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TeamViewer’s Approach To Secure Internet Of Things (IoT) Connectivity

How TeamViewer is enabling customers to confidently connect, monitor, and control new things every day.

By better understanding their operations and processes, businesses have always been able to create new efficiencies and reduce costs. Using intelligent sensors, Internet of Things (IoT) technologies promise to not only help gather process metrics, but also to introduce a degree of autonomy that further increases the speed at which you do business.

With connected devices deployed extensively, networks are set to become far more complex — and costly — to manage. Service providers like TeamViewer can help to simplify deployment and administration, particularly where sensors and devices are installed across multiple sites — or even internationally.

Why We Are Launching TeamViewer IoT

As one of the world’s leading providers of remote access solutions, it makes sense to bring our knowledge and experience to help solve the administrative challenges presented by IoT. With potentially thousands of new network-connected devices to manage, TeamViewer’s powerful tools can help lighten the load.

As your business uses IoT to better understand operations, TeamViewer provides the tools that help you work smarter — and faster.

Helping You To Leverage The Power Of IoT

IoT projects have two ultimate goals — to gather important data from every aspect of operations for informed decision making, and to increase the potential for autonomous decision-making by connected systems. There is much more to a successful IoT project than simply deploying a large number of smart sensors and connecting remote devices.

Ultimately, your business needs to be able to access and use the data being generated by the sensors and devices if you are to realise the true value of IoT. Manufacturing and retail may steal all the headlines when it comes to IoT use cases, but there are other genuinely useful possibilities.

Heading Off Problems Before They Arise

Using smart meters, the utilities industry helps customers better understand and modify their power consumption habits. But when accessing meters remotely, the provider can also receive alerts about suspicious activity, or early warnings where there are supply problems. Those insights will assist with the deployment of field engineers, helping to reduce unnecessary visits.

Manual maintenance will also be eliminated. TeamViewer IoT will offer predictive maintenance, a feature that will save time and reduce costs. Predictive maintenance gives users an early warning of potential errors, so they can prevent unforeseen downtime of devices. Thanks to these notifications, users won’t need to spend time carrying out periodic checks. Instead, they can focus on the day-to-day tasks of the business. Predictive maintenance one of the main ways to get ROI from IoT in the Industry 4.0.

Using IoT To Optimise Operations

Even farmers can get in on the act though. IoT sensors provide useful information about environmental conditions, ensuring that crops are properly watered for instance. The sensors may even be able to control watering autonomously, reducing the farmer’s workload. But equipped with the right tools, the farmer can also access real-time insights into the health of crops, allowing them to know exactly when to begin harvesting to ensure produce is at its peak.

IoT also has a place in customer-facing activities. Deploying smart beacons in a busy venue allows you to supply customers with valuable contextual information to enhance their visit, or to provide indoor mapping to help them find their way. At the same time, the venue operator can access real-time stats about footfall, helping them to manage traffic and uphold safety requirements.

There are literally hundreds of potential IoT applications, but they all share one common problem — the ability to collect, collate and analyze the data being generated by the sensors. As a best-of-breed remote access toolkit, TeamViewer can solve this problem quickly and effectively.

What TeamViewer Does For You

Building on our proven remote access pedigree, we have brought the power of the TeamViewer Global Access Network to IoT. More than simply providing a way to connect to your disparate collection of IoT sensors and systems, TeamViewer provides a way to access and use the data they are generating.

Devices can be connected to TeamViewer in seconds, and grouped together in the TeamViewer client. Immediately, data is available through a centralized dashboard that provides a view of your key metrics. More than simply displaying data, TeamViewer allows you to create rules and thresholds to automate responses to events. Your IoT data is put to work immediately without constructing complex reporting systems and custom applications. But if your dashboard and alerts show that something is wrong, you can press one button and remote directly into the affected device to troubleshoot and fix the issue.

Security You Can Count On

The new IoT connectivity uses the same security standards as the rest of the TeamViewer remote access suite. All communication with your sensors is protected by 256-bit encryption, preventing interception by hackers. Just because your network is growing exponentially, there’s no need to compromise security or privacy when using IoT.

Using our existing global network, TeamViewer allows your business to hit the ground running when deploying IoT. And by simplifying the deployment and management of the solution, TeamViewer IoT helps you to begin realizing a return on investment much more quickly.

Bomgar vs Teamviewer for Enterprises

Differences between the most popular remote access software tools

In an era of remote collaboration and technology, the need of remote desktop software becomes essential for those who need secure access to their information or the ones involved in customer service or similar processes. Based on this, remote support and management tools like Bomgarand Teamviewer represent an advantageous and easy way to troubleshoot and join forces against digital shortcomings.

Even if both utilities simplify your IT daily tasks and allow you to access and control your devices remotely, it is important to understand that their features may vary which makes them suitable for different purposes.

Bomgar vs Teamviewer for Enterprises: Secure Accessadds value to your company performance

Whether you are an ambitious digital entrepreneur or an experienced businessman running a vast company, you may want to take a close look at these remote support options before taking a side or making a right decision to optimize your processes:

BOMGAR – Appliance or Secure Cloud:

Avoids problems related to SaaS deployment as it has been set up as a dedicated cloud hostedappliance in a secure Bomgar datacenter.

Provides solutions based on skillset and gives support technicians, IT administrators, and privileged users secure access to remote devices over the web.

Guarantees highly secure environments by using a smart card authentication and limiting screen sharing to specific applications.

Allows integration with identity providers via the industry standard SAML and enables connection to CRM, systems managements and multi-factor solutions.

TEAMVIEWER –

Software As A Service:

Does NOT guarantee reliable auditability since the session can be turned on and off by the other party.

Does NOT offer obvious processes to regain control which builds a serious security distress.

Does NOT feature any implementation services, making it less effective when it comes to processes.

Does NOT count on valuable features for enterprises, such as: Intelligent Collaboration, Sponsored Access Escalation, Silent Monitoring, Automatic Routing or Vendor Access.

Bomgar vs Teamviewer in social context:

TeamViewer has won popularity as a widespread hacking tool among people and communities, however, Bomgar stands out in business environment where needs are more goal-oriented.

Bomgar vs Teamviewer for Enterprises : Choose the best remote support tool

There are three main factors that must be evaluated before choosing the best remote control software:

Functionality: Not only is Bomgar easy to access but also exceptionally useful for data management, online meetings and teamwork.

