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Linux worm turns Raspberry Pis into cryptocurrency mining bots … – Boing Boing

June 11, 2017 | Author: admin

Linux.MulDrop.14 is a Linux worm that seeks out networked Raspberry Pi systems with default root passwords; after taking them over and ZMap and sshpass, it begins mining an unspecified cryptocurrency, creating riches for the malware's author and handing you the power-bill.

Experts say the initial infection takes place when Raspberry Pi operators leave their devices' SSH ports open to external connections.

Once a Raspberry Pi device is infected, the malware changes the password for the "pi" account to:

$6$U1Nu9qCp$FhPuo8s5PsQlH6lwUdTwFcAUPNzmr0pWCdNJj.p6l4Mzi8S867YLmc7BspmEH95POvxPQ3PzP029yT1L3yi6K1

After this, Linux.MulDrop.14 shuts down several processes and installs libraries required for its operation, including ZMap and sshpass.

The malware then launches its cryptocurrency mining process and uses ZMap to continuously scan the Internet for other devices with an open SSH port.

Once it finds one, the malware uses sshpass to attempt to log in using the username "pi" and the password "raspberry." Only this user/password combo is used, meaning the malware only targets Raspberry Pi single-board computers.

Linux Malware Mines for Cryptocurrency Using Raspberry Pi Devices [Catalin Cimpanu/Bleeping Computer]

(Image: Evan-Amos, PD)

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Why isn’t Cloud Computing in the 2017 Belmont Stakes? – FanSided

June 11, 2017 | Author: admin

May 20, 2017; Baltimore, MD, USA; Javier Castellano aboard Cloud Computing (2) races Julien R. Leparoux aboard Classic Empire (5) during the 142nd running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course. Mandatory Credit: Patrick McDermott-USA TODAY Sports

Why isnt Always Dreaming in the 2017 Belmont Stakes? by Cody Williams

French Open 2017: Womens results Final by John Buhler

Cloud Computing was not on the radar of many people coming into the Preakness Stakes. He opened at a 30-1 underdog. And though his odds drastically improved leading up to post time to 13-1, he was still considered a longshot. Yet, he came out of nowhere and was able to overtake Classic Empire on the final stretch to win at Pimlico Race Course.

However, the win for Cloud Computing eliminated the chance of a Triple Crown winner in 2017. Thus, the Belmont Stakes didnt hold the same meaning for him or for Derby winner Always Dreaming. As such, both Always Dreaming and Cloud Computing wont be running on Saturday in the 2017 Belmont Stakes.

But not running solely because theres no shot at the Triple Crown seems a bit petty. Is that the whole reason as to why Cloud Computing isnt running at the 2017 Belmont Stakes? The short answer is, of course, no.

Though many people only pay attention to horse racing during the Triple Crown races, its actually quite a long season. There are numerous races with big purses for the winner throughout the summer. Thus, a lot of trainers and owners are interested in seeing their horses do well in those races to complete the season.

Whats more, the Belmont Stakes is a notoriously grueling race. Weve seen former Triple Crown hopefuls win the Derby and Preakness only to come up short at the Belmont because of the length of the race.

Thus, with the prestige of the Triple Crown not on the line, it makes sense that Cloud Computings team would rather focus on the summer and not such a long race. Its unfortunate and takes away some of the drama, but it makes sense in the long run.

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Infosec17: Society needs to address encryption dilemma – ComputerWeekly.com

June 10, 2017 | Author: admin

According to one of the directors at Interpol we are facing a tsunami of criminality online, says Mary Aiken, forensic cyber psychologist and advisor to the European Cyber Crime Centre (EC3) at Europol.

The 10 most important things you need to know about GDPR, and a jargon-buster explanation for some of the key terminology.

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We are going to have to think about governance in this space even though this makes some people uncomfortable, she told Infosecurity Europe 2017 in London.

But if we do not have some form of governance in the cyber context, that will negatively affect real-world social order, she said.

