Facebook Timeline a concern to users, Sophos poll reveals

In the next few weeks, Facebook is phasing out its old look and introducing a new profile format for all users - known as 'Timeline' - which presents a scrapbook of all past status updates and photographs.

However, research from Sophos shows that more than 50 percent of internet users are concerned about the Facebook profile update. The Facebook Timeline encourages users to enter more personal details about themselves and their life experiences, while making it simpler for others to view the information. There are concerns that this will instantly make it easier for identity thieves and stalkers to profile Individuals.

In addition, the Timeline will be updated automatically through Facebook apps that, for example, publish the last song listened to on Spotify, newspaper articles read online, or movie tickets purchased - all without having to press "Share" or "Like" buttons.

The online Sophos poll surveyed more than 4,100 global respondents on their opinion of the Facebook Timeline. Key findings from the research
include:

• 51 percent are worried by the Facebook Timeline
  
• Only 8 percent like the new Facebook Timeline
  
• 8 percent say they will get used to it
  
• 32 percent still don't know why they are on Facebook
  

"The Facebook Timeline will be a wake-up call to some that they have shared too much in the past, too freely. In my case, the Timeline was the catalyst to reassess my relationship with Facebook - and so I've killed my account," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "If nothing else, Facebook users should take this opportunity to re-evaluate what they share online. It is time to spring clean your Facebook account and online friend relationships, and ensure that you are only sharing what you want to share, with who you want to share it with. After all, a website which holds details on your entire life, likes and loves, is gold dust to scammers."

Further information, including images of the Facebook Timeline and the poll statistics, can be found on Sophos's Naked Security site at:

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/01/27/poll-reveals-widespread-concern-over-facebook-timeline

Faronics Deep Freeze To Clone Your PC

Faronics Deep Freeze works by taking an image of a computer's hard disk which can be used to restore at any time necessary. In other words, it is a cloning solution for Computer and IT management. It is part of the Faronics Software Suite.

Faronics Deep Freeze reduces IT helpdesk requests and costs by 63% by making computer configurations indestructible. It does this by ensuring each and every desktop, laptop, and server always remains in its perfect, original operating state that it was deployed in.

This is especially useful for businesses with multiple computers and servers to maintain. It provides a configurable, automated and added security solution for computer's image cloning and restore.

In terms of a more domestic use, it helps ensure performance. For example, one normally would need to format a windows pc from anywhere between 6 – 12 months due to slow down and various other issues. Plus, one don’t have to defragment your computer anymore when using deep freeze.

When a computer is wreaked havoc by security vulnerabilities, users can easily restore it back to its original state.

Deep Freeze is user friendly and fully integrated with Faronics Anti-Virus solution. Faronics anti-virus works in hand with windows defender and has firewall.

It supports SCSI, ATA, SATA, and IDE hard drives for image storage and FAT, FAT32, NTFS, basic and dynamic disks file systems. Operations can be performed on a network environment and even over the WAN with web based console interface. It offers silent install option for rapid network deployment.

The images are encrypted with password control.

Faronics is available from Meissa Group.

Symantec Security Response: Spammers on the Lookout for Valentine’s Day Bargain Hunters

Spammers are on the lookout for Valentine’s Day bargain hunters, so be vigilant if you’re looking for great deals online!

Symantec researchers are observing a surge of spam as Valentine’s Day approaches. Unbelievable discounts on jewellery, dinners, and expensive gift articles are key themes for Valentine’s Day related spam. Other popular fake promotions include online pharmaceuticals, fake e-cards, gift cards, chocolates, and flowers, all designed with the goal of capturing a user’s personal and financial details.

In one spam sample, users are lured to purchase silver, gold, and platinum jewellery with promises of additional free gifts. By clicking on the link, the user is redirected to a page asking for the user’s personal information in order to receive the gift that they have selected.

Social network spam is also not far behind other information-stealing techniques when it comes to capturing a user’s personal data. There are many fake applications targeting Valentine’s Day that direct the user to a survey site. Below is an example of one such fake application.

For more information, please proceed to Symantec’s Security Response blog post here.

Symantec advises Internet users to adopt the following best practices to avoid falling prey to phishing attacks:

• Do not open unsolicited emails from unknown sources.
  
• Do not click on any links included in email messages. Instead, type the link in the address bar.
  
• Do not open attached files that claim to be Valentine’s greeting cards, e-cards, etc.
  
• Buy products from authentic websites that are protected by SSL certificates.
  
• Install effective antivirus and antispam solution software.
  

Startup Competition For Entrepreneurs At IBM smartCamp Global

IBM SmartCamps are designed to help entrepreneurs bring innovative new solutions to market quickly by providing mentoring and access to advanced technology and expertise. The nine finalist startup companies will meet with IBM and the venture capital community from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 in San Francisco to vie to be named the IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year. The finalists, with solutions designed to solve problems facing cities, were selected from nearly a thousand startup companies that applied to IBM startup events in 2011.

The finalists are:

1. BitCarrier - Vehicle traffic management solutions
   
2. C-B4 Context Based 4Casting - large scale retail patterns analysis
   
3. ConnectM - business analytics for telco, utilities and transportation
   
4. IDXP - consumer behavior solution installs
   
5. Localytics - real-time analytics for mobile application preferences
   
6. Palmap - mapping solution
   
7. Profitero - competitor analytics
   
8. SecureWaters - Analytics for water industry
   
9. Skinscan - Detect skin cancer
   

For more details.

