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Kaspersky Lab Reveals Strategic Plans for Expansion in Enterprise IT Security Market

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On Tuesday 15th April 2014, Kaspersky Lab announced its vision of enterprise security at the company’s annual CyberSecurity Summit in San Francisco, U.S.A. The event focused on how enterprise IT security realities affected businesses worldwide and featured commentary and panel discussions from influential figures in IT security.  At the event, Kaspersky Lab also announced several new security solutions that are now available, as well as planned solutions and business strategies that will guide the company’s growth throughout the year.

A key theme discussed at the event included recent and significant changes to the IT security landscape: sophisticated attacks and complex cyber-espionage campaigns targeting corporations are “the new normal.” Another area of focus was how the IT industry faces a rising tide of advanced threats specifically targeting financial service networks, a segment which requires specialised security solutions to meet their unique needs.

To lead the discussion of these core issues, Kaspersky Lab assembled leading experts in IT security from the corporate, government, financial systems, and IT management fields. These included representatives of Facebook, Visa, The Boeing Company and Wells Fargo & Co. Tom Ridge, Former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, delivered a keynote speech: “How Cyberwarfare Impacts Enterprise IT Security.”

Eugene Kaspersky, chairman and CEO of Kaspersky Lab, said: “These days cybercrime is no longer about stealing relatively small sums of money from ordinary users. As the IT security landscape evolves rapidly and gets more and more complex, the number of sophisticated cyber-espionage campaigns targeting giant corporations is also sharply rising. Criminals are increasingly elaborate in designing their attacks and always try to exploit the weakest link in terms of security, which means that supply chains and contractors are targeted as well. This means that today threat intelligence is one of the top priorities for CIOs and CSOs, who need to ensure their defenses are flexible enough to withstand not just contemporary threats, but also the coming generation of cyber dangers.”

Kaspersky Lab expands its enterprise security portfolio
To equip enterprises with protection from these advanced threats, Kaspersky Lab’s solution portfolio is built on a foundation of threat intelligence and an ability to build technologies in-house instead of through acquisition. These two core company principles produce measurable advantages in protection for our customers, and are central components of the technology innovations which were announced at the Kaspersky CyberSecurity Summit to address critical areas of enterprise IT. The company announced a new expansion of Kaspersky Security for Virtualization, which brings security technologies to virtual endpoints that were previously difficult to secure without sacrificing network performance.  The recently-announced Kaspersky Fraud Prevention platform was also highlighted as a way to combat cyber-attacks against financial service providers.  Both solutions are now available to the public.

The comprehensive portfolio of Kaspersky Lab’s enterprise security solutions is complemented by Security Intelligence Services, including threat data analysis and reporting, Botnet tracking, and cybersecurity education programs, harnessing the company’s recognised threat intelligence to enhance protection of its business partners.

Looking towards the future, Kaspersky Lab also discussed new opportunities for enterprise security growth, namely in the area of critical and industrial infrastructure protection, which requires technologies and products that fit the specific needs of industrial networks. These include not only products and solutions which will provide versatile protection for SCADA servers and engineering workstations, but also for PLC protection, network-level, and embedded security.

Intelligence-Driven Solutions for Business
Kaspersky Lab’s enterprise security portfolio is built around the company’s core security intelligence, which encompasses award-winning endpoint protection technologies, a cloud-based network of global threat intelligence, and a multi-national team of prominent experts who discovered sophisticated cyber-espionage campaigns such as Flame, Gauss, Red October, Winnti, NetTraveler, Kimsuky, Icefog and The Mask/Careto. The company maintains its focus on further development of its technologies by its own highly-skilled professionals, thus allowing for superior performance, tight integration, manageability, and better protection of enterprise IT infrastructures.

Nikolay Grebennikov, Chief Technology Officer of Kaspersky Lab, said: “We are always ready to counter cybercrime regardless of its origin, target or sophistication. The effectiveness of our solutions is made possible by the fusion of our proven technological capabilities and our world-leading security threat research, which produces results that are unmatched by any other IT security organisation.”

The foundation of the enterprise security portfolio, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, takes full advantage of Kaspersky Lab’s world-leading threat intelligence ecosystem and provides a tiered security approach based on a single integrated platform to incorporate features including robust application, device and web control tools, data encryption, mobile endpoint security and MDM, and systems and patch management.  Kaspersky Lab also offers dedicated solutions for File and Mail servers, Storage Systems, Internet Gateways, Collaboration Software, and industry-leading solutions for virtual machines in VMware, Citrix and Microsoft virtual environments.

Kaspersky Lab on the global enterprise security market
In 2013, Kaspersky Lab continued to deliver strong growth in the corporate IT security segment: 9 per cent growth in the corporate segment overall and 18 per cent in the enterprise segment*. Kaspersky Lab’s corporate client base exceeded 250,000 companies located around the globe, ranging from small and medium-sized businesses all the way up to large governmental and commercial organisations.

In order to reinforce the company’s cybersecurity intelligence foundations, in early 2014 Kaspersky Lab established an International Advisory Board to provide strategic advice in the IT security market to the company. Under the leadership of Howard Schmidt, former Cyber Advisor to both President Bush and President Obama, the Advisory Board brings together six internationally recognised experts in IT security from industry, the public sector and academia to provide practical guidance, insights and validation of the company’s priority business development areas. This Advisory Board represents a milestone for the company ensuring its development in the most appropriate strategic direction.

The company has been recently identified as a Leader in the most prominent and influential global analyst vendor assessments by the “Big Three” analytic agencies. This recognition is a remarkable achievement; only one market player has ever earned this status from all three organisations before.

"Kaspersky Lab has steadily and notably strengthened its position in the enterprise security market by delivering efficient endpoint protection suites and targeted security solutions. The ability to provide solutions meeting customer needs has driven Kaspersky Lab's market share gains," said Charles Kolodgy, Research Vice President for IDC's Security Products.  "Additionally, they have built a solid Threat Intelligence reputation through research exposing sophisticated attacks that employ designer malware. Kaspersky Lab is further enriching its enterprise portfolio with security intelligence services and solutions for under-served areas such as Critical Infrastructure Protection and online transaction security. These advancements cement their position as a vendor to watch in the enterprise security market."

About Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab is the world’s largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions. The company is ranked among the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users**. Throughout its more than 16-year history Kaspersky Lab has remained an innovator in IT security and provides effective digital security solutions for large enterprises, SMBs and consumers. Kaspersky Lab, with its holding company registered in the United Kingdom, currently operates in almost 200 countries and territories across the globe, providing protection for over 300 million users worldwide. Learn more at www.kaspersky.co.uk.

* Unaudited revenue growth 2013 vs. 2012

** The company was rated fourth in the IDC rating Worldwide Endpoint Security Revenue by Vendor, 2012. The rating was published in the IDC report "Worldwide Endpoint Security 2013–2017 Forecast and 2012 Vendor Shares (IDC #242618, August 2013). The report ranked software vendors according to earnings from sales of endpoint security solutions in 2012.

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Adapt aligns future service vision with EMC

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London, UK – APRIL 16 2014 – In response to increasing customer demand and challenge diversity, Adapt has aligned its future managed infrastructure services vision to complement EMC’s long-term strategic roadmap to continue to deliver enterprise-grade functionality, customisation and choice at a compelling price point. This alignment extends far beyond storage and will combine EMC’s market-leading technology with Adapt’s dynamic management and tiered services to optimise customer budgets and outcomes.

Relationships like EMC and Adapt ultimately deliver more agility, control and enablement to customers. Specific benefits include:

  • Extreme performance options
  • Non-disruptive migrations for reduced Time To Value
  • Performance-aligned services
  • Flexible recovery options with Sky+™ style replay
  • Dynamic tiered model for maximum cost & operational efficiency 
  • Predictable, outcome-based spend
  • Continuous availability securely located in the UK

Adapt’s strategic alignment with EMC reaffirms its commitment to making ‘enterprise-grade’ services more commercially accessible and offering more choice and flexibility than the competition. The collaboration will see Adapt become the first service provider in Europe to leverage key EMC technologies to deliver a complete Software Defined Data Centre platform, utilising VPLEX®, VNX2™, ViPR™, XtremIO™, EMC Recoverpoint® and Storage Resource Management suite. The relationship will also enable Adapt to develop future advanced consumption-based offerings as the market continues to evolve.

