructure is protected from various types of cyberattacks. A cybersecurity architecture relies on policies, standards, tools, and privacy controls to identify, eliminate, and prevent outside threats to a company’s network.
It often deploys hardware and software security measures and specific practices to deny access to malicious intruders.
Because many companies conduct large portions of their business online, from marketing to customer interaction to transactions, much sensitive data is stored online. There is always a risk of sensitive data being attacked via communication channels like social media platforms and websites.
All of these things are attractive targets for cybercriminals.
Common Reasons to Invest in Digital Security
The idea of cybersecurity architecture can seem overly complex. At its core, its primary purpose is to stop external threats from accessing, stealing, or corrupting data.
Hackers can use anything from brute force attacks to phishing, injecting malware into apps and websites, etc. Proper cybersecurity architecture can also protect companies from internal threats, intentional or not.
Sometimes employees share confidential information unwillingly or because they lack awareness of cyber threats. Other times, poorly configured permission policies or network management can create vulnerabilities.
Whatever the reason, creating a cybersecurity architecture can offer many benefits.
- Data breach prevention
- Better regulatory compliance
- Faster post-hack recovery times
- Network and data protection
- Denying unauthorized intrusions
- Protecting workstations and all other network devices
- Maintaining a good reputation with clients
How to Approach Digital Security
Cybersecurity architectures rely on three crucial components. Companies must have the right tools, processes, and employees or partners to oversee operations. No system can be completely autonomous, and no cybersecurity component can work without great tools.
Here’s what a cybersecurity blueprint might look like in small to enterprise-level companies.
The Incident Response Plan
An incident response plan dictates how to quickly and efficiently resolve any intrusive attempts, from brute force attacks to malware and phishing. The plan will detail the systems used to block multiple cyberattacks and notify companies of dangerous attacks they can’t currently prevent.
Incident response plans must differentiate between what constitutes an event, notification or alert, and response. With a clear plan in place, companies often form Incident Response Teams. These are employees, partners, and third-party operators qualified and ready to implement the plan and deal with network threats.
Automation can help a lot. It’s best to balance automated systems with human experts when monitoring and protecting networks.
The Recovery Plan
Many industries have so-called disaster recovery plans. A similar concept is used in cybersecurity for a simple reason. No network is 100% secure as long as there are unknown threats and yet undiscovered vulnerabilities.
Cybersecurity experts operate from a what-if premise. If something were to happen, businesses need a disaster recovery plan to get operations up and running after a successful cyberattack.
These plans dictate the correct methods and tools needed to restore network access and functionality as quickly as possible.
Great recovery plans come with detailed steps to stop intrusions, prevent further data leaks, and regain control of the system. Once initiated, the recovery plan must allow networks to function properly and without vulnerabilities to further cyberattacks, especially those of the same type.
Depending on the circumstances, cybersecurity recovery plans can outline many steps.
- How to communicate the threat
- Methods to minimize financial damage
- How to manage the company’s reputation
- Accessing backup locations
- Fixing leaks
- Prioritizing which systems to restore
Policies to Consider
One of the most important cybersecurity policies is the one regarding account or identity management. Think of it in terms of access control. The cybersecurity architecture should dictate who can use the digital network and monitor communications between devices and individuals.
Detailed security logs can help companies record their employees’ actions to determine who is capable of adhering to strict protocols and who presents a security risk.
Using a zero-trust policy is often best because it implies using the strictest authentication procedures for everyone who interacts with a company’s network. It can quickly and safely authenticate requests without compromising network protection and prevent abuse of trust or mishandling of sensitive data.
No cybersecurity architecture is complete without encryption. Hiding data behind firewalls and scanning for malware isn’t enough to prevent a breach or data interception.
Encryption is crucial for safeguarding data while in transit or after it reaches its destination. Only the intended recipient can decipher messages and data packets when done correctly. Even if cybercriminals intercepted the data, they would have a laborious job trying to unscramble the information without the correct decryption key.
It’s Never Too Early to Invest in Cybersecurity
A good cybersecurity strategy is one of the best long-term investments business owners can make for their companies. Online threats are increasing as more processes and operations move into the digital space.
The situation is even direr after considering how many companies have started creating partial or completely remote or hybrid workplaces. Protecting devices and entire networks is increasingly difficult. The faster you can protect them, the better.
Working with experienced cybersecurity service providers can help you catch up on your digital network security needs. If you’re based in Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, or Mansfield, contact OIT for more information and assistance. | <urn:uuid:126b0ec6-e6a6-4d42-b83e-9510df21a265> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.momnet.com/cybersecurity-practices-you-might-not-be-using/ | 2024-09-14T08:33:10Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651559.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20240914061427-20240914091427-00095.warc.gz | en | 0.930296 | 1,199 | 2.640625 | 3 |
September 21, 2017
In the world of security, the ultimate defense is the air gap -- a total physical separation of the network or device from the rest of the world. But air gaps have been shown to be vulnerable in the past, and researchers in Israel have now demonstrated a new way to cross the gap and reach systems previously thought to be safe.
Researchers used a communication medium that turns security against itself and a communication technique that borrows from a great symbol of modern-age laziness -- the television remote control. The vulnerability, dubbed aIR-Jumper by the research team, uses infrared LEDs and sensors in security camera as a door into the network, and from there into applications and databases.
Mordechai Guri, Dima Bykhovsky and Yuval Elovici found that the infrared (IR) capabilities that are part of every surveillance camera in wide use today can be re-purposed via software to carry data. It's not a high-bandwidth channel: For exfiltration (getting data out of an organization) data flows at a rate of 20 bit/sec per surveillance camera to a receiver tens of meters away. In the case of infiltration (getting malware and commands into the systems of an organization) the channel is wider, with data flowing at more than 100 bit/sec to the surveillance camera from hundreds of meters to kilometers away.
The trio's research paper goes into detail why the treat is so dangerous: Simply stated, it's invisible. When an engineer looks at a surveillance camera, there's no way to see whether it's being used to receive or transmit illicit information. In order to be protected, the network and applications will need to have the sort of defense in place that is common in large, connected enterprise systems but still rare in air-gapped security and industrial control networks.
"What we recommend is for industrial security to adopt the same practices as IT security and assume that the air gap is not 100% failure-safe," Edgard Capdevielle, CEO of Nozomi Networks, said in an interview with Security Now. "Assume that the perimeter will be penetrated and [that] you need to have an anomaly detection/intrusion detection infrastructure to address this type of penetration."
"You cannot assume that any one failsafe measure is perfect," Capdevielle said. "You have to have a multi-factor security infrastructure that improves perimeter security, and air gap is not a proper one."
Want to learn more about the tech and business cases for deploying virtualized solutions in the cable network? Join us in Denver on October 18 for Light Reading's Virtualizing the Cable Architecture event – a free breakfast panel at SCTE/ISBE's Cable-Tec Expo featuring speakers from Comcast and Charter.
