SHARING IS CARING.
Here are some things we want to share with you and the world.
Hey Google: What we search for most in cybersecurity .. cyber security? | ZDNet
A scanner app with 100 million downloads starts to deliver malware An Android Google play app, available since 2010, has recently started installing malware. In recent years, cybersecurity — or cyber security, depending on your preferred usage — has become a frequent topic. Escalating cases of fraud, cybercrime, and data breaches have ensured that terms relating to cybersecurity, whether it be phishing or account compromise, have entered the consumer space and are no longer just known by professionals in the industry. Google, as the provider of one of the most popular search engines in the world, can provide an interesting resource to find out what areas of cybersecurity we are interested in, how threats are evolving — alongside our knowledge of them — and which vulnerabilities and attacks have gained the most widespread attention. This week, incident response platform Redscan published the results of research (.PDF) into Google cybersecurity-related search trends and their popularity based on Google Trends data from 2004 – 2019. The most-searched-for public figure in the industry is Robert Herjavec, investor and CEO of IT security firm Herjavec Group. Searches for Herjavec take place four times as often as those for Kevin Mitnick, dubbed the “world’s most famous hacker” and now an active security consultant. In addition to Herjavec and Mitnick, John McAfee, Bruce Schneier, and Troy Hunt are in the top five most searched-for security professionals. The cybersecurity companies that most commonly feature on general Google searches are Norton, Avast, AVG, Kaspersky, and ESET. When it comes to enterprise-related queries, Symantec, Fortinet, Akamai, Mimecast, and FireEye are the most popular, according to Redscan. If you...
Email overload: Using machine learning to manage messages, commitments
As email continues to be not only an important means of communication but also an official record of information and a tool for managing tasks, schedules, and collaborations, making sense of everything moving in and out of our inboxes will only get more difficult. The good news is there’s a method to the madness of staying on top of your email, and Microsoft researchers are drawing on this behavior to create tools to support users. Two teams working in the space will be presenting papers at this year’s ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining February 11–15 in Melbourne, Australia. “Identifying the emails you need to pay attention to is a challenging task,” says Partner Researcher and Research Manager Ryen White of Microsoft Research, who manages a team of about a dozen scientists and engineers and typically receives 100 to 200 emails a day. “Right now, we end up doing a lot of that on our own.” According to the McKinsey Global Institute, professionals spend 28 percent of their time on email, so thoughtful support tools have the potential to make a tangible difference. “We’re trying to bring in machine learning to make sense of a huge amount of data to make you more productive and efficient in your work,” says Senior Researcher and Research Manager Ahmed Hassan Awadallah. “Efficiency could come from a better ability to handle email, getting back to people faster, not missing things you would have missed otherwise. If we’re able to save some of that time so you could use it for your actual work function, that would be great.” Email deferral:...
2018’s Important Mobile App Development Statistics & Report
2018’s Important Mobile App Statistics & Report December 1, 2018 0 15 2018’s Important Mobile App Statistics & Report Rate this post 2019 is on the way. So, it’s a great time to look at the 2018 mobile app statistics report, checking the insights and facts about the trends and market. In the last couple of years, mobile apps have reshaped everything from our daily life routine to means of communicating. From booking cabs to ordering food, mobile apps have made things a lot easier for people. According to statista.com, smartphone users across the world are expected to touch the number of four million by 2020. With this report on smartphone users, we can say that there is a great shift that one can experience from desktop to the mobile. Here, in this blog, we have aggregated must know mobile app development statistics into a single list, featuring facts and reports from across the industry. Read on to know the latest mobile app development stats. 1. Mobile Usage Report 2. Mobile App Download & Usage Statistics Image Source: Statista.com 3. Most Popular Mobile App Categories in App Stores The statistic highlights the most popular mobile app categories in App stores. Let’s check out the which are the most popular app categories in Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Image Source: Statista.com Image Source: Statista.com Image Source: Statista.com 4. Consumer Spend on Apple App Store & Google Play Store Talking about consumer spending on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, it grew by 22% by last year and reach $18.4 billion, which is a record number. This...
