2015: The year the Internet crashes. Hard
Finally, let’s not forget good old human error. Logins and passwords are also being swiped by cyber-crooks from companies all the time As former FBI director Robert Mueller said this summer, “There are only two types of companies — those that have been hacked, and those that will be.” Even the tech elite are vulnerable. Earlier in December, ICANN, which oversees DNS, was hacked. The attacker got access to user information, including email and postal addresses. ISC, makers of BIND, the world’s most popular DNS software, also got hit, but we don’t know what, if any, information was taken from the site.
Denmark throws down $75m to build up offensive cybersecurity capabilities
Most of the initiatives outlined in the strategy however discuss better cyber-preparedness by government agencies, their suppliers, and private sector critical infrastructure providers. Danish defence minister Nikolaj Wammen said of the threats facing the country: "there are external actors exploiting the internet to spy on Denmark and to steal trade secrets." If Denmark is building up its cyber-offensive capabilities, it joins a growing list of nations whose intelligence services have used malware to spy on foreign targets or, as in the case of Stuxnet, used it to target other countries' national infrastructure.
3 Practical Tips for Effective BI Dashboard Design and Implementation
According to the preeminent expert on data visualization and analysis, Stephen Few, a dashboard is a “visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives; consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be monitored at a glance.” The challenge is not necessarily building the resources to display, it’s to design and present these resources effectively and in a way that makes the processing of the information quickly. That leads us to an overarching and significant dichotomy of sorts in the BI universe. A BI solution has a number of interrelated components, and if you want a BI solution that’s successful and sustainable, all of these components need to be wrapped together harmoniously.
Cloud, Mobility, Big Data Key To Growth In Managed Services Space
“Many managed service providers have backgrounds as technicians, so there is a constant focus on taking advantage of technology innovation. Most solution providers are also starting to look toward moving into that environment, where they have end-to-end control,” he explained. The strongest MSPs are looking at how to enhance their offerings around mobility, cloud computing and big data, he said, but noted that the latter may not yet be ideal for all clients. “I think people use the term ['big data'] but don’t yet know what it means in the managed services provider space. From a solution provider’s perspective, we have to look at our client’s perspective and see if this can actually help them,” he said.
The era of big data won’t materialise without fast data
Enterprises could spend years, even decades making sense of the information they’re collecting. However, the current business climate requires, above all else, agility, and in order to remain competitive, organisations must be able to make decisions at near-real-time speed. Furthermore, as applications are required to meet increasingly demanding SLAs, this requires the ability to process data as rapidly as it is being generated. With traditional computing, this isn’t possible. The need to process exponentially growing datasets instantaneously will undoubtedly prompt innovations that haven’t even entered the big data discussion yet.
Radware 2014-15 Global Application & Network Security Report
This year’s report illuminates how security attacks are more complex, even as macro-IT trends contribute to the dissolution of security effectiveness. Research confirms that the motives, means, and effectiveness of security attacks are on the rise – and it also highlights the need for greater agility to quickly adapt to evolving threats. In addition to results survey, expert analysis and data visualization, the report also includes a checklist that can be used for evaluating your preparedness for attack detection and mitigation capability. This tool should prove valuable in assessing your attack resiliency.
8 Skills to Look for in IT Project Managers
As the economy continues to climb out of recession, demand for project management professionals has skyrocketed. Finding the right project management talent for mission-critical IT projects can be difficult, as the role requires a unique mix of technical and soft skills. In addition to the usual suspects -- attention to detail, focus on process, time management and capability to multitask, for instance -- there are some less obvious, but equally crucial, skills that separate the good from the great. Here, our experts weigh in on what to look for when hiring IT project managers.
EMC to Leverage Big Data to Target Channel Marketing Dollars
While EMC is among the furthest along in terms of leveraging big data analytics in the channel, it won’t be too long before every major vendor is heading down the same path. While it may be a while before big data analytics can be applied against the entire small-to-medium (SMB) category, it’s clear that as far as large accounts are concerned vendors intend to leverage big data analytics to more tightly align channel partners with their internal sales staffs. In fact, the goal is nothing less than to both uncover and then lock up sales opportunities long before any actual request for proposal actually gets generated.
Apple has a serious problem with software quality
What started out as robust and stable ecosystems have increasingly become buggy and problematic. For me the problems don't appear to be anywhere near as bad as they became on the Windows platform, but they are getting there. If things continue as they are, I can foresee a future where an iOS or OS X release is as buggy as Windows Vista was when it was released. Ironically, Microsoft has been working hard to clean up its act, although the current situation, where patches are being pushed out to fix problems caused by earlier patches is horrendously messy. And while we are on the subject of patches, Apple is slow when it comes to delivering fixes for problems, and far too many never get fixed and end up being rolled forward to the next major release, which is just unacceptable.
Personal Healthcare Data: Patients Will Take Control
It’s a very different look and the doctor is now a partner. Patients have more equal footing because they have the power of their own data and information. They get to choose whether they’re going to share it, who they are going to share it with, and when they are going to share it. In effect, they own the data, which they never owned before. Most consumers do want their data. Every survey suggests that 80 percent want it. Most physicians don’t want to give the data. Seventy percent will not give copies of office notes to patients and almost the same percent won’t even email with patients. So, we have a mismatch of what consumers want and what the dominant proportion of doctors are willing to give and do.