This is not the sort of vulnerability that's likely to be at the center of a "millions of credit card records lost" event. It is, though, precisely the sort of vulnerability that could lead to industrial sabotage or espionage. And it could easily lead to administrative credential theft, which might then lead to wider records loss.
It's important to note that aIR-Jumper is a proof-of-concept attack that has not yet been seen in the wild. That doesn't mean that organizations don't need to be concerned. It does mean that organizations may have time to address the issues before the first major breach featuring aIR-Jumper puts its victims on the nightly news.
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How to take minutes at a board meeting: 14-step guide
Knowing how to take minutes at a board meeting is both an art and a science. It’s understanding what good governance means to your organization, applying your own touch to include the right amount of information and following a board-approved process to keep all directors in the loop.
While meeting minutes and their takers aren’t always the boardroom star, they serve a critical function, without which meetings are less effective and even non-compliant. This article will explain the key to great minute-taking, including:
- Why meeting minutes are important
- What meeting minutes should include
- How to take meeting minutes before, during and after board meetings
- Best practices for taking minutes
Why are board meeting minutes important?
Board meeting minutes are important because they’re a record of the conversations, reports and decisions the board engaged in during each meeting. This is a helpful tool for those who miss a meeting, but it’s also a legal requirement.
Most states have laws that dictate corporate board minutes should remain on file, with just five states leaving minute-taking practices to corporations themselves. Meeting minutes help prove compliance with these laws and make the board’s actions more defensible.
Suppose the board makes a decision that leads to an unfavorable outcome, and that outcome ends in litigation. In that case, the board can use meeting minutes to prove that they engaged in sufficient deliberation to reach an informed decision made in good faith.
The 2 types of meeting minutes
There are two types of minutes based on the session: open or closed. How to take minutes at a board meeting depends on the session it is.
- Open session minutes: These are records of meetings open to the public, shareholders and employees and include all the discussions and decisions that took place.
- Closed session minutes: These minutes allude to private portions of a board meeting or executive board meeting and include sensitive information like legal and financial challenges.
What information do board meeting minutes contain?
Board meeting minutes contain a plethora of information. Part of knowing how to take minutes at a board meeting is understanding which details to include and how to effectively represent them in writing.
Minutes may vary slightly depending on the state and the organization, but they typically include:
- Meeting date, time and location
- Type of meeting
- Names and titles of attendees and guests
- Any absent board directors
- Notes about directors who left early or re-entered the meeting
- Board approvals, resolutions and acceptance of reports
- Overview of discussions
- The rationale for any board actions
- Statement about the board’s fiduciary duties
To capture all of this valuable information, many corporate secretaries and minute-takers use a template. This also ensures that minutes don’t include information they shouldn’t.
How to take minutes at a board meeting
Though you take the minutes at the board meeting, this phrasing is something of a misnomer. The reality is that minute-takers play a vital role in preparing for and reflecting on the meeting. Knowing how to take minutes at a board meeting means understanding the role of minute-takers before, during and after the board meets.
Before the meeting
- Consult on the agenda: Secretaries and minute-takers may not create the agenda, but they should weigh in on its design. Ensuring the agenda is well organized will make minute-taking easier.
- Obtain a copy of the final agenda: Once the agenda is finalized, request a copy. The more familiar you are with the meeting, the more effectively you can record key moments because you’ll know exactly what’s coming.
- Create a structured outline: Use the agenda to create a format for your minutes. This allows you to focus less on the elements of the minutes and more on what the board is saying and doing.
- Review board governance: Understanding how to take minutes based on company policies is an essential element of how to take minutes at a board meeting. Whether the board follows Robert’s Rules of Order or has their own expectations, the minutes must comply.
During the meeting
- Take attendance: Pass around a sign-in sheet or mark names off a list as people enter the room. This will help you include an accurate attendance list with the final minutes.
- Follow your outline: Your job is to flush out the outline you already created. Following the outline makes it easier to keep the minutes on topic even if the board discussion strays.
- Focus on outcomes, not wording: Meeting minutes are a summary, not a transcript. Rather than recording board statements word-for-word, convey key arguments and the outcome.
- Include rationale: Don’t forget to include details about why the board took the actions they did. This allows the board to defend themselves if those decisions are later questioned.
- Ask questions: Speak up if anything the board discusses is unclear. Ask for clarification or even read back a portion of your minutes to validate their accuracy.
After the meeting
- Finalize the minutes: While the meeting’s proceedings are still fresh in your mind, make any final amendments. Review your minutes to ensure they truly reflect the meeting and the decisions the board made. You can also ask the meeting leader to clarify details or add context as needed.
- Collect additional documents: Supplemental materials like reports don’t need to appear within the minutes, but they should be an attachment. Gather anything you’ll need to include with the minutes.
- Get sign-off: Check in one last time with the meeting leader to verify that the minutes are accurate and complete and include all the required details.
- Distribute the minutes: Secretaries and minute takers are also responsible for providing all attendees present and absent with a copy of the minutes. Some organizations still use password-protected PDFs, but a board portal is your most secure option.
- Save the minutes: A critical part of learning how to take minutes at a board meeting is deciding where to store them. Back them up to an external hard drive or a secure cloud service so you can still retrieve them if your system crashes.
Best practices for taking board meeting minutes
Meeting minutes are more than notes, which is why adopting best practices can help you learn how to take minutes at a board meeting that amplifies board effectiveness.
- Prepare, prepare, prepare: Taking board meeting minutes is all about preparation, from reviewing the agenda to asking the board president about reports, attendees, guests and more so you can focus on the minutes — not the surprises.
- Review previous meeting minutes: Meetings often pick up where the last meeting left off. Refresh yourself about the details of previous meetings so you can effectively record how the discussion evolves.
- Track key actions: The board may also leave a meeting with a plan of action. Use the minutes to record their proposed next steps and how they should follow up. This pushes the board to follow through on key processes between meetings.
- Be consistent: From meeting to meeting, use the same meeting minutes format, distribute them in the same way and follow the board’s accepted language conventions. This makes the minutes both more compliant and more useful to board directors because they know what to expect.
- Check for errors: Correcting your spelling and grammar is a simple yet critical step. Making mistakes while taking the minutes is normal, as is abbreviating words or phrases so you don’t miss key takeaways. Review the minutes to ensure no mistakes remain in the final copy. Errors can undermine the credibility of the minutes.
- Adopt an amendment process: Board members may request amendments to the minutes. Document the amendments and note why the amendment was necessary. The idea here isn’t to allow board members to doctor the minutes but to welcome requests to ensure the minutes are as accurate as possible.
