I am taking a page out of my other sites “bag of tricks” and am posting a best of the week post in the technology and security. For those wondering a great deal of this is also found on my Flipboard page.
Security
As usual it was a very busy week in the world of hacking, security, viruses, malware and ransomware. You’d think that a Government Security Agency would have great security, however, Hackers stole security clearance background files for US Agents, that’s not a good thing. McAfee published their report on Internet threats and it’s pretty darn scary out there as you can read in Cyber ransom heists and Flash malware dominate McAfee threat report, if this doesn’t make you want to tighten your security, nothing will. Flash never seems to ever be safe to use, is it? Zeus malware continues to be a thorn in most admin’s side, but now Accused Russian hacker claimed authorship of ‘Zeus’ malware: FBI, oh joy! More malware like this stealing banking credentials is not a good thing. Speaking of this kind of garbage I outlined in my Weekly Best of Money report how my Starbucks card got hacked (oh and there is a good mention of the 4 Millions US Federal employees who had their personal info hacked as well). It is scary to think about how much data is out there about us, but now given medical records are being digitized a new problem arises, Medical data, cybercriminals’ holy grail, now espionage target, so not only are hackers attempting to steal this data, foreign agents want it too?
Technology
On the Technology side of the world, Cisco had Cisco Live this week, and Apple had announcements on Monday and there was a plethora of other wild ideas being discussed, including a possible Blackberry Android device? That could be a game changer, or a company killer, time will tell, will it work with the BES? If it doesn’t, what would be the point?
Apple seems to be trying harder with Operating Systems, and evidently 90% of macs will be able to run OS X El Capitan maybe Windows 10 is making them nervous? I don’t think so, but it is good to know I get a new OS release soon.
The Almighty Woz is making some bold statements about the future of programming with Self-programming machines next phase of computer science: Wozniak. I like AI as much as the next guy, but thinking of machines creating code without supervision makes me think of either a roomful of chimps with typewriters, or worse something out of the Terminator. Self correcting code was always a concept that had me scratching my head when I read about it.
On the health side of technology some interesting and exciting new uses of technology, with Blood Donors in Sweden receiving SMS messages about if their donation saves a life, good idea. Glad to see that technology is also being used towards stroke victims, especially in Brain-computer interface reverses paralysis in stroke victims. Adding “feeling” to prosthetics is another positive thing to hear about as well. The one thing to watch for is with technology, comes folks who want to disrupt it with Hackers can compromise medical pumps and other medical technology.