Quote for the day
"Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions. This is a dangerous mistake." -- PeterDrucker
Finally, let’s not forget good old human error. Logins and passwords are also being swiped by cyber-crooks from companies all the time As former FBI director Robert Mueller said this summer, “There are only two types of companies — those that have been hacked, and those that will be.” Even the tech elite are vulnerable. Earlier in December, ICANN, which oversees DNS, was hacked. The attacker got access to user information, including email and postal addresses. ISC, makers of BIND, the world’s most popular DNS software, also got hit, but we don’t know what, if any, information was taken from the site.
Most of the initiatives outlined in the strategy however discuss better cyber-preparedness by government agencies, their suppliers, and private sector critical infrastructure providers. Danish defence minister Nikolaj Wammen said of the threats facing the country: "there are external actors exploiting the internet to spy on Denmark and to steal trade secrets." If Denmark is building up its cyber-offensive capabilities, it joins a growing list of nations whose intelligence services have used malware to spy on foreign targets or, as in the case of Stuxnet, used it to target other countries' national infrastructure.
According to the preeminent expert on data visualization and analysis, Stephen Few, a dashboard is a “visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives; consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be monitored at a glance.” The challenge is not necessarily building the resources to display, it’s to design and present these resources effectively and in a way that makes the processing of the information quickly. That leads us to an overarching and significant dichotomy of sorts in the BI universe. A BI solution has a number of interrelated components, and if you want a BI solution that’s successful and sustainable, all of these components need to be wrapped together harmoniously.
“Many managed service providers have backgrounds as technicians, so there is a constant focus on taking advantage of technology innovation. Most solution providers are also starting to look toward moving into that environment, where they have end-to-end control,” he explained. The strongest MSPs are looking at how to enhance their offerings around mobility, cloud computing and big data, he said, but noted that the latter may not yet be ideal for all clients. “I think people use the term ['big data'] but don’t yet know what it means in the managed services provider space. From a solution provider’s perspective, we have to look at our client’s perspective and see if this can actually help them,” he said.
The era of big data won’t materialise without fast data
Enterprises could spend years, even decades making sense of the information they’re collecting. However, the current business climate requires, above all else, agility, and in order to remain competitive, organisations must be able to make decisions at near-real-time speed. Furthermore, as applications are required to meet increasingly demanding SLAs, this requires the ability to process data as rapidly as it is being generated. With traditional computing, this isn’t possible. The need to process exponentially growing datasets instantaneously will undoubtedly prompt innovations that haven’t even entered the big data discussion yet.
Radware 2014-15 Global Application & Network Security Report
This year’s report illuminates how security attacks are more complex, even as macro-IT trends contribute to the dissolution of security effectiveness. Research confirms that the motives, means, and effectiveness of security attacks are on the rise – and it also highlights the need for greater agility to quickly adapt to evolving threats. In addition to results survey, expert analysis and data visualization, the report also includes a checklist that can be used for evaluating your preparedness for attack detection and mitigation capability. This tool should prove valuable in assessing your attack resiliency.
8 Skills to Look for in IT Project Managers
As the economy continues to climb out of recession, demand for project management professionals has skyrocketed. Finding the right project management talent for mission-critical IT projects can be difficult, as the role requires a unique mix of technical and soft skills. In addition to the usual suspects -- attention to detail, focus on process, time management and capability to multitask, for instance -- there are some less obvious, but equally crucial, skills that separate the good from the great. Here, our experts weigh in on what to look for when hiring IT project managers.
EMC to Leverage Big Data to Target Channel Marketing Dollars
While EMC is among the furthest along in terms of leveraging big data analytics in the channel, it won’t be too long before every major vendor is heading down the same path. While it may be a while before big data analytics can be applied against the entire small-to-medium (SMB) category, it’s clear that as far as large accounts are concerned vendors intend to leverage big data analytics to more tightly align channel partners with their internal sales staffs. In fact, the goal is nothing less than to both uncover and then lock up sales opportunities long before any actual request for proposal actually gets generated.
Apple has a serious problem with software quality
What started out as robust and stable ecosystems have increasingly become buggy and problematic. For me the problems don't appear to be anywhere near as bad as they became on the Windows platform, but they are getting there. If things continue as they are, I can foresee a future where an iOS or OS X release is as buggy as Windows Vista was when it was released. Ironically, Microsoft has been working hard to clean up its act, although the current situation, where patches are being pushed out to fix problems caused by earlier patches is horrendously messy. And while we are on the subject of patches, Apple is slow when it comes to delivering fixes for problems, and far too many never get fixed and end up being rolled forward to the next major release, which is just unacceptable.
Personal Healthcare Data: Patients Will Take Control
It’s a very different look and the doctor is now a partner. Patients have more equal footing because they have the power of their own data and information. They get to choose whether they’re going to share it, who they are going to share it with, and when they are going to share it. In effect, they own the data, which they never owned before. Most consumers do want their data. Every survey suggests that 80 percent want it. Most physicians don’t want to give the data. Seventy percent will not give copies of office notes to patients and almost the same percent won’t even email with patients. So, we have a mismatch of what consumers want and what the dominant proportion of doctors are willing to give and do.
Quote for the day
"Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions. This is a dangerous mistake." -- PeterDrucker
