Daily Tech Digest - January 19, 2017

Meet Me In The Parking Lot: Walking Meetings Hit Their Stride

“Walking meetings are preferable for one-on-ones because it actually gives you a break from staring at a computer screen,” says Lan, a software engineer at Sift Science, which develops machine learning technology to detect fraud. “I walk with either a manager or a peer, usually when we talk about high-level things.” A walking meeting is just what it sounds like: a meeting that takes place during a walk rather than in a conference room or office. People can hold walking meetings on sidewalks and park trails or inside shopping malls and convention centers if the setting isn’t too noisy. “All of our employees to some extent use walking meetings to break out of the sedentary lifestyle,” says Robert Manigold, a partner at web and app development agency Code Koalas in Kansas City, Mo.


New study details the effectiveness of Security Operation Centres

Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s State of Security Operations Report 2017 looks at the increased pressure organisations are under in the face of rapid innovation in the cyber threat and how they can align security initiatives with business goals. ... Findings from this year’s report show that the majority of SOCs are falling below target maturity levels, leaving organisations vulnerable in the event of an attack. The methodology for assessments were based on HPE’s Security Operations Maturity Model (SOMM), which focuses on multiple aspects of a successful and mature security intelligence and monitoring capability including people, process, technology, and business functions. The SOMM uses a five-point scale – a score of “0” is given for a complete lack of capability while a “5” is given for a capability that is consistent, repeatable, documented, measured, tracked, and continually improved upon.


Infographic: Car Hacking Is Not A Thing Of Future

You may not realize it, but your car probably already has some self-driving technologies—even basic ones. For example, many of the newest cars have lane assist or park assist, which can help you avoid unintended lane violations or better ease into parking spots. But those car assistance technologies depend on the internet and computers, and those are at risk of hacking. In fact, that’s one of the biggest concerns with the continued development of self-driving cars: how can thieves access them, and what will they do with the data? Vound Software compiled a detailed infographic to get you all the details.


Update On The Megatrend of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is the discipline of thinking machines. The field is growing dramatically with the proliferation of high powered computers into homes and businesses and especially with the growing power of smartphones and other mobile devices. Artificial intelligence software is assisting people in most every discipline. The many functions of AI are considered by many to be threatening many human jobs across multiple industries, but others consider it a great producer of jobs since it will help create entirely new industries and free more humans to innovate and create. You can see our reference to Truly Useful AI You Can Use Right Today. Follow this link to track the highest ranked, enterprise ready Artificial Intelligence Companies.


Smile! Hackers Can Remotely Access Your Samsung SmartCam Security Cameras

It's not necessary to break into your computer or smartphone to spy on you. Today all devices in our home are becoming more connected to networks than ever to make our lives easy. But what's worrisome is that these connected devices can be turned against us, anytime, due to lack of stringent security measures and insecure encryption mechanisms implemented in these Internet of Things (IoTs) devices. The most recent victim of this issue is the Samsung's range of SmartCam home security cameras. Yes, it's hell easy to hijack the popular Samsung SmartCam security cameras, as they contain a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability that could let hackers gain root access and take full control of these devices.


Attackers Start Wiping Data From CouchDB And Hadoop Databases

According to Merrigan's latest count, 126 Hadoop instances have been wiped so far. The number of victims is likely to increase because there are thousands of Hadoop deployments accessible from the internet -- although it's hard to say how many are vulnerable. The attacks against MongoDB and Elasticsearch followed a similar pattern. The number of MongoDB victims jumped from hundreds to thousands in a matter of hours and to tens of thousands within a week. The latest count puts the number of wiped MongoDB databases at more than 34,000 and that of deleted Elasticsearch clusters at more than 4,600. A group called Kraken0, responsible for most of the ransomware attacks against databases, is trying to sell its attack toolkit and a list of vulnerable MongoDB and Elasticsearch installations for the equivalent of US$500 in bitcoins.


How AI Can End Bias

AI has the potential to help us avoid bias in hiring, operations, customer service, and the broader business and social communities—and doing so makes good business sense. For one thing, even the most unintentional discrimination can cost a company significantly, in both money and brand equity. The mere fact of having to defend against an accusation of bias can linger long after the issue itself is settled. Beyond managing risk related to legal and regulatory issues, though, there’s a broader argument for tackling bias: in a relentlessly competitive and global economy, no organization can afford to shut itself off from broader input, more varied experiences, a wider range of talent, and larger potential markets. That said, the algorithms that drive AI don’t reveal pure, objective truth just because they’re mathematical.