“EMC is delighted to announce a strategic partnership with Adapt to bring to market the EMC software defined datacentre vision.  This exciting new platform and set of service offerings enables customers to rapidly and affordably take advantage of the cloud,” said James Petter, EMC UK Managing Director. “ This a revolutionary offering by a partner to combine our ViPR™ software defined datacentre vision, data availability solutions and leading flash offerings. The result gives Adapt’s customers the ability to take advantage of new capabilities without significant capital expense or resourcing requirements, addressing technical skills gaps in their business.”

“Our customers rely on us to transform their IT environments and help them drive competitive advantage from their technology investments. To do this, we need to be able to provide secure, scalable integrated enterprise-grade managed services,” said Stewart Smythe, CEO at Adapt. “As the first service provider in Europe to fully leverage EMC’s Software Defined Data Centre platform, we are future proofing our critical infrastructure services and creating the data centre of the future.”

AppDynamics Boosts EMEA Partner Programme to Capitalise on Fast-Growing APM Market

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London, UK – April 17, 2014 – AppDynamics, the Application Intelligence leader for software-defined businesses, today announced new investments in and enhancements to its EMEA partner programme.

These include a tiered programme linked to partner performance and capability, investments in a new EMEA channel team and an improved deal registration programme to encourage closer collaboration and support on joint sales opportunities. The programme is one of the most generous in the industry, delivering predictability and consistency through guaranteed retained margins.

Partners are crucial to the overall success of AppDynamics as the APM industry continues to grow at a rapid pace. To support its increased focus on building a world-class partner channel in Europe, the company also announced the recent appointment of Mark Peet to the position of EMEA Alliances Director. Mark is a seasoned channel executive and joins AppDynamics from Symantec where he led that company's EMEA Alliances team. His key responsibility is to expand the partner business across EMEA, developing key alliances and solutions partners in each of the company’s major territories.

AppDynamics empowers today’s software-defined businesses with smart, adaptive tools to analyse and optimise digital business performance—in real-time and in production. The company’s Application Intelligence Platform provides the ability to proactively manage the most complex software environments through real-time monitoring and insights, and the ability to automate the resolution of problems. Everything from customer experience to revenue depends on business-critical applications performing at their highest levels. AppDynamics delivers real-time access to every aspect of application performance so businesses can anticipate problems, resolve them automatically, and make smarter, more certain business decisions. AppDynamics is positioned as a “Leader” in Gartner’s latest Magic Quadrant for APM and recently announced 175 percent year-over-year growth for its preceding fiscal year and an annualised bookings run-rate of more than $100 million in its fiscal fourth quarter.

Joe Sexton, president of worldwide field operations at AppDynamics, says: “Teaming up with companies that are at the epicentre of a rapidly expanding ecosystem for developing and maintaining today’s complex, highly distributed applications is an important focus at AppDynamics. That’s why we are committed to developing and maintaining world-class partner programs designed to deliver maximum benefits to our ecosystem of solution, IT services and technology partners. Our new investments in building our EMEA channel will support what continues to be a very exciting program for partners in the region. ”

Other program investments and enhancements include the provision of easy-to-consume training materials to partners so that they can quickly enable staff to deliver valuable advisory and integration services. AppDynamics has also introduced enhancements to the field sales compensation plans, providing incentives for sales teams to support partners on joint opportunities.

New solution providers recently joining the AppDynamics Partner Program in EMEA include NTT Europe, Mubaloo, DevOpsGuys, Ranger4 and Avenida. New partners in other regions include AHEAD, Applied Computer Solutions, Continuum Security Solutions, FusionStorm, Lumenate, Maryville Technologies, ShadowSoft, Trace3 and Vizuri.

Tweet this: @AppDynamics invests in EMEA partner program to help partners keep up with colossal customer demand

Supporting quotes:
“AppDynamics gives unprecedented visibility into how applications perform in both production and development environments. We are excited to join the AppDynamics partner program and offer AppDynamics as part of our Managed Operations DevOps platform.” : Steve Thair, Co-Founder, DevOpsGuys

"Our technology collaboration with AppDynamics enables joint customers to seamlessly deploy AppDynamics agents for applications running on OpenShift, RedHat’s Platform-as-a-Service offering, delivering a more streamlined and efficient overall experience for end-users in both private and public cloud environments. As we go to market with AppDynamics, we expect the collaboration to further evolve with user requirements, while maintaining our focus on customer success." : Chris Morgan, Technical Director, OpenShift Partner Ecosystem, RedHat

“At Trace3 we are highly selective when it comes to choosing partners. Each partnership must add strategic value to our customers, including the reduction of complexity within IT infrastructure. Given this criteria, AppDynamics was a natural partner for Trace3 and has already become an integral part of the solutions we provide to our customers.” : Chad Cardenas, Chief Innovation Officer, Trace3

“We are happy to announce that AppDynamics Pro is now available for download in the Windows Azure Store. AppDynamics is a monitoring tool for distributed applications. Its ease of use and integration with Windows Azure make it an attractive option for large enterprises building new applications or migrating old ones to Windows Azure." : Karandeep Anand, Partner Group Manager, Microsoft

For more details about the AppDynamics Partner Program, read what Joe Sexton, president of worldwide field operations, has to say on the AppDynamics Blog.  

For regular news and information about AppDynamics and the APM market, like and follow the company on:

About AppDynamics
At AppDynamics, our Application Intelligence Platform helps today’s software-defined businesses proactively monitor, manage, and optimize the most complex software environments - all in real time, and all in production. AppDynamics works and partners with many of the world’s most innovative companies including: AMICA Insurance, Expedia, StubHub and TiVo.

AppDynamics is a registered trademark of AppDynamics, Inc. Copyright 2014 AppDynamics, Inc. All rights reserved.

Media Contacts:
Dan Berkowitz
AppDynamics
dberkowitz@appdynamics.com
Office: (415) 442-8447
Mobile: (415) 518-7870

Laura Spence
3 Monkeys Communications
AppDynamics@3-monkeys.co.uk
Office: 020 7009 3100

Optimizely Announces Single Platform Web and Mobile Testing

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San Francisco, CA - April 17, 2014 - Optimizely, the world’s leading optimization platform, announced the launch of Optimizely for iOS beta. Optimizely for iOS will allow technical and non-technical mobile app teams to A/B test and optimize their native iOS apps. It allows mobile teams to make interface and content changes in real time without needing to wait for App Store review. It also allows more technical teams to test entirely new app features and then roll them out gradually, rather than all at once. Executive leadership unveiled launch details at the company’s first customer conference, OptiCon, held in San Francisco on April 17th.

“In the four years since launch, Optimizely has grown to serve 6000+ customers globally,” says Dan Siroker, CEO of Optimizely. “We believe that website and mobile app testing are no different from each other in the sense that data enables our customers to deliver the best possible experience to their visitors, regardless of device. With a new visual editor that can make changes to apps without coding, and a best-of-breed testing platform, we are achieving our vision of enabling customers to turn data into action.”

Optimizely for iOS key highlights:

  • Visual Editor: Make visual changes to your app on the fly using Optimizely’s code-free visual editor. Push changes to the app without needing to wait for App Store review.
  • Developer SDK: A simple iOS developer SDK makes it easy to run custom experiments tailored to your app.
  • Web and Mobile Platform: The only platform in the world that lets you optimize your website and your mobile app so you can ensure a consistent experience.
  • Optimizely customers have run over a half million experiments for 6.5 billion views.
  • The company currently serves more than 6,000 customers globally including Starbucks, Disney and CNN.

With 1.2 billion people globally accessing the web from their phone, companies are changing the way they think about business. Each form factor, whether desktop, tablet or phone, presents new challenges that need to be optimized in different ways. Businesses must consider that all their customers will interact with their brand from a phone at some point. We believe cross-platform experimentation will provide enormous value.

"We've been waiting for the right testing platform to serve as the foundation for our mobile efforts; and we believe Optimizely can do just that," says Philip Woods, mobile developer at Tradesy. "With powerful, trusted optimization capabilities that they've delivered for the web, we're thrilled to take the lead on app testing with Optimizely, knowing that we will deliver what's best for our customers and best for our business."

Optimized web experiences for all
Optimizely launched in 2010 with a vision to empower organizations to conceive and run experiments on their websites that help them make better data-driven decisions. At the time, simple A/B tests took weeks to implement with existing testing services.