Aikens comments coincide with fresh calls by the European Commission (EC) to give law enforcement new powers to obtain information from online service providers such as Facebook and Google as part of new measures to fight terrorism.

The EC has proposed multiple ways to make it easier for police to retrieve data stored in the cloud directly from technology companies in response to complaints about delays in investigations, reports the Telegraph.

The proposals include allowing security forces in one member state to ask a tech firm directly for data without consulting the authorities in that state, introducing an obligation on tech firms to hand over data to any force from a member state when a legal request is made, and giving police forces direct access to servers so they can copy the data they need.

This third option is kind of an emergency possibility which will require some additional safeguards protecting the privacy of people, Vera Jourova, European Union (EU) justice commissioner, told Reuters. These safeguards would include requiring that law enforcement requests are necessary and proportionate, she added.

EU justice ministers are aiming to put forward a proposal for future legislation in this regard by the end of the year or early 2018.

According to Aiken, there are three aims in apparent conflict, which are privacy, collective security and the aim of the vitality of the tech industry.

To achieve a balance in cyber space, none of those aims can have primacy over the other, she said, adding that she is very concerned from a policing and governance point of view that there are encrypted domains that are effectively beyond the law or cannot be accessed easily when necessary.

It will be almost impossible real-time to deliver on collective security when this information in obfuscated, she said, suggesting there needs to be a conversation about how best to resolve these tensions.

We need to stop thinking about things like cyber security and child development in silos and start joining the dots, said Aiken.

It is all connected. We cant look at any one problem in isolation. Hackers dont wake up at 15 and decide to become a hacker. Theres a developmental pathway to hacking, and if we can understand that and address that early on, then we can start tackling that problem over time.

The UK has shown incredible leadership in this regard, said Aiken, in terms of access to online pornography, which is very damaging for young people and looking at online age verification, which is critical in terms of child protection.

This is an issue that everyone in society should be concerned about, she said, because in time these children will begin to shape society. When we are all sitting in a nursing home, they are the ones who are going to be running the country, and they may not have the level of empathy that is conducive to looking after everybody else.

Asked about concerns from the information security community about giving advantages to criminals by making data more accessible to law enforcement, Aiken said this is the crux of the debate, but without being prescriptive about what should be done, there have to be checks and balances in place.

Effectively, if we see increasing amounts of negative behaviour associated with wide use of encryption across social media platforms, for example, and that has a negative impact, then we are going to have to think about it again and have a conversation about where robust encryption is appropriate and where it is not, she said.

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VSAN Encryption: What it is, what it does and how to use it – TechTarget

June 10, 2017 | Author: admin

VMware vSAN 6.6 is the first software-defined storage offering of its kind to include native hyper-converged infrastructure...

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encryption within the hypervisor. VSAN 6.6 builds data-at-rest encryption into the vSAN kernel, enables it at the cluster level and encrypts all objects in the vSAN data store. This new feature is called vSAN Encryption.

Cybersecurity is a top priority for most companies, so vSAN Encryption is a welcome addition to vSAN. IT administrators have long been reluctant to deploy encryption at the OS level or allow applications owners to encrypt their apps and data. VSAN Encryption eliminates this issue by encrypting the entire vSAN data store.

VSAN Encryption is hardware-agnostic, which means admins can deploy the storage hardware device of their choice without the need for expensive self-encrypting drives.

VSAN Encryption is available for both hybrid and all-flash configurations and requires a key management server (KMS) compliant with Key Management Interoperability Protocol 1.1 in order to associate with vCenter Server. VSAN Encryption performs encryption with a xor-encrypt-xor-based tweaked-codebook mode withciphertext stealing (XTS) Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256 cipher at both the cache and capacity tier -- anywhere data is at rest. VSAN Encryption is also compatible with vSAN all-flash efficiency features, such as deduplication, compression and erasure coding; this means it delivers highly efficient and secure storage. Data is encrypted as it enters the cache tier and, as it destages, is decrypted. Finally, the data is deduplicated and compressed as it enters the capacity tier, where it is encrypted again.

