Arabian Reseller - March 2020

MARCH 2020 Vol. 2. Issue 3.

www.arabianreseller.com

EVERYTHING

IS NOW A SERVICE Remote Access Overcoming Why Helps Communication Zero Trust Security?

Businesses Barriers

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CONTENTS 

08 09 10

NEWS

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Global Threat Trends Show Economic Intentions of Cybercriminals

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Asus Announces Power Balancer Technology Sage Announces New Distributors for African Territories

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Xtouch Signs Up Trigon for Oman and Bahrain

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Acer’s Predator Devices Showcased at Intel Extreme Masters Championship

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Huawei Strengthens Enterprise Offerings

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Nutanix Gets a New VP for EMEA Systems Engineering

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F E AT U R E S T H I S M O N T H Cloud-Managed and Unified Wired and Wireless Networks Coronavirus-Themed Cyber Attacks Lure Victims with Conspiracy Theories How Can Remote Access Help Your Businesses During Difficult Times?

28 30 32

Digital Transformation Will Expand Attack Surfaces Three Ways to Avoid Getting Your Phone Hacked Managing the Cultural Impact of Industry 4.0 in Manufacturing

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EDITORIAL

MARCH 2020

EDITOR IN CHIEF Chris N. Fernando chris@ryshamedia.com

SALES AND MARKETING Ranbir Sen ranbir@ryshamedia.com

CHRIS N. FERNANDO EDITOR IN CHIEF

IT-As-A-Service Market is Ever-Evolving

The IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) market is continuously growing in the global scenario at a significant pace. The deployment of bring your own device policy has resulted in increased need for cloud based storage systems coupled with quick access to data, which is a major factor aiding the growth of the market.

Moreover, technological developments and increasing demand from telecom industry are some of the major factors that are likely to create numerous opportunities in the near future.

Many global companies choose ITaaS options because of their support.

Especially for large global companies, monitoring each employee’s computer, including all hardware updates, can be cumbersome.

Many companies choose to outsource this task to an ITaaS provider, who can take care of updating, monitoring, and managing all employee devices including laptops, desktops, and smartphones. If a problem arises, the ITaaS provider can remotely access

the devices to find a solution or find a technician to handle the problem in-person.

However, data security and privacy concern is one of the major restraining factors when it comes with adoption of ITaaS. So what's all the fuss about the “Anything-as-a-Service” (XaaS) market? Why is it different than any other tech trend seeking to disrupt today’s business landscape?

In our cover story this month, we speak to industry experts who talk about the opportunities and challenges involved with adoption of ITaaS. We also find out how partners can transition themselves into a Managed Service Provider and what sort of factors are involved to successfully transform into an MSP. We hope you find the March 2020 issue of Arabian Reseller informative as ever. If you do have any suggestions please feel free to get back to us with your comments. Happy reading!

DEPUTY EDITOR Edward Frank edward@ryshamedia.com

SENIOR WRITER Priyan Sampath priyan@ryshamedia.com

GRAPHIC DESIGNER John Christy info@ryshamedia.com

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Prarthana Mary prarthana@ryshamedia.com

DIGITAL TEAM Context Media LLP, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. www.arabianreseller.com

C O N TA C T I N F O R M AT I O N Rysha Media LLC, Sharjah Media City (Shams), Al Messaned, Al Bataeh, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

Email: sales@ryshamedia.com Web: www.ryshamedia.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

While the publisher has made all efforts to ensure the accuracy of information in the magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors whatsoever.

Copyright @ 2020

SPECIAL FEATURE

Cloud-Managed and Unified Wired and Wireless Networks 6

Pairing unparalleled performance with tireless innovation, Cambium Networks connects the unconnected with wireless fabric broadband solutions purpose-built for demanding environments and unique challenges – empowering community, enterprise, and progress through connectivity worldwide.

Through its extensive portfolio of reliable, scalable and secure business Wi-Fi, fixed wireless broadband point-to-point (PTP) and point-to-multipoint (PMP) platforms; managed by cloud-based software, Cambium Networks makes it possible for service providers; enterprises; governmental and military agencies; oil, gas and utility companies; Internet service providers; and public safety networks to build powerful communications networks, reach users from 200 kilometers across mountain tops down to the last meter to their devices, and intelligently manage their business Wi-Fi infrastructure through end-to-

end network visibility and actionable analytics.

IT teams, MSPs and ISPs need to rapidly provide an optimal network experience for users and devices. Network operators are seeking simplicity, flexibility and automation to improve performance. Cloud Networking solutions with cnPilot Wi-Fi, cnMatrix switching, and cnMaestro cloud management from Cambium Networks deliver an optimal client experience while maintaining robust security and reducing cost.

A proven leader in providing global communications solutions, Cambium Networks simplifies network operations. Our Cloud Managed Intelligent Edge Enterprise Access Solution makes the network resilient, easy to operate, high performance, and agile; providing cost effective wired/wireless connectivity for network operators.

The entire purpose-built end-to-end network is

managed from a “bird’s eye view” by the free cnMaestro management system.

Cambium Networks’ Cloud Managed Intelligent Edge architecture enables customers of all sizes to deliver on the promise of a united wired/wireless access network that is enterprise grade and more affordable than traditional enterprise vendor solutions. cnMatrix switches simplify network deployment and operation. When deployed with cnPilot WLAN access points and the cnMaestro management system, network operators have an affordable, feature rich, high quality united wired/ wireless enterprise grade network. Improve performance, security and end user satisfaction while reducing costs.

Contact Minerva Technologies today to learn more about cloud-managed and unified wired and wireless networks from Cambium Networks.

Check out the first video in the Minerva TechTalk series focusing on Cambium Networks. In the video, tech experts from Minerva Technologies take you through the Cambium cnPilot Enterprise Products (cnPilot E410, E600 and E430). http://tiny.cc/MinervaCambiumNetworks For more information, contact Minerva Technologies at: marketing@minerva.ae

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NEWS for organizations to ensure their systems are properly patched and secured against both threats.

Global Threat Trends Show Political and Economic Intentions of Cybercriminals Fortinet has announced the findings of the latest FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report. Derek Manky, Chief, Security Insights & Global Threat Alliances, FortiGuard Labs, said, “In the cyber arms race, the criminal community has often had a distinct advantage due to the growing cyberskills gap, the expanding digital attack surface, and by leveraging the element of surprise with tactics such as social engineering to take advantage of unsuspecting individuals. To get out ahead of the cycle of increasingly sophisticated and automated threats, organizations need to use the same sorts of technologies and strategies to defend their networks that criminals are using to attack them. That means adopting integrated platforms that leverage the power and resources of AI-driven threat intelligence and playbooks to enable protection and visibility across the digital infrastructure.”

Here are the key takeaways from the report: A Not So Charming Kitten: Research shows significant levels of activity across regions associated with Charming Kitten, an Iranlinked advanced persistent threat (APT) group in Q4. Active since around 2014, the threat actor has been associated with numerous cyberespionage campaigns. Recent activity suggests that the threat actor has expanded into the election disruption business, having been linked to a series of attacks on targeted email accounts associated with a presidential election campaign.

In addition, Charming Kitten was observed employing four new tactics against intended victims that were all designed to trick victims into parting with sensitive information.

Security Risks for IoT Devices Magnify: IoT devices continue to be challenged with exploitable software and these threats can affect unexpected devices such as wireless IP cameras. This situation is magnified when components and software are embedded into different commercial devices sold under a variety of brand names, sometimes by different vendors. Many of these components and services are often

programmed using bits and pieces of pre-written code from a variety of common sources. These common components and pre-written code are sometimes vulnerable to exploit, which is why some of the same vulnerabilities crop up repeatedly across a wide range of devices. The scale combined with the inability to easily patch these devices is a growing challenge, and spotlights the difficulties of supply chain security. A lack of patch awareness or availability, the prevalence of vulnerabilities in some IoT devices, and the documented attempts to “enslave” these devices in IoT botnets all contributed to these exploits having the third-highest volume among all IPS detections during the quarter.

Senior Threats Help Junior Threats: Amidst the constant pressure to keep ahead of new threats, organizations sometimes forget that older exploits and vulnerabilities really have no expiration date, and threat actors will continue to use them as long as they work. A case in point is EternalBlue. The malware has been adapted over time to exploit common and major vulnerabilities.

It has been used in numerous campaigns, including, most notably, the WannaCry and NotPetya ransomware attacks. In addition, a patch was issued last May for BlueKeep, a vulnerability that if exploited could be wormable, which had the potential to spread at the same speed and scale as WannaCry and NotPetya. And now, a new version of the EternalBlue Downloader Trojan surfaced last quarter with the ability to exploit the BlueKeep vulnerability. Fortunately, the version currently in the wild is not completely ironed out, forcing targeted devices to crash before loading. But looking at the traditional development cycle of malware, determined cybercriminals are likely to have a functional version of this potentially devastating malware package in the near future. And while a patch for BlueKeep has been available since May, far too many organizations still have not updated their vulnerable systems. The continuing and evolving threat actor interest in EternalBlue and BlueKeep is a reminder

ARABIAN RESELLER | March 2020

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Trends Demonstrate a New Perspective on Global Spam Trade: Spam continues to be one of the top issues for organizations and individuals to deal with. This quarter’s report combines the volume of spam flow between nations with data showing the ratios of spam sent vs. spam received, visually revealing a new perspective on an old problem. The majority of spam volume seems to follow economic and political trends. For example, the heaviest “spam trade partners” of the United States include Poland, Russia, Germany, Japan, and Brazil. In addition, in terms of exported spam volumes from geographic regions, Eastern Europe is the largest net producer of spam in the world. Most of the outbound-heavy spammers beyond that hail from Asian sub-regions. The remaining European sub-regions lead those with net negative spam ratios, receiving more than they send, followed by the Americas and Africa.

Tracking the Tracks of Cybercriminals to See What is Next: Looking at IPS triggers detected in a region not only shows what resources are being targeted, but may also indicate what cybercriminals might focus on in the future, either because enough of those attacks were ultimately successful, or simply because there is more of a certain type of technology deployed in some regions. But that’s not always the case. For example, the vast majority of ThinkPHP deployments are in China, which has almost 10x more installations than the U.S., according to shodan.io. Assuming that companies patch their software at about the same rate in each region, if a botnet was simply probing for vulnerable instances of ThinkPHP before deploying an exploit, the number of detected triggers should be much higher in APAC. However, only 6% more IPS triggers were detected in all of APAC than in North America from a recent exploit, indicating that these botnets are simply deploying the exploit to any ThinkPHP instance they find. In addition, when taking a similar look at malware detections, the majority of threats targeting organizations are Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros. This is likely because they are still effective and producing results.

In general, detections for things that are not working won’t remain high for long and if there are a significant amount of detections for something, someone is falling prey to these attacks.

As applications proliferate and the number of connected devices expands the perimeter, billions of new edges are being created that have to be managed and protected.

NEWS

Cisco Offers Free Webex Licenses to Deal with Coronavirus In an effort to help out businesses affected by the recent coronavirus outbreak, Cisco has added additional features to its free Webex accounts, and the company is also offering free 90-day business licenses. Effective immediately, Cisco has expanded the capabilities on its free Webex offer in all countries where it is available (44 countries), not only those impacted by COVID-19.

Asus Announces Power Balancer Technology Asus has announced exclusive Power Balancer technology to support the new 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processor (extended Cascade Lake-SP refresh SKUs) across all server product lineups, including the RS720/720Q/700 E9, RS520/500 E9, ESC8000/4000 G4 series server systems, and Z11 server motherboards. In complex applications, such as high-performance computing (HPC), AI or edge computing, balancing performance and power consumption is always a challenge.

With Power Balancer technology and the new 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processor, Asus servers save up to 31 watts power per node on specific workloads.

Green awareness and power consumption have become important topics in the server industry in recent years, especially as more data centers require better computing performance, more storage space and quicker connections along with more efficient power usage.

most suitable frequencies.

Asus has also delivered enhanced performance on a broad range of servers and server motherboards that leverage the new 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processors (extended Cascade Lake-SP refresh SKUs). Intel introduced 18 new SKUs where the top frequency rate can increase up to 4.5 GHz with Turbo Boost, delivering up to a 25–36% performance improvement on the SPEC CPU2017 benchmark to support immediate customer needs.

Asus Z11 series server motherboards for the new 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processor are available in ATX, EEB and CEB form factors to fit a variety of applications. Customers can use these motherboards for HPC, financial services, cloud gaming and VM performance with additional cores and higher frequencies, and a minimum effort on system reconfiguration requirements.

With the new 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processor (extended Cascade Lake-SP Refresh SKUs), Asus is introducing Power Balancer, a power-saving technology designed to continue delivering the value of optimized power-efficiency technology. Asus Power Balancer is an exclusive technology that enables Asus servers to adjust overall CPU loading automatically based on real-time monitoring, decreasing overall power consumption for improved efficiency and cost/performance optimisation.

Asus servers, including the RS720/720Q/700 E9, RS520/500 E9 and ESC8000/4000 G4 series, fully support the new 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processors with Intel Optane persistent memory and deliver more workload-optimized solutions that accelerate and simplify the process of selecting hardware and software. The RS720/700/720Q E9 series are two-socket servers in 2U and 1U chassis form factors designed for multiple workloads, leading performance and compute density (RS720Q).

Without technology, the server’s CPU required 130 watts of power while running at an 80% workload. With Asus Power Balancer technology, the server achieved a 14% power savings while maintaining the same level of performance. The results clearly show that Power Balancer technology enables Asus servers to decrease CPU power consumption in multi-threaded scenarios by adjusting the

The RS520/500 E9 series are mainstream servers that balance performance, efficiency and manageability in 4U, 2U and 1U chassis form factors. The ESC8000/4000 G4 series are high density GPU servers that are ideal for AI, deep learning, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), rendering and scientific research.

Asus Server and Workstation products are available worldwide.

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While some companies are requiring their employees to work remotely after traveling internationally, others such as Twitter have asked all employees to do so if possible. Remote working has seen increased adoption over the past few years but the coronavirus outbreak has led many organizations to accelerate their plans to offer employees the option to work from home.

