AerialX Builds DroneBullet to Attack Suspicious Aircrafts

Drones are now being developed by the Canadian Startup AerialX to swipe clean airspace from the malicious aircrafts. This way the startup seeks to control and regularize the drones by setting functionalities for the devices.

Drones of commoners are also prone to be attacked if found suspicious, increasing the usage of anti-drone products. A similar product is the DroneShield’s range of handheld anti-drone guns, which are brought down with electromagnetic noise that could block the radio signals that are being used for communications control.

Capturing such drones through signals of fellow drones could be a lesser passive approach to seizing drones with suspicious activities. The DroneBullet designed by Aerial does not reveal a lot about the technology and it works in stealth mode.

The working of DroneBullet is piloted anonymously and like a quadcopter, it is filled with explosives which moves in an unknown direction. It is a missile shaped projectile that has four propellers that can aim and engage the moving target with a strike making it fall down at once.

The DroneBullet works in micro radio detectors that identifies drones as soon as they enter certain areas in airspace such as above the airport or over a concert and automatically map the aircraft. It is a safety measure towards safe guarding the people and also keeping the airspace under check for illegal activities that serves as a law enforcement or defense force.

RELEASE OF VOLUNTARY CYBERSECURITY HEALTH PRACTICES

The health and human services department released a publication which consisted of voluntary cybersecurity practices for healthcare firms ranging from large hospital systems to local clinics. The four-volume publication titled, “Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices: Managing Threats and Protecting Patients” is a result of a public-private partnership of two years between healthcare industry professionals and HHS.

The HHS Acting chief information security officer, Janet Vogel said, “Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility. It is the responsibility of every organization working in healthcare and public health. In all of our efforts, we must recognize and leverage the value of partnerships among government and industry stakeholders to tackle the shared problems collaboratively.”

Erik Decker said the healthcare industry is truly a varied digital ecosystem. We heard loud and clear through this process that providers need actionable and practical advice, tailored to their needs, to manage modern cyber threats which is exactly what this resource delivers; recommendations stratified by the size of the organization, written for both the clinician as well as the IT subject matter expert.

SYMANTEC WARNING AGAINST NEW CYBERSECURITY RISKS

Gradual increase in the concerns around privacy and security of information in the digital world will drive regulatory and legislative actions globally but poorly grasped regulations could also make way for new weaknesses.

Symantec’s predictions for cybersecurity stated, “While upticks in legislative and regulatory actions are likely to be seen as addressing security and privacy needs, there is a potential for some requirements to prove more counterproductive than helpful.”

Gaurav Agarwal said there are certain aspects that need to be taken care of when these regulations are framed and implemented. For example, an administrative/regulatory body asks a business/individual for some information to investigate. There needs to be clarity around how the data is collected, handled and processes, and then discarded after use, so that there isn’t any misuse by someone else.

STUDENTS HACKING IN FLAGSHIP CMD+CTRL CYBER RANGE ENVIRONMENT

A pioneer in software security, Wilmington will clear the way for its first Cybersecurity Beanpot event on the thirtieth of October, 2018. Created simultaneously with the Suffolk University, the Cybersecurity beanpot evolved from both organizations similar passion to expand the importance given to software cybersecurity education.

Students from UMass Lowell, North eastern University, Boston College, and Suffolk University will join together to test their skills in an educational but fun live hacking contest using Security Innovation’s cyber range product CMD+CTRL which is the only cyber range that is dedicated to cybersecurity for development and software teams.

The student teams are pitted against each other as they will compete to find weaknesses and loopholes within the immersive and authentic Shadow Bank cyber range environment.

The president and CEO of security innovation Ed Adams, “We are excited to sponsor this event. There is a talent gap in cybersecurity. In fact, we recently conducted a survey of more than 400 executives that revealed the lack of skilled personnel was the top reason they cannot adequately defend against cyberattacks. With 75-90 percent of attacks happening through software, our goal is to make cybersecurity training fun and engaging for development and security teams alike.” Read More

EVOLUTION OF CYBERSECURITY

In a world where cyber crimes are on the rise, billions of dollars have been spent on increasing the quality of the cybersecurity industry, and yet the rate of breaches were increasingly high. Even securing small organizations seemed like a tough job.