Turn board meeting minutes into a strategic advantage
Once you learn how to take minutes at a board meeting, the minutes become more than a record — they’re a tool that keeps the board effective, on track and in compliance. While corporate and board secretaries are easily underestimated, the reality is that an effective secretary who takes equally effective meeting minutes can make the difference between a successful board and an inefficient one.
Board portal software can also give boards the boost they need, offering a secure place to take, distribute and store minutes so secretaries and board members alike can make the most of every meeting — and the many critical tasks in between. Learn more about Board Management from Diligent, part of the Diligent One Platform, or request a demo to see how it works. | <urn:uuid:cf77d23f-e866-4b34-a847-2878650855b0> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.diligent.com/resources/blog/minutes-at-board-meetings | 2024-09-15T09:30:00Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651622.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20240915084859-20240915114859-00895.warc.gz | en | 0.94552 | 1,792 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Given that tens of billions of “things” will be connected to the Internet by 2020, it’s probably worth setting out some standards on how these devices and their digital architectures will work together.
That’s been the task of several people at the National Institute of Standards and Technology over the past few years as the Internet of Things — also referred to as cyber physical systems — has begun exploding in popularity.
However, David Wollman, deputy director of NIST’s Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems program office says things are changing so fast that it’s been difficult to develop concrete standards for the greater IoT ecosystem to use.
Wollman spoke about NIST’s efforts at an American Bar Association event Thursday, outlining how parties from academia, industry and government have all pitched in as the standards agency looks to finalize a new framework.
NIST released a draft framework for cyber-physical systems last September, which is meant to create some common vocabulary and best practices for how everything from connected cars to fitness trackers is architected and built to communicate with one another.
“What we’ve learned in this is very important to be able to cover many different domains,” Wollman said, referring to things like smart transportation, manufacturing and energy grid systems. “You not only want a system to work, you want it to work together with other infrastructures. If you have your smartphone in your car, you want them to pair up and help you do something.”
The complexity surrounded these systems has kept the framework in what Wollman called the “very early stages” despite being released in draft form.
With the complexity of these systems comes a heightened amount of risk. Wollman said every IoT system — and the users — will to have to balance security, privacy, safety, resiliency and liability.
“Usually [those categories] are siloed,” he said. “What we’ve realized in developing this framework is that its really going to be the interactions between those groups that are important. It’s not going to be sufficient to do a separate security analysis and then have a separate safety analysis.
“There are places where you need to understand where those two are linked.”
Yet even has the final framework is delayed, NIST is using its own in-house programs to gather further input.
A number of standards agencies have come together with NIST to form a new working group that will develop standards for IoT-enabled smart cities, using the projects created during the agency’s Smart City challenge.
“Here the goal is not to develop anything new,” Wollman said. “We are very cognizant that there is already a lot of activity going on. What we want to do is look at the deployed field of architectures in smart cities. When you have a city where multiple architectures are going to pop up, you need to have an understanding of how they will possibly work together.”
The group, which consists of the American National Standards Institute, FIWARE and the U.S. Green Building Council among others, will work to eliminate interoperability barriers and coalesce around standard architectural design for smart city systems. That work will eventually makes it way into NIST’s own framework.
Wollman went on to say that figuring out how all these things work together, as well as how they work with the people that are planning to use them, is crucial to further the use of IoT.
“If you are doing analysis, you can measure one system and put it right next to the analysis of another system, look at how you’ve understood the systems and by figuring out how they treated the human element, you’ll be able to understand those two systems can be linked together or if any additional things need to happen.”
Contact the reporter on this story via email at email@example.com, or follow him on Twitter at @gregotto. His OTR and PGP info can be found here. Subscribe to the Daily Scoop for stories like this in your inbox every morning by signing up here: fdscp.com/sign-me-on. | <urn:uuid:3bd73e29-46da-4ba6-ac09-bc2edb333a54> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://develop.fedscoop.com/new-nist-working-group-born-out-of-iot-complexities/ | 2024-09-16T17:08:35Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651697.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20240916144317-20240916174317-00795.warc.gz | en | 0.965024 | 883 | 2.859375 | 3 |
With all the media emphasis on Internet-related fraud and identity theft, one might think the Internet is a dangerous place for commerce.
As it turns out, though the Internet certainly has its risks, incidents of fraud and identity theft from other more traditional means outnumber those online.
If recent stats are to be trusted, incidents of fraud from Internet-based means may well be on the decline.
According to a new report from Javelin Strategy and Research, in cases where the source of the identity theft was known, only 9 percent were reported to have come from hacking, viruses and phishing.
In contrast, a lost or stolen wallet or credit/debit card was the cause of 30 percent of the incidents.
The study also found that fraudulent activity is mostly (over 70 percent) conducted offline via phone or mail.
That’s not to say that there isn’t a nefarious angle to online fraud. Average losses results from Internet-related identity theft fraud have ballooned over the last year to $6,432, up from $2,897.
In the same period losses from ID theft taken from the garbage or mail have declined by 14 percent.
Also of note is the fact that phishing in particular was reported to have the highest average length of misuse at 173 days. In comparison, data taken by friends, acquaintances, relatives or in-home employees was used for 134 days and lost or stolen credit cards for only 75 days.
“With the appropriate security and consumer education, phishing on existing accounts can be minimized,” Rubina Johannes, research analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research told internetnews.com. “However, to stop phishing on new accounts is more difficult.” | <urn:uuid:98fa9161-99e6-4b34-9c57-67fc68088555> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.datamation.com/security/id-theft-and-internet-fraud-declining/ | 2024-09-16T17:28:43Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651697.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20240916144317-20240916174317-00795.warc.gz | en | 0.961987 | 358 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Our knowledge to you.
On October 21, 2016, the east coast of the United States woke up to find a significant portion of the Internet wasn’t working. Twitter, Etsy, Tumblr, Reddit, PayPal, SoundCloud, Spotify, Amazon, and even the New York Times were among the sites experiencing issues. The culprit was a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Dyn, a New Hampshire-based Internet infrastructure company. The incident was an unusually large attack, and fortunately, it was resolved by the end of the day. However, it illustrates why DDoS is one of the biggest threats to Internet security today.
In a DDoS attack, hackers exploit computer vulnerabilities to create a botnet, an interconnected network of up to millions of machines. The botnet, sometimes colorfully referred to as a “zombie army,” is instructed to send high-volume traffic that overloads a network, effectively blocking users from accessing email, websites, online accounts, or other digital services.
A DDoS is a more sophisticated version of a DoS (denial of service) attack in which an attacker floods a network with information from a single source. DDoS attacks are much more difficult to combat because they come from multiple sources and sometimes even multiple platforms.
Thus, there are two ways you can become a victim of a DDoS attack – your network can be attacked, or your computer or other connected devices can be infected with malware and become part of a botnet carrying out a DDoS on someone else.
