| Trend Micro Quotes |
| Tech Talk Podcast: The Facebook Movie
The New York Times: Bits, Interview by J.D. Biersdorfer, Thu, 26 Aug 2010, 314 words
Tech Talk Podcast: Miguel Helft on Facebook movie drama; David Perry of the Trend Micro security firm on how to protect yourself on social-networking sites; and news, including an iTunes-PayPal scam; an Apple move toward touchscreen desktop computers; Dell's Aero smartphone; a push to get 3D on mobile devices; and Facebook's new location-tracking feature. |
| Does technology pose a threat to our private life? This week Google's Eric Schmidt suggested we may need to invent new identities to escape embarrassing online pasts – while Facebook launched a tool to share users' locations. So does technology pose a threat to private life?
The Guardian, By Jemima Kiss, Fri, 20 Aug 2010, 3445 words
Our personal information can broadly be categorised as trivial data such as music preferences, behavioural information about our activity and connections, and confidential information including credit card numbers. But even seemingly innocuous information can be used against us, says security expert Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro. "In isolation, much of this data may be trivial but from a hacker's perspective, any information is good information," he says. "Use search engines to discover the extent of your online footprint and tailor it. Keep tabs on yourself before anyone else does." |
| Hackers claim a successful crack of Sony PlayStation 3
Seer Press, By Ngaiting Cheung, Tue, 24 Aug 2010, 325 words
"It does disable some key security features built into the PS3 – like the running of unsigned code – and we've seen with the iPhone that this makes your device less secure," Rik Ferguson from security firm Trend Micro warned. |
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| Trend Micro Mentions |
| Security: Social Networking Security Attacks: The Top Incidents of 2010
eWeek, By Brian Prince, Thu, 26 Aug 2010, 215 words
It's been six years since Facebook was born, expanding from the student body at Harvard University to a worldwide social network with 500 million members. Along the way, its popularity drew attention from that ever-present, unwanted group that follows the rest of us—cyber-scammers. The recent "Dislike" button scam is far from the end; it is just another example of how attackers follow the user community. With that in mind, eWEEK is highlighting some of the ways attackers have used and abused the most popular social networks of our day. In no particular order, here are our top social network-based attacks and security issues of the year and what you should be on the lookout for. |
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| U.S. military personnel targeted by malware
Help Net Security, By Zeljka Zorz, Mon, 23 Aug 2010, 168 words
U.S. military personnel is again targeted by malware-peddling cybercriminals. Fake email purportedly coming from Bank of America is asking holders of Military Bank accounts to update them by following the given link. According to Trend Micro, the link takes them to a very faithfully recreated bank login page, where they must enter their account username and password. So far, there is no indication that this is an actual phishing page, but the possibility exists. |
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| Malicious Attachments Distribute BREDOLAB Malware
SPAMfighter News, By Staff, Mon, 23 Aug 2010, 377 words
In the recent past, researchers at Trend Micro have found that there has been a considerable increase in the number of spammed messages which deliver malicious attachments to the users. |
| On The Record with Robert Cohen & Jatheon's President & CEO Kieron Dowling
eChannelLine, By Robert M. Cohen, president and business editor, Integrated mar.com, Mon, 23 Aug 2010, 1563 words
I met Kieron a few months ago when he engaged my company to help Jatheon Technologies, his six year old company, build their channel. Unlike most CEOs in the IT industry, Kieron understands the value of the channel and takes a very active role in ensuring that Jatheon is true to the channel. Jatheon is one of the fastest growing companies in the Email Archiving and Management space. They have an OEM agreement with DELL and a very impressive list of customers. Trend Micro recommends Jatheon to all of their customers that are looking for Email Archiving and Management and Gartner Research says that Jatheon has 10% of the global in-house email archiving appliance marketplace. |
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| China policy could force foreign security firms out
Computerworld, By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service, Fri, 27 Aug 2010, 512 words
IDG News Service - China is stepping up efforts to keep the security systems that protect its critical infrastructure in the hands of local firms, and that could be bad news for companies based outside the country.
Editorial Comments: Also posted at Bloomberg BusinesWeek. |
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| Intel to Acquire McAfee |
| What Is McAfee Really Worth?
Forbes Blogs: Great Speculations, Posted by Trefis Team, Fri, 27 Aug 2010, 472 words
Intel announced its acquisition of McAfee for $7.68 billion in cash a few days ago. Rising market share for McAfee's enterprise security software, as opposed to a flat forecast by Trefis, could push up the Trefis estimate for McAfee's intrinsic value by around 11%. We estimate that security software for businesses accounts for around one-third of McAfee's value. |
| Will Symantec Benefit from Intel Buying McAfee? (SYMC)
InvestorGuide.com, By Staff, Tue, 24 Aug 2010, 923 words
Symantec (SYMC): Last week, the biggest tech story was that Intel (INTC: Charts, News, Offers) had bought out antivirus company McAfee (MFE: Charts, News, Offers) in a puzzling $7.68 billion all cash deal by paying a 60% premium. What does this deal mean for the remaining players in field, most notably the largest security and antivirus software maker in the world, Symantec, whose flagship Norton Antivirus software has dominated the market at 64% for the better part of the last two decades? Symantec's Norton Security products comprise of a third of the company's revenue, but it is facing a different battlefield moving into the second decade of the 21st century. Freeware, OS bundled, cloud-based and now processor-based antivirus programs have led many to believe that Symantec's margins will inevitably shrink as competition intensifies. Others, however, believe that Intel absorbing McAfee will be a diversion that will ultimately benefit Symantec by casting doubt upon McAfee's value to enterprise customers. |
| Intel vs. Microsoft... and Symantec, and Trend Micro...
Redmondmag.com, Posted by Doug Barney, Fri, 20 Aug 2010, 140 words
Intel and Microsoft have been joined at the hips for decades. Back when Microsoft was being investigated by the FTC and then by the DOJ, I argued that the bigger issue was the Microsoft/Intel duopoly. No one in power took up my suggestion. |
| Trend Micro, Ahnlab Shares Gain as Intel Buys McAfee
Bloomberg BusinessWeek, By Jason Clenfield and Pavel Alpeyev, Fri, 20 Aug 2010, 239 words
Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Trend Micro Inc., a Japanese maker of antivirus software, and South Korea's Ahnlab Inc. rose in Asian trading on speculation further acquisitions will follow Intel Corp.'s $7.68 billion purchase of McAfee Inc. |
| Dave DeWalt's next big challenge: Make Intel-McAfee marriage fruitful
USA TODAY: Technology Live, By Byron Acohido, Fri, 20 Aug 2010, 1140 words
The 60% share-price premium McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt got Intel to pay to acquire McAfee doubled the share-price premium DeWalt garnered the last time he flipped a midsize tech company to a giant corporation. |
| Intel vs. Microsoft... and Symantec, and Trend Micro...
RichmondMag.com: Barney's Blog, Posted by Doug Barney, Fri, 20 Aug 2010, 140 words
Intel and Microsoft have been joined at the hips for decades. Back when Microsoft was being investigated by the FTC and then by the DOJ, I argued that the bigger issue was the Microsoft/Intel duopoly. No one in power took up my suggestion. |
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| Spanair Flight 5022 |
| Did a Trojan Virus Take Down Airliner?
Dvorak Uncensored, Posted by McCullough, Sun, 22 Aug 2010, 283 words
"Authorities investigating the 2008 crash of Spanair flight 5022 have discovered a central computer system used to monitor technical problems in the aircraft was infected with malware. |
| Malware Implicated in Spanair Plane Crash
Lawyers and Settlements, By Jane Mundy, Mon, 23 Aug 2010, 244 words
Washington, DC: The 2008 airplane crash of Spanair flight 5022 could have been caused by malware, which infected a central computer system used to monitor technical problems in the aircraft, according to a report by the Spanish newspaper El Pais. The airline also believes malware was to blame. |
| Spanair Flight 5022, Crashed by Malware
autoevolution, By Daniel Patrascu, Sat, 21 Aug 2010, 288 words
On August 20, 2008, a Spanair Flight from Barajas Airport (Madrid) to Gran Canaria Airport (Gran Canaria, Spain) crashed shortly after take off, killing 154 people. The aircraft was a McDonnell Douglas MD-82. Only 18 people walked away with their lives after the crash. |
| Trojan Might be Responsible for 2008 Madrid Plane Crash
SPAMfighter News, By Staff, Fri, 27 Aug 2010, 339 words
The investigation of the 2008 Spanair Flight JK 5022 crash reveals that the tragedy could have been stopped if an important system would have not been infected with a Trojan. |
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| Trend Micro Iomega Bundle |
| Iomega eGo Silver Desktop Hard Drive
NetworkWorld.com, By Chris Holt, Macworld, Fri, 27 Aug 2010, 621 words
Designed specifically for the Mac, Iomega's eGo Silver Desktop Hard Drive Mac Edition is the company's workhorse desktop drive for your home storage needs. The gunmetal silver drive offers triple interface connectivity, competitive pricing and speeds. (We tested the 2TB version.) (Trend Micro Trend Smart Surfing for Mac). |
| Iomega Moving All New Portable Storage Drives to USB 3.0
eWeek, By Chris Preimesberger, Tue, 24 Aug 2010, 391 words
The new SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface -- which moves data at a top speed of 5 gigabits per second -- is now being installed on all Iomega USB 2.0 portable hard drives, beginning with the 500GB and 1TB eGo devices, Iomega President Jonathan Huberman told eWEEK. |
| Iomega readies USB 3.0-equipped eGo portable hard drives
TechConnect Magazine, By Cristian Tuesday, Tue, 24 Aug 2010, 122 words
Iomega Corp. is set to show SuperSpeed USB more love in the near future when it will release the new 2.5-inch eGo Portable Hard Drives which have a USB 3.0 interface and boast AES 256-bit hardware encryption. |
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| Iomega upgrades eGo portable drives to USB 3.0 Iomega eGo drives now sport USB 3.0
Electronista, By Staff, Tue, 24 Aug 2010, 142 words
Iomega will soon release upgraded eGo USB 3.0 portable hard drives. Sporting an interface that's about 10 times faster than the older USB 2.0 standard, the drives are rare as they won't cost any more than their older, slower counterparts. Each has AES 256-bit hardware encryption and can withstand seven-foot drops thanks to a bundled Power Grip Band and skip protection in the drives themselves. |
| Iomega Updates eGo Portable Drives with USB 3.0
NotebookReview.com, By Charles P. Jefferies, NotebookReview.com Contributor, Wed, 25 Aug 2010, 159 words
Iomega has announced it will be updating all of its eGo Portable Hard Drive lineup with USB 3.0 technology starting this fall. The update drives will have the same price as the current-generation USB 2.0 versions. USB 3.0 has transfer speeds up to ten times faster than USB 2.0. |
| Iomega Updates Portable Hard Drive Range to USB 3.0
We Got Served, By Terry Walsh, Tue, 24 Aug 2010, 269 words
Iomega today announced a move to the USB 3.0 standard across its range of portable hard drives. At up to ten times the data transfer speed of its predecessor, drives supporting USB 3.0 are fully backwards compatible with USB 2.0 PCs. |
| Iomega upgrades eGo SuperSpeed portable HDDs to USB 3.0
Techgadgets, By Staff, Fri, 27 Aug 2010, 487 words
Losing all the important data could be one of the greatest fears of PC users and any enhancements in this segment are more than welcome. Iomega's eGo Drop Guard Xtreme USB 2.0 HDDs with 500GB and 1TB storage capacities gearing up to be available with a USB 3.0 interface only essay this thought further. |
| Iomega offers new USB 3.0 eGo Portable Hard Drives
Coolest Gadgets, By Edwin, Fri, 27 Aug 2010, 390 words
Iomega is at it again when it comes to portable hard drives, and the company has just released their latest device – the all new USB 3.0 eGo Portable Hard Drive. Not only will it take advantage of the super fast USB 3.0 connection, it will also be able to keep your precious data inside safe and secure using hardware encryption as well as boasting exterior toughness that ought to put even the most paranoid person to shame. This new eGo will surely boost your very own whenever you take it out for a spin, and you won't even find your jaw dropping when your friend or colleage drops it to the floor by accident, courtesy of a drop spec which is double that of the industry average. |
| Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drives Now Offer USB 3.0 Connections
UberGizmo, By Staff, Tue, 24 Aug 2010, 96 words
Iomega has announced its latest eGo line of 2.5-inch portable hard drives which has been updated to support the speedy USB 3.0 connection. Each drive offers AES 256-bit hardware encryption and is capable of withstanding seven-foot drops thanks to the bundled Power Grip band and also skip protection in the drives. Software such as Iomega's QuikProtect, v.Clone, and Trend Micro's Internet Security are also bundled along with the drive. The 500GB and 1TB drives will be shipping in early October and will be priced at $114 and $189 respectively.
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| Tech Talk Podcast: Miguel Helft on Facebook movie drama; David Perry of the Trend Micro security firm on how to protect yourself on social-networking sites; and news, including an iTunes-PayPal scam; an Apple move toward touchscreen desktop computers; Dell's Aero smartphone; a push to get 3D on mobile devices; and Facebook's new location-tracking feature.
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"The Social Network"–also known as "the Facebook movie"–is coming in October, but already there's been drama behind the scenes. Miguel Helft, The New York Times technology reporter covering Facebook, and Michael Cieply, who covers media for The Times, recently examined the tensions between the filmmakers and Facebook executives. Bettina Edelstein speaks with Mr. Helft on this week's New York Times Tech Talk podcast about the disagreements over the movie, its portrayal of Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and how Facebook has responded.
Are you socializing safely online? J.D. Biersdorfer talks to David Perry, global director of education for the computer security firm Trend Micro, about how to protect yourself on social-networking sites. Mr. Perry offers tips on spotting malware.
Facebook's Places, which lets users broadcast their locations, is in the news this week, raising the question of whether the social-networking colossus will eventually eclipse other location-based services, like Foursquare and Gowalla. Ms. Biersdorfer's roundup of tech world developments also includes Apple's move toward touchscreen desktop computers; Dell's Aero smartphone for AT&T; and an effort by Nokia, Intel and Finland's University of Oulu to get 3-D on mobile devices. Her tech tip is about giving a sepia tone to your e-book reader screen to help reduce eyestrain.
To find more information about the podcast and the links to the show's topics, go to the Tech Talk page.
For help in finding particular segments of the podcast, use these time codes.
Tip – 27:51
News – 25:28
Miguel Helft – 15:08
David Perry – 7:28
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/tech-talk-podcast-the-facebook-movie/
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| Our personal information can broadly be categorised as trivial data such as music preferences, behavioural information about our activity and connections, and confidential information including credit card numbers. But even seemingly innocuous information can be used against us, says security expert Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro. "In isolation, much of this data may be trivial but from a hacker's perspective, any information is good information," he says. "Use search engines to discover the extent of your online footprint and tailor it. Keep tabs on yourself before anyone else does."
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Are you in a relationship? What are your political views? And where did you go for breakfast this morning? What would once have been details of our lives known only by those we know and trust, many of us now willingly display online.
From the surveillance entertainment of Big Brother to CCTV and celebrity magazines, the boundaries of what is regarded as appropriate to put in the public domain are shifting dramatically. But nothing is challenging our notion of privacy more than social networking, with 26 million of us using Facebook to share the minutiae of our lives every month in the UK alone.
Facebook has proved irresistible to many because we are lured into joining by friends and family. Browsing, reading, comparing and nosing is instinctive, impulsive and reflects our tendencies offline, our "social graph", as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg likes to call it. Having executed the social networking business idea better than its rivals – MySpace, Bebo, Friendster and Hi5 have been left for dust – Facebook has seen astonishing growth, from a Harvard dorm project in 2003 to a global phenomenon that had 500 million monthly users by July this year. That's already one in 13 people on Earth, and Zuckerberg recently predicted it was "almost a guarantee" that his site would reach 1 billion users, with growth in relatively untapped markets such as Russia, Japan and Korea "doubling every six months".
On Thursday, Facebook unveiled its latest gambit in the battle to remain top of the social networking heap with a move into geolocation services, which harness the GPS functionality of increasingly powerful mobile smartphones. Facebook Places will launch first in the US and later in the UK, allowing users, if they choose, to share their location with friends on the site by checking into public venues. Sensitive to intense public scrutiny of its privacy controls, Facebook was careful to make the service opt-in but every geolocation service – including Google's Latitude, Gowalla and Foursquare – has prompted renewed debate about the protection of personal details online.
"This is a seminal moment where we're seeing new thinking and new practice starting to emerge around the issue of privacy," says Stephen Balkam, chief executive of the Family Online Safety Institute and member of Facebook's safety advisory board. "The battle lines are being drawn between generations. Facebook is headed by someone who hasn't hit 30 yet, but has very different perceptions and assumptions about what is private and what is not. We need to recognise that with social networking, geolocation and digital technology, the privacy bar is being reset."
Facebook has come under significant pressure to make its site safer for users. Incidents of serious crimes facilitated by the internet such as the murder of British teenager Ashleigh Hall by Peter Chapman earlier this year, are tragic but rare. More common is the embarrassment from a compromising tagged photo of a drunken night out.
The rapid pace of development by technology companies often throws up new cultural and ethical challenges. Google's Street View has frequently been challenged by privacy campaigners who question whether the logistical and commercial benefits of making every property in every street visible on the web are worth the sacrifice of the individual's right to privacy. Facebook users first raised their pitchforks in 2006 when the site introduced a news feed for each user, summarising their friends' activity. More recently it came under pressure to simplify its privacy controls with some high-profile commentators and groups – organised on Facebook pages, naturally – encouraging others to remove their profiles. It responded in May with simplified privacy settings.
Richard, now Lord, Allan is a former Liberal Democrat MP and Facebook's European policy director. "The internet is here to stay as a ubiquitous way for every individual citizen to capture and share information. The challenge is how you manage that increasing flow of information and that's where Facebook is at the bleeding edge, allowing people to navigate that world. Expressions of concern and criticisms are really of that direction of travel, rather than any particular product, like Facebook."
Allan thinks it is an exaggeration to characterise privacy as a natural state of man, citing societies before mass transport where a large community would know every intimate detail of each other's lives. The modern sense of privacy came much later, with modern transport and cities. "Notably with new technology, you end up with a utopian viewpoint and a dystopian viewpoint, but a lot of things those dystopians feared did not come true. To say you're 'living in Facebook rather than the real world' is a complete misreading of what's happening. The reason it is so compelling is because it is so connected to the real world. With every wave of technology we need to get used to it."
Our personal information can broadly be categorised as trivial data such as music preferences, behavioural information about our activity and connections, and confidential information including credit card numbers. But even seemingly innocuous information can be used against us, says security expert Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro. "In isolation, much of this data may be trivial but from a hacker's perspective, any information is good information," he says. "Use search engines to discover the extent of your online footprint and tailor it. Keep tabs on yourself before anyone else does."
Balkam describes the internet's two biggest privacy problems as reputational damage – inadvertently posting drunken photos that your boss might see, for example – and physical safety, the latter being the issue for women particularly wary of location tools. Burglary is another concern, when users of location services announce they are out of the house; in February three developers built PleaseRobMe.com to raise awareness about the implications of broadcasting location to a public audience.
Currently location games such as Foursquare, where users check in at public venues to earn points and prizes, tend to have a small, enthusiastic and largely trustworthy group of dedicated users comprised of so-called "early adopters". For them, this period of intensive invention and opportunity is a golden age. Christian Payne – who describes himself as a "social technologist" – abandoned a career as a photographer in early 2008 when he had a "car crash epiphany". Within minutes of tweeting a video of his crashed Land Rover, he had an offer of help from a local crane operator, his AA membership number sent to him and a call from BT asking for the serial number of the telegraph pole he'd crashed into. He worries that spirit of helpfulness will dilute as social media becomes more commercialised, and its users more sceptical.
"We'll never see it like we do now – more nefarious people will come later," he says. "But it would be more risky for me not to take the chance of building meaningful connections with acquaintances who then become friends when one of you needs some help."
Payne seems to put a lot of intimate information into the world, but still skillfully manages to keep his personal life, and that of his partner and son, almost completely private. It's up to the user to decide what they want to keep private, he says, though he's uncomfortable with the idea that he is unknowingly creating a public persona for himself. "I'd hope I'm doing this naturally and not thinking about it. But then asking me that is like taking me out of the play I'm acting in as myself – and asking me to direct it."
Online privacy is intrinsically linked to identity. Author Peggy Orenstein wrote in the New York Times recently that her reflexive compulsion to tweet a pleasant moment with her daughter had also spoilt the moment, and mused that our online personas are elaborate constructs that we, knowingly or unknowingly, craft into an identity we want the world to see. The internet has provided a platform that seems to challenge us to present a single identity to the world, yet we struggle to balance the profiles we share with family, friends and work colleagues.
Stories of employers sacking staff for drunken Facebook photos will be replaced by an acceptance that drunken university pictures are the norm, says Dr Joss Wright, Fresnel research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute. He hopes sites will develop more intuitive ways to share information with the appropriate people; when his grandmother joined Facebook it "severely curtailed" what he could share with his friends.
"I'd like to believe people will learn how to guard their privacy, but we're more likely to see societal shifts in what is seen as acceptable for privacy," Wright adds. "Privacy has tended to be something quite intrinsic, and there hasn't been a mechanism for privacy violation in general society until the arrival of the internet. The rise of Facebook and Foursquare show we don't really understand privacy or what it means to preserve it, and don't have an ability to understand the consequences of violating it either."
Regulators struggle to keep up with the pace of technology and enforcement of what rules there are is weak, meaning the onus for education should be on the services themselves, says Wright, who doesn't think they are closely scrutinised enough. Though sites like Facebook have a duty of care, "the economics are against that, because their entire business model is built around getting us to share as much information as possible".
But there are upsides, too. Sharing personal information is beneficial in giving insights into different aspects of society. "If you can see the details of people's lives, when you can see someone's actual persona, it's harder to be biased and bigoted," said Wright. "But a balance has to be struck between the amount we share for the positive and negative."
Eric Schmidt, Google chief executive, recently reiterated his suggestion that internet users may one day be able to change their identities in order to distance themselves from personal information shared so freely in their formative years. "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time," he told the Wall Street Journal.
Zuckerberg takes a different tack. "You have one identity. The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly … Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity," he was quoted as saying in David Kirkpatrick's book, The Facebook Effect.
Part of Facebook's success has been to demand people's real identities. In that way, it represents the maturation of the internet where the previous norm had been a wisecrack pseudonym and a world of "trolling", where faceless, nameless commenters could easily post abusive messages and attack each other. The improvement in the quality of communication and debate online is in no small part down to the trend towards using real identities. However, anonymity still has its role in whistleblowing sites such as Wikileaks, or in debates where a contributor to a discussion on rape, for example, deserves protection.
If you think the current internet landscape is frightening, don't think too much about what's coming next. Already served with targeted ads based on keywords in our Google email, or picked out by our age and interests on Facebook, the future is more personalised still. "Sites will get much better at filtering information and predicting our behaviour, serving us what we want to buy and finding new ways to share information, like location. Three years ago, people wouldn't even have dreamed of sharing their location," says Wright. While the sensitivities and sensibilities of managing our online data still need to be clarified, there will be benefits in personalisation, which promises more meaningful, relevant advertising for consumers and consequently, for advertisers, far more effective bang for their buck.
So what next? Three years ago, rival social networking site MySpace seemed invincible. Could Facebook still lose its edge? Anything is possible.
Balkam recently suggested Facebook recruit a philosopher to help interpret some of the demanding and unprecedented ethical and sociological challenges it faces.
"No company in the world has ever attracted 500 million users, and they are having to come to terms, at lightning speed, with what is good and what is abhorrent behaviour. Aristotle and Plato struggled with that – and the average age at Facebook is 28."
Where the Twitterati draw the line
Zoe Margolis, blogger
While I'm very active on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, I have so far avoided all the location-based tools on my phone. Primarily, this is because I do not want to publicly announce where I am - I wish to protect my privacy and safety - but also because I don't want to bombard people with incessant, dull, information; I've unfollowed people on Twitter and Facebook due to their too-frequent (and, might I say, very annoying) Foursquare updates being fed through to their timelines.I can see the point of location tools – they're an easy way to connect people who might otherwise be unaware of their proximity to their friends – but given the amount of information we already share using social networking sites, it almost seems like overload to add yet another method of input, and it's pretty much redundant if not all of your friends/social circle are using the same tool.
