Barracuda Deploys Machine Learning to Protect Organizations Against Automated Threats

Barracuda, a leading provider of cloud-enabled security solutions, today announced the introduction of Advanced Bot Protection. Advanced Bot Protection uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to help customers defend against the latest automated threats. It is available for both the Barracuda WAF-as-a-Service and Web Application Firewall platforms.

Web applications are the number one attack vector for hacks resulting in breaches, according to the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, and malicious bots pose a significant threat to application security. Bots have evolved from using simple scripts to using sophisticated tactics such as headless browsers and machine learning to break through traditional application security defenses. Organizations need an application security solution that can keep up with these evolving attacks.

According to Gartner: “The main types of bot attacks include distributed denial of service (DDoS), fraudulent purchases, web scraping, and vulnerability scans and exploits. Unsupervised ML can be used to learn the characteristics of typical human-driven traffic, allowing the detection of bots as anomalies. Supervised ML can be used to identify features related to automated behavior.”1

With Advanced Bot Protection, Barracuda WAF customers have access to functionality that includes:

Bot spam detection — Reduce referrer spam and block comment spam
Credential stuffing prevention — Block credential stuffing to stop account takeover attacks
Request risk scoring — Track incoming requests and use advanced behavioral analytics to detect attackers
Client finger printing — Track users with better fidelity than IP addresses
Dedicated bot mitigation UI — New user interface makes it easy to configure bot mitigation features

“In order to effectively protect their organizations against today’s evolving threats, customers need sophisticated bot mitigation capabilities,” said Tim Jefferson, SVP of Data Protection, Network and Application Security, Barracuda. “Traditional web application firewalls don’t all provide advanced bot protection, and some bot mitigation vendors only offer point solutions that aren’t integrated into WAFs. Advanced Bot Protection is fully integrated into Barracuda’s web application firewalls to provide a complete application security solution that is easy to deploy and manage.”

It is Time to Shine with Breathtaking Colour at Vivid Sidney 2019

Sydney will be awash with breathtaking colour and special effects for the next 23 nights, with the lights officially turned on for Vivid Sydney this evening by Premier Gladys Berejiklian.

The largest event of light, music and ideas in the Southern Hemisphere will transform the city into a colourful showcase of illumination, sensational sounds and creative thinking from 24 May to 15 June 2019.

Ms Berejiklian said Vivid Sydney is a key attraction in the NSW events calendar, boosting visitor numbers to Sydney and the State.

“Vivid Sydney is an incredibly important event drawing millions of visitors to the city in May and June each year, many of whom have gone on to explore regional NSW as well,” Ms Berejiklian.

Australia’s largest event brings Sydney to life, as well as to light, by encouraging locals and visitors to enjoy Sydney’s wonderful food, exciting attractions and excellent shopping during winter.

Minister for Tourism Stuart Ayres said the benefits of Vivid Sydney were significant for the local economy and jobs.

“Vivid Sydney is more than just a captivating light, music and ideas festival. Last year Vivid Sydney, with 2.25 million attendees across the 23 days, we saw a record 185,887 travel packages sold to domestic and international visitors which was a 37 per cent increase on 2017,” Mr Ayres said.

All eyes turned to the world-famous Sydney Opera House at 6pm tonight marking the start of the festival for the Lighting of the Sails, created by LA-based artist Andrew Thomas Huang and featuring a hypnotic tribute to Australia’s native plants Huang’s projection will be among more than 50 light installations and projections created by over 100 artists and collaborators from 17 countries. These will be seen across eight Sydney precincts including Barangaroo, Chatswood, Circular Quay, The Rocks, Darling Harbour, Luna Park, Royal Botanic Garden Sydney and Taronga Zoo.

Vivid Sydney 2019 program video content and images are available at: www.vividsydney.com/media-centre

Medvarsity Online Partners with Medanta - The Medicity Hospital to Enhance Cardiology Care in India

Medvarsity, a pioneer in online medical training, announced its partnership with Medanta - The Medicity Hospital. The two entities launched a ‘Fellowship in Clinical, Preventive & Non-invasive Cardiology’ course as a joint program under this association. This partnership promises to work towards strengthening the Cardiology practices to the next level in India.

