IT Executive news

• Google in tussle with state attorney general after Sony leaks

  23-12-2014 21:50
  
  The recent data breach at Sony Pictures Entertainment has prompted a war of words between Google and the U.S movie industry, with the Internet giant accusing a state attorney general of collaborating with movie studios in a copyright enforcement campaign against it.The dispute has spilled over into the U.S. court system. On Monday, Judge Henry Wingate of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi gave Google an additional two months to respond to a 79-page subpoena filed
  
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• Are you ignored on Twitter? Its iOS app is brutally honest

  23-12-2014 21:45
  
  So you’re on Twitter and you have followers, but how many of them really care about your tweets? Twitter’s got answers.The company’s mobile app on iOS has a new analytics feature that lets users see how many other people saw their tweets, and interacted with them like by clicking a link or expanding the tweet. It’s a useful feature for users seeking better information about the reach of their tweets, or about their larger strategy on Twitter, while on the go.Twitter made its analytics
  
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• Twitter Stock Jumps on Report that CEO is on Way Out

  23-12-2014 21:45
  
  After reporting slowing growth and getting passed by Instagram in number of users, Twitter's stock price jumped Tuesday on speculation that CEO Dick Costolo might be leaving the company.
  CNBC.com reported Monday that Robert Peck, an analyst at investment bank SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, predicted that Costolo will leave the social network in 2015.
  "We think there's a good chance he's not there within a year," Peck said. He also said there are "a lot of interesting candidates" that could take
  
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• Frequently Asked Questions About the North Korean Internet Incident

  23-12-2014 21:35
  
  News of North Korea’s Internet outage was widely covered in the media on Monday of this week, and while a number of questions remain about what happened and who was responsible, speculation has it that North Korea was hit by a DDoS attach.Was it a DDoS attack?We do know that North Korea’s Internet connection was shaky over the weekend and finally went down on Monday. Possible causes are North Korea took themselves offline; all of their networking equipment failed; their ISP had its own n
  
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• New 'Agent Carter' Promo Adds More New Footage - The Fandom Post

  23-12-2014 21:34
  
  New 'Agent Carter' Promo Adds More New Footage
  The Fandom Post
  It's executive produced by Christopher Markus, Steve McFeely, Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas, Kevin Feige, Louis D'Esposito, Jeph Loeb. Series concept: It's 1946, and peace has dealt Peggy Carter a serious blow as she finds herself marginalized when the ...
  
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• Microsoft Adds TouchDevelop Capabilities to Windows App Studio

  23-12-2014 21:19
  
  Microsoft's Windows App Studio, an online tool for quickly building Windows and Windows Phone apps, has been integrated with TouchDevelop, a "touch-friendly" programming language for writing code directly on a device. But the company also is steering users over to its comprehensive Visual Studio 2013 software development platform if they want to change Windows 8.0 apps written with the App Studio tool.
  TouchDevelop features a physics engine and a UI framework to compose forms. "With TouchDev
  
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• Why Last-Minute Holiday Shoppers Are Worth Less to You

  23-12-2014 21:09
  
  Retailers and digital marketers love the holiday season. It's a time when new customers open up their wallets and spend money on frivolous things that they really can't afford. From Black Friday to Cyber Monday to the final days leading up to Santa's epic midnight journey, the retailer's merry chorus is "Let sales ring."But holiday shoppers, especially those looking for gifts at the last minute, aren't the kinds of customers who retailers should put a lot of time and resources into courting i
  
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• Yes, Virginia, 'The Interview' will be shown on Christmas Day after all

  23-12-2014 20:40
  
  “The Interview” will be screened in U.S. theaters on Christmas Day, the original release date of the controversial movie, which triggered a major hack against Sony, threats of harm against moviegoers and the suspension of its distribution as a result.The Alamo Drafthouse, a cinema chain based in Austin, Texas, will show the movie on Thursday, according to a tweet from Tim League , the company’s founder.“Sony has authorized screenings of The Interview on Christmas Day. We are making sh
  
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• Italy's Privacy Authority orders Google removals

  23-12-2014 20:10
  
  Italy’s Privacy Authority has ordered the first removals of Web pages from Google’s search engine under the provisions of last May’s European Court of Justice ruling on the “right to be forgotten.”The authority said it had received nine requests for Google de-indexation from individuals who had applied unsuccessfully for allegedly defamatory information to be removed from the search engine. In two cases, it had upheld the request to be forgotten, the authority said in its newsletter
  
