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While IT automation is growing, big challenges remain. Chris Hass, director of information security and research at Automox, discusses how the future looks.

The ‘TLStorm’ vulnerabilities, found in APC Smart-UPS products, could allow attackers to cause both cyber and physical damage by taking down critical infrastructure.

A missing check allows unprivileged attackers to escape containers and execute arbitrary commands in the kernel.

Yet another method of surveillance:

Radar can detect you moving closer to a computer and entering its personal space. This might mean the computer can then choose to perform certain actions, like booting up the screen without requiring you to press a button. This kind of interaction already exists in current Google Nest smart displays, though instead of radar, Google employs ultrasonic sound waves to measure a person’s distance from the device. When a Nest Hub notices you’re moving closer, it highlights current reminders, calendar events, or other important notifications.

Proximity alone isn’t enough. What if you just ended up walking past the machine and looking in a different direction? To solve this, Soli can capture greater subtleties in movements and gestures, such as body orientation, the pathway you might be taking, and the direction your head is facing — ­aided by machine learning algorithms that further refine the data. All this rich radar information helps it better guess if you are indeed about to start an interaction with the device, and what the type of engagement might be.

[…]

The ATAP team chose to use radar because it’s one of the more privacy-friendly methods of gathering rich spatial data. (It also has really low latency, works in the dark, and external factors like sound or temperature don’t affect it.) Unlike a camera, radar doesn’t capture and store distinguishable images of your body, your face, or other means of identification. “It’s more like an advanced motion sensor,” Giusti says. Soli has a detectable range of around 9 feet­ — less than most cameras­ — but multiple gadgets in your home with the Soli sensor could effectively blanket your space and create an effective mesh network for tracking your whereabouts in a home.

“Privacy-friendly” is a relative term.

These technologies are coming. They’re going to be an essential part of the Internet of Things.

International Women’s Day serves as an important reminder that each and every one of us plays a role in recognizing and addressing gender bias. Together, we can make a difference in creating a more equitable world for all.

At McAfee, we know that genuine change requires continuous commitment. And while we’re proud of the efforts we’re making as a company – from being the first cybersecurity company to achieve global pay parity (and maintain it), to expanded time off for new parents, to a woman on every hiring panel to help remove bias – we know there is more to do.

This International Women’s Day and beyond, McAfee team members around the globe share how they’ll continue to advance inclusion and gender equality by actively working to #BreakTheBias.

	JaffarSadhik Software Quality Engineer (India) A gender equal world starts with a change. A change within families, a change with perspectives, a change among society!
	Arathi Program Manager (Canada) I am helping to #BreakTheBias by teaching my son that both boys and girls, men and women can do it all.
	Krupali Sr Market Research Analyst (USA) We need to think differently. Women have, are and will always be quintessential architects of society. Together we can #BreakTheBias
	Ambareen Software Engineer (UK) Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias! I am doing my part and learning from my mum and helping the next generation believe in themselves irrespective of gender.
	Kevin Real Estate & Workplace Strategy (Ireland) Equality can only be achieved if diversity, difference and qualities of woman are truly valued. We must work together to acknowledge and #BreakTheBias.
	Darya Channel Marketing (Australia)  Bias against anyone for simply being different, limits our growth and is a significant waste of talent, energy and happiness. I commit to taking an active role in questioning perceptions to do my part to influence change.
	Natalia Software Sales (Canada) I will help #BreakTheBias by raising and supporting a strong independent young adult and setting an example for her. I do so by choosing my career path while leading and growing personally and professionally!
	Winnie Talent Acquisition Partner (Australia) I will #BreakTheBias by addressing and challenging gender stereotypes.
	Aisling Senior People Partner (Ireland) I will help #BreakTheBias by encouraging conversations around diversity, challenging myself and others to consider where we can make changes that will have a positive impact.

 

Join McAfee and millions of others around the world in celebrating International Women’s Day by sharing how you’ll #BreakTheBias.

Interested in building your career at a company that helps women thrive? Search our openings!

The post McAfee Teammates Share How They’ll Help #BreakTheBias this International Women’s Day appeared first on McAfee Blog.

Lumen Technologies, an American company that operates one of the largest Internet backbones and carries a significant percentage of the world’s Internet traffic, said today it will stop routing traffic for organizations based in Russia. Lumen’s decision comes just days after a similar exit by backbone provider Cogent, and amid a news media crackdown in Russia that has already left millions of Russians in the dark about what is really going on with their president’s war in Ukraine.