Gaining Confidence In The Cloud

Security in the cloud refers to the security of systems built on top of it. Whilst the private cloud providers will offer simplified systems for administrators to both implement and audit standard security measures, these by no means replace the traditional measures, nor does they guarantee the security of your systems. Just as in a traditional datacentre or a private cloud, the security of your system is mainly your responsibility. ... The point at which the responsibility passes from your organisation to your supplier is known as the ‘trust boundary’ and it occurs at different points for the different types of cloud e.g. IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. You will need to verify the security status and resilience of the Cloud Service Providers (CSP) you chose and you should also review and understand their Data Protection Act obligations. From 2018,


4 Reasons You Need Developers With Cybersecurity Skills in All Tech Teams

According to a recent study, the global demand for cybersecurity professionals will create more than one million unfilled cybersecurity positions by 2019, with one of the most desired skills being secure software development. No wonder, that entrepreneurs and companies are having increasingly hard time finding the security talent they need to build reliable services and keep the data of their users safe. One way to bridge the skills gap and create more secure products is to train and hire more engineers specialized in cybersecurity. However, it is equally important to improve the cryptography and security skills of all developers working in your company, beyond those sitting in dedicated cybersecurity teams. Here are some thoughts on the reasons.


Close The Gap Between IT & Security To Reduce The Impact Of Cyber Threats

There are many advantages to having separate IT and security teams, with the most important being that it allows experts in both groups to hone specific skill sets that make them more effective at their jobs. But that doesn't mean that each must operate within a silo. Combining security and IT operations can be as simple as encouraging more communications and providing tools that give them visibility into areas supervised by the other group. In security, having a deeper understanding of how systems within the network are designed to perform would help them to better spot and stop threats. Modern advanced persistent threats that use tools like Hammertoss, ... Attacks that leverage native capabilities in the operating system or whitelisted websites/applications (such as tech support) would not be so invisible to those on the security team if they knew what day-to-day operations of those systems looked like from an IT perspective.


Mini PC invasion: These radically tiny computers fit in the palm of your hand

Some of today’s desktops can make even the sleekest of laptops seem downright bulky. Computers have been shrinking for years, and the revolution has only accelerated in recent times. As chipmakers focus on creating processors that sip power without sacrificing performance, thermal concerns have largely been alleviated in modern CPUs. Because of that, today’s pint-sized PCs offer enough performance to play HD video and satisfy Office jockeys, the opposite of the janky, compromised experience of yesteryear’s microcomputers. From PCs-on-a-stick to discreet boxes no larger than a deck of cards, let’s take a look at the wide range of computers available that can fit in the palm of your hand—starting with the one that brought teeny-tiny PCs to public attention.



Quote for the day:


“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the human spirit. The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” -- Wilma Rudolph


Daily Tech Digest - January 18, 2017

Robots are evolving so quickly that the big concern may be how much we don't know about AI

Maybe it will be the the time when change happens so quickly, and is so profound, that the technophiles will be wondering why we didn’t listen to Elon Musk back then. Or Bill Gates. Or Steve Wozniak and the 1000 other science and technology leaders who are so worried about the rise of AI they wrote a letter to the United Nations about it. The UN is listening, because the argument against AI goes far deeper than robots putting us all out of work. Just before Christmas, at the International Convention on Conventional Weapons in Geneva, the 123 participating nations voted to look at the possibility of banning autonomous robots that can select targets without human control. Yes, there are countries that want robots to not only fight the wars, but also have the power to choose who dies and when.


Analysis and Mitigation of NoSQL Injections

Like almost every new technology, NoSQL databases lacked security when they first emerged3–5. They suffered from a lack of encryption, proper authentication, role management, and fine-grained authorization6. Furthermore, they allowed dangerous network exposure and denial-of-service attacks. Today, the situation is better, and popular databases have introduced built-in protection mechanisms. NoSQL databases use different query languages, which makes traditional SQL injection techniques irrelevant. But does this mean that NoSQL systems are immune to injections? Our study shows that although the security of the query language and drivers has largely improved, there are still techniques for injecting malicious queries. Some works already provide reports of NoSQL injection techniques. 