VSAN Encryption is compatible with vSAN all-flash efficiency features, such as deduplication, compression and erasure coding; this means it delivers highly efficient and secure storage.

VSAN Encryption's cryptographic mechanics are similar to those of vSphere 6.5 VM Encryption. Both use the same encryption library, provided you have a supported KMS. In fact, you can use the same KMS for both vSAN Encryption and VM Encryption. However, that's where the similarities end. VM Encryption occurs on a per-VM basis via vSphere API for I/O filtering, whereas vSAN Encryption encrypts the entire data store.

The other major difference is that vSAN Encryption is a two-level encryption method: It uses a key encryption key (KEK) to encrypt a data encryption key (DEK). The DEK is a randomly generated key that encrypts data on each disk. Each vSAN host stores the encrypted DEKs but does not store the KEK on disk. If the host requires the KEK, it requests it from the KMS.

VSAN Encryption occurs when vCenter Server requests an AES-256 KEK from the KMS. VCenter Server only stores the KEK's ID, not the key itself. The ESXi host then encrypts disk data with the industry standard AES-256 XTS mode. Each disk has a different randomly generated DEK. Each ESXi host then uses the KEK to encrypt its DEKs and stores the encrypted DEKs on disk. As mentioned before, the host does not store the KEK on disk. If a host reboots, it requests the KEK with the corresponding ID from the KMS. The host can then decrypt its DEKs as needed.

The host uses a host key to encrypt core dumps, not data. All hosts in the same cluster use the same host key. VSAN Encryption generates a random key to re-encrypt the core dumps when it collects support bundles. Use a password when you encrypt the random key.

When an encrypted vSAN host reboots, it does not mount its disk groups until it receives the KEK, which means this process can take several minutes or more to complete. Also, encryption can be CPU-intensive. Intel AES New Instructions (AES-NI) significantly improves encryption performance, so enable AES-NI in your system's Basic Input/Output System.

To encrypt data with vSAN Encryption, first add a KMS to your vCenter Server and establish a trusted connection with it. Do not deploy your KMS on the data store you intend to encrypt because, if a failure should occur, hosts in the vSAN cluster must communicate with the KMS.

Select the vCenter Server to which you wish to deploy the KMS and, under the Configure tab, select Key Management Servers and add your KMS details.

Figure 1 shows options for establishing a trusted connection between vCenter, ESXi hosts and KMS. Once you choose one of these options, you can enable encryption in your vSAN cluster.

It's incredibly easy to turn on vSAN Encryption. Simply select the vSAN cluster and navigate to the Configure tab. Under Settings, select General. Click the Edit button and tick the boxes next to "Turn ON vSAN" and "Encryption." Be sure to select the appropriate KMS cluster.

In this window, you'll also see options to "Erase disks before use" and "Allow Reduced Redundancy." "Erase disks before use" wipes existing data from storage devices as they are encrypted. Be aware that this increases the disk reformatting time.

If your vSAN cluster already has a significant number of VMs deployed to it and you're concerned that there isn't sufficient available capacity to evacuate the disk group prior to encryption, the "Allow Reduced Redundancy" option reduces the VM's protection level to free up space to carry out the encryption. This method doesn't evacuate data to other hosts in the cluster; it just removes each disk group, upgrades the on-disk format and adds the disk group back. All objects remain available but with reduced redundancy.

Once you click OK, vSAN will reformat all of the disks in the group. This is a rolling format in which vSAN removes one disk group at a time, evacuates the data from those disk groups, formats each disk to on-disk version 5.0, re-creates the disk group and moves on to the next. This can take a considerable amount of time, especially if vSAN needs to migrate large amounts of data on the disks during reformatting.

Be aware that if, at any point, you choose to disable vSAN Encryption, vSAN will perform a similar reformatting process to remove encryption from the disks.

If you need to regenerate the encryption keys, you can do so within the vSAN configuration user interface. There are two methods for regenerating a key. The first is a high-level re-key where a new KEK encrypts the existing DEK. The other is a complete re-encryption of all data with KEKs and DEKs. This option takes significant time to complete, as all data must be re-encrypted with the new key.

To generate new encryption keys, click the Configure tab. Under vSAN, select General and then click Generate New Encryption Key. This opens a window in which you can generate new encryption keys, as well as re-encrypt all data in the vSAN cluster. To generate a new KEK, click OK. The DEKs will be re-encrypted with the new KEK.

VMware cashes in on HCI trend in vSAN 6.5 and 6.6

Why data-at-rest security is on the rise

Best of the best enterprise encryption tools in 2016

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The State of Montana funds company working on a ‘bitcoin processing center.’ – Brave New Coin

June 10, 2017 | Author: admin

In the first-ever reported case of a US State funding what looks to be a Bitcoin mining operation, Montanas Governor recently announced that $416,000 was awarded to a data center that provides blockchain security services for the bitcoin network.

Governor Steve Bullock recently announced $1,124,030 in economic development grants to assist Main Street businesses across Montana with creating 116 jobs, providing workforce training and developing plans for growth and expansion.

The funds are being awarded through the Big Sky Economic Development Trust Fund (BSTF) and the Primary Sector Workforce Training Grant (WTG) programs at the Department of Commerce, Office of Tourism and Business Development.

- The office of Montana Governor Steve Bullock

Very little information is available online about Project Spokane LLC, there is no website or contact information available online. However, third-party commercial business reports that list the company generally agree that Project Spokane LLC is a privately held company listed in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

Some listings states that the company has an annual revenue of $750,000 and employs a staff of approximately 6, with business launch dates all listed in early 2016. The company is often categorized under IT & Managed Service Providers, while at least one directory has Project Spokane featured under Service Management and Malware Remediation.

However, in July of 2016 Project Spokane LLC applied for a 7.2kV overhead power distribution line for a site in Montana, referred to as the old Bonner Mill Site. The application clarifies that the powerline is to serve a new bit coin processing center, which is to be located on a portion of the old mill site. The projects electrical requirements exceed the current electrical service onsite, states the application.

- Rights of Way Applications 17412

Bitcoin mining operations are power hungry businesses, and often run where power is cheap. According to the US federal Energy Information Administration, Montana has middle-of-the-road commercial electricity rates, averaging $10.04 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). That price puts it very close to the national median for the US.

However, in the county where Project Spokane is setting up shop, there is a local energy cooperative that charges large commercial installations as little as $0.0436 per kWh, which would make bitcoin mining extremely profitable.

For comparison, in Washington State, where John McAfee has set up the Bitcoin mine for MGT Capital, the industrial average is the lowest in the nation, $4.54 per kWh. McAfee has stated, however, that hes using a nearby hydroelectric dam to inexpensively generate the electricity and cool his mining equipment. His effective energy rate is still unknown.

- John McAfee

Although Montana is the first state to fund a Bitcoin company, a few other States have tried or run initiatives and programs to boost blockchain technology use. The first attempt was in 2015, when New Jersey attempted to launch the ambitious Digital Currency Jobs Creation Act, which was proposed to give Bitcoin and other digital currency businesses a tax break and attract them to the state. The program was formed in the wake of the infamous BitLicense across the river in New York. However, the bill has been introduced to the NJ Senate several times and failed to gain any traction.

Delaware also drafted a bill in 2015, which has passed the Senate but is being held up by the states legal review process. The state a popular destination for business incorporation, and wants to use a blockchain as the primary means to create and manage corporate records. The bill is expected to be enacted sometime this year.

In the meantime, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation announced the Illinois Blockchain Initiative in November. The initiative was created to investigate the benefits of Blockchains used at the state level. Secretary Bryan Schneider states that his department would like to educate ourselves on the technology as well as its societal, economic and legal implications. Learning about the technology before regulating it stated goal.

On the federal level, spending towards blockchain research has been an order of magnitude larger. In July 2015, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded US$3 million to the Initiative for Cryptocurrency and Contracts (IC3). The three-University initiative consists of a team from Cornell, the University of Maryland, and UC Berkeley. Focusing on smart contracts and developing new cryptocurrency systems that address pain points attributed to Bitcoin, the program is also helping to establish cryptocurrency as a prominent research area, and make a big impact in shaping the future of financial transactions and e-commerce, according to the principal investigator, Elane Shi.

In January of this year, the NSF started looking for teams to fund with as much as US$8.5 million. Solutions such as the introduction of blockchain technology are needed to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of data as it traverses multiple environments such as mobile, cloud, campus, and Internet networks, states the NSF.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also been funding blockchain technology projects, to the tune of US$2.25 million so far. Through its Small Business Innovation Research program, the DHS has been learning about Blockchain Forensics, the method of tracking transactions and identifying relationships across the blockchain. BlockCypher is a forensics company, and the largest recipient of funds from the DHS to date. Ram laboratories has also received funding, as has a custom blockchain solutions provider called DigitalBazaar, and the identity solution Evernym.

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Top 6 Recent Cryptocurrency Pumps – The Merkle

June 10, 2017 | Author: admin

In the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, there are multiple pump-and-dump schemes to be found every week. Mainly smaller coins are often pumped to inflate the price, in the hopes of getting other people to buy in. Unfortunately, there is often a lot of hype associated with any major pump, regardless of whether it is relevant news or not. We have seen quite a few pumps in recent weeks, and the following ones stood out.

One of the many smaller altcoins to integrate Segregated WItness goes by the name of Vertcoin. On paper, there is no real reason to sue this cryptocurrency over others, by any means. However, some people are trying to drive the price up, and one VTC is worth nearly US$1 at the time of writing. That is quite a jump in value, considering VTC was valued at roughly US$0.25 a few weeks ago. Someone is definitely pumping the value.

It has been extremely quiet where CloakCoin was considered for quite some time. A few days ago, the value per coin suddenly started going up, despite there being very little trading volume. One CLOAK is valued at US$3.83 now. There is absolutely no reason to use CloakCoin, other than from a privacy perspective. Then again, there are multiple major cryptocurrencies offering similar and sometimes better- technology to achieve the same goal. It looks like CloakCoin is a clear pump-and-dump, although it is too early to tell what might happen.

It is not hard to see why people think of BitcoinDark as a pump-and-dump scheme. The currency is trying to ride Bitcoins coattails on the way to success. It is one of the many futile attempts to bring more privacy and anonymity to Bitcoin. In fact, it uses its own blockchain, removing any potential ties with Bitcoin in the process. Every BTCD is worth US$65.65 right now, which is massively overvalued, to say the least.

When Primecoin initially launched, a lot of people got excited because it provides a bit of a novel concept. To this very day, there is no reason to actually use Primecoin, other than from a speculative point of view, though. Primecoin has seen its market cap grow to over US$10.7m, despite having no real use cases. Once again, a clear example of someone trying to pump the price and looking to dump on investors getting caught up in the frenzy.

Although a lot of people would rather not see Digibyte on the list, it is impossible to deny the currency is getting pumped hard right now. Many people still believe there is a Minecraft deal, which is not the case. Nor did Digibyte win the Citibank tech challenge, which is somewhat of a shame. In fact, there is no real reason for one Digibyte to be worth what it is today, and the trend is already showing signs of reversing. The Digibyte team is working on some amazing technology, yet they do not hinge on the success of DGB as a currency.

