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Chinese Android phone maker hides secret backdoor on its devices
Chinese smartphone maker Coolpad has built an extensive "backdoor" into its Android devices that can track users, serve them unwanted advertisements and install unauthorized apps, a U.S. security firm alleged today.In a research paper released today, Palo Alto Networks detailed its investigation of the backdoor, which it dubbed "CoolReaper.""Coolpad has built a backdoor that goes beyond the usual data collection," said Ryan Olson, director of intelligence at Palo Alto's Unit 42. "This is way beyond what one malicious insider could have done."Coolpad, which sells smartphones under several brand names -- including Halo, also called Danzen -- is one of China's largest ODMs (original device manufacturers). According to IDC, it ranked fifth in China in the third quarter, with 8.4% of the market, and has expanded sales outside of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan to Southeast Asia, the U.S. and Western Europe.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
WHITE PAPER: CommVault
IDG MarketPulse: Lighting Up Dark Data CIO Research Paper
On average, just 28 percent of organizational data is stored because it has clear business value. Ominously referred to as dark data, those information assets grow and soak up resources without returning any business value. Learn More>>
WEBCAST: Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise
University Surpasses Students' Digital Expectations
The explosion of mobile device use is testing the limits of legacy networks everywhere. In this webcast you will learn how Abilene Christian University meets the mobile access demands of 4500 University students, and 250,000 connections per day. Learn More
Cloud provider pits 6TB hard drives in real-world face off
Cloud service provider Backblaze has published data comparing the performance of two of the leading providers of high-capacity hard drives. Read More
BlackBerry's new Classic smartphone has a physical keyboard, sells for $449
BlackBerry officially launched its Classic smartphone with a qwerty physical keyboard and trackpad on Wednesday for $449, unlocked, in the U.S. The release comes amid continuing worries about the company's declining market share.With less than 1% of the world's smartphone market and fewer than 45 million mostly-older users globally, BlackBerry stuck with a physical keyboard and security features that made the Canadian company famous before the first iPhone emerged in 2007.BlackBerry recently blogged that even President Obama is "still a BlackBerry fan." Even so, it remains unclear how CEO John Chen plans to attract an under-35 crowd that loves touchscreen keyboards and is considered key to BlackBerry's survival.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Review: Apple's new 5K iMac -- powerful, pixel-ful and pricey
Apple's latest 27-in. desktop comes with a remarkable Retina display, great performance, a sleek design -- and an impressive price tag. Read More
Land Rover creates 'ghost car' for drivers to follow
Jaguar Land Rover has revealed two new research projects it's working on: a 360 Virtual Urban Windscreen to give a driver a 360-degree view outside the car and a ghost car navigation aid that projects a virtual vehicle ahead of you to follow. The ghost car is a navigation aid for busy urban roads and uses heads-up display technology to provide information to keep the driver's eyes on the road and reduce distraction, Range Rover said in a statement. "Driving on city streets can be a stressful experience, but imagine being able to drive across town without having to look at road signs, or be distracted trying to locate a parking space as you drive by," Wolfgang Epple, director of research and technology at Jaguar Land Rover, said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
IBM pushes hard into the enterprise cloud
IBM is building out its global computing network in a bid to focus on the enterprise cloud market. The company announced today that it is adding cloud centers in 11 new locations. In a $1.2 billion investment, IBM has built cloud centers in Frankfurt, Mexico City and Tokyo. The other eight new locations come to IBM through a partnership with Equinix Inc., which operates data centers across the globe. The partnership will give IBM access to data centers in Australia, France, Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands and the U.S., boosting IBM's cloud network to a total of 48 cloud centers. That growth is aimed at helping IBM grow its hybrid cloud business for enterprise clients.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Have you tried...oh, you did
This IT shop has had system administrator vacancies for a while, and so far no applicants have made it through the phone screening, says a pilot fish on the team."Management got frustrated and brought someone in for an on-site interview," fish says. "The IT director, IT manager and team members interviewed the candidate, and he seemed to know the technical stuff and his troubleshooting process seemed sound, but there were some quirks that I found annoying."Still, he was the best so far, so he was hired -- but the team decided to test him. We broke a test box by skewing the time, which killed Kerberos authentication. We also changed an octet in the primary DNS.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