Wearable technology in investment banking: watch your money on your watch

As of now, a trading watch-based app is working as an extension of mobile app and to take any further action a trader is required to use their mobile or iPad. In future, wearable devices should allow traders or advisors to take action based on the notification received and initiate next steps using call, SMS, email and other features designed for trading (such as buy/sell touch buttons). Key focus should not be on offering everything on a watch but instead a set of limited action-based features that are simple and urgent. Two versions of a smartwatch trading app can be created: one for advisors to manage client accounts, and the other for individual traders and investors who manage their own accounts.


16 Stunning Statistics that Forecast the Future of the Internet of Things

Everyone’s talking about the Internet of Things, even the “things,” which can now request and deliver customer support, tell if you’re being as productive as you could be at work, let your doctor know if you’re following orders (or not), reduce inefficiencies in energy consumption, improve business processes, predict issues and proactively improve or resolve them based on data received. The Internet of Things (IoT) is just getting started. These forecasts below show why organizations need to get started too (if they haven’t already) on leveraging and responding to the Internet of Things:


Beware This New Gmail Scam That Is Tricking Even Tech-Savvy Users

Hackers who have breached someone's email account look through the emails in it for correspondence containing attachments. They then send emails from the compromised account -- impersonating the account's owner -- with each email leveraging similarities to prior correspondence, so as to make the new messages seem legitimate and familiar. For example, the phishing emails may use a subject line that was used in the past. The hackers embed an image of an attachment used in the past into each phishing email, but configure the image to open not the attachment but, rather, a phishing page that looks like a Google login. Because the user is opening a Gmail attachment, the presentation of a phony Gmail login page does not seem alarming -- especially when the person opening the attachment feels that he or she has been viewing a "safe and familiar" correspondence.


IT Teams Can Influence Culture Across Campus

Do campus users view IT as the department that enables them to work smarter, better and faster, or do they view IT processes as a hurdle to overcome? Certain solutions — collaboration systems, virtual desktop infrastructure, mobile devices, the cloud — support the anywhere, anytime approach that many staff and students have come to expect. Yet as much as IT strives to make this approach possible, it also seeks to manage risk and keep users — and institutional resources — safe from cyberthreats. Balancing these two concerns is a perennial and central IT function, but how IT leaders communicate related initiatives to users can go a long way in shaping culture. When IT can’t accommodate users’ requests, or can’t accommodate them quickly, do staff explain the rationale or the reasons behind a delay? Does IT have a positive track record of collaborating with outside departments to identify ways that IT services can enhance productivity while maintaining security?


Key Data and Analytics Trends Everyone Should Watch in 2017

It’s estimated that between 35 and 50 percent of jobs that exist today are at risk of being lost to automation. Repetitive, blue collar-type jobs might be the first casualties to robotic automation, but with sophisticated AI even professionals — including paralegals, diagnosticians, and customer service representatives — could be at risk. As with most advances in technology, there are pros and cons to this rise in automation. On the one hand, companies will be able to automate repetitive jobs, reduce associated costs, and increase productivity. On the other hand, the elimination of low-skilled or low-education jobs will hurt some of the most vulnerable populations already struggling to find jobs that provide a living wage. The jobs that will remain will require high levels of education and creativity, and there will be fewer of them to go around.


Here's how millennials are impacting the future of communication

Several trends that have emerged over the past 18 months or so point to the decline of email as the primary mode of communication in the workplace. These range from an overall shift in user behavior to the widespread adoption of chat apps, which boast a growing list of functions and capabilities. The emergence of less formal, more engaging modes of workplace communication is most obvious in the adoption apps like Slack and the growing trend in using social networking apps such as Facebook Workplace. Chat apps are proving successful in the workplace for several reasons: Chat apps are convenient. Chat apps support quick and easy-to-access communication, and enable businesses and users to communicate with those who may not have an email address. For instance, many doctors in Brazil use WhatsApp to converse with patients, schedule appointments, and share test results.


What Does "Being Digital" Actually Mean?

Being Digital is the re-imagining of business processes to be by default a fully online, fully automated process from end user interaction to back office processing, with no need for human intervention. This really should be the first question any organisation should ask. The path to being digital is not free…investment is needed and therefore the benefits of being digital needs to be understood by those putting in the investment. Return on Investment is an extremely difficult thing to calculate and it can only be measured on a company by company basis. I could give you a bullet point list of the reasons why – however, you’re about to get your fill of lists plus you can boil it down to one thing: If you don’t become digital, your business will die. And if you don’t take being digital seriously, your competitors will and they will do it better…and your business will die. Ever heard of Blockbusters?


