ANTHONY BARTOLO
How To: Install MySQL on Nano Server via PowerShell P.18
MARY ANN YULE
Trends Canadian channel partners should care about in 2017 P.20
INSIGHT FOR TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONALS
TECH PREDICTIONS
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2017 AND BEYOND SUPER HUMAN VISION MIXED REALITY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DRIVERLESS CARS
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January/ February 2017 VOLUME 1 NUMBER 1
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Contents
Vol 8 No 1 January/February 2017
www.itincanadaonline.ca
DEPARTMENTS
4 Editorial 6 News 10 Security Shelf 18 How to FEATURES
8 Why organizations need to develop a cybersecurity program now 12 IBM predicts ‘super human’ vision in five years 13 Mark Barrenechea: ‘the fourth industrial revolution is here’ 14 Prepare for machine learning capable smartphones 15 2017 will be about mixed reality, AI, driverless cars 16
University of New Brunswick partners with IBM in opening cybersecurity institute
COVER STORY: 2017 will be about mixed reality, AI, driverless cars.
17 Canadian government not prepared to stave off cyberattacks 19 WRLWND Radio 20 Trends Canadian channel partners should care about in 2017 22 2017 Global fraud and cybercrime forecast
Online Extras: www.itincanadaonline.ca
Missed an issue? Misplaced an article? Visit www.itincanadaonline.ca for a full archive of past IT in Canada Online issues, as well as online extras from our many contributors.
23 IoT is jeopardizing your business security January/February 2017 IT in Canada Online / 3
MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF INSIGHT FOR TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONALS
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Driverless cars, digital assistance powered by artificial intelligence, machines with the capacity to learn, smart appliances, and all manner of gadget and gidgets. Society’s love affair with technology continues to bloom and what better way to usher in the New Year than that monstrous electronic consumer goods love-in in Las Vegas called the Consumer Electronics Show. CES 2017 is a testament to the fact that the saying “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is dead. Judging from the media coverage that the show received during this four days in January, what happened in Vegas got tweeted, posted on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and in countless other social media channels and websites around the world. While many of these products might have an ephemeral sojourn in our consciousness, not a few will likely have some important impact in our daily lives. Which brings us to IT in Canada’s Jan-Feb 2017 Digital Edition. The edition does not cover the CES, but we do delve into the implications on our daily lives of the technology trends we are seeing around us today. You’ll find this edition, packed with technology predictions for 2017 and beyond. Read up on Mark Barrenechea’s The fourth industrial revolution is here. Mark parses how trends such as machine learning, IoT and more will change our lives. Our security expert Eric Jacksch, also will take you on a journey of cyber security of the year that as he revisits 2016’s ransomware threats and the hacking of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Then Eric’s piece 2017: The insanity continues, warns us about the dangers we face when we purchase poorly protected IoT devices that can be easily hacked and conscripted as botnets. For a rosier image of things to come, Marcello Sukhdeo reports on Jarvis, the new homebased digital assistant of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Jarvis, of course, is the name of the digital assistant of another well-known tech genius – Tony Stark, aka, Iron Man. Clearly, such AI conveniences are no longer limited to the realm of comic-book heroes. The day when there is a digital assistant in every home is just around the bend. Is it any surprise that U.S. companies would be looking to their neighbours to the North to help accomplish this? Yup, just a few weeks ago, Microsoft acquired AI start-up Maluuba, which was founded by two University of Waterloo graduates. Nestor Arellano reports that Microsoft is betting big that Maluuba’s expertise in deep learning, as well as question-answering and decision-making systems will help the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant advance its own AI strategy. And yes, we do have a story that mentions driverless cars. So strap on your seatbelt and read on. J. Richard Jones Editor-in-Chief
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IN THE NEWS
By Nestor Arellano
Waterloo AI startup catches Microsoft’s eye
University-years obsession for on artificial intelligence challenges paid off for the University of Waterloo graduates Sam Pasupalak and Kaheer Suleman. Last week, the duo’s AI start-up Maluuba was acquired by software giant Microsoft Corp., which is intent on building up its machine learning capabilities. Founded in 2011, the Canadian company, with offices in Kitchener-Waterloo, and Montreal, Maluuba is among the growing number of young tech businesses focused on the lucrative field of AI technology. By February of the next year, Maluuba had secured $2 million in seed funding from Samsung Ventures. Within six months, the company built out an engineering team, technology platform and Android personal assistant application that rivaled Siri and Google Now in terms of functionality. In September of that year, Maluuba officially launched their Android application as a finalist on stage at the Techcrunch Disrupt. It would take some time, but eventually, Microsoft took notice. “We have agreed to acquire Maluuba, a Montreal-based company with one of the world’s most impressive deep learning research labs for natural language understanding,” wrote Harry Shum, executive vice-president of Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence and Research Group, in his blog last Friday. “Maluuba’s expertise in deep learning and reinforcement learning for questionanswering and decision-making systems will help us advance our strategy to democratize AI and to make it accessible and valuable to everyone — consumers, businesses, and developers.” 6 / IT in Canada Online January/February 2017
Microsoft did not reveal how much they purchased the company for or other details of the deal, but Shum said Maluuba’s approach to research and engineering “directly aligned” with those of Microsoft. “We believe that together, we can achieve greater scale for Maluuba’s groundbreaking work and accelerate our ability to develop software so computers can read, write and converse naturally,” he said. Maluuba’s founders deeply believe that understanding the human language is the “Holy Grail” in the field of artificial intelligence. “Ever since we were classmates in our AI course (CS 486) at the University of Waterloo, way back in the summer of 2010, our vision has been to solve artificial general intelligence by creating literate machines that could think, reason and communicate like humans,” a post by Pasupalak and Sumelan on their company’s Web site reads. “…. In early 2014, we observed great leaps in the fields of computer vision and speech recognition and pondered the potential of Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning to enable our mission of creating literate machines.” They realized that there were huge opportunities in the study of how machines can learn to model the decision-making capabilities of the human brain. “This meant more than simple pattern matching on text, but building systems that can actually comprehend, synthesize, infer and make logical decisions like humans,” they said. ”So far, our team has focused on the areas of machine reading comprehension, dialogue understanding, and general (human) intelligence capabilities such as memory, common-sense reasoning, and information seeking behavior.” Partnering with Microsoft enables Maluuba to reach out to a larger number of customers and enterprise users that can benefit from AI technologies. It also opens up to the company the use of Microsoft’s resources and back-end infrastructures such as Microsoft Azure and GPU.
Meet Mark Zuckerberg’s new assistant, Jarvis By Marcello Sukhdeo
For the year 2016, Mark Zuckerberg set a personal challenge to build an AI to run his home. On December 19, 2016, the billionaire introduced us to his artificial intelligence via his Facebook post, Jarvis, which was named after Jarvis from Iron Man. “I’ve built a simple AI that I can talk to on my phone and computer, that can control my home, including lights, temperature, appliances, music and security, that learns my tastes and patterns, that can learn new words and concepts, and that can even entertain Max,” Zuckerberg wrote. According to the co-founder and CEO of Facebook, his goal was to learn about AI and the state of this new technology. He realized during the project that “we’re further along than people realize and where we’re still a long ways off.” But the challenges are what helped him to learn more that what he initially thought. He went on in his post to give a fairly detailed overview of the steps that brought him to the point where he is today. Check out the video below to see what Mark has achieved with his new AI and I can assure you that you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the voice. Check out the video https://www.facebook.com/zuck/ videos/10103351034741311/.
