Daily Tech Digest - January 06, 2022

Do tech firms in India really need a 3 month notice period?

Experts have highlighted that a three month notice period heavily costs the company from which the candidate resigns. This is because the candidate will have a lower level of productivity since they already have one foot out of the door, which leads to a loss of time and resources for the company. From the candidate’s point of view, a 3 month notice period may hinder their chance to be hired by a new organisation as the long duration between hiring and joining creates a level of uncertainty. ... When asked about his take on the idea of a 15 day notice period for tech companies, the CEO of NetConnect Global, Mr Sunil Bist, said, “I think it is a great idea when you think about employee growth. After the pandemic, we have seen an acute competition spree to hire the right talent as soon as possible—a more extended notice period would mean losing out on it because of time constraints. ...” In his opinion, “The current norm of a 3 months notice period in most tech companies was started with good intentions, but what a company needs to see is whether it serves its intended purpose.” 


Tailscale: A Virtual Private Network for Zero Trust Security

Unlike traditional, hub-and-spoke VPN network architectures that send network traffic through a central gateway, Tailscale creates a peer-to-peer mesh network. This mesh topology connects each device to every other device directly. A hub-and-spoke architecture is simpler than mesh, but it’s got some downsides: higher latency for remote users, not allowing direct connections between individual nodes, being harder to scale, and providing a single point of failure that can break the entire network. In contrast, a peer-to-peer mesh network results in lower latency and higher throughput and eliminates the need to manually configure port forwarding. It also allows for connection migration: existing connections are maintained even when switching to a different network, such as from WiFi to wired. The idea of mesh VPNs has been around for a while, mostly for niche uses. But the advent of cloud-based infrastructure coupled with the rise in remote workers has made organizations take a closer look at them, wrote senior writer Lucian Constantin in CSO Online.


Researchers used electromagnetic signals to classify malware infecting IoT devices

The researchers proposed a novel approach of using side channel information to identify malware targeting IoT systems. The technique could allow analysts to determine malware type and identity, even when the malicious code is heavily obfuscated to prevent static or symbolic binary analysis. ... The team analyzed power side-channel signals using Convolution Neural Networks (CNN) to detect malicious activities on IoT devices. The collected data is very noisy for this reason the researchers needed a preprocessing step to isolate relevant informative signals. This relevant data was used to train neural network models and machine learning algorithms to classify malware types, binaries, obfuscation methods, and detect the use of packers. The academics collected 3 000 traces each for 30 malware binaries and 10 000 traces for benign activity. They recorded 100,000 measurement traces from an IoT device that was infected by various strains of malware and realistic benign activity.


Microsoft Sees Rampant Log4j Exploit Attempts, Testing

Most recently, Microsoft has observed attackers obfuscating the HTTP requests made against targeted systems. Those requests generate a log using Log4j 2 that leverages Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) to perform a request to the attacker-controlled site. The vulnerability then causes the exploited process to reach out to the site and execute the payload. Microsoft has observed many attacks in which the attacker-owned parameter is a DNS logging system, intended to log a request to the site to fingerprint the vulnerable systems. The crafted string that enables Log4Shell exploitation contains “jndi,” following by the protocol – such as “ldap,” “ldaps” “rmi,” “dns,” “iiop,” or “http” – and then the attacker domain. But to evade detection, attackers are mixing up the request patterns: For example, Microsoft has seen exploit code written that runs a lower or upper command within the exploitation string. Even more complicated obfuscation attempts are being made to try to bypass string-matching detections


How IPsec works, it’s components and purpose

An IPsec VPN connection starts with establishment of a Security Association (SA) between two communicating computers, or hosts. In general, this involves the exchange of cryptographic keys that will allow the parties to encrypt and decrypt their communication. (For more on how cryptography works in general, check out CSO's cryptography explainer.) The exact type of encryption used is negotiated between the two hosts automatically and will depend on their security goals within the CIA triad; for instance, you could encrypt messages to ensure message integrity ... The information about the SA is passed to the IPsec module running on each of the communicating hosts, and each host's IPsec module uses that information to modify every IP packet sent to the other host, and to process similarly modified packets received in return. These modifications can affect both the packet’s header—metadata at the beginning of the packet explaining where the packet is going, where it came from, its length, and other information—and its payload, which is the actual data being sent.


