The number of malware detections in 2006 was 172 percent up on 2005. PandaLabs’ 2006 annual report explains this growth and other aspects of the current malware situation. Massive infections caused by a single virus have practically disappeared. Instead, multiple variants now silently infect computers.

“The users have a false sense of security, believing there are no dangerous threats. The truth is, however, that there is now more malware than ever. PandaLabs detected the same amount of malware last year as in the previous fifteen years combined,” confirms Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs. Hybrid malware was an increasing trend in 2006, and according to PandaLabs, this trend will continue in 2007. One such example is the fusion between worms or Trojans and rootkits. As a result of this, in the future it will be more difficult to distinguish between different malware families.

The report also analyzes how malware evolved in 2006. Trojans have now become the most popular type of malware. This is largely because they spread silently and are therefore ideal for targeted attacks. Regarding spyware, or more specifically adware, the report underlines how widely it is now distributed due in part to the fact that these programs conceal themselves as part of other legitimate programs and that users do not consider them dangerous. Adware creators are therefore exploiting the situation and reaping the benefits.

On the subject of bots, the report stresses the changes in the way they are being used. “As firewalls evolve and port monitoring improves, bot herders are having to control their creations using alternative means, such as P2P networks,” says Luis Corrons. The use of worms as a means of propagation for other malware is another trend confirmed in 2006. The motivation of cyber-crooks during 2006 was once again financial. In this sense, the sale of malware online flourished last year. It is now possible on the Internet to buy any number of malicious tools, from kits for creating phishing web pages to vulnerability exploits or services for creating Trojans. This black market is now said to be worth more than the entire anti-malware industry.

According to PandaLabs spam rates will continue to be high this year, since people are still buying what is advertised in the emails. Social engineering will continue to cause problems. Luis Corrons explains: “The fact that malware still spreads using false emails related to Valentine’s Day or Christmas, reveals the need for technological solutions capable of detecting malware in the emails received every day.” The report also describes the innovative and curious attacks that took place in 2006, such as the presence of malware in virtual worlds (SecondLife, World of Warcraft, etc.). It also covers subjects including the sale of devices infected by malware or social engineering using Christmas-related subjects.

UK Businesses To Stump Up £442 Million For Cricket World Cup: Staff productivity is set to nosedive during the next eight weeks of the Cricket World Cup, costing UK businesses up to £442 million in lost productivity, predicts Marshal's Threat Research and Content Engineering (TRACE) Team. Cricket fans are gearing up for 51 games of international test cricket that will be played over 39 days, including 27 working days. And this year, with expanded live coverage of the games on the Web, fans will find it easier to watch more hours than ever before. All of which is bad news for employers, where the rise of interest will have the opposite effect on productivity during the competition.

From live webcasts, analysis and predictions to astrology, quizzes, contests and web logs, the Internet will deliver stimulating, interactive live content to cricket fans via their desktops. For most cricket buffs that hold desk-bound jobs, workplace Internet access will be the most popular means of staying in touch with the latest results and entertainment the Cricket World Cup has to offer. This is set to cause a significant drop in productivity as employees check the Net during working hours for details on matches played in the West Indies the previous evening. It will also compromise IT service as they download videos and interactive scoreboards, eating up valuable bandwidth.

"Cricket is one of the nation's greatest sporting passions and British cricket fans are renowned for their devotion," says Ed Macnair, CEO of Marshal. "One of the most significant cricket events of the year, the Cricket World Cup will certainly cause a significant decline in local staff productivity for its duration." Employers need to be prepared to set policies for acceptable Internet use. By implementing policies to limit Internet access to certain sites to lunch time, and before and after working hours, companies are able to control productivity and corporate bandwidth issues," says Macnair.

If one in 10 of UK's 25 million employed people1 with an average hourly wage of £13.10 an hour spend 30 minutes a day catching up on the World Cup for the 27 working days that tournament is played, the results will be more than 34 million hours of lost productivity. Marshal's Internet management solution, WebMarshal, enables administrators to enforce their company's Internet Acceptable Use Policies as a means of improving productivity and reducing risk.

It can help maintain employee productivity potentially lost through non-business browsing with flexible time and bandwidth quotas assigned according to user, workstation or group, in addition to blocking offensive content and dangerous viruses. TRACE (Threat Research and Content Engineering) is a group of Marshal security experts who constantly monitor and respond to Internet security threats. TRACE analyses Internet security trends, spam and phishing and provides frequent automated updates to MailMarshal customers.

VIA Shows How Clean Computing Can Halve Power Use At The Green California Exposition: VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, will showcase a range of highly power efficient partner products for enterprise at the Green California Summit and Exposition taking place in Sacramento, California from 13-14 March 2007, booth 1030. The environment-conscious PCs, thin clients, storage and ultra mobile partner products on display are designed to enable organizations to minimize their carbon footprint as well as make real dollar savings on electricity costs. Thanks to VIA’s ultra power efficient processor platforms, consumers can benefit from: 50% more energy efficient desktop computing platforms; 50% increased battery life in ultra mobile devices; Thin clients representing 90% energy saving on substitute desktop products.

“Addressing environmental issues has become a necessity, requiring the development of computing technologies that consume far lower power as well as working with key partners to enable new product opportunities,” said Epan Wu, Deputy Director of CPU Product Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. “VIA’s focus on power efficiency across the whole platform over the past few years is now paying off, with our technologies enabling the design of truly responsible computing products for enterprise and individuals alike.”

Key partner products displayed at the Green California event include compact thin clients from HP, Wyse and DevonIT, slimline ultra mobile devices from a range of leading vendors including Samsung, OQO and TabletKiosk, the Everex StepNote NC1500 notebook and the mass storage Petabox from Capricorn Technologies. Also on show will be the VIA Carbon Free PC reference design, an advanced approach to clean computing. “Environmental sustainability is a key element of global citizenship at HP, and we are dedicated to reducing our environmental impact, as well as that of our customers, partners, and suppliers by providing a variety of energy-efficient desk-based solutions for business customers,” said Jeff Groudan, worldwide vice president of marketing, Business PCs, HP. “As part of our participation in the Green California event, HP will be showing our thin client systems featuring VIA power-efficient silicon platforms, which are the most energy efficient desktop computing solutions on the market from HP today.”

Sustainable technology specialists from California and throughout the world will be sharing their expertise, inventions, experiences and desires at the Sacramento Convention Center from 13-14 March 2007. Long recognized as the “progressive state” on environmental respect and responsibility, California is home to a multitude of key private sector, political and civil society figures in the realm of environmental technologies, legislation and individual practice. “The Green Summit provides a genuine opportunity for the public and private sectors to bridge gaps and work more closely together to contend with fundamental issues of sustainability” said Scott Phipps, Marketing Manager, VIA Technologies, Inc. Scott will be on hand at the Exposition to address issues of sustainability of technology, and the significant environmental and cost benefits of VIA’s power efficient technologies, as well as their direct applications to governments, companies and end users.

The VIA booth 1030 will be made of recycled or environmentally friendly materials, from the stand structure and literature racks right down to the PET booth carpeting, which was kindly provided by Mohawk, a company responsible for recycling about 25% of the 3 billion soda bottles collected in North America each year by extruding the PET into fiber and spinning it into yarn for carpeting. (http://www.mohawk-flooring.com).

Be Pro Offers Up To 24 Meg Broadband For SMEs And Power Users From Just £40: O2 announced today that Be, its wholly-owned broadband unit and one of the most innovative and technically-advanced UK broadband networks, is launching Be Pro on Friday 9 March, which offers up to 24 meg broadband for just £40 per month. Be Pro will give SME and power users the fastest upload and download speeds in the UK. Be Pro replaces the Be office product, and all existing Be office members will benefit from the reduced price of the new offering.

Be has the most advanced ADSL2+ broadband network and Be Pro members are able to take advantage of the up to 24 meg download service as well as the fastest upload speeds on the market with Upload plus, based on the UK-approved Annex M variant of ADSL2+. Be is the only ISP to offer Upload plus to members which enables upload speeds of up to 2.5 meg. Be Pro is ideal for SMEs who want to network multiple users on a single line. With prices starting from £40 (inc VAT) per month. It is the best value business package available today. The service offers unlimited usage and comes with prioritised member support on a 24/7 basis. Each member will also benefit from a static IP address along with an option for either seven or fifteen further addresses.