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• BrandPost: The ABCs of Cisco's ACI

  23-12-2014 20:02
  Businesses are always on the lookout for ways to increase efficiency and decrease costs. Anyone who has worked in IT knows that pretty well. Wasn’t it “do more with less” that became the motto during tight times? But, on the bright side, the economic downturn did lead to a revolution in IT energy efficiency. Nowadays a revolution of a different type is taking shape—one of operational efficiency as a way to streamline the bottom line in the data center.Have you heard of a trend called
  
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• Computer Vision Finally Matches Primates’ Ability

  23-12-2014 19:57
  
  Scientists at MIT have designed a computer network that can visually recognize objects as well as a primate.
  While researchers have struggled over the years to build a computer model that can match the primate brain in terms of visual recognition, a team of university neuroscientists says it has finally done so by building what it calls deep neural networks.
  Neural networks are based on computers that are designed to work more like a brain than does a traditional computer.
  Historically, comp
  
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• TripAdvisor fined by Italian Antitrust Authority

  23-12-2014 19:35
  
  Italy’s Antitrust Authority has imposed a €500,000 (US$609,000) fine on TripAdvisor, the travel planning website, following complaints of unfair business practices by a national hoteliers’ association and a consumer protection organization.The fine, announced by the authority, AGCM, on Monday, applies to TripAdvisor LLC, a US company, and its Italian affiliate TripAdvisor Italy Srl. The companies have been given 30 days to make the payment and 90 days to inform the Authority of the step
  
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• US lawmaker asks Sony for details on data breach

  23-12-2014 19:15
  
  A senior U.S. lawmaker wants Sony Pictures Entertainment to provide details about its recent data breach and its cybersecurity practices, saying the information will help Congress decide whether new laws are needed.Sony’s “knowledge, information and experience will be helpful” as Congress decides whether to pass new cybersecurity laws and take steps to protect consumer and government financial information, Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, wrote in a letter Tuesday to
  
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• Sony Hack: Top Congressional Democrat asks studio for hack details - Daily News & Analysis

  23-12-2014 18:35
  Daily News & Analysis
  Sony Hack: Top Congressional Democrat asks studio for hack details
  Daily News & Analysis
  19 from Sony's chief information security officer or similar top IT executive. In his letter, he cited reports indicating that in addition to deploying destructive malware, the hackers stole sensitive information, including unreleased films and the ...
  
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• House Democrat seeks full details from Sony on sweeping cyber-attack - The Guardian

  23-12-2014 18:29
  
  The Guardian
  House Democrat seeks full details from Sony on sweeping cyber-attack
  The Guardian
  He has also requested a briefing by 19 January from Sony's chief information security officer or similar top IT executive. Last week the FBI said the attack on Sony was conducted by the government of North Korea. The hackers, calling themselves ...
  Top congressional Democrat asks Sony for hack detailsReuters UK
  
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• Thunderbolt devices can infect MacBooks with persistent rootkits

  23-12-2014 18:10
  
  Attackers can infect MacBook computers with highly persistent boot rootkits by connecting malicious devices to them over the Thunderbolt interface.The attack, dubbed Thunderstrike, installs malicious code in a MacBook’s boot ROM (read-only memory), which is stored in a chip on the motherboard. It was devised by a security researcher named Trammell Hudson based on a two-year old vulnerability and will be demonstrated next week at the 31st Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg.“It is poss
  
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• UPDATE 1-Top congressional Democrat asks Sony for hack details - Reuters

  23-12-2014 17:52
  UPDATE 1-Top congressional Democrat asks Sony for hack details
  Reuters
  19 from Sony's chief information security officer or similar top IT executive. In his letter, he cited reports indicating that in addition to deploying destructive malware, the hackers stole sensitive information, including unreleased films and the ...
  
