22 Israel-related headlines from the week of December 28, 2008 (Gaza operation edition)
Filed under: Cleantech, Company Briefs, Environment, Industry pulse, Information Technology, Internet Security, Israeli Websites, New Ideas, Partnerships, Software, Uncategorized, VC, Web2.0, security
Much attention in the news was paid to Israel’s operation in Gaza during the week of December 28, 2009, including to online technology related to it. Different Israeli government branches, from the IDF to Israeli Consulates in the U.S., began to leverage popular social media tools, such as blogs, YouTube and Twitter, to explain the purpose of Israel’s operation and its objectives, while supporters around the world used the same mediums and others, such as Facebook, to show their support for Israel and its troops. During the week it also became clear that the conflict wouldn’t be bound to physical operations as several Israeli sites became the targets of cyberterrorism.
Despite the conflict, there was plenty of news of unrelated innovations coming from Israel. Funds were raised and contracts were signed in Israel’s IT and cleantech sectors and announcements of foreign companies opening R&D offices were made. Not all the news that wasn’t related to the conflict was good though. For all these stories and more, check out this week’s special edition of Israel-related headlines from the week of December 28, 2008 below.
Israel-Hamas Conflict (Technology side)
1. Israeli news site down, blames cyber attack
2. Muslim hackers attack Israeli websites as Gaza strikes continue
3. Israel Backed by Army of Cyber-Soldiers
4. War sickens me, but I stand with Israel (HelpUsWin*)
5. The Big War You Never Hear Much About
6. Israeli Consulate to tweet about Gaza war
Cleantech
7. Israel’s SolarEdge Raises $23M to Crush Shady Solar
8. BrightSource Energy signs contract with Siemens for solar-powered generator
Investments and deals
9. 2009: Year of the survival of the fittest
10. Bluephoenix Announces Multi-Million Dollar Modernization Contract With a Large Scandinavian Bank
11. Intrinsyc Signs Soleus Licensing Agreement With ODM for Industrial PDA and LBS Phone
12. Oy Vey! Israeli VCs Exceptionally Gloomy on 2009
Information Technology
13. HCL opens office in Israel
14. Invention: Software research assistant
15. EMC continues to move forward
Miscellaneous
16. The American Idol for blogging superstars
18. Israeli’s documentary is drawing wide acclaim
19. MyHeritage Makes Family History Research Easier With Launch Of Family Tree Builder 3
20. Crude oil rises after Israeli attacks on Gaza roil Middle East
Israel Innovation 2.0 content related to Israel-Hamas conflict
21. Direct from the streets of Gaza… and Israel. How TechCrunch UK’s post could have read regarding UGC
22. Cyberterrorism against Israeli and American sites: How to Stay Secure
Video from IDF Spokeperson’s Unit TouTube Channel (Capt. Benjamin Rutland on the ground forces entering Gaza on 3 Jan. 2009)
*HelpUsWin is an online grassroots campaign helping to ensure that international coverage of the Campaign Against Hamas is balanced. To learn more about it or how you can become involved, please check out the HelpUsWin website.
Cyberterrorism against Israeli and American sites: How to Stay Secure
Filed under: Industry pulse, Information Technology, Internet Security, Israeli Websites, Risk Management, Uncategorized, data security, security
Since Israel began its operation in Gaza a week ago, over 300 sites have fallen victim to cyberattacks. Large Israeli company sites, such as Israel Discount Bank, Ynetnews and Israel’s largest domain registration site along with small Jewish community sites, including several religious ones in the US have been targeted. The main group behind several of these attacks, though far from the only one, is the infamous Moroccan group, TeamEvil, which also hacked some of the 750-plus Israeli websites before and during the Lebanon war in 2006.
Security analysts predict that American company websites will also be attacked in the next few weeks. For an article on the topic that appeared in SC Magazine last week, Dan Kaplan interviewed Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and John Kindervag, a senior analyst with Forrester Research who both made suggestions for preventing cyberattacks:
“Warner said website operators must secure common entryways for hackers, including vulnerable programming language, forum or blog software, image programs and utilities, such as website statistic applications. In addition, they must prevent the theft of FTP credentials, which are used to access sites and load content.