Vulnerability: Due to its SaaS architecture and basic original purpose, TeamViewer represents a high risk before cyber-attacks, security breaches or hackers. While Bomgar stores, manages and share data in a rigorously tested secure environment.

Quality: Bomgar users report complete satisfaction and zero performance issues while remote sessions, remote control from mobile and session recording.

Another significant advantage of using Bomgar is that it works on Windows, Mac, Linux and iOS (iPad/iPhone) or Android support without extra costs. Besides that, it supports the development of large and small companies and organizations as it increases user satisfaction, minimizes costs and improves time of resolution.

If we compare Bomgar vs Teamviewer it seems obvious why more than 10,000 companies in more than 80 countries all over the world have trusted Bomgar as their number one solution company for secure accessand remote support. Do you want to be part of the winning team? Do not hesitate to contact us for further information.

Just Launched! — Create Consistent Product Management Workflows Across Your Teams

Flexibility and consistency. These words can seem to be at odds with each other — especially when applied to product management practices. You want to make your processes your own. But you also want everyone to follow the same approach. It is a good thing that Aha! allows you to do both.

Imagine that you are the VP of product management at a company with 2,000 employees and 10 different products. You just added five products as part of a recent acquisition. (Congrats!) Naturally, you want all of the new product teams to use the same custom product management workflows that your existing teams use. Otherwise? Chaos and duplicate effort are in your future.

In the past, your Aha! account Administrator needed to manually add workflows for each type of record (goals, initiatives, releases, master features, features, and requirements) for newly added products. This meant that, for the scenario above, they would have needed to do the same. It worked, but it was not an efficient process to recreate workflows for new products.

You can now define custom workflows in Aha! and select them as the default setting for new product lines and products — ensuring a consistent approach across all teams.

You can set your defaults at the account level, so when new products are added, they automatically are configured. Note that the default workflows are only applied to newly added products — they are not applied to existing ones, which will still need to be updated individually.

Here is how you can set default custom workflows across your account:

Define custom workflows for each record type Customize the status names, colors, and transitions for each record type — including goals, initiatives, releases, features, and ideas. This is useful because the steps to complete a large work item, such as a master feature, can be quite different from a smaller item, such as a requirement. These defined workflows encourage a uniform approach so that the team can work more efficiently. For a customized initiative workflow, consider clear status names, such as “Gather market data,” “Estimate impact,” and “Final approval.”

Set defaults for each record type Once your preferred workflows are defined, navigate to Settings > Account > Configure feature types, statuses, and workflows. To alter your account’s default workflows, select Change default settings by the custom workflows that you want to use. These workflows will be automatically applied when new product lines and products are added so teams can get up and running quickly. As you define the default workflow for features, consider clear status names, such as “In design,” “Ready for development,” or “Ready for PM review.”

Create consistent progress reports across the portfolio With default workflows in place, you can now get a clear picture of statuses across the entire portfolio. Set a custom color for each status and include this information in your reports to quickly visualize progress in a single view. Use a pivot report to show the status of releases across multiple products.

Please note that if you have integrated Aha! with a development tool (e.g. Jira, Rally, or TFS), any changes you make to your workflow statuses may impact your field mappings. Check your integration configuration to make sure that your status fields correspond correctly.

How server disaggregation could make cloud data centers more efficient

The growth in cloud computing has shone a spotlight on data centers, which already consume at least 7 percent of the global electricity supply and growing, according to some estimates. This has led the IT industry to search for ways of making infrastructure more efficient, including some efforts that attempt to rethink the way computers and data centers are built in the first place.

In January, IBM researchers presented a paper at the High Performance and Embedded Architecture and Compilation (HiPEAC) conference in Manchester on their work towards disaggregated computer architecture. This work is part of the EU funded dReDBox project, part of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.

Disaggregation means separating servers into their constituent compute and memory resources so that these can be allocated as required according to the needs of each workload. At present, servers are the basic building blocks of IT infrastructure, but a workload cannot use more memory or CPU resources than are available in one single server nor can servers easily share any spare resources outside their own box.

“Workloads deployed to data centers often have a big disproportionality in the way they use resources. There are some workloads that consume lots of CPU but don’t need much memory, and on the other hand other workloads that will use up to four orders of magnitude more memory than CPU,” said Dr Andrea Reale, Research Engineer for IBM.

Across the datacenter, this means that some servers will be utilizing all their CPUs but still have lots of spare memory, while for others it will be vice versa, and these resources continue to suck power even if they are not being used. According to Reale, about 16 percent of CPU and 30 percent of memory resources in a typical datacenter may be wasted this way.

But what if you could compose servers under software control to have as many CPUs and as much memory as each particular workload requires?

Separating compute and memory

The dReDBox project aims to address this by using discrete compute and memory modules known as bricks. These are connected together by high speed links, enabling enough compute bricks to be paired with enough memory bricks to meet the requirements of whichever workload is running at a given moment. In theory, this enables a server to be composed for a specific application, with as many CPU cores and as much memory as the job requires, and those resources can then be returned to the pool and used for something else once the workload is no longer required.

As part of its research project, the dRedBox team has built a demonstration system where the bricks are built around Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ ARM-based system-on-chip (SoC) silicon. The compute bricks have a small amount of local memory, while the memory bricks have a much larger amount of DDR4 memory that they serve up for the compute bricks.

There are also two other kinds of brick in the dRedBox architecture; accelerator bricks that may provide either GPU or FPGA hardware to boost applications like machine learning or analytics; and a controller brick, which is a special type of brick that manages all the others.

To fit in with existing data center infrastructure, the dRedBox team envisages that the bricks in any production deployment would be housed in a 2U enclosure resembling a standard rack-mount server system. These enclosures may contain any mixture of brick types.

The beauty of this modular arrangement is that it also makes for easy upgrades; the operator can simply replace compute bricks for newer ones with higher performance, or likewise swap memory bricks for ones with a greater memory capacity, rather than junk the entire server.

However, the key part of the whole architecture is the interconnect technology that links the bricks together. This has to be both high-speed and low latency, otherwise performance would take a hit when a compute brick reads data stored in a memory brick.