IN THE NEWS
Worries, questions over Russian hacking in U.S. grow Closely following the release of a few weeks ago of a joint FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report on Russian government operatives hacking into the computer system of the Democratic National Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to interfere with the 2016 presidential elections, authorities have now raised concerns that Russian hackers may be targeting America’s power grid. The Burlington Electric Department, one of Vermont’s two largest electric utilities, said that it had found malware associated with the Russian cyberattacks in one of its laptops. The Burlington Electric Department said that so far there are no indications that its electric grid or customer information has been compromised. The company said it was unfortunate that “an official or officials improperly shared inaccurate information” to the media. “On Thursday night, the Burlington Electric Department was alerted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of a malware code used in Grizzly Steppe, the name DHS has applied to recent malicious cyber activity,” Neale Lunderville, general manager of the company said in a statement. “We acted quickly to scan all computers in our system for the malware signature. We detected suspicious Internet traffic in a single Burlington Electric Department computer not connected to our organization’s grid systems. We took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alerted federal officials of this finding.” The company said federal officials have indicated that the specific type of Internet traffic “has been observed elsewhere in the country and is not unique to Burlington Electric.” The situation with the company has since been determined to be less threatening than earlier reported. However the Washington Post reported that an official who asked not to be identified, said that while the Russian’s did not use the code to disrupt Burlington Electric’s operations, it presence does emphasize the vulnerability of
America’s electric power grid and raises fears that the Russian government is actively trying to penetrate it for a potential attack. Electric generation facilities are highly computerized and interconnected. A breach of one system could cascade and impact other systems causing widespread disruption. Last Friday, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) called on officials to carry out an investigation into the incident and “undertake remedies to ensure that this never happens again.” “Vermonters and all Americans should be both alarmed and outraged that one of the world’s leading thugs, Vladimir Putin, has been attempting to hack our electric grid, which we rely upon to support our quality-of-life, economy, health, and safety,” he said in a statement. Meanwhile, questions continue to linger on whether the hacking operations against the Democrat’s computer systems were indeed carried out by the Russian government of lone wolves. An article in ArsTechnica said that while security companies have for months maintained the attacks were the handy work of people working for the Russian government, other security experts say it is very hard to determine the real origins of the attacks. Robert Lee, founder of the Dragos security company also wrote in his blog what the joint FBI-DHS report “reads like a poorly done ven-
dor intelligence report stringing together various aspects of attribution without evidence.” He said the report lays done its intent as: The report is intended to help network defenders; it is not the technical evidence of attribution The report contains a combination of private sector data and declassified government data The report will help defenders identify and block Russian malware – this is specifically declassified government data, not private sector data The report goes beyond indicators to include new tradecraft and techniques used by the Russian intelligence services The report “does not follow the intent laid out by the White House and confuses readers to think that this report is about attribution and not the intended purpose of helping network defenders,” Lee said. He also said the reporters failed to properly inform the report’s readers where its data came from. “Or said more simply: always tell people where you got your data, separate it from your own data which you have a higher confidence level in having observed first hand, and if you are using other people’s campaign names, data, analysis, etc. explain why so that analysts can do something with it instead of treating it as random situational awareness,” Lee said.
January/February 2017 IT in Canada Online / 7
FEATURE
By French Caldwell
WHY ORGANIZATIONS NEED TO DEVELOP
A CYBERSECURITY
PROGRAM NOW
C
ybersecurity breaches make headlines in Canada every day and businesses within the healthcare, finance, and retail sectors are often vulnerable targets. In order to minimize the adverse effects of a cybersecurity attack, here are some simple measures that Canadian companies can take in order to protect devices that are connected to the Internet such as implementing a comprehensive cybersecurity program to keep any sensitive data or information safe from being compromised. When one looks at cybersecurity or data protection and privacy regulations, one jurisdiction that imposes a regulation has worldwide effect. If Ontario imposes a data breach rule, for instance, any company that does business in Ontario has to comply – no 8 / IT in Canada Online January/February 2017
matter where in the world that company is located. The reverse is true – Canadian companies have to comply with the cyber security regulations that exist in any jurisdiction in which they do business. Therefore, all cybersecurity regulations worldwide apply to the Canadian businesses. Canadian businesses need to be more concerned with the rules surrounding major issues like data privacy and worry less about where cyber regulation originates from. As the Internet of things expands to include devices like medical equipment and driverless cars, life and limb are at stake – not just our credit card numbers. So even though today there are few cyber regulations implemented today, I expect this to change quickly in the next few years.
THE REVERSE IS TRUE – CANADIAN COMPANIES HAVE TO COMPLY WITH THE CYBER SECURITY REGULATIONS THAT EXIST IN ANY JURISDICTION IN WHICH THEY DO BUSINESS. THEREFORE, ALL CYBERSECURITY REGULATIONS WORLDWIDE APPLY TO THE CANADIAN BUSINESSES.
FEATURE
Developing a cybersecurity program is crucial to limiting the adverse effects of a cybersecurity attack. We are seeing just the beginning of this in the consumer products space. There are few product compliance standards that that guide company on how to maintain effective cyber security standards to protect consumer products that connect to the Internet. There are simple measures that manufacturers can take regarding safety and privacy, especially in terms of DDOS/IoT attacks, to protect devices that are connected to the Internet. For example, attackers have taken advantage of standard default passwords. Manufacturers are shipping baby monitors, toys and more that can connect to the web with a password like 0000 and a user name like admin. A simple approach to protecting products is to have a different password for each device shipped. This can be as simple as the serial number on the product, however, it needs to be different for each item. That way, there’s no default password that’s easily guessable for hackers to accomplish their mission. If you’re a company that provides information services, you should have standard reports on your security and data protection controls. Make sure that you have those reports available for your customers as well as third party assessments and audits to show that you have effective security, privacy and business continuity and that you can share that with customers. If you don’t take these common sense steps, then you leave yourself open to liability and lawsuits. No one knows just yet the impact that the Trump administration will have on data privacy and compliance for Canadian business, but frankly, this is not a question of any ideological or political persuasion. It’s just a fact that Donald Trump will be President and Justin Trudeau will be Prime Minister at the time when driverless cars, connected drones, and other IoT devices emerge, and therefore cyber security moves from a data protection to a public safety issue.
IT’S JUST A FACT THAT DONALD TRUMP WILL BE PRESIDENT AND JUSTIN TRUDEAU WILL BE PRIME MINISTER AT THE TIME WHEN DRIVERLESS CARS, CONNECTED DRONES, AND OTHER IOT DEVICES EMERGE, AND THEREFORE CYBER SECURITY MOVES FROM A DATA PROTECTION TO A PUBLIC SAFETY ISSUE.
