The Top 10, Top 10 Predictions for 2018

The time of year when crystal balls get a viewing and many pundits put out their annual predictions for the coming year. Copying off since 2012, rather than thinking up my own, I figured I’d regurgitate what many others expect to happen.

Top 10 Cyber Security Predictions for 2018 – Infosec Institute kicks off this year’s Top 10, Top 10 list with a look back at their 2017 predictions (AI, IoT, etc.) and dives head first into 2018 noting that Ransomware will be the most dangerous threat to organizations worldwide; cryptocurrency will attract fraudsters looking to mine; cloud security will (again) be a top priority; cyber insurance will explode and cyber-bullying, especially for teenagers, is at the emergency stage.

Cyber security predictions for 2018 – Information Age taps Mike McKee, CEO of insider threat management company ObserveIT, to offer his insight. Lack of security talent will lead to the outsourcing of security services. Approximately 350,000 infosec jobs are currently unfilled in the U.S. and will continue to grow. Add to that, only 11% of the world’s information security workforce are women which offers a huge opportunity according to Mike. Social engineering and human error should encourage organizations to train folks on the basics of self-preservation on the internet.

Cybersecurity trends for 2018 - For the love of ‘cyber’…or not. CSOonline reviews McAfee Inc.’s recent threats predictions report and identified five key cyber security trends to watch in 2018. There will be a machine learning arms race between attackers and defenders with IoT ransomware causing major disruptions. EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect in May so that could have some regulatory impact.

Five predictions for the hybrid cloud market in 2018 – Hyped for Hybrid? Then NetworkWorld has you covered with, ‘Public cloud gets all the attention, but private and hybrid clouds are set for big growth in 2018.’ As hybrid cloud strategies get clearer, 2018 could be a huge year for adoption with containers and PaaS as hybrid cloud platforms. They also note that Public cloud services come on-prem and there needs to be optimized connections from organizations to cloud providers.

Experts Reveal Predictions for Cloud Services in 2018 – eWeek queries a number of cloud experts for their predictions. Partnerships and consolidation of the cloud market is coming; they, like NetworkWorld, also see a huge increase in hybrid usage; workload portability will become critical; IoT metrics will need storage and SaaS will keep growing as organizations try to avoid large hardware investments.

IDC 2018 Predictions: If You’re Not In The Cloud, You’re Isolated From Innovation – In this interesting article, IDC also goes long term with some 2020 and 2021 predictions. For instance, by 2021, at least 50% of global GDP will be digitized, with growth driven by digitally-enhanced offerings, operations and relationships. By 2021, spend on cloud services and cloud enabling hardware, software and services doubles to over $530 billion. They also touch on areas like human-digital interfaces; blockchain services and even no-code development tools. This is a good list.

Deloitte’s tech predictions for 2018: More AI, digital subscriptions, AR, and live events – VentureBeat digs into Deloitte’s predictions as part of their 17th annual Technology, Media, & Telecommunications report. Mobile predictions include interesting nuggets like a fifth of North American homes will get all of their Internet data access via cellular mobile networks and adults actually worrying that they are on phones too much. We will try to limit usage. Yea-Right. All while 5 million phones a day are being sold worldwide. TV viewing will continue to decline while more than a billion smartphone users will be creating augmented reality content at least once during 2018, with 300 million doing so monthly and tens of millions weekly.

10 Enterprise IoT Predictions for 2018 – With endless partnerships & collaboration tied to IoT, ‘co-everything’ will drive the co-economy with customers becoming co-innovators. With that, open standards, open architectures and interoperability will be key…with government regulation not far behind. Agriculture and Healthcare will emerge as the leading adopters of IoT due to innovative use cases. IoT will shift from driving efficiencies to creating new business value. AI, fog and blockchain will become important for broad adoption.

2018 Predictions For The Data Center Industry – Applications live in data centers and as I’ve said before, the Cloud is just a Data Center somewhere. Mission Critical Magazine taps into some data center trends with the biggest being, ‘IT and data center managers around the globe will become the backbone for advanced cloud infrastructure tools that provide them with a high level of flexibility and visibility into their new mixed cloud environment – adding another layer of complexity to their role.’  It’s also become less of a ‘what if’ and more of a ‘when’ in terms of unforeseen events causing outages. With that, we’ll begin to see less of a reactive approach to one that is more proactive according to Jeff Klaus, GM Data Center Management Solutions for Intel.

Predictions As A Service – If you thought the acronym PaaS was taken, then Networking Nerd will open your eyes since he thinks the prediction business is a house of cards built on quicksand. He has his safe bet layups like - Whitebox switching will grow in revenue; Software will continue to transform networking and Cisco is going to buy companies without even stepping into 2018. And then moves on to his out-on-a-limb, far out predictions like ‘HPE will go out of business’ among others. His closing take is that he’d rather try to figure out how to use what he already has today and build that toward the future because, that’s a headline you’ll never live down.

