Sean Michael Kerner

Red Hat today formally announced the availability of its highly anticipated next-generation Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 7) platform, which has been in development since 2010. Among its features, RHEL 7 includes a new filesystem that can scale to 500 terabytes as well as support for Docker container virtualization technology. RHEL 7 is the first […]

The third major milestone release this year of the open-source Linux kernel is now available, providing users with new and improved features. The Linux 3.15 kernel follows Linux 3.14, which was formally released on March 30. Among the enhanced capabilities in the Linux 3.15 kernel is improved suspend and resume performance. The new suspend and […]

The open-source Docker container technology has been one of the most hyped and talked about virtualization technologies of the past year. Today, Docker finally reached the 1.0 milestone, marking the first stable release and the debut of commercial enterprise support. Docker provides a different model for application virtualization than the traditional hypervisor virtual machine model […]

The lessons of Heartbleed have been learned well. The open-source OpenSSL Project disclosed and patched seven security updates on June 5, and the process was markedly different from the activity that led up to the disclosure of the Heartbleed flaw in April. The Heartbleed flaw, perhaps one of the most widespread security vulnerabilities of the […]

Largest DDoS Attacks Zero In on Financial Services Customers by Sean Michael Kerner Media and Entertainment Vendors Are Key Targets While many industries are targets for DDoS attacks, during the first quarter of 2014, VeriSign mitigated more attacks against media and entertainment vendors than any other industry vertical. Frequency of Attacks Against Finance Industry Are […]

Just a year ago today, the first news came out about mass surveillance by the National Security Agency. Within days, it was revealed that Edward Snowden, a contractor working with the NSA, was the source of the disclosure, and the world we live in has changed greatly. Over the course of the past year, what […]

Kali Linux Improves Penetration Testing by Sean Michael Kerner Live USB Get Encrypted Persistence Kali Linux 1.0.7 users may now choose to run the distribution from a USB drive that can be updated and encrypted. Kali Linux Includes Security Tools for Information Gathering What makes Kali Linux particularly powerful is its comprehensive list of integrated […]

The open-source OpenSSL Project this morning issued a series of updates, providing seven security fixes for new flaws. The security updates for OpenSSL are the largest since the project found itself at the center of the Heartbleed security firestorm in April, when the group fixed only one vulnerability. OpenSSL is a widely used open-source cryptographic […]

As the 2014 FIFA World Cup international men’s soccer tournament in Brazil gets closer to its kickoff on June 12, hackers are taking aim at fans. Security firm Trustwave today is warning about a malvertising campaign running on popular Brazilian sports site lancenet.com.br. In a malvertising campaign, a Web advertisement is infected with some form […]

It took more than 100 years of evolution for the modern photography industry to reach its current state, and there are lessons from that century that apply to the modern world of cloud and Web development too. That’s the message delivered by Dries Buytaert, founder of the open-source Drupal content management system (CMS), during his […]

Technology vendors over the years have aggressively tackled and partly solved the problem of unsolicited bulk email, which is typically referred to as “spam.” A new variation, known as “snowshoe spam,” is increasing and causing more unsolicited bulk email to land in user inboxes. The most basic form of spam—a high volume of unsolicited bulk […]

Linux Mint 17 With Cinnamon Desktop Keeps Focus on Ease of Use by Sean Michael Kerner Linux Mint Welcomes Users With Information After a user installs Linux Mint, the default first welcome screen provides information and resources about the Linux distribution and its features. System Settings Get Organized The System Settings interface gets a new […]