text stringlengths 234 589k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 62 values | url stringlengths 16 734 | date stringlengths 20 20 ⌀ | file_path stringlengths 109 155 | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.65 1 | token_count int64 57 124k | score float64 2.52 4.91 | int_score int64 3 5 |
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Mobile technology has been widely adopted in schools because of the collaborative and learning possibilities they open up. Chromebooks, Macbooks, iPads and Android tablets are some of the most widely used mobile devices in educational environments.
The increase in mobility adoption has resulted in many device management challenges – such as the need to keep students connected and focused during classroom instruction. The need to ensure minimal distractions while facilitating productive usage of mobile devices in the classroom has become more and more apparent to school IT teams over the years. A 2017 report by Project Tomorrow, a national education research nonprofit organization, reported some interesting figures regarding technology and mobility adoption in day-to-day classroom learning. | <urn:uuid:c2024996-2dc3-4a84-9bd9-136b49e9b8b7> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.faronics.com/document-library/document/switching-mdm-solutions-migration-guide-for-schools | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030338001.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20221007080917-20221007110917-00290.warc.gz | en | 0.968626 | 132 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Cyber attacks increase, despite growing threat awareness in APAC region
There is a significant gap between threat awareness and taking action in the APAC region, according to ESET's APAC Consumer Cybersecurity Survey.
The survey finds that three in five (62%) respondents in the region said they have experienced a cyber attack or online threat in the past 12 months.
By analysing consumers' habits based on previous online interactions, the survey provided insight into the awareness of basic cybersecurity threats and best practices of actions online.
Across the surveyed markets, the most common forms were attributed to malware/virus attacks (17%), theft of personal data (13%), and social media breach or duplication (11%).
Only about 23% of respondents installed free or paid antivirus/security app on their mobile devices.
According to ESET, as people are increasingly dependent on the internet to work, communicate, shop and entertain themselves, scammers are also taking advantage of the new normal to lure victims.
Around two thirds (67%) of surveyed respondents indicated that they have come across online scams. The most common types of scams were online shopping (21%), social media (18%), investment (15%).
With close to half of surveyed respondents saying that they shop online at least once a month, it is critical for consumers to remain vigilant when engaging in online transactions, the researchers state.
Moreover, more than half of the respondents in APAC trust the security measures by online retailers completely.
To protect themselves from scams, ESET states consumers should take precautions when shopping online.
Fortunately, more than 90% of surveyed respondents take some form of precaution when shopping online, with checking for product/seller reviews being the most popular method of assessing a retailers legitimacy across APAC.
Another key finding from ESET is that children's risk exposure via devices and through various online platforms offering services ranging from collaboration, online learning and video streaming to online games and social media, is growing.
This puts them at greater risk of encountering online threats, and it is important to teach children the essential skills to remain safe while navigating in an online environment, the researchers state.
To ensure that minors are protected in the digital world, parents should have a hand in demonstrating the threats that the online world poses, ESET states.
Most parents (90%) in APAC did take actions to ensure their children's online safety. Popular methods include limiting the amount of time their children spend online (31%), using parental control applications (29%) and checking what apps are installed on their children's devices (24%).
ESET president of Asia Pacific and Japan Parvinder Walia says, “While the pandemic has introduced a new paradigm in the way we live, work, learn, socialise and play, it has also resulted in consumers' increased reliance on digital technologies and services, which is a major factor for cyber criminals to pursue illegal activities.
"As we continue to navigate challenges from the pandemic, the reliance on digital technology for various aspects of our daily lives will likely spill into the future.
"Our survey findings suggest that it is now common for internet users to encounter online threats. Therefore, it is critical that consumers are educated about the growing threats, and are aware of the steps they can take to protect themselves as well as their children when conducting online activities. | <urn:uuid:e2d25c2e-f4e3-4d8e-aa9e-ce41b67587fc> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://securitybrief.asia/story/cyber-attacks-increase-despite-growing-threat-awareness-in-apac-region | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334528.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20220925101046-20220925131046-00490.warc.gz | en | 0.951032 | 678 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Stemming extends a search to cover grammatical variations on a word.
For example, a search for fish would also find fishing. A search for applied would also find applying, applies, and apply. There are two ways to add stemming to your searches:
1. Set the dtsSearchStemming search flag to enable stemming for all of the words in your search request. Stemming does not slow searches noticeably and is almost always helpful in making sure you find what you want.
2. If you want to add stemming selectively, add a ~ at the end of words that you want stemmed in a search. Example: apply~
The stemming rules included with dtSearch are designed to work with the English language. These rules are in the file STEMMING.DAT. If you need to implement stemming for a different language, or if you want to modify the English stemming rules that dtSearch uses, you can create a new set of stemming rules to be used in place of STEMMING.DAT. See the STEMMING.DAT file for more information about how to do this. | <urn:uuid:81e8bbdf-9772-4e2e-8a93-10f0a438f114> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://support.dtsearch.com/webhelp/dtSearchCppApi/Stemming.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334528.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20220925101046-20220925131046-00490.warc.gz | en | 0.912951 | 230 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The debate has stirred up again. Talk of wiretapping and government spying has spurred another bout of privacy versus security. Internet of Things (IoT) devices have raised suspicion that strangers are listening to us or watching us using everything from TVs to toys.
But all this talk of snooping, eavesdropping, and hacking is a red herring. It’s a distraction. The central question in all of this, one that few are actually talking about, is whether privacy is a human right and what should be done to protect and cherish it.
Security professionals and businesses entrusted with our data have borne the cost and operational responsibility of protecting privacy for too long. What we need is a constitutional amendment that very clearly defines a right to privacy. Without one, we’ll forever be looking over our digital shoulders.
Privacy should be defended as a human right
Seemingly every week, another data breach leaks more of our personal information. Ransom attacks continue to grow, holding our private data hostage until we pay up. Our credit card numbers, our passwords, and our medical records are all the targets of hackers.
But the attacks don’t always come from enemies. Our government can potentially peer into our lives, whether through incidental surveillance or zero-day vulnerabilities that give them access to our devices or apps.
Even our favorite companies can do harm. Businesses, by not taking better steps to secure their IT environments, put in jeopardy the troves of data we hand to them. On a more concerning note, some connected children’s toys can collect audio in our homes without authorization, and the expansion of smart home devices allows companies to collect increasingly personal data about our habits and preferences.
The cost and the responsibility of defending our privacy have always fallen on the organizations we trust our data to and whose devices we buy. Some businesses are better about protecting those assets than others.
But defending data privacy, as important as that is, has always been just the tip of the iceberg.
Our right to privacy extends much further than just our data. It’s our right to our own thoughts and private moments. It’s being able to have a conversation, send a text, or simply relax in our own homes without wondering whether someone else is watching or listening in.
But right now there are no laws that adequately defend our privacy and give us ownership of those moments. Nothing specifically guides whether the government, businesses, or others can confiscate, sell, or use them.
Yet these moments are fundamental to our humanity. Our privacy should be defended like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as unalienable rights. It should be codified by Constitutional amendment like our freedom of speech, religion, and assembly.
Privacy and the Constitution
The right to privacy has been defended by the Supreme Court, which has cited various amendments to the Constitution, including the first, third, fourth, fifth, and fourteenth, in a number of different cases. But we need something more explicit in its protections, something that can encompass the trails of data we leave in the wake of every action, something that can return control of ourselves to ourselves.
A potential amendment to guard our privacy should include the following provisions:
- U.S. citizens have a right to privacy. Period.
- Citizens have ownership over their data, from personally identifying information to internet avatars and profiles.
- Citizens choose who can access that data, when, and for how long.
- Citizens can opt out of government programs, choosing privacy over security.
By codifying these protections in a new amendment, we can clarify court cases, ascribe responsibility for better security that ensures our privacy, and shore up an essential part of what makes us human as technology offers more ways to tap into our thoughts, feelings, and private moments.
Adding these rights to the Constitution would elevate the right to privacy to the echelon of speech, press, and other rights that are fundamental not only to our personal identity, but to our American identity.
Technology saves us time, connects us across vast distances, delivers entertainment, keeps us safe, advances scientific discovery, and every day makes the world better. But as it does, we need to make sure we guard what makes us human – including our privacy, which is under assault by hackers, can be compromised by security-focused governments, and sometimes lacks optimal security from corporations.
It’s time to define and defend our right to privacy once and for all. | <urn:uuid:3af76020-dd9b-473f-afc0-7c6e76b5ac57> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2017/03/29/define-right-privacy/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337524.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20221004184523-20221004214523-00490.warc.gz | en | 0.944171 | 919 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Bluetooth uses the license-free frequency range from 2.402 to 2.480 GHz for wireless communication. This frequency range is also referred to as the ISM band. It has been designated for license-free use worldwide, but is subject to interference from other technologies. WiFi networks, cordless phones or microwave ovens can influence the Bluetooth signal quality.
Bluetooth is divided into three classes, according to the maximum transmission power. Class one reaches ranges of up to 100 metres, at a maximum output power of 100 milliwatts, but at the other end of the scale, the typical operating range of class three Bluetooth is one metre, with a transmission strength of one milliwatt.
The Bluetooth standard has been revised several times since the release of version 1.0 in July 1999. Most recently, versions 4.0, 4.1 and 4.2 have been published, which are supported by newer devices. The main focus of development in recent versions was the implementation of security mechanisms, higher transfer rates and lower power consumption through special power-saving modes.
In telephony, the Bluetooth standard is often used for the wireless transmission of voice data between headsets or hands-free car kits. These hands-free kits enable Bluetooth connections to mobile phones, so that the driver can make or receive calls without having to hold the phone in their hands. In addition to the transmission of voice data, the standard can also be used to establish telephone calls or to send data from address books to the in-car hands-free system.
In addition to use in cars, many people use a standard Bluetooth headset for wireless communication with their phones, giving them the maximum freedom of movement. By pressing special buttons on the headset the user can answer telephone calls. | <urn:uuid:01775e0f-787e-4587-8049-3a03bc25f413> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.nfon.com/en/get-started/cloud-telephony/lexicon/knowledge-base-detail/bluetooth | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337524.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20221004184523-20221004214523-00490.warc.gz | en | 0.947242 | 354 | 3.203125 | 3 |
SummaryHow to shape applications, hosts or ports that are utilizing too much bandwidth on the network.
OverviewThe circuit is being capped at max bandwidth, and on Monitor > Real Time, there are individual flows or specific applications that are using a extremely high amount of bandwidth
CauseThese flows are falling under overly permissive policies that allows them to obtain too much bandwidth
In order to troubleshoot this, at least one of three things must be known:
1.- Isolate the problematic traffic by the IPs of the server/s. If the traffic is an application that user knows comes from specific IPs, then keep that/those IPs in mind.
2.- Isolate the problematic traffic by tcp/udp ports. If the application is running on a specific port, write that port down.
3.- Isolate the problematic traffic by L7 information. In real time monitor, some applications contain the URL between brackets.
With this information, the following can be done:
For case 1: Create a network object that defines the subnets or IPs for the application. Go to Configuration-->Objects-->Network and create a network object for the IPs involved. From there, it is possible to create a policy using that network object as the host (filter rules: host: Network Object Created <--> host: ALL). From now on, all traffic to and from those IPs will be subject to this policy, so configure the burst bandwidth to be a lower value than what the application is obtaining currently.
OPTIONAL: It is also possible to monitor the application with a custom name and not with whatever name the Exinda is classifying it as. This can be done through going to Configuration-->Objects-->Application and creating an application object with whatever name for the traffic to be classified as, and specifying the network object created earlier.
For case 2: Create an application object (or modify an existing one) under Configuration-->Objects-->Applications, defining "Ports/Protocol"--> TCP or UDP Port/Range-->Ports learned. From now on the traffic will be classified as the application object name given (This can be verified in Monitor-->Real Time), and hence, the application can be added to an existing policy or a new policy with a new predefined bandwidth allocation.
For case 3: In each application object, the "L7 Signatures" section provides a more detailed option, being a little more specific as to what type of L7 traffic you want that application to be. Going to Monitor-->Real Time, some flows will be classified as (for instance): HTTP[www.exinda.com]. This means that that flow is getting classified as L7 HTTP (So it will fall under the generic Web policy) but as an aggregate it is showing that the URL involved is "www.exinda.com". This can be taken advantage of by editing an existing application object or creating a new one specifying: L7 Signature-->HTTP-->host-->[URL keyword]
The above means: HTTP traffic that contains the word "exinda" within the URL will no longer be classified as HTTP, it will now be classified as this new application object. Another example: User is limiting Streaming traffic (including "Flash") but there is an important training going on that is presented in Flash format and exinda is classifying it as:
It is possible to create a new application object specifying the following details as the L7 Signature:
And now that traffic will be classified differently, hence it can be added to a separate policy and shaped separately | <urn:uuid:0b5c40a4-b987-40b0-a198-2cc145fc3733> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://support.exinda.gfi.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015182619-Shape-individual-flows-applications-that-are-using-too-much-bandwidth | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335124.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20220928051515-20220928081515-00690.warc.gz | en | 0.913434 | 746 | 2.75 | 3 |
Quantum computing is complex.
So complex in fact that we spend a lot of time understanding the concept of quantum theory, the existence of qubits and the use of superposition to get us to a state of greater power beyond the binary world of one and zero.
TechTarget’s What Is pages have a very digestible and clear explanation of superposition which you can read at the link shown and below.
“In computing, the concept of superposition has important implications for the way information will be processed and stored in the future. For example, today’s classical computers process information in bits of one or zero, similar to a light switch being turned on or off. The quantum supercomputers of tomorrow, however, will process information as qubits — one, zero or a superposition of the two states.”
This exposition and explanation is needed a) to preface the work of Tel Aviv headquartered Quantum Machines and b) to excuse the dreadfully cheesy-geeky headline joke in this story.
Super position on superposition
So what’s being going on the quantum-enriched Holy Land?
Quantum Machines claims to be the creator of the first complete hardware and software solution for the control and operation of quantum computers.
This summer the company announced the launch of QUA as a standard universal language for Quantum Computing.
QUA allows researchers (and, presumably, quantum developers) to program complex quantum programs that are tightly integrated with classical processing and real-time decision-making.
According to the company, “A primary challenge with quantum research and development today is that every quantum computer has its own unique hardware, coded in the researchers’ language of choice. This results in teams spending inordinate amounts of time coding and programming new programs and algorithms, with any variation requiring either restarting the process or even re-routing the control hardware itself.”
QUA unifies universal quantum operations in their ‘raw’ format (pulse-level) with universal classical operations (anything we know from classical processing).
Programming beyond today’s level of expression
The language allows developer to code programs that are ‘far beyond expression’ today, from complex AI-based multi-qubit calibrations to multi-qubit quantum-error-correction. It helps teams save resources both in terms of re-designing software and hardware architectures and in terms of re-adopting their already-programmed algorithms in the future.
“As the field of quantum computing continues to progress and grow more complex, teams across the industry need solutions that can scale to meet their growing needs,” said Itamar Sivan, CEO of Quantum Machines. “QUA is the first-ever programming language designed with the needs of quantum research in mind and offers teams a powerful and intuitive language designed not only for their present needs but also those of the future.”
QUA’s beta version has been used by teams working on the ‘entire spectrum’ of quantum technologies available today including superconducting qubits, trapped ions & atoms, quantum dots and topological qubits. | <urn:uuid:d950f324-1d9d-4fb6-86ab-c6cc006007b7> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/CW-Developer-Network/Quantum-Machines-in-super-position-on-superposition-programming | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335355.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20220929131813-20220929161813-00690.warc.gz | en | 0.919317 | 651 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The term “gig economy” refers to the increasingly common use of skilled freelance or otherwise independent workers on a short-term basis—often one project at a time. The availability of these sorts of gig workers has brought massive change to global work culture over the last few years.
Uber and Lyft drivers are prime examples. There’s no set schedule; the work is done on a ride-by-ride (gig-by-gig) basis. In the early days of the rideshare business, you were either getting into an Uber vehicle or a Lyft vehicle. But today, drivers often drive for both companies simultaneously. This is a very common aspect of the gig world—workers are often engaged by direct competitors at the same time. The ubiquitous availability of remote skillsets allows labor to be spun up or spun down as needed and workers can be hired from virtually anywhere.
In the past, an employee worked for a single company at a time—and maybe even at a single company for their entire career. There was a great deal of loyalty and longevity. But today, a contractor or a full-time employee may only stay at a company for 18 months before they move on to other opportunities. Or, even less time than that. According to a 2021 study from IBM’s Institute for Business Value, one in four workers plans to switch jobs this year, an increased pace vs. even a year ago, which was one in five. Of last year’s job switchers, more than half identified as millennial or Gen Z.
Within the technology industry in particular, however, short-term workers present some acute risks to employers—some of which are quite serious. While the business advantages might be clear, high degrees of temporality and transience make the gig economy a huge bomb for security. But no one seems to hear it ticking yet.
|How big is the gig economy?|
-More than one-third of US workers (36%) currently participate in the gig economy, either through primary or secondary jobs
-More than half (52%) of global workers participating in the gig economy lost their jobs because of COVID-19
-More than 90% of US workers said they would consider freelancing or independent contracting work—and a lot of times this in addition to their full-time job
-The gig workforce is growing 3x faster than the traditional workforce
Demand drives opportunities—and vulnerabilities
When it comes to the risks that gig hiring can present, there is a great cautionary tale from just a few years ago. “Bob” was a programmer who was outsourcing his coding to China—pulling down a six-figure income while paying about one-fifth of that to Chinese gig workers. Bob spent his days shopping on eBay and watching cat videos while taking credit for top-quality code and high productivity—until his scam was discovered. They found out that he had also sent his security token to the gig workers to circumvent his company’s two-factor authentication! The details make for a memorable story—but the security and intellectual property (IP) implications of this very situation could be quite damaging for the company deploying that code.
Business digitalization is driving the demand for gig workers. Companies are moving faster than ever. The adoption of cloud technologies allows them to be increasingly versatile and agile. And that means that the attack surface is also changing. The gig worker part of digitalization means that the nature of the insider threat has also evolved.
Insider threats have always been an issue in the security industry. Some of the biggest cases of data loss and fraud that I’ve come across in my career come from insiders because they know the company’s controls and processes and can find ways around them, easily avoiding detection. But the potential risks associated with gig workers are unique from those of common insiders—making threats even harder to detect and defend against.
A new flavor of insider threat
The rapid churn of many gig projects means that background checks are often overlooked. Because the jobs are short-term, workers are also often not required to have the same security safeguards in place that companies would expect of a contract worker—such as using encrypted hard drives, antivirus protection, and/or secure document repositories.
Gig workers typically use their own computers for jobs, storing sensitive research and proprietary information on a local drive or in a personal cloud account. But what happens to all that information once the job is over? Does it get deleted or is stored and vulnerable to theft? Does it get shared or reused with a competitor? How would the hiring company ever know?
Let’s say you gig-hire an application programmer to write a parsing routine for your company. It takes the gig programmer three months to write it and it costs $100,000 in labor and process fees. After the job is over, that same programmer gets hired by your main competitor—and they just so happen to also need a parsing routine written. Do you think that the gig worker is going to sit down and re-write that entire parsing routine from the beginning?
They’re probably going to pull out what they’ve already written and just make a few modifications to fit into the competitor’s system. So your competitor saves $80,000 because the gig worker was in a position to reuse your IP without any interference or consequence. Coders tend to feel that if they write a piece of code, then they own it as part of their toolbox. And when that coder is a gig worker, they bring that toolbox from job to job—even to competitors who didn’t put in the R&D cycles to facilitate that code’s development.
Programming is just one area where this threat might arise. Companies also often hire gig workers as market analysts and researchers, sales account managers, IT database analysts, and litigation support the same kinds of risks apply. Pricing data, market analysis, legal research—all of this information has the potential to be reused by another entity via an enterprising gig worker trying to maximize his earnings and minimize the work he has to do.
Part of the problem is that our sense of what’s valuable may be behind the times. People often think about a company’s “crown jewels” from the perspective of an outsider breaking in to take valuable data. But in the context of an insider threat, the crown jewels will be different. And so we have to start thinking about everything that’s valuable to the organization today and how it can be exploited.
It’s not just temporary hires that carry gig economy risks. Full-time employees may also be moonlighting as gig workers on the side for additional income. With a majority of workers now doing their jobs remotely, there’s no one looking over their shoulder to see if they’re working on something on the side or pulling in code from a previous job.
All told, the level of insider risk has escalated since the start of COVID—and much of that can be traced to the gig economy boom. Most of today’s remote employees do not expect to return to the workplace anytime soon. Without advanced controls in place to detect and protect against misuse of sensitive information, nothing is stopping an employee from re-using proprietary data for the benefit of another company and their own personal gain.
Risk assessment: detect, protect, and respond
With the potential threats that gig workers might pose more clearly defined, it’s now critical to take the next step of calculating the actual risks they present to a business.
- What’s the likelihood of a vulnerability or threat in your company?
- What data does your company actually have at risk in this situation?
- And what would be the impact on the company if that data were exploited?
The results of that risk assessment in hand can then inform a protection plan. First, there will be a need for administrative controls. The organization needs policies in place—clear direction from the executive team regarding the appropriate use of both gig and remote workers. Outline the situations where it is acceptable to hire a freelancer and what limitations should be placed to manage these sorts of temporary vendors. With defined policies, the business can then issue contracts to gig workers that clearly illustrate the legal requirements of the job—such as confidentiality via a nondisclosure agreement (NDA), security requirements, restrictions on outsourcing, and indemnification.
Process controls may include new-hire training for gig workers in order to educate them on your company policies and expectations. Internally, business leaders also need to be trained on the risks associated when hiring gig workers. There should also be safeguards in place to prevent bypassing of vendor management—which usually means involving the accounts payable department to ensure that only trained and vetted gig vendors can get paid.
The security technologies that address gig worker risks are a combination of remote worker controls, contractor controls, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) controls. This may include the use of a virtual private network (VPN), requiring two-factor authentication for access to company applications, and tightening data/file access rules for this type of worker. The core principle of Zero Trust is especially key here, as gig workers exist outside of your traditional security perimeter and you can’t inherently trust the authentication, device, network, or applications they’re using. Next-generation VPN capabilities can provide direct application access so that the gig worker can only access the application they need to do their job and nothing else within the company. Similarly, a Zero Trust architecture can help organizations to create an adaptive trust model that is more agile and can change based on the circumstances of each worker.
The gig economy is here to stay
The gig workforce is growing because of the overwhelming value that it can offer to both businesses and individuals. Organizations should lean in and embrace this global shift. At the end of the day, a gig worker should be treated as another form of contractor. The same rules should apply in terms of contracting, endpoint security controls, cloud monitoring (behavior patterns with regard to system/data access and movement of files), and having a system in place for rapid background checks.
Start by assessing the risk you have in your environment. Then create a roadmap of monitoring and controls. Organizations today need contextual controls that follow data and users. Granular access controls reduce the surface area at risk. This should include:
- Identity controls that provide strong access authentication and behavioral analytics that cover both user- and device-based risks.
- Application controls that include adaptive access and activity controls.
- Data controls with automated discovery and classification, single-pass policy enforcement, as well as data loss prevention (DLP).
If you’re interested in hearing more of my thoughts on securing the gig economy, come to my session at RSA! | <urn:uuid:86d8ee3a-b7ba-4363-9aa4-2d6a803e42ed> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.netskope.com/jp/blog/gig-workers-are-the-most-dangerous-insider-threat-we-arent-talking-about | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335355.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20220929131813-20220929161813-00690.warc.gz | en | 0.959623 | 2,227 | 2.640625 | 3 |
The distinction between authentication and authorization is many times missed or confused. Some of the confusion has to do with the fact that the short form for authentication and authorization is the same – “auth” – so a delegated authorization scheme like OAUTH can be easily confused with something that has to do with authentication. But authentication and authorization are really two simple and complementary concepts that work in tandem to protect access to resources.
Authentication is the process of proving that users are who they claim to be. In other words, proving that the user behind the keyboard is the actual owner of the user account associated with the username.
Authorization is the process of determining which resources an authenticated user is permitted to access and which operations the user is permitted to perform on the resource. For example, can a user access the HR folder on the company file server, which files in the folder can he access and can he read and write to it or maybe just read-only.
Based on the two definitions above, there is a natural order in which authentication and authorization are performed. Users are first authenticated to establish they in fact own the username account. Once their identity is known, their access permissions to resources – their authorizations – are looked up in the authorization system and enforced.
Authentication and authorization work in tandem to prevent unauthorized access to data and systems. In the most basic setup, users are authenticated once, typically when logging on to the company network, and their authorizations/access permissions are determined based on the role associated with their user account. For example, a user is authenticated when logging on to their Windows desktop, and their authorizations are determined by the group to which their user account is associated – e.g. system administrator, finance employees, developers, etc. In more modern setups, users are authenticated more frequently, and authorizations are defined at a more granular level. In some cases, authorizations are also contingent on various contextual parameters. For example, users are authenticated every time they request access to a resource, and authorization is granted for accessing and performing specific operations on a specific resource. Authorizations may be further limited by where is the user connecting from, what is the security posture of the device he is using, what has this user accessed historically, etc.
The concepts of authentication and authorization can be applied to human users and also to unattended software and systems interacting with one another without human intervention (e.g. one application asking for services from another software via an API interface).
So what are common ways to authenticate users?
- Passwords were the default way for authenticating users for ages. The user enters a username, which tells the system who the user is claiming to be, and the password is a shared secret that only the “real” user and the authenticating software should know. If the user is able to prove their identity by recalling the right password then the authentication service will assume that the user is who the username says he is.
- Two-factor authentication. As passwords became increasingly vulnerable to stealing and other attacks (primarily via phishing), additional authentication factors were piled on top of the standard username-password combination. These factors offer a stronger, higher-assurance form of authentication. The first factor typically remains the password, but in addition to the password, the user needs to prove possession of a physical authenticator (something the user has), or produce a biometric or behavioral print (something the user is). A common second-factor authenticator is proving possession of a registered hardware authentication token (i.e. OTP token or USB key) or device (i.e. mobile phone). Proof of possession is generally done using one-time password (OTP) technology or public-key cryptography (PKI certificates).
- Biometric authentication has seen a dramatic increase in use, whether as part of an MFA scheme or as a standalone authentication method. Many biometric signatures are in use today, the most popular being fingerprint and facial signatures. Biometric prints can be obtained from a fingerprint sensor embedded in most mobile devices and laptops, face image can be taken from the device camera, or voice print-captured by its microphone. Behavioral biometrics are also used to uniquely identify a user. Unique user behaviors can be detected by measuring the distinctive way in which the user strokes the keyboard (keystroke dynamics) or the unique patterns used to draw a signature.
- Passwordless authentication is likely the future form of authentication, as it is more secure than passwords and provides a better experience for users. As its name suggests, passwordless authentication removes passwords as a means of proving identity and replaces them with one or more (typically two) alternative forms of authentication. Most commonly used is a registered mobile device in combination with a fingerprint taken from the device’s sensor. Other forms of passwordless authentication can be a registered mobile device in combination with a faceprint or voiceprint, a dedicated USB authentication token device, etc.
Authorization schemes historically defined user permissions based on the assigned role of the user. But more modern authorization approaches implement a more granular approach that looks at what specific capability or data the user is trying to access, and contextual information associated with the access request – e.g. where is the user accessing from, what is the security posture of his device, is this atypical behavior for the user, etc.
Under a role-based permissions scheme, each user account is assigned a role definition, and permissions are automatically associated with the role. For example, a user with an admin role has extensive permissions to read and write to all resources, whereas a user with a contractor role may have read-only permissions to a small subset of applications and databases.
More granular permissions schemes have become more mainstream in recent years. Zero-trust, with its “never trust, always verify” approach, grants permissions in a very particular way. For example, a user may have access to the salaries folder owned by the HR department, but only to the salaries of his direct subordinates, and only when accessing from the company issued computer during work hours.
Passwordless authentication and Zero Trust Architectures are two strong trends in authentication and authorization that will likely continue to be a major investment area for companies in the coming years.
The adoption of passwordless authentication is driven by the realization that password vulnerabilities are at the heart of a great majority of security breaches. Passwords at the hands of users are easily compromised using various flavors of phishing attacks, or simply guessed by sophisticated attackers. Passwordless authentication offers a superior alternative to passwords. It offers better security, a better user experience, and is cheaper to own and operate.
Zero Trust acknowledges that authenticating users at the front gate – at the network perimeter – and authorizing them to roam free and access anything and everything after they’ve entered the perimeter no longer works. Instead, Zero Trust requires users to authenticate more frequently and authorizes them to access resources only on an as-needed basis. It is a much more granular authentication and authorization scheme that seeks to positively vet the identity of every user asking for access to a resource, and verify that that user has the minimum permissions required to perform his job. | <urn:uuid:bddd0bb2-e517-487e-925f-e139e8752ba5> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://doubleoctopus.com/blog/access-management/authentication-vs-authorization-2020/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337421.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20221003133425-20221003163425-00690.warc.gz | en | 0.944261 | 1,468 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Government Compliance Checklist for Data Archiving and FOIA
For compliance officers and staff in federal and state agencies across the US
Chapter 1. NARA
NARA Regulations Summary
NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) is an independent US government agency that oversees the documentation of government records and that works to ensure public access to national archives.
It regularly issues guidelines that federal agencies need to follow when collecting, storing, and managing the records, some of which could be of national importance.
We’ll start this chapter by going through some basic information on how NARA rules work. We will then look at the essential records management requirements you need to meet when managing your records in line with NARA guidelines. We’ll also look at NARA-compliant email management to help you manage the records in your agency.
How NARA Works & What You Need to Know
According to NARA rules, the documentation that shows how a government agency works needs to be complete and accurate “to the extent required to document the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency”.
Plus, this documentation needs to show all the information required to protect the legal and financial rights of the Government and of persons who are directly affected by the activity that an agency carries out.
It’s important to note here that all the federal records are broadly divided into two categories – records with temporary value, which can be destroyed after a retention period and records with permanent value, which must be preserved and which agencies need to transfer to the National Archives. It is the US Archivist who determines which documents fall into which category.
NARA Records Management Compliance Checklist(Based on the Federal Records Act and NARA guidelines)
Chapter 2. NARA Email Management Checklist
What follows is a list of questions by the United States Archivist, David S. Ferriero, which is part of the Criteria for Managing Email Records in Compliance with the Managing Government Records Directive (M-12-18).
These questions refer in particular to the system, access, and policy requirements, and will also help you determined how aligned you are with NARA in terms of email records management and the email archiving system you use:
Chapter 3. FOIA
Note that FOIA applies only to federal agencies. In case you’re from a state agency, it’s best you consult the regulations in your own state.
FOIA Compliance Checklist
Chapter 4. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
These Rules ensure there is a “just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding”, by prescribing requirements for retention and disclosure of data, including email management, ESI, network logs, and all other documents stored in a virtual format.
While you should follow the rules that safeguard the privacy of personal information, there are cases where even in the lack of a formal discovery request you need to disclose information.
Chapter 5. Government Compliance Software Requirements
Your task is to meet requirements regarding monitoring, capturing, storing, archiving, and retrieving records, which are produced in a variety of formats.
On average, you need to be able to capture, monitor and store email, images, voice messages, text messages and much more.
This can be a daunting task, especially if you receive a large number of requests.
Before you start looking for record management compliance software, however, you should understand the needs and obligations that your archiving system needs to support.
Without understanding what you need to archive and preserve, no software will be a good match, as you won’t know how to implement it to the full potential. And, you might miss some of the essential information that you’re required to retain.
So, here are the crucial functionalities your data management system should have, alongside the benefits each of these functionalities provides. | <urn:uuid:666d9d57-3976-4437-a21f-0b6f5f63954d> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://jatheon.com/government-compliance-checklist/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337421.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20221003133425-20221003163425-00690.warc.gz | en | 0.91401 | 796 | 2.875 | 3 |
08/11/2018 | Written by: Marloes Roelands
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Wondering how Artificial Intelligence (AI) really works? Do you feel like it is just a black box which, when asked, magically comes up with an answer? Do you trust the so called “black box”?
Recently this article appeared in the dutch newspaper The Telegraaf about Ethics and AI.
It touched the discussion on how algorithms and Artificial Intelligence affect our decisions and ultimately our lives. Examples of ethical dilemmas were addressed which keeps us all awake and alert.
The article explains graphically some pitfalls when AI is not used correctly. We all recognize those. After reading the article the first question I had, was: ‘ How do I trust AI ?’ To really trust AI, we must first understand it. Not that easy when deep diving in the world of data and intelligence.
Strategy and roadmap to yield AI
Although in many organizations automation and AI are already used in some shape or form. With the increase of data and innovations in technology, it becomes more and more complex. To implement AI within your organization successfully you need to understand what AI is. Where it currently stands. What value it provides to businesses and how it can be adopted successfully.
In short you need a clear strategy and roadmap to yield AI. What is the problem or idea you wish to address and what data are you using?
Implement AI successfully
Views about Artificial Intelligence and data science are not always complete in organizations. Although we experience a lot of enthusiasm with clients on this topic, it’s key to have understanding and buy in across the whole organization to drive innovations with AI.
Marloes Roelands, Jorn Jansen Schoonhoven and Francesco Brenna wrote a paper in which they explain following questions: What is the difference between AI and Deep Learning? How does an AI system learn? Where are we today with AI? What are best practices to successfully implement AI? Just like in the article it also covers the pitfalls when using AI and recommendations to address these.
This guide goes beyond the hype of Artificial Intelligence. It is written for anyone planning to use, or with an interest in AI.
Click here to download and get started!
More cognitive stories? Read here > | <urn:uuid:02c8f885-e93c-484d-aa6d-7b38d325cfd4> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.ibm.com/blogs/think/nl-en/2018/11/08/struggling-with-artificial-intelligence/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337731.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006061224-20221006091224-00690.warc.gz | en | 0.949684 | 485 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Dog bite statistics show that millions of people every year suffer canine attacks in the US alone. It is difficult to tell how many dog bite cases occur worldwide — many victims don’t require medical help and don’t report the incidents.
Dogs might be our best friends, but you should consider that sometimes even the sweetest and calmest dog can become aggressive and attack.
To prevent such acts of aggression, we need to know how to behave around dogs without provoking them. Also, when choosing a pet, you need to find which dog breed is suitable for your family and lifestyle and how to train the dog properly.
Our research on dog attacks by breed can help you understand why dogs become aggressive and how to protect yourself and others in such situations.
Let’s take a look at some statistics on dog attacks.
Dog Attack Statistics (Editor’s Choice)
- There are 4.5 million dog bite incidents every year in the US
- People between 50 and 60 years old in the UK are the age group most frequently attacked by dogs
- The Kangal has the strongest dog bite force
- Chained dogs are responsible for 25% of the fatal incidents, reveal dog attack stats
- Dogs are accountable for almost 99% of all rabies cases in people
- The 99.9% mortality rate of rabies makes it the deadliest disease on the planet
- Nearly 6,000 US Postal Service employees suffer dog attacks every year
Frightening Dog Bite Statistics
Most of the time, dogs do not pose a threat. Nonetheless, it’s essential to know how to avoid dog attacks and react adequately in such cases.
If you don’t want to find out first-hand which are the worst dog breeds for biting, follow the basic safety tips when interacting with unfamiliar dogs. A good rule of thumb is always to avoid disturbing dogs while they sleep or eat. And if a dog surprises you, try to remain calm and wait for it to come and sniff you first.
While petting dogs, do so under the chin. If you pet them on the head, they might feel threatened because they can’t see your hand. In case of an attack, remain calm and don’t run and panic.
Here is some more information on dog attacks.
1. According to US dog bite statistics, roughly 4.5 million incidents occur every year.
Out of those cases, 800,000 result in medical care — nearly 18%. Considering the size of the US population, that means that a dog bites approximately one in 73 people.
While all of this sounds very frightening, we need to consider the long list of reasons dogs attack people and that quite often, they are being provoked or frightened themselves.
2. People between the age of 50 and 59 years more frequently suffer dog attacks than other age groups in the UK.
The dog bite statistics UK 2020 show that most incidents happen to children up to nine years old and adults between 40 and 59. While adults usually suffer injuries in the extremities, children get bitten on the neck, cheek, or waist.
Despite the high number of cases that occur each year, many injuries do not require medical treatment and heal quickly.
3. Dog bites account for almost 99% of all cases of rabies transmitted to humans.
The Center for Disease Control dog bite statistics reveal that dogs are the most common mediators in the transmission of rabies. Meanwhile, the most common carriers are wild animals, such as raccoons, skunks, bats, and foxes.
The rabies virus infects the central nervous system and can cause brain disease and death if not treated. Being bitten by an animal requires immediate seeking of medical assistance.
Dog Bite Statistics By Breed
It is a fact that some dog breeds are more aggressive than others. That’s why it is crucial to do thorough research or consult with experts before deciding which one will be your pet.
You should be aware of the dog’s history of aggression, attacks, the strength of bite, and behavior around children and strangers. The dog’s size has little importance as often small dogs may be more feisty and aggressive than bigger ones.
We have gathered a few unexpected dog bite statistics by breed for you.
4. The Kangal dog possesses the strongest dog bite force — 743 PSI.
(Inside Dogs World)
The Kangal shepherd dog breed comes from Sivas City, Turkey, and families often keep them as guard and shepherd dogs. They are loyal, protective, and gentle towards children but could easily take down predators, such as wolves and bears.
Research into dog bites by breed shows that the Kangal has the strongest bite, but Pit Bulls and Chihuahua attack statistics reveal that they have attacked and bitten more people.
5. Dog bite statistics by breed UK show that labradors are responsible for most canine attacks.
Labradors are often considered the perfect choices for a family dog. Surprisingly, research suggests that these dogs are responsible for most of the dog attacks in the UK. The vast number of labradors in the UK might be why they are on the top of the list.
6. Most dangerous dog breed statistics reveal that Pit Bull, Rottweiler, German Shepherd, and mixed breed dogs are in the first positions.
These findings are consistent with previous years. Pit Bulls are responsible for most fatal cases (66%), thus, confirming the unfortunate stereotype of the breed.
Rottweilers take second place for most fatal attacks in a 13-year period, making up 10% (45) of the cases. On the brighter side, Rottweiler attacks statistics show that fatal accidents have decreased from before when the breed accounted for 14% of all fatalities.
And the German Shepherd bite statistics show that they are responsible for 4.6% of the total fatality cases.
Unexpected Dog Bite Statistics
If you or anyone in your family consider getting a “dangerous” dog breed, you can get dog liability insurance. It is a way to insure yourself in case your pet bites someone.
Here are some more dog bite stats.
7. 70% of the dogs in an area have to be vaccinated against the Rabies virus to ensure herd immunity.
Annual mass dog vaccination campaigns are required to ensure control over the spread of the Rabies virus. At the same time, it is crucial to vaccinate your dog and yourself against rabies to prevent endangering your family and pet.
8. Dog bite statistics show that chained dogs are responsible for 25% of fatal dog attacks.
It is no surprise that chained dogs are more violent than those who spend more time with the family. As they don’t experience much affection, they have a hard time telling who is a friend and who is a threat.
9. Rabies is the deadliest disease on the planet, with a mortality rate of 99.9%.
Once the symptoms of the virus start to show, the disease becomes fatal. Symptoms include hyperactivity, excitable behavior, hydrophobia, and sometimes aerophobia.
10. Dogs attacked nearly 6,000 US Postal Service employees in 2018.
US dog bite statistics also reveal that most of the accidents happened in Houston, Texas.
The most common reason dogs attack postal service employees is that they enter the property the dog guards.
11. According to recent dog bite insurance statistics, the average cost of a dog attack claim is $50,245.
If you find yourself in a situation where your dog bites someone, the lack of insurance might cause you heavy fines. Dog bite liability has transformed into a multimillion-dollar problem over the last years.
12. Dogs attack nearly 100,000 people in Australia every year, national dog bite statistics Down Under show.
(Wiley Online Library)
Between 12,000 and 14,000 victims of all cases need medical assistance for their injuries, and around 10% of those require hospitalization.
To Wrap It up — How To Deal With the Dogs That Bite the Most
Nowadays, dog attacks still often make the headlines and lawsuits. To prevent getting bitten, make sure you don’t disturb the animal while eating or sleeping. It is best to keep away from unknown and stray dogs, and if you cannot avoid them, let them approach you first and sniff you.
To prevent your dog from attacking you or other people, make sure you take good care of it, socialize it enough with other dogs and people, and invest time and effort into its training.
Let’s not forget that dog bite statistics rarely reflect the whole story. Dogs, in general, don’t attack because they are “bad”, but instead, they have been mistreated, scared or threatened.
People Also Ask
Sometimes smaller dogs appear more aggressive than big ones — they tend to bark more often and bite when feeling threatened.
The top 10 dogs most likely to bite are:
1. Jack Russell
2. Staffordshire Bull Terrier
3. Pit Bull
4. German Shepherd
8. Great Dane
9. Doberman Pinscher
10. Siberian Husky
Statistically speaking, the Pit Bull is responsible for most bites and attacks against humans — over 284 cases of killed people. That is why the Pit Bull is among the most unwanted dog breeds in shelters.
The odds of being bitten by a dog are relatively small — research estimates that there is a 19 in 1,000 chance of a dog biting you. Most cases do not require medical treatment. According to dog bite statistics, there is a one in 112,400 chance of dying from a dog bite. | <urn:uuid:dc502945-cc70-4ffd-9175-da8d533c7d73> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://safeatlast.co/blog/dog-bite-statistics/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334596.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220925193816-20220925223816-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.941981 | 2,065 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The US Patent and Trademark Office has published an Apple patent application that details an eye-tracking system for a device with a Head Mounted Display (HMD). The patent was initially filed in the first quarter of 2020, although it incorporates technologies described in another patent that was filed in 2017.
The new system utilizes a series of light emitters built into the device to figure out what a person is looking at. The emitters send light into the user’s eye, and then the HMD uses a camera to detect the reflected light as it returns. That information allows the device to determine the position and the focus of the eye itself.
The system adjusts the level of light based on the user’s biometrics. If the person wearing the device has an elevated heart rate, or is otherwise blinking more than would normally be expected, the device will lower the intensity of the light emitters to protect that person’s eye. It would also lower the intensity if the wearer is a child.
The new technology is intended for use in augmented and virtual reality headsets. With eye-tracking, people would be able to stare at a specific menu item to select it, allowing them to navigate the screen and perform other actions without the need for more traditional inputs.
The patent is one of several Apple patents that addresses some kind of eye-tracking technology. For example, one patent describes a system that would combine eye-tracking with facial recognition to improve the performance of Apple’s Face ID authentication system, while another will automatically blur out areas of the screen that are not being looked at to protect sensitive information from anyone who might be trying to read over the user’s shoulder. The latter system would also use facial recognition to verify the identity of the approved user.
Source: Patently Apple | <urn:uuid:025b828e-0280-4053-9227-00befc62eab6> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://mobileidworld.com/apple-patent-application-details-eye-tracking-solution-vr-headsets-092105/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334987.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20220927033539-20220927063539-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.948132 | 368 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Just days into 2018, yet another major company was forced to issue a significant product recall. This time it was HP, which recalled 50,000 computer batteries that were overheating and causing burn hazards for customers.
Disasters like this one have become increasingly commonplace in today’s business world. To keep up with rising demand, enterprises are being challenged to work faster while also maintaining high efficiency and cost-effectiveness. However, even the smallest mishap in the manufacturing process can lead to faulty products that necessitate costly product recalls.
The Challenges of Modern Manufacturing
While product recalls are by no means new, they are more pressing than ever. With the manufacturing process becoming more complex, recall costs have skyrocketed and it’s even harder to recover from a recall as well.
Many businesses thought the evolution of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) over the past decade would help shed light on their manufacturing activities. With greater insight into their machine performance, fluctuations and changes that were once undetectable can now be observed and recorded on a real-time basis. However, despite enterprises looking at IIoT as a game-changer, many still struggle to get the optimal performance out of their machines.
This is for two reasons. First, legacy machines can hinder businesses from capitalizing on the IIoT boom. While intelligent sensors can be added to some of these assets to bridge the gap, the data output may still not be sufficient for accurately predicting anomalies.
The second problem lies in how manufacturers use the information they are collecting. The IIoT gives businesses all sorts of unique information about how their machines function. This is great in theory, but applying old and traditional approaches of data analysis in this new world of IIoT won’t enable businesses to tap into the true potential. Many teams take a machine learning approach called supervised learning, which builds models trained on historical failure or fault data. Other teams simply write rules to generate alerts and notifications when past failures or faults are primed to reoccur. However, these approaches only accentuate what many businesses are already good at — preventative maintenance.
The problem is that most issues that cause recalls or major catastrophes are not reoccurring events — they are new events, caused by unknown or never-before-seen causes that traditional models or domain expertise can’t detect. These “unknown unknowns” are the business threats that require a scalable solution.
The Cognitive Advantage
Because many businesses still take a supervised approach to anomaly detection and prediction, they are generally limited in terms of what they can do. They are forced to be reactive by nature, implementing rules designed to stop known anomalies from reoccurring.
This is where cognitive anomaly detection and prediction comes into play, combining the best of unsupervised and supervised machine learning approaches. Through unsupervised machine learning, the cognitive approach enables the business to learn in real time the “normal behavior” of the asset in a given environmental and operating condition, which can help identify deviations. Supervised learning can then be used to look for any similarities in deviation patterns from past problems and automatically characterize which of those deviations could be early signals of a potential problem — regardless of whether it’s known or unknown.
With the evolution of sensor information and IIoT, what was once impossible has now become possible. Companies can now track every component of a heavy machine and identify highly localized signals that pinpoint potential causes for concern.
With a cognitive approach, enterprises can use a machine-first technique to automatically find data patterns or groupings at scale. These patterns would otherwise be hidden in the massive volumes of generated sensor data and would have been humanly impossible to unearth in time to prevent major issues. By leveraging cognitive anomaly detection and prediction, businesses are better equipped to analyze the data coming from all their assets and identify the unknown variables that are responsible for many of the defects that lead to recalls or failure events.
4 Steps for Preventing Recalls with Cognitive Anomaly Detection and Prediction
If businesses want to get serious about their recall prevention strategies, it starts by realizing the importance of the unknown unknowns in the manufacturing process. Here are the four steps businesses need to take to embrace the cognitive approach to anomaly detection and prediction and identify these unknowns:
- Make sure your assets and equipment are properly instrumented. Every machine needs to have the right sensors attached to it so businesses can get the data they need to identify performance anomalies.
- Perfect your data management processes. All the data produced by sensors is critical for observing patterns and creating predictive maintenance models that will prevent recalls. Enterprises need to ensure they are collecting, processing, cleansing, storing and using their data effectively at scale — otherwise, all the analysis and model building done using partial or dirty data will provide limited or no value.
- Learn how to leverage unsupervised learning techniques. Enterprises need to be able to identify normal operating conditions and then separate out deviations. This must be done on a per-asset level. Generic models covering all assets simply aren’t specific enough to capture the individual characteristics of an asset given its unique environmental and operating conditions.
- Create a process for acting on predictions and detections in a timely fashion. Having a simple dashboard application often isn’t enough — events can easily go missed. Ideally, businesses should be able to automate a response to their predictions and detections. For example, a service ticket is raised automatically on detection or a self-maintenance routine is triggered wherever possible.
Despite the rising costs associated with recalls, many businesses still do not have an adequate approach to recall prevention. The evolution of IIoT and sensor technology in combination with cognitive machine learning and artificial intelligence in recent years has empowered manufactures. But if they want to fully capitalize on their data and maximize their manufacturing performance, they need to take a proactive cognitive approach.
Ruban Phukan is Co-founder of DataRPM & VP Product at Progress. | <urn:uuid:05ccc55f-f944-4ad4-91e6-591b594699d5> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.mbtmag.com/quality-control/article/13228426/a-cognitive-approach-is-necessary-for-recall-prevention | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334987.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20220927033539-20220927063539-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.942642 | 1,217 | 2.65625 | 3 |
What weight is considered obese or overweight?
