Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

November 29, 2014

First Robot, Networked Tablets Head to West Africa to Fight Ebola
"I think that this system is critical to fighting the outbreak," Theobald told Computerworld."This is the first time they'll be using digital records at all in any of the ETUs. Everyone has been using paper. If they have had a tablet, all the information they're capturing is stuck on that tablet because they haven't been able to data share across tablets." Theobald, who worked with VGo, a Nashua, N.H.-based robotic telepresence company, is focused on having the electronic medical record system -- it includes the wireless network, the tablets and a VGo telepresence robot -- up and functioning by Tuesday, when a new Ebola clinic is set to open in Monrovia.

China’s Future City
If it succeeds, Tianjin Eco-City would become a model. The country has 171 cities with populations over one million, and its total urban population is projected to rise to about one billion by 2030. By that time, close to 70 percent of China’s population will be living in urban areas. China’s cities can be difficult places to live. Beijing’s smog has become internationally famous. Water is an issue too. According to China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, 57 percent of the groundwater in 198 cities tested in 2012 was rated either “bad” or “extremely bad.”

Forrester 2015 predictions report explains how cloud will be “the motivator”
Forrester also predicts 2015 to be the year when back end systems will use REST to communicate with one another. REST is an architecture style for designing networked applications, and is increasingly being used to drive agile development, ahead of other protocols such as SOAP. “If you want your back-office applications to be part of this move forward, relying on traditional integration methods such as enterprise service buses, JDBC connections and SOAP is inadequate for modern applications,” the report notes. “You’ll have to evolve your integration architecture to REST in 2015.” Other trends, according to ZDNet, include the prevalence of Docker, an open source platform to ship and run apps from anywhere.

Business Innovation through Big Data
Have you any idea of the impact innovations such as the cloud, mobile, in-memory and Big Data have on you and your business? Innovation Evangelist Timo Elliott treats you to a whirlwind tour of a whole series of inviting uses for Big Data. Big Data is the ocean of information we swim in every day – vast zetabytes of data flowing from our computers, mobile devices, and machine sensors. With the right solutions, organizations can dive into all data and gain valuable insights that were previously unimaginable. Discover how Big Data technologies and analysis tools can transform your business today. Listen to the story of Timo Elliott!

The Agile Data Center
Thinking about agility within the data center opens up many new avenues for companies to explore. With agility in the forefront of data center planning combined with proper planning around security and operations, organizations can begin to think about utilizing their data center in new and innovative ways. With an agile mindset, the concept of the data center moves away from being a liability that continuously consumes resources to being an efficient and effective way to deliver services to internal and external clients. With all of this in mind, we can now take a stab at making a generalized answer to the question posed previously.

Accelerate Load Testing Cycles With SmartBear’s New LoadComplete
Load testing is often left to the last minute by many organizations since new revenue enhancing features almost always taking precedence over basic performance testing. By leaving performance testing to the end, companies erroneously believe that simple, quick and minor tweaks are all that are needed to meet application performance requirements. Teams are frequently left with a short amount of time before the deployment of an application, to identify, uncover and resolve serious performance issues. While these challenges affect all applications, they are especially poignant with mobile applications.

Tech set to revolutionise healthcare
Other tools, including smartwatches and wearable technology, could monitor a patient's voice and watch for notable changes in language patterns. Mr Grimm admits there challenges around data security and privacy, but says the potential for positive change is too strong to ignore. "Our approach to this should be, how do we collectively work through and resolve these issues so we can unlock the benefits?" he asks. "I note the concerns around data security, but I invite some positive dialogue and collaboration with people so we can resolve these problems." The mental health promoter believes the technology could help the country manage problems such as the high youth suicide rate.

