SEMA News—December 2019

REQUIRED READING

By Juan Torres

The primary focus of SEMA’s dedicated market research department is to develop reports throughout the year that provide insights on the automotive aftermarket industry and consumers. From its annual “SEMA Market Report,” which provides an overview on the state of the U.S. specialty-equipment market, to the monthly “Industry Indicators Report” and the “Modern Muscle Car Accessorizer Report,” the market research department’s work helps industry members stay informed and make better business decisions. The articles below mention some of the data highlighted in these reports.

SEMA News—December 2019

INTERNET

By Joe Dysart

Company Reports That Write Themselves

With Artificial Intelligence, It’s a Snap

A number of artificial intelligence firms offer tools that automatically generate text reports from company databases.

Businesses looking to automatically generate written reports from their databases now have a raft of choices available, thanks to the emergence of writing software that uses artificial intelligence (AI). Such AI-generated writing solutions can drill down into company databases and automatically produce easy-to-understand written reports, unearthing insights about trends and company performance that might otherwise never see the light of day.

“Any time a business can automate administrative and mundane tasks, it’s useful to the enterprise, reduces human error and boosts productivity,” said Brian Everett, senior partner at marketing firm MindShare Strategies.

In a phrase, any data report your business currently produces or may be looking to produce in coming years can be enhanced with AI-generated writing. Fortunately, a number of new toolmakers offering this tech (also referred to as Natural Language Generation or NLG) have emerged during the past few years to help businesses unearth insights trapped in database columns and tables.

More recently, many of the same AI toolmakers are also ensuring that their AI-generated writing solutions integrate tightly with commonly used business intelligence software such as Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, Microstrategy, Qlik, Spotfire SAP and Tableau. The result is that businesses can auto-generate rich, colorful visualizations of their data—accompanied by easy-to-understand text descriptions of what they’re viewing—by blending AI-generated writing with already existing business intelligence software.

“NLG-driven, multi-dimensional narratives are the breakthrough that [data-generated] visuals were years ago,” said Sharon Daniels, CEO of AI-generated writing toolmaker Arria. “The ‘big data’ problem was partially addressed with the evolution of business intelligence dashboards, but while visuals paint a picture, they’re not the complete picture. With the addition of NLG, business intelligence dashboards are transformed. The ability to access key information in near real time, communicated as if written by the company’s top analyst, without bias and at an NLG writing speed, is truly astonishing. It’s what users are demanding: complete information, faster conclusions and better decision making.”

Added Ann Schnena, a senior product manager at Narrative Science, another AI-generated writing toolmaker: “Instead of forcing people to learn how to analyze spreadsheets or explore dashboards, data storytelling uses simple, easy-to-understand language and one-click collaboration features to ensure that everyone in your company actually understands data, all the time. With ‘data storytelling,’ your team can read a personalized story that tells them what they need to know about their business—tailored specifically to their needs automatically. Data storytelling technology is intelligent. It naturally articulates the most important and interesting information to each employee every day. And it allows employees to share that information with each other.”

The added insights from easy-to-understand prose makes a business intelligence system more accessible to more people, given that not everyone is comfortable making business decisions based on graphics alone, Schnena said.

Moreover, by customizing the kind of text reports that are generated, business users and others are able to zero in on just the kind of information and just the kinds of insights they’re looking for instead of wading through torrents of data. And having an automated report writer in-house also offers businesses the opportunity to generate more reports more often. For example, why be satisfied with a performance report each month when you can auto-produce a performance report each week—or even each day?

Some seasoned users of AI-generated business reports even program their systems to offer an updated report every time a staffer opens a copy of the company’s business intelligence software on a PC.

One caveat, however: Businesses looking to bring AI-generated writing tools in-house should know up front that their ability to fully optimize their use of AI report-generating tools will need some ramp-up time.

“People must invest a significant amount of time and resources to set up and perfect NLG software on the front end,” said Mindshare’s Everett. “After reports and articles are generated, people still need to review and tweak the text to ensure that it makes sense and is error-free.”

One of the best ways to shop for AI-generated writing software is to check out market leaders in the space and then scout around for other solutions that go for less and have fewer bells and whistles but may be just fine for the reports you want. The top three players in AI-generated writing currently are Automated Insights, Narrative Science and Arria, according to a market research report released last year by highly respected market research firm Forrester.

Those three AI-generated writing toolmakers offer solutions that demonstrate the greatest ability to auto-generate richly worded text from data, according to Forrester. The top three also offer the most customization in terms of the kinds of reports that can be generated as well as the number of writing styles that can be used to generate the reports. They also offer solutions in more languages than other market players.

The second tier—also strong performers—are two business intelligence software makers that added AI-generated writing to their existing offerings: SAP and Salesforce, according to Forrester. And on the third tier are “contenders” AX Semantics, Yseop, IBM and Marlabs.

