Daily Tech Briefing: Sept. 26, 2014

Apple announced that it will soon have a new update to replace the flawed iOS 8.0.1 update that was briefly made available on Sept. 24. The flawed update caused serious device problems for many users of the company's latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones, such as causing users to lose the ability to make calls and lose their Touch ID functions. Apple has unveiled a fix for devices that were disabled by the errant update until a properly working update is released.

Attackers have begun using a vulnerability in Bash, the popular command-line software for Linux, to spread malware to vulnerable Web servers worldwide. The flaw is in the Bash shell program, and allows an attacker to execute code on remote systems by passing environment variables to programs on the targeted computers, such as Web servers using Common Gateway Interface. The attacks came less than 24 hours after software firms first reported the vulnerability.

Hewlett-Packard will officially launch its SDN App Store next month. The App Store will kick off Oct. 1 with eight applications, and officials expect more apps to become available in the near future. The company expects the app store to add fuel to the ongoing interest among enterprises in software-defined networking and its close relative, network-functions virtualization. These are aimed at making networks more agile, programmable and flexible by removing the control plane and network tasks from the underlying hardware and putting them into software.

New trends like the Internet of things and mobile computing are putting increased pressure on networks to keep up with rapidly changing demands. In an effort to ease the strain this places on IT professionals who are responsible for growing these networks to meet the demands, Cisco Systems is offering its new Cisco Modeling Labs. This is a software platform that enables network engineers to design, build and deploy real-world simulations of physical networks in a virtual environment.