Optimizely enables A/B testing without technical bottlenecks and was quickly recognized as an industry force. By removing technical barriers to testing, Optimizely quickly spread among small SaaS startups, and large global enterprises - and became the widely adopted among the top 10,000 Alexa-ranked websites in the world. Fueled by rapid product development, the company has experienced triple-digit growth in annual revenue and continues to dominate the optimization space.

About Optimizely
Optimizely is the world’s leading optimization platform, providing split testing, multivariate testing, and personalization for websites and iOS applications. The platform’s ease of use empowers organizations to conceive of and run experiments that help them make better data-driven decisions. With targeting and segmentation using powerful real-time data, Optimizely meets the diverse needs of any organization looking to deliver unique experiences to their audience.

Press Contact:
press@optimizely.com

DataCore's Annual State of Software-Defined Storage Survey Released

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Survey Reveals 26 Percent of Institutions Look to Software-Defined Storage to Simplify Storage Management, Improve Business Continuity and Protect Current and Future Investments; Nearly 40% Not Planning to Use Flash or Solid State Disks for Server Virtualisation Projects Due to Cost Concerns

Reading, UK – April 17, 2014 – For the fourth consecutive year, DataCore, a leader in software-defined storage, conducted a survey of 388 global IT professionals to identify current storage challenges that organisations are facing and what forces are driving demand for software-defined storage (SDS). This year’s State of Software-Defined Storage report shows that these institutions look for software-defined storage (SDS) to simplify management (26 percent) of their ‘isolated islands’ of storage devices and enable them to reduce disruptions (30 percent), better protect investments (32 percent) and future proof their infrastructure (21 percent) to absorb new technologies like Flash. The move to SDS is very appealing considering that almost half of respondents identified the difficulty of migrating between different models and generations of storage devices as preventing them from using other manufacturers or models of storage devices that could well reduce their costs.

Highlights of Survey Include:

  • The two main factors that impede organisations from considering different models and manufacturers of storage devices were the plethora of tools required to manage them (41 percent) and the difficulty of migrating between different models and generations (37 percent).
  • Interestingly, 39 percent of respondents don’t run into these concerns as independent storage virtualisation software allows their organisations to pool different devices and models from competing manufacturers and manage them centrally.
  • More than half of the respondents (63 percent) said that they currently have less than 10% of capacity assigned to flash storage.
  • Nearly 40% of respondents said that they were not planning to use flash or solid state disks for server virtualisation projects due to cost concerns.
  • When asked how serious an obstacle performance degradation or the inability to meet performance expectations was when virtualising server workloads, 23 percent of respondents ranked it as the most serious obstacle, and 32 percent viewed it as somewhat of an obstacle to virtualisation.
  • Similar to last year, both the ability to enable storage capacity expansion without disruption (30 percent) and the improvement of disaster recovery and business continuity practices (32 percent) ranked highest for reasons that organizations deployed storage virtualisation software.

Software Defined Storage is needed to stop the proliferation of ‘Separate Storage Islands’
“The results of this survey confirm one of the biggest and most frustrating IT problems organisations are currently facing is the difficult and daunting task of managing diversity and migrating between different vendors, models and generations of storage devices – which prevent them from entertaining more attractive alternatives from competing suppliers,” said George Teixeira, president and CEO at DataCore. “Software-defined storage is not only designed to help organisations pool all of their available storage assets, but it allows organisations the ability to manage end-to-end and to add any type of storage asset to their existing storage architecture – helping raise productivity and keeping costs to a minimum.”

“One of the more interesting findings in DataCore’s software-defined storage survey, was that 63 percent of respondents said that they have less than 10 percent of capacity assigned to flash storage,” said Randy Kerns, senior analyst at Evaluator Group. “With all of the hype around the ‘all-flash data centre,’ it is clear that new fast hardware technology alone is not the answer; there are multiple critical factors preventing organisations from making this move – lack of smart software that integrates and optimises their use, the relative high cost and the realisations that not all applications benefit from flash devices.”

The broad makeup of respondents toDataCore’s State of Software-Defined Storage survey provides insights across a statistically significant cross-section of modern IT organisations from different sized institutions and a wide range of vertical segments. IT professionals from organisations across the globe participated in the survey, with 57 percent of respondents from organisations with less than 1,000 employees, 23 percent of respondents from organisations with 1,000 to 5,000 employees, and 20 percent of respondents from organisations with more than 5,000 employees. Respondents represented a range of industries, including Financial Services (13 percent), Healthcare (12 percent), Government (9 percent), Manufacturing (16 percent), Education (12 percent), IT services (16 percent) and Other (22 percent).

DataCore’s 2014 State of Virtualisation Survey was conducted in March 2014. To view the entire report, please visit: http://datacore.com/sf-docs/default-source/whitepapers/english/the-state-of-software-defined-storage-2014.pdf.

About DataCore
DataCore is a leader in software-defined storage. The company’s storage virtualization software empowers organizations to seamlessly manage and scale their data storage architectures, delivering massive performance gains at a fraction of the cost of solutions offered by legacy storage hardware vendors. Backed by 10,000 customer sites around the world, DataCore’s adaptive and self-learning and healing technology takes the pain out of manual processes and helps deliver on the promise of the new software defined data center through its hardware agnostic architecture. Visit http://www.datacore.com or call (877) 780-5111 for more information.

DataCore, the DataCore logo and SANsymphony are trademarks or registered trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. Other DataCore product or service names or logos referenced herein are trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. All other products, services and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

For media & PR inquiries:
Sharon Munday
KPR Global
smunday@kprglobal.com

Akamai Publishes Prolexic Q1 2014 Global DDoS Attack Report

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Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), a leading provider of cloud services for delivering, optimising and securing online content and business applications, today announced availability of the Prolexic Q1 2014 Global DDoS Attack Report. Prolexic Technologies, now part of Akamai, is a recognised leader in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection services, and has produced the quarterly Global DDoS Attack Report since 2011. The report, which provides analysis and insight into the global DDoS threat landscape, can be downloaded at www.prolexic.com/attackreports.

“In Q1, DDoS attackers relied less upon traditional botnet infection in favour of reflection and amplification techniques, a trend Prolexic has been seeing for some time,” said Stuart Scholly, senior vice president and general manager of  Security at Akamai Technologies. “Instead of using a network of zombie computers, the newer DDoS toolkits abuse Internet protocols that are available on open or vulnerable servers and devices. We believe this approach can lead to the Internet becoming a ready-to-use botnet for malicious actors.”

Prolexic has observed the most abused protocols to be Character Generator (CHARGEN), Network Time Protocol (NTP) and Domain Name System (DNS). These protocols, which are all based on the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), may be favoured as they allow attackers to hide their identity. In addition, amplification-based attacks can deliver a massive flood of data at the target while requiring only a relatively small output from the source.

New reflection and amplification attack tools can deliver a powerful punch. Q1 saw a 39 percent increase in average bandwidth and the largest-ever DDoS attack to cross the Prolexic DDoS mitigation network. This attack involved multiple reflection techniques combined with a traditional botnet-based application attack to generate peak traffic of more than 200 Gbps (gigabits per second) and 53.5 Mpps (million packets per second).

This quarter saw more than half of the DDoS attack traffic aimed at the Media and Entertainment industry. This one industry was targeted by 54 percent of the malicious packets mitigated by Prolexic during active DDoS attacks in Q1.

Highlights from Prolexic’s Q4 2014 Global DDoS Attack Report:

Compared to Q1 2013

  • 47 percent increase in total DDoS attacks
  • 9 percent decrease in average attack bandwidth
  • 68 percent increase in infrastructure (Layer 3 & 4) attacks
  • 21 percent decrease in application (Layer 7) attacks
  • 50 percent decrease in average attack duration: 35 vs. 17 hours
  • 133 percent increase in average peak bandwidth

Compared to Q4 2013

  • 18 percent increase in total DDoS attacks
  • 39 percent increase in average attack bandwidth
  • 35 percent increase in infrastructure (Layer 3 & 4) attacks
  • 36 percent decrease in application (Layer 7) attacks
  • 24 percent decrease in average attack duration: 23 vs. 17 hours
  • 114 percent increase in average peak bandwidth

Analysis and emerging trends
Innovation in the DDoS marketplace has given rise to tools that can create greater damage with fewer resources. Q1’s high-volume, infrastructure-based attacks were made possible by the availability of easy-to-use DDoS tools from the DDoS-as-a-service marketplace. These tools are designed by malicious hackers to deliver greater power and convenience into the hands of less skillful attackers. 