I have some major concerns with Facebook Places though and believe it is a huge threat to people's privacy. It is already live in users' settings(though the feature has not yet been rolled out in the UK) and while there is the option of limiting the location info to friends only, they have to de-select the automatically enabled "Include me in 'People Here Now' after I check in" box in order to opt out of their location being included on a public list for all to see.
In addition to this, people's friends can "check' " them into locations, so even if someone has limited the information about themselves that they are sharing, there might still be a breach of their privacy from others.
Most of my friends on Facebook have never heard of Foursquare or Gowalla, let alone used a location-based tool on their mobile phones; I assume the majority of people who use Facebook are similar. Given this, it concerns me that Facebook Places appears to be lacking transparency about privacy. The ability to change the settings to ensure personal information is protected seems more geared to the tech-savvy, than the lay-person; I fear many people will discover their privacy has been breached only after the event.
Privacy on any social networking site or location-sharing tool should start off being intact: 100% protection, with the chance to opt-in to less privacy, should you wish to share information with others. Facebook seems to take the opposite view, making the default position little/no privacy with the need to opt-out; I won't be using Facebook Places any time soon.
David Nobbs
I don't believe total privacy is possible so I never telling anybody anything on line that I wouldn't be happy for the nation to know (if it was interested!).
I think some people are so hungry for celebrity they're happy not to have a private life at all. I'm very careful with my tweets. People can never be quite sure whether they're true or false, and I never reveal when I'm going to be away.
Sorry this is so short but I'm off to Portugal now for five months. Only joking.
Max Tundra, musician
I probably spend too much time online, sharing details about my life with anyone who has the remotest interest in my music. I don't like the idea of letting people know exactly where I am right this second, but as my fans tend to be fairly sane and unstalkerish, I feel comfortable letting them know what I'm up to in a general sense.
I don't use Foursquare or any applications which might reveal my geographical co-ordinates, although I am often easily locatable, as I play advertised concerts. I did, however, recently delete my personal Facebook profile, as that seemed to be a cluster of unnecessarily pertinent information about my life and the people I share it with, as well as being a colossal waste of time which could be better spent telling people on Twitter that I prefer the Henry vacuum cleaner to the Dyson.
Graham Linehan, comedy writer:
I always hated Facebook because it made me very uncertain about what I was and wasn't sharing with the world. The privacy settings were, famously, a bit of a maze, and seemed subject to sudden changes that you hadn't agreed to. I felt like one day I might open up the site to see a picture of myself in bed asleep with my wife, like in Hidden'.
Twitter is different because it forces you to be very selective with what you choose to share, and so forces social media back to a more private place. I personally don't tweet much stuff about my home life, because I don't want to accidentally tweet something stupid like "Holiday starts tomorrow!" along with a geotag to my home address. So my tweets are generally links to things I find funny or interesting, and my home life only gets a look-in when something truly interesting or funny happens.
Once I made a mistake and posted my home number while trying to send a direct (private) message to someone and we had to change it, but that was a valuable lesson to learn early on, because now I'm a lot more careful with what I put out there. It wasn't too much of a problem, though. We only got two or three callers who hung up as soon as my wife said "Hello, Dreambeds". I asked her who Dreambeds were and she said "Dunno. I suppose they sell beds."
I think people should start to claw back as much privacy as they can. Services such as Twitter show that it's possible to share selectively. Sharing selectively should be the default setting on every social network service. Which, again, is why you won't see me on Facebook any time soon.
John Prescott, politician
Twitter has been a revelation. In the past if I needed to get message out I'd have to convince a paper to publish it. Now I can tweet my thoughts and, if interesting, it'll get pick up. My Milburn tweet was running on rolling news within 10 minutes.
I share a lot of content like my blogs and vlogs along with links to stories and virals from others I like. Twitter is also great to run campaigns and organise tweetups.
We did the first pastiche of the Cameron airbrushed posters, which then inspired mMyDavidCameron.com. Suddenly hundreds of thousands of people were doing their own versions. It destroyed Ashcroft's poster campaign and cost nothing.
And when the founder of the National Bullying Helpline said people were bullied in No10, someone tweeted me a link to the industrial tribunal which proved she was accused of bullying herself! It killed the story within 24 hours.
I've found Twitter to be a fantastic way to communicate, learn from others and show the real me, not the distorted view peddled by the media.
But I'm not convinced about geolocation applications. You have to have some privacy.
Suzanne Moore, journalist
Don't mistake personal information for honesty. Personas are created and people play as well as tweet their hearts out. If you don't want to bare your soul you don't have to, but the dividing line between public and private is now generational, one that neither mainstream culture nor government appears to understand.
I don't much care what people think of me and was wondering who some guy on MasterChef was the other day on Twitter and wondering if I had slept with him. Turns out I hadn't which was a relief. And a joke!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/21/facebook-places-google
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| "It does disable some key security features built into the PS3 – like the running of unsigned code – and we've seen with the iPhone that this makes your device less secure," Rik Ferguson from security firm Trend Micro warned.
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The group of hackers, PSJailbreak, is going to release an USB dongle which would allow gamers to play any types of games on PS3, homemade, pirated, all can do.
After 3 years of release, the popular games console PlayStation 3 has not yet been cracked, while the other consoles, Xbox of Microsoft and Wii from Nintendo have been cracked earlier. Sony declined to comment, according to BBC.
A spokesperson of Fox-Chip, the distributor of the USB dongle said, he had tested the device and will start selling it in the next two weeks. "We are in contact with a person in Malaysia but don't know where the manufacturer is," he told BBC.
The hackers claim the dongle contain a software which could allow the gamers to save games in the hardware of PS3. They have posted a video to show how it works. In the video, a user inserts the USB stick into PS3, then the console entered the mode of jailbreak. They claim that gamers can then select any games saved in the hardware.
There are sceptics on the video. Meanwhile, the spokesperson of Fox-Chip said it works, "It works on all PlayStation 3s," he told BBC News.
He also said it should be something good for Sony, "Sony should sell a lot of consoles because of this," he added.
Gamers have mixed response on the dongle. Some expressed concern on the security issue. "It does disable some key security features built into the PS3 – like the running of unsigned code – and we've seen with the iPhone that this makes your device less secure," Rik Ferguson from security firm Trend Micro warned.
http://seerpress.com/hackers-claim-a-successful-crack-of-sony-playstation-3/4491/
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| It seems that recently the Zeus Trojan has been getting plenty of press coverage and has been causing more than its usual share of trouble. A banking Trojan that is mainly spread via drive-by downloads and phishing campaigns, its most recent activity has involved raiding around £700,000 from UK banks and infecting more than 100,000 computers via a botnet that was detected and named as 'Zeus version 2'.
Also, Trend Micro advanced threats researcher Robert McArdle wrote about a Zeus variant that is targeting US military personnel. The target receives an email that informs them of an 'update required for your Bank of America military bank account'. By clicking a link the recipients are brought to a page that is almost identical to the real login page of the bank that is hosted in Russia.
They are then taken to a page hosting an Update Tool 'which must be installed onto his/her system to ensure that his/her account is not locked', allowing the Zeus variant to be downloaded.
It really is as simple as that, and as McArdle said: "Unfortunately, most people who fall for this scam will not even be given the opportunity to manually download the executable file, as this attack first runs a whole suite of browser exploits on the target systems first. This leaves manually downloading the file as a last-resort attack vector."
Every day SC Magazine talks about malware variants and what sort of technology is best placed to protect against them. However, Zeus has now reportedly been a threat for more than three years and seems to be making more of an impact than ever.
I caught up with Iain Chidgey, managing director of EMEA at ArcSight, who claimed that the theft of almost £700,000 happened because some banks have not been able to spot fraudulent account activity quickly enough.
Asked if banking fraud is likely to continue to gain at this pace, Chidgey said: "I read a report recently that said fraud is going down and 14 per cent of people are the victim of online banking fraud, but it is all malware in the environment.
"The real issue for me is the 'wait until factor'. We know that malware hits websites, but none of the banks linked to it and I do not know of a bank that has been hit. Banks do not believe that it is happening and will wait to change it when they are hit by a virus. We need to get something to the notification law in the US, which highlighted the TJX breach.
"There are two aspects to it, we need more education but the reality is that we need to have a responsibility to customers to know what viruses there are and what malware is. You've got two aspects – to make sure that you are looking for it and that they know about it, and then the aspect of protecting the consumer side. We can identify the Zeus virus but if a bank is looking at notifying, they can notify them with information so that they can put two and two together."
I asked if in his view, are banks doing enough to drive awareness and protect users? He said: "I think that they are doing enough, a bank will look at it as a risk assessment. The £675,000 was across several bank accounts and they want the cost of it to protect their systems.
"I don't know if they should do more, if there was a directive to notify it may highlight issue if they are doing everything they can to protect against it happening. It is an interesting proposition for banks to give them a market lead."
Looking specifically at the discovery made by M86 Security, Laura Mather, founder and VP of product marketing at Silver Tail Systems, claimed that attack shows that banks need to look at both authentication information and at the behaviour of user sessions to detect these types of attacks.
She said: "These types of attacks are occurring more and more frequently now. It is critical for banks and other online organisations to understand the behaviour of their web sessions to detect these sophisticated types of threats."
So what is the solution to instructing people about the threat posed, and more importantly are users even aware of how the malware gets on to a desktop and what it does?
Eric Olson, vice president of solutions assurance at Cyveillance, said: "You can spot Zeus as an example as evidence that people do not know about Zeus, the industry has spent two years trying to work out what it is, they can explain it but nothing works.
"In my personal experience it is hitting people and what is most interesting is not the inner workings of a banking Trojan, it is how it gets on a machine. There is some social engineering of users, it is manipulating users and giving someone permission to do something on your computer. You can put 16 locks on your door but it is no good if someone cons you out of the 16 keys."
I asked Chidgey what the best option is for users to prevent infection and protect themselves? He said: "When I get my bank statement I generally look at the bottom line and if that is about right I leave it, if you see a transaction you don't recognise then it could be a payment processor for a legitimate purchase.
"You cannot force people and they only get a statement once a month so there is a window of opportunity for an account to be hit without the person knowing about it, where do you draw the line?"
The debate here is do we treat Zeus as a different threat to others out there, or generalise warnings on malware in order to best protect users and ensure that they protect themselves? Again the simple solutions of deploying anti-virus and ensuring your patches are applied are appropriate, but if this is being done correctly then why does this threat persist?
http://www.scmagazineuk.com/is-the-zeus-trojan-the-greatest-malware-threat-of-the-current-age/article/177497/ |
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| It's been six years since Facebook was born, expanding from the student body at Harvard University to a worldwide social network with 500 million members. Along the way, its popularity drew attention from that ever-present, unwanted group that follows the rest of us—cyber-scammers. The recent "Dislike" button scam is far from the end; it is just another example of how attackers follow the user community. With that in mind, eWEEK is highlighting some of the ways attackers have used and abused the most popular social networks of our day. In no particular order, here are our top social network-based attacks and security issues of the year and what you should be on the lookout for. 
Slide No. 4
Malicious Applications
From time to time, social networks are hit with malicious applications. Trend Micro recently found a number of rogue apps on Facebook (with names such as "Stream" and "Birthday Invitations") that sent users to a known phishing domain with a page claiming they needed to enter their login credentials to use the application. Victims would then be directed to the Facebook site. Facebook removed six of the apps identified by Trend by Aug. 20. Unfortunately, more popped up. Users should be wary of applications from unknown developers and that request personal information
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Social-Networking-Security-Attacks-The-Top-Incidents-of-2010-672107/
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| We know something is up with popular web forum Philadelphia Speaks whenever the comments and emails start rolling in. 
The familiar warning image for Mozilla users that appeared when visiting Philadelphia Speaks over the weekend. The site should be safe to visit again.
This past week, Philly Speaks was offering visitors a warning, declaring the site malicious.
As of this morning, the forum has been cleared and most browsers should stop offering the warning, according to an email from Philly Speaks founder Wil Reynolds.
"We had a malware insertion in vBulletin," Reynolds wrote. "But we're back up, just waiting to get back on the clean list for Google and Trend Micro."
Part of the resolution included updating their VB forum software, which means a different look both in browsers and on mobile devices. More tweaks are expected in the coming days.