(A free copy of the normally $1,295 Forrester report is available at a link on Yseop’s website: www.resources.yseop.com/nlg-market-guide).

Gartner Group, another highly respected market research firm, came up with a similar list of key players in AI-generated writing in a report (www.gartner.com/en/documents/3942031) released in June 2019. The leaders were Arria, Automated Insights, AX Semantics and Yseop.

Overall, given the great value AI-generated writing does—and will—offer businesses, look for a number of new AI-generated writing providers to emerge during the next few years that will offer ever more powerful and ever more versatile systems. Such solutions will come in the form of standalone solutions such as Automated Insights and Arria NLG, and others will emerge as add-on tools to comprehensive business software suites offered by SAP and Salesforce.

Even if you’re not in the market for AI-generated writing right now, you’re going to want to track this technology closely in coming years, given that it’s poised to dramatically alter the way businesses glean insights from company databases.

Data reports auto-created with AI-generated writing make insight and decision-making at a company much easier because “everyone knows the same story,” said Pooja Parthasarathy, senior product manager at Narrative Science. “There’s no interpretation and there’s no element of guesswork or [alternative] perspective that goes into to it. Everyone is looking at and understanding the same story. Together.”

Joe Dysart is an internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan.

646-233-4089

joe@joedysart.com

www.joedysart.com

SEMA News—December 2019

INTERNET

By Joe Dysart

Your Virtual Lawyer Will See You Now

Fed up with high attorney fees, many businesses are turning to less-expensive virtual online legal services.

Businesses are realizing significant savings by securing their legal advice virtually—over the web—rather than meeting with attorneys who charge expensive fees by the hour.

In practice, getting virtual legal services often translates into working with online service providers who provide legal templates designed for basic business agreements. Some of those basic agreements have an extremely reasonable price: free. Others run $7 and up.

Instead of paying for a pricey lawyer, for example, you can establish an LLC for your company online, formalize a business license or register a trademark—for a song. Those kinds of savings can be especially attractive to cash-strapped small businesses.

“Small-business owners now have unprecedented access to affordable technology-enabled solutions that are better suited for their most common legal needs,” said John Suh, CEO of LegalZoom (www.legalzoom.com), another provider of virtual legal services.

Granted, there’s less peace of mind snagging the proper forms for a legal agreement off a website as opposed to sitting down with a lawyer who is willing to put his or her reputation behind your business agreement, but more than a few businesses are willing to live with that risk, apparently. For example, a December 2018 Harris Poll of 2,000 U.S. adults found that 76% of respondents aged 18–44 were willing to use online legal services if that meant they could save money on their legal needs (www.tinyurl.com/prweb-com-releases). And 65% of those age 55 and older surveyed said that they’d consider online legal services if they were less expensive than a traditional lawyer.

There’s also some big money behind virtual lawyering. In July 2018, for example, LegalZoom secured $500 million in venture capital from Francisco Partners and GPI Capital to expand its already significant presence in the online legal services market. That’s a lot of clams in anyone’s world.

Given all the frothy interest, you’ll at least want to take a look at what the online virtual legal services have to offer. Below is a representative sampling.

RocketLawyer (www.rocketlawyer.com; costs vary): RocketLawyer is the kind of one-stop legal shopping service that makes traditional lawyers gulp. You can choose from hundreds of legal documents to formalize basic business agreements without the help of a lawyer.

Technically, the service bills itself as an information and software service online and flatly states that it does not offer legal advice or representation with distribution of its legal forms, but businesses looking for more peace of mind can instead connect via the site to ask a simple question of a lawyer or schedule a 30-min.consultation on a specific matter for an
additional charge.

RocketLawyer also offers service discounts for users who become “premium members” at $39.99 per month. With premium membership, users can create an unlimited amount of legal documents, get answers to legal questions from an attorney, and have an attorney review documents. There is also a discount for members looking to hire an attorney.

LegalZoom (www.legalzoom.com; starts at $29): LegalZoom is another online legal documents service. It offers 35 services specifically geared for businesses, including basic legal agreements, incorporation and trademark registration. You can try out LegalZoom for free by completing a questionnaire for a specific legal service and then decide whether or not you want to purchase the legal documents LegalZoom generates for you.

Nolo (www.nolo.com; prices vary): A clearinghouse for all things do-it-yourself legal, Nolo is a great stop for getting a legal problem solved for free or nearly free. All told, the Nolo network of websites consists of more than 50 web properties offering advice, apps and downloadable legal forms on specific legal topics.

You can find plenty of documents there that you can use for legal agreements, and the firm offers its Nolo’s Plain English Law Dictionary for free. The dictionary features nearly 4,000 legal terms defined in plain English. You can also find pointers to lawyers on Nolo who specialize in specific facets of business law, and there are free articles on the site offering legal advice as well as e-books for purchase that delve into very detailed and specific topics, such as Chapter 7 and 13 bankruptcy.