For example, in Q1, NTP reflection attacks surged, likely due to the availability of easy-to-use DDoS attack tools that support this reflection technique. The NTP flood method went from accounting for less than 1 percent of all attacks in the prior quarter to reaching nearly the same popularity as SYN flood attacks, a perennial favourite among DDoS attackers. Neither CHARGEN nor NTP attack vectors were detected in Q1 2013 but accounted for 23 percent of all infrastructure attacks mitigated by Prolexic in Q1 2014.

These DDoS trends are discussed in detail in Prolexic’s Q1 2014 Global DDoS Attack Report. A complimentary copy is available as a free PDF download at www.prolexic.com/attackreports.

Akamai and Prolexic DDoS attack reports to be merged
Akamai announced the acquisition of Prolexic in December 2013. Prolexic’s Global DDoS Attack Report and Akamai’s State of the Internet Report both cover DDoS attacks and related trends and statistics. In the coming quarters, we will be working to consolidate these publications with the goal of publishing a combined report that delivers an unparalleled level of insight into the Internet threat landscape. Follow @akamai_soti on Twitter for more information. 

Prolexic, now part of Akamai, offers DDoS protection solutions that leverage proprietary DDoS filtering techniques and one of the world’s largest cloud-based DDoS mitigation network.  Akamai completed the acquisition of Prolexic in February 2014.  Together with Prolexic, Akamai is providing customers with a comprehensive portfolio of security solutions designed to defend an enterprise’s Web and IP infrastructure against application-layer, network-layer and data center attacks delivered via the Internet.  To learn more about how Prolexic solutions stop DDoS attacks and protect business, please visit www.prolexic.com, or follow Prolexic on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, and @Prolexic on Twitter.

New Service from FICO's Fair Isaac Advisors Group Takes Analytics-Based Approach

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London — April 17, 2014 — FICO (NYSE:FICO), a leading predictive analytics and decision management software company, today announced a new service designed to help retail banks discover new ways to increase portfolio profitability. The Fair Isaac® Advisors P&L Insight Service, offered by the Fair Isaac® Advisors consulting group, provides financial services organisations with an analysis of their portfolio trends and profit drivers, along with portfolio-level profitability forecasts and what-if scenarios for strategic planning purposes.

Tightening banking regulations and economic turbulence have made it harder for portfolio managers to forecast results, and also to increase profitability. At the same time, senior management and bank directors are demanding detailed strategic plans that clearly spell out the expected impact on the bank’s financial targets. With Fair Isaac Advisors P&L Insight Service, Fair Isaac Advisors provide tactical and strategic recommendations for capitalising on opportunities and mitigating risks revealed in the analysis, creating a clear roadmap of actions for improved profitability.  

“In our work with retail banks around the world, we see risk managers and portfolio managers struggling to consistently provide accurate forecasts, due to economic uncertainty and competitive market shifts,” said Robert Duque-Ribeiro, vice president and general manager of Fair Isaac Advisors. “This is particularly true for banks that have grown through mergers and acquisitions and those that are undergoing a conversion or divestiture. We are also seeing banks that have aggressive growth plans but stagnant results. With Fair Isaac Advisors P&L Insight Service, we provide continuous indicators to our clients on the health of their portfolios, and combine the output with the analysis of seasoned advisors to help institutions uncover opportunities, detect signs of trouble, drive growth and facilitate sound strategic planning. What’s more, we will deliver the results quarterly and the analysis in a matter of days.” 

“By combining our portfolio-level data with FICO’s proprietary analytics and expertise, we have been able to determine both positive and negative portfolio trends, identify portfolio opportunities and gather insights into our portfolio’s future performance,” said Kevin Takac, director of Quantitative Analysis at KeyBank. “Fair Isaac Advisors provided us with clear observations and recommendations for areas of improvement that have enhanced our business, ensuring we can mitigate future risk, realise risk-adjusted growth, and use solid information for our risk management planning. We found our portfolio advisory, assessment and analysis extremely useful for current planning and beyond.”

Unlike traditional P&L assessments, the P&L Insight Service examines potential impacts across the credit lifecycle, including marketing, originations, customer management and collections. FICO’s advisors can rapidly generate actionable insights using a proprietary FICO tool with built-in forecasting models that can be tuned to the particular dynamics of a bank’s portfolio. Advisors convert 12 to 24 months of portfolio-level data into coherent business intelligence, provide automated trend analysis of profit drivers, deliver actionable and quantifiable recommendations, and assist with strategic planning activities for short-, medium-, and long-range objective-setting.

“By combining the bank’s data with FICO’s proprietary analytics and expertise, we have been able to deliver phenomenal results for our clients,” said Jose Tagunicar, a principal scientist at FICO, who directs the new service. “For example, we helped one bank achieve a 10 percent improvement in average credit line yields and a 14 percent increase in revenue with only a 1 percent increase in losses.”

Fair Isaac Advisors’ mission is to bring analytic innovation and business expertise to refine businesses’ decision-making process. Advisors design and devise visionary approaches to business challenges, relying on years of experience working with clients around the world. They leverage new data science and proven analytics techniques, along with FICO’s market-leading decision management applications, to drive success and improve performance.

About FICO
FICO (NYSE: FICO), formerly known as Fair Isaac, is a leading analytics software company, helping businesses in 90+ countries make better decisions that drive higher levels of growth, profitability and customer satisfaction. The company’s groundbreaking use of Big Data and mathematical algorithms to predict consumer behavior has transformed entire industries. FICO provides analytics software and tools used across multiple industries to manage risk, fight fraud, build more profitable customer relationships, optimise operations and meet strict government regulations. Many of our products reach industry-wide adoption. These include the FICO® Score, the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the United States. FICO solutions leverage open-source standards and cloud computing to maximise flexibility, speed deployment and reduce costs. The company also helps millions of people manage their personal credit health. FICO: Make every decision count™. Learn more at www.fico.com.

For FICO news and media resources, visit www.fico.com/news.

FICO, Fair Isaac and “Make every decision count” are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fair Isaac Corporation in the US and other countries.

ASC kicks off its 50th anniversary year with new achievements and continued excellence

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  • Major international contracts in Europe and South Africa
  • Decades of expertise and dominance in evolving speech technology
  • Opening up new markets with workforce optimization and Cloud portfolio

Hoesbach/Germany, April 17, 2014 – ASC (www.asctelecom.com), a worldwide leading software company with innovative solutions to record, analyze and evaluate communications, today announced continued business evolution in the first quarter of 2014, marked by a substantial increase in demand.

"Our productive start in 2014 puts us on a solid foundation for the rest of the year," said Marco Mueller, COO of ASC.

Major contracts with banks and call centers
In January 2014, the company celebrated the landing of several large contracts including call centers in Italy employing the latest speech technology, banks in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and a major project in South Africa.

50th anniversary
In 2014, the multinational company with more than 250 employees worldwide is looking back on 50 prosperous years. Since July 1, 1964, ASC has maintained its dominance in a highly dynamic and rapidly evolving market. With "leadership in technology through innovation" as a guiding principle, ASC focuses on complex customer projects designed to evaluate, analyze, and visualize important corporate data.

Growth thanks to new markets and technology
ASC has established itself as Europe’s leading provider of workforce optimization (WFO) solutions in the evolving call center industry. The company also offers its entire portfolio as a Cloud solution, and thus increasingly profits from the vibrant Cloud-computing market. Its latest, state-of-the-art WFO suite neo offers all its features on one platform. Multi-tenant capability grants multiple customers access to recording resources, quality and speech analysis software, e-learning and customer feedback – while strictly and reliably separating their data. Customers benefit from increased flexibility, scalability and reduced costs thanks to demand-driven usage.

With eight subsidiaries as well as distribution partners around the globe, ASC has successfully implemented and maintained challenging projects in more than 60 countries. The company’s main objective for 2014 is to continue expanding. A new subsidiary in Brazil will tap into business opportunities in South America. "We are expecting to see an increase in our activities in Eastern Europe, too, where we have made a promising start and have already been able to win important customers," added Mueller.