It is a bit difficult to quantify the use cases for Stellar, albeit they are quite similar to Ripple and their XRP asset. It appears Stellar is trying to compete with Ripple in developing technology and a currency for the financial sector. There are some key differences between both projects, as we highlighted before. Over the past few weeks, the value of Stellar Lumens has been pumped to US$0.05. That is rather remarkable, considering a large amount of XLM is distributed free of charge. Stellar has some partnerships with banks, but it is not even close to the same level Ripple is at right now.

If you liked this article, follow us on Twitter @themerklenews and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and technology news.

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Amazon dismisses the unlimited cloud storage – Business News.online (blog)

June 10, 2017 | Author: admin

Lately, the Amazon Drive has been standing tall as a top notch cloud storage anyone can get a great deal. You are entitled to unlimited cloud storage for your files at just $60 for a year; this is arguably an unprecedented deal.

Regrettably, Amazon is bringing its $60 subscription for an unlimited storage year to an end you can only have archive storage of 1TB. It will entail an expensive archiving in the sky somewhat.

Following the modification of the $60 package, there are now two packages. You can either opt for the 1TB for $60, or 100GB for $12 per year. However, you may want an extra TB that costs $60, but all additional storage cannot exceed 30TB.

While this is a good pricing for such storage, old users who saved several files of large sizes with a view to enjoying an unending storage may be annoyed with this new idea. Then again, it shouldnt come as a surprise when you have your subscription renewed automatically. Current users of the unlimited storage will have their plan moved over to the 1TB for $60 monthly as soon as their current subscription expires. Therefore, if the new development doesnt suit you, its high time you considered a move away from Amazon.

While the modification on subscription may seem to be unfavorable to some, everyone still stands a chance of having unlimited and free photo storage if you sign up for the Amazon Prime. Likewise, those who sign up for the Amazon Drive gets a whooping free 5GB data.

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Amazon ends free unlimited cloud storage – CRN Australia

June 10, 2017 | Author: admin

Amazon has ended its policy of providing free unlimited cloud storage via Amazon Drive, opting instead to give its consumer and business users a smaller amount of free capacity in the Amazon cloud and charging for capacity beyond that.

Amazon Drive is a service that allows users to store photos, videos, and documents in the Amazon cloud. It provides secure and private access to those items on any connected devices or web browsers.

Amazon Drive had let users store unlimited data and unlimited photos in its cloud. However, according to an Amazon FAQ, users will now be limited to 5 GBs of free cloud storage capacity.

Starting Thursday, customers will be charged US$11.99 for between 5 GBs and 100 GBs, and US$59.99 for up to 1 TB of capacity. Customers requiring over 1 TB will pay an additional US$59.99 per TB up to 30 TBs, Amazon said.

Amazon Prime members will also be limited to 5 GBs of free cloud storage capacity, but capacity required for storing photos will not count against that limit, essentially allowing them to store an unlimited amount of photos in the Amazon Cloud.

Customers will have 180 days to transition their Amazon Drive to their choice of plan. Amazon suggests downloading the data to a PC or mobile device, deleting data over 5 GBs, and then uploading to Amazon Drive.

After the 180-day grace period, any data more than 5 GBs that has not been moved to a new plan will be deleted starting with the most recent uploads until the excess capacity has been eliminated, Amazon said.

This article originally appeared at crn.com

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Cloud Computing Companies Move Into Medical Diagnosis (GOOG, IBM) – Investopedia

June 10, 2017 | Author: admin

Your next medical diagnosis could come from a cloud-based machine learning system. According to a Bloomberg report, Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) subsidiary Google is gearing up to provide "Diagnostics-as-a-Service" capabilities through its cloud division. The service will analyze reams of patient and disease data to diagnose patients and, possibly, recommend appropriate drugs for treatment. A German cancer specialist Alacris Theranostics GmbH is already working with Google's cloud division to carry out virtual clinical trials and virtual patient modeling. It uses these models to design drug therapies for patients. (See also: Google Creates New Cloud Group to Take On Amazon and Microsoft.)

