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Companies are under cyberattack, and a single distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack could cost companies from $52,000 up to $444,000 depending on how large the company is. Enduring downtime due to a DDoS cyberattack also hurts the company's public relations image, with disclosures made to customers and federal regulatory bodies.

Following a DDoS attack, 61 percent of victims lost access to critical business information, while 38 percent were unable to conduct day-to-day business operations. As cybercriminals are becoming more organized - and finding new strategies to launch cyberattacks - volumetric attacks tend to be increasing, outnumbering application-layer attacks.

"A successful DDoS attack can damage business-critical services, leading to serious consequences for the company," said Eugene Vigovsky, head of the Kaspersky DDoS protection at Kaspersky Lab. "For example, the recent attacks on Scandinavian banks caused a few days of disruption to online services and also interrupted the processing of bank card transactions, a frequent problem in cases like this."

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a new statement verifying the Super Bowl is a "no drone zone," and anyone caught flying a drone near the stadium faces potential criminal charges. There is a mix between security and safety concerns and copyright regarding filming sporting events, so drone operators should avoid the potential headache.

"The FAA bars unauthorized aircraft - including drones - from flying over or near NFL regular- and post-season football games," according to a statement from the FAA. "The same restriction applies to NCAA college games in stadiums seating 30,000 or more fans, Major League Baseball games and many NASCAR events."

The FAA is struggling to create private and commercial drone flight laws, as the number of unmanned aircraft continues to rise in the United States. However, the FAA is straightforward when it comes to the Super Bowl and other major sporting events: "If you want to see video of the Big Game, watch it on TV. Leave your drone at home."

The former iBUYPOWER CS:GO professional player and current banned member of the match-fixing and betting ring scandal Joshua 'steel' Nissan has issued a public statement and apology on his public Facebook page.

In this statement he highlighted his disappointment in his actions, the good times while competing in various CS:GO tournaments and some of his plans for the future. He's currently planning to stream his public matchmaking game-play through Twitch.TV, alongside commenting that "I am still a host of knowledge about Counter-Strike. I will try to make all of this information available to everyone for free. It's the least I can do."

Many enraged members of the public have decided to boycott all of Nissan's content, further naming him as "Steal".

Despite the recent match-fixing and betting ring scandals surrounding the former and friends-of iBUYPOWER (IBP) CS:GO squad teammates - the large North American computer company has announced they are looking toward another CS:GO pick-up.

IBP and their CS:GO team split on January the 5th before the accusations were confirmed. As as we're now rolling into February 2015, they've stated that another team is on their mind - commenting that their previous players actions "are not in keeping with the philosophy of the iBUYPOWER brand."

They further stated that "IBP is committed to supporting gaming at the highest levels, and expects each member of our staff and teams to perform to the best of their ability and conduct themselves with integrity at all times," adding "recently, IBP learned that certain members of the IBP CS:GO team failed to meet that expectation. The actions of these individuals come as a shock to us."

According to rumors, the newest Samsung flagship mobile product will be running an almost-completely stock Android operating system, free of the plethora of bloatware that's currently included with their smartphone models.

Gizmodo has compiled some rumors, stating that the Galaxy S6 is looking to run a minimalistic version of TouchWiz, currently described as Samsung specific software that is an add-on to Android offerings.

Sammobile has also let loose that not only will TouchWiz be put on a diet, but Samsung are set to make their specialty programs like "S Voice" and "S Translator" a complete optional-install process - meaning that if you don't want your phone being clogged up like things that you're likely to never to use, you don't have to!

Minimalist PC design is becoming extremely popular in modding circles and here's an awesome example - K-limes' CoolerMaster CM690III Modded Edition.

Featuring an EK-dominated watercooling lineup, this system is powered by an Intel i7 4770k, a MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr and tied together by MSI's Z87-GD65 GAMING motherboard.