Shake (www.shakelaw.com/shake-apps; free): Shake is perfect for businesses looking to quickly finalize a basic agreement. The app offers a number of common business agreements in template form. Deals are made after both parties sign a personalized template agreement using their smartphones. You can also get your agreement confirmed using conventional digital signatures.

All of the templates on Shake are created by licensed attorneys and are specially designed to capture important agreement terms concisely and in plain English. Shake also enables you to add your own wording to agreements—although that could be risky, given that not everyone thinks like an attorney when writing their own contract terms.

LawDepot (www.lawdepot.com; $24 per month): This is another purveyor of do-it-yourself legal documents and templates with more than 10 years of experience. You can try out LawDepot free for seven days.

Still other services of this kind include BizFilings (www.bizfilings.com) and USLegalForms (www.uslegalforms.com).

LawZam (www.lawzam.com; free): Instead of offering legal forms online, LawZam pairs businesses looking for lawyers. LawZam invites businesses with legal problems to visit its site and post legal questions, which its lawyers answer with a free initial consultation. For additional services, you negotiate with an attorney who appeals to you. The app comes complete with video conferencing, so both parties can get a good look at one another before they agree to do business.

The best part is that LawZam is absolutely free for both lawyers and consumers to use, since the app is designed to make money from advertising.

“We are now in a world where people can consult by video conference with attorneys on their mobile devices for free, virtually anywhere,” said Claudio Dunkelman, LawZam co-founder.

Ask a Lawyer: Legal Help (www.askalawyer.com): This is another brokerage that offers businesses the ability to get preliminary legal advice from attorneys free of charge. Users initially message attorneys via the application and also chat live. If they like what they hear, they negotiate with the attorney for more in-depth service.

For attorneys, the app represents an opportunity to screen potential clients, and essentially replaces the “free consultation” many lawyers have often offered prospective clients for centuries.

Priori Legal (www.priorilegal.com): Priori Legal is also a brokerage that pairs businesses with lawyers. There, users answer basic questions about the legal service they need and are then paired with a number of lawyers best suited to handle the task—which includes the fees they charge. Users then pick the attorney who works best for them and schedule a free 30-min. consultation.

PhoneView (www.ecamm.com/mac/phoneview; $29.95): This is an extremely specialized app for Mac products that enables businesses involved in legal disputes to unearth printouts of relevant texts that are buried in their iPhones. PhoneView essentially allows you to view, save and print out all of your iPhone and iPad messages and WhatsApp messages onto a Mac computer. Messages are exported as PDF files, and voicemails and videos on your phone can also be exported to your PC.

Joe Dysart is an internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan.

646-233-4089

joe@joedysart.com

www.joedysart.com

SEMA News—December 2019

INDUSTRY NEWS

Photos courtesy SpiedBilde, Brian Williams. Reuse or reproduction without the copyright holder’s consent is prohibited.

McLaren 750LT Long Tail Mule McLaren is understood to be readying a faster, lighter Long Tail version of the 720S for launch next year, and a prototype caught testing appears to confirm it. Although this mule appears to be a standard 720S with some modifications, telltale cues include Gurney flaps and a substantially larger front splitter. Although the traditional Long Tail extended rear end doesn’t feature in this early mule, the extended spoiler plastered in tape suggests engineers are testing for such bodywork modifications prior to completing them. McLaren has yet to confirm whether it will use the 750LT name for the Long Tail model, but a 750hp figure is expected.
’21 Jeep Grand Wagoneer Mule This is a mule for the ’21 Jeep Wagoneer, caught flexing in Death Valley, California. The Wagoneer and larger Grand Wagoneer will be based off the ’19 RAM 1500 platform. Wagoneer models will get independent rear suspension for better ride as well as interior packaging to fit in a third-row seat. Adjustable ride height is also expected to be lifted from the RAM. It’s predicted that V6 and V8 engines will be offered, while a new inline-six with a turbo and 48-volt mild hybrid system is also expected to be introduced on the Jeep models. A plug-in hybrid variant is also projected after initial launch. Expect to see the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer as early as spring 2020, likely at the New York Auto Show.
’20 C8 Corvette in Rapid Blue Here’s the ’20 Chevy Corvette Stingray in Rapid Blue, providing a more complete look at the new color. The bright-blue hue is notably lighter than the Elkhart Lake Blue Metallic shared earlier. The prototype seen here is wearing the optional Z51 performance package, has a body-color rear spoiler and the optional carbon-flash double five-spoke wheels. It was caught around the Milford Proving Grounds undergoing testing.

SEMA News—December 2019

INDUSTRY NEWS

Photos courtesy SpiedBilde, Brian Williams. Reuse or reproduction without the copyright holder’s consent is prohibited.