French Caldwell is Chief Evangelist at MetricStream and has been decisively shaping the governance, risk and compliance market for the last 15 years. He is a former fellow and vice president of Gartner where he led their GRC research, including the influential Gartner Magic Quadrant on GRC, as well as research into public policy and disruptive technology. French also worked with the White House and U.S. Naval War college in 2002 to develop the Digital Pearl Harbor war game, the first ever strategic assessment of cyber war strategies. French is a retired naval officer and a nuclear submariner. Post-retirement, French served as a diplomatic liaison to NATO for the post-Cold War Congressional Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces. January/February 2017 IT in Canada Online / 9
SECURITY SHELF
By Eric Jacksch
2017:
THE INSANITY CONTINUES
W
hile it is tradition to begin the new year on an optimistic note, from a cyber security perspective only criminals are looking forward to a happy new year. By all indications, in 2017 cybercrime will continue to escalate at an alarming pace. Cybercrime has become big business. An August 2016 Osterman research survey revealed that 39 per cent of respondent organizations were impacted by ransomware in the preceding twelve months. In the United States, nearly one-third of victims faced data ransom demands of US $500 or less, likely the result of mass automated infection techniques, however, some targeted ransomware demands exceeded US$10,000. Individuals, corporations, hospitals, schools, governments, and law enforcement agencies have all been victimized. The FBI estimated cybercriminals collected $209 million in the first quarter of 2016, suggesting that ransomware is now a $1 billion per year crime. The frequency and magnitude of security breaches continue to increase at an alarming pace. In 2016, Yahoo disclosed that law enforcement provided the company with data files that a third party claimed was Yahoo user data. Based on a forensic analysis, Yahoo concluded that an unauthorized third party stole data associated with more than one billion user accounts in August 2013. Yahoo indicated that they have not been able to identify the intrusion associated with the breach. In addition to being the largest breach of this type, the Yahoo hack confirms what security professionals have known for years: Compromises frequently go undiscovered, rendering statistics unreliable. Had a foreign government been responsible for this breach, it is unlikely that it would have been detected. The 2016 United States Presidential 10 / IT in Canada Online January/February 2017
Election generated unprecedented dialog on state-sponsored hacking. It was widely reported that one of the organizations allegedly responsible for hacking the Democratic National Convention (DNC), nicknamed APT28, may be associated with Russian military intelligence. It is risky to base a conclusion solely on publicly available evidence. Democratic National Convention (DNC) email accounts were breached and malware was apparently spread across DNC computers. While it is certainly possible that the attack was state-sponsored, it is also conceivable that APT28 could have been working for a non-nation client, including domestic political opponents. Security vendors continue to improve anti-malware software and develop products to detect and combat intrusions. Some of these tools can be effective against mass malware campaigns and known malware toolkits, but they have very little impact on bespoke malware developed for targeted
attacks. Anyone who feels comfortable with their current anti-malware controls should read the Crowdstrike blog post about the DNC intrusion (https://www.crowdstrike. com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/) for a rare glimpse into the world of advanced persistent threats: “On many occasions, both the dropper and the payload will contain a range of techniques to ensure the sample is not being analyzed on a virtual machine, using a debugger, or located within a sandbox. They have extensive checks for the various security software that is installed on the system and their specific configurations. When specific versions are discovered that may cause issues for the RAT, it promptly exits. These actions demonstrate a well-resourced adversary with a thorough implant-testing regime that is highly attuned to slight configuration issues that may result in their detection, and which would cause them to deploy a different tool instead.� On the consumer front, things are even worse. Product manufacturers continue to fail at security. Poorly designed IP cameras and routers are being conscripted into botnets by the millions. IoT devices with no meaningful security features are permeating homes and offices. It is only a matter of time until sophisticated threat agents exploit these devices and use them to inject malware if they have not done so already. Albert Einstein is said to have defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It is undisputed that email and Web sites are the primary malware delivery vectors, yet we continue to pull data from these sources into the heart of business operations. There are solutions, but most people don’t want to hear them; instead they hope for a miracle or magic bullet, or at least to dodge the next ransomware attack. The insanity continues.
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PREDICTIONS
By Nestor Arellano
IBM predicts
‘SUPER HUMAN’ VISION IN
5 Years
O
ver the last 100 years, scientists have been able to develop instruments that emit and detect energy at different wavelengths. Experts in the various field make use of such technology to identify tumours in the human body, peer into the cavity of a tooth, check for contraband in baggage, or land a plane in the middle of a fog. However, more than 99.9 per cent of the electromagnetic spectrum remains hidden to the human eye. IBM is betting that within five years, hyper imaging technology and artificial intelligence will broaden our capability to see beyond the boundaries of visible light. The technology company foresees new hyper imaging devices that are more portable, affordable, and accessible than what we have today, “so superhero vision can be part of our everyday experiences,” according to Alberto Valdes Garcia, a research staff member and manager of the Radio Frequency Circuits and Systems Group, at IBM Research. Garcia has been interested in electronics since his elementary school days. He built his first circuit in grade 6. After earning an undergraduate degree in electronic systems engineering in Mexico, he came to the United States to work on his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. He joined IBM in 2006, where he was involved in various projects such as developing the first graphene-based 12 / IT in Canada Online January/February 2017
RF circuits, taking part in wireless standardization committees and University-industry research programs. His recent blog is part of the IBM 5 in 5 report, a look at five technologies that have the potential to impact people’s lives in the next five years. “In five years, emerging portable imaging devices will help us see beyond the domain of visible light to reveal valuable insights or potential dangers that would otherwise be unknown or hidden from view,” said Garcia. “Our ability to ‘see’ beyond visible light will reveal new insights that help us understand the world around us. This technology will be widely available throughout our daily lives, giving us the ability to perceive or see through objects and opaque environmental conditions anytime, anywhere.” Millimeter waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum, similar to light and X-rays, but with much longer wavelengths. They are a band of radio spectrum between ~30 GHz and 300 GHz that can be used for high-speed wireless communications and could become part of 5G. One aspect which IBM researchers are exploring is how they can use compact millimeter wave systems for imaging. Their intention is to build a new type of imaging technology that uses separate portions of the electromagnetic spectrum “to make the
invisible, visible,” according to Garcia. By enabling humans to see the invisible or barely visible, driving in even the weather conditions can be made safer. For example, using millimeter wave imaging, a camera and other electromagnetic sensors, hyper imaging technology could help a car see through fog or rain, detect hazardous and hard-to-see road conditions such as black ice or tell us if there is some object up ahead, as well as its distance and size, according to IBM. To make this possible, various technologies will need to come into play. For instance, miniature sensors packed into a single platform will capture different non-visible properties from objects. These sensors will have chips and antennas designed to determine an object’s location distance, and reflectivity. However, hyper imaging technology will also need an assist from artificial intelligence. AI will enable imaging devices to not only recognize objects, properties, and situations but also notify or warn humans about what these inputs represent. Cognitive computing will provide the reason behind the data, said Garcia. “… it will recognize what might be a tipped over garbage can versus a deer crossing the road, or a pothole that could result in a flat tire.”
