Plantronics announces expanded deal with Westcon

Audio communications solutions provider Plantronics Inc this week announced it has expanded its relationship with security and network VAD Westcon Convergence to include the Middle East.

Westcon's operations - which cover convergence, security, networking and mobility products and services - extend across the Middle East, Pakistan and North Africa regions.

Platronics cited the company's specific experience in the convergence of voice, data and video application technologies, including VoIP, Internet security, wireless and mobility solutions, as a reason for the agreement.


"We're very pleased to announce an expansion of our relationship with Westcon into the Middle East," said Susan Hansen, vice president of Marketing, Asia Pacific, Plantronics.

She added, "Westcon has a proven expertise in delivering excellence in core distribution services around the globe. We're looking forward to working with them to reach key telephony accounts and grow the wireless and UC business opportunity in the region."
Manoj Panchal, Westcon Convergence divisional director said, "We are excited to add Plantronics to our portfolio. We consider this as a win-win relationship of quality products and sophisticated distribution providing Plantronics with expertise in recruiting, enabling and growing the enterprise channel, while at the same time expanding our Unified Communication offerings."

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Turkish government dept issues fake digital certificate for Google sites

Microsoft has warned of a fraudulent digital certificate for all Google domains, which was accidentally issued by a Turkish government department.

The Turkish certificate authority Turktrust incorrectly created two subsidiary Certificate Authorities, *.EGO.GOV.TR and e-islem.kktcmerkezbankasi.org, with the *.EGO.GOV.TR creating a fraudulent digital certificate for *.google.com.


The fraudulent certificate could have been used to intercept SSL traffic as part of a ‘man in the middle' attack, which would spoof Google's encryption certificate and decrypt secure Web sessions to Google Plus and Gmail. Turktrust officials said that there is no evidence that the certificate was used for illicit purposes or that the Turktrust's security was breached.

Microsoft has removed the certificate from its Certificate Trust List, which will mean users of Windows Vista and later who have installed the feature will be protected, but users of Windows XP will have to manually remove the certificate from trusted lists. Google's Chrome security team has also pushed out an update of the browser's certificate revocation metadata to block certificates from the subsidiary CA.

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ESET upgrades security suite

Digital protection ESET this week announced the latest release of its flagship products, Smart Security 6 and NOD32 Antivirus 6. 


ESET claimed the new generation provided "an even greater detection of infiltrations, improved cleaning and faster scanning due to its updated engine".

Smart Security 6 provides all-in-one Internet security against both data and device theft, while NOD32 Antivirus 6 delivers detection and scanning capabilities.
"ESET Core Development has worked hard on redesigning the whole scanning engine, which is central to all ESET products," said Pavel Luka ESET chief technology officer. "Now, due to faster processing of our engine, scanning itself is more effective. These products incorporate the new third generation of ESET's ThreatSense and ThreatSense.Net Advanced Heuristics with LiveGrid."

"ESET's new offering addresses the needs of today's consumers to secure data with better online experience," said Aji Joseph, general manager, ESET Middle East. "Introduction of several important features such as anti-theft, social media scanner and advanced scanning engine will offer users enhanced security from potential and malicious threat."
The anti-theft feature automatically helps locate missing notebooks and makes it possible to monitor activity on lost or stolen devices by displaying their position on a map based on visible Wi-Fi network range when online.


Introduction of a dedicated anti-phishing module is designed to offer protection against digital identity theft. It is designed to protect against attempts to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords or banking and credit card details by fake websites masquerading as trustworthy ones.
A social media scanner aims to protect users from malicious content, including profile, the wall, newsfeed and private messages, even when not logged in. If a virus is detected, users are immediately notified by email. The app also helps the user's friends stay a safe distance from malicious content, checking their walls for potentially dangerous links.

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Kaspersky planning for growth in the Middle East

The 10th annual Kaspersky Virus Analyst Summit is underway in Dubrovnik, Croatia, with a focus on increasing the transparency of the company, providing an overview of IT security and analysing the latest trends in the malware industry.
Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of the company which bears his name, explained that the anti-malware vendor is planning for growth in the Middle East, with long-term plans to boost the existing partner network and presence in the region.
The news follows on from last month’s announcement that Kaspersky is pursuing enterprise customers and furthers the company’s aims for global growth from 2008.
Delivering the keynote address, Roel Schouwenberg, senior regional researcher for the Americas and the global research and analytics team at Kaspersky, outlined the risks faced by failing to keep security programs up to date and operating systems adequately patched.

Schouwenberg also presented data on the most vulnerable applications, with Apple QuickTime taking up the first two slots, followed by Sun’s Java JDK/SRE, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word’s Smart Tags.
The Russia-based company also revealed that the damage caused by malware is running at over US $100 billion per year, according to company spokesperson Timur Tsoriev, head of the technology PR group at Kaspersky.
During the summit, Kaspersky screened a presentation on the company’s inner-workings at the head office in Moscow, where it was revealed that new instances of malware are detected every two seconds.

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Microsoft’s Dell deal may open Surface wounds

Microsoft's decision to partner with Dell on the acquisition of Silver Lake Management LLC may open old wounds left with Redmond's OEM partners when it launched its Surface tablet last year, analysts told Bloomberg.

Dell is said to be close to an agreement on Silver Lake and Microsoft could contribute as much as $2bn according to insiders. The investment could help Microsoft gain a foothold in the enterprise segment as consumers run from traditional PCs in favour of mobile devices, but analysts believe hardware partners stung by Microsoft's surprise launch of its own tablet, could view the move with a measure of concern.

"If you're a vendor that wasn't happy with Surface, the idea of Microsoft owning part of Dell is not going to cheer you up," said Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg.

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