The computer industry has had to fight against growing sophistication in threats throughout its narrative. The founder and CEO of Balbix, Gaurav Banga said he had been working in the cybersecurity industry since the early 90’s since his college time when cybersecurity and the internet were still in their infancy, and in 2015 he started a third-generation cybersecurity company where I currently serve as CEO.

We could point to two historical shifts in the cybersecurity market conditions that led to a step up in the complexity and scope of attacks and consequently fuelled fantastic innovations. There were early laggards and adopters with both innovative waves. The changes must be understood to be better prepared to protect the organization. Read More

NYC ON BECOMING CYBERSECURITY INNOVATION LEADER

A series of new programs was announced by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) on Tuesday. These programs were initiated to make the city a global hub of “cybersecurity innovation and talent.” Cyber NYC, will get a combined hundred million dollar from the investments with the private partners and cities. They are looking to create 10,000 jobs in the sector over the next decade.

The initiative includes a program in partnership with Columbia University’s technology ventures to commercialize university research, an initiative with local universities to help students earn a “CUNY-Facebook Master’s Degree”, a Cyber Boot Camp to help workers find jobs in the sector, a Hub.NYC accelerator to develop cybersecurity companies, and a global cyber centre co working space in Chelsea. Borough President Gale A. Brewer said in a statement, “Cybersecurity has never been more important to the pillars of New York’s economy – sectors like finance, healthcare, media, and technology – and it will only grow more crucial” Read More

THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS INVESTED BY NYC IN CYBERSECURITY (Innovations)

New York city is the next in line to take over the area of cybersecurity innovations. With an investment of thirty million dollars in Cyber NYC which is a strategy that focuses on five key technology programs. It was announced that Cyber NYC will “create new talent pipelines and spark research and commercialization of security technologies.”

NYC is the home of most of the selected industries such as media, technology, finance, retail, and healthcare. A press release said there is both a need and a want for cybersecurity to thrive in the city.

The NYEDC president and CEO James Patchett said, “New York City needs to be ambitious about cybersecurity because the future depends on it. Cyber NYC will fuel the next generation of cybersecurity innovation and talent, leveraging one of the world’s greatest threats to create a major economic anchor and up to 10,000 quality middle-class jobs.”

STARTUP LESSONS WITH WYSOPAL

Chris Wysopal formed the cybersecurity company @stake. He later co-founded Veracode after Symantec bought @stake. Wysopal, who remains the chief technology officer of Veracode was recently interviewed.

He was questioned about how relatively young he was when he formed @stake and then co-founded VeraCode and what he knew then about managing people and running a business. He was also asked what he learnt from his competitors over the years and what advice he would give to someone trying to launch a cybersecurity start-up in these recent times.

He talked about how important it is to have an excellent work culture that attracts talented people and gets them to give their best performance. He also talked about how to always be responsive to the needs of the customer. To the people who want to launch a cybersecurity start-up, he said they should do it while being prepared to spend five to ten years building their company.

NEW DRAWING AND AR TOOLS LAUNCHED BY ADOBE

Adobe announced many new products and also its Creative Cloud Suite today, 16th of October at its Max conference. Project Aero is a new tool which lets us build new AR experiences. Project Gemini is a tool that was made for drawing and painting on an iPad.

The Project moniker is another one of Adobe’s new tools which signifies that these are still the earlier stages of the products and that they are not quite ready for their proper usage yet. Adobe also launched a tool for building AR experience which isn’t surprising. Project Aero integrates with both Photoshop and Adobe Dimension for creating assets that are imported. It is now a private beta said to have a bigger release in 2019. Project Gemini which takes up some of Adobe’s photoshop technology includes a painting engine to create a stand-alone drawing app for the iPad.

