4 IoT Skills IT Pros Need
Accenture sees atomization as an extension of what is already happening. We're becoming a plug-in world. Imagine something like Google Maps. It is often embedded into other products, but still maintains a brand of its own. It is unlikely that each of your smart appliances will have its own interface with proprietary software. Why have a smart refrigerator with one experience, and a smart pantry with another? Instead, each will have an embedded food supply experience (perhaps an app for food ordering). A device might also have a temperature-control app, one monitoring energy use, and a recipe app that tells you what you can make from what you've got on hand.
Harnessing Big Data for Security: Intelligence in the Era of Cyber Warfare.
It is crystal clear that for security agencies and governments to effectively fight terrorism, they must equally invest in dynamic pool of digital talent that will ignite a seamless network of smart, agile adaptive and disruptive army of Cyber-genius credentials. It is possible! ... Thinks tanks must be created, digital resources must be mobilized and brows must be knit as the mind retires into depths of thought that would yield remarkable new streak of innovations that will not only anayze the huge gig data piles around us, but also invent brand new intelligence tools that must work smart round the clock to process Big Data into actionable and smart information to enhance security.
Blended Analytics: The Secret Sauce of ITOA
One of the most talked about topics in IT has been IT Operations Analytics(ITOA). Leading vendors and start-ups have made significant progress in leveraging analytics to offer better IT operational insights. However, available ITOA solutions still struggle to make sense of IT Big Data, which perpetuates operations in narrow silos. IT decision makers need to finally break these silos, by applying an approach that blends and analyzes all relevant sources of IT information. Extracting insights and drawing intelligent correlations from a variety of data, Blended Analytics helps to see beyond individual components and finally draw insights based on the whole picture.
Wearables for workplace wellness face federal scrutiny
"There may be instances where people are ostracized for not participating in a wellness plan, and they may pay more for insurance," Gownder said in an interview. "Wearables have a lot to offer, and it's fantastic if an organization improves the health of its employees and engineers discounts with lower rates for the firm. But the dark side of this is that if enough people cede their rights to privacy and part of a system is tracked … it could put those who didn't participate at a disadvantage." Gownder said an employee might have a legitimate reason not to be physically active, because of a disability, including a mental illness, for example.
Gear up for tougher privacy regulation, says PwC lawyer
According to Room, the big picture from these two cases is the movement to a “two-pronged onslaught” against the business community and the public sector as a result of the battle for power between citizen activists and regulators. “Whatever individuals try to do to get the likes of Facebook and Google to improve privacy will be met by increased aggression towards business by the regulators,” he said. Room believes that the natural consequence of the battle between the citizen and the regulators will be that regulators will gradually become equipped with greater powers. “When they have this new power, they are going to use it, and companies are going to be audited to high heaven and inundated with demands to complete privacy impact assessments,” he said.
What the Spinoff May Mean for Raritan’s DCIM Business
Robert Neave, CTO and co-founder of Nlyte Software, one of the leading a pure-play DCIM vendors, said Sunbird’s future success or failure will hinge on its ability to make it easier for customers to use its software together with other data center management systems, namely IT service management software, or ITSM. Raritan took a big step in that direction in May, announcing a DCIM connector for ServiceNow, one of the most popular ITSM solutions. DCIM overall is evolving to become part of ITSM, Neave said. Raritan acknowledged this in its ServiceNow announcement. Customers that use DCIM in this context will prefer to be able to configure it to gel with their ITSM software by themselves, without spending time and money on specialist services, Neave said.
Just because your business is boring, doesn't mean they're not out to get you
A company's most basic line of defense should be to "distrust, verify, and contrast", according to Molist and Medina. Simply put, that's "think before you click" and when in doubt, go back to the source of the email - your bank or coworker - through a different channel, such as on the phone, and double check if they really did try to contact you. And, of course, have a regularly-updated, active, and properly-configured antivirus package and firewall. That advice extends to mobile devices as well as PCs and laptops. According to Medina, attacks on mobile devices are beginning to overtake those targeting desktops. Mobile attacks are a particular problem for online banking, given people use the same device to access their bank's website or app as well receive the SMS alert they use for two-factor authentication for the same service.