To help make the transition easier, Cisco has enhanced its free Webex accounts with additional features to make working remotely easier. Previously, free Cisco Webex accounts only allowed users to host meetings with up to 50 participants for 40 minutes. Now free accounts will allow users to host meetings with up to 100 participants for an unlimited amount of time.

Additionally, Cisco is offering toll dial-in numbers to complement the existing VoIP capabilities of Webex.

List of countries included in this offer are UAE, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, or Vietnam.

Users from these countries are eligible to sign up for a free Webex account in order to help them stay productive while working remotely during the coronavirus outbreak.

CHANNE L TALK

Shifra Partners With Stormshield to Provide End-to-End Enterprise Security Shifra has partnered up with Stormshield to offer the vendor’s suite of network, endpoint, and data security solutions to the region’s enterprises. This partnership will strengthen Stormshield’s distribution network in the Middle East while augmenting Shifra’s solution portfolio.

“The alarming escalation of cyber attacks in the region in the last few years is a growing cause for concern.

Businesses in the Middle East cannot afford to be unprepared. Cyber risk needs to be managed in a structured manner. Cybersecurity is an end-to-end challenge and needs an end-to-end, multi-dimensional response,” noted Mohammad Ismail, Managing Partner at Shifra.

According to a recent report, the cybersecurity market was valued at over $6 billion in 2018 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 15% in the MENA region over the next five years. The rapid digitisation in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE has triggered a rise in the number of connected devices, opening new gateways for cyber attacks.

“Stormshield’s product range offers smart, connected solutions that anticipate attacks and protect digital infrastructures. The solutions are designed to raise the security level of IT, OT and cloud environments, regardless of the attack point. We believe these solutions will meet the growing need in the region for a multilayer security approach,” explained Ismail.

“The Middle East is experiencing a surge in the demand for capable, efficient OT and IT cybersecurity.

We are continuously investing in expanding our business footprint in the region and this partnership will allow us to strengthen our distribution network. Shifra has the capacity to help us achieve higher growth in the region,” said Nebras AlQurashi, Regional Manager at Stormshield for the META region.

Sage Announces New Distributors for African Territories Sage has appointed three Authorised Sage Distributors in the SADC, East Africa, and West African regions to serve as valued-added distribution partners for its small and medium business products and services. The partnership agreements enable Sage to expand its presence in Southern Africa and West Africa, simplify and improve operational processes, and reach new markets and new customers.

The new distribution partners are: • First Distribution will distribute Sage’s small business products in SADC, East Africa and West Africa; • Axiz will distribute medium business products in SADC and East Africa; and • Redington will distribute medium business products in West Africa.

Pieter Bensch, Executive Vice President for Africa & Middle East at Sage said, “Sub-Saharan Africa is a strategic, high-growth region for us with many businesses recognising the need to move from legacy business software solutions to smarter cloud-based business solutions. Partnering with best-of-breed distribution partners in SADC, East, and West Africa enables us to serve the needs of this dynamic market better. We are positioning our business for accelerated growth in new and established markets – establishing a wider footprint through a strong distribution network. We have carefully selected distributors with a well-established partner base and robust compliance practices. We will benefit from their well-established expertise and practices in the software industry, including licensing and renewals.”

Axiz, a value-added distributor with a

ARABIAN RESELLER | March 2020

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footprint across Southern Africa, East Africa and the Indian Ocean islands, has the official distribution rights for Sage 300cloud, Sage 300 People, Sage X3 and Sage X3 People & HR, and Sage 200 Evolution across SADC and East Africa. Rezelde Botha, Sage Business Unit Manager at Axiz, said, “We see excellent growth potential for Sage’s medium business products across Africa, with companies throughout the continent looking to enhance their people, processes and systems to compete in a digital age."

For West Africa, Redington has the official distribution rights for Sage 300cloud, Sage 300 People, Sage X3 and Sage X3 People & HR, and Sage 200 Evolution, all of which are cloud-powered software solutions for accounting, payroll and more that cater to medium-sized enterprises. “We are excited by the opportunities this partnership offers to extend Sage’s reach into a wider customer base and to help businesses in West Africa to accelerate their growth,” said Sayantan Dev, Senior Vice President, Redington Gulf Value Distribution.

First Distribution, a pan-African ICT distributor for Datacentre, Enterprise and Cloud solutions will distribute Sage 50cloud Accounting, Sage Pastel Payroll and Sage Business Cloud Payroll & Accounting in SADC, East Africa and West Africa. These award-winning financial solutions enable small businesses to save time and resources by automating processes for managing finances and payroll and accepting payments from controlling cash flow to creating and sending invoices.

CHANNE L TALK

Xtouch Signs Up Trigon for Oman and Bahrain Dubai-headquartered mobile phone brand, Xtouch has announced that it has entered into a partnership with one of the Middle East region’s largest distributor, Trigon. As per the agreement, Trigon has been appointed as the authorised distributor for Xtouch brand of mobiles, smartphones, smartwatches, earbuds, and all other XTouch products in Oman and Bahrain.

HP Partners with Classera to Expand e-Learning Services HP has signed a memorandum with Classera to provide e-learning solutions for students in the region. The partnership which took place at the Global Educational Supplies and Solutions (GESS) 2020 aims to create an ecosystem where smart hardware is coupled with cutting-edge software to support new teaching methodologies and empower all the key stakeholders in the classroom.

The aim of the partnership is to technologically support the education sector in the region by introducing ‘HP Digital Classroom’ which combines state-of-the-art hardware and software technology to enhance student and teacher in-class experience. Furthermore, ‘HP Digital Classroom’ caters to the growing demand for e-learning solutions that manage and deliver high-quality online classes. These digital classes are designed to enable students to excel in their studies to reach their full potential.

Commenting on the partnership, Mayank Dhingra, Education Lead for HP Inc. in the MENAT region said, “We are excited about our partnership

with Classera as it brings us a step closer to providing world-class innovative solutions such as ‘HP Digital Classroom’ which is easily accessible and highly-effective for students in this region. Our education solutions are articulate and compelling. This framework gives us a unique differentiation point and sets our product apart from competitors.”

“We are excited about the partnership with HP, and the leading global provider of personal computing devices decision to work with Classera as the strategic partner in LMS opportunities,” said the CEO of Classera Inc, Mohammad Almadani. “This strategic partnership will create an unprecedented opportunity for both governmental and private education institutions to benefit from an end to end solution covering all their requirements in digital transformation space by tapping into the two companies’ experience serving eLearning. We will continue to work with our partners such as HP to disrupt the education ecosystem and make a greater impact on education institutions to help them deliver on their mission and reach their full potential.”

Trigon is part of the prestigious Abdul Rahman Al Ghurair Investment Group in UAE. The company established in 1997 has evolved to be one of the biggest names in IT and consumer electronics distribution business in the Middle East.

The company with decades of experience and in expertise, infrastructure, logistics, and technical capabilities is also one of the first ISO certified distribution companies in the region.

Farhad Khan, Vice President at XTouch said: “Trigon has a strong alliance with channel partners, power retailers, independent retail, consumer electronic stores and corporate clients. Partnering with Trigon, we will benefit from the distributors’ technical expertise and depth of knowledge about the local markets in Oman and Bahrain that will allow us to expand our reach in both these countries.”

Commenting on the partnership with XTouch, the AVP for Trigon, Rohit Bhatt said: “XTouch is well known to offer quality, innovation, and value in its products. We are positive that with this new relationship, we will not only strengthen our product portfolio but will also open up new business opportunities for our partners in Oman and Bahrain.”

“With state of the art technology and sleek designs coupled with low costs, customers will find great value in XTOUCH products. We are confident our comprehensive range of products will win us more and happier customers in Oman and Bahrain. With the expansion of these two important countries, we will now be able to further expand our market share in the region,” Khan added.

VAD Technologies to Distribute Cobalt Iron Cobalt Iron Inc. has signed a new agreement with VAD Technologies to distribute Cobalt Iron’s enterprise SaaS data protection solution, Compass, in the Middle East and North Africa. An established value-added IT and technology distributor based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, VAD Technologies will offer Compass, together with technical training and support resources, to resellers and integrators in over 10 countries.

and bring the Compass enterprise data protection solution to the Middle East and North Africa marketplace,” said Mario M. Veljovic, general manager at VAD Technologies. “Compass is the ideal platform to help enterprise customers compete in today’s multi-cloud, next-generation data protection world.

Therefore, Cobalt Iron fits perfectly with our strategy to deliver cutting-edge technologies and solutions to our reseller ecosystem.”

“We are very proud to partner with Cobalt Iron

“The Middle East is a rapidly growing region

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for backup and cybersecurity and ripe with opportunity for a modernized SaaS-based solution. With its strong presence throughout the Middle East and North Africa, VAD Technologies is the ideal partner to help Cobalt Iron expand our market presence in this vital region,” said Rodney Foreman, chief revenue officer of Cobalt Iron. “VAD Technologies has a special focus on our sweet spot of enterprise customers, with a go-to-market strategy and vision for the region that will ensure our long-term success with Compass.”

NEWS

Communications of a Billion+ Devices at Risk ESET researchers have discovered Kr00k (CVE2019-15126), previously unknown vulnerability in Wi-Fi chips used in many client devices, Wi-Fi access points, and routers. Kr00k is a vulnerability that causes the network communication of an affected device to be encrypted with an all-zero encryption key. In a successful attack, this allows an adversary to decrypt wireless network packets.

The discovery of Kr00k follows previous ESET research into the Amazon Echo being vulnerable to KRACKs (Key Reinstallation Attacks). Kr00k is related to KRACK, but is also fundamentally different. During the investigation into KRACK, ESET researchers identified Kr00k as one of the causes behind the “reinstallation” of an all-zero encryption key observed in tests for KRACK attacks.

Subsequent to our research, most major device manufacturers have released patches.

Kr00k is particularly dangerous because it has affected over a billion Wi-Fi enabled devices – a conservative estimate. ESET presented its research into this vulnerability for the first time on February 26 at the RSA Conference 2020. Kr00k affects all devices with Broadcom and Cypress Wi-Fi chips that remain unpatched. These are the most common Wi-Fi chips used in today’s client devices.

Wi-Fi access points and routers are also affected by the vulnerability, making even environments with patched client devices vulnerable. ESET tested and confirmed that among the vulnerable devices were client devices by Amazon (Echo, Kindle), Apple (iPhone, iPad, MacBook), Google (Nexus), Samsung (Galaxy), Raspberry (Pi 3) and Xiaomi (Redmi), as well as access points by Asus and Huawei.

ESET responsibly disclosed the vulnerability to the chip manufacturers Broadcom and Cypress, who subsequently released patches. We also worked with the Industry Consortium for Advancement of Security on the Internet (ICASI) to ensure that all possibly affected parties – including affected device manufacturers using the vulnerable chips, as well as other possibly affected chip manufacturers – were aware of Kr00k. According to our information, devices by major manufacturers have now been patched.

“Kr00k manifests itself after Wi-Fi disassociations – which can happen naturally, for example, due to a weak Wi-Fi signal, or maybe manually triggered by an attacker. If an attack is successful, several kilobytes of potentially sensitive information can be exposed,” explains Miloš Čermák, the lead ESET researcher into the Kr00k vulnerability. “By repeatedly triggering disassociations, the attacker can capture a number of network packets with potentially sensitive data,” he adds.

Acer’s Predator Devices Showcased at Intel Extreme Masters Championship Acer, the official global PC partner for the Intel Extreme Masters, went big during the series signature event in Katowice with the launch of the Official Predator IEM PC range. Considered one of the toughest esports competitions globally, the Intel Extreme Masters Championship in Katowice saw 16 elite teams from all over the globe compete for $500,000 as well as the Predator Intel Extreme Masters trophy which landed in Poland following a six-month tour of Europe.

The official Predator IEM PCs included the Orion 5000, Triton 900 and 500, and the Helios 700 and 300. The new Predator Orion 5000 comes with the overclockable octa-core 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K (with Z390 chipset) and is equipped with the revolutionary NVIDIA Turing architecture on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, which combines real-time ray tracing, artificial intelligence, and programmable shading to immerse players in a visually-stunning gaming experience.

Acer showcased new additions to its Predator gaming monitors range at the Intel Extreme Masters 2020. These monitors were first launched at CES in January and offer expansive views with cutting-edge technology that support true-to-life gameplay.

A new option for the latest GeForce GTX 1660 Ti has been added to the Predator Helios 300, where the top configuration is a GeForce RTX 2070 GPU with Max-Q Design Combined with the newest 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9750H processors up to 32GB of DDR4 2666MHz memory and up to two PCIe NVMe SSDs in RAID 0 plus a hard drive, gamers will be excited The Predator Helios 700 includes a unique HyperDrift keyboard that slides forward, allowing for increased airflow directly through the top of the notebook and enabling gamers to push the device’s powerful components to their full potential.

PREDATOR X32 The 32-inch Predator X32 monitor offers brilliant show-stopping visuals with NVIDIA G-SYNC Ultimate, VESA Display HDR and 1400 certification, making it perfect for gamers who also create their own videos. Delivering the smoothest possible gameplay as well as a broad contrast ratio and expanded color palette, Predator X32 enables viewers to see details during fast action scenes.

PREDATOR CG552K The Predator CG552K gaming monitor, featuring a huge 55-inch 4K OLED panel that is NVIDIA G-SYNC compatible, is ideal for hardcore PC and console gamers that want a higher vantage point. The panel supports up to 400 nits brightness and, with Delta E <1 color accuracy and 98.5% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut, provides lifelike colour. It also supports a variable refresh rate (VRR) via HDMI to offer smooth gaming on supporting devices.

OFFICIAL IEM PCs

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Acer showed a preview of an industry-leading 300 Hz IPS Panel with 1 ms response time on its Predator Triton 500. This powerful gaming notebook has been slimmed down to just 17.9 mm thin and weighs 2.1 kg. The slim Triton 500 can easily be slipped into a backpack or briefcase, but once taken out and powered on, it takes advantage of up to a 9th Gen Intel Core i7 processor to become a gaming powerhouse.