What helps make this build look so minimal? Alongside almost no cables showing what-so-ever, the watercooling loop is kept as short as possible and all the 'backbone' components are hidden - like the power supply. This means that only the fancy components are put on display, allowing for the design to look sleek and stylish. Planet MODs has further described minimalist design as "choosing high-quality and beautiful material, then let it stand on its own".

It looks like Microsoft will be a minority investor in a new round of funding for Cyanogen, shelling up $70 million for the company that makes its money making custom versions of Google's mobile OS, Android.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that other companies and investors could jump in, throwing their hats into the ring for investment into Cyanogen, something that would take parts of Android's dominance away from Google. But with Microsoft sitting in the corner with its own mobile OS in Windows Phone, this is an interesting turn for the Redmond-based software giant.

With a market share of around 3%, Microsoft needs to claw some of that mobile OS market share away from Android and get people using its Windows Phone platform. Something we could see Microsoft do with an investment into Cyanogen is bake its Bing search engine into it, something that can't be done on an Android-based smartphone.

Google has posted both its Q4 and full year 2014 results, where we see the Mountain View-based giant raking in an impressive $66 billion for the year. This is up 19% from 2013, with its Q4 2014 seeing revenues reach $18.1 billion, up 15% year-over-year.

The company said that its Google-owned sites saw $12.43 billion in revenues for Q4 2014 which is up 18%, while its partner sites pulled $3.72 billion in revenue, up 6%. When it came to revenues secured outside of the United States, Google saw 56% of its total revenue made outside the US. The UK for example, made up 9% of its revenues. Google added an additional 2000 employees to its roster in Q4, too.

Comparing this to Apple, which made $74.6 billion for Q4 2014, more than Google's entire full year revenue, these results are great, but don't touch Apple in the slightest.

Colorful Technology has announced its latest GeForce GTX 960 video cards, with some truly great models being shown off by NVIDIA's biggest AIB partner in China.

We have four different models being unveiled, with the Colorful GTX960 CH which is a reference like card for entry users. Moving on, we have the Colorful GTX960 i-Cafe for System Integrators, the iGame GTX960Ymir-U for general users and for enthusiasts we have the iGame GTX960 Ymir-X. Starting with the GTX960 i-Cafe which features a longer PCB than the reference design, but features the same clocks as the GTX960 CH. The iCafe version provides consumers with better stability and a longer lifespan thanks to its more efficient cooler and higher quality electronic components.

Moving on to the iGame GTX960 Ymir-U which is targeting gamers and general users, which will have two clock models. The first is a power efficiency model which will have clock speeds of 1127/7010MHz while in performance mode it will crank up to 1203/7010MHz. The iGame GTX960 Ymir is the performance model of the Colorful GTX960 series, with triple fans, a steel back panel, breathing light and a longer PCB. We have two clock speeds on this card, with the default efficient mode coming in at 1127/7010MHz while the performance model cranks things up to an insane 1405MHz.

NVIDIA has been getting some flak for the VRAM issues on its GeForce GTX 970, quickly altering the official specifications of the Maxwell-powered card. Well now AMD is jumping on the chance to sell some of its Radeon R9 290X inventory, dropping the price to as low as $299 for the Hawaii-powered card.

AMD has hit back with a serious troll, statign "4GB means 4GB" somethign that blew up on our Facebook page yesterday. AMD emphasizes that its Radeon R9 290 and R9 290X video cards come with 4GB of VRAM, where all 4GB can be filled up to the very last megabyte. On top of this, they have a 512-bit memory bus which is spitting out 320GB/sec of memory bandwidth, something that the Maxwell-powered GeForce GTX 900 series can't do.

Just as with 'Terminator: Genisys', Disney have stumped up a sweet $4 million in cash to expose the follow up to 'The Avengers', the second highest grossing film of all time, to over 110 million viewers tuned in to this years Superbowl.

Whilst the 30 second spot for 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' is a little light on for footage that hasn't been shown in previously released trailers, the rapid fire spot makes for a pretty convincing argument to hand over your cash at your nearest multiplex come release. Promising to shake up the formula for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and follow up to the game-changing events of 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier 'Age of Ultron' comes with very high set of expectations indeed.

