Looking back, Application Security has evolved significantly in the last couple of decades. In the early 2000s, SQL injection and Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attacks were a nightmare for cybersecurity teams as attackers easily bypassed network firewalls through attacks at the application layer. Since traditional network firewalls at that time were not application-aware, these attacks proved a blind spot allowing attackers to compromise web applications easily. Hence, the computer industry developed countermeasures which included and not limited to web application firewalls (WAF), source code security reviews, and DevSecOps, who automate these checks within CI/CD pipelines to and allow security
Month: March 2023
Banking Regulations, US Federal Government Oversight, US Federal Reserve, US Fiscal Policy, US Monetary Policy
Hobson’s Choice for the Fed – Raise Rate or not this time?
Hobson’s Choice is defined as “a choice of taking what is available or nothing at all” which is where we feel the Fed is standing at the present moment. The Fed currently holds its benchmark funds rate, which banks charge each other for short-term lending, is at 4.58% today compared to 0.33% last year and is lower than the long-term average of 4.60%. We are in this position because of tremendous volatility in the Financial Markets since last week with the failure of three medium sized US banks viz. Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank along with well publicized
Speed up your iPhone Battery Charging by disabling new Clean Energy Charging Capability
iOS 16.1 introduced a feature we weren’t necessarily expecting with the latest iPhone software update — a Clean Energy Charging capability that aims to reduce the carbon footprint that your phone can rack up during charging. With Clean Energy Charging enabled, an iPhone will charge if / when lower-carbon emission electricity is available, by getting a forecast of carbon emissions for your local energy grid and timing charging sessions when cleaner energy production is happening. At the moment, Clean Energy Charging is only available to iPhone owners in the U.S. running iOS 16.1 on their handsets. However, for most
The Secure Act 2.0 – Highlights of rule changes related to 401(k) and other Retirement Accounts
(Posted February 2023) The Secure Act 2.0 has some noteworthy provisions related to rules changes for 401(k) and other Retirements Accounts. It may be noted that this law was passed towards the tail end of earlier 116th Congress, and many of the affected entities and institutions are still unpacking all the provisions in the Act. Several of the Act’s provisions came into effective immediately, after President Biden signed into law this SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, on December 29, 2022. Based on what we have seen in the provisions of this Act, Congress
Winter Weather Energy Saving Tips
(Posted Jan 2023) With Energy Costs up significantly this year over the previous years due to inflation and other factors, we may need to find ways to reduce Energy Consumption to keep our overall Energy Expenditure from our personal budget close to last year’s levels. In this connection, we have provided some tips to help with this overall objective: Adjust Your Temperature: A programmable thermostat can make it easy to keep your house at the recommended setting of 68 Degrees F as your Heating Costs account for about 50% of your Energy Bill Treat your fireplace like a window:
Fed Speak: Pause vs. Pivot
(This post was posted in Nov 2022) The Federal Reserve’s November 2022 statement contained dovish language, but Fed Chair Powell warned investors not to expect the Fed to stray from its full focus on fighting inflation. Upside inflation led the U.S. Federal Reserve to hike its policy rate by 75 basis points (bps) for a historic fourth time. This brought the fed funds rate up to a 3.75%–4% range, meaningfully above the Fed’s 2.5% median long-run estimate, as inflation continues to justify monetary policy with the objective to tame inflation. In spite of continued inflation, the Fed also indicated