The forum was hacked back in May and has faced other set backs after replacing popular Phillyblog last fall.
http://technicallyphilly.com/2010/08/23/philly-speaks-back-up-again-hit-with-malware-insertion
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| U.S. military personnel is again targeted by malware-peddling cybercriminals. Fake email purportedly coming from Bank of America is asking holders of Military Bank accounts to update them by following the given link. According to Trend Micro, the link takes them to a very faithfully recreated bank login page, where they must enter their account username and password. So far, there is no indication that this is an actual phishing page, but the possibility exists. In any case, whatever information the victims enter, clicking on the "Sign In" button will take them to a page where an "Update Tool" is offered:
The provided executable file is actually a ZeuS variant. But even if the victims choose not to download and install it because they became suspicious at the last moment, it may be already too late. The attack doesn't rely on manual download - it runs a multitude of browser exploits on the target systems as soon as the user lands on the page.
http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=1439
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| Researchers from security company Trend Micro report that hackers have invaded 'The operation,' an illegally running clearing house which processes credit cards. 'The operation,' which supports 'Fethard' a facilitator of anonymous payments, treats payments from credit cards for several suppliers of scareware i.e. fake anti-virus, high level pornography websites and illegitimate pharmaceuticals that are promoted through spam. The official headquarters of 'The operation' is situated in Amsterdam (Holland).
States a declaration by the hackers, they penetrated a server hosting the firm's website on July 23, 2010 and posted data online containing recorded telephone conversations and employee e-mails. In one such conversation, the speakers talked about the different methods of swindling prominent credit card firms, while in another, the speakers discussed about Fethard, whose activities mostly relate to cyber-criminals' operations, particularly money laundering.
When the hack occurred, there was no clear understanding of the compromise with respect to its extent. But when security researchers examine the published data they state with conviction that it's quite plausible to do the kind of compromise.
Moreover, Trend Micro stated that the data pertaining to the anonymous payment card processor checks out that though it's registered in Holland, it in reality operates from Latvia and Russia. The company serves lawful clients in Russia, but it also caters to the more dishonest customers so that it could maintain the continuity of its business ever-since a cyber-crime incident victimized it some years back.
Additionally, it's assumed that one individual responsible for 'The operation' is also an owner of Fethard. In the same way this individual has been connected with crutop.nu, which serves as a junk e-mail forum.
Elaborating as to why 'The operation' has taken onto illegitimate business, Feike Hacquebord a researcher at Trend Micro stated that during 2007, someone stole a huge amount of money from Fethard's coffers. Consequently, problems emerged which probably prompted the parent firm to move even further into the operations of cyber-crime. The Register published this on August 16, 2010.
Hacquebord further said that the hacking incident could possibly shake many cyber-criminals. However, it also put legitimate customers' personal data in danger, he concluded.
http://www.spamfighter.com/News-14978-Hackers-Attack-Illegally-Running-Credit-Card-Processing-Firm.htm |
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| In the recent past, researchers at Trend Micro have found that there has been a considerable increase in the number of spammed messages which deliver malicious attachments to the users. These emails came in the form of annual Social Security statement, while other hooks used resumes, weddings, job offers and even a puzzle. A resume related spam email reads as follows: - I cleaned up resume formatting and will be reviewing the content at a point today. Save this as your recent version and I'll speak to you later.
Another email in the form of a wedding invitation says: - I and my family solicit your esteemed presence to grace and shower your blessings on this auspicious occasion of my wedding on 23rd September 2010 at my native Dhar.
A zip file was attached with the emails in both the cases.
The same series of spam messages is also used to spread bogus anti-virus and other scams, and its hard to find if there is any new command and control structure, much less a fresh round of spamming, has begun.
Two variants have been seen with infected attachment either being a FAKEAV variant such as TROJ_FAKEAV.FGZ, TROJ_FRAUDLO.LO, TROJ_FAKEAV.SGN or a downloader which is also taken to BREDOLAB and FAKEAV variants.
The security experts commented on the tactics used by the cyber crooks in these attacks by saying that the usage of infected attachments is a well known method used to distribute malware through email. However, many latest attacks have already been seen that use almost identical payloads.
At first instance, the researchers thought that it was the infamous Waledac botnet taken down in February 2010 again coming up. The researchers said that attacks designed to draft new recruits into the infamous Waledac Spambot network were back after the zombie network was effectively decapitated.
After the in-depth analysis of this threat, senior threat researchers at Trendlabs have re-categorized the malware used in this attack as a BREDOLAB variant (identified as TROJ_BREDOLAB.JA) instead of WALEDAC.
As per the news published by The Register on August 13, 2010, the security firm said that an unfortunate combination of machine and human errors led to the mislabeling threat as Waledac; apologies for the confusion.
http://www.spamfighter.com/News-14981-Malicious-Attachments-Distribute-BREDOLAB-Malware.htm
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| I met Kieron a few months ago when he engaged my company to help Jatheon Technologies, his six year old company, build their channel. Unlike most CEOs in the IT industry, Kieron understands the value of the channel and takes a very active role in ensuring that Jatheon is true to the channel. Jatheon is one of the fastest growing companies in the Email Archiving and Management space. They have an OEM agreement with DELL and a very impressive list of customers. Trend Micro recommends Jatheon to all of their customers that are looking for Email Archiving and Management and Gartner Research says that Jatheon has 10% of the global in-house email archiving appliance marketplace. Robert: Kieron, how important is the IT channel to Jatheon?
Kieron: Essentially, it is our only way to market. Currently we put over 90% of our business through the channel and we are in the process of changing this to 100%. We bring VARs in a.s.a.p. to every deal we get involved in!
Robert: Why such a strong channel focus?
Kieron: VARs have local presence. They provide the hands on touch that we cannot provide. They become our sales force and front line support. They have the relationships with the end user that no vendor can have. If they recommend our solution, the customer will normally go with it. They are the Trusted Business Advisors.
Robert: What are you looking for in VARs?
Kieron: VARs that are Trusted Business Advisors to their customers, providing them with business solutions, service and support.
Robert: Let's back up a bit, what is Email Archiving and Management?
Kieron: The capturing of electronic messaging for storing and retrieving in real time as opposed to just storage and backups.
Robert: Why is it a growth industry?
Kieron: There are a few key drivers:
The first driver for email archiving started with government rules and regulations for compliance. Today most companies are still not in compliance with the government regulations and they have to get there.
Email archiving is also a lot less expensive and more efficient way of storing Emails than on email server platforms.
Recently a big driver around growth in this industry has been electronic discovery, which is being able to find historic emails quickly. Many companies see this as a huge productivity gain.
Email archiving systems can also make it very easy to set up and manage internal policies concerning Email usage. This is important because so much of today's communication is only stored in emails including up to 80 percent of a company's intellectual property. Through Email Archiving and Management, managers have all sorts of new opportunities, including:
# Monitoring how Emails are being used and what intellectual property is going outbound.
# Accessing employees' emails when they leave the company.
# Putting rules or restrictions around pornography, profanities, conversations with competitors, etc., and being able to monitor how Emails are being used.
Robert: Does this step on personal privacy rules?
Kieron: Email archiving just makes it easier for the company to store and retrieve the Emails. The info is always there regardless of where and how it got there. We encourage employers to let their staff know that they are archiving and monitoring Emails.
Robert: Why should a VAR sell his customers Archive and Email Management solutions?
Kieron: According to our records and the flash survey eChannelLine did, VARs who are not offering Email Archiving and Management to their customers are missing out on an easy revenue opportunity & especially if the VAR is already selling them storage and other IT solutions.
From their customers' perspective, they are not getting all the services they need. Their customers may not even know that it is government mandated and that they are in violation of the regulations.
Robert: What are the government mandates?
Kieron: They vary from one geography to another, as well as from one sector to another. For example, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, that all public companies must comply with, explicitly states that electronic records must be archived for a period of seven years. In the financial industry, ruling SEC 17a mandates that all brokers and dealer must preserve email records. In the healthcare sector, all healthcare providers must archive Email in a safe, confidential and readily available place. And the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, know as FRCP, mandate that any party involved in litigation must be able to produce electronic information in as little as fourteen days. VARs have to understand the regulations and ensure that they educate and support their customers on what they should do and what they are mandated to do.
Robert: Does Email Archiving and Management compliment or compete against cloud-based solutions?
Kieron: There are two types of email archiving: 75% of the market is in-house on site solutions with the other 25% hosted or in the cloud solutions. The difference is how much a company trusts someone else's data center.
Robert: Do you offer a hosted solution?
Kieron: We have been focused on the largest part of the marked with our in-house appliance however will be launching a hosted solution shortly to compliment our appliance offerings. We expect this to help us grow our Channel as it will make it faster and easier for channel partners to sell Email Archiving and Management solutions to their SMB customers.
Robert: What are you doing to help VARs be successful in this space?
Kieron: To start with, we built the program around simplicity and a full turnkey solution: open the box and with a few key strokes you are up and running. We support all the messaging platforms so a VAR does not need to learn different systems for the various different platforms their customers use. We provide great customer service and support to our customers through our VAR partners with 24X7 system monitoring. This allows us to proactively take actions to fix problems and thus make the VAR look better. As well we have advance functionality build into the product including: policy management, legal hold, etc.
From the VARs perspective, we offer: deal registration, a CRM tool, a partner portal with marketing collateral material, joint marketing programs as well as marketing campaigns we send out on behalf of our VARs. We support our VAR partners in the small business, mid-size and enterprise space.
Robert: Are you looking to grow the number of active partners you work with?
Kieron: We are always looking for more good, active partners. They can register on our partner portal to become a partner and we will contact them or they can just call us.
Robert: What does the DNA of your ideal VAR look like?
Kieron: They are currently in the internet security space. They are true Trusted Business Advisors and have a sales force and support team. They are interested in adding a new line to their portfolio that will help drive their business. They want to develop a real partnership with us.
- - - - - - - - - -
Name: Kieron Dowling
Company: Jatheon Technologies
Title: President & CEO
Short Bio: Kieron Dowling brings more than 24 years of information technology industry experience to Jatheon, having served as President & CEO of Cygnal Technologies as well as having served in senior executive roles as Vice President & General Manager, March Networks; Vice President & General Manager, Alcatel (formerly Newbridge Networks); Global Vice President Marketing and Business Development, Celestica; and Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Nortel Networks where he also served in a number of sales and marketing roles over a 13 year period. He began his career with Bell Canada. He holds a Masters degree in Business Administration from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Finance from McMaster University.
Personal Favorites:
* Movie: Apollo 13
* Actor: Tom Hanks
* Book: Good to Great by Tom Collin.
* Music Group/Singer: U2
* Sport (play): Swimming & I competed internationally when I was younger.
* Sport (watch): Hockey & unfortunately, I am a Leaf fan.
* Food: Steak
* Drink: Wine
* Car: Jaguar XKR Convertible
* Super Hero: Batman & don't really have one
* Villain: Joker
* City: Dublin
* Country: Ireland
* IT company: Jatheon
* Non-IT company: Nike
* IT industry CEO: Terry Matthews worked for him at Newbridge and March Networks
* Charity: Charity: Free The Children - doing a charity thing with my daughter to build a school in Kenya. Goal is $25,000 which is enough to build and operate the school, . Already halfway there.
* IT Gadget:Blackberry
* Family Activity: : travel. Just came back from France with my wife and two children: 15 and 12 years old.
- - - - - - - - - -
Robert Cohen, a passionate and enthusiastic channel advocate, is the founder of the ChannelLine Advisory Council as well as president and business editor of Integrated mar.com, publishers of Channel Advisor, eChannelLine and ConnectIT. Since 1980 he has worked with 350 IT vendors, distributors and resellers in developing and implementing strategic go-to-market programs, using a variety of direct, channel and hybrid models. Integrated mar.com, in conjunction with Robert has created the Trusted Business Advisor program.
Robert can be reached at 1-800-465-2059 or by email at rcohen@integratedmar.com.
http://www.echannelline.com/usa/story.cfm?item=26057 |
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| BEIJING (AP) - China has ordered its banks and other major companies to limit use of foreign computer security technology, setting up a possible trade clash with the United States and Europe while adding to strains over high-tech secrecy as some nations threaten to curtail BlackBerry service.
Beijing's restrictions cite security concerns but are also consistent with its efforts to build up Chinese technology industries by shielding them from competition and pressing global rivals to hand over know-how. The United States and the European Union have raised questions in the World Trade Organization about the rules. An American industry group is criticizing them as an attempt to shut competitors out of a promising market. Authorities are inspecting companies to enforce the restrictions and some have been told to replace foreign technology.
"These are legitimate security concerns, but the Chinese are going way too far," said Steven Kho, a trade lawyer for law firm Akin Gump in Washington. "You cannot say from the outset, `All foreign products are a security risk.'"