A quarter of deaths in India are due to cardiovascular diseases, according to the global burden of disease report. The number of heart disease cases are alarmingly high and only increasing with demanding lifestyle changes. Even though these numbers are rising constantly, there is a significant lack of trained cardiologists in the country. India requires around 88000 but only has about 4000 cardiologists, which opens up the need for more trained physicians who can handle such cases, and in turn bridge the gap effectively.

Talking about the partnership, Mr. Gerald Jaideep, CEO, Medvarsity Online Ltd. said “Partnering with Medanta allows us to develop a pool of skilled clinical practitioners to address the increasing demand for cardiology services in India. We aim to discover viable ways to improve patient care and effectively contribute to the ever-changing landscape of the medical industry.”

The course aims to address the increasing demand for cardiology services in India. It has been curated to provide physicians with the opportunity to learn more effectively and become better healthcare professionals with advanced skills to handle the rising challenges in the cardiovascular department. By introducing new age learning methodologies and digital education, it gives more scope to the medical professionals to enhance their skill set. The course is innovatively designed keeping in mind the futuristic needs of the cardiology field, to provide quality care to patients.

Commenting on the partnership, Dr. Ravi. R. Kasliwal, Chairman-Division of Clinical & Preventive Cardiology, Medanta – The Medicity said “This partnership will help doctors become better caregivers in this rapidly changing 21st-century landscape. We are aiming to provide a robust, point of care access to the students interested in building a career in all aspects of clinical cardiology, a complete nuance of echocardiography and allied techniques and acute care cardiology. We are looking forward to an association that will help curb the menace of the cardiovascular disease epidemic in the country.”

Physicians trained in MD/DNB Internal Medicine, DNB Family Medicine, and PGDCC are eligible for taking up this course. This 2-year full-time program includes hospital-based practical training and online learning through theoretical content on LMS – textual reading material, recorded videos, live virtual classes (webinars), online virtual simulations and research methodology training. Fellowship certification will be awarded by Medvarsity and Medanta Institute of Education & Research to all students who successfully complete the program.

Fossil Group Launches all New BMW Branded Watches in India

Fossil Group Inc. is proud to launch its first collections of BMW branded watches after the two eminent companies announced their global partnership on August 6, 2018.

Fossil, the American watch and lifestyle company that specializes in creating authentic, high quality fashion forward watches falls in line with BMW’s quintessential automotive design expertise, making this partnership a perfect fit. Owing to BMW’s rich racing heritage, the collections draw inspiration from some of the most recognizable sports cars to introduce watches with distinctive detailing. Categorized into ‘BMW Collection’ and ‘BMW M Motorsport Collection’, the statement making wristwatches are all set to make an impression on and off track.

Speaking about the association, Johnson Verghese, Managing Director, Fossil Group, India said, “We are delighted to have partnered with one of the world’s leading players in automotive design – BMW, to create dynamic timepieces. Fossil and BMW are both very committed to delivering distinctive designs and excellent craftsmanship to their customers. These shared values between the two brands form the very basis of our partnership. We are certain that the BMW X Fossil collections will further enhance the brand legacies by offering world class timepieces to watch enthusiasts all around the globe.”

A combination of joy, extraordinary performance and passion, the collections subtly feature the classic BMW symbol to create versatile companions for every day. Priced at Rs 16,995 onwards, the BMW Collection combines sports and luxury to form the perfect amalgamation of best of both worlds. With its automobile inspired colors of silver, red, black and cashmere – the collection proves that style is limitless. Priced at Rs 10,995 onwards, the BMW M Motorsport Collection features sporty designs along with the M Motor sport stripes that are made to stand out.

The collections will be available in select trade stores across India and online, first on www.myntra.com.

Independent Research Firm Cites Trend Micro as a Leader in Enterprise Email Security

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, today announced that it has been named a leader in enterprise email security in The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Email Security, Q2 2019 report. Trend Micro earned the highest possible score in the “technology leadership” sub-criterion (under the product strategy criterion), “deployment options” and “cloud integration,” and received the highest score among all 12 appraised vendors in the strategy category.

Forrester describes Trend Micro with comments including, “Clients cite effectiveness, ease of deployment, and configurability as strengths.” Forrester additionally said, “Enterprises seeking a solution for defending against malicious and malware-laden emails should consider Trend Micro.”