Kyle T. Webster is the man behind this project. Adobe wrote in today’s announcement, “Through rigorous testing with artists of all skill levels, we reconsidered how drawing tools work. All of project Gemini’s features are focused on accelerating drawing and painting workflows. Illustrators can expect the most natural brushes handcrafted by Kyle Webster, dynamic brushes such as water colours and oils, new ways to select, mask and transform, and the integration of technology by the Adobe research team.”

REDUCTION OF RISK BY NEW OPEN-SOURCED INNOVATION

The major issues for blockchains have always been the threat of double spending and attacks. The number of blocks in a chain serve as a substitute for the honesty of the chain. The longest chain is considered to be the one that holds the least possible malicious actors because it has the most computing influence dedicated to it.

Blockchains work on the principle of the ‘longest chain.’ Theoretically, the most computing power is dedicated to a blockchain. A blockchain regards its truest chain as the one with the most blocks that follow each other. The majority computing power would be dedicated to making as many legitimate blocks authenticated.

Attackers might be able to make transactions on a public chain that is being developed so risk reduction measures should most definitely be taken into consideration.

ACQUIRING OF SPEKTRAL BY APPLE

Apple acquired a $600 million deal of licenses, talent, and IP from Dialog Semiconductor in Europe. It has also acquired another smaller start up in the region. Apple also bought Spektral which is a computer vision company which works on segmentation technology, which is a more effective way to cut out figures from their digital image and video backgrounds.

This kind of technology is more realistic, accurate, and quicker but can also be used in standard applications like school photos. Apple finally sealed the deal and confirmed it with a standard statement, “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss out purpose or plans.” Spektral first started out as CloudCutout and was built on algorithms on Jansen’s PhD. There are chances of Spektral contributing to Apple’s imaging business.

GOOGLE’S CALL SCREEN: A REQUIRED FEATURE

Google just finessed Apple by taking care of one of the biggest nuisances affecting the cell phone owners in the U.S. which are the spam calls. The company’s new Pixel 3 flagship android smartphone is the initial introduction to a new call screening feature that leverages the Google Assistant.

Real-time transcribing of the of the caller’s request was done at the screening service which allows you to determine whether or not to pick up and gives you a solution of how to respond. Launch of Duplex and Call screen were the innovative new launches by Google, other than the launching of the Top shot and the group selfie feature. Apple does not have any feature like the call screening feature. It only has third-party blocking applications which are also available on Android. Siri needs to catch up fast since it is simply not capable of answering calls on your behalf.

BLOCKCHAIN DEMOCRACY

A new term coined by Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson called Crowdsourcing is used to describe how businesses used the internet to outsource work to the crowd. But this crowdsourcing has been around for thousands of years. Our democratic system of government is based on the fact that practically and morally bringing up a lot of people into this process of decision making increases the chance of reaching the best outcome. However, people don’t always follow theory and philosophy and democracy was the most successful political idea of the 20th century. The United States was once admired by the French political scientist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville for its democratic system. The United States is very socially and politically polarized which fuels the extremism and loses a large number of voters. Technology is a huge threat to the most basic foundation of democracy which is the individual right and freedom to privacy.

QUANTUM-RESISTANT SOLUTION ADDED BY BLACKBERRY

BlackBerry announced today, 11th October at their security summit held in New York about their preparation for the upcoming years and quantum computing attacks. They added a quantum-resistant code signing server to their cybersecurity tools. Charles Eagan, the chief technology officer of BlackBerry said, “Quantum computing will solve ground breaking problems in healthcare, transportation, astrophysics, government, and many other fields; however, it also gives bad actors the potential to crack traditional public key cryptosystems and then attack the underlying data they protect. By adding the quantum-resistant code signing server to our cybersecurity tools, we will be able to address a major security concern for industries that rely on assets that will be in use for a long time. If your product, whether it’s a car or critical piece of infrastructure, needs to be functional 10-15 years from now, you need to be concerned about quantum computing attacks.”