Typically, botnets have been composed of computers, but Gen Digital has found that connected devices that are part of the Internet of Things (IoT) are being exploited more and more. Many such devices don’t have advanced security features, and users may make the problem worse by failing to change the default passwords. Device manufacturers are taking steps to address these vulnerabilities. Still, the IoT has undeniably made the problem of DDoS even more challenging to combat – even as security concerns are a significant barrier to the growth of the IoT.
Any business can become a victim, but some of the most common targets of DDoS attacks are financial – banks or credit card payment gateways, as well as the online gaming and gambling industry. According to Kaspersky Lab, increasing attacks on organizations have been working to counter DDoS. Any size business is vulnerable, and attacks can be as brief as 30 minutes, making them hard to detect. The motivation of the perpetrators varies – it can include anything from simply demonstrating their hacking capabilities to criminal extortion.
Other times, perpetrators will attack websites devoted to news, human rights, political candidates, or elections as a form of protest or censorship — “hacktivist” groups have used it in various well-publicized attacks against religious and government entities. DDoS is a significant and persistent enough threat to freedom of expression. In March 2016, Google launched “Project Shield,” a free service to protect public-interest sites from DDoS attacks.
All DDoS activity is illegal and harmful. But according to Infosecurity Magazine, a disturbing trend of “dark DDoS” has emerged in recent years. Dark DDoS means an attack is used for something even more malicious than denying service to users. Instead, it’s used to distract IT personnel from an ongoing breach in security. Hackers research a network’s vulnerabilities and then launch a DDoS as a smokescreen. While IT personnel are distracted by DDoS, hackers penetrate the network and steal data.
The problem is growing. According to an October 2016 study by Neustar, nearly three-quarters of global firms have experienced a DDoS attack over the previous 12 months. DDoS attacks result in significant financial losses – about half of the companies reported losing $100,000 per hour, but one-third lost as much as $250,000. Worse, most took at least an hour to realize they were under attack and even longer to respond. The same study reported that DDoS attacks are more and more sophisticated in that attacks are increasingly “dark” – that is, they’re just one part of a more significant attack on an organization’s infrastructure or security — and in the techniques used to execute them.
Digital Attack Map, an online resource that tracks DDoS activity, says that over 2,000 DDoS attacks are observed daily worldwide, causing one-third of all downtime incidents. Incredibly enough, a weeklong DDoS attack can be purchased on the black market for as little as $150.
The following can reduce the chances your computer or connected device will become an unwitting part of a botnet (at work or home):
Here’s how you can prepare your business for a DDoS include:
For technical information about DDoS, including the methods used in the October 21 attack, read “On DNS and DDoS,” a blog post by Arbor Networks.
Tags: DDoS, DDoS Attack, DDoS Mitigation, DoS, hackers, Internet of Things, IoT, network security | <urn:uuid:a90e0ca1-1b36-46b0-8673-2cbd58fb63e1> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.dqecom.com/resources/tech-talk/business-prepared-ddos-attack/ | 2024-09-16T17:07:11Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651697.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20240916144317-20240916174317-00795.warc.gz | en | 0.963704 | 1,046 | 3.046875 | 3 |
In recent years, it has become quite evident that AI-based technology will fundamentally change economies, politics, the planet, and indeed humanity. Even today we are only just beginning to see some of these changes come to fruition. For better or for worse, society will be permanently altered due to artificial intelligence. Just think of the dramatic changes we’ve witnessed just in our own lives as the age of the Internet has disrupted the landscape.
Given the dramatic pace of innovation today, one can’t help but wonder what humanity might look like in a few decades as compared to today. How will we, as a society, fare in the brave new world of tomorrow?
Humans have been interested in predicting the future for thousands of years. Fortune tellers were highly coveted advisors to Assyrian kings as far back as 2500 BC and astrology has been dated to at least 2000 BC. Ancient cultures ranging from the Mayans to the Chinese ascribed special meaning to the movement of celestial bodies. Prophets in the Bible foresaw terrible events like wars, floods, earthquakes. Nostradamus, a 16th-century astrologer, wrote his collection of prophecies, Les Propheties, in 1555.
Even today we long to know the future. Only today, our fortune tellers are software engineers and statisticians. We have turned to artificial intelligence, machine, and deep learning to help us predict everything from election outcomes to weather patterns and even crime.
It is estimated that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated each and every day! In accordance with Moore’s Law, this daily data generation is likely to double every 12-18 months. I believe that data will actually outpace Moore’s Law over the next decade, particularly as more remote parts of the planet join the internet age. All of this data makes it increasingly difficult to identify a signal from all this noise. And yet, machine learning thrives on oceans of data. In many ways, the explosion of data over the past few years has been the most important and direct cause of the explosion in artificial intelligence.
Every day, whether we know it or not, we make calculated decisions with varying degrees of accuracy in everyday life decisions. Is the benefit of me arriving at my destination worth the risk of being hit by a car when I cross the street here? Should I quit my nice stable job and found a startup?
Virtually every decision we make can be formalized into a problem to be solved with predictive analytics. Games such as poker and baseball are well-studied in this respect. Statistics and predictive analytics are being increasingly applied to other domains such as politics and social science. The 2016 American presidential election was the most data-rich elections in history. But despite the enormous amounts of data available, polls and statisticians seemed to get it wrong.
Early polls had the odds of a Clinton victory hovering in the 70-80% probability. However, closer to the election date, the picture was a little different. Although the majority of political experts still expected a Hillary Clinton victory, by November 7th, the polls had tightened significantly.
It’s not yet clear why, despite all of the data available, pollsters still got it wrong. To be certain, predicting chess and poker outcomes are one thing — predicting political outcomes are quite another thing entirely. Regardless of the country in question, democratic elections are extremely complex systems that are not entirely fact-driven. Human emotion is a major component of a democracy and artificial intelligence has not yet achieved a good understanding of human emotion. At any rate, statisticians, researchers, and political experts will look back on the election of 2016 to try to understand the implicit biases and incorrect assumptions baked into their models. Since the time of the election, researchers have introduced algorithms that have been able to predict which congressional bills have the highest likelihood of passing and becoming law. Every day huge amounts of data are continually added to the ocean of data and everyday models become smarter and more accurate.
Generally speaking, it’s all about probability more than anything else. It’s been said that the only certainties in life are taxes and death. Insurance companies take this quote to heart and have been building predictive models for centuries. Life insurance is an interesting if morbid, case study. The question isn’t whether the insured individual will die or not — it’s about how long it’ll be before it happens! There are hundreds, if not thousands, of variables that are considered in the final premium price for life insurance, not least of which are the health factors. Insurance companies like writing contracts with less risky people (compared to the average) and dislike making contracts will more risky people and they invest heavily in producing highly accurate models. In the many years that life insurance has been around, it’s clear that the majority of these bets have paid off — the law of large numbers is a powerful thing!
