Daily Tech Digest - December 26, 2016

Corporate Boards Aren't Prepared For Cyberattacks

Despite the scale and potential harm from such attacks, there's wide recognition that corporate leaders, especially boards of directors, aren't taking the necessary actions to defend their companies against such attacks. It's not just a problem of finding the right cyber-defense tools and services, but also one of management awareness and security acumen at the highest level, namely corporate boards. "Our country and its businesses and government agencies of all sizes are under attack from a variety of aggressive adversaries and we are generally unprepared to manage and fend off these threats," said Gartner analyst Avivah Litan, a longtime cybersecurity consultant to many organizations.


Keeping a lid on SaaS & infrastructure costs

As companies continue to adopt cloud services and create even more complex, heterogeneous IT environments, their asset management tools must evolve and expand to optimise on-premises hardware and software assets, and cloud infrastructure services. Costs for cloud infrastructure services and software running in the cloud need to be managed whether they are SaaS applications or Bring Your Own License (BYOL), whereby companies host existing enterprise applications in a cloud environment. The cloud presents license compliance risk in BYOL instances, as well as risk of substantial over-spending on subscriptions for SaaS applications and cloud infrastructure services. In fact, costs can easily spiral out-of-control if not closely managed. However, organisations can keep a lid on these costs with the right Software Asset Management (SAM) processes and tools.


CEP Patterns for Stream Analytics

Real-time streaming data sources and Internet of things has brought Complex Event processing to the spotlight. The ability to collect data from devices using sensors, improvement in data carrier services and the growth of secure transfer to a centralized location has given a kick-start to analyze different data patterns from the various device at a combination. Let us start by defining what an event is. An event is said to occur when something happens which needs to be known for inferring or taking some action. An event processing is a way to track the information of the events by processing data streams and determining a circumstantial conclusion from them. This is associated with events from a single source. Ex: When the temperature of the room is more than 45 c, is what I consider an event for me to lower the temperature of my Air Conditioner.


CIOs: How to be a business leader in three steps

Technology and data are changing how work gets done. The embrace of digital technologies by companies and their customers has created a climate ripe for CIOs to stretch their business leadership muscles -- or risk seeing their roles atrophy. Part of making the leap to "business co-creator," as Deloitte terms it, requires CIOs to educate the business on the technologies and IT governance standards that are the foundation of digital transformation. Here is Kark's three-step strategy for CIOs on how to be a business leader. His advice is bolstered by two survey participants -- Vittorio Cretella, CIO at food giant Mars Inc., and Johnson Lai, CIO at NuVasive Inc., a maker of medical devices -- who function as business leaders at their companies.


16 Tech Jobs That Have A Gender Pay Gap

Computer programmer showed the highest gender pay gap, at a massive 28.3%. In job duties, computer programmers differ from software engineers (whose gap is 6%) in that engineers are more involved in designing software, while programmers receive instructions from engineers and have a more executional role. Game artists, who create visual art for video games, were second on the list, with a 15.8% gap. And information security specialists, who help prevent and repair cybersecurity breaches, ranked third. If you’re familiar with wage-gap statistics, you might be wondering why Glassdoor’s numbers are lower than the widely cited 20% pay gap, reported by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a Washington, D.C. think tank. Both IWPR's and Glassdoor's numbers are valid—they’re different because they’re set in separate contexts. This explanation gets a little technical, but bear with me.


Your new PC needs these 15 free, excellent programs

More than a mere blank slate, a new PC is a fresh opportunity—a collection of components that, with the right software installed, could accomplish anything from balancing your household budget to helping to cure cancer. Yes, stocking your PC is an intensely personal task. Even still, some programs are so helpful, so handy, so useful across the board that we heartily recommend them to everybody. These are the programs you want to install on a new PC first. (Longtime readers may notice that the list has slimmed down significantly this year. There’s a good reason for that: The bevy of hassle-killing extras in Windows 10 has allowed us to finally retire perennial favorites like CutePDF and WizMouse.)


The top 10 mobile risks of 2016

Mobile devices had a booming 2016, with usage of iOS and Android handhelds growing steadily throughout the year. By contrast, desktop operating systems other than Windows 10 and OS X generally showed a decline in growth. In fact, last month Marketing Land reported that global mobile internet usage was higher than that of desktop systems as of October, and predicted that nearly 80% of internet usage will be mobile by 2018. As with any element of technology, more widespread usage leads to greater and more widespread threats, and mobility is no exception. Here's a rundown of ten mobile risks we experienced in 2016, as well as some solutions to prevent or protect your devices from them (where applicable).


Weird science! 10 strangest tech stories of 2016

Science and technology news usually takes a backseat in mainstream media coverage. Contemporary attention spans being what they are, technical topics are often deemed too obscure, or their implications too complex, for the average reader. That's a shame, if for no other reason than this: Pay attention and you can find deliciously weird stuff in the sci-tech section, with occasional forays into the truly bonkers. Here we take a look at 1o of the stranger stories of 2016, selecting for items that generally flew under the radar and/or those with odd implications for the future. Click on through for updates on weaponized display technology, erotic robotics, and a biotech initiative that literally defies death.


Software Is Eating The Food World

Snack vending machines are everywhere. Here's how they work. A vending machine company makes a deal with a company that wants to provide snacks to employees. The vending company sends a person around every week or every few weeks to re-stock the machine with items bought at wholesale, collects the money (which is split with the business owner) and makes sure the machine is working properly. Any food placed into an old-school vending machine must be durable. It has to survive for weeks at unpredictable temperatures, and also survive the drop when selected. That's why vending machine food tends to be non-fresh, unhealthy junk food. With most vending machines, there are two or three items that are most popular and other items that might be selected as a second or third choice only after the favorite item runs out. The vending company has no idea.


Technical developments in Cryptography: 2016 in Review

The biggest practical development in crypto for 2016 is Transport Layer Security version 1.3. TLS is the most important and widely used cryptographic protocol and is the backbone of secure Internet communication; you're using it right now to read this blog! After years of work by hundreds of researchers and engineers, the new TLS design is now considered final from a cryptography standpoint. The protocol is now supported and available in Firefox, Chrome, and Opera. While it might seem like a minor version upgrade, TLS 1.3 is a major redesign from TLS 1.2 (which was finished over 8 years ago now). In fact, one of the most contentious issues was if the name should be something else to indicate how much of an improvement TLS 1.3 really is.



Quote for the day:


"You'll never be a bigger person by trying to make someone else feel smaller." -- @LeadToday


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