The Predator Triton 900 is a gaming notebook with an inventive form factor that bears innovative new design features, namely a CNC-machined Ezel Aero Hinge that flips, extends, or reclines the device’s 17-inch display.

NEWS

Infoblox Enhances NIOS Capabilities for Cloud Automation

Huawei Strengthens Enterprise Offerings Huawei has recently unveiled several allnew products and initiatives ideally suited to help enterprises step into the fully digital era, covering areas like storage systems, Wi-Fi 6, artificial intelligence (AI) and data center performance. This includes the launch of four-star products for the enterprise market: the OptiXtrans DC908, SmartLi UPS, the next generation of OceanStor Dorado, and the AirEngine Wi-Fi 6.

These products have been widely recognized and recommended by third-party organizations and customers for their superb performance, ultra-large capacity, ultra-high-speed, and ultra-long service life to meet the needs of customers with unique innovations.

Huawei OptiXtrans DC908 features an ultra large capacity of 800 Gbit/s per wavelength supporting flexible configuration between 100G and 800G, and future-proof Super C+L technology to achieve 220 wavelengths. This cutting-edge product helps enterprise customers easily cope with the challenges of massive data flows in the cloud era, continuously reduce the cost per bit, maximize the value of optical fibers, and improve customer’s return on investment.

Huawei SmartLi uses the industry’s secure battery cells. The UPS, the battery array, and the battery pack form a three-layer management system to eliminate perceived blind spots. SmartLi has a unique built-in current balancing control module to achieve battery module-level fault tolerance design and eliminate single points of failure.

Huawei’s next-generation OceanStor

Dorado intelligent all-flash storage, as an end-to-end ultra-high-speed platform, achieves industry-leading 20 million IOPS and 0.1ms latency. The fully interconnected and high-reliability SmartMatrix architecture allows a single system to tolerate the failure of up to seven controllers (out of eight), ensuring the continuity of core enterprise services. The AI-based deep learning improves the read cache hit ratio by 50%, and the cloud-based AI enables full-lifecycle intelligent Operations and Maintenance (O&M), making storage system maintenance easier than ever.

Powered by Huawei 5G, AirEngine Wi-Fi 6 is the industry’s first Wi-Fi with a peak rate exceeding 100Gbps. Huawei has launched three series of this product: AirEngine 8700, AirEngine 6700, and AirEngine 5700, covering an extensive range of indoor and outdoor application scenarios. The revolutionary product can significantly improve network experience in various scenarios, such as high-density access (e.g. offices, conference rooms, stadiums, terminal buildings, and train stations), HD video applications (e.g. VR/ AR teaching and 4K/8K videoconferencing), campus mobile production (e.g. AGV robots), IoT+Wi-Fi converged access (e.g. shopping malls, supermarkets, and smart campuses), and outdoor public network services (e.g. town squares and streets).

In the field of AI, Huawei separately launched another edition of its Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) Innovation Bootcamp. Being held in Singapore, the initiative provides participating students with a robust platform to enhance their AI and IoT knowledge, acquire application skills, and drive propensity for innovation.

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Infoblox has announced new updates to its Network Identity Operating System (NIOS) platform, adding the ability to monitor NIOS via the cloudbased BloxOne platform, as well as improving performance and simplifying network monitoring for NIOS users. This latest update enables organizations to deploy robust, manageable and cost-effective DNS, DHCP and IP address management (DDI) services to networks of any size while providing a bridge to innovative, cloudbased networking services and IT management solutions.

New cloud-based technologies are transforming the environment in which businesses operate.

The proliferation of private clouds and hybrid-clouds is making network administration more complex and network security more difficult. NIOS 8.5 answers this challenge by helping customers bridge to cloud-based network services and by delivering enterprise-grade DDI services to evolving cloud and hybrid environments.

NIOS 8.5 now includes NIOS Grid Connector, which provides visibility of NIOS/Infoblox Grid data on the BloxOne Cloud Service portal, allowing network administrators to monitor both BloxOne DDI—the industry’s first cloud-managed DDI solution for branch offices and remote locations—and NIOS from a single pane of glass.

NIOS 8.5 also adds support for Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV), complementing existing support for VMware, Hyper-V and OpenStack Platform, as well as Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure. And by leveraging Infoblox Network Insight, NIOS 8.5 discovers Meraki SD-WAN devices on a network, unifies IPAM visibility and facilitates the adoption of SD-WAN architectures for remote and branch office connectivity.

“Network and IT management are moving to the cloud in the same way that storage and computing have done in recent years,” said Kanaiya Vasani, Executive Vice President, Products and Corporate Development at Infoblox. “NIOS 8.5 provides our customers with a bridge to the cloud, empowering IT managers to leverage the cloud to monitor their NIOS appliances through Infoblox’s BloxOne Cloud Service portal.”

“Furthermore, with NIOS 8.5, Infoblox provides the most comprehensive solution for hybrid and multi-cloud businesses,” he continued. “This gives our customers IPAM visibility and automation of IP address and DNS record management workflows for more cloud platforms than anyone else.”

MOVE RS AND SHAKE RS

Nutanix Gets a New VP for EMEA Systems Engineering Nutanix has appointed Sylvain Siou as Vice President, Systems Engineering, for Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region. Having formerly been Senior Director, Systems Engineering, EMEA, in his new position, Siou will take a more strategic role in supporting Nutanix’s expansion in EMEA, whilst continuing to have overall responsibility for the company’s growing team of systems engineers in the region.

Veeam Appoints Gil Vega as Chief Information Security Officer Veeam Software has announced that Gil Vega has been appointed Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).

Vega, whose previous experience includes serving as Managing Director and CISO at CME Group, Inc. and as the Associate Chief Information Officer & CISO for the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement in Washington, DC, will be responsible for establishing and maintaining Veeam’s vision and strategy to ensure its information assets and solutions are adequately protected, and will be pivotal in driving strategies to help customers protect their critical data across multiple environments and ensure regulatory compliance.

He has held various cybersecurity leadership posts within the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Intelligence Community. Vega will report to Bill Largent, Veeam Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and will be part of the company’s executive management team. “Data is the most critical asset in any organization, but protecting it [data] against threats – both external and internal – is becoming more complex,” said Bill Largent, CEO at Veeam. “Cyber-security is a top concern for business leaders, which is why they look to Veeam to ensure that their data is managed and protected no matter where it resides. To ensure that we continue to pioneer this space, and help build out our offerings across all sectors, I am delighted that Gil has joined our executive team. His experience is second-to-none, and I know that under his leadership we will take our data security, governance and

compliance strategy and policies to the next level to continue to lead the industry.”

With more than 22 years’ experience, Vega is a security expert through and through. Before joining Veeam, Vega was Managing Director & CISO responsible for global cybersecurity, technology risk & compliance at CME Group Inc., based in Chicago.

CME Group is the world’s leading exchange operator and most diverse derivatives marketplace – handling 3 billion contracts worth approximately $1 quadrillion annually. Prior to his career in financial services, Vega was a member of the U.S. Federal Government’s Senior Executive Service and served as the Associate Chief Information Officer & CISO for the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement in Washington, DC. “I am thrilled to join Veeam, not only because it is the leader in Cloud Data Management, but being in a position to have examined the vision of where the company is going I firmly believe Veeam will continue to transform the industry,” commented Gil Vega, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Veeam. “Veeam’s DNA revolves around delivering the ultimate customer experience and ensuring that data is protected irrespective of its location. Veeam’s vision and strategy is unchallenged in the market, and has an exceptionally solid roadmap through 2020 and beyond. I am excited about leading Veeam’s effort for taking internal data security, governance and compliance strategy and processes to the next level.”

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The team provides pre-sales consulting, technical guidance, and assistance to customers and channel partners. Working closely with the sales teams, the systems engineers recommend and design the most effective and appropriate solutions for customers, based on Nutanix’s broad portfolio.

Sylvain Siou, VP, Systems Engineering, EMEA, Nutanix, said, “In the seven years I have been working with Nutanix, I’ve never ceased to be amazed at our company’s capacity for demonstrating constant innovation and ability to turn complexity into simplicity. Nutanix has grown at lightning speed in Europe over the last few years, and I am more than ready to step up to the challenge that my new role brings. It’s exciting to see how far we have come and think that the best is yet to come.”

With almost 30 years’ experience in the technology and media sectors, Siou joined Nutanix as Manager, Southern EMEA, Systems Engineering, in 2013, being promoted to Senior Director EMEA, Systems Engineering, three years later. Prior to joining Nutanix, Siou held various senior technology roles, including Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Global Data Excellence. He was formerly Senior Manager, France & Africa, Systems Engineering, at VMWare, joining the company as its first systems engineer and second employee in the region.

Sammy Zoghlami, SVP, Sales, EMEA, at Nutanix, commented, “Over the past three years Sylvain has played a strategic role in helping Nutanix significantly expand in the region. He is an extremely talented leader, one of the most technical experts we have and is well respected by his team, as well as customers and partners. His appointment to VP, Systems Engineering, EMEA is the next logical next step.”

NEWS

Tally Launches ERP 9 Release 6.6 Tally Solutions has announced the global launch of its latest release Tally.ERP 9 Release 6.6 bringing the Tally experience on web browsers.

With the launch of this release, Tally aims to assist businesses to access critical business data anywhere through any device, securely and privately, while keeping the data on customer’s machines itself.

The release empowers entrepreneurs with business information like business reports and invoices. This will be accessible to them on web browsers, removing the dependency of having a particular type of computer or device or installing Tally for the access.

During the launch, Vikas Panchal, the Business Head for the Middle East at Tally Solutions, said, “With the launch of Release 6.6, we are delighted to take our first step towards enabling connectivity for SMEs. This release will enable business owners to interact a lot more with their business data as it will be readily available wherever they are. They will now be better informed about the health of their business and be able to make decisions faster for their business growth.”

Elaborating about the product, Panchal continued, “Most financial applications contain sensitive and private information that needs to be accessed every day for business continuity. As the world moves more and more towards the cloud, there is an ardent need for these applications to be cautious as any breach of data could be detrimental for businesses. Keeping this reality in mind, we are enabling businesses to access their business data through a web browser, with Tally’s trademark speed, simplicity, and security.”

Even on the web browser, users of Release 6.6 will experience the simplicity and drill-down capability of Tally, which have become its hallmark over the years. So, not only will they get the top-level reports like Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss, Stock Summary, Bills Payable/Receivable, and so on. but also be able to drill down to the actual transactions. Every report, including the transactions, can be converted into a PDF and further forwarded to relevant people.

McAfee to Acquire Light Point Security McAfee has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Light Point Security. Upon the close of the acquisition, the Light Point Security team will join McAfee. The increasing use of the Internet, and the accelerating adoption of the cloud by companies, has made the browser one of the most vulnerable parts of an enterprise’s IT attack surface.

When full isolation is implemented, no web content ever gets to the user’s computer. All browsing is done in an isolated environment so no browser-based malware can infect the system. Gartner has identified remote browser isolation as a recommended capability of SASE components. According to Gartner, “remote browsing is becoming a recognized method to keep the browsing away from the endpoint and to enforce policies on the interactions.” Gartner recommends organizations consider remote processing in any risk-averse environment.

McAfee plans to integrate Light Point Security’s browser isolation technology into McAfee Secure Web Gateway, complementing its existing comprehensive inbound and outbound protection for all web and cloud traffic. With this combination, enterprises will be able to prioritize both security efficacy and user experience by removing user exposure to malware while maintaining responsive access to legitimate websites and cloud applications.

Additionally, McAfee plans to integrate browser isolation into the newly released MVISION UCE solution, which includes McAfee Secure Web Gateway, McAfee Data Loss Prevention and MVISION Cloud (CASB), thus enabling a complete and simplified implementation of the SASE Architecture. This will allow customers to apply a consistent threat protection policy across their network and SaaS applications, such as Office365 and other collaboration applications.

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“Web browsing is one of the most common threat vectors for endpoints to get infected. Adding Light Point Security’s capabilities into our products will create solutions that enable our customers to mitigate web-based threats without impacting user experience,” said Ash Kulkarni, EVP, and Chief Product Officer, Enterprise Business Group, McAfee.

“We are constantly working to find ways to help our customers safely adopt the cloud so they enjoy increased productivity without experiencing heightened concerns about cyber-attacks. Light Point Security’s browser isolation capabilities will bolster the McAfee Unified Cloud Edge offering to make it a preferred solution for security-focused businesses without compromising on productivity.”

“Light Point Security’s technology enables users to browse any website safely, securely and without limitations, without having to keep up with website changes. This stops attacks launched against a web browser before they can even enter the network without hampering user experience,” said Zuly Gonzalez, co-founder and CEO of Light Point Security. “We’ve been recognized for revolutionizing the way that organizations think about security; now we will be joining a leading standalone cybersecurity player to be part of the next revolution. Together, we’ll advance McAfee’s mission to protect the world from cyber threats while supporting customers as they accelerate their own businesses by removing limitations.”

McAfee’s agreement to acquire Light Point Security demonstrates how McAfee continues to strengthen its solutions through innovation and acquisition to provide its customers with state-ofthe-art solutions to prevent and detect threats without limiting performance.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

NEWS

Nokia Launches Endto-End 4G and 5G New Radio Slicing Nokia has announced the launch of new end-toend slicing network functionality for 4G and 5G New Radio (NR) – the first vendor to offer this capability. The solution will support connectivity from 4G and 5G devices over the sliced network to applications running in private and public clouds and will be available this summer.

NTT Ltd. and Palo Alto Networks Expand Strategic Partnership NTT Ltd. and Palo Alto Networks have announced an expanded strategic partnership to offer a portfolio of intelligence-driven security products that will help clients minimize risk by reducing time to predict, detect, and respond to attacks. The new offering will bring together NTT Ltd.’s ‘Secure by Design’ services with Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access and Cortex XSOAR technologies and focus on intelligent workplace, intelligent infrastructure, and intelligent cybersecurity.

The offering can integrate with existing digital workspaces and meet specific cybersecurity and network requirements.