Passwords: A Long Goodbye

Don’t hold your breath. Brett McDowell, executive director of the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, is as passionate an advocate of eliminating passwords as anyone. He says that day is coming, given the creation of a, “new generation of authentication technology” largely based on biometrics, and a “massive collaboration among hundreds of companies” to define standards for that technology. ... There are a number of reasons for that, even though the security problems with passwords are well known and well documented. As Phil Dunkelberger, CEO of Nok Nok Labs, put it, “the username and password paradigm is fundamentally broken. It was never designed for, and is inherently incapable of addressing, the use cases of modern society. “



Quote for the day:


"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." -- Nelson Mandela


Daily Tech Digest - January 17, 2017

Turn Your Organization into an Idea Factory: Part I

If there is a perception that the employee suggestion box is a black hole and a waste of time, employees will quickly stop submitting new ideas. I say perception because sometimes ideas are being looked at and evaluated, but communication and transparency around this process is missing or takes too long. The interesting thing about feedback is that it does not need to be positive. It just has to exist. ... Even when a suggestion is turned down, the feedback is seen as positive if there is a proper explanation provided. Another important element of trust is the participation of leadership within the program. There is considerably more success with programs when leaders are active in commenting and responding to ideas, and reinforcing the usage of the program and celebrating success in communications.


Self-Service Business Intelligence is Big, but is it for Everyone?

While business users represent one pocket of parties interested in Self-Service Business Intelligence, another important user segment is the IT department itself. A survey of IT pros from real-time IT management vendor ManageEngine – which this past summer unveiled a self-service solution to help enterprise IT staff gain insights from the data generated by its network monitoring, applications monitoring, and customer support tools – shows that these experts want Self-Service Analytics tools as much as their business counterparts. Forty-two percent of respondents want to create reports on their own, a win for Self-Service Analytics over traditional reporting – and on-demand, with ad hoc reporting being key for more than one-third so that they can get answers to specific questions and analyze specific data.


McKinsey sees blockchain technology reaching full potential in 5 years

The McKinsey report’s time estimate for full blockchain adoption is about half that of similar estimates. The World Economic Forum released a report in October 2015 about the tipping point of disruptive technologies, and included predictions about blockchain in it. Governments, the report claimes, would reach their tipping point for using blockchain technology by 2023, and people would reach their tipping point for using “bitcoin and the blockchain” in 2027. ... However, over the next one to two years startups and standards for the space will rise, as well as “niche applications that will define new markets that do not exist today.” In another three to five years, they predict that the majority of large players will use blockchain technology. Global business consulting firm Accenture has a similar timeline, with a two year shorter timeframe.


Machine Learning – An idea whose time has come

The increasing availability of Big Data from ever-expanding sources, including IoT sensors, digitized documents and images, has made machine learning more relevant than ever before. The data is constantly being used to ‘train’ machines and enable them to make accurate predictions and recommendations. As data continues to proliferate, the ability of our computers to process and analyze that data will also increase. Not only that, computers will also increasingly learn from that data. ... The adoption of Machine Learning in organizations is bound to face some challenges. For instance, computation of data, sourcing talent in large numbers, and creating the requisite infrastructure are going to be major tasks that will need attention and resources. Besides, uncertainty, ethical issues, outcome metrics, logistics, budgeting computational resources, training and testing of data sets all pose challenges.


Data Science of Variable Selection: A Review

One of the biggest problems in predictive modeling is the conflation between classic hypothesis testing with careful model specification vis-a-vis pure data mining. The classically trained can get quite dogmatic about the need for "rigor" in model design and development. The fact is that when confronted with massive numbers of candidate predictors and multiple possible targets or dependent variables, the classic framework neither works, holds nor provides useful guidance – how does anyone develop a finite set of hypotheses with millions of predictors? Numerous recent papers delineate this dilemma from Chattopadhyay and Lipson's brilliant paper Data Smashing: Uncovering Lurking Order in Data who state, "The key bottleneck is that most data comparison algorithms today rely on a human expert to specify what ‘features’ of the data are relevant for comparison.


