Canadian Computing And Security In The Global Community
Regina’s NetSecure Technologies, the company behind SmartSwipe, has announced a strategic partnership with BitDefender®, developer of BitDefender Antivirus Pro, BitDefender Internet Security and BitDefender Total Security. By combining the companies’ flagship products, NetSecure Technologies and BitDefender will provide a layered security package later this year to protect both consumers’ computers and their online transactions.
According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, Internet fraud increased by 22.3 percent last year, causing financial losses linked to online fraud to more than double. Additionally, a recent survey of social media users conducted by the Ponemon Institute, an independent research firm, found that identify theft from online banking was of greatest concern, followed by conducting e-commerce transactions.
Daniel McCann, president, NetSecure Technologies, said, “With the steady rise in both e-commerce and online fraud, the industry needs to look for better ways to protect consumers. Today, no one device or software program is completely effective in preventing identity theft and Internet fraud; therefore, consumers must leverage multiple security methods. Through our partnership with BitDefender, we’re confident that – together – we can provide a bundled security package to further protect consumers’ financial and personal information from malicious attacks.”
By leveraging its Dynamic SSL (DSSL) patented technology, NetSecure’s personal credit card reader, SmartSwipe, encrypts sensitive data at the point of origin, before it ever reaches the computer, protecting sensitive financial and personal information from endpoint threats. SmartSwipe cannot be hacked and thus protects both financial institutions and their customers from the growing threat of cyber fraud and identity theft.
“BitDefender’s goal is to help protect computer users across the globe from online threats,” said Peter Laakkonen, General Manager, OEM and Technology Licensing, BitDefender. “We’ve remained committed to set new standards in proactive threat prevention, and our partnership with NetSecure is the latest testament to that commitment. We look forward to working with NetSecure to effectively safeguard the online world.”
Meanwhile over in Ontario, WinMagic® Inc. has announced that leading research firm, Gartner Inc., has placed WinMagic as a “Visionary” in its Mobile Data Protection (MDP) Magic Quadrant* for 2010. WinMagic is committed to Research & Development, innovative features, comprehensive certifications, heterogeneous platform support and wide-ranging embedded system support for such technologies as Seagate self-encrypting (Drive Trust) drives, Opal compliant self-encrypting drives, TPM, Intel® Anti-Theft Technology (Intel® AT) and EFI.
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant states that, “Mobile Data Protection (MDP) systems and procedures are needed to protect data privacy and to comply with audit requirements, and every company must include MDP in its IT operations plan.” WinMagic’s product development is squarely centered on its customer base’s need to secure PII (Personal Identifiable Information), PHI (Personal Health Information) and other sensitive data. Its product, SecureDoc, leads innovation in the area of pre-boot authentication; the support of multiple platforms; the encryption of removable media; the support of Seagate Drive Trust self-encrypting drives (SEDs) and Opal SEDs; the support of new security technologies entering the enterprise (e.g. Intel® Anti Theft Technology); the support of trusted devices like Seagate’s Black Armor external drive, IronKey, SanDisk, Kingston and MXI thumb drives; and its unique key management system. SecureDoc’s excels in the following:
* Its enablement of single or multiple factor pre-boot authentication, including password, biometrics, smartcard, USB token, PKI and TPM
* The installation, configuration, deployment and management of encrypted hard drives on PC, Mac and Linux clients under one SecureDoc Enterprise Server’s Management Console
* Its platform support of 32- and 64-bit platforms under the same console
* Integrated support for hardware based encryption (SEDs: Opal and Seagate Drive Trust drives) and software-based encryption
* Its support of Intel® Anti-Theft Technology enabling platform disable and encryption data disable functionalities
* Its unique key management system that allows for the multiple end user encryption keys to mange a variety to different encryption stores
* The provisioning of audit logs held on the client as well as the SecureDoc Enterprise Server
* Its ability to label encryption keys in human readable terms for easy identification
* Its accreditation and pedigree in possessing FIPS 140-2 level, Common Criteria EAL-4
“WinMagic is very proud to be recognized as a visionary by Gartner’s prestigious Mobile Data Protection Magic Quadrant for 2010,” said Thi Nguyen-Huu, President & CEO, WinMagic Inc. “We have always invested heavily in R&D, and the result has been many industry firsts that set the bar for data protection on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms – making it easier for users and more secure than ever before.”