The Secure by Design principle means being cybersecurity conscious at all levels of the business and building security into the solution, requiring compliance monitoring, application security, vulnerability services, threat detection, and incident response services, combined with NTT Ltd.’s service delivery capability. With Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access and Cortex XSOAR technologies, over 2,000 NTT Ltd. security specialists will deliver the offering as a managed security service, providing clients with flexible, scalable platforms and value-added services, which is an especially important capability as hardware moves toward software-defined, programmable infrastructure.

“To expand our existing relationship with our long-time partner, Palo Alto Networks, will be incredibly beneficial for our clients as we jointly bring turnkey security solutions to market,” said Matt Gyde, chief executive officer for NTT Ltd.’s Security division. “Working together to develop and deliver a joint offering in Secure by Design will give organizations the unique ability

to go beyond the basic security controls while removing complexities associated with implementing and maintaining more advanced controls. We will continue to evolve this partnership by working closely with the team at Palo Alto Networks to continually secure today’s complex IT environments.”

According to Dominic Trott, IDC’s Research Director for Security and Privacy in Europe: “The rise of digital transformation and the dissolution of the ‘secure perimeter’ concept means security has become a business issue as much as a technical issue. This transformation means enterprises must embrace Secure by Design principles to ensure the success of their Digital Trust and Future of Work strategies. Meanwhile, the complexity of security technology environments remains a thorny issue.

IDC’s research shows that the top inhibitor stopping European security teams from improving their capability is a lack of availability due to time spent maintaining security tools. Consequently, NTT’s new partnership with Palo Alto Networks kills two birds with one stone: on one hand, helping embed secure by design into digital workspaces; on the other hand, reducing complexity through an integrated solution architecture that can be delivered as a service.”

“NTT Ltd. is a valued partner, and we are honored that they have selected Palo Alto Networks as their partner of choice for the ‘Secure by Design’ reference architecture,” said Amit Singh, president at Palo Alto Networks. “By combining our Prisma and Cortex technologies with NTT’s leading technologies, we are helping organizations simply and securely navigate digital transformation.”

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Nokia’s new solution enables operators to start building their network slicing business today with LTE and 5G NR. The slicing capability can be deployed via a software upgrade into existing LTE and 5G non-standalone (NSA) networks and subsequently 5G standalone (SA) networks. The slicing continuity between LTE and 5G NR allows operators to maximize their network coverage for new mobile connectivity services.

The solution provides sliced mobile broadband connectivity from device to radio, transport, core, all the way to applications in private and public networks and the cloud. The user and service-aware slicing functionality has been introduced to Nokia radio access products for the first time and is also supported in Nokia transport and core products with control, management and assurance systems. The solution supports all 4G and 5G devices and works in a multi-vendor environment.

Nokia’s slicing solution is being developed in collaboration with leading operators A1 and Telia. It delivers new value and business opportunities for enterprises, as well as for the Internet of Things, Fixed Wireless Access, applications, and content related services. It enables new mobile end-toend services with logical connections, security, quality, and traffic management with a seamless service continuity across 4G and 5G networks.

Private wireless slicing also opens up new network functionalities for different applications, such as surveillance and automation.

Nokia is already trialing live 4G/5G slicing use cases with customers powered by a unique Software Defined Network (SDN) radio slice controller as well as a transport slice controller. The trial includes a Nokia cloud packet core slice orchestrator to support network deployment automation as well as an SD-WAN software solution providing a managed 4G/5G network slice to private and public cloud services. Nokia assurance systems are used to verify per slice KPIs as a part of Nokia’s E2E service orchestration.

Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks, Nokia, said: “Working closely with our customers to develop new technologies and business opportunities is hugely important to Nokia. 4G/5G slicing enables multiple new use cases which operators can start building now to create new revenue streams.”

NEWS

eufy Security’s Products Now Available on Amazon eufy Security from Anker Innovations has announced that its products are now available on Amazon, including the new eufyCam 2. The new eufyCam 2 is a wireless Home Security Camera System with 365-Day Battery Life and comes with features that include HD 1080p for clear crystal footage, IP67 Weatherproof that withstands all elements, state of the art Advanced Night Vision and is compatible with Amazon Alexa and Homekit.

“It has a 2-Cam Kit and does not bind users to a monthly fee which means a one-time purchase that combines security with convenience. Eufy Security products store, process, and calculate user data locally using military-grade encryption,” said the company in a statement.

Faraz Mehdi, Regional Sales Head at Anker Innovations MEA said, “We are excited about eufy’s potential in the region as the eufy motto of “Smart Home Simplified” is what drives us to bring easy-to-use smart home devices that are designed to secure your property and family and helps reduce crime. For privacy reasons, videos are stored locally but accessible anytime, anywhere, via a secure AES 256 encryption by logging into your account.”

In eufyCam 2, the Smart Image Enhancement feature gives a clearer, brighter view of the people in-shot while the built-in AI technology identifies and focuses on the human in the image. The Instant Mobile Alerts notifies users in seconds when suspicious motions are detected while Real-Time Response allows being able to speak directly to anyone who approaches your home via two-way audio giving you complete control over your surveillance and meets the growing demand in smart home products and security solutions.

Pure Storage Announces Next-Gen of all-NVME FlashArray//X Pure Storage has announced the availability of its third-generation all-NVMe FlashArray//X. This update to the award-winning FlashArray family provides customers with higher performance and enables faster time-to-market. With our one-of-a-kind, industry-first Evergreen Storage model, customers can enjoy access to continuous innovation from Pure Storage that includes these and future updates to its product and solutions suite.

“FlashArray//X has been recognized as the industry’s smartest purchase, one that gives enterprise customers a path to better IT operations. Instead of worrying about aging storage, Pure’s customers always have the most innovative, feature-rich solutions,” said Prakash Darji, General Manager for FlashArray, Pure Storage. “Evergreen is still one-of-a-kind in the data storage world because it allows customers to benefit from future features and innovations from Pure Storage without delays, interruptions or expensive, painful migrations. Customers can rest assured that their investment in Pure’s next-generation FlashArray//X, optimized for future updates coming from Purity//FA, will continue to deliver better results than the competition.”

The latest generation FlashArray//X allows customers to accelerate and consolidate database and enterprise workloads, extend them to the cloud and modernize their data protection strategies. All of the enhanced features, functionality and performance of FlashArray//X are also available through Pure-as-a-Service utility-based consumption model. Pure as-a-Service offers unified hybrid cloud data services, enabling customers to deploy on-premises, in colocated or hosted environments or in public clouds — all with a unified subscription, common functionality, and full cloud experience.

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Benefits of the new FlashArray//X: •

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The new FlashArray//X can drive performance gains up to 25 percent versus the previous generation FlashArray//X with updated controllers that feature new Intel Xeon Scalable Processors formerly named Cascade Lake, announced this week by Intel.

Customers can accelerate enterprise application performance including SAP HANA, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. SAP HANA OLAP with NSE performance increases up to 50 percent over the previous generation //X non-disruptively, with no migration required.

Customers can accelerate and consolidate DAS Applications such as PostgreSQL and MySQL for increased efficiency and improved time-to-market.

Support for NVMe-oF and Storage Class Memory enable FlashArray to provide latency as low as 150µs providing the performance required for the most demanding enterprise databases and maximum density to shrink data center real estate requirements.

As part of their included Evergreen upgrades, existing FlashArray customers can innovate faster than their competitors with up to 50 percent performance improvement over FlashArray//M R2.

Rethink your Refresh — For customers currently running on competitive storage solutions, the new FlashArray//X provides an opportunity to make the switch.

Consume storage as a utility, with all array software included and investment protection across customer fleets without another migration.

NEWS

Paladion Recognised at Microsoft’s Awards Paladion has announced that it has won the 2020 Most Innovative AI Solution award presented by Microsoft. Microsoft AI Awards 2.0 is an initiative of Microsoft to encourage innovation in Artificial Intelligence, identify fresh talent, as well as find new solutions for positive change across sectors.

Epson Shows Newest Classroom Innovations at GESS 2020 Epson has showcased its latest technology solutions for education during the Global Educational Supplies and Solutions (GESS) 2020, which took place in Dubai on February 25th – 27th. Solutions on display demonstrated how projectors, printers and scanners could inspire students and enhance teaching methods through technology and innovation.

Throughout GESS 2020, Epson also showcased its new EB-1485Fi, an interactive display solution perfect for any educational environment.

This solution allows collaboration and engagement between teachers and students while promoting greater knowledge sharing through an intuitive user interface. Seamless and wireless connectivity allows collaboration control from multiple devices, and flexible display options with sizes of up to 120-inches.

Abdulnassir Ali, regional sales manager for visual instruments and professional display, Epson Middle East comments, “Epson is excited to return to GESS and we look forward to showcasing our latest innovations and our vision for the classroom of the future. At Epson, we understand the needs of the education sector, and we use this knowledge to design reliable technology that makes learning engaging and interactive. Technology needs to work seamlessly and con-

tinuously, from screen sharing and flexible learning to collaboration across locations, Epson technology enables the empowerment of educators and students. Epson offers a complete technology solution for the education sector and with the region’s increased investment in classroom innovations, we can help educators bring learning to life and give students the confidence to realise their potential.”

Other products on display from Epson’s family of education technologies included: • The EB-L1755U installation laser projector with the ELPLX02 ultra short-throw lens, offering an extremely bright 15,000-lumen WUXGA 3LCD laser performance, for maximum performance and durability.

• The WorkForce DS-870 colour duplex workgroup document scanner, a fast reliable and robust desktop scanner, designed for workgroups, that offers high speeds of 65 scanned pages per minute and advanced paper feed technologies.

• The Epson WorkForce Enterprise WF-C20590 business inkjet printer, which combines ultra-fast performance with low energy consumption, for printing high volume jobs in superb print quality at superfast speeds of up to 100ipm.

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“We are honoured to receive such a respected award,” said Rajat Mohanty, CEO at Paladion. “This is an exciting time for AI-innovation, as the technology is evolving at such a quick pace. We want to extend our gratitude to our clients, whose support and feedback have made this recognition possible.”

Awards were presented in seven different categories designed to honor companies that have implemented innovative, creative Microsoft AI tools. Paladion’s Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution powered by the AIsaac platform was recognized as the Most Innovative AI Solution.

On the use case of the Paladion AI platform, Mohanty said, “AIsaac’s Artificial Intelligence goes beyond rules to look for patterns, anomalies, and outliers in-network, users, and endpoint data of an organization to detect new and sophisticated threats. The platform then automatically takes containment actions while notifying incident responders to orchestrate a full response.”

Paladion’s AIsaac platform continuously evolves as new threats emerge. To develop its AI platform, Paladion leverages 19 years of experience delivering cyber defense to 700+ clients, monitoring billions of security events daily. AIsaac applies techniques including Supervised, Unsupervised, and Deep Learning, to deliver high-speed cybersecurity services across every stage of a threat’s lifecycle.

The Most Innovative AI Solution award is a testament to the technological advancements Paladion has made in developing cybersecurity solutions for its customers. Paladion aims to provide superior cybersecurity solutions driven by AI that produce quantifiable results in threat detection and response.

COVE R STORY

EVERYTHING IS NOW A SERVICE ARABIAN RESELLER | March 2020

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Arabian Reseller speaks to industry experts who explain how IT-as-a-Service can save money on IT costs, while improving quality and service ‘IT as a service’ (ITaaS) is on the rise as companies realise the benefits of contracting an IT service provider for all their business technology needs. While ITaaS is not a new concept, it has become a go-to operational model for medium-to-large sized companies that need 24/7 monitoring, managing, and sustaining of company technology.

Moving to ITaaS is an operational shift, where IT is run as a business and therefore can be optimised according to business needs. Companies that run hybrid IT environments, such as private cloud, public cloud, and in-house applications, can contract services for all or just part of their technological system.

FROM BUILD TO CONSUME So, are more organizations opting to consume rather than own technology today? Well, there really isn’t a right or wrong answer and it just depends on the organization’s specific business and technology strategy and IT resource allocation,” explained Assaad El Saadi, the Regional Director for the Middle East at Pure Storage. “In general, in the region, when it comes to ‘As-aService’, we see strong demand from organizations in the small to medium size business (SMB) sector, driven in large part by the lower TCO that an ‘As-a-Service’ offering affords these businesses. If we look at the enterprise market, organizations take a more pragmatic view and tend to consider ‘As-a-Service’ offerings depending on if and how the

service can help them accelerate their digital transformation efforts.”

cyber threat landscape. We are expecting the managed services market to further grow,” he said.

According to market study by McKinsey, enterprises will make a fundamental shift from building IT to consuming IT. The big takeaway here is that enterprises are planning to transition IT workloads at a significant rate and pace to a hybrid cloud infrastructure, with off-premise environments seeing the greatest growth in adoption.

THE BIG BENEFITS Among the vendors and solutions providers who support and propose the concept of ITaaS as an operating model, ITaaS has numerous and diverse benefits including minimal upfront IT investment, financial transparency, continuous monitoring of services, predictable expenses, expert technical support, and more. “These models in general, bring the advantage of increased flexibility but also the ability to strengthen the relationship with customers through a strong service offering. Increased cost predictability and scalability are also to be mentioned here as these become increasingly important especially in strong competitive and fast growing environments,” added King.

“As the drive towards digital transformation gathers momentum, organisations are growing their exposure to cyber threats.

In the meantime, the cybersecurity skill shortage continues to accelerate, increasing IT and security professionals struggle across the globe,” added Shadi Khuffash, the Regional Sales Director for Carriers and MSSPs at Fortinet. “However, in this new environment, security needs to be woven into every aspect at digital speeds. As a result organizations are opting to simplify their operations and reduce overhead by outsourcing their IT security to MSSPs who can deliver the best security to meet their individual needs.”

Meanwhile, Terry-Greer King, the Vice President for EMEA at SonicWall, says that the global managed services market continues to expand. “Especially SMBs are moving their IT to managed services as they very often don’t have the resources inhouse to keep up with the ever-changing

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Speaking about Pure’s storageas-a-service approach, El Saadi says that their offering enables customers to quickly and easily leverage all of the infrastructure tools. “Our offering also helps customers utilise more of their data, while reducing the complexity and expense of managing the infrastructure behind it.

