Corliss Review Group: This is what the new reversible USB 3.1 cable looks like

In December last year the technology consortium responsible for the USB standard announced that the next generation of connectors would be entirely reversible – now the first picture of the new plug has appeared online.

As expected, the new design looks pretty much identical to Apple’s Lightning connector - a proprietary standard which is also reversible and appears on the latest iPhones and iPads.

The new USB 3.1 Type-C is similar in size to the current Micro USB design used to charge most small gadgets and will break computability with current ports.

The designs are not expected to be finalized until July and it will take many months more before manufacturers start to introduce the new Type-C to their products.

This latest update to the most widely accepted connector in the tech world will offer increased bandwidths of up to 10Gbps but for most of the clearest advantage will never having to fiddle with getting our USB plugs the right way round.  

Corliss Review Group on Identity fraud and cybercrime cost firms over €600m

AN increase in cybercrimes is costing Irish companies over €600m a year, according to a new report.

Reports of data breaches are mounting in Ireland as both foreign and Irish criminals infiltrate business computer systems, according to a Grant Thornton business report.

Common crimes include identity fraud, online scams, and cyber theft and cyber extortion.

Notifications of security breaches rose 36pc in 2012. Incidents are typically under-reported to the Data Protection Commissioner because company’s fear a hit to their reputation should they disclose their security systems failed, according to Grant Thornton partner Mike Harris, who launched the company's cyber security service.

SECURITY

Breaches since 2011 include attacks on Loyalty build, Eircom Study Hub and Recruit Ireland. Loyalty build suffered a breach of customer data and credit card information and had to invest €500,000 on security.

It is estimated that 55pc of cybercrime is by international organized crime gangs – typically operating in countries where regulation is weak.

Mr Harris said: "Our estimate of €630m is likely to be below the actual level given that many companies still do not report security breaches for fear of the reputational damage."

He said Irish businesses should be focusing... on the ability to detect and react to data security breaches.

"It is not a question of if an Irish business will be subjected to an online attack, but a question of when," he said.

Corliss Review Group: When PayPal needs to battle fraud, it sends in the Israelis

PayPal employees in Tel Aviv, mostly veterans of the army intelligence corps, team up with algorithms to decide whether your transaction should go through.

A few years ago, an American living in Indiana opened an account with PayPal, the U.S. Company for making payments and money transfers online. A few months later, funds were drawn from the account — from Iraq, and the delivery address for the goods ordered was in Germany.

So was the account hacked? Or maybe it was simply an American soldier scheduled for transfer to Germany. This fictional case illustrates real issues that PayPal has to sift through. The company’s battle against fraud is led by a team of 100 Israelis, mostly veterans of the Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence corps who work at the firm’s Tel Aviv development center.

“Fraud is a significant threat; there are countries in which PayPal handles more than 20% of online commerce,” says Tomer Barel, who five months ago was appointed director of risk management for PayPal worldwide. He previously headed the Tel Aviv development center since 2009.

“As a result, PayPal is a major target for fraud," Barel says. "We have almost 150 million users, so theoretically this involves a huge number of people who could become theft victims. Every day, 10 million transactions are conducted on PayPal, and the company’s loss rate is 0.2% of sales, most of which stems from fraud.”

Barel and the Israeli development center have the fascinating job of making Internet purchases simple and secure without invading users’ privacy. The increasing use of the Internet on mobile phones, the development of virtual currencies such as Bit coin and the growing online criminality are just some of the challenges.

Kingpins recruit hackers

Organized crime has changed drastically over the past decade, Barel says. In the past, criminals would go from restaurant to restaurant demanding protection money, not to mention the occasional beating or shooting. Now organized crime can recruit people around the world; all the recruit needs is skill, an Internet connection and the ability to convince him that what he’s doing is acceptable.

“We get into the hackers’ [online] forums and see a lot of rationalization there. The hackers view people who use violence as criminals,” Barel says.

“Organized crime recruits a lot of smart and talented people who tell themselves they’re not really stealing from individuals because [consumers] are protected and get their stolen money back. And everything is done without violence; there’s no contact. The victim is faceless, so there’s no compassion.”

It’s a model involving a minimum of friction between the criminal and the victim, Barel notes.

“Someone’s sitting in China, Britain or Moldova and tells himself: ‘I’m stealing from multinational corporations, those rich bad people. I’m a kind of Robin Hood,’” he says.

“But that money flows to organized-crime groups and funds their other activities, some of which are violent. The ability of a group to be scattered all over the world and not directly confront its victims contributes to its success.”

The Israeli team has the expertise to take data from a transaction and make an immediate decision, Barel says. The idea is to prevent fraud while limiting the inconvenience to good customers whose transactions might be a bit out of the ordinary.

A fraction of a second

Most of the time, the process is carried out automatically. The job of PayPal’s Israel center is to flag use of a PayPal account by someone other than the account holder. There are standard tools to do this, such as a user’s IP address — the number assigned to a particular computer — but there are less obvious ways.

“Activity on a computer produces a number of electronic signatures; the trick is to identify them and make links among them,” Barel says.

Whether the task is an art or a science, there isn’t much time to do it.

“We need to identify attempted fraud in real time, and that’s a matter of a fraction of a second,” Barel says. “I need to identify that a stranger is using your account. You’re not going to wait in front of your computer or mobile device for five minutes for the system to approve the transaction.”

The Israeli team also has to analyze sophisticated cases that a computer can’t recognize as fraudulent. This involves research and intelligence gathering; graduates of the Israel Defense Forces’ technology units are natural candidates.

“It’s a cat-and-mouse game. Fraudsters adapt to the model that you put in place, so we came to the conclusion that the human dimension is critical,” Barel says.

“In our research groups in Israel, there’s a large team of analysts who look at huge volumes of data, identify patterns and help the algorithm make a decision. People are still more powerful than machines in trying to foresee and identify human behavior.”

Corliss Review Group on the week’s top tech news: Google Nest, iPhone camera tips, EU data roaming & Easter apps

The Google Nest thermostat goes on sale, Sony gives away some free music and we bring you a great app for the Easter holes.

GADGET OF THE WEEK
NEST • From £170 plus VAT

Your central heating is about to get a whole lot cooler thanks to Google’s new Nest thermostat.

The space-aged gadget not only looks the business but will also save you a heap of money.

Using tech wizardry, Nest learns about you and your home then decides when to switch on your boiler. You can also control the heating while away via your smartphone.

Google reckons the £249 Nest will save 20% off your gas bill.

+++TECH NEWS+++

JACKO IS BACK & FREE ON SONY'S NEW XPERIA Z2

The brilliant Sony Xperia Z2 is now available to pre-order.

And with a stunning screen, waterproof design and new 4K camcorder it’s one of the best Android phones on the market.

If you decide to fill your pockets with this phone then there's an added bonus.

You'll get a free copy of the new album from the king of pop Michael Jackson, when it's released next month.

XSCAPE features eight new tracks which have been optimized especially for the Xperia Z2. ShaMOAN!

TAKING shots of celebs on the red carpet usually requires a top-end camera.

But pro snapper Dan Rubin ditched his trusted DSLR last week in favor of an iPhone 5s.

Photographing stars like Graham Norton, above, shows just how good phone cameras have become.

Here are Dan’s top tips for shooting with your smartphone.

How did you find the experience differed to shooting with a DSLR?

The iPhone is essentially a point-and-shoot camera, so there are far fewer things to think about when shooting.

The size of the device makes a big difference when trying to connect with a subject, they see me and not just a massive camera and lens.

This allowed me to be conversational with each person as they passed by, and in many cases they returned the favor.

It was also easy to slip my arm between a few paparazzi and get a shot.

But there are certain types of images I wasn’t able to capture without a strobe or a big lens.

Are you happy with the results?

Once I got used to the lighting and how the celebrities were behaving, I was able to get results I was really happy with especially with a camera I could fit in my pocket

What apps did you use for shooting and editing?

I shot almost exclusively with the default iOS Camera app, with a few select shots captured using CortexCam (an app that averages multiple shots to remove noise in extremely low light).

All editing/post-production was done in VSCO Cam.

+++TECH NEWS+++

NEW RULES COULD SPELL THE END OF DATA ROAMING CHARGES

GOOD news for ­travellers.

The EU is hoping to put an end to data roaming charges, leaving you to tweet and text abroad without getting a nasty shock.

The new rules won’t take effect until at least 2015, so for now you’re best switching off your smartphone and enjoying the sun.

APP OF THE WEEK

ADDISON LEE

Apple • Android – FREE

IF you’re heading to London this Easter, pop the new taxi app from Addison Lee on your smartphone.

It allows you to book a cab for a set time or simply hit the “pick me up now” button for an instant collection.

It’s fast, friendly and will save you a sweaty trip on the Tube.

The Corliss Review Group: IT Leaders' Forum

The risks and rewards of cloud. According to Alan Priestley, director of strategic marketing EMEA at Intel, there is one very big barrier to adoption of cloud marketing: risk aversion.

That risk aversion is no doubt born of fear, if not of the unknown, then certainly of the sheer work required before organizations are able to benefit from the flexibility and, potentially, cost savings of moving applications to the cloud.

It isn’t just about the fact that they have built far-reaching IT infrastructures in-house over the course of many years. It’s also about the changes required in how the IT department is run and in the skills of the people who work in it.

Intel, though, has already shifted some of its IT to the cloud, as appropriate. “Intel uses cloud, both private and public, but we also have a lot of IT that we cannot and will not put into the cloud,” Priestley told attendees at this week’s Computing IT Leaders’ Forum, which focused on the management of hybrid clouds.

Feel the fear

However, when an organisation is already facing acute IT problems, the fear factor comes from not facing up to them. UCAS, the universities’ clearing service, has always faced a particular challenge: for a few days every year in August, demand for its services goes through the roof as students rush to secure a university place.

By 2011, the website through which everything had been automated was struggling to cope: a new approach that could handle the August spike in traffic was needed.

The solution proposed by James Munson, head of IT at UCAS, was radical: it would shift much of its computing services to the cloud. Not only that, but it insisted on a contract that would enable it to ramp up its compute capacity in August when it was all-action, and reduce it (and the price) for the rest of the year when the service is quieter.

“In 2011 and 2012, UCAS had problems being able to deliver the scale that was required for that intense period in the morning when everyone was getting their results at the same time,” said Munson.

“It was all hosted on-premise where we’re based in Cheltenham. We had created quite a complex infrastructure environment – some Microsoft .NET, some database, some Unix, different storage area networks all hosted there, and quite a lot of bandwidth that all needed to go in to that location on that one day, so it was not surprising that we were having ‘issues’.”

Furthermore, the architecture around which UCAS’s services had been built was monolithic, which meant changes required far-reaching testing and the systems lacked comprehensive monitoring. “So when things started to go wrong, we didn’t have great insight into what was going wrong and what was causing the problems. Something had to change.”

In late 2012, that change was decided: a transition to a public cloud infrastructure, with services shifting to a combination of Microsoft Azure, which made sense given UCAS’s existing .NET application investments, Amazon Web Services to host the organisation’s Oracle databases, and Rackspace, with whom UCAS already had a relationship.

The key services for finding and tracking courses were rebuilt in Microsoft Azure, with in-house Oracle databases upgraded, re-engineered and ported across to Amazon. These are load-balanced across two zones and the website is hosted by Rackspace.

Skills challenge

Munson found that the new skills required of an IT department in the era of cloud are very different from those required to run IT in-house – a skills gap also found by Rocco Labellarte, CIO at the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

“We are looking at a whole new set of skills,” he said. “There are lots of kids out there with the right qualifications in terms of understanding the environments. But actually getting people with the practical skills who have ‘been there and done that’ is another matter.”

He continued: “We have broken down our skill sets into a three areas: one is to move to a monitoring team, which is effectively just sitting there, watching the large screens all the time and being able to react very quickly because we are maintaining the service integration element internally.

“The second is having commissioned technical architects that understand exactly how everything is put together, both from a hardware perspective, and from a networking, security and applications perspective.”

Finally, although the organisation may be outsourcing to cloud providers, there is still a need for technical architects that can inform the organisation how it should be done, on the one hand, while challenging providers and their recommendations on the other.

Going the extra mile to get appropriately skilled staff in-house can save a fortune, he added. “Having internal skills, if they are significant, provides a cost benefit. We have avoided about £500m in spend by having the right skills from the start,” said Labellarte.

The Corliss Review Group: Five Myths About Cloud Privacy

Cloud Privacy

Last week a new set of privacy principles regarding the handling of personal information came into effect. The changes relate to how businesses handle, use and store personal information. While there are significant changes with a number of benefits for individuals, there have been some misconceptions in the industry with regards to privacy in the cloud that I’d like to address. Here are the top 5 myths that I’ve seen about privacy in the cloud.

1. Use of cloud computing is the biggest privacy risk factor

The notion that the use of cloud computing is the biggest Privacy risk factor that Australian businesses need to worry about is simply untrue. Ponemon Institute’s Survey on Data Security Breaches revealed that 69 per cent of serious data leaks were due to employee activities or errors.

So a lack of internal policies and controls, direct marketing activities, poorly trained staff, stolen laptops and offshore call centres are all bigger risks than cloud computing.

While Australian companies need to be wary of the new legislation and how it affects their IT infrastructure, the direct business benefits of cloud far outweigh these alleged risks.

2. It is unclear which jurisdiction my data is held in

This is a common misunderstanding among businesses. The word “cloud” suggests to some that your data is floating around in some unknown location, implying transborder data risks under the Privacy Act. The reality is your data is still yours, and it’s still on a server in a data centre. The data centre just happens to be owned by someone else. Cloud providers are overwhelmingly transparent about where your data is stored and would never move it across regions without your permission. If you’re unsure, a simple call to your provider will quickly clarify any concerns.

3. I can’t control third party access to my data in the cloud

The suggestion that you can’t control third party access to your data in the cloud is another myth. In most cases, the security services and accreditations that cloud providers offer are significantly better than internal IT can deliver. With the use of data encryption and support from your cloud partner, the technology risks are easily mitigated. And of course, technology and human risks exist whether you are hosting your data internally or externally.

4. Australian privacy law is tougher than elsewhere

Understandably, there are lots of businesses that are concerned about just how tough the new privacy laws are. In particular, they are worried about the cost of compliance and potential for significant fines (up to $1.7 million).

It’s important to remember that most developed economies have had strong privacy laws for some time. The EU established one of the more comprehensive with the 1995 Privacy Directive covering 27 countries, with Spain and Germany having issued many stiff fines. Many South American countries, including Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica and Mexico have issued Privacy laws to open trade with the EU. In Asia, Singapore passed a privacy law last year that protects personal data for ten years after a person’s death, while South Korea’s privacy law even covers a person’s image or voice.

5. I don’t need to worry about it

Despite my other comments, complacency remains the most dangerous myth! Businesses that think they don’t need to worry about security and privacy in their cloud are dead wrong. The risks may be similar to hosting data internally, but they still exist. Larger organizations may struggle to effectively audit their own use of cloud services, particularly when they have been adopted within departments, rather than corporate IT. On the other hand small, companies may struggle to understand the risks or establish privacy statements and policies. That said, simple steps can ensure that a company’s use of cloud is not a high risk factor in terms of its overall privacy compliance, when compared to the alternatives available.

The Corliss Review Group: What are the top security concerns when moving to the cloud?

techradar.com

Cloud computing brings a myriad of benefits for any enterprise, but it is also a cause for concern in a world where, according to InformationWeek, cyber criminals are now targeting "any company where they can find data to resell, disrupt or exploit."

Moving your company's sensitive data into the hands of third party cloud providers expands and complicates the risk landscape in which you operate every day.

In order to understand what concerns should be given emphasis in your cloud security strategy, you need to understand what you can't afford to lose and what can protect you.

Understanding what you can't afford to lose

Data breaches, according to the Cloud Security Alliance, are the top cloud computing security threat for 2013 and beyond. Sensitive data can be of enormous value to a hacker, so you need to consider what sensitive data you are storing in the cloud.

This might be anything a criminal can use to determine or steal someone's identity, such as personally identifiable information (PII) like full names, addresses, birth dates, some IP addresses, and online logins and passwords; and financial information such as bank account numbers and PINs. Furthermore, you should consider any confidential corporate information you might share in the cloud.

Essentially, ask yourself "What do I have that others might want?" and "What do I have that I can't afford to lose?" Data privacy regulations often demand public breach notifications in the event of a malicious data breach or inadvertent data loss – particularly if the information is in the clear.

If your security strategy fails to protect sensitive data, your enterprise could face severe consequences in terms of business and reputation loss as the result of disclosure.

Understand what can protect you if you do lose your data

Businesses migrating to the cloud should lock down any sensitive data before it leaves the premises. As the Snowden leaks indicate, third party cloud surveillance is ubiquitous, so the more open your data and access policies are for harvesting, the greater the risks to your cloud security strategy.

Deploy an encryption scheme that provides limited, controlled, enterprise-exclusive encryption key access. When you retain exclusive control of your encryption keys, you eliminate that concern of a data breach regardless of where your data resides or how many copies of it exist.

In many jurisdictions, a breach of strongly encrypted data to which the enterprise holds the key does not require public notification.

Even the systems you and your CSPs may have in place to prevent accidental erasure of your data can pose dangers to your enterprise's data privacy.

While backups, redundancy and other failover strategies protect against data loss due to deletion or system failures, they also create extra opportunities for the theft of this data that you consider important.

Keep in mind that, if you terminate your services with a particular CSP, you can never be certain the data has been digitally destroyed.

Moving to the cloud need not be complicated. An important element is for businesses to decide what data to put in the cloud – and then to encrypt it and retain the keys.