MICROSOFT HOLOLENS OFFERS SUPPORT TO UPSKILL

Upskill is developing a software to support mixed and augmented reality since a long time. The company announced today, 10th of October the advanced release of Skylight for Microsoft HoloLens. Brian Ballard, the CEO and Co-founder of the company said, “What HoloLens does for certain types of experiences, is it actually opens up a lot more real estate to display information in a way that users can take advantage of. This is about extending Skylight into the spatial computing environment making sure that the workflows, the collaboration, the connectivity is seamless across all of these different devices.” New HoloLens use cases were announced by Microsoft for its 3D layout and Dynamic 365 platform around remote assistance. Upskill builds on capabilities in HoloLens with its wide experience safely connecting to back-end systems and pull information into the mixed reality setting no matter where it is in the enterprise.

GOOGLE’S PHONE BOT COMES TO THE PIXEL

A software called Duplex would be made available on the company’s Pixel smartphones by the end of this year in San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Atlanta, and New York. It would be a feature of Google Assistant and make calls to restaurants. The Duplex software will slightly change Google assistant’s abilities. Even the recent Artificial Intelligence powered technology like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri cannot be confused with humans.

The duplex software is unique in its way that it a make its own calls and imitate how people talk. The executive leading the product and design for Google search said, “The person on the other end shouldn’t be thinking about how do I adjust my behaviour, I should be able to do what I normally do and the system adapts to that.” The Google executive leading the project says Duplex is a win-win and says, “Those businesses lose out because people say, ‘Unless I can book this online I’m not going to book,’” he says.

NO HACKING ATTACK ON CONGRESS SAYS APPLE

Apple’s top security officer told the congress that it found absolutely no sign of dubious transmissions or any other proof that it had been infiltrated in a complicated attack on its supply chain. “Apples proprietary security tools are continuously scanning for precisely this kind of outbound traffic, as it indicates the existence of malware or other malicious activity. Nothing was ever found.” Stathakopoulos repeated Apples statements to the press that it never found any suspicious chips or weaknesses purposely planted in any kind of server or been contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about such issues.

INNOVATION OF GOOGLE PLAY STORE

Jigsaw has come out with a new application called Intra, available on the Google Play Store which protects users from Domain name system attacks. DNS is the phonebook of the Internet and users can get information online through domain names. It translates domain names into IP addresses , where browsers can load internet resources.

The Android headlines reported, “DNS manipulation attack is used to block access to news sites, social media platforms and messaging applications”, says Jigsaw, and this new application is expected to prevent such attacks. “Intra” is also expected to protect users against phishing and malware attacks. There is also no data limit usage on the application and neither does it slow down the internet connection. It is an open source application and the firm claims that users’ data will be kept private.

TIPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM CYBER ATTACKS

Many trusted institutions have been victims to cyber-attacks leaving civilians exposed to all kinds of nasty threats. Most of the issues of technology are largely ignored. Cybersecurity is the last hope for defence against cyber warfare. All out information is virtually online. Most of our personal information goes carelessly ignored so right now cybersecurity is the most important weapon ever. Exposure should be limited in order to avoid more attacks. As cyber-attacks are becoming more regular, users should try and be more secure.

The three essential tips to secure yourself from the pestering cyber-attacks are:
• Being up to date with cybersecurity news.
• Keep checking if you’ve been affected by breaches.
• Changing of passwords quite often.

These three tips would help you stay more secure from cybersecurity threats and attacks. Hackers are becoming more organized and attempts from hacking are becoming more sophisticated. Though you can’t control the happening of hacks, you don’t have to be completely ignorant about it either.

PREPARING AMERICA FOR THE QUANTUM LEAP

The White House has been taking major steps to secure a high-tech future for America. Firstly, it was the release of the National Cybersecurity strategy, then the national strategic overview for quantum information science. This plan could bring real government level coordination for advancements in technology that could result in huge tech revolution. A normal computer would have to sequentially look through the potential solutions for a mathematical problem, whereas, a quantum system could generate the answers in less than a second. Even the most myriad problems which are currently unsolvable by the digital computers can be solved at super speeds on the quantum computers.

Areas like climate science, material science, and medicine will see a lot of advancements and improvements. By leading the path in QIS not only does it covers up both the aspects of economical and national security. The plan will approach a “science first approach” that will focus in solving and identifying the major challenges that America will have to face while being involved in this transformative technology.