Customers want services that grow and change as they do, in addition to ease-of-use, interoperability, and a clear upgrade path. Pure as-a-Service consists of a variety of block, file and object storage services that can be deployed on-premises and in the public cloud. A single subscrip-

tion and one set of Pure1 management tools allow organizations to efficiently manage a unified hybrid cloud storage environment backed by pre- and post-sales professional services,” he added.

From a network security vendor perspective, managed security service providers (MSSPs) offer security-as-a-service to their customers who struggle to manage and secure their disparate systems. “By leveling up with automated security solutions, MSSPs can quickly respond to automated attacks occurring anywhere across their entire network. With MSSP-provided threat correlation and automated response and remediation, customers can be protected across their distributed environments with the flexibility to make dynamic adjustments as their cloud networks expand,” said Khuffash.

TRANSFORMING INTO AN MSP The trick is differentiating what you provide in order to rise above the competition, explained Harish Chib, the Vice President for Middle East and Africa at Sophos. “Clients are entrusting the security of their greatest assets—their data—to the MSP. A successful MSP will be able to provide both the high-level and user-level guidance the client needs, acting as a resource for the answers, software, hardware, and more. Next-gen MSPs must align their security strategy with vendors. Vendors, meanwhile, need to become more integrated into the MSP vendor ecosystem, developing and providing tools MSPs use to run their business (PSA) and remotely monitor and manage (RMM) for their customers.”

Chib also added that vendors and partners need to find a better way to manage licenses. “By using a

billing and licensing option where you can distribute licenses across multiple clients in a more flexible manner—like an aggregate monthly billing option—you’ll speed up the services you offer and be ready to evolve and meet the needs of your clients if those needs grow (or shrink) unexpectedly,” he said. “The old paradigm of annual contracts for vendor services is no longer efficient in the rapidly changing world of nextgen MSPs. If you bill your clients monthly, you should be able to pay your own bills monthly. It just makes sense.”

According to King, first and foremost, it’s the partner’s business model that drives the ability to offer managed services. “Having then a reliable and established partner in the background that offers the right management tools and processes is the key success factor. But it’s not only about strong products and solutions, tools and processes, it’s also about a partner-centric culture that allows partners to work in a no-conflict selling environment,” he said.

King further added that his company’s support for MSPs is built on the foundation of the robust SecureFirst partner program with its long-standing support of partners’ sales, technical, services and marketing success. “SonicWall does not only offer reliable and proven solutions, but also powerful management tools and processes allowing MSSPs to provide the most comprehensive and proactive security services to their clients. This certainly comes with focus training and best in class technical support enabling partners to resolve escalations rapidly,” he said.

There are three key forces driving

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Assaad El Saadi, Regional Director - ME, Pure Storage

Harish Chib, VP - MEA, Sophos

Shadi Khuffash, Regional Sales Director, Carriers & MSSPs, Fortinet

Terry-Greer King, VP - EMEA, SonicWall

the growth of managed security services; complexity, cost, and the cyber skills gap. The complexity of protecting distributed IoT-to-multi-cloud networks, increasingly sophisticated threats, and data regulations, coupled with the shortage of skilled security professionals is driving more businesses to outsource their security services.

“Fortinet continues to invest in its MSSP program to help its partners meet the expanding security requirements of organizations undergoing digital transformation,” added Khuffash.

“Fortinet’s MSSP program has long supported both large and small managed security service providers by helping them adapt to changing market dynamics and threat conditions, and assisting in their growth through training, specialized support, and go-to-market programs that enable profitable services creation.”

THE CHALLENGES The transition to next-gen MSPs has been a challenge for channel partners to operate successfully in this new and far more complex environment. “The numerous vendors and products MSPs need to provide to cover the full range of services required has never been an easy burden to bear, but in today’s fast-paced environment, managing these vendors has become a costly time sink. There’s also been a shift to a subscription model for MSP services. This shift impacts the vendor as well, as most vendor services are perpetual licenses rather than monthly, preventing MSPs from managing their billing processes consistently,” explained Chib.

Chib added that MSPs work

within a finite budget, and need to determine where their budgets are best spent. "MSPs do have options to save on costs, however—buying licenses in bulk or through an aggregator can ease some of the burden. In order to survive successfully in the current market, MSPs need to differentiate what they provide to rise above the competition,” he added.

Security is another challenge in this area. “The primary challenge is how to establish and maintain consistent security policy and policy enforcement as data moves back and forth between locally and third-party cloud environments. This is the single most critical gating factor preventing partners and vendors from adopting an XaaS network strategy,” added Khuffash. “The more security solutions natively integrate with cloud based services, the more secure the enterprise. By leveraging the threat feeds and native security capabilities of all clouds, and integrating these into the multi-cloud security framework, organizations can turn the risk multiplication effect into a security multiplication effect.”

Meanwhile King is of the opinion that despite their benefits, “Anything as a Service” offerings sometimes contend with issues of resilience and internet reliability. “Some organisations have been tentative to adopt ‘Anything as a Service’ models because of security, compliance and business governance concerns.

SonicWall is addressing those concerns with its boundless cybersecurity approach – regardless whether it’s in an on-premise environment or in an ‘as-aservice’ model,” he explained.

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THE WAY FORWARD The combination of cloud computing and ubiquitous, high-bandwidth, global internet access provides the ideal environment and circumstances for growth in this market segment.

“Anything as a Service” is virtually taking over all areas of technology and technology-driven businesses, and cybersecurity is no different. “This shift to ‘as a service’ is driving a dramatic transformation in the channel, where cybersecurity value-added resellers of all sizes are rapidly transitioning their businesses to become service providers for their customers. This enables them to move up the value chain to become more strategic, and also enhances the predictability of their business model and customer retention,” added Chib.

Migration to cloud-based compute and services platforms has allowed organisations to quickly adapt to the global transition to a digital economy. The ability to quickly spin up resources, adopt new applications, and respond in real time to end user and consumer demands allows organizations to compete effectively in today’s new digital marketplace.

Technology is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for business success and it is critical to find a managed services provider that can deliver on the promise of IT service quality and efficiency.

With more and more companies - small to medium businesses included - facing the challenges of finding a simple, cost-effective IT solution, IT-as-a-service model can offer enormous benefits to everyone involved - the customer, the vendor and the partner if implemented optimally.

WOME N IN TECH

On the Front Line

AGAINST MALWARE ESET Researcher Zuzana Hromcová shares the inspiration behind her work.

What is it like to be in the trenches fighting malware?

Malware strikes every day, often indiscriminately targeting users from almost every nook and cranny of the world. Whether it is spyware that hijacks device cameras, botnet malware that enslaves user devices to malicious networks, or backdoors that are empowering Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) to spy on and disrupt organizations, malware hides in abundant forms. I am proud to be working with some of the best malware researchers, analysts and detection engineers in the industry who are exposing the criminal intentions of malware developers.

that was supervised by ESET. The course introduced me to the art of reverse engineering – disassembling executable files to learn about their inner workings – and convinced me to join ESET as a malware analyst.

I later joined the malware research team because it allowed me to get a sense of the bigger picture – not only analyzing individual malicious files, but also looking closer at cyber espionage operations. As malware researchers, we work to better understand the methods that attackers are using to spy on users and stay undetected; and we use this knowledge to improve our detection to better protect our users.

What is the best part in your fight against APTs and exposWhat inspired you to consider ing their malicious tools? a career as a malware research- When I was young, I liked to er? solve sudoku and logical puzI originally signed up for a reverse zles. I enjoyed finding clues and engineering course at my university cracking the puzzle, step by step ARABIAN RESELLER | March 2020

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towards finding its solution.

Reverse engineering malware is equally challenging, and a lot more rewarding. To expose an ongoing cybercrime or cyberespionage operation, you also need to collect and analyze clues, step by step towards reconstructing and blocking the attack.

What message would you like to share to aspiring IT enthusiasts/geeks?

Join us in protecting the internet! Help us fight cybercrime by becoming a malware researcher or penetration tester, by writing more secure software as a programmer, by better protecting networks as a network administrator, or simply by following best security practices as a user. We need more defenders to be able to keep up with attackers and protect the world from their malicious tools.

Coronavirus-Themed Cyber Attacks Lure Victims with Conspiracy Theories

EXPE RT SPEAK

Written by Sherrod DeGrippo, Sr. Director of Threat Research and Detection, Proofpoint Proofpoint researchers have been observing an increased activity around the global Coronavirus outbreak for malicious activity, which has reached hundreds of thousands of messages. The most notable developments are attacks that leverage conspiracy theory-based fears around purported unreleased cures for Coronavirus and campaigns that abuse perceived legitimate sources of health information to manipulate users.

include manufacturing as well.

Consistent with this level of tailoring and focus on economic concerns, we are also seeing dedicated attacks against construction, education, energy, healthcare, industry, manufacturing, retail, and transportation companies.

Campaign Examples: • Email lure that stokes conspiracy theory fears that there is a cure for Coronavirus that isn’t being shared. It then urges the In this latest round of camrecipient to receive further paigns, attackers have expandinformation on the “cure” ed the malware used in their by clicking on the link proCoronavirus attacks to include vided in the email. If the not just Emotet and the AZORrecipient clicks on the link, ult information stealer, but they are taken to a fake also the AgentTesla Keylogger DocuSign website where and the NanoCore RAT — all they’re told they need to of which can steal personal enter credentials to get the information, including financial information. information. Attackers have • A coronavirus-themed also expanded their attacks to email that is designed to include credential theft. Our look like an internal email researchers have seen fake Offrom the company’s presifice 365, Adobe, and DocuSign dent to all employees. The sites meant to steal credentials messages contain a Milinked to Coronavirus-themed crosoft Word attachment emails. with an embedded URL that leads to a fake MiPreviously, Coronavicrosoft Office website to rus-themed attacks centered enter credentials. Once the on concerns around economcredentials are entered, the ic disruptions in light of the user is then redirected to outbreak, specifically around the legitimate World Health shipping. This trend is conOrganization Coronavirus tinuing and has expanded to information site, making

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the phishing transaction seem legitimate.

• Attackers abusing the World Health Organization (WHO) name to distribute an attachment that will install the AgentTesla Keylogger. Once installed, this malware will record all keystrokes and send it to the attackers, a tactic that can give access to online banking and financial accounts.

• Emails with “Coronavirus Update: China Operations” including an attachment titled “Factory Contacts and Office Resumption”, clearly meant to appeal to concerns around possible shutdowns in manufacturing in China due to the Coronavirus outbreak, have been targeting manufacturing, retail, and transportation companies primarily – all companies that have reasonable concerns around manufacturing disruptions in China. The attachment tries to install NanoCore RAT, a remote access Trojan that can give the attacker full control over the compromised system.

Overall, these latest examples serve as a reminder that users should be watchful and exercise caution where Coronavirus-themed emails and websites are concerned.

INTE RVIEW

Overcoming Communication Barriers During Trying Times Savio Tovar Dias, the Senior Director for Sales Engineering at Avaya International, speaks to Arabian Reseller about how his company is helping hospitals solve internal and external communications during the COVID-19 outbreak What was the problem the hospitals were facing in terms of internal and external communications?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the COVID-19 virus appears to spread mainly through close physical contact and tiny droplets in the air. Needless to say, with diagnosis and treatment traditionally requiring doctors and healthcare professionals to be in close proximity to patients, this puts them at risk of being infected. As a measure to curb the spread of the virus, several hospitals have had to set up quarantine wards, limiting the ability of patients to engage with both family members and medical professionals.

In addition to the issues felt by patients and healthcare professionals, many countries have issued strict travel bans, which in turn have had a significant impact on business. All of this has raised barriers to communications and collaboration. To a large extent, these challenges can be overcome through the utilization of innovative, secure and easy-to-set up technology solutions.

How did Avaya approach the hospitals to deliver the solutions?

Was there an intermediary?

Given the scale and severity of the outbreak, the Avaya team in China was well aware of the impact of the epidemic and the significant risk that the healthcare professionals on the frontline were facing. The team immediately saw the potential for Avaya technologies to be leveraged for medical assistance to be delivered without risk, while maintaining that essential ‘human touch’.

The Avaya team in China reached out to the hospitals that were battling the crisis, and our partners such as Zhiang and Tengyue played a key role in these engagements.

The teams worked to quickly donate audio and video systems and remote visiting equipment to hospitals such as Huoshenshan Hospital and Leishenshan Hospital in Wuhan.

Everything from development to delivery of these solutions was completed within just 48 hours.

What sort of team was involved in deploying the audio/video communications solutions?

These solutions were developed and deployed through the joint effort of communications and collaboration specialists from Avaya China and its integration partners.

Did the company involve a local channel partner / system integrator to get the job done?

Yes, for each deployment, the Avaya China team collaborated with a qualified local partner. This helped expedite the delivery process, saving precious time in this critical situation.

These partners have also played a pivotal role in field deployment, installation, debugging, training and follow-up operation and maintenance.

Since deploying the communications solutions, how optimally have the hospitals been able to perform their functions in terms of internal and external communications?

In this particular scenario, the factors that needed addressing were getting doctors on board with the idea of

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communicating via video instead of face-to-face, and meeting the healthcare sector’s strict privacy and compliance regulations. For the first, the Avaya team in China had to ensure the highest quality of uninterrupted video so that it could be seen as an effective substitute to the in-person interactions.

For the latter, our solutions employ the highest standards of security in both transmission and storage of video data. This means that privacy is maintained and if required, records of video conversations can be referenced by authorized personnel at a later point.

These systems now enable patients and family members to communicate in and out of quarantine areas through video collaboration, greatly improving patients’ quality of life while in quarantine, and avoiding cross-infection during an epidemic.

Avaya’s technologies enable patients in the ward and families outside isolation zones to engage in twoway audio and video calls through a customized video conferencing application. Family members can communicate with patients through video visits, which alleviates the psychological pressure felt by patients being treated for the COVID-19 illness and enables a “human touch” while at the same time preventing contamination of family members.