The words obesity and overweight are generally used interchangeably. However, according to the Institute of Medicine report, their technical meanings are not identical. Overweight refers to an excess of body weight that includes all tissues, such as fat, bone, and muscle. Obesity refers specifically to an excess of body fat.
It is possible to be
overweight without being
obese, as in the case of a body builder who has a substantial amount of muscle mass. It is possible to be obese without being overweight, as in the case of a very sedentary person who is within the desirable weight range but who nevertheless has an excess of body fat. However, most overweight people are also obese and vice versa. Men with more than 25 percent and women with more than 30 percent body fat are considered obese. The | <urn:uuid:4d19d9b7-302e-4bc9-a4da-23c7f200c2c1> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.knowledgepublisher.com/article/252/what-weight-is-considered-obese-or-overweight.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335254.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220928113848-20220928143848-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.97274 | 171 | 3.28125 | 3 |
The New Range Sensor
The new range sensor is now in operation at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Here it is in action, scanning a sample:
Let's look at the most impressive result first. Here are parts of the front and rear of a penny.
Now for the first three infraorbital bones of Scorpaena plumieri. This is 60 mm long by 20 mm wide by 7 mm deep.
The upper left image is registered intensity.
The upper right image is rendered 3-D shape.
The lower left image is depth-as-intensity.
The lower right image uses rendered 3-D shape for intensity, and color-encodes depth as hue.
Click here or on the image at left for a detailed image.
A small valley can be seen running left-to-right, about 40% of the way from the bottom to the top in the two subimages seen at right above. Below is a more detailed view from the image using rendered 3-D shape for intensity and hue for depth.
It starts near the left edge, and continues at least 60% of the way across the specimen, just above a V-shaped formation. That valley is a structure on the same scale as a suture. I don't think it is a suture, but then again I don't know enough about icthyological anatomy to know if the lacrimal bone is a collection of smaller bones joined by sutures, as the skull is. At any rate, this shows promise that at least on skulls of moderate size, say at least 40 mm long, sutures may be detectable by 3-D shape alone. I was later told:
The lacrimal is composed of osteological centers that evidently fuse. It would appear that the lacrimal in fishes is actually composed of the consolidation of several (as I recall 3) growth centers, only one of which is evidently homologous to the lacrimal that one sees in mammals. To be honest I'm not sure exactly which of the several ridges on the first infraorbital bone (lacrimal) you are looking at but it is remarkable that you even picked up on this.
What you are looking at in the scan is the first three infraorbital bones, the "lacrimal" being the first. Its the one at the top with the strong spines projecting from it in several directions as well as having a somewhat broad articulation to the lateral ethmoid (bone behind and just under your nose). The second bone, IO2, is more tabular and roughly rectangular. There is a much more notable suture between IO1 and IO2, which in the way it's oriented on the figure on your webpage, it would be from more or less, left-to-right. IO2 is relatively small, about 1/3 the size of IO1, and both are quite a bit smaller than IO3, which is about 3-4 times the size of IO2 and with a fairly prominent spine near its centroid, with the suture line running more diagonally across the bone, with a narrow tip of IO3 abutting IO2 roughly in the position where one sees a profound difference in contrast posteriorly (down in the figure).
The bones scanned are from the right side of the individual and the natural orientation would be obtained if one rotated the images 90 degrees clockwise. Normally, for anatomical illustrations one would figure the bones on the left side anterior on the left, posterior on the right, and of course dorsal up and ventral down.
The development of these bones is quite interesting as it appears that although they are dermal in origin, growth of the various growth centers is influenced by the spatial position of neuromasts within the bone (neuromasts are sensory organs of fishes that are homologous to the Sertolli Cells in your inner ear that give us our sensation of hearing). Water bumps up against a gelatinous cupula on the top neuromast triggering an electromechanical response in the underlying sensory cells, which are oriented with respect to a uniquely patterned set of kinocillia that stimulate the cell to discharge, sending its impulse toward higher brain centers. In fishes these are found all over the body, but specialized well developed cells form these special clusters called neuromasts that are found in canals in the head and "lateral line" along the body of the fish.
Anyway, development of these neuromasts is determined in part by neural crest interaction and mediated by the HOX genes that are the primary patterning genes in many invertebrates and all vertebrates.
So to make a long story short, you seem to have stumbled upon more evidence of one of the most important set of genes in vertebrates. These genes are regulatory in nature and quite conservative. Mutations in humans usually lead to multiple digit and multiple limb syndromes that are typically fatal and rarely seen, except in fetuses. Mess these up in development and you get two heads, two backbones, multiple extra fingers, etc. They were first discovered in flies, where it was discovered they are responsible for creating the three primary body segments in insects, as well as its subdivision, as seen in the antennae for example. The first described was "antennopedia", because if one transplanted these various body parts to other segments they could induce antennas in the wrong place, or legs, etc. | <urn:uuid:6729df93-e3a0-42d1-bb1d-4e2842e1db31> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://cromwell-intl.com/3d/newscanner.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337322.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20221002115028-20221002145028-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.961217 | 1,129 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Twitter virus Removal Guide
What is Twitter virus?
Twitter virus – a term used to describe various types of malware spreading on the social platform via links or “Only for you” DMs
Twitter virus is a term used to describe malicious cyber threats using intriguing posts to infect users with malware
Twitter virus is a name of the threat created to describe the particular malware that affects social media users. This name is used for spam activities on a popular social network, malicious links delivering malware or commercial content campaigns showing questionable material via private messages. Usually, such malware delivers spam posts or sends private DMs that contain a shortened link redirecting to shady pages. Unfortunately, once clicked, it might show or install a highly suspicious application that might be created for spreading malware or phishing attempts.
However, according to the latest trends, Twitter malware can install on the target system and then use Twitter posts from its owner for communication. This is a totally new feature that could lead the IoT community to serious outcomes. The more recent campaigns distributing on the social platform spread via messages with “Only for you”. This type of Twitter virus contains users name, links to suspicious sites. Some users stated that the redirect took them to a particular account and that the DM comes from the known person.
|Infiltration||Malicious posts on social networks; infected emails or links/ads on the Internet|
|Main signs||Intriguing headlines which trying to convince victims into clicking the link or downloading the malicious file onto the system|
|Examples of potentially dangerous headlines||
|Main dangers||Getting infected with malware, losing personal information, damaging files, etc.|
|Prevention||Avoid pesky links on Twitter or that you receive via the direct message, always keep your anti-virus up-to-date|
|Elimination||Use ReimageIntego to spot potential danger on your computer|
Twitter malware has been known since 2009. It acts similarly to any of the Facebook virus, iPhone virus, Android virus, and others. If it manages to affect one’s account, it starts sending out spammy messages to its contacts and may also initiate other issues for its victim, such as disable his/her account, etc.
This virus is based on malicious posts that appear on Twitter's timeline. To draw people’s attention, this virus uses infected or fake accounts to post misleading tweets saying something like:
- OMG, I can’t believe that;
- OMG look what they’re saying about you;
- Is this you in this photo?;
- Only for you;
- Check this!!!
Of course, these tweets are filled with invented content, which is supposed to draw people's attention and convince them to click on it. Misleading tweets is not the only way how this virus spreads around. Twitter virus may try to affect your account via direct messages that can be sent to you by unknown people. They can also be filled with links and similar content. In fact, these malicious links that are usually included to these fake messages are the main helpers for this virus to spread around.
Typically, these links redirect to phishing and malware-laden websites that ask the victim to install a certain plug-in, update or a program that is required in order to see the intriguing content. Such downloads are infectious and should be avoided! However, if you clicked on such link or installed suspicious content, you should carry out Twitter virus removal immediately.
To remove Twitter virus, you need to disable application access via Settings and uninstall questionable programs or browser add-ons you were tricked to install. However, you can speed up this procedure by scanning the system with ReimageIntego and changing your password.
Twitter virus is the term used for describing various scams spreading on the social network.
Malware detected as TROJAN.MSIL.BERBOMTHUM.AA is using Twitter to reach its owners
Twitter virus has numerous forms and features. While TROJAN.MSIL.BERBOMTHUM.AA is not using this network to get into the target computer, once inside it, it starts reaching out to its owners by using the special technique that uses the payload hidden in the Twitter images.
These Twitter memes are filled with special commands, e.g. “print,” “processos” or “clip,” which mean exact actions, such as making the screenshot of the screen, copying running processes, retrieving the username and so on. This is a great danger as the victim can be lead to identity theft and similar loss.
The operation principle, which is known as steganography, is not a common case these days. Unfortunately, there is a great possibility that such viruses will become more common in 2019. While the Twitter virus, which was used for communication with the virus owners, is down, the appearance of similar viruses can be expected in the nearest future.
“Who visits your Twitter profile” spam is yet another version of Twitter virus
Twitter scam “Who visits your Twitter profile” is yet another way to get infected
In January 2018, a new variant of Twitter spam was detected. Numerous people were tweeting with a hashtag #FBPE which included the link to a website that claims to reveal the sweet information about who has viewed your profile.
There a couple of different spam messages, for instance:
Goooo!! Click for more information:
Who visits your Twitter profile
100% safe, 100% working
Click here, available for iOS and Android
Sign in and download this fantastic app – only available today
However, all of them contains the link to checkvisitss[.]tk website that offers to connect with Twitter account and learn who visited your profile. Once this button is clicked, users are redirected to authorization website which asks for regular Twitter app permissions:
- Read tweets from your timeline
- See who you follow and follow new people
- Update your profile
- Find Tweets for you
Indeed, after the installation, the Twitter virus continues posting lots of annoying content on behalf of you. Though, the redirected website and app itself don’t perform any malicious activities. However, it might be just a matter of time. You can never be sure if scammers wouldn’t think of the way to spread malware.
Thus, if your account was posting spam, you should navigate to Applications tab under Settings and Privacy, and disconnect all suspicious apps to remove Twitter scam entirely.
Other examples of Twitter virus
Scammers used the names of popular companies, such as Google, in order to convince users that they can make money while working from home. However, they were asked to pay a small sign-up fee. In this case, crooks get the victim’s credit card information and can charge them every single month.
These types of posts included a possibility to increase user’s followers. Scammers claimed that for a small amount of money (e.g. $5) they can get more than 2000 followers within a day.
In 2009 “Mikeyy” or “StalkDaily” worm was noticed spreading on the social network asking to access a StalkDaily.com website. As soon as users clicked on a link, her or his account was infected and continues spreading the malware further.
Other worms were spotted in 2014. This time malware was more sophisticated and managed to compromise even BBC News Twitter account.
Fake customer support accounts
In 2014 and 2016, numerous fake customer support accounts were detected. These phishing scams were used for stealing user’s logins and passwords. Typically, users were asked to access a camouflaged website and enter their details.
Users are advised to be careful with such messages. Official accounts always are verified and have a blue tick mark.
Direct message scams
The DM campaign of Only for you Twitter virus, involving the private DMs on the platform delivers questionable links to your account or any other page that shows shady content. Fraudulent messages seem to be sent from the person you know to fake the legitimacy. However, you shouldn't rely on such content and try to stay away from opening, reading and replying to such DMs.
When you receive ONLY FOR YOU message in the private message section or even directly on the phone, you should react and delete such messages ASAP. Those links can be faked and look like a link to some other social platform account or twitter support.
Nevertheless, shortened links even redirect you to malicious content filled pages with the possible download of more severe malware. Your account can even get hacked if you go to the provided page or download anything from the internet. You should remove Only for you Twitter virus or any other shady DM and reset passwords to this social platform, and other accounts.
The messages say ONLY FOR YOU and contain a shortened link to the shady page when the DM is not a legit message from the person you know.
Virus prevention requires being extra careful when using social media
Such social network malware mostly spreads via direct messages and bogus posts on the timeline of the particular platform. In order to protect yourself, you should ignore all spammy-looking messages that typically announce about shocking news or promote various products, such as drugs, contests for getting the ability to win smartphones, sales, and similar things.
You must never click on the link, which can also be found in these tweets or posts on other media outlets. Typically, such posts contain shortened URLs, and this technique is used to obfuscate suspicious-looking malicious links.
Also, make sure you ignore tweets that may show up on your feet out of nowhere. If you would happen to get infected with a Twitter virus, you should keep in your mind that you can be involved in its distribution. You can start sending out the same or similar spammy messages to all of your followers and friends automatically.
To get rid of the Twitter virus, you should check your profile and the computer system for unwanted alterations
If you clicked on a suspicious link or your followers reported that you are posting spam, you should consider a Twitter virus removal. We recommend terminating the virus with the help of anti-malware software, for instance, ReimageIntego or SpyHunter 5Combo Cleaner, Malwarebytes.
The virus can add additional programs to the system, inject suspicious extensions and tracking cookies into web browsers you use, and add registry keys that are hard to identify and delete manually. Thus, you may not be able to remove Twitter virus without security software, specialists from viruset.no say.
Additionally, if you have suffered from “Who visits your Twitter profile” scam, you should follow these steps too:
- Log in to Twitter.
- Access Settings and Privacy.
- Open Applications tab.
- Remove suspicious applications by clicking Revoke access button next to each of them.
If you cannot access your account after the attack, you should follow the guidelines provided by Twitter Help Center.
Getting rid of Twitter virus. Follow these steps
Manual removal using Safe Mode
If you cannot start the anti-malware software, reboot your PC into a Safe Mode with Networking first, and then launch your anti-malware program. You should also carry out the following instructions to protect your Twitter account:
- Change your Twitter password ASAP (you should change it on other accounts as well, if you use the same password there). For that, you should click your username, select “Settings” and then click the “Password” tab. Click “Change” to save these changes.
- Log back into your Twitter account and delete any spammy-looking messages.
Manual removal guide might be too complicated for regular computer users. It requires advanced IT knowledge to be performed correctly (if vital system files are removed or damaged, it might result in full Windows compromise), and it also might take hours to complete. Therefore, we highly advise using the automatic method provided above instead.
Step 1. Access Safe Mode with Networking
Manual malware removal should be best performed in the Safe Mode environment.
Windows 7 / Vista / XP
- Click Start > Shutdown > Restart > OK.
- When your computer becomes active, start pressing F8 button (if that does not work, try F2, F12, Del, etc. – it all depends on your motherboard model) multiple times until you see the Advanced Boot Options window.
- Select Safe Mode with Networking from the list.
Windows 10 / Windows 8
- Right-click on Start button and select Settings.
- Scroll down to pick Update & Security.
- On the left side of the window, pick Recovery.
- Now scroll down to find Advanced Startup section.
- Click Restart now.
- Select Troubleshoot.
- Go to Advanced options.
- Select Startup Settings.
- Press Restart.
- Now press 5 or click 5) Enable Safe Mode with Networking.
Step 2. Shut down suspicious processes
Windows Task Manager is a useful tool that shows all the processes running in the background. If malware is running a process, you need to shut it down:
- Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc on your keyboard to open Windows Task Manager.
- Click on More details.
- Scroll down to Background processes section, and look for anything suspicious.
- Right-click and select Open file location.
- Go back to the process, right-click and pick End Task.
- Delete the contents of the malicious folder.
Step 3. Check program Startup
- Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc on your keyboard to open Windows Task Manager.
- Go to Startup tab.
- Right-click on the suspicious program and pick Disable.
Step 4. Delete virus files
Malware-related files can be found in various places within your computer. Here are instructions that could help you find them:
- Type in Disk Cleanup in Windows search and press Enter.
- Select the drive you want to clean (C: is your main drive by default and is likely to be the one that has malicious files in).
- Scroll through the Files to delete list and select the following:
Temporary Internet Files
- Pick Clean up system files.
- You can also look for other malicious files hidden in the following folders (type these entries in Windows Search and press Enter):
After you are finished, reboot the PC in normal mode.
Finally, you should always think about the protection of crypto-ransomwares. In order to protect your computer from Twitter and other ransomwares, use a reputable anti-spyware, such as ReimageIntego, SpyHunter 5Combo Cleaner or Malwarebytes
How to prevent from getting malware
Choose a proper web browser and improve your safety with a VPN tool
Online spying has got momentum in recent years and people are getting more and more interested in how to protect their privacy online. One of the basic means to add a layer of security – choose the most private and secure web browser. Although web browsers can't grant full privacy protection and security, some of them are much better at sandboxing, HTTPS upgrading, active content blocking, tracking blocking, phishing protection, and similar privacy-oriented features. However, if you want true anonymity, we suggest you employ a powerful Private Internet Access VPN – it can encrypt all the traffic that comes and goes out of your computer, preventing tracking completely.
Lost your files? Use data recovery software
While some files located on any computer are replaceable or useless, others can be extremely valuable. Family photos, work documents, school projects – these are types of files that we don't want to lose. Unfortunately, there are many ways how unexpected data loss can occur: power cuts, Blue Screen of Death errors, hardware failures, crypto-malware attack, or even accidental deletion.
To ensure that all the files remain intact, you should prepare regular data backups. You can choose cloud-based or physical copies you could restore from later in case of a disaster. If your backups were lost as well or you never bothered to prepare any, Data Recovery Pro can be your only hope to retrieve your invaluable files. | <urn:uuid:a460cbd2-634a-46a1-b746-fc18b8652f53> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.2-spyware.com/remove-twitter-virus.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337432.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20221003200326-20221003230326-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.913075 | 3,417 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Technology for Schools
Our world has been turned upside down. What was true yesterday is no longer the same today. As Alice in Wonderland says, “How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another.” Can automated contact tracing and other unique technologies turn our world around?
The pandemic has created many challenges for schools. It has driven us to find new solutions. We hope that our scientists quickly find a vaccine and a cure for Covid-19. Our engineers have also worked hard to provide solutions that can help us until they do find a cure. This article describes the technologies that can be used to help us through the pandemic.
Automatic Contact Tracing
Contact tracing involves identifying people who have a contagious disease (cases) and people who they encountered (contacts) and working with them to interrupt disease spread. This includes asking people with COVID-19 to isolate themselves at home voluntarily.
Some people are concerned that the contact tracers are intruding on their privacy. The new digital contact tracing methods pay attention to this concern. The contact tracing methodology is to register the time a person spends close to another person. The process doesn’t record personal data or the person’s location. The system only provides a list of possible contacts if someone is reported to be sick.
Automated contact tracing provides a fast method of isolating the students that could have been affected. It mitigates the spread of disease and helps the school isolate only those people who are most affected.
Contact Tracers Can Be Replaced by Automated Contact Tracing
Manual Contact Tracing is Arduous and Uncertain. The CDC recommends the following process: Interviewing people with COVID-19 to identify everyone they had close contact with during the time they may have been infectious, Notifying contacts of their potential exposure, Referring contacts for testing, Monitoring contacts for signs and symptoms of COVID-19, Connecting contacts with services they might need during the self-quarantine period.
It would be nice if everyone who was questioned cooperated with the contact tracer, but unfortunately, many people resist answering.
Automated Contact Tracing Uses Tags and a Cloud Database
The contact tracing devices or tags are carried by people and detect how long one person is close to another person. The contact tracing database server, located in the cloud, collects all the contact information. Each tag includes the ID of the person who owns the tag. If someone in the organization becomes sick, the database can be used to identify everyone who has had close contact with the infected person.
Temperature Monitoring Panels
Like contact tracing, temperature monitoring of all people on the campus can help to mitigate the spread of the pandemic. If you can prevent people who are sick from entering the university, you can minimize the disease and won’t need automatic contact tracing.
The temperature scanning door reader provides face authentication and temperature monitoring. It can prevent the entry of a person that has an elevated temperature or if they are not wearing a protective face mask. Temperature screening systems can operate by themselves or as part of an access control system.
The simple systems can be used to monitor people as they enter, and if they detect elevated temperatures, they will provide an audio warning. The more professional biometric temperature monitoring panels can be used to control a door as part of an access control system.
Campus-Wide Emergency Alert IP Paging Systems
Network-attached public address and intercom systems improve campus security by adding emergency alert capabilities. They provide communications to multi-building or multi-campus school or corporate environments.
Panic Buttons that are strategically placed can be used by the administration to initiate a lockdown or emergency evacuation.
The Personal Mobile Emergency Alert
Mobile panic buttons can also be used to enhance security. The personal emergency panic button is a small device that attaches to your key-ring and provides instant notification to the safety center. The emergency panic button operates through a Bluetooth connection of the person’s smartphone. The safety center can listen to the audio and provide the appropriate response to the emergency.
Summary of Contact Tracing and Other Devices for Improving Safety in Schools
These days many things are uncertain. Can we go back to school? Will we be safe? When will the pandemic end? We don’t have all the answers, but we have some new technology that can help make things a bit more certain. Contact tracing can be used to mitigate and control the pandemic. The automated system makes it much easier to trace people who should be isolated. The new temperature monitoring panels can control who enters your facility. If they have elevated temperature or not wearing a mask, they can be prevented from entering your facility. Other technologies that provide emergency notification of situations add to the safety of the organization. Schools can be kept as safe as possible by using these targeted technologies.
If you would like help selecting the right systems for controlling disease, please contact us at 800-431-1658 in the USA, 914-944-3425, everywhere else, or use our contact form. | <urn:uuid:d6bf3e2d-8c0a-4bdd-ab94-57507a76c000> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://kintronics.com/automatic-contact-tracing-and-other-technologies-for-the-campus/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337537.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005042446-20221005072446-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.940641 | 1,055 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Data replication is the practice of creating one or more redundant copies of a database or other data store for the purpose of fault tolerance.
What do I need to know about data replication?
Data replication is not a static backup of data. Instead, data replication encompasses duplication of transactions on an ongoing basis, so that the replicate (often called a mirror) is in a consistently updated state and synchronized with the source. There are different methodologies of performing replication depending on the specific availability requirements for the data.
What are the challenges of data replication?
Problems with data replication can arise from latency or service interruptions during data transfer. Commercial data replication products attempt to alleviate business risk due to replication errors or failures. As the distance between the source and the mirror increases, data replication can become more challenging.
What are the benefits of data replication?
The primary benefits of data replication are disaster recovery and high availability of mission-critical applications. If the primary data source should fail, a replicate can be swapped in immediately. It also provides transactional consistency so that the data is up-to-date and consistent. Data replication tools can reduce the IT labor involved in creating and managing data replication transactions across the enterprise. | <urn:uuid:470000ff-cd3d-4a76-bcbe-2dbcfe67b635> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.informatica.com/ca/services-and-training/glossary-of-terms/data-replication-definition.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337537.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005042446-20221005072446-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.908091 | 245 | 3.4375 | 3 |
FEMA looks for patterns in social media to improve emergency management.
Disasters are defined by chaos, an orderly system gone awry. But there are patterns in how disasters unfold that emergency managers monitoring social media can use to make smart decisions about what’s real and what doesn’t add up, according to a Federal Emergency Management Agency official.
Phase one of using social media to aid emergency management is about gathering situational awareness from tweets and Facebook posts, broadcasting important safety information to people in the disaster area and correcting misinformation, said Carter Hewgley, director of FEMAStat, a program evaluation arm of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The second phase, Hewgley said, is about learning from patterns in how the public uses social media in disasters so you can respond in a smarter way the next time. He was speaking at Nextgov’s government technology conference Nextgov Prime.
“I think the emergency management community defaults to the ‘every disaster is different mentality,’ Hewgley said. “Every disaster is different but there are enormous amounts of similarity. Human beings tend to be very predictable and one of the really powerful things we’ll eventually be able to analyze with social media is the predictive patterns we see people going through, and we’ll be able to move faster because we’ve seen these patterns play out before in events of this type.”
The Red Cross advises volunteers that even if they have “zero information” about a disaster they still know certain things that they can tweet out immediately, such as best practices for taking shelter, said Senior Engagement Specialist Gloria Huang.
The Red Cross also trains employees and volunteers to vet information they gather over social media during a disaster -- for instance, about people who are stranded or trapped under rubble, she said. Those sorts of tweets and posts have helped rescue workers save lives, she said, but often include incorrect information that’s either secondhand or intentionally misleading.
The Red Cross trains people to tweet back at tipsters, asking where their information came from and for more details, she said. | <urn:uuid:437069c4-06ea-4175-a14c-3580f7aec9d4> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2013/11/finding-patterns-disaster-tweets/74279/?oref=ng-next-story | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337537.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005042446-20221005072446-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.944158 | 432 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Globalization and the rapid diffusion of new information and communication technologies are said to be eliminating both borders and boundaries. At the same time, localization and the effective adaptation of these technologies are said to be at the core of an emerging, revolutionary world of e-governance.
The main premise of e-governance is that a new digital architecture, built on the expanding and virtual platform of the Internet is changing the way we organize ourselves. As online processes permeate ever-growing proportions of economic, social and political activities, this premise resonates with more authority.
The notion of smart community builds on both the promise of technology and the impacts of a new, more networked intelligence on our individual decisions and collective fortunes. A smart community may be defined as a geographical area ranging in size from a neighborhood to a multi-county region within which citizens, organizations and governing institutions deploy and embrace technology to transform their region in significant and fundamental ways.
In an information age, smart communities are intended to promote job growth, economic development and improve quality of life within the community. A smart community, in an ideal sense, offers a holistic approach to helping entire communities go online to connect local governments, schools, businesses, citizens, and health and social services in order to create specific services to address local objectives and to help advance collective skills and capacities.
The smart communities concept is growing in essentiality and importance in the U.S. and indeed worldwide. In the 1997 Speech from the Throne, the Government of Canada made a pledge: “We will make the information and knowledge infrastructure accessible to all Canadians by the year 2000, thereby making Canada the most connected nation in the world. This will provide individuals, schools, libraries, small and large businesses, rural and Aboriginal communities, public institutions, and all levels of government with new opportunities for learning, interacting, transacting business and developing their social and economic potential.”
The Smart Communities Program is a three-year federal program created and administered by Industry Canada to help Canada become a world leader in the development and use of IT for economic, social and cultural development. The program’s goal is to help establish world-class smart communities across the country so that Canadians can fully realize the benefits that information and communication technologies have to offer.
As set out by Industry Canada, the program puts forth the following objectives: | <urn:uuid:dc49a89f-fc1b-4d14-8321-40a2c2434667> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/rethinking-communitiesaligning-technology-governance/30593 | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337836.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006124156-20221006154156-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.933813 | 477 | 3.203125 | 3 |
The United States military is developing a new Global Position System (GPS) signal resistant to interference, such as jamming. The Department of Defense (DoD) plans to install this technology on hundreds of weapons systems, but a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that incomplete data hinders deployment efforts.
For more than two decades the DoD has been modernizing GPS to use a more jam-resistant, military-specific signal called M-code. The department plans to test this equipment in lead weapon systems including aircraft, ships, and combat vehicles – eventually, it plans to incorporate modernized GPS equipment in about 700 weapon systems.
The DoD has begun to select priority systems for M-code capability, but incomplete data have hindered these efforts. The report notes that the widespread operational use will take several more years due to “developmental challenges and delays with the user equipment that will receive the signal.”
DoD has maintained a database on modernizing the GPS enterprise and the military services enter the required data. Until mid-2021, the database did not have a field to identify priority systems which led to significant issues with data completeness and accuracy remain, due in part because of user equipment delays, but also because the database does not have formal validation processes.
“Poor data hinders the congressional defense committees’ ability to track the progress of M-code and support DOD decision-making, ” the report notes.
These delays have limited the military services’ ability to fully develop plans for operationally testing M-code capability. Testing is expected to be complex and, once the equipment is ready, the services will need sufficient test data to support fielding decisions and user understanding of capabilities. In addition, delays to test plans put the timely fielding of M-code capability on priority systems at risk.
In their report, GAO made seven separate recommendations to the department, including that the DoD and the military services ensure the information in their GPS modernization database is sufficient to support priorities for planning for and fielding M-code, and that the data is validated
regularly. GAO also recommended that the military services finalize operational test plans for priority weapon systems once M-code equipment is available.
The DoD concurred with three of the seven recommendations and partially concurred with the remaining four. | <urn:uuid:b9f1834c-ee0d-44ca-8f32-59e1423b89f8> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://origin.meritalk.com/articles/gao-incomplete-data-hinders-dod-gps-modernization-efforts/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030338280.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20221007210452-20221008000452-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.951444 | 478 | 2.578125 | 3 |
“I bought a Mac, because it’s safer than a PC.”
“I always surf the web with my iPhone, because I know it can’t get infected.”
“I got a virus on my first PC, so now I only use Apple products.”
Too often, the rhetoric around the Mac vs. PC debate focuses on Apple’s presumed invulnerability to cybercrime. Many consumers believe (a belief that is bolstered by Apple’s marketing of “security by design”) that unlike Windows devices, Apple products are immune to cyber threats.
Unfortunately, as we witnessed this week, this logic is deeply flawed. Apple products can and do get hacked, and consumers who believe their devices are invulnerable are most susceptible to data loss after a compromise.
New iPhone Security Flaw Discovered in iOS 6.1
The most recent version of Apple’s mobile operating system (iOS 6.1) contains a security flaw that allows hackers to bypass your password, make calls, listen to recent messages, tinker with your contact list, and even access private photos. The hack was posted on YouTube on January 31st, and it uses another phone placed nearby to bypass an iPhone password and access these limited functions. And while the original poster urged users to “play nice” with the flaw and only use it for harmless pranks, the hack presents a serious security risk until it is patched by Apple.
This flaw is just one in a long line of security risks in previous versions of Apple’s mobile operating system. Like most vendors, Apple is quick to a fix these problems once they are discovered, but the fact remains that these devices are becoming more and more vulnerable to attack.
So, if Apple devices really are just as vulnerable, why does everyone still believe Macs are safer?
This question can be answered best if broken down into two parts:
- The security built into the Apple operating system
- The number of security threats (viruses) made to target the Apple operating system
The reason why we say Macs are just as vulnerable as PCs to security threats is due to #1, the security built into the Apple operating system. While Apple likes to tout that they have “security built in” (which they do), their systems are no more secure than Windows devices, which ALSO have security features built in by design. This is exemplified by this most recent iOS 6.1 vulnerability; It’s a simple loophole that slipped through the cracks of Apple’s security team.
The second part of this answer examines the actual number of threats out there – the fact that right now, there are fewer viruses designed to attack Macs. This is of course a valid observation (the volume of Android threats found by McAfee Labs in 2012 far surpassed the number of iOS threats), but users must be prepared as these threats grow.
For some context, consider the differences between computer criminals and ordinary criminals. Both groups are made up of rational individuals, but their motivations are very different. The bulk of ordinary crime – burglaries, car break-ins – is done by disadvantaged young people, often from underfunded school districts and historically segregated neighborhoods. This type of crime is most often predicted and prevented by examining socioeconomic forces – figuring out why these groups are disadvantaged and how to best improve their opportunities.
In contrast, the bulk of online crime is committed by technically savvy people living in poor countries like Russia, India, or Brazil. Preventing and predicting online crime is usually a question of economics – figuring out where these criminals will get the most payout for the work they put in. Since right now, Windows PCs are still much more numerous than Apple devices (and they’re used by the finance industry), you are much less likely to encounter a virus that infects Apple machines.
The key thing to remember, however, is that as Apple grows in popularity and is used by more and more businesses, so does the number of viruses made specifically for Apple devices. Users must be prepared as this trend continues, and they must let go of the long-held myth that Apple products are invulnerable to attack.
Here are a few actionable tips on how to keep your Apple devices safe:
1. Enable Auto-Lock and Passcode Protection
Auto-Lock is a built-in iPhone security feature that locks your device’s touch screen after a short period of inactivity. This feature is turned on by default, and it’s best used in tandem with the iPhone’s Passcode Lock feature. This allows you to require a four-digit passcode to open the iPhone again. As a best practice, avoid using commonly used (1111 or 1234) or easy-to-guess passcodes such as your birthday.
2. Disable Features That Could be Accessed Without Entering the Passcode
By default, the Voice Dial feature of an iPhone can be accessed without unlocking it first. This feature can be used to call anyone from the contact list, play songs, and use other functions. To disable, navigate to Settings > Passcode Lock > Voice Control, and turn Voice Dial to OFF.
3. Think Twice Before Jailbreaking a Device
Jailbreaking is hacking of an iOS device to bypass limitations imposed by Apple, which can allow users to run applications that are not authorized by the Apple App Store. This makes your device much more susceptible to viruses and malicious applications.
4. Update Software Right Away
iOS security bugs (like this most recent password vulnerability) can only be fixed when you update your operating system. Not running the latest version of iOS may make your iPhone, iPad, or Mac vulnerable to defects and bugs identified in older versions.
5. Download Security Protection
Security software like McAfee All Access can protect every device you own (PCs, Macs, smartphones, and tablets) with the maximum level of protection that can be delivered to each device.
Follow us to stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats. | <urn:uuid:7f941723-a6e1-4113-b5ff-f83b94e2cdb7> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.mcafee.com/blogs/mobile-security/mobile-myths-can-my-apple-devices-get-hacked/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030338280.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20221007210452-20221008000452-00090.warc.gz | en | 0.940827 | 1,257 | 2.71875 | 3 |
By Ajay Singh, Author of CyberStrong! A Primer on Cyber Risk Management for Business Managers
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has boosted productivity, enhanced the quality of decision making and provided solutions to many complex problems. AI comprises a wide range of algorithms, models, and analytical technologies working in tandem to enable computers and other machines to sense, evaluate, act autonomously and even learn with human-like capabilities. While it is considered among the most disruptive technologies to revolutionize the management and business models of organizations, it has also changed the way we live, work, learn and play. Unwittingly, it has also kick-started a great game in cyberspace between hackers deploying AI for their nefarious goals and defenders who use AI for identifying threats and shoring up their defenses. It may be early days yet, but the AI-driven cyber arms race in cyberspace is truly underway between hackers and defenders and is expected to go on for a long time to come.
Bruce Schneier a public-interest technologist and fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School suggests that ‘artificial intelligence will eventually find vulnerabilities in all sorts of social, economic, and political systems, and then exploit them at unprecedented speed, scale, and scope. After hacking humanity, AI systems will then hack other AI systems, and humans will be little more than collateral damage. He further goes on to say that ‘Hackers Used to Be Humans. Soon, AIs Will Hack Humanity’(Hackers Used to Be Humans. Soon, AIs Will Hack Humanity | WIRED, n.d.). Is this an extreme view? A closer look at issues around the use of artificial intelligence will tell us that we are well on our way.
To understand the issues involved, we need to examine the role of AI in offensive maneuvers by hackers and how AI can help the defenders.
AI is a powerful weapon for hackers
The weaponization of AI was inevitable. As the defenders got their act together and began to close vulnerability gaps and protect entry points, hackers found AI as a useful way to not only find innovative ways to get past defenses but also to automate a lot of human effort. AI proved a valuable addition to their arsenal which helped them to add speed, stealth, and unpredictability into their attacks. Further advances in the form of Machine Learning (ML) enabled them to even adapt and boost their chances of success of the attacks.
The World Economic Forum in a report(3 Ways AI Will Change the Nature of Cyber Attacks | World Economic Forum, n.d.) suggests that AI-powered cyberattacks are not a hypothetical threat to be dealt with in the future. They observe that the required building blocks for the use of offensive AI are already in place such as -highly sophisticated malware, financially motivated – and ruthless – criminals willing to use any means possible to increase their return on investment, and open-source AI research projects which make highly valuable information available in the public domain. They further propose that AI can change the nature of cyber-attacks. Firstly, through impersonation of users by using AI to capture the characteristics of an individual’s behavior and language by analyzing email and social media communications. Secondly, using AI for stealth, timing, and speed. Hackers can use AI to maintain a long-term presence in targeted environments, identify vulnerabilities and attack opportunities by analyzing large volumes of data as well evade security controls and compromise more devices. Thirdly, AI is useful for hackers in incorporating greater levels of sophistication and conducting their operations at great speed and at many times the scale. It is worth mentioning hackers today can cause greater harm by sourcing or renting advanced AI-driven technologies on the darknet and deploying them without having the skill and knowledge to develop them. This easy availability makes the threat for AI-driven attacks a major cause for concern and raises the table stakes in the security game to another level.
Hackers have recognized that AI can boost their efforts and criminal activities in a big way. It allows them to operate on a bigger scale with the added benefits of speed, minimum effort, and cost. Some of the areas where they have been actively using AI are as follows:
To be able to harvest credentials and launch mass bespoke phishing attacks was every hacker’s dream. Today, by deploying AI, they can firstly gather, analyze, and use information about companies, employees, and other targets more easily and quickly. This capability enables them to plan and execute targeted mass spear-phishing attacks with greater chances of success on unsuspecting victims.
AI for Deep Fakes & deception
Spoofing and impersonation are techniques that have been used by hackers for some time now by impersonating a company, brand, or known person. Now, they can use deep fakes which combine audio and/or video that is either entirely created or modified by artificial intelligence or machine learning to plausibly misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that the hacker wants to convey. The story of a CEO of a UK Energy based company who was deceived through deep fake audio is an example of the kind of damage a deep fake can cause. In this instance, cybercriminals called the U.K. company’s CEO impersonating the CEO of the parent company and managed to deceive him into making an urgent wire transfer of $243,000.
The threat from this kind of AI-driven deep fakes is set to rise further as cybercriminals are taking advantage of remote workers and a distributed workforce which makes their job of manipulation easier. It also enables them to launch more deceptive phishing campaigns via email or business communication platforms which serve as useful delivery mechanisms for deep fakes. As users are more likely to trust organizational communications from known sources, the hackers’ chances of success are much greater. The next frontier for deep fake technology also known as AI that deceives is to defeat biometric authentication. For now, the answer is that it is possible but fails in the face of a ’liveness’ test which is performed to if the biometric traits are from a living person rather than an artificial or lifeless person. Only time will tell if deep fakes can evolve to defeat this.
Conventional malware is designed to be both deceptive and malicious. Introducing AI into malware can make it much more potent and powerful. A malware that is AI-powered can be capable of adapting to existing protection systems and finding ways of bypassing them. There are experts who feel that AI-powered malware will initially be based on the exploitation of known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations which can be detected through security audits and vigilance and prompt action can neutralize the potential threat from materializing. Hackers are meanwhile exploring ways in which AI can be used to remain untraced in target environments for long periods of time and activate triggers that can be voice or facial recognition driven among others to launch full-scale attacks
AI-driven Vulnerability discovery & Automated Hacking
The use of AI and ML has not only made the discovery of vulnerabilities in IT infrastructure, software, and systems easier but has provided ways of understanding the context, developing risk scores for prioritizing risk mitigation actions, and correlating them to vulnerability trends. However, the same information in the wrong hands can lead to exploitation of vulnerabilities in ways by which hackers can inflict maximum knowledge. Today, many hacking tools are easily available that help in finding exploitable weaknesses in computer systems, web applications, servers, and networks. To develop a clear picture of their target networks and devices, hackers can use programs like Shodan to compile a comprehensive list of internet-connected devices, including web servers, surveillance cameras, webcams, and printers. Once all this information is gathered, hackers use automated hacking tools to minimize human efforts and give them the ability to scrutinize large amounts of information which they can then exploit to their advantage. Examples of automated hacking attacks include brute force attacks, credential stuffing, hacker bots, scraping, captcha bypass, etc. These attacks can vary in scale, timing, duration, and frequency and AI is useful in exercising control over these attacks.
DDoS attacks, which use botnets or zombie machines, often involve the use of AI to control attacks and make them more devastating. The cyberattack against TaskRabbit in 2018 is a prime example where a large botnet controlled by AI was used to perform a massive DDoS attack where 3.75 million users were impacted. The magnitude of the attack was such that the entire site had to be disabled until security could be restored. This further affected an additional 141 million users.
The above modes of attack powered by AI are not the only ones. Hackers have tasted the power of AI and learned to harness it to make their attacks more effective. On the other hand, the induction of AI in the hacker’s arsenal can lead to wide-ranging consequences for businesses, governments, and society at large. There is a thriving market for tools and services which hackers regardless of their technical capability can access and use. AI-based tools are increasingly available to help hackers identify targets and launch attacks in minutes. A greater worry relates to the use of AI in new malware strains that can avoid detection or evade defenses by modifying their behavior based on their learning from detection mechanisms and controls.
A recent variation of a typical botnet attack was that of bot extortion where hackers threatened to launch an SEO attack on CheapAir, a flight price comparison website. When the company refused to pay the money demanded by the hackers, they unleashed a torrent of negative reviews via bots(Automated Cyber Attacks Are the Next Big Threat. Ever Hear of “Review Bombing”? n.d.).
In the future, we can expect hackers to add many use cases involving artificial intelligence/ machine learning to enable cyber-attacks which will be both dramatic in the way they are crafted and massive in scale to cause unprecedented damage on organizations, mission critical systems, and individuals.
Fighting AI with AI
While hackers can use AI for gaining an offensive advantage, equally defenders can use AI to bolster their defenses. The same advantages of speed, analyzing vast amounts of data, and automating various aspects of cybersecurity hold great promise for the defenders. Security experts and solution providers are actively engaged in harnessing the capabilities of AI and incorporating them into security solutions. The rising frequency of cyber threats and attacks leaves organizations (particularly large ones) little choice but to use AI-enabled security tools and products that can enable them to detect and respond quickly to cybersecurity incidents with limited or no human intervention.
AI for Security Threat Intelligence
The use of threat intelligence in cyberspace draws its origins from its use by militaries around the world to identify and respond to potential security threats. Cyber threat intelligence refers to information that is collated and analyzed by an organization to identify the cyber threats that they are facing or will face in the future. Threat intelligence today involves the analysis of large amounts of data on an ongoing basis which is where the role of AI and machine learning becomes critical. Several research reports support the view that AI is necessary for making the analysis of threats more efficient as well as in taking preventive and preemptive security decisions and actions.
AI for identifying new threats and malicious activities
Traditional antivirus and threat detection software are based mainly on heuristics and virus signatures for detection. This leaves room for hackers to use new malicious codes which can bypass such protection systems. AI and ML models enable threat detection software to gather, process, and use it to form inferences which can lead to better threat detection and predictions. Deep learning which enables learning by example ability can further augment threat detection abilities.
Emails are the preferred method of hackers to deliver malicious links and attachments for launching phishing forays. Surveys indicate that spam accounts for over half of received emails. Much of this could contain malicious links and payloads. AI-enabled email scanning has proved to be extremely useful in identifying phishing emails and other types of threats and given the volumes of emails involved seems the only way not only for identification of malicious links, messages, and attachments, but also flagging suspicious activities and anomalies.
Threats can emanate not only from external sources (hackers), but from internal sources (insiders) as well. AI is increasingly being deployed to understand and analyze user behavior to identify patterns, trends, anomalies, and gain other insights to implement necessary security controls and enable appropriate security actions.
AI for better Endpoint Protection
As we continue to add more devices connected to the Internet every day, securing these endpoint devices has become critical. The concept of defending a well-defined corporate perimeter is over. Instead, we are faced with protecting a large number of devices distributed across geographies, users, and applications. AI-driven endpoint protection ensures that a baseline for endpoint device behavior is established, monitored, and maintained. Deviant behavior from the baseline can be identified and flagged for further actions.
AI for combating Bots
Combatting bot traffic through manual systems is no longer effective when it comes to dealing with the large amount of bot traffic that is generated today. AI and ML can help analyze vast amounts of data traffic as well as distinguish and categorize the same.
While the above represents a few important use cases for AI in bolstering cybersecurity, there are many more. The Capgemini Research Institute in their report (Reinventing Cybersecurity with Artificial Intelligence – Capgemini Worldwide, n.d.) on the role of AI in cybersecurity found that:
- The use of AI for cybersecurity is a growing necessity
- The pace of adoption of AI for cybersecurity is increasing
- There is a strong business case for using AI for cybersecurity
- AI enables organizations to respond faster to breaches
Just as the weaponization of AI by hackers was inevitable so is its increasing use by defenders. As networks become larger, distributed, and support diverse devices, data traffic increases manyfold every year and it becomes more difficult to deal with the associated complexities, the use of AI seems like the best way to deal with not only threat and security management but issues such as accountability, transparency, privacy, safety, and fairness.
A peek into the future may show that innovations in AI may lead to AI systems attacking and defending against each other making us bystanders hoping for the best outcome. Before the AI vs AI arms race escalates to this level and we possibly lose complete control over these technologies, we must adopt a hybrid approach that combines the power of AI and human intervention (wherever and whenever) required to identify, analyze, predict, and even resolve new and complex cyber threats. AI is a great source of innovation in many spheres of our existence. While it can provide immense benefits, in the wrong hands can cause large-scale damage. In times to come, we will see the great game between the hackers and defenders play out with the stakes going up in each round. | <urn:uuid:5a4ebfde-cce8-4aa4-95e3-672ee97aa266> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://cyberexperts.com/ai-vs-ai-the-great-game/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030331677.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20220924151538-20220924181538-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.951477 | 3,030 | 2.765625 | 3 |
All of them have an impact on OpenSSH, Putty and WinSCP. WinSCP patches available.
All SCP (Secure Copy Protocol) implementations from the last 36 years since 1983 are vulnerable to four security bugs that allow a malicious SCP server to make unauthorized changes to the (user) system of a client and hide malicious operations in the device.
The vulnerabilities have been identified by Harry Sintonen, a security researcher with Finnish cyber security firm F-Secure, who has been working since August of last year to fix and patch them in the major SCP protocol applications.
For our readers not familiar with SCP, the protocol is a “secure ” RCP (Remote Copy Protocol) implementation-a protocol for transferring files over a network.
SCP operates in addition to the SSH protocol and supports an authentication mechanism to provide authenticity and confidentiality for transferred files, just as SSH provides the same for the older and unsafe Telnet protocol. Start using free ssh vulnerability scanner online to prevent from hacker.
SCP has been used as a standalone app under the same name since its first release back in 1983, but has also been included in other apps. For instance, SCP is the standard method of file transfer for OpenSSH, Putty and WinSCP.
Whenever users transfer files (or vice versa) between a server and a client via these apps, they are transferred via the SCP protocol, unknown to the user, unless users have chosen to use the SFTP protocol as the default mode for data transfer.
In a security advisory published last week on his personal website, Sintonen revealed that there are four major security bugs affecting SCP implementation:
CVE-2018-20685- A SCP client app allows a remote SCP server to modify the target directory’s permissions.
CVE-2019-6111- An SCP malicious server can overwrite arbitrary files in the target directory of the SCP client. If a recursive (-r) operation is carried out, the server can also manipulate sub-directories (e.g. overwrite.ssh/authorized keys).
CVE-2019-6109- ANSI code can be used to manipulate terminal client output to hide subsequent operations.
CVE-2019-6110- Relative to the above, the problems are rooted in the original implementation of the RCP protocol by the BSD, which means that all SCP implementations in the last 36 years have been affected to a different extent.
Only the WinSCP team addressed the problems reported with the release of WinSCP 5.14 at the time of writing.
|WinSCP SCP mode||<=5.13||–||x||–||–|
If patching is not an option or out of the user’s control, SCP clients should be configured to request files via SFTP (Secure FTP).
It should be noted that any attacks that may attempt to exploit these vulnerabilities depend on a malicious party that takes over a SCP server or is in a man-in – the-middle position, although the MitM attack may be easier to detect because the victim needs to accept the wrong host fingerprint.
After the publication date of this article, users who believe they may be affected can keep an eye on Sirtonen’s security advisory for updated information on upcoming patches for other SCP clients. We will do our best to update this article. | <urn:uuid:c12569dd-2bb9-4653-93f6-b2a4c26e5bcb> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://cybersguards.com/scp-deployments-affected-by-security-flaws-of-36-years/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334992.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20220927064738-20220927094738-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.8908 | 739 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The IBM System i, then known as the AS/400, was the continuation of the System/38 database machine architecture (announced by IBM in October 1978 and delivered in August 1979). The AS/400 removed capability-based addressing. The AS/400 added source compatibility with the System/36 combining the two primary computers manufactured by the IBM Rochester plant. The System/36 was IBM’s most successful mini-computer but the architecture had reached its limit. The first AS/400 systems (known by the development code names Silverlake and Olympic) were delivered in 1988 under the tag line “Best of Both Worlds” and the product line has been refreshed continually since then. Guy Dehond from Inventive Designers was one of the beta-testers of Silverlake. The programmers who worked on OS/400, the operating system of the AS/400, did not have a UNIX background. Dr Frank Soltis, the chief architect, says that this is the main difference between this and any other operating system.
