Microsoft Corp released the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report volume

Are you using weak passwords or have not updated your computer anti-virus? Well, there's something to worry about and that threat comes from Conficker, a computer worm that targets Microsoft Windows Operating systems. Microsoft Corp released the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report volume 12 (SIRv12), which found that the Conficker worm was detected about 220 million times worldwide in the past two-and-a-half years, making it one of the biggest ongoing threats to enterprises. The study also revealed the worm continues to spread because of weak or stolen passwords and vulnerabilities for which a security update exists. According to the report, quarterly detections of the Conficker worm have increased by more than 225% since the beginning of 2009. In the fourth quarter of 2011 alone, Conficker was detected on 1.7 million systems worldwide. A whopping 92% of Conficker infections were a result of weak or stolen passwords, and 8% percent of infections exploited vulnerabilities for which a security update exists.

"Conficker is one of the biggest security problems we face, yet it is well within our power to defend against," said Tim Rains, director of Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, in a release. "It is critical that organizations focus on the security fundamentals to help protect against the most common threats." The report also revealed that many of the threats often referred to as Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are no more advanced or sophisticated than other types of attacks. In most cases, these attacks leverage known vectors such as exploiting weak or stolen passwords and vulnerabilities for which security updates exist, but their efficacy lies in the persistence and determination in trying different tactics to compromise the target. This is why these types of threats are referred as 'Targeted Attacks performed by Determined Adversaries', rather than APTs. "Labeling cyberthreats as 'advanced' is often times misleading and can divert organizations' attention away from addressing basic security issues, which can prevent more common threats from infiltrating their systems," Rains said. Microsoft recommends that users adhere to the following security fundamentals to help ensure they are protected:

Use strong passwords and educate employees on their importance.

Keep systems up-to-date by regularly applying available updates for all products.

Use antivirus software from a trusted source.

Invest in newer products with a higher quality of software protection.

Consider the cloud as a business resource.

"With organizations being presented with significant amounts of data and reports on cyberthreats, the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report gives us good perspective on recent trends in the global threat landscape," said Bob Rodger, global head of IT Infrastructure Security at HSBC.

Source: The Economic Times

e-commerce space is a long win play, and we hope new businesses

Why are some Indian digital entrepreneurs fretting over the Samwer brothers, three German internet billionaires, spending big bucks on domestic e-commerce? Rocket Internet GmBH - founded by siblings Marc, Oliver and Alexander Samwer - is often attacked for cloning successful US start-ups in emerging markets only to sell them at steep valuations. 

The publicity-shy brothers entered India six months ago with lifestyle e-commerce platform Jabong, a clone of US shoe and apparel e-tailer Zappos; online home decor shop Heaven and Home and furniture shopping mart FabFurnish. And there's more to come with Rocket Internet bankrolling local entrepreneurs and launching their own e-commerce 


 








engines such as Wimdu, a holiday accommodation enterprise, again a clone of Airbnb in the US. Jabong is spending significant money on winning customers even as older competitors like Myntra have grappled with high customer acquisition costs, which are as high as 45% of their sales. After splashing almost $1 billion on Indian digital start - ups last year, venture capitalists and private equity firms have tightened investments leaving some 

 
e-commerce engines struggling for growth capital. Rocket Internet is betting on the emerging digital consumers in Southeast Asia and India, rolling up online engines by taking advantage of the common e-tailing infrastructure, proven business models and the ability to set aggressive milestones.