By Marcello Sukhdeo
I
t all began in England in the late 18th century, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution when machines were first employed in manufacturing that changed the world in ways that we can’t fully fathom and have led to the technological development of the 21st century. Today, we stand on the cusp of the fourth such revolution – the digital revolution. A revolution, according to Mark Barrenechea, CEO and CTO of OpenText, that “incorporates machine learning” where the machines of our day are learning without being unequivocally programmed. In the past, technology developed at the pace of programmers but now that model is different where progress is realized “at the speed of data, intelligence and self-assembly” as computers are being self-taught. This new model is churning out technologies at a swift rate leading to the growth of the digital revolution. An example of this is the evolution of 3-D printing, which was a hot topic just last year but now there is talk of 4-D printing, which will print objects that will assemble themselves. Even the Internet of Things platform has evolved into the “Intelligence of Things”. Barrenechea writing in his blog post on the top tech trends of 2017 highlighted his top picks of what in tech will dominate this year. Let’s look at a few.
AI and Advanced Machine Learning: The Automatic Enterprise We’ve heard a lot about AI during 2016 and have seen the big players on the tech scene investing heavily in this technology. Consumers are already interacting with personal assistants like Siri and Google Assistant, while the robotic butler is a thing that is now a part of room service in some hotels around the world. “Many jobs will disappear through automation and others will change significantly as the enterprise becomes more automated and intelligent. Over the next few years, some of us could be answering to robobosses. From a productivity perspective, we spend a third of our time in the workplace
PREDICTIONS
Mark Barrenechea: ‘THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IS HERE’ collecting and processing data—AI could all but eliminate this work. Every job in every industry will be impacted by machine learning. The upside? The opportunity to think exponentially means that the potential applications for these technologies are limitless. For businesses, understanding cognitive systems, big data analytics, machine learning technology, and AI—and how to leverage them—will be critical for survival. In the short term, these technologies will give organizations faster access to sophisticated insights, empowering them to make better decisions and act with agility to outpace their competitors,” wrote Barrenechea.
The Year of Intelligent Things: A Smarter You in 2017 As AI and machine learning continue to be embedded into the things that we used on a daily basis like appliances, cars, and thermostats, the intelligence gathered from the usage will be coded into apps. “These apps,” according to the CEO of OpenText, “will be driven by data and context, they will synthesize vast amounts of information, learn our behaviors, and react and adapt in real time to deliver relevant and personalized outcomes. Whether they make us more productive at work, optimize our health, or manage energy and utilities consumption in our homes, intelligent things and apps have the power to direct our actions and influence our interactions to help us make better decisions and, ultimately, improve our quality of life.”
The Best Defense is a Good Offense with Adaptive Security Technology enhances businesses but at the same time poses a great risk. Cybercrime in 2016 was the second most reported crime and as the attacks continue to rise, the traditional use of antivirus and firewalls are not enough to protect from these incidents. What can we expect to happen? “In 2017, the enterprise will go on the offensive, assuming that its network is constantly under attack. To pre-empt cyber-attacks
and information leaks, organizations will implement an adaptive security architecture with continuous, real-time monitoring, big data, and analytics. As the next generation of security, an adaptive architecture delivers the preventative intelligence needed to uncover anomalies and potential threats and prioritize risks,” Barrenechea wrote in his blog.
A Hyper-connected Global Ecosystem Creates New Opportunities Business networks have been driving business opportunities during the past few years with an anticipated expansion to new hyper-connected ecosystems. “Much of the technology required for this ecosystem like AI, robotics, sensors, and the IoT already exists,” according to Barrenechea, it is now a matter to connect the dots. The CTO of the largest software company in Canada went on to explain, “Organizations are connecting across industries to form digital ecosystems with the customers at the hub. Auto manufacturers like Tesla and Fiat are partnering with technology companies to integrate GPS, navigation, social media, and entertainment services in ways that are transforming the driving experience. Adding intelligence for predictive maintenance and servicing integrates suppliers into the network to deliver efficiency and convenience. Taking advantage of the emerging concept of the connected car, it’s only a matter of time before standardization enables cars to tap into a broader range of networks, like smart transportation systems that automatically locate vacant parking spots, for example. When all of these services are connected in the self-driving car or aircraft, we will truly be able to sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.” We are living in a time that is so different from the late 1700s when the first industrial revolution began, but as we witness and experience the technological development of the 21st century we can be sure of one thing, “Whether you’re ready or not, the fourth industrial revolution is here,” Barrenechea wrote. January/February 2017 IT in Canada Online / 13
PREDICTIONS
By Nestor Arellano
PREPARE FOR MACHINE-LEARNING CAPABLE SMARTPHONES: Deloitte TMT predictions
D
eloitte is back with its Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) predictions, and this year the multinational professional services firm is betting big that machine-learning capabilities be embedded in millions of smartphones before 2017 is over. The way we interact with our smartphones will drastically be altered as these devices gain the capability to perform machine-learning tasks even without connectivity. “Machine learning will see everyday tasks become even faster and more effortless – so simple, that Canadians may not even realize their mobile devices have in fact learned these new capabilities,” said Anders McKenzie, partner and national TMT leader for Deloitte in Canada. “Not only will machine learning revolutionize how we conduct simple tasks through our mobile devices, but it will also improve the safety of Canadians through other platforms, such as better autonomous vehicles, responding to disasters and more resilient to cyber attacks.” These capabilities will find their way into tablets, drones, cars, virtual and augmentedrelative devices, medical tools, as well as Internet of things devices. Deloitte’s annual TMT Predictions typically identifies key trends in the technology, media and telecommunication industry sectors that will have a significant impact over the next 12-18 months. However for its 16th year, the report sets sights farther ahead past the coming year and into the coming decade.
AEB and autonomous vehicles Looking five years ahead, Deloitte predicts
14 / IT in Canada Online January/February 2017
that by 2022, fatalities from motor vehicle accidents in Canada will have dropped by more than 300 annually, a 16 per cent decline from levels seen in 2017. Deloitte believes the biggest factor behind this decline will be automatic emergency braking (AEB) technologies. AEB systems feature onboard sensors that scan the road ahead and can hit the brakes faster than a human driver can. D Deloitte notes that AEB will be so widely adopted, affordable, preferred by consumers, and successful at saving lives that it may even slow down the movement towards full self-driving cars. “This year will mark the beginning of a significant uptake in automatic braking technologies – a trend with an unparalleled potential effect – saving the lives of Canadians,” said Duncan Stewart, director of TMT Research at Deloitte in Canada and co-author of the global report. “We could see the adoption of autonomous vehicles occur more slowly than expected, as automatic braking technologies provide an alternative option for Canadians who are attracted to the increased safety that they offer, but also still desire to control and operate their own vehicles.”
IT-as-a-Service to become 35 per cent of IT spend - by the end of 2018 Deloitte predicts that spending on IT-asa-Service for data centers, software, and services will surpass US$547 billion worldwide, up from US$361 billion in 2016. Although flexible consumption-based
business models will not be ubiquitous by 2018, over a third of all IT spending (35 per cent), they will exceed half a trillion dollars and be growing rapidly. This shift will begin to evolve how the IT industry markets, sells and buys technology across businesses worldwide.
