Grim ‘Reaper’ Botnet Could Come for Your Candy

'Reaper' Botnet

 

By Tony Ramsey, Practice Manager, Networking & Security

IoT devices and gadgets which are the primary target of the ‘Reaper’ botnet present a new attack vector and easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities. coupled with the number of IoT devices, have certainly helped the ‘Reaper’ botnet reach the critical mass needed to deliver a massive DDoS attack or a crippling payload to its victims. But don’t fret, it hasn’t done so yet. When compared to the Mirai botnet attack last year, the good news is that security experts are more prepared for it. 

The major concern is the sheer number of infected devices and their combined computing power harnessed by botnet controllers through injection of malicious code that has the potential to cause massive problems.  

The numbers provided by 360 Netlab are impressive:

Infected bots connected to one controller: About 28,000 infected devices

Number of devices vulnerable to ‘Reaper’ botnet: As far as two million

It’s important to note, however, that this botnet has already lost the element of surprise. The ‘Reaper’ botnet controllers and some of its code are now known to the internet security community. Its method of infection: exploiting known vulnerabilities and its propagation between devices are also being analyzed.

Therefore, it is no longer a question of detection but prevention.  

This is certainly the time for device vendors to provide security patches for hardware and software platforms to address the specific exploitable vulnerabilities.

There’s much anxiety in the internet security community since we’ve not yet seen any attacks or malicious activity and the Reaper botnet still seems to be in the expansion phase; its intention for a concerted malicious attack is yet unknown, but we know that its potential magnitude of damage is quite large. 

Some of the infected networked devices are mainly for home and SOHO use, so education and awareness is needed by consumers who aren’t necessarily accustomed to applying security patches and in-depth configurations for threat mitigation.

‘Reaper’ Botnet Update:

The original claim in the security world that this is one of the largest botnet infections ever has been significantly reduced. As of today, the prediction is that the ‘Reaper’ botnet isn’t as far reaching as expected, but it could change at any moment. The question is, will the ‘Reaper’ botnet cause more widespread damage than the infamous Mirai?

 

Chevron makes Microsoft Azure its primary cloud in seven year deal

Chevron is making Microsoft Azure its primary cloud provider as part of a seven year partnership with the Redmond giant.

The energy corporation added the move will accelerate the application of technologies such as analytics and the Internet of Things to drive performance and improve efficiencies. According to Chevron CIO Bill Braun, the company saw Microsoft as a good fit because of its global reach.

The move is especially key because of the bountiful amounts of data energy companies, among others in similar industries, are harvesting. In Chevron’s case, its ‘things’ – in this instance, production facilities, drill ships and fiber optic cables inside well casings – can generate up to one terabyte of data per day. Through the partnership with Microsoft, Chevron hopes to act upon this data in real-time and apply analytics on top of it.

“Chevron has a long history of applying advanced technologies to develop the energy that improves lives and powers the world. We also understand scale, and the cloud at hyperscale is something we intend to leverage for agility and efficiency,” said Braun in a statement. “Through this strategic partnership, we believe Chevron will have a competitive advantage.”

“With Chevron and Microsoft, intelligent energy meets intelligent cloud,” said Jason Zander, corporate vice president of Microsoft Azure. “Our global cloud infrastructure – which has more regions around the world than any other cloud provider – will enable Chevron to leverage our capabilities across areas like high performance computing and Internet of Things to become a truly digital business.”

Microsoft posted its most recent financial results last week with total revenues of $24.5 billion. In the three buckets the company places revenues, its ‘intelligent cloud’ segment – focusing on Azure and server products – saw a 13% increase year on year to $6.9bn for the quarter while ‘productivity and business processes’, where Office 365 figures are based, went up 28% to $8.2bn.