Symantec Report Finds Spammers are Taking Advantage of New Year Holidays and Major Events

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) announced the findings of its January Symantec Intelligence Report, which shows that spammers are using holidays and major events to make their mail more appealing.

Symantec Intelligence has seen more than 10,000 unique domain names compromised with a redirect script written in PHP that contains a reference to the New Year in the file name. These redirect scripts were hosted on compromised Web sites and links to these were included in spam emails, which were subsequently blocked by Symantec.cloud.

To further entice recipients to open their messages, spammers used additional social engineering techniques by including parameters in the URL to suggest that the destination is a social networking site.

Symantec Intelligence expects to see spammers taking advantage of other “calendar events” with one of the most important traditional Chinese New Year celebrations (which started this week on January 23, 2012 and will continue for fifteen days), as well as the fast-approaching Valentine's Day.

“We also expect to see plenty of spam and malware taking advantage of some of the major upcoming sporting events this year. We are already seeing references to the Summer Olympics in London as part of 419 or advance fee fraud messages,” said Paul Wood, senior intelligence analyst, Symantec.

“By relating their mails to widely-celebrated holidays and current events with global interest, spammers and malware authors can (at first glance at least) make their messages more interesting, and increase the chance of recipients visiting spam Web sites or becoming infected,” Wood said.

During December, global spam levels dropped, but in January gradually returned to similar levels as in November 2011, which is still lower than the 2011 average.

Other Report Highlights:

Spam: In January 2012, the global ratio of spam in email traffic rose by 1.3 percentage points since December 2011, to 69.0 percent (1 in 1.45 emails). This follows a more noticeable drop in December when spam fell by 2.8 percentage points to 67.7 percent. The recent increase means that spam has almost returned to the same level as in November 2011.

Phishing: In January, the global phishing rate increased by 0.06 percentage points, taking the average to one in 370.0 emails (0.27 percent) that comprised some form of phishing attack.

E-mail-borne Threats: The global ratio of email-borne viruses in email traffic was one in 295.0 emails (0.33 percent) in January, a decrease of 0.02 percentage points since December 2011. In January, 29.0 percent of email-borne malware contained links to malicious Web sites, unchanged since December 2011.

Web-based Malware Threats: January saw an average of 2,102 Web sites each day harboring malware and other potentially unwanted programs including spyware and adware; a decrease of 77.4 percent since December 2011.

Endpoint Threats: The most frequently blocked malware for the last month was WS.Trojan.H. WS.Trojan.H is generic cloud-based heuristic detection for files that possess characteristics of an as yet unclassified threat. Files detected by this heuristic are deemed by Symantec to pose a risk to users and are therefore blocked from accessing the computer.

Geographical Trends:

Spam

• Saudi Arabia became the most spammed geography in January; with a spam rate of 75.5 percent.
  
• China was the second most-spammed with 75.0 percent of email traffic blocked as spam.
  
• In the US, 69.0 percent of email was spam and 68.7 percent in Canada.
  
• The spam level in the UK was 69.3 percent.
  
• In The Netherlands, spam accounted for 70.7 percent of email traffic, 68.2 percent in Germany, 69.1 percent in Denmark and 68.6 percent in Australia.
  
• In Hong Kong, 67.5 percent of email was blocked as spam and 66.7 percent in Singapore, compared with 65.6 percent in Japan.
  
• Spam accounted for 69.5 percent of email traffic in South Africa and 73.1 percent in Brazil.
  

Phishing

• The Netherlands became the country most targeted for phishing attacks in January, with one in 62.6 emails identified as phishing.
  
• The UK was the second most targeted country, with one in 179.4 emails identified as phishing attacks.
  
• Phishing levels for the US were one in 1,145 and one in 379.9 for Canada.
  
• In Germany phishing levels were one in 797.6, one in 330.9 in Denmark.
  
• In Australia, phishing activity accounted for one in 542.2 emails and one in 942.9 in Hong Kong; for Japan it was one in 5,692 and one in 1,156 for Singapore.
  
• In Brazil one in 1,007 emails was blocked as phishing.
  

E-mail-borne Threats

• The Netherlands had the highest ratio of malicious emails in January, with one in 61.4 emails identified as malicious.
  
• The UK had the second highest rate, with one in 169.1 emails identified as malicious.
  
• In South Africa, one in 305.9 emails was blocked as malicious.
  
• The virus rate for email-borne malware in the US was one in 592.5 and one in 285.4 in Canada.
  
• In Germany virus activity reached one in 471.7 and one in 318.1 in Denmark.
  
• In Australia, one in 327.9 emails was malicious.
  
• For Japan the rate was one in 1,573, compared with one in 482.9 in Singapore.
  
• In Brazil, one in 681.7 emails in contained malicious content.
  

Vertical Trends:

• The Education sector became the most spammed industry sector in January, with a spam rate of 71.0 percent.
  
• The spam rate for the Chemical & Pharmaceutical sector was 69.0 percent, compared with 68.7 percent for IT Services, 68.4 percent for Retail, 68.9 percent for Public Sector and 68.2 percent for Finance.
  
• The Public Sector remained the most targeted by phishing activity in January, with one in 99.1 emails comprising a phishing attack.
  
