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.

Popular RATs Found Riddled With Bugs, Weak Crypto

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The researchers, in conjunction with their research paper (PDF), released tools for decrypting RAT traffic and proof-of-concept exploits for the bugs they found. They found that the tools include weak, or no, encryption: Bandook, for example, uses obfuscation, not encryption, to protect its traffic between the victim’s machine and the C&C server.

via Popular RATs Found Riddled With Bugs, Weak Crypto – Dark Reading.

“A good understanding of their protocols is critical to network and system administrators deploying tools that can notice the presence of a RAT,” they said.

RAT = Remote Administrative Tool which is a tool used by the bad guys to snoop on a victim.  To the victim this is more commonly referred to as a trojan.

TSMC Seen to be Sole 20nm Process Supplier

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Taipei, Oct. 12, 2012 (CENS)–Citigroup Global Markets Inc. estimated Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) to be the only supplier of 20nm process to Apple quad-core processors over the next one to two years, citing the company’s unmatched technological advance on 20nm process and Apple’s decision to adopt 20nm quad-core processors in its new products.

via TSMC Seen to be Sole 20nm Process Supplier to Apple Quad Processors | CENS.com – The Taiwan Economic News | Daily Prime News | HTML |Ta1-CaE-Dy2012/10/12-Id41728.

Lone packet cripples telco networks

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Telcos the world over were running networks tantamount to “technology sandwiches” where layers of legacy kit had created such high complexity that operators were unaware of glaring holes which Langlois regularly revealed in penetration tests.

via Lone packet cripples telco networks – Networks – SC Magazine Australia – Secure Business Intelligence.

“We accessed [an operator’s] systems through their x25 network which they never knew was running because the network vendor never disclosed it — it was just underlying technology.”

Kii Cloud Opens Doors For Mobile Developer Platform With 25 Million End Users

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MBaaS is more often a way to cater to developers. The idea here is that developers program the app and push it out to Kii Cloud without having to build their own servers and back end. At the crux of it, Kii sells simplicity and scale through the APIs and SDKs that use object database technology originally developed as an open source project by db4objects. Its ad network and distribution across Japan, Korea and China give it significant reach.

via Kii Cloud Opens Doors For Mobile Developer Platform With 25 Million End Users | TechCrunch.

MBaaS = Mobile back end as a service

From: Mobile Backend as a Service Roundup and the Future of Web APIs

To help me monitor the MBaaS market I spent some time rounding up as many of the providers as I could, and so far I’ve found 24 of them: