Patch Tuesday: Internet Explorer needs critical patches, again

Microsoft browser needs the most urgent patching on an otherwise light Patch Tuesday

In a very light set of monthly security bulletins, Microsoft will issue just one that it’s ranking critical and it involves Internet Explorer.

If left unpatched, the browser is subject to attacks that execute malicious code on victim machines, so getting the updates to patch it is important, says Ross Barrett, a security engineer at Rapid7. “This will be the top patching priority for this month,” he says.

In addition to the threat posed by the vulnerabilities that the patches correct, these critical browser updates will be challenging for IT organizations, says Eric Cowperthwaite, vice president of advanced security & strategy, Core Security. Installing the updates requires system restarts and the browser in all its versions is widely distributed among organizations. “We don’t yet know if there are active exploits in the wild, but there may well be. And, even if not, this appears to be something that is likely to have exploits developed in the near future,” Cowperthwaite says.

Vulnerable versions include IE 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 running on desktop Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 as well as Windows Server 2003, 2008 and 2012.

The bulletin about the Internet Explorer problems is likely to include a roll-up of fixes for any number of vulnerabilities found over the past month, says Ross Barrett, a security engineer at Rapid7.

The rest of this month’s bulletins are rated important, which means that attacks against these vulnerabilities require some action on the user’s part in order to succeed. Still, one bulleting warns against vulnerabilities that could lead to escalation of privilege on compromised Windows 8 and 8.1 machines and Server 2012 and 2012 RT, says Jon Rudolph, a senior software engineer at Core Security.

A third bulletin addresses flaws in Windows Server 2003, 2008 and 2012 and Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1 that could lead to DDoS attacks against the machines. The final bulletin involves Lync Server 2010 and 2013 and also addresses problems that could lead to DDoS attacks.

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10 things about (the Internet of) things

Floating things, flying things, finding things and fashion things are all part of the Internet of Things. Prepare for a hyper connected future.

We've all heard about the promise of the Internet of Things, where your alarm clock will start your coffee maker and your refridgerator will tell you when it is time to buy new milk. That future is coming -- many think it will even be here by 2025.

But if you can't wait that long for IoT, here are 10 things that are bringing the hyperconnected future to you today.

A better Google Glass
Belgium-based SmartPick may have done more to prove the potential of Google Glass for business use than Google by developing camera-equipped glasses for distribution management. (Video in Dutch.) The product, Smart Glasses, includes a camera and connects via WiFi.

The glasses work by recognizing a code hanging above a basket. This code is relayed to a sales order management system and the amount of product to pull is displayed in the eyeglasses. The company says the technology can reduce product distribution error rates by 60% and improve productivity by 25%. Dirk Matheussen, a former CIO and IT manager who founded the company, is working on an app to allow his system to work with Google Glass.

Small and solar
Tzukuri’s Bluetooth-enabled sunglasses, which can be located via your iPhone, will be welcomed by some. But they are also noteable for the diminuitive technology used and their energy independence.

The Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) chip inside these glasses is a mere 3mm wide, and there’s no USB charging plug. The sunglasses, which take only an hour to charge, are powered by a solar cell.

Tzukuri’s glasses illustrate how small and low-powered IoT devices can be. The company says it will track the exact proximity of the Tzukuri sunglasses up to 82 feet, depending on environment, and the iPhone app will “pinpoint the exact location” of your glasses. The glasses cost $349 and ship later this year.

Cheap wireless, finally?
The cost of wireless connectivity has become a barrier to IoT deployment. Today, IoT devices are dependent on either a local or cellular network connection, but local networks are limited in range and cellular networks are expensive.

But Sigfox, a French company now deploying in the U.S., uses a low-bandwidth network that at only 100bps gives it long range. Exclusively for machine-to-machine communications, it can't be used for video, voice or blogging. Sigfox base stations can be miles apart, and the cost of using them will range from $1-$12 annually. That means people will eventually be able use connected devices on their person and in their homes and businesses inexpensively and independent of a home network.

Google’s Nest does a lot, could do more
Google’s Nest Protect smoke detector offers Wi-Fi access and has a Zigbee radio that can connect to a low-bandwidth mesh network. In addition to smoke, it also detects carbon monoxide, heat, temperature and humidity and keeps tabs on its own battery charge. When connected to Wi-Fi, users can monitor these things remotely. (Without Wi-Fi, Nest works as a smoke detector.)