McLaren 750LT Long Tail Mule McLaren is understood to be readying a faster, lighter Long Tail version of the 720S for launch next year, and a prototype caught testing appears to confirm it. Although this mule appears to be a standard 720S with some modifications, telltale cues include Gurney flaps and a substantially larger front splitter. Although the traditional Long Tail extended rear end doesn’t feature in this early mule, the extended spoiler plastered in tape suggests engineers are testing for such bodywork modifications prior to completing them. McLaren has yet to confirm whether it will use the 750LT name for the Long Tail model, but a 750hp figure is expected.
’21 Jeep Grand Wagoneer Mule This is a mule for the ’21 Jeep Wagoneer, caught flexing in Death Valley, California. The Wagoneer and larger Grand Wagoneer will be based off the ’19 RAM 1500 platform. Wagoneer models will get independent rear suspension for better ride as well as interior packaging to fit in a third-row seat. Adjustable ride height is also expected to be lifted from the RAM. It’s predicted that V6 and V8 engines will be offered, while a new inline-six with a turbo and 48-volt mild hybrid system is also expected to be introduced on the Jeep models. A plug-in hybrid variant is also projected after initial launch. Expect to see the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer as early as spring 2020, likely at the New York Auto Show.
’20 C8 Corvette in Rapid Blue Here’s the ’20 Chevy Corvette Stingray in Rapid Blue, providing a more complete look at the new color. The bright-blue hue is notably lighter than the Elkhart Lake Blue Metallic shared earlier. The prototype seen here is wearing the optional Z51 performance package, has a body-color rear spoiler and the optional carbon-flash double five-spoke wheels. It was caught around the Milford Proving Grounds undergoing testing.

SEMA News—December 2019

INDUSTRY NEWS

Photos courtesy SpiedBilde, Brian Williams. Reuse or reproduction without the copyright holder’s consent is prohibited.

McLaren 750LT Long Tail Mule McLaren is understood to be readying a faster, lighter Long Tail version of the 720S for launch next year, and a prototype caught testing appears to confirm it. Although this mule appears to be a standard 720S with some modifications, telltale cues include Gurney flaps and a substantially larger front splitter. Although the traditional Long Tail extended rear end doesn’t feature in this early mule, the extended spoiler plastered in tape suggests engineers are testing for such bodywork modifications prior to completing them. McLaren has yet to confirm whether it will use the 750LT name for the Long Tail model, but a 750hp figure is expected.
’21 Jeep Grand Wagoneer Mule This is a mule for the ’21 Jeep Wagoneer, caught flexing in Death Valley, California. The Wagoneer and larger Grand Wagoneer will be based off the ’19 RAM 1500 platform. Wagoneer models will get independent rear suspension for better ride as well as interior packaging to fit in a third-row seat. Adjustable ride height is also expected to be lifted from the RAM. It’s predicted that V6 and V8 engines will be offered, while a new inline-six with a turbo and 48-volt mild hybrid system is also expected to be introduced on the Jeep models. A plug-in hybrid variant is also projected after initial launch. Expect to see the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer as early as spring 2020, likely at the New York Auto Show.
’20 C8 Corvette in Rapid Blue Here’s the ’20 Chevy Corvette Stingray in Rapid Blue, providing a more complete look at the new color. The bright-blue hue is notably lighter than the Elkhart Lake Blue Metallic shared earlier. The prototype seen here is wearing the optional Z51 performance package, has a body-color rear spoiler and the optional carbon-flash double five-spoke wheels. It was caught around the Milford Proving Grounds undergoing testing.

SEMA News—December 2019

INDUSTRY NEWS

Photos courtesy SpiedBilde, Brian Williams. Reuse or reproduction without the copyright holder’s consent is prohibited.

McLaren 750LT Long Tail Mule McLaren is understood to be readying a faster, lighter Long Tail version of the 720S for launch next year, and a prototype caught testing appears to confirm it. Although this mule appears to be a standard 720S with some modifications, telltale cues include Gurney flaps and a substantially larger front splitter. Although the traditional Long Tail extended rear end doesn’t feature in this early mule, the extended spoiler plastered in tape suggests engineers are testing for such bodywork modifications prior to completing them. McLaren has yet to confirm whether it will use the 750LT name for the Long Tail model, but a 750hp figure is expected.
’21 Jeep Grand Wagoneer Mule This is a mule for the ’21 Jeep Wagoneer, caught flexing in Death Valley, California. The Wagoneer and larger Grand Wagoneer will be based off the ’19 RAM 1500 platform. Wagoneer models will get independent rear suspension for better ride as well as interior packaging to fit in a third-row seat. Adjustable ride height is also expected to be lifted from the RAM. It’s predicted that V6 and V8 engines will be offered, while a new inline-six with a turbo and 48-volt mild hybrid system is also expected to be introduced on the Jeep models. A plug-in hybrid variant is also projected after initial launch. Expect to see the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer as early as spring 2020, likely at the New York Auto Show.
’20 C8 Corvette in Rapid Blue Here’s the ’20 Chevy Corvette Stingray in Rapid Blue, providing a more complete look at the new color. The bright-blue hue is notably lighter than the Elkhart Lake Blue Metallic shared earlier. The prototype seen here is wearing the optional Z51 performance package, has a body-color rear spoiler and the optional carbon-flash double five-spoke wheels. It was caught around the Milford Proving Grounds undergoing testing.

