IT Executive news

• IDG Contributor Network: Where and when to implement disruptive technology

  09-11-2015 21:48
  
  With high demands on your IT group to implement disruptive technologies that will achieve game-changing value, what strategy do you as the IT leader use in determining where, when and how to implement disruptive technologies?  For most IT departments today, the “do more with less” ultimatum demands reallocation of resources from OPEX to innovative technologies that directly support strategic corporate objectives in measurable ways. ANZ, a “super regional” b
  
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• After 10 years of profitability, Atlassian steps up for an IPO

  09-11-2015 21:18
  
  It was late September when reports first suggested that Atlassian was planning a U.S. IPO, and on Monday, the Australian software maker followed through by filing its papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Neither the number of shares to be offered nor the price range have yet been determined, but the company seeks to raise as much as $250 million with the offering. It was reportedly valued above $3 billion in its last private investment round.To read this article in full or to
  
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• Supreme Court won't hear appeal on privacy of cellphone location data

  09-11-2015 21:13
  
  The U.S. Supreme Court won't rule on whether the government needs a warrant to collect cellphone location information, dealing a setback to data privacy advocates.Attorneys for Quartavious Davis, who was convicted of a string of robberies partly because of phone location data, had appealed the case after a lower court ruled against Davis. The Supreme Court said Monday it had declined to hear the case.Law enforcement used records from Davis's cellphone carrier, MetroPCS, to establish where he was
  
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• Microsoft's OneDrive changes: Follow the money

  09-11-2015 19:58
  
  Microsoft could raise more than $100 million in additional annual revenue for each percentage point of OneDrive users the company prods into paying for storage space under new policies outlined last week.
  Although Microsoft has not disclosed what portion of its OneDrive user base pays for storage and what fraction relies on only the free allotment, an analysis of the service's changes using available information shows that the Redmond, Wash. firm could earn nearly $107 million more each year by
  
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• Microsoft to acquire data protection firm Secure Islands

  09-11-2015 19:54
  
  Microsoft announced Monday that it has made a deal to acquire Secure Islands, an Israeli company that focuses on protecting companies' data. Neither company disclosed the terms of the deal.The acquisition will help Microsoft level up its Azure Rights Management Service, which lets companies protect files individually and in bulk with tools that ensure they aren't opened or modified by people who are unauthorized to do so. Secure Islands's services include data classification technology that auto
  
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• EC wil snel nieuw kader trans-Atlantische gegevensoverdracht

  09-11-2015 19:19
  Naar aanleiding van de uitspraak van het Europees Hof (CJEU) in de zaak Schrems vorige maand zijn de onderhandelingen tussen de EC en de VS over een nieuw en veilig kader voor de overdracht van persoonsgegevens geïntensiveerd. De commissie wil de besprekingen binnen drie maanden afronden. De EC werkte al... lees meer
  
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• Sophos synchronizes endpoint, network security

  09-11-2015 19:17
  
  Sophos this week rolled out a firewall/end point security package with an eye toward more quickly helping IT detect threats and autonomously isolate infected devices.
  The key to the company’s security protection package is Sophos Security Heartbeat endpoint software and the firm’s new XG Firewall family.
  +More on Network World: Review: Stop insider attacks with these 6 powerful tools+
  According to Dan Schiappa, senior vice president of the end user security group at Sophos, Security
  
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• 7 ways hackers can use Wi-Fi against you

  09-11-2015 19:00
  
  7 ways hackers can use Wi-Fi against youImage by ThinkstockWi-Fi — oh so convenient, yet oh so dangerous. Here are seven ways you could be giving away your identity through a Wi-Fi connection and what to do instead.Using free hotspotsImage by ThinkstockTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• FCC swats down petition for mandatory Do Not Track support

  09-11-2015 18:40
  The Federal Communications Commission is steering clear of requests to make Do Not Track support mandatory on sites such as Google and Facebook.
  Advocacy group Consumer Watchdog had petitioned the FCC to step in with a rulemaking process, in hopes of giving Do Not Track some teeth. Currently, Do Not Track serves as nothing more than a polite request not to be followed around the web by ad trackers. Sites whose business models rely on targeted advertising tend not to comply.
  On Friday, the FCC d
  