For its demonstration system, the dRedBox team has used an electrical switch matrix to connect bricks within an enclosure, while an optical switch matrix links to bricks within another enclosure in the rack. Unusually for an IT environment, these switch matrices are circuit switched, meaning they create a dedicated pathway between bricks once configured, unlike a packet-switched network such as Ethernet, where data is routed to its destination based on the address in the data packet.

How converged infrastructure can accelerate the AI journey

The technology that powers businesses is evolving faster than ever before, allowing us to do more than we ever thought possible. Things that were once only seen in science fiction movies are actually coming to life.

One of these areas is the field of artificial intelligence (AI). We’re on the verge of having machines diagnose cancer, map out the universe, take over dangerous jobs, and drive us around. The downside to the rapid evolution has been a rise in complexity. Putting together the infrastructure and software to power AI-based systems can often take months to build, tune, and tweak so that it runs optimally.

Compounding the difficulty is that AI infrastructure is often deployed by data scientists who do not have the same level of technical acumen as the IT team.

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Pure Storage offers a turnkey approach to AI infrastructure

At Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference (GTC), Pure Storage announced a turnkey solution to simplify the deployment of AI infrastructure. The product, known as AIRI (AI Ready Infrastructure), is a validated, optimized solution that includes Pure Storage’s FlashBlade, 100 Gig-E switches from Arista, four DGX-1 servers from Nvidia, and all the software required to operationalize AI at scale. The product is supported by the Nvidia GPU Cloud deep learning stack and Pure Storage AIRI Scaling Toolkit, enabling data scientists to get to work in a few hours instead of months.

The product is similar to other converged infrastructure products, such as Cisco’s FlexPod and Dell-EMCs VxBlock, that offer a turnkey way for businesses to stand up a private cloud in under a day. I’ve talked to customers of both products, and they told me that the converged products take all the complexity out of the deployment so companies can start using the infrastructure immediately. Converged infrastructure was huge leap forward for private clouds, and I expect it to have a similar impact on AI.

A DIY approach to AI can be filled with complexity and long lead times

With AI, the need for a simpler option is even greater because AI processes, such as learning and inferencing, are extremely data intensive. So, it exposes bottlenecks in the infrastructure, and optimizing the infrastructure can be a long, drawn-out process. For example, TensorFlow software is part of the software stack, and there are hundreds of options for it alone. With AIRI, all of the pre-configuration is done for the deploying organization.

Data scientists are among the highest paid employees in organizations, so having them sit around while the infrastructure components are put together wastes time and costs money.

AIRI is highly scalable and flexible

AIRI offers organizations a massive amount of compute power and storage. The product can initially be configured with a single DGX-1 system, which delivers 1 petaflop of performance, but it can be easily scaled to four, quadrupling the performance. One of the great benefits of Nvidia technology is that it scales linearly, so four DGX-1 systems offer 4x the performance with no degradation.

The Pure Storage array can hold up to 15 52 TB blades for a total capacity of over 750 TB. The storage scale is important, as AI requires massive amounts of data in the learning phase. In fact, AI research often depends on the use of generative adversarial networks (GANs) to improve the rate of learning. With GANS, the AI generates large volumes of synthetic data, adding to the high volumes of real data.

One of the interesting aspects of AIRI is that it uses Ethernet to connect the components. Historically, a product like this would have used InfiniBand because the speeds were higher and latency much lower. Today, particularly with Arista, Ethernet latency has gotten closed to InfiniBand and the speeds are equivalent. Ethernet has a very aggressive evolutionary roadmap out to 400 Gig-E and is simpler and more flexible than InfiniBand, making it a more logical choice.

I believe AI has reached an inflection point, and the use of it will explode over the next few years. Similar to when private clouds came into their own, IT teams will be tasked with bringing together all the necessary storage, servers, software, and network infrastructure required to power the AI programs. One approach is to buy all the building blocks and piece it together, but for most organizations, a better approach is to leverage a turnkey product such as Pure Storage’s AIRI.

Note: Of the vendors named in this post, Arista, Cisco, and Nvidia are clients of ZK Research.

Google could be getting serious about IoT with release of Android Things

Google I/O, the company's annual developer conference, grabs fewer headlines than it used to in ages past – the reveal of Google Glass was one for the record books, even the biggest Google detractor would have to admit. But Google's still planning to make some waves this year, particularly with what seems likely to be a full roll-out of Android Things 1.0, the variant Android OS designed for IoT.

The idea behind Things is to provide a unified, one-size-fits-all software option for the developers of constrained devices like smart displays, kiosks and digital signage, among others. Device makers won’t be allowed to modify parts of Android Things’ code, specifically the parts that ensure Google can flash updates to all devices running the software at any time.

That’s a potentially major sea-change for the IoT should Things use become widespread. If security is far and away the biggest stumbling block to IoT deployments, the inability or unwillingness of some device makers to regularly update their software to patch known security holes is arguably the biggest part of that problem. Regular, guaranteed software updates could go a long way toward making IoT more attractive to the more risk-averse enterprise and industrial users that will account for all that exponential growth being predicted for the IoT marketplace.

There’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip, of course – Things is architected as more of an entry-level, consumer-style product at this point, for starters. But the multiplicity of developer sessions scheduled for it at this year’s I/O conference suggests that Google is serious about moving the framework forward as an option for device makers, and broadening its appeal among them.

Things is far from Google’s only foray into IoT – in addition to being linked to IoT deployments via the cloud, Google has a pair of networking protocols called Thread (which it develops as a consortium with other companies like ARM and Qualcomm) and Weave, which is an API layer for Thread. Things itself is an outgrowth of a project codenamed “Brillo,” rolled out at I/O 2015, which was ultimately cast aside in favor of Things after developer feedback, according to Android Authority.

The numerous scheduled developer sessions, combined with a final developer preview release going public just last month, has Google-watchers of all stripes predicting a 1.0 release of Android Things at this year’s conference. How useful it’s going to be for potential enterprise or Industrial IoT customers remains to be seen, but a stable release would send the message that Google is serious about expanding its role in IoT.

If it has an IP address, monitor it. You can now add any network-connected device to the Panorama9 network

Get more value for your money. Today, we are releasing a new feature that enables you to monitor just about anything in your clients’ networks.

