Technology

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Entri, a software provider, accuses GoDaddy, a major domain registrar, of anti-competitive practices, interference with business contracts, and limiting market choices. The court’s recent denial of GoDaddy's motion to dismiss the case signals that Entri has presented plausible claims, setting the stage for further legal proceedings. After the recent ruling by the court, Abe Storey, founder and CEO of Entri spoke to TechRadar Pro, stating:

“We're glad the court recognizes that GoDaddy's attempt to deprive their customers of the freedom to use their preferred software is precisely the harmful, anticompetitive actions the Sherman Act forbids. GoDaddy's continued efforts to regulate a web domain's use through conduct outside its role as a registrar endangers the open internet as we know it today.”

The case Entri, LLC v. GoDaddy.com, LLC reflects a complex legal battle in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, revolving around competition in the domain registration and configuration market.

Judge approves Entri’s major points for trial

GoDaddy holds a dominant position in the U.S. domain registration market, controlling approximately 40% of all registered domains. Traditionally, users who lease domain names can configure them manually or via third-party services using Domain Connect, GoDaddy’s integration protocol. In 2021, Entri introduced Entri Connect, a software solution that automates DNS record configuration, offering smoother integration for SaaS providers and their users. Entri Connect quickly gained traction, with many third-party users preferring it over GoDaddy's Domain Connect.

Initially, GoDaddy allowed Entri Connect to operate within its ecosystem. However, tensions arose when GoDaddy introduced new policies in 2023 that prohibited the use of aggregator services like Entri Connect, restricting users to either Domain Connect or manual configuration. Entri claims that GoDaddy’s actions disrupted its business by terminating existing contracts and discouraging potential deals.

Entri argues that GoDaddy's policies violate Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by instituting a negative tying arrangement. This restriction forces users to abandon competing products like Entri Connect, reducing market competition. Entri also claims GoDaddy deliberately interfered with its business contracts by notifying SaaS companies about its restrictive new policies, leading some companies to cancel or modify existing agreements.

Anthony J. Trenga, Senior US District Judge, said, "GoDaddy’s negative tie cuts off all aggregator services, including Entri Connect, from competing in the DNS records configuration market. Instead, the only option is choosing between GoDaddy’s Domain Connect protocol or requiring users to manually update their DNS records. This deprivation of choice is precisely the kind of anticompetitive harm that the Sherman Act forbids"

GoDaddy’s market dominance allows it to set terms that impact smaller players like Entri, demonstrating the fine line between legitimate business practices and anti-competitive behavior. This case serves as a critical reminder that while companies can set policies to protect their platforms, they must not use those policies to stifle competition unlawfully.

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In the long history of computer crime, the players, goals and tactics have seen a lot of change.

Early computers were fairly isolated systems reserved for niche applications, mainly in academic environments. The first instances of security "attacks" were examples of tinkering that went too far rather than malicious activity.

Today’s world is different. Computers power many aspects of our day-to-day lives. They are faster than ever and highly inter-connected. They are in our pockets, homes and offices, but also in our toothbrushes and refrigerators. They even power our critical infrastructure. This now widespread reliance on computers (and the data they process) attracts new kinds of malfeasants.

Over time, computer-based crime has become organized. What started as low-tech cons and scams, or clever technical feats by small groups has been gradually replaced by more professionalized, more damaging, and more hurtful collectives, such as state-sponsored groups. There is one sort of attack that illustrates this transition better than most: ransomware.

The simple effectiveness of ransomware

Ransomware is an extremely lucrative example of computer crime going "corporate": incentivized by the will of making more money by investing less effort.

Most ransomware attacks follow a simple pattern: 

1. They start by running a malicious tool, an encryptor, on the target system. True to its name, the encryptor will then encrypt the whole disk (or disks) and delete the key. If the perpetrators intend to make the data recoverable, they will keep a copy of the key on their files, away from the affected system. 

2. Then, they make their presence known, from red screens to timers. Ransomware campaigns go great lengths to communicate with their victims because they get their money only if the victims believe that paying is the best chance they have to recover their data. 