The solutions also enable more frequent communication between healthcare staff and patients, and reduces the risk to healthcare staff of contracting the virus.

EXPE RT SPEAK

How Can Remote Access Help Your Businesses During Difficult Times?

Written by Hewitt Lee, Director of Product Management at Synology There’s a growing global concern of Coronavirus outbreak that has subtly brought unease upon global economies. One after another, tech events are being cancelled, and the damages are resulting in millions of dollars. On the 2nd of Mach, the head of the World Trade Organization said that he expected the coronavirus epidemic to have a ‘substantial’ impact on the global economy, and the end is nowhere in sight.

In the wake of these unfortunate events, the need for an efficient IT infrastructure that supports remote team collaboration and file syncing capabilities needs to be implemented to ensure stable performance and business continuity during difficult times.

Creating a More Mobile & Remote Workforce Since 2005 remote work has grown by 159%. From an employee’s perspective, cloudbased software benefits people to continue to work from any location, while solving problems like longer commutes and family commitment. From businesses’ perspective, the implementation of the likes of Network Attach Storage (NAS) into their existing IT infrastructure can ensure effortless remote file sharing and syncing, data ownership and security, higher levels of communication and teamwork, and long term productivity.

A Flexible and Dynamic Solution for Collaboration and Remote Work - NAS The remote access limitation has always been the obstacle for traditional file server that utilizes Windows SMB protocol. Businesses are unable to cope with the growing trend of remote workforce that requires dynamic remote team collaboration and file sharing capabilities, which the traditional file servers fail to deliver. On the other hand, SaaS models that operate on clouds which answer to these challenges often face other backlashes including recurring subscription fees, data leak and security issues.

To instill more complexity, the recent waves of ransomware, which threaten victims’ data and block their access via Windows SMB protocols, have been disrupting IT systems government bodies and corporate worldwide. Thus, a flexible and dynamic solution such as a Network Attach Storage (NAS) server that brings the best of both worlds shall definitely be looked upon.

An ideal modern day file server, in addition to having remote access to file services and dynamic team collaboration tools, should also have the capacity for cross office synchronization, self-serve IT, and compatibility with different devices.

As the scales of businesses grow, along with the BYOD and 27

enterprise mobility trends, and ultimately the recent chain of unfortunate events and disasters, not all companies can have the luxury to have enough IT resources, and the IT environment can only get more complex and sophisticated.

Smart Solutions Can Help Employees Work Smartly The right solution should allow employees to safely handle many storage issues themselves including changing passwords or restoring lost files from backups, access files that are synced across the offices from all over the world, and give users the ability to access files from anywhere across multiple devices. That way, employees can easily access or share files from outside the office with the benefit of keeping sensitive data stored on the company’s own equipment without needing to relying on IT personnel heavily.

Many businesses are still hesitant to move on from conventional file server that may pose potential risk to data security and performance issues in the long run. In the wakes of many global hazards and incidents, by implementing a more dynamic modern day file server infrastructure, businesses can better manage risks, establish more robust file management rules, streamline team collaboration in order to ensure business continuity and productivity.

INTE RVIEW

Digital Transformation Will Expand Attack Surfaces Niraj Mathur, the Managing Director for Security and Privacy at Protiviti Member Firm for the MENA Region, speaks to Arabian Reseller about the security threat landscape in the region Tell us about the cybersecurity threat landscape in the region. How has it evolved over the years?

Rapidly evolving business models have a direct impact on the cyber security threat landscape for organizations across the Middle East region. Implementation of digital transformation programs and the adoption of cloud services are couple of examples that could expand the attack surfaces for business, leaving them vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

Amongst the key reasons that contribute to rise in

such risks is the usage of multiple technologies during the execution journey and the rush to launch new services.

On the other hand cybercrimes with the intention of monetary gains continue to grow at an exponential pace with instances of ransomware being case in point.

The threat from state actors in form of hacktivism also needs immediate attention.

Considering all these factors, it is imperative for organizations to continu-

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ously upgrade their cyber security practices and infrastructure to identify, prioritize and take steps to reduce these risks. At the same time respond appropriately if they get hit by an incident.

What sort of cybersecurity risks are regional companies facing these days?

The most significant cybersecurity risks that companies face includes, the loss of sensitive data, unauthorized access to critical assets and compromised applications during an attack.

Often, this leads to reputational damage for businesses. The attack surfaces have widened across the web, mobile applications, SCADA networks, IOT networks, cloud and medical devices, to name a few.

Identity and data security are two key domains that will require much more attention from companies, unlike earlier times, when they were ignored and relegated to the back burner. Every industry is faced with their unique set of risks that needs a customized approach to risk prevention, detection, response and mitigation.

What is the role of IT Audit in identifying and dealing with these risks?

As per the results of the 2019 Protiviti and ISACA IT Audit Leadership Survey, 86% of business leaders included cyber security in their IT audit plans. These audits have a critical role in helping organizations in their ongoing battle towards managing cyber threats.

Firstly, they provide an independent assessment of existing controls and any vulnerabilities in these controls that need to be strengthened. Secondly, IT audits help board members understand the magnitude of risks that organizations face in the digital space and deliberate on ways to address these at a strategic level.

Are companies investing enough in cybersecurity, privacy, and data management?

We have noticed a rise in spending in all of these

areas. Although it remains varied across industries, according to their threat perception. However, a concerning trend has been that these investments tend to be mostly reactive.

Most companies only allocate adequate budgets post occurrence of an incident or security breach. Business leaders are often unable to realize the cyber risks they face due to lack of awareness and their inability to quantify the impact. This is possibly an area of improvement for cyber security and enterprise risk professionals to work together. We are expecting countries to release local Privacy Laws in 2020, similar to GDPR and the Personal Data Privacy Law (PDPL) released by Bahrain that will help gain attention of companies in the region.

Is there a skills shortage in identifying and solving such security risks in the region? What are you doing to bridge the skills gap?

Cyber security is a vast field and there is a need for deep expertise in each of the security domains ranging from risk and compliance, identity and access, data security, security operations, application security to network security, cloud security etc.

There is a dearth of skilled resources as each of these areas have a dynamic technology landscape and complexity of hundreds of security vendors needs to be managed. These resources are also required to have industry specialization such as medical devices security, SCADA security, banking applications, the need to 29

introduce artificial intelligence/ machine learning in existing processes, keeping pace with the organizational demands.

At Protiviti, we have developed Centers of Excellence in certain areas like risk, compliance, data privacy, IAM and security intelligence to be able to address the challenges faced by organizations in the region.

What sort of cybersecurity concerns should companies from different industry sectors be aware of?

Cyber security teams need to focus and prioritize the risks they face in their environment and align to business trends in their respective industry. For instance, healthcare sector companies have huge amounts of personal data, patient records and confidential information that require appropriate data security and identity management controls. For the oil & gas sector, their SCADA/ ICS networks are most critical and need to deploy controls for malwares targeted towards them or gain visibility into these networks. Similarly, banks and financial institutions are high profile targets, where commercial gain is the key motivator for attackers that necessitates a strong cyber risk management framework.

Hence, it is important for organizations to deploy controls for detection, prevention and response to attacks specific to their industry.

They should also prioritize controls for their critical assets rather than adopting a generic approach while dealing with threats.

EXPE RT SPEAK

Three Ways to Avoid Getting Your Phone Hacked Written by Haider Pasha, Chief Security Officer, MEA, Palo Alto Networks You have probably seen in the news that high-net-worth individuals, famous athletes, and entertainers are becoming favourite targets of phone hacking. In some cases, when security experts can’t agree, it’s because mobile device forensics is very limited to even confirm that someone has been compromised and reconstruct what exactly happened.

For business executives, it’s high time to pay attention to mobile security. The last thing you’d want is to be personally embarrassed or professionally compromised. Mobile phones are becoming a fruitful and surprisingly easy target for hackers.

It used to be that businesses issued their executives work phones that used only business applications. But today, our phones are just as likely to hold intellectual property memos as they are to be used for listening to music.

Hackers started by looking for salacious photos and embarrassing text messages, but now they’ve moved to mobile malware, ransomware and identity theft aimed at penetrating corporate networks and exfiltrating mission-critical data held on the phones of CEOs, board members and political leaders.

Let’s be clear: Your organization’s most sensitive and proprietary data is at risk, in large part because you are routinely accessing it through your mobile phone. And the hackers know it. We must recognize the magnitude and potential impact of this problem and take decisive steps to bolster our cyber defense.

Mobile Phone Security Threats Are Evolving When we rely on our mobile phones for work tasks, we expand the

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cybersecurity threat landscape. This is critical to acknowledge because most organizations not only lack a proper understanding of mobile phone threats but also lack experienced personnel to address the problem with anything more than basic mobile device management tools.

There are two big challenges associated with mobile cybersecurity threats: • The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. The sheer number of applications we can use on our phones is exploding. Apple and Google are doing excellent work with securing their operating systems, but securing third-party applications remains a big challenge. We’ve added a lot of functionality to our phones, but much of those added features have made it far easier for bad

actors to access things like our work contacts and their phone numbers. As hackers work their way into our phones through fraudulent applications that suddenly develop a second life or exploiting vulnerabilities in common applications like WhatsApp, it’s not a big leap to installing professional malware for jailbreaking, espionage, ransomware or data exfiltration.

• No Place Left to Hide. I’ll spare you the technical details, but keep in mind that mobile networks rely on vulnerable roaming protocols like SS7 or Diameter, which are easy targets for cyber threats. Simply having access to your phone number allows hackers with a little investment to trace your location quite easily … or even to take over your incoming calls or text/ SMS or WhatsApp messages.

These attack methods have been used for a long time, not only for professional espionage but also for large-scale online banking fraud. This is also the reason why banks don’t consider SMS as a secured two-factor authentication approach anymore. All in all, it’s very difficult to protect yourself against location tracking or phone or SMS takeover attacks.

But, the good news is that the state of mobile phone cybersecurity is not as bleak as it sounds from the press.

Today’s mobile phones, at the device level, have strong security architectures. The ecosystems for the most popular phones—Apple iPhone and Google Android—are highly secure, with strong hardware-based security and isolation approaches. And, unlike other software exploits, exploit code to compromise a mobile device without your interaction would cost attackers millions. A hacker has to make a huge investment if he wants

to compromise your mobile phone in order to exfiltrate your data.

What You Can Do Now There are three strong steps all business leaders can and should do now in order to harden their phones’ defenses: • Security hygiene. We’re all busy at work and ensuring that our mobile phones and apps have the latest patches may not be our top priority. But, if you’re a heavy user of your phone for business, you have to make sure it has the most up-to-date security. Also, antivirus for mobile phones is a myth. Compared to our computers, an anti-virus app on a mobile phone will often not be able to protect against malicious apps. The reason is that the hardware-based architecture of the mobile phone forces every app to be isolated from each other. However, one security control that is often overlooked on mobile devices is network security. Instead of routing all your insecurely to the Internet, you can use a secure VPN or Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution. Such a solution can block traffic to malicious websites or data exfiltration attempts.

• Application hygiene. Any application on your phone can expose data and be used as a bridge to compromise your device. Whitelisting and blacklisting applications are now becoming standard practice for IT and security administrators, and you should follow these practices on your own phone as well. For instance, do you really need those five messenger applications? Are you automatically downloading content across social media applications?

Do your kids or grandchildren 31

use your phone and download games?

• Privacy hygiene. I know this will sound like the lecture you got from your parents many years ago, but here goes: Don’t give out personal information, especially your phone number, to strangers. Having just your phone number will allow cybercriminals to trace you, physically and electronically, everywhere in the world. And remember that your colleagues, suppliers, and customers store your number and other contact details on their phones as well. And this data can be easily exfiltrated by fraudulent applications installed on their phones to expose your number.

The more you use your phone for work reasons, the greater you expand cybersecurity threat vectors into your organization’s applications, databases, and data.

It’s like opening the door of your factory-wide open and handing strangers an access card to your mainframe and robotics equipment.

It can only end badly.

As an executive, you should follow these best practices personally, but also support the deployment and administration of sound mobile phone cybersecurity processes for all employees.

You are in a unique, powerful position to send the right message to your colleagues and subordinates.

Your phone is every bit as much a computer as any desktop, notebook or server. Protect it accordingly.

Still, are you going to take a chance on exposing your enterprise’s most critical data due to lax cybersecurity frameworks and practices? Of course not.

EXPE RT SPEAK

Managing the Cultural Impact of Industry 4.0 in Manufacturing Amel Gardner, regional vice president – Middle East, Africa & India, Epicor Software Corp.

For Middle East manufacturers, or any business in general, the success of digital transformation isn’t just about investing in the right technology. As with any large-scale project— from a change in working location to a company merger—the impact on the people involved needs to be a key consideration when putting a strategy and implementation plan in place. However, in a bid to keep up with the latest technology trends, regional manufacturers could be shooting themselves in the foot by not addressing the change management and cultural aspects from the outset.

matter how big or small the change, manufacturers need to put key measures in place to manage the transition. This includes undertaking the necessary groundwork to ensure that whatever technology businesses invest in, they can get the best out of it.

Step One—Be Realistic Despite digital transformation being very much an industry buzzword, local manufacturers don’t need to take everything on at once. Assess what needs to be automated and why. If something is working and the process efficient, it might not need changing just yet. The key to getting In fact, recent research has found it right is to prioritise adoption rather that only a quarter (26 percent)1 of than change for changes sake. A businesses consider change manage- phased approach will be beneficial ment strategies to be an important for everyone in the long term. part of the move towards Industry 4.0 and the connected enterprise.

Step Two—Get Stakeholders on This suggests that a large proportion Board of manufacturers are not putting Following an assessment of priorities, steps in place to manage the impact manufacturers need to map and plan of such a change on corporate culout what needs to happen next— ture, which could affect the ultimate from procurement to implementasuccess of any digital transformation tion and beyond. This ensures that project. all stakeholders from every department affected are clear about what is Six Steps to Success happening, why and when. Only then Despite pressure on Middle East can everyone involved be prepared businesses and individuals to remain and plan for the roll-out. at the cutting edge, no one wants to be an early adopter and get it wrong.