Online Or Offline, Ransomware Will Find You

Professional ransomware authors typically use online Command & Control centers for their campaigns as they provide multiple benefits, including the ability to track affiliate campaigns, use unique keys created for victims, and alter campaign specifics on the fly. The old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" method has served them well for the longest time, but everything has to change eventually, and even malware makers have to adapt with the times. The reason for this shift in attack strategy is that not all computers are online, which represents a blip in the ability of bad actors to make as much money as humanly possible. If ransomware can't “phone home” when it's time to begin infecting the target, then no encryption can take place and their efforts are wasted. To get around this, it's becoming more common to see offline features built into more traditional packages.


Automate systems and server documentation tasks to boost IT efficiency

You don't need an outside tool, but writing and modifying scripts takes time and effort that can be better spent on other IT projects. Scripts are usually best for smaller organizations with limited IT deployments. When an IT environment includes too many diverse systems to document with a single or even a suite of related scripts, or you must include non-Windows systems in the server documentation process, invest in a third-party tool such as ManageEngine's Device Information tool or CENTREL Solutions' Network Documentation tool. These tools are designed for inventory/configuration discovery, recording and reporting. Implement an outside tool to provide better reporting and free IT staff from time-consuming script maintenance.


Data Theft Trends to Watch in 2017

Mishandling of data by (trusted) third parties will be a prime source of data leaks again in 2017, as it was in 2016. Third party breaches are among the most vexing because business partners and contractors – or even customers – often have access to our most sensitive IT assets and data, but are the hardest to police. We’ve noted the trend of third party breaches before. But expect it to get stronger in 2017 rather than weaker. The reason? More reliance on hybrid products and services that mingle on premises devices and clients with a wide range of cloud based services. Longer and more complex supply chains compound risk. Consider the recent news about wholesale transmission of mobile phone users’ text data and contacts by firmware from the Chinese firm ADUPS to company servers in China.


Five Google Assistant integrations we want to see

Smart conversations need smart partners. The Google Assistant can improve in the near-term very quickly with a larger team of buddies that specialize in different tasks. For example, currently I can ask Google for the score of the latest Golden State Warriors game or when they play next. Down the line, perhaps I’d be able to invoke an agent from ESPN or another sports provider who would be able to answer more detailed questions about a player’s performance, read out relevant news stories, or even participate in a trivia game. When developers get on board, the actions could look very much like this, according to Google: These type of interactions at a deeper level shouldn’t all be handled by Google’s algorithms. News providers and third-party apps and services can offer a larger bank of specialized knowledge for their areas of expertise.


Digital Transformation Forces Businesses To Rethink Cybersecurity

"The big change that's accelerating this trend is that shift to modern architectures," Downey adds. "Sixty-nine percent of executives were saying this digital transformation is creating fundamental changes to their security strategies." Bill Berutti, president of Security and Compliance at BMC, says that cybersecurity is now a critical initiative across the board. Companies, governments and society as a whole are facing increased cybersecurity threats including phishing, ransomware and known vulnerabilities. "Businesses need to tear down security and operations walls — or keep getting hacked," he said in a statement Wednesday. Allison Cramer says many BMC customers are responding by bringing together security professionals, operations professionals and developers into teams focused on particular mission-critical assets.



Quote for the day:


"If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it." -- William James


Daily Tech Digest - January 16, 2017

Windows 10 Build 15007 boosts Edge browser

For PCs, the 15007 build's revised Edge application makes it easier to bring data like favorites, browsing history, and saved passwords from another browser when switching to Edge, said Dona Sparker, software engineer in Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group. The revised Edge can also share tabs with compatible Windows apps. XAML scrollbar improvements for Universal Windows Platform, for both the PC and mobile versions of the OS, ensure the scrollbar's availability when needed while taking up less space. The panning indicator now appears when the user mouses over a scrolling region, and the full scrollbar appears when a user wants to directly interact with it. This improvement will be visible in apps using the Windows 10 Creators SDK.


Expect trouble as Shadow Brokers retire, give away hacking tools

“The economics of the dark markets is mainly based on un-exclusive, common, and low priced tools for lower end cyber criminals that look for low hanging fruit. The more sophisticated hackers prefer to roll their own toolset and thrive on their own research to make exclusive and untraceable exploits. They are patient, as to the point they can stay for years in hiding, timing their actions well before making their ‘coup de grace',” he said. “But it is not improbable that the freebie left by Shadow Brokers will be picked up and used by the lower end of opportunistic cyber criminals in campaigns to extort victims for easy money,” he added. More than half of the windows tools are already known and detected by most anti-malware tools, so it is only a matter of time before security analysts close the gap and provide protection against all the threats in the toolset.


