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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 18 Issue 03
Volume 18, Issue 03 Atari Online News, Etc. January 15, 2016
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2016
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1803 01/15/16
~ Microsoft Collects MORE ~ People Are Talking! ~ Firebee Update News!
~ Gatekeeper Flaw Remains ~ Sharing Personal Info? ~ ATM Hackers Arrested!
~ Amiga OS Source Leaked? ~ Snoop Dogg to Gates! ~ UPP! for Atari 2600!
~ Hackers Cause Blackout! ~ SJC To Hear Xbox Case! ~ Seagates 10TB Drive!
-* Microsoft Fixes Critical Flaws! *-
-* The Dark Web's First Major News Site *-
-* Trend Micro Patches Password Manager Bug! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
It's been getting colder around here in New England, but more
importantly, there's no (okay, a little) snow on the ground!
Thankfully, oil prices have dropped significantly lately, so
heating oil prices are dropping like the temperature!
Just looking at this week's batch of articles, I noticed a
trend that was disturbing - most articles this week were about
hackers, hackings, software flaws, and similar topics that do
not give one that warm, fuzzy feeling.
It's obvious (or should be!) that today's technology - as it
grows and improves - is an invitation for someone to hack into it
and wreak havoc. Just look at the "power" that some of these
hackers have these days: break into ATMs and steal money, cause
massive power outtages, and the like. Upograde your PC to
Windows 10 and open yourself to having Microsoft track what you
do and where you do it! And most of the time, you don't have a
single clue. And it's only going to get worse!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
FireBee Update News
By Fred Horvat
Something I discussed in an earlier article was that I was going to
try and setup the FireBee the best I could as a day to day machine.
One of the tasks I mentioned was Backups. Well with the recent
issues with the FireBee having issues not always booting
successfully after the DIP Switch experiment. I figure I better
get a good backup of my good running FreeMiNT setup that I have
been working with over the past several months. This is currently
on an 8GB CF card and all software installed on it has been tested
good and configured (I believe) properly. So to lose all this work
really would be very bad for me. I did a backup after I installed
and got working NVDI 5 but that was a couple of months ago and I
never tested the backup. Without testing a backup you really
canít say for sure that your effort has been worthwhile. How does
one test a backup? To me it is to get that backup restored on a
blank drive and back running properly. I was not going to backup
my good 8GB CF Card and wipe it clean and restore it back though I
was very confident that it would work. I had a second 8GB CF Card
that I partitioned and formatted like my working one and restored
to that CF Card.
There are a couple of different ways I could have done the backup
and restore. The method I ended up using was not the first choice
either. This is what I did that worked for me. First a
description of the 8GB CF Card as this will help knowing what I
was dealing with and the method I chose will make more sense. The
8CF CF Card is partition as one 990MB FAT16 Boot Partition
containing FreeMiNT and one more FAT32 Partition of the remaining
space of approximately 7GB that contains all my programs and user
data (about 200MB of actual data). My first choice would have
been to use a USB Flash Thumb Drive. Why I didnít chose it was
that even though I have had the FireBee for about 6 months now I
never plugged a USB Thumb Drive into the machine. So until I
actually use one on the FireBee I was not going to rely on it.
In all honestly I probably have nothing to even worry about but
again I never used a Thumb Drive on the FireBee so I decided to
go with what I have been using the whole time. That would be a
SD Card in Drive A:. I grabbed a FAT16 formatted 1GB SD card and
put in the FireBee and turned the FireBee on. I booted into
FreeMiNT (which I do 99% of the time). I then created two
folders on the SD Card. One folder called DriveC and another
called DriveD. Then from the desktop I opened Drive C: and
selected all files and folders on the drive and copied them to
the DriveC folder on the SD Card. I did the same for Drive D: to
the DriveD folder. I donít know exactly how long it took for
each drive partially because once I started I walked away and came
back a bit later. A few minutes for Drive C: and maybe 10-15 for
Drive D:. I then shut down the FireBee and removed the 8GB CF
Card and put in the newly prepared 8GB CF Card and booted into
FireTOS. I reversed the process and copied the contents from the
SD card DriveC to the CF C: partition. I rebooted into FreeMiNT
so I had FAT32 support and then copied the DriveD folder to Drive
D:. Time wise I didnít time it but it seemed to take longer or
it felt that way because I was monitoring it more than before.
After it was all done I removed the SD Card and rebooted the
FireBee and booted into FreeMiNT. I ran a bunch of programs and
all appears to be running fine. I plan on leaving in the newly
created CF Card for a couple of weeks to test it more thoroughly
but so far it seems to be working fine. During this time I need
to keep track of any changes I make so I duplicate them back to
the main CF Card also.
This was actually quite a simple process with the FreeMiNT that is
supplied with the FireBee. FAT16 and FAT32 have almost the same
file formats with FAT32 having long file name support, larger
partition sizes, and other enhancements over FAT16. In my
situation the files I had on my FAT32 partition Drive D: did not
have any long file names. Had this been the case I would have
had to use a FAT32 formatted USB Thumb Drive. I will be testing
USB Thumb Drives and maybe external USB hard drives in the near
future. When I do I will report my experiences. Now had I been
running EasyMiNT then I donít believe I could have backed up the
Unix ext2 formatted partition(s) like I did by just copying data
to and back from a FAT32 formatted USB Thumb Drive. I wonít know
until I try but I believe that it will mess up file attributes.
In the event I do finally get EasyMiNT installer working or
decide to manually put together SpareMiNT onto the FireBee I will
try copying back and forth to see what happens. I may have to
use Unix commands (like DD or TAR) to backup/copy the data to a
USB Thumb Drive FAT32 or even ext2 formatted. Iím not the
strongest Unix user but I do have some hands on Unix experience.
One benefit of copying data to a SD or USB Thumb Drive is that I
brought the SD card to a Windows PC and copied those folders to
that machine for having another backup on a Windows PC. Even
another benefit of having the data on the Windows PC was that I
Zipped the folders into smaller single files for each drive and
uploaded them to my DropBox account. Now I have backups in
multiple places.
Amiga OS Kickstart and Workbench Source Coded Leaked
Generation Amiga has reported today a tweet from Hacker Fantastic
saying that the Amiga OS source has been leaked, including both
Kickstart and Workbench. Looking at the @hackerfantasticís tweet,
there is another user with the handle @TheWack0lian that offers a
link to download the OS in a 130MB tar file which expands to
540MB of source code.
