September 02, 2016

Digital Transformation: A ‘make or break’ challenge

The Progress research says that CEOs are the main advocates of change but IT leaders will lead the charge. That said, many respondents who observe recalcitrance to change put the blame on IT. It’s not just about who leads the project though; digital transformation is all about widespread organisational reform according to Progress’s Armstrong. “There appears to be a lack of joined-up thinking in many businesses,” he says. “Digital transformation is like any other project in that it needs buy in from all relevant stakeholders. The challenge comes from the fact that digitalisation affects your whole business and everyone is a stakeholder. When it comes to digital transformation, the biggest risk isn’t choosing the wrong software – it’s actually a lack of internal alignment.”


Hackers prey on human resources using ransomware

"They are very focused. In a spear phishing attack, many times I get somebody compromised, but it’s someone who won’t get me any closer to the crown jewels," Nesmith said. Hackers know that they have to be careful and strike a balance with their attacks, but they have come to understand that volume is not in their favor. "Ransomware is a little different because with most attempts to penetrate, you want to compromise the device and be fairly quiet. Ransomeware, once in, moves aggressively. HR is the perfect world for ransomware. It infects one device and thirty others get infected," said Nesmith. HR departments are useful to bad actors because they have access to a lot of systems. Once in, they can move laterally and they are quickly onto something really important.


Why Google Might Make a Big Change to Its Android Strategy

Now, Google may be showing signs of changing its approach to Android and smartphones more broadly. The move, experts say, appears motivated by a desire to make the Android experience more uniform. Technology news site The Information reported earlier this year that Google is looking to take more control of its Nexus devices, which the company typically creates in collaboration with hardware partners. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said this summer that Google would “be more opinionated about the design of [Nexus] phones” moving forward. And just this week, tech blog Android Central reported that Google may even go so far as to add features on top of so-called “vanilla Android” for its Nexus phones. A rebranding effort, possibly along with a new name besides “Nexus,” might follow. Google declined to comment for this story.


IT Project:Internet of Things

Some of the issues associated with IoT involve privacy and security, both of which can be minimised with standardisations and security best practices (both built-in and at the same time enforced by organisations), according to Catalin Cosoi, chief security strategist at Bitdefender. "IoT ubiquity will not only mean placing more security controls in place, but also including them in the security lifecycle of the company. While the rewards of supporting IoT in organisations have yet to be fully explored, companies cannot afford to be ill-prepared for full-blown IoT market penetrationwithin coming years," he says. There is also a risk that in developing an IoT project that a firm simply deploys technology for its own sake.


U.S. Cloud Vendors Adjust To Snowden Effect

“Just the fact that we have these discussions tells me… that you can’t just run it all from U.S. soil,” says Gartner analyst Carsten Casper, who is based in Germany and regularly advises U.S. cloud providers about their go-to-market strategies in Europe. Casper says common questions from clients include whether vendors must establish a new subsidiary or build a data center to meet data residency and sovereignty requirements. He pointed to the deliberate expansion of data center facilities by AWS, Microsoft and Google in recent years. But even that sometimes isn’t enough. In one scenario, which Casper calls the most extreme of its kind, Microsoft owns a data center in Germany that is actually operated by Deutsche Telecom. “Providers must adapt,” he says.


U.S. Cyber Command director: We want 'loud,' offensive cyber tools

The development of “loud” offensive cyber tools, able to possibly deter future intrusions, represent a “different paradigm shift” from what the agency has used to in the past, Turskey said.  “We will continue to work with the intelligence community for offensive means and offensive operations," he said. "But as the United States Cyber Command, we need totally separate tools and infrastructure to conduct our operations.”  The comments come at a critical time for the command as the organization shifts from “capacity building to capability delivery” since its inception six years ago, Turskey said.


The future of machine learning in cybersecurity: What can CISOs expect?

While most of the people we’ve spoken to for this piece agree there may be the less jobs in the future, no one is currently under threat. Kris Lovejoy, President and Chief Executive of Acuity Solutions Corporation, believes there will be a ‘change in the dynamics’ of how security is run. The lower-level, ‘eyes on glass’ type analysts who are there merely to log incident and discard the false positives, may end up seeing their services required less and less and the systems learn what’s right and wrong. The people above them and providing initial analysis into what kind of threat the business is facing, however, will be more useful. “People don't realise how much just horrible manual labour and just waiting around sitting around is involved in these kinds of investigations,” she says.


Google will not make Project Ara modular smartphone

Google said in May that developers would get their hands on an early release version of Ara by the end of this year to start building custom hardware modules for the device. It changed its design philosophy to integrate many core mobile phone components like the CPU and radio into the Ara 'frame,' while leaving other modules to be customized. The company said at Google I/O 2016 that it had integrated the phone technology into the frame to free up space for modules that add new functionality not found on smartphones today. Future frames could be larger, smaller or completely different from a smartphone, executives said, while talking about a modular computer platform. Other vendors have also been experimenting with modular phones, with some variations in the main concept.


Hong Kong Government Hacked by Chinese Cyberspies, FireEye Says

On at least three occasions in early August, the China-based group APT 3 targeted the organizations with “spear-phishing” attacks, in which e-mails with malicious links and attachments containing malware are used to access computer networks, said John Watters, president of iSIGHT, a unit of FireEye Inc. He said the hacks were “certainly” politically motivated, based on their targets. Watters declined to say what agencies were attacked because his firm seeks to identify attackers, not shine a spotlight on the victims. It wasn’t possible to confirm whether APT 3 was linked to any Chinese government organization, he said, adding that the Hong Kong authorities had been informed of the incidents.


Latent-to-live code & forward compatible interim versions

Latent-to-live code pattern is the process of gradually putting latent code in use in production, before the related feature, or feature changes, are made available to the users, while keeping it invisible from the user and at the same time collecting valuable learnings from the execution of the new or changed code. ... Once the code is shipped into production, the incomplete feature enhancement is not exposed in the front-end, thanks to the feature toggle, while the 4 variables calculation is executed live every time the original feature invoke the 3 variables version of CalculateTyreDegradationDeltaTime. From running the new calculation into production we can learn sooner if new code works as expected for all the cases where the 4th variable is set to zero, and if it works without breaking existing features.



Quote for the day:
"Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom." -- Mary Browne

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