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• Apple slates Nov. 11 for iPad Pro kickoff

  09-11-2015 18:34
  
  Apple today announced that it will start selling the new iPad Pro on Wednesday, Nov. 11.
  The date had been previously pegged by several Apple-centric blogs, which had cited unnamed sources.
  Wednesday's sales will be online only. "[The iPad Pro] will arrive at Apple's retail stores, select carriers and Apple authorized resellers starting later this week," Apple said in a Monday statement. The "later this week" will likely be Friday, Nov. 13, as eagle-eyed bloggers last week spotted that date on
  
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• Iranian cyberespionage group attacked over 1,600 high-profile targets in one year

  09-11-2015 18:26
  In a single year, a cyberespionage group with possible ties to the Iranian government has targeted over 1,600 defense officials, diplomats, researchers, human rights activists, journalists and other high-profile individuals around the world.The group, known as Rocket Kitten, has been active since early 2014 and its attacks have been analyzed by various security vendors. However, a major breakthrough in the investigation came recently when researchers from Check Point Software Technologies obtain
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: iOS game developers aim their harpoons at money-bloated whales

  09-11-2015 17:22
  
  Have I told you lately how much I detest free to play games? I truly loathe seeing them in the iOS app store and I never download them. I'd much rather pay for the game outright and then be able to play it without having to buy in-app purchases.
  But recently I ran into a thread on Reddit that had some very interesting posts and links that indicated that free to play games are designed to hook deep-pocketed gamers known as whales with tons of in-app purchases.
  The thread started out with a rant
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: iOS game developers aim harpoons at whales

  09-11-2015 17:22
  
  Have I told you lately how much I detest free to play games? I truly loathe seeing them in the iOS app store and I never download them. I'd much rather pay for the game outright and then be able to play it without having to buy in-app purchases.
  But recently I ran into a thread on Reddit that had some very interesting posts and links that indicated that free to play games are designed to hook deep-pocketed gamers known as whales with tons of in-app purchases.
  The thread started out with a rant
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Free to play games bring in big money for iOS game developers

  09-11-2015 17:22
  
  Have I told you lately how much I detest free to play games? I truly loathe seeing them in the iOS app store and I never download them. I'd much rather pay for the game outright and then be able to play it without having to buy in-app purchases.
  But recently I ran into a thread on Reddit that had some very interesting posts and links that indicated that free to play games are designed to hook deep-pocketed gamers known as whales with tons of in-app purchases.
  The thread started out with a rant
  
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• Facebook shuts up critics with impressive Q3 financials

  09-11-2015 17:22
  
  If Facebook peaked in popularity and is losing momentum, the company sure is good at hiding it. While there's been ample debate during the past few years about how quickly Facebook could decline, this theme of impending doom doesn't jive with the company's latest growth numbers.Roughly two years ago, Facebook warned investors that teens were visiting the site slightly less frequently, and many analysts projected a gloomy outlook as a result. Last year, a group of researchers at Princeton Univers
  
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• Overcoming our auto-petulance

  09-11-2015 17:14
  
  Do you ever find yourself resisting doing something that you know you need to do? I’m not talking about everyday procrastination: wandering to the refrigerator, talking to a co-worker or reading your favorite news site to delay some non-preferred task. I’m not even talking about those times when you say to yourself, “I don’t want to do that,” but then slump your shoulders, hold your nose and dive in anyway.
  I’m talking about those times when you absolutely re
  
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• Google brings machine learning to the masses with new open-source tool

  09-11-2015 17:12
  Google has been working on machine learning for years deep inside its R&D labs, and some of the advances it's made have found their way into products such as Google Photos. On Monday, it launched a new, open-source tool to help share what it's learned.TensorFlow is a machine-learning system that can run on anything from a single smartphone to thousands of data-center computers. It builds upon DistBelief, the deep-learning infrastructure Google developed back in 2011, but takes that first gen
  
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• ARM readies update to IoT platform -- but it's not ready for prime time yet