”This is another first for the UK broadband market. At £40 a month this package is the best value for business and power users, and will be extremely hard for anyone to beat,” said Dana Pressman, Managing Director of Be Un Limited. “It really does demonstrate what Be is all about – making the best products available at the best price possible.” For business users who do not need the extra features of static IP addresses, prioritised support and Upload plus, Be unlimited provides a very economical alternative at £24 per month. Upload plus is available to members within 2km of an enabled exchange. Members using Upload plus will experience a slight loss in download speed.

Investment in the Be network is continuous: the team have been growing capacity and industrialising the existing network. To guarantee the Be promise of extending capacity to meet demand, Be has upgraded its central core ring from 1 Gig to 10 Gigs, improved redundancy, and added an extra Internet Transit provider to ensure the best possible experience for its members. Be Broadband is on target to reach over 800 exchanges by the end of the summer, which gives 50% population coverage of the UK. So far, 562 exchanges covering over 36% of the UK population have been unbundled.

PiaTel Sets New Standard For UK Business Communications: From virtual switchboards to low-cost credit card merchanting, businesses of all sizes stand to benefit from the introduction of PiaTel (http://www.piatel.co.uk). Launching in the UK on April 2, 2007 and established on a proprietary soft switch platform new to the UK, PiaTel combines a wide range of phone, web and financial services into a single resource which can substantially enhance the way companies do business. Once an organisation subscribes to PiaTel (‘Pia’ is an acronym for personal information assistant) it has access to more than 80 functions, from the familiar (such as voicemail, fax and call forwarding) to facilities that have hitherto been beyond the reach of many smaller concerns, served and managed on PiaTel’s single, unified platform and broadly listed under the three headings of telephone, web and financial.

The phone functions offer great flexibility. Without a need for extra phone lines, companies can have as many individual numbers as they need, including 0800 numbers, and route those numbers to destinations anywhere in the world, landline or mobile. A company with multiple sites, mobile staff or home-working contractors can give each employee a number which will find them wherever they are, if necessary trying several destinations until the call is answered. The same facility can be invaluable to a sole trader. This ‘follow me’ concept isn’t new, in itself, but traditionally it’s associated with premium rate 07 numbers. PiaTel now makes it available globally on geographic (i.e. landline) numbers at landline prices.

With several numbers, a company can also operate an enterprise-style virtual switchboard. Employees can answer calls directly or a central receptionist can take all calls and then – irrespective of where the employee is located – seamlessly ‘put the caller through’, with ‘music on hold’ if needed and many other associated facilities such as call waiting, call back, divert, caller announcement, conference calls and more. And if the phone isn’t answered, PiaTel can send a voicemail alert by email or SMS, and deliver the voice message as an email or over the web.

Companies with customers or employees in several locations can offer local numbers (and local call rates) in each location. A Merseyside business with customers in New York and Sidney, for example, can now advertise New York, Sidney and UK numbers, with customers in those locations only paying local call charges and unaware that the calls are actually being answered in Liverpool. Such services are equally valuable to large enterprises which can benefit from international telecom facilities that may well surpass their current provision at significantly lower cost both for infrastructure and for call charges. PiaTel will customise its services as needed.

Because of the unified platform, PiaTel’s web-based facility provides online management for many functions, including follow-me routing, voicemail, fax and phonebooks. The fax functions go beyond the now common fax-to-email by offering fax sending, whether a single fax or thousands of faxes simultaneously, which makes the service ideal for low cost direct marketing campaigns. And for software and document security, users can upload or backup documents to their own private online document store. They can also manage their PiaTel accounts and billing online.

PiaTel’s financial services offer a breakthrough for smaller businesses wishing to take credit and debit card payments but discouraged by the cost and contracts of traditional merchants. For the first time in the UK, businesses, sole traders and individuals can receive card payments via their PiaTel account. This service comes complete with customer order taking, credit and debit card processing, and electronic funds access and transfers. In short, a customer pays over the phone, using touch tones to enter card and payment details, and the funds can be credited to the company’s PiaCard, which is a standard debit card; the card is accepted by over 24 million merchants around the world, and cash can be retrieved at any one of a million ATM locations worldwide.