Maybe we should heed his advice.

Are you ready for 2018?

ps

Interested to see if any of the previous year’s prognoses came true?

• The Top 10, Top 10 Predictions for 2017
• The Top 10, Top 10 Predictions for 2016
• The Top 10, Top 10 Predictions for 2015
• The Top 10, Top 10 Predictions for 2014
• The Top 10, Top 10 2013 Predictions
• The Top 10, Top Predictions for 2012

This article originally appeared on F5.com

Is 2017 Half Empty or Half Full?

Ransomware seems to be this year’s huge trend

With 2017 crossing the half way point, let's look at some technology trends thus far.
Breaches: Many personal records are half empty due to the continued rash of intrusions while the crooks are half full of our personal information along with some ransom payments. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), there have been 7,689 breaches since 2005 (when they started tracking) compromising – get this – 900,315,392 records. Almost 3 times the U.S. population. In 2016, 56% of all Data Breaches began with a user clicking on a phishing email. The big story for 2017 I think, is the rise of ransomware. Kaspersky reports a 250% increase in ransomware for the first few months of 2017. From WannaCry to Petya to Fusob, criminals are holding systems hostage until a ransom is paid…or not. Ransomware seems to be this year’s big trend with backups saving some from total embarrassment.

Cloud Computing: RightScale 2017 State of the Cloud Report notes that Hybrid Cloud Is the preferred enterprise strategy, with 85 percent of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy (up from 82 percent in 2016) and Cloud Users Are Running Applications in Multiple Clouds. An interesting stat from the report says, cloud users are running applications in an average of 1.8 public clouds and 2.3 private clouds. We got hybrid cars, hybrid corn, hybrid cats and hybrid clouds but The Cloud is Still just a Datacenter Somewhere so no need to freak out. Cloud seems to be more than half full as the security and expertise challenges decline.

DNS: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, DNS is one of the most important components of a functioning internet. With that, it presents unique challenges to organizations. 2016 saw record-breaking DNS-based attacks and outages, which thrust DNS management into the spotlight as both a vulnerability and a critical asset. In 2016 DNS provider Dyn experienced a huge DDoS attack taking out many popular websites and internet cameras. And a new attack uncovered this year, DNSMessenger, uses DNS queries to conduct malicious PowerShell commands on compromised computers – a technique that makes the remote access trojan difficult to detect on targeted systems. The need for DNS continues to be half-full with the influx of IoT devices so it’ll continue to be a valuable target for riff-raff.

IoT: What can I say? The cup runneth over…again. Gartner has identified the Top 10 IoT technologies that should be on every organization's radar for 2017 and 2018. They include things like new security risks and challenges to the IoT devices themselves, their platforms and operating systems, their communications, and even the systems to which they're connected. Analytics to understand customer behavior, to deliver services and improve products. Device management, device processors, operating systems, platforms, standards and even the networks IoT devices use are all areas of attention. IoT is really three-quarters full both with the opportunities and potential risks. And the risks can be deadly when monitoring vital information like human vital signs.

Mobile: We are mobile, our devices are mobile and the applications we access are mobile. Mobility, in all its iterations, is a huge enabler and concern for enterprises and it'll only get worse as we start wearing our connected clothing to the office. 5G is still a couple years away but AT&T and Verizon have already lined up trials of their 5G networks for 2017. Mobile is certainly half full and there is no emptying it now.

That's what I got so far and I'm sure 2017's second half will bring more amazement, questions and wonders. We'll do our year-end reviews and predictions for 2018 as we all lament, where did the Year of the Rooster go?

There's that old notion that if you see a glass half full, you're an optimist and if you see it half empty you are a pessimist. I think you need to understand what state the glass itself was before the question. Was it empty and filled half way or was it full and poured out? There's your answer!

ps


This article originally appeared on F5.com.

What to Expect in 2017: Mobile Device Security

We are mobile, our devices are mobile, the networks we connect to are mobile and the applications we access are mobile. Mobility, in all its iterations, is a huge enabler and concern for enterprises and it'll only get worse as we start wearing our connected clothing to the office.

If the last 10 years wasn’t warning enough, 2017 will be a huge year for mobile…again. Every year, it seems, new security opportunities, challenges and questions surround the mobile landscape. And now it encompasses more than just the device that causes phantom vibration syndrome, it now involves the dizzying array of sensors, devices and automatons in our households, offices and municipalities. Mobile has infiltrated our society and our bodies along with it.

So the security stakes are high.

The more we become one with our mobile devices, the more they become targets. It holds our most precious secrets which can be very valuable. We need to use care when operating such a device since, in many ways, our lives depend on it. And with the increased automation, digitization and data gathering, there are always security concerns.

So how do we stay safe?