As far I could gather, Hyperion Entertainment, despite filing
bankruptcy in January of 2015, still holds the rights to modify
and distribute the Amiga OS. They even released on Dec 17th the
Amiga OS 4.1 Final Edition as Digital download, in partnership
with Cloanto.
Apparently the source code is really related to Amiga OS. The
tar file name refers to OS 3.1 but folders from the source code
refers to version 4, which could mean the source code is pretty
much up to date.
The retro scene is used to have almost everything ìfor freeî and
the fact Amiga OS is one of the few examples that still need to
be purchased can show different reactions from the community.
We would love to hear what you have to say about it, as we could
probably see illegal versions of the OS being released in
upcoming months.
AmigaOS 3.1 Source Code Leak - Official Statement
Hyperion Entertainment wishes a happy New Year 2016 everybody!
The days between last Christmas and New Year were actually clouded
by the sad fact that the source code of AmigaOS 3.1 and additional
content dating back to 1994 was published and widely spread
without permission of the rights-holder. Note that no code of
AmigaOS 4.x was released or distributed.
Hyperion Entertainment holds an exclusive, world-wide, perpetual
source-code license to the intellectual property of AmigaOS 3.1
and additional content as documented in the publicly available
settlement agreement between Hyperion Entertainment and Amiga,
Inc. which has taken the form of a stipulated judgement.
Based on this license AmigaOS 4.x development was started in
2001 by Hyperion Entertainment using the AmigaOS 3.1 code as a
basis and as the direct successor of what Commodore left behind
in 1994. AmigaOS 4.x is an actively developed product on sale
and still incorporates a substantial amount of AmigaOS 3.1 code.
While this would be already more than enough of a reason to care
about the unauthorised disclosure and distribution, it is also
the very same settlement agreement which made all of this
possible in the first place, which contractually requires
Hyperion to enforce and protect any intellectual property rights
associated with AmigaOS including the AmigaOS 3.1 source-code.
This entails that Hyperion Entertainment will examine all
possible legal action against any unauthorised source of or use of
this material it is aware of. All of this leads up to the reason
why we "make such a fuss" about code which is more than 20 years
old by now. While the original leak seems to stem from someone
outside of the active community, it is even more sad to see quite
some of the remaining active users happily participate in
distributing this unauthorised copy, compromising years of
development work and all possible future versions of AmigaOS and
therefore biting the hand that feeds them against all common
sense and in blatant violation of copyright.
Having said that, our most special thanks go to all loyal
customers, user groups, dealers, partners and all others who
showed and continue to show their support to us. You are the
reason why AmigaOS still exists, why it remains under active
development and why we care.
Thank you, on behalf of Hyperion Entertainment, all associated
developers, translators and testers.
Hyperion Entertainment CVBA
Tervurenlaan 34
1040 Brussels
Belgium
info@hyperion-entertainment.com
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - U.S. Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Microsoft Appeal in Xbox Case!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" ëGrand Theft Autoí Studio Head Calls It Quits!
Snoop Dogg to Bill Gates: 'Fix Your S***'!
And much more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
U.S. Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Microsoft Appeal in Xbox Case
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider Microsoft
Corp's bid to fend off class action claims by Xbox 360 owners who
contend that the videogame console has a design defect that causes
game discs to be gouged.
The court will review a March 2015 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals on the question of whether a lower court decision
denying class certification to the plaintiffs could be challenged.
Class action lawsuits can lead to larger damages or broader
remedies than individual lawsuits that can be costly to pursue.
Microsoft has sold tens of millions of Xbox 360 consoles since
their 2005 launch. But owners have claimed that the console's
optical disc drive cannot withstand even small vibrations. They
said this causes game discs to spin out of control and become
scratched even under normal playing conditions, rendering them
unplayable.
Microsoft said class certification was improper because just 0.4
percent of Xbox owners reported disc scratches, and that misuse
was the cause.
In 2012, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez in Seattle
dismissed the class action claims. He relied on a 2009 ruling in
a similar case in which another judge said the dearth of
complaints ruled out class certification.
The case is Microsoft Corp v. Baker, U.S. Supreme Court,
No. 15-457.
ëGrand Theft Autoí Studio Head Calls It Quits
You may not be familiar with the manís name, but you probably know
his work.
Leslie Benzies, the president of Grand Theft Auto developer
Rockstar North, has departed the company after a 17-month
sabbatical, reports Kotaku.
Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Benzies came aboard Rockstar North
predecessor DMA Design in 1999 as a game programmer. In 2001 he
helped launch the seminal Grand Theft Auto III as the gameís
producer, bringing the then-obscure GTA franchise into the third
dimension and into the worldís spotlight. He went on to lead the
development of all subsequent GTA games, and is credited as a
lead designer on Rockstarís acclaimed Western-themed game, Red
Dead Redemption.
The media-shy Benzies presided over a development studio known
for its thoroughness and attention to detail. ìWe donít just go,
ëHereís a mission, off you go,íî Benzies said in a 2013 profile
for Develop magazine. ìWe spend a lot of time, make a lot of
graphs and work out how difficult something is, what the reward
is, how you might be feeling after that mission.î
ìThat last five to ten per cent of work on the game makes a huge
difference,î Benzies insisted. ìThis level of perfection is not
seen or understood in the majority of the industry. We can all
make a car drive down a street in a game, but can you do it in
style?î
That perfectionism paid off. For the past 15 years, Grand Theft
Auto has been gamingís crown jewel, with each iteration garnering
outrageous sales and critical acclaim despite outcry over its
violent content. Benzies himself was honored in 2005 with a BAFTA
Special Award and was inducted into the Academy of Arts and
Sciences Hall of Fame in 2014.
Rockstar North veterans Aaron Garbut and Rob Nelson will helm the
studio moving forward, but no one knows what Benzies is up to
next. Weíd say he deserves a long vacation, but it looks like
heís already in the middle of one.
Snoop Dogg to Bill Gates: 'Fix Your S***'
An Xbox Live outage on Wednesday miffed countless gamersóincluding
Snoop Dogg.
The obviously put-out rapper took to Instagram this week to
address "Xbox One or Microsoft or whoever the f***." In a very
NSFW video, Snoop bemoaned the disruption, threatening to replace
his Microsoft console with a Sony PlayStation.
"Y'all f***ing server is f***ing wack, man," the rapper, actor,
and entrepreneur said. "Y'all gonna make me switch to PlayStation
if y'all don't ever get this s*** fixed."
As of press time, the Instagram video had almost 40,000 likes, and
a handful of encouraging comments. The same clip, reposted eight
hours later with a black-and-white filter, received another 20,800
likes.