The AS/400 was one of the first general-purpose computer systems to attain a C2 security rating from the NSA (Gould UTX/C2, a UNIX-based system was branded in 1986, and in 1995 was extended to employ a 64-bit processor and operating system.
The 1995 change-over from 48 to 64-bit required that all programs be ‘observable’, i.e. that the debugging information had not been stripped out of the compiled code. This caused problems for those who had bought third-party products that had no source and no observability. In 2008, the introduction of V6R1 caused similar problems, although this time IBM preferred to call it a “refresh”.
In 2000 IBM renamed the AS/400 to iSeries, as part of its e-Server branding initiative. The product line was further extended in 2004 with the introduction of the i5 servers, the first to use the IBM POWER5 processor. The architecture of the system allows for future implementation of 128-bit processors when they become available.
Although announced in 1988, the AS/400 remains IBM’s most recent major architectural shift that was developed wholly internally. Since the arrival of Lou Gerstner in 1993, IBM has viewed such colossal internal developments as too risky. Instead, IBM now prefers to make key product strides through acquisition (e.g., the takeovers of Lotus Software and Rational Software) and to support the development of open standards, particularly Linux. It is noteworthy that after the departure of CEO John Akers in 1993, when IBM looked likely to be split up, Bill Gates commented that the only part of IBM that Microsoft would be interested in was the AS/400 division. (At the time, many of Microsoft’s business and financial systems ran on the AS/400 platform, something that ceased to be the case around 1999, with the introduction of Windows 2000.
LPAR (Logical PARtitioning), a feature introduced from IBM’s mainframe computers, facilitates running multiple operating systems simultaneously on one IBM System i unit. A system configured with LPAR can run various operating systems on separate partitions while ensuring that one OS cannot run over the memory or resources of another. Each LPAR is given a portion of system resources (memory, hard disk space, and CPU time) via a system of weights that determines where unused resources are allocated at any given time. The operating systems supported (and commonly used) under the LPAR scheme are IBM i, AIX, and Linux.
Other features include an integrated DB2 database management system, a menu-driven interface, multi-user support, non-programmable terminals (IBM 5250) and printers, security, communications, client–server and web-based applications. Much of the software necessary to run the IBM System i is included and integrated into the base operating system.
Common Client-Server Support
The IBM System i also supports common client–server systems such as ODBC and JDBC for accessing its database from client software such as Java, Microsoft .NET languages and others.
Programming languages available for the AS/400 include RPG, assembly language, C, C++, Pascal, Java, EGL, Perl, Smalltalk, COBOL, SQL, BASIC, PHP, PL/I, Python and REXX. Several CASE tools are available: CA Plex (formerly AllFusion Plex) , Synon, IBM Rational Business Developer Extension, Accelerator, LANSA, Uniface and GeneXus.
Integrated Language Environment
The ILE (Integrated Language Environment) programming environment allows programs from ILE compatible languages (C, C++, COBOL, RPG, Fortran, and CL), to be bound into the same executable and call procedures written in any of the other ILE languages.
The IBM System i fully supports the Java language, including 32- and 64-bit Java Virtual Machines (JVM).
Commands in the Control Language (CL) are promptable using the keyboard F4 function key, and most provide cursor-sensitive help to make specifying command parameters simpler. All command names and parameter keywords are based upon uniform standardized and mostly 3-letter abbreviations for verbs and subjects, making for easy rendering and interpretation by the application developer, as opposed to other operating systems with often cryptic or inconsistent command names for related functions or command parameter switches. For instance, the parameter keyword to apply a text description to any object to be created or changed is spelled the same way for all such commands.
- CRTUSRPRF, DSPUSRPRF, CHGUSRPRF, DLTUSRPRF – create, display, change, and delete user profile
- CRTLIB, DSPLIB, CHGLIB, DLTLIB – Create, display, change and delete a library
- ADDLIBLE, RMVLIBLE, CHGLIBL – Add or remove library list entry or change library list
- CPYF, CRTF, DSPF, CHGF, DLTF – Copy, create, display, change, and delete file
- WRKACTJOB – Work with Active Jobs
- WRKSYSSTS – Work with System Status
- STRSST, STRPASTHR, STRSBS – Start System Service Tools, start pass through (remote login), start subsystem
- VRYCFG – Vary configuration, bring interfaces up or down
- PWRDWNSYS – Power Down System
- WRKSPLF – Work with spooled files
For traditional business programming languages such as RPG, COBOL, and C, the IBM System i provides an interface to the integrated database that allows these languages to treat database tables much like other platforms treat ISAM or VSAM files.
Support for 5250 display operations is provided via display files, an interface between workstations, keyboards and displays, and interactive applications, as opposed to batch processing with little or no user interaction. ASCII terminals and PC workstations are equally and well supported, also via internet or LAN network access supplemented by either IBM or non-IBM communication software, for example TELNET or TELNET 5250.
IBM systems may also come with programming and development software like Programming Development Manager.
In 1986, System/38 announced support for Distributed Data Management Architecture (DDM). This enabled programs to create, manage, and access record-oriented files on remote System/36, System/38, and IBM mainframe systems running CICS. This support was extended into the AS/400 and its follow-ons. It was enhanced to support additional services that had been defined by DDM and to support AS/400-specific extensions, as allowed by DDM. In 1990, the AS/400 announced support for Distributed Relational Database Architecture, which is based on DDM.
The fact the AS/400 was created in 1988 and has been renamed several times hasn’t helped in building the perception that it is a modern platform – but it most certainly is. More often identified today as IBM i, AS/400 remains a critical part of the computing infrastructure for many of the top organizations and ACOM customers. | <urn:uuid:ecc51654-996e-42d3-aa9a-9387b7a52ede> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://acom.com/as-400-history/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335573.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20221001070422-20221001100422-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.924504 | 1,733 | 2.640625 | 3 |
By Chris Hebert, StormGeo:
2021 Season Review. The 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season was the third most-active season on record with 21 named storms, 7 of which were hurricanes, including 4 major (category 3 or higher) hurricanes. In past seasons, typically about half of the named storms are hurricanes. That was not the case in 2021, as named storms equaled three times the number of hurricanes. Last season featured the formation of 10 “shorties”, which are weak, short-lived storms that typically form away from land. New technology is allowing for the detection of these short-lived storms that would not have previously been recognized. Future seasons may follow this pattern of having a greater named storm to hurricane ratio.
This Atlantic Hurricane Season Risk Map shows areas with above-normal risk for impact and the predicted number of storms.
El Niño/La Niña
One important signal that we closely monitor is sea surface temperatures across the Tropical Pacific. Warming waters there suggest the formation of an El Niño, a pattern that enhances hurricane development in the East and Central Pacific and inhibits development in the Atlantic Basin. After two very active seasons that featured a persistent La Niña, there are signs that La Niña is only very slowly waning.
The current forecast is for an equal chance of La Niña or neutral conditions by peak season. There is only a 10% chance of El Niño developing this season. While a La Niña would likely enhance hurricane development in the Atlantic, neutral conditions would certainly not be an inhibiting factor. Either way, signs point to a more active season.
Atlantic Water Temperatures
Water temperatures across most of the Atlantic Basin are currently above normal. In addition, oceanic heat content remains above normal across the Caribbean Sea and the southern Gulf of Mexico. Since hurricanes require a deep layer of warm water to become strong, the increased oceanic heat content will provide the necessary energy for strong hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico this season.
Contrary to last season, we are seeing less below normal water temperatures in the far eastern Tropical Atlantic at present. This may signal a weaker Azores-Bermuda high-pressure system, which would result in weaker easterly trade winds in the deep tropics. This would mean decreased low-level wind shear in the main development region between the eastern Caribbean Sea and the coast of Africa. Recent hurricane seasons have not featured any long-lasting strong hurricanes reaching the islands of the eastern Caribbean; that may not be the case this season. We think that there is an elevated risk of major hurricane activity across the eastern Caribbean islands.
An analog season is a past season with a similar setup of ocean temperatures and atmospheric flow patterns to current signals. If the current state of the tropics closely matches that of a previous year, then the premise is that seasonal activity this season would be somewhat similar to the analog season’s storm numbers and track locations. For 2022, we have identified 10 analog seasons. Currently, the best analogs are 2001 and 2003, although 2020 and 2021 are also good analogs. These analog seasons featured above-normal activity, though only half of these seasons had major hurricane impacts on the Gulf Coast.
What to Expect Based on Current and Predicted Conditions
We are forecasting an above-normal number of named storms in 2022 due to the low probability of an El Niño, above-normal ocean heat content and decreased low-level shear in the main development region. For the first time since 2017, the islands of the eastern Caribbean may be impacted by a major hurricane. The entire region from south Texas to southern New England may be at a greater risk for a significant impact, though the Atlantic coast may be at a greater risk of a major impact than the Gulf Coast.
About the Author: Chris Hebert is the TropicsWatch Manager, Houston, for StormGeo. | <urn:uuid:c3efa118-4e2e-4050-ac30-4ca25e5baf8d> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://continuityinsights.com/active-hurricane-season-forecast-for-2022/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337338.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20221002150039-20221002180039-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.950614 | 795 | 3.078125 | 3 |
- April 29, 2021
- Posted by: Aanchal Iyer
- Categories: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
Machine Learning (ML) & Artificial Intelligence (AI) are the most prominent and leading problem-solving practices adopted in many areas of industry and research. Let us first try and understand the difference between ML and AI.
ML is generally used alongside AI but they are not same. AI is a broad concept of machines being able to carry out tasks in a manner that would make us think of them as “smart”. ML is in fact a subset of AI. ML refers to systems that can learn by themselves. ML is an application of AI built around the concept that machines be given access to data so that they can learn by themselves. Today, most of the AI work involves ML, since intelligent behaviour needs substantial knowledge, and the easiest way to gain knowledge is by learning. Deep Learning (DL) is the next evolution of ML.
AI and ML
AI and ML are very much related. McCarthy one of the founders of the field has quoted “AI is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable.”
Also, the behaviour of a machine is not only the result of the program, but also a result of the environment and its “body” that it is physically embedded in. In simple terms, if you can write an intelligent program that has, for example, human-like behaviour, it can be AI. But until and unless it automatically learns from data, it is not ML:
Examples of Coherent Existence of AI and ML
Day by day our world is becoming dependent on automating tasks for excellent results and high precision. Artificial Intelligence achieves this accuracy with the help of deep learning algorithms. To understand this further, we can consider the example of the interactions we have with Google search or Alexa. These machines are based on deep learning algorithms, and their results get more relevant and accurate with time, that means the more we interact with these devices. ML further improves the scenarios and makes products and services more efficient. With ML, any analytical model building can be automated, based on which results would be provided.
There are various real-life ML examples we come across in our daily lives. Let us list out a few which are most common to all:
We know how well Google showcases its ML products with Google Assistant and Google Camera to the world. Google has also extended these features to Gmail and Google Photos. Gmail now has a smart reply feature which suggests small brief responses to e-mails received depending on the content in the e-mail.
Netflix constantly tries to improvise the personalization and recommendations problems using ML. ML has also expanded into various other streams such as price modelling, content promotions, content delivery, and marketing as well. 80 percent of the Netflix platform runs through the recommendation engine. The neural network helps to track the user behaviour and program content.
ML is an integral part of this tech giant. From time assessment to determining how far a cab is from a given location, everything is achieved by ML. The platform uses algorithms to determine the results efficiently. Data is analysed from the previous trips and this data is put into the present scenario. The other branch of Uber, which is UberEATS follows the same pattern. Various factors such as food preparation time to estimating the delivery time are taken into consideration.
• Siri and Cortana:
These voice recognition systems are dependent on ML entirely. These famous voice recognition systems also comprise deep neural networks. These apps are trained in such a manner that they can replicate human interactions in exactly the same manner. As the interactions continue, these apps learn to understand the grammar of the language
Spotify uses ML the same way as Netflix. With the weekly releases, it gives one a list of around 30 recommended songs. All of these songs are selected by ML algorithms which analyse one’s activities and matches songs based on what one has listened to in the past.
The growth of deep-learning models is expected to accelerate and create even more innovative applications in the next few year | <urn:uuid:da34c8aa-3987-4588-8c82-d654f108408c> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.aretove.com/coexistence-of-machine-learning-artificial-intelligence | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337338.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20221002150039-20221002180039-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.957109 | 886 | 3.515625 | 4 |
An Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) has three components:
- An autonomous or human-operated control system which is usually on the ground or a ship but may be on another airborne platform;
- An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV);
- A command and control (C2) system – sometimes referred to as a communication, command and control (C3) system – to link the two.
These systems include, but are not limited to, Remotely Piloted Air Systems (RPAS) in which the UAV is controlled by a ‘pilot’ using a radio data link from a remote location. UAS can also include an autonomously controlled UAV or, more likely, a semi autonomous UAV. In recent years, the tendency to refer to any UAV as a Drone has developed but the term is not universally considered appropriate.
UAVs can vary in size from those which can be hand launched to purpose built or adapted vehicles the size of conventional fixed or rotary wing aircraft.
The development of UAS
Military and other State use of UAS has developed rapidly since it began apace in the USA in the early 1990s and has utilised satellite communications and GNSS navigation to operate UAVs at very long distances from their controllers. However, well before this, the first recorded use of large UAVs was in 1935, when the British Royal Navy began using adapted DH82 Tiger Moth aircraft called ‘Queen Bees’ which were flown under radio control for gunnery target practice.
A total of 380 of these were built and used by both the Navy and the RAF before they were retired in 1947.
In recent years, fixed wing UAVs have been joined by increasing numbers of rotary and multi-rotor UAVs. As previously, the military has led the way in using UAVs and only more recently have they become, at the smaller size, accessible to civil users who were previously limited to the longstanding hobby activity of flying radio controlled model aircraft.
The civil applications of UAS
The recent rapid progress in extending the scope of military and State use of UAS has led to recognition of the very widespread potential for civil commercial applications of various UAS, the majority of which are small UAVs operating below the height above terrain normally used by manned aircraft or at least below about 1000 feet agl.
Many of these uses are now well established and include:
- Security surveillance
- Emergency response including SAR
- Facilitation of communications and broadcast
- Small package and bulk cargo transport
- Visual, spectral and thermal examination of structures
- Monitoring of linear network infrastructure such as railway tracks, power lines and pipelines
- Photography and cartographic survey
- Agricultural fertiliser and chemical application
- Aircraft external maintenance inspection
- Atmospheric research
UAS Operational Issues
The issues which have had to be addressed for this type of operation have centred on both the safety of other aircraft and issues of public (third party) safety and the protection of privacy.
The latter has been especially prominent due to the fact that many UAS applications involve the use of the UAV as a platform for a high definition camera.
The relatively small UAVs typically used are in contrast to the much larger range of UAV sizes which has collectively typified military use.
The development and use of Military UAS which has been so important in driving the scope and capability of these systems, especially the larger UAVs, has been possible because the airspace in which they have been used has been either permanently or temporarily segregated, with access by manned aircraft excluded or strictly controlled.
This has often reduced initial and continuing airworthiness standards considered acceptable for military operations to levels below those which would satisfy civil safety regulation requirements.
It has also limited the need for the sense and avoid technology which will be essential for operation of all but the smallest UAVs in shared non-segregated airspace if the risk of collision between aircraft and UAVs – or between UAVs – is to be adequately mitigated.
In this matter, the objective for civil RPAS is currently seen to be a demonstration of at least an equivalent level of risk to that to which manned aircraft are currently exposed. However, deciding what this level of safety is in operational terms outside controlled airspace has proved problematic.
The issue of permissions for commercial UAS to operate at low levels – typically below 400-500 feet agl – in non-segregated airspace has generally been associated with the complete prohibition of UAV entry into controlled airspace which extends to the surface or to any uncontrolled airspace to which access could interfere with aerodrome operations.
Such permissions have also generally addressed the risks of third party injury, undue invasion of privacy and operator training.
As a result of requirements for the latter, new training organisations dedicated to the training of RPAS operators, most of whom controlling civil UAVs do not have experience as a pilot of a manned aircraft, have appeared – and been embraced and approved by some regulatory authorities such as the UK CAA.
Operator training is also becoming an increasing focus for military and State users of RPAS, as system deployment increases in line with increasing task capability and the availability of former military pilots and navigators to act as RPAS operators diminishes.
Whilst the terms UAV/UAS and RPAS are of relatively recent origin, they have been retrospectively applied to the long-established leisure activity of flying of radio-controlled model aircraft within Visual Line Of Sight (VLOS).
It is this type of restricted UAV operation which is where current growth in both leisure and commercial use is taking place, but means to permit the more complex civil use of UAVs which can be controlled Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) and/or safely within un-segregated controlled airspace are also being actively pursued
. Such operations are likely to require demonstrably resilient C2 systems and effective ‘Detect and Avoid’ (sometimes called ‘Sense and Avoid’) mechanisms.
It is widely recognised that the latter will need to deliver a level of safety equivalent to that achieved by manned aircraft. However, defining what that level of safety actually is within various classifications of airspace is as yet unresolved.
The two areas of safety regulatory oversight of UAS – operations and UAV airworthiness, are being overseen on a supra-national basis by the Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems (JARUS).
This body was established in 2007 and describes itself as “a group of experts from National Aviation Authorities (NAAs) and regional aviation safety organisations” which aims to provide guidance material to facilitate “a single set of technical, safety and operational requirements for the certification and safe integration of UAS into airspace and at aerodromes” and thereby enable each authority to write their own requirements whilst achieving cross-border harmonisation and avoiding duplication of effort. Founder Members include the FAA, the EASA and EUROCONTROL and members from around the world now represent the interests of 35 States, including both China and the Russian Federation. One of the many challenges for JARUS has been to consider the extent to which regulation of a UAS might be based on the size – however defined – of a UAV.
UAS Operational Safety Issues
The operational safety issues raised by UAS depend essentially on:
- the risk and potential consequences of mid-air collision with another UAV or a manned aircraft
- the risk of loss of control of a UAV
- the risk of intentional misuse of a UAV
- whether the use to which a UAV is put is Military/State, Commercial, Leisure or Hobby
These issues are the focus of the currently mixed picture between States on the most appropriate balance between regulatory requirements and their communication and the issue of guidance.
In some cases, prohibition is being applied to certain uses or classes of user pending the development of a comprehensive approach, and much of the commercial use of UAS is being controlled by ad hoc application to safety regulators such as the FAA or UK CAA for a uniquely-specified permission which is then issued on that basis.
So far, there are no internationally-recognised licensing or airworthiness certification systems for UAS operators and outside segregated airspace, only experimental engagement with the ATM system.
Efforts are beginning to be made to communicate both regulatory and non-regulatory guidance to leisure operators of very small UAVs but since their identity is not known, this has not been wholly successful. In some countries, publicising successful prosecutions for use of UAVs in breach of local regulations is also being used as a means to spread awareness.
In Europe, it is widely recognised that harmonised State Regulations right across the range of UAV sizes is highly desirable but the current arbitrary split is based on UAV weight. This is currently being used in Europe to distinguish between NAA and EASA regulatory competence – respectively ‘below 150 kg’ and ‘150 kg or more’.
This is now generally accepted to be an arbitrary distinction unsupported by evidence which is not necessarily significant in terms of the safety issues raised by UAS operations.
In particular, it has been recognised that the third party risks of UAV operation are not necessarily proportional to the weight or size of the UAV.
Another challenge is that leisure-use small UAVs everywhere are flown by two rather dissimilar types of operator.
The established group of model aircraft enthusiasts are mostly members of, or at least are content to take guidance from, a national body which oversees the safe and ‘reasonable’ conduct of their activity in liaison with the National Aviation Authority (NAA) and/or directly from the NAA.
This group of people have long demonstrated that their enthusiasm for what they do is almost always associated with their receptivity to guidance.
By contrast, it has become clear that the recent and rapidly growing number of other leisure users of small UAVs are interested as much in what they can do with a UAV – often fitted with a camera – as in the safe and ‘reasonable’ use of it and will have usually have no previous experience of aviation.
A situation similar to the new leisure users applies to the majority of commercial users of small UAVs, but this has so far generally been directly regulated with appropriate risk mitigation requiring at least the completion of sufficient operator training to be able to demonstrate a minimum level of competence.
Two leading manufacturers of remotely piloted aircraft systems are nearing the goal of certifying unmanned aerial systems (UAV) for operation in the same airspace with manned aircraft, thus removing a major barrier to entry for drones that restricted the operation of large drones over the populated areas in Europe, Canada, and the USA.
Elbit Systems of Israel and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. are the two forerunners in this field, followed by IAI and Northrop Grumman.
Until recently nations that acquired such drones for Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) missions could operate them primarily in the under-developed regions of the third world, where the majority of air traffic is conducted at high altitude, leaving the medium and low altitude an unregulated open space.
MALE drones are regularly operated under special military permissions in Singapore, India, South Korea, across Central Asia and EuroAsia, parts of Latin America, Africa, Turkey, and the Middle East.
In contrast, Europe, and North America or other nations operating under the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) rules, are inaccessible for drones, except for few areas reserved for drone experimentation and training.
Operation in such airspace with special permissions would require the implementation of “detect and avoid” anti-collision systems.
Two new drones – the SkyGuardian from General Atomics ASI (GA-ASI) and StarLiner from Elbit Systems are positioned to complete a complex certification process by the European Aviation Safety Agency and UK Military Airworthiness Authority (MAA), to enable drone operators to fly within the dense European airspace, almost everywhere a manned aircraft can.
On July 11, 2018 GA-ASI completed the first transatlantic crossing with the SkyGuardian MQ-9B unmanned aircraft, designed and built for the Royal Air Force ‘Protector RG MK1’ fleet.
The RAF has been operating the MQ-9 Reaper for ten years, flying over 100,000 flight hours, but could not operate the drone over the British Isles since the drone could not be certified as a safe aerial vehicle.
Both companies decided to tackle the problem head-on and test the authorities’ readiness to certify large drone platform counting on some European governments’ pressure to enable drone operations within the European airspace. Being ‘Certifiable’ means that all components, structures, avionics, software, procedures etc., are meeting civilian aviation standards.
While such standards are mandatory for the design of every manned aircraft, they were completely ignored during the development of unmanned platforms.
At present, ‘Certifiable’ provides customers with some assurance that their future drones will be allowed to operate in their national airspace, thus position military drone makers in an advantageous position vis-à-vis procurement programs in Europe and Canada, where tenders are expected to exclude, or at least recognize certification as a threshold for entries. It will also urge aviation authorities, setting the standards for future autonomous aviation.
Another drone that potentially meets the ICAO rules is the MQ-4C Triton High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) drone from Northrop Grumman, the first drones of this class are now fielded with the US Navy and operate on maritime surveillance missions. Since those drones were fitted with anti-collision and de-icing systems to meet the requirements of the US Navy, to enable operations in the civil and international airspace, they could also be considered for operations over Europe.
A German request to buy four such systems was approved in April 2018, has been approved, but an order for such systems is still pending. | <urn:uuid:badc6f56-372c-4e54-a98a-e672f9e30744> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://debuglies.com/2018/07/13/european-skies-soon-unmanned-aerial-systems-uav-will-operate-in-the-same-airspace-with-manned-aircraft/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337853.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006155805-20221006185805-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.961889 | 2,901 | 3.546875 | 4 |
Currently, companies manage a large volume of data that, day by day, hinders its correct management and interpretation. We are talking about Big Data concept, a complete puzzle when, starting from them, strategic decisions must be made for the company. This difficulty, united with a constantly changing business landscape, make essential to have a system that is capable of interpreting data quickly, easily and intuitively.
Therefore, in this article we are going to explain how Ayscom can contribute to the improvement of your procedures, both data collection and interpretation, using Data Mining, Data Analytics and Data Science techniques.
Main concepts of Big Data
What is Big Data?
This concept refers to the data set whose size, complexity and growth speed make it difficult to capture, process and analyze it. However, they are extremely important, since they provide answers to many questions that companies do not even know they have, such as, among other things, which niche markets are not covered or in which geographical area their product is most sought after.
In short, Big Data makes possible for us to consider and identify both problems and new opportunities in a more understandable way. In other way, the perception of these would be unrealisable.
At present, Big Data systems from several tens of TeraBytes to PetaBytes are being managed.
What is Data Mining?
When we talk about Data Mining, we refer to the process based on analyze big amounts of raw data, with the objective of discover patterns and other relevant information.
Usually it is done in databases that have structured information in a certain way. Once this process has been carried out, it is usual to have this data in a Data Mart or a Data Warehouse, where this information will be more organized and accessible.
What do we understand by Data Analytics?
This concept refers to a list of manual proccesses and techniques, both qualitative and quantitative, that increase productivity and business profits.
Once the data is extracted and organised, its behaviour is analysed with the aim of detecting patterns and developing techniques and solutions in relation to the company or user requirements and the previously specific situation.
What is Data Science?
It is a multidisciplinary field that unifies statistics, data analysis and Machine Learning techniques in order to understand, analyse and, if possible, purpose a solution for a specific problem. To clarify this concept in a simple way, it is considered as “the whole of the Machine Learning process”, that is, predicting since learning.
The Data Science life cycle emcompasses all the processes mentioned previously and also adds Machine Learning techniques for the decision-making.
Data visualisation process in Big Data environments
Next, the process is detailed from which in Ayscom we process, purify and analyze the data of our clients to favor a simple and efficient interpretation of them:
First step is monitoring and testing of infrastructures and systems: we obtain a large amount of data, which is collected in a database. This raw information is constanly increasing, and if we add the proper collection of information to this fact, we have a Big Data environment to work on.
Once the data has been collected, we can proceed to mine it, that is, polish the data from useful information. For that, our group of experts analyses and create specific patterns, from the previously collected data, with the aim that this raw and poorly understandable data can become more comprehensible. In this way, it will be a proper and organised data set (Data Mart o Data Warehouse), ready for the upcoming needs.
Afterwards, Dashboards are developed, from where the data can be visualised in a graphier and even more comprenhensible way. These Dashboards will show us the data in relation to other factors that may have influenced them; we can access a more specific definitions of these data or stay in a more abstract layer, from where we can only see the situation and results without delving into certains searches.
The main goal is that any user can see and understand the data graphs displayed on the Dashboard, besides to providing more specific data so that those who are more specialised in this topic can improve or obtain other new conclusions.
The reports given by these Dashboards make easier the process to carry out the Data Analysis phase in which, from the previous stablished Businnes Intelligence strategies, it will be possible to:
Take advantage of possible business opportunities that perhaps were not being considered
Maximise the perfomance of business activity under certain circumstances regarding sales level, business growth, expansión opportunities, etc.
Obtain greater capacity for anticipation, being able to detec possible problems before they appear
Additionally, due to that great quantity of data and the Machine Learning, it is possible to design and coach models that can automatically predict and classify behaviours, just as suggest possible solutions for certain situations.
We concluded with the fact that visualisation in Big Data environments will increase the value of your business, allowing you to accede new opportunities, not considered previously, and have a complete control of the situation of your infraestructures. | <urn:uuid:0ae365ed-bbd8-414f-aaf9-4e26e4e5688c> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.ayscom.com/en/big-data-visualisation/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337853.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006155805-20221006185805-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.933838 | 1,041 | 2.71875 | 3 |
The Impossibility of Measuring IOPS (Correctly)
If you have ever used Sysinternals’ Process Monitor, chances are high you were a little intimidated when you looked at your first capture: it probably contained hundreds of thousands of registry and file system events, generated in a minute or less. That amount of activity must surely indicate high system load – but strangely, very often it does not. Looking at the hard disk LED you will only see an occasional flickering, even though thousands of file system events are captured per second. How is that possible? Read on to find out.
The main problem with measuring I/O operations per second (IOPS) is how to define what an I/O operation (short: IO) actually is. Depending on where you look, IOs can be entirely different things.
Take a typical application. When it wants to write to a file it calls the appropriate function from the framework the developer chose to make his life easier. In case of C++ that function might be fputs. From the application’s point of view, each call to fputs constitutes an IO. But that does not mean that the IO even reaches the disk. There is still a long way to go to permanent storage. On the way the IO could be cached, redirected, split, torn apart, and put back together. Let’s travel down the layers and see what happens.
To prevent applications from saturating the disk with many small IOs the framework buffers IOs until they reach 4K in total size. Then the data is flushed, aka written to disk in a single operation. This happens by calling the Windows API function WriteFile. From the point of view of the framework, each call to WriteFile constitutes an IO.
The WriteFile call is processed by the kernel which has no intention of hitting the disk with everything user-mode application developers manage to come up with. So it buffers the framework’s data in the file system cache and spawns a background process to deal with it later. This so-called lazy writer evaluates the data in the cache and writes it to disk as it deems necessary. From the point of view of the lazy writer, each cache flush constitutes an IO.
Before the lazy writer’s data can be written to disk it must be processed by the file system driver (typically ntfs.sys). The driver might find it necessary to not only write the actual data to the disk but also to update the file system metadata, e.g. the master file table (MFT). When that happens the number of IOs required to store the data increases. Writing data to a file is not a simple each layer reduces the number of IOs by x percent type of scenario.
Now that we have reached the hardware level it is surely safe to assume that the IO is not manipulated any further, making this a good place to take measurements? Let’s see.
In the simplest case, the disk is a physical hard disk. But even with plain HDDs, there is yet another cache, and there is Native Command Queuing (NCQ, IO reordering to minimize head movements), both changing the IO on its way to permanent storage. So the only way to correctly measure IOPS would be on the disk platter. But what to measure? Head movements? What about SSDs, solid-state drives that thankfully do not have moving heads?
What about virtual disks? The device seen by the OS as a physical hard disk might not be physical at all. It could be a LUN in a SAN spread across many physical disks – yet another set of layers.
I hope I could make the point that there is no such thing as the IO; neither can there be a single definition of IO throughput (aka IOPS). So how do we measure IOPS? How does our monitoring tool uberAgent for Splunk measure IOPS?
uberAgent measures IOPS right before they are handed off from the operating system to device-specific drivers. In other words: the data it collects is as accurate as it can be without interfacing with the hardware directly.
The cool thing about what uberAgent does is that it is capable of mapping each IO to an originating process – and thus to a user, a session, and an application. As a result, uberAgent can show you how many IOs each of your applications generate. It can do the same for each user session, too, of course.
Measuring IOPS is harder than it may seem. It depends on many factors: the access pattern is very important, but so is the layer at which the measurement is taken. When you have decided how to do it and arrive at a number, you still do not have the single handle to disk performance. There are also throughput and latency to consider.
uberAgent for Splunk gives you the information you need to understand what is going on in your systems. No more, no less. Download and try it yourself. | <urn:uuid:fa68d8a0-141a-4305-97d5-f8fe916a6309> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://helgeklein.com/blog/the-impossibility-of-measuring-iops-correctly/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334644.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220926020051-20220926050051-00491.warc.gz | en | 0.941649 | 1,024 | 3.0625 | 3 |
What is Content Security Policy?
A Content Protection Policy (CSP) is a security standard that provides an additional layer of protection from cross-site scripting (XSS), clickjacking, and other code injection attacks. It is a defensive measure against any attacks that rely on executing malicious content in a trusted web context, or other attempts to circumvent the same-origin policy.
With CSP, you can limit which data sources are allowed by a web application, by defining the appropriate CSP directive in the HTTP response header.
Why is a Content Security Policy Important?
Mitigating Cross Site Scripting
The main purpose of CSP is to mitigate and detect XSS attacks. XSS attacks exploit the browser’s trust in the content received from the server. The victim’s browser is exposed to execution of malicious scripts, because the browser trusts the source of the content.
CSP allows server administrators to reduce or eliminate the ability of an attacker to trigger XSS, by specifying which Internet domains browsers should consider as legitimate sources of executable scripts. CSP-compliant browsers only run scripts contained source files that are retrieved from whitelisted domains, and ignore all other scripts (including inline script and HTML event handling attributes).
Mitigating Packet Sniffing and Enforcing HTTPS
In addition to whitelisting domains from which a browser may load content, servers can also specify the allowed protocols. For example, the server can specify that browsers must load content via HTTPS.
A comprehensive data transfer protection policy involves not only implementing HTTPS in data transfer, but also marking all cookies with the secure attribute, and automatically redirecting HTTP pages to HTTPS. Additionally, sites may use HTTP Strict-Transport-Security headers to ensure that browsers only connect to the site via encrypted channels.
CSP Header Examples
The web server can add an HTTP header called Content-Security-Policy to each response. You can set the following properties in the CSP header:
- default-src—an optional method if no other attributes are defined. In most cases, the value of this property self—meaning the browser can only upload resources from the current website.
- script-src—locations from which external scripts can be loaded. If your website or application does not use client-side scripting, set the value to none.
- img-src—locations from which images can be retrieved.
- media-src—locations from which rich media like video can be retrieved.
- object-src—locations from which plugins can be retrieved.
- manifest-src—locations from which application manifests can be retrieved.
- frame-ancestors—locations from which another web page can be loaded using a frame, iframe, object, embed, or applet element.
- form-action—URLs that can be used as part of an action in a <form> tag, meaning the browser restricts where form results can be sent. The form action does not revert to default-src, so this is a mandatory property if you are using form elements on your site.
- plugin-types—the set of plugins that can be invoked via objects, embeds, or applets, defined using MIME types.
- base-uri—allows URLs in the src attribute of any tag.
Refer to the complete and up-to-date list of properties from Mozilla.
Which Vulnerabilities Can CSP Prevent?
One main challenge CSP can prevent is that attackers may attempt to access your resources over an unsecure protocol.
You can use CSP to enforce the HTTPS protocol to any value defined in *-src attributes, by adding the https:// prefix to any URL in your whitelist. This way resources will never load over an unencrypted HTTP connection. You can achieve the same effect by adding the block-all-mixed-content property.
In addition, CSP can prevent the following common vulnerabilities:
- Unsigned inline CSS statements in <style> tags
- Dynamic CSS using CSSStyleSheet.insertRule()
It is best to keep the script and CSS in separate files that are referenced by the HTML page. If your site needs to allow this, you can enable it using the keywords unsafe-eval and unsafe-inline.
When to Use CSP
In general, complex web applications are more sensitive to XSS, making CSP important to use.
Use CSP for any application that manages sensitive data, such as administrative user interfaces, device management consoles, or any products hosting files, documents or messages created by users. In modern frameworks, adding CSP is easy and can provide high return of investment in terms of added security.
When Not to Use CSP
CSP may not be the best choice in these cases:
- Static applications hosted on their own domains or subdomains without login or cookies.
- Applications that have experienced XSS in the past, or have known vulnerabilities in templates or frameworks they are using. In this case the best approach is to invest in patching or fixing vulnerable code, because CSP on its own will not provide sufficient protection. CSP should be added on top of a secure application with no known vulnerabilities.
Implementing Content Security Policy
The best way to add CSP retroactively to an entire website is to define a completely empty whitelist, essentially blocking everything. Initially, run CSP in report-only mode, which means the browser evaluates rules but does not block the content yet.
You can then review errors and see which of them should be added to the list (allowed) or not (disallowed).
The difficult part is deciding how much to block. For example, if you are using a script hosted through a CDN and you allow the addresses, you accept all traffic coming from those CDNs, which could include malicious traffic.
Running CSP in report mode for a few weeks, or at the most a few months, should give you all the possible cases of errors. When you feel your set of rules captures all relevant use cases, disable report-only and start blocking resources that are not on the whitelist.
XSS Protection with Imperva Application Security
Imperva provides advanced protection against cross site scripting, using its web application firewall (WAF), a cloud-based solution that permits legitimate traffic and prevents bad traffic, safeguarding applications at the edge.
In addition to XSS protection, Imperva provides multi-layered protection to make sure websites and applications are available, easily accessible and safe. The Imperva application security solution includes:
- DDoS Protection—maintain uptime in all situations. Prevent any type of DDoS attack, of any size, from preventing access to your website and network infrastructure.
- CDN—enhance website performance and reduce bandwidth costs with a CDN designed for developers. Cache static resources at the edge while accelerating APIs and dynamic websites.
- Bot management—analyzes your bot traffic to pinpoint anomalies, identifies bad bot behavior and validates it via challenge mechanisms that do not impact user traffic.
- API security—protects APIs by ensuring only desired traffic can access your API endpoint, as well as detecting and blocking exploits of vulnerabilities.
- Account takeover protection—uses an intent-based detection process to identify and defends against attempts to take over users’ accounts for malicious purposes.
- RASP—keep your applications safe from within against known and zero‑day attacks. Fast and accurate protection with no signature or learning mode.
- Attack analytics—mitigate and respond to real security threats efficiently and accurately with actionable intelligence across all your layers of defense. | <urn:uuid:9f1bfdd8-af9c-42b2-91de-5e2d99fbe06c> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.imperva.com/learn/application-security/content-security-policy-csp-header/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334644.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220926020051-20220926050051-00491.warc.gz | en | 0.868995 | 1,589 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Deduplication is a process to improve data quality by removing redundant or repetitive information from data in storage to improve storage utilization, simplify ETL, and optimize data transfers.
When is deduplication needed?
Data deduplication is a particular problem in organizations that use high volumes of hosted business applications. For example, a hosted customer relationship management (CRM) application will create database instances about customers that already exist in on-premise applications. Data-savvy organizations will undertake to rationalize both instances so that there is only one comprehensive source of information about customers within the business.
What are the benefits of deduplication?
Organizations often do not have visibility into the sources or causes of redundant data. Thus they have no way of knowing how much redundant data is costing them. For example, a retailer can waste a lot of money sending multiple copies of the same catalog or campaign to one prospective customer. By deduplicating the data ahead of time the company can prevent waste. | <urn:uuid:3603c7ef-0cbd-4c90-9eaf-d481f96d24a5> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.informatica.com/gb/services-and-training/glossary-of-terms/deduplication-definition.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334644.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220926020051-20220926050051-00491.warc.gz | en | 0.911689 | 206 | 3.15625 | 3 |
The SQL language served as a universal language for database manipulation from the mid-1980s until NoSQL databases started gaining strength about 12 years ago. However, after a short period in the wilderness, SQL is back and possibly more vital than ever.
SQL emerged from the relational model defined by Edgar Codd back in 1970, though SQL itself was not a part of that model. Codd argued for a “database sublanguage” to navigate and modify relational data, though his proposed language, “Alpha,” never took off. However, Alpha influenced the QUEL language used by the creators of Ingres—an early relational database system developed at the University of California, which influenced the open source PostgreSQL database.
Meanwhile, researchers at IBM were developing System R, a prototype DBMS based on Codd’s relational model. They created the SEQUEL language as the data sublanguage for the project. SEQUEL eventually was renamed SQL and was rapidly adopted by commercial databases such as Oracle and IBM’s Db2. By the end of the 1970s, SQL had won out over QUEL as the relational query language and became an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard language in 1986.
The relative ease of use that SQL provided expanded the audience of database users dramatically. You no longer needed to be a highly experienced database programmer to retrieve data from a database; SQL could be taught to casual users of databases, such as analysts and statisticians. It’s fair to say that SQL brought databases within reach of business users.
However, when the “NoSQL” database movement emerged in the late-2010s, SQL became associated with yesterday’s databases. New databases, such as MongoDB and Cassandra, provided only token support for SQL, and developers, in general, seemed to prefer non-SQL programming models.
But, the power and ubiquity of SQL were not easy to dismiss, and, increasingly, NoSQL databases came under pressure to add significant SQL support. Furthermore, new database systems emerged that combined the strengths of SQL and the relational model with the best ideas from NoSQL.
For instance, Snowflake provides rich SQL support with the ability to process unstructured data, which previously had been a sweet spot for Hadoop. CockroachDB combines the power of SQL and strong consistency with the elastic scalability that is often associated with NoSQL databases such as Cassandra and DynamoDB.
However, even though SQL is here to stay, a few alternatives are lurking in the wings. Graph query languages, such as Gremlin and Cypher, offer a more productive language for issuing queries against graph structures. SQL is notoriously unwieldy for these sorts of queries and, despite attempts to add graph operators, probably will never be a match for these graph-specific languages.
Pipelined Relational Query Language (PRQL, pronounced “Prequel”) is an interesting variation on a SQL-equivalent language. Similar to Hadoop’s PIG language, it represents operations as a pipeline of transformations. This can result in less repetition and improved readability. It also gives the programmer more control over the sequence of execution.
GraphQL is more of a means for implementing API endpoints and, as such, competes more naturally with REST than with SQL. But it does allow programmers to construct queries against back-end data sources, typically for manipulating JSON structures. It represents an alternative to SQL when creating APIs that offer query services.
Stronger Than Ever
SQL is one of the most long-lived programming languages and, by almost any measure, immensely successful. Having survived a recent assassination attempt, SQL has emerged stronger than ever. | <urn:uuid:5c251b13-85d7-4f82-9e6e-1f10aa8ad665> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.dbta.com/Columns/Emerging-Technologies/SQL-Survives-and-Thrives-in-the-Post-NoSQL-Era-153238.aspx | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335609.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20221001101652-20221001131652-00491.warc.gz | en | 0.954739 | 775 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Like other sectors, IoT is also reforming the education sector with their better-connected technologies. With IoT embedded connected devices, students get better access to their learning materials. Sometimes only reading textbooks is not enough to clarify complicated concepts, which may lead to a bad score.
If we think the student and school are responsible for the poor score, we are not considering the other side of the coin. Parents sometimes think if they provide internet access to their children, they might misuse them. If you filter the search console and allow your child to use the internet for educational purpose, it will be hugely beneficial for them.
IoT can improve your child’s educational requirement like a pro. Within schools and colleges, smart IoT devices provide better security and infrastructure which is comfortable for the students and the management.
In this article, we will discuss the significant roles of the Internet of Things in the educational sector.
Through Smart Educational Application students get their textual concepts cleared with the use of audio-visual means. Needless to mention, these smart applications provide a better educational environment to the student through which without anyone’s help, they can get things done. When it comes to homework, your child may feel irritating if you don’t support them, which is pretty natural. But with smart IoT applications, you can guide your child in completing their homework more smartly.
Instead of maintaining manual registers if schools and colleges start to use IoT sensors to monitor the attendance of students, the process will be much more seamless. The management will get more accurate data on the entry and exit time of each of the students, which will hard to get through the manual system.
Moreover, with the smart monitoring system, there will be less chance to for proxy, as attendance only will count upon proving the fingerprint for which physical presence is required. The management need not to bother about these silly things which might affect their operational systems otherwise.
Blackboard days are gone. Not with IoT boards serve all the purpose more accurately than a blackboard. A secure Wi-Fi connection is required to operate the board. Instead of using chalk, a smart pen is needed to write on the board. You don’t need duster to clear the board; the simple, clear button will do that for you.
The teacher can directly mail the board work of the classroom to students’ mail so that they can use it for self-learning. Once installed, it can last for years, so less maintenance cost is required. Nowadays, folded IoT boards are also available, which can save space in your classroom.
Using various IoT test application students can assess themselves after the completion of each chapter. They need to take the test focusing on a particular chapter. After providing the answers to the test questions, the IoT application can evaluate the solution and provide percentage or marks to the students.
From the result, students can easily understand their weakness and areas of improvement, which will help them in better preparation. These smart test scenarios will ease the students about actual examination it will help them to reduce their fear of examination hall. They will be more confident and well prepared, which are essential for getting a good score for every student.
This is nothing but the smart examination application here, students have to input their knowledge on a single topic, and it will assess their performance on the basis of the input. Before sitting for the final examination if your student goes through the self-assessment thing, they will be mentally prepared about their examination result.
IoT embedded sensors can enhance the security infrastructure of schools and colleges by providing accurate attendance data of each and every student. Manually it is quite daunting to get exact updates about every student.
Schools, colleges and hostels must use IoT surveillance system to keep an eye on the ongoing scenario. Sometimes the management struggles to conclude when something complicated has reported. These surveillance devices will enable the administration to get real-time data on the immediate environment of the organization.
Smart IoT devices can easily bridge the gap between parent and teachers. Nowadays, working parents struggle to attend the parent-teacher meeting, which sometimes creates problems for your child. With these smart devices, parents quickly get updates on your child’s performance so that you can always get notifications on your child’s activities.
Apart from the above-mentioned field, there are various other educational fields where IoT devices can be used. Because of its effectivity and unique features, IoT devices are most wanted in the market. One issue that various schools and colleges face while installing IoT devices is the lack of necessary infrastructure. It is mainly happening in rural areas where internet connection is very poor without that no IoT device can perform.
The government is looking after the matter and will sanction allowance for installing the required infrastructure for IoT devices. Government has already approved a hefty amount for mobile phone and its accessory manufacturers.
Tanaya is a Senior Content Developer at IoT Avenue who helped to build the content of the site along with several other sites with her compassionate SEO driven content. She is also a HubSpot, certified Content Marketer. She brings her five years of experience to her current role, where she is dedicated to developing the content of different websites.
Nov 21, 2019 | Press Releases
Dec 05, 2019 | IoT Applications & Examples
Dec 17, 2019 | IoT Applications & Examples
Dec 23, 2019 | IoT Technology News
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Cyber-crime is one of the biggest threats to business, costing the UK economy over £29 billion each year. To celebrate National Cyber Security Awareness Month, we have put together a quick list of top tips that you can implement to improve the level of cyber security within your organisation and at home.
Double your login protection
Two factor authentication, or multi-factor authentication, help to ensure that you are the only person able to access your account. By confirming your login attempt with a second device, such as a mobile phone, you drastically reduce the likelihood of someone being able to login to your account unnoticed.
Shake up your password protocol
Ensure that you have unique and complex passwords set for each of your accounts. By ensuring your password is different for each account, you reduce the risk of multiple accounts being hacked at once.
The National Centre for Cyber Security advise the use of three random words as passwords, steering clear of relative’s names, pets names, keyboard patterns and other common things that can be easily guessed or found by cyber criminals. The trouble with this is it can be difficult to remember individual passwords for each online account.
The use of a password manager, such as LastPass, helps to ensure that all of your passwords are secure. This solution generates strong passwords, stores them so you don’t need to remember them all and will even prompt you when they need to be updated.
If you connect, you must protect
Before connecting to public Wi-Fi, like at airports and hotels, ensure that the network is legitimate before connecting and avoid completing sensitive activities (e.g. banking) that require passwords or credit card details. Where possible, you should connect to your personal hotspot, as it is often a much safer alternative to free public Wi-Fi.
Think before you click
Over 90% of successful cyber-attacks begin with a malicious email. Cyber-criminals now commonly use phishing tactics, which prey on human error, waiting for people to click links and open attachments containing malware and other threats. If you have any concerns about an email, even if it appears to be legitimate, do not click any links or open attachments. You should follow your organisation’s protocol for reporting suspicious emails, or contact your IT department for professional advice. Remember, think before you click.
Many organisations now run simulated phishing tests to their employees, helping to re-enforce the “think before you click” mantra. Contact us to learn more or for a 30 day free trial.
No device is immune to viruses, malware, or other form of cyber-attack. By ensuring that your device is updated and patched, you are preventing many known threats. Where possible, you should ensure automatic updates are enabled and that you have suitable antivirus and anti-malware solutions installed.
Of course, there are many more measures that organisations and individuals should take to protect themselves against cyber threats. The Eventura team take a multi-dimensional approach that looks at people, processes and technology to develop a cyber-security strategy for now and in the future. If we can help answer any of your questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch. | <urn:uuid:ec643bff-5b89-4c99-8354-f39c038cca7c> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://eventura.com/cyber-security/national-cyber-security-awareness-month-5-top-tips/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337339.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20221002181356-20221002211356-00491.warc.gz | en | 0.937783 | 653 | 2.75 | 3 |
With all the news about the Facebook ‘breach’ and GDPR (General Data Privacy Regulation) some may think that privacy and security are the same. While there are differences, the two need to have a cooperative relationship for both our privacy plan and security plan to be effective.