The consumerization of IT technologies has made us all administrators of our personal infrastructure of connected devices. Our digital self has become a life of its own. As individuals we need to stay vigilant about clicking suspicious links, updating software, changing passwords, backing up data, watching financial accounts, having AV/FW and generally locking down devices like we do the doors to our home. Even then, the smartphone enabled deadbolt can be a risk. And we haven’t even touched on mobile payment systems, IoT botnets or the untested, insecure apps on the mobile phone itself.

Cybersecurity is a social issue that impacts us all and we all need to be accountable.

For enterprises, mobile devices carry an increased risk, especially personal devices connecting to an internal network. From regulatory compliance to the disgruntled employee, keeping sensitive information secret is top concern. BYOD policies and MDM solutions help as does segmenting those devices away from critical info. And the issue isn’t so much seeing restricted information, especially if your job requires it, it is more about unauthorized access if the device is compromised or lost. Many organizations have policies in place to combat this, including a total device wipe…which may also blast your personal keepsakes. The endpoint security market is maturing but won’t fill the ever-present security gaps.

From your workforce to your customers, your mobile web applications are also a target. The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) reports a 250 percent jump in the number of detected phishing websites between October 2015 and March 2016. Around 230,000 unique phishing campaigns a month, many aimed at mobile devices arriving as worrisome text messages. Late 2016 saw mobile browsing overtake desktop for the first time and Google now favors mobile-friendly websites for its mobile search results. A double compatibility and SEO whammy.

And those two might not be the biggest risk to an organization since weakest link in the security ecosystem might be third-party vendors and suppliers.

On the industrial side, tractors, weather sensors, street lights, HVAC systems, your car and other critical infrastructure are now mobile devices with their own unique security implications. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) focuses on industrial control systems, device to network access and all the other connective sensor capabilities. These attacks are less frequent, at least today, but the consequences can be huge – taking out industrial plants, buildings, farms, and even entire cities.

The Digital Dress Code has emerged and with 5G on the way, mobile device security takes on a whole new meaning.

ps

Related:

• Mobile Trends For 2017 And Beyond
• Perspectives on Securing Mobile and Social Business, 12 Months On
• RSAC17: More ransomware and IoT-enabled attacks on the way, warns expert
• Mobile Malware Milestone
• Mobile banking and how to stay secure
• What Does Mobile Mean, Anyway?
• BYOD - concentrate on the apps, not the devices
• 10 Security Trends To Watch For At RSA 2017

Blog Roll 2016

It’s that time of year when we gift and re-gift, just like this text from last year. And the perfect opportunity to re-post, re-purpose and re-use all my 2016 entries.

After 12 years at F5, I had a bit of a transition in 2016, joining the amazing DevCentral team in February as a Sr. Solution Developer. You may have noticed a much more technical bent since then…hopefully. We completed our 101 Certification Exam this year and will be shooting for the 201 next quarter. We started highlighting our community with Featured Member spotlight articles and I finally started contributing to the awesome LightBoard Lessons series. I also had ACDF surgery this year, which is why November is so light. Thanks to the team for all their support this year. You guys are the best!

If you missed any of the 53 attempts including 7 videos, here they are wrapped in one simple entry. I read somewhere that lists in articles are good. I broke it out by month to see what was happening at the time and let's be honest, pure self-promotion. I truly appreciate the reading and watching throughout 2016.

Have a Safe and Happy New Year!


January

• You Are the Device in 2016
• Five Information Security New Year's Resolutions
• Meet the Sensors
• Internet of Insider Threats
• Backseat Drivers, Your Wish Has Come True

February

• The New, Old Kid in Town
• Five Ways #IamF5
• OK 2016 Monkey, Whatcha Got?
• Wearing Emotions on Your Sleeve...Literally
• Would You Put Corporate Applications in the Cloud?
• RSA Security Octagon: What's the Best Way to Secure Applications?

March

• The Roadblock for Malicious Traffic
• Hello Infiltrators - Our Doors are Wide Open
• Jumping on the Rails of the Technical Train
• Time It Takes the Fingers to Remember a New Password? About 3 days
• Get Smart with IP Intelligence

April

• The Land of the Partially Connected
• Plugging Data Leaks
• Let the Training Begin!
• You’re Getting Under My (e)-Skin
• The Dangerous Game of DNS
• You Never Know When...

