Another Cloud Security Break, Adobe's Creative Cloud exposes 2.9 mil customers

Adobe has a blog post on a recent security breach of their creative cloud.

 

Important Customer Security Announcement

POSTED BY BRAD ARKIN, CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER ON OCTOBER 3, 2013 8:08 AM INEXECUTIVE PERSPECTIVES

Cyber attacks are one of the unfortunate realities of doing business today. Given the profile and widespread use of many of our products, Adobe has attracted increasing attention from cyber attackers. Very recently, Adobe’s security team discovered sophisticated attacks on our network, involving the illegal access of customer information as well as source code for numerous Adobe products. We believe these attacks may be related.

Our investigation currently indicates that the attackers accessed Adobe customer IDs and encrypted passwords on our systems. We also believe the attackers removed from our systems certain information relating to 2.9 million Adobe customers, including customer names, encrypted credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information relating to customer orders. At this time, we do not believe the attackers removed decrypted credit or debit card numbers from our systems. We deeply regret that this incident occurred. We’re working diligently internally, as well as with external partners and law enforcement, to address the incident. We’re taking the following steps:

And now it looks like it is getting worse.

Ruh-roh: Adobe breach is just the beginning, researcher says

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Other as-yet-unnamed companies have also been compromised, security whiz Alex Holden tells The ThreatPost blog.

The Adobe source code breach disclosed last week was scary. Perhaps scarier still is that the perpetrators have hit other as-yet unnamed companies.

China's New East China Data Center has Local River as cooling Source

DatacenterDynamics has an article on a new East China Cloud Data Center.  Part of what is going on in China is the Cloud is being used to centralize the hosting of IT services.

Many domestic telecommunication players, large financial institutions and top 100 websites are also expected to use the Jiande cloud computing data center as a platform to enter into the cloud computing market and develop large high-end technology industry cluster.

When it is cold enough outside air will be used for cooling. When it gets too warm, then the river can be used as a cooling source.

General Manager of Zhejiang Yunkuaichuan Science and Technology CoHe Qing said the data center will draw on the nearby Xin’anjiang River’s constant water temperature - at about 17℃ year round - for cooling purposes.

When (the outside air) temperature is low, the data center can be partly or completely cooled by natural cooling, while the water in the cooling tower can be used as a cooling source; when (the outside air) temperature is above 15℃in wet-bulb temperature, the water of the Xin’anjiang River can be used as a cooling source.

Given Solar Panels are limiting Firefighters abilities, will Fire Insurance rates increase?

FoxNews covers the risk to Fire Fighters when Solar Panels are on a roof.  There are efforts to address this problem.

A 2010 report by the Fire Protection Research Foundation found that slipping or tripping on solar panels were potential hazards for firefighters, as well as the possibility of the roof collapse due to the weight of the panels, which are generally made of crystalline silicon or thin-film semiconductor material. The maximum voltage of most systems, meanwhile, is roughly 600 volts, which can cause shock or burns.

“The industry has to continue to work with the fire service community, both on education and updating building codes to meet firefighters’ needs,” Smirnow continued. “That’s really where I think we can make the most progress.”

Even after all these efforts it will most likely be riskier to fight a fire with solar panels on the roof which slows down the fighting of a fire.  This can increase the damage from a fire which then could trigger higher insurance rates.

We are at the beginning of solar panels on roofs and electric cars.  As much as these are better for the environment, when there is fire it is harder to put out the flames.

Besides the insurance issues there is a public perception issue.  GigaOm's Katie Fehrenbacher covers the Tesla's exposure with its care fire.

Will customers be worried about Model S cars catching on fire after collisions? And will that effect sales at all? An investigation in a couple of fires during safety testing with Chevy’s Volt back in 2011, seem to contribute to a considerable freeze in Volt sales for awhile. Fires certainly weren’t great publicity for Fisker’s electric cars back when those were on sale.

Large companies with diverse product lines can weather branding and publicity issues more easily than startups that have one product on the market. If that one product turns sour, there’s nothing else out there to prop up the brand.

But this fire issue could end up being another hurdle Tesla jumps over. Cars get in accidents, and bad things happen in accidents. But the company will likely have to work on its own PR campaign to be transparent but also soothe any worried customers. And the good news is that Tesla has always been particularly adept at PR and marketing, so expect some type of reaction, and soon.

Do you think Spatially? A neglected skill is becoming a hot talent

HBR has a post on Spatial Thinking.

The Importance of Spatial Thinking Now

by Kirk Goldsberry  |   1:00 PM September 30, 2013

In its 375 years, Harvard has only ever eliminated one entire academic program. If you had to guess, what program do you think that was and when was it killed off?

The answer: Harvard eradicated its Geography Department in the 1940s, and many universities followed suit.

The timing couldn’t have been worse, really. Shortly after the elimination of Geography here at Harvard, the discipline underwent a quantitative and computational revolution that eventually produced innovations like Google Maps and global positioning systems, to name just two. Seventy years later we are paying for a prolonged lack of spatial thinking at American universities. There are too few classes that enable learners to improve their spatial reasoning abilities, with maps and visualizations being of course the most central artifacts to such improvements. The problem is simple: not enough people know how to make maps or handle spatial data sets.

In 1999 when a couple of us at Microsoft wanted to leverage GPS data with images, people thought we were nuts.  Thanks to smartphones, GPS data is with images and all kinds of other data that comes from the phone.

I wrote about spatial intelligence a year ago, and it is nice to see that spatial is becoming a more popular topic

Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook are Vanity Fair's Leading Innovators

Vanity Fair lists the top 50 Innovators.

The faster things change, the tougher it is to stay on top. In this year’s rankings, 50 leading innovators shake the foundations of their industries, while 25 members of the power elite demonstrate why they’re not going anywhere soon.

Guess who is top - Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook - all companies where data centers are a big deal.