Cyberattacks enter the Terabit Era Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, a form of cyberattack, will become larger in scale, harder to mitigate, and more frequent. There will be on average a terabit/s (Tbit/s) scale attack per month, over 10 million attacks in total, and an average attack size of between 1.25 and 1.5 gigabits per second (Gbit/s). This escalation in the DDoS threat is largely due to the growing number of IoT devices, online availability of malware methodologies which allow relatively unskilled attackers to corral insecure IoT devices and use them to launch attacks and access to ever higher bandwidth speeds.
Biometric security The active base of fingerprint readerequipped devices will top one billion for the first time in early 2017 (10 million in Canada), with each active sensor used an average of 30 times a day, implying over 10 trillion aggregate presses globally over the year. With the rapid pace of access and adoption of this technology, the challenge is to determine which additional applications could use fingerprint readers and other biometric inputs to provide rapid and secure authentication.
PREDICTIONS Tablet sales slump Sales of tablets will be fewer than 165 million units, down by approximately 10 per cent from the 182 million units sold in 2016, suggesting we have passed the peak demand for these devices. While the numbers vary by country, there are three consumer devices that are at present leading tablets in terms of being the preferred devices for various activities by a large margin: computers, smartphones, and TVs.
Vinyl approaches billion-dollar sales Vinyl records will continue its resurgence, approaching US$1 billion globally in revenues for the first time this millennium. New vinyl revenues and units are likely to enjoy a seventh consecutive year of double-digit growth in 2017, comprising seven per cent of forecast global music revenues of about US$15 billion in 2017. However, vinyl is
unlikely to ever be music’s major growth or profit engine, with the future of music squarely focused on digital.
The final frontier for indoor navigation As of 2022, at least a quarter of all human and machine uses of precision digital navigation will include an indoor portion or be an entirely indoor journey, compared to less than 10 per cent of all uses in 2017. Being able to locate people and objects when indoors will be transformative, and is likely to benefit most vertical sectors, and have impacts on government, business, and consumers alike.
5G revolution in 2017 Significant, tangible steps towards the deployment of 5G, the fifth generation of cellular networks, will take place in 2017. Planned upgrades to 4G networks, as well
as the performance of the first limited 5G deployments, should acquaint users and operators with several of the most important features of 5G networks, including significantly higher speeds, lower latency, and support for low-power low-bitrate IoT devices and sensors.
TV ads remain flat While US TV advertising revenue in 2017 will be flat with 2016, this forecast is a positive outlook for an industry that too often is declared a vanishing business - flat is the new up. Spending will remain steady due to several factors including daily TV viewing remaining robust, ad skipping is relatively limited, older Americans are watching slightly more TV, and streaming continues to lack TV’s mass appeal for certain kinds of advertisers. Canadian TV advertising is expected to follow roughly the same trend.
2017 WILL BE ABOUT MIXED REALITY, AI, DRIVERLESS CARS: ACCENTURE By Nestor Arellano
T
he rise of the autonomous vehicle, smart homes, and digital assistants will create a new ecosystem that will threaten smartphone’s dominance. Live, raw stories and personal content will alter storytelling as we know it. And digital assistants, autonomous vehicles, and smart homes will be on the rise. These are some of the predictions of global professional services firm Accenture in its recently released Fjord Trends 2017 report. “The year is about making us smarter humans and fostering human potential by creating helpful, meaningful services across an expanded array of digitized environments,” said Scott Weisbrod, group service design director and Toronto studio head, Fjord.”… Our tenth annual Trends report aims to provoke, inform and inspire but, above all, to provide actionable insights into designing for the rapidly evolving world of experience.” He said organizations will need to “rewire” and adapt to the “supercharged, responsive and immersive environments” now made possible by automation and faster interfaces. Here are the eight digital trends expected to shape the next generation of experiences:
Shiny API People: Organizations will need to completely re-wire to inspire creative thinking and become more people-centric. They’ll do this by upscaling the principles and practices of innovation to effect organization-wide transformation. Hourglass Brands: With a polarized brand landscape, brands sitting in the squeezed middle will need to change their strategies and either lean towards a clear purpose or advocate a ‘we can do anything’ voice. Blurred Reality: As mixed reality moves towards the mainstream, organizations will turn away from single, siloed enhanced reality experiences to focus instead on harnessing and combining all types of reality – both enhanced and real. The World on Wheels: With autonomous vehicles so close to becoming part of everyday life, organizations will focus attention on the car as a connected mobile environment in which things happen via multiple devices. Leaders will explore ways to integrate experiences between car and home. Homes without Boundaries: Organizations will need to look beyond device-centric strategies to focus instead on designing and serving
home experiences that better meet individual householders’ varying wants and needs. Ephemeral Stories: Brand content is shifting from storytelling to “storydoing” – creating stories by what brands do, rather than what they tell. Brand owners will step back and make room for audiences to shape their own stories through highly personal – often, ephemeral -- content. Me, Myself and A.I.: While A.I. has evolved exponentially, in 2017 we will see a shift in organizations’ approaches to developing products and services as emotional intelligence (EQ) becomes a critical A.I. differentiator. Unintended Consequences: Organizations will focus more closely not just on their customer and employee experiences, but on their social experiences to guard against unintended consequences of their activities. “Organizations across every sector are learning to harness digital to become more customer-centric,” Weisbrod said. “It is through this lens that organizations need to rethink their purpose and what they call a service in order to convert change into opportunities.” January/February 2017 IT in Canada Online / 15
CYBERSECURITY
By Nestor Arellano
University of New Brunswick partners with IBM in opening
CYBERSECURITY INSTITUTE
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embers of the academe in the Maritimes hope to alleviate the shortage of cybersecurity expertise in the country and boost research in the area by establishing a research partnership with technology giant IBM. The University of New Brunswick and IBM recently opened the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity. The research and training located at the UNB grounds received $2.27 million in funding from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s Innovative Communities Fund and through the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. The provincial government kicked in near $2 million, and the UNB added $330,000 to the pot. IBM is the institute’s first research and development partner, helping to fund highly skilled resources in the field of cybersecurity and other in-kind contributions such as technical and management resources to provide project oversight and mentorship for students. Sandy Bird, IBM fellow and chief technology officer of IBM Security, said the new venture will bring about three key benefits: • The enhanced research partnership with UNB will further IBM understanding of new and emerging cybersecurity threats and threat actors • UBN researchers will have the opportunity to collaborate and partner with IBM cybersecurity experts and also benefit from industry validation and funding for their research • Improved training and exposure for students who will become future cybersecurity professionals New Brunswick is the ideal location for a cybersecurity institute because it already is 16 / IT in Canada Online January/February 2017
