October 26, 2016

Tech Bytes - Daily Digest: October 26, 2016

Advanced use cases for repository pattern in .NET, Everything we know about the great Indian debit card hacking, Integrating hotel systems can create hacking liabilities, Best practices for securing your data in motion, Cyber security staffing issues may be putting you at risk and more.

7 Deadly Sins of Project Management You Should Never Commit

The biggest blunder that can derail your project is selecting the wrong person as your Project Manager. According to American Eagle Group data, around 80% of Project Managers lack formal training, which is one of the major reasons why 55% of projects fail. On the other hand, a Standish Group CHAOS report revealed that Project Managers equipped with formal training have a success rate of more than 70%. This goes to show the importance of trained Project Managers and how it could increase your chances of completing your projects on time and within the budget. Select a Project Manager whose experience and skills coincide with your project management requirements. On the other hand, a Standish Group CHAOS report revealed that Project Managers equipped with formal training have a success rate of more than 70%.


Advanced Use Cases for the Repository Pattern in .NET

When designing a repository, you should be thinking in terms of “what must happen”. For example, let us say you have a rule that whenever a record is updated, its “LastModifiedBy” column must be set to the current user. Rather than trying to remember to update the LastModifiedBy in application code before every save, you can bake that functionality right into the repository. ...  Normally repositories are context free, meaning they have no information other than what’s absolutely necessary to connect to the database. When correctly designed, the repository can be entirely stateless, allowing you to share one instance across the whole application. Context aware repositories are a bit more complex. They cannot be constructed until you know the context, which at the very least includes the currently active user’s id or key. For some applications, this is enough.


Everything we know about the great Indian debit card hacking

The data breach happened in August and September, according to the Mint newspaper. But the banks apparently weren’t aware, several bankers told Mint. This is the list of all of those involved: bank customers, 19 Indian banks, the NPCI, Hitachi Payments Systems, Mastercard, Visa, RuPay. But they are all shirking responsibility for the mess. Most banks, including SBI, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank, have said their systems are safe. The platforms these banks use for debit cards—Mastercard, Visa, and Rupay—have also washed their hands off the crisis. Hitachi Payments Services, which managed Yes Bank’s ATMs, said that an initial review “does not suggest any breach/compromise.”


Integrating hotel systems can create hacking liabilities

Integration. It’s one of the industry’s biggest buzzwords for streamlining operations. With everything on property collecting data and providing options for interaction, wouldn’t it be nice if every device collaborated? It’s the dream of many operators to have a property that is running fully in-sync, but Shaun Murphy, communications security expert, inventor, CEO and co-founder of communications app SNDR, said the persistent threat of data breaches may be reason enough to question which devices on property are working in tandem. “During a breach, the worst-case scenario is that all your systems are integrated,” Murphy said. “From your point of sale to your soda machine, at that point you are losing not only financial information, which you have to disclose, but other confidential information as well.”


How Big Data Is Changing Recruitment Forever

Dana Landis, vice president of global talent assessment and analytics at Korn Ferry, said “When you’re talking about big data you’re talking assessing millions of people all over the world, so you need self-assessment. We’ve designed our tools to take out a lot of the problematic aspects of that – instead of being able to rate yourself high on all the good things and low on all the things that sound bad, you’re forced to make really difficult decisions based on ranking and prioritizing your skills.” Moving their assessment process to an online, self-assessment model has greatly increased the volume of candidates that Korn Ferry has been able to assess. This further increases the size of the dataset used to measure candidates’ suitability. By comparing their individual profiles against amalgamated profile data from people who have proven themselves successful in similar job roles, a more accurate picture of the skills a person will need to succeed in a particular role emerges.


Best practices for securing your data in-motion

Data in-motion has to contend with human error, network failures, insecure file sharing, malicious actions and more. In today’s economy, almost every business has data that needs to be transferred outside protected business applications and systems to enable collaboration between co-workers, users, systems, partners and more – so simply not letting data be shared is not an option. To remediate the security risk that’s inherent with sending data outside of your walls, companies must accept the reality of data insecurity in-motion and take proactive steps to prevent an expensive and embarrassing data breach. The first step is to accept that your company data, including sensitive data, is being sent insecurely via shadow IT. When IT isn’t involved with how data is being transferred, there are critical disadvantages, which often trigger other serious issues


Intel wants to make its IoT chips see, think, and act

Intel is working to help machines evolve from accurately sensing what’s going on around them to acting on those senses. For example, if a device can see defective parts going through an assembly line, it can alert someone or even stop the line. Cameras in cars could see that the driver is drowsy and set off an alarm in the car, and ones pointed in front of the vehicle could tell a pedestrian from a shadow and stop the car – if its vision was accurate enough. ... The new chips are also better at capturing and processing images. They have four vector image processing units to perform video noise reduction, improve low-light image quality, and preserve more color and detail. In a networked video recorder, an E3900 could take 1080p video streams from 15 cameras and display their feeds simultaneously at 30 frames per second on a video wall, Caviasca said.


Agile Manufacturing: Not the Oxymoron you Might Think

Industry 4.0, digital manufacturing, agile manufacturing, “digital thread”—these are all terms that describe the way we are making some things now and will make almost everything in the future. ... Digital manufacturers are organizing from an outside-in mindset that starts with the customer, and looks to deliver creatively on market opportunities, whatever they happen to be, however they will be delivered, and whoever will deliver them. Profits are seen as the consequence of providing value to customers, not the goal of the firm.  Soon, when you walk into your mechanic’s shop to replace a broken fender, he will not need to order the replacement part from overseas and call you back in three weeks. He will take some measurements, step to an attached room with a 3D printer and make your new fender on the spot, revised to attach more firmly and with accent trim to update the style.


Cybersecurity staffing issues may be putting you at risk

Chances are you already have future security pros within your own ranks -- it would stand to reason that businesses have turned to internal talent to find cybersecurity experts. But, according to the data from Spiceworks, that's not necessarily the case. When asked how willing they would be to invest in IT training for 2016, 57 percent said they were "somewhat open, but it would take some convincing," while only 6 percent said they were "extremely open" and had already made investments in training. "Smart people within your own ranks have the huge advantage of already knowing the context of the enterprise to be protected. By using in-house staff, you can save on the time it takes to teach them the context of the enterprise," says Ryan Hohimer, co-founder and CTO of DarkLight Cyber.


The QA Success Story: Where Business and Technology meet

Technology is playing an ever increasing role in the business cycle – influencing buying decisions, transacting through online platforms, integrating with payment channels, collaborating with partners in co-creating and delivering products / services, and being evaluated by the customer across multiple touch points. The exceptional visibility of technology across customers, partners and stakeholders has brought greater focus onto non-functional user experience dimensions – usability, performance, security, inter-operability, and response times. The ability of technology to dis-intermediate and bring businesses closer to the customer is seeing an explosion in platforms targeting the Cloud, leveraging Social Media and Analytics and delivering services on the Mobile.



Quote for the day:


"Cyber criminals are getting more sophisticated and realizing that small businesses are easy targets." -- Mark Berven


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