Steve Lemonides, CEO of PiaTel, says: “Efficient communication drives customer responsiveness and improves employee productivity. PiaTel’s services make our customers far more accessible and user friendly to their customers, and overcome most of the problems associated with employee mobility.” The PiaTel service is VOIP based but the audio quality is a far remove from conventional internet telephony, and the service overcomes the quality criticisms levelled at established VOIP providers. The so called ‘final half mile’ from exchange to customer premises is carried as telephone traffic, not broadband, and global traffic is carried over PiaTel’s own private network, which all adds up to no special equipment for customers (not even the need for a broadband service), no battle for internet bandwidth, and crystal clear voice quality.

Steve Lemonides continues: “We use VOIP technology behind the scenes but we’re not a VOIP provider. What our customers get is great quality telephony, a range of new, valuable services, and national and international calls at VOIP style prices.” Monthly subscriptions to PiaTel cost from just £8.99 including VAT and customers can sign up online, instantly, at any time. Call charges are typically 1.25p per minute, including VAT.

Aladdin eSafe The First Content Security Product To Receive UK Government Quality Award: Aladdin Knowledge Systems (NASDAQ: ALDN), the leader in Software DRM, strong authentication and content security solutions, today announced that its eSafe solution is the first gateway content security product to be awarded the UK Government’s Central Sponsor for Information Assurance (CSIA) Claims Tested (CCT) Mark. Under the CCT Mark Scheme, Aladdin eSafe was tested and certified for anti-virus, anti-Trojan, anti-spyware, anti-spam and URL filtering protection.

Through accredited independent testing, the government-quality CCT Mark provides reliable, trusted assurance that chosen information security products meet high standards. According to the CSIA, the UK government arm that administers the CCT Mark, the Scheme targets products and services which may be purchased by the UK public sector including the NHS, education, central government, local authorities and criminal justice.

“Aladdin eSafe’s CCT Mark awarded by the UK government stands as a clear differentiator and indication of high quality and commitment to comprehensive, gateway-based content protection,” said Shimon Gruper, vice president of technologies for the Aladdin eSafe Business Unit. “As the first-ever content security product to receive this government certification, Aladdin eSafe reasserts its long-trusted specialty in providing organizations with unmatched protection against Internet threats. Alongside Aladdin’s reputation for excellent customer service and reliability, UK governmental agencies and businesses are now provided yet another layer of confidence through our new CCT Mark.”

"eSafe Virtual Appliance is a comprehensive gateway solution and the award of the CCT Mark is consistent with the quality of the product. The rigorous testing that it has undergone merely serves to highlight that the product provides multiple layers of protection at a network level equable with real-world testing scenarios," said Chris Thomas, operations director at West Coast Labs, the independent laboratory that performed the testing. “The Aladdin eSafe CCT Mark product satisfies the minimum assurance requirements for use in systems supporting the Transformational Government programme. The certification allows the product to be used in the Gov Connect programme,” said Harvey Mattinson, assistant director, assurance and standards, CSIA.

Network Instruments Delivers Enterprise-Wide Reporting With Observer Reporting Server: Network Instruments, a leading provider of innovative analysis solutions for in-depth network intelligence and continuous availability, today announced the release of its Observer Reporting Server, which provides high-level reporting on network and application activities across the enterprise. The Observer Reporting Server connects to multiple Observer Suite consoles and aggregates the critical network performance metrics into an overall view of network health.

In addition to providing an easy-to-access view of network performance, reports can be segmented by individual business units, user groups, or infrastructure types. This allows network managers to quickly view bandwidth utilisation or application use by department. If managers notice unexpectedly high bandwidth use from a department, they can quickly and seamlessly drill down on the report to the individual link or user detail using the Reporting Server and Observer. Root cause and Expert analysis can then be performed using Observer.

"The Reporting Server with Observer answers the need of enterprise to quickly move from high-level performance monitoring to root cause analysis," said Douglas Smith, president of Network Instruments. "With the Reporting Server the network team can view their global network while knowing within a few clicks they can drill down to isolate any problem on the network." Beyond being able to drill from an enterprise-wide view of network activity down to specific links, it is critical for network teams to be able to isolate specific performance problems to a network, application, or security cause. Often IT teams waste hours attempting to replicate the issue or blaming each other for causing the problem.

