www.asiacomputerweekly.com Tao Ai Lei, Mar 10 2003

On the Side Combating the slide Singapore: Technology today has fallen behind compared to the scale and spread of security problems, with insufficient action in the areas of R&D and people training.

Yu Chien Siang, IT director, Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore, made this observation at the Security Conference Summit 2003 held in Singapore recently.

He explained that it takes skill to design, create and implement IT systems that are secure and robust, so “we need to go back to the basics, to training and good people”.

This is in the light of the fact that companies today face “newer and quite lethal [security] attacks”, as technology gets increasingly pervasive.

He cited the example of embedded systems, such as high-end photocopiers and colour laser printers that have hard disks, which can be hacked. The GSM SIM cards can also be attacked by cloning kits, and next-generation viruses can attack cell phones.

To tackle these challenges in today’s complex knowledge economy, companies need a sophisticated array of security defences as part of its eco-system, said Yu.

These technologies include: integrity protection, antihacker intrusion detection system, data backup systems, physical access control, network security, and emergency disaster recovery systems.

IT systems that have security problems tend to be poorly designed and cannot scale.

Therefore, they cannot be enhanced, and are “fighting technology obsolescence from the day that they were implemented”, said Yu.

On the other hand, security, when implemented well, can save money, he said.

Yu also pointed to certain “money-saving” security techniques, which include using a network address translation (NAT) to stop Trojans from taking over corporate PCs; setting Read-only to normal .dot and email.dot files to stop infections by macro viruses; and taking advantage of the Win2000 security capabilities, like ActiveDirectory, IPSec, Kerberos and router, NTLM 2.

On a positive note, Yu said that not only IT vendors, but also governments and universities, are beefing up and promoting security.

He highlighted key security initiatives by IT vendors, such as Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing initiative; Sun Microsystems’ JavaCard, SunOne and Liberty Alliance; and Oracle chief Larry Ellison’s pledge to make his company’s database programs “unbreakable”. Smart-card technology has also made considerable headway recently, where cryptography for smart cards has “improved dramatically”, with AES replacing DES.

Governments worldwide are also implementing or committed to a smart national identification or national healthcare card within a PKI infrastructure, such as Finland, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Slovenia, Venezuela, Malaysia and the US.

reuters.com Wed March 5, 2003 01:41 PM ET

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A bomb ripped through an underground parking lot at a shopping mall near Colombia's northeastern border with Venezuela on Wednesday, killing at least four people and injuring 56 others in an attack police blamed on leftist rebels.

The explosion ignited parked cars, adding more power to the blast and causing an avalanche of concrete as panicked shoppers attempted to flee the spreading fire. It the first major bomb attack since December in Cucuta, a city long-gripped by Colombia's four-decade-old guerrilla war.

"We heard a very strong explosion and then flames burst out. Then there was a fire and some parts of building caved in," said one man, who escaped the blast unharmed.

Police said the bombers were leftist rebels with the National Liberation Army, a Cuban-inspired guerrilla group known by its Spanish initials ELN. They offered no evidence, and the ELN did not claim responsibility for the blast.

"The information we have is that it was a small bomb placed on top of a vehicle's gasoline tank, which spread the fire to other cars," said police Col. Oscar Gambo.

Cucuta Mayor Manuel Guillermo Mora said four bodies had been found, and fear more dead would be unearthed under the rubble. He counted 56 injured, without offering details on the victims. The country's conflict has claimed about 40,000 lives in the past decade.

The attack came the same day that U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman met President Alvaro Uribe, some 250 miles away in the nation's capital, Bogota. The meeting and bomb were unrelated, police said.