“The number one threat vector continues to be email, which drives our commitment to continued innovation,” said Wendy Moore, Vice President of Product Marketing for Trend Micro. “Analyst evaluations are critical for solution assessment. In my view, this recent report takes into account our newer artificial intelligence (AI) features such as writing style analysis and computer vision, alongside solutions to protect cloud email platforms like Office 365 and Gmail that collectively helped us block over 41.5 billion threats in 2018.”

Nearly 86% of all threats blocked by Trend Micro last year came via email. Phishing, business email compromise (BEC), malicious URLs, malevolent attachments and accidental and deliberate data loss are all common challenges.

Enterprises that use Trend Micro get a winning formula of decades of email security expertise combined with the strategic vision to anticipate the next threats. This combination continues to position Trend Micro as a forefront of the industry.

A cross-generational blend of security techniques is the best agreed upon approach to achieve comprehensive protection against these and other threats. One of these techniques includes Writing Style DNA, an AI-powered tool which helps to spot BEC scammers by analysing email content. To date this has identified 5,400 attacks at 160 organizations, resulting in potential savings for customers of $858m. Another leading feature from Trend Micro blends computer vision image analysis technology with machine learning to “see” fake log-in pages, the result of this protects against phishing and account takeover.

Trend Micro’s email security benefits from intelligence sharing across all layers of the IT infrastructure to offer connected threat defense. It is available in multiple deployment options — appliance (physical and virtual), on-premises software, SaaS service, and as a hybrid solution. Trend Micro is the only vendor to offer dual layer protection via a cloud-based API+SMTP solution for advanced threat protection.

TKM Employees Extend Help to Families Affected by Cyclone Fani

In its continuous initiatives towards being at the forefront for supporting the society in addressing critical issues, a group of Toyota employees today gathered to put together ‘Emergency Relief Kits’ for families affected by the aftermath caused by Cyclone Fani earlier this month. This voluntary initiative amassed strong support for swift relief activities currently being undertaken by the authorities.

‘ICARE’ – an employee voluntary initiative is an effort in line with the company’s commitment to sustained community development. This drive actively involves the employees and aims to enhance their understanding on the increasing challenges that victims of such natural disaster face, thus call for priority actions to counter this scenario through a series of interactive programs.

This is Toyota’s seventh employee volunteerism initiative under ICARE that focuses on the theme of Social Contribution. Enthusiastic employees dedicated their personal day to assemble Emergency Relief Kits, packing more than 32,000 ready-to-eat meals, 150 solar lights along with other utility items that will help more than 150 families for the next six months.

As a project to promote proactive involvement of employee in the fields of community engagement covering various areas such as education, environment, health, etc., ICARE was inaugurated in 2017 with the launch of Mobile Medical Unit (MMU) and specialized health camps conducted in Ramanagara district in Karnataka. Under this initiative, Toyota and its employees painted the walls of the 140 year old government school, and staged a play at Garuda Mall to create environment awareness among the general public on current environmental issues such as Lake Restoration, Afforestation & Solid Waste Management.

Commenting on the initiative, Mr. N. Raja, Deputy Managing Director – Toyota Kirloskar Motor said, “We stand by the people of Odisha in this time of crisis, and hope that our small contribution will bring about a positive change in their lives. We pray that the life in Odisha takes a speedy return to normalcy. At Toyota, we believe in giving back to the society and build a better future for the next generation. Our objective is not only manufacturing ever better cars, but also enrich community lives. ‘ICARE’ is driven solely by the passion of our employees and shared responsibility to make a big difference in the society we live in. These kinds of activities empower our employees to be the change makers in the community and support them grow as individuals with real understanding of the social issues around them. Our employees have been actively involved to drive many CSR interventions in the areas of health, environment and education.”

As a responsible corporate citizen, Toyota Kirloskar Motor [TKM] is constantly working towards the development of people, communities, and the earth at large. The company’s efforts over the years include rebuilding a local residential school, construction of water tanks in rural Bangalore benefitting the community in Ramnagara district, setting up water purification units across the nation benefitting 100,000 lives. The company’s focus is on sustainable interventions in the community with flagship programs such as Development of Model School, Lake Rejuvenation, Project ABCD [A Behavioral Change Demonstration] on school sanitation, Road Safety Training Programs [Toyota Safety Education Program, Safety Model School and Drivers’ Safety Training], etc.