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• China is key to North Korean Internet, but maybe not hackers

  23-12-2014 17:45
  
  A request to the Chinese government by U.S. diplomats to help crack down on North Korean hacking underlines the important role the country plays in keeping the dictatorship online.North Korea relies on China for Internet connectivity, partially due to long-standing ties between the two nations and partly because it has few options. North Korea borders just three countries: South Korea, with which it is still technically at war, Russia and China. The Chinese Internet is well developed and the
  
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• Outsourcen moet je leren

  23-12-2014 16:47
  Een van de key-succesfactoren binnen een succesvolle outsourcing-relatie is wat omschreven kan worden als: ‘leren te leren’. Veel outsourcers maken de fout om juist die processen die niet goed lopen uit te besteden, om op deze manier de pijn van het niet-werkende proces bij een ander neer te leggen.... lees meer
  
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• Flinke toename vacatureaanbod in 2014, ICT staat koppositie af aan techniek

  23-12-2014 16:47
  Het afgelopen jaar steeg het vacatureaanbod op Monsterboard met 30%, terwijl geen enkele beroepscategorie een daling liet zien. Waar de afgelopen jaren nog de meeste banen in de ICT-sector te vinden waren, is dat nu in de technische sector. De meest gevraagde functie is echter nog wel een IT-functie, namelijk software-... lees meer
  
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• Atos neemt ITO-activiteiten Xerox over

  23-12-2014 16:47
  Atos en Xerox hebben bekendgemaakt dat Atos de activiteiten op het gebied van IT outsourcing van Xerox overneemt voor een bedrag van 1,05 miljard. Ook wordt het bedrijf de belangrijkste IT-leverancier van Xerox. Door de overeenkomst is Atos in staat zijn ITO-capaciteiten naar een hoger niveau te tillen, onder meer door... lees meer
  
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• Mozilla: We're Not Asking for Donations Because We're Poor

  23-12-2014 16:33
  
  Mozilla last week denied that there was a connection between flat search revenue in 2013 and recent fundraising efforts that have asked Firefox users to donate to the nonprofit.
  In a blog published Friday, Mark Surman, the executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, and Denelle Dixon-Thayer, who leads the organization's business and legal affairs, said that search revenue and donation solicitation were separate efforts, with the money from each going to different projects.
  "Some articles h
  
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• Flaw in open-source PDF viewer could put WikiLeaks users, others at risk

  23-12-2014 16:30
  
  An open-source component used to display PDF files on WikiLeaks.org and other websites contains vulnerabilities that could be exploited to launch cross-site scripting (XSS) and content spoofing attacks against visitors.The vulnerable component is called FlexPaper and is developed by a company called Devaldi, based in New Zealand. The company confirmed the issues, which were first reported Thursday on the WikiLeaks supporters forum, and released FlexPaper 2.3.0 to address them.To read this art
  
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• Google Adds Song Lyrics to Search Results But it Feels Like a Cheap Cash Grab

  23-12-2014 15:55
  Google has figured out a way to deliver more instant answers in search results and boost music sales on Google Play simultaneously: song lyrics. Following Bing's lead from October, Google is now surfacing lyrics for a limited number of songs when you search for "[song title] lyrics."
  Unlike Bing, however, you won't see the full list of song lyrics in your search results. To see the complete lyrics you have to click a link to Google Play. There you'll also have options to buy the track or sub
  
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• Startups: The crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels ... the dumb ones

  23-12-2014 15:45
  
  Technology can be awesome, when it’s put to good use. A map on your phone? A satellite that can help farmers monitor their crops? Great! But not everything is so useful.Many companies emerged in 2014 offering new ways to help people connect, get stuff done, or find that special someone. Slack, for example, offers a chatty alternative to work email. Or Yonomi might actually make an Internet connected home feasible. But other new startups, looking for that new and original thing, peddled prod
  
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• The Top 5 Consumer Tech Trends of 2014

  23-12-2014 15:41
  
  In 2014, wireless plans got cheaper, the iPhone got better, and a few major tech companies finally found the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the NSA and its penchant for vacuuming up every byte of data it gets its gnarly hands on.
  Other welcome trends also showed up on our consumer tech radar during the past year. For example, cord cutting — the ability to stream video content without paying a cable or satellite company — moved closer to becoming a reality. And we'll finally soon b
  
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• Success of Health IT Rests With Business Alignment

  23-12-2014 15:23
  
  There’s little doubt that IT will play a growing role in how healthcare organizations deliver services, but without buy-in from the business units of the operation, technology alone will be of limited effect, experts warn."The future is not defined by the technology people. It's defined by the business people," Jon Zimmerman, vice president and general manager of clinical business solutions at GE Healthcare, said at a recent event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think t
  
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• 3 Snapchat Alternatives for Self-Destructing Messages

  23-12-2014 15:08
  
  A number of embarrassing emails from Sony execs recently leaked during the company's high-profile hacking scandal — enough to make some organizations rethink how their workforce uses email.One way companies can protect themselves from email hacks is to stop using it for sensitive messages (or insensitive messages, given some of the racist remarks the Sony hack exposed). The upcoming BlackBerry/Boeing phone that "self-destructs" is another option.To read this article in full or to leave a
  
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• Pusha T releases a signature sneaker and talks about his upcoming album - Entertainment Weekly

  23-12-2014 15:03
  
  Entertainment Weekly
  Pusha T releases a signature sneaker and talks about his upcoming album
  Entertainment Weekly
  It's called King Push, and it's executive produced by Kanye West. I want to say that the music sound bed for it is shaping up to be better than My Name Is My Name. Lyrically, it's a monster. I'm never cutting corners on that. I feel like the more ...
  
