Network Break

Take a Network Break! Facebook stored millions of user passwords in plaintext and made them accessible to thousands of employees, Nokia sinks significant money into IETF sponsorship, and the Ethernet Alliance moves forward on Single Pair Ethernet.

Google announces a new streaming gaming service, but bandwidth requirements may strain broadband connections, the open-source Putty project releases a new version of the software to address eight critical vulnerabilities, and Huawei becomes a certified hardware partner for Nutanix.

VMware and Dell EMC partner on hyperconverged infrastructure, Dell EMC tops the global server market while Huawei notches impressive growth, MySpace loses massive volumes of user files and it takes months for anyone to notice, and a network admin takes the password to a core switch to his grave.

Get links to all these stories below.

Sponsor: WAN Summit

Join over 300 WAN professionals at WAN Summit, April 8 and 9th in NYC. Meet your peers to find out how they’re meeting network challenges, and how they’re readying the WAN for cloud and data center migrations. It’s just $99 to attend and listeners can get -20% off with the code PACKETPUSHERS when they register for New York. Go to WANSummit.com for details and to register.

Tech Bytes: Nubeva

Stay tuned after the news for a sponsored conversation with Nubeva. We’ll discuss the newest features in Nubeva’s cloud packet broker, Prisms, and how you can get packet-level visibility into your public cloud deployments.

Show Links:

Facebook Stored Hundreds of Millions of User Passwords in Plain Text for Years – Krebs On Security

Facebook Mistakenly Stored ‘Hundreds of Millions’ of User Passwords as Plaintext – Motherboard

Keeping Passwords Secure – Facebook

Nokia Commits US$750K to Support the Work of the Internet Engineering Task Force – Nokia

Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) comes to town – Ethernet Alliance

Google Announces Stadia, a Video Game Streaming Service Designed to Change the Way Games Are Enjoyed – MacStories

Amazon Lumberyard: Features – AWS

PuTTY Releases Important Software Update to Patch 8 High-Severity Flaws – Hacker News

Download PuTTY: latest release (0.71) – PuTTY

Huawei and Nutanix Par...

Take a Network Break! Facebook announces new switches under the Open Compute Project banner, including support for Cumulus and a model from Arista.

F5 buys NGINX for $670 million, NVIDIA buys Mellanox for $6.9 billion, and Citrix investigates a possible breach of its corporate network.

Big Switch demonstrates a network OS that combines Open Network Linux and Sonic, Facebook suffers an outage across multiple platforms, and the city of Tel Aviv tests new crosswalk lights designed to catch the attention of people whose faces are glued to their smartphones.

Sponsor: ExtraHop

ExtraHop is the enterprise cyber analytics company delivering performance and security from the inside out. ExtraHop offer complete visibility with machine learning to help you make quick, confident decisions about your IT environment.

Explore the ExtraHop Performance Platform at extrahop.com/packetpushers.

Show Links:

Reinventing our data center network with F16, Minipack – Facebook Code

Arista 7368X4 Series – Arista

NGINX to Join F5: Proud to Finish One Chapter and Excited to Start the Next – NGINX

F5 Networks –4.9% as analysts eyeball Nginx purchase deal – F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) – Seeking Alpha

A Letter to F5 Employees from CEO François Locoh-Donou Announcing NGINX Acquisition – F5

NVIDIA to Acquire Mellanox for $6.9 Billion – NVIDIA Newsroom

Nvidia to make largest acquisition in its history with $6.9 billion deal for Mellanox – MarketWatch

Iranian-backed hackers ransacked Citrix, swiped 6TB+ of emails, docs, secrets, claims cyber-biz – The Register

Citrix investigating unauthorized access to internal network – Citrix Blogs

Big Switch to Demo SONiC with Open Network Linux at OCP Global Summit – Big Switch

It’s alive! Big Switch stitches together an open-source Network Operating System – The Register

Tel Aviv tries out new crosswalk lights for cellular addicts – Reuters

Take a Network Break! We start the episode with a correction about previous commentary about DNSSEC, and then jump into the news.

Juniper Networks acquires the wireless startup Mist Systems for $405 million, VMware announces a new service-defined firewall, and an Alphabet-backed startup called Chronicle launches a new security analytics service that leverages Google’s search and data processing capabilities.

Comcast acquires security vendor BluVector, RightScale releases a cloud adoption survey, and Facebook announces modest plans to sell spare fiber capacity to local and regional telcos.

Greg weighs in on cyber insurance, and Huawei files a lawsuit against the United States alleging that the government’s ban against Huawei gear in government systems is unconstitutional.

Get links to all these stories below.

Adspot: Virtual Design Clinic

Join us this Thursday March 14th for our fourth Virtual Design Clinic. It’s free, online event with technical presentation IPv6 Address Planning and the P4 programming language, Ask Me Anything sessions with expert panelists, and a sponsored presentation from Kentik. Get details and sign up at packetpushers.net./vdc.