SEMA News—December 2019

INTERNET

By Joe Dysart

Hackers’ New Trick: Stealing Your Computing Processing Power

Hackers have a new trick: stealing your computing processing power when you’re not looking.

In a marked shift from previous years, hackers are much more likely these days to be bent on stealing your computing processing power than embedding ransomware or other malware in your network, according to a March 2019 report from IBM (www.ibm.com/security/data-breach/threat-intelligence). That’s because it’s much safer for hackers to simply steal your computing processing power over the internet—and use it for mining crypto currencies such as Bitcoin—than to get involved in planting other criminal software on business and corporate networks, according to the report’s authors.

“One of the hottest commodities is computing power tied to the emergence of crypto currencies,” said Wendi Whitmore, global lead for IBM X-Force Incident Response and Intelligence Services. “That has led to corporate networks and consumer devices being secretly hijacked to mine for those digital currencies.”

Added Kevin Haley, director of Symantec Security Response: “Now you could be fighting for resources on your phone, computer or Internet of Things device as attackers use them for profit.”

All told, the number of computer users reportedly impacted by “Black Hat” mining was more than five million in 2018 (up from 2.7 million the prior year), according to a report from IT security firm Kapersky Lab (www.tinyurl.com/securelist-com-kaspersky). The number is most likely much higher, given that it’s often very difficult to detect when a Black Hat miner has actually infiltrated a network or computer.

The reports from IBM and Kapersky are an eye-opening shift in hacker tactics, given that so many corporations and individuals are currently fixated on preventing ransomware and other malware attacks and so few realize that hackers have now moved on to stealing computing processing power. One of the most vexing aspects of that theft—also known as crypto-jacking—is that it can be so clandestine.

Many hackers running the scam are often careful to steal computer-processing power only when a computer or smartphone is not in use. The most careful of them steal power during the off hours, when computers are on but people are most likely sleeping.

Other hackers are especially crafty in camouflaging mining programs as legitimate software. For example, Kapersky Labs has uncovered a mining program that looks like an Adobe product installed on your computing device—complete with a fake Adobe icon, a fake Adobe executable file and a fake Adobe digital signature, according to Evgeny Lopatin, a security expert at the IT firm.

“Malware, especially cryptominers, continually evolves to avoid detection, often hiding in memory or delivering malicious code directly into the memory of a system,” added Intel Security General Manager Jim Gordon.

The impact on individuals and companies overall can be significant. Computer power theft generally results in a slowdown in computing performance while the theft is underway, making it more difficult to work on your device and decreasing your overall productivity. Computers can also become unstable during a theft, and hackers hijacking computers for mining often have no qualms about driving computer processors and supporting systems at maximum speed, which often results in shortening the life of the devices or overheating their batteries.

That is why computers hijacked by Black Hat miners often have their fans running at full speed: The fans are trying to cool computer processors running hot at maximum speed.

In addition, the results of the thievery also show up in inflated electricity bills, and added costs show up for companies using cloud connections that are compromised by the thieves. Bills for CPU usage can be much higher.

“The massive profit incentive puts people, devices and organizations at risk,” said Mike Fey, president and COO of Symantec.

Unfortunately, the problem of computer processing theft will most likely be with us as long as crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Monero remain popular, Haley added. That’s especially true when the values of crypto currencies soar.

While the early value of a Bitcoin was at times less than a penny in 2010, for example, the price of a single Bitcoin soared in value to $20,000 by 2018 (www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin). The value has since dropped significantly, but the “coins” are still apparently worth thieving for even at that rate.

Hackers discovered the market for Black Hat mining as crypto currencies burgeoned and grew to rely on thousands of computers across the world to maintain their systems. Essentially, the currency systems need those networks to verify all the transactions associated with digital coin transactions and to perform overall auditing of their systems.

Scores of legitimate computer networks regularly perform that work and are paid in new digital crypto-currency “coins” after they complete a pre-agreed amount of auditing. That’s why the computer networks are called “miners.” They “mine” new crypto-currency coins by working as auditors for the crypto-currency systems.

Black Hat miners do the same work as their legitimate counterparts, with one major difference: Instead of using their own computer networks, Black Hat miners unleash malware onto the web that transforms thousands of computers, smartphones and other computer devices into a mining zombie network. Together, that stolen processing power is used to mine crypto currency.

