10 Android apps you shouldn't miss

There are over two million apps in the Play Store. These include addictive games, essential productivity tools, and great ways to customize your phone.

There are also apps that will completely change how you use Android. Some enhance the user interface, some automate common tasks, and some take popular features in the operating system and make them even better.

Here we take a look at 10 apps that will change the way you use Google's Android operating system.

Most of us use social media as a way of finding cool stuff to read on the web. But whether you’re using Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or anything else, it’s not handled very efficiently on a phone.

On the desktop, you can open links in their own background tab, queueing up several pages to read when you are ready. In mobile apps you need to open and read one link at a time.

Flynx solves that problem. The app intercepts links and loads them in the background. When you’re ready, each link can pop up on top of your current app so you can read it and dismiss it, with virtually no interruption to what you were doing.

With a Pocket-style save for later feature, Flynx is a revolutionary way of browsing on mobile devices.

Widgets are awesome, but they have their limitations. You can only place them on the homescreen, and you can only access them when your homescreen is visible.

flippr makes them accessible everywhere via a small bubble tucked away on the edge of the screen. Tap the bubble and your chosen widgets will open. Want to control your music while typing in a document? No problem. Check the sports scores while playing a fullscreen game? Done.

flippr puts Android devices one step closer to having full multitasking capabilities.

Android’s notification shade is great for showing you what’s happening in your apps, but you can use it to create notifications for your real life too.

Notif is a twist on the to-do list app, which you use to make lists, reminders, voice notes, and more, and set them as actionable notifications. Tick off items as you complete them, or swipe the notification away when you’re finished with it.

The icon for each notification, placed permanently in the status bar, serves as a kind of digital knot in the handkerchief that constantly reminds you of the jobs you need to complete.

Take the pain out of the common tasks you perform every day by turning them into macros, a series of commands that happen automatically.

MacroDroid is similar to Tasker, the most famous and loved of Android’s automation apps. But Tasker has an incredibly steep learning curve, and MacroDroid is an app you can install and start using instantly.

The app needs you to configure as few as two settings — just an action that will be prompted by a trigger. So, plugging in your headphones could be the trigger, and the corresponding actions could be the automatic launch of the Spotify app and adjustment of the volume level. Or you could have your phone switch to Airplane Mode (the action) at night (the trigger). Or your text messages could be read aloud when your phone’s in a car dock.

You can add optional constraints to fine-tune the conditions under which your macro can run. This gives the app even more power, and your macros can be as simple or as complex as you need them to be.

If MacroDroid is perfect for on-device automation, then IF does the same for web services. The official IFTTT app enables you to create “recipes” that connect two internet-based services or devices, with your Android phone as the central hub.

The possibilities are almost endless. You can use IF to automatically tweet, to get SMS alerts for your Google Calendar appointments, or to get notifications on price drops for products you’re looking to buy. Once you get it up and running, you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.

Phone screens are getting bigger, and it’s a mixed blessing. A larger display is great for things like gaming and video consumption, but it makes one-handed control of your phone almost impossible.

Pie Control addresses this fact by placing a pie-shaped control panel at the bottom corner or edge of your screen. It contains buttons for common interface controls, as well as a configurable panel of app icons. It pops up and disappears when you need it, and it places the most used parts of your phone within easy reach of your thumb, just like the old days.

Spend any amount of time sitting at your PC throughout the day, and SMS Text Messaging from MightyText becomes an essential app.

It syncs with your PC, Mac, or Linux computer via a browser extension and gives you full access to your SMS messages on the bigger screen. You can read, reply, or create new messages, and you can also view notifications from all your other apps. You’ll hardly need to pick up your phone again.

Copy and paste on Android is mostly fine, until it doesn’t work. Some things just don’t support it — tweets, for example, or YouTube or Instagram descriptions.

With Universal Copy you can copy and paste almost anything, from any app. It integrates seamlessly with the system — a long press is all you need for the option to copy your chosen text to the clipboard.

We love the fact that you can replace the default Android apps with any others of your choosing. But sometimes you want to use more than one app to handle particular types of file and link.

With Better Open With, you can. This app replaces the standard “Open with” screen with something that is more powerful for two reasons. First, you can choose which apps you’ll be offered to open a link with — reducing an often cluttered list to just one or two options.

Second, Better Open With works on a timer. It opens on tapping a link, but switches to the default after a couple of seconds, if you don’t want to make a choice.

The single best way to customize your Android phone is to install a new launcher. There are a huge number to choose from, the best of which is Nova.