The law of large numbers is a concept very familiar to Las Vegas casinos. Stated simply, the law of large numbers is the phenomenon that the average of the results of a large number of trials should be close to the expected value. For example, if you roll a die one million times, the law states that the average value will be 3.5. This simple theorem plays a central role in virtually all of statistics and has proven to be quite reliable for casinos and insurance companies alike.
So predictive models are great for insurance companies and casinos, but what about the rest of us? Crime prediction in one such area where the fruits of predictive modeling can be shared by all. Imagine a world with no crime — no more violent assault, no robbery, no killing. Sound like a science fiction utopia? Researchers and police departments across the country are working hard to make this world a reality. Several police departments using algorithmic policing have reported anywhere from a 9% to 20% reduction in certain crimes. This is quite a way off from 100% but it certainly seems to be a step in the right direction.
One of the major ideas in predictive policing is to identify sparks before they turn into wildfires. Algorithms will consider minor crimes which have the potential to turn into more serious crimes down the road. For example, an escalation of violence between two rival gangs or simple assaults leading to more aggravated assaults. If police are able to identify and address minor crimes, they might be able to get the perpetrators the help they need before they consider more serious crimes.
It’s very important to ensure these predictive systems do not carry any bias. The ACLU has rightly raised concerns that predictive policing could have created a feedback loop that might actually reinforce crime. This is where an intelligent, thoughtful, and responsible debate must take place. It is my opinion that AI-assisted predictions will only continue to grow in popularity over the years and this is great — as long as we work tirelessly to ensure a fair and equitable system.
Interestingly, many of the same principles in crime prediction are very closely related to disease and epidemiological models. Here too is another area where predictive modeling can have tremendous benefits for humankind. Cities have long been magnets for pests and rodents and these pests pose a serious public health crisis for cities. Recent research suggests that due to warming temperatures, rats are multiplying like we’ve never seen before in cities like Washington D.C. and New York City. This is a problem that is perfectly suited for predictive modeling solutions. Just like with crime prediction, we need to stamp out small problems before they turn into big problems.
The gross-factor is reason enough to address the pest problem. But large rodent populations can be extremely dangerous in epidemiological terms as well. Rodents have been known to carry and spread more than 35 diseases including the plague. The 1924 Los Angeles plague outbreak killed 30 people in just two weeks. A swift response by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and a citywide rat extermination campaign is widely credited with the relatively contained outbreak.
Rodents can also present major ecological problems as well. In 2016, the New Zealand government announced an ambitious plan — to rid the country of all non-native rodents by 2050. Rats, stoats, and possums — all non-native, invasive animals — are blamed for the deaths of tens of millions of birds and cost the government more than $2.3 billion each year. In order for the New Zealand government to achieve this ambitious goal, predictive analytics and epidemiological models will be crucial.
One final area where I believe predictive analytics will become more important is that of weather forecasting. We’ve seen incredible improvements in the accuracy of weather prediction in just the last 50-60 years. But when we’re talking about extremely dangerous weather like tornados and hurricanes, it’s important that we continue to improve accuracy. Weather prediction is the most complex problems I have discussed so far — there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of variables that must be accounted for in building accurate weather models. And climate change is making that even harder. Scientists warn that warming oceans, sea level rise, and a rising global temperature could be the cause of the increased incidence of extreme weather events.
As the number of extreme weather events continues to rise and populations increase, weather events will be a major source of concern and it accurate weather predictions will be of utmost importance. Government agencies such as NASA and NOAA collect massive sets of data from sensors placed all over the planet.
In addition to weather, NASA tracks and monitors asteroids that are considered “potentially hazardous.” In 2005, Congress directed NASA to find and observe asteroids. NASA has found approximately 2,000 asteroids that could pose a serious threat to the planet. Were it to hit the planet, an asteroid 140 meters in diameter would ram into the planet with an energy of 288 megatons. For comparison, the largest nuclear weapon ever built had a payload of 50 megatons.
With an estimated 250 billion stars in the milky way alone, discovering an asteroid as small as 150 meters might sound completely impossible. And it would be, without the use of predictive analytics!
There is a great quote from Spider-Man — with great power comes great responsibility.Data is all around us. This data gives us incredible power and it is important that we use this data for good and not for bad. Data gives us the power to build extremely accurate predictive models which can be applied to problems that we as a species have dealt with since the beginning of time. We live in truly exciting times but I predict that the future will be even more exciting with the use of predictive analytics for applications worldwide! | <urn:uuid:3819a498-83b1-4973-ac7b-b7e302e46ab0> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://resources.experfy.com/ai-ml/ai-ramifications-in-tomorrow-s-world/ | 2024-09-19T03:51:22Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651981.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20240919025412-20240919055412-00595.warc.gz | en | 0.957239 | 2,162 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The CURSOR IS clause specifies where in a field the cursor is positioned at the start of the ACCEPT operation, and returns where the cursor is left at the end of an ACCEPT operation. If you do not specify a CURSOR IS clause in your program, the cursor is positioned at the start of the first field for every ACCEPT operation.
The CURSOR IS clause is defined in the Special-Names paragraph, as follows:
special-names. cursor is cursor-position.
where cursor-position is a field defined in the Working-Storage Section of your program as follows:
01 cursor-position. 03 cursor-row pic 99. 03 cursor-column pic 99.
01 cursor-position. 03 cursor-row pic 999. 03 cursor-column pic 999.
Whenever an ACCEPT statement is executed, the enhanced ACCEPT/DISPLAY syntax attempts to initially position the cursor at the position specified in cursor-position. If the position specified is invalid (that is, either cursor-row or cursor-column does not contain a valid value), the cursor is positioned at the start of the first field on the screen.
If the value in cursor-position is valid, the enhanced ACCEPT/DISPLAY syntax searches through all of the fields to see if the requested cursor position lies within one of them. If it does, the cursor is positioned at the required point. If it does not, then the cursor is positioned at the start of the first field. Therefore, if you want the cursor to be positioned at the start of the first field, set both cursor-row and cursor-column to 1.
Where the defined position is on a suppressed character or insertion symbol in a numeric edited field, the cursor moves to the first available character to the right. If there is no further data item, the cursor returns to the first data item on the screen.
When the ACCEPT is terminated, if the value in cursor-position at the start of the ACCEPT was valid, the position of the cursor when the terminating key is pressed is returned in cursor-position. This might not be the same position as the current cursor position, since the enhanced ACCEPT/DISPLAY syntax usually moves the cursor to the end of the field upon termination of an ACCEPT operation to allow relative positioned ACCEPT statements to start at the correct point on the screen.
If the value in cursor-position at the start of the ACCEPT operation was invalid, then, when the ACCEPT operation is terminated, the contents of cursor-position are unchanged.