AI Could Escalate New Type Of Voice Phishing Cyber Attacks | Cyber Security Hub
While many cyber security professionals have been looking at (and even investing in) the potential benefits of utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) technology within many different business functions, earlier this week, the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) issued a warning of a new type of cyber-attack that leverages AI to impersonate senior enterprise executives. The method instructs company employees to perform transactions including money transfers and other malicious activity on the network. There are recent reports of this type of cyber-attack received at the operational center of the INCD. While business email compromise (BEC) types of fraud oftentimes use social engineering methods for a more effective attack, this new method escalates the attack type by using AI-based software, which makes voice phishing calls to senior executives. The attacking software learns to mimic the voice of a person defined for it and makes a conversation with an employee on behalf of the CEO. It was also reported that today there are programs that, after listening to 20 minutes to a particular voice, can speak everything that the user types in that learned voice. The Potential AI Voice Threat Implications Head of Information Security & Data Protection Officer for Matrix Medical Network, Dr. Rebecca Wynn, cautions, “It is absolutely a threat to watch and very dangerous.” She explains that staff must be trained about receiving instructions from their managers or senior leaders that are out of the normal requests/processes and have a process in place to verify those requests without being sanctioned. “Experts have certainly been warning for the past two or three years about the dangerous side of artificial intelligence, namely...WordPress Web Developer: Pacific (Los Angeles, CA) Daytime Shift
Our unique growing company, based in Canada, has an opportunity for individuals who are reliable and dependable, with initiative and a sense of urgency. We’re looking for a talented, smart-working person to become a valuable member of our great team as a WordPress Website Developer. Not only do we work on fun and challenging projects, but as the company grows so does everyone’s SALARY! Believe it, we are a unique organization! We know the success of our company is based on the success of our team members, and that’s why we believe in creating a fun work process and rewarding those who deserve it. Working Environment This must be your primary job! Must work daytime North America hours (11pm to 8am Manila time) Work from your home or other location of your choosing Must have reliable computer and Internet connection The Role Install WordPress on our servers Populate pages from existing client sites or build new sites from our templates Customize WordPress themes with client feedback (email or recorded video) Configure and customize Gravity Forms and WooCommerce Maintain all websites for updates in WordPress Core, Plugins, Themes Ensure that all sites are being backed up on a regular basis Communicate to our hosting company, WP Engine via Tickets and Live Chat Must Haves Formal Education in PHP, CSS, HTML, MySQL Vast experience with WordPress development Able to install, configure and customize WordPress Themes, in particularly Genesis / StudioPress themes Able to install, configure and hack WordPress Plugins Experience with setting up WooCommerce and Gravity Forms Experience with installing / embedding optin forms for Auto-responders An in depth understanding of...
Mobile App Development Trends 2019 Will Shape the App Industry
We are just a few days away from the New Year. It is approaching quickly, and it’s hard to believe how quickly 2018 flew by. When it comes to looking at the 2018 mobile app market, it has witnessed just over 27 billion downloads that is a year-over-year growth of approximately 11%. Not only in 2018 but for the past many years, mobile apps have been changing our lives from booking a cab to ordering food and hiring the best electrician from the nearby area. Mobile apps have revolutionized the way we perform our daily tasks whether it is personal or business. With the increasing demand and usefulness, mobile apps serve to be a significant opportunity for entrepreneurs, businesses, and startups. According to Statista.com, mobile applications are supposed to generate approximately $189 Billion US dollars in revenue by 2020 that you can see in the given graph. Image Courtesy: Statista.com In fact, many experts have said that the mobile app development industry is the fastest growing industry, and it is showing no sign of slowing down in the future as well. Looking at the technological advancements and new inventions in the mobile app industry, it is necessary to give a glimpse into the mobile app development trends of 2019. These mobile app development trends will bring many new opportunities for entrepreneurs and startup owners. Without discussing more on the mobile app market, let’s check out the upcoming trends that are thoroughly researched and analyzed by our technical head. 1. Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning both have studded their legs deeper into the mobile...
An Intuitive Explanation of Convolutional Neural Networks – the data science blog
What are Convolutional Neural Networks and why are they important? Convolutional Neural Networks (ConvNets or CNNs) are a category of Neural Networks that have proven very effective in areas such as image recognition and classification. ConvNets have been successful in identifying faces, objects and traffic signs apart from powering vision in robots and self driving cars. Figure 1: Source [1] In Figure 1 above, a ConvNet is able to recognize scenes and the system is able to suggest relevant captions (“a soccer player is kicking a soccer ball”) while Figure 2 shows an example of ConvNets being used for recognizing everyday objects, humans and animals. Lately, ConvNets have been effective in several Natural Language Processing tasks (such as sentence classification) as well. Figure 2: Source [2] ConvNets, therefore, are an important tool for most machine learning practitioners today. However, understanding ConvNets and learning to use them for the first time can sometimes be an intimidating experience. The primary purpose of this blog post is to develop an understanding of how Convolutional Neural Networks work on images. If you are new to neural networks in general, I would recommend reading this short tutorial on Multi Layer Perceptrons to get an idea about how they work, before proceeding. Multi Layer Perceptrons are referred to as “Fully Connected Layers” in this post. The LeNet Architecture (1990s) LeNet was one of the very first convolutional neural networks which helped propel the field of Deep Learning. This pioneering work by Yann LeCun was named LeNet5 after many previous successful iterations since the year 1988 [3]. At that time the LeNet architecture was used mainly for character recognition tasks such as reading zip codes, digits, etc. Below, we will develop an intuition of how...