NoemaLife Strengthens Clinical Expertise With Appointment Of New Clinical Lead

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Stamford, 17 April 2014 NoemaLife, an expert provider of workflow automation and process management solutions for the health sector, has strengthened its clinical expertise with the appointment of a new clinical lead.

Atif Ishaq - a qualified, hospital clinical pharmacist who has also been working in the pharmacy primary care sector since 2001 - will support the development and implementation of NoemaLife’s ePrescribing offering as the company extends its footprint across the UK.

Additionally, Ishaq will be exploring how NoemaLife’s GALILEO Medication system can be enhanced to bring greater efficiency, reassurance and accuracy to busy NHS clinical teams.

Before joining NoemaLife, Ishaq held a number of pharmacy positions at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (WAHT). These included clinical support pharmacist and specialist clinical pharmacist and pharmacy IT systems manager. 

In his most recent role of electronic prescribing and medicines administration (EPMA) and Pharmacy Informatics team lead, Ishaq addressed all aspects of EPMA projects including requirement analysis; product development and design; functionality assessment; deployment; training and benefit realisation.

Commenting on joining NoemaLife, Ishaq says, “I’ve been working alongside NoemaLife at WAHT since 2012 so am already familiar with the company.  The openness of the company’s approach appeals to me as does its willingness to accept ideas to gain a better understanding of how a good EPMA can help trusts meet their electronic strategies.

“For Trusts faced with the challenge of delivering care in the current climate of cuts, initiatives such as Safer Hospitals Safer Wards are an excellent opportunity to use technology to help staff and patients alike.  I’m excited to have joined an organisation which is utilising this technology to best advantage to bring efficiency and savings to Trusts while improving patient care in the process.”

While at NoemaLife, Ishaq will continue to spend an element of his time working as a hospital pharmacist. This will help ensure NoemaLife’s products continue to reflect how clinical practice is evolving within the NHS as initiatives such as ‘Sign up to Safety’ come into play.

“Technology alone won’t solve the everyday problems Trusts are facing,” says Robyn Tolley, managing director, NoemaLife.  “Consideration also needs to be given to the context in how it will be used, and by whom, if maximum Return on Investment is to be achieved.  Atif’s clinical experience brings an additional dimension of insider knowledge to the NoemaLife offering, ensuring that it meets the real-world needs of our customers and doesn’t just tick a box on a tender document.”

Article 29

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Farnborough – April – Infor, a leading provider of business application software serving more than 70,000 customers, today announced Infor CloudSuiteTM Automotive to offer industry customers access to applications within the cloud environment. This announcement builds upon Infor's offerings available on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Infor CloudSuite Automotive combines beautiful software with rich automotive industry functionality that is deployed with a flexible, subscription-based delivery model to designed significantly reduce upfront IT expenditure. Infor CloudSuite Automotive provides a customised solution that is specially configured to meet the unique needs of the automotive industry.

"Infor's strategy to build a complete CloudSuite for the Automotive industry is spot on as it delivers the same features in the cloud as the on-premise offering, addresses this industry's implementation downtime concerns, provides additional options for customers, and helps modernise customers, especially current Infor customers with their Upgrade X program," said Dick Slansky, senior analyst, ARC Advisory Group.

The release of Infor CloudSuite Automotive provides Infor customers with a greater range of access when utilizing core industry applications. The suite allows OEMs and top tier suppliers to electronically share data such as demand, supply and delivery information. The result of which can shorten delivery times and increase responsiveness. Infor CloudSuite Automotive provides industry specific analytics that are delivered through a unique user interface that provides insights on finance and key metrics of the end-user's business. The suite also utilizes Infor ION®, a purpose-built middleware and Infor Ming.le™, the social collaboration engine, which supports internal and external communications between customers and their suppliers. These enhancements support globalization by allowing users to view real-time data at anytime and from any location. Infor CloudSuite Automotive enables applications to be launched remotely, which in turn can provide access to emerging partners, suppliers and joint ventures.

Infor customers will also benefit from a reduced total cost of ownership (TCO). Infor CloudSuite Automotive does not require customers to purchase onsite servers or hardware, which eliminates the need for additional IT support. Because cloud delivery via AWS is managed through a monthly subscription, Infor CloudSuite Automotive reduces upfront investment, serving as an operating instead of a capital expense. Customers will also experience a faster time to value than a traditional on-premise launch.

"With more than 80% of the world's largest automotive suppliers running Infor applications, we've seen first-hand the interest from the industry to move to the cloud to take advantage of its clear benefits, like easier maintenance and lower TCO, that aren't necessarily offered with on-premise applications," said John Bermudez, vice president, Product Management, Infor. "Infor CloudSuite gives customers an opportunity to increase their return on investment and join the cloud movement, without sacrificing any of the industry-specific functionality delivered by Infor's products."

Infor will help customers to take advantage of Amazon Web Services' expertise and economies of scale by leveraging the AWS Cloud, providing access to resources when they need them, on demand and with auto-scaling built into the Infor applications. AWS provides services in 10 Regions, with 25 Availability Zones and 51 Amazon CloudFront Edge locations globally.

About Infor
Infor is fundamentally changing the way information is published and consumed in the enterprise, helping 70,000 customers in more than 200 countries and territories improve operations, drive growth, and quickly adapt to changes in business demands. Infor offers deep industry-specific applications and suites, engineered for speed, and with an innovative user experience design that is simple, transparent, and elegant. Infor provides flexible deployment options that give customers a choice to run their businesses in the cloud, on-premises, or both. To learn more about Infor, please visit www.infor.com.

Infor customers include:

  • 19 of the top 20 aerospace companies
  • 12 of the top 13 high tech companies
  • 10 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies
  • 21 of the 25 largest US health delivery networks
  • 16 of the 20 largest US cities
  • 84 of the top 100 automotive suppliers
  • 31 of the top 50 industrial distributors
  • 5 of the top 9 brewers 

IT Analytics is key to driving IT performance improvements: Macro 4's message for SITS14

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At this year's Service Desk & IT Support (SITS14) Show, global software company Macro 4 will be highlighting the important role of IT analytics in IT service management (ITSM), both in driving performance improvements and in demonstrating the business value of IT. 

Macro 4's iET ITSM software includes iET Process Analyzer, an IT analytics module that monitors IT performance and provides real-time graphical reporting using custom dashboards. It provides instant feedback on any potential problems so they can be remedied before performance is impacted.  

iET Process Analyzer analyzes the process flow of individual incidents to quickly identify the root cause of the problems. Key performance indicators can be monitored for virtually any measurable aspect of IT, including ITIL processes.

"It's a fact of life in IT as in any other aspect of business that you can only really improve what you can measure," said Lynda Kershaw, Marketing Manager at Macro 4. "You need timely IT performance data if you want to identify weaknesses and diagnose impending problems as well as to demonstrate the contribution of IT to the business and justify new investments. That's exactly what our iET Process Analyzer is designed to do."   

iET Process Analyzer tightly integrates with iET ITSM processes including incident management, problem management, service level management, change management, configuration management and release management.

Macro 4 is exhibiting on stand 219 at the Service Desk & IT Support Show in Earl's Court, London (29-30 April 2014).

Global software company, Macro 4, operates as the UK arm of sister company iET Solutions, which has developed iET ITSM, a comprehensive suite of flexible ITIL-aligned service management and software asset management software.

iET ITSM provides the most complete solution for continuous service improvement. It can be implemented rapidly out of the box, providing a fast track to ITSM. Certified by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), now part of the Cabinet Office, it meets ISO/IEC 20000 requirements.

Further Information



Service Delivery Executive
Tel: +44 (0)1522 883640
Email: enquires@realwire.com

RF Code Increases Power & Data Centre Management With New 4-20mA Wire-Free Sensor Tags

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London, UK - RF Code, the leader in wire-free, real-time asset management and environmental monitoring solutions, announced its new R180 4-20mA sensor tags, that enable users to integrate 4-20mA sensors into their RF Code sensor network.  Industry-standard 4-20mA sensors—available both as individual “stand alone” sensors and as integrated components of devices such as Smart PDUs (Power Distribution Units), refrigeration units and generators—are used to measure and report specific physical or environmental conditions such as temperature, pressure, tank levels, or flow rates. 