Compatible with Microsoft Windows, Mac and Linux platforms, as well as CAC and PIV cards, WinMagic’s SecureDoc protects all data stored on servers, desktops, laptops and removable media, such as USB thumb drives and CD/DVDs. It also provides centralized escrow and management of encryption keys to ensure that critical data can always be accessed by an organization – even if the user is unavailable or forgets their password.
SecureDoc also makes it simple for organizations to take full advantage on the latest products, such as Intel® AT, which is available in select systems with the new 2010 Intel® Core™ processor family. Intel AT acts as a laptop theft deterrence mechanism – enabling organizations to remotely issue a “poison pill” to disable stolen laptops whether or not they are connected to the internet. SecureDoc seamlessly adds full-disk encryption and encryption management to Intel® AT – ensuring data cannot be accessed before a laptop is disabled, even if the hard drive is removed and installed on another computer.
“With the growing adoption of mobile computing devices and the importance of protecting sensitive data, Intel has elevated the priority of security to be on par with our strategic focus areas in energy-efficient performance and Internet connectivity,” said George Thangadurai, General Manager of PC Client Services, Intel Corporation. “WinMagic is a natural fit in the Intel AT partner ecosystem. With its leadership in data encryption, in a short period of time it combined SecureDoc with Intel AT into an innovative product that takes data and asset protection, and PC theft deterrence to the next level.”
“MDP is an established market with two primary purposes: first and foremost, to protect data by encryption; and second, to provide evidence that the protection is working,” writes John Girard, Vice President & Distinguished Analyst, Gartner Inc. Commenting further, Girard states in the report, “Gartner client inquiry calls steadily continue to request assistance in understanding, choosing and implementing data encryption. The number of calls indicating lack of knowledge about data leakage and the tendency to protect subsets of vulnerable devices provide additional validation that data protection is still inadequate across industries.”
Waterloo’s Maplesoft™, a provider of high-performance software tools for engineering, science, and mathematics, today announced the release of the newest version of the Maple™ Grid Computing Toolbox. The Maple 14 Grid Computing Toolbox enables distributed computing using Maple, the primary tool for engineers to solve complex mathematical problems and create rich technical documents.
Using this toolbox, users can run Maple computations in parallel, taking advantage of all the hardware resources available, cutting down on processing time, and enabling applications that were not possible before.
The Maple 14 release of the Maple Grid Computing Toolbox provides built-in integration with Windows HPC Server, including Windows HPC Server 2008 R2, released today. It connects directly to a users Windows HPC Server cluster, simplifying installation, configuration, and operation of the grid, and it integrates with the Windows HPC Server tool chain for administrative tasks such as job scheduling, load balancing, and usage monitoring. The Maple 14 Grid Computing Toolbox also uses the standard message passing interface (MPI) protocol for efficient communication between nodes in the grid and easy integration with tools that support this protocol.
“The Grid Computing Toolbox allows users to distribute computations across the nodes of a network of workstations, a supercomputer, or across the CPUs of a multiprocessor machine, handling problems that are not tractable on a single machine,” said Paul DeMarco, Director of Development for the Maple Grid Computing Toolbox, Maplesoft.
“Microsoft® is excited to work with companies like Maplesoft to help customers take full advantage of advanced computational capabilities,” said Bill Hamilton, Director, Technical Computing, Microsoft Corp. “With the Maple 14 Grid Computing Toolbox’s built-in integration with Windows HPC Server 2008 R2, it is now easier for our joint customers to set up grid computations on a Windows HPC cluster.”