According to reports, the Xbox Live outage began around 2 p.m.
Eastern, knocking party chat, online gaming, and other functions
offline for Xbox One$333.61 at Amazon, Xbox 360, and Windows
users.
The issue was resolved before midnight, and Redmond's Xbox Live
Status page today shows all services running normally.
But the waiting is the hardest partóand patience doesn't appear
to be Snoop Dogg's strong suit. During his gaming downtime, the
44-year-old record exec went straight to the top, addressing
Microsoft's co-founder directly.
"What the f*** is you doin', Bill Gates?" Snoop said at the end
of the 15-second video. "Fix your s***, man."
Gates is a Microsoft co-founder, but is far from the public face
of Xbox; that would be Phil Spencer. Microsoft did not
immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment.
Hideo Kojima Will Be Inducted Into Gaming Hall of Fame
The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences on Tuesday announced
that Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima will become the 21st
inductee to the organization's Hall of Fame. He will accept the
award in person during a ceremony at the 19th D.I.C.E. Awards in
Las Vegas on February 18.
And who will present the award to Kojima?
None other than film director and writer Guillermo del Toro.
Kojima and del Toro worked together on Silent Hills before its
cancellation and are hoping to one day find their way back to each
other for a future project.
2987067-kojima.jpg
"Hideo Kojima's career-defining works have shaped much of how the
video game industry approaches cinematic storytelling and player
engagement," AIAS president Martin Rae said in a statement. "As
one of the most well-loved and well-respected designers of our
time, it is a great honor for the Academy to induct him into our
Hall of Fame. Hideo is a game creator whose eyes have always
looked towards the future, and we look forward to his thoughts on
the D.I.C.E. Summit stage."
AIAS Hall of Fame status is given to game creators "who have been
instrumental in the development of highly influential games and
moving a particular genre forward. These individuals demonstrate
the highest level of creativity and innovation, resulting in
significant product influence on a scale that expands the scope
of the industry."
Previous AIAS Hall of Fame inductees have included people like
Leslie Benzies, Dan Houser, and Sam Houser of Rock Games, as well
as Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, Valve's Gabe Newell, and BioWare
founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka. Nintendo legend Shigeru
Miyamoto was the first inductee, back in 1998.
Last month, Kojima left Konami after two decades with the
Japanese publisher. He now runs his own studio in Japan, Kojima
Productions, and is working with Sony on a new PlayStation 4 and
PC game.
"I want to create something that's what people expect, but at
the same time will have something new that people haven't seen
before," he explained in an interview last month.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Bandit Gaming: Mortal Kombat for the Atari 2600 Work in Progress
In the early 1990ís we saw the release of Street Fighter II a
title that changed arcades till their last days. Midway couldnít
stand idly by so they released a one on one fighting game that
took things a few steps farther. While Street Fighter II was a
cartoon style game like most arcade games of the time, Mortal
Kombat came in with digitized graphics. Real actors portrayed the
moves featured in the game while Street Fighter II used hand drawn
animation. Now, nearly 20 years after its initial release, Mortal
Kombat is coming to the Atari 2600.
This is not an official port, hence the title ìBandit Gamingî.
Midway, or whomever owns the rights now, is not behind this game
in any way that I know of. That would be cool if we could get
some support for this like we saw with Halo 2600 and are seeing
for ìLegendî on Atari 2600. It could happen. It is just good
old plain good support of the fanbase. No one is going to confuse
this with the currently being sold games, not by any stretch of
the imagination.
What is here is a two player battle with both players controlling
Raiden. Donít expect fatalities just yet. Right now, the
animation is pretty basic and it would be tough for a person that
has no knowledge of Mortal Kombat to figure out that is Raiden.
He is just a jumble of pixels at the moment. The Outlands are
similarly displayed but well, this is the Atari 2600 so what can
you really expect?
AtariAge forum member, ìJinrohî is working on Mortal Kombat for
Atari 2600 in his spare time. He is putting as much time has he
can into this work in progress so progress should be available in
the not too distant future.
UPP! Homebrew Released for Atari 2600
To say that the Atari 2600 is dead is only half right. If you are
talking about going to Walmart and buying games then yes, it is
dead. If you are a little more open minded and know where to look
(around here at RGM is a good start) then you can find a plethora
of new Atari 2600 games. For example, UPP! for the Atari 2600 is
a new take on an old idea. If you have played, or remember,
Breakout then you know the basics of UPP! The difference is,
those basics are turned on their heads here.
The idea of Breakout holds true in UPP! except it is not you
playing that classic. NO, here you are the ship on the playfield
trying to avoid the iconic paddle and ball. While the game is
playing out a game of Breakout you are controlling a spaceship
that is trying to collect a power up that drops, rather lazily,
from the top of the screen. I say lazily drops because that
power up is in no way a hurry to get to your ship. Once you
collect the power up some of the blocks disappear from the
playfield. Beating a level requires enough blocks be gone so
that you can pass through into the opening that drifts across
the top of the screen.
Complicating matters are random laser shots from the bottom of
the screen. Hitting those, or the ball, will cost you a life.
UPP! is a quirky take on the classic Breakout premise, something
expanding on the idea.
UPP! is made available on cartridge, available on Etsy, complete
with box and manual. If you are more of a digital gamer, or wish
to try before you pay too much, you can hit up the itch.io store.
This is a great opportunity to try UPP! out, support an indie
developer and help more titles be developed.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Police Arrested Hackers Who Stole Millions from European ATMs
Romanian law enforcement authorities have arrested eight cyber
criminals suspected of being part of an international criminal
gang that pilfered cash from ATMs (automatic teller machines)
using malware.
The operation said to be one of the first operations of this type
in Europe, was conducted in Romania and Moldova by Romanian
National Police and the Directorate for Investigating Organised
Crimes and Terrorism (DIICOT), with assistance from Europol,
Eurojust and other European law enforcement authorities.
Europol did not provide names of any of the eight criminals
arrested but said that the gang allegedly used a piece of malware,
dubbed Tyupkin, to conduct what are known as Jackpotting attacks
and made millions by infecting ATMs across Europe and beyond.
With the help of Tyupkin malware, the suspects were able to empty
cash from infected ATMs by issuing commands through the ATM's pin
pad.
"The criminal group was involved in large scale ATM Jackpotting ñ
a term which refers to the use of a Trojan horse, physically
launched via an executable file in order to target an ATM,"
Europol explained in a press release, "thus allowing the
attackers to empty the ATM cash cassettes via direct
manipulation, using the ATM PIN pad to submit commands to the
Trojan."