First let’s talk about security. Security of information is about keeping it confidential, keeping the integrity of it true, and making sure it is available when needed. Security protects all the information assets that an organization has and keeps. Privacy assures that personal information (and sometimes corporate confidential information as well) are collected, processed (used), protected and destroyed legally and fairly. Why are these distinctions important? Because when we look at the Facebook case, the issue was not security it was privacy. All the information used was legitimately gathered by Facebook with authorization, it was the way it was used that many feel was inappropriate. Cambridge Analytica didn’t break into Facebook and steal the data. They paid for access to it, Facebook granted them access to it. This is the very reason for new emerging standards like GDPR. The EU maintains that if data is collect on an individual the collector of the data must get consent from the data subject for every individual use of that data. If you collect it for one purpose, then decide to sell it for another purpose you must go back to the individual and gain consent for that use.
Where Security and Privacy coexist is that the means of keeping information private is usually through security. That being the case, most privacy standards include references to security. Consider the USA’s Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). It contains both a security and a privacy rule. You cannot be HIPAA compliant by just being secure. The privacy informs the security. An information security engineer for a hospital needs to get guidance on who should have access to certain health information and then put security in place to make sure all those individuals have the required access and no one else does. Again looking at Facebook, if management had required stricter privacy, the security teams would have put in place the necessary controls to prevent Cambridge from access anything accept what they were entitled to access. If GDPR type rules existed anything they accessed would have required consent from the individuals.
Hopefully this short primer demonstrates why each organization should have both a privacy and security plan and why the two need to work together in order to provide for secure and private environment. Foresite’s consultants can also assist with helping you make sure these policies are in place, and appropriate for the type(s) of data you protect. | <urn:uuid:6647d8ba-84d4-4609-9c1d-c499825ce4ba> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://foresite.com/blog/data-privacy-security-whats-difference/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337339.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20221002181356-20221002211356-00491.warc.gz | en | 0.962396 | 530 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Too much time spent on gaming, smartphones and watching television is linked to heightened levels and diagnoses of anxiety or depression in children as young as age 2, according to a new study.
Even after only one hour of screen time daily, children and teens may begin to have less curiosity, lower self-control, less emotional stability and a greater inability to finish tasks, reports San Diego State University psychologist Jean Twenge and University of Georgia psychology professor W. Keith Campbell.
Twenge and Campbell’s results were published in an article, “Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study,” which appeared this month in Preventative Medicine Reports.
Twenge and Campbell were particularly interested in associations between screen time and diagnoses of anxiety and depression in youth, which has not yet been studied in great detail.
Their findings provide broader insights at a time when youth have greater access to digital technologies and are spending more time using electronic technology purely for entertainment, and also as health officials are trying to identify best practices for managing technology addiction.
“Previous research on associations between screen time and psychological well-being among children and adolescents has been conflicting, leading some researchers to question the limits on screen time suggested by physician organizations,” Twenge and Campbell wrote in their paper.
The National Institute of Health estimates that youth commonly spend an average of five to seven hours on screens during leisure time. Also, a growing body of research indicates that this amount of screen time has adverse effects on the overall health and well-being of youth.
Also timely: the World Health Organization this year decided to include gaming disorder in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases. The organization is encouraging “increased attention of health professionals to the risks of development of this disorder” as gaming addiction may now be classified as a disease.
Utilizing National Survey of Children’s Health data from 2016, Twenge and Campbell analyzed a random sample of more than 40,300 surveys from the caregivers of children aged 2 to 17.
The nationwide survey was administered by the U.S. Census Bureau by mail and online and inquired about topics such as: existing medical care; emotional, developmental and behavioral issues; and youth behaviors, including daily screen time.
Twenge and Campbell excluded youth with conditions such autism, cerebral palsy and developmental delay, as they may have impacted a child’s day to day functioning.
Twenge and Campbell found that adolescents who spend more than seven hours a day on screens were twice as likely as those spending one hour to have been diagnosed with anxiety or depression—a significant finding.
Overall, links between screen time and well-being were larger among adolescents than among young children.
“At first, I was surprised that the associations were larger for adolescents,” Twenge said. “However, teens spend more time on their phones and on social media, and we know from other research that these activities are more strongly linked to low well-being than watching television and videos, which is most of younger children’s screen time.”
Among other highlights of Twenge and Campbell’s study:
Moderate use of screens, at four hours each day, was also associated with lower psychological well-being than use of one hour a day.
Among preschoolers, high users of screens were twice as likely to often lose their temper and 46 percent more likely to not be able to calm down when excited.
Among teens aged 14-17, 42.2 percent of those who spent more than seven hours a day on screens did not finish tasks compared with 16.6 percent for those who spent one hour daily and 27.7 percent for those engaged for four hours of screen time.
About 9 percent of youth aged 11-13 who spent an hour with screens daily were not curious or interested in learning new things, compared with 13.8 percent who spent four hours on screen and 22.6 percent who spent more than seven hours with screens.
The study provides further evidence that the American Academy of Pediatrics’ established screen time limits—one hour per day for those aged 2 to 5, with a focus on high-quality programs—are valid, Twenge said.
The study also suggests that similar limits—perhaps to two hours a day—should be applied to school-aged children and adolescents, said Twenge, also author of “iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood.”
In terms of prevention, establishing possible causes and outcomes of low psychological well-being is especially important for child and adolescent populations. “Half of mental health problems develop by adolescence,” Twenge and Campbell wrote in their paper.
“Thus, there is an acute need to identify factors linked to mental health issues that are amenable to intervention in this population, as most antecedents are difficult or impossible to influence,” they continued.
“Compared to these more intractable antecedents of mental health, how children and adolescents spend their leisure time is more amenable to change.”
More information: Jean M. Twenge et al, Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study, Preventive Medicine Reports (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.10.003
Provided by: San Diego State University search and more info | <urn:uuid:9f003d4b-4205-46b6-ae04-86ee3e2ef039> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://debuglies.com/2018/10/29/too-much-time-spent-on-gaming-smartphones-and-watching-television-is-linked-to-heightened-levels-and-diagnoses-of-anxiety-or-depression-in-children-as-young-as-age-2/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334802.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20220926051040-20220926081040-00691.warc.gz | en | 0.964008 | 1,151 | 3.578125 | 4 |
The United Kingdom has long been a leader in technical innovation and today is home to a wealth of innovative tech companies from an emerging set of startups to established companies that have been a part of our lives for decades. These companies are moving faster, pushing further, and uncovering more as the power and potential of high performance and intense computing applications open doors—or at least open them more quickly. These companies are tackling everything from the natural language processing found in smart home IoT devices, to the artificial intelligence (AI) now used in connected, autonomous cars.
Advanced analytics and high-performance computing (HPC) applications are creating opportunities for enterprises every day. Nevertheless, these new applications, and the volumes of data they create, are causing companies—and the executives within them—to reconsider how data is stored, accessed, and most importantly, powered. Perhaps for the first time in recent history, the ability to realize the full potential of future technologies might be gated by the access and availability of our previous generation’s power grids.
The report, Tech Nation 2017, which analyses the digital tech ecosystem in the United Kingdom, found that the digital technology sector grew 50% faster than the overall economy. Yet, as the country prepares to play a leading role on the world stage in delivering real business value from these transformative technologies, the environmental impact of this form of energy consumption must also be evaluated.
The abundance of power needed to support the data produced and analysed by ‘computing’ broadly is staggering. For example, the amount of electricity used by data centers globally in 2016 was roughly 416 terawatts, which is greater than the entire UK energy consumption in the same year, and this number is only expected to increase. Similarly, the volume of data that just HPC applications alone produce is estimated to grow by 40 zettabytes by 2020. For comparison, the entire amount of information stored online in the year of 2013 consisted of only four zettabytes of data. An exponential increase added by the data generated by HPC applications will add to the power challenges that Europe as a whole already faces.
Electricity consumption rose across Europe in 2017, making it the third consecutive year to increase. Given that 70% of continental Europe relies on the same grid, this increase of new power consumption will be felt everywhere, as cross-border power outages are increasing at an alarming pace. In addition, spare energy capacity in the UK now stands between 6.2% and 8.2%, and is likely to shrink even more. With an ageing power grid that already is working near capacity, any increase in power consumption will amplify the number of outages, which have been on the rise since 2013. The UK also relies on predominantly fossil fuels to produce energy. Therefore, as the adaptation of intensive compute applications increases—in addition to the data centers needed to power and house them—this will in turn lead to the production of more greenhouse gases. For computer-aided manufacturers, researchers, and financial institutions reliant on HPC to drive innovation at this furious pace, HPC clusters must find a home that provides sustainable, renewable and cost-effective energy. How can this be accomplished?
Currently, the financial services sector in London is faced with market conditions and regulatory pressures that have pushed firms to focus on analysing data faster to arrive at smarter decisions in order to deliver services more quickly. As a result, firms rely on HPC to improve the speed and accuracy of their results. HPC has become a vital part of the financial services landscape, as various AI techniques are used to identify trading signals, model strategies, conduct real-time risk analysis, and compute complex pricing calculations. Challenged to keep pace with transactions, innovations and progress within the hyper-competitive financial markets, the IT divisions of banking and asset management companies are being pushed to get the most out of their power investments. For this reason, the need for hyper efficient and super reliable HPC, not only at scale, but at the lowest cost as possible, is integral.
It has become standard practice for many UK-based organisations, like financial institutions, to store their HPC applications in high cost data centers in the middle of London or other urban business districts. For latency insensitive compute, this practice is illogical and inefficient as not only are the data centers powered on some of the most expensive and unsustainable energy around, but many of the HPC applications that are being stored in these data centers are non-latency specific—eliminating the need for their storage to be in close proximity to the staff utilising the applications.
Consequently, many forward-thinking innovators in the UK are looking to Nordic countries like Iceland to manage their compute-intensive applications due to its advantageous and clean power profile. Having one of the world’s most reliable power grids, Iceland offers long-term, low cost, massively abundant and scalable energy, which together provides impressive savings across the total cost of operation. No wonder that a number of UK-based asset management firms are already using the benefits of Iceland for their big data analytics and computational research. Iceland’s power grid is rated among the most reliable in the world, powered by dual sources of renewable energy: hydroelectric and geothermal.
As enterprises in the UK start to rely on computationally intensive workloads and HPC applications more and more, previous generation’s power grid infrastructure in the UK could restrict or slow down future technological progress. For this reason, companies must be forward-thinking and utilise other, more energy rich and sustainable locations for their computing needs, and the answer may lie in Iceland.
Adam Nethersole, Senior Director of Marketing at Verne Global (opens in new tab)
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Great internet is taken for granted, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that connecting won’t be an issue. But the reality is that there are many underlying complexities to connectivity and a reliable connection isn’t always certain. One area to thoroughly understand is the handoff – this is the type of connection that the carrier installs at the demarcation point (the “demarc”). This is the spot where the telephony wire switches over to the on-premise wiring, or in the case of fibre, the point where the last-mile provider-owned fibre gets handed off to the customer. Often a Media Converter is installed at the demarc and from there the on-premise wiring can be set up as Copper RJ45 or Fibre.
Understanding how your network connects – and performs – can help ease and prevent headaches down the road. Determining what is best for you is going to come down to fully understanding all aspects of the end-user scenario for the network. Analyzing this scenario should include considerations for distance, speed/bandwidth requirements, environment, as well as cost.
Considerations for Choosing a Copper or Fibre Handoff
Distance: A major differentiator between Copper and Fibre handoffs are the distance that needs to be covered. A standard Copper handoff can cover a distance of up to 100 meters (or 328 feet), making it sufficient for covering short distances. While Copper can manage longer distances, the signal degrades and repeaters need to be put in place for performance. This can still be a viable option but it increases the total potential points of failure in the network. In scenarios where a much longer wire run is required, a Fibre handoff is the better choice as it easily manages distances of 12 miles and onward.
Speed and Bandwidth: Did you know that a signal degrades the further the distance increases? Beyond 100 meters, Copper connections will start to experiences significant signal loss – sometimes up to 90%. On the other hand, Fibre in a 100+ meter situation will have a negligible signal loss (~3%) meaning you can easily maintain internet speed at longer distances.
Environment: Copper is more susceptible to environmental factors such as electric interference from other devices and voltage surges (i.e. lightning, utility or power lines, or radio signals). A Fibre handoff will be far more resilient to these factors, making it significantly more reliable. Fibre’s core is made of glass so no electric current can flow through it, making it the safer alternative out of the two.
Cost: For most businesses, the price tag is a major driver. Copper is less expensive and more readily available, while Fibre is more expensive and can be trickier to source. Although Fibre is a larger initial investment, heavy usage means it can pay for itself in the long run by way of improved reliability and scalability. When determining your budget, be sure to think in terms of short and long term investment for your business.
So is a Copper or Fibre Handoff the Best?
Deciding between a Copper or Fibre handoff will always come down to understanding your business needs and how you plan to use your network. Collaborating with iTel’s team of experts will help you make the right choice – iTel is dedicated to your success and will ensure you get the best telecommunications infrastructure for all your needs. | <urn:uuid:411973a6-b6b8-4b97-b7f3-24f87d6783b8> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://itel.com/copper-rj45-handoff-vs-fibre-handoff/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335444.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20220930051717-20220930081717-00691.warc.gz | en | 0.935672 | 700 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Big data has big implications for knowledge management
A goal of knowledge management over the years has been the ability to integrate information from multiple perspectives to provide the insights required for valid decision-making. Organizations do not make decisions just based on one factor, such as revenue, employee salaries or interest rates for commercial loans. The total picture is what should drive decisions, such as where to invest marketing dollars, how much to invest in R&D or whether to expand into a new geographic market.
In the past, the cost of collecting and storing limited the ability of enterprises to obtain the comprehensive information needed to create this holistic picture. However, automated collection of digital information and cheap storage have removed the barriers to making data accessible. Data is now available in abundance, but relational databases were reaching their limits in their ability to make sense of the information.
Volume, variety, velocity
New solutions have now emerged to deal with so-called "big data." Big data does not have a precise definition in terms of volume, but crosses into that realm when a relational database is no longer effective in analyzing the data. The solutions depend on breaking up the data, sending out subsets for analysis and then regrouping the results to produce the output (see sidebar following article and on page 10, KMWorld, Vol.21, Issue 4) for definitions of some of the components of big data, including Apache Hadoop).
Volume, however, is not the only dimension that defines big data. "Variety is also a factor because many different types of data may be pertinent to an analysis," says Mark Beyer, research VP at Gartner. "With the amount of information in documents and social media feeds such as Twitter, enterprises need to be able to combine their analyses to include information from both structured relational databases and content such as word processing documents, videos, images, blogs and Tweets."
Velocity is a third factor associated with big data. Not only is there a lot of data, but also it is coming in quickly and must often be processed quickly. In addition, velocity itself can vary. Take the case of two people clicking through a website. If data is being collected over time, some users will produce more within a given time period. "The variation in velocity affects analytical outcomes," adds Beyer, "particularly if the data model specifies an event."
In addition, when massive amounts of data are involved, a lot of noise is found amidst the relevant signals. "You need to be able to carry out an iterative process to discover what may have been overlooked initially, because every type of analysis evolves," Beyer says. "One person's news is another person's noise, so determining what each information consumer needs is important." One of the jobs that big data can perform is real-time filtering, to distinguish between the two.
Very few organizations are far along the maturity curve in dealing with big data, but the incentive is there. According to Beyer, the ability to address big data is going to be the most intensive and important infrastructure change for IT in the next decade. Moreover, it has major implications for knowledge management.
Big data in travel
One approach that is working well is using big data techniques to store, process and retrieve information along with established business intelligence (BI) solutions for detailed analyses. That approach combines the expanded capability in big data with the familiarity and usability of business intelligence products.
Expedia.com pioneered the online travel industry in the mid-1990s, and is the world's leading online travel site. The company offers a full range of services, including flight bookings, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruises and opportunities for special activities at travel destinations. Its websites provide information in local languages in 26 countries, and more than 75 million unique users visit the Expedia sites each year. Therefore, the amount of data associated with the visits and transactions adds up quickly, placing Expedia squarely in the big data category for its analytical needs.
The focus of Expedia's analyses is on customer service and retention, as well as measuring the effectiveness of its marketing activities. The company collects tens of terabytes of usage data each month and its data warehouse contains approximately 200 terabytes, an amount of information that would have been impossible to handle 10 years ago. Now, with a mix of enabling technologies, Expedia can store the data, analyze it and produce results that guide decision-making throughout the company.
"We are moving toward a broad vision for our analytics," says Joe Megibow, VP and general manager for Expedia.com, "combining a number of different technologies, including Hadoop for distributed storage." A key element in Expedia's analytics projects is the SAS (sas.com) Analytics platform. "Using SAS Analytics, we can take meaningful subsets of the data from large data sets for extensive analysis," says Megibow.
The analyses allow Expedia to determine customer preferences and evaluate the effectiveness of different marketing channels. A user of SAS Analytics for several years, Expedia is increasingly able to benefit from the big data not only from its transactional and click-through data, but also from the growing volume of social media input. "It has been easy to leverage SAS analytics alongside our other technologies to support our efforts to analyze large stores of data," Megibow adds. Within the past year, Expedia has carried out large-scale analyses of customer behavior over time and developed models that help determine causal relationships between its marketing efforts and customer response.
An important goal of Expedia's analytical efforts is to discover what advertising links, in which it invests, drive customers to its site and result in conversion from visitor to customer. "Most users visit multiple times before they complete a transaction," Megibow says. "Having this large volume of data stored and available for analysis provides us with important insights into customer behavior either at a particular time or over the longer term."
The emergence of big data techniques over the past few years has made a substantial difference in the analytic tasks that are feasible. "We always had big ideas for running queries against big data, but in the past, the technology did not yet support our analytical goals," Megibow explains. "Extracting a large amount of data could take a full day, and the analyses would have taken months. Now, we can pull big data sets in less than an hour and do our analyses in SAS in a timeframe that allows us to take business action on large volumes of data that we could not have before."
Comments carry weight
Big data capability is almost mandatory for analyzing social media. "There are many ways that social media relates to big data," Megibow says. "Text analytics lets us create data from large amounts of unstructured sources and build sentiment scores, which in turn can be related to consumer interests." People care a great deal about reviews and base decisions on them. "Travel is very social," Megibow emphasizes, "and a lot of weight is given to the comments of other travelers. People want to know what to expect when they open the door to a hotel, and these comments help reassure them about the destination, or in some cases redirect them to another one. We want to incorporate these observations into our analyses."
Megibow championed Expedia's initiative to support data-driven decision-making based on analytics. The effort required management of data from many sources into a system that allowed for timely analysis. Hadoop is "bleeding-edge" technology, and many companies have difficulty finding staff who have extensive experience in this emerging area. However, staff trained in classical statistics can readily use SAS analytics, without requiring the more esoteric expertise in Hadoop. The blending of multiple technologies has allowed Expedia to meet its goals for both big data performance and usability in its analyses.
A significant change resulting from the new technologies for big data is the ability to analyze all the existing data rather than sampling it. "Different data is relevant to different people in the organization," says Mark Troester, an information technology and CIO thought leader at SAS. "Previously, organizations had to pick and choose what they analyzed, but combining SAS Analytics with today's big data technologies lets them do it all." More complex models can be developed based on different segments of the population, and can be run quickly to stay abreast of rapidly changing conditions.
Staffing up for big data
Most leading BI vendors are developing tools for handling big data. For example, Pentaho recently announced that it is making available as open source the big data capabilities in its Pentaho Kettle 4.3 release. Pentaho Kettle can input, output and analyze data using Apache Hadoop and NoSQL stores. "What our product brings to the big data market is data discovery, analytic data mining and full visualization," says Ian Fyfe, chief technology evangelist and VP for product marketing at Pentaho. "The Hadoop framework is ideal for managing all kinds of data, such as video and audio, XML documents and blogs; but for interpreting and presenting the results, a BI solution is the most effective approach."
Although a lot of hype surrounds big data, it is a genuine phenomenon, says Fyfe. "Growth is nearly exponential," he maintains, "and not a lot of people fully understand it." Data scientists who are highly educated and mathematically literate are the most able to develop and test hypotheses about the data. Those who have mastered the technology are in high demand. BI solutions that can work synergistically with big data solutions will help expedite an organization's entry into this field.
Consulting companies are also responding to this need. Mu Sigma provides decision sciences and analytic services, and has ramped up its capabilities in big data. "We can provide support from direct services to training in Hadoop and related technologies," says Zubin Dowlaty, VP at Mu Sigma and head of innovation and development. "Big data is a very disruptive technology. For the first time, organizations have access to the type of analytics that previously could only be performed by expensive, high-performance computers." | <urn:uuid:a46113b8-a3b0-48e9-bdb8-b04a20e3656b> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.kmworld.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=81440 | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337480.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20221004054641-20221004084641-00691.warc.gz | en | 0.95009 | 2,064 | 2.5625 | 3 |
We all know about hacking and hackers, but what about hacktivism and hacktivists? In this article, we will discuss what hacktivism is and how it can affect your organization.
Hackers and the act of hacking found their way into mainstream long ago, with the help of high budget films and our increasing use of technology in almost every aspect of our lives. That is why almost everyone knows what hacking is and who a hacker is.
In the recent years, a new term has made its way into our vocabularies: Hacktivism. It is a portmanteau term that consists of ‘hack’ and ‘activism.’ In this blog post, we will discuss what hacktivism is in detail and explain what hacktivists do.
What is hacktivism?
It has been only a few years since we started seeing the media headlines about the big stunts done by hacktivists. Ever since, hacktivists around the world has leaked sensitive data about and belonging to global organizations, defaced hundreds of webpages, rendered many worldwide organizations offline and so forth.
Hacktivists argue that they are vigilantes, rebels with a good cause. They use the same tools, software, methods and devices as the actual hackers in order to gain access to the network, database or devices of an organization. And again, similar to the hackers, hacktivists aim to gather or expose sensitive information. Yet contrary to the hackers, hacktivists do such actions with a purpose of exposing the ugly truth, helping the civil community or gaining a leverage in advocating their beliefs and ideology.
Are hacktivism ethical? Is it beneficial for the society? Who does it help? We all have the same philosophical questions in mind but there is no ultimate ‘right answer’ to most of these questions. That is why we will stick with the cyber security aspect of hacktivism and hacktivists in this blog article.
What do hacktivists do?
Hacktivists attack and hack secure computer systems. The target of hacktivists are often large corporates or government bodies. Since hacktivists act with a sense of political conscience, they might also attack smaller corporations and organizations as well. Hackers have the purpose of financial gain and that is why they mostly target bigger organizations yet hacktivists don’t pursue monetary gain, that is why almost any organization, regardless of their size, can be a target of hacktivism.
Hacktivists use the exact same tools, methods and software as the hackers: Malware, viruses, trojans, computer worms, phishing and various other malicious software in addition to DDoS attacks, brute force attacks and similar methods.
How can I protect my organization?
Since hacktivists use the same tools as the hackers, you can protect your organization from hacktivists and hackers if you take the essential cyber security precautions. Below you can find some advice.
Ensuring business continuity is the top priority of every organization. However, is it possible in the age of digital warfare? Today,... | <urn:uuid:e5e8108d-7b2b-45af-8709-0bcb6712533f> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.logsign.com/blog/what-is-cyber-hacktivism/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337631.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005140739-20221005170739-00691.warc.gz | en | 0.940988 | 657 | 2.578125 | 3 |
You might’ve heard the term “shell” used in computer science before—essentially, a shell gives you access to services in an operating system, and can be either command-based, or have a graphical user interface.
Windows PowerShell has been around for a while (since 2006, in fact,) and Microsoft initially developed it for task automation and configuration management purposes. It has since become an open-source project that can be installed on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It’s based on the .NET framework, and includes both a command-line shell and a scripting language.
What is Office 365 PowerShell?
Office 365 PowerShell is a set of modules for Windows PowerShell that complements your Office 365 Admin center. With the admin center, you can manage all your Office 365 server products—but you can also do so with Office 365 PowerShell commands, which can be used for speed, automation, and other capabilities.
PowerShell also lets you see information you don’t have access to through the Admin Center alone. Similarly, some features are only configurable through PowerShell.
We should note that Office 365 PowerShell does not replace the Admin Center—rather, it’s designed to enhance it. So let’s take a better look at what’s available with PowerShell.
Office 365 PowerShell Can Reveal More Information
Although the Admin Center shows a lot of information, it doesn’t show all. More often than not, it actually shows more info than what you need at a time. But in the case you actually need more, PowerShell is the way to go.
Imagine, for instance, you want to see which users are in a given location because you have clients in both the US and Europe. You can do it in the Admin Center through a series of steps (going to the user’s properties, clicking details, then additional details, then scrolling to “Country or Region” then write down the user separately, and repeat for every user.) Or, provided you have the Windows Azure Active Directory module installed, you can use a simple command in PowerShell:
Get-MsoIUser will get you every Office Subscriotion user, but will only display their name and location due to the Select DisplayName, UsageLocation parameters. The command can obviously be refined for whatever you need. You can, for instance, add sorting:
Or filter by location (UK users in this case):
There are, of course, many more commands you can use. Be sure to check out Microsoft’s Office 365 PowerShell page for a full list!
Office 365 features that you can only configure with Office 365 PowerShell
Again, the admin center already gives you access to the most common and important administrative tasks. And it’s exactly because of that everything is not included, and for certain tasks, you need to use PowerShell.
For instance, if you want to create Skype for Business invitations: you can do it through the Admin Center:
However, suppose you want to disable to default settings regarding automatic entrance for anonymous users, enabling recording, or want all users to be designed as presenters. That’s where PowerShell comes in, provided you have the Skype for Business PowerShell module installed. This command will disable all those three default settings:
Where Set-CsMeetingConfiguration selects the settings for new Skype for Business online meetings, and AdmitAnonymousUsersByDefault $False disables anonymous users from joining, and so on for Conference Recording, and designating all users as presenters.
Visual Interfaces are typically designed with the purpose of performing one single operation at a time. Bulk operations, however, will take a long time in the Admin Center, and if you have to change a lot of things, or select a few things from within a large set, the Admin Center is very time-consuming.
So, for bulk operations, it’s much more efficient to use PowerShell. For instance, if you need to remove one single user from your SharePoint online sites: with the Admin Center, you’d have to go through a series of clicks and properties until you could remove the user’s permissions.
With PowerShell, if you wanted to remove Jerry Smith from all your sites, all you’d have to do is install the Connect to SharePoint Online PowerShell module, and run the following command:
Where Get-SPOSite finds all the SharePoint sites in your subscription, and for each one, removes the user Jerry Smith. This will also remove the user from the sites they don’t have access too, which is bound to incur in errors. But worry not! Just add -Group “Members” after the user, and it’ll target only sites they’re a member of!
This command might take a few minutes depending on the sites you have, but it’s still preferable to the hours you’d spend in the Admin Center doing it manually.
As with the examples above, the Admin Center has the basics of what you need for data filtering. You can do a lot with Exchange’s filters, but for more refined searches, you’ll need to turn to PowerShell commands once more.
Say you’d want to find the mailboxes for users who live in New York or Boston. This command will do it for you:
Or for users who live anywhere, except for New York:
You can even filter for users whose last name ends in, for instance, “son” (like Johnson, Anderson, Thompson, and so on.)
Printing and Saving Data
With the Admin Center, you can see lists of data. Take this example of users who’re enabled for Skype for Business Online:
If you wanted to give that list to someone else, you’d have to save it to a file, and copy it onto another document. Not just that, the Admin Center doesn’t have a way to directly print the list.
So PowerShell comes to rescue once again. It can save and print lists, as well as exporting them straight to Excel.
And you’ll end up with a .CSV file in C:\Logs called “SfBUsers” that lists all users who can access Skype for Business Online. If you want an XML or HTML file instead of a CSV, just change them in the command and you’re set.
If you’d rather print the file directly, then this command would do it:
Cross-Management Across Products
Office 365 has various components that are designed to work together. When you add a new Office 365 User, there’s certain information (like their department and name) that will be available across all server products.
Product-specific information, however, is not available across the Office suite. If you wanted a report that shows if a user’s display name, as well as if they’re licensed for Office 365, while also showing if they’re enabled for Skype for Business Online and if their Exchange Mailbox is enabled—you couldn’t do it in the Admin Center. But you can with PowerShell.
Long story short: PowerShell for Office is a powerful complement to the Admin Center, and if you find yourself doing a lot of repetitive tasks, then you should absolutely be using it, as it makes life much easier. | <urn:uuid:b54c04c5-6399-4a27-85e6-460b9d4c255a> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.eswcompany.com/what-is-powershell-for-office-365-and-why-should-i-be-using-it/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337889.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006222634-20221007012634-00691.warc.gz | en | 0.911005 | 1,540 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Connected Farming Harvests Data and Gives Agriculture a Jolt
Despite technological advances in the field, agriculture largely depends on human input.
Farmers still tend to their land, harvesting crops and preparing fields for the next season.
But these age-old activities have taken on an entirely new cast with the Internet of Things collecting data alongside farmers in the field. With IoT in agriculture, farmers can reduce waste and bolster productivity. Armed with data and automation, farmers are better able to nurture, harvest and replenish their crop.
“Farmers have to get more productive to be profitable,” said Deanna Kovar, director of the Global Operator Station team in John Deere’s Intelligent Solutions Group.” The data from an IoT system can aid them in finding those areas where they can reduce cost and reduce risk.” [Kovar is a finalist for the Internet of Things World 2020 Leader of the Year award, which recognizes individual executives whose outstanding leadership has resulted in the success of IoT in their businesses and beyond.]
According to the American Farm Bureau, “precision technology” — including connected sensors and algorithms designed to optimize operations can reduce costs by some 15% and increase crop yield by 13%.
A BI Intelligence survey expects that the adoption of IoT devices in the agriculture industry will reach 75 million in 2020, growing 20% annually. At the same time, the global smart agriculture market size is expected to triple by 2025, reaching $15.3 billion (compared to being slightly over $5 billion back in 2016).
That’s been critical in recent years as margins have gotten tight.
Net cash farm income is forecast to decrease $10.9 billion (9.0%) to $109.6 billion in 2020, relative to the 2019 forecast. “The cost of growing that crop hasn’t changed. They have to get more productive with their time, reduce cost and reduce risk to sustain operations,” Kovar said
At the same time, demand is increasing.
The United Nations projects that the world’s population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050, causing global agricultural production to rise 69% between 2010 and 2050. To meet this demand, farmers and agricultural companies are turning to the Internet of Things for its power to drive analytics and boost production.
Taming the Variability of Agriculture with Connected Farming
Farmers need greater insight into daily vagaries, such as weather, soil needs and the possibility to predict equipment breakdown, Kovar said. With IoT sensors on tractors and planters, farmers command far greater predictive control of risks to crops.
“There is tons of variability in the land, from season to season,” she emphasized. “By connecting every machine, we’re helping [farmers] to drive as much consistency as they can,” she said.
So, for example, IoT sensors can identify equipment failures before they happen. Farmers can avoid downtime from a tractor in repair and a field lying fallow without equipment to tend it.
“In 2019 alone, the John Deere Operations Center, an IoT platform, sent 27,000 expert alerts. Sent to John Deere dealers, these alerts indicate, “Your customer is about to have a downtime failure.” In turn, dealers can position themselves as trusted advisers, armed with data and equipment expertise to help customers before costly downtime happens.
Kovar said IoT provided an opportunity for farmers to see their environment anew. “Farmers are seeing data in a new way: They might stop farming a certain field. They might lower the rate at which they plant seed to avoid wasting seed, they are changing irrigation practices, how they apply nutrients. They are making thousands of decisions, and the data is helping them change every one of those decisions.”
And this decision-altering data can save dollars.
According to one IoT solutions provider, connected sensors could reduce water consumption by 30% while improving land management decisions.
At the same, farmers are skeptical of having big business house their data. They have been proponents of controlling the data that passes through their equipment, according to the American Farm Bureau. According to a survey, many farmers advocated a “cooperative-style central repository for their data” to standardize security controls and contextualize that data.
More software in equipment can also add complexity to operating, and repairing, equipment. Farmers should also be able to fix their own equipment rather than be at the behest of providers simply because the gear is connected.
Optimizing and Automating Crop Cycles with IoT
IoT can also bring greater efficiency and quality control to farming. In the autumn, after harvest, farmers need data on soil condition so they can replenish fields.
IoT sensors on planters now provide data on which nutrients a field needs in real time.
Kovar said having that data in real time, rather than weeks later, allows farmers to get ahead of weather issues and other potential disruptions in replenishing soil.
IoT sensors also enable machines to communicate with one another and avoid duplication of work. “Because these machines are connected, they can share data,” Kovar said. “One machine can control what another is doing, to maximize what farmers are doing in the field with as few inputs as possible.” Known as “coverage map sharing,” planters can communicate when they have seeded a row of a field so another planter doesn’t replicate the work and overplant.
Optimizing collection allows farmers to “speed up decisions — decisions not on what they think happened, but what they know happened,” she said.
In the future, Kovar said, John Deere also plans to perfect its computer vision technology to identify good crops from weeds. As a result, farmers can target herbicide to weeds rather than blanket an entire field. John Deere estimates that computer vision will save farmers 80% in herbicide cost — and promote agricultural sustainability.
“Computer vision will take us to a whole new level plus the machine learning algorithms. We can identify the weed and spray only the weed,” Kovar said.
Kovar said that farmers are eager to use technology to improve farming yields and to promote sustainability. Farmers are “looking for the next thing they can automate,” she said. “They get one chance a year to maximize their output and minimize their input.” Kovar believes that technologies like IoT and AI will continue to help them maximize that one chance. | <urn:uuid:2b02e39c-068f-460b-a421-0f3c86dc9264> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.iotworldtoday.com/2020/08/12/connected-farming-harvests-data-and-gives-agriculture-a-jolt-2/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335058.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20220927194248-20220927224248-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.950131 | 1,358 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Advancements in technology are not always welcome, particularly to a workforce fearing displacement. This is particularly true with the rise of automation, with the threat that companies could outsource labor to machines. And while experts say artificial intelligence and automation can provide a cheaper and better way to solve problems that previously took up valuable human time and effort, putting numbers to those changes is challenging.
Almost half of knowledge work activity can be automated, according to a recent McKinsey study. Physical tasks "in highly structured and predictable environments, as well as data collection and processing" will be the first to be automated, according to the report. And because those types of jobs make up a little over half of activities in the economy, that equates to almost $2.7 trillion in wages.
McKinsey also acknowledges almost all occupations — blue collar and white collar — have potential for some automation, which could result in a savings of about $16 trillion in wages. Those are big numbers, certainly large enough to garner the attention of businesses looking to trim costs in a competitive environment.
Though it is often approached with fear, automation doesn't necessarily mean bad things for employees. When it comes to replacing workers altogether, McKinsey estimates that could only work in less than 5% of occupations.
Instead, automation is more likely to make employees more productive.
Not all bad news for employees
While some people express concerns about job losses due to automation, others focus on how the gradual displacement in the workforce through automation will aid the economy and drive growth. McKinsey estimates automation could raise productivity growth globally by 0.8% to 1.4% annually.
"Technology such as natural language generation (NLG) — AI technology that can absorb vast quantities of big data and communicate key insights and conclusions into easily digestible reports — will drive our workforce forward by streamlining processes, helping people to do their jobs more efficiently," said Sharon Daniels, CEO of Arria NLG. "The best and brightest will be free to innovate; the engineers to build, the doctors to heal, the scientists to discover."
Only 60% or less of actual work time today is spent productively, according to a report from Atlassian. If employees had access to tools and technology they need to automate their workflow, the amount of time spent on workflow disruptions could be drastically lowered.
Through technologies like AI and automation, "the best and brightest will be free to innovate; the engineers to build, the doctors to heal, the scientists to discover."
CEO of Arria NLG
"Successful work will require humans and machines working together to better delight customers, better grow the top line, and better improve the bottom line," said Tiger Tyagarajan, CEO of Genpact.
Workers will not only be happier, many are likely to see a bump in salary as well, Tyagarajan predicts. For example, a recent Deloitte study in the U.K. found that AI technology has replaced 800,000 lower-skilled jobs with 3.5 million new ones, which pay on average £10,000 ($12,500) more than the jobs they replaced. Those jobs include engineers and data analysts, who create the machines and analyze the data collected by the them.
"Essentially, as tasks and jobs become increasingly automated, that automation opens the door for employees to work more efficiently and creatively to solve problems in which human knowledge is intrinsically valuable," said Tyagarajan. "Machines are taking over more and more repetitive, time-consuming tasks, meaning humans will have more time to take on higher-skilled roles."
Daniels agreed. For example, in financial services and healthcare, the vast troves of data collected can change as fast as someone can analyze it.
"AI capabilities and the ability to automate reporting actually takes the time-consuming and repetitive mechanical tasks away from the human, freeing them to investigate new ideas and to create new solutions," said Daniels. "We believe that AI will augment knowledge-workers, who will advance to a whole new level of expertise."
"Successful work will require humans and machines working together to better delight customers, better grow the top line, and better improve the bottom line."
CEO of Genpact
The tasks that are taken away by AI are often the time-consuming, repetitive, mundane tasks associated with preparing reports.
"The responsibility of actual reporting remains intact but now can be done more efficiently, in real-time and at scale," said Daniels. "This does not remove the job per se; it optimizes the dynamics of the task, allowing knowledge knowledge-workers and analysts to do more and know more, faster."
Who delivers the bad news?
One question that remains unanswered: If automation is to take away jobs, will the CIO be responsible for making that decision?
While it's still unclear, experts say in some cases, it will likely be the CIO, but the chief data officer (CDO) may also play a role.
It will also depend on the area being automated. For example, financial services and healthcare sectors see a strong ROI from using AI technology. "While the CIO has a responsibility for implementation, the benefits are delivered to multiple departments and stakeholders, so decision-making typically becomes a collective exercise of evaluating and redefining information-related roles," Daniels said.
Either way, experts say enterprise IT leaders need to begin preparing their workers to embrace robots as teammates, not adversaries. McKinsey predicts workers will have to adapt for automation and perhaps learn new, more complex skills that they then perform alongside machines. It will therefore be more a matter of better assisting machines rather than being replaced by them.
"While the CIO has a responsibility for implementation, the benefits are delivered to multiple departments and stakeholders, so decision-making typically becomes a collective exercise of evaluating and redefining information-related roles."
CEO of Arria NLG
"I would advise CEOs and CIOs to stay focused on creating a company culture that equips employees with the tools to succeed in a workplace cohabited by robots," said Tyagarajan. "Pushback — both internal and external — is inevitable during times of transformation, especially at the beginning."
Leaders need to be transparent and accountable. This begins with keeping employees in the loop when it comes to how and when the company plans to apply AI and automated systems. Employees need to know that while the robots are coming for some jobs, it is possible to retrain and reskill to work alongside them.
"Developing reskilling and education programs is absolutely key to helping employees feel empowered — rather than threatened — by the rise of robots at work," said Tyagarajan. "[These] programs should focus on teaching human employees how to create, use and maintain the AI systems they will be working alongside."
Workers should also keep in mind there are many areas where humans still outperform machines — such as any task requiring negotiation, judgment or creativity.
"By helping human employees build on these strengths, leaders will help employees accept machine teammates as valuable supplements to human talent, rather than insidious replacements," said Tyagarajan. | <urn:uuid:6a364929-4dd9-4000-a9ad-ee7e15d61792> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.ciodive.com/news/automation-employees-and-the-bottom-line/436624/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030336921.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20221001195125-20221001225125-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.957481 | 1,478 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Computer software, or just software is a general term used to describe the role that computer programs, procedures and documentation play in a computer system.
The term includes:
- Application software, such as word processors which perform productive tasks for users.
- Firmware, which is software programmed resident to electrically programmable memory devices on board mainboards or other types of integrated hardware carriers.
- Middleware, which controls and co-ordinates distributed systems.
- System software such as operating systems, which interface with hardware to provide the necessary services for application software.
- Software testing is a domain dependent of development and programming. Software testing consists of various methods to test and declare a software product fit before it can be launched for use by either an individual or a group.
- Testware, which is an umbrella term or container term for all utilities and application software that serve in combination for testing a software package but not necessarily may optionally contribute to operational purposes. As such, testware is not a standing configuration but merely a working environment for application software or subsets thereof.
Software includes things such as websites, programs or video games, that are coded by programming languages like C or C++.
Software is sometimes used in a broader context to mean anything which is not hardware but which is used with hardware, such as film, tapes and records. | <urn:uuid:32328137-c08f-4684-a73b-00723d878420> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.dcsny.com/glossary/software/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337971.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20221007045521-20221007075521-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.936213 | 276 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Data scientists at the University of Essex, UK, are working to create ‘doctor chatbots’, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), who patients can access via smartphones.
The university is working alongside digital media company Orbital Media and Innovate UK, the UK government’s innovation arm.
This group, made up of data scientists, researchers and developers, will work to create photorealistic avatars that function as primary physician chatbots to reduce the number of patients visiting human general practitioners (GPs) with minor ailments, according to Mobi Health News.
NHS adapting to the online world
The developers of the physician chatbot have said that it is a response to “meet the rapidly growing demand for online symptom searches.”
They believe that having a “visual, reliable and robust online health advice service” will allow patients to get interactive medical advice on what are known as ‘self-treatable’ conditions. This includes common colds and flu, sore throats and headaches.
The NHS estimates that these conditions currently account for £2.3 billion ($2.9 billion) worth of treatment that, given the difficulties the service currently faces, could be better spent elsewhere.
Free up time, save on spends
The thinking behind the chatbot is that, as well as freeing up monetary resources, it will free up time for primary care physicians in the UK.
“GPs are currently under immense pressure, with significant amounts of money devoted to dealing with minor ailments,” Orbital Media CEO Peter Brady said in a statement. “This comes at a time when the NHS is required to find $27.4 billion (£22 billion) of efficiency savings by 2020. The potential for AI technologies to help relieve pressure from the heavily burdened primary care system is significant.”
Brady suggested that AI has the potential to save the NHS almost $25 million (£20 million) per year if it was able to reduce costs of self-treatable conditions by as little as one percent.
This is not the first innovation with which the NHS is experimenting, in its attempts to improve patient care while cutting costs. The health service is also trialing an AI chatbot to replace the non-emergency 111 helpline, which will perform triage on non-life-threatening conditions. NHS England is also piloting a remote patient monitoring system to see if the technology improves patient outcomes.
While AI algorithms are becoming much more prevalent in health services across the world, there is no immediate fear that the technology will replace or impinge upon the role of the physical doctor any time soon. | <urn:uuid:07f08265-5a1a-45e8-aa17-8c9452151ea8> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://internetofbusiness.com/nhs-chatbot-self-treatable-conditions/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334912.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220926144455-20220926174455-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.952454 | 540 | 3.125 | 3 |
A zero-click attack takes advantage of vulnerabilities in software to carry out an attack without user interaction. By exploiting this vulnerability, the exploit can install malware or perform other malicious interactions on a user’s device without the target needing to click on a link, open a malicious file or take any other action.
Most methods of remotely exploiting a device use phishing or other social engineering tactics to trick a user into clicking on a malicious link or opening an infected file. This action runs malicious code, enabling malware to be installed on the device.
A zero-click exploit is designed to work without user interaction, which means that it needs to achieve code execution on its own. Most zero-click exploits are designed to take advantage of vulnerabilities in applications that accept and process untrusted data. Common examples include SMS and other messaging platforms, email apps, and phone apps.
These applications accept data from an untrusted source and process it before presenting it to the user. If this data processing code contains an unpatched vulnerability, then a carefully crafted message could exploit this vulnerability, allowing the malicious message or phone call to run malicious code on the device.
Receiving an email, receiving an SMS, and similar actions don’t require user interaction; smartphones display notifications based on the contents of an SMS or other message before the user decides to open and read it. A well-crafted malicious message can install malware, delete itself, and suppress notifications to give the user no indication that the attack has occurred.
Zero-click exploits pose a significant threat to the security of smartphones and other devices because of their subtlety and high success rate. Traditional exploits require tricking a user into clicking on a malicious link or file, providing the target with an opportunity to detect and respond to the threat. Zero-click exploits may infect a device invisibly or only trigger a missed call notification from an unknown number.
Zero-click exploits are highly-prized vulnerabilities by all cyber threat actors, including advanced persistent threats (APTs) and nation-states. They are commonly used to deliver spyware that secretly collects information on persons of interest to a government or other group.
Smartphones are the most common and widely-known target of zero-click attacks. These devices use various communications apps, including SMS, phone, messaging, and social media apps. This provides a wide attack surface for attackers looking for an exploitable vulnerability.
Certain groups are well-known for identifying and weaponizing zero-click exploits. For example, the NSO Group has identified and created exploits for several zero-click vulnerabilities in iPhones and Android devices and the apps that run on them. These vulnerabilities are exploited to deliver the company’s Pegasus spyware, which is sold to governments for use in law enforcement, intelligence collection, and, in many cases, monitoring of journalists, activists, and other persons of interest.
While the NSO Group is the most well-known purveyor of spyware that exploits zero-click vulnerabilities, it is not the only group with this capability. The company has direct competitors, and other cyber threat actors have the ability to detect and weaponize these vulnerabilities as well.
The entire purpose of zero-click exploits is to evade detection by the user. Since there is no need for user interaction, there is no opportunity for the target to identify the threat and refuse to fall for it. However, this does not mean that it is impossible to protect against these attacks. Instead of responding to an attack in progress, mitigating the threat of zero-click exploits requires proactive, preventative actions, such as:
Zero-click attacks can pose a serious threat to the security of personal and professional devices. To learn more about these and other threats to mobile security, check out Check Point’s Mobile Security Report.
Check Point Harmony Endpoint provides protections against the effects of zero-click attacks, such as the installation of spyware and other malware on a device. Learn more about how Harmony Endpoint can protect against this and other endpoint security threats by signing up for a free demo. | <urn:uuid:d7dba8eb-f4a2-4c4a-b5d4-ca6cd631dc90> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.checkpoint.com/cyber-hub/cyber-security/what-is-a-zero-click-attack/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334912.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220926144455-20220926174455-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.919642 | 828 | 2.921875 | 3 |
The Internet can be dangerous for children. You may not want your kids to be able to view every website or use any app. While it may not be easy to monitor their activity on a mobile device like an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, Apple includes some powerful tools in iOS to help you protect your kids.
Previously called “parental controls” or “restrictions,” these settings offer a number of ways to prevent your kids from accessing inappropriate content, and also limited what they can do on their devices. Located within the Screen Time settings, there are lots of options you can adjust. In this article, I’ll walk you through the Screen Time settings on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, and help you make your children’s devices safer.
What is Screen Time?
Screen Time was initially designed to show you how much time you spend on your iPhone or iPad. As a diagnostic tool, it’s useful: you can see how much time you really spend playing that new game, or browsing Facebook or Instagram. (Read this article for an overview of Screen Time.)
While its main role was initially to show you how much you’ve used your devices — by category, app, or website — Screen Time added settings to control what your children can do on their devices. It was also added to the Mac in macOS Catalina, and you can aggregate data across devices owned by the same person. And if you use Family Sharing to manage your children’s devices, you can control them all from your Mac.
To start using Screen Time, go to the Screen Time pane of System Preferences on macOS, or go to Settings > Screen Time on an iPhone or iPad. I’ll show the process here on Mac, but your options are the same on all Apple devices.
The main screen shows App Usage; if you’ve turned this feature on, it will tell you how much time you’ve used your device on the current day or week. The top graph shows usage for the past seven days, and the bottom shows usage on the selected day. You can choose a day from the popup above the graph, or move backwards or forward by clicking < or >.
If you click Options, then toggle Share Across Devices, it will add up the time you’ve spent on other Apple devices (note: this excludes Apple Watch) that are signed into the same Apple ID.
The popup menu at the bottom of the window allows you to view All Devices (if you have enabled Share Across Devices), or to select a specific device and view it’s activity.
Below App Usage, you see two other sections: Notifications and Pickups. Notifications shows a count of how many notifications you’ve received each day. This is to help you understand how many times you’re pinged by your devices, and can help you, perhaps, reduce these distractions by turning off notifications in the apps that bother you most.