How IT Will Change Healthcare Patient Engagement
Over the next decade, look to several sources of investment and several paths of research and development to take place to even more tightly couple software with care. In the years from 2020 to 2030, look for the vast array of innovation to be made globally operational as some of these significant investments start to affect the way in which most humans receive care. Creating electronic medical records and personal health records, taking in signals from wearables such as the watches that measure your sleep and activity, and embedding patient and administrative tools into the fabric of care so that patients will take more responsibility for their care is a beginning that is flourishing. But there is a darker side to all of this.

Machine Learning Will Make Its Mark On The Sciences
Things can get sticky when moving up the inference stack to discovery, though, because the data – the images taken by the telescopes – tends to be dirty and noisy, making it difficult to find new and real astrophysical objects. “We wanted to discover transients and variable stars in the sky without any people actually having to look at data,” Bloom said. Being able to use machines to do even such simple inferencing – to discover whether something in an image is real or bogus – can lead to great things, he said: It’s fast; it’s transparent as to why you got the answers you got; it’s deterministic so that you can go back and do the science on it without requiring humans to make potentially conflicting statements about the same data; and it’s versionable.

It's time for digital governance
Designing digital governance frameworks in an organization can be a challenge because working together collaboratively in large groups is hard. And more often than not, those who would lead a digital governance framework design effort (namely, your digital teams) are scrambling to keep up with the practical day-to-day work of maintaining websites and keeping on top of social channels. So, sometimes taking the time to work on a governance framework seems like it's beside the point. But it's not. As Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee pointed out at Internet 2020, governing our online channels intentionally is important.

Quote for the day:

"Regardless of the changes in technology, the market for well-crafted messages will always have an audience." -- Steve Burnett

November 28, 2014

Microsoft study finds everybody wants DevOps but culture is a challenge
A new study sponsored by Microsoft finds that while everybody wants to adopt DevOps, the cultural barriers between developers and operations are way more of an obstacle to getting there than any shortcomings of technology. The study -- conducted by Saugatuck Research and given the lofty title of Why DevOps Matters: Practical Insights -- found that overcoming those barriers are both the primary challenge and biggest opportunity for helping customers get there. The survey polled "over 300 development and IT operations professionals and managers," and found that 71% of IT shops had pockets of automation, and 54% were testing DevOps practices on individual small projects.

Application Architecture Is Shifting towards Connected Apps
The time of large all-in-one applications focused on completeness is passing away, and we are witnessing a shift towards small apps focused on simplicity. The driving force for apps is the desire to provide the best user experience, so each app is created as simple as possible with a specific user in mind, leaving aside anything that is not absolutely necessary. Apps generally rely on highly scalable services to accomplish their tasks. Thomas also noted that many are turning towards microservices built on SOA principles and Domain-Driven Design patterns:

A Match Made Somewhere: Big Data and the Internet of Things
The close sibling of analytics, big data, also feeds off the Internet of Things. Admittedly, I think we’re much further along with big data than we are with the Internet of Things, especially since, as Forbescontributor Gil Press noted wryly earlier this year, the Internet of Things has surpassed big data on the Gartner hype curve. But once the Internet of Things gets rolling, stand back. We’re going to have data spewing at us from all directions – from appliances, from machinery, from train tracks, from shipping containers, from power stations.

Fastest LTE speed will be out of reach for most users
A lack of smartphones compatible with carrier aggregation hasn’t helped the technology’s progress. That has slowly started to change with the launch of products such as Samsung’s Galaxy Alpha and Note 4, and Huawei’s Ascend Mate 7, which use two channels to get to 300 Mbps. There have been some recent disappointments, though. The Moto X from Motorola doesn’t support carrier aggregation and Apple’s new iPhones use a version of carrier aggregation that tops out at 150 Mbps instead of 300 Mbps. They can combine two 10 MHz channels, instead of two times 20 MHz. The latter omission was especially surprising since Apple’s smartphones can handle more bands than any competing product.