It’s small, fast, very stable, and infinitely customizable. The default settings are perfect, but it also comes packed with extra features that you might not know about. These range from support for icon packs to the ability to resize any widget.

But the built-in gesture controls beat everything. These enable you to assign functions — from activating settings, to navigating the interface, to launching apps — to a series of taps, swipes and pinches.

If you’re a power user, Nova’s gestures will fundamentally change how you interact with your device.

Source: www.techgignews.com

Crazy things tech companies have bought for their execs

Much of the money an exec makes is just salary and stock, but sometimes they get a little extra. Here's some of the craziest perks these industry leaders have received:

Salesforce bought its new COO a fancy $41,000 watch in 2015.

In lieu of your typical bonus, Salesforce paid $40,564 for a new watch for its COO Keith Block "in recognition of his success leading the sales organization in the first quarter of fiscal year 2016," the SEC filing states.

Salesforce declined to comment on exactly what type of watch Block received.

Salesforce also paid $33,400 to evacuate a sick family member of its CPO from a foreign country.

Chief Product Officer and President Alexandre Drayon used Salesforce aircraft to evacuate a family member from a developing country for a medical emergency. The cost to the company was $33,400 and was factored in as part of his other compensation.

Oracle pays for its top execs to get legal help for their political donations.

Oracle hired lawyers to make sure its executives know how to comply with reporting their political campaign contributions. Founder Larry Ellison received $5,780 worth of advice in fiscal year 2015. Money put to good use since Ellison is the top Silicon Valley donor to presidential candidates currently.

Oracle also doled out $325 in services each to four other members of its leadership team.

Google paid Eric Schmidt $672,400 to fly guests to one conference.

In 2014, Google paid for its executive chairman to fly multiple planes to a conference he organized somewhere in the US. But not much more is known about what it was or what they were meeting about, making this one of the largest mystery expenses.

HP Inc. paid $2 million to relocate its CEO from Singapore to Palo Alto, CA.

Dion Weisler got an extra $2.4 million in a relocation bonus for his move from Singapore to Palo Alto in late 2015.

HP's top brass also received $18,000 each for financial planning.

Twitter executives paid more than $110,00 for personal car services.

Twitter doled out $41,209 in personal car services to former CEO Dick Costolo. Former VP of Product Kevin Weil took $69,692 worth of rides.

PayPal paid $109,410 to protect its CEO during his personal vacations.

It's standard (and costly) to protect a CEO, but PayPal's Dan Schulman gets extra security even during his personal vacations.

But that's still way less than the $1.6 million Amazon pays to protect Jeff Bezos at work and home.

Source : www.techgignews.com

How to build secure RESTful web services

Most of the APIs today implement token-based user authentication

With the world moving towards language agnostic APIs, the use of web services over HTTP has grown exponentially.  Web services over HTTP allow different types of systems developed on different platforms to communicate with each other. 

REST architectural style is one way to develop such APIs. Whether you comply to REST recommendations exactly or you modify them to suit your application, the security of web services over HTTP remains a challenge.

Major security challenges include being able to securely authenticate the user and prevent security attacks like Replay and Man in the Middle, a good REST API should encompass all possible measures to deal with them. 

Most of the APIs today implement token-based user authentication. It is important to understand how the token-based authentication has evolved. Since the web services are designed to be stateless and can be consumed by any kind of HTTP client like a browser or a mobile app, securely authenticating user and managing user sessions is a challenge.

There are concerns such as whether user passwords should be passed over the network or not. Unless credentials are not passed over the network, how can we securely authenticate the user? What if my organisation is not able to use HTTPS and there is a chance of data being attacked by a man-in-the-middle before it reaches the server?

How to avoid a request that was already served from being replayed by the attacker? How to harden the web service endpoints while using HTTPS? How can I limit the access of web service endpoints to a specific set of users or customers?

To answer these questions, the developer community has come up with solutions like multiple flows of OAuth, Mutual/Two-way SSL Authentication and Signature Verification to tackle man in the middle attacks and Cryptographic Nonce + Timestamp verification to prevent replay attacks. 

Source : www.techgignews.com

Satya Nadella embraces cloud computing, turns Microsoft into No 2 after Amazon

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has reshaped the company since taking over two years ago. Windows is still important, but it's no longer the only platform that matters. Nadella has embraced cloud computing, turning Microsoft into the clear No 2 in the category after Amazon.