Washington and Europe, which hope technology sales to China will help drive their economic recovery, want Beijing to scale back plans to enforce the rules on a wide range of industries including oil and gas, banking, utilities and telecommunications.
The rules, dubbed the Multi-Level Protection Scheme, or MLPS, come as Beijing tries to protect its fledgling technology companies by favoring them in procurement, promoting Chinese standards for mobile phones and prodding foreign competitors to disclose encryption technology.
The restrictions add to pressure on foreign companies that accuse Beijing of squeezing them out of key industries in violation of its free-trade pledges.
They cover products such as network firewalls and digital identity systems -- a market dominated by Western companies such as Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper Networks Inc. and Taiwan's Trend Micro Inc.
Beijing announced plans for the curbs in 2007 and authorities and government-licensed private inspectors began visiting companies last year to enforce them.
A manager of an inspection company said 10 to 20 percent of enterprises that its technicians looked at in higher security tiers used technology from Cisco and other foreign providers. He said they were told to switch to or add Chinese-made firewalls or other technology.
"We asked clients to make changes and warned them they would fail to pass the inspection if they don't," said the manager at Guangdong Southern Information Security Industrial Base Co. He would give only his surname, Chen.
Chen said entities inspected by his company included financial institutions and other state-owned companies. He declined to say which companies had to make changes or how extensive changes from foreign to Chinese technology were.
Use of foreign security technology already was declining due to a 2008 government directive that was not publicly released, according a manager at another inspection company, Guangzhou Zhongbang Information Engineering Co. He would give only his surname, Ma.
"The government had unpublished policies that the information security products for classified information systems needed to be domestically made or purchasing priority should be given to domestically made products," Ma said.
The effect on sales so far is unclear. A Cisco spokesman in Beijing declined to comment and spokespeople for Juniper Networks and Trend Micro did not respond to questions.
"If China's MLPS is fully implemented and applied broadly to commercial sector networks and IT infrastructure, it could have a significant impact on sales by U.S. information security technology providers," said an American Embassy spokesman, Richard Buangan, in a written response to questions.
The EU wants Beijing to apply the curbs only to companies involved in national security, said the EU mission in Beijing in a statement.
China has tried for a decade to control encryption and security technology even as it promotes Internet commerce and other industries that rely on it. Beijing is ahead of India, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which are starting to grapple with the technology and say they may shut down BlackBerry's corporate e-mail.
China's security technology market is worth about $250 million this year, rising to $340 million by 2014, according to research firm IDC. Sales also can lead to other future business as customers buy maintenance and support.
The rules say Chinese companies' computer systems will be classified into five tiers of increasing sensitivity. Security technology for the top three tiers must be supplied by a company owned by Chinese citizens.
"The program appears to be aimed in part at putting a large part of the Chinese economy out of competition from foreign providers," said an American business group, the Information Technology Industry Council, in a report to the U.S. International Trade Commission in June.
Chinese-made technology cannot satisfy the demands of the top security tiers, according to a report by researchers Dieter Ernst and Sheri Martin of the East West Center in Hawaii.
That means those needs might have to be met by foreign products, but suppliers might be required to sell them through local partners and hand over technology, nurturing the growth of Chinese competitors.
BlackBerry's Canadian maker, Research in Motion Ltd., is under pressure from India, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to make concessions that almost certainly would provide access to encrypted messages. They are threatening to shut down its corporate e-mail service if it fails to comply.
In China, RIM has refused to say whether it made security compromises to win approval for local BlackBerry service that began in 2006 and is provided through state-owned China Mobile Ltd. and China Telecom Ltd.
RIM has said it tries to cooperate with countries' legal and national security needs and has "a consistent global standard for lawful access requirements that does not include special deals for specific countries."
In a separate dispute, the United States and EU are pressing Beijing to scale back a plan unveiled last year to favor Chinese suppliers in its multibillion-dollar annual purchases of computers and other technology.
The tactic is part of a decade-old "indigenous innovation" campaign to reduce reliance on low-skill manufacturing by building up technology industries.
Under yet another initiative, companies that want to sell encryption and other security technology to the government have been required since May to reveal how it works. Beijing wanted to apply that requirement to all sales in China but backed down after U.S. and European objections.
"The Chinese are ahead of the curve on this," Kho said, "but this is using a hammer when you don't need to."
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Multi-Level Protection Scheme (in Chinese): http://www.djbh.net |
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| IDG News Service - China is stepping up efforts to keep the security systems that protect its critical infrastructure in the hands of local firms, and that could be bad news for companies based outside the country. China has started sending out inspectors to check for compliance with a little-known initiative called the Multi-Level Protection Scheme (MLPS), the Associated Press reported Wednesday. Introduced three years ago by China's Ministry of Public Security, it mandates that core products used by government and infrastructure companies such as banks and transportation must be provided by Chinese companies.
Over the past year, government inspectors have been telling some companies that they must switch to Chinese firewalls and other types of security technology, the AP said.
The development could force security vendors such as Cisco Systems and Symantec out of important parts of the growing market, or force them to partner with local businesses, said Stephen Kho, senior counsel with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, an international law firm based in Washington. "Right now, it seems to only affect the companies that are in the information security sector," he said.
The MLPS regulations have been public since 2007, but it wasn't clear until recently that China would actually enforce them, Kho said. "When they put this one in place, nobody really paid any attention to it," he said. "A lot of times these laws stay on the books and they do nothing."
Critics worry that China may be leveraging security concerns to shut down free trade in its growing security products market.
The MLPS covers critical infrastructure companies, and China has said most government agencies and state-owned companies must be fully compliant by this year, according to a recent report by the American Chamber of Commerce in China. This requirement could have "serious implications" for companies that sell to critical infrastructure operators in China, the report states.
The MLPS is just one of several policies designed by China over the past few years to spur homegrown technology development. Groups like the American Chamber of Commerce worry that they simply close out foreign competition. "[P]olicies that China is adopting under the banner of 'indigenous innovation' are increasingly closed and protectionist in nature," the group wrote in its report.
In a blog post last year, Oracle Director of Standards Strategy and Policy Trond Undheim said other laws and regulations are also at play here, including the Chinese Compulsory Certification (CCC), which requires the disclosure of intellectual property in some security products.
"China is at the moment poised to limit the global IT industry's footprint in their country," Undheim wrote. "They have devised a quite devious set of schemes to do this, centered around IT security legislation."
Reached Thursday, Juniper Networks, Symantec and Trend Micro all declined to comment on the matter. Cisco and McAfee did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Robert McMillan covers computer security and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Robert on Twitter at @bobmcmillan. Robert's e-mail address is robert_mcmillan@idg.com
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9182218/China_policy_could_force_foreign_security_firms_out
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| Intel announced its acquisition of McAfee for $7.68 billion in cash a few days ago. Rising market share for McAfee's enterprise security software, as opposed to a flat forecast by Trefis, could push up the Trefis estimate for McAfee's intrinsic value by around 11%. We estimate that security software for businesses accounts for around one-third of McAfee's value.
Trefis members have created forecasts for two key drivers of McAfee's stock over the last week: (1) McAfee Share in Security Software for Businesses Market and (2) McAfee Share in Antivirus & Security Software Market. The member forecasts suggest that McAfee Share in Security Software for Businesses Market will trend higher than the estimates of the in-house team of analysts at Trefis, while McAfee Share in Antivirus & Security Software Market will trend in-line.
McAfee competes with Symantec and TrendMicro in the enterprise as well as consumer antivirus market. We currently have a Trefis price estimate of around $32 for McAfee's stock, about 31% below the current market price of around $47.
Below are charts showing recent estimates created by Trefis members for the two drivers in detail.
1. McAfee Share in Security Software for Businesses Market [Chart omitted.]
The average of Trefis member forecasts for McAfee Share in Security Software for Businesses Market indicate an increase from around 17% in 2010 to 20% by 2016, compared to the baseline Trefis estimate of an increase from around 14.8% in 2010 to 15.4% by the end of the Trefis forecast period. The member estimates imply an upside of 11% to the Trefis price estimate for McAfee's stock. In the past, McAfee Share in Security Software for Businesses Market has increased from 11% in 2005 to around 15% in 2009.
Disagree? You can drag the forecast trend-line above to express your own view, and see the sensitivity of McAfee's stock to McAfee Share in Security Software for Businesses Market.
Our complete analysis for McAfee Share in Security Software for Businesses Market is here.
2. McAfee Share in Antivirus & Security Software Market [Chart omitted.]
The average of Trefis member forecasts for McAfee Share in Antivirus & Security Software Market indicate an increase from around 21% in 2010 to around 22% by 2016, roughly in-line with the baseline Trefis estimates. The member estimates imply a small downside to the Trefis price estimate for McAfee's stock. In the past, McAfee Share in Antivirus & Security Software Market has increased from 16.5% in 2005 to around 20% in 2009.
Disagree? You can drag the forecast trend-line above to express your own view, and see the sensitivity of McAfee's stock to McAfee Share in Antivirus & Security Software Market.
Our complete analysis for McAfee's stock is here.
Like our charts? Embed them in your own posts using the Trefis Wordpress Plugin.
http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2010/08/27/whats-mcafee-really-worth/?boxes=Homepagechannels
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| Symantec (SYMC): Last week, the biggest tech story was that Intel (INTC: Charts, News, Offers) had bought out antivirus company McAfee (MFE: Charts, News, Offers) in a puzzling $7.68 billion all cash deal by paying a 60% premium. What does this deal mean for the remaining players in field, most notably the largest security and antivirus software maker in the world, Symantec, whose flagship Norton Antivirus software has dominated the market at 64% for the better part of the last two decades? Symantec's Norton Security products comprise of a third of the company's revenue, but it is facing a different battlefield moving into the second decade of the 21st century. Freeware, OS bundled, cloud-based and now processor-based antivirus programs have led many to believe that Symantec's margins will inevitably shrink as competition intensifies. Others, however, believe that Intel absorbing McAfee will be a diversion that will ultimately benefit Symantec by casting doubt upon McAfee's value to enterprise customers. Stock Analysis
Symantec is the largest provider of security software for enterprise and home users. It's best known for its flagship product, Norton Antivirus, and is widely spread throughout the Americas (earning 54% of total revenue), Asia Pacific (15%) and Europe/Middle East/Central Asia (31%). It has a large partner base of 40,000 companies worldwide, including OEMs, ISPs and retail/online stores. Besides its antivirus software line, which brings in a third of its revenue, Symantec also focuses on enterprise firewall security, mass storage and backup software – a well-rounded security portfolio which brings in the remaining 2/3 of its yearly revenue. It has consistently high margins of 12% as opposed to McAfee's 8%. Its primary rivals include McAfee, Trend Micro (TMICY: Charts, News, Offers) and Juniper Networks (JNPR: Charts, News, Offers) who all offer similar suites for computer and network protection. At the end of July, Symantec announced better than expected net earnings of $114 million up from $91 million the year before. Its total revenue also increased to $1.31 billion, up from $1.15 billion. However, guidance was lowered by 4-6 cents per share, and a decrease in revenue to $1.24-$1.27 billion, due to conservative estimates regarding lowered or stagnant PC demand and instability in the global macro environment. To offset the negative outlook, Symantec announced a $1 billion share repurchase plan effective immediately and plans to cut $200 million in costs, although the affected departments have yet to be specified by CEO John Thompson.
Intel's purchase of McAfee, which is a distant second in the antivirus market at 21%, for such a high premium, has been widely criticized as a foolish attempt to expand outside its core business. Intel has claimed that by buying McAfee, it is preparing for a cloud-based revolution, in which not only computers but ATMs, credit card processors, home appliances and a myriad of other devices will be permanently connected to the Internet via computer-like interfaces and will eventually be powered by its CPUs. It is the same "smart machine" vision that Google (GOOG: Charts, News, Offers) has planned for Android. Intel's rationale is an extremely speculative supposition, as it is planning for a role in technologies which have not yet been fully developed yet. In addition, the anti-virus side of things has traditionally been handled within the operating system, not in the hardware.