WHITE PAPER: Akamai
Improving DDoS Protection
A recent survey reveals a significant disconnect between companies' concerns and their preparedness when it comes to potential DDoS attacks. This survey looks at the high level of concern about the impacts of DDoS attacks and the "always-on" solution to help identify and mitigate attacks. Learn More
Android 5.0.1 download NOW for Google Nexus 5 -- Lollipop update in da haus
And here it is: Android 5.0.1 for your Nexus 5. Merry Christmas: Unwrap your Lollipop update.As ever, you can wait for your OTA number to come up, force a sideload of the update, or even download the full factory image (if you don't mind wiping your device).In IT Blogwatch, bloggers fire up adb. Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment.Liam Tung brings happy news for people who have Hammerhead: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Human error root cause of November Microsoft Azure outage
Human error was the culprit in a November outage of the Microsoft Azure cloud storage service. The company is hoping that recent updates that automate formerly manual processes will help prevent similar outages in the future. Read More
6+ iOS 8 mistakes that make you look dumb
You've been using iOS for ages and think you know what you're doing, but do you? These common iOS mistakes make you look dumb, so here's how to avoid them.Wrong fingerYou set Touch ID up to work with your thumbprint -- all the same when you try to approve a payment or purchase a tune you keep using your finger an it doesn't work. Annoying.There's a solution:Open Settings>Touch ID & Passcode and enter your passcode to access the next screen. Look to the Fingerprints section and you'll see Finger 1, below which you'll see the 'Add a Fingerprint...' option. You can enrol up to five fingerprints for Touch ID.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Apple shutters Russian online store as ruble plummets
Apple's online store for Russian customers was offline all day Tuesday after the U.S. company shut down the mart because of the ruble's plunge.Although Apple did not immediately reply to questions late Tuesday, it had told other news outlets earlier in the day that it had closed the digital doors "while we review pricing."The Russian ruble fell as much as 20% Tuesday against the dollar before recovering slightly. But the dramatic drop of the ruble's value would have translated into plummeting prices for Apple's goods if the Cupertino, Calif. company had not pulled the plug on its online store.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
T-Mobile's new Data Stash plan doesn't let workers share data
T-Mobile today unveiled a monthly data rollover plan for consumers and business customers called "Data Stash," but the plan still won't allow workers to share their data with others in a work group.Data Stash works much the same way for users who have a Simple Choice plan (or Simple Choice for Business Value Plan) and have purchased 3GB or more of LTE data per month for smartphones and 1GB or more for tablets.T-Mobile will give those existing customers, as well as new customers, 10GB of free LTE data in January. The data must be used by the end of 2015, and once it's gone, each month of unused data in a plan can be rolled over monhtly for up to a year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Solar demand soars 16% this year
Demand for solar power grew 16% year-over-year in 2014, representing 44 billion watts (gigawatts) of capacity purchased during the year.At the same time, China, which in past years had flooded the market with solar panels, did not see growth as strong as had been expected. The growth was mainly due to healthy U.S. and Japanese markets, according to the report from EnergyTrend, a research division of TrendForce.Overall, supply and demand remained stable, according to EnergyTrend."At the end of 2014, the overall supply chain maintained a solid utilization rate, while China's tier-one module manufacturers also continued to break shipment records," Jason Huang, research manager at EnergyTrend, said in the report.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
Quantum physics used in quest for fraud-proof credit cards
Researchers in the Netherlands are applying quantum physics in an attempt to create fraud-proof credit cards and ID cards. The approach, which they call Quantum-Secure Authentication (QSA), centers on single particles of light, or photons, and their ability to encode data so that attackers cannot determine what the information is. It exploits a property of photons that allows them to effectively be in multiple places at once, a phenomenon described in quantum physics. "Quantum-physical principles forbid an attacker to fully characterize the incident light pulse," the researchers wrote in an article in the journal Optica. "Therefore, he cannot emulate the key by digitally constructing the expected optical response, even if all information about the key is publicly known."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here Read More
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Digital Spotlight: Mobile Security
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