• Phishing levels for the Chemical & Pharmaceutical sector reached one in 838.0 and one in 647.8 for the IT Services sector, one in 529.4 for Retail, one in 169.4 for Education and one in 253.7 for Finance.
  
• With one in 90.2 emails being blocked as malicious, the Public Sector remained the most targeted industry in January.
  
• The virus rate for the Chemical & Pharmaceutical sector reached one in 381.3 and one in 399.4 for the IT Services sector; one in 407.1 for Retail, one in 138.3for Education and one in 236.7 for Finance.
  

Market Trends:

• The spam rate for small to medium-sized businesses (1-250) was 68.9%, compared with 69.1% for large enterprises (2500+).
  
• Phishing attacks targeting small to medium-sized businesses (1-250) accounted for one in 225.2 emails, compared with one in 410.9 for large enterprises (2500+).
  
• Malicious email-borne attacks destined for small to medium-sized businesses (1-250) accounted for one in 277.3 emails, compared with one in 281.5 for large enterprises (2500+).
  

The January Symantec Intelligence Report provides greater detail on all of the trends and figures noted above, as well as more detailed geographical and vertical trends.  

About Symantec Intelligence Report

The Symantec Intelligence report combines the best research and analysis from the Symantec.cloud MessageLabs Intelligence Report and the Symantec State of Spam & Phishing Report. The new integrated report, the Symantec Intelligence Report, provides the latest analysis of cyber security threats, trends and insights from the Symantec Intelligence team concerning malware, spam, and other potentially harmful business risks. The data used to compile the analysis for this combined report includes data from December 2011 and January 2012.

Sourcefire Unveils FireAMP: Most Significant Anti-Malware Protection To Date

Sourcefire, Inc. (NASDAQ: FIRE), a leader in intelligent cybersecurity solutions, today introduces its new FireAMP™ product, an intelligent, enterprise-class advanced malware protection solution that uses Big Data analytics to discover, analyse and block advanced malware.

According to Ivan Wen, Country Manager of Sourcefire Malaysia, FireAMP fulfils the company's 'Agile Security' vision for context-aware, adaptive, and automated security solutions.

"FireAMP is not just another anti-malware product. It is a highly intelligent cybersecurity solution that has unprecedented visibility and control to block threats missed by other security layers. FireAMP represents of what your enterprise really needs to address advanced malware.

Utilizing Big Data Analytics to Deal with High Malware Infection in Organisations' Computers

Over the past year, Sourcefire talked to over 100 enterprises and heard one common theme: they have the latest endpoint security products with the latest DAT files, but are still heavily infected with up to 10 percent of organisations' computers are being infected and the next scheduled scan will catch only 1% of threats.

"More importantly, they don’t know how these threats got in, how they are spreading when inside, or which computers have them. Current endpoint protection platforms (EPPs) consistently still do not protect endpoints against mass-propagated consumer threats or handcrafted targeted attacks," says Wen.

The FIRST Advanced Malware Solution

FireAMP, an advanced malware discovery and analysis solution that analyses and blocks malware by utilizing big data analytics, and first in the market to offer advanced malware solution with 5 new capabilities: -

• FireCLOUD™ – Cloud-based infrastructure with detection capabilities that leverage big data analytics to identify and score threats missed by other security layers
  
• File Trajectory – Tracks file movement to allow organizations to identify the entry point and propagation path of malware
  
• File Analysis - Provides detailed information on malware behaviour backed by the elite Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team (VRT™)
  
• Outbreak Control – Customer-defined detections that automatically blocks malware immediately
  
• Cloud Recall™ – Continuous in-the-cloud analysis of historical file activity to discover and remediate threats that were previously missed
  

Wen ends, “Even with the latest security technologies with all of the latest updates, most of the enterprises still suffer from malware infections. FireAMP offers visibility into the state of malware in an environment - identifying high-risk computers, threat root causes, applications which are introducing the malware, advanced persistent threats, and malware that could be unique to a customer’s environment."

For more information, please visit www.sourcefire.com/FireAMP.

SAS Achieves 12 % Growth to Revenue Record of RM8.7 Billion

SAS, the leader in business analytics software and services, achieved record global revenues of USD2.725 billion (or RM8.7 billion) last year. SAS marked double-digit growth in its 36th profitable year as organizations sought more advanced analytics solutions to uncover business opportunity in their own burgeoning data stores in the current ‘Big Data’ phenomenon.

The Americas accounted for 46 percent of total revenue; Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) 42 percent; and Asia Pacific 12 percent. SAS growth was strong across the board in all major regions and countries, even in regions hardest hit economically.

SAS’ CEO, Jim Goodnight shares that SAS’ revenue surged across all solution and industry categories:-

• Software to detect fraud saw a triple-digit jump,
  
• Analytics and information management solutions grew double digit
  
• On-demand solutions’ revenue grew almost 50 percent.
  

He also highlights the continued strong growth in financial services, government, health care and life sciences.

Worldwide organizations that purchased or further invested in SAS’ BA solution this year include: Philippine National Bank (Philippine), Resorts World Sentosa (Singapore), Westpac (Australia), DBS Bank (Singapore) and more.

Globally, SAS dominates minimum two major IT growth areas that identified by research firm Gartner Advisory Singapore -Next Generation Analytics and In-memory Data Analytics (Powered by high performance computing).