'Avengers: Age of Ultron' will be released on April 23rd 2015 in Australia and New Zealand and on the 1st of May in the USA.

With a viewership of over 110 million worldwide, a spot on the Superbowl can be worth its weight in marketing gold, even at the cost of a sweet $4 million USD. Still, by the looks of this impressive 30 second mini-trailer for this summer's 'Terminator: Genisys', they (and we) got their money's worth.

Set parallel to the events of the original 1984 'Terminator', 'Genisys' sees Arnold Schwarzenegger returns for the fourth time as the T-800, joined by 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' star Jason Clarke as mankind's savior John Connor, while 'Game of Thrones' Emilia Clarke will portray the young Sarah Connor.

Helmed by 'Thor: The Dark World' director Alan Taylor, 'Terminator: Genisys' hits screens worldwide on July 1st and for the first time in 3D.

Ahead of its scheduled release date of March 17, an open beta of Battlefield Hardline will take place from Tuesday, February 3 to Sunday, February 8. The game is powered by the Frostbite 3 game engine and includes both single player and multiplayer modes.

There will be three separate modes for gamers to enjoy: A conquest mode that is similar to traditional team-based death match, supporting up to 64 gamers on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One - and 24 players for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3. The Hotwire mode focuses on chase scenes, and the Heist mode features bank robbers trying to complete a heist before the police capture them.

Interestingly, a "Hacker" mode is available so one person on each team can hack to operate cameras and better spot enemies, with information relayed back to teammates.

With the gaming organization known as Team Solo Mid (TSM) picking up a North American CS:GO squad, they have publicly claimed to now be supporting the highest paid CS:GO players on the planet - later being bested by Team Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP), with their CEO Per Lilliefelth claiming an even better salary for his squad.

I'm sure you're wondering exactly what the figure is here - it's $3,000 US per month, per player. Nothing celebrity status that's sure - but pretty amazing given they are playing video games for employment. But wait, there's more. This $3,000 doesn't cover any of the in-game sticker sales alongside any prize money that the players may win at international tournaments, which can include total prize pools of up to $250,000.

Different from other gaming organizations, TSM have promised to take no cut of prize money or sticker sales, meaning that if these players see themselves added into a 'legends sticker pack' they could see up to $400,000 spread between the five-man squad.

Apple has taken the top spot in the Chinese smartphone market. China has the largest population in the world, and dwarfs most of the nearest countries, with the exception of India. India isn't nearly as developed, or experiencing the massive growth rate China is, so the China market holds tremendous strategic potential for Apple.

Xiaomi and Huawei are entrenched competitors that are slowly eating away market share, particularly from Samsung. Apple seems to have deflected their rising market share with popular new smartphones. Apple also has the notable accomplishment of unseating their bitter rival Samsung from the top spot. The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have been big contributors to Apple's rise in the market with a 70% sales increase in Q4'14.

Apple's rise in China comes in spite of the fact their phones cost nearly double that of the competition. Apple devices are coveted in China, even resulting in large smuggling rings that bring them in to avoid taxes.

Small drones being flown by recreational hobbyists can be hijacked using malware, as a security expert found a backdoor in the Parrot AR drone. The AR quadcopter helicopter drone can be controlled by a smartphone, tablet, NVIDIA Shield and similar devices, but can be hijacked with the Maldrone malware.

Security specialist Rahul Sasi was able to infect the drone and could interfere with its navigation features. Once compromised, he could issue a kill command, or fly the drone under his command - opening the odor to potential invasion of privacy cases, or stealing an onboard camera/video recorder.

"In this we would show infecting a drone with Maldrone and expecting a reverse tcp connection from drone," according to researchers. "Once connection is established we can interact with the software as well as drivers/sensors of the drone directly. There is an existing AR drone piloting program. Our backdoors kills the autopilot and takes control. The backdoor is persistent across resets."