Four Ways IT Headwinds Are Slowing Business Innovation
Pity the IT professionals. For years they've been bludgeoned for allegedly obstructing enterprise innovation. But in the increasingly mobile world, that "bludgeoning" is about to hit overdrive. According to a recent Forrester report ("Developers Are The St. Bernard For Mobile Projects"), there are four key ways that IT blocks mobile innovation. As power within the enterprise quickly gravitates to developers, IT needs to remedy these roadblocks if it wants to avoid a pink slip. The gist? IT needs to learn to become a heck of a lot more agile.

CRUD Operations Using the Repository Pattern in MVC
In this article we will implement a "One-per business model" approach to design a repository in which there is a repository class for each entity type. For the Book entity type we'll create a repository interface and a repository class. When we instantiate the repository in our controller, we'll use the interface so that the controller will accept a reference to any object that implements the repository interface. When the controller runs under a web server, it receives a repository that works with the Entity Framework. MVC controllers interact with repositories to load and persist an application business model. By taking advantage of dependency injection (DI), repositories can be injected into a controller's constructor.

Want a 100TB disk drive? You'll have to wait 'til 2025
The roadmap, released by the Advanced Storage Technology Consortium (ASTC), indicates technologies such as Bit Patterned Media Recording (BPMR) and Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) will result in up to 10-terabit-per-square-inch (Tbpsi) areal densities by 2025, compared with today's .86 Tbpsi areal densities. "This implies that a 3.5-inch HDD built with that technology could have about 10X the capacity of the 10TB HDDs in 2025, or 100TB," industry analyst Tom Coughlin wrote in a recent blog post.

Implementing and Searching Deep Links with the URX API
Adding deep links to your app is platform specific. For Android apps, register the URL scheme in your manifest file. After you register your scheme, you need to map routes to in-app activities using intents. Intent filters can be added to your Android manifest file. Detailed information on how to add deep links to your Android app can be found in the Android Developer Portal. For iOS apps, register the URL scheme in your project settings or in your info.plist file. Then implement the openURL method in your AppDelegate. You can either manually parse the URL in this method, or you can use Turnpike, our open-source framework, to map the URL to defined routes.

On Programming Languages as Languages
We can look at programming languages in two possible ways. They can be a means for us to instruct the computer, and incidentally communicate with fellow programmers, or they can allow us to communicate with other programmers in specific terms that are ultimately executable. The first interpretation is technically more accurate. Or, more specifically, the worst kind of accurate. I like to think of programming languages as languages because, outside of trivial programs, above all else they enable programmers to communicate with one another when it comes to resolving a problem or completing a particular task, while incidentally producing code that is also understood by computers via “translators”

Two-thirds of UK staff bring wearables to work
Trend Micro CTO Raimund Genes said wearable technology is in its growth stages. “It’s a developing market," he said. "We are now talking about all the Fitbit devices and we’re talking about the Apple Watch, which have pretty basic sensors.” But the hardware is coming on in leaps and bounds and, as an example, Genes pointed to a wearable blood-pressure monitor available in Germany, which could be used for insurance and healthcare purposes.

Quote for the day:

"A leader is judged not by the length of his reign but by the decisions he makes." -- Klingon Proverb

November 27, 2014

Siemens patches critical SCADA flaws likely exploited in recent attacks
One of the vulnerabilities allows unauthenticated attackers to remotely execute arbitrary code on a Siemens SIMATIC WinCC SCADA server by sending specially crafted packets to it. The flaw received the maximum severity score of 10 in the Common Vulnerability Scoring System and can lead to a full system compromise.The other vulnerability can also be exploited by unauthenticated attackers by sending specially crafted packets, but to extract arbitrary files from the WinCC server. The flaw has a CVSS score of 7.8.

The Cloud in 2014 and Beyond
As we wrap up 2014, it’s time we took a look at some of the biggest cloud technologies that made an impact over the course of the year and thought about cloud predictions for 2015. I’m most likely not going to list all of the technologies that were big this year, so if you feel I missed something, feel free to add it in the comments section! That said, the concentration around the user and the information delivery model has allowed the modern data center and the cloud infrastructure in general to really evolve. We’re seeing new methods of optimization, cloud control and entirely new ways of controlling the user experience.

