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60 Mins Show dates: 14-18 October 2012, Dubai World Trade Centre
| AT GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK | Exhibition hours: 11am -7pm
Staying relevant is staying true
Harrison Albert, Director, MEA at D-Link D-Link has been participating at GITEX since it first opened a branch office in the UAE in 1997. More than 14 years later, the company continues to believe in the investment it makes in the region’s largest technology exhibition. “The exhibition continues to grow year after year, attracting a larger
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audience and even bigger names and innovation to its grounds. This is why we are here; to showcase the innovations we are bringing to the market after considerable study and effort,” said Harrison Albert, Director, MEA at D-Link. The company is showcasing its fast growing product portfolio
that includes the ‘Mydlink Cloud’ services that allow users to access, view, share and control their various D-Link network devices. Customers can use the services to access and control their routers, network storage devices in addition to surveillance cameras. According to Albert, the services are targeted at both SMBs and consumers looking to secure their homes or store and share files on the go. D- Link is also showcasing its portfolio of LTE based mobility solutions that are a dedicated telco offering in addition to fibreto-home and fibre-to-building cabling solutions. “We invest a considerable amount of time and resources in understanding the various market trends and the unique needs of consumers today and create products and solutions that remain true to our core competencies and focus areas. We do this to ensure we provide our customers and partners the very best in class products and services that fits their requirements. Mobility and being able to access information onthe-go is the big draw at GITEX this year and we are sticking to the theme,” he concluded.
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With huge growth comes huge threats, says McAfee McAfee has sent a warning out to businesses stating that with the growth of data and cloud computing, security risks are likely to increase a huge amount over the coming years. The security giant, exhibiting at GITEX, believes that with the advent of mobility, content driven data will continue to grow and everyone will be moving to the cloud in order to store and control their vast amounts of information. However, Hamed Diab, Regional Manaher, MENA, McAfee, has said that the evolution of technology has made security a bigger issue than ever. “You’re as weak as your weakest link,” he said. “Businesses need to be educated to what the threats are and what the key solutions are in order to avoid becoming vulnerable to newer, more
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Diab claims that by 2015, there will be over 50 billion mobile devices in the market, suggesting that every person will own more than one device, either for work or personal use. This results in each individual being susceptible to multiple threats.
“The advent of mobility, content driven data will continue to grow and everyone will be moving to the cloud in order to store and control their vast amounts of information.”
Hamed Diab, Regional Manaher, MENA, McAfee sophisticated attacks. Risk is coming in multiple ways and forms, attacks can be broken down into different phases. Sometimes you won’t even know
that you’re being attacked. Your appliances and data centre are all at risk, you need to identify your most important assets and get covered.”
“The risks are huge now and will continue to grow. You need to have a vigilant approach to security,” he said. McAfee stated that GITEX is a major event for companies in the Middle East and that the opportunity to build on customer relations, especially in regards to such topics, is invaluable.
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GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK 2012 HIGHLIGHTS
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Digital Forensic Investigations of Any Kind Incident Response & Remediation Training and Services Geoff Brooks Regional Sales Manager - Middle East, India & Africa PO BOX 211364, Dubai UAE Mobile No : +971 506 527659 gbrooks@accessdata.com www.accessdata.com
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Bradford unveils BYOD strategy Bradford Networks has launched the latest version of its Network Sentry 6.0 solution at GITEX 2012. The Network Access Control (NAC) solution, Network Sentry 6.0, provides organisations with a foundation for a strong and secure bring-your-own-device (BYOD) strategy with new key features that focus on automation, enhanced platform coverage, and integration with leading security solutions. “Implementing BYOD is now gaining popularity in the Middle East as it enables companies achieve greater productivity. The first step to a secure BYOD policy needs to be visibility and control over who and what is accessing corporate networks at all times,” said Ahmad Elkhatib, Managing
Partner, Shifra, Bradford Networks’ channel partner in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. “With its automated workflows, broad network infrastructure and
mobile device coverage, and out-of-band architecture, Network Sentry 6.0 can support existing corporate network equipment and enables companies to quickly
Red Hat exhibits with Dell
George DeBono, General Manager Middle East & Africa at Red Hat
Red Hat and Dell are working to enhance business collaboration in the Middle East through their participation at GITEX. The two companies will be showcasing how their joint solutions can help customers adopt virtualisation technologies that cut hardware costs, reduce energy and cooling requirements, save valuable floor space and improve worker productivity. George DeBono, General Manager Middle East & Africa at Red Hat says, “We are looking to engage in discussions with
potential customers at Gitex and educate them about how they can leverage Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization to get the best out of their Dell servers. Dell’s alliance with Red Hat delivers robust open source solutions that lower the total cost of ownership and provide a more flexible, scalable IT infrastructure for enterprises.” Dell offers customers flexibility and choice with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, which can be purchased as an option when configuring a Dell server. The primary benefits include an open
and easily create a granular set of BYOD policies that are tailored to specific roles within any organisation.” Allowing BYOD in the workplace is a relatively new concept for enterprises in the Middle East, but employers are quickly warming up to the idea. The latest surveys about BYOD adoption in the Middle East say as much as 80% of companies in the region allowed some form of access to staff through their personal devices. Network Sentry 6.0 is generally available. It can be deployed on a dedicated hardware appliance, virtual appliance or via a SaaS offering, Bradford.cloud. The same functionality is delivered in all deployment models ensuring that Network Sentry can adapt to the unique needs of any network environment and business.
system that offers customers a choice over proprietary solutions, an enterprise-ready environment where customers can integrate Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization into their ecosystem, crossplatform functionality as Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization works with Linux and Microsoft Windows. Besides its high-performance capabilities, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is also an affordable option as compared to similar virtualization solutions, offering cost savings and compelling scalability, security and agility. Red Hat will be exhibiting from the Dell stand number CLD-22, located in Hall 7 at DWTC.
Publisher Dominic De Sousa, COO Nadeem Hood, Managing Director Richard Judd, Commercial Director Rajashree R Kumar, Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan Editors Pallavi Sharma, Ben Rossi Sub-editor Joe Lipscombe Circulation Manager Rajeesh M, Production Manager James Tharian, Design Director Ruth Sheehy, Senior Designers Analou Balbero, Froilan Cosgafa IV, Glenn Roxas, Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy Magma Web Developers Erik Briones, Jefferson De Joya Photographer and Social Media Co-ordinator Jay Colina
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Saudi tops region’s highest spam-relaying country IT security and data protection firm Sophos has published its latest ‘Dirty Dozen’ report of spam-relaying countries for the third quarter of 2012, where Saudi Arabia tops as the Middle East region’s highest spam-relaying country. Since the previous quarter, India has grown its lead at the top of the hall of shame, and now relays 16.1% of all spam captured in SophosLabs’s global network of spam traps. The US, which was once a permanent fixture as the leading superpower in the spam stakes and last topped the table in the same period a year ago, has risen one place since last quarter and now relays one in 15 of all spam emails.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos The UK, which has managed to remain out of the top twelve spam-relaying countries for the last four consecutive quarters
(having last appeared in April June 2011) makes a return to the list, in twelfth place. Saudi Arabia is the top new entry this quarter, relaying a significant 5.1% of spam for the period. This is likely caused by the Festi botnet which successfully infected many computers there in August and then used the computers to swamp the rest of the world with large quantities of spam. Other new entries since last quarter are Turkey and Germany, while Pakistan, Russia, Poland and Thailand have all dropped out of the table. “Spam emails arrive in your inbox via other people’s infected computers,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. “The latest Dirty
Dozen report suggests that a not insignificant number of PCs in India are harbouring malware infections that turn PCs into spamspitting zombie slaves, controlled by the cybercriminals who make money by punting junk emails to promote questionable goods, or simply use malicious spam to infect more computers. The authorities in India need to make IT security education a priority. One would be safe to assume that, if computer users in the country are being targeted in order to relay spam, they are likely victims of other online threats such as fraud.” Sophos recommends that organisations and ISPs implement technology and follow best practice to ensure that malicious emails are not reaching inboxes. Taking a global view, Asia is still the worst offending continent, responsible for almost half of the world’s spam, followed by Europe and South America.
Security is now an enabler: Dell Sonicwall Dell Sonicwall believes that due to mobility and data growth, security as a definition has changed, becoming an enabler for businesses which can allow them to take advantage of certain industry areas that they couldn’t before. “The consumerisation of IT is happening now and by getting on board with it, and being secure from all angles, you will have the opportunity to take advantage of social media, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc,” said Florien Malecki, EMEA Enterprise Product Marketing Manager, Dell Sonicwall. “These things are now part of business, we can gain so much knowledge from them and tap into so much unstructured data, but we have to take the proper security precautions.” Printed with GIT cartridges
Malecki claims that IT is moving from a closed and controlled environment, into the “wild, wild west”. “Businesses used to be so comfortable and secured, in a closed and safe environment and then suddenly people turned up and starting saying ‘I want to use my smartphone, my tablet, can I borrow your laptop to access my emails,’ etc. Users wanting access from anywhere, anytime, causes such problems for organisations.” The new breed of employee, from the 80’s onwards, Malecki believes, is insistent on employing consumer applications and devices in the world place because of their generation. He says that this trend will continue to evolve with each passing generation.
“They want to use these tools to communicate with their clients, customers, friends and family, and they will be clinical, quick and professional with them. So enterprises can’t then say ‘we’re going to block IM’ or ‘we’re going to block social media’, because those days are gone.” With a properly secured infrastructure, businesses will be able to extract data and information, safely from resources which haven’t previously been available, Malecki said. “However, if you don’t control the data which is downloaded onto your device and you lose that device, all of that data is at risk, which exposes your company. If IT didn’t have any protections for the data on these devices, the
Florien Malecki, EMEA Enterprise Product Marketing Manager, Dell Sonicwall
problems would be very clear. It shouldn’t take an attack to force people to act on security,” he concluded.
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