There was a lot of talk last week at Build about chatbots and artificial agents and "conversation as a platform." Why do you think now is the right time to make that push and make that play?

At the core what we're doing is reasoning over large amounts of data continuously. First, we have that data, data about you, your preferences, organisation and the world. To do that on a continuous basis, you need lots and lots of computing power. That's what we get through the cloud. Then you also need it in the devices. And the combination of that device proliferation and ubiquity as well as the compute power in the cloud are making it possible for us now to deliver that kind of experiences that we're talking about.

Can you give sort of concrete example why I should be excited about this?

Take Cortana, the fact that you have a personal digital assistant that knows you, knows your preferences, has the ability, in a privacy-protecting way, to go and look at your information and your organisation's information and help you with your tasks. First of all, it's not just in one operating system. So I'm running late to a meeting. The personal assistant realises that, automatically on my behalf reschedules or notifies the person because it knows my calendar. The ability for Cortana to proactively look at events that are happening in the real world, like whenever I look at it, every morning I look to see that Cortana is highlighting any particular meetings that are coming up, or any news articles that are relevant to the meetings that I even have, and it flags them to me.

What do you think needs to be done to continue to encourage entrepreneurialism in India and other developing nations?

The access to computing and the friction associated with it has come down. We opened two data centers in India recently to tap into this and to enable the local entrepreneurial energy in India to be able to create companies. Not just large companies, but public sector, small business.

How do you see Microsoft's mission in serving shareholders versus or in addition to some other stakeholders, like employees, society, and so on?

I absolutely think that Microsoft's mission of empowering every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more cannot be met if we do not view our fundamental responsibility as being multiconstituent. Investors are important, but at the same time if we fundamentally do not contribute to the world economic growth because of digital technology, then long term we won't have a business. That means when we think about white-space solutions in Kenya, it's important for us if we ever are going to be long-term relevant in Kenya with technology that successful businesses are going to be using. As a multinational that means I think a lot about what's the employment we are creating, the opportunity we are creating in every country we participate in, versus just the rents we are collecting. Because I think that any company that thinks that their success is just measured by revenue and profit, then it may last for a while, but it's not long-term stable.

What has been the biggest change to your life and your lifestyle since you became the CEO of Microsoft?

There's no such thing as balance. It's how do I harmonise my work and my life. One of the things I've been thinking quite a bit, in fact I talked about it even internally, is a long time ago I used to work with this guy called Doug Burgum. And he had said this to me, and it's increasingly becoming much more part of my consciousness: We all spend far too much time at work for it not to be something more than work, for it not to have deeper meaning, whether it be Microsoft or any one of us in any role. Because if we look at it, I would have spent more time at Microsoft than living together with my kids, because they'll all grow and they'll go into colleges and have their own lives. And I think about time spent, then my work had better be something nourishing to my soul and my personal philosophy, and so on. And in terms of tips, I would say I am trying to get much more disciplined.

When I'm with my family, doing something say even this weekend, tomorrow when I'm there with my daughter, I'm present. What does that presence mean? A lot of us have the residual effect of the last email, the last thing. You've got to get very, very good, I think, in modern life to not have that residual effect spoil your presence. I see people over a dinner table all on their cellphone, that's when I say, wow, that's tragic. There's information anxiety, all of us have it, it's just natural. So therefore how do we help them be more present?

Source : www.techgignews.com

How to save yourself from Android malware

According to a recent report from Trend Micro, Android malware has doubled from 2014 to 2015. 

Needless to say, mobile devices continued being hotbeds for cybercriminals looking to exploit security flaws. If not controlled, Android malware can reach an all-new level and impact other smart technologies as well. 

As per the findings of various researches and surveys, it is projected that by 2017, almost one third of the world will own mobile devices, of which Android phones will take the lion’s share. 

However, this growth comes with associated threats. The growth of Android usage has managed to garner a lot of attention of hackers who are now honing their hacking skills and finding new ways to attack into the vast and widening pool of potential victims. 

TechGig.com spoke to Nilesh Jain, country manager-India and SAARC, Trend Micro, about the increasing threats on Android and how to avoid them.

Listing the most popular threats, Nilesh shares, “Of all the threats, mobile malware is the top most, which is thriving and constantly evolving. With 97 per cent of malware threat occurring on Android devices, premium-rate SMS fraud is main type of malware affecting people worldwide. Threats piggybacked on the robust Android growth and vulnerability, spamming and phishing have now shifted away from emails to social media. Another vulnerability identified is Android debugger. Debuggered vulnerability can be utilised to expose a device’s memory content. Furthermore, Android Installer hijacking vulnerability gives hackers the ability to replace legitimate apps with malicious versions in order to steal information from the user.”