One example of the use of this facility is that in menu-type operations, the operator need only move the cursor to a position on the screen corresponding to the selection required. The operator's choice can be determined by the returned value of cursor-position. | <urn:uuid:aa3b0e4d-381b-46ea-a24d-4ea40f80e6fe> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.microfocus.com/documentation/visual-cobol/vc70/VS2017/BKCICIADISS018.html | 2024-09-09T11:03:03Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651098.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20240909103148-20240909133148-00595.warc.gz | en | 0.868678 | 590 | 2.921875 | 3 |
- Bring your own device
- Copy protection
- Data access control
- Data at rest
- Data in transit
- Data in use
- Data leakage
- Data loss prevention
- Data security
- Data security posture management
- Data security breach
- Data theft
- File security
- Incident response
- Indicators of compromise
- Insider threat
- Ransomware attack
- USB blocker
- USB drop attack
Bring your own device
What is BYOD?
Bring your own device (BYOD) is an organizational policy that allows employees to use their personal devices for business purposes. BYOD involves employees using personal smartphones, tablets, computers, and USB devices to access official data and applications for work.
Advantages and disadvantages of BYOD
Organizations around the world are increasingly adopting BYOD policies. There are both pros and cons to the implementation of BYOD policies in organizations, which are listed below.
Advantages of BYOD | Disadvantages of BYOD |
It offers better flexibility to employees in the way they collaborate and work. | It poses data security risks, especially if the organization does not monitor and secure the use of these devices. |
It is more convenient for employees with regards to file sharing. | If employees lose their devices containing organizational data, the company is left vulnerable to potential data breaches and the loss of organizational information. |
The company spends less money and time acquiring the required IT hardware. | The organization has to invest in securing employees' personal devices to ensure that organizational data is not compromised. |
It proves useful in remote work conditions that involve a lot of official travel. | It is challenging to secure personal devices to protect organizational data while still ensuring personal data privacy for employees. |
BYOD security risks
A few data security threats that may arise from BYOD policies include:
- The loss of personal devices, which could lead to data breaches or leaks.
- The use of unsecured personal devices that hackers can infiltrate.
- The use of shadow IT devices, which are personal devices used for organizational purposes without being reported to admins.
- Noncompliance with BYOD policy rules and employee ignorance while using BYOD devices, which lead to accidental data leaks.
What is BYOD security?
BYOD devices are entryways into an organization's network. Implementing a BYOD policy involves considering the security risks mentioned above and developing a secure organizational policy.
Here are four tips to keep in mind while drafting a BYOD policy:
Implement data loss prevention
Keep unauthorized removable media devices at bay and allow access only for trusted devices. For instance, you can use our USB access control software to allow or deny file access, file modifications, and the running of executables on USB drives. Furthermore, employ the right tools to secure employees' devices. Indicators of compromise like mass file deletions can be detected by our insider threat detection software.
Enforce endpoint management
When employees use personal devices, enforce adequate security measures across those devices. It is essential, although challenging, to put in place endpoint management software without affecting the privacy of employees. Some challenges include pushing regular updates to personal devices and lacking control over unsecured apps or websites that may lead to potential breaches.
Enhance cloud security
Examples of BYOD policy risks include the loss of personal laptops or USB drives and the compromise of user system accounts accessed through the internet. Therefore, it is important to keep an eye on what data is being uploaded from or downloaded onto employees' devices. A deep packet inspection tool can analyze the web apps accessed and the data packets sent or received over the internet. Vigilance over cloud applications can ensure that BYOD use does not violate your data integrity and security needs.
Enable real-time threat detection
In addition to securing personal devices used by employees, audit your file repositories in real time to detect data manipulation, data theft, and malware attacks. Our file system auditing tool records file events as they occur and is useful for capturing file theft attempts. Such a tool instantly identifies indicators of attacks, like bulk file modifications or deletions, so you can launch data loss prevention measures without any delay.
How to secure BYOD use
Implement different security requirements to ensure maximum security while allowing BYOD use. Some of the measures that should be undertaken include:
- Mandate the encryption of data stored, used, or transmitted via personal laptops and removable media devices.
- Install antivirus and anti-malware software on personal devices to thwart malware attacks.
- Prioritize data security by restricting employees to sharing and using on personal devices only those documents that do not contain any sensitive personal data. Put in place an appropriate approval process for employee accountability.
- Approach asset management with careful consideration. Find the right balance between not encroaching on employees' privacy and simultaneously securing business-critical data.
- Institute physical controls on USBs and other personal devices for an additional layer of security.
- Enforce IT security checks and software updates on personal laptops consistently to avoid data compromise. | <urn:uuid:88eaaf0c-4066-4613-b362-71137707c60f> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.manageengine.com/in/data-security/what-is/byod.html?source=what-is-file-security | 2024-09-10T16:30:08Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651303.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20240910161250-20240910191250-00495.warc.gz | en | 0.91357 | 1,034 | 2.9375 | 3 |
In the technological era, where swift development of edge-cutting computing power, memory storage, unprecedented stock of data, and progress in advanced algorithms, AI has led to an extraordinary breakthrough. Artificial Intelligence, or machine intelligence that can sense, think, and respond similarly to human beings, is widely used in diverse fields such as computer vision, voice recognition, education, healthcare, etc.
On the same pattern, AI has evolved as a revolutionizing step in the field of medicine, drug discovery and development, and pharmaceuticals, simply by dragging out invisible patterns and confirmation from medical data.
In medicine and healthcare, Artificial intelligence has remained a sizzling topic for many years. While AI enfolds the massive potential in medicine, it is around with the buzz of losing “human-touch” in terms of individual professions, not necessarily. Still, it reduces the efforts of one’s focused engagement.
If accounting the advantages of deploying the AI in medicine;
- It comes out with accuracy, efficiency, and precision,
- It reduces the work-load, expands patient care timing, improves time in critical cases, and
- It is cost-effective and provides better monitoring.
This blog tells how AI can be used in medicines along with applications of examples and learn how AI is aiding doctors in making diagnosis easier.
Medicine is among the rapidly spreading and sustaining application realms with specific challenges.
In the context of applying technology for handling medical data, AI can be used to handle missing data, like, while working with 2D and 3D medical images data. AI could assist in promoting patient survival estimations by deploying tree-based algorithms (AI models) that indirectly support doctors.
In recent years, AI has been reconstructing medicine's practice. It supports doctors in diagnosing patients more precisely and in deciding prophecies concerning patients’ health in the future and can recommend suitable treatments.
AI can help diagnose illnesses from x-rays, CT scan to 3D MRI brain images; it predicts the cure-effects on patients by deploying data from randomized trials. Also, with the help of NLP, it makes tasks automatically label medical data.
With the help of a massive amount of medical data, AI can be implemented from determining diseases and medicine to therapeutics and recognizing targets with minimal errors.
Since medical treatment could impact each patient differently, depending on the existing health conditions, AI algorithms/models) are considered a powerful tool for prognosis where the prognosis is a part of medicine that practices in estimating future health possibilities of patients.