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• HP Quietly Rolls Out a Touch-Enabled Chromebook 14

  23-12-2014 15:02
  Hewlett-Packard said it would introduce a touch-enabled version of the Chromebook 14, and it's finally landed in the U.S., just a few days before Christmas. The computer maker recently released the $440 HP Chromebook 14-x050nr Touch through its online store.
  The new model is upgraded from the latest base edition Chromebook 14, which HP introduced at IFA Berlin in September. HP bumped the display resolution up to 1920-by-1080 from 1366-by-768, and the new laptop also doubles the storage and R
  
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• Samsung promises better smartphone performance with new memory modules

  23-12-2014 14:35
  
  High-end smartphones could soon have 4GB of super-fast RAM, resulting in better multi-tasking and the ability to continuously shoot images with 20-megapixel cameras.The improvements will be possible thanks to Samsung Electronics’ 8 Gigabit LPDDR4 (low power, double data rate) mobile DRAM. The smartphones will also get better UHD (ultra-high definition) video recording and playback capabilities, thanks to the chip’s ability to move data at rates of up to 3.2Gbps, Samsung said on Tuesday.Th
  
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• NASA’s JPL Taps IT to Power Space Missions and Worker Creativity

  23-12-2014 14:15
  
  The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is famous for the Mars Curiosity Rover, the Explorer spacecraft, the Voyager program and countless other history-making missions. But behind all those landmark events are IT systems enabled by the cloud, analytics, big data and consumer technology.JPL’s cloud strategy goes back six years to when CIO Jim Rinaldi decided he’d rather rent than buy cloud capabilities. Today, JPL’s cloud infrastructure includes a public, private and hybrid cloud that
  
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• What the Sony Breach Means for Security in 2015

  23-12-2014 14:00
  
  The recent (and perhaps ongoing) Sony breach was certainly one of the worst corporate data breaches we have seen to date. As 2014 draws to a close, no one knows the details with certainty of who the perpetrator was. Even so, it’s undeniable that it’s a breach that will forever change the way Sony does business.
  [ Questions remain after FBI charges North Korea with attack on Sony Pictures ]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• 11 Sites That Can Feel Sony’s Pain

  23-12-2014 14:00
  
  Sony isn't the only oneImage by Craig SunterSure the Sony hack has taken up all the headlines of late, but there is a laundry list of other breaches that have taken place all over the world. Here are a few incidents in the past couple of years that resulted in the release of password information. This list was compiled in a report by researchers Norbert Tihanyi, Attila Kovács, Gergely Vargha and Adám Lénárt.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Immigration Laws Still Holding Back Silicon Valley Stars From Coming to London

  23-12-2014 13:25
  
  Silicon Valley's tech dynamos are often unable to move to London due to strict immigration laws that are complex to navigate, according to Tech London Advocates.
  Many of the talented techies in the Bay Area see London as a natural place to expand their business but they're unable to relocate as a result of too much red tape surrounding immigration and complex visa forms, according to Tech London Advocates CEO Russ Shaw.
  "Despite being the home of digital innovation, the Bay Area is experienc
  
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• Tesla's 3-Minute Battery Swap Pilot for Model S Cars Sets a New Bar for EV Charging

  23-12-2014 13:00
  Tesla is cutting the Gordian Knot of electric vehicles: the time it takes to recharge the batteries. In a Friday blog post, the company said it would begin piloting a battery swap program this week for “invited Model S owners.” According to Tesla, the automated swap of a spent battery for a fully charged one will take about 3 minutes, compared to about 20 minutes to charge a Model S at a Supercharger station.
  While it costs nothing to use a Supercharger station, however, the battery swa
  
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• Misfortune Cookie Vulnerability Affects 12 Million Routers