Show Links:

Juniper Networks Announces Intent to Acquire Mist Systems – J-Net Community

Juniper Networks Announces Intent to Acquire Mist Systems to Bring AI to IT, Delivering on Promise of Software-Defined Enterprise – Juniper Networks

Quick Take: Why Juniper Bought Mist Systems – Packet Pushers

VMware Introduces Industry’s First Service-defined Firewall to Help Better Protect Apps and Data On-Premises and In the Cloud – VMware

Chronicle Security – Technology Overview – Chronicle

Chronicle Releases Chapter One: Backstory – Dark Reading

Comcast Acquires BluVector, Developer of AI-Powered Cybersecurity Technology – Business Wire

State of the Cloud Report – RightScale

Building network infrastructure with fiber-optic cable – Facebook Code

Facebook Will Begin Selling Wholesale Fiber Capacity – Data Center Frontier

U.S.

Take a Network Break! The Electronic Frontier Foundation is warning of a proposed alternative to TLS 1.3, called ETS or eTLS, that provides a backdoor for decrypting traffic.

ICAAN calls for a full deployment of DNSSEC, Volta Networks launches a cloud-native router that takes disaggregation to the next level, and Veriflow has announced a new service that maps and models public cloud deployments in AWS and Google for security, compliance, and operational visibility.

Telecom provider Windstream Holdings has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Telsa closes auto stores to sell cars over the Internet, and Nutanix misses Wall Street targets.

Dell Technologies reports its first quarterly earnings since coming back to the public market, VMware posts strong results for its Q4 and full fiscal year, and Nike developers have to fix a bug that prevents their self-lacing shoes from lacing.

Sponsor: WAN Summit

Join over 300 WAN professionals at WAN Summit, April 8 and 9th in NYC. Meet your peers to find out how they’re meeting network challenges, and how they’re readying the WAN for cloud and data center migrations. It’s just $99 to attend and listeners can get -20% off with the code PACKETPUSHERS when they register for New York. Go to WANSummit.com for details and to register.

Packet Pushers Virtual Design Clinic

Join the Packet Pushers on March 14th for our free, online Virtual Design Clinic.

You’ll see technical presentations on the P4 Programming Language, and an IPv6 Address Planning Survival Guide, and a sponsored presentation from Kentik. And don’t miss the the Ask Me Anyhing sessions with a panel of experts who answer your network and design questions. Get details and sign up at packetpushers.net/vdc.

Tech Bytes: VIAVI Solutions

Stay tuned after the news for a sponsored Tech Bytes conversation with VIAVI Solutions. We talk about the intersection of NetOps and Security Ops, and how network engineers can use VIAVI’s packet capture and analytics tools to assist in security investigations and forensic analysis. Find out more at viavisolutions.com/packetpushers.

Show Links:

ETS Isn’t TLS and You Shouldn’t Use It – Electronic Frontier Foundation

ICANN Calls for Full DNSSEC Deployment, Promotes Community Collaboration to Protect the Internet – ICANN

Volta Networks Unveils Industry’s First Cloud-Native Routing Platform that Reduces Total Cost of Ownership 90% Compared to Legacy Routers – Volta Networks

Veriflow Delivers CloudPredict™ SaaS, Industry’s First Network Visibility and Assurance Platform for Multi-Cloud Environments – Veriflow

CDS Strikes Again (Aurelius and Windstream) – Credit Slips

Take a Network Break! Google debuts a beta of its Cloud Service Platform, a hybrid cloud product that lets you run applications on premises or in Google’s public cloud. Reuters digs up new data to affirm AWS’s public cloud lead, and Duo Security tracks unsafe Chrome extensions.

Palo Alto Networks shells out over half a billion dollars for Demisto, a security orchestration company; a Drupal vulnerability puts millions of sites at risk; and the U.S. Secretary of State warns American allies that the use of Huawei gear in critical infrastructure could jeopardize intelligence-sharing.

HPE posts its first-quarter financial earnings, and Google “forgets” to tell customers about a microphone built into a Nest home security product.

Sponsor: ExtraHop

Today’s episode is brought to you in part by ExtraHop. ExtraHop is the enterprise cyber analytics company delivering performance and security from the inside out. Visit extrahop.com/packetpushers for an interactive demo to find out more.

Packet Pushers Virtual Design Clinic

Learn new stuff without getting on a plane! The next Packet Pushers Virtual Design Clinic is Thurday March 14th. We’ll have technical presentations on IPv6, the P4 programming language for network devices, and Ask Me Anything sessions with expert panelists. Register and attend for free!

Show Links:

Cloud Services Platform—bringing hybrid cloud to you – Google

Google emits a beta of Cloud Service Platform to entice hold-outs with hybrid goodness – The Register

Google’s new cloud boss has big task to catch rivals, Reuters data show – Reuters

Follow the CAPEX: Cloud Table Stakes 2018 Edition – Platformonomics

CRXcavator: Democratizing Chrome Extension Security – Duo Security

Palo Alto Networks Announces Intent to Acquire Demisto – Seeking Alpha

Drupal core – Highly critical – Remote Code Execution – SA-CORE-2019-003 – Drupal

Millions of websites threatened by highly critical code-execution bug in Drupal – Ars Technica

You’re on a Huawei to Hell, US Sec State Pompeo warns allies: Buy Beijing’s boxes, no more intelligence for you – The Register

Britain managing Huawei risks...