3. After payment, an "honorable" ransomware gang will provide the victim a decryptor tool with the secret key.

There are some instances of ransomware that do not encrypt the data. Instead, the attackers threaten the victims by disclosing data publicly, which could cause embarrassment or leak industrial secrets.

Challenging attackers

However, with ransomware attacks, there are two steps that are somewhat challenging for the attackers:

Challenge #1: Getting the encryptor into the target system. Unfortunately, attackers can (still) benefit from a very simple tactic: asking nicely. Phishing attacks are popular ways of distributing ransomware encryptors because many victims eagerly click links on emails without verifying the origin or giving it a thought. Technical entry points traditionally used to deliver malware remain a useful alternative: if there is an open file share, the attacker can deploy the file into the target system, then find another vulnerability to execute it. WannaCry, the attack considered by many as the most damaging ransomware campaign to date, is an example of this.

Challenge #2: Receiving the ransom payment without betraying the attacker's identity. Fifteen years ago, this challenge alone would have hindered the expansion of ransomware gangs. They would need to pay in cash, which is hard to scale and would be geographically restricted to the area of influence of the gang, or they would need to rely on digital payments and withdraw the money fast, creating a trail of evidence leading directly to the gang. However, the rise of cryptocurrency presented a solution to this challenge.

While authorities have succeeded in tracking down malicious businesses who took ransom in cryptocurrencies, the international availability of a means of payment that is not linked to an actual identity has made it much easier for criminals to receive their payments and much harder for law enforcement to follow the tracks.

Preventing disruption using backups

Many of the mechanisms that help to prevent ransomware attacks involve general practices that also help to prevent various types of cyber-attacks. Awareness training supports by warning employees about clicking random suspicious links, hardening at the network and operating system level, deploying updates quickly, malware scanning, etc.

There is also great importance in building a sturdy resilience plan, underpinned by a well-defined and tested backup strategy. Of course, backups are a usual control against accidental data loss and conventional disruptive hacking like, say, website defacement. You detect the incident, roll back your data or your environment to a certain previous point in time, and get back to business with (ideally) minimum data loss.

This backup model relies on a few assumptions. To put it simply, it expects backups to work (to contain enough information to allow for a clean rollback) and to be valid (the rollback would clean up any damage made by the attacker). Reality often challenges both assumptions.

Many companies have backup processes in place. Fewer have data recovery plans describing what to do with the backups to return to a working state. Only a small minority of companies test regularly those backups to ensure that they can, in fact, be relied upon. This makes the recovery process clunky and often unsuccessful.

Ransomware attacks also challenge the second assumption. For example: if the backups are hot (that is, constantly connected to the target system), the encryptor could also encrypt the backup drives, rendering the backup unusable. Or the encryptor could be installed at a certain point, stay idle for a few months, then encrypt the data. A backup taken after the initial compromise could recover the data of the system, but could restore an infected state, allowing a reinfection to occur.

To summarize: a robust backup strategy needs to rely on both hot and cold backup locations, sufficiently isolated from each other to keep an attack on the main system from spreading undeterred to the backups, both of which are regularly and rigorously tested. If the downtime requirements of a given system are particularly stringent, the ability to get back up with minimum data loss must be part of those tests.

Wrapping up

At a technical level, ransomware is not a terribly novel threat. The disruptive aspect of it lies in the economic incentives it introduces, leading to more organized criminal structures with the freedom to act more ruthlessly and at a larger scale, and to attack sensitive industries with the hope of maximizing their payment. It is a threat worth considering because it is increasingly prevalent and, for companies caught unprepared, could wreak havoc on their infrastructure. Just remember: do not pay the ransom.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

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NAND is a vital component of the future of electronics. It’s everywhere, driving the storage capacity, performance and power efficiency in everything from data center servers to the smallest mobile devices – such as phones, drones, cameras and other portable devices.

As these systems and electronic devices add more features and perform more complex tasks like AI, data storage needs will continue to grow – making NAND flash memory a critical component of future innovations.

As a result, the race is on to build higher capacity NAND with better performance and lower power. Many people believe that a higher layer count is the only way forward. But the truth is there are many vectors of NAND innovation and higher layer counts aren’t the only way to increase NAND flash bits and storage capacity.