Nest offers a variety of useful features, but there's potential for more -- should Google push the technology envelope. It could, for instance, include sensors to detect natural gas, mold, pollen and other problems that can aggravate health issues. Nest could also be set up so it doesn't need Wi-Fi. And it has potential to serve as an inexpensive home monitoring system.

Help save the water
One reason agriculture interests will be big adopters of IoT technologies is better water management. One product, Valley Irrigation's SoilPro 1200, reaches 48 inches into the ground and uses multiple sensors to track temperature, moisture levels and soil electrical conductivity, which provides data on how well the soil is using fertilizer.

The device uses solar panels and a battery for power, and has a cellular connection to transmit data to the vendor’s cloud service that a user can then access. With better info about soil moisture conditions, farmers can avoid wasting water, the company says.

A tracking technology for an intractable problem
In March, 2014, airlines lost or mishandled 3.68 bags for every 1,000 passengers. But baggage location technology won't always mean an airport or airline employee running around fetching lost luggage. That’s why AT&T’s idea of activating a flashing light on a bag to help airport crews find it is interesting.

Bluetooth bag-tracking technologies that will locate a bag if it’s in range, and devices that use a combination of GPS and cellular networks, aready exist. But AT&T, as a major network carrier, may be able to deliver on its idea of integrating baggage location data with airline systems. Might that make it possible to avoid the supreme aggravation of standing in the lost baggage line after a delayed flight?

Does your clothing come with an API?
Wearable clothing still seems like a stretch, but not for OMsignal of Montreal. It says its clothing can track heart and breathing rates, breathing depth, activity intensity, steps and calories burned. Men’s shirts will be available this summer, women’s clothing by the end of year.

OMsignal's garment sensors connect to a little black box that is water resistant. The system relies on Bluetooth, is good for 30 hours and recharges via USB. Open is good: An API and SDK are promised. A men’s bio-sensing compression shirt, one data module and one USB charging cable is priced at $199.

We really do like drones
Amazon certainly popularized the idea of drones as a flying delivery service, but drones will also play a broad role in IoT as flying sensors. They are already being adopted in agriculture, for example, to monitor crop health. The construction industry is using drones to inspect buildings, and they are being used in mapping.

One company, QuiQui, is even preparing to deliver pharmacy prescriptions in San Francisco, while another company, Matternet, is working with drones to deliver medicine and supplies to globally remote locations.

A 3D printer, off-the-shelf sensors and stir
A traditional method for checking water height after a flood involved manually marking water levels on a post from a rowboat. Samuel Cox had a better idea: Flood Beacon. He assembled a microprocessor, accelerometer, ultrasonic sensors, rechargeable battery, cellular GSM and GPS into a floating shell created on a 3D printer. The end result is a device that can measure water turbulence via the accelerometer, and water depth with the ultrasonic sensors.

The data, which is sent to Xively, an IoT-specific cloud firm, can be viewed on a mobile app. It took Cox about six weeks and less than $700 to produce a working prototype, something that would have cost more than $10,000 before 3D printing and the advent of do-it-yourself hardware development.

Smart roads, please
GPS revolutionized the trucking industry and has made driving more efficient for many. But more is possible. The U.S. Dept. of Transportation imagines a future where vehicles communicate with each to avoid crashes. It wants systems that “see vehicles that you can’t see,” and notify of you of road hazards beyond your range of vision.

Some day, sensor-rich systems will be able to tell you the speed and location of approaching vehicles, provide real-time data on travel times and parking costs and manage traffic flow with real-time info. Most importantly, the U.S. wants to reduce motor vehicles crashes, which are the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 4 to 34.

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Windows 8's uptake falls again, now slower than dud Vista

Windows 8's uptake was stuck in reverse for the second straight quarter as the reputation-challenged operating system fell behind the pace set by Windows Vista six years ago, according to data released Friday.

Web metrics firm Net Applications' figures for July put the combined user share of Windows 8 and 8.1 at 12.5% of the world's desktop and notebook systems, a small drop of six-hundredths of a percentage point from June. That decline was atop a one-tenth-point fall the month before, the first time the OS had lost user share since its October 2012 debut.
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Windows 8 accounted for 13.6% of the personal computers running Microsoft's Windows. The difference between the numbers for all personal computers and only those running Windows was due to Windows powering 91.7% of all personal computers, not 100%.