Cardiology: Under cardiology, through using electronic patient records, AI could be used for anticipating the risk of cardiovascular diseases like minor coronary syndrome, heart failure, which is quite reliable than conventional scales.
Pulmonary Medicine: Being accounted as a promising domain, the interpretation of pulmonary functions is crucial for developing one of the AI applications. Many research studies have shown how AI-based software is more reliable for providing accurate explanations and assisting in the form of decision support tools while translating outcomes from pulmonary functions tests.
Gastroenterology: The pursuit of gastroenterology advantages to massive applications in AI, especially in clinical settings. Gastroenterologists also deploy convolutional neural networks(CNN) to transform patients’ images from endoscopy and ultrasound and identify irregular structures. Moreover, AI is used to cure gastroesophageal reflux disease, atrophic gastritis, and many more diseases.
Nephrology: Another unique AI application can be used to configure clinical nephrology settings, like predicting the dissolution of glomerular filtration rate in patients with kidney diseases and other similar diseases.
Some additional applications where AI algorithms can be implemented in diagnosing cancer in computational histopathology can be achieved with good accuracy and provide pathologists extra time to focus on practical approaches, as explained by Frontiers.
Below are the specific limitation of applying Artificial Intelligence in medicine;
AI algorithms are not always used by doctors to treat patients; in some cases, computationalists are also required to learn about medicine, and clinicians need to know about the function of specific algorithms.
We have seen almighty applications of AI in medicine. It is beneficial in diagnosing and elementary clinical tasks, but it is much harder to think of automated brain surgeries.
Since many of the algorithms are incredibly intricate, it sometimes becomes tough to get interference from the input medical data and deconvolute mathematics behind it.
Researchers, organizations, and administrators may be reluctant to expose their proprietary methods publicly, at the risk of falling money by seizing their ideas adopted and sustained by others.
Many times AI algorithms may encounter obstacles in attaining the support and approval of patients.
In the last, we can say that the demand for Artificial Intelligence with expertise is high and expanding exponentially for assisting doctors, anticipating health conditions and possibilities of survival of patients, managing the loudest issues in modern medicine, etc.
However, experts are consistently investing efforts in providing more enhanced AI models in various fields; many organizations set the goal to endorse the medical field while embracing AI. | <urn:uuid:1f3b71fe-5a25-4aad-8f77-9c3069b9324d> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.batoi.com/blogs/insights/ai-medicine-applications-limitations-61bf1680d314c | 2024-09-11T23:15:02Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651405.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20240911215612-20240912005612-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.931604 | 1,037 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Thought leadership. Threat analysis. Cybersecurity news and alerts.
1/24/2023 What's AI?Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming one of the most powerful tools in the cybersecurity arsenal. As the volume and sophistication of cyber threats continue to increase, AI has the potential to help organizations detect and respond to attacks more quickly and effectively. However, as with any new technology, there are challenges and risks associated with using AI in cybersecurity. What are the opportunities in the cybersecurity industry?One of the main opportunities for using AI in cybersecurity is its ability to sift through vast amounts of data and identify patterns and anomalies that might indicate a security breach. This is particularly useful in detecting advanced persistent threats (APTs), which are cyberattacks that are designed to evade traditional security systems. By using machine learning algorithms, AI systems can learn to identify the characteristics of an APT and flag it for further investigation. Another opportunity of AI in cybersecurity is its ability to automate many of the repetitive and time-consuming tasks that security teams currently perform manually. For example, AI systems can be used to monitor network traffic and identify suspicious activity, scan for vulnerabilities in systems and applications, and respond to security incidents. By automating these tasks, AI can free up security teams to focus on more complex and strategic tasks, such as incident response and threat hunting. Are there any challenges and risks in using AI?However, there are also risks and challenges associated with using AI in cybersecurity. One of the main concerns is that AI systems may only sometimes be able to distinguish between legitimate and malicious activity. This can lead to false positives, which can overwhelm security teams and lead to a loss of trust in the AI system. Additionally, AI systems are only as good as the data they are trained on, and if the training data is biased or complete, the AI system may make correct decisions. Another challenge with AI in cybersecurity is the need for more transparency and interpretability of the decision-making process. With traditional cybersecurity tools, it is relatively straightforward to understand how they work and why they flag certain activities as suspicious. However, with AI systems, the decision-making process may be opaque and difficult to understand. This can make it difficult for security teams to trust the system's decisions and take appropriate action. Finally, there is a risk that cyber attackers may use AI to develop new and more advanced attack techniques. For example, attackers may use AI to create malware that can evade detection by traditional security systems or launch more sophisticated phishing campaigns. Futhermore, AI can be used to automate tasks that human attackers, such as reconnaissance and lateral movement, typically perform. ConclusionTo conclude, AI has the potential to be a powerful tool in the cybersecurity arsenal, but it also presents new challenges and risks. Organizations that are considering using AI in cybersecurity should be aware of these challenges and take steps to mitigate them. This includes ensuring that the training data is unbiased and complete, developing interpretable models and implementing transparency mechanisms, and having a robust incident response plan. Additionally, organizations should stay informed of the evolving threat landscape and be prepared to adapt their AI systems as new threats emerge. Please speak with our cybersecurity experts today to mitigate cybersecurity and IT risks for your business.
#cybersecurity #AI #business #risk
AuthorSteve E. Driz, I.S.P., ITCP Archives | <urn:uuid:e0012e1e-e97e-4897-b788-4bb258e3e4f5> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.drizgroup.com/driz_group_blog/unleashing-the-power-of-ai-in-cybersecurity-how-it-can-help-and-harm-your-business | 2024-09-12T00:23:42Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651405.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20240911215612-20240912005612-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.955035 | 679 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Agricultural Robot Picks Tomatoes, Gathers Crop Data
The robot features two arms to pick tomatoes, as well as data collection technology to gather information on crop yield and health
A new agricultural robot has been developed to pick tomatoes. Featuring AI-based computing for 3D perception, flexible motion control and path-planning algorithms, the robot can autonomously navigate and harvest crops, gathering data along the way.
Designed by Israeli startup MetoMotion, the robot, dubbed GRoW, was developed as a response to ongoing labor shortages and poor crop yields in the agricultural industry.
The robot is fitted with two flexible arms that can harvest two rows of tomatoes simultaneously, leveraging an advanced vision system to detect the fruit ripe for picking, and those that are still growing. The robotic arms place the picked fruit on a conveyor belt before dropping them into fruit container units, working at a speed of 16 seconds per cluster.
GRoW also automatically gathers data on the crops as it harvests, including information on yield forecasts to improve crop management. The robot can also be used for other, typically labor-intensive greenhouse tasks such as pruning, pollination, de-leafing and data collection for cultivation analysis.