Monroe, La. based Lumen [NYSE: LUMN] (formerly CenturyLink) initially said it would halt all new business with organizations based in Russia, leaving open the possibility of continuing to serve existing clients there. But on Tuesday the company said it could no longer justify that stance.

“Life has taken a turn in Russia and Lumen is unable to continue to operate in this market,” Lumen said in a published statement. “The business services we provide are extremely small and very limited as is our physical presence. However, we are taking steps to immediately stop business in the region.”

“We decided to disconnect the network due to increased security risk inside Russia,” the statement continues. “We have not yet experienced network disruptions but given the increasingly uncertain environment and the heightened risk of state action, we took this move to ensure the security of our and our customers’ networks, as well as the ongoing integrity of the global Internet.”

According to Internet infrastructure monitoring firm Kentik, Lumen is the top international transit provider to Russia, with customers including Russian telecom giants Rostelecom and TTK, as well as all three major mobile operators (MTS, Megafon and VEON).

“A backbone carrier disconnecting its customers in a country the size of Russia is without precedent in the history of the internet and reflects the intense global reaction that the world has had over the invasion of Ukraine,” wrote Doug Madory, Kentik’s director of Internet analysis.

It’s not clear whether any other Internet backbone providers — some of which are based outside of the United States — will follow the lead of Lumen and Cogent. But Madory notes that as economic sanctions continue to exact a toll on Russia’s economy, its own telecommunications firms may have difficulty paying foreign transit providers for service.

Ukrainian leaders petitioned the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) — the nonprofit organization charged with overseeing the global domain name system — to disconnect Russia’s top-level domain (.ru) from the Internet. ICANN respectfully declined that request, but many technology giants, including Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, have moved on their own to suspend new business in the country.

Meanwhile, Russia recently cracked down on the last remaining vestiges of a free press within its borders, passing a new law that threatens up to 15 years in jail for anyone who publishes content that refers to the conflict in Ukraine as a “war” or “invasion.”

As Neil MacFarquhar writes for The New York Times, what little coverage there is on Russian television networks about the invasion does not include any footage of the devastation wrought by Russian troops on the Ukrainian citizenry. At the same time, the Russian government has blocked Facebook and partly blocked Twitter, while other platforms like TikTok have suspended services in the country.

“To spend several days watching news broadcasts on the main state channels, as well as surveying state-controlled newspapers, is to witness the extent of the Kremlin’s efforts to sanitize its war with the Orwellian term ‘special military operation’ — and to make all news coverage align with that message,” MacFarquhar wrote.

The Washington Post, which was the first to report on Cogent’s decision last week, wrote that these independent actions by private tech companies collectively “will leave Russians more dependent than ever on government propaganda that already dominates the nation’s newspapers and broadcast stations, leaving few ways to access independent sources of news at a time when the country has entered a severe political crisis.”

In a blog post titled “Why the World Must Resist Calls to Undermine the Internet,” Internet Society President Andrew Sullivan said cutting a whole population off the Internet will stop disinformation coming from that population — but it also stops the flow of truth.

“Without the Internet, the rest of the world would not know of atrocities happening in other places,” Sullivan wrote. “And without the Internet, ordinary citizens of many countries wouldn’t know what was being carried out in their name. Our best hope, however dim, is that those supporting an aggressive regime will change their support. More information can help, even as disinformation circulates. We need a better understanding of what is and is not disinformation.”

There is another — perhaps less popular — camp, which holds that isolating Russia from the rest of the Internet might be THE thing that encourages more Russians to protest the war in Ukraine, and ultimately to take back control of their own country from its autocratic and kleptocratic leaders.

Not long after Russia invaded Ukraine, I heard from an old pen-pal in Ukraine: Sergey Vovnenko, a.k.a. “Flycracker,” a.k.a the convicted Ukrainian cybercriminal who once executed a plot to have me framed for heroin possession. Vovnenko did his time in a U.S. prison, left Fly behind, and we have since buried the hatchet. He’s now hunkered down in Lviv, Ukraine, which is serving as a major artery for refugees seeking shelter outside Ukraine’s borders.

These days, Vovnenko says he is working with many sympathetic hackers to fight the Russians online. Asked what he thought about the idea of Russia being isolated from the rest of the Internet, Vovnenko said it couldn’t happen soon enough given the Russian government’s new media blitz to cast the war in a patriotic light.

“I think they should be disconnected, maybe Russian people will rebel against Putin after that,” he said.

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