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Panda Security Launches Beta of Panda Global Protection 2010, its Most Complete Security Solution
Product Includes Improved, Innovative Detection and Protection Technologies and a New Engine with 80 Percent Less Memory Consumption
Competition Being Held to Find the Ten Users Who Provide the Most Help in Improving the Product; Winners Will Receive a $200 Amazon.com Gift Card
Beta Users Who Report Previously Unknown Incidents to Panda Will Receive a 50 Percent Discount on the Final Version of the Product
Panda Security, The Cloud Security Company, has released a beta version of Panda Global Protection 2010, its most complete anti-malware suite for home users. This beta version is available for free at: http://www.pandasecurity.com/promotions/betatest/
Panda Global Protection 2010 includes improved, innovative detection and protection technologies and a new engine with 80 percent less memory consumption to ensure that users have the best protection in the most resource-friendly solution.
Panda Global Protection 2010 beta includes:
- Antivirus
- Proactive protection technology
- Anti-spyware/Anti-adware
- Anti-phishing
- Anti-rootkit
- Personal firewall
- Anti-spam
- Identity Protect
- Parental Control
- Local and Online Backup
- PC Optimizer (Tune-up)
Panda Global Protection 2010 leverages Collective Intelligence technologies to protect users from the cloud and utilizes knowledge from a global community comprising of millions of Panda users worldwide. Panda’s Collective Intelligence servers automatically classify more than 35,000 new malware samples every day, and each new file through these servers is automatically classified within six minutes. These technologies correlate information on the malware it receives from computers to continuously improve the protection level for its global user community. Panda Global Protection 2010 has continuous, real-time contact with this vast knowledge base allowing it to offer users the fastest response against the new malware that appears every day.
In conjunction with the launch, Panda Security is hosting a competition to reward its beta testers. All users who download this beta and help improve the product (by reporting interface typos, functionality issues, etc.) will take part in a competition to be judged by a panel of technical experts from Panda Security. The ten beta testers adjudged to have made the best contributions towards improving the product will each receive a $200 Amazon.com voucher.
In addition, all users who report a previously unknown incident will get a 50 percent discount on the final release version of Panda Global Protection 2010.
To download the free beta and get more information about the competition, go to: http://www.pandasecurity.com/promotions/betatest/
Source: Panda Security
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SilverLab – The tool for numerical calculations straight in the browser
db5 Dynamics AB is proud to present SilverLab, the first online tool to be used as a programming language for numerical calculations. SilverLab is a free MatLab®-compatible tool that runs in the browser only.
SilverLab covers all needs of the ordinary user and additional functionality will be added continuously. By offering the application online there are some important advantages over software that needs to be installed on the client computer:
- Many companies have a very strict IT-policy preventing employees from downloading and installing software. SilverLab runs in the browser which means no potential security risk for companies and other users.
- Users automatically get access to the latest version of SilverLab without the need of any installation since the application only needs to be updated on the server.
Key features include:
- Matrix functions and matrix analysis
- Logarithmic and exponential functions
- Trigonometric functions
- Plotting
Another important difference with GPL-variants such as Octave is that SilverLab offers all support collected in one place which especially companies prefer.
To try SilverLab, please visit:www.db5dynamics.com/silverlab/
Is the Economic Slowdown Affecting Hacking Behaviour?
VASCO aXsGUARD(TM) Gatekeeper survey reveals major Internet threats in the first quarter of 2009
VASCO Data Security International, Inc., a leading software security company specializing in authentication products, announces the results of its aXsGUARD(TM) Gatekeeper Internet Threat Survey. VASCO surveyed 700 small and medium sized enterprises with 5 to 250 internet users, revealing malicious activity during the first quarter of 2009. aXsGUARD Gatekeeper is an authentication and internet security appliance, making use of VASCO’s core authentication technology.
The results of the first quarter 2009 are weighed against the first quarter of 2008 and the major trends reveal to be:
- Viruses, viruses and more viruses, including a steady increase in “money hunting” fraud tools such as Trojans and phishing
- Amount of spam is stable however more advanced techniques are in place to block spam
- More employees are surfing, however more surfing behaviour policies are in place
During the first quarter of 2009 we see more active viruses than in the first quarter of 2008. The number of active viruses has more than tripled. When we look at different types of viruses we see that these have almost tripled. We see a steady increase in phishing and Banking Trojans, whereas more standard type viruses like Netsky and Bagle remain constant. We could conclude that hackers are immune against the current economic slowdown and are even more focused on password theft and account hacking to steal money from innocent computer users.
