Thursday, December 25, 2014

Have a Merry and a Happy!
As often seems to happen, there is little news reported when all the reporters are on holiday. Fortunately, I find there is still plenty happening in the fields I monitor.


We've been hacked!” (No mention of “The Interview”)
Sony says, “Maybe it has something to do with “The Interview”
Hackers say, “It has something to do with The Interview.”
We're going to pull The Interview.”
We pulled The Interview because all the theater chains backed out.”
We'll never release The Interview.”
We may release The Interview someday”
We may let Disk Network release The Interview”
Disk won't release The Interview, we will release it to a few theaters.”
The Interview available online for free.”
Theater Owner Breaks Silence on Sony's Wild Week: "I Was Irritated"
… Having said on Dec. 17 that it had "no further release plans" for the hot potato of a movie starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, it has now lined up about 300 independent theaters that are opening the movie Christmas Day and has engineered an unprecedented VOD release for a major studio with the help of YouTube, Google Play and Xbox, all of which began offering the movie today. But in doing so, it also has alienated most of the larger chains and even annoyed some of owners of the smaller theaters that, from the first, sprang to the movie's defense.
… The larger theater chains, however, aren't ready to give Sony a pass so quickly. Accusing the studio of "throwing its major exhibition partners under the bus," an executive at one of the nation's major chains said today that the studio "continues to speak out of both sides of their mouth."

(Related)
North Korea: No ‘physical reaction’ to new film
North Korea says it likely will have no “physical reaction,” just condemnation, to the release of the comedy film “The Interview,” which depicts the assassination of leader Kim Jong Un.


It may be good politically to point the finger at North Korea. (Would this fall under “acts of war” on their insurance?) Could be very embarrassing if a group of high school kids turn out to be responsible. There are doubters...
New Study Adds to Skepticism Among Security Experts That North Korea Was Behind Sony Hack

(Related) ...and some outright non-believers.
No, North Korea Didn’t Hack Sony


Please, let's not start blaming the FBI for failing to contact every Security Manager in the US and ensuring they were doing their job.
Jana Winter reports:
Nearly one year before Sony was hacked, the FBI warned that U.S. companies were facing potentially crippling data destruction malware attacks, and predicted that such a hack could cause irreparable harm to a firm’s reputation, or even spell the end of the company entirely. The FBI also detailed specific guidance for U.S companies to follow to prepare and plan for such an attack.
But the FBI never sent Sony the report.
Read more on The Intercept.
[Here is the report:


For your Security Manager.
Nearly 50 Percent of Organizations Hit With DNS Attack in Last 12 Months: Survey
New research from Vanson Bourne found that more than three quarters of organizations in the United States and U.K. have suffered a domain name system (DNS) attack.
Just less than half (49 percent) of the organizations surveyed said they had experienced such an attack in the past 12 months. The most common DNS threats reported were DDoS (74 percent), DNS exfiltration (46 percent), DNS tunneling (45 percent) and DNS hijacking (33 percent) by those who had suffered an attack.
The research surveyed 300 U.S. and U.K. key IT decision makers in organizations with 1,000+ employees. It covered a variety of verticals including financial services, retail, distribution and transport, IT and manufacturing and production. The study was commissioned by Cloudmark.
A third of the respondents confirmed they had lost confidential customer information. Despite this however, 44 percent of those who found it difficult to justify DNS security investment to their company felt it was because their senior management does not see DNS security as an issue. More than half of the IT decision makers polled (55 percent) cited the theft of private or confidential data as a major concern to their organization.


If I had this at the University, it would really change how I taught my classes! (So, why don't I have it?) Looks like a very small ISP can do it, why not the big boys?
Minneapolis residents to get 10-gigabit fiber, for $400 per month
While most parts of the US have to make do with Internet speeds of less than 100Mbps—in many cases much less than 100Mbps—some residents of Minneapolis will soon have access to a ludicrously fast fiber-to-the-home speed tier: 10 gigabits per second.
The service is offered by US Internet, the company that already provides "a couple thousand" Minneapolis residents with 1Gbps service for $65 per month. The 10Gbps service will be available immediately to existing customers willing to pay the $400-per-month fee, though US Internet expects the number of customers who take them up on the deal to be relatively small. All together, US Internet has "a little over 10,000" fiber-to-the-home customers at different speed tiers, all located on the west side of Interstate 35W.

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