Category: Analysis

Serial: 1/2 – The FCC is proposing new rules that would govern cable networks and other carriers — rules it says will protect the open internet. But critics say the regulator is going to cripple net neutrality and introduce a pay-to-play internet. Here’s what you need to know. The issue of net neutrality is back in the news again, thanks to some proposed rule changes by the Federal Communications Commission, changes that the regulator says are aimed at protecting a “free and open internet.” A chorus of critics, however, say…

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Serial: 2/6 – Sure sign of system compromise No. 2: Unwanted browser toolbars This is probably the second most common sign of exploitation: Your browser has multiple new toolbars with names that seem to indicate the toolbar is supposed to help you. Unless you recognize the toolbar as coming from a very well-known vendor, it’s time to dump the bogus toolbar. What to do: Most browsers allow you to review installed and active toolbars. Remove any you didn’t absolutely want to install. When in doubt, remove it. If the bogus…

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If you’ve been tracking the ebb and flow of news related to the Heartbleed vulnerability, you may remember how what at first seemed like good news about the limited potential for a worst-case scenario attack quickly turned south when a challenge held by Web security company CloudFlare proved the flaw could indeed be exploited. Today the person who won the CloudFlare challenge, Rubin Xu, a security researcher and PhD candidate at Cambridge University in the UK, revealed how he did it. (The post wasrepublished on Ars Technica, which is where I first read…

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Serial: 1/6 – In today’s threatscape, antivirus software provides little piece of mind. In fact, antimalware scanners on the whole are horrifically inaccurate, especially with exploits less than 24 hours old. After all, malicious hackers and malware can change their tactics at will. Swap a few bytes around, and a previously recognized malware program becomes unrecognizable. To combat this, many antimalware programs monitor program behaviors, often called heuristics, to catch previously unrecognized malware. Other programs use virtualized environments, system monitoring, network traffic detection, and all of the above at once in order…

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Businesses that advertise on Facebook show signs of growing frustration  In space, they say, no one can hear you scream. Some marketers feel the same way about Facebook. The social network has come to play a vital role for many of the million-plus businesses that promote their brands and connect with customers on its site. But it’s clear that some marketers no longer see Facebook as their friend. A recent post on the site by Eat24, a food delivery service, was the latest sign of marketers’ discontent. The problem, Eat24 and…

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A recent demonstration of Juniper’s Software Defined Networking (SDN) showed a level of automation that makes me loathe the mundanity of my day job all the more Software defined networking is a collection of technologies that could free me to do far more business-critical things with my time, like research, automating more difficult-to-commoditize business processes, and so forth. Indeed, it is automation that is at the heart of the matter: the business case for SDN is that of the improvements to health, sanity and pocketbook that automation of IT mundanities…

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It’s exciting to see a Friend Request at the top of your Facebook page. You’re likely to accept Friend Requests without thinking twice, especially if it’s a friend or a name you recognize. You may even be thinking that there’s no real harm in accepting all Friend Requests that come your way. Having more friends means you’re more popular…right? What you may not know is that with name, birth date, education, and work history available online, it’s relatively easy for anyone to create a duplicate of any existing user. Watch…

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In a recent survey of senior marketers at technology companies, International Data Corporation’s (IDC) CMO Advisory Service found that two-thirds are expecting budget increases for 2014. Additionally, IDC forecasts that marketing budgets within the technology industry will increase 1.5-2.5% overall in 2014. Third Platform companies – those with revenue primarily from cloud, social, mobile, and Big Data and analytics technologies – will see marketing budget increases that are six times greater than the rest of the industry, increasing their marketing spending between 8 and 12%. Despite the projected gains, the…

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According to the study ‘Financial cyber threats in 2013’ conducted by Kaspersky Lab, cybercriminals are increasingly trying to gain access to the online accounts of users. Last year, the number of cyber attacks involving financial malware increased to 28.4 million – 27.6% more than 2012. Programs designed to steal financial information include banking Trojans, keyloggers and two relatively new classes of malware – one that steals from Bitcoin wallets and another that downloads software to generate the crypto-currency. The combined activity of programs targeting Bitcoin became one of the main…

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The IT department is fast becoming a brokerage house, an intermediary between buyers (as in lines of business managers) and sellers (as in cloud service providers). More than one-third of IT departments already act primarily as services brokers, and this model is expected to expand rapidly in the next 12 months, according to new research commissioned by Avanade, a managed services provider. The idea of IT as a brokerage is just one aspect of the emerging role of the new CIO, one that looks more like a consultancy to the business rather…

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