The report released by the company stated that the mobile malware growth will be seen most in China. In addition, mobile payment methods will be attacked globally. Most of the malicious mobile apps are being developed and used in China. After China, India is the second most affected nation with Android malware. India has one of the biggest smartphone user bases, which makes it an easy target for mobile hackers. Furthermore, China, India and Indonesia are three most severely afflicted countries. The cause of this can also be attributed to the fact that people in these countries have started using mobile payments, which attracts online criminals to conduct their businesses on mobile phones. 

Precautions you can take…

Sharing the simplest possible tricks that users can follow to save from themselves from Android malware, Nilesh said, “The increasing number of attacks on Android can also be blamed on the lack of knowledge among the users apart from the shrewdness of the hackers. If the users today consider a few basic security procedures or hacks and stay a little more alert, Android malware attacks can be controlled. The foremost of them is to avoid installing apps from unknown sources. It is advisable to download apps from reputable app stores like Google Play etc. Thirdly, every Android phone has a security feature that allows the users to lock apps outside Google Play. Activating this feature warns the users about any app trying to install which is not in Google Play.”

Are anti-viruses useful?

The answer is a yes and a no. Anti-viruses, if not of good quality, can be of less use. Experts have clarified on several occasions that Apple iTunes and Google Play are not immune to hosting malicious apps on their stores. So users should consider installing a mobile security app on their devices as it can protect users from bad apps that sometimes get through. 

Nilesh says, “The threat to these users today are phishing sites which may be delivered via emails, which have a malicious link embedded within the email or found on browsed sites. These phishing sites request information from the user via the webpage (ex. Login credentials, CC numbers, etc.) and if a user fills them out, the data is sent to the hacker. These phishing pages don’t care what browser the user is accessing. So the best protection is a mobile security app that includes web reputation which can block access to these malicious sites. These anti-viruses can help secure a mobile device better as cybercriminals come up with more complex ways to attack mobile devices; more so because no coding is required to bind Android apps with malicious programmes.”

He also emphasised that although the number of breach through Android device is on the rise, the phenomenon is still at a nascent stage. Therefore not many people are paying attention to the importance of securing their mobile devices. 

Nilesh said, “Despite the fact that more than half of the total mobile using population store their personal details and other sensitive information online through their mobile devices, very few take basic precautions like using passwords, installing security software or backing up the mobile devices. As mentioned earlier, anti-viruses for mobile phones are available in the market but very few have it or are aware of it. It seems like the mobile security awareness is on decline, but the number of people using mobile devices is growing.”

As they say, it’s better to be safe than sorry. So, investing in a good anti-virus is not such a bad idea in this bad world of malware. 

Source : techgignews.com

Project managers, tech sales pros are in high demand

What are the hardest jobs to fill in tech? Not surprisingly, developers and engineers top the list. According to Edward Flynn, senior enterprise technical recruiter at technology recruiting and staffing firm Mondo. DevOps engineers, mobile developers, front-end developers, security engineers and cloud architects continue to be in huge demand. But after engineers, IT companies also are struggling to fill open roles for technical sales jobs and IT project managers.

A hard sell

According to a recent survey from sales platform ToutApp, which polled 300 HR managers from U.S.-based technology companies with at least 200 employees, 80 percent of respondents say their company plans to invest more in sales talent recruitment and hiring this year. When asked to identify the positions that present the most challenges finding "high-quality, experienced candidates," 69 percent of respondents cited IT/engineers. The second most-challenging positions to fill were technical sales roles, with 17 percent saying filling these roles presented the most challenges.

"After IT and product engineering, sales has really become the key to competitive advantage within most technology companies today. From business development to deal closure, revenue is directly attributed to the success and effectiveness of your sales team. The more you invest in bringing in the best people, the better positioned you are against the competition," says Tahweed Kader, CEO and founder of ToutApp.

One of the major challenges in finding, recruiting and hiring sales people is that there's often no formal education and training programs for sales pros; it's something many people discover as a career by accident, says Kader. "No one goes to college and says, 'I want to be in sales,' -- they'll say, I want to be in marketing or communications or another field like that, but there's no core 'basic training' for these sales skills. That's part of what makes it so difficult to find talent, because those that have those skills naturally are hugely coveted and they have so many job options already," he says.