  23-12-2014 13:00
  
  A newly-discovered vulnerability puts 12 million routers at risk around the world in homes, small business, and corporate environments.
  The Misfortune Cookie vulnerability allows an attacker to remotely take over a gateway device with administrative privileges, according to Tel Aviv-based network security vendor Check Point Software Technology, Inc.
  The scale of the problem is unprecedented, said Shahar Tal, Check Point's malware and vulnerability research manager.
  "In previous cases, there
  
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• Garden-Variety DDoS Attack Knocks North Korea Off the Internet

  23-12-2014 12:44
  
  The simplest explanation for North Korea's suddenly dropping off the Internet was a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that overwhelmed the isolated nation's tenuous connection to the rest of the world, experts said Monday.
  North Korea's Internet connection went down around 11 a.m. ET Monday, and was restored about nine and a half hours later, at approximately 8:45 p.m. ET. But within hours, some sites checked by Computerworld, including North Korea's official news agency, were agai
  
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• How Much of 2014 in Tech Do You Remember? Take Our Slightly Silly Quiz!

  23-12-2014 12:28
  
  2014 began so full of hopeImage by REUTERS/Carlo AllegriThe year 2014 in tech: What was it, exactly? Well, if you're reading this site, you probably fancy yourself relatively well-informed on the subject. But do you remember the details? Do you know the nooks and crannies of the industry? Will you be able to handle our hopefully hilarious jokes? This quiz will test you -- and, we hope, surprise and amuse you along the way.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Two-factor authentication oversight led to JPMorgan breach, investigators reportedly found

  23-12-2014 12:25
  
  The attackers who stole information about 83 million JPMorgan Chase customers earlier this year gained a foothold on the company’s network because a server reportedly lacked two-factor authentication.The attackers stole the login credentials of a JPMorgan employee and were able to access the server, despite the company’s practice of using two-factor authentication on most of its systems, the New York Times reported citing unnamed sources familiar with the internal and external investigati
  
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• Salesforce Has the Right Stuff for Mobile Development

  23-12-2014 12:00
  
  Salesforce.com started as a cloud service for sales force automation. The company added a cloud-based development platform, Force.com, with a Java-like language (APEX), and went on to acquire the Heroku PaaS and a number of other services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Lollipops, Cardboard, and Barges: Google's 14 Biggest Hits and Misses of 2014

  23-12-2014 12:00
  The best of times, the worst of timesImage by Robert Scoble via Flickr/Creative CommonsA tech company as big as Google is bound to do some amazing things every year, but it's also not immune to failure. Let's look back at where the search giant went right and wrong in 2014.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Hold the Phone, McDonald’s

  23-12-2014 11:00
  
  Mobile payments are supposed to be fast, easy and convenient. I knew when I pulled up at a McDonald’s drive-through window the other day that the fast food giant’s implementation of Apple Pay challenged. I just didn’t know challenged it would be.
  “I’d like to pay with Apple Pay,” I told the smiling employee on the other side of the drive-up window. Her bright smile instantly vanished. But she did her job, lugging out the McDonald’s payment terminal and holding it out the window
  
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• North Korea, Iran, Syria – Asymmetric Cyberwar is Here to Stay

  23-12-2014 09:06
  
  Until last week very few beyond a handful of security titles, a few cybersecurity vendors and the middle pages of the New York Times paid much attention to the growing issue of small nations with big cyber-ambitions.
  Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, one of these, the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK), is accused by the US Government of launching a destructive no-holds barred cyberattack on a major Hollywood firm and there is amazement and not a little scepticism.To read t
  
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• North Korea's Internet restored after over 9-hour outage

  23-12-2014 09:05
  
  North Korea’s Internet was restored Tuesday local time, after an outage that lasted for 9 hours and 31 minutes, according to a company that monitors Internet performance.Dyn Research had earlier reported that the four networks in the country were down.The cause of the outage is not known, but led to speculation that the U.S. may have retaliated for North Korea’s alleged role in the hack of Sony Pictures in late November.The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said Friday it held North Ko
  
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• Sony wants Twitter to suspend account of user who posted leaked documents

  23-12-2014 07:00
  
  Sony has asked Twitter to suspend the account of a person who is alleged to have posted internal company documents and information released by hackers.Twitter has also been asked to destroy the “stolen” documents that are in its possession or control.A letter sent Monday by Sony Pictures Entertainment’s attorney David Boies to Twitter General Counsel Vijaya Gadde, and obtained by some news outlets, claimed that someone using the Twitter handle @bikinirobotarmy is in possession of, and i
  
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