Tech News - Networking

Viavi Solutions, a San Jose-based network test, measurement, and assurance technology company, released version 17.5 of Observer, a popular NPMD ( Network Performance Managment and Diagnostics) tool earlier this week. Observer 17.5 has features such as end-user experience scores, full 100 GB support, improved user experience, and enhanced analytic processing among others. Observer is recognized as a Leader in Gartner's Network Performance Management and Diagnostics (NPMD) Magic Quadrant. It is the network administrator's ultimate toolbox. It enables you to discover your network, capture and decode network traffic, as well as use real-time statistics to solve network problems. Observer 17.5 aims to replace the detailed KPIs that are provided to network engineers with a single result-oriented End-User Experience Score. This will help reduce the guesswork and dead ends that result from troubleshooting processes used by network teams. Let’s discuss Observer 17.5 key features. End-User Experience Scoring and Workflows Observer 17.5 comprises End User Experience Scores integrated with out-of-the-box workflows. This empowers any engineer to navigate a guided path to resolution. Observer 17.5 is backed by complete wire-data, the filtered and relevant insight which can be provided to appropriate IT parties to take corrective actions. Full 100 GB interface support Observer provides full-fidelity forensics for investigations with interfaces for 10, and 40 GB. With Observer 17.5, it now also offers support for 100 GB. This ensures the accuracy and completeness of Observer's performance analytics in high-speed network environments. With the increase in network traffic volumes, it makes sure that every metric reported by the IT team is supported by wire data for root-cause analysis and granular reconstruction. Enhanced User Experience Understanding Observer Apex implements adaptive machine learning that delivers intelligent user insight. This helps reduces the false positives as it enforces enhanced understanding of normal environment behavior and user experience. Improved Interfaces and Analytic Processing User interfaces have been redesigned in Observer 17.5 that help with easier navigation and interaction across different key elements of the Observer platform. Also, the real-time analytical performance has improved in this version. For more information, check out the official blog post. Top 10 IT certifications for cloud and networking professionals in 2018 Top 5 cybersecurity assessment tools for networking professionals Ansible 2 for automating networking tasks on Google Cloud Platform [Tutorial]

Connecting two computers over the Internet is difficult. Software needs to negotiate NATs, firewalls, and limited IPv4 addresses. To overcome this issue, the Beaker browser team is releasing a new Kademlia DHT-based toolset for connecting peers called 'Hyperswarm'. Currently the team uses a tracker to get users connected. However, to move towards a more decentralized model, the team has been working on Hyperswarm to improve the reliability of the Dat project connections. What is Hyperswarm? Hyperswarm is a stack of networking modules that finds peers and creates reliable connections. Users join the swarm for a "topic". They periodically query other peers who are part of the topic. To establish a connection between peers, Hyperswarm creates a socket between them using either UTP or TCP. It uses a Kademlia DHT to track peers and arrange connections. The DHT itself includes mechanisms to establish a direct connection between two peers in which one or both are behind firewalls or behind routers that use network address translation (NAT). A few things about Hyperswarm that you should know Iterating on security DHTs have a number of denial-of-service vectors. There are some known mitigations for the same, but they have tradeoffs. The team is thinking through these tradeoffs and will iterate on this over time. Hyperswarm is not anonymous Hyperswarm does not hide users’ IPs. Devices join topics by listing their IP so that other devices can establish connections. The Dat protocol, however, takes steps to hide the topics’ contents. When downloading a dat, the protocol hashes the dat’s key to create the swarm topic. Only those who know the dat’s key can access the dat’s data or create new connections to people in the topic. The members of the topics are public. The deployment strategy The team will be updating the tracker server to make the deployment backward compatible. This will make it possible for old Dat clients to connect using the tracker, while new clients can connect using the DHT. Hyperswarm is MIT licensed open-source and can be found at the following repositories: Network, discovery, dht To know more about this preview release, head over to pfrazee.hasbase.io. Linkerd 2.0 is now generally available with a new service sidecar design Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 Beta released with focus on security, cloud, and automation Android Studio 3.2 releases with Android App Bundle, Energy Profiler, and more!