A recent report from Deloitte2 into Step Three—Keep Talking Industry 4.0 readiness found that Communication at very stage is even in today’s technology-driven essential—particularly before impleworld, senior executives are not as mentation. Users need to feel they prepared as they think they are to are part of the process and can raise reap rewards from digital transforany concerns or questions before a mation: new way of working is thrust upon them. Taking time to address any To make Industry 4.0 a success, no potential issues at the start of a ARABIAN RESELLER | March 2020

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project will ensure users are bought into the process, understand what is expected of them and avoid any pitfalls further down the line.

Step Four—Factor in Ongoing Training and Support For efficiencies and productivity to be realised, users need to have a good understanding of how the technology impacts their working practices. This can only be done through comprehensive training and ongoing support. While this could be an overwhelming prospect, breaking it down into bite-sized, digestible sessions will be invaluable rather than overloading people with too much information from the outset.

Step Five—Take Your Time The choice of new technologies can be overwhelming and daunting for even a seasoned professional. Never lose sight of why you are investing in technology and keep your business objectives in mind—what your competitor is doing might not be the right approach for you. Jumping on the bandwagon or adopting new technology too quickly could be detrimental in the long-term, if the process is not well thought through or fit for purpose.

Step Six—Undertake Regular Reviews While following steps ne to five will ensure the business has the best chance of successfully adopting new technology, it will all be in vain if you miss out step six. The hard work doesn’t stop when you reach go-live—in fact, that is only just the start of the digital transformation process.

EXPE RT SPEAK

Unlocking the Promise of a Digital Workplace Written by Gamal Emara, Country Manager, UAE at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

The business landscape has evolved significantly over the past decade. Driven by the need to remain agile, competitive and productive, organisations are adopting more technologies than ever before as they continue their individual journeys towards digital transformation.

For employees, the digital workplace stands for an innovative and agile new way of working, a concept underpinned by greater convenience and better networking between devices and colleagues. Faced with such a promise, the demand for a frictionless employee journey only looks set to surge.

True digital natives will settle for no less than the best of the best technologies. They want to work and access information in a way that suits them. Put simply – they want IT to be transparent. So, against this backdrop of employee expectations and an increasingly competitive business landscape, what can organisations do to truly unlock the promise of a digital workplace?

Automation The first step is to ensure that the basic requirements, such as easier management and maintenance of the wireless network, rapid integration of new users and devices, and a resilient Wi-Fi connection, are met. For IT staff, this translates into removing barriers to mobile working and creating a mobile

first digital environment where employees can work effectively.

Here, it is important to remember that a digital environment is not just defined by the tools a company provides – it’s also about the working climate they create and how they enhance the employee experience by making it at seamless as possible. And that means considering everything from personalised lighting settings, how they pay for their coffee and workplace ergonomics, to fully automated conference rooms, preventive device maintenance and automated energy savings. This frictionless experience should be delivered both on and offsite – a remote employee must be able to work as if he were on-site, while registered visitors should be able to connect easily to the guest Wi-Fi as soon as they enter the building.

Visibility While all these new devices and services sound brilliant in practice, in reality it can be difficult to keep track of them on the network – particularly when organisations find themselves reactively scrambling to get a handle on the situation. A common issue is that of Shadow IT, where well-intentioned employees bring their own IT to work, thus creating security issues.

Before flooding the workplace with devices, network visibility must be a key consideration – and that means building 33

network access controls and network management into your digital workplace plans from the earliest stage.

Education Whilst all these technologies can help organisations shift towards a digital workplace, they are only part of the puzzle.

To truly realise the benefits of a digital environment, organisations need to encourage employees to unlock its potential – and that means getting away from their desks and collaborating more.

While this might happen over time organically, this type of large-scale culture change will need help from the organisation. Businesses must ensure they are educating employees around how to connect, communicate and collaborate within these new environments – equipping them to use them correctly and to their fullest.

Conclusion More than ever, the workplace is evolving into an environment that allows users to interact with content and tools easily, quickly and efficiently. Companies that miss this development risk alienating their employees, losing talent and ultimately reducing productivity. An intelligent, digital work environment will promote employee creativity, collaboration, speed and freedom through reliable and personalised services. So, what are you waiting for?

MARKET UPDATE

Global Threat Trends Demo Political and Economic Intentions of Cybercriminals Fortinet has announced the findings of the latest FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report. Derek Manky, Chief, Security Insights & Global Threat Alliances, FortiGuard Labs, said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the cyber arms race, the criminal community has often had a distinct advantage due to the growing cyberskills gap, the expanding digital attack surface, and by leveraging the element of surprise with tactics such as social engineering to take advantage of unsuspecting individuals.

To get out ahead of the cycle of increasingly sophisticated and

automated threats, organizations need to use the same sorts of technologies and strategies to defend their networks that criminals are using to attack them.

That means adopting integrated platforms that leverage the power and resources of AI-driven threat intelligence and playbooks to enable protection and visibility across the digital infrastructure.â&#x20AC;?

Here are the key highlights from the report: A Not So Charming Kitten: Research shows significant levels

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of activity across regions associated with Charming Kitten, an Iran-linked advanced persistent threat (APT) group in Q4. Active since around 2014, the threat actor has been associated with numerous cyberespionage campaigns. Recent activity suggests that the threat actor has expanded into the election disruption business, having been linked to a series of attacks on targeted email accounts associated with a presidential election campaign.

In addition, Charming Kitten was observed employing four new tactics against intended victims

that were all designed to trick victims into parting with sensitive information.

Security Risks for IoT Devices Magnify: IoT devices continue to be challenged with exploitable software and these threats can affect unexpected devices such as wireless IP cameras.

This situation is magnified when components and software are embedded into different commercial devices sold under a variety of brand names, sometimes by different vendors. Many of these components and services are often programmed using bits and pieces of pre-written code from a variety of common sources. These common components and pre-written code are sometimes vulnerable to exploit, which is why some of the same vulnerabilities crop up repeatedly across a wide range of devices.

The scale combined with the inability to easily patch these devices is a growing challenge, and spotlights the difficulties of supply chain security. A lack of patch awareness or availability, the prevalence of vulnerabilities in some IoT devices, and the documented attempts to “enslave” these devices in IoT botnets all contributed to these exploits having the third-highest volume among all IPS detections during the quarter.

Senior Threats Help Junior Threats: Amidst the constant pressure to keep ahead of new threats, organizations sometimes forget that older exploits and vulnerabilities really have no expiration date, and threat actors will continue to use them as long as they work. A case in point is EternalBlue. The malware has been adapted over time to exploit common and major vulnerabilities. It has been used in numerous campaigns, including, most notably, the Wanna-

Cry and NotPetya ransomware attacks. In addition, a patch was issued last May for BlueKeep, a vulnerability that if exploited could be wormable, which had the potential to spread at the same speed and scale as WannaCry and NotPetya. And now, a new version of the EternalBlue Downloader Trojan surfaced last quarter with the ability to exploit the BlueKeep vulnerability. Fortunately, the version currently in the wild is not completely ironed out, forcing targeted devices to crash before loading. But looking at the traditional development cycle of malware, determined cybercriminals are likely to have a functional version of this potentially devastating malware package in the near future. And while a patch for BlueKeep has been available since May, far too many organizations still have not updated their vulnerable systems. The continuing and evolving threat actor interest in EternalBlue and BlueKeep is a reminder for organizations to ensure their systems are properly patched and secured against both threats.

Trends Demonstrate a New Perspective on Global Spam Trade: Spam continues to be one of the top issues for organizations and individuals to deal with.

This quarter’s report combines the volume of spam flow between nations with data showing the ratios of spam sent vs. spam received, visually revealing a new perspective on an old problem.

The majority of spam volume seems to follow economic and political trends. For example, the heaviest “spam trade partners” of the United States include Poland, Russia, Germany, Japan, and Brazil. In addition, in terms of exported spam volumes from geographic regions, Eastern Europe is the largest net producer of spam in the world. Most of the

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outbound-heavy spammers beyond that hail from Asian sub-regions. The remaining European sub-regions lead those with net negative spam ratios, receiving more than they send, followed by the Americas and Africa.

Tracking the Tracks of Cybercriminals to See What is Next: Looking at IPS triggers detected in a region not only shows what resources are being targeted, but may also indicate what cybercriminals might focus on in the future, either because enough of those attacks were ultimately successful, or simply because there is more of a certain type of technology deployed in some regions. But that’s not always the case. For example, the vast majority of ThinkPHP deployments are in China, which has almost 10x more installations than the U.S., according to shodan.io. Assuming that companies patch their software at about the same rate in each region, if a botnet was simply probing for vulnerable instances of ThinkPHP before deploying an exploit, the number of detected triggers should be much higher in APAC. However, only 6% more IPS triggers were detected in all of APAC than in North America from a recent exploit, indicating that these botnets are simply deploying the exploit to any ThinkPHP instance they find. In addition, when taking a similar look at malware detections, the majority of threats targeting organizations are Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros. This is likely because they are still effective and producing results. In general, detections for things that are not working won’t remain high for long and if there are a significant amount of detections for something, someone is falling prey to these attacks.

EXPE RT SPEAK

Why Zero Trust Security Can Enable Secure Digital Transformation Written by Wael Jaber, Vice President of Technology and Services, CyberKnight

If you ask any of security leader today about what the most challenging factors are, that keep them concerned about the security posture of their organization, and impact the level of confidence they have in their implemented security controls, the most common feedback you would hear revolves around the below four main points: • The complex dynamics in the cyber security landscape and the increasing sophistication of adversaries, their techniques and strategies • Digital transformation is accelerating the adoption of cloud computing and bringyour-own-anything • The lack of effective breach detection and lateral movement prevention at the very early stages of a compromise • The shortage in the cyber security talent, the alert fatigue and the complexity of managing and operating of multiple tools and solutions All the above-mentioned have contributed to the fact that we hear headlines in the news about high profile breaches taking place daily without any indication of slowing down any time in foreseeable future. Although many organizations invest heavily into

many cyber security solutions across the board, there is still a fundamental flaw in the way security leaders and practitioners design and architect their environments.

Traditional Perimeter Based Architecture is not Enough The legacy perimeter centric architecture is facing serious challenges and is slowly heading towards an end; the reason being, it won’t be able to cope with the new evolutions taking place in the digital transformation and cloud generation era. There is a fundamental and strategic flaw in the approach of the perimeter centric design, and this resides in the trust that is inherently assumed and granted to whatever asset lives behind the corporate perimeter, while considering everything outside the perimeter as hostile and malicious. Therefore, this model is believed to fail and here are some of the reasons that support this narrative: 1. All networks have evolved to hybrid architectures of on-prem, cloud, mobile and remote systems. So essentially what used to be known as a corporate perimeter is now vanishing 2. Through the adoption of SaaS, PaaS, IaaS services, a

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lot of the data and information is being processed and accessed outside the boundaries of the corporate perimeter using any device from anywhere in the globe 3. Networks are mainly flat in nature, meaning anyone in the enterprise has access, to a certain extent, to other users’ information, data and applications 4. Limited mechanisms exist to prevent network lateral movement, once a breach is inside a network. This is due to the absence of segmentation on data, device, identity, application and network levels.

What is Zero Trust Security?

The Zero Trust Security approach was initially created in 2010 by John Kindervag, who used to work at Forrester at the time. The concept has been promoted by Forrester ever since, where they focused their efforts to create awareness and increase adoption within the industry. Due to the increasing interest in this concept, Google in 2014 and NIST in 2019 followed suit and raised their different versions of Zero Trust Security frameworks (BeyondCorp & NIST SP 800-207-Draft 2).

The Zero Trust Security model is not a set of technologies or

solutions that can be thrown together and achieved in a one-time engagement. Zero Trust security should be looked at as a journey and should be driven based on the set goals for each organization. Therefore, it is very crucial to have a strategy first, that outlines the objectives and outcomes of implementing a Zero Trust model (i.e. Need to implement Zero Trust using crypto-segmentation, or to enable Zero Trust Security for mobile workforce, etc.). Based on the strategy, the required capabilities can be identified and defined, that will eventually lead to selecting the right technology set with the necessary features.

• Enhances prevention capabilities of lateral movement, once a breach has already infiltrated the environment • Enhances threat detection by employing extensive visibility and analytics over external and internal assets in association with the surrounding internal and external threats • Accelerates incident response capabilities using automation and orchestration

Why Zero Trust Security?

Considering the limitations and flaws of the legacy perimeter centric security approach (highlighted earlier in this article), customers are advised to consider the Zero Trust security model - a data centric and identity driven model - to secure their environments.

The Zero Trust security model:

The Zero Trust eXtended Ecosystem - ZTX In 2018 Forrester has released an updated version of the original Zero Trust security model and called it “The Zero Trust eXtended Ecosystem - ZTX”. There are seven pillars that compose the ZTX ecosystem. For customers who are interested in implementing the ZTX framework, to build their zero trust capabilities in threat detection and response, and in threat prevention, they can refer to the below exclusive list based on my suggestions:

• Assumes that threats are existing, internal and external to the environment, and that the network is always hostile and can’t be trusted. Therefore, any user, device, or application on the network must be authenticated, and verified, before it is authorized and granted access to any data or information • Leverages micro-perimeters/ micro-segmentation concepts to build secure communities within the environment. The segmentation can be implemented on device, user, application or network levels, to enforce granular access controls based on the least privilege and need to know/ have basis • Ensures data security via obfuscation or encryption techniques

• Data: Data Rights Management, Data Access Governance, Data Classification, Encryption, FIM • People: IAM, Privilege Access Management, Multi Factor Authentication, Remote Browser Isolation, Phishing Simulation & Training • Device: Enterprise User Mobility, EDR, MTD, EPP • Network: NGFW, NTAs, Deception Platforms, Email Anti-Spoofing & Anti-Phishing, Mail Encryption Gateway • Workloads & Applications: CASB, Cloud and Virtual Workload Security, WAF, VRM, RASP • Visibility and Analytics: Attack Surface Management, UBA, SIEM, Security Analytics, TIP, Threat Intelligence Feeds, • Security Orchestration and

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Automation: SOAR, MDR, aiSOC, Network Security Policy Management Benefits of Zero Trust Security The interest and hype around the Zero Trust security approach and the reason behind its acceleration in its adoption globally by many government entities and enterprises boils down to the benefits that this approach provides to security and risk leaders.

