As we adjust to life amid the COVID-19 pandemic, well likely turn to the artsa favorite poem, a beloved album, a treasured paintingover and over in search of comfort and relief. Art, in all its forms, is a vital part not just of our personal lives but of our community. Social distancing measures and the resulting venue closures have turned the local creative world upside down, both for individual artists and the organizations that support them. Heres what some of those folks are saying about the state of the arts in Charlottesville, and what might come next.

St. Patricks Day was supposed to be Matthew ODonnells busiest day of the entire year. A multi-instrumentalist who specializes in Irish music, he was booked for 15 hours of serenading audiences, from senior center residents to late-night beer-swigging revelers.

But this year, his St. Paddys calendar was wide open. As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads throughout the United States, Virginia governor Ralph Northam has banned all nonessential gatherings of more than 10 people. In response, local venues that support the artsconcert halls, theaters, galleries, bookshops, libraries, restaurant-bars, you name ithave shuttered their doors for an undetermined amount of time.

This leaves ODonnell and many other artists in Charlottesville without physical places to share their worknot just for arts sake, but for a living. Its also worth noting that many local artists participate in the service industry and gig economythey tend bar, wait tables, work retail, drive ride-shares, and more. And most of those jobs are gone, or paused until, well, who knows when.

ODonnell makes his entire living from performances, and he looks forward to the month of Marchin large part because of St. Patricks Daywhen he can bring in twice what he makes in an average month, to make up for the lean ones (namely January and February).

I began to get concerned in late February, as the senior communities closed their doors to visitors, says ODonnell, and that concern grew as gigs canceled one by one during the first couple weeks of March. I thought the worst-case scenario would be that everything would shut down, but I honestly didnt think the worst-case scenario would come.

At first, it was a professional worry of realizing that all of my business is gone, says ODonnell, who hopes he can make some money by playing donation-based virtual concerts. But the worry, the sadness, has turned personal: These people are my friends, he says of his audiences, particularly those folks at the senior centers. When he sings with them, he says he feels something profound. And [now] I cant go see my friends. I do want to be looking forward to the next thingbut all I know is that the next thing I do is going to be very different from what Ive been doing.

Graphic novelist Laura Lee Gulledge knows that, too. Im friends with change and constant reinvention, she says. As a full-time artist Gulledge relies not just on book sales and illustration commissions but art teaching residencies. She says she often feels like shell get by on the skin of my teeth, but [I] make it work. Artists are always having to come up with new business models, she says. Its implode or evolve.

Her new book, The Dark Matter of Mona Starr, is scheduled to be released on April 7, and she planned to launch it at last weeks Virginia Festival of the Book. But the festival was canceled due to the threat of COVID-19, as was the rest of her North American book tour.

In a way, the book is more relevant than Gulledge could have predicted, or ever wanted to imagine. The protagonist, Mona, is a sensitive and creative teen learning to live with anxiety and depression. In the back of the book, Gulledge includes a guide for creating a self-care plan for particularly dark and stressful times, and she shares her own.

Its like my masterpiece, she says of The Dark Matter of Mona Starr. I was finally mentally prepared to own it and step into it, and start conversations about mental health and not feel like a fraud.

Rather than consider the whole thing a wash, Gulledge will do a virtual book tour via Facebook Live, where shell be talking about topics such as drawing through depression and cultivating healthy artistic practices.

The Front Porch roots music school is also pivoting to an online lessons model, to keep instructors paid and to keep students in practice. Songwriter Devon Sproule (who had to cancel her upcoming U.K. tour) usually teaches somewhere around 80 students a week between group classes and private lessons, and, so far, a handful of them have made the leap to live virtual lessons. Keeping the routine and personal connection of a lesson could be particularly important right now, says Sproule. She had to teach one young pupil how to tune a ukulele, a task Sproule had taken on in their in-person lessons. I had no idea this kid could tune their own ukulele, and I dont think they did either, says Sproule. I think it was empowering.

The Charlottesville Players Guild, the citys only black theater troupe, has postponed its run of August Wilsons Radio Golf, originally scheduled to premiere at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center April 16. The paid cast and crew were in the middle of rehearsals, and while they hope to be able to open the show on April 30, things are still very uncertain, says CPG artistic director Leslie Scott-Jones. When you hear medical professionals say this might go through July or longer, its like, Whatll we do?

