BSA Offers Free Resources
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is making free resources available to parents and teachers so they can help young people learn about ethical and legal computer behavior. BSA’s website, www.playitcybersafe.com, offers BSA’s first cyber ethics curriculum, “Play It Safe in Cyberspace.” The curriculum may be used by parents and teachers to assist in conversations with elementary and middle school-age children about responsible cyber behavior. Other free resources from BSA include a four-page comic book curriculum “Copyright Crusader to the Rescue,” and teacher’s guide, also available on www.playitcybersafe.com.
Additionally, BSA has launched a new website, www.cybertreehouse.com, designed exclusively for young people to learn about appropriate computer usage in a fun and informative way. The site includes Garret the Ferret, BSA’s cyber-champion mascot, leading kids through games and activities that illustrate smart cyber behavior.
Symantec Vision Focuses on Convergence
The trends toward convergence and the importance of technology as a business decision will be discussed at the ninth annual technology conference, Symantec Vision 2006. Over 500 delegates from Symantec’s channel partner organizations, enterprise and SMB clients are expected to gather for the conference to be held at the Madinat Jumeirah Conference Center, Dubai, on June 5. Delegates can attend the event free of charge and a full agenda can be found at www.symantec.com/vision/me.
The conference will focus on the theme of “Infrastructure, Information and Interaction,” with a series of interactive sessions covering a range of topics, including convergence, standardization, Internet security, cyber-crime, IT optimization, e-mail security and availability, compliance and data management.
Symantec will also unveil its IT Compliance solution, a broad set of interoperable security and availability products and services that allow customers to reduce the costs of achieving compliance by automating: Policy management, IT controls assessment, collection of data from disparate IT control points, policy enforcement and documentation retention. This IT Compliance solution positions Symantec as the only company that automates the collection of data from disparate IT control points, including security and availability products, to provide an organization with a consolidated view of its IT compliance systems and policies.
Kevin Isaac, regional director, Symantec MENA, will open the proceedings with a keynote speech on convergence and its main drivers. The presentation will detail the growing need and customer demand for convergence of network management with systems and storage management and describe information security strategies leveraging all three disciplines to effectively maintain the integrity of hardware and software assets.
Additional executive keynotes include Richard Archdeacon, director, Innovations Group, Symantec, presenting, “Symantec Internet Security Report — the New Threat Landscape,” and Paul Dominjon, senior solutions marketing manager, EMEA, presenting, “The Storage Virtualization Platform.” There will also be talks on “Storage Back-Up and DR Solutions” hosted by Gavin Keeler, regional director, Network Appliance, and “Data Management and Security” led by David Beck, storage sales manager, MEA for Sun Microsystems.
Is Your Network Vulnerable?
McAfee is keen to increase awareness on the importance of “Vulnerability Management” and the impact of this on business networks. Vulnerability management refers to the process of monitoring, identifying and responding to changing risk environments relating to any part of the network. As a result, McAfee has been involved in an ongoing awareness drive in Saudi Arabia, involving a road show, seminars and live demos for IT and security professionals from the government, banking, private and corporate sector and partner training workshops. To date, McAfee has a number of Saudi customers who have adopted its Vulnerability Management solution — Foundstone.
“Whether it is a government body, a bank or private business, they cannot afford to leave their information assets at risk. They need to have an effective solution in place that goes beyond simple vulnerability scanning,” said Kenan Abou Lteif, McAfee territory manager, KSA.
Foundstone, McAfee’s priority based, enterprise-class security solution simplifies and integrates existing vulnerability management processes. Foundstone rapidly maps an entire network, identifies and prioritizes critical assets, including wireless connections and then accurately identifies the vulnerabilities on all discovered systems. The IT administration manager can then quickly respond to breaking events such as worms and wide-scale attacks by correlating critical threats with important assets with a single mouse click.