Yesterday, Untangle, a company that provides network security for SMBs (Small and Midsize Businesses) and distributed enterprises announced the release of its zSeries appliances. The zSeries appliances will provide better performance and functionality at a lower price for SMBs as well as distributed enterprises with cloud-managed next-generation firewalls. The zSeries includes five appliances, right from small desktop models to 1U rackmount servers, as well as a wireless option. All these appliances will be preloaded with NG Firewall 14.2 version, it is Untangle’s network security software product that makes deployment easy. The zSeries appliances are now available on the Untangle website for purchase. Heather Paunet, vice president of product management at Untangle said, “The zSeries offers a simplified lineup to suit customers from branch offices to large campuses. Key upgrades available with the zSeries include faster processors, more RAM, NVMe SSD storage on the z6 and above, and fiber connectivity on the z12 and above.” She further added, “It’s never been easier to deploy cost-effective, cloud-managed network security across dispersed networks while ensuring a consistent security posture for organizations of any size.” NG Firewall v14.2 packed with enhancements to web security and content filtering Untangle NG Firewall 14.2 comes with enhancements to web security and content filtering. It also offers the ability to synchronize users with Azure Active Directory as well as bring enhancements to intrusion detection and prevention. NG Firewall has won 2019 Security Today Government Security Awards “The Govies” for Network Security. NG Firewall v14.2 offers options for Flagging, blocking and alerting based on search terms for YouTube, Yahoo, Google, Bing, and Ask. With this firewall, YouTube searches can now be easily logged, and usage can also be locked down to show content that meets the 'safe search' criteria. Untangle NG Firewall 14.2 is available as a free upgrade for existing customers. Join Untangle for the Community Webinar: zSeries and NG Firewall v14.2 on June 18, 2019 to learn more about the features in 14.2 and the new zSeries appliances. To know more about this news, check out press release. Untangle VPN Services PyPI announces 2FA for securing Python package downloads All Docker versions are now vulnerable to a symlink race attack  

Just two days ago, the team at Shodan introduced Shodan Monitor, a new website that helps users to setup network alerts and keeps a track of what's connected to the internet. Features of Shodan Monitor Networking gets easy with Shodan Monitor Users will be able to explore what they have connected to the internet within their network range. The users can also set up real-time notifications in case something unexpected shows up. Scaling The Shodan platform can handle networks of all the sizes. In case an ISP wants to deal with millions of customers then Shodan could be reliable in that scenario. Security Shodan Monitor helps in monitoring the users’ known networks and their devices across the internet. It helps in detecting leaks to the cloud, identifying phishing websites and compromised databases. Shodan navigates users to important information Shodan Monitor helps in keeping the dashboards precise and relevant by proving the most relevant information with the help of their web crawlers. The information shown to the users on their dashboards gets filtered before getting displayed to them. Component details API Shodan Monitor provides users with developer-friendly API and command-line interface, which has all the features of the Shodan Monitor website. Scanning Shodan’s global infrastructure helps users to scan the networks in order to confirm that an issue has been fixed. Batteries Shodan’s API plan subscription gives users access to Shodan Monitor, search engine, API, and a wide range of websites. Few users are happy about this news and excited to use it. https://twitter.com/jcsecprof/status/1110866625253855235 According to a few others, the website still needs some work as they are facing error while working with the website. https://twitter.com/MarcelBilal/status/1110796413607313408 To know more about this news, check out Shodan Monitor. Will putting limits on how much JavaScript is loaded by a website help prevent user resource abuse? Grunt makes it easy to test and optimize your website. Here’s how. [Tutorial] FBI takes down some ‘DDoS for hire’ websites just before Christmas    