Information Is the Ichor of Your Organization
It is now considered somewhat corny to say, “Information is the business currency of the 21st century.” And why not? We often make or hear this statement. Is it that it is so obvious or that we do not understand the profundity of the statement? Who knows? I must admit that it took me a while to get past the banality of the statement and truly understand the meaning. So what does it really mean? Well, we create value by powerful or novel business ideas and technologies. It is the flow of information into the act of creation by managers and organizations that differentiates organizations and provides value. All business is information—amassing, creating, refining, combining, processing and delivering information.
Five cyber spy technologies that cannot be stopped by going offline
Any operational device that is connected to a power line generates electromagnetic radiation that can be intercepted by proven technologies. Almost half a century ago, state security services of the U.S. and the USSR were concerned with such leakages, and the information that has been obtained since those days is massive. Some parts of the American activity are known under the TEMPEST abbreviation, and some declassified archives reads as good as detective novels. Despite the long history, new methods of ‘surfing’ electromagnetic waves appear regularly as the electrical equipment evolves. In the past, the weakest links were CRT monitors and unshielded VGA cables that produced electromagnetic noise. Keyboards have become favorite toys for data security researchers over the past few years. The research in this area has been steadily productive.
Structured Complexity - better security models to reduce risk
A good security model needs to be able to be evaluated and, ideally, even mathematically validated. To achieve this it needs to be well structured and be clearly linked to what the business requires. Taking a step back, this firstly requires clearly articulated business objectives linked to a business strategy. This strategy is then used to define business requirements and an appropriate enterprise architecture can be designed. Once we have this master plan we can start building our enterprise security architecture. I would argue that this can be done for any size of organisation, but is not necessarily always required to the same level of detail. Once we have the overall master plan and enterprise architecture, an organisation should identify three components, prior to designing a derived enterprise security architecture:
Quote for the day:
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." -- Ernest Hemingway
Accenture sees atomization as an extension of what is already happening. We're becoming a plug-in world. Imagine something like Google Maps. It is often embedded into other products, but still maintains a brand of its own. It is unlikely that each of your smart appliances will have its own interface with proprietary software. Why have a smart refrigerator with one experience, and a smart pantry with another? Instead, each will have an embedded food supply experience (perhaps an app for food ordering). A device might also have a temperature-control app, one monitoring energy use, and a recipe app that tells you what you can make from what you've got on hand.
Harnessing Big Data for Security: Intelligence in the Era of Cyber Warfare.
It is crystal clear that for security agencies and governments to effectively fight terrorism, they must equally invest in dynamic pool of digital talent that will ignite a seamless network of smart, agile adaptive and disruptive army of Cyber-genius credentials. It is possible! ... Thinks tanks must be created, digital resources must be mobilized and brows must be knit as the mind retires into depths of thought that would yield remarkable new streak of innovations that will not only anayze the huge gig data piles around us, but also invent brand new intelligence tools that must work smart round the clock to process Big Data into actionable and smart information to enhance security.
Blended Analytics: The Secret Sauce of ITOA
One of the most talked about topics in IT has been IT Operations Analytics(ITOA). Leading vendors and start-ups have made significant progress in leveraging analytics to offer better IT operational insights. However, available ITOA solutions still struggle to make sense of IT Big Data, which perpetuates operations in narrow silos. IT decision makers need to finally break these silos, by applying an approach that blends and analyzes all relevant sources of IT information. Extracting insights and drawing intelligent correlations from a variety of data, Blended Analytics helps to see beyond individual components and finally draw insights based on the whole picture.
Wearables for workplace wellness face federal scrutiny
"There may be instances where people are ostracized for not participating in a wellness plan, and they may pay more for insurance," Gownder said in an interview. "Wearables have a lot to offer, and it's fantastic if an organization improves the health of its employees and engineers discounts with lower rates for the firm. But the dark side of this is that if enough people cede their rights to privacy and part of a system is tracked … it could put those who didn't participate at a disadvantage." Gownder said an employee might have a legitimate reason not to be physically active, because of a disability, including a mental illness, for example.