"Indian e-commerce space is a long win play, and we hope new businesses are contextualizing to the local market dynamics," said Prashanth Prakash, managing partner at Accel Partners, a valley-based venture capitalist and a prolific backer of local e-commerce start-ups. India's rapidly growing internet market is still nascent with roughly 120 million users, and less than 10% of them are online shoppers. "They have aggressive marketing tactics which may put strain on resources," explained Sanjay Guleria, an entrepreneur behind Indian online fashion brand SherSingh, while adding that Samwers may bring in more online shoppers after all. So who are Samwer brothers? Marc, Oliver and Alex started with eBay's German clone Alando, selling it to the former for $54 million in 1999. Since then, they have adapted some of the hottest US internet start-ups to Germany, Europe and beyond, making a fast buck. Their incubator Rocket Internet has a special liking for large non - English speaking markets. The Samwers, considered to be domineering bosses, have built their empire on ruthless execution and exits. Some of their more prominent deals include selling Groupon clone CityDeal to the originator for about euro 100 million last year; exiting Facebook like Studivz for a similar amount and selling mobile ringtone start-up Jamba to VeriSign for $274 million. 

They ploughed back some of this cash to buy stakes in innovators such as Groupon, Facebook website, LinkedIn business portal and Zynga, which they copied with gusto. They are one of the biggest shareholders in Groupon, but offloaded investment in Facebook three years ago. An emailed questionnaire to Rocket Internet GmBH remained unanswered. In India, where the business models of e-commerce poster boys have eerie similarity to Amazon, the fear is not about Samwers cloning local engines. The debate is whether German siblings' aggressive approach to business and reportedly insensitive management style (blogosphere recently buzzed with Oliver asking some employees for a commitment letter signed in blood) would distort the realities in an already hyped e-commerce industry. Indian tech entrepreneurs like K.Ganesh said the entry of Samwer brothers "will give impetus and fillip to e-commerce and the start-up ecosystem. The question about their overtly aggressive approach to business is an individual like or dislike. But there's someone batting for the entrepreneurial economy when our IT services companies, sitting on billions of dollars, are doing little".

Source: The Economic Times

e-commerce space is a long win play, and we hope new businesses

Why are some Indian digital entrepreneurs fretting over the Samwer brothers, three German internet billionaires, spending big bucks on domestic e-commerce? Rocket Internet GmBH - founded by siblings Marc, Oliver and Alexander Samwer - is often attacked for cloning successful US start-ups in emerging markets only to sell them at steep valuations. 

The publicity-shy brothers entered India six months ago with lifestyle e-commerce platform Jabong, a clone of US shoe and apparel e-tailer Zappos; online home decor shop Heaven and Home and furniture shopping mart FabFurnish. And there's more to come with Rocket Internet bankrolling local entrepreneurs and launching their own e-commerce 


 








engines such as Wimdu, a holiday accommodation enterprise, again a clone of Airbnb in the US. Jabong is spending significant money on winning customers even as older competitors like Myntra have grappled with high customer acquisition costs, which are as high as 45% of their sales. After splashing almost $1 billion on Indian digital start - ups last year, venture capitalists and private equity firms have tightened investments leaving some 

 
e-commerce engines struggling for growth capital. Rocket Internet is betting on the emerging digital consumers in Southeast Asia and India, rolling up online engines by taking advantage of the common e-tailing infrastructure, proven business models and the ability to set aggressive milestones.

"Indian e-commerce space is a long win play, and we hope new businesses are contextualizing to the local market dynamics," said Prashanth Prakash, managing partner at Accel Partners, a valley-based venture capitalist and a prolific backer of local e-commerce start-ups. India's rapidly growing internet market is still nascent with roughly 120 million users, and less than 10% of them are online shoppers. "They have aggressive marketing tactics which may put strain on resources," explained Sanjay Guleria, an entrepreneur behind Indian online fashion brand SherSingh, while adding that Samwers may bring in more online shoppers after all. So who are Samwer brothers? Marc, Oliver and Alex started with eBay's German clone Alando, selling it to the former for $54 million in 1999. Since then, they have adapted some of the hottest US internet start-ups to Germany, Europe and beyond, making a fast buck. Their incubator Rocket Internet has a special liking for large non - English speaking markets. The Samwers, considered to be domineering bosses, have built their empire on ruthless execution and exits. Some of their more prominent deals include selling Groupon clone CityDeal to the originator for about euro 100 million last year; exiting Facebook like Studivz for a similar amount and selling mobile ringtone start-up Jamba to VeriSign for $274 million. 