This new era of NAND is driving a period of change, where the layers-focused race is behind us. The emphasis is shifting toward strategically timing the introduction of new, longer lasting nodes optimized for specific use cases and applications. Not all applications need the latest node with the highest capacity or performance. Making each layer denser, rather than simply stacking more layers, enhances power efficiency, performance and capacity while managing cost for specific customer needs.

Traditional Vertical Scaling

The “layers race” is the notion that more layers means more bit density and capacity, leading to a cost advantage – therefore the NAND with the highest number of layers must be best. But with 3D NAND, it’s no longer that simple.

Scaling NAND is similar to adding capacity at a hotel. Simply adding more floors may seem like a good idea, but you have to remember that building up leads to an increase in operational costs and complexity, including costs to buy and move equipment, build floors, etc. At some point, there diminishing returns to adding additional floors. Intuitively, the proportional cost reduction provided by adding ten floors to a hundred-floor building is better than adding the same number of floors to a five-hundred story building. But the capital needed to add the extra might be higher to build those additional 10 floors on top of a five-hundred-floor building.

Making each floor denser, by shrinking rooms and using space more effectively, can provide the same increase in occupancy in a much more efficient and cost-effective way.

The same logic applies to NAND architecture. Simply adding NAND layers on top of each other may not be the only way to build more bits or capacity. Like floors of a hotel, it becomes more expensive and difficult to build usable NAND as layer counts grow. For example, stacking layers leads to increased processing time, additional capital for the advanced tools needed to ensure we can reliably manufacture NAND die with high quality.

Scaling Smarter by Leveraging Multiple Vectors

While layer count will continue to grow, it is no longer the core innovation driver. Instead, innovation spans across multiple vectors and there are other ways to scale NAND architecture in addition to vertical scaling, including lateral, logical and architecture scaling methods.

Lateral scaling works by packing every single memory layer while removing some of the redundant support structures. It’s like squeezing more rooms on the same floor of a hotel room or reducing the number of stairs and elevators in a building. For example, starting with lateral scaling allows you to optimize the available space before adding another layer. This phased approach is much more efficient, saving costs while reducing risks. It also allows customers to get to a certain capacity point at the right time, with consistent supply and quality. And when it’s decide to add more layers, the benefit is multiplied by the increased efficiency of the layers added.

Logical scaling increases the number of logical bits that can be stored on a physical device. In the hotel room scenario, this would be akin to squeezing more guests into the same hotel room without causing disturbances.

Finally, architecture scaling optimizes the way circuits support memory arrays – such as positioning circuits next to the array, tucking them underneath or perhaps implementing them on a separate wafer. In a hotel, this could be where the parking lot is put for needed guests – on the side of the building, underneath, or above the building (with a cost-effective way to airlift cars, of course).

A combination of all four

An approach that uses a combination of all four of these scaling vectors is a much smarter way of adding NAND bit growth without sacrificing performance and power efficiency for the widest range of uses cases and devices. And it has the additional benefit to optimize node-to-node cost reduction and minimize capital needed for transitions.

And while NAND technology is complex, the manufacturing processes that create viable NAND nodes, and eventually products, are even more so. These conditions are exacerbated by supply and demand dynamics in an emerging era where new applications, especially AI, will greatly increase the need for both compute- and storage-intensive flash-based solutions.

For example, this AI Data Cycle framework shows the virtuous cycle where storage feeds AI models, and AI in return demands more storage. This AI Data Cycle will be a significant incremental growth driver for the storage industry.

Performance, power, and capacity

Performance, power, and capacity play a major consideration at every phase, as each stage demands something different. Whereas the initial stages need massive capacity to contain as much data as possible for model training, as data goes through the cycle, speed and performance may be the more important factors. And power is increasingly becoming a critical factor in any AI application.

In this new era of NAND, NAND nodal migration paths should also be based on the needs of the customer, not a one-size-fits all approach of the past.

Different needs for different customers are starting to bifurcate and the role of NAND suppliers in addressing these needs is becoming much more interesting. Ultimately, what a customer builds will dictate how the flash inside it should operate—how big it should be, how much capacity it holds, and how much power it will consume. It’s not about how many layers the product has. Focusing on the features that are most important to customers—performance, capacity and power— is the winning strategy.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

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