It’s a modern obsession which keeps millions of people glued to their smartphones as they pound the pavements on their daily commute. Now a South African insurance company is using the steps recorded via apps, Fitbits and Apple Watches to build a new business which rewards consumers who can show they have improved their lifestyle. Neville Koopowitz, chief executive of Vitality, a division of £6bn Johannesburg-listed insurer Discovery, believes the scheme represents the future of insurance. Just as motor insurers are increasingly installing telematic equipment in their customers’ vehicles to monitor how fast and safely they drive, now health insurers are adopting the same approach. “We are in the business of underwriting people’s lifestyles,” he says, seated in Vitality’s office on Gracechurch Street, just a brisk walk and up four flights of stairs from the Bank of England. With 1.1m members in the UK and 11m globally through partners such as … [Read more...] about Insurance company is using steps recorded on Fitbits and Apple Watches to reward consumers
Steps recorder
Peggy Whitson: Record-Holding Astronaut
Astronaut Peggy Whitson has spent more time in space than any other American, and that is only one of the records she holds. Still active with NASA, she hopes to spend even more time in space. Joining NASA Peggy Annette Whitson was born Feb. 9, 1960, in Mount Ayr, Iowa. After earning her bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry from Iowan Wesleyan College in 1981, she went on to earn her doctorate in biochemistry from Rice University in 1985. Whitson then served as a National Research Council Resident Research Associate at NASA's Johnson Space Center, and later as the supervisor for the Biochemistry Research Group at KRUG International, a medical sciences contractor at NASA-JSC. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Texas and at Rice University. On May 6, 1989, Whitson married Clarence F. Sams in Harris, Texas. Sams, also a biochemist, had joined NASA in 1984, researching the biological effects of spaceflight at the cellular and subcellular … [Read more...] about Peggy Whitson: Record-Holding Astronaut
Memcached Amplification Attack Breaks New DDoS Record At 1.7 Tb/s
Arbor Networks, a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection and network security company, confirmed that malicious actors launched a new record-breaking DDoS attack with a bandwidth of 1.7 Tb/s. The attackers took advantage of the same memcached server vulnerability that they’ve been exploiting since last week. Setting A New DDoS Record, Again As Cloudflare revealed last week, malicious actors have started abusing an amplification attack technique against vulnerable memcached servers. This allows them to trick the servers into sending large data packets to the attackers’ intended targets in order to disrupt those companies' services. Cloudflare noticed attacks as large as 260 Gb/s, which it considered to be large for this type of technique.Soon after, Akamai announced that it has already seen a record-breaking DDoS attack of 1.3 Tb/s against its customer, GitHub. The attack was larger than last year’s record-breaking 1.1 Tb/s DDoS attack against OVH, a web … [Read more...] about Memcached Amplification Attack Breaks New DDoS Record At 1.7 Tb/s
Galaxy S9 brings Samsung two steps forward, one step back
I've been testing Samsung's new Galaxy S9 and larger, slightly stepped-up Galaxy S9 Plus ($839.99 at Amazon.com) for over a week. And while I'm 85 percent certain that these beautiful, powerful phones are two of the best that money can buy, the remaining 15 percent of me is disappointed that the world's largest Android brand couldn't do a little better. From a bird's eye view, I see top-of-the-line specs combined with excellent design, internal speeds and outdoor photography. Samsung's hardware remains at the top of the market, which makes the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus excellent all-rounders that can handle the usual roster of activities and last a work day on a single charge. These are all superb reasons to buy a Galaxy S9 if you're upgrading from an older phone such as the Galaxy S7, OnePlus 3, iPhone 6 and so on. Skip it if you have a Galaxy S8 ($599.99 at Amazon.com). It's too close to make the update worthwhile. It's when you dive into the details that some nagging problems snap … [Read more...] about Galaxy S9 brings Samsung two steps forward, one step back
World record for largest DDoS attack broken
The record for the largest DDoS attack ever has been broken yet again, just a week after a new high was set.Research by NETSCOUT Arbor confirmed the news, saying a 1.7Tbs attack was recorded against a customer of a U.S.-based service provider.A week earlier, Akamai confirmed the first ever terabit attack, recorded at 1.3Tbps, against GitHub.Arbor believes this second attack is important for multiple reasons, not just the fact that it's huge. It is important because it should start triggering alarms to network operators which should now start preparing for, what it calls “mega attack sizes”. Another reason why it is important is due to the fact that the service provider’s defences were impenetrable – no outages were detected. These large-scale attacks were made possible through the abuse of Memcached servers, amping up traffic 50,000 times.Arbor Networks' Carlos Morales is confident we will be seeing more and more of these attacks, mostly because number of weak … [Read more...] about World record for largest DDoS attack broken