Earlier this year in May, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) held a discussion at RightsCon in Toronto with popular VPN service providers: IVPN, Mullvad, TunnelBear, VyprVPN, and ExpressVPN. They together formulated a list of eight questions that describes the basic commitments VPNs can make to signal their trustworthiness and positive reputation which is called Signals of Trustworthy VPNs. CDT is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization which aims to strengthen individual rights and freedom by defining, promoting, and influencing technology policy and the architecture of the internet. What was the goal behind the discussion between CDT and VPN providers? The goal of these questions is to improve transparency among VPN services and to help resources like That One Privacy Site and privacytools.io provide better comparisons between different services. Additionally, it will provide a way for users to easily compare privacy, security, and data use practices of VPNs. This initiative will also encourage VPNs to deploy measures that will meaningfully improve the privacy and security of individuals using their services. The questions that they have come up with tries to provide users clarity in three areas: Corporate accountability and business models Privacy practices Data security protocols and protections You can find the entire list of the questions at CDT’s official website. What are the key recommendations by CDT for VPN providers? The following are few of the best practices for VPN providers in order to build trust in their users: VPN providers should share information about the company’s leadership team, which can help users know more about the reputation of who they are trusting with their online activities. Any VPN provider should be able to share their place of legal incorporation and the laws they operate under. They should provide detailed information about their business model, specifically whether subscriptions are the sole source of a service’s revenue. They should clearly define what exactly they mean by “logging”. This information will include both connection and activity logging practices, as well as whether the VPN provider aggregates this information. Users should be aware of the approximate retention periods for any log data. VPN providers put in place procedures for automatically deleting any retained information after an appropriate period of time. This period of time should be disclosed and the length of time should also be justified. VPN providers can also implement bug bounty programs. This will encourage third parties to identify and report vulnerabilities they might come across when using the VPN service. Independent security audits should be conducted to identify technical vulnerabilities. To know more about the CDT’s recommendations and the eight questions, check out their official website. Apple bans Facebook’s VPN app from the App Store for violating its data collection rules What you need to know about VPNFilter Malware Attack IBM launches Industry’s first ‘Cybersecurity Operations Center on Wheels’ for on-demand cybersecurity support

Amazon is getting quite close to moving away from Oracle. Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon Web Services, tweeted last week regarding turning off the Oracle data warehouse and moving to RedShift. Jassy’s recent tweet seems to be a response to Oracle’s CTO, Larry Ellison’s constant taunts and punch lines. https://twitter.com/ajassy/status/1060979175098437632 The news about Amazon making its shift from Oracle stirred up in January this year. This was followed by the CNBC report this August which talked about Amazon’s plans to move from Oracle by 2020. As per the report, Amazon had already started to migrate most of its infrastructure internally to Amazon Web services. The process to move from Oracle, however, has been a bit harder than expected for Amazon. It faced an outage in one of its biggest warehouses on Prime Day (one of the Amazon’s biggest sales day in a year), last month, as reported by CNBC. The major cause of the outage was Amazon’s migration from Oracle’s database to its own technology, Aurora PostgreSQL. Moreover, Amazon and Oracle have had regular word battles in recent years over the performance of their database software and cloud tools. For instance, Larry Ellison, CTO, Oracle, slammed Amazon as he said, “Let me tell you an interesting fact: Amazon does not use [Amazon web services] to run their business. Amazon runs their entire business on top of Oracle, on top of the Oracle database. They have been unable to migrate to AWS because it’s not good enough.” Larry Ellison also slammed Amazon during Oracle OpenWorld conference last year saying, “Oracle’s services are just plain better than AWS” and how Amazon is “one of the biggest Oracle users on Planet Earth”. “Amazon's Oracle data warehouse was one of the largest (if not THE largest) in the world. RIP. We have moved on to newer, faster, more reliable, more agile, more versatile technology at more lower cost and higher scale. #AWS Redshift FTW.” tweeted Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon. Public reaction to this decision by Amazon has been largely positive with people supporting Amazon’s decision to migrate from Oracle: https://twitter.com/eonnen/status/1061082419057442816 https://twitter.com/adamuaa/status/1061094314909057024 https://twitter.com/nayar_amit/status/1061154161125773312 Oracle makes its Blockchain cloud service generally available Integrate applications with AWS services: Amazon DynamoDB & Amazon Kinesis [Tutorial] AWS Elastic Load Balancing: support added for Redirects and Fixed Responses in Application Load Balancer