For now, Symantec stands to gain from Intel's buyout because the merger generates so much uncertainty regarding McAfee's future. Does Intel plan to keep McAfee as a separate subsidiary to generate profit, or does Intel have some larger scale hardware-software integration solution down the line that may disrupt McAfee's current line of products and its workforce? Enterprise consumers to whom stable, dependable network-wide security is paramount in importance will not take kindly to Intel-McAfee's uncertain future, and will likely shift to its rivals, the largest of which is Symantec's Norton Products. In addition, Intel-McAfee would be less likely to respond to Symantec's pricing cuts and could actually have to raise prices due to the costs of the merger. Lastly, Symantec's stock is trading at a discount now, with a forward P/E of 9.08, a PEG ratio of 1.08 and still 28% below its 52-week high of 19.16, which makes it a prime candidate for a takeover.
Its 10.89 billion market capitalization makes it a likely target for Silicon Valley giants Microsoft (MSFT: Charts, News, Offers), Cisco (CSCO: Charts, News, Offers), Oracle (ORCL: Charts, News, Offers), IBM (IBM: Charts, News, Offers) or HP (HPQ: Charts, News, Offers). Each of these would benefit greatly by acquiring a full-fledged antivirus division at a discount, and any of these suitors would merge far more smoothly with Symantec than McAfee will with Intel. Microsoft could easily integrate Symantec's technology into the Windows OS to complete their OneCare cloud-based antivirus/anti-spyware suite, Cisco could integrate the technology into their own networking hardware, and Oracle could go full circle with its enterprise lineup – with its own native software, hardware recently acquired from Sun and finally a full-fledged antivirus company. IBM and HP could use Symantec's technology to strengthen its already large enterprise IT software base. Would any of these potential buyers, though, pay an Intel-sized premium for Symantec? Although a buyout on the horizon is possible, investors should not wager on such a huge move to counter Intel's in the near term. However, Symantec is still technically undervalued and it may be a good time to start building a position in the company, regardless of whether or not a buyout occurs.
http://www.investorguide.com/article/6683/will-symantec-benefit-from-intel-buying-mcafee-symc/ |
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| Intel and Microsoft have been joined at the hips for decades. Back when Microsoft was being investigated by the FTC and then by the DOJ, I argued that the bigger issue was the Microsoft/Intel duopoly. No one in power took up my suggestion. Intel and Redmond still do a lot of work together, but a move this week by the processor giant puts them in direct competition -- at least in one market. Intel pulled out its bulging corporate wallet and shelled out nearly $8 billion for McAfee (I always have trouble spelling that name).
Intel isn't just interested in securing apps and OSes -- it wants to add security right down at the chip level. And that could be a very good thing.
Are you a McAfee fan or foe? Cast your ballots at dbarney@redmondmag.com.
http://redmondmag.com/blogs/doug-barney/2010/08/intel-vs-microsoft-and-symantec-and-trend-micro.aspx |
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| Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Trend Micro Inc., a Japanese maker of antivirus software, and South Korea's Ahnlab Inc. rose in Asian trading on speculation further acquisitions will follow Intel Corp.'s $7.68 billion purchase of McAfee Inc. Trend Micro, which climbed as much as 8 percent, closed 4.5 percent higher at 2,281 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Ahnlab added 1.3 percent to 19,500 won after gaining as much as 6 percent in Seoul.
Security software is becoming more valuable to consumer electronics and semiconductor makers as more devices such as mobile phones, game and music players can connect to the Internet. The McAfee acquisition, which follows Hewlett-Packard Co.'s agreement this week to buy Fortify Software Inc., raises anticipation there will be further consolidation in the antivirus software industry, analysts said.
"Investors think these guys might get bought too," said Hideaki Tanaka, an analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. in Tokyo. These companies are "attractive targets for electronics makers."
Intel yesterday said it will pay $7.68 billion for McAfee, in its largest acquisition, to integrate the antivirus software into its hardware. The chips with built-in security will be introduced in the first half of next year, the company said.
Tanaka recommends buying Tokyo-based Trend Micro and has no rating on Seoul-based Ahnlab.
--With assistance by Yoshinori Eki in Tokyo. Editors: Jonathan Annells, Young-Sam Cho.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-20/trend-micro-ahnlab-shares-gain-as-intel-buys-mcafee.html |
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| The 60% share-price premium McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt got Intel to pay to acquire McAfee doubled the share-price premium DeWalt garnered the last time he flipped a midsize tech company to a giant corporation. In 2003, DeWalt, then CEO of Documentum, sold the content management firm to EMC, for $1.9 billion, at a share price that translated into a 29% premium, says Daniel Ives, tech industry analyst at FBR Capital Markets.
"Dave DeWalt has the magic touch in regards to building an organization that shows growth and also highlighting its potential," says Ives. "This is the second time he's done it."
To polish up Documentum for sale, DeWalt led the company through nine consecutive quarters of growth, including four acquisitions. He then went to work for EMC, leading its content management and archiving software division. He left EMC in 2007 to take the reins as CEO of then-struggling McAfee.
Again he steered a course of growth through acquisitions and aggressive salesmanship; in negotiating with Intel, he was able to boast that he had turned McAfee into a double-digit annual growth company with a nearly 80% gross profit margin.
Andrew Jaquith, tech security industry analyst at Forrester, notes in this post that the $7.7 billion Intel will pay for McAfee, when the deal closes, translates into roughly five times the last trailing four quarters' revenues, about typical for M&A deals in the security industry.
"The price is not so high that it makes Intel look like Daddy Warbucks but not so low that it looks like McAfee was desperate to sell," observes Jaquith.
DeWalt's new boss, Renee James, Intel's senior vice president of software and services, has assigned him to run McAfee pretty much as is: a fast-growing, highly profitable, wholly owned subsidiary.
In a Technology Live interview, James declined to give much detail about longer-range plans to infuse McAfee's security expertise into Intel's struggling Atom chip for Internet-connected mobile devices. "It's true in mobile solutions that we will have more enhanced security hardware," said James. "It is an accurate assumption that in the mobile devices market, we will be doing integration into the chip."
Exactly what security features Intel embeds in its Atom chip -- and whether a robust market emerges for a security-enhanced mobile-devices chip -- remain to be seen.
But there is no question mobility, in general, has a big future in tech. Internet-connected smartphones, netbooks, e-readers and tablets are increasing in usage. All big tech and media companies want to ride the wave. Yet, at this juncture, neither Intel nor McAfee are serious players in the mobility market, says Jacquith.
"This deal doesn't improve their prospects," he says. "In the mobile market, Intel has had its lunch eaten by ARM Holdings, a company whose energy-efficient designs have underpinned the chips of choice on mobile devices like Apple's iPad."
For McAfee's part, DeWalt's recent acquisitions of mobile security companies Trust Digital, TenCube and Solidcore look prescient, and certainly added to his sales pitch to Intel. But the revenue those firms bring to the table is small potatoes. "McAfee deserves credit for thinking outside the PC box, but its execution in this area is, at best, in the early stages," says Jaquith.
Concocting and executing a viable strategy to somehow boost Intel's Atom chip for mobile devices by tying in a McAfee security contribution will be a big challenge for DeWalt. But even before he tackles security for the Atom chip, DeWalt must prove that the shiny apple he sold Intel is, indeed, as sweet as it looks.
McAfee reported net revenue from its consumer security market increased $32.0 million, or 9%, to $381 million in the six months ended June 30. That accounts for nearly 40% of its revenue, a major factor in the price Intel agreed to pay for McAfee.
But the long-lucrative consumer PC anti-virus market is mature, portending slow growth. Yet it remains highly competitive. And it is also in flux. More and more PC users are content to use free basic anti-virus protection from AVG, Avira, Panda Security, Immunet and others. These suppliers make money by upselling trial users to paid versions.
A new wild card in this "free" protection segment is Microsoft Windows Essentials, which is completely free; Microsoft has nothing to upsell.
McAfee, Symantec and Trend Micro sell to consumers primarily by cutting deals with Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Lenovo and Sony to install free trial versions on new Windows 7 PCs.
Oliver Friedrichs, CEO of start-up Immunet, who has made career stops at McAfee and Symantec, contends that suppliers offering free basic protection tied to upselling will inevitably overtake the giants who market free-trial versions on new PCs.
"The anti-virus industry is seeing significant deterioration due to the free anti-virus software market," says Friedrichs, adding that usage of free basic anti-virus by U.S. computer users is approaching 50%. "This has not only taken away opportunity for (free-trial) anti-virus vendors, but it is deteriorating existing market share as well."
How well DeWalt navigates this shifting of the consumer market remains to be seen. Financial services firm UBS expects McAfee to become less aggressive on pricing under Intel. That should benefit rival Symantec, whose share price is trading near its two-year low. UBS is even projecting that unless Symantec takes advantage and breathes life into its share price, it could become an acquisition target of the likes of Oracle, IBM , Cisco or HP.
Meanwhile, DeWalt almost certainly will also have to deal with a clash of corporate cultures. Gartner tech security industry analyst Peter Firstbrook points out that the marriage of a hard-charging software sales company and an entrenched chip manufacturer lacks any intrinsic synergy.
"Chip vendors work on long-term, well-planned cycles, while security companies have to be much more reactive to market conditions," says Firstbrook. "Intel is a dominant player in their market and driven by staid engineering culture, while McAfee is a scrappy, West Coast, sales-driven company."
DeWalt, who is a University of Delaware Hall of Fame champion collegiate wrestler, told Technology Live in an interview that he is pumped up to grapple with all of these challenges:
"I stayed for a long time afterward with EMC, making it successful with Documentum, and I'm going to do the same thing here with Intel, making this successful for them. Our visions are very similar, the strategies are similar, it's going to be a pleasure to really help bring security benefits to the world. I think this is just a great combination. I can't tell you how excited my employees are. And, clearly, all of our partners are excited, because they can make more money, and do more things together too. So there are lots of very positive aspects to this."
By Byron Acohido
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/08/dave-dewalts-next-challenge-make-intel-mcafee-marriage-fruitful/1 |
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| Intel and Microsoft have been joined at the hips for decades. Back when Microsoft was being investigated by the FTC and then by the DOJ, I argued that the bigger issue was the Microsoft/Intel duopoly. No one in power took up my suggestion. Intel and Redmond still do a lot of work together, but a move this week by the processor giant puts them in direct competition -- at least in one market. Intel pulled out its bulging corporate wallet and shelled out nearly $8 billion for McAfee (I always have trouble spelling that name).
Intel isn't just interested in securing apps and OSes -- it wants to add security right down at the chip level. And that could be a very good thing.
Are you a McAfee fan or foe? Cast your ballots at dbarney@redmondmag.com.
http://redmondmag.com/blogs/doug-barney/2010/08/intel-vs-microsoft-and-symantec-and-trend-micro.aspx |
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| The security software industry is heating up. The latest evidence? Private equity firm Summit Partners has just invested $100 million in antivirus software vendor Avast Software. The investment comes on the heels of Intel's $7.68 billion acquisition of antivirus vendor McAfee, as well as a number of other deals that have made security technology companies a hot commodity. Prague-based Avast has upset the traditional antivirus market by giving away its software for free. In this "freemium" model, the company tries to upsell users on paid software with more features. The software protects more than 100 million users.
The company depends on word-of-mouth marketing from its users, and its software now protects about one out of every five computers around the world. Avast claims that independent tests show its software protects better than paid products.
Avast was founded in 1988 by Eduard Kucera and Pavel Baudis. They have seen the number of virus threats and the scope of their business grow dramatically in the past two decades. "After writing a program to remove the Vienna virus back in 1988, it was about six months before I saw another virus. Now our Virus Lab adds 3,000 new virus samples a day to its database," said Baudis.
The company launched its free distribution model in the early 2000s. Rivals include Intel-McAfee (merger pending), Symantec, Trend Micro, AVG Technologies, Avira, Panda, Kaspersky, F-Secure, Bit-Defender and Eset. The company has 120 employees and has not received outside funding before.
http://venturebeat.com/2010/08/23/antivirus-vendor-avast-software-raises-100m-in-private-equity/ |
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| Summit Partners is making a $100 million bet on Prague antivirus house Avast Software's growth potential, exchanging its money for a minority piece of the action and a seat on the board. It was just the other day that Intel bought McAfee for $7.68 billion saying it would put some of McAfee's security widgetry in its chips.
Summit also backed McAfee. Its other security investments include Postini (acquired by Google), SafeBoot Holdings BV (acquired by McAfee) and Sybari Software (acquired by Microsoft).
The $100 million it's throwing into Avast is the Czech company's only outside investment to date.
Avast, which doesn't have the profile of a Norton or even a McAfee - at least not in the U.S. - claims to protect one out of every five computers worldwide from malware, having gotten on most of them by virtue of its freeware.