Google makes the perfect case for why you shouldn't use Chrome

MV3 doesn't just create issues for end-users. Developers could face challenges as well. According to the EFF: "The changes in Manifest V3 won't stop malicious extensions but will hurt innovation, reduce extension capabilities and harm real-world performance. Google is right to ban remotely hosted code (with some exceptions for things like user scripts), but this is a policy change that didn't need to be bundled with the rest of Manifest V3." The EFF is spot on. Yes, Google should (with few exceptions) ban remote code. But releasing guidance that breaks so much functionality for third-party extensions isn't the way to go. And for developers, this could lead to many of them having to work with two different code bases—one for Chrome and one for all other browsers. That's a proposition many devs won't accept. Is it in Google's best interest to prevent the development and usage of ad-blocking extensions? Probably not. But by creating guidance that prevents those developers from creating non-malicious (often helpful) addons, they are putting themselves in a rather awkward position. 


breathing.ai Founder Hannes Bend on Improving Mental Health at Work in 2022

Developed based on extensive research, the breathing.ai Chrome extension is built on state-of-the-art machine learning that uses the webcam to detect breathing and heart rate and when the user may need a break from the screen and work. Based on which ones are the most calming or performance-improving, personalized break reminders are either breath work, meditation, movement, or simply a suggested break from the screen. The over 100 exercises include simple short deep breathing as breathwork, body scan as meditations, shoulder rolls for movements, or a short walk for just a break from screens. All exercises offer 20 seconds to 2 minutes short practices to build mindfulness and wellness into the daily flow. The extension also provides soothing background sounds. ... We are currently focused on making screens adaptive to vital signs, and our long-term vision and patent aim to create adaptive interfaces for audio and olfactory devices. Our interfaces, adaptive to the user’s nervous system, will be used only for screens but also as voice assistants and other audio use cases, personalized diffusers and other olfactory devices, personalized IoT, cars, and all interface-based technological interactions.


Blockchain And You - How Will Blockchain Affect Your Future

Let’s look at a simple health care use case on a private blockchain. In this scenario, patient records are the data blocks, and the transactions that update the data blocks are the chains. This means that all patient information and any updates made to the patient information are recorded in the data block. For example, the data block stores prescription information and the procedures performed on the patient. All the data on the data block is immutable and traceable. If the data block is shared with a designated party, this transaction is also traceable. Transferring a patient’s medical records from one hospital to another hospital is easy and secure using blockchain. Additionally, since all the data blocks are immutable, the patient’s records can be used automatically as the input of future interactions. Think back to when we discussed filing insurance claims. The information in the patient’s record, such as medications or the procedures, could automatically trigger insurance claims. The patient no longer needs to collect all their bills and determine which items might be covered by their insurance policy.


Top technology trends come down to CIO strategy in 2022

Generative AI, algorithms that assess existing data, such as text, audio or visual files, recognize the underlying pattern of that data and then replicate the pattern to generate similar content, is a top technology trends for CIOs to watch in 2022, Groombridge said. Generative AI can be used to discover new products in research and development settings, he said. "There have been uses of it to identify new medicines and it was even used to rapidly identify potential treatments for COVID, for example," he said. On the operational side of AI, Groombridge said it will be crucial for CIOs to pay attention to AI engineering, a discipline focused on designing systems and applications to better utilize and optimize AI in the enterprise. As businesses recognize AI's potential and rush to build products, they will likely encounter a new challenge -- maintaining the AI algorithms. As input data for models changes and as business outcomes change, the models themselves need adjusting. Lack of maintenance can cause the AI algorithms to eventually lose value, Groombridge said.


Howto create opportunities in the fragmented European marketplace

As the world continues to change and markets continue to develop, it is vital for market participants to ensure they are capable of accessing the required markets and services in a stated period of time, while they also need to be able to move to locations where their presence is needed so as to keep ahead over their rivals. Nonetheless, new opportunities tend to emerge from transition. Changes allow organisations to re-evaluate their trading strategies, contemplate utilising new third-party service providers, such as hosting and infrastructure services, and ponder how they can increase their operatorial efficiencies as well as improve the overall trading experience. In these uncertain times, having access to a ready-made, up to standard trading ecosystem is both a necessity and key differentiator for trading companies. The environment should have adaptive on-demand connectivity which uses numerous malleable channels and solutions, not to mention co-location services, so as connectivity can be provided to all major hubs. 



Quote for the day:

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. -- John D. Rockefeller

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