May

• The Visible Data of the Invisible User
• DevCentral at Agility 2016 - The Preview Video

June

• Are People Programmable?
• The Double Whammy of Scripting
• Control It All with iControl
• Your Applications Deserve iApps
• Orchestrate Your Infrastructure

July

• Q/A with Yann Desmarest - DevCentral's Featured Member for July
• The Road to F5 Certification
• Is 2016 Half Empty or Half Full?
• DevCentral at F5 Agility 2016

August

• Q/A with SpringCM's Joel Newton - DevCentral's Featured Member for August
• I Am an Application Delivery Fundamentalist!
• I'm Sorry Sir, You're Obsolete
• The Intruders of Things
• Time to Get Prepping for the F5 Certification 201 Exam

September

• Q/A with Secure-24's Josh Becigneul - DevCentral's Featured Member for September
• 750th Blog Spectacular - Lessons of the LightBoard
• Don’t Take the Impostor’s Bait
• Lightboard Lessons: DNS Scalability & Security
• Lock Down Your Login
• Lightboard Lessons: Secure & Optimize VDI

October

• Q/A with ExITeam’s Security Engineer Stanislas Piron - DevCentral's Featured Member for October
• F5 Access for Your Chromebook
• Lightboard Lessons: BIG-IP in Hybrid Environments
• Your SSL Secrets Uncovered

November

• Q/A with Rackspace Network Architect Vijay Emarose - DevCentral's Featured Member for November

December

• Managing Your Vulnerabilities
• The Top 10, Top 10 Predictions for 2017
• F5 DevCentral Asks, ‘How Can We Help in 2017?’
• Lightboard Lessons: SSO to Legacy Web Applications

And a couple special holiday themed entries from years past.

• e-card Malware
• X marks the Games

ps
Related

• Blog Roll 2015
• Blog Roll 2014
• Blog Roll 2013
• Blog Roll 2012
• Blog Roll 2011

The Visible Data of the Invisible User

As the march to connect each and every noun on this planet continues with a blistering pace, the various ways, contraptions and sensors used to collect data is greatly expanding. What once was a (relatively) small collection of fitness trackers, smartwatches, thermostats, automobiles and surveillance cameras has grown into a an industry where shirts, shoes, sleeping bags and even liquor bottles want to gather your info. And most of these devices monitor silently without you even knowing. According to Ryan Matthew Pierson over at Readwrite.com, ‘The strength of IoT is in its ability to be invisible to the user.’

In addition, the mad dash to simply insert a chip, beacon and software into everyday objects is slowly graduating to era where user experience, privacy and security are becoming critically important for mass adoption. In 2014 Gartner released a report saying the typical family home could have as many as 500 smart devices by 2022. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) notes that 20% of US households now own an activity tracking wearable device, two-times the households that owned one last year. And Nielsen reported that smartphone penetration has reached 82% in the U.S.

Interacting and engaging with the customer in real time is a desire of many organizations.

From media and entertainment, to appliances, to transport technologies, to security and environmental controls, along with healthcare and fitness equipment almost every ‘thing’ around us will track something. Or as Dr. Nick Riviera sings, ‘The knee bone's connected to the something. The something's connected to the red thing. The red thing's connected to my wrist watch... Uh oh.’

And it is not only consumer items.

The Industrial IoT is helping farmers with connected tractors, soil sensors, crop health apps and the like. There are HVAC systems that are managed by sensors; Streetlights, utilities, parking and traffic in a connected city; and even sports teams are using wearable tech to gain a competitive advantage. And according to Research and Markets, wearable tech in schools is set to surge over the next 5 years.

With the IoT growth comes threats, along with resources to reduce the risks. In Gartner’s latest forecast, IoT security spending is set to nearly double between 2014 and 2018, growing from about $232 million to almost $550 million. Nearly $350 million will go into securing IoT this year alone. They also predict that there will be 6.4 billion connected devices in use worldwide this year, up 30% from 2015.

The security investment is good news since according to Spiceworks and Cox Business, the flood of IT devices entering the market does create security and privacy issues in the workplace. 84% of their survey-takers named the growing number of entry points into the network as a major concern. Number two on the list, at 70% of respondents, was insufficient security measures on the part of IoT manufacturers.

But soon we might be able to solve some of the challenges with our Brain.

There are some very smart research brains out there that have come up with a way to identify you by your brain waves with 100% accuracy. This is your Brainprint. A team of researchers at Binghamton University, recorded the brain activity of 50 people wearing an electroencephalogram headset while they looked at a series of 500 images. The pictures were designed specifically to elicit unique responses from person to person. Images included things like pizza, a boat, certain words, celebrities and so forth. They found that participants' brains reacted differently to each image, enough that a computer system was able to identify each volunteer's ‘brainprint’ with 100% accuracy.

According to researchers, brain biometrics are appealing because they are cancellable and cannot be stolen by malicious means like a fingerprint or retina scan. The results indicate that brainwaves could be used by security systems to verify a person's identity. This could be key since our personal data and pattern of life seems to be more valuable now than a silly, worthless credit card number.

Brain & Invisibility: Activate!