Announcing 2018 Agenda | @CloudExpo #IoT #AI #ML #DX #DevOps #SmartCities #DigitalTransformation

Cloud Expo | DXWorld Expo have announced the conference tracks for Cloud Expo 2018. Cloud Expo will be held June 5-7, 2018, at the Javits Center in New York City, and November 6-8, 2018, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA. Digital Transformation (DX) is a major focus with the introduction of DX Expo within the program. Successful transformation requires a laser focus on being data-driven and on using all the tools available that enable transformation if they plan to survive over the long term. A total of 88% of Fortune 500 companies from a generation ago are now out of business. Only 12% still survive. Similar percentages are found throughout enterprises of all sizes.

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Sponsorship Opportunities @CloudExpo and @ExpoDX | #IoT #SmartCities #DigitalTransformation

22nd International Cloud Expo, taking place June 5-7, 2018, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, and co-located with the 1st DXWorld Expo will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. Cloud computing is now being embraced by a majority of enterprises of all sizes. Yesterday’s debate about public vs. private has transformed into the reality of hybrid cloud: a recent survey shows that 74% of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy. Meanwhile, 94% of enterprises are using some form of XaaS – software, platform, and infrastructure as a service.

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Enterprises want more public cloud – yet security issues block their path

A new survey released by AlgoSec sets the scene on organisational cloud deployments: almost a third of respondents say they plan to increase their public cloud usage in the next 12 to 18 months, but major security challenges remain across hybrid enterprise networks both during and after migrations.

The study, titled ‘Hybrid Cloud Environments: The State of Security’, polled 450 senior security and network professionals and found a lack of visibility and managing security policies consistently were the biggest security management challenges enterprises face in hybrid environments.

As companies ramp up their public cloud deployments, needing complete visibility across both on-premise and cloud networks is therefore essential. Almost half of respondents say their organisation runs up to 20% of its workloads in the cloud, compared to a quarter (25.7%) who run between 21% and 40% and 11.7% of respondents running between 41% and 60%.

These numbers will almost certainly rise in future reports; yet security continues to be a primary concern. The biggest issue companies say they are facing is cyberattacks, cited by 59% of respondents, while unauthorised access by outsiders (53%), downtime or outages (46%), or misconfiguration of cloud security controls (41%) were also highly cited.

When it comes to specific vendors, Microsoft Azure took the honours, cited by 57.8% of respondents, ahead of Amazon Web Services on 52.4%. A yawning gap followed to Google Cloud Platform (18.8%), Oracle (9%), Rackspace (7.3%) and Alibaba Cloud (1.5%).

“As organisations increase their public cloud deployments and migrate applications, it’s essential that they have complete visibility across both their on-premise and cloud networks, together with the ability to automatically and holistically manage their security policies,” said Joanne Godfrey, director of communications at AlgoSec.

“This enables them to better protect the business and fulfil compliance demands, while taking full advantage of the cost savings and agility offered by the hybrid cloud model.”

You can find out more about the report here.

[session] #DigitalTransformation and #FinTech | @CloudExpo #AI #DX #IoT

In his session at 21st Cloud Expo, Ikuo Nakagawa, Co-Founder and Board Member at Transparent Cloud Computing Consortium, will introduce the big change in economic models with leading-edge business cases for digitalization of transactions and discuss the future of monetary economy in the digital era.
Nowadays, “digital innovation” is a big wave of business transformation based on digital technologies. IoT, Big Data, AI, FinTech and various leading-edge technologies are key components of such business drivers, of course.

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Best Sleep Tech For Men

Finding yourself awake within a few hours of sleep is a common problem faced by men of all ages. An estimated 50 to 70 million adults in the US are facing sleep-related problems, according to the CDC. This is partly because we are over-stimulated and stressed all the time and this carries over to our sleep as well. A lack of good night sleep makes us feel tired and groggy the next day which in turn, affects our professional and personal life.

One way to ensure you have a good night sleep is to have a happy and healthy life. Some tech apps and gadgets are also helpful to fill in the gaps. We have presented some sleep tech for you below to help you get more zzzz.

