Iona It Solutions

31/10/2013

Don't mess with internet. Learn about cyber security and human rights in this online course. Know your rights and develop an opinion on privacy. Enrol for free!

29/05/2013

29/05/2013

Publication: The Times Of India Bangalore; Date: May 28, 2013; Section: International; Page: 11

VICTIM OF COVERT OPERATION?

Music, light can trigger mobile malware

Hard-To-Detect Methods To Target Cellphones In Crowded Areas Uncovered

London: Scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have uncovered new hard-to-detect methods involving music, lighting or vibration that criminals may use to trigger mobile device malware. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) presented the research at the 8th Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security in Hangzhou, China.

“When you go to an arena or Starbucks, you don’t expect the music to have a hidden message, so this is a big paradigm shift because the public sees only emails and the internet as vulnerable to malware attacks,” said Ragib Hasan, assistant professor of computer and information sciences and director of the UAB SECuRE and Trustworthy (SECRET) computing lab. “We devote a lot of our efforts towards securing traditional communication channels. But when bad guys use such hidden and unexpected methods to communicate, it is difficult if not impossible to detect that,” Hasan said.

A team of UAB researchers was able to trigger malware hidden in mobile devices from 55 feet away in a crowded hallway using music. They were also successful, at various distances, using music videos; lighting from a TV, computer monitor and overhead bulbs; vibrations from a subwoofer; and magnetic fields.

“We showed that these sensory channels can be used to send short messages that may eventually be used to trigger a mass-signal attack,” said Nitesh Saxena, director of the UAB security and privacy in emerging computing and networking Systems research group and assistant professor in the center for information assurance and joint forensics research. “While traditional networking communication used to send such triggers can be detected relatively easily, there does not seem to be a good way to detect such covert channels currently,” Saxena said.

Researchers were able to trigger malware with a bandwidth of only five bits per second — a fraction of the bandwidth used by laptops or home computers. PTI

09/01/2013

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IT Solutions on Computers

02/01/2013

What is GNS3 ?

GNS3 is a graphical network simulator that allows simulation of complex networks.

To provide complete and accurate simulations, GNS3 is strongly linked with:

Dynamips, a Cisco IOS emulator.
Dynagen, a text-based front end for Dynamips.
Qemu, a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer.
VirtualBox, a free and powerful virtualization software.

GNS3 is an excellent complementary tool to real labs for network engineers, administrators and people wanting to study for certifications such as Cisco CCNA, CCNP, CCIP and CCIE as well as Juniper JNCIA, JNCIS and JNCIE.

It can also be used to experiment features of Cisco IOS, Juniper JunOS or to check configurations that need to be deployed later on real routers.

Thanks to VirtualBox integration, now even system engineers and administrators can take advantage of GNS3 to make labs and study for Redhat (RHCE, RHCT), Microsoft (MSCE, MSCA), Novell (CLP) and many other vendor certifications.

This project is an open source, free program that may be used on multiple operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and MacOS X.
Features overview

Design of high quality and complex network topologies.
Emulation of many Cisco IOS router platforms, IPS, PIX and ASA firewalls, JunOS.
Simulation of simple Ethernet, ATM and Frame Relay switches.
Connection of the simulated network to the real world!
Packet capture using Wireshark.

Important notice: users have to provide their own IOS/IPS/PIX/ASA/JunOS to use in their labs with GNS3.

17/12/2012

Windows 2012 Server

07/11/2012

Apple made waves when it announced the first iPad in 2010, but not just because of the device itself. Inside the iPad was the Apple A4 chip, an ARM system-on-a-chip (SoC) designed entirely by Apple. The company has always liked to keep as much of the design process in-house as possible, and sources claim that this could soon extend to Mac processors. Could Apple be considering dropping Intel?

Apple computers used to rely on Motorola’s PowerPC chips, but that changed in 2005. A switch over to Intel parts improved horsepower and efficiency dramatically. This decision was painful for the user base at first, but probably drove much of the Mac adoption we’ve seen since then.

Engineers at Apple developing the next generation of mobile ARM-compatible chips apparently believe the price and performance will be there for full computers in the coming years. The mobile and desktop hardware lines could conceivably be brought together. This does seem to jive with Apple’s ongoing efforts to make OSX on computers look and act more like iOS on mobile devices.

It’s not as simple as just flipping a switch and going with ARM chips, though. The x86 architecture used by Intel is deeply entrenched at this point. Consumer use of Macs is higher than it’s been in a long time, and it would be hard to pull the rug out from under them again. It’s possible that OSX would be redesigned to run on ARM chips, or it might just be deprecated. OSX could continue to exist as an x86 Intel platform, but new computer-like devices based on Apple’s ARM chips could take the lead. Maybe a MacBook Air $1,099.99 at Amazon built on ARM that runs some future version of iOS?

Intel has been working in recent years to make its processors more efficient in order to compete with ARM. It has made some strides with the Medfield Atom mobile platform, but adoption is still very limited. It’s going to come down to power. If Apple can’t make ARM chips that satisfy the needs of computer users, the change will never happen. If Apple does leave Intel in the next few years, it’s going to be a serious blow to Intel.

07/11/2012

iPad Mini Mockup by Martin Hajek Looks Fantastic. That’s fresh Apple product scent, meaning the iPad Mini. The device looks elegant and has some pretty rounded corners and two stereo speakers that should sound great. So, what we have here is a 7.85 inch tablet with Apple branding and anodized aluminum back in different colors, like the iPod Touch. It would be interesting to see brightly colored iPads this time around, differentiating them from the bigger main series models. The color choice would also help Apple sell more to people looking for playful colours, not only black or white.
iPad Mini comes with a 5 megapixel camera, Apple A6 processor, Retina Display resolution, 16, 32 or 64 GB of storage, 1 GB of RAM and it will have a LTE version. iOS 6.0 is available from the get go, plus some new feature or app to lure customers into loving this gizmo more. Maybe a special game or special application for making music or e-reading? A special magazine-based service or social networking app? We’ll see…
Designer Martin Hajek

07/11/2012

Good one to read

BANGALORE: Microsoft India chairman Bhaskar Pramanik said on Wednesday that 4 million downloads of Windows 8 had been recorded globally in the first three days of its launch, the fastest compared to previous operating systems. Windows 8 was launched on October 26.

While that figure looks impressive, some analysts noted that Apple's Mac OS X 10.8, called Mountain Lion, launched in July had sold 3 million downloads in its first four days. Considering that Windows has an over 90% market share, compared to about 7% for Mac OS, a significantly smaller proportion of Windows users have chosen to upgrade in the first few days.

Windows 8, launched in Bangalore on Wednesday, has a new screen interface that is touch-enabled. Pramanik said the new cloud-connected operating system has been devised for the new-age digital consumer who has multiple devices, and email and social networking accounts, is mobile and connected.

Amrish Goyal, director for the Windows Business Group, said across India, over 250 Windows 8-enabled devices, including 23 touch-enabled ones, are available.

With a single Microsoft account, users will be able to sync all their data including emails, contacts, photos, videos etc across all devices. Windows 8 Enterprise users can carry the entire operating system, along with settings, files and apps in a USB stick called 'Windows To Go', allowing them to plug it into any device and carry on working.

Many analysts say there will be less enthusiasm for Windows 8 compared to its previous versions. The reason is that customers today increasingly prefer mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones, where OSes such as Apple's iOS and Google's Andriod dominate, to traditional PCs, where Windows has been dominant for decades.

09/10/2012

Guss The Operating System