Tag Archive for: alive

IBM sales jump shows the mainframe is not dead, with hybrid cloud alive and well

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At a time when most enterprises are planning cloud deployments and many are reportedly sharpening their mainframe exit strategy, IBM is seeing double-digit growth in its big iron business for the quarter ended September.

The company, which declared its third quarter results on Wednesday, reported a 98% jump in revenue for its z line of mainframe computer in terms of constant currency (that is, eliminating the effect of currency fluctuations).  

IBM, which buckets mainframes under its infrastructure line of business, released the z16 mainframe in April before beginning to sell it in the second quarter.

At launch, industry observers said they expected that the performance and scalability of the z16 would pave the way for more use of the mainframes in hybrid-cloud environments. And complementing the jump in mainframes sales, IBM revenue for its hybrid infrastructure business was also up last quarter.

For the quarter ended September, IBM’s infrastructure line of business—which includes hybrid infrastructure, distributed infrastructure, support and mainframes—reported a total revenue of $3.4 billion, up 23.1% year-on-year. Specifically, the company’s hybrid and distributed infrastructure business were up by 41% and 21% respectively.

Meanwhile, in another sign that the mainframe is still alive, Google, during its annual conference Cloud Next 2022 last week, claimed that a significant number of enterprises still run on mainframes when it launched a mainframe migration service, dubbed Dual Run.

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Conti Ransomware: Still Alive and Kicking

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Conti ransomware surfaced as far back as 2020. Believed to have been created by Russia-based cybercriminal group Wizard Spider, it has been involved in a multitude of double extortion campaigns over the years. Just last May, the U.S. government began offering a reward of up to US$15 million for information on the gang’s key members.

Law enforcement agencies have had no such luck catching the bad guys, at least to our knowledge, as Conti ransomware infections continue to make headlines. WhoisXML API threat researcher Dancho Danchev’s recent investigation into the threat revealed:

  • Close to 30 known Wizard Spider gang members’ aliases or online handles
  • More than 250 email addresses belonging to the gang’s members
  • More than 50 domains that served as Conti ransomware hosts
  • More than 500 domains that pointed to Conti ransomware command-and-control (C&C) servers, a vast majority of which were registered in the U.S.
  • More than 1,400 IP address resolutions of the domains primarily geolocated in the U.S., 19% of which were tagged “malicious” by various malware engines
  • More than 70 domains that shared the C&C domains’ IP hosts, 9% of which were dubbed “malicious” by various malware engines

A sample of the additional artifacts obtained from our analysis is available for download from our website.

What the Public Knows So Far

In the past two years since Conti ransomware came to light, several cybersecurity researchers have found indicators of compromise (IoCs) related to the threat. Danchev’s OSINT analysis findings uncovered:

  • 29 online handles or aliases Wizard Spider members used
  • 257 email addresses belonging to the gang’s members
  • 52 domains that served as Conti ransomware hosts or download pages
  • 512 domains that pointed to Conti ransomware C&C servers or stolen data repositories

Our In-Depth Investigation Findings

Given the wealth of publicly available IoCs, we began by subjecting the 564 domains to a bulk WHOIS lookup. That showed that 29% of the domains were registered in the U.S. while the remaining 71% were distributed across at least 18 other registrant countries.

Of these domains, only 45 were likely owned by legitimate businesses at least…

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They Fled Ukraine to Keep Their Cyber Startup Alive. Now, They’re Hacking Back.

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Dozens of employees at Ukrainian cybersecurity startup Hacken fled their war-torn country and found refuge about 2,000 miles away in Portugal. Since then, they have managed to keep their business alive and are now supporting cyber operations against Russia.

The company moved its main office from Kyiv to Lisbon, with stops in between, mirroring the drastic measures taken by millions of Ukrainians seeking to escape danger and preserve their livelihoods while the Kremlin wreaks havoc. For Hacken Chief Executive Dmytro Budorin, keeping his business going in the fast-growing market for cryptosecurity meant urging his workers to flee before the bombs began to fall.

“How will I feel, how will I look into the eyes of my employees, if we had the opportunity, had the money, understood that something can go wrong, and we didn’t do at least something to try to get everybody out?” he said.

Hacken CEO Dmytro Budorin in Lisbon with his children, Rimma and Roman.



Photo:

Anastasiya Budorin

Hacken, a five-year-old company that tests blockchain-based projects for security flaws, employs about 80 auditors, developers and other crypto specialists. Many contribute to the war effort by finding vulnerabilities in Ukrainian and Russian computer systems and reporting the information to Kyiv’s Ministry of Digital Transformation or National Security and Defense Council, Mr. Budorin, 35, said.

Hacken’s Liberator application, which allows users to lend computing power to distributed denial-of-service attacks against Russian propaganda sites, counts more than 100,000 downloads. The company is also contributing to targeted efforts against Russian businesses, including an attempt to pressure the suppliers of Russian military footwear manufacturers, Mr. Budorin said.

Non-state actors supporting both sides of the conflict have exchanged fire mostly via low-impact cyberattacks. Those hitting Russian targets have met with little scrutiny despite pushes by Washington and Brussels in recent years to set international…

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Nonprofit fights TV networks in court to keep free TV service alive

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A TV set left on a sidewalk with a sign that says,

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Jacobo Zanella)

A nonprofit organization that provides free online access to broadcast TV stations has accused TV networks of colluding to limit access to those channels.

The nonprofit that runs Locast, the free TV service, made the allegations in an answer to a lawsuit filed by ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. The networks alleged in July that Locast is violating their copyrights and are seeking a permanent injunction to shut the TV service down. The Locast operator filed its answer to the TV networks’ complaint yesterday and tried to turn the tables by making several counterclaims against the TV networks.

“Plaintiffs have colluded to limit the reasonable public access to the over-the-air signals that they are statutorily required to make available for free,” Locast’s court filing says. “[The networks] have opted instead to use their copyrights improperly to construct and protect a pay-TV model that forces consumers to forgo over-the-air programming or to pay cable, satellite, and online providers for access to programming that was intended to be free.”

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