To date, MetoMotion has raised $10 million from investors Trendlines Group and Netherland-based greenhouse technology company Ridder, to scale its platform.
"Growers have to do more with less, [and] automating labor is a key component in that,” said Joep Van den Bosch, Ridder’s CIO. “By adding greenhouse robotics to our Ridder product portfolio, we lower the threshold for growers to step into the robotic age and integrate the generated data with all other Ridder systems in the greenhouse environment."
About the Author
You May Also Like | <urn:uuid:80874b48-3cc9-4886-ae9f-012a11eaaf55> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.iotworldtoday.com/robotics/agricultural-robot-picks-tomatoes-gathers-crop-data | 2024-09-11T22:38:46Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651405.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20240911215612-20240912005612-00395.warc.gz | en | 0.935467 | 377 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The cost of cybercrime related to malware alone is expected to reach $6 trillion globally by 2021. Therefore, defenses against malware and other cyber criminal attacks have never been more important for businesses, governments and individuals.
Supported by an organized underground economy that is well-funded and resourced, malware and other cyber criminal attack methods continue to evolve and proliferate at a rapid pace. The number of known threats has grown from less than 2,000 in the early 1990s to hundreds of millions today.
Malware also comes in many forms: viruses, worms, rootkits, botnets, fileless malware, ransomware, and crypto-miners that represent different ways of exploiting known and unknown (zero day) vulnerabilities in widely-used operating systems and business applications.
In addition to the staggering volume of malware threats with hundreds of thousands of new variants detected every day, malware continues to become more complex as demonstrated by NotPetya, which included several propagation methods at its disposal to increase the likelihood of success.
The most sophisticated malware not only has several propagation/infection methods it can use, but is also increasingly split up into multiple stages and uses multiple techniques to achieve its objectives and to avoid detection. These include credential theft and privilege escalation to access systems and data disguised as legitimate users, and “code caves” to hide malicious code inside applications.
The potential impact of malware is also increasing, with thousands of private and public sector organisations continuing to be crippled by ransomware attacks designed to make money by encrypting critical data and demanding payment for its release.
Although NotPetya appeared to be ransomware, it is more accurately described as destructive malware, with potentially an even greater impact on business operations than true ransomware. NotPetya, like other “wiper” attacks was designed to destroy/overwrite data.
Taken collectively, these attacks represent the rise of data-destroying malware that is part of a growing trend of state-sponsored attacks that are much more damaging than traditional cyber criminal attacks and tend to have a 100% penetration rate due to high levels of investment in their development.
At the same time, the number of attack techniques continues to expand beyond malware to include weaponized documents and even fileless attack methods that avoid signature-based detections by propagating through process or memory injection without being written and transferred as a file.
As a result, traditional cyber threat detection systems that rely on signature-based detection are no longer effective in the face of an increasing number of previously unknown malware variants and attack methods, as well as the growing number of fileless attacks that use legitimate native tools like PowerShell to assemble and execute the malicious payload.
The number of attack channels has also grown since the 1990s from malicious emails, links and attachments to include malicious social media accounts, compromised legitimate websites, compromised mobile and desktop applications, including browsers and browser plugins.
In the light of the developments in the threat landscape, it has become increasingly important for organizations to have multiple layers of defense as well as the capability to detect and respond to attacks that may slip past those defenses to limit the damage and ensure business continuity.
These layers of defense are typically focused on the endpoint and the network, which has given rise to Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and Network Detection and Response (NDR) product sets, many of which are designed to detect new or previously unknown malware or attack types.
While EDR is a well-established market, NDR is the relatively new application of EDR principles to networks and adds another layer of defense to detect malware or malicious activity that may have slipped past endpoint defenses. NDR is typically used to detect potentially malicious network activity, investigate and perform forensics to determine root cause, and then respond and mitigate. These responses can even be automated to reduce response times to a minimum. NDR solutions also tend to log all activities from attached networks in a central secure location for real-time and later analysis.
NDR solutions can help protect against non-malware threats, such as insider attacks, credential abuse, lateral movement, and data exfiltration. They also provide greater visibility into what is on the network and what activities are taking place. While most NDR solutions are designed to help security teams to identify and stop suspicious activity as quickly as possible, many rely heavily on anomaly detection and run the risk of a high rate of false positives or missing malicious activity because without being able to make connections to other activities in the network as part of an attack campaign, individual actions in isolation appear benign. A key differentiator for NDR technology is the employment of multiple Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in the various analysis phases. At a high level, unsupervised ML finds outliers, while supervised ML models categorize possible threats among the outliers.
NDR is likely to grow in importance as a layer of cyber defense for organizations because without an effective monitoring capability, networks provide an easy route for attackers into enterprise infrastructure that is connected to every device, application, service and data store. While EDR provides a detailed view of the processes running on a host and interactions between them, NDR provides a detailed and complementary view of the interactions between all devices on the network.
With both EDR and NDR products, key features include the ability to identify malicious behavior accurately so that they do not generate a huge volume of alerts, the ability to analyze detections and carry out investigations quickly and easily, and the ability to push responses to security products deployed in the enterprise IT environment to block and remediate attacks.
In the light of the hybrid reality of most enterprise IT environments, it is also important for EDR and NDR products to work across all the main operating systems found in modern enterprises, integrate with a wide range of security products, and work across systems on prem and in the cloud. | <urn:uuid:be02c905-02d8-4ee8-ba47-fe58b615f481> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://www.kuppingercole.com/research/ev80230/vectra-cognito | 2024-09-14T11:57:21Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651579.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20240914093425-20240914123425-00195.warc.gz | en | 0.956752 | 1,186 | 2.921875 | 3 |
A zone file used to forward zones often used with Other DNS servers.
Stub zones are similar to forwarding zones because they allow your server to send
recursive queries directly to specific DNS servers. However, whereas a forwarding zone
is just an entry in a configuration file, a stub zone is an actual zone file. It's named
for the fact that it represents a stub of the actual authoritative primary zone located
on a different DNS server. A stub zone contains the authoritative zone’s SOA record, NS
records, and possibly the glue records. The server hosting the stub zone gets these
records from the primary name server holding the authoritative zone. In Address Manager, this zone type is often used with Other DNS servers (external
DNS servers), where the Other DNS server represents the authoritative primary.
Note: Address Manager doesn't
support Stub Zones stored in Active Directory, so it can't import them or deploy them.
However, any stub zones stored in Active Directory aren't affected during deployment. | <urn:uuid:fe628a14-acde-4976-9ec9-911f48f1fae2> | CC-MAIN-2024-38 | https://docs.bluecatnetworks.com/r/Address-Manager-Administration-Guide/Stub-zones/9.3.0 | 2024-09-15T16:37:20Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2024-38/segments/1725700651632.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20240915152239-20240915182239-00095.warc.gz | en | 0.942571 | 211 | 2.5625 | 3 |
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