There’s an opportunity for tech in the EPA’s proposed smog rule
“It’s sparking new technology, which is increasingly important as we move forward,” McCarthy said about tightening the smog standard. “The good news is that California has become a birth place of innovative technology as a result and is providing a lot of opportunities across the U.S. to take advantage of their innovation.” California’s topography and large population, which leads to high electricity demand and puts lots of cars on the road, increases the production of smog and traps it, making it difficult to get rid of it. The state has put in stringent air quality standards over the past three decades to regulate emissions, but most residents still face smog levels that pose health risks, said the California Air Resources Board.

A Comparison of IT Governance and Control Frameworks in Cloud Computing
Providing the appropriate level and type of IT governance and controls in a cloud computing environment is a new challenge facing many CIOs and their organizations. While there are many commonalities among these frameworks, the authors identify the key components of each model as they relate specifically to the cloud computing environment. Governance in the cloud requires defining policies and implementing an organizational structure with well-defined roles for the responsibility of information technology management, business processes, and applications. Best practice IT governance considerations proffered by Weill and Ross, ITGI, and others are then included into our cloud framework.

A new way to map technology disruptions
For every innovation there are two challenges: It must be made, and it must be accepted. The first challenge is all about engineering and technology, the second one is all about mind and design. And both of them do not just consist of make-or-break leaps, but are continuous processes – on the way to the breakthrough, and beyond. Cisco and GDI Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute have found an innovative (sic!) way (www.gdi.ch/i2d) to show for some of the most promising technological disruptions to date, how far they have come in these processes; and how far they still have to go to reach the mind shift, and the technology shift needed to become part of our lives.

With Apple's Watch looming, is it time firms faced up to wearable security?
"Sooner or later, almost everybody will have these devices and if we haven't talked about these implications, if we haven't thought about it, it will be too late," Trend Micro CTO Raimund Genes told a London roundtable event this week. "We saw this with bring your own device, which for a few companies has been bring your own disaster. We saw it with the internet. The internet was never designed with safety in mind, and when I look at all the new battery-optimised communications protocols, nobody has designed in any security." Communications over battery-optimised communication technologies, such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and ZigBee, are not visible by monitoring IP network traffic.

Dealing with disruption in the digital business
The question that needs to be answered is, "What is fluidic about digital disruptions, and why does that change the ways that change happens?" The answer is that digital business is based on the manipulation of digital representations of virtual or physical assets, channels and capabilities. Because they are in digital form, they are easier, and often faster, to manipulate. The possibilities are limited only by the imagination. And these assets, channels and capabilities can be used in a wider variety of ways than their analog counterparts. As a result, change in the digital age is happening at such a high frequency, often in unexpected ways, that it seems like a stream of interconnected disruptions that are difficult to identify, let alone react to.

Building Relationships Between Agile Teams and Stakeholders
Our evolutionary wiring predisposes us to being social. Social connection is a fundamental need, as is food, water and shelter. When we are born, we must be connected to someone who can give us nourishment and shelter. And, we have evolved so that fundamental needs cause pain (such as, hunger and thirst) forcing us to seek relief. Social disconnection activates the brain’s pain circuitry and causes ”social pain” – which in our brains is the same as experiencing physical pain. The research also shows that we are able to keep track of our social interactions because we have a larger, more developed cortex than any other animals. Our brains have evolved to support social connection.

