Password Security, easier and more difficult then you think.
Hackers showed they have a very long reach at the Defcon hacker conference this week. They can turn off your power or hack your home automation systems through internet-connected power lines.
Independent security researchers David “Rel1k” Kennedy and Rob “Kc57″ Simon told the audience that they were releasing free tools that will let hackers break into home automation, business automation, and security systems that operate over the electrical wires of a building. It’s one more example of how hackers can pretty much break into any computerized technology available.
“We have to bring more exposure to this attack vector,” Kennedy said in his talk, which drew a big crowd at Defcon.
» via VentureBeat
via infoneer-pulse:
It’s absurd to think that rebuilding the nations roads and bridges and water systems, not to mention investing in broadband and mass transit, couldn’t return more than 2.4 percent over time. In fact, the decision is more obvious even than that: if we put those investments off, we’ll still have to make them later, when borrowing costs will be higher and bridges and roads that need to be repaired now are so dilapidated that they need to be fully rebuilt.
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Water availability is gradually declining. Even 30 years ago we had probably twice as much water as we have now.
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Quote by Glenn Schur, Farmer from Plainview Texas. Quote found online in article “Digital cloud lets farmer know when to water” published by BBC News (via smarterplanet)
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Long the province of Internet startups and Wall Street outfits, cloud computing is at last going mainstream. That conclusion smacked me upside the head when I spoke to Jessica Carroll,…
New Job Opportunities in Cybersecurity
a re-post from wservernews
I assume you all know the SANS institute. If you don’t you should. They do excellent work. SANS is the most trusted and by far the largest source for information security training and security certification in the world. It also develops, maintains, and makes available at no cost, the largest collection of research documents about various aspects of information security, and it operates the Internet’s early warning system - the Internet Storm Center. More at SANS here, but keep on reading first. http://www.wservernews.com/go/1308389305750 Alan Paller is director of research at the SANS Institute. He just wrote an editorial in the SANS Newsbites that I thought was so good and timely that I am repeating it here, with the encouragement you check out their website and take some SANS courses: “Have you noticed that cybersecurity is getting far more press coverage than ever before? From FOX News to public television, cybersecurity is THE hot topic. A Bloomberg TV reporter told me that cybersecurity outranked the presidential race yesterday. This surge in visibility is catalyzing two huge opportunities for people interested in cool jobs in cybersecurity. “The first is the shift from compliance-based security to continuous monitoring and daily prioritization of mitigation tasks. That change has gotten strong White House support. Just last week the federal agency cybersecurity (FISMA) reporting requirements were substantively changed to emphasize continuous monitoring and alleviate the need for a lot of compliance reports. Today people who know how to implement continuous monitoring of Twenty Critical Controls are in increasingly high demand among government agencies and contractors and among commercial organization that are also shifting to continuous monitoring. “The second major opportunity is bigger, but is just emerging. It is a direct response to the question now coming from senior executives and CIOs: “Do we know whether every system and application we deploy has security baked in?” The people who can answer that question with authority will be the new heroes in cybersecurity. They have many names: security architect, security engineer, security consultant, and several more but their skills are those that can on a large scale, make sure that every application has security built in. Three of the companies that have done the best job in transforming their security programs to be able to ensure security is architected in are helping with a workshop in August to share best practices. If you want to be the leader in this area for your company or agency, you should consider attending the program. My favorite part is the way Cisco in particular is creating pretty good security architects out of IT architects - very impressive.”http://www.wservernews.com/go/1308389321796
Shift to mobility is powering a change in the architecture of the Internet, Dave Evans says
When futurists talk about technology to come, it’s easy to start imagining tales spun by the likes of Issac Asimov and William Gibson (or whoever your favourite science-fiction author happens to be), and…
IBM Unleashes Advanced Software Solution for Smarter Buildings | GreenBiz.com
IBM formally introduces its Intelligent Building Management software today — an advanced solution that’s being put to work at Tulane University’s School of Architecture, The Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the company’s 35-building facility in Minnesota.
The software is designed to be an analytics and automation powerhouse that can help ramp up the environmental performance of any building, even ones that are 100 years old or more.
The product is the latest in a steady stream of solutions that IBM has unleashed in recent months to make the management of buildings, the energy and resources they use, and the transportation and virtual networks that connect them more efficient, more effective and more intelligent.
The software and its applications, which are being detailed today in an IBM Smarter Buildings Forum in New York, also are the results of the company’s steadily increasing collaborative projects, partnerships and acquisitions — all of which are aimed at positioning IBM as a dominant player in a nascent field that brings together IT, the built environment, vehicles and energy.