Pickups is the number of times you “pick up” your iPhone or iPad, and which app you checked first. On the Mac, it’s the number of times you’ve woke your device from sleep.
In the bottom section of the sidebar, you can see five sections that allow you to modulate how much time you can spend on your device. This is where you can apply settings for a child’s device. You do this on the device, or, if you’ve set up Family Sharing, you’ll see a popup menu below the name at the top left; select a child there, and you can apply settings remotely.
- Downtime lets you set a period of time during which you or your child cannot use the device.
- App Limits let you set time limits for specific apps, such as if you want to limit how much time your child spends playing a game or using Facebook.
- Communication Limits let you set time limits for the Phone, FaceTime, and Messages apps, and whether a user can access their own contacts or others. You can create a whitelist of specific contacts if you wish.
- Always Allowed is a list of apps that you or your child can use at any time.
- Content & Privacy Restrictions is where you can fine-tune access to specific types of content, notably for your children.
While these features are not as full featured as a true parental control app such as Intego ContentBarrier for Mac, they do offer enough control that you will feel more comfortable about your children’s usage of their iOS devices.
One way to keep kids from using their devices too much is to limit their access by time. In the Downtime settings, you can choose a start and end time for the period when they will not be able to use the device.
If you click Custom, you can set downtime for each day of the week, but you don’t have an option to set multiple downtime periods.
Note that the apps defined in Always Allowed (as discussed below) are not affected by the downtime limit.
The Add Limits section lets you set usage limits for specific apps. Click + on Mac, or tap Add Limit to add an app to the list. You can set limits by category – such as social media, games, entertainment, and others – or you can set limits for specific apps. Click the > on Mac, or tap a category, to see apps in each category, or use the Search field to find apps you want to limit.
Select categories and/or apps, and apply time limits for each day, or customize the time limit by the day of the week. For example, you can let your kids play more games on the weekend. Click Custom (Mac) or tap Customize Days (iPhone or iPad), then tap a day to adjust its settings.
Note that if you set limits on a category, any apps downloaded from the App Store in that category will also be limited. These categories are not perfect; they correspond to categories selected by developers when they submit apps to the App Store. For the most part, they’re fine; you won’t find games in the non-game category. But there may be some overlap.
Communication settings let you fine tune who your child can communicate with, and whether they can communicate with anyone during downtime. You want to make sure that your children can communicate with their parents during downtime, so if you don’t choose Everyone, make sure to enable your contacts here.
Irrespective of Downtime and App Limits settings, you can choose which apps are always allowed on the device. By default, Apple includes the Phone app, Messages, and Maps. It’s a good idea to make it possible for your kids to always access these, so you can stay in touch with them, and so they can find their way if they need to, but you can turn them off if you wish.
You can also add any individual app to the Always Allowed list; this is useful if an app is miscategorized and your child needs to use it, such as for their homework.
You may notice some strange items in this list; they are long strings of letters and numbers. These correspond to Safari shortcuts that you may have created on your home screen, which won’t show up as individual apps. This isn’t very useful, and you cannot add a specific website to Always Allowed. And if you’re sharing Screen Time across devices, you’ll see Mac apps on your iPhone and iPad, and iOS/iPadOS apps on your Mac.
Content & Privacy Restrictions
This screen gives you some granular control over specific content and privacy settings.
There are four tabs:
- Content: Under Content Restrictions, you can limit content such as movies, TV shows, or apps by age rating, and you can block explicit music and podcasts. You can block adult websites in the Web Content section, or add a list of websites you want to let your kids use in the Allowed Websites Only list. And you can block things like Siri web searches, or Game Center features.
- Stores: On this tab you can set ratings for content allowed – movies, TV shows, apps, and more – and you can enable or disable the ability to install apps, delete apps, or make in-app purchases. There is also a setting to require a password immediately after a purchase in Apple’s stores, or after 15 minutes.
- Apps: This lets you allow or deny access to certain apps.
- Other: You can choose if the user can change their passcode, make changes to their account, and more.
Screen Time offers a lot of settings you can use to understand how you use your devices, and to protect your children; it’s worth taking some time to go through them and figure out what works best. As your children mature, and as they understand the dangers of the internet, you can adjust these settings and be more flexible. While these parental controls are not 100% infallible, they go a long way to giving you peace of mind when your children use a Mac, iPhone, or iPad.
How can I learn more?
Each week on the Intego Mac Podcast, Intego’s Mac security experts discuss the latest Apple news, security and privacy stories, and offer practical advice on getting the most out of your Apple devices. Be sure to follow the podcast to make sure you don’t miss any episodes.
You can also subscribe to our e-mail newsletter and keep an eye here on Mac Security Blog for the latest Apple security and privacy news. And don’t forget to follow Intego on your favorite social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. | <urn:uuid:c03419aa-e3ef-4576-9933-5185d5d7bcf3> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/protect-your-kids-on-ios-devices-with-parental-controls/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334912.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220926144455-20220926174455-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.922677 | 2,052 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The term “rootkit” comes from “root kit,” a package giving the highest privileges in the system. It is used to describe software that allows for stealthy presence of unauthorized functionality in the system. Rootkits modify and intercept typical modules of the environment (OS, or even deeper, bootkits).
Rootkits are used when the attackers need to backdoor a system and preserve unnoticed access as long as possible. In addition, they may register system activity and alter typical behavior in any way desired by the attacker.
Depending on the layer of activity, rootkits can be divided into the following types:
Usermode (Ring 3): the most common and the easiest to implement, it uses relatively simple techniques, such as IAT and inline hooks, to alter behavior of called functions.
Kernelmode (Ring 0): the “real” rootkits start from this layer. They live in a kernel space, altering behavior of kernel-mode functions. A specific variant of kernelmode rootkit that attacks bootloader is called a bootkit.
Hypervisor (Ring -1): running on the lowest level, hypervisor, that is basically a firmware. The kernel of the system infected by this type of a rootkit is not aware that it is not interacting with a real hardware, but with the environment altered by a rootkit.
The rule states that a rootkit running in the lower layer cannot be detected by any rootkit software running in all of the above layers.
The concept of modifying system functionality, on which modern rootkits have grown, appeared in 1980. Viruses implemented at that time were not only patching programs but also modifying system interrupt tables and memory to remain undetected by antivirus software.
When the memory model used by Windows changed, userland programs were isolated from the core system functionality. It set back the virus authors for some time; they no longer could alter system behavior. But slowly, workarounds started emerging.
In 1999 an NTRootkit appeared. It was the first malicious rootkit dedicated to Windows NT. 2009 brought on the scene the first rootkit for Mac OS X and in 2010 the infamous Stuxnet (targeting PLC devices) was discovered.
The first corporation known to create and distribute it's own rootkit was Sony Entertainment. In 2005, they launched a hidden campaign of spreading Sony BMG Rootkit. Their motive was to protect their copyrighted publications by interrupting the process of coping them. When CDs published by SONY were played on a PC, a rootkit was installed in the background. From that moment, it kept watching how the user accessed Sony CDs and was breaking any attempts of making a copy. The full plot has been disclosed and badly affected the company's reputation.
In 2006, a Polish researcher named Joanna Rutkowska presented at Black Hat conference on new type of rootkit, a hypervisor level called BluePill.
In 2008, a credentials-stealing Trojan called Sinoval (aka Torpig) used a rootkit module Mebroot to hide its malicious activities, circumventing antivirus software.
In 2015, another company, Lenovo, was caught distributing rootkits reinstalled on their machines. Their role was to automatically download dedicated software, not taking into consideration user's will.
Depending on type of rootkit, infection methods are various. Usermode rootkits are often part of other types of malware, and they are carried by typical infection vectors, including spam campaigns and exploit kits.
Fortunately, the most dangerous types are also harder to install.
Bootkit can sneak into the machine while booting a system from an infected drive.
Sometimes rootkits can also be installed manually by third parties, performing “evil-maid” attacks. In such cases, a trained person (i.e. member of professional company like Hacking Team) is sent to install a rootkit on an unattended machine.
However, as the history shows, sometimes the infection carrier is a fully legitimate software program. (The optimistic part is that, so far, the activities performed by those rootkits were not that dangerous.)
Rootkits (especially the low lever types) are very difficult to detect. Casual users may never even notice that they have been infected, and removing the threat manually is almost impossible. This type of malware may even hide from typical antivirus programs. Only specialized anti-rootkit software can help in such cases. However, it may also not give 100% protection from unknown rootkits, written by professionals, basing on custom and novel ideas. That's why sometimes reinstalling the full system is necessary. (Still, it may not help in case of UEFI rootkits.)
Whenever we suspect that we have a rootkit, it is better to detach the disk and perform forensics operations when the system is not running.
Malicious rootkits are the most dangerous type of malware. They may stay in the system for a long time, carrying on their mission without being noticed. During this time, the user is exposed to any type of malicious activities planned by attackers. Usually, their actions are related to hiding espionage modules or altering system behavior in a way unwanted by the user.
However, it's worthy to note that the rootkit technologies are applied not only by cybercriminals and spies, and not always they have malicious intentions. Some emulation software, such as Deamon Tools and Alcohol 120%, also use similar techniques.
The first line of defense is reducing the surface of attack by using a modern operating system that implements countermeasures against rootkits. For example, 64-bit editions of MS Windows require all kernel-level drivers to be signed in order to prevent unauthorized code from sneaking in.
Never use bootable devices from unknown sources. Also after downloading a bootable CD/DVD, you should check control sums to be sure that the mirror server was not infected.
It is highly recommended to put a password on BIOS to prevent the evil maid attack.
An important part of the defense system is anti-rootkit software.
Select your language | <urn:uuid:d03c6219-f380-4451-916e-0e1624511c20> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/threats/rootkits | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030336978.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20221001230322-20221002020322-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.94767 | 1,260 | 3.34375 | 3 |
There are good and bad hackers. Here is a window into what they do and why:
White Hat Hackers: These are the good guys, computer security experts who specialize in penetration testing and other methodologies to ensure that a company’s information systems are secure. These IT security professionals rely on a constantly evolving arsenal of technology to battle hackers.
Black Hat Hackers: These are the bad guys, who are typically referred to as just plain hackers. The term is often used specifically for hackers who break into networks or computers, or create computer viruses. Black hat hackers continue to technologically outpace white hats. They often manage to find the path of least resistance, whether due to human error or laziness, or with a new type of attack. Hacking purists often use the term “crackers” to refer to black hat hackers. Black hats’ motivation is generally to get paid.
Script Kiddies: This is a derogatory term for black hat hackers who use borrowed programs to attack networks and deface websites in an attempt to make names for themselves.
Hacktivists: Some hacker activists are motivated by politics or religion, while others may wish to expose wrongdoing, or exact revenge, or simply harass their target for their own entertainment.
State Sponsored Hackers: Governments around the globe realize that it serves their military objectives to be well positioned online. The saying used to be, “He who controls the seas controls the world,” and then it was, “He who controls the air controls the world.” Now it’s all about controlling cyberspace. State sponsored hackers have limitless time and funding to target civilians, corporations, and governments.
Spy Hackers: Corporations hire hackers to infiltrate the competition and steal trade secrets. They may hack in from the outside or gain employment in order to act as a mole. Spy hackers may use similar tactics as hacktivists, but their only agenda is to serve their client’s goals and get paid.
Cyber Terrorists: These hackers, generally motivated by religious or political beliefs, attempt to create fear and chaos by disrupting critical infrastructures. Cyber terrorists are by far the most dangerous, with a wide range of skills and goals. Cyber Terrorists ultimate motivation is to spread fear, terror and commit murder.
McAfee Identity Protection includes proactive identity surveillance to monitor subscribers’ credit and personal information and access to live fraud resolution agents who can help subscribers work through the process of resolving identity theft issues. For additional tips, please visit http://www.counteridentitytheft.com
Robert Siciliano is a McAfee Consultant and Identity Theft Expert. See him discussing another databreach on Good Morning America.
Follow us to stay updated on all things McAfee and on top of the latest consumer and mobile security threats. | <urn:uuid:6a096123-106a-4bd7-9021-508d387f8d38> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.mcafee.com/blogs/identity-theft/7-types-of-hacker-motivations | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030336978.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20221001230322-20221002020322-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.92228 | 586 | 2.71875 | 3 |
As smartphones get even smarter, screen resolutions clearer, processing speeds faster and 3D graphics more and more lifelike, one aspect that hasn’t really changed all that much in the ever-evolving technological landscape are batteries. Though lithium-ion battery manufacturers constantly find ways to increase energy efficiency, performance, and capacity, we haven’t really experienced any major breakthroughs in battery technology. Until recently, that is.
While we might have to wait a bit longer until we get super-powered batteries that could provide juice for today’s devices for months on end, Imprint Energy, a startup company based in California, has been testing a pretty unique type of battery. It’s a zinc-polymer battery that’s ultra-thin, bendable, rechargeable and, get this, can be printed out of a typical industrial screen printer. The firm plans to sell this to makers of medical devices, wearable electronics, and environmental sensors.
Imprint developed the concept through extensive research that started at Berkeley. After collaborating with a Japanese developer, they were able to make use of a 3D printer to produce these microscopic zinc batteries.
By using zinc, you could tell immediately they were going for a smaller and lighter battery design as zinc doesn’t require the same bulky protective material needed by the much more unstable lithium batteries. By developing a solid polymer electrolyte, they found a way to prevent dendrites from developing and causing the battery to short – a common problem when it comes to zinc-based batteries.
What can these batteries be used for?
For now, Imprint has been tapped by the U.S. military, working with them to integrate the new battery design for sensors that monitor the health of soldiers. Aside from wearable electronics, the flexible batteries could also be used on smart labels for easier inventory purposes or tracking of delivered packages, food, or other items.
Beyond that, who knows what other future devices these cutting-edge batteries could power? What we can say for certain is that with the advent and continued development of smaller and virtually weightless batteries such as these, manufacturers are paving the way for endless possibilities when it comes to mobile and wearable technologies. | <urn:uuid:a0c7af12-911c-4b31-89b2-1015879628ce> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://davidpapp.com/2015/01/20/flexible-printable-rechargeable-batteries-horizon/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337404.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20221003070342-20221003100342-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.954442 | 450 | 2.921875 | 3 |
As Flash evolves from being a web toy to an interface for Rich Internet Applications, the security issues with Flash are becoming more important. The very term Flash Security is an oxymoron. Anything running on the client-side is inherently insecure. Furthermore (and often more importantly) anything communicating from the client to a server (especially if that server is connected to a database) is under threat and extremely vulnerable.
The first thing to be aware of is that ANY code you put in your Flash SWF file is readily available to anyone that has access to it. With a free decompiler like Flare or the more robust commercial product ActionScript Viewer, every line of code in your movie is accessible and readable in seconds.
People debate the virtues of having an ActionScript decompiler all the time. But what I´m talking about here isn´t stealing someone else´s code snippet and claiming it as your own. What I´m talking about is the information contained in your code (things like data server URLs, passwords, Flash Remoting and Communication Server connection strings, etc.). It doesn´t matter if you are using Flash Remoting or any other type of middleware (ASP, PHP, ColdFusion, etc.). If you are passing inputs to the server, there are a wide variety of ways to attack it.Read Full Story | <urn:uuid:1fa97e98-0074-4c3a-8508-7f3b4a861f04> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://it-observer.com/flash-insecurity.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337680.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005234659-20221006024659-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.925694 | 272 | 2.546875 | 3 |
What is the difference between threat intelligence and cybersecurity?
Threat intelligence is defined as the continuous activity of gathering, processing, analyzing and distributing information related to threats that target applications and systems. This information is collected in real-time from any number of sources. Threat intelligence is typically aggregated in a single database, providing security professionals a centralized source of information on vulnerabilities and active threats that are being exploited by bad actors.
Cybersecurity differs from threat intelligence in that instead of monitoring the threats, it activity combats attacks. The goal of cybersecurity is to protect vital networks, applications, devices, and data from unauthorized access or cyberattack. Cybersecurity measures attempt to stay ahead of new attack vectors with the goal of preventing intrusions. Security professionals also develop responses to attacks with the objective of mitigating any damage as quickly as possible.
What are threat intelligence tools?
In combating cybersecurity threats, security professionals use a wide range of threat intelligence tools and services to protect vital networks. Some of the most common threat intelligence tools include:
- Cybersecurity programs – These programs typically assist with threat detection and threat management.
- Threat Intelligence Supplier – Third-party companies provide intelligence gathering services to monitor for threats.
- Reverse Engineering Malware – Incident response teams can address malware by reverse engineering the threat, analyzing it, then developing strategies to defend against it.
- Web Proxy – By inspecting inbound traffic, web proxies can be used to prevent new infections, following an incident where a malicious website has been inadvertently visited.
What are the most common cybercrimes?
The following are several of the most common cybercrimes:
- Phishing scams are a form of social engineering attack that tries to trick unsuspecting targets into sharing confidential personal information. These attacks typically involve luring users into clicking on emails links or filling out online forms.
- Identity theft, which is similar to phishing scams, involves a cyber attacker impersonating a legit user to commit additional criminal activities, from theft of intellectual property, to vital business assets, etc.
- Spear phishing is a more targeted version of phishing, tailored to convince the recipient the request for information is legitimate and from a trusted source.
- Cyber extortion, also known as ransomware attacks, is when bad actors take control of system or network, encrypting the data to prevent users from accessing it. Viruses, malware or distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are the typical method used to take over or overwhelm the target. A ransom is then demanded to unlock the data.
- Unauthorized System Access is the act of hacking into and taking control of a computer system or network without the expressed consent of the owner.
What is a data breach?
A data breach occurs when secure or private information is intentionally or unintentionally accessed and copies. Such data leaks may contain personal, corporate or financial information that is stolen for use by cyber criminals. Beyond the potential loss of personal information and intellectual property, data breaches can have lasting damage to a business’s reputation.
How can I detect cyber threats?
Detecting cyber threats requires effective internal IT policies and advanced monitoring is in place. Specific tools, such as anti-virus software and advanced threat detection logs can be used to detect suspicious activity on networks and systems. Additional threat detection strategies might include penetration testing that allows organizations to pinpoint vulnerabilities in their systems, networks, and applications. Also, automated monitoring systems can be used to watch online traffic in real-time, and alert cyber security personnel when irregularities are detected.
How can I stop cyber threats?
Prevention is the best option when it comes to mitigating cyber threats. Cybersecurity teams should actively monitor for system vulnerabilities, while also watching for suspicious activity and unauthorized access. It is also important to conduct regular education of users to ensure they are vigilant when it comes to phishing scams and malware attacks.
To prevent cyberattackers from exploiting weaknesses, cyber security teams should be sure software and operating systems are up-to-date. It is also prudent to have regular data backups and data loss prevention systems in place in the event of a ransomware or malware attack that disables systems. | <urn:uuid:4ed21ba6-8ec3-4e26-81d7-42acd56fe318> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.netscout.com/what-is/difference-between-threat-intelligence-and-cybersecurity | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337680.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005234659-20221006024659-00291.warc.gz | en | 0.931111 | 841 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The Ultimate Guide to General Data Protection Regulation
Also known as GDPR.
Concerned with the growth of the internet and the inadvertent or otherwise exposure of personal information to potential bad actors, the European Union promulgated the General Data Protection Regulation in 2016. The regulation is part of European Union privacy law and human rights laws and must be complied with by any companies doing business with EU nations. It is designed to give people greater control over their personal information while simplifying regulatory compliance for international business. | <urn:uuid:a6917b4a-d26e-4727-84ab-118e19f606d1> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://itbrief.asia/tag/general-data-protection-regulation | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334528.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20220925101046-20220925131046-00491.warc.gz | en | 0.926979 | 100 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Construction Chemicals for Strong and Long - Lasting Structures
The global construction industry makes up about nine percent of the world's GDP and construction is one of the main drivers of growth in almost every economy. As with other areas of the specialty chemicals sector, the construction chemicals industry is directly affected by increased globalization, consolidation and significant consumption growth in rapidly developing markets.
The construction chemicals industry will see continued opportunities to address energy conservation and sustainability. Suppliers can benefit from government policies that require the use of specialty construction chemical products to aid in energy conservation. Growing awareness of climate change will drive the demand for energy-saving materials and technologies, chemicals that increase performance and environment friendly products.
One of the biggest challenges facing the segment we see is the low awareness about the benefits of utilizing construction chemicals. Due to low awareness, not many people realize that even though construction chemicals entail higher initial costs, it emerges economically beneficial over the long term and some of the other major challenges faced by the industry are as follows:
• Shortage of Skilled Manpower: The construction chemicals are sensitive products and basic technical expertise and training is required to use the products properly and employing unskilled labour is hindering the growth of the sector.
• Lack of stringent enforcement of quality standards.
• Limited awareness: Many contractors are not aware about the use of right type of construction chemicals for durable structures.
The quality of the construction and sustainability of a structure can be measured with various green building certifications such as:
Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment, popularly known as GRIHA, is an independent platform for interaction on scientific and administrative issues related to sustainable habitats in India. It was founded by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) with support from Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).
The U.S. Green Building Council is committed to creating environment-friendly buildings and healthier spaces for people. Among their many initiatives is LEED, a globally recognized green building certification program. It stands for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design. LEED identifies the best-in-class building strategies and practices.
The Indian Green Building Council that was formed in 2001. The main objective was to promote sustainability and facilitate India to be one of the global leaders in the sustainable built environment by 2025. Among the many services the council offers are development of new green building rating programmes, certification services and green building training programmes.
The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) was set up in 2002 by the Indian government to help in developing policies and strategies that aim at making the economy energy-efficient. Subsequently, the Ministry of Power launched the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) in 2007 to promote energy-efficiency in the building sector.
Technology & its Role
Construction chemical industry, being a highly technical and innovative driven industry, requires investments in technology and R&D. Investment in technology is not a one-time investment but rather a necessary continuous process that needs to be initiated on regular basis to ensure that the business remains competitive. Therefore, our company has been making huge periodic investments to improve operational efficiency and serve customers better. Our manufacturing processes are highly streamlined and planned. The usage of latest technologies ensures that although the costs of raw materials and associated expenditure keep rising, the impact is minimal thereby ensuring that we don’t have to burden customers with further price rise. For construction industry, we offer multiple products such as Dr Fixit Dampguard, Dr Fixit Krystalline, Dr Fixit Safeguard, Dr Fixit Powder Waterproof, Dr Fixit Pidiproof LW+, Dr Fixit Roofseal, Dr Fixit Flexshield, Dr Fixit Concrete Super Bond, Dr Fixit Epoxy Injection Grout, Dr Fixit Raincoat, Dr Fixit Heatshield, Dr Fixit Newcoat, Dr Fixit Pidicrete, Roff Glass Tile Adhesive, Roff New Construction Tile Adhesive, Roff Plymaster, Roff Rainbow Tile Mate etc. Our products are of top-notch quality and assist during various construction activities such as roofing, waterproofing, tiling, etc. It is only due to the high performance of our products that they are widely utilised and preferred in comparison to other competing brands.
The demands of the industry are continuously changing and the key to remaining successful would be to predict and adapt with the change. Over the years we have grown to understand the needs and the requirements of the changing demands of the customers. It is only due to high performance of our products that they are widely utilized and preferred in comparison to other competing brands. However, with the updating of latest technologies, Pidilite has showcased significant growth over the last five years. The presence of multiple construction chemical companies in the market has led to intense competition with Pidilite facing significantly increased market growth. | <urn:uuid:4f23161a-da8b-4ec0-83fc-43be93204560> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://construction.ciotechoutlook.com/cxoinsight/construction-chemicals-for-strong-and-long-lasting-structures--nid-2538-cid-88.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335059.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20220928020513-20220928050513-00491.warc.gz | en | 0.946261 | 991 | 2.859375 | 3 |
1989 was of a year of positive milestones which would have a profound impact on the way we live and work today. The World Wide Web was invented, the Berlin Wall was torn down, and the first GPS satellite went into orbit. However, not everything about the year was a cause for celebration. Alongside these progressive developments was the creation of the world’s first computer worm. Initially crafted to test the size of the internet, the worm spread out of control, causing devastation and alerting businesses to the importance of investment in security products including firewalls. This was the first defensive measure in the cybersecurity industry, and now in 2018, a year plagued by cyber-attacks, it is one of the most basic.
In the past, cyber-attacks used to be so infrequent that hearing about just one breach in the news would be reason enough to invest in protection. Nowadays, not a day goes by without news of another hack being disseminated around the world. The temptation to roll your eyes, say ‘not another one’, and shut your browser is palpable. As human beings, we are adaptable; we learn to cope, learn to get used to things, and become desensitised to events that don’t directly involve us.
But becoming fatigued and showing complacency is one of the most dangerous things we can do. And if we need any more evidence than is already in the public realm, The National Cyber Security Centre’s recent report revealed the sheer scale of the problem, admitting to thwarting around 10 attacks every single week.
Where are we going wrong?
One of the things I’ve noticed in my role is both the chaotic nature of organisations’ cybersecurity strategies and begrudging reluctance towards investment. Of course, security is a broad term – it can encompass anything from continuity and recovery to governance. Yet regardless of the area, the trend remains: even when people are clearly literate on the topic, they aren’t putting the safeguards in place required in this day and age. Alternatively, they introduce adequate security practices when it’s too late and the damage has already been done.
Given the sensitivity of the data they carry, banks and building societies are the anomaly here. However, organisations spanning all other sectors are exhibiting an often shambolic approach to security at best. Some companies are failing to patch their systems, while some employees store important passwords in easily accessible files. I’ve even seen healthcare organisations operating on legacy systems, having no option but to isolate their systems when faced with a breach. Whether it’s cyber criminals or a state-sponsored attack, many businesses aren’t even monitoring their environments for attacks – and this could have serious repercussions.
A lax attitude
Why is it that we just aren’t taking cybersecurity as seriously as we should be? The introduction of GDPR earlier this year had an initial impact on organisations’ attitudes, as it encouraged them to map their data and develop their awareness of risk areas. But improvements are mainly being made in terms of data classification, rather than data protection.
Some organisations don’t have the budget to put the correct measures in place, or rather, they are prioritising spend elsewhere. What’s more, in the hectic world we live and work in, organisations are increasingly time short and allow security to slip down the agenda.
I’ve also noticed businesses over-simplifying their risk assessment process. A large proportion of organisations believe they will be impacted by a cyber threat in the coming year, but understandably also find it difficult to calculate the anticipated financial input and thus determine the value of investing in security controls in the long-term. Security tools don’t provide metrics that help quantify the value they provide.
What steps can organisations take?
There are some very simple, yet imperative steps for businesses to take now.
- Assess your value proposition – what’s the value of the business, and what’s the cost to the business if your systems go down? Organisations need to weigh this up against the probability of them suffering a cyber-attack and match with appropriate cybersecurity spend. A cyber-attack is even more likely than a flood these days, and an upfront investment could save you money (and soften a hit to your reputation) in the long run. Expert advice will be crucial to help you assess the value of each security tool for your business
- Segment your data – by taking the time to segment your networks, applications and data, you can ensure you’re protecting the most sensitive data. Creating a layer between servers containing sensitive data will reduce the risk of data theft
- Monitor your systems – you cannot manage what you aren’t monitoring. Without monitoring every system on which you have data, how can you build adequate systems for your applications? Businesses should regularly monitor their log files, including at app level, to ensure no one is trying to inject commands into their web service
- Invest in incident response plans – it’s not always possible to avoid a data breach, but establishing a clear course of action to mitigate damage in the event of one can help cushion the blow
- Explore your options: From DDoS services to volumetric protection, there are all sorts of cybersecurity options out there. However, consider that there are also free options that won’t break the bank. Some companies run free workshops to educate companies, so monitor what is out there and develop your knowledge
One thing is for certain: cyber breaches in their various forms are not going anywhere. All sectors are vulnerable to attack, yet there are highly transactional groups out there who will have to suffer before addressing their cybersecurity practices. Competition has never been tougher, and investment in cybersecurity is more than just the difference between success and mediocrity – it’s the difference between survival and obsolescence. | <urn:uuid:49ed831f-894f-4fc7-bda4-2c122357ad67> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://informationsecuritybuzz.com/articles/why-have-we-become-desensitised-to-cyber-attacks/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337415.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20221003101805-20221003131805-00491.warc.gz | en | 0.95558 | 1,216 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Everything You Wanted to Know about SSL Certificates
SSL certificates are pervasively used on the Internet for securing all the data sent between servers, devices, clouds, phones, computers, etc. SSL certificates are intrinsic in the encryption of communications using “SSL and TLS” (how do these work? What is the difference?) — you can’t have secure communications without them!
In this article, we answer many common and not-so-common questions about SSL certificates.
What is an SSL Certificate?
An SSL Certificate is a set of files that enable the server to provide “asymmetric encryption” with a connecting computer, device, or other server (known as the “client”). These files include:
- Signing Request. A file ending in “.csr” which is presented to a 3rd party and which is used by that 3rd party to generate the “public key”.
- Private Key: A file ending in “.key” which is installed on the server and which is kept secret and secure.
- Public Key: A file ending in “.crt” which is installed on the server, but which is given freely to any connecting device (client). Anyone can have a copy of this file without interfering with the security of the system.
- Intermediate Certificates. Additional files provided by the 3rd party that generated and signed your “public key”. These are public files and need to be installed on the server so that connecting devices can properly verify your site’s identity. If you forget to install this, your users connecting to your web site may get SSL warnings and be wary of trusting your site.
What is IN an SSL Certificate?
The “public key” file for your SSL certificate contains several important pieces of information:
- Information for encrypting data
- Information about your domain name and possibly also your organization
- A date range where the certificate is valid (e.g. when it expires)
- Information about what organization (if any) “signed” your public key.
The “private key” file for your SSL certificate contains only information for encrypting data — it does not expire or have any details regarding your organization or domain name.
The “signing request” contains all of the same information as the “public key” except for information about who has signed it.
What is a “self-signed” certificate and when would you want one?
A “self-signed” certificate is one in which you yourself have “signed” the certificate (e.g. when you or your hosting company created it). Self-signed certificates are free and anyone can make them with any information in them regarding organization and domain name. E.g. you could make one yourself that is for the computers of the NSA (National Security Agency).
However, anyone who connects to a server using a self-signed certificate will immediately get a significant warning message in their connecting program (e.g. web browser, email program, etc.) that the server it is connecting to is not trusted and that you should proceed with extreme caution.
Self-signed certificates are typically used only for:
- Services hosted inside of your own corporate network where you control who accesses the server and the server itself. E.g. your staff may trust your own certificates in that case.
- Public services where the users care only about the fact that the data is encrypted and which do not care who is on the other end of the data stream (this is rare).
Everyone else wants a “signed” certificate. E.g. they pay some company like Verisign, or Thawte, or even GoDaddy to “sign” their certificate so that all these trust warnings just “go away”.
What does certificate signing do and why does it cost money?
A company that signs your certificate must first verify your right to the certificate in question. Then, they add stuff to the certificate that allows others to see that they indeed have verified your ownership of and right to use this certificate.
What does that mean?
- They check that the domain name in the certificate is actually owned by you and the people in charge of the domain approve the creation of this SSL.
- If there is information about your organization (e.g. your company name) in the certificate, then this must also be verified. People in charge of this company must approve the certificate.So
- You can’t get a certificate signed for domains that you do not have control over
- You can’t get an organization’s name in a certificate unless you have permission for that
- You’ll never get that “NSA” self-signed certificate to be signed by a trusted third party (unless you happen to work for the NSA, that is).The expense of the certificate covers
- The time and effort needed to verify
- The more things that must be verified and the better job a third party does, the higher the cost and the higher the trust of the result
Be careful of certificates signed by very cheap SSL providers like GoDaddy.
What is an EV SSL Certificate and why does it turn the browser green?
An “EV” certificate is an “Extended Validation” certificate. For these, the 3rd party signer goes through a significant effort to verify the company and domain in the certificate. Visiting a site that has an EV certificate generates a high degree of trust that the site is really the one you are trying to connect to (and not some fraudster) . As a result, most web browsers identify this with a green address bar.
See Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificates for more information.
Why do I need a dedicated IP address for my SSL Certificate?
The way that SSL (and TLS) works, the establishment of a secured communication channel comes first, before any information is sent between your computer and the server. When establishing this secure channel, your computer connects to the Internet address (IP Address) of the server and “does the encryption stuff”. Telling the server what domain name you are trying to get to is not part of this process.
E.g. if you are trying to get to https://luxsci.com, your web browser would connect to LuxSci’s servers on IP address “126.96.36.199” and do the encryption things … without ever telling the server that it is trying to connect to “luxsci.com” (that would come later, after the encrypted connection is all set).
So, the server cannot choose what SSL certificate to present to you based on what site you are trying to connect to…. it has to give the same certificate every time for every connection … the certificate configured for the IP address “188.8.131.52”.
Thus, every SSL certificate needs to reside on a different IP address. When a web browser connects to your dedicated IP address to access your web site securely, it will absolutely be given your SSL certificate. If the wrong certificate was presented, then the web browser would complain that the certificate received doesn’t match the domain name it is trying to connect to.
The same process applies to connecting to email servers over SSL and any other service over SSL.
What about “wild card” SSL certificates?
A wild card certificate covers a wide range of domains. E.g., the certificate for “*.luxsci.com” covers all direct subdomains of “luxsci.com”. For example, it covers “smtp-5.luxsci.com” and “webmail.luxsci.com” and “www.luxsci.com”.
However, such a wild card certificate does not cover plain old “luxsci.com”. It also does not cover lower-level subdomains like “a.b.luxsci.com”.
The benefits of a wild card certificate are:
- You only need to buy 1 SSL Certificate to cover a large number of similar domains
- You only need 1 IP address for that certificate
While wild card certificates are more expensive, in general, they are a good value if you have many domains to protect.
Can I use the same SSL Certificate for different things like email and web sites?
That depends on if those services are located on the same server (IP Address). If your domain was “secure.com” and you wanted to use this for both secure email (e.g. POP and IMAP) and your web site, then these things would generally need to be served on the same server … so that the IP address of your web site and your email is the same and thus you can configure the address of “secure.com” with that address.
If your mail and web sites were on different servers or IP addresses, then you would not be able to setup your domain “secure.com” so that it goes to one place for web and another place for email (without special hardware firewalls and other types of traffic redirecting rules that are not generally in place in common configurations).
At LuxSci, customers of our shared services have their email on one server, their web sites on another server, and their WebMail on a third set of servers — this is for security and performance reasons. So, if they wanted to secure all three things with their own branded domain name and SSL, they would need up to 3 certificates (or 1 wild card certificate) … one for each server. Customers with dedicated servers can have all of these services located on their single machine and can use 1 regular certificate for all of them.
LuxSci provides SSL for your for secure email and WebMail. If you want to private label that, you might want to add your own secure domain name. If you want to secure your web site, you might want SSL for that as well.
Does adding an SSL certificate to my web site make it secure?
Merely adding an SSL certificate to a site does not make the site secure. Once you have an SSL Certificate for your site you need to ensure that web pages that require security are only accessed over SSL (e.g. you need to link to them with https:// and not http:// links).
You may also want to construct your site so that secure pages cannot be accessed via insecure links (e.g. http://). This is easily done at LuxSci as we can provide a separate area of your web site for files only accessible over SSL.
Read more about how to be sure that your site is secure.
Are web pages that end in “.shtml” secured with SSL?
It is a common misconception that “.shtml” web pages are “Secure HTML”. This is not so. The “S” stands for “Server-Parsed” and is related to server-side includes. This has no bearing on security of encryption and does not mean that the page is secure.
- What’s the latest with SSL/TLS Certificates? | <urn:uuid:21860b47-15e9-4ca5-b6ba-d487ca11b43c> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://luxsci.com/blog/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-ssl-certificates.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337723.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006025949-20221006055949-00491.warc.gz | en | 0.949116 | 2,523 | 3.5 | 4 |
Cyberattacks on the U.S. continue to captivate and grab headlines. The recent Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment of 12 Russians alleged to have led the attacks on the DNC and the U.S. election infrastructure shook the nation, there’s a bigger worry—the continued assault on the country’s industrial control systems (ICS), which control critical infrastructure and have the potential to cause chaos and disrupt the everyday lives of Americans.
As reported this summer by The Wall Street Journal, attackers were able to successfully break into the secure networks of American energy utility companies. Most shocking about the revelations were the methods used to penetrate these supposed isolated—or “air-gapped”—networks. The nation-state attackers used standard hacking approaches to get access to the control rooms of U.S. utility companies.
As we’ve seen, the potential for devastation in ICS attacks is high. During two different attacks on Ukraine in December 2015 and 2016, attackers were able to access—and shut down—the country’s power grid for extended periods of time in the midst of winter. Due to their sensitivity and the impact on business and everyday life, the interruption and compromise of these utility infrastructure networks has an immediate effect—both in cost and physical implication.
What stands out in these recent ICS attacks is the ease with which the critical networks were compromised. ICS are supposed to have security controls and safeguards at critical locations to prevent the specific types of attacks that occurred from ever happening.
In the instance of the recently revealed attacks on U.S. utility companies, attackers were able to get inside the supposedly air-gapped networks of energy utilities to such an extent that they could have thrown the switches and disrupted power services or caused blackouts. It’s reported that these isolated networks were accessed through third-party vendors and the exploitation of privileged credentials.
Air Gapping Doesn’t Automatically Equal Security
Obviously, air gapping alone is not enough to stop attackers from gaining access to a network. Air-gapping is one of the most common ways ICS are protected, however, organizations’ interpretation of how to isolate networks often varies. For instance, while many believe they have taken all the correct measures to air gap critical networks, too often these vital environments are not really isolated, allowing for malicious actors to infiltrate networks.
In some of the recent cases, malicious agents used standard techniques and tactics to gain access to air-gapped infrastructure—including bridging isolated networks using credentials, shared hardware and devices, and other VPN bypasses. Take Stuxnet, for example. Agents used standard USB devices to plant the infection on the network.
It’s time to dispel the myth that separating IT networks from operational technology automatically equals security.
One of the key contributors to ICS vulnerabilities is the increasing need for these systems—and their data—to be accessible and to integrate with numerous IT technologies as well as third-party vendor’s operating software and commercial-off-the-shelf products. In this operational environment, air gapping seems ideal due to the proprietary equipment and communication protocols inherent in industries such as utilities and healthcare. But this results in critical infrastructure networks being connected to business systems on corporate networks and the outside world through the internet.
Best Practices to Create a Secure Environment
This has created the biggest loophole for attackers. As the scope of ICS has increased, so have the privileged and administrative accounts that can access these critical networks. These include support and maintenance personnel, operators and control engineers, remote vendors, corporate applications and automated batch applications, all with little inherent oversight. Worse are applications and devices with hard-coded credentials that could be remotely exploitable and provide access for the manipulation of physical devices, the execution of damaging code or DDoS attacks.
By incorporating a few security best practices, in addition to the use of completely isolated air-gapped networks, organizations can control and monitor these critical infrastructure networks, while still providing IT and OT internal users, third parties and applications the access they need. For sensitive networks that have any access points, organizations should focus on:
- Identifying all users, applications and associated credentials used for granting access into the ICS. This should be comprehensive and include the discovery of all accounts and credentials assigned to users, application-to-application accounts accessed using embedded passwords or SSH keys stored locally. The best way to do this is with a tool that can scan the network and generate a report on all the privileged and administrative accounts that have access into the ICS network by internal and external users.
- Eliminating stale or unused credentials. Once accounts with access are accounted for, organizations can reduce the number of accounts accessing the critical infrastructure networks by weeding out those that are stale and unused, and then storing the remaining credentials in a secure digital vault. The digital vault can then be accessed by trusted users to get the specific credentials they have permission to use. This is ideal for granting network access to users from remote vendors who frequently change roles. Organizations can further reduce their security risks by regularly performing an automated rotation of system credentials stored and manage with the digital vault.
- Implementing one-time use passwords. Rotate credentials after every use, using multi-factor authentication to access the vault and incorporate workflow approval processes before the most sensitive credentials are retrieved. Making users log into a digital vault before getting access to an ICS, credential and individual activity can be tracked and reported, which reduces the risks associated with shared accounts.
It’s critical to manage and monitor users outside of the ICS network as well, whether within the organization at a corporate level or from outside vendors and applications. By isolating all sessions originating outside of the ICS network, it’s easier to control ICS applications and allow for the implementation of tools to enforce flexible least privilege policies.
Automated analytics tools can also help to define activity patterns that can be used as a baseline to identify suspicious activity. Once the baseline is established, anomalies trigger an alert to IT, OT and security teams that an attacker may have compromised a remote vendor’s credential or is exploiting an account to access the ICS network. This can disrupt in-progress attacks and dramatically reduce potential damage.
The bottom line is ICS are highly sensitive and need security beyond air gapping. There are an array of processes and tools that, when used together and in addition to air gapping, can create a more secure environment.
Lavi Lazarovitz leads a team of CyberArk Labs security researchers. | <urn:uuid:ddd874fd-7d71-452e-8e6f-1087b92ff914> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.mbtmag.com/best-practices/article/13246843/securing-industrial-control-systems-by-closing-the-air-gap-security-loophole | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335504.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20220930212504-20221001002504-00691.warc.gz | en | 0.941089 | 1,342 | 2.53125 | 3 |
New Training: Structured Query Language (SQL) Introduction
In this 9-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer Ben Finkel discusses DML and DDL and covers the primary commands that make up these two elements of SQL in this “bootcamp” approach to learning SQL. Watch this new Azure training.
Learn Azure with one of these courses:
This training includes:
57 minutes of training
You’ll learn these topics in this skill:
Structured Query Language (SQL) Introduction
Retrieving Data with Select
Adding Data with Insert
Change and Remove Data with Update and Delete
Filtering Data With the Where Clause
Literals and Wildcards
Combine Multiple Tables with Join
Creating Tables with DDL
SQL Introduction Summary
4 SQL Flavors You Should Know: DQL, DDL, DCL, DM
SQL stands for "Structured Query Language" and is a domain-specific language designed to manage data. This data can either be held in a relational database management system or stream processed in a relational data stream management system.
The language was created to more effectively interact with large datasets. Some of its key advantages include the ability to access multiple records with a single command and eliminating the requirement to specify how records should be reached (i.e., with or without an index). When using SQL, you'll encounter four primary sublanguages: DQL, DDL, DCL, and DML.
Data Query Language statements are used to execute data queries within schema objects. Using DQL statements allows you to obtain the schema relation based on the query you use.
Data Definition Language statements are used to create or modify database objects (e.g., users, indices, and tables), similar to how you would define database structures or schemas.
Data Control Language statements are used to control access to information within a database. The two most common DCL statements are GRANT and REVOKE.
Data Manipulation Language statements govern how a user interacts with information within a database. Executing tasks like retrieving, inserting, updating, or deleting data requires DML statements. | <urn:uuid:574b469e-5a42-4213-b479-c6063072378d> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.cbtnuggets.com/blog/new-skills/new-training-structured-query-language-sql-introduction | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337287.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20221002052710-20221002082710-00691.warc.gz | en | 0.831441 | 437 | 3.3125 | 3 |
MIME is also well-known for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension which has a specific standard and the Bell Communication proposed it in 1991. The purpose of this is to expand the email capability.
This is one type of add-on the supplementary protocol which allows non-ASCII data, and that has to be sent through by SMTP. It also allows users to exchange different types of data like audio, images, video, application, and much more. These get files on the internet.
At the beginning, MIME header gets inserted by the server and it begins with the web transmission. The client uses this header to select the appropriate player application. Some players get built into the web client, where others still need to get downloaded.
Now you might be wondering why do we need the MIME?
It contains SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), and it has very simple structure.
Its simplicity not only comes the price; it can only send the message in NVT 7-bit format.
It will not support with every language like French, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, etc. SMTP cannot be transmitted with everything, so to make that broad, we need to use MIME.
When SMTP cannot use the binary files, MIME helps by proving the authority to use audio and video data.
Features of MIME:
- Through this, you can send multiple files in a single message.
- You will also get an unlimited message length.
- There are few binary attachments like images, executables, video, audio, etc., all can be divided if required.
- MIME provides support to varying the content types and multi-part messages.
MIME has five additional fields where the header portion of the actual email is got extended into the properties of the simple email protocol. Those are discussing below:
- MIME Version: It explains the version of MIME protocol where header usually has the parameter value and indicates the particular message which is formatted with MIME.
- Content Type: It describes as a type or subtype of information which has been sent through a message, and these have many varieties like image, audio, video, text, and much more. In subtypes, images have to in png or jpeg format. In the same way, there are a few subtypes of video like WEBM and MP4.
- Content-Type encoding: This is one type of field which mainly get used to convert the mail information into ASCII like 7-bit encoding, 8-bit encoding, and much more.
- Content Id: In this field there are a unique “content id” number that appended to the all email to be uniquely identified.
- Content description: Here, you will get a brief description of the content within a mail. It clearly means that whatever has been sent, is the completely content description. This field has provided the information including name, modification date, and creation date on the file.
Advantage of the MIME:
MIME protocol has few advantages, those are below:
- It is perfect for send different types of files in a message like audio, text, video, etc.
- MIME also provides the facility to receive and send emails in different languages like Japanese, Hindi, Chinese, French, etc.
- It connects HTML and CSS to the email and designs the email so that it fits as per the requirement and helps make the content attractive and beautiful.
- It is also capable of sending the necessary information which contains the email length. It also assigns the unique id to all the emails.
Functions of MIME:
There are few functions that MIME follows, which are given below:
- Signed data: This consists of message and encrypted with the private key and both the content has the digital signature encoded with Base-64.
- Clear-signed data: It is very similar to signed data, but you will get the difference where it is clearly mentioned that it has used the encoding based on -64.
- Enveloped data: This encrypts the content where the key will get used and the receiver will get the public key.
- Signed and enveloped-data: This is the combination of both signed and enveloped -data, and it has the capacity to enclosed the signed data.
- Signed receipts: It is an acknowledgment of the original message, or you can say it is proof of your delivery where it will defiantly reach to the sender. You will get the receiver signature with the original message, you need to acknowledge and create the MIME message type.
- Security labels: It gets added with the message to identify the control access and the priority which will increase the confidence level.
- Secure Mailing lists: In this, it will take over the processing where per recipient will be available while sending a message to multiple users. As an example, when a message has been sent to the five recipients, it will get encrypted with the five respective public keys. In MIME’s list, you will have the agent that will take the single incoming message to perform by using appropriate encryption and forward the correct one. Usually, the sender encrypts the message once and sends that only once, and remaining work will become by the mailing list.
MIME is essential for the business, and in this growing market, email message is the primary option to express the terms in multimedia. In this case, MIME works like another email application that introduce that is not restricted textual data.
MIME gets quickly transform to the non-ASCII data, and from the sender side, it delivers to the client SMTP. The receiver side message gets transferred to the original data. | <urn:uuid:1c930fe8-60b5-45bd-a923-6bc052e35e6e> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://ethicalhackersacademy.com/blogs/ethical-hackers-academy/mime | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337421.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20221003133425-20221003163425-00691.warc.gz | en | 0.918057 | 1,187 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why is Cybersecurity Important?
Cybersecurity is important (and that is an understatement) because modern society both relies on computers and connected devices for so many critical functions, as well as stores nearly all of its data electronically; cyber security involves protecting such systems and data from destruction, manipulation, abuse, and theft.
Cybersecurity is an extremely complex discipline, and the ramifications of failing to implement proper cybersecurity can be devastating to individuals, governments, and businesses of all sizes. The 1983 movie, WarGames, showed how a single hacker breach could potentially lead to a global thermonuclear war. While most breaches, thankfully, produce less severe outcomes, the consequences of a “cybersecurity incident” can still be financially catastrophic, and, sometimes, even life threatening.
2. Why do we need cyber security experts?
If you were ill with cancer you would want to be treated by an oncologist with relevant experience.
If you were charged with a crime you would want to be represented by an attorney experienced in defending people charged with similar offenses.
If you were audited by the IRS, you would want the help of an accountant.