SAS’ Business in Malaysia: Latest

In Malaysia, SAS’ annual new software revenue grew over 21% in 2011, mainly driven by the demand for analytics for customer intelligence, data management, combating fraud and to mitigate risk.

Andrew Tan, Managing Director of SAS Malaysia says, “This is mainly driven by sales growth in the financial services industry of 31.2%.”

In 2011, SAS Malaysia recorded total software revenues of over RM36 million inclusive of new analytics software sales from Malaysia Building Society Berhad, UMobile, and Columbia Asia Hospital, Takaful Ikhas, Department of Statistics Malaysia, Pos Malaysia and more. Currently, the company has over 150 corporate clients across sectors in Malaysia that use SAS analytics solutions.

Tan shares. “The market is changing rapidly. More and more companies are looking to analytics to give them visibility and clarity on the vast information that runs through their business, to make more cost effective decisions.

“In Malaysia, we have also started to serve the very specific analytics needs of the Oil & Gas industry; helping companies to predict and prevent machinery failure.”  

Expanding Workforce to Accommodate Analytics Demands

In conjunction, SAS announces its latest ranking of No.3 on the FORTUNE's Best Companies to Work For list in the U.S.

In 2011, SAS grew staff 9.2 percent and reinvested 24 percent of revenue into research and development.

In Malaysia, SAS plans to expand its current workforce to accommodate the growing demand for business analytics from across industries of Telecommunication, Financial Services, Retail, Commercial, Government and Oil & Gas.

The company expects its existing workforce to grow by 32% by mid 2012, focusing its investments in a larger sales workforce, solution architects and analytics advisory capabilities with experience and exposure in the areas of Risk Intelligence, Information Management and Customer Intelligence.

Symantec Security Response: Beware of the iPad 3 Scam

Recently, Sean Butler came across a scam email that is trying to take advantage of the hype surrounding the yet-to-be-released iPad 3. The release date of the iPad 3 is still unknown but spammers are already jumping on the bandwagon in the hope of scamming people who will be eager to get their hands on one of these devices.

The scammers introduce themselves as Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook. The email then states how Facebook have joined up with Apple for a one time promotion – to give away an iPad 3 at no cost. This is, of course, all false information but the scam attempts to entice potential victims by stating how they have been randomly selected from a Facebook database. It is possible that a user could potentially be deceived by this ruse if they receive this email to the email address they have used to register with Facebook.

The user is then asked to click on a link and fill out a survey. The goal of the scammers here is to obtain personal information from the user and to verify that their email address is valid, which they will undoubtedly use to send more spam to in the future. The scammer might also be making money through click fraud, whereby they make money every time a user clicks on the link to the survey.

Even though this email was targeting a Symantec customer, our advanced monitoring systems were able to identify this scam. Upon investigating this email further, it is easy to ascertain that it is a scam email due to the poor grammar used in the email and the fact that there is a spelling mistake within the email itself. If you suspect an email you received from Facebook is a scam, you can report it to them.

Of course, no one will know for certain when the iPad 3 will be launched until Apple confirms the announcement themselves. Whilst it would seem that this particular scam was sent in a very low volume, it is likely that we will continue to see a build up of iPad 3 related spam right up until the official launch date. There will also undoubtedly be similar related scams doing the rounds on social networking sites as well.

An example of the message.

Symantec advises Internet users to adopt the following best practices to avoid falling prey to phishing attacks:

• Do not click on suspicious links in email messages.
  
• Avoid providing any personal information when answering an email.
  
• Never enter personal information in a pop-up page or screen.
  
• When entering personal or financial information, ensure the website is encrypted with an SSL certificate by looking for the padlock, ‘https’, or the green address bar.
  

Brocade Ethernet Fabric Technologies Awarded TechTarget Products of the Year

Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD), the leader in fabric-based data center networking solutions, announced that Brocade® VCS® Fabric technology and the Brocade VDX® 6720 Data Center Switch received industry recognition in two Products of the Year award competitions, according to the editors of TechTarget Inc.’s Data Center and Virtualization Media Group.

Brocade VCS Fabric technology, a foundational element to building Ethernet fabrics and revolutionizing the design of Layer 2 networks for cloud-optimized data center deployments, was awarded the top honor – Gold Product of the Year in the Hardware for Virtualization category of the SearchServerVirtualization.com 2011 Products of the Year awards competition. This technology provides advanced Ethernet fabric capabilities, including virtual machine (VM) awareness and network automation, enabling organizations to transition smoothly to highly virtualized and cloud-based environments.

The Brocade VDX 6720 was also named a Product of the Year, winning the Silver award in the Computing Hardware category of the SearchDataCenter.com 2011 Products of the Year awards competition. The Brocade VDX 6720 delivers innovative technology to enhance and simplify networks, offering a rich set of Layer 2 features. The high-performance, ultra-low latency, wire-speed 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) fixed port switch can be utilized as a classic Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch and can also be easily deployed in Brocade VCS Ethernet fabric mode with an additional software license.

The SearchServerVirtualization.com and SearchDataCenter.com 2011 Products of the Year awards recognize products that stand apart from the pack and provide exceptional benefits for IT organizations of all sizes. Winners were selected from a pool of products announced and shipped between Nov. 1, 2010, and Nov. 1, 2011. Scores of nominations were submitted by vendors and users, and then evaluated by the respective publication’s editorial staff, in conjunction with a team of users, industry experts, analysts and consultants, who selected the winners based on ease of integration into existing environments, functionality, innovation, manageability, performance, and value.