Tech's assault on (obliteration of?) consumer privacy

Some of the societal benefits and consumer privacy risks of these new technologies are similar to ones we already know about, Ramirez said. Geolocation data, for example, can help ease horrendous traffic jams on morning commutes, but it should not be collected or used without a person's consent. Risks from unauthorized geolocation information include stalking; exposure of political, health and religious affiliations; and burglary. But there are new challenges, Ramirez said, among them the number of actors "collecting, compiling, interpreting and using data in a world that operates on big data, IoT and AI." The expanding list ranges from consumer-facing companies, device manufacturers and publisher websites to behind-the-scenes software vendors that connect IoT products to the internet to advertisers and analytics providers. "This vast array of entities makes it difficult to provide consumers with informed choices," she said.


Op-Ed: Blockchain - Innocent Until Proven Guilty

This system of multi-member consensus clearing ensures that each member, on an automated basis, applies the same diagnostic approach to the verification of information against the same record, irrespective of the internal processes of each member. Accordingly, each member of the chain is always cognisant of the acquiesced process adopted in determining whether a block should be added to a chain. This system affords transparency to transactions processed through a Blockchain, bearing in mind that due to the flexibility of Blockchain, the system can be restricted depending on the particular needs and purpose of the Blockchain network. The built-in transparency feature of the Blockchain network arguably negates the need for the regulator to administer and enforce further transparency requirements. The regulator should rather focus on the members of the Blockchain network and not the technology itself.


Ericsson CTO on 5G Standards, the WiFi Angle, and Connected Cars

There is going to be a more distinct separation between the services and the cloud. You asked about car makers and the 5G Automotive Association. We launched that association based upon the idea of a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). An automotive maker would rather think: OK, why go to one service provider? Why not create our own platform and then buy the network piece from all of them? They might want to buy service from three or four networks. Why not have the best coverage and pay per bit? We are going to see more model development over the next few years. If we look at 5G now, I see three phases of the business: First, there is basic connectivity. That is coming now. We are building base stations. Second, we will see transformation of core networks triggered by this access. I believe in 2019 and 2020 we will see a big focus on making a high-performance core. Now we have a radio with almost no latency.


AI Technology Takes Center Stage At Retail Convention

At the National Retail Federation event in New York technology vendors are be showcasing some of the most cutting edge technologies for retailers, including chatbots, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and more. Are retailers ready? It depends. There's really a range of experiences across companies. Analytics can offer retailers value across many aspects of their businesses, from supply chain optimization to workforce management to understanding consumer behavior. Yet many retailers are still struggling to get their siloed data integrated. It's one thing to offer a retail app to your customers if you've been a brick-and-mortar retailer. It is a more daunting challenge to integrate customer data from mobile apps, the web, physical stores, catalogs, social media, and any other channels to create a comprehensive picture of consumer behavior that can inform your own business decisions.


Here’s What’s Next for CenturyLink’s Data Center Business

There are some big differences between the two big data center deals that came at the tail end of 2016, however. The assets Equinix cherry-picked in its deal with Verizon will be integrated into an already massive global portfolio, while CenturyLink’s colocation business will become the foundation of a whole new company’s business. The name of the company has not been announced. What we do know is that it is a joint venture between Medina’s tech-focused private equity firm Medina Capital and the 30-year-old European buyout investor BC Partners. Its plan is to use the technologies of four of Medina’s previously acquired cybersecurity companies to provide a range of infrastructure products with emphasis on security, all running on top of the data center platform acquired from CenturyLink.


Coding school graduates: Are they worth hiring?

Coding bootcamps are an attractive educational option for certain populations, according to Kevin Kinser, department head of education policy studies at Penn State University. "They are one of the examples of new ways of thinking about providing access to education that is focused on providing marketable job skills," Kinser said. However, bootcamps are not accredited institutes of higher education. Therefore, a problem—such as a student not believing that the program lived up to its promises—would likely lead to a complaint to the Better Business Bureau, unlike at an institute of higher education, which has multiple layers of oversight. "You have to be assured based on your own understanding of the industry that what you're getting is going to have a return on investment," Kinser said. Longevity is an important factor to consider: If a coding school is not reputable, it's likely that they will not be around for long, Kinser said.