  09-11-2015 16:32
  
  Chip designer ARM will be trying to convince developers that all is well with its IoT platform, mbed OS, at its TechCon event in Santa Clara, California, this week.The company is promising a new version of the software, and updates to a cloud platform and hardware reference designs intended to make it easier to prototype products.The version of mbed OS that will go on show this week, though, is not the final release developers were expecting.Chances are your cellphone contains a core or four des
  
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• Class action lawsuit alleges AMD's Bulldozer CPUs aren't really 8-core processors

  09-11-2015 15:57
  
  AMD is in the hot seat again. This time it’s not about company earnings, but AMD’s marketing claims about the power of its Bulldozer CPU platform. In late October, one disappointed AMD buyer filed a class action lawsuit arguing that AMD’s statements about Bulldozer supporting up to eight cores were false.
  Tony Dickey, a resident of Alabama who brought the suit against the company, says AMD’s actions violate the consumer legal remedies act, California’s unfair compe
  
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• Don’t use general recruiters in salary negotiations

  09-11-2015 15:56
  
  In part 1, I wrote of the disparity in information security salaries between what is being offered and the true market rate.
  For those in the salary phase of an offer, Andrew Hay has created a handy Salary Negotiation Workbook that can make the often tenuous salary negotiations easier. One of the benefits of using a recruiter is that they can do that for you.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Need for cyber-insurance heats up, but the market remains immature

  09-11-2015 15:54
  
  Spurred by the rash of high-profile hacks, companies are purchasing cyber-insurance to protect themselves from the financial liability associated with data loss and business disruption. But the still-maturing market for cyber-insurance remains fraught with loopholes and inconsistencies, and suffers from a shortage of qualified staff who can properly assess cybersecurity profiles, experts and CIOs say."The application process is less than what you would think it would be, in terms of the due dili
  
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• Government CIOs and CISOs under siege by insider threats

  09-11-2015 15:51
  
  When the Office of Management and Budget rolled out its far-reaching blueprint for federal agencies to improve their cybersecurity posture, it identified a number of areas where government CIOs and CISOs can improve, including rapid detection and response to incidents and the need to recruit and retain top security talent.The Cybersecurity Strategy and Implementation Plan (PDF available here) also highlights the need for agencies to take steps to mitigate one of the more pervasive -- and overloo
  
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• Cisco, Ericsson team up as industry consolidates

  09-11-2015 15:50
  
  As Nokia closes its acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Cisco this week announced a tight partnership to jointly address enterprise, service provider and Internet of Things opportunities.
  The companies outlined a broad, multi-faceted relationship that’s been 13 months in the making – perhaps around the time both companies caught wind of Nokia’s plans to acquire Alcatel-Lucent, two companies Ericsson and Cisco compete directly against. The deal comes as other mega-merge
  
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• File-encrypting ransomware starts targeting Linux Web servers

  09-11-2015 14:52
  Ransomware authors continue their hunt for new sources of income. After targeting consumer and then business computers, they've now expanded their attacks to Web servers.Malware researchers from Russian antivirus vendor Doctor Web have recently discovered a new malware program for Linux-based systems that they've dubbed Linux.Encoder.1.Once run on a system with administrator privileges it starts traversing the whole file system and encrypting files in specific directories, including the use
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How one CIO leverages technology to transform education

  09-11-2015 14:20
  
  The digital revolution is upon us. Consumers are demanding improved services, and technology enables this. With just a few clicks on our smartphone or tablet we can shop online, check out restaurants, text our pizza orders, deposit checks, and request cabs.Educators are beginning to see the benefit of incorporating technology in the classroom as well. One CIO leading the charge is Serena Sacks from the Fulton County School (FCS) System in Atlanta. With 14,000 employees, the school system pr
  
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• Bijna helft bedrijven heeft geen beleid voor mobiel werken

  09-11-2015 14:08
  Pakweg de helft van de Nederlandse organisaties met meer dan 50 werknemers heeft geen enkele vorm van beleid om mobiel werken van medewerkers te ondersteunen. Slechts 3% heeft een duidelijk formeel vastgelegd beleid. Daarop duidt onderzoek van Citrix. Mobiele medewerkers werken gemiddeld 26 uur per week buiten... lees meer
  
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• Is It time to re-evaluate your BYOD policy?