They ploughed back some of this cash to buy stakes in innovators such as Groupon, Facebook website, LinkedIn business portal and Zynga, which they copied with gusto. They are one of the biggest shareholders in Groupon, but offloaded investment in Facebook three years ago. An emailed questionnaire to Rocket Internet GmBH remained unanswered. In India, where the business models of e-commerce poster boys have eerie similarity to Amazon, the fear is not about Samwers cloning local engines. The debate is whether German siblings' aggressive approach to business and reportedly insensitive management style (blogosphere recently buzzed with Oliver asking some employees for a commitment letter signed in blood) would distort the realities in an already hyped e-commerce industry. Indian tech entrepreneurs like K.Ganesh said the entry of Samwer brothers "will give impetus and fillip to e-commerce and the start-up ecosystem. The question about their overtly aggressive approach to business is an individual like or dislike. But there's someone batting for the entrepreneurial economy when our IT services companies, sitting on billions of dollars, are doing little".

Source: The Economic Times

Sydney manufacturing the tablets in India

Amidst controveries, Tech company Data wind on Thu Amount Rs.day launched Ubislate tablets in India priced at Amount Rs. 3000 and Amount Rs. 4000, respectively for resistive and capacitive screen ve Amount Rs.ions. Government's Aakash 2 tablets, expected to be launched this year will carry the same configuration as Ubislate tablets, i.e, a 800 MHz Cortex A8 processo Amount Rs. on Android 2.3 platform. "We have tied up with distributo Amount Rs. across India. The tablets will be available by May-end only after we have fulfilled the existing orde Amount Rs.," said Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of Data wind. For internet access, Datawind has tied up with Aircel, which will offer an unlimited internet plan at Amount Rs. 98 per month on 2G/GP AMOUNT RS. for the Ubislate tablets. The Ubislate7c (capacitive touch) tablets priced at Amount Rs. 4000 will carry an internal flash memory of 4GB. The resistive ve Amount Rs.ions will carry internal memory of 2GB and will be priced at Amount Rs. 3000. The tablets will carry one standard USB port. "Our custome Amount Rs. who made pre-payments for earlier ve Amount Rs.ion of the tablet will get the upgraded ve Amount Rs.ion," Tuli added. He said that a break up with Quad has jeopardised the delivery schedule for the tablets, and he is looking for more supplie Amount Rs.. For manufacturing the tablets in India, Data wind has tied up with Hyderbad based VMCSystems after a break-up with Quad.

London:   Unit 1, Chase Center 8, Chase Road London NW10 6QD United Kingdom Tel: +44 844 999 0990 Fax: +44 207 636 1218
Germany Sydney: Hechtseestr. 16 D-83022 Rosenheim Tel: +49 8031 222 7570 Fax: +49 8031 222 7572 O'Connell House Level 3 15-19 Bent Street SYDNEY NSW 2000 Tel: +61 (02) 8011 – 4083 Fax: +61-28-0887-160     Sales Inquiries Press Inquiries call: 877-878-3282 sales@datawind.com or call: 877-878-3282 Please Contact: pr@datawind.com
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Source: The Economic Times

Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group

Microsoft yesterday said the long-suppressed Conficker bot net is still actively infecting millions of new machines, giving Windows enterprise users a two-and-a-half-year headache. Conficker infected or tried to infect an amazing 1.7 million Windows PCs in the fourth quarter of 2011, three years after it first raised its hydra heads. The 1.7 million was an uptick of 100,000 from the previous quarter, said Microsoft. "Users are still struggling and battling with Conficker," Tim Rains, a director in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, said in an interview earlier this week. "It's surprising that it has this kind of staying power." The worm first appeared in the fall of 2008, exploiting a just-patched Windows vulnerability. It soon morphed into a much more effective threat, adding new attack techniques, including one that relied on weaknesses in Windows XP's and Vista's Auto Run feature. By January 2009, some security firms estimated that Conficker had compromised millions of PCs. Concern about Conficker reached a crescendo when the mainstream media, including major television networks, reported that the worm would update itself on April 1, 2009. Because of the size of the Conficker botnet -- estimates ran as high as 12 million at that point -- and other mysteries, hype ran at fever pitch.