Intel roadmap update: Skylake on track for 2015, will debut alongside Broadwell-K
According to WCCFTech, Intel will also launch new desktop parts next year, with a Core i7 5000 unlocked CPU (Broadwell-K) and a second set of desktop SKUs dubbed the Core i7-6000 family, or Skylake-S. Broadwell-K is reportedly compatible with the Z97 family of chipsets that are already shipping, while Skylake-S will require a new motherboard. Broadwell is the 14nm refresh of Haswell, with a die shrink and a handful of minor improvements to the CPU, but not much more. Skylake, in contrast, is the full architecture refresh — so what are its (rumored) features?

Ensuring SDN and NFV Performance for a Future-Proof Network
Analysis is not reliable unless all network information is captured and collected by
network appliances. Network appliances receive data either from a Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) port on a switch or router that replicates all traffic, or from passive taps that provide a copy of network traffic. They then need to precisely time stamp each Ethernet frame to allow accurate determination of events and latency measurements for quality of experience assurance. Network appliances also recognize the encapsulated protocols, as well as determine flows of traffic that are associated with the same senders and receivers.

API Security Testing – How to Hack an API and Get Away with It (Part 3 of 3)
Testing for insufficient SSL configurations is straightforward – make sure your tests accept only valid certificates. Taking an extra precaution for MITM attacks is also advisable – for example by adding signatures to a message, which makes it impossible (well, almost) for a eavesdropper to modify messages on the wire, even if they manage to insert themselves in the communication pipeline. Testing with signatures, that they are enforced, correctly validated, etc. – is equally possible.

Quote for the day:

“It always seems impossible until it's done.” -- Nelson Mandela

November 26, 2014

Google Glass Is Dead; Long Live Smart Glasses
Despite Google’s missteps, the technology isn’t going away. The idea that Glass represents—allowing you to ingest digital information at a glance—has appealed for decades to die-hards like Thad Starner, a Glass technical lead who has been making and wearing these kinds of gadgets since 1993. Researchers are going to keep plugging away until we get to a point where the technology blends into the glasses themselves, rather than sitting so obviously atop them. So imagine that in a few years someone comes out with smart glasses that are pretty much unnoticeable. They have a tiny display in the lenses; the electronics and battery are neatly concealed in the frame.

Don't forget charisma when hiring an IT leader
Charisma often gets a bad rap in technical circles. It's perceived as the sizzle without the steak, or the "empty suit" who shakes the hands and kisses the babies, but underneath it all has no idea what he or she is talking about. In IT we often evaluate our peers and managers by their technical acumen, and anyone who doesn't make the cut is dismissed as incapable. However, these "soft skills" can be critically important, although they're rarely bundled with deep technical competence, requiring IT leaders to evaluate where to deploy their charismatic leaders vs. their strongest technicians.

What’s the Value of IT Security Investments for Security Intelligence?
Given the maniacal focus of senior executives on stock values, an alternative approach to expressing the value of IT security might be to use an event study approach. Eugene Fama, an American economist and Nobel laureate in economics, established the event study methodology based on his efficient market theory. This theory assumes stock market prices always immediately reflect all available information. Simply stated, event studies reflect the stock market reaction to a public announcement.

An Unconventional Solution to a Big IT Problem
No matter how you slice it, the user community believes that we will somehow divine the perfect system for them. And as much as we wish this unrealistic expectation would go away—or that we could just go ahead and write the systems without our users’ involvement—we all know that’s not possible. (At least, not if we want to have a hope of actually delivering on their real needs.) So what’s an IT professional to do when faced with the ever-present burden of unavailable stakeholders? Here’s a real-life story that may cause you to not only think a little differently, but to act a little differently in the coming year.

7 Leadership Tips for Women Tech Executives
"Female executives face the challenge of presenting themselves accurately in their first 90 days on the job. They need to balance proving both their competence and skill set with showing their true work persona. Male executives are judged first and foremost on how they do a job, and perhaps secondarily on their office demeanor and appearance. Women are immediately judged on both, and therefore need to set goals around performance in both areas," says Danielle Tate, founder and CEO of MissNowMrs.com, an online name change service.