When Real-Time Threat Detection Is Essential

While organizations always want to find threats as quickly as possible, that ideal is far from being met. On average, dwell times last months and give cyber criminals all the time they need to peruse a network and extract valuable information that can impact a company, its customers and its employees. There are times when an organization will be especially vulnerable if they don’t have real-time detection capabilities, and in preparation for these events it’s a good idea to reevaluate tools and strategies. Mike Paquette, director of products, security market at Elastic, identifies some of the most common events that can leave an organization vulnerable, and offers advice to successfully navigating them.


IBM’s Watson Joins the War on Cybercrime

Network defenders are facing a constantly increasing number of alerts and anomalies every day. They have a huge workload screening and prioritizing these threats. Watson is trained to automate the typical duties of security analysts. Relying on machine learning and natural language processing, Watson for Cyber Security decides if a certain anomaly is a malicious threat or not. The system will use its vast amount of data to decide whether a specific security offense is related to a known malware or cybercrime campaign. Moreover, it will determine the potential vulnerabilities as well as the scope of the threat. Watson will also serve up a background about a user’s previous activities. For example, in the case of repeatedly failed log-in attempts, the system can make guesses about whether the event is simply related to an absentminded user or if it's a break-in attempt.



Quote for the day:


"Analyze your mistakes. You've already paid the tuition, you might as well get the lesson." -- Tim Fargo


Daily Tech Digest - January 15, 2017

New Study Paints a Frightening Picture of the Cyber Security Landscape

“The perfect storm is brewing that will pummel our nation’s public and private critical infrastructures with wave upon wave of devastating cyber attacks,” the report notes. “The Mirai malware offers malicious cyber actors an asymmetric quantum leap in capability; not because of sophistication or any innovative DDoS code, rather it offers a powerful development platform that can be optimized and customized according to the desired outcome of a layered attack by an unsophisticated adversary.” Script kiddies and cyber criminal gangs are already drastically expanding their control over vulnerable Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which can be contracted in DDoS-for-Hire services by a virtually unlimited number of actors for use in an infinite variation of layered attack methods, the study says.


Big data and the challenges in the car industry

Beside big data why are we interested in autonomous driving? Well $500 billion could be saved in traffic accidents and the cost to society. And $507 billion could be saved in productivity gains. Think about if you could get that 90 mins back each day? Better traffic patterns and logistics lead to big savings. The overall auto model is changing. We don’t just want driving anymore, we want fleet, no need to own the car. And then there’s the possibilities for the media and the content that can be delivered into the vehicle. But with a 10 x increase in data from a vehicle by 2025, how do we manage that data, what can we do with it? Something has to change. ... We can speed up the innovation in automotive space, and that’s good for everybody. An autonomous vehicle is much safer than a speeding young teen driver, or an elderly person with slow reflexes. 5G will be crucial to get the speed of data up and back. A data centers to use deep learning to constantly update fleets.


9 Bizarre and Surprising Insights from Data Science

We’ve entered the golden age of predictive discoveries. A frenzy of number crunching churns out a bonanza of colorful, valuable, and sometimes surprising insights Predictive analytics' aim isn’t limited to assessing human hunches by testing relationships that seem to make sense. It goes further, exploring a boundless playing field of possible truths beyond the realms of intuition. And so it drops onto your desk connections that seem to defy logic. As strange, mystifying, or unexpected as they may seem, these discoveries help predict. Welcome to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! of data science—the Freakonomics of big data. Below are nine colorful discoveries, each pertaining to a single predictor variable—from the likes of Walmart, Uber, Harvard, Shell, Microsoft, and Wikipedia.


Nokia's vision for digital health

Nokia has already struck up a partnership with the University of Helsinki and the Helsinki University Hospital to develop remote monitoring products for neurology outpatients, saying the deal reflects "the company's intent to enter the regulated healthcare space". Is the company intending to focus more on the enterprise healthcare vertical as well as the consumer market? Nokia's digital health business aims to "bridge consumer device experience into healthcare patient solutions", Hutchings said. "One of the shared visions between Nokia and Withings is that there is no definite split or frontier between the consumer world and healthcare." ... "We'll see more and more from this common project [of Nokia and Withings] that involve what look like consumer products, but which really integrate and embed into healthcare and remote patient monitoring environments. We'll be seeing more and more of these pilots, and in the future, large-scale deployments of such solutions."