Wake-Up Light

Most alarm clocks use sound to wake you, but the Wake-up Light uses light to do it. This device works with the circadian cycle of the body to “tune” your body to nature’s day and night cycle. This device stimulates the conditions of dawn using a UV-free halogen bulb that gradually becomes brighter about half an hour before your alarm goes off. Such a mechanism helps your body to work with nature’s rhythmic pattern of sleep and wakefulness and over a period of prolonged use, it improves your sleep pattern. An added bonus is a USB port you can use to load your song play-list, so you can wake up to your favorite song every time. The Wake-Up Light is most helpful for those men who travel frequently across timezones.

Pzizz

Pzizz is a unique sleep app that creates a hypnotic sound to put you to sleep. Unlike other sleep devices, it does not play your favorite songs or reads out a boring story to put you to sleep, but rather it has soothing and modulated voices that slowly ease your brain and body into sleeping mode. This hypnotic effect is sure to work like magic on any insomniac.

Zeo Sleep Manager Pro

If you have been feeling groggy even after a good night’s sleep, then Zeo Sleep is the device for you. It measures brain waves through a headband and records your sleep patterns at night. In the morning, Zeo analyzes your sleep patterns to give you a breakdown of your sleep cycle and it even rates the quality of your sleep. This is particularly useful for men who feel tired all the time.

FitBit Ultra

FitBit Ultra is one of the coolest devices available today for sleep and fitness. The makers of FitBit sure know to pack a whole lot into this ultra-thin and handy device. It comes with a wristband that you wear at night to monitor your sleep patterns and through the day, the same wristband is used to count the number of steps you have walked or climbed including the amount of calories burned. Think of this device as a digital trainer that helps you to stay healthy during the day and night.

These sleep devices help you to get the most out of your night’s sleep, so you are refreshed for a new day of work and fun!

The post Best Sleep Tech For Men appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

On Being Named a VMware vExpert

By Chris Williams, Solutions Architect

I love learning new things.  I also love sharing the knowledge that I have out to folks who are interested in it. That’s why I started this blog. That’s why I help to run VTUGAWS-PUG and host/present for vBrownBag. This is on top of my full time role at GreenPages 🙂 It’s a labor of love and for the most part people don’t know how much time one has to put in on the back end to make something look pretty enough to see the light of day.

How I see every 1st draft I create

The vExpert program is a great recognition of those of us who, in addition to having a full-time day job, also enjoy spending time giving back to the community. vExperts come in all shapes and sizes:  bloggers, presenters, evangelists, user group leaders, podcasters, etc… Simply going through the roster of current vExperts will give you an amazing research base from which to pull knowledge in the future. Every year when the new VMware vExpert Awards are announced, I go through the list and add any new vExperts who are relevant to my particular areas. I am honored to be a part of a community of folks whose articles I’ve been using for years to help me do my job 🙂

Now I’ve been bestowed an even bigger honor in being chosen, among the ranks of the existing vExperts, as deserving of the vExpert Cloud designation. Thanks and congratulations to all who received the award and the team in VMware who makes all of this happen!

Congrats to our very own Chris Williams for his vExpert Cloud designation!

[session] IoT, SDN and AI | @CloudExpo @InteractorTeam #DX #AI #IoT #SDN

Most technology leaders, contemporary and from the hardware era, are reshaping their businesses to do software. They hope to capture value from emerging technologies such as IoT, SDN, and AI. Ultimately, irrespective of the vertical, it is about deriving value from independent software applications participating in an ecosystem as one comprehensive solution. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Kausik Sridhar, founder and CTO of Pulzze Systems, will discuss how given the magnitude of today’s application ecosystem, tweaking existing software to stitch various components together leads to sub-optimal solutions. This definitely deserves a re-think, and paves the way for a new breed of lightweight application servers that are micro-services and DevOps ready!

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