   << signed 'ps' in Invisible Ink

Related:

• Wearable sleeping bag liner brings the heat at camp
• Researchers can identify you by your brain waves with 100 percent accuracy
• IoT Security Spending to Skyrocket
• Widespread IoT adoption requires good user experience
• The wearable tech giving sports teams winning ways
• Over 10 billion shirts and shoes will soon talk back to you via your phone
• School wearables to surge over next five years

You Never Know When...

An old article gets new life. #TBT

Back in 2012 I wrote an article titled Bait Phone. It was about cops dropping mobile phones with a tracking device and following the stealing culprit for an arrest. Like Bait Car but with a smartphone.

Over the weekend, I noticed that the article was blowing up but couldn’t figure out why:

I even tweeted out on Monday:

At the time, I didn't realize something else was at play.

Then I decided to do a twitter search:

And found that a video with the same name as my blog post was trending: Bait Phone 2 - basically a stun gun with a remote. Over 2.2 million YouTube views in less than a week. It’s a prank video where they have a remote zapper to sting the culprits when they grab & walk away with the phone. One guy - who had it in his pocket - denied taking it until he was personally shocked.

When I did a Google search over the weekend, my article was still at the top but now the article is like #13 listed (maybe even lower) and the video has taken the top spot.

But you never know when an old article might pop due to some other circumstances. At least folks are reading it and not totally bailing!

Fun stuff.


ps 

Meet the Sensors

I often write about the Internet of Things, or the soon-to-be-cliché IoT. You know, the smart-fridges, smart-cars, smart-thermostats, healthcare devices, wearables and any of those connected devices that have a sensor, gathers data and reports back to some entity. You are able to control these devices (and see the data) with mobile apps or even your own voice and gestures. They are all the rage and sitting at the top of the Gartner Hype Cycle.

But it’s all the various sensors inside those devices that are doing the actual measuring, calculating, tracking and reporting. Each has its own specialty providing specific functionality. I’ve always wondered about what’s inside some of the wearables let’s take a look at a few.

Have you ever wondered what spins the screen so you’re not looking at an upside down picture? That’s an Accelerometer. It measures orientation and movement. The iPhone was the first to use this back in 2007 and amazement ensued. It can tell the difference between running away from a charging buffalo in Yellowstone verses making faces with a chimp at the zoo. It can also tell if you’re sleeping simply by the fact that you haven’t moved for a while. These are typically used to track step count and how well you’ve rested.

I noted that the accelerometer measures step count but what about those steps up a flight of stairs? Well, that would be the Altimeter. Altimeters measure altitude so it can sense changes in height. In conjunction with the steps the accelerometer counted, the altimeter will add its bits and give you a more accurate calorie count for those fire escape runs. Instead of asking how tall someone is, next time ask ‘What’s your alti?’

And if you’re going to step out for a run, you might want to know if it’ll be sunny or sprinkles during the trek. Often seen as a smaller dial on an outdoor clock but now on wristbands, a Barometer measures atmospheric pressure – the weight of air in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s used in forecasting the weather and you often hear meteorologists note, ‘There’s a high ridge of atmospheric pressure keeping the rain away.’ At least that’s what they’ve been saying in California about the drought.

So you thought of attempting an Iron Man competition but wondered if your device could differentiate between the swimming, biking and running. You’re in luck if your device has a Gyroscope. Using the Earth’s gravity, it can help determine orientation. The big difference between an accelerometer and a gyroscope is that a gyroscope can also measure rotation or more specifically, the rate of rotation around a particular axis. Gyroscopes take into account the Earth’s gravity and rotation while the accelerometer does not.

If tracking stars for navigation and location like the early Polynesians is not your style, then the ever popular GPS is your tool. Using three satellites to ‘triangulate’ your location, the receiver measures distance to the first satellite. Based on that, you are in a certain sphere location on the planet. It then measures the distance to the second satellite to get another sphere location. Therefore, you must be somewhere on the circle where these two spheres intersect. By using a third satellite reading, the sphere that cuts through the circle of the intersection of the first two spheres narrows your location even more. Now our position is narrowed to two points in space. One of those two points is so absurd and instantly tossed, thus leaving you with an exact location.

There are a bunch of other sensors like Optical Heart Rate Monitors, typically worn on the wrist and it shines a tiny light against your skin to measure the blood pumping through your arm veins. And the various Gesture Tech things that use a little camera to see your hand and body movements to translate that into action on a gaming device, or a drone following your Snake River Canyon jump or even turning up the volume on the TV. It’d be cool to move something out of the way by effortlessly swiping your hand in the air, huh?