Gear up for tougher privacy regulation, says PwC lawyer
According to Room, the big picture from these two cases is the movement to a “two-pronged onslaught” against the business community and the public sector as a result of the battle for power between citizen activists and regulators. “Whatever individuals try to do to get the likes of Facebook and Google to improve privacy will be met by increased aggression towards business by the regulators,” he said. Room believes that the natural consequence of the battle between the citizen and the regulators will be that regulators will gradually become equipped with greater powers. “When they have this new power, they are going to use it, and companies are going to be audited to high heaven and inundated with demands to complete privacy impact assessments,” he said.
What the Spinoff May Mean for Raritan’s DCIM Business
Robert Neave, CTO and co-founder of Nlyte Software, one of the leading a pure-play DCIM vendors, said Sunbird’s future success or failure will hinge on its ability to make it easier for customers to use its software together with other data center management systems, namely IT service management software, or ITSM. Raritan took a big step in that direction in May, announcing a DCIM connector for ServiceNow, one of the most popular ITSM solutions. DCIM overall is evolving to become part of ITSM, Neave said. Raritan acknowledged this in its ServiceNow announcement. Customers that use DCIM in this context will prefer to be able to configure it to gel with their ITSM software by themselves, without spending time and money on specialist services, Neave said.
Just because your business is boring, doesn't mean they're not out to get you
A company's most basic line of defense should be to "distrust, verify, and contrast", according to Molist and Medina. Simply put, that's "think before you click" and when in doubt, go back to the source of the email - your bank or coworker - through a different channel, such as on the phone, and double check if they really did try to contact you. And, of course, have a regularly-updated, active, and properly-configured antivirus package and firewall. That advice extends to mobile devices as well as PCs and laptops. According to Medina, attacks on mobile devices are beginning to overtake those targeting desktops. Mobile attacks are a particular problem for online banking, given people use the same device to access their bank's website or app as well receive the SMS alert they use for two-factor authentication for the same service.
Information Is the Ichor of Your Organization
It is now considered somewhat corny to say, “Information is the business currency of the 21st century.” And why not? We often make or hear this statement. Is it that it is so obvious or that we do not understand the profundity of the statement? Who knows? I must admit that it took me a while to get past the banality of the statement and truly understand the meaning. So what does it really mean? Well, we create value by powerful or novel business ideas and technologies. It is the flow of information into the act of creation by managers and organizations that differentiates organizations and provides value. All business is information—amassing, creating, refining, combining, processing and delivering information.
Five cyber spy technologies that cannot be stopped by going offline
Any operational device that is connected to a power line generates electromagnetic radiation that can be intercepted by proven technologies. Almost half a century ago, state security services of the U.S. and the USSR were concerned with such leakages, and the information that has been obtained since those days is massive. Some parts of the American activity are known under the TEMPEST abbreviation, and some declassified archives reads as good as detective novels. Despite the long history, new methods of ‘surfing’ electromagnetic waves appear regularly as the electrical equipment evolves. In the past, the weakest links were CRT monitors and unshielded VGA cables that produced electromagnetic noise. Keyboards have become favorite toys for data security researchers over the past few years. The research in this area has been steadily productive.
Structured Complexity - better security models to reduce risk
A good security model needs to be able to be evaluated and, ideally, even mathematically validated. To achieve this it needs to be well structured and be clearly linked to what the business requires. Taking a step back, this firstly requires clearly articulated business objectives linked to a business strategy. This strategy is then used to define business requirements and an appropriate enterprise architecture can be designed. Once we have this master plan we can start building our enterprise security architecture. I would argue that this can be done for any size of organisation, but is not necessarily always required to the same level of detail. Once we have the overall master plan and enterprise architecture, an organisation should identify three components, prior to designing a derived enterprise security architecture:
Quote for the day:
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." -- Ernest Hemingway