The Offensive Manual Web Application Penetration Testing Framework
Here is some light on what the framework is all about: Installation: Presently, for installing globally, you will need to default your Python version to 2.x. However, the work of migration from Python2 to Python3 is already underway. Thats it! Now you are good to go! Now lets run the tool: Manual Installation (Locally): TIDoS needs some libraries to run, which can be installed via aptitude or yum Package Managers. Now after these dependencies are finished installing, we need to install the remaining Python Package dependencies, hence run: Thats it. You now have TIDoS at your service. Fire it up using: You can build it from Dockerfile: To run TIDoS: Getting Started: TIDoS is built to be a comprehensive, flexible and versatile framework where you just have to select and use modules. So to get started, you need to set your own API KEYS for various OSINT & Scanning and Enumeration purposes. To do so, open up API_KEYS.py under files/ directory and set your own keys and access tokens for SHODAN, CENSYS, FULL CONTACT, GOOGLE and WHATCMS. GOOD NEWS: The latest release of TIDoS includes all API KEYS and ACCESS TOKENS for SHODAN, CENSYS, FULL CONTACT, GOOGLE and WHATCMS by default. I found these tokens on various repositories on GitHub itself. You can now use all the modules which use the API KEYS. 🙂 Finally, as the framework opens up, enter the website name eg. http://www.example.com and let TIDoS lead you. Thats it! Its as easy as that. Recommended: To update this tool, use tidos_updater.py module under tools/ folder. TIDoS Framework presently supports the following: and more modules are...67 useful tools, libraries and resources for saving your time as a web developer
In this article I won’t be talking about big front end frameworks such as React, Angular, Vue etc… nor already popular code editors like Atom, VS Code, Sublime… I simply want to share a list of tools I find useful for speeding up a developer’s workflow. Some have probably seen most of these, but I’m glad if someone discovers something new and useful. This list contains many diverse resources so I will organize them in groups. Javascript libraries Particles.js — A library for creating beautiful floating particles on a web page Three.js — A library for creating 3d objects and spaces on a web page Fullpage.js ** — Easy to implement full page scroll feature Typed.js — Typewriter effect Waypoints.js — Trigger a function when you scroll to an element Highlight.js — Syntax highlighting for the web Chart.js — Make beautiful charts using only javascript Instantclick — Dramatically speed up your website load time, preloading resources on mouse hover Chartist — Another chart library Motio — A library for sprite based animations and panning Animstion — Jquery plugin for css animated page transitions Barba.js — Fluid page transitions TwentyTwenty — A visual diff tool to spot differences Vivus.js — A library for making drawing animation on SVG Wow.js — Reveal animations when you scroll Scrolline.js — See how much you have scrolled untill the end of the page Velocity.js — Very fast and smooth javascript animations Animate on scroll — Pretty straightforward Handlebars.js — Javascript templating jInvertScroll — Parallax scrolling One page scroll — And again a one page scrolling library Parallax.js — Parallax Engine that reacts to the...
Do you know how much Effort Google dedicate into Cyber Security
Google always Maintain the Extremely strong Cyber Security Culture for Data Security, Network Security, Cloud Security and Physical security. Google’s this extreme level security protection beginning from hiring the employee until the biggest security breach investigations. Employee background checks, Security training Privacy events Before they join google staff, Google will confirm an individual’s training and past business, and perform inner and outside reference checks. Where nearby work law or statutory directions allow, Google may likewise lead criminal, credit, migration, and security checks. The degree of these historical verifications is subject to the wanted position. Google Request to sign the Code of Conduct, which monitor all the new employees which highlight google commitment to keep customer information safe and secure and it is not only for Google but for all the subsidies which come under Alphabet Inc . it’s depending on their job role, additional training on specific aspects of security may be required. For instance, the information security team instructs new engineers on topics like secure coding practices, product design, and automated vulnerability scanning tools. Security and privacy is an ever-evolving area, and Google recognizes that dedicated employee engagement is a key means of raising awareness. One example is “Privacy Week,” during which Google hosts events across global offices to raise awareness of privacy in all facets, from software development, data handling and policy enforcement to living google privacy principles. The dedicated Security team and Privacy team Google employees more than 500 full-time security and privacy professionals, who are part of software engineering and operations division. Google team includes some of the world’s foremost experts in information, application and...