The Zero Trust Security Approach: • Builds on top of what customers might have in terms of security investment, and helps in putting a framework or a methodology to make the existing security controls and the one to be implemented work in an aligned, a structured, and an organized fashion to achieve zero trust security objectives • Enables and empowers security teams to be open and supportive of any new business requirements that are needed to accelerate the digital transformation journey, without having to go into complex infrastructure upgrades, or to accept or deal with any elevated risk.

• Zero Trust helps in achieving compliance with mandates and regulations, because due to its secure architectural and methodical concept, the Zero Trust approach indirectly implements many of the controls required by most of the common standards.

Customers who are looking for an efficient, secure and low risk architecture to operate their businesses in this rapidly shifting digital world, should explore the Zero Trust Framework, and take its implementation in a strategic and phased approach to obtain the best results.

PRODUCTS

Lenovo Updates its ThinkPad Laptop Series

Lenovo has announced the latest additions to the ThinkPad portfolio: the new T series, X series, and L series, built leveraging the core tenets of design, innovation, and quality. Focused on providing a broad customer choice and a smarter workforce experience, the updated ThinkPad portfolio delivers modern IT solutions with emerging technology features to meet the needs and desires of end-users. Innovations across the range include Modern Standby, Wake on Voice, WiFi 6, Dolby Audio Speaker System and Dolby Vision, plus customers can optimize select models with either 10th Gen Intel Core vPro processors or the next generation AMD Ryzen 4000 PRO Mobile processors.

Lenovo will be the first PC vendor to offer the AMD Ryzen PRO 4000 Mobile processors. These latest models reinforce Lenovo’s strategy to deliver Smarter Technology for All by evolving PC technology that delivers real value. Enhanced end-user experience is provided by innovative features: •

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• •

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Modern Standby offers a smartphone-like always-on, always-connected experience where the system remains connected to low power and continues to sync. Fast resume times get users fully productive quickly and Wake on Voice can simplify that process further.

WiFi 6 and up to CAT 16 WWAN provide super-fast connectivity options to reduce download times and ensure efficient cloud collaboration, virtually anywhere. WiFi 6 is designed to maintain optimum connection speeds on saturated wireless networks and new WPA3 security protocol makes it even harder for cybercriminals to crack passwords.

New unified communications function keys enable rapid answer and hang up of calls.

Premium UHD, OLED and Dolby Vision display options deliver brilliant visuals, and Dolby Audio Speaker System on ThinkPad T and X series or Dolby Audio on L series offer enhanced audio experiences.

ThinkShield security solutions continue to be an integral part of ThinkPad laptops with optional PrivacyGuard ePrivacy display and PrivacyAlert on models with an IR Camera. ThinkShutter webcam protection and fingerprint readers are also available on all models.

A ThinkPad would not be a ThinkPad without the rigorous Mil-Spec testing and critical quality control criteria.

Over the past fifteen years, ThinkPad has improved quality by 73% despite shipping 4.5 times more systems per year. Lenovo continues to excel in this space supporting 22 Mil-Spec procedures and remains focused on quality and reliability innovations, such as the Low-Temperature Solder process, now entering its third year of implementation.

Huawei MateBook 13 Goes on Pre-Order Huawei’s new MateBook 13 is designed with young professionals in mind and brings Huawei’s latest technologies to a wider audience. By combining the unique Multi-Screen Collaboration feature with the FullView display, extreme portability, and premium build quality, the new MateBook 13 sets a new standard for devices in its class. Through Multi-Screen Collaboration, you can enjoy the flexibility and convenience of a shared eco-system of devices that make it possible to work efficiently and enjoy entertainment seamlessly across smartphones and laptop computers.

Huawei has taken the new MateBook 13 to a whole new level of power and performance. This is made possible with the 10th Generation Intel Core processor and up to 16 GB RAM at the heart of the laptop along with support for 2K FullView Display with Multi-touch and Multi-Screen Collaboration for a convenient and connected life.

The Huawei MateBook 13 has a 2K display (2160×1440 at 200-ppi) with a contrast ratio of 1000:1 and supports 100 percent of the RGB colour gamut.

It can display rich details for users when viewing HD quality imagery and can effortlessly display images and videos with speed and accuracy.

Users also have the option of a 2K FullView Display with Multi-touch on the MateBook 13. This enables the

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screen to track multiple touch inputs with high precision and supports Huawei’s Fingers Gesture Screenshot feature as well. By performing a three-finger downward swipe, users can quickly capture and save a screenshot. Ultra-light notebooks have become extremely popular.

The MateBook 13 takes the FullView design to the next level with an industry-leading screen-to-body ratio of 88 percent. Elegant side bezels measuring at 4.4mm, provide the MateBook with a large display inside a small form factor helping it to retain its portability. Unlike most 16:9 laptops on the market, the MateBook 13 has a 3:2 display so even more viewable screen space.

The MateBook 13 comes with a 65 W Type-C portable adapter which is compatible with a range of charging outputs. As well as using the power adapter to charge your laptop, it supports the Huawei SuperCharge for certain phones. This power adapter lets you quickly charge wherever you are.

The top-end Huawei MateBook 13 is powered by a 10th Generation Intel Core processor. In addition to an upgraded processor, the MateBook 13 is equipped with up to 16 GB dual channel RAM. It also has a high-speed PCIe SSD, allowing to express creativity without the burden of slow read or write speeds.

Honor Launches the 9X Pro The Honor 9X Pro has made its global debut in Barcelona as the first Honor smartphone to be equipped with the 7nm Kirin 810 AI Chipset and pre-installed with the Huawei AppGallery. Enabling exceptional AI performance, the new architecture achieves excellent AI energy efficiency and offers a wider range of on-device AI applications.

WD Launches Gaming Portfolio in the Middle East Western Digital is introducing a portfolio of external storage solutions in the Middle East purpose-built for PC and console gamers. The burgeoning gaming industry in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, evident in its estimated value of $4.8 billion and year-on-year growth of 11%, continues to see the introduction of new games with more projects set to be launched throughout the year 2020.

Gamers are consistently faced with the challenge of storage and performance with the existing console and PC storage range between 500GB1TB which could be filled quickly with just a few games.

Building on the top-tier performance of the WD_Black SN750 NVMe SSD currently on the market, the five new solutions introduced by Western Digital have been thoughtfully designed to address these storage challenges, all based on the company’s recognized quality and reliability. They provide the performance, capacity and reliability to help PC and console gamers to drive their game and play without limits. The solutions include the WD_Black P50 Game Drive SSD, a first-to-industry SuperSpeed USB (20Gb/s), USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 device.

Bringing this superior gaming experience to life, Western Digital unveils a pop-up gaming park at this year’s edition of the Etisalat Beach Canteen, the central hub of the ongoing Dubai Food Festival (DFF). Located at

Jumeirah Beach behind Sunset Mall, the WD_Black Gaming Park will provide an immersive space for visitors to enjoy their favorite games on the beach up until March 14, 2020.

Designed for audiences of all ages, the gaming park will include an exclusive VR experience as well as designated spaces for other gaming consoles. At the main stage, one on one gaming tournaments will be held throughout the event with the chance for visitors to compete to win prizes from Western Digital. In addition, Yalla Esports, Dubai based esports startup, and Western Digital partner will also be conducting workshops on the topic of building a high-performance PC and designing your own esports team logo.

The WD Black portfolio is currently available in the United Arab Emirates at select Western Digital retailers, e-tailers, resellers, system integrators, and the WD store. The WD_Black P10 Game Drive comes in capacities of 2TB up to 5TB and ranges from AED 349 to AED 549. The WD_Black P50 Game Drive comes in capacities of 500GB up to 2TB and ranges from AED 784 to AED 2249. The WD_Black D10 Game Drive 8TB capacity is AED 899. TheWD_Black P10 Game Drive for Xbox One will come in capacities of 3TB up to 5TB and ranges from AED 429 up to AED 599. All prices vary depending on the model and capacity.

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“The Honor 9X Pro is equipped to support the active digital lives of youth today with superior processing performance and energy efficiency. The technology goes a long way in enhancing the mobile gaming experience among other features and we look forward to delivering this edge to our customers in the Middle East,” said Chris Sun Baigong, President of Honor Middle East and Africa.

The Kirin 810 AI Chipset runs on Huawei’s brand-new computing architecture to cover all scenarios ranging from super-fast AI learning machines to small wearables that run on a tiny scale. The Kirin 810 chipset achieved an incredibly high score of 23944 on AI-Benchmark, hitting the highest score among all tested mobile SoCs. In the case of the Honor 9X Pro, the highly efficient 7nm Kirin 810 AI Chipset improves energy efficiency by 20% and its transistor density by 50%.

Furthermore, its GPU is upgraded to the custom Mali-G52 that enables Kirin Gaming+, a feature that provides a smoother gaming experience while its Liquid Cooling System effectively improves heat dissipation during prolonged gameplay. The Honor 9X Pro will be first introduced to select markets including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia this month.

PRODUCTS

Oppo Launches its 5G Flagship Find X2 Series Oppo has unveiled its Find X2 series – a flagship lineup of 5G devices featuring a range of cutting-edge technologies that demonstrate Oppo’s commitment to the 5G ecosystem. The company’s much-anticipated smartphone series delivers an all-around powerful camera experience and battery life, with one of the most advanced screens in the industry.

With a customized Sony sensor IMX689, the Find X2 Pro brings users upgraded all-around photography and video experience that transforms the way we capture life’s important moments. The device is equipped with a 120Hz QHD+ AMOLED screen, an all-around ultra-vision-camera system, the industry’s fastest 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 flash charging technology and the most advanced 5G mobile platform— Snapdragon 865. The Find X2 Pro is also the first smartphone to support all-pixel omnidirectional focus and up to 12bit colour photo capturing.

Both Find X2 and Find X2 Pro are equipped with an Oppo customized 120Hz QHD+ Ultra Vision Screen with more than one billion variations of color display capabilities, bringing a visual revolution in resolution, color, refresh rate and brightness. With a resolution of 3168-by-1440, 513 ppi, ultra-low screen reflectivity and a maximum screen brightness of up to 1200nit, it creates a clear and comfortable display in any environment.

Equipped with the O1 Ultra Vision Engine, the Find X2 series supports Motion Clear and HDR video enhancement. The Find X2 series has built-in powerful audio performance, equipped with high-power dual speakers and Dolby Atmos, it can intelligently match application scenarios – such as music, movies, and games – to bring users immersive audio and video entertainment experience.

Find X2 Pro is equipped with a triple-camera combination, 48MP wide-angle lens + 48MP ultra-wide-angle lens + 13MP telephoto lens, whilst supporting 10x hybrid zoom. The Find X2 Pro wide angle camera (main camera) adopts a customized flagship sensor. The Sony IMX689 has the largest sensor size among all 48MP mobile camera sensors in the industry. The powerful image sensor combined with dual native ISO technology and f/1.7 large aperture delivers powerful lowlight shooting capabilities.

The Find X2 Pro is the first smartphone to support All Pixel Omni-directional PDAF (phase-detect autofocus), with the capability of achieving 100% pixel focusing and omnidirectional focusing. Find X2 Pro is equipped with a second-generation 10x hybrid zoom.

Asus Intros ZenBook Flip 14 UX463 in UAE Asus has announced the 14-inch ZenBook Flip 14 (UX463), the latest 2020 models in the acclaimed ZenBook Flip convertible laptop series. The ZenBook Flip 14 features the innovative ScreenPad 2.0, an intelligent touchpad that incorporates a secondary LCD touchscreen.

ScreenPad 2.0 enhances both productivity and creativity, with an improved smartphone-like interface that makes ZenBook Flip even more versatile.

The slim-bezel NanoEdge touchscreen on both models ensures compact dimensions. Powerful performance across the range is provided by the latest 10th Generation Intel Core processors, combined with up to 16 GB RAM, discrete NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, ultrafast PCIe SSD storage and the latest Intel WiFi 6 (GIG+ 802.11ax).

The new ScreenPad 2.0 upgrades the traditional laptop experience, adding an interactive secondary touchscreen that enhances productivity and creativity, making ZenBook Flip even more versatile. The intuitive smartphone-like interface on the new ScreenXpert software lets users easily manage tasks and create their own seamless multitasking workflows. There’s a series of handy ASUS utility apps to boost productivity including Quick Key — for one-tap automation of complex keyboard sequences — along with

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Handwriting, Number Key, Doc Xpert, Sheet Xpert, Slide Xpert and more.

The new ZenBook Flip series features NanoEdge touchscreens that add a whole new dimension to the viewing experience. The ultraslim bezels deliver expansive and immersive visuals that are distraction-free, making work or play a true pleasure, and the touchscreens support an ASUS Pen or another active stylus with Windows Ink for accurately capturing ideas, drawings or annotations as they happen.

Powered by up to the very latest 10th Generation Intel Core i7 processors and up to 16 GB RAM, the new ZenBook Flip series delivers superbly responsive performance.

Lightning-fast PCIe SSD storage means they not only boot up in just a few seconds, but large creative files also load almost instantaneously. Outstanding graphics performance is ensured by NVIDIA GeForce discrete GPUs. The ZenBook Flip series delivers the silky-smooth speed users need for creative graphics tasks — such as video rendering, photo editing or 3D modeling.

Asus ZenBook Flip series is now available in the UAE from starting from AED 4,299 at Dubai Duty-Free, ECity, Emax, Sharaf DG, Jumbo, and Virgin Megastores.

GO WHERE THE GAME TAKES YOU.

Dell G3 15 Gaming Bring every raid to life on the Dell G3 gaming laptop, featuring Intel® Core™ i7-8750H processor, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 4GB NVIDIA GTX 1050Ti Graphics, 15.6” FHD IPS Anti-Glare Display, Ubuntu Linux.

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