Typically, data can only be obtained from these sensors when they are physically connected to a control system or other device, requiring extensive wiring and cabling to receive the monitored data.  Now with the R180 sensor tag, users can now easily connect their existing 4-20mA sensor directly into the sensor tag to allow transmission of readings over RF Code’s wire-free network.  The data obtained from the sensor reader is transmitted to a management platform, such as RF Code’s Zone Manager middleware and Asset Manager platform to review and conduct analysis of the data collected.

Two well-known global computer manufacturers are presently deploying R180 tags in their data centres, connecting the 4-20mA sensors integrated with their existing air cooling/air handling systems and emergency generators to their wire-free sensor networks. By replacing costly wired connections with RF Code wire-free sensor tags, these customers are simultaneously reducing operational costs and increasing visibility into the data centre environment. This ensures that data centre operators have the information they need to maximise savings and minimise downtime.

RF Code customers are also using R180 sensor tags to monitor equipment and conditions outside the data centre, including:

  • Cryogenic freezer units in healthcare facilities
  • Fuel levels in emergency backup generators deployed in mobile and cellular network towers and remote facilities
  • Air pressure regulator and air flow control valves in industrial environments
  • Fluid level sensors in industrial and chemical fluid storage tanks

For a closer look at RF Code’s R180 4-20mA sensor tags, visit its website at www.rfcode.com.  

About RF Code, Inc.
RF Code is one of the world's fastest growing, leading providers of distributed IT environmental monitoring and asset management solutions. The company is headquartered in Austin, TX, with offices and partners in the UK, EMEA, Australia, Asia and South America.

Its patented tracking and sensor technologies are deployed by many of the Fortune 250 and help manage the global data centres and logistics management of some of the largest IT service providers.

RF Code is an essential component of the asset management, risk and compliance assurance, and automated control systems in healthcare, IT Services, industrial supply chains, facilities management and natural resources / oil & gas industries. http://www.rfcode.com

NewVoiceMedia launches innovative mobile solution to revolutionise sales and service performance

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Leading cloud contact centre vendor NewVoiceMedia announces the integration of its ContactWorld solutions with Salesforce1 Mobile. Working seamlessly with the Salesforce1 Mobile App, all solutions now enable field sales and service agents to connect with customers and prospects worldwide from any location, transforming the experience for both the customer and agent.

With sales leaders increasingly investing in tools that enable sales reps to work smarter, coupled with a 46% increase in mobile budgets¹, it is vital that innovation is targeted around the support of mobile trends and the desire of sales and marketing leaders to drive efficiency in their functions.

This enhanced offering from NewVoiceMedia will vastly improve business efficiencies, particularly for field sales teams who need to contact and track customer or prospect communications on the move. The solution is simple and easy to use, as reps are able to dial contacts directly from the new Salesforce1 Mobile App, maximising the wealth of historical data they hold on customers and prospects to create a richer dialling experience. Furthermore, all inbound and outbound calls are automatically logged in Salesforce including access to call recordings, providing reps, administrators and supervisors with instant visibility on calls. This is invaluable for call reporting, training and quality management, alongside improved Salesforce adoption rates for field teams.

Matt Tuson, EVP Sales, comments, “Your sales team need to be where their customers and prospects are, and often this means being away from their desk. Our award-winning cloud customer contact platform now enables agents to work beyond the boundaries of the office, while benefiting from complete visibility of all sales activity, as customer data is turned into meaningful insight, driving sales effectiveness”.

According to Forrester Research, Inc., the anytime, anywhere workers in the US and Europe grew from 15 percent to 29 percent of employees between 2011 and 2012. As stated in its ‘2013 Mobile Workforce Adoption Trends’ report, ‘The convenience of mobile devices sets the bar for what your mobile workforce expects. They want access to the Internet and to all their business tools from any location on any device. The rise of the anytime, anywhere workforce means that CIOs must think carefully and strategically… about implementing new systems of engagement’.

NewVoiceMedia will be unveiling the solution at Salesforce1 Tour in Chicago on 24 April and Salesforce1 Tour in London on 22 May. For further information, view the NewVoiceMedia Salesforce1 Mobile video at www.newvoicemedia.com.

Further Information



Communications Manager
Tel: 07500 006 458
Email: nicola.brookes@newvoicemedia.com

Mobile Banking Trojans Double, Surge in Bitcoin Wallet Attacks, and Cyber-Espionage Threats

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In December, Kaspersky Lab published its threat forecast for 2014. Three months later, the experts found that all three of their ‘end user forecasts’ had already been confirmed.    

They said that cybercriminals would target...

- your privacy, leading to greater popularity for VPN services and Tor-anonymisers. The number of people turning to the Darknet in an attempt to safeguard their personal data is indeed increasing. But as well as benevolent users, Tor continues to attract dark forces – anonymous networks can conceal malware activity, trading on illegal sites and money laundering. For example, in February, Kaspersky experts detected the first Android Trojan that uses a domain in the .onion pseudo zone as a C&C.  

- your money.The experts expected cybercriminals to continue developing tools to steal cash. This was confirmed by the detection of Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.Waller.a in March. It is capable of stealing money from QIWI electronic wallets belonging to the owners of infected smartphones. The Trojan currently only targets Russian users, but it is capable of spreading anywhere where e-wallets are managed using text messages. Cybercriminals also made use of some standard approaches such as spreading Trojans for mobiles that steal money with the help of malicious spam. With these the global reach is much greater – the Faketoken mobile banking Trojan, for example, has affected users in 55 countries, including users in Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, the UK and the US.

in Q1 the number of mobile banking Trojans almost doubled from 1321 to 2503

- your Bitcoins. The expertsexpected considerable growth in the number of attacks targeting Bitcoin users’ wallets, Bitcoin pools and stock exchanges. In the first three months of the year there were lots of incidents that proved this prediction was correct. Among the more newsworthy were the hack of MtGox, one of the biggest bitcoin exchanges, the hacking of the personal blog and Reddit account of MtGox CEO, Mark Karpeles, and using them to post the MtGox2014Leak.zip, which actually turned out to be malware capable of searching for and stealing Bitcoin wallet files from victims.

In a bid to boost their illicit earnings, cybercriminals infect computers and use their resources to generate more digital currency. Trojan.Win32.Agent.aduro, the twelfth most frequently detected malicious object on the Internet in Q1, is an example of a Trojan used in this type of process. 

The Living Dead: the resurrection of cyber-espionage operations
The first quarter also saw a major cyber-espionage incident: in February, Kaspersky Lab published a report on one of the most advanced threats at the current time named ‘The Mask’. The main target was confidential information belonging to state agencies, embassies, energy companies, research institutes and private investment companies, as well as activists from 31 countries. According to the researchers, the complexity of the toolset used by the attackers and several other factors suggest this could be a state-sponsored campaign.   

“As well as new incidents, we saw the continuation of campaigns that had seemingly already ended. For instance, after cybercriminals had shut down all the known command servers involved in the Icefog operation, we detected a Java version of the threat. The previous attack had primarily targeted organisations in South Korea and Japan, but the new version, judging by the IP addresses tracked, was only interested in US organisations,” commented Alexander Gostev, Chief Security Expert, Global Research and Analysis Team.

Q1 in figures

  • 33.2 per cent of user computers worldwide were subjected to at least one web-based attack during the past three months – a decrease of 5.9 percentage points compared to the same period last year.
  • 39 per cent of neutralised web attacks were carried out using malicious web resources located in the US and Russia; the combined figure for the same two countries was 5 percentage points higher in Q1 2013. They were followed by the Netherlands (10.8 per cent), Germany (10.5 per cent) and the UK (6.3 per cent).
  • The proportion of threats targeting Android exceeded 99 per cent of all mobile malware. Mobile malware increased by one per cent over the quarter.
  • At the end of 2013, Kaspersky Lab’s collection of mobile malware stood at 189,626, but in Q1 of 2014 alone 110,324 new malicious programs were added. By the end of the quarter, there were 299,950 samples in the collection.

The full report is available at securelist.com

About Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab is the world’s largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions. The company is ranked among the world’s top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users*. Throughout its more than 16-year history Kaspersky Lab has remained an innovator in IT security and provides effective digital security solutions for large enterprises, SMBs and consumers. Kaspersky Lab, with its holding company registered in the United Kingdom, currently operates in almost 200 countries and territories across the globe, providing protection for over 300 million users worldwide. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com.

