ADMIN Network & Security November/December 2021

If you’ve noticed some job churn at your company, it’s all part of a new trend called “The Great Resignation,” wherein a high number of employees are changing jobs or quitting altogether to start businesses. It’s a crazy thing to see unemployment low and a lot of jobs available and an excellent opportunity for those of you who feel stuck, underpaid, or underappreciated. Dust off that résumé and make yourself known on LinkedIn. You won’t have to wait long before recruiters begin to contact you for a lot of really great positions that you didn’t know existed. It’s fun to kick the tires and see what’s out there, and you never know, you just might end up taking on a new challenge that meets all of your expectations. The Great…

With an eye toward artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), Ubuntu 21.10 “Impish Indri” Ubuntu Server provides improved efficiency with host and guest drivers for Nvidia vGPU software on Ubuntu KVM, so guest virtual machines can share resources. Edge use cases are addressed, as well, with a minimal system option at install time that uses less than 100MB of disk space. Other features include: need-restart enabled by default Supportuntil July 2022 Linux 5.13 kernel Updated applications Support for all major architectures DEFECTIVE DVD? Defective discs will be replaced, email: cs@admin-magazine.com While this ADMIN magazine disc has been tested and is to the best of our knowledge free of malicious software and defects, ADMIN magazine cannot be held responsible and is not liable for any disruption, loss, or damage to…

ESET, a Slovak security firm, has discovered versions of the Hive ransomware for both Linux and FreeBSD systems. However, the encryptors that have been developed for these systems are still in development and are quite buggy. In fact, according to ESET researchers, both encryptors completely fail when the malware payload is executed with an explicit path. And in comparison to the Windows version of Hive, the Linux/FreeBSD iteration only includes one command-line parameter (-no-wipe). When executed without root permission, the Linux variation of Hive fails to trigger the encryption, because it isn’t capable of injecting the ransom note into the device's root filesystem. Hive is a ransomware group that has already affected more than 30 organizations but only counts their victims among those who have refused to pay the ransom…

SUSE has offered a lightweight version of SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) for some time now. This version of their enterprise OS is purpose-built for containerization and virtualization. But as of version 5.1, it adds a third use case: edge. Three of the very exciting, new edge-centric features are secure device onboarding, live patching, and the ability to enable the modernizing of workloads with support for IBM Z and LinuxOne. SLE Micro is built to scale, which means enterprise users can incorporate the platform into their digital transformation, even when deployed on the edge. These deployments can help with the migration from monoliths to microservices at any pace. Of this new release, Thomas Di Giacomo, SUSE chief technology and product officer, says, “SLE Micro is rapidly becoming a critical foundation of…

With the latest iteration of Ubuntu Server officially out, developers for edge use cases will find some important features have been added. One very exciting addition is needrestart. With this new piece added into the mix, admins won’t have to worry about restarting certain services after upgrading libraries. This is important when you’re upgrading libraries to fix CVE vulnerabilities. Because of the existence of needrestart, the services those libraries affect won’t have to be restarted upon upgrading. Although needrestart has been available for some time, it is now added by default in Ubuntu Server 21.10. Other additions to 21.10 include Linux kernel 5.13, support for a wide variety of hardware including x64-64, ARMv7, ARM64, POWER8, POWER9, IBM s390x (LinuxONE), and RISC-V, and software updates such as Qemu 6.0, libvirt 7.6,…

Chip maker AMD has announced a bold initiative to deliver a 30x increase in energy efficiency for the AMD EPYC CPUs and Instinct accelerators for AI and HPC applications by 2025. According to the press release, the ambitious effort will require the company to “…increase the energy efficiency of a compute node at a rate that is more than 2.5x faster than the aggregate industry-wide improvement made during the last five years.” The announcement is part of the new goals embodied in AMD’s Environmental Social Governance (ESG) initiative. The company describes the goals in terms of social responsibility, but the initiative wouldn’t happen if it didn’t also make business sense. Power usage has long been a limitation for HPC systems, and AMD is always looking for an edge – something…