The JSAAHC has also had to cancel two benefit concerts for Eko Ise, a music conservatory program for local black children, that the center hoped to launch later this year. Now, theyll be months behind in that fundraising effort, says Scott-Jones.

The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, which provides not only a physical gallery space for visual and performance art, but funding for public art and after-school programs, has canceled all in-person events (though it is finding creative ways for people to participate from a distance, such as its virtual Quarantine Haiku video series). The Bridge has also postponed its annual Revel fundraiser, originally scheduled for May 2. Revel brings in between 20 and 30 percent of the organizations operating budget for the year, says director Alan Goffinski,

Gulledge makes an excellent case for continued support of the arts as we face uncertainty: This is the sort of moment where people will look to the creative thinkers to generate hope, and to generate positivity and be beacons of light in this moment of darkness. This is part of our purpose.

The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative and New City Arts announced Friday, March 20, that it has established the Charlottesville Emergency Relief Fund for Artists. We will have more information on that soon.

The Front Porch and WTJU 91.1 FM are also teaming up to broadcast live concertsFriday and Wednesday evenings. Follow us at @cville_culture on Twitter for regular updates about virtual arts eventsthat will take place over the coming weeks.

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State of the art: How COVID-19 is affecting Charlottesvilles arts community - C-VILLE Weekly

The partial but increasingly growing, self-imposed isolation has begun.

I am writing these words on Sunday, and it will be a couple of days before they are out in print and online. Who knows what will happen between now and then, what with how fast this coronavirus is moving and affecting society?

Like many of us, I am voraciously consuming news about the COVID-19 pandemic. No need to panic, but definitely time to respond, to take steps and to not be stupid as in overreacting and moving into the old Cold War bunker out in the backyard or ignore everything and go about life as usual with a false sense of invincibility.

And even though it appears most people who get this darn thing will come through it OK, I do think a bit of alarm is understandable and maybe even helpful. But please, keep perspective.

I went to Costco on Saturday. I needed a few things and had been waiting until my list was long enough to merit a trip there (toilet paper was not on the list). I had tried the day before, but there were cars parked everywhere, including in spots Im sure were not actual parking places, and I saw maybe just a dozen shopping carts available outside the store. Yikes. I came back Saturday morning about 20 minutes before the store opened, so I could park within sight of the store.

By the time I shopped and fled, the place was jammed. The butcher told me the day before they sold out all the products they made from scratch (meatloaf and mashed potatoes, chicken enchiladas, mac n cheese, etc.), and were working feverishly to catch up and restock. The checker told me they had just experienced their highest volume sales days two days in a row.

I kept looking at the overloaded carts that went by me. Every one had in it at least one giant size or multiple packages of the following: toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning products, liquid hand soap and the like. I saw one of the big flat carts that had stacked on it about half a pallet of ramen meals.

Theres preparedness and then theres whatever this was.

When I was growing up in Florida, there was a regular drill when a hurricane was approaching. It was fairly simple, and it made sense. And it was adapted based on specific circumstance. For example, we had a neighbor with a swimming pool who was often out of town. If he wasnt there when a storm approached, wed go over to remove and stash the cushions from his outdoor furniture and throw the furniture into the pool. In a hurricane, everything becomes a potentially lethal projectile.

Since then the state has created an incredible preparedness and response network, including staging areas of material, which can be relocated quickly depending on where the storm will hit. Its a model for the nation.

Anticipate, prepare and do what makes sense.

Our son was supposed to fly into Spokane this week. My husband wisely nixed the trip. Sam agreed. He texted: Although Im not in a high-risk group, should I catch something on the plane and visit my, ahem, elderly parents, well

And hes right. Bruce and are I are in our 70s, which is the hardest-hit population, with the highest death rate. And while we dont have the kinds of respiratory or immuno-suppressed ailments that appear to be exacerbating factors, by virtue of our age and the fact that we do have some health things were dealing with, we reside in COVID-19s target demographic.

The good news, if its even appropriate to think in those terms yet, is that this pandemic seems largely to be skipping the children. A silver lining to be sure.

I remember when I first began writing about historic landmarks, Id spend time tromping through cemeteries in Spokane and in rural areas of the region. I saw so many grave markers with the date of 1918 on them and often a simple Baby Jones or Infant girl Smith. Those, of course, were the result of the infamous Spanish flu pandemic that infected fully one-third of the worlds population at the time and killed 20-50 million people (675,000 of whom were Americans), mostly between the ages 20 to 40.