Holiday Extras uses machine learning and artificial intelligence for personalisation
Holiday Extras has launched an application that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to personalise its user experience. The company, which allows consumers to book extra services when they travel, has begun using AI to use customer data to make service or product recommendations that are more likely to meet a particular customer’s needs. Download this free guide UK IT Priorities results 2018 The forecast for the future is in and, in typical British fashion, it looks like it’s going to be cloudy. Our IT Priorities survey has revealed that organisations are planning on making the most of the cloud in the future. Download our IT Priorities results for more insights into the future. Andy Britcliffe, group technology director at Holiday Extras, said implementing this technology was part of the firm’s goal of focusing on customers as individuals as opposed to only considering consumer transactions. “Part of our long-term strategy is to create a vastly more personalised experience for our customers around their travel, utilising data in a way that brings together a person’s trip in its entirety, rather than as a series of unconnected interactions,” he said. The in-house technology team at Holiday Extras used open source data query language and native application framework GraphQL and React Native, alongside its own in-house applications to interpret data about customers and their trips to offer personalised recommendations using real-time product offers from across the web. The application will automatically generate a personalised trip, including matters such as airport parking and hotels. Customers can also purchase products while their trip is in progress by using digital payments technologies, such as Apple...
App Development Cost: How to Reduce Mobile App Development Cost
This blog encompasses information for those entrepreneurs, who are looking forward to reducing the mobile app development cost. Here, we have curated 4 tips to reduce app development cost that are personally implemented by our mobile app developers while developing an app. Do you want to develop a mobile app for your business, but suddenly give a second thought because of the high cost? Well, it’s true that developing a mobile app is not a cheap endeavor. Even, many companies and startups are trying to figure out how to reduce mobile app development cost without compromising the quality of the app. This is the reason, we decided to write a dedicated post on how to reduce mobile app development cost. This post is not only helpful for businesses but also helpful for developers to decrease the overall app development cost. Now, let’s get started with some useful tips and tricks that we have personally implemented for our clients’ project: #1. Clear and In-detail Requirements The first and foremost tip is, make sure to write clear and in-detail requirements about your app development project. By writing a detailed document, you can clearly communicate about your requirements with the app developer that will save their time and efforts. Let’s take an example of our client, who wanted to develop an event planning application named Loop: Party with friends. Our client along with his two friends contacted us and shared the document, containing requirements about the project. Our client was very clear about his concept, so our business representative instantly understood the concept. In fact, our professional app developers did not face...
A connected world will be a playground for hackers – Cyber security
AS WAYS TO break into casinos go, a fish tank is an unusual route. Yet that is what was used in an unnamed American gambling house in 2017. It had invested in a fancy internet-connected tank in which the temperature and salinity of the water were remotely controlled. Its owners were not naive: when they installed it, they isolated its controls on their own specific part of their company network, away from all their sensitive systems. It made no difference. According to Darktrace, a computer-security firm, attackers from Finland managed to break into the tank’s systems, then used it as a stepping stone for the rest of the casino’s networks. They made off with around 10GB of data. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor’s Picks. Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor’s Picks. Computer security is already hard. Everyone from the central bank of Bangladesh to America’s National Security Agency has suffered hacks or data breaches. The IoT will make things worse. A world in which more objects are computers is a world with more targets for miscreants. David Palmer, Darktrace’s director of technology, reels off a list of examples. “We’ve seen corporate espionage between suppliers inside a power station,” he says. “One supplier was using [their] access within the network to look at the performance characteristics of another supplier’s equipment.” His firm also discovered an attack on fingerprint readers that controlled access to a luxury-goods factory, and malware which spread through a hospital department after infecting a connected fax machine. Other incidents have been spectacular enough to...A web developer walks into a bar…
by Jeremy Stewart Illustrations by Rob Hudak If you’re like me at all , you love a good joke that’s related to web development — the more specific the better! Here are a few I‘ve thought up over the years. Some are good, some are cheesy, but all are guaranteed to have you laughing at your computer terminal for hours. Q: Why did the web designer drown? A: She didn’t know if she should float:left or float:right.Also, she had too many anchors. (thanks, @philbarker !) Q: Why was the web developer fired from his job? A: He was getting too Sassy. Alternate version: Q: Why was the web developer fired from her job? A: She did Less every day. Q: What did the Southern web developer say when he found out his team stopped using version control? A: Y’all better Git! Q: Why did the developer stay home from work? A: She had a code! Q: How did the scrawny web developer put on some muscle? A: He started using flex box (with float fallbacks for older versions of IE). Q: Why was the JavaScript reality show cancelled after only one episode? A: People thought it seemed scripted. Q: How can you tell that a web developer is working? A: You can hear him Grunting!A junior developer panicked when he realized he didn’t know how to initiate a secure shell session to a remote machine. As he became more upset and his voice grew louder, his boss — the senior developer — took notice and tried to quiet him down. With his finger pressed to the young developers lips,...