Sensors have been all around us for a while but now they are becoming close confidants. We should get to know our new Ohana.

ps

Related

• What do the sensors in wearable tech actually do?
• The World's First Urine-Powered Wearable Is Here
• Accelerometer vs. Gyroscope: What's the Difference?
• Wearables Head to Tail
• Oh, Is That The Internet You're Wearing?
• Connecting the Threads
• Our Five Senses on Sensors
• Sensors and IoT

Technorati Tags: iot,wearables,sensors,humans,silva,f5,mobile

Connect with Peter:	Connect with F5:

Blog Roll 2015

It’s that time of year when we gift and re-gift, just like this text from last year. And the perfect opportunity to re-post, re-purpose and re-use all my 2015 blog entries. If you missed any of the 89 attempts including 59 videos, here they are wrapped in one simple entry. I read somewhere that lists in blogs are good. I broke it out by month to see what was happening at the time and let's be honest, pure self-promotion.

Thanks for reading and watching throughout 2015.

Have a Safe and Happy New Year.

January 2015

• OK 2015, Now What?
• The Analog Generation
• Application Availability Between Hybrid Data Centers
• Will Deflate-Gate Lead to Micro-Chipped Footballs?
• VMware Partner Exchange 2015: Video Preview

February

• VMware PEX 2015 – Find F5
• VMware PEX 2015 – What Customers Want From Security Vendors
• VMware PEX 2015 – BIG-IP on vCloud Air
• VMware PEX 2015 – F5 Channel Partner Ecosystem
• VMware PEX 2015 – That’s a Wrap!
• 5 Ways #IamF5
• The Internet of Me, Myself & I
• Intelligent DNS Animated Whiteboard
• Mobile World Congress 2015 - The Preview Video

March

• MWC 2015 - Find F5
• MWC 2015 – NFV for Service Providers (feat Yue)
• MWC 2015 – Threats to Mobile Carrier Networks (feat George)
• MWC 2015 – How LTE Roaming Works (feat Nas)
• MWC 2015 – Getting Work Done on the Go (feat Carovano)
• MWC 2015 - SDN Demystified (feat Duncan)
• MWC 2015 – TCP Opt for Service Providers (feat Yue)
• MWC 2015 – Enhancing Subscriber’s Quality of Experience (feat Mahmoodi)
• MWC 2015 – The Mobile Revolution with F5 CEO John McAdam
• MWC 2015 – That’s a Wrap!
• Lost in Translation...in Italy

April

• Healthcare in the Crosshairs
• What are These "Things”?
• IoT Influence on Society
• RSA 2015 - The Preview Video
• RSA2015 – Find F5
• RSA2015 Partner Spotlight - RSA Risk Based Authentication
• RSA2015 – Defending the New Perimeter
• RSA2015 – The InfoSec Landscape with Jeremiah Grossman
• RSA2015 Partner Spotlight: FireEye Partnership
• RSA2015 – SSL Everywhere (feat Holmes)
• RSA2015 – That’s a Wrap!
• IoT Effect on Applications

May

• IoT Ready Infrastructure
• F5 Agility EMEA 2015 - The Preview Video
• F5 EMEA Agility 2015 - Welcome to Edinburgh
• What Are You Looking Forward To At F5 Agility 2015?
• F5 Agility 2015 EMEA – ACI with F5 & Cisco
• F5 Agility 2015 EMEA – King Robert the Bruce
• F5 Agility 2015 EMEA – Sir William Wallace
• That’s a Wrap from EMEA F5 Agility 2015

June

• The IoT Ready Platform
• I Almost Bit...and Would've Been Bitten

July

• F5 Animated Whiteboards
• Is 2015 Half Empty or Half Full?
• F5Agility15 - The Preview Video

August

• Welcome to F5 Agility 2015
• Innovate, Expand, Deliver with F5 CEO Manny Rivelo
• Get F5 Certified at F5 Agility 2015
• Software Defined Data Center Made Easy with F5 and VMware
• F5 DevCentral Solves Your BIG-IP Questions
• That's a Wrap from #F5Agility15
• Our Five Senses on Sensors
• VMworld2015 – The Preview Video
• VMworld2015 – Find F5
• VMworld2015 – Realize the Virtual Possibilities (feat. de la Motte)

September

• VMworld2015 – Business Mobility Made Easy with F5 and VMware (feat. Venezia)
• Software Defined Data Center Made Simple (feat. Pindell) - VMworld2015
• That’s a Wrap from VMworld2015
• F5 + Blue Medora: Gain Control of Your Applications with vRealize
• Is Your DNS Vulnerable?

October

• AWS re:Invent 2015 – The Preview Video
• IoT: Tabs to be Read Later
• Find F5 at AWS re:Invent 2015
• AWS re:Invent 2015 - Value of App Services in the Cloud (feat Vrankic)
• AWS re:Invent 2015 – SSL Everywhere…Including the Cloud (feat Stanley)
• AWS re:Invent 2015 – Web Application Firewall in the Cloud (feat Haynes)
• AWS re:Invent 2015 – Programmability in the Cloud (feat Applebaum)
• AWS re:Invent 2015 – The F5 Ready Program (feat Pickering)
• That’s a Wrap from AWS re:Invent 2015
• The Wave of Change at Tech Events
• F5 + SimpliVity: Deploy and Simplify Application Deployments Together
• Wearables Head to Tail
• F5 + Nutanix: Invisible Infrastructure and SDAS Joining Forces

November

• Ask the Expert – Are WAFs Dead?
• Ask the Expert – Why SSL Everywhere?
• Ask the Expert – Why Web Fraud Protection?
• Ask the Expert – Why Identity and Access Management?
• Connecting the Threads
• Identity Theft: Not So Scary Anymore?
• F5 Blog: Backseat Drivers, Your Wish Has Come True
• Inside the ALOHA!