The Gap Between Big Data and Big Insights: Turning data into engaging stories
It’s not that big data isn’t important. Believe me, it’s the foundation for the future of business. It’s just that every time I hear about big data, it’s either in the context of social media, The Internet of Things, data technology, Nate Silver, or a combination of all of the above. What I don’t hear enough is the human side of data, the questions asked, the insights that are drawn, and the ways that insights are then executed against at every level that matters (internally and externally). The problem with big data is we think that by saying “big,” we automatically convey importance and urgency up, down, and across our organization.

Hybrid cloud growth leaves enterprises scrambling for control
Cairns explained that the reason why there has been such a quick uptake in such a short period of time is because enterprises have realised the advantages a cloud environment can provide, such as the increased freedom to be agile and innovative. "It's almost the freedom to fail quietly. So you can go out and be innovative, and if it does work, you can expand madly on public and on private. It's just so much more accessible," she said. But because the uptake has been so rapid, Cairns said many enterprises are now wrangling with multiple cloud accounts, while learning how to balance shifting workloads from legacy and into the cloud.

Review: Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro
Using the pico projector is a mixed bag. It's more of a gimmick than a useful feature. It projects the image out of the left side of the cylinder, and tablet placement is critical to get a level projection on a wall or screen. The stand must be in a low angle position, and tilted just right to get a good projected image. There is a slider next to the lens for focusing the projected display, which can be as big as 50 inches. This slider is stiff to move, making fine adjustments very difficult. This turns using the projector into an exercise in frustration. A button on the left side of the tablet toggles the pico projector on and off.

Making the Case for an API Roadmap
Access is often a significant API adoption barrier, so provide a self-service, resource-rich environment. Use API management infrastructure (e.g. WSO2 API Manager, Apigee, 3Scale) to expose an “API store.” The API Store application will establish your own API marketplace and promote APIs. Application developers easily find, explore, subscribe, and evaluate APIs within a marketplace experience similar to the Apple AppStore or Google Marketplace. The venue lets developers register as a potential API consumer, obtain API access credentials, and match project requirements to API capabilities.

Target Wants Data Breach Bank Claims Dismissed
"Target's gross security deficiencies enabled the breach, and Target's inaction and omissions worsened the breach's effect on plaintiffs," the lenders said in a court filing. The banks are relying in part on a Minnesota law — the Plastic Card Security Act — to support their claim that Target had a duty to shield them. The retailer contends the lenders aren't covered by the measure. The law prohibits the company from retaining certain card data after a sale is completed. Target's lawyers say the data theft happened at the point of sale and that the statute doesn't apply. Bank attorneys counter the company has said it retained card data and that the retailer voluntarily disabled data system security functions that would have detected the breach.

Quote for the day:

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” -- John Quincy Adams

November 25, 2014

'Less' is more to malware authors targeting Linux users
Less does not allow file editing, which is a job for file editors like the widely used vi, but has the benefit of displaying data on the fly without needing to load an entire file into memory. This is useful when dealing with large files. Less is frequently used to view text files, but on many Linux distributions, including Ubuntu and CentOS, it supports many more file types including archives, images and PDF. That's because, on these systems, less is extended through a script called lesspipe that relies on different third-party tools to process files with various extensions.

Web services vs. cloud services: Are they the same?
The short answer is, "no," they are not the same. However, they are increasingly dependent on each other if users want the full speed and ease of use effect that such services offer. Technically, organizations can have a Web service without a cloud service or vice versa, but one gets greater business efficiency when the services are combined. Web services are the tools that allow users to interact with software over the Internet.Cloud services are the servers that store the data, security and other infrastructure pieces needed to allow Web services to provide unique value as Web-accessible applications.