Are you adding network-attached smart sensor, security, and automation devices to your IT environment? They are cheap, they require minimal effort to get started, and they instantly deliver value. IoT is real, and we at Panorama9 love it!

But what’s the point of plugging in a network-connected device, like a security camera or smart power plug, if you can’t be sure it’s online and working? Panorama9 now allows you to add any network-connected devices. If it has an IP address, P9 can monitor it!

At the same time, servers are moving to hosting facilities that are far away from users. Everything is connected through the Internet via secure network connections. You may have few local resources that you can use to effectively spot issues. At Panorama9, we do the heavy lifting of figuring how to monitor a device. You just need to manually add the device and decide whether you want a simple ping check or an advanced SNMP rule. When things break, we will notify you.

Monitor any kind of network-connected device

Panorama9’s most important task is monitoring remote-control servers and computers. It also automatically detects printers, NASs, switches, USPs, and similar devices. In addition, our monitoring tool now supports other kinds of network-connected devices, like smart power outlets in server rooms or even smart coffeemakers. With the improved P9 Dashboard, you can now add any device type.

Add specific rules to specific devices

The new feature is the most useful when you want to get additional information. For example, say you have a router in your conference room that hits capacity on busy event days. Now you can monitor the internet usage on that specific router and get an alert when it exceeds 90% of the threshold.

To help you learn more about how to work with the new device types, such as setting up monitoring rules, alerts, etc., we made this guide for you.

We hope you’ll find the ability to add any kind of network-connected device useful. We’d love to hear your feedback on how it’s working out for you.

Cloud is Ubiquitous and Untrusted

At the end of 2017, McAfee surveyed 1,400 IT professionals for our annual Cloud Adoption and Security research study. As we release the resulting research and report at the 2018 RSA Conference, the message we learned this year was clear: there is no longer a need to ask whether companies are in the cloud, it’s an established fact with near ubiquitous (97%) acknowledgement. And yet, as we dug into the comments and information that industry professionals and executives shared about their use and protection of the cloud, another intriguing theme became clear: companies are investing in cloud well ahead of their trust in it!

For this year’s report, Navigating a Cloudy Sky, we sought respondents from a market panel of IT and Technical Operations decision makers. These were selected to represent a diverse set of geography, verticals, and organization sizes. Fieldwork was conducted from October to December 2017, and the results offered a detailed understanding of the current state and future for cloud adoption and security.

Cloud First

More than any prior year – the survey indicated that 97% of organizations worldwide are currently using cloud services, up from 93% just one year ago. In the past year, a majority of organizations in nearly every major geography have even gone so far as to assert a “cloud first” strategy for new initiatives using infrastructure or technology assets.

Indeed, this cloud-first strategy has driven organizations to take on many different providers in their cloud ecosystem. As organizations tackle new data use initiatives, intelligence building, new capabilities to store and execute on applications – the growth in cloud is exploding the number of sanctioned cloud providers that businesses are reporting.

In the survey, enterprises are recognizing and reporting at a statistically significant level the explosion in provider count – each a source of potential risk and management need for the organization. The provider count requires readiness in governance strategy that joins security capabilities and procurement together to protect the data entrusted to each new cloud deployment. Security operations teams will need enhanced visibility that is unified to compose a picture across so many different environments containing enterprise data.

Data and Trust

This year’s report highlights an intriguing trend – companies are investing their data in cloud providers well in advance of their trust in those providers. An incredible 83% of respondents reported storing sensitive data in the public cloud – with many reporting nearly every major data sensitive data type stored in at least one provider.

Despite such a high level of data storage in cloud applications, software, and infrastructure, the same business executives are clearly concerned about the continuing ability to trust the cloud provider to protect the data. While cloud trust continues to gain, and cloud respondents indicated continuing buy-in to using providers and trusting them with critical data and workloads, only 23% of those surveyed said they “completely trust” their data will be secured in the public cloud.

Part of that trust stems from a perception that using public cloud providers is likely to drive use of more proven technologies, and that the risk is not perceived as being any less than in the private cloud.

As cloud deployment trends continue, IT decision makers have strong opinions on key security capabilities that would increase and speed cloud adoption.

33% would increase cloud adoption with visibility across all cloud services in use

32% would increase cloud adoption with strict access control and identity management

28% would increase cloud adoption with control over cloud application functionality

You can download the full report here, and keep following @mcafee_business for more insights on this research.

CCleaner Malware Attack Started With Stolen Credentials

The details of a massive data breach impacting Piriform, the company that created the popular system cleanup software CCleaner and was acquired by Avast in July 2017, indicate that the first point of compromise occurred using stolen credentials. The malware attack infected over 2.3 million users who downloaded or updated the CCleaner app from the official website with the compromised version of the software in August and September last year.

While the specific details are unknown of how exactly the credentials were obtained, Piriform believes attackers reused legitimate employee credentials obtained from previous data breaches. These valid credentials were used by hackers to access an unattended workstation of one of the CCleaner developers using TeamViewer.

Using Stolen Credentials

Once the breach was initiated, the hackers began to infiltrate other computers on the internal network by installing a keylogger on already compromised systems to steal more credentials, and logging in with administrative privileges through RDP. Within a few short months, the attackers replaced the original version of CCleaner software from its official website with their backdoored version of CCleaner, which was distributed to millions of users at some of the world’s leading technology companies.

The CCleaner breach is yet another example of why remote access and use of stolen credentials continue to be named leading attack vectors for cyber breaches. Bomgar recommends the following steps to prevent or reduce the impact of a breach of this nature:

Consolidate all remote access to one tool

Require the use of MFA for all privileged users

Randomize and rotate credentials frequently

Implement a true ‘security by design’ methodology with Bomgar

Bomgar also knows that implementing these kinds of security practices can impact your IT users. Bomgar’s Secure Access solutions enable businesses to control, monitor, and manage access to critical systems and data, while ensuring that people remain productive and are not impeded in their day to day job tasks. Bomgar allows users to access systems quickly and securely, while defending access credentials and protecting endpoints from threats.

Canada’s WSIB Automates Privileged Account Management with Bomgar’s RED Identity Management

Who in the IT group was doing what and when? This was the question that Canada’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) need to resolve to maintain strict control over access to approximately 250 Windows servers across two sites in the IT infrastructure.