While in June Windows 8's user share came dangerously close to the sluggish uptake tempo of Windows Vista, in July Windows 8's pace fell below Vista's for the first time. (Computerworld erred in calling Windows 8's uptake slower than Vista's in the early stages of the former's lifespan based on incorrect comparisons.)

At the point in Vista's post-release timeline that corresponded to July, the 2007 operating system ran on 13.6% of all personal computers -- a larger percentage than Windows 8's last month -- and on 14.3% of all Windows PCs. The latter is the most credible, as it accounts for the slightly-greater dominance of Windows at the time. (When Vista was in its 21st month after launch, Windows powered 94.9% of all personal computers.)

That Windows 8's uptake performance has not matched Vista's is important because the latter, widely panned at the time, has earned a reputation as one of Microsoft's biggest OS failures. By association, then, Windows 8 looks to be the same.

While Windows 8 again lost user share in July, Windows 7 gained another seven-tenths of a percentage point to close the month with 51.2%. It was the fifth straight month that the 2009 operating system has grown its share. The surge has not been surprising, since most industry analysts have said that the recent uptick in computer sales has been due to businesses replacing the now-retired Windows XP with Windows 7.

Windows 7 has grown by nearly twice the amount of Windows 8 in the past six months.

Windows XP's user share fell half a percentage point in July, accounting for 24.8% of all personal computers, and 27.1% of only those running Windows. The decline came after a month where the aged OS remained flat. In the last six months, XP has contracted by 4.4 points.

Computerworld now projects that Windows XP will still be running between 20% and 22% of the world's personal computers at the end of 2014.

Another analytics company, Ireland's StatCounter, had different numbers for Windows. StatCounter's figures are typically at odds with those from Net Applications because they measure with dissimilar methodologies: StatCounter tallies "usage share" by counting page views to show how active users of each OS are on the Web, while Net Applications estimates "user share" by collating unique visitors, which more closely resembles user base than does StatCounter's data.

StatCounter pegged July's Windows 8 and 8.1 usage share at 15%, Windows 7's at 55.3%, XP's at 15.2% and Vista's at 3.5%.

A second straight month of user share decline in Windows 8 put the newest OS behind the post-launch trajectory of the company's Vista flop. (Data: Net Applications.)

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Windows Phone 8.1 and its first update could appear this week

This might be the first time an OS and patch came out simultaneously.

Windows Phone 8.1, the revision to Microsoft's mobile OS that has taken longer to manifest than Windows 8.1, might finally show up this week or next, along with its first update.

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Windows Phone 8.0 came out in October 2012. That's 20 months between major releases if 8.1 shows up this month, longer than the gap between Windows 8 and 8.1, and far, far longer than the updates between iOS and Android.

Fortunately, there's a lot to love in this point release, which is really closer to a full revision. The big addition is Cortana, the voice assistant, along with the App Framework that makes it easier for Windows 8.1 apps to be ported between a PC and phone.

Well, the news site Neowin is claiming that Windows Phone 8.1 has been done for a while, and not only will it be pushed out soon, so will the first update to the OS, called a General Distribution Release (GDR). The GDR will be relatively minor, with a small set of enhancements, such as native folder support. That will enable users to create folders of tiles by dropping a tile on top of another, something iOS and Android have had for a while.

Of course, first thing we need is WP 8.1. Microsoft has kept the release date quiet, but someone from Microsoft India tweeted that the OS could roll out in the first or second week of July. He didn't say if that's for the U.S., India (where WP is popular), or worldwide.

Given the GDR hasn't even shown up on the developer network for testing, we can only take this with a few grains of salt. If Microsoft does indeed have an update ready to go this fast, then it's more evidence of its plans to reduce the time between software updates, something CEO Satya Nadella has promised.

I just hope it does something to get WP moving. This 3% market share is pitiful, as is the lack of apps. As a WP phone owner (Samsung ATIV SE), I'm getting tired of searching for apps and coming up empty. As Beta News noted, the Windows Phone app store is a ghost town, not an encouraging sign for a platform that is solid and should be a lot more popular than it is.

I'm not clamoring to return to the iPhone, but I'm not blindly loyal, either.

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Impact of Today’s Hardware and Software Applications in Cloud-based Environments: Part 1

As an industry, we have been looking at cloud-based technologies both from private and public structure and how best to optimize design, engineer and develop such technologies to better optimize the world of wireless and the Internet of Everything.

But one aspect that has not been discussed at length is how poorly hardware and software perform in cloud-based environments. I want to discuss some of the challenges facing the industry and some potential solutions that can help create and bring a new revolution to the world of Wide Area Networks (WAN), along with the automation of practically every human-to-human and human-to-machine interface.