NeuVector, a firm that deals with container network security, yesterday, announced new capabilities to help container security teams better assess the security posture of their deployed services in production. NeuVector now delivers an intelligent assessment of the risk of east-west attacks, ingress and egress connections, and damaging vulnerability exploits. An overall risk score summarizes all available risk factors and provides advice on how to lower the threat of attack – thus improving the score. The service connection risk score shows how likely it is for attackers to move laterally (east-west) to probe containers that are not segmented by the NeuVector firewall rules. The ingress/egress risk score shows the risk of external attacks or outbound connections commonly used for data stealing or connecting to C&C (command and control) servers. In an email written to us, Gary Duan, CTO of NeuVector said, “The NeuVector container security solution spans the entire pipeline – from build to ship to run. Because of this, we are able to present an overall analysis of the risk of attack for containers during run-time. But not only can we help assess and reduce risk, we can actually take automated actions such as blocking network attacks, quarantining suspicious containers, and capturing container and network forensics.” With the RedHat OpenShift integration, individual users can review the risk scores and security posture for the containers within their assigned projects. They are able to see the impact of their improvements to security configurations and protections as they lower risk scores and remove potential vulnerabilities. Read Also: Red Hat Summit 2019 Highlights: Microsoft collaboration, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8), IDC study predicts $10 trillion global revenue by end of 2019, and more! The one-click RBAC integration requires no additional coding, scripting or configuration, and adds to other OpenShift integration points for admission control, image streams, OVS networking, and service deployments. Fei Huang, CEO of NeuVector said, “We are seeing many business-critical container deployments using Red Hat OpenShift. These customers turn to NeuVector to provide complete run-time protection for in-depth defense – with the combination of container process and file system monitoring, as well as the industry’s only true layer-7 container firewall.” To know about this announcement in detail visit the official website. Red Hat releases OpenShift 4 with adaptability, Enterprise Kubernetes and more! Red Hat rebrands logo after 20 years; drops Shadowman Red Hat announces CodeReady Workspaces, the first Kubernetes-Native IDE for easy collaboration among developers

Linkerd 2.0 is now generally available. Linkerd is a transparent proxy that adds service discovery, routing, failure handling, and visibility to modern software applications. Linkerd 2.0 brings two significant changes. First, Linkerd 2.0 is completely rewritten to to be faster and smaller than Linkerd 1.x. Second, Linkerd moves beyond the service mesh model to running on a single service. It also comes with a focus on minimal configuration, a modular control plane design, and UNIX-style CLI tools. Let’s understand what each of these changes mean. Smaller and Faster Linkerd has undergone a complete change to become faster and smaller than its predecessor. Linkerd 2.0’s data plane is comprised of ultralight Rust proxies which consume around 10mb of RSS and have a p99 latency of <1ms. Linkerd’s minimalist control plane (written in Go) is similarly designed for speed and low resource footprint. Service sidecar design It also adopts a modern service sidecar design from the traditional service mesh model. The traditional service mesh model has two major problems. First, they add a significant layer of complexity to the tech stack. Second they are designed to meet the needs of platform owners undermining the service owners. Linkerd 2.0’s service sidecar design offers a solution to both. It allows platform owners to build out a service mesh incrementally, one service at a time, to provide security and reliability that a full service mesh provides. More importantly, Linkerd 2.0 addresses the needs of service owners directly with its service sidecar model to its focus on diagnostics and debugging. Linkerd 2.0 at its core is a service sidecar, running on a single service without requiring cluster-wide installation. Even without having a whole Kubernetes cluster, developers can run Linkerd and get: Instant Grafana dashboards of a service’s success rates, latencies, and throughput A topology graph of incoming and outgoing dependencies A live view of requests being made to your service Improved, latency-aware load balancing Installation Installing Linkerd 2.0 on a service requires no configuration or code changes. You can try Linkerd 2.0 on a Kubernetes 1.9+ cluster in 60 seconds by running: curl https://run.linkerd.io/install | sh Also check out the full Getting Started Guide. Linkerd 2.0 is also hosted on GitHub. Google Cloud hands over Kubernetes project operations to CNCF, grants $9M in GCP credits. Kubernetes 1.11 is here! VMware Kubernetes Engine (VKE) launched to offer Kubernetes-as-a-Service.