Yet, in a world in which there are daily news reports of devastating cyberattacks – including many that inflict serious harm to organizations that have previously armed themselves with skilled cybersecurity teams – some folks still seem to believe that they can properly secure themselves against the efforts of extremely-well-trained cyber-adversaries simply by adopting a “do it yourself” approach.
The impact of such decisions is clear – as is the reason that the world needs cyber security experts.
3. What is a cyber security expert witness?
Cyber security expert witnesses are experts in cybersecurity, who, by virtue of their notable accomplishments, many years of professional experience, certifications, education, training, and skills are deemed by society (and especially by judges and juries) to be experts on matters related to cybersecurity, and whose testimony about cybersecurity-related matters can be heard as part of legal cases. A cybersecurity expert witness may be called upon to render an opinion, for example, as to whether a data breach or other costly cyberattack was the result of some party’s negligence or whether the incident occurred despite reasonable efforts to protect systems and data. Likewise, a cyber security expert witness may be asked to analyze evidence in civil or criminal cases involving cybersecurity, or to render an opinion as to whether or not they believe that an invention described in a cybersecurity-related patent is truly original, or if the possibility of the patented invention’s existence was obvious, from prior art, to ordinary people skilled in the art of cybersecurity. Joseph Steinberg has served as a cybersecurity expert witness multiple times in all of these types of cases. For about the role of a cybersecurity expert witness please see the cyber security expert witness page on this website.
4. What is the best cybersecurity advice that you can give me?
To remember that you and I are the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain. That’s right. Humans are the Achilles Heel of cyber security. By far. Remember, technologies improve rapidly – with new generations of systems appearing every year or two, often sporting dramatic improvements. The human brain takes tens of thousands of years to evolve improvements – today’s men and women may have access to more information than did all of our forebears, but our brains are no more powerful than those of people who lived thousands of years ago. As time marches on, we become less and less intelligent relative to technology.
If you are looking for some tips on how to improve your own cybersecurity without spending a lot of money, please see the article: 13 Tips to Achieve Great CyberSecurity Without Spending a Fortune.
5. What is the best cybersecurity technology out there that I can buy?
Asking what is the best cybersecurity technology is like asking what is the best prescription medication – There simply is no one best cybersecurity product or prescription medication, because what is “best” is highly dependent upon the specifics of a particular situation in which it is being applied.
Also, consider that the feature and functionality differences between competing offerings in the same category of cybersecurity countermeasures are rarely, if ever, the primarily reason that a person, business, or government is able to be successfully breached.
In most cases – if not in all cases – how well you use cybersecurity technology is going to be far better predictor of your chances of remaining secure than would be which particular reliable vendor’s offering you choose to use.
6. Is it safe to use public Wi-Fi? I have heard from some experts that it is not, but it is so inconvenient not to use it.
The answer is not simply a “Yes” or a “No” – there are situations in which using public Wi-Fi makes sense, and there are other cases in which doing so could be disastrous.
I actually dedicated an entire article to this subject – please see How to Safely Use Public Wi-Fi.
7. Do I personally really need to think about cyber security?
Only if you are alive. Seriously, though, if you are reading these words on an electronic device, the answer to the question is clearly yes.
8. But, why should I care about cyber security if I do not have anything to hide?
I hear this type of point being made all the time – but, the reality is that there are many reasons to maintain proper cyber-hygiene even if you do not think that you have anything to hide. In fact, because of how many times I have heard claims to the effect of the above, I dedicated an entire article to explaining the matter in detail. Please read the aptly named piece: Stop Saying You Don’t Need To Worry About Privacy and CyberSecurity Because You Don’t Have Anything To Hide. You Have Plenty.
9. Who is Joseph Steinberg?
Joseph Steinberg is a long-time veteran of the cybersecurity industry, well respected worldwide for the depth and breadth of his relevant cybersecurity knowledge. He presently serves as a cyber security expert witness, and as cyber security advisor to both businesses and governments. Steinberg has been calculated to be one of the top 3 cybersecurity influencers worldwide, and has written books ranging from Cybersecurity for Dummies to the official study guide from which many Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) study for their certification exams. More about Joseph Steinberg can be found on the About CyberSecurity Expert Joseph Steinberg page of this website.
10. How can I best reach Joseph Steinberg?
You can contact Joseph Steinberg via the Contact Joseph Steinberg page on this website. Please note that he checks messages from this website more frequently than he does social media messages.
11. What are the funny, unpronounceable acronyms after Joseph’s name? What do they mean?
The acronyms represent information security certifications that Joseph holds – attesting to his knowledge and experience with various facets of information security. They include the following – with detailed descriptions below coming from (ISC)², the international, nonprofit membership association for information security professionals that has certified more than 160,000 people worldwide over the past 32 years, and that issues the relevant certifications:
CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional – Sometimes known as the “Gold Standard” of general information security certifications, the CISSP shows that its holder is an experienced security practitioner, and has developed knowledge across a wide array of security practices and principles.
ISSAP – Information Systems Security Architecture Professional – Issued to only people already possessing the CISSP credential, this security architect certification proves that is holder possesses expertise in developing, designing, and analyzing security solutions, as well as in giving risk-based guidance to senior management in order to meet organizational goals. The CISSP-ISSAP is an appropriate credential for chief security architects.
ISSMP – Information Systems Security Management Professional – Issued to people only if they already possess a CISSP credential, this cybersecurity management certification shows that its holders excel at establishing, presenting and governing information security programs, as well as have demonstrated deep management and leadership skills whether leading incident response and/or a breach-mitigation team.
CSSLP – Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional – This certification recognizes leading application security skills, and is ideal for software development and security professionals responsible for applying best practices to each phase of the software development life cycle – from software design and implementation to testing and deployment to disposal.
12. What does the abbreviation TY4IM that Joseph Steinberg frequently uses on social media mean?
TY4IM stands for “Thank You For Including Me” – because Twitter is character limited, and Joseph likes to both share the content of people who include him in their work as well as thank such folks, Joseph created this abbreviation to ensure that he can simultaneously do both.
13. What is the best way for me to learn a bit about cybersecurity? I am a total beginner…
I am, of course, “slightly” partial, but, I recommend reading Cybersecurity for Dummies.
14. How should CyberSecurity be spelled – CyberSecurity, Cyber Security, or Cybersecurity?
While I generally prefer spelling cybersecurity as one word, and capitalizing both the C and S when the word is used in a title, all three forms are correct. | <urn:uuid:280b9b3d-25bf-4d66-b4aa-9004b5884d78> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://josephsteinberg.com/faq/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337529.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20221004215917-20221005005917-00691.warc.gz | en | 0.955494 | 1,937 | 2.828125 | 3 |
In this Cisco CCNA tutorial, you’ll learn about Syslog on Cisco devices. Syslog is a standard format for logging messages and Cisco iOS complies with that standard. Scroll down for the video and also test tutorial.
Cisco Syslog Video Tutorial
A Syslog message is generated when something happens on the device, like if an interface comes up or goes down, or if an OSPF neighbor adjacency comes up or goes down.
There’s a set format for the Syslog messages and this is an industry-standard. All vendors comply with this standard. There are quite a few parameters here, so let’s go through it one by one.
The first thing in the Syslog message is an optional sequence number. In our example, we don’t have one set, so it’s just a star there.
The next thing in the message is a timestamp. You can see from our example that this event happened in October the third at about quarter to 1 AM.
The next thing that is enlisted is the facility. This is the thing that generated the event. In our example, it’s going to be a change of state on a link. The facility here is the link. If it had been an OSPF adjacency coming up or going, then the facility would have been OSPF.
Next is the severity level. There are eight different severity levels going from 0 through to 7, with 0 being the most severe. In our example, the severity level of this event is severity 5.
Next is a mnemonic, which is a short description of what happened. Here we can see that a link has changed.
Finally, the last thing in the Syslog message is a more detailed description. You can see that the description in our example is “Interface FastEthernet 0/0, changed its state to administratively down.” So, somebody typed shut down on that interface.
Syslog Severity Levels
There are eight different syslog severity levels, from 0 through to 7 and with 0 being the most serious. Again, these are standard levels that are used the same by all vendors and it’s covered in the documentation for Syslog.
The most serious event you can have would be an emergency, which is value 0. The values go from zero to seven and each of those values has got a standard name as well. The name for severity level zero is emergency and that means that the system is unusable, a panic condition, it’s really bad.
The next severity level is an alert, which is level 1. A condition should be corrected immediately, such as a corrupted system database. That’s still really bad. Critical is level 2, such as hard device errors and level three is an error.
Levels 0 to 3 are bad errors happening on your device. Level 4 is a warning. So that might be serious, it’s definitely something that you want to check out.
Level 5 is a notice, which is a normal but significant condition that you should also check. For example, an interface is shut down by an administrator. That’s not a warning or an error because somebody has to have deliberately done that, but obviously, that can be impactful on the device. That’s why it gets a notice level.
The next level, level 6 is informational. It is just an informational message. Nothing’s wrong. It’s a normal thing happening, but it’s telling you about it. Lastly, level 7 is debug. These are messages that contain information, normally used only when debugging a program.
Syslog messages can be logged to various locations from your router or switch. The first place that we can log to is the console line. If you are connected to the device over a console cable, you’re logged in and you’re working at the command line, then you’ll see Syslog messages popping up in the command line interface as you’re working in there.
The logging to the console is turned on by default and the default severity level is debugging (7). Everything gets logged to be console by default.
The next place that we can log to is the virtual terminal lines. This is for logging at the command line over a Telnet or an SSH session and it is not enabled by default.
You’ll notice if you’re working on a router or switch by default over a console connection, you’re going to see messages popping up as you’re working. But if you’re over Telnet or SSH, you won’t, that is because Syslog logging is enabled by default at the console, but not in your terminal lines.
The next place that we can log to is the logging buffer. This is where events are saved in RAM memory on the device. To view the buffer, you can use the show logging command. You’ll see all via events that are in the buffer, and just like the console line, logging to the buffer is enabled by default as well.
The last place that we can log to is an external Syslog server. We’ll talk about in a bit more detail later on in this tutorial.
You can log to the logging locations as many of them as you want. It’s the same messages that will be getting logged to each of the different locations, but you can log either the same or different severity levels to each of those different locations. When you do that, all messages of that severity level that you set for that location and higher will be logged there.
For example, if you set a logging level 3 for the console, then events with levels 0, 1, 2, and 3, will be logged there. It’s everything about the level and everything more serious as well. Remember, the lower the number, the more serious it is. If you set a logging level of seven to an external Syslog server, events from all severity levels 0 to 7, will be logged there.
Internal Logging Locations Configuration
Let’s have a look at how you would configure this. Remember logging the console is turned on by default. If you want it to disable that, then in the global config mode, you could use the command:
no logging console
The next example is for logging to the VTY lines for Telnet and SSH connections. We have the command:
logging monitor 6
6 is the level and it is known by the name of informational. Everything informational and higher would show up in your command line when you’re logged in using a Telnet or SSH session.
The last example here is with the command:
logging buffered debugging
Buffered is going to the RAM buffer and here it is at the debugging level. That would be everything seven and higher.
Logging to an External Syslog Server
You can also log to an external Syslog server. The benefit you get from this is that it centralizes event reporting. Maybe you’ve got 30 routers and switches on your campus. You could configure them all to log to the same Syslog server and then you’ve got one single location that you can use for monitoring all of the logs.
If you are using an external Syslog server, you’ll typically set verbose logging there because you want to have a lot of information on that system. The whole point of a system is for logging, so you’re not going to have minimal information getting logged there. You’re going to log everything. That way, when you are troubleshooting later, you’re going to have all the details that you need.
You don’t have to do that, but it’s what people would normally do. The configuration to log to an external Syslog server is at global config mode, issue the following commands:
logging <IP address via external server>
logging trap <severity level>
In our example, we have the IP address 10.0.0.100 and we’re using debugging, which is what would normally be done.
External Syslog Server
The example below is what you would see on that external Syslog server. The example here is the Kiwi Cisco server. There’s a free version that you can get and you can see the information that’s listed there.
We’ve got the date of the event, the time the event happened, the priority which is the severity level, the hostname so you can see the actual device that logged this event, and then a message of what actually happened. This is really a basic Syslog server. It gives you the benefit of centralizing all of your logs.
SIEM Security Information and Event Management
Another thing you can use is a SIEM system. SIEM stands for Security Information and Event Management. This also provides a centralized location for all your logging messages, but this is normally a bit more of an expensive option than a basic search log server. It will typically provide advanced analysis, advanced reporting, nice graphs, and it can correlate events as well.
For example, if somebody was launching an attack against you, you would have multiple devices logging events about it properly. The SIEM system can move the information from those multiple devices and see that they’re related to each other, and it can report on that for you. Using a SIEM system also gives you more advanced reporting tools and more advanced troubleshooting tools.
View Log Buffer and Configuration
Once we’ve got our logging set up, we can view how we have configured it by using the show logging command. In the example below, you can see that we are logging error severity level events to the console, warning to our VTY lines, and debugging to the buffer.
Also, underneath your configuration, you’ll see all of the events that are in the buffer. You can see down at the bottom that there are couple of interfaces coming up. So that’s how you see your configuration and also how you see the events that are in the buffer.
When you’re working in a command line session, by default, any Syslog messages that are getting logged there are going to be printed into the middle of any commands that you’re currently typing. You can see in the example below that I was entering the command do show ip interface brief, and in the middle of it, an event was logged.
What happens is, it makes it hard to see where you’re at in your command. It’s actually quite easy in the example because I’ve highlighted in blue text. But when you’re working at the command line, it’s not going to be highlighted in blue and it’s going to make it hard to see where you were in your command.
What you usually end up doing is just hitting backspace to delete everything and then start the command again, and it’s a little bit annoying. You can stop that from happening by using the logging synchronous command.
This is done at the line level so you can configure it under a console line and in your VTY lines as well. You just enter the command logging synchronous like you can see below.
Once you do that, it’s the same thing again. I’m in the middle of a command, I’m doing a do show ip interface brief but I haven’t finished typing it yet. While I’m in the middle of typing that command, a logging event comes up.
Because of the enabled logging synchronous, it reprints the command that I was typing in, exactly where I was on a new line. I can now see exactly where I am in that command and I don’t get confused. It’s best practice to configure a logging synchronous on your lines, it just makes things more convenient.
Debug and Terminal Monitor
The last thing to tell you about, which is another thing that you’re going to want to know about and because it’s important and useful for the real world is, debug and the terminal monitor command. Show and debug commands can be used to view specific information over and above the Syslog messages.
Show output shows a static point in time state. You enter the command and it gives you the output of the state when you hit the enter key.
Debug output dynamically updates in real time, you could, for example, debug OSPF messages and as new OSPF events happen, they will be reported in real time in the command line. It keeps updating and it keeps giving you new information.
Debug is very useful if you’re doing some troubleshooting. Be careful with debug commands in production environments though, a large amount of output can overwhelm the device. There are some debugs that will generate loads of information. It will all get written to the command line and will kind of lock you out of the device. Be careful don’t run any of those commands on a production system.
Debug output is logged to the console line and the buffer by default. If you do a debug and you’re connected over a console line, you will see your output. You can do a show logging to see the output as well.
If you’re logged in over a Telnet or SSH session, which you usually will be, and you enter a debug command, even though events are being generated, you’re not going to see them in the command line.
This is something that trips up administrators that are new to Cisco devices all the time. To actually see the debug output being reported, you have to put in the terminal monitor command, and that is done the enabled prompt.
Cisco Syslog Configuration Example
This configuration example is taken from my free ‘Cisco CCNA Lab Guide’ which includes over 350 pages of lab exercises and full instructions to set up the lab for free on your laptop.
- Configure SNMP communities on R1. Use Flackbox1 as the Read Only community string, and Flackbox2 as the Read Write community string.
R1(config)#snmp-server community Flackbox1 ro
R1(config)#snmp-server community Flackbox2 rw
2. Configure R1 so it will show events from all severity levels to the external Syslog server at 10.0.0.100.
R1(config)#logging trap debugging
3. Verify you have set the correct severity level.
Syslog logging: enabled (0 messages dropped, 0 messages rate-limited,
0 flushes, 0 overruns, xml disabled, filtering disabled)
No Active Message Discriminator.
No Inactive Message Discriminator.
Console logging: level debugging, 3 messages logged, xml disabled,
Monitor logging: level debugging, 3 messages logged, xml disabled,
Buffer logging: disabled, xml disabled,
Logging Exception size (4096 bytes)
Count and timestamp logging messages: disabled
Persistent logging: disabled
No active filter modules.
ESM: 0 messages dropped
Trap logging: level debugging, 3 message lines logged
Logging to 10.0.0.100 (udp port 514, audit disabled,
authentication disabled, encryption disabled, link up),
2 message lines logged,
0 message lines rate-limited,
0 message lines dropped-by-MD,
xml disabled, sequence number disabled
4. Enable then disable the FastEthernet 0/1 interface on R1.
%LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to up
%LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to administratively down
5. On the Syslog server at 10.0.0.100, click ‘Services’ then ‘SYSLOG’ and check you can see events for the interface coming up then back down.
An Overview of the Syslog Protocol: https://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=426638&seqNum=3
System Message Logging: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/access/wireless/software/guide/SysMsgLogging.html
Cisco IOS Syslog Messages: https://networklessons.com/cisco/ccie-routing-switching/cisco-ios-syslog-messages | <urn:uuid:1867b8c6-1b0e-4818-bb0b-d769c5de3ba0> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.flackbox.com/cisco-syslog-tutorial | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337731.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006061224-20221006091224-00691.warc.gz | en | 0.906239 | 3,599 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Technology is rapidly encroaching on every aspect of life, but no sector has taken the initiative to innovate and run with it quite like education. School districts across the country are implementing sweeping tech programs aimed at enhancing learning and improving test scores. Students are embracing the more tech-centric approaches, as the programs bring in devices and programs the kids are already familiar with to increase engagement.
Teachers, too, appear to be excited about the changes. According to a recent survey conducted by digital education company TES Global, 96 percent of teachers in the U.S. think new technologies play a significant role in their classrooms. Not only do teachers believe technology is an important tool, but there is proof to back up those claims. A study by the Economic and Social Research Institute found that, on average, students who used the Internet in the classroom had significantly higher scores in math and reading than peers without online access.
Many schools are eager to experience these benefits and are deploying hardware and software before realizing they do not have the necessary resources to operate and maintain such an infrastructure. Florida’s Gilchrist County School District was one such district that ran into issues after attempting to deploy a high volume of workstations.
Too many computers, not enough help
Gilchrist serves nearly 3,000 students across four schools in two towns – with only three IT team members. Operating thousands of workstations across such a wide area is quite the task for such a small team, and it caused problems for Gilchrist Director of Instructional Technology Aaron Wiley and his colleagues. The main concerns the IT department had were regarding system maintenance and update times, as any lengthy outage was extremely disruptive with such a large number of users relying on the network.
The team found it difficult to keep computers up to date with the regular updates provided for programs like Flash and Shockwave. Putting anti-virus software in place was even more complex, as the process was incredibly labor intensive and slowed workstations down dramatically.
“Every time something went wrong on a machine, the first thing we did was turn off the antivirus because it was so hard to handle – it got very aggravating,” said Wiley.
Deep Freeze Cloud Connector makes IT easier to maintain
Realizing the district needed help, Wiley reached out to the team from Faronics to help make things more manageable. After evaluating the needs of the district, Faronics’ expert service providers determined Gilchrist would benefit the most from implementing Deep Freeze Cloud Connector. The district already employed the Deep Freeze Enterprise program, allowing them to keep better tabs on their machines and do more with the limited man power they had to work with. By adding Cloud Connector, Wiley and his team were able to connect all of their consoles in the cloud and manage the district’s thousands of workstations from anywhere.
“I can pull up a list of computers in a group and see their status,” explained Wiley. “Are they up to date? Is there anything I need to worry about that’s not being updated? Is everything included in their profile? It provides a great snap shot.”
Cloud Connector’s Software Updater feature proved to be especially beneficial for Wiley and his team, as it allows popular software to be updated from a central management console. Maintenance periods were also able to be specifically customized for each school based on individual needs and special events, like parent open houses, could be accommodated and IT adjustments made in real-time as needed. | <urn:uuid:a9664559-444b-4438-85da-e1dd5e910a2c> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.faronics.com/news/blog/deep-freeze-cloud-connector-helps-schools-more-easily-manage-dispersed-workstations | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030338213.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20221007143842-20221007173842-00691.warc.gz | en | 0.974298 | 717 | 2.671875 | 3 |
A couple of milliseconds delay of your page load time can cause a significant loss of revenue. We have explained this in length, recently. What about a complete stop to all of your website functions? For hours, days, weeks? Such attacks on websites, especially those websites that deal with payment, business transactions or transfer of personal data, are becoming more and more frequent. They are known as denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack means that the attacker/hacker is choosing one computer system as a master system to control sometimes as many as hundreds of thousands other computer systems, known as zombies or bots. They all work with a uniform goal of flooding the targeted host with as many communication packets as possible to stop the website from working. Entirely.
As an online vendor, you are not only under the threat of being flooded with the denial-of-service packets, but also of being used as a zombie machine to perform such attacks.
Not even giants are immune to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Yahoo! was inaccessible for 3 hours in 2000, and the revenue lost was estimated to about $500,000. In the same year, Amazon was down for 10 hours, with a loss estimated to $600,000. The attacks in the past were not avoided by CIA, or even The Pirate Bay. Each time, the attacks have not only affected businesses, but also individuals, trading companies, file sharers and end-customers.
DDoS attacks are one of the biggest threats to the security on the Internet, since the users of controlled computer systems are usually not aware of the attack performed. And since packets are not coming from a single source, they can not be stopped by simply blocking a single IP address.
If not stopped, how can DDoS attacks be prevented?
Not that using one method of prevention alone can actually protect you. However, by using a combination of a few, you have a better chance of defending your business space. Or, to walk you through defense strategies:
- Updates, updates. You should make sure that all of your security patches are always up to date. That your firewalls are the latest versions of those firewalls. That your system is clean and all unused ports are always disabled on the host system.
- Use a CDN hosting. Content delivery networks (CDNs) use servers located at different data centers. Not only one, but many communication channels are used. Since the emergence of cloud computing, CDNs are employed not only as a tool for unclogging the internet (see the history of CDNs >>link to post), but also as a tool for mitigating (avoiding) DDoS attacks. CDNs will absorb less-sophisticated DDoS attacks, simply with bandwidth. With CDNs, you gain the advantage of – size.
- IP Broadcast and IP Hopping. See that IP broadcast is disabled on the host computer. Also, see that you change location of your active server proactively, using a pre-specified set of IP address ranges.
- Filters, filters. See that only trusted IP connections are accessing your website. Drop traffic with others. For this, you will, again, need to apply multiple methods of IP address filtering.
- Ingress filtering: drop traffic with IP addresses that do not match a domain prefix connected to the ingress router
- Egress filtering: ensure that only assigned or allocated IP address spaces leave the network
- Connection limiting: the number of new connection requests is limited, existing connections are preferred
- Age filtering: idle connections are removed from the IP tables in firewall and servers
- Source rate filtering: when there are limited number of IP addresses involved in a DDoS attack, outer IP addresses that break the norm are identified
- Dynamic filtering: create a short-span filtering rule and remove that rule after that time-span
- Active verification: combined with SYN proxy, legitimate IP addresses are cached into a memory table for a limited period of time and are being let out without the SYN proxy check
- Anomaly checks: works for scripted DDoS attacks
- Black List/White List: deny/allow access to certain IP addresses from the lists
- Dark address prevention: drop traffic with all IP addresses not assigned by IANA | <urn:uuid:ef0c463b-4f8f-4c75-81e5-580c308f34c9> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.globaldots.com/resources/blog/how-to-avoid-ddos-attacks/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335254.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220928113848-20220928143848-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.955609 | 892 | 2.734375 | 3 |
History of Father’s Day
Father’s Day is a day of commemoration and celebration of Dad. It is a day to not only honor your father, but all men who have acted as a father figure in your life whether as Stepfathers, Uncles, Grandfathers or Big Brothers.
Father Day History
In the United States, the first modern Father’s Day celebration was held on July 5, 1908, in Fairmont, West Virginia. It was first celebrated as a church service at Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as Central United Methodist Church. Grace Golden Clayton, who is believed to have suggested the service to the pastor, is believed to have been inspired to celebrate fathers after the deadly mine explosion in nearby Monongah the prior December. This explosion killed 361 men, many of them fathers and recent immigrants to the United States from Italy. Another possible inspiration for the service was Mother’s Day, which had recently been celebrated for the first time in Grafton, West Virginia, a town about 15 miles away.
Another driving force behind the establishment of the integration of Father’s Day was Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd, born in Creston, Washington. Her father, the Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, as a single parent reared his six children in Spokane, Washington. She was inspired by Anna Jarvis’s efforts to establish Mother’s Day. Although she initially suggested June 5, the anniversary of her father’s death, she did not provide the organizers with enough time to make arrangements, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June. The first June Father’s Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, WA.
Unofficial support from such figures as William Jennings Bryan was immediate and widespread. President Woodrow Wilson was personally feted by his family in 1916. President Calvin Coolidge recommended it as a national holiday in 1924. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson made Father’s Day a holiday to be celebrated on the third Sunday of June. The holiday was not officially recognized until 1972, during the presidency of Richard Nixon.
In recent years, retailers have adapted to the holiday by promoting male-oriented gifts such as electronics, tools and greeting cards. Schools and other children’s programs commonly have activities to make Father’s Day gifts.
So, In short, Happy Fathers Day to all of you Dad’s out there! Have a fun-filled day with your families and friends!
Fathers Day is a primarily secular holiday inaugurated in the early 20th century to complement Mother’s Day in celebrating fatherhood and parenting by males, and to honor and commemorate fathers and forefathers. Father’s Day is celebrated on a variety of dates worldwide, and typically involves gift-giving to fathers and family-oriented activities. The officially recognized date of Father’s Day varies from country to country. | <urn:uuid:e71e8067-9104-4c2a-805c-f80ea77ce41a> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.knowledgepublisher.com/article/340/history-of-father-s-day.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335254.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220928113848-20220928143848-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.974135 | 604 | 3.765625 | 4 |
Broadband connections in Europe are much faster than one year ago, the European Commission has found.
According to the EC figures, in July, 29 per cent of EU broadband lines had speeds of at least 10Mbps – almost double the 15 per cent figure for the same month last year.
Mobile broadband has grown 45 per cent year on year, with six mobile broadband access devices, such as dongles, per 100 people.
However, the Commission says there is still a long road ahead before EU reaches its targets of giving every European access to basic broadband by 2013, and fast or ‘ultra fast’ broadband by 2020.
Neelie Kroes, commission vice-president for the EC’s Digital Agenda, said: "Fast broadband is digital oxygen, essential for Europe’s prosperity and well-being. Take up and available speeds are improving, but we need to do more to reach our very fast broadband targets. In particular, we need urgent agreement on our proposal to ensure radio spectrum is available for mobile broadband, for which demand is growing very fast." | <urn:uuid:9bea1e24-402b-41a3-82d7-6477d18a39a5> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.pcr-online.biz/2010/11/26/european-broadband-speeds-up/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335365.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20220929194230-20220929224230-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.948544 | 221 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Uniper founds the Hydrogen Industrial Research and Training Center (H2iRTC) | SPONSORED
The power plant in Gelsenkirchen-Scholven has been an important part of the industrial site for over 100 years. For a time in the mid-1960s, it was the largest coal-fired power plant in Germany. Today it is in the process of being transformed, whereby the coal-fired power generation systems are being replaced with gas-fired systems. Uniper is taking a creative and value-adding approach to the coal phase-out that will also create and safeguard jobs: Gelsenkirchen-Scholven is to become an innovation hub for hydrogen technology.
The name of the project—H2iRTC—stands for the “Hydrogen Industrial Research and Training Center.” The center will be specifically designed to address industry needs.
The research and development divisions focus on further developing the technical feasibility of decarbonization and sector coupling technology. “Research needs to be carried out on issues such as converting hydrogen back into electricity, solving electricity generation problems during low wind & low PV periods and using molecular hydrogen in mobility. The aim is to demonstrate and further develop these synergies using applications such as pilot projects that drive technological advancement,” says Bernhard Scholtissek, H2iRTC Project Manager and Manager at Uniper Hydrogen GmbH. Gelsenkirchen-Scholven is one of the few sites in Europe that can be connected to two independent hydrogen pipelines. “This is an incredible opportunity for a power plant site,” explains Duygu Yavuz-Hofer, Head of Site Development in Scholven. Hydrogen offers enormous potential: It makes it possible to decarbonize conventional technologies and processes, thereby creating carbon-neutral cycles in all sectors.
The advantage for the training part is to participate from the research and development division by enabling hands-on education at hydrogen applications. Basically it is to give further training in hydrogen technology to people who have already completed their initial technical training and are generally already in employment. As part of a training course lasting up to six months depending on their educational background, participants will learn how to use hydrogen resources such as electrolyzers or gas turbines on a technical level. This training will be made available to the industry based on demand and will be practice based. H2iRTC will therefore play a key role in developing skilled workers in the Emscher-Lippe region, maintaining and creating jobs, and giving skilled workers the qualifications and certificates they need to work with hydrogen. A pilot project is expected to start as early as summer 2022, for which Uniper is cooperating with the KWS Powertech Training Center (Kraftwerksschule e.V.) in Essen. “KWS has a very high reputation in the power plant sector. We are happy to put our training opportunities in their hands because they are leading experts in this field,” explains Marc-Philipp Hentschel, Site Development Consultant in Scholven.
An extensive test infrastructure will be created as part of H2iRTC, which will enable large-scale hydrogen technologies to be piloted, tested and certified in an industrial environment. “We cannot do this alone, of course, so we are looking for partners,” says Duygu Yavuz-Hofer. Companies and research teams will have the opportunity to make full use of the test infrastructure on-site. The details of the research avenue they choose is of secondary importance: The core idea is to advance hydrogen and hydrogen technologies. “We want to contribute to our strategy and move hydrogen technology forward because we believe that using hydrogen will allow us to decarbonize,” adds Duygu Yavuz-Hofer. In doing this, Uniper wants to contribute to achieving German climate goals.
At the same time, Gelsenkirchen-Scholven will remain a power plant site, which means that whenever heat, electricity, etc. are generated during research, this energy will be fed into the grid and optimally utilized. As development progresses, the new combined-cycle power plant will start to be operated using green hydrogen.
Uniper is taking a pioneering stance with the H2iRTC project, providing inspiration and perhaps even a blueprint for other power plant sites. The first partners and interested parties have already been made aware of H2iRTC.
If you would also like to become a partner of the Uniper H2iRTC, please contact Bernhard Scholtissek, Project Manager and Manager at Uniper Hydrogen GmbH
Cell: +49 (0) 160 2135632. | <urn:uuid:d8ae325e-1a1d-4fb0-b7b6-5d0eb7f79c33> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.iiot-world.com/energy/uniper-founds-the-hydrogen-industrial-research-and-training-center-h2irtc/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335530.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20221001035148-20221001065148-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.938695 | 973 | 2.875 | 3 |
France lost a lot of people during World War II.
The French Ministry of Defense puts French military war dead
at 180,000, counting just the conventional military from
Metropolitan France plus the colonies.
Another 20,000 died fighting in the
Civilian deaths totaled an estimated 390,000, including 30,000 murdered by the occupying German forces or the collaborationist Vichy regime.
Cities and towns of all sizes commemorate the war dead, with a town square named for the day of the end of the war, the day of the Normandy landings, local heroes, or Allied figures like Franklin Roosevelt.
Let's see some of the common small memorials you find throughout France.
Here is a memorial at a school:
Jean Roger DEBRAIS
learned the love of his country.
He died for her
14 December 1943
under the bullets of the enemy.
He was 20 years old.
F.T.P.F. stands for Francs-Tireurs et Partisans Français, an armed resistance organization created by leaders of the French Communist Party.
Here we see what was formerly l'École Communale de Garçons in the 12th Arrondissement of Paris. It's still a public school, just not exclusively for boys these days. It's along Avenue Daumesnil facing the Promenade Plantée, near Gare de Lyon.
The case to the left of the door has the week's menu posted, as required by law. French national law also requires that school meals provide good nutrition and education.
To the right of the door there's a commemorative plaque. Unfortunately, there are many plaques like this at schools in Paris.
To the memory
of the students of this school
deported from 1942 to 1944
because they were Jews,
of the Nazi barbarity
with the active involvement
of the Vichy government.
They were killed
in the death camps.
29 March 2003
We will never forget
Let's visit another school. This one is in the 18th Arrondissement, going up the hill from the Pigalle Métro station toward Montmartre.
Over 700 children from the 18th Arrondissement alone were killed in the German death camps. That detail is added on this plaque.
And, a similar sign at yet another school in Paris:
Here's a pair of plaques in the Latin Quarter.
involved in the F.F.I.,
for the liberation of Paris
on 21 August 1944
at the age of 21 years.
F.F.I. refers to the Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur. Charles de Gaulle used the name as a general term for the various groups of resistance fighters. As France became progressively liberated after the Allied landings at Normandy on 6 June 1944, and in southern France on 15 August, F.F.I. personnel were more formally organized into light infantry units, and eventually integrated into the regular Free French forces.
Let's take a closer look. The top piece is a reproduction of pamphlets and posters created during the war and distributed and posted, at great risk to the people doing it.
It reproduces General Charles de Gaulle's address to the French people over BBC radio on the night of 18 June 1940, urging them to fight the Nazis.
born on 3 August 1886
a fighter of the 6th section of ARAC,
arrested 9 June 1943,
assassinated 18 September 1943
The ARAC is L’Association Républicaine des Anciens Combattants, an association of military veterans founded in November 1917.
A Yugoslav patriot fell under the German bullets.
Here we're walking along the Seine, looking across to Nôtre Dame de Paris on the narrow Île de la Cité in the center of the river.
Here's a memorial to 10 fighters who were manning the barricades during the battle to liberate Paris in August 1944.
The plaque has been defaced, with "Front National" marked over. Here's why:
During World War II, the Front National was a resistance organization. But starting in 1972, an extremist right-wing political party used the name. These days the name is strongly associated with the much more recent use by the extremist party.
The original Front National or the Front National de l'indépendence de la France was a far-left French Resistance movement created in 1941 by two members of the French Communist Party. They named it that after the Front Populaire, an alliance of left-wing groups which governed France from 1936 to 1938. The FN created and distributed propaganda, fabricated false identity documents, provided logistical support to clandestine operations, and sabotaged German and Vichy facilities and operations.
A totally different group calling itself the Front National formed in 1972. It has been a far-right group, focused on xenophobia, increased imprisonment, and right-wing populism. Its long-time leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the party from its founding until he resigned in 2011, has said that the Nazi occupation of France was "not particularly inhumane."
The name "Front National" wasn't trademarked, so the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo claimed the trademark in early 1999, giving the original Resistance movement sole use of the name.
Above, we have continued further west, and turned to look back toward Nôtre Dame. And here is another marker of where another Resistance fighter fell. He had been captured by the Germans, and escaped. Then he died here, for France.
The Marais district in the 3rd and 4th arrondissements became an aristocratic area in the Middle Ages. The nobility continued building homes here in the 1600s and into the 1700s. But then the area went downhill after the French Revolution.
The Pletzl, Yiddish for "little place", sprang up when Jewish immigrants came to Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Marais had been just outside the city walls when Paris expelled the Jews around 1400. It had been the Jewish district since then. The new immigrants from eastern Europe moved in and the neighborhood's Jewish population grew. There are now three synagoges, at 17 rue des Rosiers, at 25 rue des Rosiers and at 10 rue Pavée.
The plaque at the corner of the Rue des Rosiers and the Rue Ferdinand Duval says:
Fleeing persecution, Ashkenazi Jews flooded into Paris beginning in 1881. They found places living among their co-religionists already established in the Marais. By 1900, around 6,000 had arrived from Rumania, Russia and Austria-Hungary; 18,000 more arrived in the years preceding the First World War. Installed in considerable numbers in the Rue des Écouffes, the Rue Ferdinand Duval (named Rue des Juifs, "Jews Street", until about 1900), and the Rue des Rosiers, they constituted a new community, the "Pletzl", the "little place" in Yiddish, and they created the École Israelite du Travail (Israelite Trade School) at 4B, Rue des Rosiers.
The life of this community was evoked in the Roger Ikor novel, Les Eaux Mêlées ("Agitated Waters"). More than half of them perished in the Nazi concentration camps.
The above marker is about much more recent anti-semitism. On 9 August 1982, here in Chez Jo Goldenberg, a Jewish restaurant, Palestinian terrorists set off a grenade that killed the listed six people and injured twenty-two more. Evidence ties the event to the Abu Nidal Organization.
An estimated 75,000 to 77,000 Jewish citizens of France were killed during World War II, either killed where they lived, or transported east to the death camps. Three synagogues remain in the Pletzl in the Marais.
Yvette Feuillet, assassinated by the Nazis at Auschwitz.
Three young men living here in the Marais with their mother were tortured to death by the Gestapo.
And above, one more school sign. This one is in the Marais, and it's older than the black granite ones placed more recently. The school superintendent, the staff, and students were arrested by the Vichy police and the Gestapo. "They were deported and exterminated at Auschwitz because they were Jews."Métropolitain
This plaque down in the subway, the Métropolitain de Paris, commemorates the actions of 3000 of their employees during the battle to liberate Paris.
Now let's leave Paris.
A small square in Chartres is named for Jean Moulin, founder of the National Coucil of Resistance.
The mayor and general counsel of Arles was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Germany, never to return.
Capestang, a town of about 3,000 people along the Canal du Midi, has a memorial plaque along its central avenue.
In this place on 9 June 1944, 179 men aged 18 to 40 were rounded up and transferred to Germany by the SS who had already taken reprisals against the village, having already shot Pierre Marty near the low road to Poilhes.
Among them, Joseph Leibowitz did not return.
On the 6th, a convoy of resistants from the Polhes-Capestang sector had been intercepted at Fontjun (5 killed, 5 wounded on the French side).
On the 7th, 18 patriots were arrested, interrogated, tortured, and then shot on the Champ de Mars at Beziers.
Columbiers, a small town along the Canal du Midi, named its main square after the day the war ended.
of the Resisters and the Hostages of Saumur
victims of the Nazi barbarism
Who died or have suffered
A large cavalry school was established in Saumur before the revolution. The invading German forces arrived in 1940. A group of 786 cadets from the cavalry school, together with students from a non-commissioned officers' school and a company of North African infantry, about 2,300 men in total, fought to defend Saumur's bridge across the Loire river against the advancing German cavalry division. With no armor or air support, they managed to resist a militarily superior force for 36 hours.
Montreiul-Bellay is a small town near Saumur. Normans established a settlement here in the early 1000s.
Some of the memorials in Marseille show the breadth of the French Empire. This first memorial in Marseille lists Algerian troops "with their brothers in arms" of the F.F.I.
The last one above lists Marseillais volunteers of the African Commandos.
At the End of the War
This plaque is on the Musée d'Orsay, which now is a prominent art museum.
However, it was built as Gare d'Orsay, a railway station. It was converted into an art museum in the 1980s. | <urn:uuid:da24d87f-9f40-4b48-98b6-97d576fe4dfb> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://cromwell-intl.com/travel/france/wwii-french-resistance/Index.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337322.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20221002115028-20221002145028-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.948428 | 2,426 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Challenges and Opportunities in the Water Industry
What are the nine biggest challenges facing the global water industry and what can ABB do to to help resolve them? The world’s population is growing, and so too is the need for water, food and energy. By 2030, there will be 1 billion more people on the planet and global demand for water could outstrip supply by 40 percent, according to the United Nations. Not only is the need for water escalating, the utilities and companies that supply that water face major operational challenges daily.
Biggest Challenges Facing Water Industry
1. Droughts and floods
Droughts and floods affect all regions of the world and they represent one of the water industry biggest challenges.
Droughts rarely impact an entire country. Often, water is available in some places, but not in others. Water transfer schemes solve this problem by piping water from areas of abundance to places where it is needed, easing the effects of drought. ABB has delivered many water transfer schemes, especially in the Middle East. Our latest project is the North-South Carrier in Botswana, where our solution automates and powers the pipeline and pumping stations that carry water from the north to the capital in the south.
Water and wastewater treatment plants are critical infrastructure. Even when storms flood coastal cities and rivers burst their banks, the plants must remain in operation, 24/7, whatever the conditions. In the Netherlands, ABB solutions control the Maeslant storm surge barrier, one of the largest moving structures on Earth, which protects Rotterdam and Europe’s biggest port from flooding. And in Venice, our solutions control and power the MOSE flood barrier system to protect this iconic city from the devastating effects of annual storm surges.
2. Water scarcity
Unlike drought, which is occasional or periodic, water scarcity is permanent and ongoing. Water scarcity affects every continent and a fifth of the world’s population.
As with drought, water transmission and desalination are effective solutions. In the United Arab Emirates, we provided a turnkey solution that almost doubled the capacity of the water transmission system between the Shuweihat desalination plant and the distribution network of Abu Dhabi. And throughout the Middle East, North Africa and other parts of the world we have provided automation, power and optimization solutions to ensure the reliable and cost-effective production of potable water from desalinated seawater.
3. High energy costs
Energy accounts for 55-60 percent of the life cycle cost of a pumping station.
ABB specializes in making pumping stations energy efficient. By equipping the pumps with ABB high efficiency motors and variable speed drives, we can reduce the annual energy consumption of a medium-sized pumping station by around 25 percent, compared to running it with lower efficiency motors at constant speed.
And, our PumpFit pump group control solution automatically selects the optimum number of pumps to achieve the lowest power consumption. This nets considerable savings in energy, extends the operating life of the pumps and releases operators from manual operation and monitoring.
4. Non-revenue water
On average up to 25-30% of a utility’s water is lost in the network to leakage and other types of non-revenue water, according to the World Bank. These losses cost water companies vast amounts of money, not only in lost revenues but in the cost of treating and pumping water that leaks into the ground.
Leakage detection is a cornerstone of ABB’s water expertise and offering for water transmission systems and water distribution networks. In collaboration with our partner, TaKaDu, our software-as-a-service solution uses advanced algorithms to detect, alert, manage and provide real-time insights into leaks, bursts and other water distribution network inefficiencies. Our exceptionally accurate leakage detection solution for transmission systems pinpoints leaks to within 3 percent of the source in pipeline segments that can be hundreds of km in length. We also offer a comprehensive range of water measurement products that measure flow, temperature, pressure, level and other variables essential to leak detection.
Many countries are overloaded with project financing and do not have the resources to handle more. Funding a water project, however much it is needed, is often not possible for the countries in question.
As one of the world’s leading global companies in power, automation and industrial digitalization, ABB has the in-house financing expertise to raise funding for water projects worldwide. We collaborate with several banks and export credit agencies to finance turnkey projects to pass by this water industry challenge.
6. Water quality
Consistent quality of drinking water and wastewater is a constant challenge for utilities. ABB is a leading supplier of digital measurement and analysis solutions for flow, pressure, level and quality, including conductivity, turbidity, pH, ammonia and phosphate analysis. The data from these industry-leading devices are generated into reports for regulators by our Symphony® Plus DCS/SCADA total automation system. The reports give minimum, maximum and average values across a broad range of intervals – hourly, shift, weekly, etc. – to meet all analytical and regulatory needs.
7. Water reuse
Whereas wastewater is cleaned and reused in many parts of the world, in others its reuse for agriculture is prohibited for religious or cultural reasons. This is now changing, opening up new opportunities for countries to recycle cleaned wastewater. To avoid religious or cultural constraints, this typically requires a separate distribution network for reclaimed water, which is then used for irrigation, watering green areas and other non-potable uses.
In Egypt, ABB recently provided a complete automation, instrumentation and monitoring solution for phase 1 of the water transfer system that provides New Capital, Egypt’s newest city, with potable water. Discussions are ongoing with ABB for a separate distribution system for cleaned wastewater that the city can reuse for irrigation.
8. Shrinking tax base
In many countries, the revenues that water companies earn do not cover their operating costs. So, taxes have to make up the difference. Raising tariffs or introducing new taxes can cause political unrest and civil disturbances. The most effective way to avoid increased tariffs or taxation is to improve plant efficiency and reduce operating costs.
As the world’s leading supplier of control systems, ABB has the automation know-how and process expertise to automate plants entirely. This reduces round-the-clock staffing to a single shift, which reduces operating costs by 7-8 percent in a typical mid-sized water plant.
ABB has automated many such plants, including treatment plants in Germany, the Netherlands and Norway.
9. Aging infrastructure
In the mature markets of Europe and North America, the number of water and wastewater plants is unlikely to increase. Rehabilitation is the strategy: the automation system is renewed every 10 years or so; instrumentation every 15 years; and electrical equipment every 20-50 years, depending on the type.
Because water and wastewater plants are critical infrastructure, rehabilitation must take place while the plant is in operation. Shutdowns are not an option. Few companies outside of ABB have the expertise to do this. In Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, as well as in parts of Asia, ABB has successfully performed rehabilitation projects of automation, instrumentation and electrical equipment without impacting normal operations. Also, you can check Four key challenges for power generation companies. | <urn:uuid:106c5636-d63f-44c8-a066-01005efc5c8a> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.iiot-world.com/industrial-iot/connected-industry/challenges-and-opportunities-in-the-world-of-water/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337322.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20221002115028-20221002145028-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.929788 | 1,512 | 2.546875 | 3 |
As a consequence, operators are beginning to rethink their cooling practices, incorporating fresh possibilities to meet increased demand and a changing landscape.
Asserting itself as a viable alternative to air, liquid has become an increasingly sought-after method of cooling. With heat absorption rates of liquids far greater than that of air, this method can transport heat more effectively, reducing (or in some cases elminiating) the requirement for mechanical cooling plants. While there are time and resource investments required to deploy this technology, it can have a profound impact on maintaining a more sustainable and efficient facility.
However, determining which liquid cooling solution is suitable for your data center depends on a number of factors. These include rack densities, the local environmental conditions, space constraints, water usage restrictions, as well as whether the building is retrofitted or newly built. Another major decision revolves around how close you want to bring the liquid cooling to the electronics.
Some operators prefer the use of rear cabinet door heat exchangers, allowing continued use of traditional air cooled IT inside. Whilst a more progressive approach is to pump coolants directly to the chips within the IT chassis. With such a breadth of variables, many organisations need a verifiable way to test this technology before committing to it.
Often they’ll want to understand whether there is any way to compare air cooled and liquid cooled data centers? In order to answer such questions, let’s take a look at the role a digital twin can play in anticipating unforeseen challenges in liquid cooling deployment.
Understanding liquid cooling deployment with data driven digital twins
A 3D replica of a physical system or object, digital twins can be studied, altered and trialled to assess the impact of changes to its real-life counterpart. Crucially, ideas can be safely tested in the digital realm before they’re introduced into the real world. For example – thanks to their built-in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) engines – digital twins can be used to accurately understand and model liquid cooling implementation to the data centre.
For many considering liquid cooling deployments, this is a step into the unknown. This is especially true when considering upgrading existing air-cooled facilities to accommodate some elements of liquid cooling. Without a digital twin in place, engineers may rely on vendor promises or consider time consuming experimental testing, resulting in project delays and increased costs.
In stark contrast, by implementing a digital twin to assess the optimum set-up of a liquid cooling system, engineers are able to understand the consequences of deployment within the framework of the legacy air cooled infrastructure. This enables businesses to make an informed decision based on the science as to whether they should go liquid or not.
A perfect partnership is formed between the ability to both project outcomes, and then effectively manage systems on an ongoing basis. By implementing a digital twin, businesses can use technologies such as liquid cooling more effectively, allowing them to capitalise on financial and environmental opportunities alike.
Unlocking the value of liquid cooling with digital twins
Changing infrastructure is an ever present challenge in the data center industry. And change has never historically been easy to handle. Fortunately, as business demands on technology accelerate, data center CFD simulation has proven itself as a sure-fire way to try out new technologies prior to any commitment. Giving greater flexibility in turbulent times, digital twins not only support the commercial strategy of the business, they also help deliver a greener and more sustainable data center strategy.