Currently, there are two technologies being discussed in almost every seminar or white paper being published—software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV). While these vary in structure by different vendors, clearly, all of them attack certain aspects of the mobile carrier network or Tier 1 landline networks. Let me give you my two-cents on what these technologies must address:

SDN must create a more agile network with the development of an open northbound interface. This becomes an enabler for service providers (SPs) to reduce time-to-market for service introduction, reduce capex unit cost by focusing network elements (NEs) to just move traffic, and reducing opex unit cost for network services that take significant human capital cost to deliver, such as establishing protection and restoration or provisioning new connectivity services.
NFV must enable SPs to provide new services, and hence, new incremental revenue, by replacing dedicated hardware/software located on the customer premise, e.g., DVR, storage, firewall and others.

Cloud computing, on the other hand, must enable enterprises to leverage shared and scalable computing resources, hardware and software to impact their capex and opex unit costs.

The promise of such technologies has always been for

These promises are expected to deliver much better total cost of ownership (TCO) with lower opex and in essence support moving to a hardware-agnostic or independent model, offering further savings.

About a decade ago, I predicted that the battleground in the 21st century would be all about software and not hardware. Although hardware is needed, it is the role of software to optimize all five functions above using new state-of-the-art technologies such as SDN and NFV.

The problem that can become very complicated is that enterprise customers’ networks and appliances are not designed for multiple tenants, pay-for-play or on-demand services. However, SDN and NFV are fundamentally designed for such functions. That means that it is imperative for CXOs to sponsor corporate-wide programs to move into SDN and NFV, offering capabilities to drive higher revenues while competing for device replacements at the network margins from mobile access points up to wireline or Wide Area Networks.

SDN, by itself, is not really a new technology and has been in existence since 2006. It has been used to mainly improve data center performance, since the concept of big central offices with large Class 4/5 switches are pretty much obsolete in the 21st century.

But SDN has a long way to go to deliver an agile network. Today’s management of transport networks does not match the agility of the cloud-based services being deployed on them. These two have to converge to bring the transport agility into the 21st century for service delivery. Why should it take weeks and months to establish a new enterprise customer on an SP network? Why should it take weeks to provision high-speed point-to-point connectivity with specific protection requirements? SDN has yet to deliver just that.

NFV, in contrast, was introduced between 2010 and 2012 to operators in order to improve service time-to-market and network flexibility and allow a smooth transition to the cloud with significantly lower opex. In my view, the sky is the limit on NFV. For any onsite services (e.g., storage, firewall and DVR), whether today or in the future, NFV gives SPs the opportunity to deliver both consumers and enterprises major benefits, such as having a turn-key solution that lowers costs and improves quality of service (QoS).

The initial applications of SDN and NFV have changed greatly over the past few years. SDN focused mainly on cloud orchestration and networking, while NFV focused on IP-based protocols and capabilities such as DNS, DHCP, DPI, firewalls, gateways, and traffic management.

From my perspective, I believe NFV has already taken over Layer 4-7 of the SDN movement by delivering lower capex and cycle time, creating a competitive supply of innovative applications by third parties and introducing control abstractions to foster innovations that carriers need in order to compete with all over-the-top players.

Let’s also note that the new world requires openness in almost every API layer of the network from access to the core. The issue is legacy systems and processes that need to be changed in order to adapt to the new world of SDN and NFV.

Nowhere is this more critical than the mobile and Tier 1 landline carriers.

In essence, these sectors need to change all analog processes using legacy systems into digital processes, in which NFV can easily fit. That transition may take years, if not a decade, before it is fully implemented.

But the question is whether MNOs and Tier 1 carriers can wait that long to implement NFV and get the most optimized set of solutions in order to compete globally.

My guess is no, they cannot wait and stay competitive. The transition to NFV can be done more quickly, and I'm going to tell you how.

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Sprint near deal to buy T-Mobile USA for $50 billion, reports say

Sprint has reached a deal to buy T-Mobile US for about US$50 billion, according to news reports on Wednesday.

Sprint, owned by Japan's Softbank, would pay about $40 per share for T-Mobile, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The deal could still fall apart, the Journal warned.
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Such a deal would combine the nation's third- and fourth-largest mobile operators, forming a larger rival to Verizon and AT&T but reducing the U.S. mobile market to just three major national carriers. Because of that change in the competitive lineup, the plan would probably face an uphill battle for regulatory approval.