Based in Toronto, the WSIB is legislated by the Ontario government and is responsible for administering the Workplace Safety Insurance Act (WSIA). WSIB provides benefits, monitors the quality of healthcare and assists in employees’ safe return to the job.

“Most of our administrator accounts were tied to generic passwords and there was no way to identify who was using them,” said Peter Gruner, team lead, systems engineering. “Basically we were sharing the same passwords between about 10 people in our group and relying on the honor system to ensure that no one was abusing administrative privilege.”

Further complicating matters, when Gruner’s IT staff did find the time to update privileged passwords, they would do so manually – a cumbersome change process that was not guaranteed to encompass every account on the network. Whenever passwords were changed, new ones were sent in a sealed envelope to the manager of IT security. As a result, Gruner began searching for a product that could automatically change the WSIB’s privileged account passwords at regular intervals, and delegate and audit access to the passwords.

For this new project, Gruner turned to Lieberman’s RED Identity Management solution. Now a Bomgar company, RED IM operates by automatically discovering the privileged accounts located throughout the network – on server and desktop operating systems, line-of-business applications, databases, Web services, network appliances and other IT assets. It then changes each account’s password to a unique value (as frequently as desired) and deploys the password changes wherever they are used in the data center. By doing so, RED IM provides the accountability of show precisely who on the IT staff has administrative access to powerful privileged accounts, at precisely what time and for what purpose.

We no longer have the problem of anonymous access to administrator IDs, If someone is making changes GPOs, for example, and needs the administrator password, RED IM notifies us by sending out an email when the password is checked out.

Cisco embraces Kubernetes, pushing container software into mainstream

Cisco this week took big steps toward helping customers deploy, monitor and manage on-premises and public-cloud production-ready Kubernetes-based container applications.

Kubernetes, originally designed by Google, is an open-source-based system for developing and orchestrating containerized applications. Containers can be deployed across multiple server hosts and Kubernetes orchestration lets customers build application services that span multiple containers, schedule those containers across a cluster, scale those containers and manage the container health.

Because the technology is still relatively new, Cisco says organizations are still challenged to efficiently and confidently utilize Kubernetes as they modernize legacy applications and develop new cloud applications.

Tie into that the fact existing open source monitoring and orchestration tools are often siloed and have not been joined into enterprise monitoring and orchestration suites, enterprise customers end up being open-source-application integrators, which may not be their strong suit, says Dave Cope, Sr. Director of Cloud Products and Solutions Market Development for Cisco’s Cloud Platform and Solutions Group.

That’s where this week’s upgrades to the company’s AppDynamics and Cisco CloudCenter come in.

AppDynamics embraces Kubernetes

AppDynamics for Kubernetes can reduce the time it takes to identify and troubleshoot performance issues across Kubernetes clusters on multicloud environments by intelligently filtering performance metrics based on Kubernetes labels. This Kubernetes-label filtering means IT operations teams no longer need to monitor thousands of threads executing a similar service, Cisco said.

“Traditional monitoring tools make it difficult to respond to poor user experiences due to alert storms caused by cascading microservice failures. By leveraging unique machine learning capabilities, AppDynamics for Kubernetes makes it simple to identify the root cause of a failure by baselining performance and intelligently alerting IT teams when problems occur,” said Matt Chotin, Sr. Director, Technical Evangelism, AppDynamics.

With AppDynamics for Kubernetes users will be able to correlate Kubernetes performance with business metrics such as customer-conversion rate or end-user experience with the performance of applications on the Kubernetes platform, Cisco says.

Cisco bought AppDynamics in 2017 in a $3.7 billion deal that gave Cisco the technology to better manage cloud services as well as application infrastructure.

CloudCenter 4.9 features

Cisco also released CloudCenter 4.9 which brings with it support for Kubernetes, Microsoft Azure Stack, which is Microsoft's Azure cloud software and the OpenStack Pike.

According to Cisco with the release of CloudCenter 4.9, users can:

Use interface and application-lifecycle management features to deploy and manage containerized applications in Kubernetes clusters.

Deploy clusters in a private data center, which can be created by the new Cisco Container Platform or those hosted in a Container as a Service (CaaS) environment in the cloud, such as the Google Kubernetes Engine.

Send containerized workloads to Kubernetes and VM-based workloads to on-premises and cloud environments, both in a logically similar manner. In CloudCenter, container-based services are now elevated to the same logical level as VM-based application services. CloudCenter extends the orchestration that makes Kubernetes powerful and popular, and to VM-based workloads as well.

CloudCenter is built on software Cisco got when it acquired CliQr in 2016 for $260 million.

Cisco/Google collaboration

Cisco CloudCenter 4.9 will become a key element of the open, hybrid cloud offering being developed by Cisco and Google and that is expected later this year. In October 2017 the companies partnered to help enterprises and application developers use Cisco tools to manage their on-premises environments and link them up with Google’s public IaaS cloud.

Cisco CloudCenter 4.9 and AppDynamics for Kubernetes are available now as standalone subscription-based software offerings or bundled together through the Cisco Multicloud Portfolio as Cloud Consume. They also are available with Cisco HyperFlex through Cisco SmartPlay bundles.

This story, "Cisco embraces Kubernetes, pushing container software into mainstream" was originally published by Network World.

Stock Market News – Tesla next in line to release quarterly results; FOMC statement could affect overall sentiment

Electric vehicle-maker Tesla is scheduled to release its earnings report for Q1 2018 after Wednesday’s US market close. The consensus recommendation for the company is “hold”, with the average consensus recommendation for the Auto & Truck Manufacturers peer group being a “buy”.

The California-based company’s first quarter earnings per share (EPS) are anticipated to come in at -$3.58 according to analysts submitting their projections to Thomson Reuters’ estimate system (the Institutional Brokers’ Estimate System – I/B/E/S) – i.e. the company is forecast to report a loss. Current expectations reflect a worsening from $3.27 in losses per share from four weeks ago. If the corporation’s bottom line matches estimates, this would represent an increase in losses of 169% compared to the same quarter from last year when the firm lost $1.33 per share. Analysts’ EPS forecasts range from -$4.92 to -$2.60. Tesla delivered an earnings beat in two of the four preceding quarters, while it fell short of expectations in the remaining two.