And for those of us with the target on our backs now, we love the little ones in our lives, but they could quite likely carry the disease to us when we grab them up in the hugs that we love to give them. A lot of things need to change, at least until were on the downside of the coronavirus bell curve we are climbing. And yet, we dont want to scare the children.

Washing hands, social distancing, limiting large-group exposure, staying home more, covering a cough with the crook of our elbows, not shaking hands and not touching our faces easy(ish) to do. Not hugging a grandchild is a whole lot tougher.

And then theres the issue of trying to work at home. I do that already. But my husband goes to peoples homes and businesses to do his work. If you are a server in a restaurant, for example, you cant work from home. Kids are out of school. How do you manage child care and still work?

I dont need to itemize all the hurdles and problems were in the midst of, or are coming. Or to jump into the discussion of how and why were not farther along in dealing with this. Conversation for another time.

Were here now, so for now, lets just proceed with an abundance of caution, do what the virologists and health care professionals tell us.

But lets begin the process of thinking long term, getting set up, preparing for next time, too. Like with hurricanes, its not if, but rather when one will hit. Lets get smart about these viruses. They may well be the hurricanes of the future.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net.

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Front Porch: Follow health experts advice, and lets also think long term - The Spokesman-Review

At one major US agency, some officials have resorted to holding meetings on iPhone group calls because the regular conference bridges haven't always been working, according to one federal employee. But the workaround has its limits: The group calls support only five participants at a time, the employee noted.

"Things have worked better than I anticipated, but there are lots of hiccups still," said the employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the record.

As they increasingly log on from home, Americans are having to meld their personal technology with professional tools at unprecedented scale. For employers, the concern isn't just about capacity, but also about workers introducing new potential vulnerabilities into their routine whether that's weak passwords on personal computers, poorly secured home WiFi routers, or a family member's device passing along a computer virus.

"All it takes is one of their kids to get [electronically] infected and it spreads inside the house," said Marcus Sachs, a former vice president for national security policy at Verizon.

From there, experts say, malware could easily jump from a compromised employee's machine into a connected office network.

A big test for government computer systems

This year, those numbers may shift dramatically.

"I'm sure every agency right now is scrambling to load-test their VPNs and access points to make sure not just 10 or 20 percent of their workforce can log on, but 70 or 80 or 90 percent," said the former chief information officer of a major US agency. "That will be a challenge, for sure."

Not all government agencies use VPNs exclusively anymore. As online storage and computing platforms have taken hold in corporate America, so too have they spread in government IT systems. Now, it's more common to see civil servants logging into cloud-based applications and services from wherever they are.

Others may not have access to office computing devices that they can take home with them either because they were never expected to work remotely, or perhaps because their work may be extremely sensitive.

How the intelligence community is adapting

Among the federal workers most hamstrung by efforts to reduce their presence in the workplace are members of the intelligence community. Working on topics and systems that are classified makes it difficult at best to work from home, if not impossible.

"There are some very senior military and government officials who have the capability to do up to Secret [work] from their house, but we're talking about four-star generals and admirals and things like that," said Jamie Barnett, a retired US Navy rear admiral and senior vice president of government services for the secure communications firm RigNet.

"For other classified work, there's going to be limited facilities to be able to do that," Barnett added, "so that's going to take some grappling."

Agencies have already enacted safety measures and made leave policies more flexible. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- which oversees 16 different intelligence agencies -- says it is "reducing staff contact88 through a variety of options including staggered shifts, flexible schedules, and social distancing practices."

In a business that demands 24/7 attention, the agencies "are also developing and implementing appropriate response plans" an ODNI spokesperson added.

Dealing with COVID-19, however, "is a contingency for which the IC never prepared," said former National Intelligence Council chairman Greg Treverton.

Some who work in intelligence are contractors who, due to contract provisions, must physically report to a government facility and do their jobs under direct oversight, said the former CIO. It's possible those contracts may be reinterpreted in light of the coronavirus crisis, he said.

Intelligence officials certainly have technology and practices that would make them among the most digitally secure to work outside the office, but they're still exposed. In the best of times, for example, intelligence officials can't even bring their mobile phones into the workplace, recognizing the security risk that they are.

Working at home, "you get more vulnerable and you get much less efficient because you're being careful," adds Treverton, who said that for the country at large, the security issues associated with teleworking are an "enormous vulnerability."