IT security experts say that companies should currently be on the lookout for two types of Black Hat crypto-mining. The first comes in the same format as our old friend, malware. It’s generally secretly downloaded to a computerized device via a rogue link and executes as a working mining program at the hacker’s whim.

The second major form of Black Hat mining occurs while users surf the web. Surfers get hit when they visit a webpage that has been reprogrammed by a Black Hat miner. The thieving script injected into the page steals computer processing power as long as the user remains at the website.

In fact, millions of Android users were afflicted with this form of Black Hat mining in 2018, according to IT security firm Malwarebytes (www.tinyurl.com/malwarebytes-com-threat).

Fortunately, best practices for combating computer-processing power theft generally mirror those used by companies for protecting against other kinds of malware. Companies best prepared are those that have:

• Gold-plated firewall systems.
• IT network security software.
• Regularly installed security updates for all software.
• Employee education programs that train staff to beware of suspicious emails, suspicious websites and suspicious phone callers asking for passwords and other network access information.

“People need to expand their defenses or they will pay the price for someone else using their devices,” said Symantec’s Haley.

Individual computer users can further protect themselves by installing browser extensions that help protect against Black Hat mining, such as the following:

• AntiMiner (www.tinyurl.com/detail-anti-miner)
• Coin-Hive Blocker (www.tinyurl.com/coin-hive-blocker)
• MinerBlock (www.tinyurl.com/minerblock-origin)
• NoCoin (www.tinyurl.com/no-coin-block)

And they can also test to see if their web browsers have been corrupted by Black Hat miners with a free service from Opera Browser (www.cryptojackingtest.com).

Meanwhile, network administrators can use tools such as WhatsUp Gold, by Ipswitch (www.tinyurl.com/ipswitch-network). WhatsUp enables them to monitor for CPU usage spikes over time and set up alerts for when CPU usage exceeds a threshold. The app can also be specially tuned to monitor a network’s CPU usage during off hours—the witching hour for many Black Hat miners.

In some ways, this latest sleight of hand from hackers seems like so many others they’ve used to take advantage of everyday computer users. The only real difference this time is that it’s so insidious. With Black Hat mining, it could take months or even years for a company to discover that a hacker is taking small sips of its network computer-processing power when no one is looking.

Joe Dysart is an internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan.

646-233-4089

joe@joedysart.com

www.joedysart.com

SEMA News—December 2019

INTERNET

By Joe Dysart

Hackers’ New Trick: Stealing Your Computing Processing Power

Hackers have a new trick: stealing your computing processing power when you’re not looking.

In a marked shift from previous years, hackers are much more likely these days to be bent on stealing your computing processing power than embedding ransomware or other malware in your network, according to a March 2019 report from IBM (www.ibm.com/security/data-breach/threat-intelligence). That’s because it’s much safer for hackers to simply steal your computing processing power over the internet—and use it for mining crypto currencies such as Bitcoin—than to get involved in planting other criminal software on business and corporate networks, according to the report’s authors.

“One of the hottest commodities is computing power tied to the emergence of crypto currencies,” said Wendi Whitmore, global lead for IBM X-Force Incident Response and Intelligence Services. “That has led to corporate networks and consumer devices being secretly hijacked to mine for those digital currencies.”

Added Kevin Haley, director of Symantec Security Response: “Now you could be fighting for resources on your phone, computer or Internet of Things device as attackers use them for profit.”

All told, the number of computer users reportedly impacted by “Black Hat” mining was more than five million in 2018 (up from 2.7 million the prior year), according to a report from IT security firm Kapersky Lab (www.tinyurl.com/securelist-com-kaspersky). The number is most likely much higher, given that it’s often very difficult to detect when a Black Hat miner has actually infiltrated a network or computer.

The reports from IBM and Kapersky are an eye-opening shift in hacker tactics, given that so many corporations and individuals are currently fixated on preventing ransomware and other malware attacks and so few realize that hackers have now moved on to stealing computing processing power. One of the most vexing aspects of that theft—also known as crypto-jacking—is that it can be so clandestine.

Many hackers running the scam are often careful to steal computer-processing power only when a computer or smartphone is not in use. The most careful of them steal power during the off hours, when computers are on but people are most likely sleeping.

Other hackers are especially crafty in camouflaging mining programs as legitimate software. For example, Kapersky Labs has uncovered a mining program that looks like an Adobe product installed on your computing device—complete with a fake Adobe icon, a fake Adobe executable file and a fake Adobe digital signature, according to Evgeny Lopatin, a security expert at the IT firm.

“Malware, especially cryptominers, continually evolves to avoid detection, often hiding in memory or delivering malicious code directly into the memory of a system,” added Intel Security General Manager Jim Gordon.