December

• Arguing with Things
• Punchbowl, Pearl Harbor and my Grandparents
• The Top 10, Top 10 Predictions for 2016

And a couple special holiday themed entries from years past.

• e-card Malware
• X marks the Games

ps
Related

• Blog Roll 2014
• Blog Roll 2013
• Blog Roll 2012
• Blog Roll 2011

Technorati Tags: f5,big-ip,security,cloud,mobile,video,silva,2015,blogs,iot,things

Connect with Peter:	Connect with F5:

Is 2015 Half Empty or Half Full?

With 2015 crossing the half way point, let's take a look at some technology trends thus far.

Breaches: Well, many databases are half empty due to the continued rash of intrusions while the crooks are half full with our personal information. Data breaches are on a record pace this year and according to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), there have been 400 data incidents as of June 30, 2015. One more than this time last year. And, 117,576,693 records had been compromised. ITRC also noted a 85% increase in the number of breaches within the banking sector. From health care to government agencies to hotel chains to universities and even Major League Baseball, breaches and attacks are now a daily occurrence.

Cloud: Who would've thought back in 2008 that this cloud thing would now be half full? Over the last couple years, the 'cloud' has become a very viable option for organizations large and small. It is becoming the platform for IoT and many organizations such as Google and GE are now moving critical corporate applications to the cloud. While hybrid is the new normal remember, The Cloud is Still just a Datacenter Somewhere.

DNS: While IPv4 addresses are now completely empty, DNS seems to be half to almost full in 2015. DNS continues to be a target for attackers along with being an enabler for IoT. It is so important that Cisco recently acquired OpenDNS to help fight IoT attacks and the courts got a guilty plea from an Estonian man who altered DNS settings on infected PCs with the DNSChanger malware. I think of DNS as a silent sufferer - you really don't care about it until it doesn't work. Start caring this year.

Internet: Full but still growing. As noted above, IPv4 addresses are gone. Asia, Europe, Latin America and now North America have run out of IPv4 addresses and have exhausted their supplies. If you're wondering how to handle this glass, F5 has some awesome 4to6 and 6to4 solutions.

IoT: Things, sensors and actuators are all the buzz and are certainly half full for 2015. At this time last year, IoT was at the top of the Gartner Hype Cycle and it has certainly not disappointed. Stories abound about Internet of Things Security Risks and Challenges, 10 of the biggest IoT data generators, the Top 10 Worst Wearable Tech Devices So Far, The (Far-Flung) Future Of Wearables, along with the ability to Smell Virtual Environments and if We Need Universal Robot Rights, Ethics And Legislation. RoboEthics, that is.

Mobile: We are mobile, our devices are mobile and the applications we access are now probably mobile also. Mobility, in all it's connotations, is a huge concern for enterprises and it'll only get worse as we start wearing our connected clothing to the office. The Digital Dress Code has emerged. Mobile is certainly half full and there is no empting it now.

Privacy: At this point with all the surveillance, data breaches, gadgets gathering our daily data and our constant need to tell the world what we're doing every second, this is probably bone dry. Pardon, half empty, sticking to the theme.

That's what I got so far and I'm sure 2015's second half will bring more amazement, questions and wonders. We'll do our year in reviews and predictions for 2016 as we all lament, where did 2015 go? There is that old notion that if you see a glass half full, you're an optimist and if you see it half empty you are a pessimist. Actually, you need to understand what the glass itself was before the question. Was it empty and filled half way or was it full and poured out? There's you answer!

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Lost in Translation...in Italy