Still, the rise of cloud computing means many workplaces are in a much better position for telework than they were even a few years ago.

"If this had happened five years ago, I would guess that a very, very large percentage of government employees would not be able to remotely access their systems or do anything from home," said Gordon Bitko, a former FBI chief information officer. "Today, that's definitely not true. I can't speak to every agency, but it's far, far greater than it was."

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Millions of Americans are suddenly working from home. That's a huge security risk - CNN

From smart doorbells to outdoor cameras and models with facial recognition, there are a ton ofhome security cameraoptions out there. Indoor security cameras keep watch when you aren't home, looking after your valuables -- or simply monitoring a mischievous pet.

They range in price from 20 bucks up to several hundreds of dollars and offer a variety of features and specs. I've highlighted three of my favorite models below to help guide your decision if you're on the hunt for a new indoor home security camera.

Let's start with price: The Wyze Cam only costs $20. In a sea of costly security cameras, the Wyze Cam offers a killer value. Couple that with its straightforward app, easy installation and solid performance -- and you have an excellent indoor home security camera.

The thing that sets it apart even more is its free two-week cloud storage and built-in microSD card slot for local storage. You have to buy a microSD card separately, but that's standard for most cams with local storage. It supports Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands and has a motion detection zone feature. Read more from CNET.

Read more: Top cheap home security devices in 2020

The $200 Netatmo Smart Indoor Camera, previously called the Netatmo Welcome, is one of the few indoor security cameras that works with HomeKit Secure Video. HomeKit Secure Video is a service that works with the iOS-only Home app. It offers 10 days of free event-based video history, stored in iCloud.

Few security camera companies offer free cloud storage anymore (ahem, Arlo) -- and even fewer offer 10 full days of free cloud storage. Wyze is an exception with its two weeks of free storage, which is one reason why it's my current favorite indoor cam.

The Smart Indoor Camera from Netatmo has 1080p HD live streaming, a 130-degree field of view, night vision and local storage with an included microSD card. It also has facial recognition capabilities when you create a database of friends and family members. In addition to working with HomeKit, the Smart Indoor Camera also supports Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands. Read more from CNET.

Read more: Our favorite DIY home security systems of 2020

At $299, the Nest Cam IQ Indoor is definitely pricey. But it also happens to have a ton of high-end features with a lot of appeal. First, it has 1080p HD live streaming, free person alerts and 4K image sensor. That 4K image sensor allows for a feature called "Supersight" that zooms in on a person and tracks them within the camera's field of view.

If you pay for Nest Aware, which starts at $5 per month, you get access to the facial recognition feature. With facial recognition, you can create a database of friends and family in the app and then receive custom alerts when the camera recognizes"Dave" or "Molly."

The Nest Cam IQ Indoor also has a built-in Google Assistant speaker for general or smart-home-specific voice commands. Read more from CNET.

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Now playing: Watch this: The Nest Cam IQ brings 4K for a high price

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The best indoor home security cameras of 2020 - CNET

DALLAS-FORT WORTH, Texas, March 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Monitronics International, Inc. and its subsidiaries, doing business as Brinks Home Security, (Brinks Home Security or the Company) (OTC: SCTY) will issue a press release to report its results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2019 after the market closes on Thursday, March 26, 2020. The Company will host a conference call that day at 5:00 PM ET, in which management will provide an update on Brinks Home Securitys financial results as well as other matters impacting the business including the Companys continued response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Participating on the call will be Brinks Home Securitys Interim Chief Executive Officer, William Niles and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Fred Graffam.

To access the call please dial (833) 712-2984 from the United States, or (602) 563-8728 from outside the U.S. The conference call I.D. number is 1865698. Participants should dial in 5 to 10 minutes before the scheduled time.

A replay of the call can be accessed through April 2, 2020 by dialing (800) 585-8367 from the U.S., or (404) 537-3406 from outside the U.S. The conference call I.D. number is 1865698.

This call will also be available as a live webcast, which can be accessed at Brinks Home Securitys Investor Relations Website at https://ir.brinkshome.com/.

About Brinks Home Security

Brinks Home Security (OTC: SCTY) is one of the largest home security and alarm monitoring companies in the U.S. Headquartered in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Brinks Home Security secures approximately 848,000 residential and commercial customers through highly responsive security solutions backed by expertly trained professionals. The Company has the nations largest network of independent authorized dealers providing products and support to customers in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico as well as direct-to-consumer sales of DIY and professionally installed products.