Tyupkin was first analysed in 2014 by Kaspersky Lab following the
request from a financial institution. During the investigation,
Kaspersky found the malware threat on more than 50 ATMs in
Eastern Europe.
The malware allows its operators to withdraw cash from ATMs
without the requirement of any payment card.
Although, Europol did not specify how much money in total the
criminal gang was able to plunder, it believed that the gang was
able to cause ìsubstantial lossesî across Europe and that the
losses could be in Millions.
Cyber Attacks on Manufacturing Spiked Last Year
Department of Homeland Security investigations of cyber attacks
on the nation's critical manufacturing sector nearly doubled in
the year ended Sept. 30, according to the agency.
The Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems
Cybersecurity Emergency Response Team, or ICS-CERT, said in a
report distributed this week that it investigated 97 incidents at
critical manufacturers during its most-recent fiscal year.
That category includes makers of vehicles and other types of
transportation equipment as well as metals, machinery and
electrical equipment producers.
ICS-CERT said that altogether it responded to a total of 295 cyber
incidents, up 20 percent from the previous fiscal year. After
critical manufacturing, the next most active sectors were energy,
with 46 incidents, water, with 25, and transportation systems,
with 23, according to the report. The document did not say whether
any of the incidents caused outages or say who was behind them. A
DHS spokesman declined to elaborate.
Cyber experts say that such incidents could be caused by
unintentional infections of criminal malware, nations and
criminals gathering data to prepare for potential destructive
attacks in the future, or attacks looking to disrupt service.
Hackers Cause World's First Power Outage with Malware
SCADA system has always been an interesting target for cyber
crooks, given the success of Stuxnet malware that was developed
by the US and Israeli together to sabotage the Iranian nuclear
facilities a few years ago, and "Havex" that previously targeted
organizations in the energy sector.
Now once again, hackers have used highly destructive malware and
infected, at least, three regional power authorities in Ukraine,
causing blackouts across the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine on
23rd December.
The energy ministry confirmed it was investigating claims a cyber
attack disrupted local energy provider Prykarpattyaoblenergo,
causing the power outage that left half of the homes in
Ivano-Frankivsk without electricity just before Christmas.
According to a Ukrainian news service TSN, the outage was the
result of nasty malware that disconnected electrical substations.
On Monday, researchers from antivirus provider ESET confirmed
that multiple power authorities in Ukraine were infected by
"BlackEnergy" trojan.
BlackEnergy Trojan was first discovered in 2007 as a relatively
simple tool to conduct Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
attacks but was updated two years ago to add a host of new
features, including the ability to render infected computers
unbootable.
The malware was launched by "Russian security services" with it
being used against industrial control systems and politically
sensitive targets, the SBU state intelligence service said in a
statement on Monday.
According to ESET, the malware was recently updated again to add
a new component called KillDisk and a backdoored secure shell
(SSH) utility that gives hackers permanent access to infected
computers.
The KillDisk module enables the BlackEnergy malware to destroy
critical parts of a computer hard drive and to sabotage industrial
control systems, the same used in attacks against Ukrainian news
media companies and the electrical power industry.
"The first known case where the KillDisk component of
BlackEnergy was used was documented by CERT-UA in November 2015,"
Anton Cherepanov of ESET wrote in a blog post. "In that instance,
a number of news media companies were attacked at the time of the
2015 Ukrainian local elections. The report claims that a large
number of video materials and various documents were destroyed as
a result of the attack."
Researchers said hackers had used backdoors to spread the
KillDisk wiper module through booby-trapped macro functions
embedded in Microsoft Office documents across the Ukrainian power
authorities.
Therefore, it is believed that the initial point of infection
with BlackEnergy caused after employees opened Microsoft Office
files containing malicious macros.
It is really disturbing that industrial control systems used to
supply power to Millions of homes could be infected using such a
simple social-engineering trick.
Moreover, the most concerning part is that the BlackEnergy
malware is now being used to create power failures that can even
have life-and-death consequences for large numbers of people.
Ukrainian authorities are investigating the hacking attack on its
power grid. For more technical details about the latest
BlackEnergy package, you can read on ESET blog.
Plain Cruelty: Boffins Flay Linux Ransomware for The Third Time
Probably the world's most tragically determined blackhat
developers have had their revitalised Linux.Encoder ransomware
pwned again by meddling BitDefender whitehats.
The third iteration of the Linux.Encoder ransomware was unleashed
on the world, infecting a paltry 600 servers before a crack team
of security analysts returned to rip it apart.
Once again, instead of paying the VXers a Bitcoin to fund
training them out of hopelessness, victims can run BitDefender's
decryption utility to release their locked-up files free of
charge.
Linux.Encoder's defiant developers took lesson from the failings
of the first and second versions which were ripped up days after
release such that victims could decrypt their files for free,
neutering the malware.
They even heeded Twitter invective from the sarcastic security
swarm which proffered cryptographic clues about how they may
improve their net nasty.
It was not enough, according to BitDefender boffin Radu Caragea.
"As we expected, the creators of Linux.Encoder have fixed their
previous bugs and have come up with a new and improved variant,"
Caragea says.
"Luckily for the victims, the new variant of Linux.Encoder is
still vulnerable to key recovery attacks."
Bitdefender highlighted that in earlier versions file
modification time could be used to work out the ransomware's
random key generation and to reverse the encryption.
Twitter scoffed, pointing out that the method is insecure and
should be altered.
"Apparently, the operators actually took note of these sarcastic
recommendations; as a result, the IV (initialisation vector) is
now generated from a hash of the file size and the filename ñ
32 bytes from rand() are hashed 8 times and used as the AES-256
key," Caragea says.
And the attackers still made n00b-level coding errors. For
example, there's a missing static link in the libc library that
stops the ransomware launching on older systems that would be
easier to pwn.
Caragea called the last Linux.Encoder variant a counterstrike a
"close shave" and says victims who escape the grasp of the third
version may not get a fourth chance.
"While this is the third lucky strike, please make sure that,
after recovery, you update the vulnerable platforms and stop this
type of attack cold in the first place."
"Next time, hackers could actually come up with a working version
of the ransomware that wonít be as easy to decrypt."
Creator of MegalodonHTTP DDoS Botnet Arrested
Last month, the Norway police arrested five hackers accused of
running the MegalodonHTTP Remote Access Trojan (RAT).