A positive earnings surprise could see the corporation’s stock price atracting buying interest. Immediate resistance to advances is potentially taking place around the 50% Fibonacci retracement level of the February 27 to April 2 downleg at $302.28, with the range around it encapsulating the $300 round figure as well. The current level of the 50-day moving average lies not far above at $308.77 and may act as an additional barrier to the upside in case of stronger bullish movement. Conversely, if financial results disappoint, the share price might come under downside pressure. The area around the 38.2% Fibonacci mark at $288.65 might provide immediate support to declines, with steeper losses potentially targeting the 23.6% Fibonacci level at $271.79; notice that the one-month low recorded on April 26 lies not far above at $276.50. Empirically, the greater the deviation between projected and actual results, the sharper the moves in a given firm’s share price.

In terms of the stock’s short-term momentum as gauged by the RSI, it is looking positive for the most part. The indicator is rising, having just crossed above the 50 neutral-perceived level. Notice though that it is not steeply positively sloped, supporting the case for a cautiously bullish bias overall.

Beyond the earnings numbers, other investor considerations will be high up on the agenda. Namely, investors will be eager to get an update on the firm’s Model 3 production – it appears Tesla is not producing the vehicle that’s directed to the mass market fast enough – as well as on cash issues. The company is a heavy cash-burner and despite stating that it will not require equity or debt financing this year, that’s increasingly challenged by analysts; a signal that financing is indeed needed is likely to exert downside pressure on the stock. Another factor affecting the outlook is how the company’s investment in autonomous driving will turn out. On this front there is also the prospect of increased regulation, especially after the death of an individual whilst driving his Model X and utilizing the company’s Autopilot feature in late March. Tesla’s stock came under intense selling pressure in the aftermath of the incident (this can be seen from the chart above as well).

In recent news involving the company, on Tuesday, startup company Nikola Motor Co filed a lawsuit against Tesla, alleging design patent infringements by the carmaker. The former is suing for more than $2 billion, which roughly amounts to one twenty-fifth of Tesla’s market capitalization. Tesla is denying the allegations, but it will be interesting to see how this story plays out moving forward.

Tesla is a Nasdaq 100 component stock. Year-to-date and ahead of Wednesday’s opening bell on Wall Street, the firm’s stock price is trading lower by 3.7%, underperforming the Nasdaq 100 which is up by 4.5% so far in 2018. Analysts’ mean and median price target on the company are at $316.92 and $326.00 correspondingly, reflecting upside potential relative to where the shares currently trade.

It should also be kept in mind that the overall sentiment during today’s trading could well be driven by the FOMC’s statement accompanying its decision on interest rates. No change in rates is anticipated but should the central bank signal a more aggressive rate normalization cycle than currently discounted by market participants – resulting in a rise in bond yields – then this might come to the detriment of equities (the implication being that fixed income investments will become relatively more attractive compared to equity investments).

Lastly, other companies releasing quarterly results as the week unfolds include Activision Blizzard and Xerox; both corporations will be reporting after Thursday’s US market close.

How to keep your form data collection clean

Data is your biggest marketing and sales asset. You collect data from various sources, but nothing has as high a value as a form submit or order form. However, as your data accumulates it will become essential to keeping your data clean. Your online forms can really help you in structuring the data the way you would prefer to receive it. Here are some tips on keeping your form data collection clean:

Drop Downs – Using drop downs are perhaps the best way to make sure your data is consistent. Having consistent data enables marketers and analysts to run analysis on groups of data without having to standardize the data. Some examples of fields include States, Country, Industry values, Job Titles, Sizes and so much more.

Formats – Having a formatted data can ensure that the data is usable. For example, having the same phone number format will ensure that you are able to use auto-dialing technology for your outbound marketing.

Mandatory Fields – Nothing can be more annoying than having incomplete information. Without a first name you cannot personalize your emails, without geographic information you cannot run geo-targeted campaigns, and so on. Having mandatory fields will require the users, site visitor and customer fill in all required information which will ensure data completeness.

Of course, even the best of efforts to keep your data clean can fail. Just like dust collects in your house, bad data does creep in. If your CRM receives data from sources outside the website, and as your business evolves over time, data will become dirty. Before you can take steps to clean your historical data, here is how you would define clean data. Clean data is data that is consistent, complete, current, correct and de-duped. Here are the steps that you can take to clean your historical data:

De-dupe – Making sure you do not have any duplicates in your CRM is your step one. Duplicates cost money, can be a PR nightmare and have a negative impact on sales. To de-dupe, you can either use an automated de-duping tool or hire a data cleansing company such as StrategicDB which offers both.

Incomplete data – While you may have collected complete data on your website form, your other sources were not that great. You can identify incomplete data and have a third party data provider append the missing data or simply flag those records. Flagging records will allow you to exclude these records from certain campaigns and analysis.

Outdated Data – If you have been in business for a long time, you will probably see a higher bounce rate on certain records. While you can verify your data to decrease the likelihood that it will be bounced, you cannot stop data from aging. Having data created can help you analyze your performance based on the time the contact was acquired and optimize your marketing campaigns.

Inconsistent data – While your forms have a drop-down menu now, they may not have had it previously or other sources have different values. For example, for States you may have had TX or Texas as a field. This makes it difficult to remember all the different combinations, especially for fields such as industry, job titles and so on. You can normalize such data to clean out historical data and follow strict rules whenever you are bringing other data into your CRM.

In conclusion, using form submits can help keep your data complete, consistent and in the right format. If your data is outdated, duplicated, inconsistent and incomplete due to other sources of data or historical data you can clean your data to match the high-quality data from your forms.

Zotapay Integrates Bitcoin into its Payment Solutions Suite

Payments solutions specialist Zotapay has pushed ahead with its R&D agenda, integrating Bitcoin on its online payment platform. The addition of the world’s paramount digital currency represents a key opportunity for e-merchants and venues that are now eligible to fully utilize Zotapay’s suite of services.

With a market cap of over $69.3 billion, Bitcoin is the most established cryptocurrency to date. Having recently touched all-time highs, the crypto has gained widespread popularity amongst merchants, venues, and even retail brokerages. Consequently, a growing embrace of Bitcoin has led to a wider acceptance and need for payments processing.