Contact:Erica Bartsch Sloane & Company212-446-1875ebartsch@sloanepr.com

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Brinks Home Security to Report Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019 Results on March 26, 2020 - GlobeNewswire

In response to the unprecedented increase of remote and work-from-home workers, we are takingproactive steps to providecompanies across the globetools necessary to enable their employees to be immediately productive as they work remotely while ensuring that company resources anddata stayprotected.

Effective today, we are offering free, no-obligation use of our SSO and MFA products for six months.* Any company, regardless of the size, the number of employees, or deployed apps, can leverage our platform for secure and convenient access to their applications and endpoints.**

Our goal is toensure that companies impacted by thecurrent situationcanrapidly supporttheirremote employeeswhile keeping theirresources, applications, anddata safe.

The following functionality is included, withoutcost or long-termobligation,to any company:

To get started withIdaptive,all you need to doisfill outthis form.Thereis no need to provide a credit card or sign contracts.

If you have any questions,please reach out by calling(408) 495-8124 or sendingus an email our team will be happy to answer them!

Stay safe!

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Everybody Work From Home Idaptive is Ready to Help - Security Boulevard

As the world sits back and waits for Coronavirus to pass, the normally frantic pace of security news has slowed just a bit. Google is not exempt, and Chrome 81 has been delayed as a result. Major updates to Chrome and Chrome OS are paused indefinitely, but security updates will continue as normal. In fact, Google has verified that the security related updates will be packaged as minor updates to Chrome 80.

Speaking of COVID-19, researchers at Check Point Research stumbled upon a malware campaign that takes advantage of the current health scare. A pair of malicious RTF documents were being sent to various Mongolian targets. Created with a tool called Royal Road, these files target a set of older Microsoft Word vulnerabilities.

This particular attack drops its payload in the Microsoft Word startup folder, waiting for the next time Word is launched to run the next stage. This is a clever strategy, as it would temporarily deflect attention from the malicious files. The final payload is a custom RAT (Remote Access Trojan) that can take screenshots, upload and download files, etc.

While the standard disclaimer about the difficulty of attribution does apply, this particular attack seems to be originating from Chinese intelligence agencies. While the Coronavirus angle is new, this campaign seems to stretch back to 2017.

Its a fairly common practice to build web services with a dedicated front-end server, and then a back-end server or group of servers. I just recently migrated a handful of websites that I host to this paradigm, using an Nginx server as a shared front-end that routes traffic to the appropriate Apache back-end server. Nginx scales better than Apache, and it helps ration public IPv4 addresses. There is an attack that takes advantage of this arrangement: HTTP request smuggling.

When using a dedicated front-end, common practice is to share a TCP connection, and potentially an SSL connection, and send all the traffic to the back-end in a single shared stream. Particularly when using SSL, the performance gain is substantial. Using a shared stream does introduce a dose of extra complexity. What happens when the front-end interprets a request differently than the back-end, and how does the back-end make sure to keep requests separate?

Back in 2005, an attack was devised that took advantage of the problems inherent in these two questions. The original HTTP Request Smuggling attack (whitepaper) was as simple as including two Content-Length headers in a request. It was found that in some combinations of front-end and back-end software, the front-end would use the last Content-Length header to interpret the request, whereas the web server itself would use the first header. With a bit of careful request crafting, then, an attacker could send a single HTTP request to the front-end, and have that single request interpreted as two separate requests by the back-end. This seems like a rather unimpressive attack, until you consider that many deployments rely on the front-end server for request verification and security controls. If you can sneak a malicious request past the front-end by embedding it in one that is harmless, you may have a path to attack the back-end server directly.

Request Smuggling didnt catch on as a viable attack, and so much time has passed that all the major products automatically catch and mitigate this particular attack. Revealed at DEF CON 27, HTTP Desync is a new take on this old attack. Rather than specify content-length twice, this attack uses both content-length and chunked encoding. Its another approach to the same end goal, give two different lengths that are understood differently. There are a handful of clever techniques that [James Kettle] covered in his DEF CON talk, like adding non-standard white spaces in the Transfer-Encoding: chunked header. One end sees the header as non-standard and ignores it, and the other might clean up the whitespace before processing the headers, leading to desync.

