Category Archives: Network

Network

Securing corporate networks 2019 Best Practices – Admin Accounts

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In the age of constant attacks on your networks here are some good tips on how you can reduce the risk of having a security breach.

Administrator Accounts

Employees with administrative access should be using separate devices dedicated only for administrative operations. These devices like all the other devices within your domains should always be kept up to date with all the recent software and operating system updates.

All default administration accounts should be given zero rights on the device account and the domain account. Its best practices to require that they request just-in-time (JIT) privileges that gives them access for a finite amount of time and logs it in a system.

Secure Admin Accounts

Administrator accounts should also be created on a separate user namespace/forest that cannot access the internet, and should be different from the employee’s normal work identity. This way, any compromise of the company’s employee-force namespace/forest won’t grant the attackers easy access to an administrator account, since the employee with admin rights would not be using that account for daily tasks.

Employees with administrative accounts should avoid remotely logging into devices with administrator access to perform any administrative tasks, as attackers could be logging these events on compromised devices. The way to go is to have administrators use their separate devices for any administrative tasks as much as possible.

Contact us today toll free 1-888-392-9623 to find out more on how Adept Technologies can save you money by utilizing our services and technology.


Adept Enterprise and Deep A.I. Artificial Intelligence

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To understand how deep A.I. Artificial Intelligence functions are developed, we first need to understand the technology that makes this possible. The term deep comes from deep learning, a branch of Machine Learning that focuses on deep neural networks.

Neural networks are computational systems that are inspired by the ways a human brain processes certain information. Special cells called neurons are connected to each other in a complex network allowing information to be processed and communicated.

In Computer Science, artificial neural networks are made out of thousands of nodes, connected in a specific manner. Nodes are arranged in layers; the way in which they are connected determines the type of the network and, ultimately, its ability to perform a certain computational task over another one. A traditional neural network might look like this:

Adept Enterprise Deep Artificial Intelligence

Each node from the input layer contains a numerical value that encodes the input we want to feed the network. If we are trying to predict the Dow Jones Industrial Average for tomorrow, the input nodes might contain the future and past price changes, stock splits, divisors, contracts, fear and greed index encoded as numbers in the range.

These values are broadcasted to the next layer; each result-curve dampens or amplifies the values it transmits. Each node sums all the values it receives, and outputs a new value based on its own function. The result of the computation can be retrieved from the output layer; in this case, only one value is produced, the probability of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

When using Adept Enterprise we use multiple input nodes that are triggered by events, either by humans or by machine code. The Adept Enterprise software outputs the desired result based on the sum of all result-curves via the input layer values it receives. The output layer result is the most desired result. This allows for the software to give and assign unlimited desired results, without a human manually doing it. This allows one human with the software to accomplish the same work load as hundreds of humans without the software, and in some cases based on the job thousands of humans.

Training a neural network means finding a set of weights for all result-curves, so that the output layer produces the desired result. One of the most used technique to achieve this is called back-propagation, and it works by re-adjusting the weights every time the network makes a mistake. The mistake is determined by not accomplishing the desired result, or the desired result is not desired anymore.

The basic idea behind training a neural network is that each layer will represent progressively core complex features. In the case of a workflow task, for instance, the first layer might detect violations, the second layer detects date and time restrictions, which the third layer is able to use to approve or deny an application or task.

In experience, what each layer responds to is far from being that simple. This is based on humans and software creating a library of input layers, and the software producing the desired results for the output layers.

The desired result is a perfect result, eliminating imperfection. This saves money, time and frustration.

Contact us today toll free 1-888-392-9623 to find out more on how Adept Technologies can save you money by utilizing our technology.

Is Blockchain Technology Seriously Overvalued?

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Is Blockchain Technology Seriously Overvalued?

What amazes me these days is how people can take an idea and place a value on it, without fully understanding the idea. Then numerous 3rd parties leverage this idea into new ideas and package them into speculative instruments and trade them. When the idea in the first place is really not an idea, but an educated guess, with secrets you get the Bitcoin.

What is Blockchain Technology?

Please it was not invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, this technology has been around since software was invented. There is nothing new or cutting edge with it. In fact I would argue Napster was one of the first to leverage this type of technology in the mainstream, but who remembers that? Just look at the word itself “Block” and “Chain”. For the non-tech people out there which means most of everyone, Blockchain is a chain of blocks that continuously grows. Think of opening a Microsoft Word document, then force your cat or dog to jump up and down on the keyboard, now look at the word document…there you just created a blockchain. The cat and dog is the encryption. Now this chain of blocks is saved across multiple computers (nodes) all over the planet. Each time the cat or dog is forced to jump up and down on the keyboard the block is updated and this chain grows and must be verified on ALL the nodes in the chain at the same time, if one computer fails the process must start all over. Nothing in the Chain of blocks can be deleted it just grows on forever. I am not going to get into the all the bells and whistles of the processes but in a nutshell that’s it.

Cryptocurrencies

This creates major problems when we deal with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, along with all the other stupid guesses being thrown around right now. As the chain grows it consumes more resources. Each transaction would require more energy than the previous one, because the chain has grown.

