Tuesday, October 19

James Bond Inspired Datacenter

Why watch the movies when you can actually visit the lair..

Jon Karlung, CEO at Bahnhof, took inspiration from James Bond movies, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes back, Logan’s Run, and Silent Running in converting a nuclear bunker in Stockholm, Sweden into the world’s most physically secure datacenter. The front entrance can be reached only by tunnel, the doors are nearly 16 inches of steel, located below 100 feet of solid granite, and designed to withstand a hydrogen bomb. They kept its code name, Pionen White Mountains.
The facility has simulated daylight, walls covered with plants, conservatories, man-made waterfalls, and massive saltwater fish tank. There is space for 6k servers and heat generated by servers is recycled to
James Bond Inspired Datacenter
heat the facility and area housing. Two German submarine engines serve as backup power.

Thursday, October 21

Datacenters in Movies

Technology, including special effects in movies, as truly evolved. How have datacenters evolved in movies – not just as a background prop but as a central feature? We highlight a few movies below…

2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968

Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester – A quest to find mankind’s origins with help from supercomputer H.A.L 9000

The main character must disassemble the AI villain inside the datacenter. And, while datacenters did not make it to space by 2001, that technology is well underway for the near future. The movie is iconic in reflecting much of the technology we take for granted today.

WarGames, 1987

Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, John Wood – A young man finds a backdoor to a military central computer and game play is blurred with reality and the potential threat of WWIII. Okay, fair enough, no datacenter. But, it gets an honorable mention at that start of this evolution because President Reagan

Wednesday, October 13

Most Expensive Take-Out: $5.9M Ransomware Attack on Food Supply

Darkside and REvil ransomware groups spawned BlackMatter, an evil ransomware group claiming to have inherited the best features of its parent organizations. BlackMatter attacked NEW Cooperative Inc., shut down its operations, and demanded $5.9M ransom. NEW Cooperative, Inc is a member-owned farmer cooperative with 60 operating locations throughout north, central and western Iowa. They have been in business since 1973 and generate over $424M annual revenue. NEW Cooperative Inc, operates grain storage elevators, buys crops from farmers, sells chemicals, and owns technology platforms for farmers that provide agronomic advice to maximize harvest. Their software provides for management of 40% of grain production and 11 million animals feed schedules. The company created temporary workarounds to receive grain and distribute feed.

Monday, September 27

Data Storage in Cars

A car can generate about 25GB of data every hour and as much as 4TB a day, according to some estimates. This data is estimated to be worth as much $750B by 2030. Even without autonomous vehicles or everything electrified, cars have many computer systems and technologies controlling and storing data. DRAM and NAND solutions to handle these processes.
DRAM tends to be faster, with greater bandwidth for adaptive driving technologies while NAND is slower, nonvolatile memory - integral to navigation, customization, accident and collision information.

The largest NAND flash memory manufacturers: Samsung – 29.9%, Kioxia – 20.2%, Micron Technology– 16.5%, Western Digital (SanDisk) – 14.9%, SK Hynix – 9.5%, Intel – 8.5%.

Friday, October 1

Smart Grid Data Analytics Opportunities

Conventional electric grids have limited measurement and control capabilities. A smart grid optimizes the generation, distribution, and consumption of electricity though shared information and communication technologies. Smart grid big data is characterized by high volume, wide varieties of structured and unstructured data, varying velocity from real-time upward, veracity inconsistencies such as redundancies and missing data, and varying values. It is necessary to process large volume and varieties of real-time and historical data to make meaningful data-driven decisions. Smart grid data analytics provide opportunities for efficient operation, controlling grid assets, distributed energy resources, end user energy consumption in real time, planning processes, and new business models.

Tuesday, September 14

Can You Prevent Cyber Crime? Insurance Price Hikes Indicate Otherwise.

Cyber insurance premiums are going way up, and Evan Greenberg, Chubb CEO, warns that those increases do not capture the actual risk of a catastrophic cyber event. Prior to the prevalence of ransomware attacks, insurance companies focused on privacy, such as keeping and storing records, versus business interruption costs. Ransomware has radically altered the landscape of cyber insurance and now accounts for 75% of cyber insurance claims. The increase in claims far exceeds the bump in insurance costs. And, there is not a clear path to reducing the risks and capturing the true costs of a breach.
Is paying ransom to criminals driving up insurance costs as the insurance companies themselves feed the cybercriminal enterprise? Companies may focus less on cybercrime prevention knowing that demands will be met; hackers see companies with solid insurance coverage as highly desirable targets for easy payouts.

Thursday, September 16

Cybercriminals try to trick employees into clinking links to infiltrate and exploit system weaknesses via phishing emails. Additionally, a new approach by a Nigerian criminal enterprise takes a more direct approach. If they cannot trick employees into clicking on links in phishing email, perhaps they can be upfront, and invite them to orchestrate the breach. This group is offering employees a cut of the ransom, initially offering as much as $1M, if employees help sabotage their employer by installing DemonWare on their network. They identify prospective employee targets using LinkedIn.
Researchers at Abnormal Security posed as prospective willing accomplice employees. The criminal group promised the prospective accomplices they would not be caught by their employer because the ransomware would encrypt everything on the system. 

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Tuesday, September 21

Tech giants, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Apple have pledged major investments to bolster private and public cybersecurity infrastructure following a meeting with President Biden. The Biden Administration established voluntary cybersecurity goals and is pushing G7 countries to update NATO cyber policy and to aid in a collective effort to hold nations accountable for harboring ransomware criminals.
Amazon – Will provide its internal employee security awareness training directly to individuals and businesses at no charge. They will offer a multi-factor authentication device to AWS account holders to protect against phishing and password theft and the ability to use that device to access applications such as Gmail, Dropbox, and GitHub.
Google – Investment of $10B over the next five years to expand zero-trust programs, help secure the software supply chain, and enhance open-source security.