A Framework for FinTech

Today, after sustained stakeholder engagement, we are proud to publish a whitepaper, A Framework for FinTech, that takes our work one step further to provide that perspective. This whitepaper expresses the forward-leaning posture of this Administration to innovation and entrepreneurship, generally, and fintech in particular. This document sets forth Administration policy objectives that reflect widely-shared values and practical expectations for the financial services sector and the U.S. government entities that interact with the sector. It then provides ten overarching principles that constitute a framework policymakers and regulators can use to think about, engage with, and assess the fintech ecosystem in order to meet these policy objectives.


The Undeniable Power of Data Mining, Visualization and Infographics for Business

One of the most common misconceptions about data visualization is that you need to create amazing works of interactive art, like the cool map from Metrocosm here. Data visualization, massive graphic design budgets, and an in-depth knowledge of coding do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. According to most data experts, data visualization can be any map, chart, graph, etc. that you can make into a simple JPEG image, a video, or even a 3D model like the one above. The only criteria is that the visualization communicates data. It’s also important to point out that data visualizations are usually only visual representations of one data set; a pie chart to show different portions of a specific group, or a line chart showing growth of social media followers. An infographic, on the other hand, is a collection of multiple data sets designed to depict an overall trend, topic, or idea.


Why IoT needs AI

AI typically works in tandem with the Internet of Things (IOT) which includes devices like wearables and connected home gadgets. Simple put, IoT collects the information but AI is the engine that will power analytics and decision-making from that information. IoT connects disparate devices such as wearables and can scale to connect a nearly unlimited number of devices, continuously streaming data. AI processes, makes inferences about this data and ultimately enables recommendations in real-time. Let’s make some examples from the insurance industry A couple of years ago, when I was at Humana around 2012, one of the projects we worked on was understanding seniors (65+) living in their homes to better reduce the incidence of falls and predict the likely use of emergency services in real-time so we can act beforehand, improve their health status and save costs.


Q&A on The Antifragility Edge: Antifragility in Practice

Generally, embracing reality involves entrepreneurs who experiment with options to confront disorder. They are always exploring and seeking opportunities to enable them to thrive; when they encounter disorder and sufficiently and reasonably struggle (that is, experience sufficient and reasonable degrees of stress), they consider their options and experiment, making small and reversible errors that cause acute stress, distributed over time, with ample recovery time, to enable them to learn and grow. ... Antifragility is beyond agility. Agility and antifragility are distinct paradigms, each with a unique mindset, worldview, values, principles, practices, and techniques. The essence of antifragility is a delicate dance --- at the antifragility edge ---  between embracing reality and ensuring aliveness, where disorder or stress is at the intersection.


Digital will disrupt insurance the way it disrupted the travel industry

The current model of insurance is B2B2C. Insurance companies sell through the agencies. Some life insurers sell through the bancassurance model. So it is a B2B2C model. Now with digital disruption, they will have to deal directly with the customers. This means they will need to be more customer-centric. Digitization will shake this model and make it D2C (Direct to Consumer). This is very different from other industries that are digitalizing because they have only one dimension to deal with. They only have to interact more digitally with their customers. ... So as an industry we need to get better in explaining our products. In principle, insurance is a very simple product. We need to explain that our product is relevant and reliable and we need to be transparent about it. If people can buy shoes online, why wouldn’t they buy insurance online?


Agile & Architecture

Two things change: first, filling the Solution Backlog — while still the responsibility of the Product Owner — becomes a consent-based collaboration between Product Owner and Enterprise Architecture (collaborating create&review roles, see below). And also: Enterprise Architecture can add items to the Architecture Backlog. Now, as in the Enterprise Chess approach for more classical projects, Enterprise Architecture’s role is checks & balances from the organisation-as-a-whole perspective. Hence, the Product Owner (in classic Prince2 terms, the Project Executive) is in charge of his project. But if there is no consent, then an escalation occurs to the level above the Product Owner, if need be up to the board of the organisation (after all: enterprise architecture’s checks & balances are from the perspective of the organisation-as-a-whole, for which the board is responsible).



Quote for the day:


"I believe it is important for people to create a healthy mental environment in which to accomplish daily tasks." -- Darren L. Johnson