You may think that SSL protects against this technique, but were describing a scenario where the SSL certificate is installed on the front-end server. All the incoming requests are decrypted and interleaved together, and then may or may not get re-encrypted en route to the back-end. Because its that interleaving that gives rise to this class of vulnerability, the SSL connection doesnt have an impact.

What can you actually do with this sort of attack? Bypass source IP restrictions to a certain endpoint, to name the simplest. Have your WordPress sites /wp-admin page restricted to just one IP address? An HTTP Desync can bypass that restriction. In another example, [James] was able to dump all the custom HTTP headers the front-end was using, and then spoof some of those headers to gain admin access to an entire web service. The whole talk is great, check it out below:

The related news from this week, [Emile Fugulin] took a look at HTTP Desyncs and discovered that Amazons Application Load Balancer is potentially vulnerable in its default configuration, when paired with a Gunicorn back-end. If youre using ALB, he suggests looking at the routing.http.drop_invalid_header_fields.enabled option, and turning it on if you can. Gunicorn has been patched, so go make sure youre running the latest version there, as well.

Well this is awkward. Trend Micro disclosed a set of five security bugs in its products, and revealed that two of them have been actively exploited by attackers. The details are a bit sparse, but it seems that the two attacks found in the wild require some level of authentication before they could be exploited. The two vulnerabilities that seem the most alarming are CVE-2020-8598 and CVE-2020-8599, both of which allow remote compromise before any authentication. Its humorous to see that the vulnerability bulletin lists a mitigating factor, paraphrased: You have a firewall and NAT, right? If you use Trend Micro, make sure its up to date, and maybe do a quick audit on what ports are open on your workstations.

This story sneaked in just in time. An unnamed security researcher discovered a flaw in Netflixs handling of session cookies, combined with their use of unsecured HTTP connections for a few endpoints. Yes, Netflix is still vulnerable to Firesheep.

That could have been the end of the story Netflix should have made their bug bounty payment, fixed their unsecured subdomain, and all would be well. Instead, when our anonymous researcher submitted his finding through Bugcrowd, the firm that handles Netflixs bug bounty program, the official response was that this finding is out-of-scope for a reward. Thats not surprising, its normal for a researcher to disagree with the target company about how important a vulnerability is. As one might expect, once the researcher was told his findings were out-of-scope, he made them public and shortly got an official scolding from Bugcrowd. Apparently an out-of-scope bug submission is still in-scope enough to be kept secret. Even more concerning, Bugcrowds documentation doesnt seem to include a set timeline, but implies that all disclosure must first receive the target companys permission.

Bug-bounties are great, but Bugcrowd puts researchers into an ugly catch-22. I think its ethically rotten to refuse a payout, and then continue to hold a researcher over the barrel on an issue.

Thats it for this week, stay safe and do some security research!

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This Week In Security: Working From Home Edition - Hackaday

With the outbreak of the coronavirus, companies and organizations around the world are going to work remotely or work from home, popularly known. So can this cause a security vulnerability?

After the coronavirus epidemic, many organizations, including Webtekno, started to carry out their work remotely or from home. As a result, internet services gained great importance.

Whenever internet and technology come to the agenda, people think of privacy and security. Of course, precautions should be taken while an important part of working life begins to be realized over the internet connection.

Is the internet strong enough?Internet and informatics are currently keeping life going all over the world. Companies want their employees to work from their homes. Education and training activities will also be held on the internet.

According to CNN news, the US Air Forces own virtual private network can support the simultaneous use of only 72,000 people. On the other hand, the number of staff of the US Air Force working from home is 145 thousand. It also has 130 thousand contract employees. Of course, this is just one example. Doctors will start visiting via video call, employees will do business with remote access.

How suitable are infrastructures for working from home?Speaking of our country, first of all, it is necessary to consider the legal / legal side of the business. Currently, regulations need to be made in the law for working from home. It is also included in the 100 billion lira package announced recently, for which arrangements will be made. (For example, some departments could not submit exams and homework on the internet).

Secondly, the power of infrastructures comes up. Infrastructure needs to be as strong as needed. Although there have been problems in the past, we hope that the necessary lessons have been learned from these problems.

The third stage is the concept of security. More internet usage has the potential to cause more security vulnerabilities. For this, people and users of systems must take precautions.

More remote access and use of information is of course one of the first alternatives that people think of, especially in such difficult times. It is not easy to use this method, but it is not impossible.