Last week, Sway, the i3-compatible Wayland compositor, released its version 1.0-beta.1. The community mentions that the Sway 1.0-beta.1 is 100% compatible with the i3 X11 window manager. Sway works well the existing i3 configuration and supports most of i3's features. The community also maintains the wlroots project to provide a modular basis for Sway and other Wayland compositors to build upon, and have also published standards for interoperable Wayland desktops. This version includes many input and output features alongwith other features such as auto-locking, idle management, and more. New features in Sway 1.0-beta.1 Output features The Sway 1.0 beta.1 version includes a new output features where the users can get the names of the outputs for use in their config file by using swaymsg -t get_outputs. Following are some examples of how outputs can be used: To rotate display to 90 degrees, use: output DP-1 transform 90 To enable Sway’s improved HiDPI support, use: output DP-1 scale 2 To enable fractional scaling : output DP-1 scale 1.5 Users can now run sway on multiple GPUs In this version, sway picks up a primary GPU automatically. Users can also override this by specifying a list of card names at startup with WLR_DRM_DEVICES=card0:card1:... Other features include support for daisy-chained DisplayPort configurations and improved Redshift support. Users can now drag windows between outputs with the mouse. Input features Users can get a list of their identifiers with swaymsg -t get_inputs. Users can now have multiple mice with multiple cursors, and can link keyboards, mice, drawing tablets, and touchscreens to each other arbitrarily. Users can have a dvorak keyboard for normal use and a second qwerty keyboard for a paired programming session. The coworker can also focus and type into separate windows from what a user is working on. Addition of third-party panels, lockscreens, etc. This version includes a new layer-shell protocol which enables the use of more third-party software on sway. One of the main features in sway 1.0 and wlroots is to break the boundaries between Wayland compositors and encourage standard inter-operable protocols. The community has also added two new protocols for capturing user’s screen; screencopy and dmabuf-export. These new protocols are useful for screenshots and real-time screen capture, for example to live stream on Twitch. DPMS, auto-locking, and idle management The new swayidle tool adds support for DPMS, auto-locking, and idle management, which even works on other Wayland compositors. To configure it, start by running the daemon in the sway config file: exec swayidle \    timeout 300 'swaylock -c 000000' \    timeout 600 'swaymsg "output * dpms off"' \       resume 'swaymsg "output * dpms on"' \    before-sleep 'swaylock -c 000000' This code will lock user’s screen after 300 seconds of inactivity. After 600 seconds, it will turn off all of the outputs (and turn them back on when the user simply wiggles the mouse). This configuration also locks the screen before the system goes to sleep. However, none of this will happen if while watching a video on a supported media player (mpv, for example). Other features of Sway 1.0 beta.1 The additional features in the Sway 1.0 beta version include: swaylock has a config file Drag and drop is supported Rich content (like images) is synced between the Wayland and X11 clipboards The layout is updated atomically, meaning that user will never see an in-progress frame when resizing windows Primary selection is implemented and synced with X11 To know more about Sway 1.0 beta.1 in detail, see the release notes. Chrome 70 releases with support for Desktop Progressive Web Apps on Windows and Linux Announcing the early release of Travis CI on Windows Windows 10 IoT Core: What you need to know