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While it is easy to state the importance of starting a digital transformation journey, actually doing it is much harder
As perceptions change and technologies evolve, what is coming next in data center automation?
Download this free report today for exclusive insights into what our global community view as sustainability challenges and priorities, brought to you in partnership with Honeywell | <urn:uuid:ba4b8761-07de-49c8-8374-e18cb2106f00> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/a-superior-partnership-digital-twins-and-liquid-cooling/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337836.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006124156-20221006154156-00091.warc.gz | en | 0.928457 | 784 | 2.84375 | 3 |
A new security bug, commonly known as Shellshock (Officially CVE-2014-6271, is bad. It is fair to say that a large number of servers (particularly web servers) were vulnerable to serious attack for some time. It is likely that many still are, and we are unlikely to learn about most of them.
What are we do to? Answer: Use unique passwords for each site and service.
Squirrels, rabbits, and passwords
Let’s consider Molly, one of my dogs. She has a one track mind: Squirrels and rabbits. She also is not very good at counting, so she doesn’t understand the difference between one track and two tracks.
Molly tends to reuse the same password for lots of things. Her password for Barkbook is squirrel. It’s also the password for CatChasers and a number of other sites and services.
Suppose that Patty, my other dog, isn’t the sweet innocent little thing that she pretends to be. Suppose that she breaks into CatChasers and is able to steal user passwords from it. She learns that Molly’s password was “squirrel” on CatChasers, so she’ll check if Molly used the same password on Barkbook and other sites.
Password reuse is doubly bad
Indeed, when Molly uses the password “squirrel” on multiple sites, she is putting all those squirrels in one basket. If her password is stolen on any one of those sites, Patty can get into all of those.
The more places that Molly uses the password “squirrel,” the more likely it is that at least one of that sites will get breached, and the more damage is done when her password gets discovered at any one of those sites.
If Molly uses “squirrel” for twenty sites, there is a very strong chance that several of them are vulnerable to this new Shellshock flaw, Heartbleed, or any of the other known and unknown vulnerabilities being exploited. When Patty does break into one of those twenty sites, she will now have control of twenty of Molly’s accounts.
What you can do
In short, be careful. System administrators will be busy for a while. In addition to upgrading bash on systems that use it, they should be trying to track down which systems create environment variables with untrusted content and whether those systems ever invoke a shell.
But normal people (and I don’t think that many will dispute that system administrators are not “normal people”) are left with the knowledge that there are a lot of vulnerable systems out there. By far, the single best things we can do is to cut down on our password reuse. The easiest way to do that with 1Password is to give Security Audit a whirl.
There is so much more to say
Everyone with some sort of security point to make is using Shellshock to help illustrate and draw their favorite lesson from it. This is easy to do because Shellshock isn’t just a bug, it is a bug that can be exploited because of a series of design decisions that were pretty much asking for trouble. Each one of those decisions (or non-decisions) is something that everyone in the business really does know better about. But somehow, the software and systems engineering community has managed to ignore its own wisdom at each step of the way.
- We members of this community know not to pass untrusted data to various other processes, yet we’ve allowed systems that create shell environment variables (things designed to be passed all over the place) from the most untrusted sources of all. [E.g. CGI, DHCP Clients, etc].
- Our community knows that tricking systems into executing “data” is often how attacks happen, yet bash has a feature that deliberately allows what is normally data passed around to be executed.
- Whether computer science students like it or not they are taught that when data is in a particular class of languages it is impossible to validate it, yet with bash we’ve stuck a Type 0 languages inside of variables.
- Scripts and programs should (generally) avoid invoking a shell as even the Linux manual page for system(3) says
Do not use system() from a program with set-user-ID or set-group-ID privileges, because strange values for some environment variables might be used to subvert system integrity.
Yet calling system(3) is common practice because it is easier than invoking other programs the proper way.
When a system falls victim to Shellshock, it is because every one of those principles and guidelines have been ignored. The first one is in the design of various network services (such as web servers). Numbers two and three are in the design of bash, and number four crops up in innumerable scripts and programs. None of them are actually about the specific bug in bash. Instead, one through three are about specific design features of various systems.
There is a great deal I would like to say about each of these, but I will leave that ranting for another time. Today, I just wish to remind everyone about the importance of using unique passwords for each and every service.
Bash update for Mac OS X
Apple has made bash updates available to those who do not wish to wait for regular software update:
OS X bash Update 1.0 may be obtained from the following webpages: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1767 – OS X Lion https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1768 – OS X Mountain Lion https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1769 – OS X MavericksTo check that bash has been updated:* Open Terminal * Execute this command: bash --version * The version after applying this update will be: OS X Mavericks: GNU bash, version 3.2.53(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin13) OS X Mountain Lion: GNU bash, version 3.2.53(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin12) OS X Lion: GNU bash, version 3.2.53(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin11) | <urn:uuid:3791ce3b-9a35-46ea-98e2-91d63ab6ba7a> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://blog.1password.com/shellshock-is-bad-unique-passwords-are-good/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334620.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220925225000-20220926015000-00292.warc.gz | en | 0.945269 | 1,300 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Cyber supply chain risks touch sourcing, vendor management, supply chain continuity and quality, transportation security, and many other functions across the enterprise that require a coordinated effort to address.
Cyber supply chain security principles:
- Develop your defenses based on the assumption that your systems will be breached. Starting from the assumption that a breach will occur changes the decision matrix on how to proceed. Ultimately, the question is no longer just how to prevent a breach, but also how to mitigate an attacker’s ability to exploit the information they have accessed and how to recover from the breach.
- Cybersecurity is never just about technology, it’s about people, processes, and knowledge. It is more likely that breaches are caused by human error than by technology failures. IT security systems cannot protect critical information and intellectual property unless all employees throughout the supply chain use secure cybersecurity practices.
- Security is Security. There should be no distinction between physical and cyber security. Attackers sometimes exploit lapses in physical security in order to launch a cyber attack. By the same token, an attacker seeking access to a physical location might take advantage of cyber vulnerabilities in order to get in.
Disclaimer Insights and press releases are provided for historical purposes only. The information contained in each is accurate only as of the date material was originally published. | <urn:uuid:3471d9b4-509b-4f77-8605-96f65432b104> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://enhalo.co/resources/what-happened-to-watertight-security/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334620.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220925225000-20220926015000-00292.warc.gz | en | 0.943651 | 267 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The Current State of Cybersecurity
The world of cybersecurity has drastically changed over the past year, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, businesses adapted to new challenges, such as remote working, and the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning used to automate security systems.
Cyberattacks are among the fastest-growing crimes in the United States. Experts predict that the number of threats will continue to grow due to an increase in remote working. One main threat is the rise in phishing attacks targeting end-user devices instead of enterprise networks. It’s easier for cybercriminals to hack personal networks due to fewer security defenses in comparison to those larger corporate networks. Over the past year alone, phishing attacks have increased by 30%.
Yet, the biggest cybersecurity threat is ransomware, which is when cybercriminals threaten to publish private data when malware gets installed onto a network or computer unless a ransom is paid. Even in 2021, cyberattackers are still taking advantage of the pandemic by using people’s fears and sending them malicious emails that seem to come from legitimate sources sharing health information related to COVID-19. As a result, businesses have taken a proactive approach in implementing and updating cybersecurity awareness policies.
The estimated annual cost for cybercrime damages across the globe will amount to $6 trillion by the end of the year. Additionally, it is predicted that $1 trillion will be spent globally over the next five years on cybersecurity to prevent attacks and data breaches.
An Indirect Result: The Cybersecurity Employment Gap
These increases in cybercrime have led to a significant employment gap in the cybersecurity field. The gap can be attributed to a lack of training and education with fewer cybersecurity professionals entering the job market. Additionally, professionals who have been in the industry may not meet the requirements needed to handle the changing cybersecurity concerns. However, the silver lining is that it unveils opportunities for people who want to begin a career in cybersecurity. Businesses are changing the requirements needed to obtain a job to focus on skills rather than a degree in cybersecurity.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Information Security Analyst’s Outlook predicts cybersecurity jobs will grow by 31% by 2029. Cybersecurity professionals are in high demand as many organizations struggle to find the right experts, so businesses and institutions are actively working to reduce the cybersecurity workforce shortage and reskill the workforce.
The Importance of Finding the Right Cybersecurity Experts
Cyber IT security is more important than ever as it is needed for all types of organizations. While there are many responsibilities involved when working in cybersecurity, the main goal is to protect companies from being compromised by an attack. However, in addition to data security, cybersecurity professionals are also responsible to help set up private networks and train employees across the company on proper security as remote work increases.
Many organizations have migrated their secure data to the cloud space, but this is an easy target for cybercriminals if that information is not protected. Therefore, skilled cybersecurity professionals are essential in keeping private data secure.
Due to the rise in cyber attacks, cybersecurity experts are in high demand. Estimates show that by the end of 2021, there could be nearly 3.5 million vacant cybersecurity positions. As the dangers of cybersecurity grow more prominent by the minute, it is crucial to bridge the gap in cybersecurity recruiting for both employers and candidates.
While many business leaders see cybersecurity as one-size-fits-all, where every employee should tackle every problem that arises, there are many different roles and levels of expertise needed in cybersecurity. For example, experts in cloud security need to understand privacy laws and compliance regulations, which isn’t necessary knowledge an entry-level cybersecurity employee managing day-to-day operations would have. However, both roles are essential to an organization’s operations, so it is crucial to find the right cybersecurity expert for each available position.
What is CyberGEN.IQ and How Can it Help with Cybersecurity Recruiting and Hiring?
An assessment test for jobs can immediately help organizations expedite the cybersecurity hiring process. Haystack Solutions has developed CyberGEN.IQ, the world’s only non-linguistic-based cybersecurity assessment that tests one’s aptitude and skills.
This cybersecurity assessment, containing a series of 15 tests, focuses on five key cerebral dimensions: critical thinking, deliberate action, real-time action, proactive thinking, and reactive thinking. This test also assesses each individual and reveals their natural aptitude across the following four cognitive domains of cybersecurity:
- Initiating: Creative problem solving
- Responding: Detecting anomalies and monitoring information
- Real-Time: Responding to in-the-moment issues with current information
- Exhaustive: Researching resources before making a decision
One of the main benefits of CyberGEN.IQ is that it can be deployed quickly and effectively for users worldwide, with 97% accuracy in predicting job performance and mapping talent to job roles to help organizations hire the right candidates the first time. By eliminating the change of gender and socioeconomic bias, hiring managers, HR departments, and recruiters can now quickly sort through hundreds of resumes to hire the perfect cybersecurity expert by matching the test scores with matching and vacant job roles.
CyberGEN.IQ for Cyber Professionals and Career-Changers
CyberGEN.IQ is also beneficial for cybersecurity experts looking to make a career change or expand their careers as it helps you fully understand your talents and strengths to help you find the right job or accurately plan cybersecurity training courses to expand your cognitive abilities appropriately (and before spending money on the wrong training path).
Aptitude tests for careers are not a new concept, but CyberGEN.IQ is finally the solution to apply this method to the underserved world of cybersecurity hiring and to efficiently build high-performing teams. The assessment can help companies streamline the hiring process to identify top candidates while optimizing their ROI and saving money in the long run. In addition, CyberGEN.IQ can help close the cyber skills gap and empower cybersecurity professionals to align their career paths with their specific cognitive aptitudes and abilities. Are you interested in experiencing the CyberGEN.IQ assessment? | <urn:uuid:9e0797b9-9b97-4043-83b0-e30bf8f95b21> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://haystacksolutions.com/test-cognitive-aptitude-cybergen-iq/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335257.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20220928145118-20220928175118-00292.warc.gz | en | 0.945311 | 1,262 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Jun 27 2019
Digital Twins is #6 in our series on corporate data management and digital transformation tech trends. A digital twin is a real-time digital replica of a physical object. Data twins integrate the internet of things, artificial intelligence, machine learning and software analytics with spatial network graphs to create living digital simulation models that continually learn and update to represent real-time status. Digital Twins is a concept, not a single product or a piece of technology. Technologies such as 3D modeling, edge computing, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and IoT offer components of this problem-solving approach. Industry applications include manufacturing, healthcare, and automotive for uses including 3D modeling, monitoring, diagnostics, prognosis, and performance optimization.
The first application of digital twins was used by NASA to prepare to operate, maintain, and repair systems in outer space, well beyond one’s ability to see or monitor physically. In fact, when disaster struck Apollo 13, the mirrored innovation on earth allowed engineers and astronauts to rescue the mission. Consider that in 1970, after the explosion of an oxygen tank, engineers modeled a solution on the ground using only the physical components available to the astronauts in the capsule. They created a twin, tested and found a solution, and applied it in space.
Traditionally, digital twins were used to improve the performance of a single object such as a jet engine. Today, the possibilities for digital twins are much more complex, connecting systems of assets and organizations to solve more complex problems. For example, in order to address climate change and over-population, the UK is creating a digital twin of its entire infrastructure to test its resilience to the challenges of each. The Living Heart Project is using digital twin technology to model the cardiovascular systems for research, treatment, and clinical trials. Stakeholders include Intel, Bayer, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, and Pfizer. Gartner reports that digital twins are reaching proliferation with over 75% of organization implementing IoT already using digital twins or having plans to do so within a year.
Whether you are talking about engine parts, coupled with maintenance, wear and tear, or modeling the infrastructure for the entire infrastructure of the UK, there is a massive amount of data involved. The desire for real-time analytics and the need to pull only the relevant data makes computational storage the logical solution for these petabyte scale datasets. The speed, efficiency, small infrastructure footprint addresses these application needs. For more information, contact me. | <urn:uuid:bf44be52-6781-4cf0-ad5c-6d319e8ba45a> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://ngdsystems.com/tech-trend-6-digital-twins/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335257.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20220928145118-20220928175118-00292.warc.gz | en | 0.926566 | 500 | 3.078125 | 3 |
The Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is a network communication protocol that interconnects the network devices into the internet. It provides a communication between the source and the destination. It specifies how data packets should be broken, addressed, routed, transmitted, and the status to be received at the destination. TCP deals with the delivery of data and how the data packets applications can create their route across the network. It also manages the message into smaller packets before transmission. The IP section deals with obtaining the address of the data and the path a package will use.
The layers of TCP/IP
How TCP/IP works
It uses the client-server communication model. A client provides the service by a central server. The suite protocol is stateless, thus enabling them to free up the network paths to be used continuously. This model of communication is divided into four main layers. Each layer has a set of functions and protocol used for communication.
Protocol in the TCP/IP
Layers of TCP/IP model
The layers of TCP/IP model are explained below:
The application layer
It’s the topmost layer at the TCP/IP model. It defies the internet services standard and network applications to be used by the user. It states the application protocol and how the host application and programs interface with the transport layer in the network. It provides a channel for standardization of data exchange. Its contracts include:
- Domain Name Server: it works by resolving the IP address into a textual format for the hosts.
- File transfer protocol: Allows the transfer of files amongst the user in a network
- Telnet: Manages the connection of remote machine and runs applications
- Simple Mail Transport Protocol: It transport electronic mail between the sources and destination through a route.
Its main goal is to maintain an end to end communication between the source and destination across the network. It manages the interaction between the sources and provides multiplexing, flow control and reliability of data. The transport protocols include
- Transmission Control Protocol: It’s a connection-oriented protocol that communication in bytes foam from the source to destination without the flow control and error messaging.
- User Datagram Protocol: It’s a connection-less protocol that is unreliable. It does not verify the connection between the source and the destination. It doesn’t establish and check the links.
It works by controlling movement of data packets across the network. It accepts and delivers the packets across the web. It deals with providing the packets. Routing and congestion avoidance. It packages the data into IP datagrams which contain the address of the source and destination. It allows the host to insert the packets into any network and deliver them independently. The main protocols here include
- IP protocol: It deals with IP addressing, packet formatting, fragmentation and host to host communication.
- ARP Protocol: The address Resolution Protocol assists the IP in directing the datagrams to the correct hist. It maps the Ethernet address.
- ICMP Protocol: The internet control message Protocol helps to detect and control the network errors. It works by either redirection, dropping the packet or connectivity failure.
This layered work by identification of the network protocol type to use for the packet. It also provides error control and packet framing. It handles the physical section of sending and receiving data over the Ethernet cable, wireless or the network interface card. Some of the protocol used include Ethernet, Token Ring and Point to Point Protocol framing (PPP).
TCP/IP is nonproprietary and compatible with all operating systems. It’s highly scalable and the mostly used over the internet. | <urn:uuid:19756099-267a-4eb7-b1fb-aa8e2440b279> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://networkinterview.com/introduction-to-tcp-ip/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337338.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20221002150039-20221002180039-00292.warc.gz | en | 0.880182 | 764 | 3.96875 | 4 |
The field of finance is rapidly changing , financial firms, insurance agencies and investment banks are involved at the intersection of data and technology. Big data, machine learning, harnessing algorithms, blockchain technologies are widely spreading to conduct businesses.
Financial technology or Fintech referred to back-end technology used to function traditional financial services however in today’s scenario the term has broadened to incorporate new innovations in technology in finance sector such as crypto currencies, block chain, robo-advising, crowd funding etc.
In this article we will learn more about Fintech technology, its history, span in current times, its functions, advantages and use cases etc.
Adoption of Fintech
Technology played a key role in every sector including the financial sector. It has come a long way and changed but what was the starting point when we adopted financial infrastructure?
Year 1887 – 1950 was an era when we started using technologies such as telegraph, railroads and steamships which allowed for the first-time rapid transmission of financial information across borders.
Year 1950s bought credit cards, 1960 bought us ATMs and 1970s bought us electronic stock trading, in 1980s bank mainframe computers and more sophisticated data record keeping systems, 1990s bought internet and e-commerce business
In the 21st century we are using mobile phones, wallets, payment applications, equity crowd funding, robo advisors, crypto currency and many other financial technologies which have changed the face of banking services.
In today’s digital era the traditional services once provided by financial institutions have lost their relevance and no longer meet the demands of tech savvy customers. Consumers have become used to digital experience and ease of functions as provided to them by global giants like Apple, Microsoft, Facebook etc. where by a simple click or swipe on smartphone can make tasks easier for end customers. As per the 2019 Global Fintech report the industry raised $24.6 billion with funding topping to $8.9 billion in the 3rd quarter of the financial year.
FinTech refers to technology and innovation which aims to compete with financial services to create new and better service experiences for consumers of banking, asset management, wealth management, investments, insurance and mortgage sectors. With the financial industry some of the technologies used include artificial intelligence, big data, robotic process automation (RPA), and blockchain. Artificial intelligence is used in various forms , AI algorithms are used to predict changes in the stock market and provide insight into the economy. Customer spending habits can be charted. Chat bots are used to help customers with their services.
Artificial intelligence works best with the combination of big data and management solutions. AI analyses the performance of financial institutions, creates insights and automates essential organization processes such as documentation, client communication etc. Machine learning (ML) is key component of AI and widely used in many areas of banking sector such as:
- Fraud prevention – ML tools analyse existing fraudulent cases, detect common patterns, and evaluate and predict possible frauds and uncover discrepancies
- Risk management software analyses organization performance and detect potential threat patterns
- Fund development prediction is performed by scanning investment records, an ML powered tool can define most probable future developments
- Customer service enhancement by analysing customer data and build a smart consumer profile
Pros and Cons of FinTech
- Increase in accessibility and approachability to large section of people
- Speed up the rate of approval of finance or insurance.
- Greater convenience to its customers by enablement of services over mobile devices, tablets or laptops from anywhere
- Low operating costs as companies are not required to invest in physical infrastructure such as branch network
- Investments in major security to keep customer data safe and secure using technologies like biometrics and encryption
- Limited access to soft information
- Different standards, procedures including business activities which are different then traditional banks. Have to pay higher charges imposed by OCC.
Benefits of FinTech
- Speed and convenience with FinTech products as products and services are delivered online in easier and quick manner
- Great choice of products and services as they can be bought remotely irrespective of location
- More personalized products by collecting and storing more and more information about customers so as to able to offer consumers more personalized products and services as per their requirements or buying pattern | <urn:uuid:c29cfaea-1d5b-43cd-85b4-6c9d94b4c27e> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://networkinterview.com/what-is-fintech-technology/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337338.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20221002150039-20221002180039-00292.warc.gz | en | 0.941382 | 878 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Throughout history and into the present, many communities have encountered obstacles to readily accessing opportunities and public resources. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been a leader in the response for equity. From providing loans to ranchers and farmers, to awarding grants to rural communities, to delivering educational support for elementary schools, USDA offers a diverse range of services to a diverse public. As it carries out its varied missions, the agency has recognized that improving access to all of its services, information, and benefits through inclusive digital platforms enables it to more effectively reach stakeholders and achieve an expanded range of objectives.
To rethink its programs for minority and underserved communities, USDA, in partnership with Booz Allen, designed a human-centered, data-driven method for identifying and addressing disparities across the Department. The result? Unprecedented insights that are helping USDA leaders make the agency’s services more inclusive and accessible for all people. | <urn:uuid:625ebd32-e2c2-400b-a064-fa253597820e> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.boozallen.com/insights/digital-access/advancing-equity-at-the-u-s-department-of-agriculture.html | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337853.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006155805-20221006185805-00292.warc.gz | en | 0.9479 | 189 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Student loans, house payments and credit card transactions regularly occur online. It can be difficult to safeguard information in the digital age for consumers and businesses alike. How can businesses strengthen their already existing security features, especially when consumers share various aspects of their lives online through social media, blogs and more?
The vast amount of information on the Internet makes it difficult to protect. As an example, a social media user shops on e-commerce websites frequently. The majority of websites have security questions as a method to retrieve passwords. A fraudster has infiltrated one e-commerce account, but ultimately wants to get the victim’s bank account.
Passwords for the e-commerce website and the bank account are not the same. However, the fraudster is aware of what bank the victim uses through the e-commerce shopping account. In an attempt to gain access to the account, the fraudster goes to change a password and receives security questions to answer. The questions include ‘what is your favorite food‘ and ‘what is your favorite musical artist’? While these may appear as general questions, in reality the questions are simple to answer because of social media.
Unknowingly, the victim has included her favorite musician and food in her About Me section on Facebook, which matches her security questions to her bank account. In doing this, the fraudster has easy access to change the account password and to lock her out.
In a world with numerous places to gain information, EVS offers Dynamic Knowledge-Based Authentication (KBA), which is crucial for banks and any type of institution that stores payment information. KBA removes the risk in processing online transactions, transferring funds, resetting passwords and more. This is accomplished by a KBA engine utilizes multiple data sources from public, private and credit databases to generate multiple-choice questions that only the account owner would know. Unlike general questions that may be found on bills, social media or through a quick Google search.
Although, the issue is significant in the banking world, the issue can affect any site that stores data and provides online transactions. | <urn:uuid:b420d50b-fca1-4d84-b566-595d23515566> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.electronicverificationsystems.com/blog/businesses-gain-protection-against-fraudsters-with-dynamic-knowledge-based-authentication | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337853.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006155805-20221006185805-00292.warc.gz | en | 0.947306 | 424 | 2.859375 | 3 |
A new AI model can predict the onset of Alzheimer’s disease more accurately than standard clinical techniques by analyzing how people describe a picture of a cookie theft, according to a new study. Researchers from IBM and Pfizer trained the model to detect signs of speech impairment in written descriptions of the image, which is frequently used to test for cognitive disorders. The transcriptions were taken from the Framingham Heart Study, which has tracked the health of more than 5,000 people and their families since 1948. The samples were collected before the participants began showing symptoms of Alzheimer‘s. The researchers then checked the Framingham Heart Study records to find out whether a diagnosis had later been made. They found that the proof-concept model can predict with 71% accuracy that someone will develop Alzheimer’s disease — seven years before it’s clinically diagnosed. IBM said that’s significantly better than the 59% accuracy of standard clinical-scale predictions that use biomedical data from a patient.
As ransomware attacks have quickly morphed over the past few years into a billion-dollar business, the groups behind them are increasingly adopting the practices and tactics of the corporate businesses they target. More and more, ransomware groups (and some argue the larger cybercrime ecosystem) are gravitating towards joint partnerships and profit sharing arrangements with other hacking groups, introducing tools to measure the efficiency of their work, creating playbooks and scripts during the negotiation phase, and adopting customer service and PR tactics from the corporate world. This shift in behavior, compared to even a few years ago, is manifesting itself in a number of ways, from establishing cooperative partnerships to taking a customer-friendly tone when negotiating with victims to writing and distributing press releases designed to market their latest successful compromise or build their brand to the broader public.
Exclusive: ‘Dumb mistake’ exposed Iranian hand behind fake Proud Boys U.S. election emails – sources
Government analysts and private sector investigators were able to rapidly attribute to Iranian hackers a wave of thousands of threatening emails aimed at U.S. voters because of mistakes made in a video attached to some of the messages, according to four people familiar with the matter. Those failures provided a rare opportunity for the U.S. government to identify and publicly announce blame for a malicious cyber operation in a matter of days, something that usually requires months of technical analysis and supporting intelligence. “Either they made a dumb mistake or wanted to get caught,” said a senior U.S. government official, who asked not to be identified. “We are not concerned about this activity being some kind of false flag due to other supporting evidence. This was Iran.” Attribution to Iranian hackers does not necessarily mean a group is working at the behest of the government there. Iranian officials denied the U.S. allegations.
Many Mac users today found, to their surprise, they are unable to print to their HP Inc printers. This is due to a code-signing snafu affecting macOS Catalina (version 10.15) and Mojave (10.14), specifically. HP’s printer driver software is cryptographically signed with a certificate that macOS uses to determine whether the application is legit and can be trusted. However, that certificate was today revoked through an XProtect update, causing the software to be rejected by Macs. A HP Inc spokesperson told us on Friday night: We unintentionally revoked credentials on some older versions of Mac drivers. This caused a temporary disruption for those customers and we are working with Apple to restore the drivers. In the meantime, we recommend users experiencing this problem to uninstall the HP driver and use the native AirPrint driver to print to their printer.
Russian state nationals accused of wielding life-threatening malware specifically designed to tamper with critical safety mechanisms at a petrochemical plant are now under sanction by the US Treasury Department. The attack drew considerable concern because it’s the first known time hackers have used malware designed to cause death or injury, a prospect that may have actually happened had it not been for a lucky series of events. The hackers—who have been linked to a Moscow-based research lab owned by the Russian government—have also targeted a second facility and been caught scanning US power grids. Now the Treasury Department is sanctioning the group, which is known as the State Research Center of the Russian Federation FGUP Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics or its Russian abbreviation TsNIIKhM. | <urn:uuid:8f8f78ad-3162-42b3-b4d3-f357c821c6b0> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://aboutdfir.com/infosec-news-nuggets-10-26-2020/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030333455.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20220924182740-20220924212740-00492.warc.gz | en | 0.956703 | 899 | 2.59375 | 3 |
A Man in the Middle (MITM) Attack is a technical term for when a hacker positions himself in a conversation between a user and an application; either to eavesdrop or to impersonate one of the parties, making it appear as if a normal exchange of information is underway. The main goal of these attacks is to steal sensitive information from the victims, such as login credentials to online accounts such as email, banking, or virtual private network.
Often these attacks occur on rogue Wi-Fi networks masquerading as the local businesses real Wi-Fi. Unsuspecting users connect to the fake Wi-Fi network and their traffic is intercepted and inspected for these juicy authentication details.
Fortunately, most websites have established https requirements which can hide authentication information unless the hacker is using an HTTPS proxy combined with spoofed DNS requests. In these cases, the hacker can pretend to be the actual website you’re attempting to log into, however, the SSL certificates can be a dead give-away that something’s amiss.
These types of attacks are often paired with phishing attacks and attempt to convince users to click malicious links or enter in personal data on a fake webpage to steal their personal information. These fake websites can have legitimate SSL certificates that avoid the earlier mentioned SSL certificate issue that comes with spoofing a legitimate website address in DNS.
- Man-in-the-Middle Attacks: A Growing But Preventable Mobile Threat
- Wiki Leaks reveals CIA’s Man-in-the-Middle Attack Tool
What does this mean for an SMB?
- Avoid Public, Unprotected WiFi networks;
- Ensure websites you are using are secured with HTTPS protocols;
- Log out of applications when not using them;
- Use a VPN to secure and encrypt your connection whenever dealing with sensitive information or transactions. | <urn:uuid:7c94039c-5aaf-4118-a706-43ee979f6a11> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://cyberhoot.com/cybrary/man-in-the-middle-attack/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335004.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20220927100008-20220927130008-00492.warc.gz | en | 0.916409 | 386 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Data Masking/Tokenization/Anonymization replaces sensitive information with fictitious data while retaining the original data format. The data masking process lets you continue to work with your data as if it were not encrypted. Databases, business applications and collaboration software continue to work as if the data was real, but unauthorized personnel only have access to the fake data and can’t extract meaningful sensitive information.
When data files containing personally identifiable information (PII), restricted health data, charge card data or intellectual property are masked, the data is no longer sensitive and data breaches no longer reveal private data. Only people you authorize can unmask and read your data. Everyone else, from hackers and other third parties to insiders and even your IT specialists sees only fake data. Your data remains safe until you authorize the intended partner to use your data.
How It Works
As individual characters are entered into an application, data masking software changes them to different characters of the same type. For example, a credit card number is made up of four blocks of four numbers. Data masking software changes the numbers to different numbers as you type them. The resulting credit card number still looks like a valid number but it is made up of random digits and is not linked to the credit card owner. As a result, the masked number is useless and is not considered PII.
The software keeps track of the changes and if you authorize someone, or some processes, to see the real data, the software changes back the credit card number to the original on the authorized person’s device. The data is masked before it leaves your device and is only legible again after it reaches an authorized partner. In between, your data is completely secure.
Data Masking Applications
While data masking can keep obviously restricted data such as PII or health information secure, the process of masking data is so secure and transparent that it can be used broadly in a variety of business situations.
While you may keep production data sets from your operations secure, production data often has to be used for non-production purposes. Typical applications that use such data are testing, training and modelling. You may want to try out new software but you have to test it first using sample data. New employees have to be trained with data that looks like the real thing. When you analyze or run models on your process, you have to use real data. In all these cases, the data is sensitive and several sets may be used within the company. Masking lets you secure this data and make sure it doesn’t get into the wrong hands
A second issue, which can be addressed successfully with data masking, is the insider threat problem. You may feel confident in your perimeter security but insiders such as subcontractors, inspectors and consultants operate within your perimeter and may have access to your data. Disgruntled employees, whistleblowers, or employees motivated to steal sensitive data pose the same kind of problem. Protecting your data inside your security perimeter using standard encryption is not a satisfactory solution because commonly used encryption makes data access complicated and limits the kind of processing you can do without decrypting the entire data set. Data masking secures your data against any insiders who are not authorized to see it. Everyone will see false data unless you give them the authorization to unmask the data.
Compliance – GDPR
All companies doing business with European citizens will have to address is that of the EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). The GDPR have been passed and come into effect in May 2018. The regulations limit what data a business can collect, what data it can keep and they impose stringent requirements for security with potentially substantial fines for data breaches.
Data masking addresses the requirements of the GDPR in two ways. Businesses can keep data they have collected if the data is anonymized. Data masking allows businesses to keep the data itself for analysis because it is no longer personally identifiable. When data is anonymized, the data is no longer subject to the GDPR (Chapter 5). Data breaches do not result in fines because no private information is disclosed. The GDPR regulations specifically mention data anonymization as a means of compliance with the regulations.
CloudMask Data Masking and Tokenization
The CloudMask patent technology (USA, Canada, and EU) uses dynamic data masking to anonymize data from the time it created on your end device to when an authorized partner uses it. This end-to-end encryption using data masking lets you continue to search, process and access your data quickly and conveniently but keeps it safe from unauthorized parties.
CloudMask is simple to set up and its implementation and operation are transparent and intuitive. The application adds an additional layer of security to your perimeter and other data security strategies.
With CloudMask, only your authorized parties can decrypt and see your data. Not hackers with your valid password, Not Cloud Providers, Not Government Agencies, and Not even CloudMask can see your protected data. Twenty-six government cybersecurity agencies around the world back these claims.
Watch our video and demo at www.vimeo.com/cloudmask
Share this article: | <urn:uuid:749b3237-c40d-4b84-ab4f-153f9bea84a2> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.cloudmask.com/blog/why-your-data-security-strategy-should-include-data-masking | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335004.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20220927100008-20220927130008-00492.warc.gz | en | 0.919827 | 1,054 | 3.125 | 3 |
In our Neu Cyber Threats weekly bulletin, we hear more and more about vulnerabilities that are discovered by cyber criminals. Eventually, they are patched – both on an operating system and application level – but there could still be some holes open for criminals to exploit. Once a patch becomes available, they can be reverse engineered by cyber criminals to develop exploits that work well on any unpatched devices. Threat actors work with speed, while users can be slow to update and upgrade.
The same could be said of the Internet of Things (IoT). An increase in the amount of devices connected to your enterprise network, without considering the security factor, is a major risk. If you follow the proper protocols, then there is no need to fear. Many of these devices have old firmware that is easy to exploit. As a result, they could become the weakest link in your armour and open a direct route to your assets.
Some IoT devices include operational backdoors, like hardcoded admin credentials intended for maintenance, which can easily be repurposed by threat actors. It begs the question: if you don’t know what devices are connected to your network, how can you defend from them if they turn malicious?
The effect of patching often and early is not going away. While patching is just one of many protection layers, it is not a fail-safe method that can completely protect your devices. Endpoint solutions can be used as a last line of defence against undiscovered vulnerabilities and new attack vectors. It is also advisable to use software that can automatically apply security updates and patches – which will ensure that all endpoints are up-to-date. | <urn:uuid:bfb4f76a-afac-4142-a7b1-ed3dd5f41fb6> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://neuways.com/reduce-cyber-security-bad-habits/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335276.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20220928180732-20220928210732-00492.warc.gz | en | 0.95968 | 343 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Data Strategydescribes a set of choices and decisions that together, chart a course of action to achieve high-level goals. This includes business plans to use information to a competitive advantage and support enterprise goals.
Data Governanceis a collection of practices and processes which help to ensure the formal management of data assets within an organization.
Data Managementis an administrative process that includes acquiring, validating, storing, protecting, and processing required data to ensure the accessibility, reliability, and timeliness of the data for its users.
Analyticsis the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. Analytics also entails applying data patterns towards effective decision making.
DescriptiveDescriptive analytics is the examination of data or content, usually manually performed, to discover what has happened - characterized by traditional business intelligence (BI) and visualizations such as pie charts, bar charts, line graphs, tables, or generated narratives.
PrescriptivePrescriptive analytics focuses on finding the best course of action in a scenario, given the available data. Prescriptive analytics gathers data from a variety of both descriptive and predictive sources for its models and applies them to the process of decision-making.
PredictivePredictive analytics is the use of data, statistical algorithms and machine learning techniques to identify the likelihood of future outcomes based on historical data. The goal is to go beyond knowing what has happened to providing a best assessment of what will happen in the future.
AI and IoTArtificial Intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.
Automationis the technology by which a process or procedure is performed with minimal human assistance.
Roboticsis the design of intelligent machines that can help and assist humans in their day-to-day lives and keep everyone safe. Robotics are mostly used in assembly line work to replace humans.
Our Approach to Data StrategyData has become the new business currency. Companies must harness the power of data in today’s digital landscape. Data is critical to gaining business insight, but must be managed effectively while maintaining governance. An effective data strategy should ask the right questions and implement data analysis and modeling processes to answer them.
Key Services in Digital Strategy
Advice to effectively align your strategy with your data governance and management requirements.
Best Practices Consulting
Best practices consulting in descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive data analytics.
Automation architecture strategy to achieve better use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
of startups have adopted a digital business strategy, compared to 38% of traditional companies
By 2023, more than
of large organizations will have analysts practicing decision intelligence, including decision modeling
of employees at digitally mature companies say innovation is a strength of the company
By 2023, graph technologies will facilitate rapid decision making in
of organizations worldwide
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“ESI is in fact an extension of our technology service, completing our team of experts. Our data is available 365 days a year, 24/7. So ESI, by recommending Cisco products, brought us peace of mind.”
“ESI really helped simplify much of the management of the platform and create a much more agile and capable platform for us to run our business. They got to know our business and our people and really focused on how to help drive better business decisions.” | <urn:uuid:2f1140e8-ce8a-4dd1-8b99-e615340668b6> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.esitechnologies.com/digital-transformation/data-strategy/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335424.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20220930020521-20220930050521-00492.warc.gz | en | 0.927689 | 868 | 2.671875 | 3 |
What Do Data Scientists Do? A Guide to AI Maturity, Challenges, and Solutions
The future of business depends on artificial intelligence and machine learning.
According to IDC, 83% of CEOs want their organizations to be more data-driven. 87% of CXOs shared that becoming an intelligent enterprise was their top priority.
Data scientists could be your key to unlocking the potential of the Information Revolution—but what do data scientists do? How can they help you determine strategy and attain your business goals?
What Do Data Scientists Do?
Data scientists drive business outcomes. Many implement machine learning and artificial intelligence to tackle challenges in the age of Big Data. They develop and continuously optimize AI/ML models, collaborating with stakeholders across the enterprise to inform decisions that drive strategic business value.
What data scientists do is directly tied to an organization’s AI maturity level.
Awareness and Activation
When businesses enter the AI arena for the first time, they’re often tempted to look for accelerated results and immediate growth. However, caution and careful planning are essential in this stage. Decision makers need to trust application leaders to guide the incremental steps that AI initiatives require.
Once an organization has identified its AI use cases, data scientists informally explore methodologies and solutions relevant to the business’s needs in the hunt for proofs of concept. These might include—but are not limited to—deep learning, image recognition and natural language processing. Sometimes, even a simple linear regression might do the trick.
At this level, the data science team will be small or nonexistent. But potential use cases could increase after AI delivers promising results and organizational confidence grows.
Businesses will then require more information-literate staff, but they’ll need to contend with an ongoing shortage of data scientists. As a result, they’ll require upskilling initiatives or additional data scientists.
If you’re just getting started with AI and ML, technology can help you bridge gaps in your workforce and institutional knowledge. Platforms like DataRobot AI Cloud support business analysts and data scientists by simplifying data prep, automating model creation, and easing ML operations (MLOps). These features reduce the need for a large workforce of data professionals.
At the same time, automated ML tools can augment your existing data professionals’ expertise without sacrificing their time. Automation also makes AI-driven forecast models possible at scale, which further minimizes your costs by accurately forecasting demand.
At the operational level, organizations have deployed several AI models serving different business needs into production. As a result, initiatives have buy-in from executives and a dedicated budget. Increased scale and integration into a wide array of business processes means that data scientists need to tackle growing AI and ML project backlogs.
At this level, where business requests for models start trickling in, data scientists focus on accelerating ML model building and use-case prioritization. They work cross-functionally, from data ingestion to model deployment.
Challenges at this stage are associated with the organization’s growing AI and ML footprint. Collaboration often hinders efficiency as teams and projects scale. As a result, organizations need a standardized platform that enables seamless collaboration between data scientists, business analysts, IT, and other groups across the enterprise.
If your business operates at this level, it’s likely that you still need to optimize your limited workforce. An enterprise cloud platform featuring a unified environment built for continuous optimization can help you accelerate building, testing, and experimenting with AI models and reduce demands on your data professionals.
If your business is at this stage, the automation available through enterprise AI platforms can optimize your time and budget even further. Features like DataRobot Automated Machine Learning and Automated Time Series reduce backlogs by augmenting your data scientists’ expertise and rapidly applying advanced forecasting models.
Finally, tools that streamline delivery and enable accurate forecasting through automation will power growth and help you anticipate demand. It will go a long way to significantly amplify the productivity of your data scientists.
Organizations at this level have reached an advanced stage of AI maturity. With a robust ML infrastructure in place, these enterprises consider implementing AI for all digital projects. Groups across the enterprise, including process and application design, understand the value of data. So, AI-powered applications can provide benefits throughout the business ecosystem.
Companies at this stage will likely have a team of ML engineers dedicated to creating data pipelines, versioning data, and maintaining operations monitoring data, models & deployments.
By now, data scientists have witnessed success optimizing internal operations and external offerings through AI. They work to re-train and optimize AI models as they mitigate model bias to ensure fairness and align with corporate ethics. As the internal footprint of AI increases, teams need to secure proper model governance to mitigate risk in compliance with regulations.
Organizations at this level still face many challenges. Meanwhile, maintaining intellectual property (IP) due to workforce churn can break processes and necessitate costly and time-consuming reverse engineering.
Finally, data scientists ensure proper AI governance, ethics, and risk management to avoid unintended or unforeseen effects. The more organizations rely on AI and ML, the more risk they’ll experience related to regulatory compliance.
Time and budget are also crucial considerations. A centralized platform like DataRobot MLOps provides a single solution for deploying, monitoring, managing, and governing all production models. It can significantly reduce both the time and the investment that operationalizing your ML requires.
Technology also mitigates the issues that arise from scale and churn. Streamlining deployment with a unified MLOps platform saves you time and money at scale, maintaining peak performance—even as your AI initiatives grow. A full-featured enterprise platform also helps sustain your IP by establishing robust governance protocols, regardless of your staff turnover rates.
Data Scientists: The Engine of an AI-driven Enterprise
Depending on your organization’s AI maturity, data scientists can cover a wide range of responsibilities and functions. Their relevance to your business depends on the stage of your AI journey.
The rapid proliferation of AI and ML in the face of a data science talent shortage means that automation is becoming increasingly important. When hiring more team members is tricky, automation is your only option for growth.
Regardless of the maturity of your AI program, choosing a holistic platform will help your data scientists accelerate deployment and optimize their models to meet business needs and drive results. | <urn:uuid:f79d48a9-17d3-4b56-bb6c-71e14533eaf8> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.datarobot.com/blog/what-do-data-scientists-do-a-guide-to-ai-maturity-challenges-and-solutions/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337473.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20221004023206-20221004053206-00492.warc.gz | en | 0.925839 | 1,319 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Analysis of vulnerabilities discovered by NCC Group researchers over the last nine years found that instances of common web-based vulnerabilities have largely refused to fall over during this time, with cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities appearing the most frequently.
The global cyber security and risk mitigation expert found that despite this type of vulnerability being understood across the industry for decades, XSS flaws, which enable attackers to inject malicious scripts into websites or victim browsers, still account for 18% of all bugs logged.
However, some classes of bugs have become almost non-existent, including format string flaws, in which submitted data is evaluated as a command by the application, as well as some memory-related flaws, and flaws that allow the exploitation of XML applications and services.
Overall, the team uncovered vulnerabilities in 53 different categories, and found that there was an increase in the number of bugs targeting complex applications and hardware. This included deserialization flaws – when untrusted data is used to abuse the logic of an application and inflict DDoS or remote code attacks – and the exploitation of multiple low-risk issues in a chain across a complex web application, resulting in full, unauthorised control.
Read more: Help Net Security | <urn:uuid:896a773d-11c7-471f-b1a3-ca8eb1457fde> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.globaldots.com/resources/blog/same-web-based-vulnerabilities-still-prevalent-after-nine-years/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337473.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20221004023206-20221004053206-00492.warc.gz | en | 0.943399 | 246 | 2.796875 | 3 |
A virtual network allows companies and individuals to create a network that exists between computers and servers, in spite of local differences. This allows for many benefits from remote access capabilities to making it easier to troubleshoot and fix issues. In this article, we’ll discuss virtual networking and the role it plays in business.
What is Virtual Networking?
A virtual network is a network where all devices, servers, virtual machines, and data centers that are connected are done so through software and wireless technology. This allows the reach of the network to be expanded as far as it needs to for peak efficiency, in addition to numerous other benefits.
A local area network, or LAN, is a kind of wired network that can usually only reach within the domain of a single building. A wide area network, or WAN, is another kind of wired network, but the computers and devices connected to the network can stretch over a half-mile in some cases.
Conversely, a virtual network doesn’t follow the conventional rules of networking because it isn’t wired at all. Therefore, all devices that interact with each other in the network do so through internet technology, allowing them to have a further reach than they would have if they were wired. The network itself is as limitless as the internet. Like many of the services we hear about in the cloud when a service provider offers third party networking services to companies, this is sometimes referred to as Networking-as-a-Service or NaaS.
Virtual Network: How it Works
A virtual network uses modern technology to create an extended network that works wirelessly. This includes:
- vSwitch Software: Virtualization software on host servers that allows you to set up and configure a virtual network.
- Virtual network adapter: Creates a gateway between networks.
- Physical network: Required as a host for the virtual network infrastructure.
- Virtual machines and devices: Instruments that connect to the network and allow various functionality.
- Servers: Part of the network host infrastructure.
- Firewalls and security: Designed for monitoring and stopping security threats.
There are three classes of virtual networks, VPN, VLAN, and VXLAN:
VPN stands for virtual private network. Essentially, a VPN uses the internet to connect two or more existing networks. This internet-based virtual network allows users to log in from anywhere to access the physical networks that are connected. VPNs are also used for masking internet use on public WiFi and ensuring secure browsing. A VPN is created when data attached to packets defines routing information that takes users to the applicable address. In doing this, a tunnel of addresses is created, encrypting the browsing history and making it possible to access information remotely. VPNs provided a small-scope, fully virtual network that uses the internet to allow for people to connect.
A virtual LAN network, or VLAN, uses partitions to group devices on a LAN network into domains with resources and configurations that are applied to each. Using a VLAN allows for better security, monitoring, and management of the devices and servers within a specific domain. This is especially true for large networks that may be more vulnerable to attack when domains are not used and monitored individually.
VXLAN means virtual extensible local area network. In this network, your level 3 network infrastructure provides a tunnel into level 2. Virtual switches create endpoints for each tunnel, and another piece of technology, called a physical or virtual base case, can route data between endpoints.
Benefits of Virtual Networking
There are many benefits to virtual networking, these include:
- Remote work capabilities: Virtual networking allows people to access their networks from anywhere in the world.
- Digital security: By using virtual networking, you can make your networks more secure through the application of features, like tunneling encryption and domain segments.
- Streamlines hardware: By using vSwitches to route functions from one place to another, enterprise businesses can reduce the amount of hardware they need to access, maintain, and monitor.
- Flexibility and scalability: Because it’s virtual and not much hardware is required to create a virtual network, it’s easier to scale at a lower cost of ownership. Scaling takes a few tweaks to the software and configurations but does not necessarily require a lot of equipment.
- Cost savings: By reducing hardware, businesses benefit by saving money on hardware costs and maintenance.
- Productivity: Because networks can be configured more quickly
Virtual Networking and Contemporary Business
In a changing world, virtual networking plays an important role in any digital business model. It’s an evolution of technology that addresses the need for remote accessibility, security, flexibility, scalability, and cost savings. Like many services that enterprise businesses can outsource, doing so has benefits in terms of time, money, and valuable resources that can be better spent ensuring all of your technology is meeting your business needs.
As societal conditions require that more people work remotely, virtual networking and NaaS services will continue to become more and more essential to all businesses. Increasing virtual networking capabilities may be the next phase in digital transformation for businesses that have already undergone the process of becoming a digital enterprise. For instance, expanding your company’s virtual network to include more than a simple VPN for the added boost in productivity is one way businesses can continue to evolve in the digital world. | <urn:uuid:7bd870d4-33ad-42eb-a690-4ca43abeb961> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.bmc.com/blogs/virtual-network/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337625.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005105356-20221005135356-00492.warc.gz | en | 0.922101 | 1,110 | 3.53125 | 4 |
What is Catfishing?
Catfishing refers to when a person takes information and images, typically from other people, and uses them to create a new identity for themselves. In some cases, a catfisher steals another individual’s complete identity—including their image, date of birth, and geographical location—and pretends that it is their own. The catfisher then uses this identity to trick other people into associating with them or doing business online.
In some cases, a single person is targeted for a catfishing attack. In these instances, a catfisher may develop an identity that they feel will appeal to their catfishing target. Catfishing has long been common in online dating forums and websites. Because the catfisher can hide any or all of their true identity without being questioned, people would often fake certain aspects of their profile to lure in their targets. This often includes using a profile picture they stole from someone else to appear more attractive.