Google is not the only cloud company targeting the healthcare industry. International Business Machine Corporation's (IBM) Watson, which uses a mix of artificial intelligence and cloud computing on the back end, analyzed medical data and images pertaining to 1,000 cancer patients last year and returned diagnoses that concurred with a human doctor's assessment in 99 percent of all cases. Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), which is a leader in cloud computing, lists genomic sequencing as one of the most prominent use cases of its service on its site. Last year, the National Cancer Institute announced a collaboration with Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) and Amazon to analyze cancer genomes and enable secure collaboration between researchers using the company's cloud services. (See also: Top Medical & Healthcare Software Companies.)

Healthcare spending on cloud services reached $3.73 billion in 2015 and is expected to increase to $9.5 billion by 2020. Primary use cases for this spending were data storage, email and software systems that increase efficiency. For example, telemedicine is rapidly gaining ground as a means to cut down on redundant costs associated with doctor visits for minor ailments. Medical diagnosis using cloud computing is a relatively new use case.

And it might be a while before the diagnostic use case becomes a reality. This is because such diagnoses requires healthcare providers to release critical data to cloud computing companies. A mix of regulatory and competitive advantage considerations may prevent them from doing so. The Bloomberg article quotes an analyst who says that medical data are likely to remain "locked up" with healthcare providers in the "foreseeable future." (See also: Investing in the Healthcare Sector.)

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Real Estate Weekly: Digital Realty Becomes A Cloud Computing … – Seeking Alpha

June 10, 2017 | Author: admin

Weekly Review

The REIT ETF indexes (VNQ and IYR) finished the week lower by 0.3% as the 10-year yield climbed 7bps following the UK elections. The S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) gained 0.3%. The homebuilder ETFs (XHB and ITB) were lower by 1.0% on the week. The commercial construction ETF (NYSEARCA:PKB) gained 0.2%.

(Hoya Capital Real Estate, Performance as of 12pm Friday)

Across other areas of the real estate sector, mortgage REITs (NYSEARCA:REM) finished the week higher by 0.5% and the international real estate ETF (NASDAQ:VNQI) declined 0.6%. The 10-Year Treasury yield (NYSEARCA:IEF) gained 7 bps on the week, recovering from YTD low yields earlier this week.

REITs are now higher by 0.8% YTD on a price-basis and higher by roughly 3% on a total-return basis. The sector divergences are quite significant: the Data Center sector has surged 24% while the retail-focused REITs have fallen double-digits. REITs ended 2016 with a total return of roughly 9%, lower than its 20-year average annual return of 12%.

REITWeek Recap

This week was NAREIT's annual REITWeek conference in New York City, the biggest industry conference of the year. We listened to about 25 presentations across all the major REIT sectors.

We came away with a slightly more positive outlook on the REIT sector as a whole. Retail REITs were unquestionably the major focus for many investors. The bifurcation between high-quality and low-quality retail space has intensified. High quality retail space in desirable locations continue to perform very well and, in many cases, the apparel downsizing has actually been a net positive as the vacated space has been put to more productive and higher-traffic uses. We detailed our judgments in "Short Squeeze May Send Mall REITs Surging."

We also published, "Obamacare Uncertainty Remains A Drag On Healthcare REITs," our update on the Healthcare REIT sector. We discussed that healthcare REITs have outperformed over the past quarter, but this outperformance is entirely attributable to plunging interest rates. Healthcare REITs are up 8% as the 10-year yield fell 45bps. Hospitals and skilled nursing REITs, the sub-sectors most exposed to changes in healthcare policy, continue to trade at substantial discounts as Obamacare crumbles and its replacement appears politically infeasible. While much of the media focus is on drug prices, labor costs are the true drivers of healthcare inflation. This is a structural allocation-of-resources issue within the American education system.