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Is the Rising Number of People Working from Home a Security Risk? - Somag News

Give the space a fresh coat of paint to make it your own. Every time I move into an apartment, I paint no matter what, said Kevin Dumais, a New York based interior designer. Now is not necessarily the time to figure out the perfect hue to complement your furniture and lighting. So, if you dont have the time or energy to sort through paint swatches, choose a clean white, knowing you may paint rooms again later. Mr. Dumais suggests a hue like Benjamin Moore White Dove. Something that feels fresh and clean until you can figure out what you want.

By the time youre done shelling out mind-boggling sums for your down payment, closing costs and the moving van, your savings account may be drained. But try to build a cushion into your budget so that you have a little extra left in the quiver, should you need extra cash.

Appliances may break, the sellers may have neglected regular upkeep in the months while the house was on the market, leaving you with gutters full of leaves and a furnace in need of a tune up. Added to that, a first homeowner accustomed to calling the super when things go awry may be unaware of all the tasks required in ordinary upkeep. More than half the respondents to a 2018 HomeAdvisor survey of new homeowners reported spending more time and money on projects than they expected they would during the first year.

There is a pretty steep learning curve for a lot of people about what goes into the proper maintenance, said Dan DiClerico, a HomeAdvisor home expert. Every house has its quirks. Until you know yours, you may miss a few things.

For former renters, the first year as a homeowner can come as a shock. Lawns need to be mowed, air filters changed, windows caulked and appliances repaired. Ilyce R. Glink, the author of 100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask, recommends setting aside 2 percent to 5 percent of the homes selling price for upkeep. So, if a home costs $500,000, budget $10,000 to $25,000 a year for repairs, improvements and maintenance, depending on the size of the home and land. (The estimate includes the costs of big ticket items, like a new roof or boiler, which would only be needed once every 20 years or so, but still need to be factored in with annual costs.) Expect your first year to be among your more expensive ones.

You hire movers, you need carpet, you need to paint, Ms. Glink said. There is a push to nest and build out after you move in.

Your list of dream projects may be long. So prioritize. A boiler might be boring, but you need it more than a set of Roman shades. Were entering a very uncertain period here. Its all the more important to do what you can, as a homeowner, to avoid unexpected emergency repairs, said Mr. DiClerico, of HomeAdvisor. Focus on the nuts and bolts. You can certainly wait on a new chandelier.

Excerpt from:
Here Are the House Keys, Now What? - The New York Times

As companies across the country require their employees to work-from-home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many are faced with the challenge of finding effective ways to work remotely, while also maintaining a zero-trust approach to security.

Right now companies are sending their workforces home and theyre doing it in mass. So theyre running into a very real problem of saying, Hey, how do I actually give access to all of my applications, so my workers can productively work-from-home and do this quickly, but more importantly, also do it in a secure manner? Idaptives Director of Worldwide Channels Brian Krause told CRN.

The Santa Clara-based security vendor, a provider of solutions for identity and access management, is doing just that by enabling customers to intelligently verify and validate people, devices and services. Kruase spoke with CRN about how Idaptive is tackling this crisis.'

How are you ensuring the safety of not only your customers but your partners?

When we look at that where a lot of the safety comes in is most people can put a lot of critical apps into the cloud; I mean its pretty common, [Microsoft] Office 365, Salesforce and Box, things of that nature. But the only way you can protect who is accessing, generally, is with a username and password. That is your identity telling the world of machines who you are as a person. So what were working on right now is trying to establish some sort of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) so you can use a second factor, such as a phone, text message, email, something of that nature to truly prove your identity, so we make sure were only letting the correct actors into that application versus some hacker.

Well, its actually been a very weird challenge in the sense that weve never seen this many people try to put new users remote. So, we really had to look at it in a three-step process of saying, What can I do to immediately help the need today? A lot of this happened last Friday, where all of a sudden a company said, Im sending everybody home. Okay, great lets send them home, Now what? Well, the Now what? is lets just get a basic MFA put in place, something that says for a bunch of different apps, for the VPN Lets have one technology. Then from there we got to come in and say, How do we make it better? Well, this is where we start consolidating some of these identities stored and instead of having multiple usernames and passwords, bring it down to one. So, theres some sort of single sign-on and then from there, How do we make this system work very well, make it good, so it kind of works on more of an autonomous basis and I can easily add and remove users on whim.

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Link:
Coronavirus: Idaptive Boosts MFA Approach To Work-From-Home - CRN: Technology news for channel partners and solution providers