The catfish meaning also often includes falsifying professions, locations, and likes and dislikes. When someone only fakes a few or relatively insignificant elements of their identity, it is referred to as kitten fishing.
Why Is It Called Catfishing?
The practice of catfishing online has been around for many years, simply because it is so easy to falsify your identity on the internet. The term “catfish” became popular after a documentary named Catfish was released in 2010. Afterward, MTV launched a TV series called “Catfish” in 2012.
How Does Catfishing Relate to Cyberbullying?
Cyberbullying involves repeated attempts to embarrass, humiliate, or harm someone using online resources. Catfishing is therefore a form of cyberbullying because the target is harmed as the catfisher plays games with their mind.
In addition, catfishing often involves luring people into artificial relationships to learn information the attacker can use against the victim. Once they have enough information to embarrass the target or attempt to destroy their reputation, they release the information given to them in trust.
Cyberbullies make a habit of using the emotions of their targets against them. This is often accomplished by identifying a physical trait, aspect of their personal history, or something that makes them feel depressed, scared, or sad. The catfisher then uses this against their victim. Catfishers also tend to target people who are lonely or have expressed a need for a romantic relationship, whether online or in person. Abusing these vulnerabilities puts catfishing in the cyberbullying category.
Why Do People Catfish?
People catfish for a number of reasons. Some do not involve malicious intent, while others directly seek to harm specific people. Some of the primary reasons behind catfishing include:
- Insecurity: If a catfisher feels bad about who they are in real life, they may try to create an identity that conforms more closely to what they wish they could be. This often includes using photos of someone they feel is better-looking than them. They may also pretend to have a successful career to experience how it feels to be admired for their “accomplishments.” Catfishers who assume attractive identities may also be trying to garner a lot of “friends” and attention online to feel more popular.
- Concealing their identity: There are several reasons why people want to conceal their identity online. When no one knows who you are, it is easier to troll people on discussion boards because of the lack of repercussions. Some people intend to cheat on their spouse or significant other and feel the best way to get away with it is to falsify their identity. In other instances, a person hides their identity to extort money from someone else. If the person figures out the scam, they cannot tell authorities who the attacker is because of the catfisher's false persona.
- Mental illness: In some cases, people who suffer from depression or chronic anxiety may choose to get involved in catfishing. As they assume another person’s identity, they gain the confidence they need to associate with others and live what they feel is a more “normal” online life. With a more attractive, successful, or gregarious identity, they get a self-esteem boost whenever they engage with others online.
- Revenge: Some catfishers seek revenge on the person they are impersonating. They use the person’s name and face and create an online identity. Then they say or do things online that make the person look bad—or even get involved in illegal activity in the target’s name.
- Experimenting with sexual preferences: Some catfishers use the practice to explore their sexual identities. They assume the sexual preference they are interested in online, using an identity different from their own. As they engage in social interactions under that identity, they get a sense of how it would feel to live that lifestyle full-time.
- To harass their target: When someone has been trying to stalk, bother, or pursue someone online, the target often blocks the aggressor on one or more social media platforms. When this happens, the attacker may use catfishing to continue their pursuits. Even though the victim does not know who they are interacting with, the catfisher, once accepted as a friend or follower, is still able to see the target’s posts and pictures. In this way, they can keep tabs on what they are doing, when, and with whom.
A common thread among many of the reasons why people catfish is an absence of self-confidence. When people are either personally dissatisfied with themselves or feel their real identity is not good enough to accomplish a certain objective, they may assume another “self” to feel better or attain the desired result.
In other cases, the catfisher lacks the self-confidence needed to express themselves openly, but under the guise of a false identity, they feel they can be who they want to be.
How To Tell If You're Being Catfished: 7 Possible Signs
What does it mean to be catfished? It can be hard to tell when you are being catfished, particularly if the catfisher’s profile is detailed and thorough. However, if you notice any of the seven following signs, you may be the victim of a catfishing scam.
1. They Do Not Have Many Friends or Followers
Catfishers often do not have many friends or followers on their accounts. This is due to a few different reasons. First, the account is typically created for a specific reason: to catfish a particular target. They may only use the account for that purpose but use their real social media accounts for more genuine interactions. Therefore, they may not invest the time needed to populate their catfishing account with friends or followers.
Often, to gain connections on social media, a user has to self-market, reach out to others, view posts, and like online content or follow profiles. This may take considerable time, and a catfisher may not invest the time and energy to generate enough followers for the account to look “real.”
Another reason is to reduce the chances of being caught. The more friends or followers a catfisher has, the more questions may be asked regarding their identity, their profession, or their location. Each query could result in a slip-up, so limiting the number of contacts helps mitigate the catfisher’s risk.
The risk of getting discovered is also increased when the catfisher has more friends because accepting a friend suggestion verifies a connection made by the social media site's algorithm. For example, if Facebook recommends someone as a friend, it may be because they live in your area or went to the same school. If a catfisher only changed how they looked or a few other basic elements of their identity, someone who knows how the suggestion algorithm generally works could figure out they are not who they say they are. Therefore, the fewer friends a catfisher has, the smaller the chances of them being discovered.
2. They Never Want To Call/Video Call
If someone refuses to video chat or engage in a phone call, they may be trying to keep you from seeing how they really look or hearing what they really sound like. In most cases, the catfisher will invent excuses as to why they cannot talk or video chat.
For example, each time you agree to a time to connect, something comes up, or they claim their schedule is inundated with appointments. They may also pretend to be ashamed of how they look due to a serious illness, such as cancer. Another excuse may be they are traveling or in the middle of visiting family. Regardless of the excuse provided, repeated rejections of a visual or aural meetup may indicate you are being catfished.
3. Their Profile Picture Remains the Same
Because a catfisher only has access to so many false profile pictures of the person whose look they are stealing, they may keep the same profile picture for many years. If you notice that the person is, for example, 45 years old, but their profile picture looks closer to 35, they may be falsifying their identity.
A catfisher may be able to grab several pictures of the same person online and then roll them out one by one as months or years go by. However, the pictures they take may have all been snatched at the same time, making them look as if they are not aging as time passes.
4. They Avoid Meeting Up
A face-to-face meetup is a catfisher’s nightmare. There is no surer way for their false identity to be compromised. A catfisher who lives close to you will be easier to spot if they refuse to meet up, regardless of how public the intended location is.
If the catfisher lives farther away, it can be easy for them to repeatedly use that as an excuse. In that case, if you are suspicious, you can always recommend a video call. If they are not open to that it is highly likely you are being catfished.
5. Their Stories Do Not Add Up
Assuming another identity requires a string of flawlessly executed lies. It is easy for a careless catfisher to slip up. For example, if someone claims to live in one area of the country but is suddenly in your area, they may be trying to intensify their connection with you through closer “proximity.” Sudden adjustments such as this are easy to spot.
In other instances, the catfisher may claim to have attended a certain high school or university but knows little about the location or the institution itself.
6. They Ask You for Money
If your suspected catfisher asks for money or a gift, your suspicions are likely correct. Even if you have already formed an emotional or business connection with the person, it is best to refuse their request. In general, you should never send money to someone whose identity you cannot confirm.
7. They Are Over the Top
If you are in contact with someone you have never met and they make overly committal claims like they love you or want to engage in a major business venture with you, they may be catfishing you. It is likely they feel a grand gesture may win your trust.
How Fortinet Can Help
A proactive security approach is essential to address these threats. Deception technology is one such approach. Deception technology is a method of uncovering the bad actors and their tactics.
It can be difficult to avoid being catfished in the first place, but there is much you can do to prevent falling for the scam. Always be cautious when talking to people online. Default to not trusting them, at least until they fully earn your trust. Never give money to anyone online if you are not confident in who they are.
Do not be afraid to ask questions even if you feel like you are “prying.” If something feels off, talk about it with someone you trust and listen to their opinions regarding any red flags they notice. Their emotional distance can give them a clearer perspective.
What does it mean to catfish someone?
Catfishing refers to when a person takes information and images, typically from other people, and uses them to create a new identity for themselves.
What do you do if you get catfished?
If you get catfished, you should discontinue all association with the catfisher, block them on your social media accounts, and report them. Also, stop all payments you may have made to them, and contact the authorities if you are being defrauded of money or property.
Why do people catfish?
People catfish because they have low self-esteem or want to use a fake identity to gain someone’s trust for the sake of defrauding them. People also catfish to ruin someone’s reputation or engage in cyberbullying.
How can you tell if someone is a catfisher?
If someone will not meet up with you, either in person or via video or voice call, has a profile picture that rarely or never changes, asks you for money, or has very few friends or followers, they may be a catfisher. | <urn:uuid:42f493ee-2d64-46b9-8e30-bf383755b2ad> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/catfishing | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337855.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20221006191305-20221006221305-00492.warc.gz | en | 0.962239 | 2,756 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Many different client technologies such as web, mobile, cloud and more – send messages to business applications using XML. In order for the application to work with these self-descriptive XML messages, it has to parse them and check that the format is correct.
This article will describe XML External Entity (XXE) injection attack and its basics in order to provide you with a better understanding of the attack and how to deal with it.
Since we will be talking about XXE injection, first we should understand the meaning of external entities and what they allow us to achieve.
External entities refer to data that an XML processor has to parse. They are useful for creating a common reference that can be shared between multiple documents. Any changes that are made to external entities are automatically updated in the documents which contain references to them. Meaning, XML uses external entities to fetch information or “content” – into the body of the XML document. | <urn:uuid:93a512a6-9509-4a56-9cb6-ffdc933d9ca6> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://appsec-labs.com/portal/2016/09/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030333541.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220924213650-20220925003650-00692.warc.gz | en | 0.939135 | 190 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information for connecting autonomous systems (AS is a term that is used to indicate a fully operational, independent network) to the Internet. BGP is what is used for routing on the Internet. BGP has visibility to all Internet networks, mapping them out as Autonomous Systems and which Autonomous Systems a packet flow has to go through as it makes its way from source to destination IP addresses.
The paths or routes between Autonomous Systems are composed of the ASN identifier of every AS in the route to a given destination AS. The BGP routing protocol is used by border routers to “advertise” these routes to and from an AS to other systems that need them in order to deliver traffic to another network.
The advertising of routes helps a network operator in two ways that are critical to efficiently managing traffic flows across their networks. The first is to make informed routing decisions concerning the best path for a particular route to take outbound from a network. Otherwise border routers would default to the same route for all traffic flows destined for transit providers. Secondly, operators can advertise their routes to those transit providers, for them to make available to peering routers and external transit routers for their use.
Analyzing BGP paths is a very effective way to understand how network traffic is traversing the Internet. BGP routing information alone, however, does not provide visibility to how much traffic is on any given path. In order to do this, the BGP data needs to be correlated with IPFIX data so that not only the paths available in the network are shown, but also what paths are actually being used and the traffic volume on each path between autonomous systems.
Support for BGP fields in IPFIX enables the export of source AS, destination AS, and BGP next hop information. BGP next hop data provided the possibility for network engineers to know which BGP peer, and hence which neighbor AS, outbound traffic was flowing through. More recently, traffic flow analysis solutions have used BGP passive peerings to gather routing updates directly from the protocol.
This enables various use cases for network monitoring and peering analysis:
This analysis can be used by network operators to answer fundamental questions about their network including:
BGP IPFIX Analysis correlates IPFIX records with BGP routing info to not only visualize AS paths but see how much traffic is traversing these paths in real-time. BGP-based peering analysis can be performed on this data in real-time using different filters without building a presentation dataset from scratch. Real-time analysis of the full dataset means that the number of operationally relevant use cases explodes, because the number of different questions that you can ask is never limited by predefined reporting tables that you’ve had to populate in advance.
In this approach, the combination of filters on which you can run a query in real time is nearly infinite. And because you can ask what you want when you want, it’s possible to enable a completely interactive — and therefore far more intuitive — presentation of BGP traffic paths.
To get other expert perspectives and details on BGP and NetFlow, sFlow and IPFIX analysis see these blog posts…
The Kentik Network Observability Cloud offers a modern, SaaS-based approach to network performance monitoring and diagnostics, combining flow-based monitoring, cloud network observability and synthetic monitoring features that allow for proactive monitoring of all types of networks.
Start a free trial to try it yourself. | <urn:uuid:a1ff9ff7-407f-40a4-a1a2-163447e4e71c> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.kentik.com/kentipedia/bgp-ipfix-analysis/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030333541.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220924213650-20220925003650-00692.warc.gz | en | 0.940194 | 725 | 4 | 4 |
Researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on August 16 have found an unexpected difference between men and women. On average, their studies show, men pick up on visual motion significantly faster than women do.
Individuals representing both sexes are good at reporting whether black and white bars on a screen are moving to the left or to the right—requiring only a tenth of a second and often much less to make the right call, the researchers found. But, in comparison to men, women regularly took about 25 to 75 percent longer.
The researchers say that the faster perception of motion by males may not necessarily reflect better visual processing.
They note that similar performance enhancements in this same task have been observed in individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or depression and in older individuals.
The authors speculate that processes in the brain that down-regulate neural activity are disrupted in these conditions and may also be weaker in males.
“We were very surprised,” says Scott Murray at the University of Washington, Seattle.
“There is very little evidence for sex differences in low-level visual processing, especially differences as large as those we found in our study.”
Murray and co-author Duje Tadin, University of Rochester, say that the finding was “entirely serendipitous.”
They were using the visual motion task to study processing differences in individuals with ASD.
ASD shows a large sex bias, with boys being about four times more likely to be diagnosed with the condition than girls.
As a result, the researchers included sex as a factor in their analysis of control individuals in the study who didn’t have ASD.
The sex difference in visual perception of motion became immediately apparent.
To confirm the findings, the researchers asked other investigators who had used the same task in their own experiments for additional data representing larger numbers of study participants.
And those independent data showed the same pattern of sex difference.
Murray, Tadin, and colleagues report that the observed sex difference in visual perception can’t be explained by general differences in the speed of visual processing, overall visual discrimination abilities, or potential motor-related differences. The differences aren’t apparent in functional MRI images of the brain either.
Overall, they write, the results show how sex differences can manifest unexpectedly.
They also highlight the importance of including sex as a factor in the design and analysis of perceptual and cognitive studies.
The researchers say that the findings come as evidence that visual processing differs in males and females in ways that hadn’t been recognized.
They also provide a new window into differences in neural mechanisms that process visual information, Tadin says.
In further studies, the researchers hope to discover the underlying differences in the brain that may explain the discrepancy between men and women.
So far, brain images of the key motion-processing areas haven’t offered up any clues, suggesting that the difference may originate in other portions of the brain or may be difficult to measure using current techniques.
Ultimately, they say, this path of study might even yield new clues for understanding a vexing question: why ASD is more common in males.
More information: Current Biology, Murray et al.: “Sex Differences in Visual Motion Processing” http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)30776-0 , DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.014 | <urn:uuid:00201fbc-5c5f-420f-a311-46006714a045> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://debuglies.com/2018/08/17/researchers-reporting-in-the-journal-current-biology-on-august-16-have-found-an-unexpected-difference-between-men-and-women/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334802.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20220926051040-20220926081040-00692.warc.gz | en | 0.94047 | 716 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Public blockchain consensus algorithms – the most famous of which is Bitcoin’s “Proof of Work” – literally create order out of chaos. They produce an agreed ordering of potentially contentious entries made in real-time on a shared ledger, in a special case where we choose to have no administrator to rule on the sequence in which entries are received, creating an official account of all transactions (and that's actually all the Bitcoin blockchain does).
“Consensus” is one of those beguiling properties of blockchain – along with “trust” and “decentralised” – which are actually difficult to generalise beyond the narrow confines of the cryptocurrency use case. The consensus reached in the public blockchains is not what many people think it is. Instead of a general type of agreement, blockchain consensus is tightly defined for a singular purpose. In most of the broader business applications for which blockchains are being planned or deployed, we don’t need to reach “consensus” about the state of a ledger in the same way as Bitcoin does, because we have different authority structures. It is important to appreciate the special purpose of blockchain consensus, so that the algorithm doesn’t add enormous overhead and real-time delays in cases where it is not warranted.
The problem space of the Bitcoin blockchain is non-fiat digital money; that is, electronic cash transacted with no intermediaries or regulator, and no registration of account holders. Since the 1990s at least, there had been stored value smartcard and digital money solutions using a central reserve or “mint” to oversee transactions and prevent Double Spend (Mondex and David Chaum’s Digicash being the prime examples). However, many cryptocurrency advocates reject central control, and thus remained unhappy with these architectures, until the arrival of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008.
Nakamoto’s pioneering blockchain architecture cleverly crowd-sources the monitoring of each and every Bitcoin transaction, with the network periodically reaching agreement on blocks of accepted transactions, which it commits to the shared ledger. Account holders do not need to be registered but are allowed to generate their own keys as they join the network. Nobody knows which user goes with which key pair; the blockchain ascribes transactions to key pairs, and the community simply assumes that users remain in control of their keys. If a private key is lost or destroyed, then the corresponding balance can never be spent again; if a private key is stolen or copied, its original owner has no recourse to a system operator.
The consensus reached by the blockchain is about one thing only: the order in which transactions are deemed to have occurred. Agreement on ordering of the ledger is sufficient to prevent Double Spend of the cryptocurrency. In later generation synchronous ledgers without an intrinsic underlying currency, like Hyperledger Fabric, this function is explicitly named the Ordering Service.
Consensus about the order of ledger entries cannot be readily generalised to any other property of the data. Anyone contemplating broader blockchain applications should be wary of how the word “consensus” can be stretched too far.
Furthermore, the architects of non-fiat cryptocurrency are at liberty to simply reject central administration as they build their special new world. Yet very few real-world business settings are like that. If a program has a natural or inherent administrator (as with education, healthcare, elections or land titles) then it doesn’t need to crowdsource any question about the state of its data. There isn't much that a distributed consensus algorithm can tell that the administrator can’t work out for itself, more quickly and for far less cost.
Finally remember that blockchain consensus creates order out of the deliberate chaos of cryptocurrency where key holders are allowed to go unregistered. In many of the extended blockchain use cases – such as Internet of Things or supply chain – there is no such disorder. IoT devices tend to have serial-numbered chips to securely hold the private keys; supply chain operators are generally authorised employees, typically using dedicated terminal equipment in warehouses, field locations and delivery vehicles. These types of networks are orderly to begin with, and don’t need an elaborate consensus algorithm to work out what’s going on.
When analysing potential blockchain use cases, always ask precisely what any consensus is about, and what’s the point of it. What do you need to know about the application’s users in operation? And is it beneficial to crowdsource the monitoring of a user network if it’s cheaper or more natural to have a manager? | <urn:uuid:87fad057-8a3b-4331-b6eb-1b8e081628eb> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.constellationr.com/blog-news/what-blockchain-consensus-all-about | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335286.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20220928212030-20220929002030-00692.warc.gz | en | 0.936678 | 934 | 3 | 3 |
The foundation of cognitive automation is software that adds intelligence to information-intensive processes. It is frequently referred to as the union of cognitive computing and robotic process automation (RPA), or AI.
By utilizing AI technology, cognitive automation broadens and enhances the set of tasks normally associated with RPA, resulting in cost savings, increased customer satisfaction, and increased accuracy in intricate business processes involving unstructured data.
Table of Contents
What is cognitive automation?
Various combinations of artificial intelligence (AI) with process automation capabilities are referred to as cognitive automation to improve business outcomes.
Cognitive automation represents a range of strategies that enhance automation’s ability to gather data, make decisions, and scale automation. It also suggests how AI and automation capabilities may be packaged for best practices documentation, reuse, or inclusion in an app store for AI services.
A McKinsey study found that organizations using cognitive automation solutions could:
- Automate between 50 and 70 percent of the tasks.
- Reduce the time it takes to process data by 50% to 60%.
- Reduce annual labor costs by 20 to 30%
- Achieve triple-digit ROI
Let’s see some of the cognitive automation examples for better understanding.
Is it sound beneficial, right? So, let’s explore all of the cognitive automation benefits.
Cognitive automation benefits
What is the advantage of cognitive automation? It increases the effectiveness and caliber of responses produced by computers. 20% or less of service desk contacts now include cognitive activities. The following elements make cognitive automation the upcoming major improvement for operations at the enterprise level:
- Operational efficiency
- Highly accurate (eliminate human errors)
- Facts-based decision making
- Faster than humans
- Scalable beyond headcount
- Better use of staff for higher-value tasks
- Predictable and consistent
- Available 7/24
- Compatible with existing technology
There are many advantages of cognitive automation but do you know where to use them?
Cognitive automation examples & use cases
What is a cognitive automation example? It is best represented in real-life use cases. Do you want to know how a cognitive automation solution might work in your company? Here is a list of some use cases and cognitive automation examples to aid your comprehension:
- Warehouse management (Airbus & Splunk)
- End-to-end customer service (Religare)
- On-boarding and off-boarding employees (Asurion & ServiceNow)
- Handling batch operations (Splunk & Freecharge)
- Logistics operations (Postnord & Digitate)
- Managing IT infrastructure in manufacturing (Tata Steel & Digitate)
- Sales experience (Bookmyshow & Splunk)
- Supervising telecom requests (TalkTalk & Splunk)
Warehouse management (Airbus & Splunk)
Managing all the warehouses a business operates in its many geographic locations is difficult. Some of the duties involved in managing the warehouses include maintaining a record of all the merchandise available, ensuring all machinery is maintained at all times, resolving issues as they arise, etc.
Cognitive automation enters the scene in this situation. Once implemented, the solution aids in maintaining a record of the equipment and stock condition. Every time it notices a fault or a chance that an error will occur, it raises an alert.
These processes need to be taken care of in runtime for a company that manufactures airplanes like Airbus since they are significantly more crucial.
The Cognitive Automation solution from Splunk has been integrated into Airbus’s systems. Splunk’s dashboards enable businesses to keep tabs on the condition of their equipment and keep an eye on distant warehouses.
End-to-end customer service (Religare)
Businesses can comprehend the client journey and pinpoint the encounters that could benefit from automation.
For instance, Religare, a well-known health insurance provider, automated its customer service using a chatbot powered by NLP and saved over 80% of its FTEs. The organization can use chatbots to carry out procedures like policy renewal, customer query ticket administration, resolving general customer inquiries at scale, etc.
On-boarding and off-boarding employees (Asurion & ServiceNow)
Having workers onboard and start working fast is one of the major bother areas for every firm. An organization invests a lot of time preparing employees to work with the necessary infrastructure. Asurion was able to streamline this process with the aid of ServiceNow‘s solution. The Cognitive Automation system gets to work once a new hire needs to be onboarded.
ServiceNow’s onboarding procedure starts before the new employee’s first work day. It provides the employee with useful Asurion-related information. It handles all the labor-intensive processes involved in settling the employee in. These include setting up an organization account, configuring an email address, granting the required system access, etc.
Moreover, imagine that a worker is quitting the company. Cognitive automation can then be used to remove the specified accesses.
Additionally, it can limit an employee’s email access to admins only. Additionally, it can gather and save staff data generated for use in the future.
Handling batch operations (Splunk & Freecharge)
The banking and financial industry relies heavily on batch activities. One of their biggest challenges is ensuring the batch procedures are processed on time. There are serious repercussions if you don’t. Organizations can monitor these batch operations with the use of cognitive automation solutions. This guarantees that they are handled promptly.
Splunk has offered Freecharge a fix. In this situation, if there are difficulties, the solution checks them, fixes them, or, as soon as possible, forwards the problem to a human operator to avoid further delays.
The automation solution also foresees the length of the delay and other follow-on effects. As a result, the company can organize and take the required steps to prevent the situation.
Logistics operations (Postnord & Digitate)
Deliveries that are delayed are the worst thing that can happen to a logistics operations unit. The customers, as well as the end users, criticize this. The parcel sorting system and automated warehouses present the most serious difficulty. They make it possible to carry out a significant amount of shipping daily.
The issues faced by Postnord were addressed, and to some extent, reduced, by Digitate‘s ignio AIOps Cognitive automation solution. Their systems are always up and running, ensuring efficient operations.
The cognitive automation solution looks for errors and fixes them if any portion fails. If not, it instantly brings it to a person’s attention for prompt resolution.
Managing IT infrastructure in manufacturing (Tata Steel & Digitate)
To assure mass production of goods, today’s industrial procedures incorporate a lot of automation. Additionally, it assists in meeting client requests and lowering costs.
Due to the extensive use of machinery at Tata Steel, problems frequently cropped up. The organization did not find this to be desirable. One problem might cause their entire production line to break down. Digitate‘s ignio, a cognitive automation technology, helps with the little hiccups to keep the system functioning. It can send notifications concerning the origin of the problems.
The cognitive solution can tackle it independently if it’s a software problem. If not, it alerts a human to address the mechanical problem as soon as possible to minimize downtime.
Sales experience (Bookmyshow & Splunk)
One of the most important parts of a business is the customer experience. This is particularly true in the competitive retail industry. Several potential problems could degrade the client experience.
Depending on where the consumer is in the purchase process, the solution periodically gives the salespeople the necessary information. This can aid the salesman in encouraging the buyer just a little bit more to make a purchase.
A cognitive automation solution for the retail industry can guarantee that all physical and online shop systems operate properly. As a result, the buyer has no trouble browsing and buying the item they want.
Check out the machine learning in retail use cases
Supervising telecom requests (TalkTalk & Splunk)
Manual duties can be more than onerous in the telecom industry, where the user base numbers millions. A cognitive automated system can immediately access the customer’s queries and offer a resolution based on the customer’s inputs. A new connection, a connection renewal, a change of plans, technical difficulties, etc., are all examples of queries.
TalkTalk received a solution from Splunk that enables the cognitive solution to manage the entire backend, giving customers access to an immediate resolution to their issues. Identifying and disclosing any network difficulties has helped TalkTalk enhance its network. As a result, they have greatly decreased the frequency of major incidents and increased uptime.
These are some of the best cognitive automation examples and use cases. However, if you are impressed by them and implement them in your business, first, you should know the differences between cognitive automation and RPA.
Cognitive automation vs RPA
What is the difference between RPA and cognitive automation? RPA is based on fundamental technologies like process automation and macro scripts that are simple to use and comprehend. It is rule-based, utilizes little coding, and processes data in an “if-then” manner. Contrarily, cognitive automation is a knowledge-based strategy. So, these are the differences between cognitive automation and RPA:
|Cognitive automation||RPA (Robotic Process Automation)|
|Functionality||Solve complex problems||Automating repetitive tasks|
|Analytics||Uses AI-based advanced analytics.||Does not use advanced analytics.|
|Technology||Extensive coding.||Minimal coding.|
|Processing approach||It uses complex processing.||Uses “if-then” logic.|
|Tools||Digitate ignio, Splunk, Moogsoft, Automation Edge||Blue Prism, Inflectra Rapise, UiPath, IBM Automation Anywhere|
According to experts, cognitive automation is the second group of tasks where machines may pick up knowledge and make decisions independently or with people’s assistance. RPA, therefore, includes cognitive automation. RPA is frequently limited to deterministic automation, though.
So, let’s take a closer look at the differences between cognitive automation and RPA.
Automating mundane and repetitive tasks is a component of RPA. Cognitive automation involves incorporating an additional layer of AI and ML.
It imitates the capability of decision-making and functioning of humans. This assists in resolving more difficult issues and gaining valuable insights from complicated data.
Use of analytics
RPA excludes the use of advanced analytics. The majority of it is an investigation of task statistics. It keeps track of the accomplishments and runs some simple statistics on it. It only needs a few commands to operate.
Complex analytics are run on the data using cognitive automation. It can carry out various tasks, including determining the cause of a problem, resolving it on its own, and learning how to remedy it.
It now has a new set of capabilities above RPA, thanks to the addition of AI and ML. Some of the capabilities of cognitive automation include self-healing and rapid triaging.
Technology in use
For RPA to work, various frameworks must be deployed and configured. It doesn’t need to be coded. If it were needed at all, it would be simple. Workflow automation, screen scraping, and macro scripts are a few of the technologies it uses.
Since cognitive automation relies on machine learning for effective operation, it necessitates extensive coding. It uses cutting-edge technologies, including text analytics, natural language processing, semantic technology, data mining, etc.
Check out the 15 real-life examples of machine learning
The way RPA processes data differs significantly from cognitive automation in several important ways.
RPA operates most of the time using a straightforward “if-then” logic since there is no coding involved. It is unable to manage many levels of exceptions. If any are found, it simply adds the issue to the queue for human resolution. This makes its capabilities and operation somewhat dependent.
Cognitive automation may imitate human thought and behavior. With the help of AI and ML, it may analyze the problems at hand, identify their underlying causes, and then provide a comprehensive solution.
Cognitive automation does move the problem to the front of the human queue in the event of singular exceptions. However, it also picks up on the human resolution method. Therefore, cognitive automation knows how to address the problem if it reappears. With time, this gains new capabilities, making it better suited to handle complicated problems and a variety of exceptions.
The following are some of the best RPA tools on the market:
- Blue Prism
- Inflectra Rapise
- IBM Automation Anywhere
The following are some of the best cognitive automation tools on the market:
- Digitate ignio
- Automation Edge
RPA or cognitive automation: Which one is better?
Selecting one or the other isn’t always the best decision to make. Organizations often start at the more fundamental end of the continuum, RPA (to manage volume), and work their way up to cognitive automation because RPA and cognitive automation define the two ends of the same continuum (to handle volume and complexity).
To determine the ideal blend of RPA and cognitive automation that is suitable for your business, other considerations, such as the type of data used (whether structured or unstructured), must be taken into account in addition to the financial implications of each type of automation.
Is cognitive automation each and every step pre-programmed?
Cognitive computing systems become intelligent enough to reason and react without needing pre-written instructions.
What is the goal of cognitive automation?
The goal of cognitive systems is to assist humans without their help. For instance, at a call center, customer service agents receive support from cognitive systems to help them engage with customers, answer inquiries, and provide better customer experiences.
Check out how artificial intelligence customer services work
New insights could be revealed thanks to cognitive computing’s capacity to take in various data properties and grasp, analyze, and learn from them. These prospective answers could be essential in various fields, particularly life science and healthcare, which desperately need quick, radical innovation.
A cognitive automation solution is a positive development in the world of automation. With a solution, organizations have greater leverage than previously.
It gives businesses a competitive advantage by enhancing their operations in numerous areas.
Are you scared of AI jargon? We have already created a detailed AI glossary for the most commonly used artificial intelligence terms and explained the basics of artificial intelligence as well as the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence for organizations and others.
Is artificial intelligence better than human intelligence? Explore the cons of artificial intelligence before you decide whether artificial intelligence in insurance is good or bad. | <urn:uuid:a74d7f74-2fc9-4bc1-90f6-d671db2ad967> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://dataconomy.com/2022/09/cognitive-automation-examples-benefits/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335444.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20220930051717-20220930081717-00692.warc.gz | en | 0.917405 | 3,132 | 2.6875 | 3 |
WHAT IS WEB APPLICATION FIREWALL?
A web application firewall (WAF) is a network defense that filters, monitors, and blocks HTTP traffic to and from a web application. Unlike a regular firewall that serves as a safety gate between servers, a WAF is able to watch application-level traffic and decide to allow or disallow based on the data that is visible over the network. WAF security typically performs SSL termination to watch decrypted traffic for pattern-matching or volumetric attacks. Organizations often deploy WAFs to detect and block known threats, but these alone cannot protect modern applications from exploitation.
WAFs may come in the form of an appliance, a server plugin, a filter, or a WAF operated by a cloud or service provider. Web application firewalls can be customized to an application, but the effort to perform this customization can be significant and needs to be maintained as the application is modified. The ideal solution is one that provides continuous visibility, application intelligence, and very rapid response. | <urn:uuid:04015c07-074c-416d-802d-77bc4372c3dc> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.contrastsecurity.com/glossary/web-application-firewall | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030336674.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20221001132802-20221001162802-00692.warc.gz | en | 0.952154 | 210 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Researchers at University of Trento Demonstrate Quantum Computers Can Be Used to Understand Functioning Biomolecules
(EurekaAlert) Great strides have been made in recent decades in the study of processes involving structural changes in proteins, using computer simulations. Now, quantum computers are a powerful tool for carrying out even more precise and complete observations, as demonstrated by the study conducted by a group of physicists of the University of Trento.
“For the first time, we demonstrate that quantum computers can be used to understand at near atomic detail the functioning of biomolecules”, explains Pietro Faccioli, author of the scientific article together with colleague Philipp Hauke and student Giovanni Mattiotti. Using this technology, the researchers of the Physics Department of the University of Trento have developed a method to compute changes in protein shape and trajectory. A breakthrough that has implications for molecular biology, pharmacology and nanotechnologies.
The fields of application are many. Identifying the mechanisms behind neurodegenerative processes in some proteins, for example, can help limit their proliferation. Understanding how a protein takes on a certain shape can open the way to use the nanomachines that nature has designed to cut, edit or block damaged or defective genes. | <urn:uuid:d2e7d096-2586-454e-8f7a-de6e767767ab> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.insidequantumtechnology.com/news-archive/researchers-at-university-of-trento-demonstrate-quantum-computers-can-be-used-to-understand-functioning-biomolecules/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337480.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20221004054641-20221004084641-00692.warc.gz | en | 0.912757 | 255 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Africa Teen Geeks
Africa Teen Geeks is a non-profit organisation that introduces computer science and robotics education in previously disadvantaged schools through teacher training and curriculum development. Since its inception in 2014, Africa Teen Geeks has grown to become the largest computer science non-profit organisation in Africa.
They aim to Educate, inspire and equip young people with skills, resources and expertise to pursue STEM careers and course the opportunity gap through quality education.
They are the official partner of the Department of Basic Education tasked with co-creating the coding and robotics curriculum for basic education and have signed a 5 year MoU with them to roll out the coding and robotics curriculum and this entails material development, coordination of virtual and physical classes in conjunction with DBE offices and lastly Teacher Development to ensure that teachers have the necessary competencies to teach Coding and Robotics.
Their goal is to train 2,000 teachers from 1,200 schools in coding and robotics on its Ms Zora AI-based learning platform. Those teachers will then implement their newly acquired digital skills into the curriculum and build the IT potential of 1.2 million school children across the country. To help close the digital gap in South Africa, UNICEF has also pledged their financial support to help launch this ground-breaking initiative. | <urn:uuid:6e895dec-02ee-4551-b21e-005c325a08ca> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://tmt.knect365.com/africacom/sponsors/africa-teen-geeks/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337631.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005140739-20221005170739-00692.warc.gz | en | 0.950539 | 266 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Encryption is becoming increasingly widespread as concerns over security and privacy continue to grow. According to research by FortiGuard Labs1, more than 85 % of global traffic is encrypted. Popular encryption protocols include TLS (Transport Layer Security), SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), SSH, PGP and IPSec, which leverage both symmetric and asymmetric encryption methods such as RSA and AES.
Encryption has deep implications for the delivery of applications and network management. It protects critical applications, applications handling sensitive information and applications that are susceptible to interception via techniques such as sniffing. In addition, encryption provides companies and individuals with highly secure means of communication. And although encryption keeps packets obscure and safe, it poses various visibility and monitoring challenges for network operators. They can no longer identify cyberattacks, or implement traffic management policies such as SLA-based routing, application-specific content caching and content-specific optimization as the underlying protocols, applications and application attributes remain concealed.
Machine learning and deep learning for encrypted traffic visibility
Prior to the days of encryption, network operators deployed probes, deep packet inspection (DPI) engines and other traffic monitoring and management tools to capture and process network traffic. An advanced DPI engine such as R&S®PACE 2 uses pattern matching, behavioral and statistical/heuristic analysis to identify traffic by applications and protocols, delivering traffic information in real-time to support various traffic management policies and safeguard networks from cyberthreats. With encrypted traffic, however, traditional DPI methods are no longer able to identify and deliver the required levels of traffic visibility, resulting in the need for more advanced DPI methods capable of analyzing encrypted traffic. This is where machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) come in to enhance our DPI software with encrypted traffic visibility.
What is machine learning and deep learning, exactly?
Machine learning (ML) uses algorithms built around ‘features’, which are essential parameters of significance relating to a data set. With these algorithms, machines then learn from a given set of examples to produce ‘intelligent’ outputs. In network management, ML could consist of algorithms with features such as user types, network attributes such as speeds, jitter and throughput and traffic information such as packet size or source address. The use of ML requires deep knowledge about the field of application. That means network managers have to ensure that the algorithms are developed by experienced experts with deep know-how in areas of network management. ML depends on the correct identification of features and the correct translation of the algorithms.
While machine learning has enabled operators to automate traffic and network management – from routing traffic to resolving network issues to optimizing network resources – it still hinges on human expertise. Deep learning (DL), however, leverages huge data sets available from the network to automatically identify features that define the state of the network. It deploys layered processing of data, which mimics the human brain’s way of analyzing information. This leads to an accurate identification of features, around which algorithms are built. As networks continue to grow and more data is collected across network management tools, operators’ DL capabilities increase with more accurate features and algorithms. Operators are then able to better monitor network performance, diagnose issues, manage traffic flows and predict network behavior.
Analyzing encrypted traffic with machine learning and deep learning
The incorporation of machine learning and deep learning in our DPI software allows for Encrypted Traffic Intelligence (ETI). ETI delivers encrypted traffic visibility and tackles the loss of traffic visibility experienced by traditional DPI methodologies. Combined with pattern matching, behavioral analysis and statistical/heuristic analysis, ML and DL, with their optimized algorithms and models for real-time processing, leverage operators’ ever-expanding data sets to identify features that can be used to detect the underlying traffic. Possible features include known denominators such as specific signature patterns or attributes such as latency or a flow’s entropy. Features can also be previously unknown to current tools such as a distinct flow pattern indicative of certain malware or a specific flow entropy indicative of an application type.
The superior intelligence introduced by ML and DL enables our R&S®PACE 2 to address various developments in encrypted traffic. This includes the introduction of the latest encryption methods such as TLS 1.3, TLS 1.3 0-RTT, ESNI, DNS over TLS and DNS over HTTPS. The capabilities introduced by ML and DL not only address challenges surrounding the identification of encrypted traffic, they also deliver real-time traffic and application intelligence for general traffic, which complements policy control engines, network packet brokers and security applications such as firewalls, web filtering and ATP systems. Especially in security applications, a mix of advanced machine learning algorithms combined with different deep learning layers is crucial in identifying novel application types and network threats. This is also important in detecting subtle attacks, the increase in use of certain applications or shifts in application usage patterns, all of which are typically not visible for standard monitoring tools. While ML automates all these and helps unearth weak or inaccurate signatures, DL works through its many layers to automatically extract higher-level features with which network algorithms can be enhanced.
ipoque, a Rohde & Schwarz company, is already making great strides in both ML and DL by collaborating with top universities and its own distinguished team of data scientists who deploy advanced statistical and classical ML, high-dimensional data analysis and DL to future-proof the DPI engine R&S®PACE 2 for new developments in the IP space, specifically in traffic encryption.
Operators looking to enhance their traffic detection and traffic management capabilities with ML and DL will benefit by incorporating R&S®PACE 2. The solution can be embedded as software into any existing infrastructure, at any point in the network, or by deploying network solutions that are already a part of the cutting-edge DPI solution. R&S®PACE 2 enables operators to tap into the unlimited insights promised by the continuous advancements in the artificial intelligence space, In doing so, operators can drive the creation of a truly intelligent network capable of managing and sustaining itself in the future. | <urn:uuid:e5884e94-6a48-4bc5-bc5b-67f5f9f8d555> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.ipoque.com/blog/handling-encryption-with-machine-learning-and-deep-learning | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337631.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005140739-20221005170739-00692.warc.gz | en | 0.929093 | 1,249 | 3.171875 | 3 |
What is VOIP?This article introduces the reader to the basics of VOIP, or Voice Over Internet Protocol. The VOIP tutorial attempts to answer, in layman's terms, common questions such as how does VOIP work, what are the benefits and drawbacks of VOIP, and what are the infrastructure requirements to implementing a VOIP solution.
Historically, phone calls used a network made up of copper wires and switches that created a circuit between the caller and the person being called. This technology was mature and fairly reliable, but inefficient. Thousands and thousands of copper wires had to be run from house to house, neighborhood to neighborhood, city to city, country to country - and continent to continent! There had to be a pair of copper wires for every call that needed to go from one place to another.
The modern solution to this problem uses data networks that allow information - like your audio conversation - to be broken up into packets and shipped over a shared network link. This is much more efficient for many reasons, but we'll talk about two of them here. The first is utilization. If your neighbor's teenager calls his girlfriend and they hold the phone in silence, very little of the phone system's capacity is actually used. In the old, circuit-switched scenario, two copper wires are used for a phone call, whether anyone's talking or not. The second efficiency is one of infrastructure. Instead of building two parallel networks, one for data and one for voice, we can unify the two networks and create a single network that costs considerably less to build out than the dual networks we were building before.
This can scale to businesses today. If you use a PBX and VOIP in your business, you cable for data exclusively. You increase the size and capacity of your data network, but maintaining one network with more bandwidth is less expensive than maintaining two networks. Furthermore, if you have multiple offices and you maintain a data link between them, you can keep all of your phone service 'inside' your network, where you control configuration and security. Your phone service will go to the public phone network only when you connect a call to a phone outside of your VOIP network.
Another business benefit of VOIP over typical phone solutions is administration. The number is assigned to the phone, not the wall jack, so you issue a phone to an employee, and it works wherever they plug it in. With modern VOIP PBX solutions, you have significant administrative control over things like who your employees can call, when they can call, how long they can talk, who can call them - the range of control can be amazing, depending on your vendor.
All of this results in a lower overall cost of ownership for VOIP in many cases. This isn't a generic result, and there are many variables, but for many offices VOIP can cut costs dramatically. But you must remember that this also places your voice services on your data network. Failure of a network element isolates both data and voice service. This is generally uncommon, but you cannot ignore the fact that losing a switch, for instance, will make it impossible for people on that switch to call and report the outage.
Another thing you have to consider is whether your data network is robust enough for the data load your VOIP service will place on it. If you have high latency or low throughput segments in your network, VOIP will make this painfully clear. Make sure you understand the performance of your network and the bandwidth requirements of your VOIP solution. A company that has only a single voice call active at a time, on average, has completely different VOIP and bandwidth needs from a company that does telemarketing, for instance, or a customer service call center. Make sure you discuss these issues with any prospective VOIP vendor you work with, so that you don't find out after you implement your VOIP solution that you must now upgrade your data network to support it.
VOIP is the future, there's little doubt about that. Data networks will subsume (already have, really) voice communication, and switched circuits are only virtual even now. It's a technology that can be of great benefit to many companies, and if you're thinking of putting in a PBX of whatever scale, it's certainly a solution you should consider, and if you keep all of the requirements in mind, VOIP might just be the right solution for your company now, rather than tomorrow. | <urn:uuid:f121e1e6-ebb2-446e-be61-cf024eea5740> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.networkcablingdirectory.com/articles/structured-network-cabling-id_1161.htm | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030337631.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20221005140739-20221005170739-00692.warc.gz | en | 0.958806 | 904 | 3.421875 | 3 |
As people around the world increasingly get their news from social media, online misinformation has emerged as an area of great concern.
Social media feed simulator Fakey
To improve news literacy and reduce the spread of misinformation, NYUAD Center for Cybersecurity researcher and lead author Nicholas Micallef is part of a team that designed Fakey, a game that emulates a social media news feed and prompts players to use available signals to recognize and scrutinize suspicious content and focus on credible information. Players can share, like, or fact-check individual articles.
Micallef and his colleagues Mihai Avram, Filippo Menczer, and Sameer Patil from the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University, present the analysis of interactions with Fakey, which was released to the general public as a web and mobile app with data procured after 19 months of use.
The researchers found that the more players interacted with articles in the game, the better their skills at spotting credible content became. However, playing the game did not affect players’ ability to recognize questionable content.
Further research will help determine how much gameplay would be necessary to be able to distinguish between legitimate and questionable content.
Empowering social media users
Games like Fakey could be offered as a tool to social media users. For example, social media platforms could conduct regular exercises (akin to ‘phishing drills’ used in organizations for employee security training) wherein users practice identifying questionable articles. Or, the researchers say, such games could be integrated into media literacy curricula in schools.
“The impact of misinformation could be substantially reduced if people were given tools to help them recognize and ignore such content,” said Micallef.
“The principles and mechanisms used by Fakey can inform the design of social media functionality in a way that empowers people to distinguish between credible and fake content in their news feeds and increase their digital literacy.” | <urn:uuid:1547fbc6-7584-47ef-a123-690174840cb1> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/05/05/social-media-feed-simulator/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030334871.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220926113251-20220926143251-00092.warc.gz | en | 0.95328 | 408 | 3.4375 | 3 |
One of the fastest growing spaces in tech is the world of connected devices — often called the Internet of Things. In the embedded engineering and software development worlds, this technological shift is so pervasive some have taken to called it “The Internet of Everything.”
While organizations and enterprises are increasingly putting the IoT at the root of many of their forward-thinking business strategies, one of the strongest engines of innovation stems from hackathons. Hackathons are essentially software or hardware challenges, where teams of developers or engineers are giving a task (i.e. build a smart city solution), with specified hardware or software (maybe a certain development board or programming environment), in a specific time period (anywhere from a few hours to a few days).
In today’s top IoT news, we’ll take a look at a few stories in the industry about hackathons and how they are helping shape the IoT.
Functional Fabric Hackathon Leads to eTextiles Innovation
One of the fastest growing areas of the IoT revolves around smart clothing — sometimes called eTextiles. Smart clothing can range from simple solutions like integrating sewable LEDs into clothing to craft safer bicycling attire, to embedded sensors that are used to monitor environmental conditions for oil and gas workers.
Recently, as noted in this article from “The University Network,” the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosts a hackathon focusing on “Functional Fabric.” MIT has long been a hub for IoT innovation and is one of the epicenters of eTextiles. In the Functional Fabric Hackathon, teams of students faced the challenge of design clothing solutions that would aid soldiers, first responders and victims of disasters. The teams had three days to come up with their solutions and were competing for two grand prizes of up to $15,000.
22 teams competed and the winning solution came from an MIT student group called “Remote Triage.” Their solution was a sensor system that could be embedded in a soldier’s uniform, that would monitor not only vital signs, but could then report any injuries to field medics, provide location of the injured soldier, and even triage the severity of the injury with a color coding system.
Hackathon Challenges Young Women to Build Smart City Solutions
“She Builds Tech — Smart City Hackathon” recently challenged young women in India to build the smart city solutions of the future. As noted in this article from The Hindu, there were ultimately five winners — a solar energy harnessing paint, a water grid solution system, geo-fencing, a smart ambulance service, and a routing and scheduling system for tourists.
The event lasted for two days and attracted over 300 girls from various engineering colleges.
TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon Coming in Mid-September
TechCrunch Disrupt, the event that has becoming one of the world’s biggest stages for innovative new technologies, is rapidly approaching, with the San Francisco version of the event scheduled to kick off on September 12th.
The hackathon will pit teams against each other in a two-day sprint to design the most impressive tech. At the end of the hackathon, teams will have just 60 seconds to impress judges for their shot at a $5000 grand prize, a slew of gifts and gadgets provided by sponsors, and all the glamour that goes along with winning one of the countries most elite hackathon competitions.
To learn more about the hackathon, or to grab tickets to watch the action, check out this article from TechCrunch.
Hackathons continue to prove that innovations in the worlds of IoT, embedded engineering, and software solutions do not have to come just from the prototyping labs of Fortune 500 companies, but can emerge from groups of students and tech enthusiasts faced with big challenges and short timeframes. | <urn:uuid:e5dcf747-14a8-48bf-9a62-b84a1dcac266> | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | https://www.freewave.com/hackathons-giving-birth-innovative-iot-solutions/ | null | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-40/segments/1664030335058.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20220927194248-20220927224248-00092.warc.gz | en | 0.949648 | 781 | 2.625 | 3 |
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