Finally, we also published our Net Lease update, "Retail Contagion Continues To Trouble Net Lease REITs" where we discussed that despite the significant decline in interest rates over the past quarter, net lease REITs have badly underperformed the broader REIT indexes, a worrying development for the sector. Net lease REITs are the most yield-sensitive REIT sector, but these REITs have not acted as bond-proxies so far this year. Investors have been rudely reminded of the significant retail exposures of these names. Credit issues with key tenants at Spirit Capital has dragged down the entire Net Lease sector. More than other REIT sectors, net lease REITs depend on their cost of capital advantage for acquisition-fueled growth. Spirit's credit issues may have meaningfully impaired the sector's competitive advantage.

Arguably the most significant piece of REIT news this week actually came after the conference, as Digital Realty (NYSE:DLR) announced a merger with DuPont Fabros (NYSE:DFT) to form a data center giant that appears more fortified to go head-to-head with the public cloud providers, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). While demand has continued to be robust and outstripping supply, pricing power has been a concern among investors as companies have increasingly utilized public cloud solutions rather than using their own server racks in the data center. In many cases, both the public and private cloud are both located in these REIT data centers, but the rent per megawatt is lower when, for example, Amazon is the tenant rather than an individual mid-sized company. We think consolidation is the right move. We will write a full report on it early next week.

The six best performing REITs on the week were Dupont Fabros , LaSalle Hotels (NYSE:LHO), Diamondrock (NYSE:DRH), Pebblebrook (NYSE:PEB), Sunstone (NYSE:SHO), and CoreSite (NYSE:COR).

The six worst performers on the week were Care Capital (NYSE:CCP), National Retail Properties (NYSE:NNN), Store Capital (NYSE:STOR), Realty Income (NYSE:O), Digital Realty , and CubeSmart (NYSE:CUBE).

Economic Data

Every week, we like to dive deeper into the economic data that directly impacts real estate.

(Hoya Capital Real Estate, HousingWire)

Home Prices Continue To Rise As Mortgage Rates Continue To Fall

Core Logic's Home Price Index showed a 6.9% YoY rise in home prices in April, a slight deceleration from the 7.1% YoY rise in March."Mortgage rates in April dipped back to their lowest level since November of last year, spurring home-buying activity," said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. "In some metro areas, there has been a bidding frenzy as multiple contracts are placed on a single home. This has led home-price growth to outpace rent gains. Nationally, home prices were up 6.9 percent over the last year, while rent growth for single-family rental homes recorded a 3 percent rise through April, according to the CoreLogic Single-Family Rental Index."

Zillow's April Case-Shiller forecast sees a 5.6% rise in home prices for April. Home price appreciation has reaccelerated in recent months after showing signs of slowing in early 2017 as mortgage rates shot up nearly 100bps from the summer 2016 lows. All else equal, lower mortgage rates lead to higher home prices.

Bottom Line

REITs fell 0.3% on the week as the 10-year yield climbed 10 bps. Hotels and retail REITs were the best performers. This week was the annual REITWeek conference in NYC. We came away with a more positive outlook on the REIT sector as a whole, especially the higher quality retail space.

Apartments and hotels have been upside surprises this year and have defied the headwinds from higher supply. Demand has been robust in both sectors and has largely offset higher supply. Digital Realty will merge with DuPont Fabros to form the largest data center REIT. Consolidation will allow these REITs to command better pricing power with the public cloud providers.

Please add your comments if you have additional insight or opinions. We encourage readers to follow our Seeking Alpha page (click "Follow" at the top) to continue to stay up to date on our REIT rankings, weekly recaps, and analysis on the REIT and broader real estate sector.

Disclosure: I am/we are long VNQ, SPY, CCP, COR, DLR, CUBE, SHO.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosure: All of our research is for educational purpose only, always provided free of charge exclusively on Seeking Alpha. Recommendations and commentary are purely theoretical and not intended as investment advice. Information presented is believed to be factual and up-to-date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. For investment advice, consult your financial advisor.

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