Mobile App Development: Top Mobile App Categories That Created Buzz
This blog embraces information for tech startups & entrepreneurs. As a tech startup or entrepreneur, if your mobile app idea is under any of these app categories, then there is good news for you! Mobile applications play an important role in the lives of people. From shopping to entertainment, gaming to making short funny videos, mobile apps have reached every corner and these apps are responsible to engage people. Talking about the downloads globally, then the top mobile app categories are games, photo and video, entertainment, utilities, and shopping. Top Mobile App Categories That Have Been Making Waves for the Last Two Year Shedding light on the reports, the top App Store category worldwide by downloads in Q4 2018 was Games with 2.09 billion installs for the quarter, as per the latest report from Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence platform. Let’s walk through into the report of Q4 categories by worldwide downloads across the App Store and Google Play. App Store: Q4 Categories by Worldwide Downloads Some Extracts from The Report 1. Games: Apart from the passing the 2 billion mark, the app category – games saw downloads decrease by -1.3% year-over-year from 2.11 billion in 4Q17. 2. Photo & Video: This app category was the second largest in App Store worldwide during Q4 2018 in terms of downloads along with 567 million installs, followed by Entertainment, Utilities, and Shopping. 3. Entertainment: In the App Store, entertainment is the third mobile app category in terms of downloads. 4. Utilities: The fourth mobile app category is ‘utilities’ across the App Store. 5. Shopping: One of the popular app categories is shopping,...
A Talk with Dr. Fauzia, Pakistan’s first female Cyber Security Analyst
Today’s digitalized world is characterized by the connectivity provided by internet, smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and smart glasses. While on one hand, this connectivity has opened a plethora of innovations such as the Internet of things (IoT), whereby everything can be controlled from within the touch of fingertips, it eventually gives rise to the big threats such as National and global security. Increasing incidents of cyber-attacks, cyber-theft and bullying point to nowhere but an imminent threat of regional or global cyberwar. While it is a general misperception that Pakistan does not have any contributions in the field of Science and Technology and that women are discouraged from education, let alone pursue STEM, Dr, Fauzia Idrees Abroo, Pakistan’s first female cyber-security analyst, is a pleasant surprise for many science enthusiasts. Dr. Abro started her educational career when she obtained her Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics from Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET), Jamshoro. She hails from rural Sindh and despite all the hurdles against the education of women, she pursued her passion and obtained masters in Cryptology from NUST. This was just a beginning in her career which took her to pursue a Ph.D. in Cyber Security from City, University of London. Her research interests are malware analysis, detection and prevention, mobile security, VoIP, network security, machine learning, IoT and Artificial Intelligence, most of them have been published in various academic journals and conference proceedings. She serves on several editorial boards and program committees of international journals and conferences. Currently, she is working on the security of the Internet of Things (IoT). This scribe had a chance to interact with...The 2019 Web Developer RoadMap
An illustrated guide to becoming a Web Developer with links to relevant courses Hello Guys, I hope you are doing great in 2019. I am sure you all have already made your goals by now and thinking about how to achieve those goals. If one of your goals is to learn to code or to become a Web Developer in 2019 then I have something great to share with you today, the 2019 Web Developer RoadMap. This is an excellent illustration on how to become a web developer in 2019 and guide you on how you can learn and master Web Development in 2019. It’s a collection of different paths to learning front-end, back-end, and all other things a Web developer should know. You will not just know about web development but about essential programming stuff which is important for all kind of programmers. The RoadMap is also divided into 3 sections, the first section is about common skills which every web developer should know, while the second and third section is about front-end and back-end development, two main areas of web development. You can either learn Front-end or Back-end or both, depending upon your choice. If you want to become a FullStack Web developer then you have to learn both front-end and back-end, there is no escaping there. In Frontend also you can choose to learn the framework you want like React, Angular or Vue.js, you don’t need to learn them all but learn the one you like. If you ask for my recommendation, Vue.js is a better choice in 2019 than the other two but again those are more...