In its evaluation of Brocade VCS Fabric technology, SearchStorageVirtualization.com judges commented that, “Brocade’s product stands out because it knows where each virtual machine is and what exactly is attached to the fabric in a virtual infrastructure. These capabilities come in handy when trying to secure a fabric to support only VMs, for example. Another benefit of the product is that it works with VMware vCenter, so it can tell automatically what’s connected, instead of having to learn it over time.”

In awarding Silver to the Brocade VDX 6720, SearchDataCenter.com judges stated that, “The Brocade VDX 6720 delivers innovative technology to enhance and simplify networks. It also offers a rich set of Layer 2 features, making the Brocade VDX 6720 an ideal platform for traditional top-of-rack switch deployments – and putting the switch near the top of any enterprise data center’s wish list.”

“More than 300 customers have already deployed our Ethernet fabric solutions and are a testament to the simplicity, resilience and zero-touch VM manageability of our Brocade VDX data center switches and VCS Fabric technology,” said John McHugh, vice president and chief marketing officer at Brocade. “The rapid adoption of this Brocade innovation and recognition such as these awards, leads us to believe that we will more than double the number of data centers that are running our Ethernet fabric solutions over the next year.”

The Product of the Year award is the latest recognition for Brocade Ethernet fabric technologies. In January 2011, CTO Edge awarded the Brocade VDX 6720 as the “Most Important IT Product for 2010.” In an “Open Industry Network Performance & Power Test for Cloud Networks,” published in December 2011 by The Lippis Group, the Brocade VDX 6720 and 6730 switches achieved the lowest power consumption levels among reviewed top-of-rack systems, while delivering best-in-class performance and low latency across a variety of workloads and test scenarios.

About SearchServerVirtualization.com

SearchServerVirtualization.com is the best server virtualization resource for system architects and IT managers. Our editors, resident experts and news writers are dedicated to helping IT organizations determine if virtualization is appropriate for their environments and, if it is, use that technology to gain unprecedented data center efficiency. Access the latest news, articles, tips, expert advice, learning guides, white papers and Webcasts covering all areas of server virtualization, such as virtualization platforms, server hardware, managing virtual environments, virtualization architectures and strategies, application issues and more.

SearchServerVirtualization.com is part of the TechTarget network (www.techtarget.com). TechTarget publishes integrated media that enable information technology (IT) marketers to reach targeted communities of IT professionals and executives in all phases of the technology decision-making and purchase process. Through its industry-leading Web sites, magazines and conferences, TechTarget delivers measurable results that help IT marketers generate qualified sales leads, shorten sales cycles and grow revenues.

About SearchDataCenter.com

SearchDataCenter.com guides IT managers through the decision making and evaluation process they face when making key business choices for their corporate data centers. SearchDataCenter.com offers strategic and practical information on designing, maintaining, furnishing, staffing and running the enterprise data center, focusing on every aspect of the data center, including systems management, disaster recovery and backup, server consolidation strategies and more.

SearchDataCenter.com is part of the TechTarget network (www.techtarget.com). TechTarget publishes integrated media that enable information-technology (IT) marketers to reach targeted communities of IT professionals and executives in all phases of the technology decision-making and purchase process. Through its industry-leading Web sites, magazines and conferences, TechTarget delivers measurable results that help IT marketers generate qualified sales leads, shorten sales cycles and grow revenues.

The Next Generation IPS by Sourcefire

Refer to 'Malaysia Technology News'

Sourcefire is the main steward of the Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System (NGIPS) as an intelligent IPS solution powered by awareness, context, automation and a flexible architecture since 2003.

With reference to the independent NSS Labs testing results released earlier of this year, Sourcefire’s 3D8260 with FirePOWER technology is proven with i) best attack detection and, ii) highest performance of any device ever tested

Sourcefire defines four key components as requirement for NGIPS.

1.) Application Awareness and Full Stack Visibility

Full stack is referring to the OSI layer.

2.) Context Awareness

Covering a broad range of threats detection. i.e Applications, users, devices, operating systems, vulnerabilities, services, processes, network behavior, files

3.) Content Awareness

Content intelligence.

4.) Agile Engine

Automation and flexible architecture

Email encryption From eCrypt Technologies

Two products available.

1.) eCrypt Me - using web based browser

Sending and receiving emails using existing email accounts (Gmail, Yahoo mail, hotmail and etc) by leveraging on eCrypt me system which is like an email wrapper. How it works is just like another web based email system which allows one to make use of existing email address. Recipient will receive links (encrypted) which will redirect to the real message (decrypted).

How it works
You log in securely to your eCrypt Me account.If youʼre sending a document to File Vault, you upload the document. On eCrypt Me, you send an email using your own email address, Gmail, Yahoo, or other address. eCrypt Me encrypts the email and sends a link to your recipient. Your recipient clicks on a link and opens the email. If youʼre sharing a document, thereʼs a link to File Vault.	You receive the your reply in your eCrypt Me inbox. eCrypt Me encrypts the reply or the document revisions and sends you a link. She sends a secure reply, downloads the document, or contributes to the document on File Vault.

2.) eCrypt one to one - only available for Blackberry.

This product is more sophisticated and complex. It only supports one-to-one communication and requires both parties to use the same software.

iPhone users may use the eCrypt me solution.

