Hasta La Gadget!

RSA SecureID dongles add a layer of protection to everything from office pilates class schedules to corporate email accounts, with banks, tech companies, and even U.S. defense contractors using hardware security tokens to protect their networks. Following a breach at RSA in March, however, the company urged clients to boost other security methods, such as passwords and PIN codes, theoretically protecting networks from hackers that may have gained the ability to duplicate those critical SecureIDs. Now, Lockheed Martin is claiming that its network has come under attack, prompting RSA to issue 90,000 replacement tokens to Lockheed employees. The DoD contractor isn’t detailing what data hackers may have accessed, but a SecureID bypass should clearly be taken very seriously, especially when that little keychain dongle is helping to protect our national security. If last month’s Sony breach didn’t already convince you to beef up your own computer security, now might be a good time to swap in ‘Pa55werD1’ for the rather pathetic ‘password’ you’ve been using to protect your own company’s trade secrets for the last decade.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: According to Reuters, Lockheed Martin sent out a statement to clarify that it promptly took action to thwart the attack one week ago, and consequently “no customer, program or employee personal data has been compromised.” Phew! [Thanks, JD]

RSA SecureID hackers may have accessed Lockheed Martin trade secrets, cafeteria menus (update: no data compromised) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 May 2011 11:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In an exciting development for robot thespians of the world, a play by novelist and playwright David Lodge features a bot in a walk-on (roll-on) role.

Continue reading Treebot climbs trees, is a robot (video)

Treebot climbs trees, is a robot (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 May 2011 08:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on November 20, 2006 by CyberNet.

PortableApps.com just launched an awesome new suite. It has all of your favorite applications like Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice in one convenient download that can be stored right on your flash drive. Not only does it include all of the best programs but it also has the cool new launcher that is pictured to the right.

Here is everything that is included with the suite:

• Mozilla Firefox – Portable Edition 2.0
• Thunderbird Portable 1.5.0.8
• OpenOffice.org Portable 2.0.4
• AbiWord Portable (word processor) was updated to version 2.4.6
• ClamWin Portable (antivirus) was updated to version 0.88.5
• FileZilla Portable (FTP client) was updated to version 2.2.29
• Gaim Portable (IM client) was updated to version 2.0 Beta 5
• Sudoku Portable (puzzle game) was updated to version 1.1.7.1
• Sunbird Portable (calendar) was updated to version 0.3

That is a long list of updated releases. There are a two different versions of the suite available: the standard edition will run fine from a 512MB drive while the Lite edition has no problems on a 256MB drive. One thing that I always seem to experience when using some of the larger applications, like OpenOffice, are slow startup times. It is mostly because my USB drive isn’t very fast so I typically just use the smaller programs. Firefox Portable is the primary one that I carry with me because it is nice being able to take my Firefox profile wherever I go.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on March 15, 2007 by CyberNet.

I think Cisco’s acquisition of WebEx is probably one of the largest in history at a bank-busting $3.2 Billion! In terms of cost, that equates to a lot of steak dinners. Well, if a good steak dinner cost $20 and you lived to be 90 years old that would allow 4,870 people to eat a steak dinner every night of their lives! 🙂

Sorry, when I see big dollar signs like that I go crazy sometimes. I’ve read a few different articles regarding Cisco’s purchase and all of them have a very positive outlook. The consensus seems to be that acquiring WebEx will add a lot more value to the strong name that already represents Cisco.

In 2006, WebEx having 2,200 employees brought in a whopping $380 million with $50 million of that being profit. They have become so popular because it becomes increasingly harder to get large crowds together for a presentation. This way a company is able to share a PowerPoint presentation or even share their computer’s desktop with an audience that can be located around the globe.

People also associate the WebEx name with an easy way to communicate with people. You don’t have to be a genius to get it up and running and everything is easily installed through your web browser…which is convenient for both the presenter and the viewers.

Now this puts Cisco right in focus with Microsoft, who also offers a Live Meeting service so that groups of people can collaborate with each other over an Internet connection. Broadband Internet continues to become more and more popular so remote conferencing is indeed going to be a strong part of our future.

News Source: Cisco [via GigaOm, CNet, and Yahoo]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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