  09-11-2015 13:56
  
  The rise in BYOD has left businesses struggling to manage the growing number of access points across their systems. A recent study conducted by Bitglass found that 57 percent of employees and 38 percent of IT professionals don’t participate in their company’s BYOD program due to privacy concerns, that corporate leadership would have too much visibility into the end user’s personal data.Of course, that doesn’t stop employees from using their own devices, circumventing offi
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How to select enterprise software to maximize value

  09-11-2015 13:36
  
  Buying enterprise software is not like buying a car or a house where there is pride of ownership. Nobody buys software for the sheer joy of owning it. Rather it is bought for the value of the benefits that flow from using it.Market leading software is often seen as delivering this value, but without a detailed value analysis, there is no way to know this before making the purchase. Too often, software is bought only to find that it does not deliver the expected value because it is not a good mat
  
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• The future of tech lies in data, privacy and robots

  09-11-2015 13:29
  
  The future of tech lies in artificial intelligence, data and privacy. That was the message delivered last week at EmTech, MIT Technology Review's annual fall event held in Cambridge, Mass. The conference -- which focuses on emerging technology -- draws CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, policy leaders, innovators, business leaders and entrepreneurs looking to identify upcoming trends in tech over the next few years.Big data, privacy and robots dominated the conferences. Whether it was examining corporate respons
  
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• 7 reasons tech internships pay off

  09-11-2015 13:18
  
  Tech internships pay offImage by ThinkstockInternships are a great way to get experience on your resume before you graduate, which can make the post-grad job search easier and give you an edge against the competition. And interns -- both past and present -- agree, with nearly 71 percent of students stating that internships should be mandatory, according to a 2015 report on the State of College Hiring from Look Sharp. Look Sharp offers an internship and job search resource for students, and earli
  
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• Is it time for Identity as a Service?

  09-11-2015 13:15
  
  From Target to TalkTalk to whoever gets breached next week, the litany of companies that have lost customer data should be making businesses rethink not just how they protect customer information and accounts, but whether they want to be running customer and consumer identity services themselves.Despite the fact that attacks are routine, user identity details are often poorly protected. A quick glance at Stack Exchange reveals a worrying number of developers who don’t know how to handle en
  
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• No surprise here: Adobe's Flash is a hacker's favorite target

  09-11-2015 13:00
  
  Adobe Systems' Flash plugin gets no love from anyone in the security field these days. A new study released Monday shows just how much it is favored by cybercriminals to sneak their malware onto computers.
  It looked at more than 100 exploit kits, which are frameworks planted in Web pages that automatically probe for software vulnerabilities when a user browses to a page.
  Those who develop exploit kits are often hired by others to help distribute specific kinds of malware.
  Of the top 10 vulnerab
  
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• Comcast resets nearly 200,000 passwords after customer list goes on sale

  09-11-2015 12:30
  
  Over the weekend, a reader (@flanvel) directed Salted Hash to a post on a Dark Web marketplace selling a number of questionable, if not outright illegal goods. The post in question offered a list of 590,000 Comcast email addresses and corresponding passwords.
  As proof, the seller offered a brief list of 112 accounts with a going rate of $300 USD for 100,000 accounts. However, one wished to purchase the entire list of 590,000 accounts, the final price was $1,000 USD.
  Saturday evening, Salted Has
  
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• Why email is a better virtual assistant

  09-11-2015 12:15
  
  Now that virtual assistants are here, we need to decide where they live. Here's an idea: How about inside email?
  The location of virtual assistants depends on which assistant you're using. Siri, for example, lives on the other side of your iPhone or iPad Home button -- or the Siri button on the new Apple TV remote.
  For Cortana, it's inside the Windows 10 search box on the task bar or conjured up with the microphone icon. You'll also find Cortana through a voice command on Android and, soon, liv
  
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• Review: Graylog delivers open source log management for the dedicated do-it-yourselfer