The Art Of Being Consistently Less Wrong
The key concept to focus on is not to be exact but to be LESS WRONG. The only way you can be less wrong is to learn. The only way to learn is to do. In my opinion letting go of the concept of correctness in agile and embracing the desire to be less wrong can help a team change what they normally consider to be a painful, drawn out meeting into a quick, focused and collaborative discussion. Get past the estimation and get back to delivering features. So, how do we learn to be consistently less wrong? Here are a few things to consider:

Thwarting Attackers with Threat Intelligence
Intelligence and understanding are crucial to any defensive strategy. Cybersecurity teams are trying to learn more about malicious actors, including why and how they are attacking. This is where the extended network provides unexpected value, delivering a depth of intelligence that cannot be attained anywhere else in the computing environment. Much like in counterterrorism, intelligence is key to stopping attacks before they happen. Just as terrorists sometimes inflict damage disproportionate to their resources, such can be the case in cyberspace. Relatively small adversaries with limited means can inflict significant damage on larger foes. In these situations, intelligence is one of the most important assets for addressing threats.

Global Standards and Publications
In the current environment, with constant changes and almost infinite ways of accessing information and communicating, it is essential to make communication as clear as possible and ensure the quality of information. Van Haren Publishing makes general Best Practices available to provide quality, practically validated information worldwide. The use of standards and frameworks gives everyone the same language thus minimalizing the chance of errors due to unclear communication. Best Practices regarding these standards and frameworks provide you with information summarizing years of experience by the best in the industry.

Corporate IT's Darwinian Challenge
Corporate IT organizations in general are still viewed as the people who slow down business opportunity and change and say "no" far more than "yes." Too many corporate IT organizations haven't evolved along with their ecosystem and, in my opinion, much of the necessary change starts with an evolution in thinking and purpose. For me, the following points are the required foundation to stop the gradual erosion, and ultimate extinction, of the corporate IT organization as we know it today.

Mobile Medical Apps: A Market on the Move
Smartphone technology is promising for use in remote patient monitoring for several reasons. David Pettigrew, Sagentia’s Vice President of Connected Health, sums up the advantages: “Benefits to medical-device manufacturers include cost savings through not having to develop a completely new device, leveraging existing platforms while adding more sophisticated sensing and data capabilities, and using an interface that consumers know and understand and is already part of their everyday life.” The result: Devices are far more likely to be adopted and used correctly.

The branded bug: Meet the people who name vulnerabilities
If the bug is dangerous enough, it gets a name. Heartbleed's branding changed the way we talk about security, but did giving a bug a logo make it frivolous... or is this the evolution of infosec? Criminals, such as bank robbers, are often named because there are too many to keep track of. Just as killers and gangsters end up in history marked and defined by where they murdered (the "Trailside Killer") or having a characteristic ("Baby Face" Nelson), the same goes for critical bugs and zero days. Stephen Ward, Senior Director at iSIGHT Partners (iSIGHT reported the "Sandworm" Microsoft zero-day), explained to ZDNet, "Researchers will often use unique characteristics discovered in malware or in command and control to give a team or a particular exploit a name.

Network security needs big data
Big data will change most of the product categories in the field of computer network security, including network monitoring, the authentication and authorization of users, identity management, fraud detection, and systems of governance, risk and compliance. Big data will also change the nature of the security controls, such as conventional firewalls, anti-malware and data loss prevention. In coming years, the tools of data analysis will evolve further to enable a number of advanced predictive capabilities and automated controls in real time.

7 Tools Tuned for Agile Development Success
The iterative alternative to fully mapped-out waterfall processes has become widely accepted in recent years, bringing with it software tools designed to help agile practitioners hone their processes, collaborate efficiently, and monitor progress. Companies like Atlassian, Axosoft, Microsoft, and others have been filling the niche for agile project management. Since we first rounded up agile project management tools in 2013, these tools have seen noteworthy improvements. Here's another look at the more effective agile-oriented project management tools and what's been improved in them in the past year.

Quote for the day:

"How you measure the performance of your managers directly affects the way they act." -- Gustave Flaubert