I've been travelling recently. To places and fields that have limited to no mobile connectivity and this can be a challenge when a challenge arises.
Immediately following Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this month, my family embarked on a multi-week European vacation. After spending a couple more days in Spain, we jumped on the rail to Paris for a couple days and then on to Rome for 10 days. The Eiffel Tower along with 'I see London, I see France, I see Daddy's....' request was our daughter's and Italy was something we've wanted to do for a while. During the train ride - which was fantastic - we saw vineyards, castles, the Alps, old bunkers and tons of scenery you never get on an airplane. It's almost like eavesdropping on these remote lives as you pass by at 187 mph while they hang their clothes to dry or tend to their fields. Yes, mobile connectivity was very spotty but it was not a big deal since we were enjoying the views and had no reason to 'connect.' I even turned the phone off at various times just for the peace.
In the major cities like Paris and Rome and if you have roaming of course, you're able to connect to one of the available 3G mobile networks within that country. While not LTE, you get decent connectivity and can accomplish many of the mobile tasks that have become commonplace - email, maps, navigation, browsing and so forth. Incidentally, if you want to learn how LTE Roaming works, check out this video we did at MWC15. It is when you venture out, Griswold style, when you can get into trouble.
While in Rome, we visited many of the typical tourism destinations like The Coliseum, Pantheon, Vatican, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and others. It seemed like our entire trip was going exactly as planned and we were having a wonderful time. That is, until the day we left Rome to return to Barcelona for our flight home. The real adventure was about to begin - like the last 20 minutes of a movie when you think everything is wrapped up and that last big crisis hits.
We bought, what we thought, were rail tickets from Rome back to Barcelona. They were less expensive than our inbound rail, which for some reason, didn't fire off the warning bells but we thought that since it was direct, it should be fine. We get on the train and have a nice semi-private area to stretch out and relax on the trip back. As we start the journey, everything seems great - the scenery, the company and we packed some good snacks for the ride. The conductor came through, verified our tickets and we felt like we could unwind. After a little while, we can see the Mediterranean Sea but it is on the wrong side of the train. A little concerned, I asked a uniformed staff if this was the train to Barcelona and was assured that it was. OK, maybe we go South for a few stops but turn around and head North. Seemed reasonable.
We arrive at the Pompei station and get to see Mt. Vesuvius but at this point, we start to get concerned. I find the rail staff for a second time and again asked if this is the train to Barcelona. Even adding that we're going South and wondered if it turns and goes North (up & around, etc.) at some point. Again I'm told that we are going to Barcelona. More time passes and as we get further South, connectivity gets spotty. As it goes in and out, I search, 'does the train from Rome to Barcelona go under the Mediterranean Sea?' There is the English Channel Chunnel so maybe this does the same thing? Nope. Now I'm panicked.
I find yet a third staff member and ask where are we going. It is at that point I learn that we are not headed for Barcelona Spain but Barcellona (Pozzo di Gotto) Italy. We're supposed to be on our return home flight from Spain in less than 36 hours and we're heading for Sicily. He says there is an airport in Catania and we might be able to get a flight to Barcelona. But with no connectivity, we can't see what is available and didn't want to risk arriving with no flights. I ask when is the next train back to Rome...at least get back there. We're told to get off at the next stop, San Giovanni, and we might be able to catch the overnight. Frantically, we grab our stuff, jump off and look around. Pretty grim. After a couple ups and downs of stairs with our bags, we finally make it to the ticket window. I explain that we want to go to Barcelona and the agent tells us, we just missed the train. I pull out a mobile translator and again attempt to communicate. I get frustrated, the agent gets frustrated and we're stuck. I grab a piece of paper and write SPAIN on it and his eyes finally light up but there is no path from where we are to Barcelona. It's 18:00 hours and we have less than 24 hours to reach Spain.
While a crowd gathers behind us, we ask about a train to Milan. Luckily, there is one and it leaves in 30 minutes. We'll take it! It's an overnight and we don't arrive in Milan until 11am the next day. Down to 20 hours before our plane leaves for to LAX. Hopefully we can get on a Milan to Barcelona flight but without connectivity, there's no way of knowing. We get on the train and I start crying - not so much because we're lost in a foreign country but the relief we're finally going in the right direction. Since we can't determine our next steps, the only thing to do is attempt to rest in this little 3 bunk room. The conductors on this route helped as much they could and told us that this happens to people almost every other month. We're not alone but we're nowhere near a solution.
We finally get to Milan and immediately jump in a cab to take the 45 minute/90Euro ride to the airport. We also have some 3G connectivity and at least see there are a few flights to Barcelona but also rely on the cab driver to point us in the right direction. In addition, the connectivity is so spotty on the way that trying to book a flight becomes impossible. At the airport we find the ticket window and buy some of the last remaining tickets for the last flight to Barcelona that day. After not bathing or sleeping for two days, I still felt relieved. We just might make it. As an eerie aside, just the day before our flight path went over the same location as the crashed Germanwings plane. Our jaws dropped when we learned of the tragedy.
We land in Barcelona with 12 hours to spare. Get to our hotel, eat, shower and collapse for a few hours. Not taking any chances, we head out early, make our flight and am grateful to finally be home to tell this story. I learned a lot about geography, mobile connectivity, communication, security, and about myself. We've become so dependent on connectivity and it seems that we've become one with our mobile devices but when there is no signal and they can't help in a crisis, paper, pencils and people still matter. While harrowing, it was an amazing adventure and a fitting end to our wonderful trip.
ps

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