Posts Tagged ‘Kaspersky’

Kaspersky developing software to secure PCs at nuclear plants

October 19th, 2012

Russian anti-virus software company Kaspersky Lab is developing a secure operating system to run computers inside nuclear power plants and other vital infrastructure and industrial plants, its founder and CEO said on Tuesday.

Eugene Kaspersky, the Russian computer scientist turned multi-millionaire cyber security expert, told reporters at a company news conference in Dubai the system was at the prototype stage, with his Moscow-based company in talks with government institutions about installing the new operating system. He declined to identify any, saying the talks were confidential.

Energy and water plants, factories and transportation systems are typically run with SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems that are accessible via conventional computer networks, making them vulnerable to hackers, Kaspersky said.

SCADA software is sometimes left unaltered for decades, which means that it does not get updates to protect against security bugs as they are discovered.

“It’s not possible to design SCADA in a secure way, so the most obvious solution is to have a secure envelope which monitors what’s going on within SCADA,” Kaspersky told Reuters after announcing the project.

“Engineers travel with laptops, USBs, so even if the system is disconnected from the Internet there is traffic.”

Computer hacking was once seen as the preserve of rogue programmers working alone or in small groups.

These usually targeted company websites and caused little long-term damage, but the rise of so-called “hactivist” collectives as well as suspected state-sponsored cyber attacks has shifted the threat towards government-run institutions energy, transport and telecommunications networks. Many such plants use firewalls designed to protect SCADA systems from being infiltrated by malicious bugs. But Kaspersky said he was developing an entire security-focused operating system to beef up their security further.

Some 30,000 computers at state oil producer Saudi Aramco were infected in August, although there is no evidence that the virus got into its industrial control systems. But the Stuxnet worm virus that penetrated Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility is now freely available on the internet.

“After Stuxnet, the attacks on Aramco and other incidents, governments and enterprises are listening,” Kaspersky said.

Earlier this month US lawmakers said China’s top telecom equipment makers should be shut out of the US market as they posed a potential security threat, but Kaspersky was unconcerned that his new operating system might attract similar concerns.

“This system is quite compact – it’s easy to check it doesn’t have extra functionality … you own it,” he added.

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/enterprise-it/security/Kaspersky-developing-software-to-secure-PCs-at-nuclear-plants/articleshow/16861469.cms

Kaspersky releases new version of anti-spam software

April 30th, 2012

The new release provides detection, low false positive rates and ensure an instant reaction to new spam outbreaks

Kaspersky Lab has released a new version of its anti-spam product, Kaspersky Anti-Spam 5.0 Software Development Kit (KAS SDK).

The new release is a set of anti-spam tools that can be incorporated into any IT security product and it combines the automated anti-spam technologies and human analysis to provide detection, low false positive rates and ensure an instant reaction to new spam outbreaks, the company said.

Kaspersky’s new SDK utilises Kaspersky Lab’s Hybrid approach which enable its to access cloud-based intelligence and information distribution together with advanced offline protection technologies.

Any new spam message becomes tagged in seconds, and a corresponding signature gets added to the anti-spam databases with the next update (no later than 10 minutes).

The new release includes an anti-spam engine based on various detection methods that adds enhances the cloud mind’s power and guarantees improved detection rates for spam and phishing attacks while keeping false alarms to a minimum.

KAS SDK v.5 provides its host application with Text Signature Analysis, the “Fuzzy” and Words & regular expressions comparison algorithms and also provides DNS-based methods like DNSBL, Sender Policy Framework, Reverse DNS Lookup, Spam URL Blacklists.

It also provides more than 22 categories of linguistic heuristics, native 64-bit support for all platforms, Blacklisting/Whitelisting (IP, emails, phrases) and analysis of formal message attributes (headers, sender IP analyses, etc.).

Source:http://security.cbronline.com/news/kaspersky-releases-new-version-of-anti-spam-software-300412

The latest from LightPointe, Kaspersky Lab, Sage HandiSoft, Silver Peaks Systems and Quest Software

September 5th, 2011

Quest Software has certified its VMware backup software, vRanger, on Quantum DXi systems to enhance backup and recovery performance, while lowering storage requirements.

The use of vRanger with Quantum DXi-Series provides customers with a cost-effective and efficient VMware backup solution, letting them work smarter to support an ever-growing amount of data for high availability and disaster recovery processes.

vRanger scans block maps to back up only the changed blocks, significantly reducing job windows and the amount of data transferred to a Quantum DXi deduplication appliance.

The Quantum DXi system lets vRanger customers automate backups across multiple sites and devices with less network traffic over the WAN, reducing WAN bandwidth requirements by 90 per cent or more. A backup image is replicated from one DXi system to a target system over a network connection.

Quest Software vice-president of data protection product management, John Maxwell, said, “The growth in VMware virtual environments plus the exploding volume of corporate data – more and more of which is now classified as mission-critical – present a significant challenge to maintaining high availability and disaster recovery processes, especially on reduced budgets.”

Data management solutions provider, CommVault, also launched the Simpana 9 service pack 3 that maximises operational and business efficiencies in VMware virtual environments.