fertile ground for emerging experts in the field, according to Bird. “Waterloo is spectacular in encryption... it certainly feels like New Brunwick is the cybersecurity capital of Canada,” he said. Bird said cybersecurity experts such as Dr. Ali Ghorbani of UNB have been and continue to be mentors of some of the industry’s best cybersecurity practitioners.IBM also has a long history of working with New Brunswick students and researchers in the field of cybersecurity. The company’s new IBM Watson for Cyber Security system which uses artificial intelligence to provide what IBM calls “cognitive security,” is being developed with the help of students and researchers from UNB along with other organizations, Bird added. He foresees UNB and IBM developing and patenting the “next generation of cybersecurity products.” Meanwhile, IBM will contribute to the development of the institute curriculum as well as serve as a training ground for its coop students and interns. The government of New Brunswick aims to transform its economic landscape by building a knowledge-based economy and placing a strategic focus on developing cybersecurity technologies and competence. The area of cybersecurity holds big promises. The worldwide cybersecurity market is large and growing, with market sizing estimates ranging from US$75 billion in 2015 to $170 billion by 2020. The size of the market is a response to the rising global cost of cyberattacks, which is expected to grow to $2.1 trillion by 2020. There is intense interest in the development of newgeneration cybersecurity solutions. Meanwhile, according to the Information
and Communications Technology Council, and estimated 1.5 million people will be needed in the cybersecurity field by 2020. “The need for more cybersecurity support and services around the world is a huge opportunity to create jobs here in our province,” said New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant. “New Brunswick is already a world leader in cybersecurity. Enhancing training and research opportunities through this institute is another step in seizing this significant economic opportunity.” “The creation of the institute allows us to forge an even more crucial role in developing security measures necessary to protect modern critical infrastructure in Canada and beyond,” according to Dr. Eddy Campbell, UNB president, and vice-chancellor. Dr. Ali Ghorbani, Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity at the University of New Brunswick and dean of the faculty of computer science at the university, serves as director of the institute. The university’s partnership with IBM builds on the company’s long-standing history of investments and partnerships across the province. In 2011, IBM acquired Q1 Labs, whose QRadar Security Intelligence Platform was developed in partnership with the University of New Brunswick. T The acquisition served as a catalyst for IBM to form its security division, which is now a $2-billion business employing more than 8,000 researchers, developers and security experts across 133 countries worldwide. IBM maintains a research and development and customer support centre in Fredericton, which provides support for more than 5,000 customers around the globe.
CYBERSECURITY
CANADIAN GOVERNMENT NOT PREPARED TO STAVE OFF
CYBERATTACKS: Report
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hile the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump is being buffeted by reports of Russia’s alleged hacking activities in the United States, Canadians have less reason that they probably believe to feel safe against cyberattacks Documents from the Public Safety Canada indicate that the country is a prime target for cybercrime, state-sponsored cyberattacks, and lone wolf-type hackers. Consulting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers prepared for the federal public safety and emergency organization by which revealed that Canada’s federal information technology systems are ill-equipped to handle potential cyberattacks. The report said Canadian government budgets, resources, and capabilities “are simply not up to the overall challenge,” according to the Canadian Press. Cybersecurity expert French Caldwell, chief evangelist of governance, risk and compliance company MetricStream, talked to WrlWnd Radio to discussed what this means to Canadian businesses. Click on the image and link below to hear what he had to say. The report recommended the federal government engage the public sector to help the Ottawa deal with its cybersecurity challenges. For instance, the government can co-operate with small and medium-sized businesses in developing cybersecurity solutions. It also suggested closer collaboration with the U.S. which spends billions of dollars on cybersecurity. However, the report cautioned that surveillance and informationgathering aimed at countering cyber threats must be balanced with people’s privacy and personal liberties. The report said strict criteria for the use of collected data, as well as sufficient oversight, should be created.
Early last year, security vendor FireEye also released a report which warned that Canada and other western nations remain the targets of more than a dozen hacker groups which may or may not have ties with the Chinese government. FireEye said that between 2013 and May 2016, the company’s customers experiences 262 cyber breaches which have been traced to 72 suspected China-based groups in 26 countries, including Canada. The company did not reveal how many of the incidents involved Canadian firms or government departments. In the U.S. the country’s top intelligence community officials last week briefed Trump on what they believed to be Russian-backed cyber-snooping activities interfered with the 2016 presidential elections which compiled potentially harmful information to both Republican and Democratic parties. Part of that briefing information from a non-U.S. intelligence report which indicated Russian operatives had compromising personal and financial information on Trump. During a press conference on Wednesday, Trump slammed the U.S. intelligence agencies saying “who knows, but maybe the intelligence agencies “were responsible for the document. Canada’s spy agency has openly said that China and Russia are not intent on stealing national secrets. In 2014, the Canadian government said Chinese state-sponsored hackers broke into the National Research Council’s computer networks. The attack resulted in the shutdown of the agency’s system. Back in 2011, the networks of the finance department, Treasury Board, and the Defence Research and Development agency were forced to go of offline in the face of a sustained cyberattack. The breaches were attributed to actors from inside China.
January/February 2017 IT in Canada Online / 17
HOW TO
HOW TO:
By Anthony Bartolo
Install MySQL on Nano Server via PowerShell
R
ecently, Pierre Roman was in town presenting 10 Things I like About Windows Server 2016 to the Toronto ITPRO Usergroup. During the presentation Pierre white-boarded a couple of questions for us to address on CANITPRO.NET later via a blog post. One such question was, “Can you install SQL on a Nano Server?” SQL requires lots of features to be enabled in the underlying operating system. While it is possible to install SQL on a Server Core offering of Windows Server, albeit painful, SQL cannot be installed on a Nano Server at the time of this post being published. There is a possibility of SQL enablement that could occur with the utilization of containers which we’ll explore in a later post. With this in mind, it is possible to natively install MySQL on Nano. While it may not be as robust as SQL, for some this may just do the trick. This Step-By-Step post will detail the process required to complete this.
Step 1: Setup a Nano Server VM MVP Sean Kearney does an excellent job of detailing the setup in his post: Step-By-Step: Deploying Nano Server Found in Windows Server 2016 TP5
Step 2: Installing MySQL on Nano Server 1. Download mysql-5.7.13-winx64.zip and unzip the file to a local folder on your admin machine 2. Rename the innermost mysql-5.7.13-winx64 folder to MySQL 3. Run the following PowerShell script from an elevated PowerShell console to copy the binaries to your Nano Server machine: 1 $ip = “0.0.0.0” # Nano Server IP address 2 $s = New-PSSession -ComputerName $ip -Credential ~\Administrator 3 Copy-Item -ToSession $s -Path .\MySQL” -Destination C:\ -Force -Recurse
Step 3: Setting up your environment 1. Remote into your newly created Nano Server machine and enter the following: 1 Enter-PSSession $s 2. Enter the following to add the MySQL\bin folder to your path environment variable: 1 $env:path += “;C:\MySQL\bin” 3. Next you need to enter the following to make this change persist even after the Nano Server reboots: 1 setx PATH $env:path /M 4. Now enter the following to ensure the MySQL instance is present: 1 mysql –version # displays the MySQL version 5. Enter the following to initialize the MySQL daemon and ignore the warnings for now: 1 mysqld –initialize –console 6. Create mysql-init.txt and replace PASSWORD with your own: 1 Set-Content -Value “ALTER USER ‘root’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘PASSWORD’;” -Path c:\ mysql\mysql-init.txt -Encoding Ascii 7. Pass mysql-init.txt to the MySQL daemon for initialization: 1 mysqld –init-file=c:\\mysql\\mysql-init.txt –console 8. Stop the daemon using Ctrl+C and type the following to install the service: 1 mysqld –install 9. The service is now installed, and needs to be started with the following: 1 Get-Service MySQL 2 Start-Service MySQL 3 Get-Service MySQL 10. Display the system databases using the assigned password established when mysql-init.txt was created and yes ignore the warning: 1 mysql –user=root –password=myPassword -Bse “SHOW DATABASES;” > mydatabase.txt NOTE: The output to a file is being redirected to a text file as interactive sessions are not supported 11. Enter the following to display the content of the mydatabase.txt 1 .\mydatabase.txt MySQL is now operational on Nano Server.