Under Health & Hygiene, TKM has been actively involved in construction of sanitation units in government schools and educating the school children on the usage & maintenance of sanitation units, thus bringing about a change in the holistic behavioral aspects of the children & community at large. Setting up of water purification units to provide safe drinking water to community and launch of Mobile medical unit for the sustained intervention in health care with focus on providing the basic medical equipment to the Primary Health Centers. Through our varied CSR projects, Toyota has touched more than 11,00,000 lives. Toyota will further continue its various CSR interventions from a longer term perspectival development of socio-economic stature of the society, touching many more people’s lives to make a difference in each one’s well-being.

Colgate India Manufacturing Plants Receives TRUE Zero Waste Certification

Colgate India has received TRUE Zero Waste Platinum certification, for all its four manufacturing sites in India, from Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI), the premier organization independently recognizing excellence in green business industry performance and practice globally. GBCI administers TRUE Zero Waste certification, a program for businesses to assess performance in reducing waste and maximizing resource efficiency. Facilities earn TRUE certification by achieving minimum program requirements and attaining points; the program operates on a ranking system, with ‘Platinum’ being the highest certification level.

The TRUE Zero Waste certification program is meant to enable facilities to define, pursue and achieve their zero waste goals, cutting their carbon footprint and supporting public health. TRUE-certified spaces support sustainability and facilities that achieve the highest level of the rating system are acknowledged for minimizing their waste to landfill, incineration (waste-to-energy) or to the environment. All the four manufacturing plants of Colgate India - Baddi (Himachal Pradesh), Goa, Sanand (Gujarat), and Sri City (Andhra Pradesh) - have achieved Platinum, the highest level of certification. This makes Colgate India the first Indian company to receive this accreditation.

Mr. Issam Bachaalani, Managing Director, Colgate-Palmolive (India) Limited, said, “At Colgate India, we have been constantly practicing the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle principle across all our plants and offices. We have built dedicated teams to encourage and educate employees on minimizing waste, and to implement measures that could bring about that change. To cite one example, in 2018 alone, over 1.2 million kgs of residual wastewater solids was diverted to cement factories, to be co-processed into cement, instead of being sent to a landfill. Caring for the health and safety of our environment, people, and communities where we live and work, is an integral part of Colgate, and achieving TRUE Zero Waste Platinum certification is in line with that belief.”

“Zero waste is an important part of any company’s sustainability and corporate social responsibility strategy,” said Mahesh Ramanujam, president and CEO, U.S. Green Building Council and GBCI. “As markets continue to urbanize and industrialize, cities and businesses are faced with an increasing amount of waste that puts strains on resources and communities. Colgate-Palomolive’s dedication to pursuing TRUE certification at their four manufacturing plants in India brings us closer to becoming a zero waste community that’s healthier for all. TRUE-certified facilities are enviromentally responsible, more resource efficient and help turn waste into savings. By closing the loop, they cut greenhouse gases, manage risk, reduce litter and pollution, reinvest resources locally, create jobs and add more value for their company and community. We applaud Colgate-Palmolive for leadership in improving their performance and implementing zero waste strategies, and for helping us build a sustainable future for all.”

In order to achieve TRUE Zero Waste certification, Colgate India not only implemented the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle principle, but also diverted waste, which would have otherwise gone to a landfill, through processes like Composting, Zero Waste Purchasing, Hazardous Waste Prevention, Redesigning, Innovation, Employee Trainings to bring about an attitudinal change, etc. An in-house Green Team encouraged employees at all four Colgate plants to actively think of diverting waste at every possible step, which led to a lot of new ideas. Some examples include sending residual wastewater solids to cement factories; making furniture out of plastic tubes; reusing packaging materials; reusing the drums used for raw materials as dust bins; reducing food wastage by associating with an NGO to take the extra food to underprivileged people, and the leftovers to piggeries; using reusable stainless steel utensils in the cafeteria; composting organic waste to use it as soil-conditioner for the plants/vegetables grown on site.

Facilities achieve TRUE Zero Waste certification by meeting seven minimum program requirements and attaining at least 31 out of 81 credit points in the TRUE Zero Waste Rating System. The number of credit points that a project earns determines the certification level it receives (Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum with ‘Platinum’ being the highest rank). These ranks are dependent on the total points which can be earned under the defined categories.