The arrests came as part of the joint operation between Norwayís
Kripos National Criminal Investigation Service and Europol,
codenamed "OP Falling sTAR."
According to the United States security firm, all the five men,
aged between 16 and 24 years and located in Romania, France, and
Norway, were charged with possessing, using and selling malware.
One of those arrested also confessed to running his own web store
where he sold malware, designed to take full control of target
computers, harvesting passwords, and other personal data.
Moreover, the malware can be used to hijack webcams in real-time,
and steal documents, images, and videos as well.
"Damballa's threat discovery center worked in cooperation
with the Norway police over the last few months to track and
identify the author of the malware dubbed MegalodonHTTP," threat
researcher Loucif Kharouni wrote in a blog post.
"We are not at liberty to divulge the MegalodonHTTP authorís
real identity, but we can confirm that the person behind the
handle Bin4ry is no longer active or doing business."
However, the researchers said MegalodonHTTP was not very powerful;
in fact, it was "quite simple" and indicated the poor coding
skills of its author, requiring .NET to be installed on infected
systems.
MegalodonHTTP included a number of features as listed below:
Binary downloading and executing
Distributed Denial of service (DDoS) attack methods
Remote shell
Antivirus Disabling
Crypto miner for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Omnicoin and Dogecoin
However, MegalodonHTTP is not an advanced malware, according to
the researchers, and its author wanted to develop modular malware
with a number of malicious features, but remained "as small as
possible, around 20Kb."
This malware was sold on amateur hacker hangout HackForum as well
as on the bin4ry[dot]com website. In fact, before his arrest last
month, the hacker was still selling the malware.
Just last week, Europol in cooperation with Romanian law
enforcement authorities arrested eight criminal hackers suspected
of being part of an international criminal gang that pilfered
cash from ATMs using malware.
602 Gbps! This May Have Been the Largest DDoS Attack in History
Cyber attacks are getting evil and worst nightmare for companies
day-by-day, and the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack
is one of the favorite weapon for hackers to temporarily suspend
services of a host connected to the Internet.
Until now, nearly every big website had been a victim of this
attack, and the most recent one was conducted against the BBC's
websites and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's
main campaign website over this past holiday weekend.
Out of two, the largest DDoS attack in the history was carried
out against the BBC website: Over 600 Gbps.
The group calling itself New World Hacking claimed responsibility
for taking down both the BBC's global website and Donald Trump's
website last week.
The group targeted all BBC sites, including its iPlayer on-demand
service, and took them down for at least three hours on New
Year's Eve.
At the moment, the BBC news organization announced that the
outage was caused due to some "technical" fault, but later it
stated that "New World Hacking" group had claimed responsibility
for launching a DDoS attack against BBC, as a "test of its
capabilities."
One of the members of the New World Hacking group, identified
himself as Ownz, claimed that the group allegedly used their own
tool called BangStresser to launch a DDoS attack of up to 602 Gbps
on the BBC's website.
As a proof, the group provided ZDNet a screenshot of a web
interface that was allegedly used to attack the BBC website.
Although the authenticity of the screenshot has not been verified,
if the attack size is proven true, it would vastly surpass the
largest DDoS attack record of 334 Gbps, recorded by Arbor Networks
last year.
The recent massive DDoS attack apparently utilizes two Amazon Web
Services servers that employ a large number of automated detection
and mitigation techniques in order to prevent the misuse of the
services, Amazon previously claimed.
"We have our ways of bypassing Amazon," said Ownz. "The best
way to describe it is we tap into a few administrative services
that Amazon is use to using. The [sic] simply set our bandwidth
limit as unlimited and program our own scripts to hide it."
More details about the attack have yet not disclosed, but Ownz
claimed that their main purpose behind the development of the
BangStresser DDoS tool is to unmask ISIS and possibly end its
online propaganda.
"We have been taking down ISIS websites in the past," said Ownz,
"this is just the start of a new year."
A similar group named Lizard Squad, conducted a marketing campaign
for promoting their DDoS tool, known as the Lizard Stresser, using
which the group took down Sony's PlayStation Network and
Microsoft's Xbox Live last year on Christmas Eve.
Trend Micro Anti-virus Software Leaves Users Open to Attack
When they're not working on their own projects, Google engineers
often focus on highlighting potential issues with software
delivered by others. We've already seen bug hunter Tavis Ormandy
expose a vulnerability in AVG's Chrome security add-on, but he's
now also found an exploit in another popular virus scanner: Trend
Micro.
According to Ormandy's security disclosure, a weakness in Trend
Micro's Password Manager, which is automatically installed
alongside the main scanner on Windows machines, let attackers
execute commands and launch programs on unsuspecting users' PCs.
He also pointed out that all saved passwords on the machine could
be read as a result.
The company is said to have used an old API that invoked an
"ancient" build of Chromium (the engine that powers Google's
Chrome browser). We're currently up to version 49, but the
security company utilized version 41, which dates back to January
2015. Using this, the program would break out of its sandbox, an
environment designed to stop attackers from being able to access
areas they shouldn't, in order to offer a "secure browser" to
users. In the example below, the Google engineer was able to run
a local program, Windows Calculator in this case, but it could
also be used to execute a remote attack.
"I don't even know what to say - how could you enable this thing
*by default* on all your customer machines without getting an
audit from a competent security consultant?," says Ormandy.
The disclosure also highlights a worrying trend (I know, I know):
security companies that provide additional tools to protect
people from malicious attacks are actually putting them more at
risk. Plus, users may never know that their computer has been
attacked.
Trend Micro says it moved quickly to patch the vulnerabilities
and "worked with Tavis throughout the process" to resolve them.
"Thanks to his responsible work with us, we were able to address
the most critical issues he brought us in less than one week."
Trend Micro Patches Password Manager Bug
Trend Micro's Password Manager has come under fire for potentially
allowing a malicious website to run arbitrary code on a computer.
Earlier this month, security researcher Tavis Ormandy discovered a
security flaw in Trend Micro's Password Manager. According to a
post on Google's Security Research site, when users installed Trend
Micro Antivirus on Windows, a Password Manager app downloaded
automatically, too. Unfortunately that app used an "ancient build
of Chromium" that left it open to attacks and, ironically, put
people's passwords at risk.
"It took about 30 seconds to spot [an API] that permits arbitrary
command execution," Ormandy wrote last week. "This means any
website can launch arbitrary commands."
On Monday, Trend Micro said it addressed the issue through a
mandatory update. It did not appear that anyone had exploited it,
said Christopher Budd from Trend Micro's Global Threat
Communications team.