The United States brands Colombia's rebels "terrorists," and is providing anti-narcotics and counter-insurgency training for Colombian troops.

breakingnews.iol.ie 05/03/2003 - 17:53:49

A car bomb blast in a Colombian town’s shopping centre killed at least 20 people and injured 20 others today, police said. General Luis Alfredo Rodriguez blamed rebels from the National Liberation Army, or ELN, for the attack in Cucuta, 250 miles north-east of Bogota. The car was in an underground car park. Television images showed shocked survivors wandering around the shopping stalls, Ash Wednesday marks still on their foreheads. Firemen, rescue crews and police officers worked their way through the smoke as frightened passers-by looked on. The ELN and the nation’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, are battling outlawed paramilitary groups for control of Cucuta. The city, near the border with Venezuela, has one of the highest murder rates in Colombia.

www.theaustralian.news.com.au From correspondents in Bogota March 06, 2003

AT least seven people have been killed and 50 injured after a car bomb exploded in the north-eastern Colombian city of Cucuta. The bomb was believed to have been planted by National Liberation Army guerrillas, officials said.

The governor of Norte de Santander province, Juan Santaella, called the attack "a real tragedy" for the city, which is near the border with Venezuela.

The car bomb exploded in the parking garage of a shopping centre.

Another explosion today killed one soldier and injured three others in the outskirts of Carmen de Bolivar, some 950km north of Bogota, according to military sources.

Officials suspected Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels of carrying out that attack.

www.prnewswire.com

Hyperion, McDATA and Oracle Select Market360 Global(TM) to Unify Previously Isolated Brand Messages

SAN MATEO, Calif., March 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Biz360 Inc., the leading provider of active market intelligence, today announced a revolutionary product changing the way multinational corporations define and implement global communications strategies. Market360 Global(TM) will allow enterprises like Hyperion, McDATA Corp. and Oracle to create and maintain a consistent global brand across all continents. The sophisticated, Web-based software service monitors prominence, mindshare, and industry trends in media around the world, creating actionable analysis that can shape a company's overall strategy or determine the necessity of a focused, targeted outreach plan. Current methods use a "rear view mirror" approach, manually assimilating and processing data that quickly becomes stale before a company can react. Market360 Global continuously analyzes company and competitor media coverage, alerting corporations in time to react to competitor moves, turn emerging trends into revenue opportunities and quickly respond to potentially harmful publicity, therefore maintaining or improving their global reputation. "The need for active market intelligence and results measurement is critical in today's challenging economic climate," said Mike Gustafson, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at McDATA Corp. "As a global storage networking solutions company, we want to know immediately if our message is being picked up by key domestic outlets." As more corporations expand their international focus and turn their attention toward creating a global brand, the ability to track these efforts as they occur has become crucial to the success of any worldwide operation. As customers of Market360 Global, Hyperion, McDATA and Oracle understand the need for these in-depth, targeted and continuous analytics. Biz360's analytic applications provide a level of market intelligence previously unavailable, replacing manual techniques that are time consuming and expensive, and provide information that quickly becomes outdated. "It's almost inconceivable to invest money in significant corporate communications programs without understanding the results," said You Mon Tsang, CEO and president of Biz360. "How would any other department justify its investment without measuring and analyzing the results? Market360 Global allows companies, for the first time, to do just that. In addition, enterprises can now track their media mindshare worldwide, centralize global PR results, connect corporate and local communications teams and adjust strategies with actionable analytics." Market360 Global(TM), now available from Biz360, includes three unique options to specifically fit your company's global target markets:

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Biz360 has also strengthened its global management team by appointing Eric Lee as executive vice president of global sales.
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About Biz360 Inc.
Biz360 empowers decision makers with essential information that allows them to act strategically and respond effectively to industry trends and competitive issues.  Its measurement application, Market360(R), continuously monitors and analyzes print, Internet, wire and broadcast media to provide valuable insight into the effectiveness of marketing communications programs.
Leading companies such as 3Com, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Harley-Davidson Motor Company, Hyperion, PacifiCare and Verisign use Market360's active market intelligence to improve their marketing performance by analyzing difficult-to- measure concepts such as brand perception, industry buzz, reputation and mindshare.  Biz360 is a privately held company located in San Mateo, CA and is funded by Foundation Capital, Granite Ventures and Adobe Ventures.  Biz360 can be reached at 866.424.9360 or http://www.biz360.com .