There really is no value to Cryptocurrencies when the core technology continues to grow in size. Kicking the can down the road hoping that we technology people will fix it or write temporary fixes hoping that other factors of the industry will create software and hardware systems in the future to keep up with the chain demand is nuts. Does anyone remember Y2K?

What I find very upsetting is that the cryptocurrencies idea was to bring free money transfers to everyone on the planet, and to remove the trusted 3rd party from the transaction. Sadly the trusted 3rd parties that cryptocurrencies where supposed to remove have embraced this technology. Private Blockchains VS Public Blockchains boy sounds like a cloud computing conference. Obviously Blockchain technology was flawed from the beginning when it came to Cryptocurrencies for the individual.

I do agree that fiat currencies are under a lot of pressure, yes the markets appear to be fixed, yes the paper gold and paper silver markets are overleveraged, but I will tell you Blockchain Technology is Seriously Overvalued and it is NOT the answer in the long term. Unless you want to wait 30 to 45 minutes for your Bitcoin mastercard to process your peer to peer transaction block for your lunch or dinner, and have huge amounts of servers consuming huge amounts of energy for your transaction, say goodbye to your bandwidth too. The internet crawls to a stop…

Good luck out there.

We do use Blockchain Technology in systems that track transmission of encryption cycles of network communications between groups of nodes, so this technology is useful. If speed is of no issue, and security is, then this type of Technology is interesting, but then again other technology does a better job. I wouldn’t give huge amounts of value on Blockchain Technology, and have industries be able to borrow large sums of venture capital based solely on this technology, remember the .COM crash?

Good luck out there!

Unsupported software systems: Microsoft shuts down support for Windows 8.1, upgrade to Windows 10 ends today.

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Unsupported software systems: Microsoft shuts down support for Windows 8.1, upgrade to Windows 10 ends today.

New York, NY – Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 is essentially a dead operating system. Microsoft ended mainstream support on January 9th. There will be no new features, or bug fixes. There is a last-ditch upgrade to Windows 10 via the Microsoft assistive technology loophole, but it ends today January 16, 2018.

All software has a lifecycle. It gets developed, released, updated, and eventually completely over written for a newer version. There is nothing to stop you from using unsupported software, but the dangers are huge.

Basically the unsupported software has no further updates, no bug fixes, no technical support, then there are the security weaknesses, and security bugs that can be exploited by hackers. We have seen ransomware attacks that are designed to target unsupported software systems. Ransomware systems like Wanncry and Petya have been very active in this field.

Unsupported Software Risks

Bottom line

If your version of any software system is no longer supported, you are putting your business at risk.

Devices connected to your network are more integral to your business then you think. Which means that a virus on any device could cause a major business disruption.

Although you can believe you can accept the risk of running unsupported software, you should treat it as a temporary strategy.

Unsupported software systems will expose your corporate network to cyberattacks. The cost and resources required to replace unsupported software will be much greater then making sure your software is supported. The perceived cost and impact of an adverse event caused by the unsupported software is huge, and can possibly put your organization out of business.

If your organization has decided to allow the use of unsupported software, senior management should fully understand the risks, and they should establish a policy for preventing unsupported software on its network. Such a policy must be part of the business risk management plan. It should specifically identify resources and earmark funding to implement the policy.

What can you do?

1) Inform senior management about the risks of running unsupported software.
2) Establish a corporate wide policy for preventing unsupported software use on your networks.
3) Ensure the corporate wide policy aligns with your corporation’s risk management plan.
4) Identify resources and earmark corporate funding to implement the policy.
5) Contact Adept Technologies: www.adepttech.com.

We at Adept Technologies have replaced numerous unsupported software systems in our industry.

Contact us today to see how Adept Enterprise can help your organization.

Call us toll free 1-888-392-9623

North Korea Escalating Cyber-Attacks

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North Korea Escalating Cyber-Attacks With Little Fear of Retaliation (http://www.eweek.com)

Technology

Online attackers from North Korea reportedly stole confidential military documents, including war contingency plans drawn up by U.S. and South Korean forces. Without any downside, such attacks will continue, security experts say.

The data, part of a massive haul of 235 gigabytes taken during an intrusion spanning the months of August and September 2016, was only recently identified as the South Korean government pieced together what was taken.

Lee Cheol-hee, a South Korean lawmaker and member of the parliamentary defense committee, said that attackers had infiltrated the Defense Integrated Data Center, according to The Washington Post. The stolen data includes war plans and a scheme to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un in the event of war, according to the South Korean lawmaker. The attack happened last year, but only 20 percent of the documents have so far been identified.

…….Continue reading at www.eweek.com

My Two Cents: I read that the documentation stolen was located in a network not connected to the internet. That a so called maintenance port was accessed with a laptop that acted as a go between the North Koreans and the South Korean systems. I am shocked that such a high classified network did not alert the South Koreans that a unknown device had attached itself to their system and was accessing data. But of course spies have access if they are already in the inside and are authorized access. I would review all the authorized user access records and locate the spies within the organization…. but then again don’t believe what you read…