The impact on individuals and companies overall can be significant. Computer power theft generally results in a slowdown in computing performance while the theft is underway, making it more difficult to work on your device and decreasing your overall productivity. Computers can also become unstable during a theft, and hackers hijacking computers for mining often have no qualms about driving computer processors and supporting systems at maximum speed, which often results in shortening the life of the devices or overheating their batteries.

That is why computers hijacked by Black Hat miners often have their fans running at full speed: The fans are trying to cool computer processors running hot at maximum speed.

In addition, the results of the thievery also show up in inflated electricity bills, and added costs show up for companies using cloud connections that are compromised by the thieves. Bills for CPU usage can be much higher.

“The massive profit incentive puts people, devices and organizations at risk,” said Mike Fey, president and COO of Symantec.

Unfortunately, the problem of computer processing theft will most likely be with us as long as crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Monero remain popular, Haley added. That’s especially true when the values of crypto currencies soar.

While the early value of a Bitcoin was at times less than a penny in 2010, for example, the price of a single Bitcoin soared in value to $20,000 by 2018 (www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin). The value has since dropped significantly, but the “coins” are still apparently worth thieving for even at that rate.

Hackers discovered the market for Black Hat mining as crypto currencies burgeoned and grew to rely on thousands of computers across the world to maintain their systems. Essentially, the currency systems need those networks to verify all the transactions associated with digital coin transactions and to perform overall auditing of their systems.

Scores of legitimate computer networks regularly perform that work and are paid in new digital crypto-currency “coins” after they complete a pre-agreed amount of auditing. That’s why the computer networks are called “miners.” They “mine” new crypto-currency coins by working as auditors for the crypto-currency systems.

Black Hat miners do the same work as their legitimate counterparts, with one major difference: Instead of using their own computer networks, Black Hat miners unleash malware onto the web that transforms thousands of computers, smartphones and other computer devices into a mining zombie network. Together, that stolen processing power is used to mine crypto currency.

IT security experts say that companies should currently be on the lookout for two types of Black Hat crypto-mining. The first comes in the same format as our old friend, malware. It’s generally secretly downloaded to a computerized device via a rogue link and executes as a working mining program at the hacker’s whim.

The second major form of Black Hat mining occurs while users surf the web. Surfers get hit when they visit a webpage that has been reprogrammed by a Black Hat miner. The thieving script injected into the page steals computer processing power as long as the user remains at the website.

In fact, millions of Android users were afflicted with this form of Black Hat mining in 2018, according to IT security firm Malwarebytes (www.tinyurl.com/malwarebytes-com-threat).

Fortunately, best practices for combating computer-processing power theft generally mirror those used by companies for protecting against other kinds of malware. Companies best prepared are those that have:

• Gold-plated firewall systems.
• IT network security software.
• Regularly installed security updates for all software.
• Employee education programs that train staff to beware of suspicious emails, suspicious websites and suspicious phone callers asking for passwords and other network access information.

“People need to expand their defenses or they will pay the price for someone else using their devices,” said Symantec’s Haley.

Individual computer users can further protect themselves by installing browser extensions that help protect against Black Hat mining, such as the following:

• AntiMiner (www.tinyurl.com/detail-anti-miner)
• Coin-Hive Blocker (www.tinyurl.com/coin-hive-blocker)
• MinerBlock (www.tinyurl.com/minerblock-origin)
• NoCoin (www.tinyurl.com/no-coin-block)

And they can also test to see if their web browsers have been corrupted by Black Hat miners with a free service from Opera Browser (www.cryptojackingtest.com).

Meanwhile, network administrators can use tools such as WhatsUp Gold, by Ipswitch (www.tinyurl.com/ipswitch-network). WhatsUp enables them to monitor for CPU usage spikes over time and set up alerts for when CPU usage exceeds a threshold. The app can also be specially tuned to monitor a network’s CPU usage during off hours—the witching hour for many Black Hat miners.

In some ways, this latest sleight of hand from hackers seems like so many others they’ve used to take advantage of everyday computer users. The only real difference this time is that it’s so insidious. With Black Hat mining, it could take months or even years for a company to discover that a hacker is taking small sips of its network computer-processing power when no one is looking.

Joe Dysart is an internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan.

646-233-4089

joe@joedysart.com

www.joedysart.com

SEMA News—December 2019

By Chad Simon

EVENTS

Recognizing Leaders and Legends

The Industry Celebrates Its Trailblazers and Raises Money for SEMA Cares at the 2019 SEMA Installation & Gala

About 500 members of the automotive specialty-parts industry attended the 2019 SEMA Installation & Gala, themed “Recognizing Leaders and Legends,” at the Anaheim Marriott in Anaheim, California, on July 26, to pay tribute to the specialty-equipment industry’s pioneers and dedicated volunteers.

About 500 members of the automotive specialty-parts industry attended the 2019 SEMA Installation & Gala, themed “Recognizing Leaders and Legends,” at the Anaheim Marriott in Anaheim, California, on July 26, to pay tribute to the specialty-equipment industry’s pioneers and dedicated volunteers.