In the end, Conficker's April 1 update passed quietly. But the worm, although prevented from communicating with its makers, hasn't gone quietly into the night. "It's still out there and active," Rains said. "It's been the number one threat in the enterprise for the last two-and-a-half years." According to Microsoft -- which collects data from its Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), a free utility it distributes to all Windows users each month, its antivirus software, its Bing search engine and the Hotmail email service -- detections of Conficker have jumped 225% since 2009. The current size of the Conficker botnet -- those PCs now infected -- is approximately seven million, Microsoft claimed. Fortunately, Conficker-infected systems are unable to receive updates or orders from the hackers who made the malware. The Conficker Working Group, a cabal of security researchers and companies, among them Microsoft, has been blocking the worm's command-and-control (C&C) domains since early 2009. By "sinkholing" those domains -- registering all possible C&C domains before the hackers do -- the group has prevented Conficker-infected PCs from doing any real harm. Commands issued to the botnet fall down a metaphoric "sinkhole" and don't reach the compromised computers. But the persistence of Conficker -- Microsoft called the worm "obstinate" -- means that the working group has a tiger by the tail, and can't let loose. If the group stops its sinkholing efforts, the millions of PCs infected with the worm could again revert to hacker control.

That's a frustrating job, said Jose Nazario, the manager of security research at Arbor Networks, a member of the Conficker Working Group (CWG). "CWG is still active, still sinkholing, still alerting people." said Nazario in an email reply to questions. "We have no plans at present to [end] the sinkhole effort, although with each passing year the question comes up, and it gets harder to keep asking people to keep names pointed at the sinkholes." Conficker remains active because of the multitude of ways it spreads from one infected PC to another. "Conficker can travel on its own without the need of C&C servers," noted Andrew Storms, director of operations at nCircle Security. "So it's a bit like a headless hydra, making its way aimlessly." The most common vector, said Rains, is guessing the administrative password of an infected computer using a hard-coded list of simplistic passwords, such as "12345," "coffee" and mypassword." "This list is still being very successful," said Rains, who went on to cite Microsoft-collected data that showed that between 54% and 89% of all Conficker actual or attempted infections were conducted by abusing weak or stolen passwords. "The call to action is pretty clear," Rains continued. "People inside organizations have to implement strong passwords." In the 12th edition of its twice-yearly Security Intelligence Report, released yesterday, Microsoft offered companies ways to detect Conficker and clean their networks of the worm. It also urged all Windows users to ensure they have applied the pertinent patch -- MS08-067 -- and for Windows XP and Vista machines, the March update that disables Auto Run. The 126-page Security Intelligence Report can be found on Microsoft's website (download PDF).

Source: Computer World

New Delhi fimame development of better quality products and become more innovative

The National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council is working on a mechanism that would enable experts from top educational institutes to help micro, small and medium enterprises  improve their managerial skills and unleash innovations. "We are trying to work out a mechanism to enable experts from top academic institutions such as Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institute of Management help Indian small and medium enterprises  become more competitive through improvement of their managerial skills, development of better quality products and become more innovative," said Mr.AjayShankar, member secretary, National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council. Mr.AjayShankar was inaugurating the Intellectual Property Facilitation Centre which will help micro, small and medium enterprises protect their innovations, inventions and designs through patents and copyrights. The centre has been established by the Federation of Indian Micro and Small and Medium Enterprises as part of the mandate given to it by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises under the National Competitiveness Programme.