When asked to state how competitive it is within the technology industry to find, recruit and hire experienced sales talent, 70 percent of those polled called it "very competitive." Finding and hiring entry-level sales talent was also described as "very competitive" by 52 percent of respondents. It's not just finding talent, either, says Kader, it's keeping that talent. Like engineers and developers, successful sales talent often have multiple job offers and opportunities, so retention is a major challenge.

In fact, according to survey respondents, 26 percent say the average sales rep tenure in their technology organization is just two to three years; 28 percent say it's only three to four years. That number drops to 21 percent for tenures of four to five years.

"You have to make sure you're offering education, training and that your compensation plans for sales people are top rate. There's so many companies looking, it's not unheard of that you'll hire a bunch of salespeople, get them trained and up to speed, and then they'll leave for a better offer," Kader says.

A good PM is hard to find

Technical project manager roles are also increasingly hard to fill, according to research from Strayer University's Strayer@Work Skills Index, which provides a real-time look at talent shortages across a number of industries, including IT. The index uses select skills data from the public domain, including LinkedIn profiles, to identify what skills are in highest demand and where companies are falling short.

The Skills Index identified performance management, IT audit and resource allocation and scheduling skills as those most in demand -- and hardest to find, says Kelly Bozarth, CEO of Strayer@Work.

"Within IT, we expected to see skills gaps around hard technology skills, and there's some of that, yes, around engineers and developers. But what was most interesting was that the biggest gap was around the skillset for project managers. That ability to take IT projects and deliver them on-time, under-budget and to use technology to help drive ROI -- that's huge," says Bozarth.

Technical project management skills are necessary in all fields, and one challenge in finding and recruiting project managers is the increased competition for talent, says Bozarth. Regardless of industry, almost all companies today depend on technology to drive their business, which means IT project managers are in demand across the board, in every industry.

"Every company is an IT company nowadays, so every industry, not just IT, is going to need these people, so you have to think much more strategically when hiring. One solution is to hire at the entry-level and then institute learning and education programs to build the talent from within your organization," Bozarth says.

Though they don't get as much attention, project management and sales roles are just as important to your IT business -- and hiring for them can be just as challenging.

Source : www.techgignews.com

How startups are getting the corner store online

The next wave of e-commerce in India will be driven by millions of small merchants taking their businesses online. A host of startups is helping retailers get a web presence, build their brand and make more money

Atul Tater has been selling his apparel on Flipkart and Amazon for six months, and sees about ten garments take off every day. He pays 25-30% commission per sale to the marketplaces. Three months ago, Singapore-based e-commerce company Shopmatic approached Tater to build a website for his brand, Reevolution. He signed up quickly since it came for Rs 1,400 a month and included a Facebook page shop, an inventory management tool and a payment gateway.

"If I had set out to start my own dynamic website, it would have cost upwards of Rs 50,000," says Tater. Though he'll continue to sell on the marketplaces the idea of not having to shell out 30% commission comes as a relief to the Noida-based businessman.

For small merchants like Tater, the cost of setting up a website, managing inventory and logistics and establishing a payment gateway can be intimidating. And that's where e-commerce companies are stepping in.

The opportunity to take small businesses online is seen as the next big e-commerce wave. Search giant Google started its 'India Get Your Business Online' project in 2011 to do the same, but didn't succeed. However, startups that have come later have figured out that an online identity without dynamic inventory management and payment gateway is not a recipe for success. These startups provide complete solutions to take brick-and-mortar retailers online. Early-stage investor Blume Ventures has four investments in the space -- Snapbizz, Zopper, NowFloats and Instamojo. Its founder and managing partner Karthik Reddy says he is very bullish on such startups. The top 10 funded startups in the domain have raised upwards of $60 million in the last few years, according to startups ecosystem tracking platform Tracxn.

In China, there are 40 million small businesses, but only 12 million have an online presence. In India, the numbers are far worse -- of the 60 million small businesses, only a million are online. "It is not a question of either being on a marketplace or having one's own website. A seller needs to have a presence across the range of platforms where the customer comes. Large marketplaces don't cater to micro merchants and in many cases the demand is local," says Reddy, adding that discovery is also an issue for small merchants on big marketplaces.

For most sellers, the idea is not to miss a single lead that comes their way. Yet, they do not want the trouble of building and managing an e-commerce store.