Zotapay’s decision to assimilate Bitcoin capabilities into its online payment platform comes amidst this pent up demand, which can now facilitate streamlined services dedicated to e-merchants. Thanks to this solution, Zotapay will be providing a simplified framework for e-merchants to use Bitcoin payments without running the risk of exchange, in addition to the most used means of payments, i.e. credit card, bank transfer, etc.

The benefits of the integration are manifold, with Zotapay looking to meet the needs of e-merchants that wish to position themselves via alternative means of payment. The decision to embrace and integrate Bitcoin also reflects Zotapay’s ability to rapidly integrate innovative means of payment.

The adoption of Bitcoin also will help curtail of risk of unpaid payments, much in the same way that cash payment transactions are irreversible and final. Moreover, Bitcoin is a universal payment method and can be made in any jurisdiction, country, or locale on a cross-border basis absent weighty transfer or exchange fees.

Zotapay represents one of the first payments solutions providers to move towards Bitcoin. As Bitcoin’s popularity and overall usage continues to grow, the demand for such payment methods will rise in tandem, a position Zotapay has strategically calibrated its focus to.

An Apple a day – A guide to Automatic Software Deployment on MacOS

Most businesses provide computers to their employees that run on the Windows OS. Therefore, most IT monitoring and management companies only provide automatic deployment and removal of software tools for Windows. Think about it this way – you wouldn’t weatherproof 80% of your home and leave the other 20% vulnerable to inclement weather, would you? And with the shift in the number of companies over the past few years moving away from providing their employees with Windows OS computers and providing them with Macs instead, you need to make sure every square inch of your house (system) is prepared for any type of weather (hackers).

Let’s face it – Macs run smoother, are becoming more affordable, and allow users to work more efficiently whether they are working remotely or in the office. While there are more and more Macs in each office around the globe, they are unfortunately often overlooked and forgotten about by system administrators, simply because they are more familiar with Windows OS. They are also overlooked because some system admins believe they are not nearly as vulnerable as a Windows OS – that is not true however.

Automatic Software Deployment on Mac doesn’t have to be tricky

That being said, the availability of companies that provide Mac support (in terms of patch deployment and software removal) are few and far between. And the ones that specialize in those services for Macs specifically, are expensive. So what if we told you there was a tool that allowed you to not only deploys updates to computers with Windows OS, but to Macs as well? That’s where Panorama9 comes into play – we call it Tasks.

With Tasks, you can install or uninstall software or applications on computers – Macs, Windows, desktops and servers. So here’s your guide to automatic software deployment on MacOS:

Install an application – Panorama9 provides you with a long list of RMM tools and applications you can choose to install. You can pick the application, time, date, and platform in which you want to install each specific app. If you don’t see the application on the list provided, don’t worry. The P9 Agent supports brew cast packages so you can find the right application you’re looking to install.

Uninstall an application – Any unwanted software can easily be uninstalled on multiple devices at once across your network or on a specific device as well. Like Windows, these uninstall processes require a reboot before the process can be completed.

Run a script – By adding a script to the Tasks scrip repository, you can write code in any of the supported scripting languages. Once a script has been saved to the repository, you can create a new Task and select it so you can schedule that specific script and set to run on one more multiple devices.

Result of execution – Once the Task has been completed, you can see the results through the P9 Dashboard (just as you would if you were to do this for a Windows OS computer). Each device will be listed so you can be certain the Task has been completed.

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You no longer have to worry about all the Macs at your business being left out on important updates or installments. You can treat Mac users the same as you would Window OS users, and they will be none-the-wiser. Leaving a portion of your computers susceptible is no longer an issue. Like we said earlier – you wouldn’t weatherproof 80% of your home and leave the other 20% vulnerable to inclement weather, would you? So why would you do that with your update deployments?

If you want to test how the other 20% of your it-environment can be weatherproof, you are welcome to test drive Panorama9 for free. No strings attached.

RSA® ANNOUNCES INTENT TO ACQUIRE FORTSCALE, EXPANDING RSA NETWITNESS® EVOLVED SIEM PLATFORM WITH UEBA CAPABILITIES

Fortscale will become part of the RSA NetWitness® Platform to deliver the most comprehensive UEBA solution on the market

RSA NetWitness UEBA facilitates the automatic identification of deviations from normal user behaviors to uncover risky and previously hard to detect threats

RSA NetWitness Orchestrator uses machine learning to suggest analyst assignments, enhance playbooks, and identify the best course of action for investigations

RSA NetWitness Platform 11.1 delivers end to end visibility, advanced detection and insights, and automated response across the organization -- from logs, network, endpoints and threat intelligence

BEDFORD, MA — April 5, 2018 — RSA, a global cybersecurity leader delivering Business-Driven Security™ solutions to help manage digital risk, announced its intent to acquire Fortscale, a pioneer in embedded behavioral analytics. Terms of the deal were not disclosed and are subject to customary closing conditions. RSA's acquisition of Fortscale is designed to provide customers with new user and entity behavioral analytics (UEBA) capabilities through the RSA NetWitness Platform.

RSA is also unveiling the newest version of RSA NetWitness Platform that helps security teams detect and respond to modern threats, as well as two new offerings, RSA NetWitness UEBA and RSA NetWitness Orchestrator to strengthen the evolved SIEM and threat defense platform, a revolutionary centerpiece of security operations teams.

"The RSA NetWitness Platform has helped our team increase their visibility, detect threats with higher fidelity, and automate response to the threats that pose the greatest risk to our organization" said John Byers, Senior Vice President, Information Security and CISO, IBC Bank. "Our security analysts cite RSA NetWitness Platform as the technology that marks the biggest impact on their effectiveness, making the process of identifying and intelligently responding to threats more streamlined and efficient."

In an era of ever-expanding attack surface, protecting against threat actors – from commodity malware and insider threats, to state sponsored exploits and hacktivists – has become increasingly complex. Disconnected silos of prevention, monitoring, and investigation technologies are failing to provide the true end-to-end visibility, detection and automated response needed in a modern digital enterprise.

"Adding more security monitoring and prevention tools is a common response to the growing digital risk environment, but too often, the influx of data creates unattended alerts, overwhelming analysts," said Michael Adler, Vice President, RSA NetWitness Platform. "The new UEBA and orchestration capabilities in RSA NetWitness Platform provide heightened visibility and analytics, allowing analysts to keep up with their SIEM data, investigate issues, and automate threat responses, all on a single integrated platform."

