Next-Generation Malware: Changing The Game In Security’s Operations Center

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In a nutshell, the process of malware analysis and defense has evolved from a “set it and forget it” task into a skills-intensive, do-it-yourself research project. And that shift is having a profound effect on the staffing and day-to-day activities of the enterprise security department.

via Next-Generation Malware: Changing The Game In Security’s Operations Center – Dark Reading.

In the meantime, however, the best strategy for stopping next-generation malware is not to rely too heavily on any one technology, Manky advises. A combination of signature-based tools, behavior-based tools, traditional perimeter defenses, and next-generation application defenses can create such a muddle of problems for attackers that can discourage them — and send them looking for easier pickings elsewhere, he says.

Chips Race to Absorb the Line Card

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EZchip and Netronome both sell network processors — chips specifically designed for networking equipment — and both say they’re expanding their scope to cover Layers 2 through 7, thanks to their new chip designs. That means they can target switching, routing, security, deep packet inspection — pretty much all the intelligence in a network element.

via Light Reading – Optical Networking – Chips Race to Absorb the Line Card – Telecom News Analysis.

Trolls filed 40% of patent infringement lawsuits in 2011

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A new study helps to fill the gap by providing systematic data on the growth of patent troll litigation. Robin Feldman, a professor at UC Hastings College of Law, teamed up with Lex Machina, a Stanford Law spinoff that collects data on patent litigation, to compile a systematic survey of patent litigation. Their results are striking: the fraction of lawsuits filed by troll-like entities grew from 22 percent in 2007 to 40 percent in 2011.

via Trolls filed 40% of patent infringement lawsuits in 2011 | Ars Technica.

Is a Wireless Data Center Possible?

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In a new paper, a team of researchers from Cornell and Microsoft concluded that a data-center operator could replace hundreds of feet of cable with 60-GHz wireless connections—assuming that the servers themselves are redesigned in cylindrical racks, shaped like prisms, with blade servers addressing both intra- and inter-rack connections.

via Is a Wireless Data Center Possible?.

Although many 60-GHz technologies are under consideration (IEE 802.15.3c and 802.11ad, WiGig, and others), the authors picked a Georgia Tech design with bandwidth of between 4-15Gbps and and effective range of less than or equal to 10 meters. Beam-steering wasn’t used because of the latencies involved in reinstating a dropped connection, although both time and frequency multiplexing were. (Because the team couldn’t actually build the design, they chose Terabeam/HXI 60-GHz transceivers for a conservative estimate.)

Dodging 5 Dangerous Database Default Settings

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Because database configurations can make all the difference between safeguarding data stores and leaving them dangerously vulnerable to big data breaches, security experts recommend taking a look at all of your database’s default settings for weakness. But, in particular, the following defaults pose the biggest risks.

via Dodging 5 Dangerous Database Default Settings – Dark Reading.

  1. Default Passwords And Accounts
  2. Allowing Direct Table Access
  3. Keeping Default Stored Procedures
  4. Encryption Keys Stored With Database
  5. Unnecessary Services and Applications

Cyber War? Bring It On!

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Ever since our own government’s WWI propaganda machine portrayed the Germans as evildoers intent on raping and pillaging the USA, Washington has managed to make the public fearful about one sort of impending doom or another. When I was a kid we were all going to be blown to smithereens by a Russian nuke. “DUCK and cover!” Then came the domino theory of communist takeovers. There were riots, crime sprees, gangsters, Russians, Communists, evil Birchers, Iraqis, Hezbollah, all out to doom the country.

Now looms the horrible cyberattack from God knows who.

via Cyber War? Bring It On! | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.

NASA to Demonstrate Communications Via Laser Beam

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It currently takes 90 minutes to transmit high-resolution images from Mars, but NASA would like to dramatically reduce that time to just minutes. A new optical communications system that NASA plans to demonstrate in 2016 will lead the way and even allow the streaming of high-definition video from distances beyond the Moon.

via NASA – NASA to Demonstrate Communications Via Laser Beam.

The LCRD is the next step in that direction, Israel said, likening the emerging capability to land-based fiber-optic systems, such as Verizon’s FiOS network. “In a sense, we’re moving FiOS to space.”

Why We Need a Supercomputer on the Moon

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Ouliang Chang floated his lunar supercomputer idea a few weeks ago at a space conference in Pasadena, California. The plan is to bury a massive machine in a deep dark crater, on the side of the moon that’s facing away from Earth and all of its electromagnetic chatter. Nuclear-powered, it would process data for space missions and slingshot Earth’s Deep Space Network into a brand new moon-centric era.

via Why We Need a Supercomputer on the Moon | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com.

Clearly, the business of dreaming up supercomputers in space is not for those who think small.

Huawei and Cisco’s Source Code: Correcting the Record

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Unlike the smartphone patent battles, where parties try to protect and grow their market share by suing each other over broad patents where no direct copying is required, let alone even knowledge that a patent exists, this litigation involved allegations by Cisco of direct, verbatim copying of our source code, to say nothing of our command line interface, our help screens, our copyrighted manuals and other elements of our products.

via Cisco Blog » Blog Archive » Huawei and Cisco’s Source Code: Correcting the Record.