18 / IT in Canada Online January/February 2017
PODCAST
By Marcello Sukhdeo
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Cloud first mentality from the top down
Welcome to WRLWND Radio. Listen to our last episodes to keep you safe in the technology WRLWND.
The future of mobile, TV, self-driving cars and the iPhone
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Disaster Recovery
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SUBSCRIBE TODAY. January/February 2017 IT in Canada Online / 19
RESELLER
By Mary Ann Yule
TRENDS
Canadian channel partners should care about in
2017 L
aying out a list of important technology industry trends to watch for 2017 is an easy task. The breakneck pace of product innovation is disrupting the way Canadian enterprises large and small operate, which has led to a laundry list of emerging areas to watch in the coming year for channel partners. The difficult part is figuring out which emerging trends can be turned into immediate revenue opportunities for solution providers. In a rapidly changing IT landscape (and world for that matter), here are the biggest emerging trends IT manufacturers are facing over the next 12 months and why each one is an exciting opportunity for solution providers.
Consumer sexy and commercial ready The consumerization of IT is far from a new trend, but much of its impact hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t yet been addressed by Canadian enterprises. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mobile firstâ&#x20AC;? has moved beyond millennials and is now the norm across many generations of enterprise workers. This means the majority of users are reaching for their mobile device even when other computing devices (ie. desktop) are in reach. However, many Canadian employees are using three or more devices on the job, which results in lowered productivity as they are continually stopping and starting, sending data between their various devices. For IT, device management costs have increased and the resources that might have gone toward deploying innovative new mobile apps or other services to improve the business are simply going to keep the lights on. At the same time, employees are beginning to realize that technology is a badge 20 / IT in Canada Online January/February 2017
RESELLER
“THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE IS A WORKPLACE WITH NO BARRIERS TO PRODUCTIVITY AND COLLABORATION BETWEEN STAFF. TODAY, WORK MOVES BETWEEN MOBILE DEVICES, LAPTOPS AND EVEN HOME COMPUTERS, AS EMPLOYEES ARE CONNECTING TO CORPORATE NETWORKS REMOTELY. AND IN THE OFFICE, THE WORK ENVIRONMENTS ARE RAPIDLY SHIFTING TOWARD SHARED WORKING SPACES AND OPEN FLOOR PLANS.” of honour at work. In fact, it’s an extension of a company’s brand or corporate culture. Our internal research has found that 82 per cent of IT decision makers feel the technology employees carry is a reflection of their company. With design cited as an important part of the decision-making process for both employees and IT decision makers, business leaders will increasingly look at ways to use the technology they deploy to attract and retain talent. For solution providers, the key takeaway here is taking advantage of the desire for thinner and lighter computing devices in the enterprise as well as the needs of a “mobile first” workforce. Some of today’s commercial devices now rival consumer ones in the sleek and stunning category, however, the business mobile computing devices of the future also need to give employees a secure, simple and seamless user experience. At the same time, they must address the fact that much of the workforce is using and switching between too many devices in the office. Solution providers should be looking to help their customers deploy businessfocused mobile devices, such as new 3-in-1 devices, which are versatile enough to pull double or triple duty as a phone, tablet and fully-functional PC when needed. This new device category is gaining interest among Canadian enterprises as it limits the amount of devices they need to support, while giving employees access to a sleek looking, powerful and more versatile mobile computing device.
Protecting the office of the future The office of the future is a workplace with no barriers to productivity and collaboration between staff. Today, work moves between
mobile devices, laptops and even home computers, as employees are connecting to corporate networks remotely. And in the office, the work environments are rapidly shifting toward shared working spaces and open floor plans. We have seen that organizations are far less concerned or confident with the measures they have in place to prevent printer-related security breaches compared to other end user devices such as mobile phones. This sentiment is backed up by recent internal data HP Inc. commissioned from IDC Canada, in which 150 Canadian IT security decision makers were surveyed. The survey found that respondents in industry verticals such as legal, real estate and healthcare need to take print security more seriously and implement measures to avoid breaches. Today’s printers function a lot like PCs, with many of the same hardware components including disk drives, keyboards and LCD control panels. On the software side, they have built-in operating systems, run executables and are connected to the Web. And like PCs, they are under-protected, impacted by human error and are one of the fastest growing targets for hackers. With printers still flying under the radar from a security perspective in Canada, channel partners have a great opportunity to play a key role in the education process for IT decision makers. In fact, expanding managed print services to include print security actions might actually be a huge differentiator and margin opportunity for partners who invest in resources and training to specialize in this growing area. Resellers with an existing security practice will also want to consider adding a stronger understanding of print security to their repertoire to ensure they can address the growing threats in the space.
Everything-as-a-Service The print security opportunity ties in quite nicely for channel partners who are already exploring the Everything-as-aService (XaaS) model or have an existing XaaS practice. We heard a lot about the XaaS model in 2016 – which helps enterprises tailor their computing environment to their business, employee and customer needs – and the momentum will continue in the new year. It’s a market opportunity that partners should not miss out on as it enables the ability to be a cohesive one-stop experience for customers. The channel play for Canadian partners is making sure that customers have exactly what they need by taking a consultative approach to services. With XaaS, companies have greater flexibility to take advantage of new technologies and services – including print security, PC deployment and mobile device management – because it eliminates upgrade costs and moves toward a “pay-as-you-go” model. Beyond the ability to adjust pricing, partners can also add value through analyzing customer usage data and ensuring they can modify their product and service offerings quickly – or even on the fly. There’s no question the past 12 months brought a lot of change for both the technology industry and the Canadian channel. And while the upcoming year will likely be no different, something that won’t change is our collective requirement to bring Canadian businesses new and innovative technology solutions that help ensure they have a competitive edge. Mary Ann Yule is the President of HP Canada Co. January/February 2017 IT in Canada Online / 21
BLOG
By Marcus Lecuyer
2017 GLOBAL AND CYBERCRIME FORECAST
F
rom mobile threats and malware to the organizations on the target lists of e-commerce fraud – a myriad of threats exist across the cyber landscape and the commoditization of cybercrime is making it easier and cheaper to launch attacks on a global scale. If you are a believer that the best predictor of future events is based on those of the past, I’d like to share insights based on real-world fraud data from the past year and offer ideas on what we can expect from the global cybercrime landscape in 2017.