* The company was rated fourth in the IDC rating Worldwide Endpoint Security Revenue by Vendor, 2012. The rating was published in the IDC report "Worldwide Endpoint Security 2013–2017 Forecast and 2012 Vendor Shares (IDC #242618, August 2013). The report ranked software vendors according to earnings from sales of endpoint security solutions in 2012.

SAS UK & Ireland makes most of golden opportunity

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Marlow, UK – 24 April 2014 – SAS UK & Ireland, the leader in business analytics, has been recognised for its commitment to employees with an Investors in People Gold award, which is given to just seven per cent of organisations across the country.

The award was for SAS UK & Ireland going above and beyond in the way it develops, supports and motivates its teams. The Gold award has been awarded to less than 700 organisations across the UK since its introduction five years ago, and celebrates those that perform beyond the core Investors in People Standard. Investors in People is the UK's leading accreditation for business improvement through people management, and provides a wealth of resources for businesses to innovate, improve and grow, with a focus on good people making great business.

Mark Wilkinson, Managing Director, SAS UK & Ireland, commented: “We are delighted with this award which recognises the importance we place on how we manage and develop employees to ensure they are part of a motivated and successful team.

“This award further reflects how SAS places great emphasis on the working environment. Earlier this year SAS UK was recognised, for the eighth time, as one of the Top 100 Best Companies to Work For by The Sunday Times. SAS was also ranked No.2 on Fortune magazine's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For in the US.”

Paul Devoy, Head of Investors in People, said: “We’d like to congratulate SAS UK & Ireland on its Gold standard. Such a high level of accreditation is the sign of great people management practice, and demonstrates a commitment to staff development and shows an organisation committed to being the very best it can be. SAS UK & Ireland should be extremely proud of its achievement.” 

An organisation can achieve Bronze, Silver or Gold status by meeting additional evidence requirements from across the Investors in People framework. To secure a Gold award, an organisation must meet a total of 165 or more different standards, including 39 core accreditation standards.

System Requirements
SAS Marketing Automation is an open, Java-compliant solution with components installed on clients, a middle tier and an application server tier.Client applicationsSupported platforms

About SAS
SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative solutions, SAS helps customers at more than 70,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW.

About Investors in People

  • Investors in People makes people management excellence count. They exist to help businesses realise the potential of their people, improve standards and gain the accreditation to prove it.
  • Through the respected Standard, business insight and the IIP bank of tools and resources, organisations of all shapes and sizes can put their people first – and discover a brighter business future.
  • Over the last 20 years, IIP has helped more than 100,000 businesses around the world improve, using their Accreditation Framework to boost working culture, increase employee engagement and encourage game-changing leadership.
  • Investors in People is owned and managed by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Investors in People South of England is delivered by Grant Thornton UK LLP under license from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.


Schneider Electric Announce White Paper Examining TCO of Prefab Data Centres

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London, United Kingdom - As the market starts to move to more widespread adoption of more modular, more standardised and more efficient physical data centre infrastructure, Schneider Electric has announced a new white paper entitled “TCO Analysis of a Traditional Data Center vs. a Scalable, Containerized Data Center”.

While the benefits of prefabricated, pre-assembled data centre modules have tended to be focused on the reduced time taken to design and deploy using modular architecture, as well as the predictability in performance, white paper author Wendy Torell demonstrates how significant savings up to 30% can be achieved.

Avoiding overbuilt capacity and scaling the design over time contributes to a significant percentage of the savings. The use of prefabricated modules enables the rightsizing of infrastructure to actual data centre loads. This, in combination with current power and cooling distribution technologies, results in a TCO savings 27.2% in capital cost and 31.6% in ongoing operating costs.

The agility afforded by the use of prefab designs gives the owner operator additional flexibility through the data centre lifecycle. Traditional designs almost always intentionally incorporate excess capacity upfront because subsequent expansion of power and cooling capacity is extremely difficult and costly in a production data centre. This often has the effect of people being overly conservative in capacity planning.

This conservative approach often results in higher upfront capital costs and a chronically inefficient data centre. The proper deployment of prefabricated modules, on the other hand, eliminates this wasteful over-sizing tendency, because its standardised, modular architecture makes adding or reducing capacity to meet real-world, dynamic demand much easier. This, in conjunction with efficient, integrated power and cooling technologies, results in significant savings.

White paper 164 provides a 10-year operational cost break out comparison between traditional and prefabricated and traditional approaches for a 5MW data centre build. It looks at the PUE of each as the data centre is built out, as well as providing a guide to energy savings potential. It also studies the comparative merits of factory assembly and test of systems versus field services for integration on the construction site.

The new white paper is available for free download from http://www.apc.com/prod_docs/results.cfm?DocType=White+Paper&query_type=99&keyword=&wpnum=164 .

About Schneider Electric
As a global specialist in energy management with operations in more than 100 countries, Schneider Electric offers integrated solutions across multiple market segments, including leadership positions in Utilities & Infrastructure, Industries & Machines Manufacturers, Non-residential Building, Data Centres & Networks and in Residential. Focused on making energy safe, reliable, efficient, productive and green, the Group's 150,000 plus employees achieved sales of 24 billion euros in 2013, through an active commitment to help individuals and organizations make the most of their energy.

http://www.schneider-electric.com/gb

Press Contact:
Schneider Electric
Lavina Dsouza
Phone: + 44 7887 560218
Lavina.dsouza(at)schneider-electric(dot)com

Spa Communications
Damien Wells
Phone: +44 7900 302102
dwells(at)spacomms(dot)co.uk

Further Information



Director
Tel: 07900 302102
Email: dwells@spacomms.co.uk

Top Connect's Global Strategy Gathers Pace With Launch Of TravelSim UK

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Strengthening its position as the world’s leading provider of international pre-paid communications with its TravelSim (www.travelsim.com) mobile service, telecoms firm Top Connect (www.topconnect.com) today launches a new service aimed specifically at the UK market.Called TravelSim UK, the new service is part of Top Connect’s global strategy of providing local number services in all tier one countries. TravelSim USA with +1 numbers is already available.

TravelSim UK will appeal to people coming to the UK on business, holidays, students taking short term language courses, and anyone needing a low-cost, pre-paid SIM card without a mobile contract. TravelSim UK SIM cards are offered through Top Connect's distributors worldwide.

Thanks to Top Connect’s agreements with GSM operators around the world, devices fitted with a TravelSim UK card will automatically connect to the networks of any of Britain’s mobile operators such as Vodafone and EE. If they travel abroad, the +44 number can still be used in 200 other countries.

The card comes with many appealing features. First, there is no connection fee and each user is given a unique TravelSim number that begins with +44 77XXXXXXX. Incoming calls from 66 countries are also free, as are incoming SMS messages. Outgoing calls and data have the same unbeatable price plans as the regular TravelSim service.

Thanks to Top Connect’s unique agreement with fellow Estonian company Skype, families can call football fans with a TravelSim UK number at the World Cup in Brazil using Skype again for free.

TravelSim is the world’s leading international pre-paid communications service. With 4 million users in five continents, Top Connect expects to see its local number business strategy drive its user base to 5 million by end 2014.

Top Connect is on target to meet this goal and will continue to meet with prospective distributors, essentially mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), at key B2B and B2C events and exhibitions throughout the year. The next major show that Top Connect will exhibit at is ITW Chicago (11 -14 May).

Money, Money, Money
Earlier this year, Top Connect announced that the TravelSim service had saved its user base a collective $200 million in roaming charges in 2013. The firm expects to increase this increase to $300 million by end 2014 and supplying “local” numbers from power up is seen by Top Connect’s management as a key driver.

The figure compares TravelSim’s service with costs that would have been amassed if its user base had paid standard roaming charges from their local providers when travelling abroad.

Thanks to its agreements with tier one GSM providers around the globe, TravelSim provides a high quality, low cost service that can save customers up to 85% on making calls while abroad. It also offers free incoming calls in 140 countries and free worldwide SMS. The TravelSim product can be used in 190 countries.