Intel is refreshing their datacenter SSD line with new models that deliver faster write performance than their predecessors. The Intel DC S3710 Series provides 25% more write performance, topping out at 45,000 random write IOPS for the 1.2TB model. The DC S3710 SSDs come in capacities of 200, 400, 800, and 1.2TB. Random read performance weighs in at 85,000 IOPS, and sequential read weighs in at 550MB/s, and sequential writes vary by capacity points, reaching a top speed of 520MB/s. The DC S3710 is geared for high-performance computing, high data rate analytics, operational databases, and large-scale virtualization.

The Intel DC S3610 Series addresses the exploding mid-level performance tier, while offering faster random write speed with an economical price point. The DC S3610 comes in wide range of capacities, with 200, 400, 480, 800GB, and 1.2TB models in the 2.5" form factor. Random read tops out at 84,000 IOPS, and varying write performance (based upon capacity) reaches up to 28,000 IOPS. Sequential read comes in at 550MB/s, and sequential write performance reaches 520MB/s (depending upon capacity). The DC S3610 series also offers capacities of 200, 400, and 800GB in the incredibly small 1.8" form factor, but performance specifications for the 1.8" haven't been released as of yet.

The DC S3610 is designed to meet the requirements for operational and analytical databases, virtualization, e-commerce, and cloud infrastructures. Both new SSDs feature standard 6Gb/s SATA connections and 20nm IMFT NAND. The DC S3710 provides up to 10 DWPD of endurance, and the DC S3610 provides 3 DWPD. Both new SSDs come with power fail protection and a high level of reliability. In fact, Intel is one of the only storage manufacturers to provide concrete failure rate data to the public.

In a order to easily organize and store photos in your account, Microsoft has added an Albums feature for their OneDrive service - claimed by some as a move to compete with popular competitors including Dropbox and Google's storage options.

Released this Wednesday through a company blog post, this addition will feature capabilities mirroring Dropbox's Carousel photo gallery app and Google Drive's built-in albums feature. Available through the iOS app now, the company has stated they will add Android and Windows phone support "soon".

It's also claimed that next month will see an addition of automatic photo import features for Windows 7 and 8 users, as already seen with Android, iOS and Windows Phone versions as of last July. This new feature will see a camera imports folder added, becoming the location for all automatic imports from both PC's and mobile devices - changing it from the current "All photo's" folder.

Complete with a 13-inch screen squeezed into a bezel that generally houses 11-inch offerings, Dell's new XPS 13 2015 is packed full of tech goodies including the new Broadwell U CPU, 4GB of RAM, a tiny 2.99lb weight rating and a 1366 x 768 resolution touch-screen.

Being initially released to the market at a tiny price of $800, some are claiming this model to be a MacBook Air killer. Touted by many at CES to be part of their 'best of' categories, with the vibrant screen, strong audio and configuration options helping describe why it's such a winner. Bear in mind that the touchscreen isn't part of the $800 base-model, however it's a great inclusion if you're that way inclined.

Comparing this to Apple's MacBook Air, you're looking at a starting price of $999 for 128GB of PCI-e based flash storage, an Intel i5 dual-core, 4GB of RAM and a slightly smaller 2.38lb weight rating. With the specifications sitting fairly close (bar the CPU), you can't argue with a $199 saving on Dell's product.

With smartphones now accounting for over two-thirds of Facebook's total revenue, Mark Zuckerberg and his staff have just published some extremely positive Q4 2014 results.

Claimed by the social media giant to make up for roughly 69 percent of total revenue, their total number posted for this period was $3.85 billion. This exceeded the $3.77 billion consensus estimate by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters and is a 49 percent rise when compared to 12 months earlier.

Just one year ago, mobile advertisements made up for only half of Facebook's total revenue, showing that the rise of the smartphone has been sharp and expansive. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was impressed by the results, stating "we got a lot done in 2014. Our community continues to grow and we're making progress towards connecting the world."