"As part of our standard investigation we checked and verified
that the only product affected by these issues is our consumer
Trend Micro Password Manager and no commercial or enterprise
products are affected," Budd said. "We released a mandatory
update through Trend Micro's ActiveUpdate technology on
January 11, 2016 that fixes these problems: all customers
should have that now."
Last month, Ormandy discovered a bug within AVG Web TuneUp that
put the info of 9 million users at risk.
Microsoft Fixes Critical Flaws in Windows,
Office, Edge, IE and Other Products
Microsoft has released the first batch of security updates for
2016 and they include critical fixes for remote code execution
flaws in Windows, Office, Edge, Internet Explorer, Silverlight and
Visual Basic.
The company has also fixed remote code execution and elevation of
privilege vulnerabilities in Windows and an address spoofing flaw
in Exchange Server, that were rated important, not critical, due
to various mitigating factors.
In total, Microsoft issued nine security bulletins covering patches
for 24 vulnerabilities.
According to Wolfgang Kandek, the CTO of security firm Qualys,
administrators should prioritize the MS16-005 security bulletin,
especially for systems running Windows Vista, 7 and Server 2008.
This patch addresses a remote code execution vulnerability tracked
as CVE-2016-0009 that has been publicly disclosed, making attacks
more likely.
The second most important bulletin, according to Qualys, is
MS16-004, which addresses six vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office.
This bulletin is rated critical, which has been unusual for
Microsoft Office in the recent past.
The culprit for this severity rating is one particular remote code
execution vulnerability tracked as CVE-2016-0010 that's present in
all versions of Office from 2007 to 2016, even those running on
Mac and Windows RT, Kandek said in a blog post.
Researchers from security firm Tripwire believe that the Internet
Explorer and Microsoft Edge patches should be at the top of the
priority list instead, because they address vulnerabilities that
could be remotely exploited through malicious or compromised
websites.
These patches are covered in the MS16-001 and MS16-002 security
bulletins and will be the last ones that Internet Explorer
versions 8 and 10 will ever receive. IE 9 will continue to be
supported on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2.
"Many enterprises need to use older versions of IE within their
environments because of very expensive, legacy web applications
that use outdated technology," said Lane Thames, security
researcher at Tripwire, via email. "Organizations who still
depend on legacy applications that require these older IE
versions will need to move appropriately."
Companies that use Outlook Web Access (OWA) should also
prioritize MS16-010. Even though this bulletin is rated by
Microsoft only as important, the vulnerability it covers can
allow attackers to launch so-called business e-mail compromise
(BEC) attacks.
Such attacks have cost companies around the world $1.2 billion,
according to statistics published in August by the FBI's Internet
Crime Complaint Center (IC3). It involves attackers compromising
business emails, or spoofing email addresses, to instruct
employees and business partners to initiate unauthorized wire
transfers.
Finally, the MS16-006 bulletin, which addresses a vulnerability
in Silverlight, should be on the priority list as well because
the flaw could enable remote code execution attacks through the
browser plug-in. Attackers are known to have used Silverlight
exploits in the past.
This month's updates were also the last ones for Windows 8, which
Microsoft will no longer support going forward. Windows 8 users
will have to upgrade to Windows 8.1 or 10 in order to continue
receiving security patches.
Gatekeeper Flaw Remains Exploitable Four Months After Its Discovery
A security researcher says flaws in Appleís Gatekeeper application
validation system remain available to exploit, despite Apple
patching some vectors he disclosed on September 30 in security
updates released in November and December.
ìIt took me literally five minutes to completely bypass,î says
Patrick Wardle, director of research at Synack. Heís not just
talking about the problem: Heís also released a tool to block the
unpatched pathways to exploitation. To make use of this flaw, a
legitimate app has to be modified by a malicious party and then
distributed or swapped in when a user thinks the correct package
is being downloaded. That said, it remains a reasonable concern.
An Apple spokesperson tells Macworld that it has added the latest
specific unsigned app components identified by Wardle to its
XProtect list, preventing their launch, and has engaged in
productive discussions. The company says it continues to work on
improving the security of Gatekeeper.
Apple designed Gatekeeper to provide a heightened level of
integrity around Mac apps from registered developers without
restricting all downloads to the Mac App Store. With the Security
& Privacy system preference paneís Allows Apps Downloaded From set
to Mac App Store and Identified Developers, only apps in that
latter category that have been cryptographically signed by a
certificate issued by Apple should launch, and only after given
the prompt that youíre launching software that was downloaded
from the Internet.
Wardleís September disclosure stated that while Apple examined
the digital signature on the binary executable ó the compiled
software at the core of the downloaded packageóGatekeeper didnít
check other software in the package that could be executed by
that binary. Wardle easily found downloadable apps from major
vendors where he could swap out modules for malicious code, and
Gatekeeper wouldnít squawk. Itís important to note that these
apps arenít malicious, and donít even follow poor programming
guidelines. Theyíre legitimate, developer-signed OS X apps that
can be tinkered with to add a malicious payload.
Macworld spoke with Wardle a few days before his updated
presentation at the ShmooCon security conference on January 15,
and he explained that Appleís patches last year for his first
disclosures were very thin: Rather than comprehensively fix the
problem of downloaded executables, Apple blocked one vector
(related to dynamic libraries) and blocked specific apps that
could be subverted. Wardle reported all of this to Apple, and
says ìthey are going to be releasing an update to patch this,
but all theyíre going to do is blacklist the new binary I found.î
(Apple confirms the blacklisting has already occurred.)
He also remains convinced that Gatekeeper should more broadly
inspect software before first launch, not just the subset that
it currently examines. In his presentation, he notes that
non-Apple software that downloads files from the Internet ó
including torrenting appsódonít all mark these files with a
ìquarantineî attribute that triggers examining the Security &
Privacy settings to determine what to do about it and, if it
meets criteria, shows the warning that a file was downloaded and
asks for your approval before proceeding.
Because Gatekeeper ignores these files, any apps downloaded in
this manner bypass Gatekeeper. Malware thatís already on a
system can also download executables that wonít trigger a
warning. (Appleís automatically updated XProtect library of
malware signatures will still prevent specific software from
launching.)
This Gatekeeper flaw still requires a big ìifî: You have to
download, install, and choose to launch software thatís been
tampered with. That should be difficult, but there remain three
ways to neíer-do-wells to insert themselves as men-in-the-middle
(MitM) and swap out a legitimate download for a maliciously
modified one:
The developerís site could be hacked, and a new download put
in place that appears to be identical to the previous one. Thatís
always a possibility, but because Gatekeeper wouldnít warn users
downloading a suborned package, it could go unnoticed for some
time. (In the Unix world, hosted files are paired with
cryptographic signatures that allow a downloader to confirm the
retrieved package is the one the developer distributed.)