Remember the phone hacking scandal of NOTW ? Business sensitive information may require extra protection from cyber threats.

Check out the blog

Megaupload.com No More!

Refer to 'Enterprise IT News'.

It has been reported by Reuters that U.S. government shut down Megaupload.com content sharing website.

The same site was blocked by Malaysian government during June 2011, sparking protest from netizen.

Now, it seems that the root has been taken out totally. There is no point to bypass proxy, you cannot find it anymore.

According to reports, megaupload company's executives which include the CEO and CTO were arrested in New Zeland. They have been charged for copyright infringement as well as conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit racketeering.

The Mega Conspiracy group was accused of engaging in a scheme that took more than $500 million away from copyright holders and generated over $175 million in proceeds from subscriptions and advertising, according to the indictment unsealed on Thursday.

"In exchange for payment, the Mega Conspiracy provides fast reproduction and distribution of infringing copies of copyrighted works from its servers located around the world," the indictment said.

U.S. Justice Department officials said that the estimate of $500 million in economic harm to copyright holders was on the low end and likely significantly more.

This is most unexpected and unprecedented.

In Malaysia, piracy is common. It is a culture where people assume that piracy is fine because the originals are simply more expensive and that they can't afford it. This is most often true for computer software, a phenomenon which cripples the ICT and entertainment industry in Malaysia. People will only go for the best and they want it free.

Hardware business is not affected directly because counterfeits usually lack in quality.

Personally, this is a shocker for this coming chinese new year. Not that I have anything to do with it, just that I feel that many more people are involved and more shut down to come if those FBIs are serious into business.

Solarwinds Introduces Free Tools For Use With Microsoft Active Directory

SolarWinds® Inc. (NYSE: SWI), a leading provider of powerful and affordable IT management software, today announced a set of three free tools designed to help manage routine tasks related to Microsoft Active Directory. These active directory tools will help IT professionals manage and remove inactive computers and users from Active Directory, and add users in bulk. The tools run on current Windows versions and are certified with Windows 7 through a relationship with Microsoft Corp.

“Our customers wanted tools that would help them manage their environment with Microsoft Active Directory and Windows 7,” said Josh Stephens, Head Geek and VP of technology. “We are pleased to be able to work with Microsoft to offer a suite of free tools that will help customers easily stay current with their environment, no matter the size.”

With the addition of these tools to the SolarWinds arsenal, the company now offers more than 25 free IT management tools made specifically to address the needs of today’s IT professional. The new tools include:

• Inactive User Account Removal Tool – Enables users to scan Active Directory and optionally remove users who have not logged in for a certain amount of time.
  
• Inactive Computer Account Removal Tool – Enables users to scan Active Directory and optionally remove computers that are over a certain number of days old.
  
• User Import Tool – Saves time by giving you the ability to create users in bulk, using a CSV file. You can even specify the attributes.
  

SAS: Shift to 'Real Time' Operations is A Must in 2012

SAS Malaysia, the country’s leading provider of business analytics solutions and services, shares the most pressing requirement for analytics deployment for companies across all major sectors in Malaysia in 2012; to shift to a ‘Real Time’ mode of operations.

SAS observes that in Malaysia, businesses have started to realize the power of analytics to give them a competitive edge. However, while advanced analytics technology is already available - powered by high-performance computing, in-memory analytics, advanced visualization and mobile platforms, “…the use of analytics in Malaysia remains at a basic level.”

According to Andrew Tan, Managing Director of SAS Malaysia, players in the local scene have entered the era of Big Data where the traditional methods of analyzing business information are no longer competitive.

“Businesses that use analytics extensively and systematically to out-think and out-execute the competition will win in an ultra-competitive business environment. In fact, we see that the top players within the major industries of banking, telecommunications, retail and manufacturing – are starting to upgrade their business and customer analytics systems.”

“With this, we start to see a leveling of the playing field in these respective industry sectors.”

“Those who want to stay truly relevant have to up their ante to a ‘Real Time’ analytics mode of operations in order to stay ahead of the game,” Tan shares.

Shifting to ‘Real Time’ Operations

Tan says that a ‘Real Time’ mindset should be applied to the three areas of Information Management, Collaboration and Skills & Culture:

1. Information Management – companies that progress faster through the analytics journey from enterprise data warehousing to advanced analytics powered by HPC, in-memory analytics and agile development techniques will be able to make decisions in near-real time.
   
2. Collaboration – companies that leverage on advanced visualization capabilities and mobile analytics platforms will be able to achieve true collaboration between currently silo-ed operations and from the field all the way up the management chain.
   
3. Skills & Culture – companies that hire, develop and retain a new breed of employees with advanced analytical skills otherwise known as ‘data scientists’ and create an environment where they can collaborate seamlessly with business domain knowledge experts will be able to innovate the fastest.
   

SAS Malaysia’s Sector Prediction

According to IDC’s Malaysia Business Intelligence (BI) Software Market report 2010, Malaysian organizations’ spend on BI will grow to about RM193.0 million by 2015 (from RM63.5 million in 2008).

Tan says, “The local banking industry will take the lead in the analytics race with the greater adoption of advanced information management, risk management as well as customer analytics.”

“This is followed by media and telecommunications service providers, government, retail and manufacturing,” he adds.