Introducing RSA NetWitness UEBA

RSA's acquisition of Fortscale will provide customers embedded UEBA capabilities integrated with the Platform. RSA NetWitness UEBA directly addresses and overcomes obstacles that standalone solutions have encountered due to their high cost and high touch requirements. RSA NetWitness UEBA requires minimal customization and no manual tuning. Its patented, three-tier unsupervised machine learning analytics engine automatically finds known and unknown threats that rule-based systems cannot with greater accuracy.

Fortscale facilitates the automatic identification of deviations from normal user behaviors, to uncover risky and previously hard to detect threats. By understanding behavior, Fortscale can highlight potential risks such as shared user credentials, privileged user account abuse, geolocation and remote access anomalies. Organizations are able to find unknown threats that hide among the huge volume of security data that is typical in today's complex IT environments without heavy installation, maintenance or analyst oversight. Fortscale is designed to:

Provide fully automatic, unsupervised machine learning;

Reduce the need for organizations to have big data experts in their analyst team;

Detect unknown threats (compromised credentials, insider threats, data exfiltration);

Address malicious behavior in which exploits have received elevated permissions;

Be dynamic, automatically learning behavior specific to the environment; and,

Require no customization, rule authoring or ongoing care, tuning, rule creation/adjustment.

Advanced UEBA Technologies

According to Gartner, "the security market is thirsty for advanced analytics that discover insider threats and compromised accounts, which traditional rule-based monitoring systems miss. UEBA technology often fills this gap and addresses three main problems: it detects external attacks and trusted insider threats, it raises high-priority and low-volume alerts, and it reduces the time and effort to investigate and respond1."

Introducing RSA NetWitness Orchestrator

RSA NetWitness Orchestrator, powered by Demisto, combines orchestration, incident management, and interactive investigation for security operations. It uses machine learning to draw from past analyst interactions and investigations to suggest analyst assignments, enhance playbooks, and identify the best course of action for investigations. Security teams can now modernize their security operations while reducing time to remediation, creating consistent and audited incident management processes, and increasing analyst productivity.

New Features in RSA NetWitness Platform

Each of the new capabilities in RSA NetWitness Platform 11.1 provide distinct value, and is further enhanced when leveraged across a single platform:

RSA NetWitness Endpoint Insights: a free endpoint agent, it delivers timely insights and reduces the costs of managing endpoints and Windows logs by offering essential endpoint inventory scans paired with Microsoft Windows log forwarding and filtering capabilities.

RSA NetWitness UEBA Essentials: leverages user, network, and endpoint behavioral profiling powered by static rules, advanced correlation, and statistical analytics to identify deviations from normal user behaviors. Delivered as a content pack, it is available free to all RSA NetWitness Platform customers.

Dynamic Log Visibility: offers instant log visibility by leveraging "dynamic parsing" technology that enables organizations to parse log data sources and immediately access critical security data.

"Managing digital risk in the modern enterprise requires customers to rethink the capabilities of their Security Operations Center. RSA believes that a core capability is an evolved SIEM that can detect incidents from a variety of sources – including user behavior," said Grant Geyer, Senior Vice President, Products, RSA. "Detecting suspicious user behavior isn't just essential to enabling the SOC to spot insider threats and compromised credentials – it also aids in the Identity and Access Management team's authentication of risky users – ensuring that they are who they claim to be. By tying together the domains of security exclusion and security inclusion with UEBA capabilities, customers can manage the risk associated with their digital transformation more effectively."

AVAILABILITY

The new features in RSA NetWitness Platform 11.1, including RSA NetWitness UEBA Essentials, instant log visibility and RSA NetWitness Endpoint Insights, are available now. RSA NetWitness Orchestrator will be available in late April.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Learn how Fortscale acts as a force multiplier for the SOC and IAM teams

Download the RSA NetWitness Platform Solution Brief

Watch the video and read about RSA NetWitness Platform

Learn how the Security Operations Center plays a role in managing digital risk

Download the RSA NetWitness Orchestrator data sheet

Connect with RSA via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and the RSA blog

[1] Gartner, Forecast Snapshot: User and Entity Behavior Analytics, Worldwide, 2017; Avivah Litan; 03 March 2017.

ABOUT RSA

RSA, a Dell Technologies business, offers business-driven security solutions that uniquely link business context with security incidents to help organizations manage digital risk and protect what matters most. RSA's award winning cybersecurity solutions are designed to effectively detect and respond to advanced attacks; manage user identities and access; and, reduce business risk, fraud, and cybercrime. RSA protects millions of users around the world and helps more than 90% of the Fortune 500 companies thrive in an uncertain, high-risk world. For more information, go to rsa.com.

Carbonite Closes Acquisition of Mozy, Inc. from Dell Technologies Inc.

BOSTON, MA - March 19, 2018 - Carbonite, Inc. (NASDAQ: CARB), a leader in data protection, today announced the closing of its acquisition of Mozy, Inc. ("Mozy") from Dell Technologies Inc.

The total purchase price for Mozy was $145.8 million in cash, subject to potential adjustments for working capital. The purchase price was funded with cash on hand and funds available under the Company's new revolving credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank, Citizens Bank, Barclays Bank, HSBC Bank USA, and Wells Fargo Bank, National Association.

"We welcome the Mozy community to the Carbonite family," said Mohamad Ali, President and CEO of Carbonite. "Together, we will build a stronger future for data protection."

Carbonite is committed to supporting existing Mozy customers and partners. Therefore, Carbonite's plan is to:

Protect the data of existing Mozy customers and partners

Secure the investment that employees, customers and partners have made in Mozy

Enhance and expand the data protection capabilities of Mozy customers and partners through the Carbonite Data Protection Platform

Carbonite will be announcing Mozy updates and showcasing the Carbonite Data Protection Platform at Dell Technologies World 2018 April 30th – May 3 in Las Vegas, Nevada. If you’re a member of the press or industry analyst community interested in setting up a meeting with a Carbonite representative at the show, please email [email protected].

About Carbonite

Carbonite provides a robust Data Protection Platform for businesses, including backup, disaster recovery, high availability and workload migration technology. The Carbonite Data Protection Platform supports businesses in locations around the world with secure and scalable global cloud infrastructure. To learn more visit www.Carbonite.com.

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