Mobile Eats the World Yes, mobile is literally eating the world. It has become the dominant channel for instant communication and the expressway for banking and commerce worldwide. As organizations use mobile to transform the way they interact with customers, cybercriminals have also taken note, as evidenced by the rise in fraud attempts originating in the mobile channel. In the past year, RSA has uncovered that 60 per cent of transactions confirmed as fraud originated from a mobile device. And, mobile traffic is also growing at unprecedented rates, with RSA witnessing a nearly 1:1 ratio between mobile and web transactions. Predictions for 2017: Mobile transactions will outpace web transactions for the first time. Fraud will continue to grow rapidly within the mobile channel, particularly from mobile applications, as banks, retailers, and other service providers offer more services to their customers via mobile apps. 22 / IT in Canada Online January/February 2017
Biometric authentication will start to take off for mobile users. Many such initiatives are happening now, and cyber security is not the main driver. User experience is key to driving adoption of the mobile channel. Biometrics are considered the best option, as opposed to the traditional username/ password combination, which is not ideal as a user access method for mobile customers. Fingerprint, voice, and eye print, combined with risk-based transaction monitoring, will be the predominant technology combinations for authentication and fraud management in the mobile channel.
the recent announcement. The new protocol offers many enhancements to the 1.x password-based, “challenge all” approach. Merchants and issuers are at least 12 – 18 months out from any major technology deployments as they just begin to formulate their strategies to adopt the 2.0 framework. As a result, there is still a massive window of opportunity for fraudsters to capitalize on card-not-present e-commerce fraud in 2017.
Don’t Let the Phish Bite Among the headlines spouting ransomware hostages and DDoS botnets knocking entire countries offline, phishing is still a very real threat. From the CEO to the consumer, phishing is alive and well – and growing like never before. RSA identified more phishing attacks in the second quarter of 2016 than in all of 2015 combined; this equates to a new phishing attack launched every 30 seconds. The cost to organizations is hardly anything to scoff at either. When factoring in the average uptime of a phishing attack and the average cost for every hour an attack is live, phishing is estimated to cost global organizations an estimated $9 billion in losses in 2016.
As the opportunity for in-person fraud diminishes with the rollout of EMV, cardnot-present (CNP) fraud will dramatically increase, reaching over $7 billion in the U.S. by 2020. As fraudsters move from in-store card present fraud to purchasing goods with stolen cards from the comfort of their couch, retailers are likely to feel the effect. Today, online money transfer and bill pay services account for approximately 1 in 5 e-commerce fraud transactions, followed by the hospitality and airline, electronics, jewelry and fashion, entertainment (i.e., event ticketing sites), and gaming industries.
Predictions for 2017: Phishers will continue to innovate in the coming year by improving on existing methods to host their attacks in order to increase the longevity that an attack is live. It is also a strong possibility that clever phishing attacks will emerge targeting cardholder information as breaches and skimming of POS terminals and ATM machines will be far less effective as more terminals are upgraded to support EMV cards. This is just a glimpse into the 2017 fraud and cybercrime forecast. Stay tuned for more on DDoS attacks, botnets, credential stuffing, and account takeover when we deliver the full 2017 forecast in our Current State of Cybercrime series.
Predictions for 2017: The launch of 3D Secure 2.0, led by EMVCo, is going to change the game for the e-commerce ecosystem. There has been a flurry of renewed interest in the wake of
Marcus Lecuyer is area vice-president for Canada at RSA Security. Marcus is responsible for leading the overall business operations and go to market sales functions for RSA Security in Canada.
Fraudsters Will Go Shopping On You
BLOG
By Cristina Ion
IoT is jeopardizing your business security
W
ith the rising wave of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, businesses everywhere are faced yet with another challenge: to ensure an adequate security level while also continuously integrating new technologies. Industries such as healthcare, insurance and banking, retail and the list can go on, have already embraced smart machines and IPenabled appliances in the workplace, but is this necessarily a good thing? While IoT has already made itself comfortable in the corporate world, it is an issue that remains controversial and should be treated with caution. Thinking of the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend, experts quickly realized that smart devices and other IoT parts create a grave threat to a company’s security level. The truth is that the extra productivity and cost savings an enterprise gets out of this whole deal is proportional with the increasing number of network vulnerabilities that can be exploited via unsecured endpoints. Read our previous article on endpoint security here.
The Internet of Things or the Internet of Threats? You may tell yourself that not all IoT devices can be threatening to the cyber well-being of your company. And that is where you are partially right. Indeed, not all of them are critical to your corporate security. There are some devices that can have a more damaging impact than others. Take for instance, a Windows 7, 8 or 10 workstation where the user frequently deferres updates and patches. When you expose such a device to the network, you basically offer hack-
ers your data on a silver platter. Security best practices in a digitalized work environment are crucial to combat the double-edged sword effect of IoT and prevent it from becoming the dreaded Internet of Threats. At ITrust, our experts are continuously monitoring the state of the cyber-landscape and, as a result, act as security ambassadors in their pursuit of creating mass awareness. For more tips on how to acquire the most effective cyber-routine, you can consult the 10 most encountered security breaches here. If you’re still not convinced of the risk businesses are taking when enabling largescale remote controlling of their network assets, perhaps you would like to know that Gartner estimates the number of connected devices in business sectors to reach the order of billions by 2020 (20.8 billion, to be exact). On top of that, add the fact that most of these devices will not be secured by default, for the simple reason that their creators did not perceive security as a primary consumer need to begin with. This is the reason why scenarios such as hackers disabling the air traffic control center of an airport are becoming more and more plausible.
Hackers can do more damage now than ever before The more internet-enabled machines we own, the easier it is for third-party devices to override our control of them. This year only we were able to witness hospitals being overthrown by ransomware (read our ‘How to avoid being in a data hostage situation, crippled not only financially, but also
operationally. Imagine being a nurse in the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center and not being able to access your patient data because someone else clicked on an infected email attachment and now the malware it was carrying has taken over the entire network. Or even worse, imagine being the patient. The evolved world provides use with numerous convenient advantages. We can synchronize all our devices, bring our own laptop to work or, vice-versa, bring our work computer home. Unfortunately, it also provides hackers with new opportunities to take advantage of the increasingly digitized and connected manner businesses are conducted in. Just this week, the FBI issued a warning to all smart car drivers that automated vehicle hacking is a very real risk.
What is left to be done? One thing is for sure: if done right, IoT will completely revolutionize our way of living and, implicitly, our way of working. Despite the underlying risks, if businesses were to understand the need for advanced security analytics, the Pandora’s box of the digital era could remain closed forever. Organizations need to shift their focus on real-time detection of advanced threats and acquire full visibility where their security level is concerned. Cristina is the Community Manager of Reveelium Inc., a subsidiary of the French cybersecurity provider, ITrust and specialised in behaviour analytics and machine learning applied to the field of cybersecurity. January/February 2017 IT in Canada Online / 23
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