Sophos Names Regional Director for ASEAN

IT security and data protection company Sophos today announced the appointment of Kelvin Lim as director of sales for ASEAN. Based in Singapore, Lim will report to the vice president for Asia Pacific, Stuart Fisher.

In his new role, Lim will lead the regional sales and marketing teams to devise go-to-market strategy and channel programmes, as well as drive accelerated growth and deliver on revenue plan for Southeast Asia.

An industry veteran with over 20 years of hands-on experience in sales, channel management and network infrastructure design, Lim was most recently with 3Com (HP Networking) where he was a sales director for the Philippines, Vietnam and Asia Emerging Countries.

“Lim’s demonstrated track record and vast industry experience will both prove instrumental to our regional growth, and in validating our longstanding commitment to our customers in Southeast Asia,” said Stuart Fisher, vice president for Asia Pacific, Sophos. “This appointment is also a timely one as we line up new and enhanced product offerings in endpoint protection, encryption and network security for 2012, where Lim will lead in bringing these solutions to market this year.”

Facebook 'Koobface' Malware Gang Unmasked - Sophos releases exclusive research

Following media reports yesterday that Facebook has identified five people as responsible for the Koobface worm, IT security and data protection firm Sophos releases its independent and exclusive research into the Koobface gang, identifying the same alleged perpetrators as Facebook: Anton Korotchenko, Alexander Koltyshev, Roman Koturbach, Syvatoslav Polinchuk, and Stanislav Avdeiko.

SophosLabs malware expert Dirk Kollberg and independent researcher Jan Droemer worked with an extensive team across the industry. In this exclusive, Droemer and Kollberg share a wealth of findings, including the perpetrators' nicknames, online activities, physical locations and business dealings:

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/koobface/

Koobface (an anagram of "Facebook") spreads via social networking sites, infecting PCs and building a botnet of compromised computers. It is so sophisticated it can even create its own social networking accounts, so that it can aggressively post links helping it to spread further.

The creators of Koobface, whose names have not been public until today, earn millions of dollars every year by compromising computers.

Droemer and Kollberg's research took place between October 2009 and February 2010, but the authorities requested that it be kept confidential to allow them the necessary time to build a case.

"It's an incredible detective story of tireless investigation, which involved scouring the internet, searching company records and taking advantage of schoolboy social networking errors made by the suspected criminals, their friends and family. We know the gang's names, their phone numbers, where their office is, what they look like, what cars they drive, even their mobile phone numbers." said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "Now we have to wait and see what, if any, action the authorities will take against the Koobface gang."

Much more information, including images, is available in this extensive online report: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/koobface

Wikipedia To Go Offline for 24 Hours

Starting Wednesday (18-Jan-2012) USA time, Wikipedia is expected to go offline for 24 hours protesting against anti-piracy legislation currently under construction in the congress.

The SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) contains clauses that would force search engines to stop listing infringing sites in their indexes.

Wikipedia founder sees it as a threat for Internet freedom and net neutrality.

For more information, refer to here and here.

Shortly after Malaysian lunch time, Wikipedia should have been gone offline.

Jerry Yang Resigns From Yahoo

Yahoo announced that Jerry Yang has resigned from its board of directors and all other positions.

Yang co-founded Yahoo! Inc. in 1995 with David Filo and served as a member of the Board of Directors since March 1995 and as Chief Executive Officer from June 2007 to January 2009. The Company went public in 1996.

Updates on Hacker To Release Symantec's NAV Source Code

Refer to 'Malaysia Technology News'.

The alleged source codes have been released to blackhat community.

In the mean time, Symantec has this to say.

The code for Norton Utilities that was posted publicly is related to the 2006 version of Norton Utilities only. That version of the product is no longer sold or supported. The current version of Norton Utilities has been completely rebuilt and shares no common code with Norton Utilities 2006. The code that has been posted for the 2006 version poses no security threat to users of the current version of Norton Utilities. Furthermore, we have no indications that the code disclosure impacts the functionality or security of any of Symantec’s other solutions. Lastly, there are no indications that customer information has been impacted or exposed at this time. As always, in general, Symantec recommends that users keep their solutions updated which will help ensure protection against any new possible threats.

Malaysian shoppers skipped the queues to shop online and on their mobile devices this festive season

The festive season in 2011 was a busy period* for mobile and online shopping as Malaysians shopped online, and on their mobile devices in the hunt for the prefect Christmas gift and holiday buys. As per an earlier PayPal study**, Malaysia’s boom in online shopping is set to continue to reach its forecast of RM5 billion in 2014. For mobile shopping, nearly 7 out of 10 Malaysians said using their mobile device would be faster and more convenient because they can make a transaction “anytime, anywhere”***.

Elias Ghanem, managing director, PayPal Southeast Asia and India said, “Online shopping has become mainstream, especially during the festive season as many Malaysians skipped the long queues, searched online for great deals, and bought gifts from the comfort of their homes. This was the first festive season for mobile shopping to become popular as Malaysians reached for their smartphones and tablets to enjoy the convenience of shopping anytime, anywhere. Interestingly, Malaysians planned well ahead for their festive online shopping in late November whereas mobile shopping was widely used for purchases during the Christmas week.”