 

This is the third such centre established by Federation of Indian Micro and Small and Medium Enterprises after those already operational in Bangalore and Hyderabad. "The IPFCs being established by FISME will not only offer the services mandated by the Ministry of MSME such as registration of patents, trademarks etc. but also a few additional services such as IP audit, IP management systems and an IP exchange in a bid to offer a complete business model for small and medium enterprises," said mr.V.K.Agarwal president Federation of Indian Micro and Small and Medium Enterprises New Delhi. Mr.AjayShankar said innovation and better IP management of small and medium enterprises  was critical for the National ManufacturingPolicy to succeed leading to an increase in the share of manufacturing in India's GDP and creation of additional jobs.



 

Source: CIOL World


 

American Federal agency has decided to block internet services

After learning that lakhs of computers across the world are infected with an invisible and undetectable Trojan computer virus, the American Federal agency has decided to block internet services in over 350,000 personal computers across the world. The 350,000 computers, of which 80,000 are in US and 20,000 in Britain, will be blocked on July 9, according to the Daily Mail. The virus named "D N S Changer" directs internet users to unintended and illegal sites and also blocks infected users from visiting secure sites. The American Federal agencyd etected the infection some time back and had set up temporary servers to keep the infected computers working. But reports said it was costing much. The temporary servers were created to allow companies to remove the worm from their infected servers. Those affected had 120 days to get rid of the malware. After American Federal agency warnings, the number of computers infected with the virus plunged, and now most are in the hands of private individuals, not companies.

Source: CIOL World

When Standard & Poor Ratings Services cut India's outlook

 When Standard & Poor Ratings Services cut India's outlook to negative from stable on Wednesday, it sent some shock waves reverberating across sectors. The premier agency has cited slow progress on its fiscal situation and deteriorating economic indicators  as the primary reason behind the revision of outlook to BBB(-). Standard & Poor stated that India's investment and economic growth had slowed, and hence the revised outlook for the Indian economy to negative from stable. Moreover, if the situation doesn't improve in another two years, S&P has warned to downgrade India's ratings. Not many would have forgotten that the same agency downgraded the long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States from AAA to AA+, last August. Now, it has also revised the outlooks for Infosys Limited, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro Limited from stable to negative. The ratings agency, however, accorded its 'BBB+' long-term corporate credit ratings for the three IT companies. "Our ratings on Indian information technology companies reflect our 'BBB+' transfer and convertibility (T&C) assessment of India," S&P stated. It would serve as a warning to potential foreign investors and domestic ones as well in equal measure, as they would think twice before investing into government bonds and securities. On the development, Wipro's chief financial officer Suresh Senapaty said that it was 'quite unfortunate' and that the Standard & Poor had responded earlier than required.

Terming it as a concern for the country, he said, "Even though there will be investments, the flow of the same may be low." What can the Indian government do before gloom befalls it? It can reduce the fiscal deficit, "which is about Rs.. 6 lakh crore, through, for instance, the 2G auction, which is expected to fetch Rs.. 2 lakh crore. Or, through offering subsidy on diesel, things will get better," says Vivek Kulkarni, former Information Technology and Biotechnology secretary of Karnataka. The current scenario, he points out, is certainly not recession, as one is concluded after economic growth gets stalled for two consecutive quarters. "Our economy is growing well at 6 per cent." If the government needs so much of money from outside, then there might not be much for private companies to borrow, which would hamper their growth, says Kulkarni, adding that the 15 per cent devaluation of the rupee has helped Indian IT sector to maintain profit margins of about the same level in dollar terms. "In terms of their recent results, only TCS did well. Infosys's was not encouraging and Wipro conceded the minimal growth was majorly due to its Business process outsourcing operations." Kulkarni accuses the government for not encouraging the IT industry, as it used to earlier. "Bangalore grew to this extent because of IT jobs. In case there is not much government support, jobs will go down. If IT exports go up, then rupee will become stronger." That, in his words, will help the recovery of Indian economy, which would help it avert the downgrading of ratings.

Source: CIOL World


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