If regulators rejected the plan, Sprint would have to pay T-Mobile more than $1 billion in cash and other assets, the Journal reported.

Under the proposed terms of the deal, T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom would own 15 percent to 20 percent of the combined company.

Reports of a deal to combine Sprint and T-Mobile have circulated since late last year. Both carriers have struggled against much larger rivals in AT&T and Verizon, and each has only about half as many subscribers as either of the two big players. Just last year, Sprint agreed to sell 80 percent of its shares to Softbank in a deal that gave it a much-needed injection of cash to complete an elaborate network transformation.

However, the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission rejected an earlier attempted buyout of T-Mobile by AT&T, and since then T-Mobile has introduced plans that have helped change the way U.S. carriers sell phones and service. Some federal regulators have indicated they want the U.S. to remain a four-carrier market for just the kind of competitive pressure that an underdog like T-Mobile can put on prices and choice.

Absorbing T-Mobile would also be one more task for a very busy Sprint, which in recent years has been integrating multiple networks while phasing out others.

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Five new threats to your mobile device security

I like the IBM Edge conference because it tries to showcase how infrastructure can provide a large company with a competitive edge. While the event clearly contains content on IBM products and services, the emphasis appears to be on getting things. This year's event also offered a snapshot of how IBM is adapting to address one of the most massive changes the technology market has yet made.

Remember, the Fountain of Youth Is a Myth
Perhaps the strongest metaphor for the problem that IBM faces was the opener for the first keynote talk: A brilliant guitarist who's only 11 and has been playing for just three years. (I found that personally depressing.) An older musician soon joined him; he was able to keep up, and perhaps even outplay him, thanks to his experience.

This older musician represents IBM's potential. IBM can never again be an amazing young company, but its experience and history should let it step up and at least match any young firm. The key here is that the older musician matched the younger musician's tune and didn't try to step in with classic rock. IBM must be agile enough to play as well as the young companies entering the market to make its experience seem like an advantage.

As the youngster left the stage, and he was asked who he wanted to be like, he said he just wanted to be himself. There's the problem with the young company - it's still trying to figure out what it will be. That's a painful path that the older company has already completed. IBM knows what it is - and that's the sustaining advantage that any older company must remember. IBM's most iconic CEO, Thomas Watson Jr., said it best: To succeed, you have to be willing to change everything but who you are.

IBM Partnerships, Products Position Company Well
Perhaps IBM's most powerful and interesting move to the sale of the IBM System X group to Lenovo. This goes to the heart of the "change everything" part of the equation. System X wasn't working inside IBM. Lenovo's own server group represents an increasing threat, but it's not growing very quickly. System X brings low margin to IBM, but Lenovo is a low-margin company, so it could take this division and actually increase its margins. In short, IBM is trying to eat its cake and have it, too.

In addition, the ongoing drama between the U.S. and China on data security makes it nearly impossible for U.S. companies to sell in China and vice versa. IBM and Lenovo clearly execute better than most companies, but this issue still hampers them both. The deal surrounding the acquisition provides an answer: Lenovo can take the lead selling IBM products in China, while IBM can take the lead selling products in the parts of the U.S. where this conflict poses problems (such as the U.S. government). Neither company has ever been identified as working against its customers, and both firms' ability to assure a willing outcome should be a common competitive advantage.

That said, IBM does have another clear advantage: Watson. IBM is the only company working on artificial intelligence at enterprise scale, and Watson represents the next big step in real-time applied analytics-based decision support.

Integrated into IBM offerings, this system should significantly improve the decision accuracy of IBM executives and IBM customers as well. Watson stands out in IBM's line as a massive competitive advantage, as it turns the rest of IBM's data analytics solution into something that's nothing short of industry changing.

One IBM customer, a huge healthcare company, said its goal was an enterprise-scale solution using cloud methods and technologies. Buyers at this size need the compliance of an enterprise company and want the cost advantages of the cloud.

Everything Old Is New Again
That's what IBM presented this week - and it demonstrated that IBM's transition to a very different company continues. Once complete, IBM will have offerings such as Watson and partnerships with firms such as Lenovo that are unique, powerful and unmatched in the rapidly changing technology world.

IBM Edge 2014 provided a unique view into the future of at-scale cloud computing infrastructure and the near-term future of IBM as a company that plans to be the very best at providing what you need when you need it.

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