Take a Network Break! The startup SnapRoute has launched CN-NOS, a new network OS that runs Kubernetes under the covers. VMware introduces new features in its SD-WAN appliances, and Carbonite will acquire Webroot for $618.5 million.

Russia contemplates mechanisms to isolate the country’s network infrastructure in the event of a cyber-attack, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission weighs a fine against Facebook related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

A pair of Oracle shareholders sue the company for alleged deceptive practices, and Cisco and Arista both post strong financial results.

Sponsor: ThousandEyes

ThousandEyes gives you performance visibility from every user to every app over any network, both internal and external, so you can migrate to the cloud, troubleshoot faster and deliver exceptional user experiences. Sign up for a free account at thousandeyes.com/packetpushers and choose a free ThousandEyes t-shirt.

Sponsor: WAN Summit

Join over 300 WAN professionals at WAN Summit, April 8 and 9th in NYC. Meet your peers to find out how they’re meeting network challenges, and how they’re readying the WAN for cloud and data center migrations. It’s just $99 to attend and listeners can get -20% off with the code PACKETPUSHERS when they register for New York. Go to WANSummit.com for details and to register.

Tech Bytes: ThousandEyes

Stay tuned after the news for a sponsored Tech Bytes conversation with ThousandEyes. We talk about the causes and impacts of a 50-hour outage  CenturyLink suffered in December, 2018. We’ll also share lessons you can take away from the incident.

Show Links:

BiB 071: SnapRoute CN-NOS For Whitebox Focuses On Operators – Packet Pushers

SnapRoute CN-NOS Demonstration with Adam Casella – Networking Field Day

VMware SD-WAN Security and Cloud Integrations – Networking Field Day

Carbonite: Investors Do Not Like Webroot Deal – Seeking Alpha

Carbonite to Acquire Webroot, Creating a Leader in Endpoint Data Protection and Security – Carbonite

Ivan to be left alone: Russia preps to turn its internet into an intranet if West opens cyber-fire – The Register

IGP White Paper: Understanding Russia’s “National Internet” – Internet Governance Project

Indian Government Proposes Vast New Powers to Suppress Internet Content – CircleID

India Proposes Chinese-Style Internet Censorship – The New York Times

Take a Network Break! Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins has stated that Cisco believes privacy is a human right. The CEO called for governments around the world to enact privacy legislation to protect consumers.

VMware revamps its recertification process, doing away with a requirement to recertify every two years. Will other vendors follow suit?

Sprint and Cisco partner on a Meraki managed service, Azure Stacks get tactical, and Dell EMC is rumored to be selling SecureWorks, its managed security services business.

Wells Fargo suffered a major outage in the US after a data center snafu, and Huawei pledges to spend 1.5 billion pounds to address security concerns raised by a British government report.

Get links to all these stories after our sponsor message.

Sponsor: VIAVI Solutions

VIAVI Solutions focuses on end-user experience, providing products that optimize performance and speed problem resolution. Viavi helps network teams manage new initiatives and daily operations, mitigate performance and security risks and solve performance issues and security problems. Learn more at viavisolutions.com/packetpushers.

Show Links:

Removing 2-year VCP Recertification Requirement – VMware Japan Education Blog

VMware Recertification Rollback FAQ – VMware (PDF)

Sprint Business Wi-Fi With Cisco Meraki Makes Networks Scalable, Smarter and Easier to Manage – Sprint

Advancing tactical edge scenarios with Dell EMC Tactical Microsoft Azure Stack and Azure Data Box family – Microsoft

Dell EMC is Taking Azure Stack to the Tactical Edge – Dell EMC

Exclusive: Dell explores sale of cybersecurity company SecureWorks – sources – Reuters

Wells Fargo? Well fscked at the moment: Data center up in smoke, bank website, app down – The Register

Updates on Restoring Services for Customers – Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo’s 20-month nightmare – CNN Money

Cisco Calls for Privacy to be Considered a Fundamental Human Right – Cisco Systems

Cisco Calls for Privacy to be Considered a Human Right – The Network

Today's Network Break analyzes a slew of Cisco Live announcements including ACI Anywhere and HyperFlex for edge deployments, Huawei's run-ins with U.S. prosecutors, financial results from Juniper Networks and Mellanox, and more tech news.

Today's Network Break examines a US Homeland Security advisory on DNS tampering, covers 400G switching news from Arrcus and Huawei, analyzes financial results from Intel and F5, and more. Plus stay tuned for a sponsored Tech Bytes conversation with Nubeva about its cloud packet broker.

Today's Network Break analyzes a new AWS backup service, Rubrik's latest infusion of VC cash, whether the tech sector has reached its natural growth limit and what that means for how tech companies are valued, a Juniper/IBM deal, and more.