First festive season that mobile shopping becomes popular in Malaysia

Mobile shopping was driven by an increasing number of Malaysians going online via Internet-capable mobile devices. According to a recent InMobi report****, smartphone penetration in Malaysians is at a sharp increase and close to six in ten Malaysian digital consumers used their mobile phone to access the Internet in 2011. The InMobi "Mobile Impact on Media Consumption in Malaysia" report also revealed that mobile is the top choice for Malaysians going online.

Several interesting trends for mobile shopping by PayPal users in Malaysia over the festive season include:

• Mobile shopping sales saw the biggest jump on Sunday, December 11, 2011 highlighting that Malaysians started looking for festive deals two weeks before Christmas via their smartphones and tablets.
  
• The busiest mobile shopping date was December 24, 2011 revealing that even on Christmas Eve – Malaysians were using their mobile devices to purchase last-minute Christmas gifts for family and friends.
  
• Popular mobile shopping sites in Malaysia during the festive season included:
  
  • www.gsc.com.my and www.tgv.com.my indicating that Malaysians opted to skip the queue and purchase movie tickets on-the-go during the crazy busy year-end holidays.
    
  • www.groupon.my and www.lelong.com.my, demonstrating the growing influence of daily deal and auction websites, and Malaysians accessing these websites from their smartphones and tablets.
    
  • www.agoda.com showing that Malaysians were even buying holiday packages on their mobile devices, putting a world of hotels in the palm of their hands.
    
  • www.rc711.com, revealing that Malaysians were buying gifts for future frequent flyers and boy racers like remote controlled miniature helicopters, airplanes and cars from their mobile devices.
    

Online shopping, a more convenient way to shop over the festive season

With a digitally-savvy society and growing broadband penetration, online shopping is becoming mainstream in Malaysia.

Here are some noteworthy online shopping trends by PayPal users in Malaysia over the festive season:

• The busiest festive online shopping date was Tuesday, November 29, 2011 showing that many Malaysians took advantage of the fabulous online deals on ‘Cyber Monday 2011’ when U.S. retailers offer deep discounts online.
  
• Online shopping sales saw the biggest jump on November 30, 2011 highlighting that Malaysians planned their gifts and festive buys well ahead of Christmas and the year-end festivities.
  
• Popular online shopping sites in Malaysia during the festive season included:
  
  • www.dhgate.com signifying that Malaysians were purchasing affordably-priced apparel, electronics and handbags from China as gifts for loved ones.
    
  • www.hopshopgo.com and www.asos.com highlighting that Malaysians were shopping overseas from popular US and UK online retailers that offer the latest in fashion wear.
    
  • www.naruko.com.my/shop/ showing that Malaysians were buying beauty and skincare products as gifts for family and friends to look good in the new year.

*Period tracked – November 24, 2011 to December 26, 2011.
** PayPal Online and Mobile Shopping Insights 2011
*** PayPal Online and Mobile Safety Insights 2011
**** InMobi "Mobile Impact on Media Consumption in Malaysia" Dec 2011

Sophos Virtualizes Secure Web Gateway Protection

IT security and data protection company Sophos today announced the availability of Sophos Virtual Web Appliances providing complete web protection, a streamlined management experience and broad deployment flexibility in virtual environments. Available for download via the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace, the new Virtual Web Appliances can be set up in minutes, easily bringing the company’s award-winning hardware security capabilities to businesses of any size.

Virtualization has helped organizations reduce capital and operating costs, while driving greater levels of application availability. It has also yielded benefits in flexibility, agility and control. However, even as virtualization has helped reduce the number of physical servers, the number of virtual servers continues to rise, resulting in increased complexity and server personnel management costs.

Making virtualization easier

With this new release, Sophos reduces the complexity of a virtual environment by integrating its unique managed appliance experience to deliver an industry-first on-premise managed service. Sophos Managed Appliances include remote monitoring and automated maintenance at no additional charge. This approach combines the benefits of virtualization and on-premise control with the cost savings of a managed service, reducingoverhead and complexity. The Sophos Virtual Web Appliance also automates theupdate and upgrade process and provides proactive monitoring and support—further simplifying network management.

Streamlined provisioning and management

The Sophos Virtual Appliances streamline the provisioning and management processes with pre-configured performance profiles, built-in load balancing and an intuitive management console. Users can manage several virtual appliances within a single console, increasing performance and capacity while reducing management time and complexity.

Complete web protection everywhere

By integrating web appliance protection with the Sophos Endpoint security solution, the company delivers unmatched protection andmanagement visibility into users’ web activity—wherever they go. Administrators can quickly and easily set policies, report on activity and protect users, even beyond the secure perimeter of the corporate network. This is all possible without the need for costly and complex backhauling or added gateway infrastructure.

Sophos provides industry-leading web protection due to a unique three-stage filter which combines URL reputation filtering, advanced real-time malware scanning withbehavioral analysis and content control to guard against the latest threats.Sophos appliances also include advanced capabilities such as HTTPS scanning, dynamic anonymizing proxy blocking and call home detection to cover essential blind-spots.

“Organizations are increasingly looking to squeeze more out of less by further leveraging their investment in virtualization, but simply implementing virtualized versions of the same maintenance-heavy applications only helps to a limited extent,” said Chris Kraft, vice president of product management at Sophos. “Our Virtual Web Appliance allows IT departments to not only leverage all the benefits of virtualization, but also those of a managed service, all the while keeping their data on-premise and preserving complete control.”

Trials are available free of charge and licensing is simple, based on a per user, per year basis with no additional charges for the number of virtual servers.