  09-11-2015 12:06
  
  In most big security breaches, there’s a familiar thread: something funny was going on, but no one noticed. The information was in the logs, but no one was looking for it. Logs from the hundreds or thousands of network devices are the secret sauce to problem solving, security alerting, and performance and capacity management. Gathering logs together, analyzing them, reporting, and alerting on them is a basic part of good IT practice.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, plea
  
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• Fury and fear in Ohio as IT jobs go to India

  09-11-2015 12:03
  
  The IT workers at Cengage Learning in the company's Mason, Ohio offices learned of their fates game-show style. First, they were told to gather ina large conference room. There were vague remarks from an IT executive about a "transition." Slides were shown that listed employee names, directing them to one of three rooms where they would be told specifically what was happening to them. Some employees were cold with worry.
  The biggest group, those getting pink slips, were told to remain in the la
  
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• TLC NAND SSDs: The crippling problem storage makers don't advertise

  09-11-2015 12:00
  
  With last week’s release of Crucial’s BX200 SSD, a drive that features TLC (triple-level cell) NAND, it’s time to shine a light on this burgeoning segment of the SSD market—especially as vendors happily quote numbers that would have you believe that these SSDs perform just like any other.
  Most of the time TLC SSDs perform quite well. But copy a large amount of data to a TLC drive, and part way through the operation you’ll see something discomforting—a st
  
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• 6 super-defenses against super-user attacks

  09-11-2015 12:00
  
  ID managementPrivileged Identity Management is based on a common link in the chain of almost every advanced threat: obtaining the credentials of an administrator, super-user or even a program with local admin rights. PIM tools lock down those special user credentials. Some PIM systems concentrate on auditing or anomaly detection so that even trusted insiders who have gone turncoat can be caught. Others look at the password aspect of identity management, cycling impossibly long randomized passwor
  
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• 10 reasons why phishing attacks are nastier than ever

  09-11-2015 12:00
  
  Phishing emails have been the scourge of the computer world for decades, defeating even our best efforts to combat them. Most of us can easily spot them by their subject lines and delete without even opening. If we’re not entirely sure and end up opening them, we can immediately identify a phishing attempt by its overly formal greetings, foreign origins, misspellings, and overly solicitous efforts to send us millions of unearned dollars or to sell us dubious products. Most of the time, ph
  
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• University researchers get $5M grant to build ‘Aristotle Cloud’

  09-11-2015 11:45
  
  A group of researchers from three universities have received a $5 million National Science Foundation grant to build an academic-focused cloud-computing platform. Their goal is to allow scientific researchers to share computational capacity across sites in order to speed results.
  The project is called the Aristotle Cloud Federation, and the principle investigator for the initiative hopes for it to act as a proof of concept for other colleges and universities to either join their cloud or build
  
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• Dangerous bugs leave open doors to SAP HANA systems

  09-11-2015 09:01
  The most serious software flaws ever have been found in SAP's HANA platform, the in-memory database platform that underpins many of the German company's products used by large companies.Eight of the flaws are ranked critical, the highest severity rating, since attackers could use them to delete data, steal customer information and financial statements or change product pricing data."We found lot of stuff under the carpet," said Mariano Nunez, CEO of Onapsis, a Boston-based security company that
  
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• EMC, hospital to pay $90,000 over stolen laptop with medical data

  09-11-2015 08:59
  EMC and Hartford Hospital have agreed to pay US$90,000 to Connecticut in connection with the loss in 2012 of an unencrypted laptop containing patient information of 8,883 residents of the state, according to the state's attorney general.
  The laptop was stolen from the home of an employee of EMC and was never later recovered, according to an "Assurance of Voluntary Compliance" signed by EMC and the hospital with Attorney General George Jepsen.
  EMC had been hired as a contractor to the hospital t
  
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• Apple employee class-action lawsuit over bag checks dismissed

  09-11-2015 06:07
  
  Apple has won a class-action lawsuit brought by employees at its California stores, who claimed that they should be compensated for time spent during bag checks for pilferage when they left the store.District Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled Saturday that the employees had an option not to bring bags to work.“Rather than prohibiting employees from bringing bags and personal Apple devices into the store altogether, Apple took a mil
  
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