The solution helps VMware vSphere 5 customers transition to scalable private, public and hybrid cloud infrastructures. It protects hundreds of virtual machines in minutes and provides an off-host backup approach that backs up the most performance intensive virtual machines, enabling IT businesses to deploy more and larger virtual machines and run more performance intensive business critical applications inside them.

VMware vice-president of global strategic alliances, Parag Patel, said, “With VMware vSphere 5 and our cloud infrastructure suite, VMware is amplifying the value customers can realise from virtualised resources by enabling cloud-scale operations.”

Silver Peaks Systems introduces Silver Peak VX-Xpress

WAN optimisation vendor, Silver Peak Systems, has launched the Silver Peak VX-Xpress (VX-X), a free and fully-functional virtual appliance for optimising site-to-site applications over the WAN.

The new Silver Peak VX-X appliance is based on the Silver Peak Virtual Acceleration Open Architecture (VXOA) that powers the entire portfolio of NX, VX, and VRX products.

The VX-X is an entry-level solution within the VX product family, targeted at businesses that are just getting started with WAN optimisation or those requiring a quick and easy way to optimise the smallest branch or remote offices.

Silver Peak senior vice-president of worldwide marketing, Larry Cormier, said, “Silver Peak and our virtual open architecture is making it easier than ever to deploy WAN optimisation across the network—from branch offices, to datacentres, to the cloud.”

The Silver Peak VX-X supports 4Mbps of WAN bandwidth with 8000 simultaneous sessions, allowing customers to optimise any and all enterprise traffic – including backup and recovery applications, TCP applications, interactive applications and non-TCP and real-time applications.

VX-X is available as a free download from Silver Peak. Installation assistance and product support is provided via a peer-driven community, videos and documentation all available directly from the Silver Peak VX-X website. Registration is optional and is only required to join the VX-Xpress community forum.

Sage HandiSoft announces new SMSF audit software

Software developer, Sage HandiSoft’s new cloud-based audit application, the Auditflow SMSF, is designed to significantly advance the quality of auditing in Australia and drives the audit management of the local self-managed superannuation fund market.

As Australia’s 424,000 SMSF funds are required to be audited annually, 96 per cent of audits fail to fulfil all mandatory Australian auditing standards, according to data released from ASIC.

Sage HandiSoft national manager of sales and marketing, Gary Weisz, said, “We sought an expert partner to provide our clients with a much needed up-to-date, user friendly and affordable auditing solution that facilitates compliance with ATO and professional groups’ requirements for SMSF audits.”

The online system aims to provide Australian SMSF auditors with a systemised and methodical approach to audit engagements and enable them to communicate within the application with the fund administrators and accountants.

Kaspersky Lab releases Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012

Anti-malware company, Kaspersky Lab, has released its latest home user products – the Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012.

Thye are targeted at providing hybrid protection, which connects cloud technologies with the security technologies installed on PCs to reduce the average protection delivery time.

Some updated features include: simplified processes for installation and activation, enhanced threat protection with an improved version of ‘System Watcher’ and the introduction of File Adviser that updates users on the security of individual files.

Kaspersky Lab managing director in A/NZ, Andrew Mamonitis, said, “The current estimate of new malicious programs being produced each day is roughly 35 thousand. But the majority of our customers don’t care about that; they just want their internet security to run quietly in the background and do its job.”

The 2012 versions of Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Anti-Virus warn Internet users of unsafe links and those that redirect users to fraudulent, malicious and spammer websites.

The products receive the most up-to-date information available about undesirable Internet resources directly from the cloud – including websites with adult, violent and other similarly unsavoury content.

They are designed for minimal impact on a computer’s running speed and program operation and are streamlined for day-to-day use when surfing the Internet, searching for and viewing Web pages, making VoIP calls, watching HD videos and playing online games.

The system updates downloads and launches them immediately after plug in. The new products can also be used with touchscreen devices.

The Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 products are available from Officeworks, JB HI-FI, Harris Technology, Harvey Norman and Joyce Mayne. Prices are: $49.95 (for x1 PC) and $99.95 (for x3 PCs), and $39.95 (for x1 PC) and $79.95 (for x3 PCs) respectively.

LightPointe introduces hybrid optical-RF wireless series

The first two solutions in the new HyBridge series from optical wireless solutions manufacturer, LightPointe, integrate next-generation free space optics and radio technology.

The series is a patented hybrid point-to-point product range, which provides up to 99.9 per cent availability under all weather conditions. It uses patented DualPath technology that automatically switches between optical wireless and radio transmission.

The solution range allows carriers and enterprises to add the SX to existing RF links, enabling them to increase bandwidth while protecting their legacy investment, or select the radio of their choice. For a turn-key solution, the SXR-5 includes a radio and antenna. Both systems offer LightPointe’s exclusive Maximised DualPath feature for longer distances.

Other features include: POE, flexible network interfaces, web management and SNMP support. LightPointe CEO, Dr. Heinz Willebrand, said, “The system operates at full throttle and the highest efficiency of any wireless platform in the industry via optical transmission.

“When needed, DualPath switches to the radio, where our adaptive rate technology performs, even in fog and heavy snow.” The HyBridge SX and SXR-5 are available for $US10,000 and are currently installed in North America and Europe.

Source:http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/399727/products_round-up_latest_from_lightpointe_kaspersky_lab_sage_handisoft_silver_peaks_systems_quest_software/

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