Avast has been using the so-called "freemium" model since the early 2000s; it involves a full-fledged free product as bait and a paid premium product it tries to up-sell the freeware users to.
It also depends on word-of-mouth by its 100 million registered users rather than advertising or OEM deals for growth. It claims it's disrupting the traditional antivirus market, although that market has hosted other freeware.
Avast's protection is based on the CommunityIQ system of user-submitted data on suspected viruses and infected web sites. The company says independent testing confirms that its free antivirus protection meets or exceeds the performance of most paid products.
It says its Virus Lab adds 3,000 new virus samples a day to its database.
The avast 5.0 portfolio, available in around 30 languages, includes Free Antivirus, Pro Antivirus for customized protection and the premium Internet Security with a Silent Firewall. Its performance has been certified by VB100, ICSA Labs and West Coast Labs.
The Czech company competes with Norton, Trend Micro, Softwin's BitDefender, Kaspersky and AVG Technologies among others.
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| Free antivirus software pioneer Avast, has received a $100 million (£64 million) investment from private equity firm Summit Partners to woo business users and open new offices around the globe. (Trend Micro) Summit Partners managing director Scott Collins will get a seat on the Czech company's board in return for its cash and will help the infused company to drive a strategy based around the 'freemium' software model.
Also used by European rivals such as AVG Software and Panda Security, freemium offers users a basic antivirus product at no cost in the hope that in time they will be willing to pay for a more featured product.
According to Avast, offering free antivirus since 2004 has allowed the company to claim a 100 million user base, an unknown number of whom pay for the upgraded paid-for product. The company and its new investor see potential to apply the same approach to business users.
"We are convinced that the freemium model is the wave of the future," said Avast's CEO, Vince Steckler, a US executive appointed to head the company in July 2009.
"This approach is already upsetting the traditional antivirus market. Instead of paying for advertising or installation on new computers, Avast continues to experience dramatic growth as fans of avast! recommend our products to their friends. The word-of-mouth of our large and loyal, satisfied customer base is certainly the most effective form of advertising," he added.
In fact, it is more accurate to state that the freemium model has been around for some years and was considered more or less the only way for small, European antivirus companies to stand a chance against the huge marketing and partnering operations run by Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro.
As it stands, Avast still has only one significant office, its Prague HQ, no history of hands-on support and even its large user base flatters to deceive. People flock to companies offering free antivirus because the bigger brands charge significant annual subscriptions for almost the same basic features.
Despite its sudden popularity as a buzz term, freemium's biggest rival is probably not paid-for antivirus so much as totally free software along the lines of Microsoft's Security Essentials. This is rated as basic in its feature set but is slowly acquiring more sophistication, including that added by a recent upgrade.
The commercial imperative is to get users to upgrade but means getting them to understand the purpose and value of the extra features. That might be easier to achieve with SME users as long as the price can beat the big three for value.
Avast is said to be profitable, but Summit Partners is likely to be after either an IPO – hinted at as a possibility during a conference call – or a sell out to a better known security brand. Venture capitalists don't throw $100 million around these days without a good prospect of bettering their investment.
http://news.techworld.com/security/3236658/avast-gets-100-million-for-free-antivirus-software-push/ |
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| "Authorities investigating the 2008 crash of Spanair flight 5022 have discovered a central computer system used to monitor technical problems in the aircraft was infected with malware. An internal report issued by the airline revealed the infected computer failed to detect three technical problems with the aircraft, which if detected, may have prevented the plane from taking off, according to reports in the Spanish newspaper, El Pais. Flight 5022 crashed just after takeoff from Madrid-Barajas International Airport two years ago today, killing 154 and leaving only 18 survivors.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board reported in a preliminary investigation that the plane had taken off with its flaps and slats retracted — and that no audible alarm had been heard to warn of this because the systems delivering power to the take-off warning system failed. Two earlier events had not been reported by the automated system.
The malware on the Spanair computer has been identified as a type of Trojan horse. It could have entered the airline's system in a number of ways, according to Jamz Yaneeza, head threat researcher at Trend Micro. Some of the most likely ways are through third party devices such as USB sticks, Yaneeza said, which were responsible for the International Space Station virus infection in 2008, or through a remote VPN connection that may not have the same protection as a computer within the enterprise network. Opening just one malicious file on a single computer is all it takes to infect an entire system.
An incident like this could happen again, and most likely will, according to Saydjari.
Sounds sketchy to me. Trains good, planes bad? Any pilots here like to refute this?
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2010/08/22/did-a-trojan-virus-take-down-airliner/
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| Washington, DC: The 2008 airplane crash of Spanair flight 5022 could have been caused by malware, which infected a central computer system used to monitor technical problems in the aircraft, according to a report by the Spanish newspaper El Pais. The airline also believes malware was to blame. The malware has been identified as a Trojan Horse that could have entered the computer through third party devices such as USB sticks, or through a remote VPN connection that may not have the same protection as a computer within the enterprise network, according to Jamz Yaneeza, head threat researcher at Trend Micro. USB sticks were also responsible for the International Space Station virus infection in 2008. TechNews Daily said it could also have been infected simply by visiting "a malicious website with an insecure browser like Internet Explorer 6".
An early investigation by the US National Transportation Safety Board revealed that the plane had taken off with its slats and flaps retracted, and that there was no audible alarm due to a power failure with the takeoff warning system.
"Any computer that is connected to a network is vulnerable to a malware infection," said O. Sami Saydjari, president of Cyber Defense Agency, as told by TechNewsDaily. "Standards have not been set to protect critical infrastructure." According to Saydjari, an "incident" like this could happen again, and most likely will.
Flight 5022 killed 154 people and left only 18 survivors.
http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/14832/malware-plane-crash.html
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| On August 20, 2008, a Spanair Flight from Barajas Airport (Madrid) to Gran Canaria Airport (Gran Canaria, Spain) crashed shortly after take off, killing 154 people. The aircraft was a McDonnell Douglas MD-82. Only 18 people walked away with their lives after the crash. Now, exactly two years later, news of what might have brought the plane down surfaced. News which, if proved to be true, might shed another cone of shadow on the aeronautical industry.
According to Spanish media, citing the investigators, at the bottom of the crash lies a central computer system used to monitor technical problems in the aircraft. Apparently, that system was infected with malware, which prevented it from picking up the three technical problems which eventually led to the plane's crash.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the plane took off from the Madrid airport with its flaps and slats retracted. Usually, such an event would cause audible alarms, but in this case, the systems which supply power to the take-off warning system failed.
According to livescience.com, citing head threat researcher at Trend Micro, Jamz Yaneeza, the malware has been classified as a Trojan horse. It could have been brought into the plane's systems in several ways.
This doesn't mean however the malware was placed intentionally. Mikko Hyppönen, the head of the research department at security firm F-Secure, says it's likely the malware was not intended for the plane either.
"Over the years, we have seen real-world infrastructure affected by computer problems. In most cases, this has been just a side effect; the malware behind the problem wasn't trying to take systems down, it just did," he was quoted as saying by v3.co.uk.
http://www.autoevolution.com/news/spanair-flight-5022-crashed-by-malware-23643.html |
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| The investigation of the 2008 Spanair Flight JK 5022 crash reveals that the tragedy could have been stopped if an important system would have not been infected with a Trojan. Within few minutes of takeoff from Madrid-Barajas International Airport in 2008, Flight 5022 crashed down on the earth. 154 people were killed and only 18 survived.
El Pais, the Spanish newspaper, claimed that a computer system assigned with observing technical problems and issuing alerts, which can lead to planes being grounded, was not working because of a malware infection.
While not directly related with the crash, the malware affected the mainframe that examines technical problems on the plane. It appears that the MD-82 plane that crashed faced two problems the day before tragedy, but technicians were not able to record them on the infected system.
An alarm has to ring if three same kind of technical problems are found on a single plane, but it did not ring because of Trojans' attack on mainframe.
Jamz Yaneeza, Head Threat Researcher at Trend Micro, stated that the infection could have entered the airline's system in many ways, as per the reports by msnbc on August 20, 2010.
Yaneeza stated that few probable methods of entering the system were through third party devices like USB sticks, which were behind the infection of the International Space Station virus in 2008, or through a remote VPN connection that might not have the same amount of security as a system in the company's network. Just one harmful file can infect the whole computer system.
President of Cyber Defense Agency, O. Sami Savdjari, said that any system linked to a network was susceptible to a malware infection, as per the reports by msnbc.com on August 20, 2010. Further, he said that standards had not been set to protect important infrastructure.
Savdjari claimed that this may happen again and most probably will.
A judge has asked Spanair to give all of the computer's logs for the days before and after the crash.
http://www.spamfighter.com/News-15014-Trojan-Might-be-Responsible-for-2008-Madrid-Plane-Crash.htm |
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| Designed specifically for the Mac, Iomega's eGo Silver Desktop Hard Drive Mac Edition is the company's workhorse desktop drive for your home storage needs. The gunmetal silver drive offers triple interface connectivity, competitive pricing and speeds. (We tested the 2TB version.) (Trend Micro Trend Smart Surfing for Mac). At 2.2 pounds and 7.3-by-4.9-by-1.6 inches, the eGo is best served resting on your desk, either vertically or horizontally, but can be thrown into a backpack for easy transport. The eGo comes equipped with two FireWire 800 ports and a USB 2.0 port. During our tests, the drive didn't generate any noticeable heat or noise.
The gunmetal silver casing and perforated front are typical of its class, but the power button on the back has a tendency to recede during use. Turning the device "off" requires very small fingers or a pen. It's a strange design choice and was considered annoying by more than one of our testers. Iomega has claimed to have addressed this issue and any unit built after May 2010 supposedly has a more conventional power switch.
The eGo is formatted using HFS+ and included no software or drive interface—you just drag and drop files into the mounted drive's folder as you see fit. It's Time Machine compatible right out of the box. Set the eGo as your Time Machine backup target and you're good to go.
While the drive doesn't come with any software, you can download free software from Iomega. The software available includes Iomega QuikProtect, a one-year subscription to Trend Micro Trend Smart Surfing for Mac and a subscription to MozyHome online backup (2GB free). The drive also comes with a three-year limited warranty, fairly standard for the industry.
Compared to two of the faster desktop hard drives we've tested, the eGo performed admirably. In our 1GB copy test, the eGo actually bested both the My Book Studio 2TB ( Macworld rated 4 out of 5 mice ) and the Avastor HDX-1500 ( Macworld rated 3.5 out of 5 mice ) with its FireWire 800 connection by completing the test in 21 seconds. The eGo actually set a new record for desktop drives in our latest regime of Speedmark tests.
The eGo was still competitive, while less exceptional, with its FireWire 800 duplication test. The eGo finished in 35 seconds, slightly behind the My Book Studio's 32-second score and even with the Avastor's score.
The low-memory Photoshop test proved to be the most difficult test for the eGo. The combination of read and write tasks and forcing the drive to act as a scratch disk proved taxing to the eGo's performance. The eGo finished our regime of Photoshop tests in 2 minutes and 53 seconds—8 seconds behind the Avastor and a full 2 minutes behind the My Book Studio 2TB.
The AJA tests tell part of the story: the write score for the eGo is only 53.1 MBps, that's almost 10MBps behind the Avastor and My Book's write speeds. The eGo's read time, in contrast, is similar to its competitors and explains the eGo's schizoid performance scores.
At $230, the Iomega eGo Desktop Hard Drive 2TB has a price per gigabyte of a little over $.11. As a desktop drive, that's pretty competitively priced. Iomega also sells a 1TB verion of the drive for $150.
Macworld's buying advice
The eGo Silver Desktop Hard Drive Mac Edition is a strong, though not exceptional desktop drive. The drive is competitive (albeit slightly slower) than its main competition, the Western Digital My Book Studio 2TB. But if you're not a fan of Western Digital's products, Iomega remains a viable alternative.
Chris Holt is a Macworld associate editor.
http://www.networkworld.com/reviews/2010/082710-iomega-ego-silver-desktop-hard.html |
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| The new SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface -- which moves data at a top speed of 5 gigabits per second -- is now being installed on all Iomega USB 2.0 portable hard drives, beginning with the 500GB and 1TB eGo devices, Iomega President Jonathan Huberman told eWEEK. EMC Iomega announced Aug. 24 that it is moving all of its desktop storage devices to USB 3.0 from 2.0 but not charging anything extra for it.