A developer that offers downloads via http (unsecured web
connections) allows an MitM at a favorable network location to
swap in a modified package undetectably. Wardle says many, many
OS security software vendors (not to mention those making other
kinds of software) donít use SSL/TLS over https. Thereís no
excuse for this, as thereís almost zero cost and no technical
reason at this point to use secured web connections for
downloads. (A new effort called Letís Encrypt even allows the
free creation of server certificates.)
A user downloads software from a third-party downloads or
updates site. I strongly urge you to never download OS X
software from anywhere except from a developerís own site or the
Mac App Store.
Wardle says Apple told him that itís working on a more
comprehensive fix, and Apple confirmed without any details that
it continues to improve Gatekeeper. Until a more thoroughly
preventative update is available, Wardle has released a new tool
called Ostiarius that when installed prevents the launch of any
unsigned program that hasnít been specifically approved by you
already.
As a long-time Apple user, Wardle remains frustrated that Apple
has put partial measures in place. Because of this, he says
attackers can look at Appleís security release notes to reverse
engineer what the company fixed, and see if they failed to
repair it comprehensively. ìApple isnít as proactive or
aggressive about security as they should be,î he says.
ProPublica Launches The Dark Webís First Major News Site
The so-called dark web, for all its notoriety as a haven for
criminals and drug dealers, is slowly starting to look more and
more like a more privacy-preserving mirror of the web as a whole.
Now itís gained one more upstanding member: the non-profit news
organization ProPublica.
On Wednesday, ProPublica became the first known major media
outlet to launch a version of its site that runs as a ìhidden
serviceî on the Tor network, the anonymity system that powers the
thousands of untraceable websites that are sometimes known as the
darknet or dark web. The move, ProPublica says, is designed to
offer the best possible privacy protections for its visitors
seeking to read the siteís news with their anonymity fully intact.
Unlike mere SSL encryption, which hides the content of the site a
web visitor is accessing, the Tor hidden service would ensure that
even the fact that the reader visited ProPublicaís website would
be hidden from an eavesdropper or Internet service provider.
ìEveryone should have the ability to decide what types of
metadata they leave behind,î says Mike Tigas, ProPublicaís
developer who worked on the Tor hidden service. ìWe donít want
anyone to know that you came to us or what you read.î
Of course, any privacy-conscious user can achieve a very similar
level of anonymity by simply visiting ProPublicaís regular site
through their Tor Browser. But as Tigas points out, that approach
does leave the reader open to the risk of a malicious ìexit node,î
the computer in Torís network of volunteer proxies that makes the
final connection to the destination site. If the anonymous user
connects to a part of ProPublica that isnít SSL-encryptedómost of
the site runs SSL, but not yet every pageóthen the malicious relay
could read what the user is viewing. Or even on SSL-encrypted
pages, the exit node could simply see that the user was visiting
ProPublica. When a Tor user visits ProPublicaís Tor hidden
service, by contrastóand the hidden service can only be accessed
when the visitor runs Toróthe traffic stays under the cloak of
Torís anonymity all the way to ProPublicaís server.
Tigas first began considering launching a hidden service last
year when the news site was working on a report about Chinese
online censorship and wanted to make sure the reporting was
itself safe to visit for Chinese readers.
To most of ProPublicaís readers, that no doubt sounds like an
unnecessary level of paranoia to go through to read the news. But
Tigas first began considering launching a hidden service last
year when the news site was working on a report about Chinese
online censorship and wanted to make sure the reporting was
itself safe to visit for Chinese readers. Like other news sites,
ProPublica also accepts anonymous tips and leaks through its
SecureDrop server, another Tor hidden service. Tigas says he
hopes the Tor hidden service version of the site will make sure
any leaker can also read the stories resulting from those leaks
with as much protection as possible. It remains to be seen how
readers will find the new Tor hidden service, as ProPublica
hasnít yet decided where it will advertise it. The launch makes
Pro Publica the first major media site on the dark web, but not
the first news site altogether. The dark web news site Deep Dot
Web has long hosted a hidden service version of itself for its
privacy-focused readers.
Tor hidden services, which hide the IP address of a web site and
thus its administratorís identity, have been widely used for
online narcotics sales like the Silk Road and even child
pornography. But ProPublicaís dark web site is far from the first
foray from reputable publishers and web companies into Torís
anonymity network. In late 2014, Facebook launched its own Tor
hidden service. (Though Facebook itself knows the identity of any
user who logs into that Tor-enabled mirror of the site,
eavesdroppers wouldnít.) Media sites including the Guardian, the
Intercept, and the New Yorker have the software SecureDrop to
launch WikiLeaks-style anonymous upload sites on the dark web.
And a variety of apps are beginning to use Tor hidden services,
too, like the anonymous chat service Ricochet and the
file-sharing service Onionshare.
ProPublicaís Tigas says he hopes the news siteís hidden service
will serve as a model for other media companies who want to
protect usersí privacy, and maybe improve the dark webís
controversial reputation, too. ìPersonally I hope other people
see that there are uses for hidden services that arenít just
hosting illegal sites,î Tigas says. ìHaving good examples of
sites like ProPublica and Securedrop using hidden services shows
that these things arenít just for criminals.î
Microsoft Collecting More Data of Windows 10
Users Than Initially Thought
After several controversial data mining and privacy invasion
features within Microsoft's newest operating system, Microsoft
continued convincing its users that Windows 10 is not spying on
anyone and that the company is not collecting more data than it
needs.
In addition, Microsoft also updated its privacy policy in order
to clear how and when Windows 10 utilizes users' data.
But wait, before you convinced yourself by this statement, just
have a look on the milestones (listed below) that Microsoft
recently announced, revealing that Windows 10 is now actively
running on 200 Million devices.
Here's the list of milestones that Microsoft just achieved:
People spent over 11 Billion hours on Windows 10 in December
2015.
More than 44.5 Billion minutes were spent in Microsoft Edge
across Windows 10 devices in December alone.
Windows 10 users asked Cortana over 2.5 Billion questions
since launch.
About 30 percent more Bing search queries per Windows 10 device
compared to prior versions of Windows.
Over 82 Billion photographs were viewed in the Windows 10 Photo
application.