About TravelSim
TravelSim is a product of Top Connect focused on both the business and leisure traveller. It is the world leader in international prepaid roaming solutions and is proven to save 85% on international roaming charges as well as offering very competitive data rates. Unlike local mobile operator cards, TravelSim is made for use around the world in over 190 countries. With exceptionally low rates on outgoing calls and free incoming calls in over 140 countries, TravelSim is the answer to the question “how to call cheaply from abroad.” TravelSim currently has over 4 million users worldwide. For more information visit www.travelsim.com

Article 21

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Acquisition of DecTech Solutions will boost GBGroup’s global fraud detection solution

24 April 2014: GBGroup (GBG), the identity intelligence specialist, is pleased to announce that it has agreed to acquire the entire issued share capital of DecTech Solutions Pty Ltd (DecTech), an Australian provider of fraud detection, risk management and customer on-boarding solutions for a total consideration of £20.5million.

DecTech has 60 team members serving customers in 42 countries across six locations in Asia and Europe where they support banks, financial services and insurance as well as emerging e Commerce clients. More recently they have expanded into the Middle East, Africa and South America leveraging their international customer base.

The acquisition by GBG will enable DecTech to continue to expand within Asia whilst providing an opportunity to work with GBG’s customers across Europe and North America.

In summary the acquisition of DecTech will:

  • Allow GBG to access the fast expanding Asian market for online commerce powering decision making across banks, financial services, insurance and e Commerce through DecTech’s leading and proven fraud detection & prevention solutions combined with GBG’s leading Identity and Location Verification solutions.
  • Enable GBG to broaden service offerings to their 4000 plus clients across Europe and North America and jointly push into the Middle East, Eastern Europe and South America.
  • Deliver a joint Identity & Fraud solution that enables DecTech and GBG customers to operate securely on a global scale.

Richard Law, GBGroup’s CEO, commented, "We believe the acquisition and integration of DecTech into the Group will considerably enhance our ability to serve our clients globally by extending our product suite with highly complementary technology that is in demand in both established and developing markets.

This acquisition extends our capability and geographic reach and enables us to further address the growing requirements for highly customisable electronic identity verification and fraud detection services across our combined customer bases.

GBG’s products and services are increasingly being used to enable some of the world’s leading e Commerce businesses to trade seamlessly and safely with their customers online and this acquisition will help us to advance our strategy in this area”.

John Lord, GBGroup’s Managing Director, commented, “We are augmenting and broadening our product suite with technology that is in demand in both established and developing markets, while extending our geographic reach. Synergies between our respective product suites and customer demands will enable us to further address their growing requirements.

DecTech has a leading solution which is mirrored by GBG’s expertise and leadership in Identity Intelligence. Both have global capability and together will deliver the leading identity and fraud suite which is data agnostic and can be deployed with cross border or local expertise.’’

Sean Hollingdale, Founder and CEO of DecTech, commented, “The founders and leadership of DecTech believe that by joining GBGroup we will enhance our leading fraud detection and prevention solutions whilst further enabling our risk management and customer on-boarding capabilities. GBG is the leading Identity Intelligence solution provider, with global capability and an enviable customer base, their solutions are highly innovative and an important enabler for our clients’ continued success.

Like DecTech, GBG is an innovative, customer centric and quality driven organisation. It was important that we continue to display these values to both our customers and team members and with GBG we believe these values are enshrined in their culture that will enable the enlarged business to grow to a global scale.”

learndirect leaps forward with CM Group's Luminosity Studio HTML5 eLearning authoring platform

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CM Group, a global leader in the field of innovative learning solutions comprising interactive eLearning and mobile learning, today announced that learndirect, the largest online learning provider of skills and qualifications in the UK, has adopted CM Group’s Luminosity Studio for the creation of its large scale eLearning programmes.

Mark Marshall, Learning Technology Development and Implementation Manager at learndirect said, “Following the evaluation of 12 eLearning authoring tools, we chose CM Group and its Luminosity Studio eLearning authoring tool as the ideal solution to meet our needs.”

Luminosity Studio has been designed to enable organisations to create large volumes of high quality, engaging, HTML5 based eLearning programmes. In addition to traditional access via PCs and laptops, eLearning programmes created using Luminosity Studio can be accessed via mobile devices such as iPads, Android and Windows 8 tablets.

The full collaborative features of Luminosity Studio make it ideal for high quality, fast and large scale eLearning creation. Using Luminosity Studio, non-technical specialists are able to create eLearning programmes that deliver high-quality results much faster.

Mark added, “Luminosity Studio has enabled us to create and update our courses quickly and publish them to the highest production standards. It has also enabled our staff to quickly and easily create interactive and engaging learning materials.”

Read the full learndirect case study and discover the benefits achieved.

About CM Group
CM Group specialises in the design and creation of advanced learning solutions for large international organisations. Using Luminosity Studio, our advanced collaborative, rapid authoring software, we are the largest creator of bespoke HTML5 based eLearning courses in the UK. Our proven, end-to-end mobile learning solutions include responsive HTML5 content for tablet and smartphone consumption, cloud based hosting and delivery via our Luminosity Motion mobile learning platform, and the Luminosity Mentor range of BYOD Apps for offline consumption and tracking.

Our clients include Microsoft, RBS, QNB, Virgin Trains, NHS, Three, MOD, BAE and many more leading organisations.

For further information on CM Group, visit www.cm-group.co.uk, email: info@cm-group.co.uk, or call +44 (0)1454 269222.

Zynstra solution targets Microsoft End of Support issue and enables cloud adoption for SMBs

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Zynstra, the pioneer in cloud managed server appliances, today announces the launch of two new products, SMB IT Appliance and Education IT Appliance.

Developed specifically to address the evolving needs of SMBs and educational establishments, the latest developments in Zynstra's product suite have been crafted in association with Microsoft and HP to meet the looming end-of-life technology dilemma that requires an infrastructure refresh for Windows Server 2003.

"We estimate that there are well over a quarter of a million organisations in the UK still running Windows Server 2003 and a large number also based on Small Business Server 2003, both of which are approaching end-of-life and in just over one year will no longer be supported by Microsoft," said Nick East, CEO at Zynstra. "Organisations affected by this need to be considering how best to refresh their infrastructure without incurring huge costs or overhauling their way of working. With this in mind we have launched two new solutions in our range of Cloud Managed Server Appliances to support the Microsoft partner base in managing the transition with their customers and provide a practical on-ramp to cloud services whilst preserving on-premise capability where required."

TheSMB IT Appliancecaters for organisations with five to 250 IT users at a site. Users get all the comfort and control of on-premise IT but with the economics and service levels typically associated with public cloud services. This enables SMB's to securely run both local Windows and Linux workloads in virtualised containers, whilst also seamlessly connecting them to public cloud services though Single Sign On to applications such as Microsoft Office 365. SMB IT Appliance is delivered as a managed IT service for a monthly subscription by the growing base of Zynstra partners, making it completely hassle free for SMBs.

Targeted at schools and academies, the Education IT Appliance benefits from all the flexible features which make the SMB IT Appliance appealing and features an age specific content filtering capability from E2BN Protex which ensures pupils are protected from inappropriate content whilst accessing schools systems. Education IT Appliance is fully integrated with Office 365 which enables educational establishments to make the most of Microsoft's campaign offering free student access under its Student Advantage programme.

Mark Devereux, CTO at Concorde Solutions, was one of the first businesses to sign up to the new SMB IT Appliance and managed service. Commenting on the solution, Devereux said: "Like many businesses, our internal IT had grown incrementally with our business over the years but its underlying design had become dated, temperamental and was facing end-of-support. We had been looking for a platform built for our size and with a capability to grow with us but remove the mundane administration and management. Zynstra's SMB IT Appliance provides that solution. We can now focus our efforts purely on building our business and have the peace of mind that our internal and development IT platforms are being managed for us by a local and trusted partner for a predictable and, frankly, more affordable cost."

All of Zynstra's cloud managed server appliances are built on the HP ProLiant server range with the unique Zynstra software that enables local IT workloads to be run as a service in virtualised Windows and/or Linux environments. SMB IT Appliance and Education IT Appliance offer seamless integration to Microsoft Office 365 and offer a backup and disaster recovery service on Microsoft Azure and SSO to Azure hosted applications via ADFS. Users of both IT Appliances are also able to benefit from Zynstra's patent pending keep current and keep consistent technology which is "built in" so that organisations need not worry about having to update systems. With Zynstra's extensive software IP, each appliance is also provisioned, updated and managed from the cloud at a scale not previously possible.

Zynstra's SMB and Education IT Appliances are available with immediate effect.

Further Information



Service Delivery Executive
Tel: +44 (0)1522 883640
Email: enquires@realwire.com

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