Shopmatic co-founder and CEO Anurag Avula says his platform takes away all these pain points. For instance, making changes to inventory or uploading photos is a matter of drag-and-drop. "We take care of design, look, user interface, user experience. The customization is at a high level; even the font will be according to the theme of that particular seller," he says

Source : www.techgignews.com

Announcing Windows Support in Ionic 2

After much ado, the team is excited to announce official support for Universal Windows Platform Apps in Ionic 2 beta.3, complete with a total UI look-and-feel and component set.

Windows support has been an oft-requested feature for a number of important reasons. First, many enterprise companies have large deployments of Windows Phones and want to build apps more easily for them. Second, mobile Windows devices like the Surface are proliferating and we want to make it easy to build apps that run on those devices, too. As an added benefit, Windows 10 sports JavaScript as a native app development language which we think is just swell (yeah, I’m bringing “swell” back).

To get started, update your npm dependency on ionic-angular to 2.0.0-beta.3 or higher , or start a new v2 project. Note: we will not be supporting Windows Phone 8 or below, so get your devices updated!

Yeeeeeeeeee-hawwwwww!

Source : ionic-blog.

Android Auto comes to 18 new countries including India

Google's in-car operating system Android Auto is coming to India and 17 other countries. The company announced this on Twitter with an emojified tweet. "Full speed ahead. #AndroidAuto is now available in 18 new countries..." goes the tweet showing the flags of the countries the company is launching Android Auto in.

Below is the list of regions Android Auto is launching in:

Argentina Austria Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Dominican Republic Ecuador Guatemala India Panama Paraguay Peru Puerto Rico Russia Switzerland Uruguay Venezuela

Google's Android Auto competes with Apple's in-car system CarPlay. Both CarPlay and Android Auto allow voice commands to be turned on with a touch of a steering wheel button. Phones need to be plugged into the USB port, where the phone is kept charging and powering the in-car entertainment. You can access maps, voicemail, phone contacts and music apps using a touch screen embedded in the dashboard -- no need to grab your phone

Source : techgignews.com

McAfee: Only 42 percent of security experts use shared threat intelligence

Intel Security has released its McAfee Labs Threats Report: March 2016, which assesses the attitudes of 500 cybersecurity professionals toward cyber threat intelligence (CTI) sharing.

The report examines the inner workings of the Adwind remote administration tool (RAT), and provides details about surges in ransomware, mobile malware, and overall malware in Q4 2015.

Some of the findings include:

Value perception and adoption: Of the 42 percent of respondents who report using shared threat intelligence, 97 percent believe that it enables them to provide better protection for their company. Of those participating respondents, 59 percent find such sharing to be “very valuable” to their organizations, while 38 percent find sharing to be “somewhat valuable.”

Industry-specific intelligence: A near unanimous 91 percent of respondents voice interest in industry-specific cyber threat intelligence, with 54 percent responding “very interested” and 37 percent responding “somewhat interested.” Sectors such as financial services and critical infrastructure stand to benefit most from such industry-specific CTI given the highly specialized nature of threats McAfee Labs has monitored in these two mission-critical industries.

Willingness to share: Sixty-three percent of respondents indicate they may be willing to go beyond just receiving shared CTI to actually contributing their own data, as long as it can be shared within a secure and private platform. However, the idea of sharing their own information is met with varying degrees of enthusiasm, with 24 percent responding they are “very likely” to share while 39 percent are “somewhat likely” to share.

Types of data to share: When asked what types of threat data they are willing to share, respondents say behavior of malware (72 percent), followed by URL reputations (58 percent), external IP address reputations (54 percent), certificate reputations (43 percent), and file reputations (37 percent).

Barriers to CTI: When asked why they have not implemented shared CTI in their enterprises, 54 percent of respondents identify corporate policy as the reason, followed by industry regulations (24 percent). The remainder of respondents whose organizations do not share data report being interested but need more information (24 percent), or are concerned shared data would be linked back to their firms or themselves as individuals (21 percent). These findings suggest a lack of experience with, or knowledge of, the varieties of CTI integration options available to the industry, as well as a lack of understanding of the legal implications of sharing CTI.

“Given the determination demonstrated by cybercriminals, CTI sharing will become an important tool in tilting the cybersecurity balance of power in favor of defenders,” said Vincent Weafer, vice president of Intel Security’s McAfee Labs group. “But our survey suggests that high-value CTI must overcome the barriers of organizational policies, regulatory restrictions, risks associated with attribution, trust and a lack of implementation knowledge before its potential can be fully realized.”

Source : www.techgignews.com