Gamers spent more than 4 Billion hours playing PC games on
Windows 10 OS.
Gamers streamed more than 6.6 Million hours of Xbox One games
to Windows 10 PCs.
Maybe Microsoft listed these statistics in order to illustrate just
how popular its newest operating system has become, but what the
company missed is:
Microsoft itself admitted that how deeply it is tracking Windows 10
users.
First noticed by Martin Brinkmann of gHacks, these statistics
clearly indicate that Microsoft is not only keeping itself updated
about the Windows 10 installation on different devices but is also
tracking every single activity of its users by collecting more
data than initially thought.
Playing a game? Microsoft tracks it.
Asking Cortana a question? Microsoft tracks it.
Opening Edge browser? Microsoft tracks it, too.
"While it is unclear what data is exactly collected,"
Brinkmann says, "it is clear that the company is collecting
information about the use of individual applications and programs
on Windows at the very least."
This is the actual dirty side of the free Windows 10 upgrade that
we many times talk about, and with time, it will be more shocking
to you because the most worrisome part of Windows 10 is that
there's no easy way to turn this data collection off.
How Do Americans Feel About Sharing Personal Info? 'It Depends'
While many are willing to share personal details in exchange for
benefits, they are often unhappy about what happens to that
information once collected.
At what point does it become too risky to share you personal
information? A drugstore loyalty card? Targeted online ads?
According to a new Pew Research Center report, a majority of
Americans consider security a trade-off.
"While many Americans are willing to share personal information
in exchange for tangible benefits, they are often cautious about
disclosing their information and frequently unhappy about what
happens to that information once companies have collected it," Pew
found.
More than 50 percent of people, for example, said it's okay for
their employer to install cameras in the office after a rash of
workplace thefts. Nearly as many accept that retailers track
their purchases with the promise of occasional discounts offered
by loyalty cards.
But when Pew proposed saving money on energy bills by installing
a smart thermostat that also monitors folks' movements around the
house, most adults considered this unacceptable.
"There will be no 'SMART' anythings in this household," one
respondent said. "I have enough personal data being stolen by the
government and sold [by companies] to spammers now."
Web users also hate the unsolicited emails, phone calls, and
customized ads they receive after sharing a piece of personal
information on the Web.
"I want control over what ads are being 'pushed back' to me: I
have no interest in 'puppy portraits' but I may be interested in
cameras, equipment, etc.," one person told Pew. "In an effort to
'target' my preferences, my inbox gets full of [expletive] that
is not relevant to me."
A number of high-profile data breaches also seem to have left a
bad taste in people's mouths.
"These findings suggest that the phrase that best captures
Americans' views on the choice between privacy vs. disclosure of
personal information is, 'It depends,'" said Pew Research Director
of Internet, Science and Technology Lee Rainie and research
associate Maeve Duggan.
It depends on the organizations with which they are sharing
information. It depends on what happens to their data once it's
collected. It depends on how long those details are retained.
Pew surveyed 461 U.S. adults and nine online focus groups,
presenting folks with six hypothetical scenarios, each involving
sharing some level of personal data in exchange for using a
product or service.
Seagate Unveils 10TB Helium Enterprise Drive To
Address Storage Demands of Cloud-based Data Centers
Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in storage solutions, today
launched its first 10TB enterprise capacity hard disk drive (HDD),
merging high capacity with the industryís lowest power and weight
available in a 10TB drive, to meet the growing storage
requirements for private and public cloud-based data centers. The
SeagateÆ Enterprise 3.5 Capacity HDD has been selected by
enterprise market leaders globally for its ability to address
storage demands unlike any other technology in the industry.
ìCloud-based data center storage needs are expanding faster than
many current infrastructures can sustain, rendering the capacity
demands of users a herculean task for cloud managers,î said Mark
Re, senior vice president and chief technology officer, Seagate.
ìBuilt on our years of research and development of sealed-drive
technology, our new helium-based enterprise drive is designed
precisely to help data-centric organizations worldwide solve the
needs of their growing storage business.î
ìWith the amount of data today growing at an increasingly rapid
rate, we are always on the lookout for storage solutions that
offer better performance with lower overhead,î said Fan Ruiqi,
president of storage products at Huawei. ìThe new Enterprise
Capacity 3.5 HDD from Seagate helps us meet these demands by
offering incredible capacity with improvements in power and
weight allowing us to drastically reduce our costs.î
The new, robust 10TB Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD provides
maximum storage capacity for easy system integration by using the
standard 3.5-inch CMR design. Incorporating seven platters and
14 heads, the drive seals in helium to create a turbulence-free,
quiet environment, decreasing both friction and resistance on
the platters and delivering the industryís lowest power/TB ratio
and weight specifications for a 10TB HDD. Offering 25 percent
more density to help businesses dramatically increase petabytes
per rack, the drive delivers higher performance and reduced
power and weight.
ìMore and more data centers are being put into operation as a
result of data growing at an exponential rate. With this in mind,
we are laser focused on lowering our TCO and confident the new
Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD can help us with this
endeavor,î said Li Shu, senior expert technical support for
storage and research and development, at Alibaba. ìWe value the
drives winning combination of higher storage capacities,
increased performance and low power consumptionó making it a
win-win for both us and our customers.î
ìAt-scale data centers are faced with the challenge of efficiently
storing massive amounts of unstructured digital data,î said John
Rydning, IDCís research vice president for hard disk drives.
ìSeagateís new 10TB HDD for enterprise data centers is its first
product to employ helium technology and will help data center
customers to expand storage capacity economically.î
The Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD improves performance by using
advanced caching algorithms to help cloud data center managers
manage the increasing volume of data more quickly. Featuring
Seagateís PowerChoiceô technology, the drive helps businesses
manage and reduce the ongoing costs associated with power and
cooling during idle time, while Seagateís PowerBalanceô feature
helps optimize the IOPS/Watt for even more efficiency.
It delivers an improved MTBF of 2.5 million hours and provides
consistent performance to customers in a 24x7 multi-drive
environment. Enterprise ready, the Seagate Enterprise Capacity
3.5 HDD is available in both a 6Gb/s SATA and 12Gb/s SAS
interfaces.
The new Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD 10TB is now shipping
to select customers worldwide. For more information on all
Seagate products please visit www.seagate.com.
=~=~=~=
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at the beginning of any article, to Atari user groups and not for
profit publications only under the following terms: articles must
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No issue of Atari Online News, Etc. may be included on any commercial
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Atari Online News, Etc.
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material herein is believed to be accurate at the time of publishing.