The new SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface -- which moves data at a top speed of 5 gigabits per second -- is now being installed on all Iomega USB 2.0 portable hard drives, beginning with the 500GB and 1TB eGo devices, Iomega President Jonathan Huberman told eWEEK.
The new items will hit real and virtual shelves in October.
"At least in our space, the adoption of USB 3.0 has been relatively weak," Huberman said. "There are two things driving this: No. 1, the vendors of PCs and laptops haven't been driving 3.0 that aggressively, but that is changing. In Q4, we'll be seeing a lot more 3.0 laptops and desktops.
"Plus, in our space [desktop storage], today you have to pay a significant premium to add [USB] 3.0. Given how price-conscious people are in this segment, that has limited its appeal. So we're taking that objection away."
In the first quarter of 2011, Iomega plans to move its Prestige compact portable drives to USB 3.0 on all models. Shortly thereafter, Iomega will move the rest of its portable external hard drive models to 3.0 interfaces.
Typically, SMB and consumer desktop storage devices cost about $20 to $30 more at retail to add the USB 3.0 option. That can increase the cost of a drive from 10 percent to 20 percent.
eGO units with USB 3.0 connectivity currently go for $140 [1TB] and $220 [2TB], according to the Iomega product site.
Iomega storage devices also feature 256-bit hardware encryption, vClone software, Quick Protect backup, a free one-year subscription to Trend Micro antivirus software, and Mozy or Retrospect backup software.
Iomega's 2.5-inch portable hard drives are host powered and use no external power supply beyond the power provided through the USB bus on a personal computer, laptop or netbook, Huberman said.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/Iomega-Moving-All-New-Portable-Storage-Drives-to-USB-30-861622/ |
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| Iomega Corp. is set to show SuperSpeed USB more love in the near future when it will release the new 2.5-inch eGo Portable Hard Drives which have a USB 3.0 interface and boast AES 256-bit hardware encryption. The upcoming drives will be available in Ruby Red, Midnight Blue and Silver, have a sleek but also rugged enclosure, are backed by a three-year warranty and include a bundle made up of the v.Clone virtualization software, Roxio Retrospect Express (backup) and Trend Micro's Internet Security and Smart Surfing (with a 12-month subscription).
Iomega's USB 3.0 eGo Portable Hard Drives will be available in 500GB and 1TB capacities with a recommended price tag of $114 and $189, respectively.
http://www.tcmagazine.com/tcm/news/hardware/29957/iomega-readies-usb-30-equipped-ego-portable-hard-drives |
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| The USB 3.0 standard is starting to get more and more popular as more computers are getting the new ports ready to handle faster speeds between compatible devices. Iomega seems to be aware of this trend and it's trying to get an edge on the competition when it comes to external HDD sales. Iomega announced today that all its upcoming portable hard drives will offer "SuperSpeed USB 3.0" at "USB 2.0 prices," which is definitely a move in the right direction.
Iomega will include the new SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface in all its portable drives starting with the Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drives. The eGo hard drives will also feature hardware encryption and "super toughness" (Drop Guard Xtreme offers protection from drops of up to 7 feet), but we're rather interested in getting that USB 3.0 support for free.
The new eGo Portable Hard Drives will come in 500GB and 1TB capacities starting this October. The Iomega Prestige Compact Portable Hard Drive will get USB 3.0 in the first quarter of 2011 and in the following period of time all the remaining external HDD will get the new interface.
In case your desktop or laptop only has USB 2.0 ports then Iomega will also offer you USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 adapters that would help you make the most of the new transfer speeds. The Iomega USB 3.0 Adapter for USB 2.0 laptops costs $39.99 while the Iomega USB 3.0 PCI Express Adaptor for PC desktops is also going to cost you an extra $39.99.
Last, but not least, Iomega is ready to offer you a bunch of applications to help you protect your data. The Iomega Protection Suite is included in every 2.5-inch external drive and will offer you various software solutions to help you backup data and keep viruses and malware away, but you'll have to download them individually once you get your desired Iomega HDD. Here's what's included in the Protection Suite Bundle: v.Clone, 12-month subscription to Trend Micro, Iomega QuickProtect, Roxio Retrospect Express software and MozyHome Online Backup.
So, have you decided on what Iomega hard drives you're buying?
http://nexus404.com/Blog/2010/08/24/iomega-includes-free-usb-3-0-in-all-upcoming-external-hdd-iomega-external-hard-drives-to-get-usb-3-0-sell-at-usb-2-0-prices/ |
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| Iomega will soon release upgraded eGo USB 3.0 portable hard drives. Sporting an interface that's about 10 times faster than the older USB 2.0 standard, the drives are rare as they won't cost any more than their older, slower counterparts. Each has AES 256-bit hardware encryption and can withstand seven-foot drops thanks to a bundled Power Grip Band and skip protection in the drives themselves. The drives will also ship with a software Protection Suite that includes Iomega's QuikProtect, v.Clone and Trend Micro's Internet Security programs.
The 500GB and 1TB drives will ship early in October, with suggested prices set at $114 and $189, respectively. In 2011, Iomega plans to upgrade its Prestige Compact along with the balance of its external portable hard drives to the USB 3.0 standard
http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/08/24/iomega.ego.drives.now.sport.usb.30/ |
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| Iomega has announced it will be updating all of its eGo Portable Hard Drive lineup with USB 3.0 technology starting this fall. The update drives will have the same price as the current-generation USB 2.0 versions. USB 3.0 has transfer speeds up to ten times faster than USB 2.0. Iomega eGo Portable hard drives have a ruggedized exterior with a seven-foot drop spec. Additionally, the drives have 256-bit hardware encryption (PC only) and come with the Iomega Protection Suite, which includes several types of backup software and a 12-month Trend Micro Internet Security subscription.
Iomega's eGo portable hard drives with 500GB and 1TB capacities will be moved to USB 3.0 by early October; starting in Q1 2011, Iomega will move the rest of its portable hard drives to USB 3.0.
Iomega eGo portable hard drives come with a three-year warranty (with registration) and a starting price of $79.99.
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5823
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| Iomega today announced a move to the USB 3.0 standard across its range of portable hard drives. At up to ten times the data transfer speed of its predecessor, drives supporting USB 3.0 are fully backwards compatible with USB 2.0 PCs. Iomega will transition each of its ranges to the new standard over the coming year, starting with the company's 500GB and 1TB eGo Portable Hard Drives, which will launch in October. The company stated it will transition its remaining products in early 2011, starting with the Iomega Prestige Compact Portable Hard Drive. Pricing will remain unchanged from the current USB 2.0 models.
"As a market leader in external hard drive solutions, Iomega is proud to be the first to move towards an all USB 3.0 portable hard drive lineup – and at no extra price premium to our customers," said Jonathan Huberman, president of Iomega Corporation and the Consumer and Small Business Products Division of EMC. "With a super fast USB 3.0 interface delivering speeds of up to 10 times that of USB 2.0, super tough with a 7-foot drop spec that's twice the industry average and super secure with AES 256 hardware encryption, Iomega's eGo Portable Hard Drives will be the premium must-have portable storage product. Factor in our bundled software Protection Suite with popular titles such as Iomega's QuikProtect, v.Clone and Trend Micro's Internet Security, and that makes Iomega's USB 3.0 eGo Portable Hard Drives an exceptional premium solution at the same price as most entry level basic USB 2.0 products."
http://www.wegotserved.com/2010/08/24/iomega-updates-portable-hard-drive-range-usb-30/ |
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| Losing all the important data could be one of the greatest fears of PC users and any enhancements in this segment are more than welcome. Iomega's eGo Drop Guard Xtreme USB 2.0 HDDs with 500GB and 1TB storage capacities gearing up to be available with a USB 3.0 interface only essay this thought further. Offering backward compatibility with USB 2.0 PCs, the devices are cited to withstand a seven feet drop.</p><p>Users can employ a USB 3.0 transfer speed of 5GB/s on their USB 2.0 PCs through the USB 3.0 adapter cards sold separately. The devices integrate a 256-bit hardware encryption and come bundled with cables to connect to desktops or notebooks through USB 2.0 or 3.0 ports. The 2.5" HDDs function through the USB bus and require no external power supply.
"As a market leader in external hard drive solutions, Iomega is proud to be the first to move towards an all USB 3.0 portable hard drive lineup and at no extra price premium to our customers," explained <strong>Jonathan Huberman, president of Iomega Corporation and the Consumer and Small Business Products Division of EMC.
The portable HDDs are attributed with the free version of the Iomega Protection Suite too. It includes v.Clone software that captures a virtual image of the PC and allows users to access the cloned copy on another computer. One year subscription of Trend Micro Internet Security software is offered to Windows users whereas Mac users can avail of 12-month Trend Micro Smart Surfing software version.
"With a super fast USB 3.0 interface delivering speeds of up to 10 times that of USB 2.0, super tough with a 7ft drop spec that's twice the industry average and super secure with AES 256 hardware encryption, Iomega's eGo Portable HDDs will be the premium must-have portable storage product," added Huberman. "Factor in our bundled software Protection Suite with popular titles such as Iomega's QuikProtect, v.Clone and Trend Micro's Internet Security, and that makes Iomega's USB 3.0 eGo Portable HDDs an exceptional premium solution at the same price as most entry level basic USB 2.0 products."
QuikProtect backup software lets owners backup files and crucial data to HDDs and NAS devices. With Roxio Retrospect Express software documents and content as well as applications and settings are stored securely. Additionally, users can restore data from any computer with internet connection through MozyHome Online Backup service price at $4.95 per month.
The sleek eGo portable HDDs are available in ruby red, midnight blue and silver shades. The Iomega USB 3.0 adapter for USB 2.0 laptops is priced for $39.99 (approx. Rs. 1,870) while the Iomega USB 3.0 PCI Express adaptor for PC desktops costs $39.99 (approx. Rs. 1,870) Iomega HDDs are backed by a three year limited warranty.
http://www.techgadgets.in/storage/2010/27/iomega-upgrades-ego-superspeed-portable-hdds-to-usb-3-0/ |
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| Iomega is at it again when it comes to portable hard drives, and the company has just released their latest device – the all new USB 3.0 eGo Portable Hard Drive. Not only will it take advantage of the super fast USB 3.0 connection, it will also be able to keep your precious data inside safe and secure using hardware encryption as well as boasting exterior toughness that ought to put even the most paranoid person to shame. This new eGo will surely boost your very own whenever you take it out for a spin, and you won't even find your jaw dropping when your friend or colleage drops it to the floor by accident, courtesy of a drop spec which is double that of the industry average. Iomega is proud to announce that they are the first to move towards an all USB 3.0 portable hard drive lineup without charging a price premium to their customers. For those who are not in the know, USB 3.0 connectivity will help deliver speeds of up to 10 times that of USB 2.0, and as we mentioned earlier, this new range is extremely tough considering it can withstand a 7-foot drop without missing a beat. Not only that, your important data within can be kept secure thanks to AES 256-bit hardware encryption, placing Iomega's eGo Portable Hard Drive comfortably within the premium must-have portable storage product range. It isn't just all hardware though, as Iomega ensures you get value for your money on the software front as well thanks to a bundled software Protection Suite that comprises of popular titles such as Iomega's QuikProtect, v.Clone and Trend Micro's Internet Security.
Iomega aims to move all eGo Portable Hard Drives in 500GB and 1TB capacities to the new USB 3.0 interface before October is over, where it will play nice with all USB 2.0 computers as well. From the first quarter of 2011 onwards, the entire Iomega Prestige Portable Hard Drive line will migrate to USB 3.0 across all models, and this 2.5″ hard drive is also highly portable since it is bus-powered, which means there is no need for an external power adapter. The 500GB and 1TB drives will cost $114 and $189, respectively, when they ship.
Press Release
http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20100825/iomega-offers-usb-30-ego-portable-hard-drives/ |
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| Iomega has announced its latest eGo line of 2.5-inch portable hard drives which has been updated to support the speedy USB 3.0 connection. Each drive offers AES 256-bit hardware encryption and is capable of withstanding seven-foot drops thanks to the bundled Power Grip band and also skip protection in the drives. Software such as Iomega's QuikProtect, v.Clone, and Trend Micro's Internet Security are also bundled along with the drive. The 500GB and 1TB drives will be shipping in early October and will be priced at $114 and $189 respectively.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2010/08/iomega_ego_portable_hard_drives_now_offer_usb_30_connections.html
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