To facilitate fast problem resolution, Network Instruments has expanded the retrospective network analysis capabilities of GigaStorT to identify a security breach. GigaStor surveys the network like a security camera recording everything traversing the network for future analysis. With post-capture Security Forensics, GigaStor determines whether a security breach has occurred by comparing the historically captured traffic against a list of thousands of known attacks and anomalies. If a breach has been identified, GigaStor provides drill-down analysis to determine the source and time of the occurrence.

"GigaStor's comprehensive forensics and Expert analysis has changed the way network, application, and security teams resolve network problems," said Charles Thompson, manager of sales engineering at Network Instruments. "Rather than arguing about the source of the problem, the teams can focus on the solution. With Security Forensics, GigaStor can now conduct Expert analysis for network, application and security issues, identify the problem, and eliminate the guess work for IT managers." In addition to Security Forensics and the Reporting Server, Observer offers several new features that expand its position as a leading analysis solution. Observer provides detailed analysis of an organisation's MPLS network, including quickly isolating MPLS issues, tracking varying MPLS queues, and segmenting the data by label, precedence, and embedded protocol type.

If an organisation is transitioning from ATM or frame relay to MPLS, Observer can provide extensive MPLS reporting to verify that network performance expectations are being met. Service Level Agreements can also be enforced by creating MPLS-specific alarms. According to a recently released Network Instruments survey, 45 per cent of network engineers indicated they have VoIP running on their network. The adoption of VoIP will continue to increase during 2007 with 30 per cent of respondents planning to implement the technology in the next 12 months. Network Instruments continues to invest and expand the Observer VoIP offering to provide greater support to the countless engineers that use Observer to monitor and optimise VoIP traffic.

Observer now includes support for Avaya CCMS and Nortel UNIStim protocols as well as providing long-term trending for call detail records (CDR). Observer can be configured with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Secure Shell (SSH) certificates to decrypt secure data. In line with a recent United States government mandate requiring that all federal agencies support IPv6 by June 2008, Observer has become the first analyser to track, monitor, and report IPv6 traffic. Observer tracks conversations or transactions as they traverse multiple segments, hops, and routes. Known as MultiHop Analysis, this process has been automated in Observer 12.

Although Network Instruments has added many significant enhancements to Observer, pricing for Observer Standard, Observer Expert, and Observer Suite remain unchanged. Observer Expert, with over 70 VoIP-specific metrics, MultiHop Analysis, and Stream Reconstruction, is £2,895. Observer Suite, with an SNMP console and Web Reporting, is £3,995. Deployment options for the Observer Reporting Server include software only, hardware appliance, and as a combination appliance with Observer Suite to connect directly to probes. The Reporting Server price begins at £10,000. The GigaStor begins at £17,995 for a two-port configuration. Evaluation versions of the products and additional product information are available at www.networkinstruments.co.uk.

Prysmian Taking FTTH To CEBIT: Prysmian Telecom Cables & Systems will be demonstrating its latest optical fibre solutions with a strong focus on Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) at this week's CeBIT exhibition in Hannover, Germany - (March 15 - 21). Prysmian will be located in Hall 14 Stand F18. Prysmian has developed a range of products which together provide a full optical passive system covering a wide variety of today's network configurations. Prysmian will be showing all of these technologies at CeBIT with live demonstrations of the Sirocco Blown Fibre system together with the Zephyr range of mini blown cables, Oasys connectivity and QUICKDR@W pre-connectorised customer lead-in cable - all of which are fully compatible with Prysmian's new bend insensitive fibre - CasaLight.

Director of Prysmian's global telecom cables and optical fibres business, Mr. Giovanni B Scotti commented: "Fibre-to-the-Home is now clearly a well established technology in many regions, particularly the Far East and the USA. Europe has lagged some way behind until now but the momentum is clearly growing and we believe that 2007 will be a significant year for FTTH in this part of the world". Broadband continues to be a major theme in the telecoms world and take-up rates of high bandwidth services in Europe and elsewhere continue to rise as ever increasing levels of real content become available to the end user. With global broadband connections currently being added at a rate of more than 6 million per month (source: KMI) there is a clear need to strengthen the physical infrastructure which supports the vast amount of data traffic flowing in telecoms networks, particularly the 'last mile' link to the consumer.

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