Spam is still on the rise; however it is more accurately blocked through the use of new spam blocking techniques being used by aXsGUARD. We see that through the use of grey listing in the new aXsGUARD software, the total amount of spam e-mails drop with 40 million spam e-mails per month. The use of blacklisted e-mail addressed and IP-addresses of known spammers results in a drop of another 10%. And finally of the remaining e-mail, another 50% is stopped through the use of content scanning in Q1 2009, compared to 28 % in Q1 2008. The use of combined anti-spam techniques results in over 93% of unwanted e-mail being stopped before it reaches the end-user in Q1 2008 and 89% in Q1 2009.
More and more employees are surfing. We see an increase in surfing behaviour of 32%. The number of blocked websites has almost doubled, whereas the visit to standard blacklisted websites remains stable. With the steady increase of blocked sites, we can conclude that more and more companies have policies in place. These policies regulate accepted and not accepted surfing behaviour, for instance the visit to e-commerce and social network sites during working hours.
aXsGUARD Gatekeeper is an authentication appliance which is suited for SMEs. It offers two-factor authentication and a number of optional modules providing a total security solution for network connectivity. The aXsGUARD modules consist of authentication, application firewall, firewall with DMZ and Intrusion prevention, content scanning with anti-spam and anti-virus, Trend Micro anti-virus and anti-spyware, remote connection and SSL-VPN and mail server. SME’s are typically looking for budget friendly total security solutions. aXsGUARD Gatekeeper provides an answer to the specific need of the SME by adding additional security functionality to the authentication appliance.
According to Jan Valcke, President and COO at VASCO Data Security: “Surveys such as our aXsGUARD Gatekeeper survey are necessary to demonstrate the vulnerability of companies on the Internet. Surveys as these clearly indicate that all companies, including SMEs, are vulnerable for Internet fraud. We cannot stress more the importance of being vigilant.”
Source: VASCO Data Security International, Inc.
Triumfant Launches Signature Counter Illustrating Inability of Traditional Malware Solutions to Protect Against Constant Attacks
As Rate of Attacks Outpace Signature Creation, Enterprises Require New “Signature-less” Protection
Triumfant(R), creator of patent-pending software that automatically discovers, analyzes and remediates unexpected changes and conditions at the endpoint, announced the launch of its “Signature Counter,” which updates each time a traditional antivirus vendor must create a malicious code signature to combat a new malware attack. The counter already places the number of required signatures at over 3.7 million.
The counter is based on Symantec’s yearly ‘Internet Security Threat Report,’ which stated that the company created 1.6 million new malicious code signatures in 2008, bringing its all time total to 2.6 million. The Signature Counter started 2009 at 2.6 million and has added 1.0 million signatures to-date, based on projections for the year.
Symantec stated that the number of signatures created in 2008 was a 265 percent increase over 2007. If this same increase is applied from 2008 for 2009, it can be conservatively estimated that antivirus vendors will need to create 4 million new signatures this year.
Creating 4 million new signatures in one year breaks down to:
- 333,000 signatures per month
- 11,000 signatures per day
- 7.6 signatures per minute
- 1 signature every 8 seconds
At this rate, the response times of the signature-based tools could potentially suffer, widening the gap from detection to remediation. To protect against these attacks, users will increasingly require new solutions that do not rely on signatures to protect against network and endpoint attacks.
“Our signature counter is designed to demonstrate the incredible and unrealistic pace at which signatures need to be created to kill and remediate malware attacks. Given that there were less than 1 million signatures 18 months ago, seeing the number in such a graphical form is eye opening. We are quickly reaching a point where the number of new attacks is getting ahead of the collective ability to write signatures,” said Jim Ivers, CMO, Triumfant. “Now is the time to look at signature-less alternatives. Antivirus solutions won’t be going away, but vendors need to look at new options, including anomaly detection, behavioral analysis and heuristics to help protect their customers.”
Triumfant leverages a one-of-a-kind ability to discover, diagnose and repair unwanted changes and unexpected conditions on endpoint computers and servers to detect previously unidentified malicious attacks, perform security configuration management, and enforce organizational and mandated security policies. Triumfant’s Resolution Manager identifies and removes malware, repairing any changes made by the infection and returning a machine to its original state within a matter of minutes.
Triumfant Resolution Manager:
- Uses no signatures
- Needs no previous knowledge of the malware or its variants
- Continuously scans the desktop in real-time, looking for changes caused by malware
- Requires no human intervention – not even from virus researchers
- Remediates all collateral damage to a machine
Visit the Signature Clock at www.triumfant.com
IBM Helps Companies Gain Control of Their Information With Solid State Flash Technology
Solid State Combined with New Data Management Tools Improve Performance by up to 800% using DB2 Database Software
IBM announced that it is delivering new solid-state offerings across its hardware platforms using new smart data management software to enable customers to dramatically improve response times on Solid State Drives (SSDs), while also helping to reduce costs. Based on IBM’s testing, the new offerings can improve performance by up to 800%, while also reducing the physical footprint of the amount of storage needed by approximately 80%, and energy consumption by up to 90%.
Solid-state drives uses Flash technology, similar to that used in MP3 players, but on a more advanced and larger scale. As it has no moving parts, or spinning disks, such as used in traditional storage, solid-state storage technology can conduct up to 20,000 transfers per second compared to one hard drive disk at approximately 200 data transfers per second. IBM is unveiling a more targeted approach than other solid state drive hardware vendors to implement flash technology by leveraging and integrating IBM’s hardware, software and research expertise.
IBM’s solid-state lineup includes a suite of enhanced software tools that enable customers to migrate, monitor and dynamically place data on SSDs to maximize value. For example, smart data placement through IBM Data Facility Storage Management Subsystem (DFSMS) provides for targeted data placement on SSDs in an IBM zSeries and DS8000 environment. In another example for Power systems, IBM’s most recent product line to incorporate SSDs, IBM provides SSD Data Balancer software tools that allow a system administrator to move frequently accessed, or hot data, to SSDs, while moving cold data to traditional hard drives. This approach recognizes that most customers will have a hybrid environment using both SSDs and traditional disks.
This capability is vital to information-intensive industries, enabling faster credit checks, real-time financial analytics and enhanced fraud detection with a dramatic improved performance by up to 800% on IBM’s DB2 database software. IBM today also announced an expansion of solid-state drives to include Power systems, joining IBM’s System x servers, as well as its System Storage DS8000 devices, as offering SSDs.
Using the new technology, IBM can help clients manage and analyze critical business information dramatically faster while reducing costs:
- A banking institution running on the System Storage DS8000, DB2 for zOS and SAP, can improve their business performance by more than 30% and reduced their physical storage footprint by 60% and thereby reducing their energy consumption by more than 70%. Improved performance and reduced costs in energy can shift the focus on the company’s information and generating a new of intelligence to anticipate new customers’ demands.
- Airline reservation, ticketing or stock trading systems depend heavily on ultra fast online transaction processing (OLTP) to respond quickly to their customers. The data transfer wait time for SSDs was reduced by 3x compared to HHDs, which is critical to help support peak periods experienced by companies that conduct the majority of their business online.
IBM Expands SSDs on Power
IBM today announced its newest product line to support solid state with new energy-efficient solid state drives for its Power Systems servers, offering faster I/O response rates than traditional disk drives to help clients optimize cost, performance and energy savings. Unlike traditional hard disk drives which are often run at 50 percent or less of their storage capacity to help maintain consistent performance, SSDs on Power can be run much closer to 100 percent storage capacity and still provide excellent performance. The new drives will be supported on all POWER6 systems, from Blades to enterprise servers.
New Solid State Offerings on System x
In 2007, IBM’s BladeCenter family of x86 servers became the first blades in the industry with SSD options with availability of two 15.8GB, two-watt drives that offer low-power requirements and high reliability. The dual-drive version offers disk-mirroring capability in the space of a single 2.5-inch HDD bay. IBM is now adding to its System x lineup of diskless drive options with new SATA-style SSDs. BladeCenter was updated with new 2.1 watt, 50GB SSD in a 2.5-inch disk package. A 50GB drive, designed for higher I/O performance, is available in either a 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch form factor for blades and System x rack and tower servers. The SSDs support Windows, Linux, and ESX Server, VMware’s hypervisor.
SSD on the System Storage DS8000
Solid-state drives on its System Storage DS8000 can help customers decrease back-end drive response times significantly, which is critical in offering solid state drive benefits for distinct application workloads. Since solid-state drives have no moving parts, they consume less energy to operate than spinning drives, helping customers better control data center costs. This combination is critical for organization looking to manage their storage environment more effectively by matching specific application needs with the appropriate storage tier. IBM also invested in integrating DS8000 with servers and system software to maximize the performance benefit of SSDs. The integrated solution will enable customers to optimize the hybrid environment with SSDs and HDDs.
For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com/storage.