Jarod DeAnda and the late Jessi Combs served as the evening’s emcees. Honorees included the SEMA Hall of Fame class of 2019—Bob Chandler, Bigfoot 4x4; Bruce Crower, Crower Cams & Equipment Co.; and Marla Moore, Legendary Companies.

The festivities kicked off with the Pinewood Drag Races—an annual fundraiser for SEMA Cares charities, including Childhelp, Victory Junction and Austin Hatcher Foundation for Pediatric Cancer. In addition to the Build-It-For-Me (BIFM) class, the races included the Council Cup, People’s Choice, several different industry classes and Industry Cup Challenge. Children living at the Childhelp facilities and Victory Junction campers built the vehicles for the BIFM class and donors sponsored their racecars for $95. This year, SEMA Cares raised a total of $43,355 for its three partner charities.

Shortly after the races ended, SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting and Chairman of the Board Tim Martin took the stage to personally recognize the efforts of outgoing Board of Directors officials and welcome the incoming Board. They included:

Immediate Past Chair/Secretary:

• Doug Evans of Crower Cams & Equipment Co. Inc. (outgoing)

Treasurer:

• Peter Lehman of Granite Creek Capital Partners LLC (outgoing)

Board Members:

• Kyle Fickler, Aeromotive Inc. (outgoing)
• James Lawrence, Power Automedia (outgoing)

Chair-Elect:

• James Lawrence, Power Automedia (incoming)

Manufacturer’s Category:

• Kathryn Reinhardt of Pilot Automotive (incoming)
• Melanie White of Hellwig Products (incoming)

Treasurer:

• Kyle Fickler of Aeromotive Inc. (incoming)

Here’s a look at the pinewood leaderboard:

Council Cup

First Place: ETTN
Second Place: ARMO
Third Place: SBN

Build It For Me Class (cars and trucks built by kids)

First Place: James Holmes. Holmes Enterprises
Second Place: James Holmes. Holmes Enterprises
Third Place: Gregg Ovist, Geezup

People’s Choice

Gregg Ovist, Geezup

Unlimited:

First Place: Comp Performance Group
Second Place: Comp Performance Group
Third Place: Wes Mills, Mills Crafts

Stock:

First Place: Rebeca Olavarrieta, Roco 4x4—Average lap time: 2.6327
Second Place: Elena Gurganian, Piston Driven LLC—Average lap time: 2.6466
Third Place: Gregg Ovist, Geezup—Average lap time: 2.6616
Fourth Place: Car #6, Kevin Tanaka—Average lap time: 2.6592

Industry Cup Challenge

First Place Champion: PSKB Rep Firm, Bob Knight
Second Place: Car #13 Hellwig Products, Melanie White
Third Place: Car #1 All Pro Distributing, Mandi Woodell

Media Class: Motor Trend Network
Service Provider’s Class: E Tool Developers
Rep Agency Class: PSKB
Warehouse Distributor Class: All Pro Distributing
Manufacturer’s Class: Hellwig Products

While the racing is over, it’s not too late to make a direct donation to Childhelp and Victory Junction via SEMA Cares.

The following photos showcase activities from the 2019 SEMA Installation & Gala:

The Gala was emceed by industry personalities Jarod DeAnda (right) and the late Jessi Combs.	SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting welcomed attendees to the Installation & Gala.
New SEMA Board Chairman Tim Martin took the stage to personally recognize the efforts of outgoing Board of Directors officials and welcome the incoming Board.	2019 SEMA Hall of Fame inductee Bob Chandler.
The family of Bruce Crower, who had passed away, accepted the SEMA Hall of Fame honor on his behalf.	2019 SEMA Hall of Fame inductee Marla Moore.
SEMA Cares Chair Melanie White encouraged guests to sponsor a Pinewood car to help raise money for children’s charities.	Outgoing Immediate Past Chair/Secretary Doug Evans (second from right) of Crower Cams was recognized for his contributions.
Outgoing Treasurer Peter Lehman (second from right) of Granite Creek Capital Partners LLC was thanked for his service to the industry.	Incoming Chair-Elect James Lawrence (second from right) of Power Automedia was welcomed to his new role on the SEMA Board of Directors.
Chris Douglas (second from right) of COMP Performance Group will continue his role on the SEMA Board of Directors.	Kathryn Reinhardt (second from right) of Pilot Automotive was welcomed to the SEMA Board of Directors.
Les Rudd (second from right) of Bob Cook Sales will continue his role on the SEMA Board of Directors.	Melanie White (second from right) of Hellwig Products was welcomed to the SEMA Board of Directors.
This year’s Pinewood Drag Races brought in a total of $43,355 for SEMA Cares charities.	The 2019–2020 SEMA Board of Directors.