John Kindervag, a senior analyst with Forrester Research, said most websites are not built with security in mind. As a result, site owners should conduct a vulnerability assessment and, if they need immediate action, install a web application firewall, which can detect anomalous behavior.”
For more on the topic and to make sure your secure, you can check out the following sites:
10 Ways to Prevent Cyberterrorism
International Cooperation Needed To Prevent Cyberterrorism
Cyber Terrorism Threat Increasing – How To Prevent A Digital 9/11
Safend’s top tips to secure and protect your corporate data
Israeli data leakage protection company, Safend, has released a set of tips for how companies can keep their data safe during the Holiday season and long after. Tips include:
- Employ a Sound Auditing Process: Portable storage devices such as
iPods, PDAs, smart phones and other mobile devices, have become pervasive
in the workplace. Allowing your employees to use their iPods at work may
be a good way to increase morale but it also poses a security threat.
Knowing what devices are connecting to what endpoints will help
administrators monitor and avoid these threats. Determining what kind –
and how many — devices are accessing an organization’s network is the
first step in developing an effective DLP strategy - Access Control: To make sure that users cannot easily circumvent
security policies, it is important to first make sure the policies in place
are flexible enough that they don’t hinder productivity, but strong enough
to prevent data leakage threats. This is accomplished through granular
policies that allow administrators to block, allow or restrict access to
data from everything from file type, device type and even specific device
serial number. - Encrypt Everything: Many enterprises feel that they have covered all
their security bases with the implementation of security policies, employee
training and endpoint protection technology and are reluctant to invest in
another product or add another level of security. However, encryption is
essential to ensure that unauthorized users cannot access data in the case
of loss or theft.
Earlier this month Deloitte listed Safend as one Israel’s 50 fastest growing technology companies based on its revenues from the past 5 years. Safend’s products include: SafendProtector, SafendEncryptor and SafendReporter.
Another Israeli information security company, Promisec Ltd., was recently covered on Israel Innovation 2.0 for a video it posted on YouTube that also raises these points.
About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.
Promisec video on YouTube asks the network and endpoint security questions you should be asking yourself
Filed under: Information Technology, data security, security
Over the past year, Promisec Ltd., an internal network security solutions company with an office in Israel, has been using YouTube as a tool to explain the benefits and features of its products and the simplicity of how to use them. It’s latest promotional video, “Ask Yourself These Questions,” successfully caught my attention because of the important security questions regarding laptops, PCs and servers it brings up at the beginning of the video that every network manager should ask himself or herself and know the answers to.
Some of the questions asked include:
1. Could someone be running any file sharing applications?
2. Has any user attached an unauthorized external storage device?
3. Does every endpoint and server have the latest SP or hot fix?
4. Will I face IT and Security budget cuts that will limit visibility to new threats?
Check it out:
Promisec also offers a free Internal Threat Encyclopedia reference guide on its website that is worth taking a look at.
About the author: Lisa Damast currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog can be idirected to her via email at Lisa (at) israelinnovation20 (dot) com. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and headlines among other topics.
10 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of September 28, 2008
Filed under: Cleantech, Company Briefs, Environment, Information Technology, VC, data security, security
Though there wasn’t a lot of technology news coming from Israel during the week of September 28, 2008, the cleantech industry received a significant amount of the coverage that it did receive. The big news in the industry was that the future of cleantech is still promising and that the climate does impact cleantech investment. Widget company, Gigya raised funds and much of SanDisk’s value has to do with MSystems, Ltd. For the full stories on these and more, check below for this week’s 10 Israel-related technology headlines from the week of September 28, 2008.
Cleantech
1. Clean technologies to create business opportunities, say panelists
2. Accelerated business response to climate change drives cleantech investment
3. Cleantech investment breaks all-time record
Investments
4. JVP Media V holds $100m first closing
5. Gigya Raises $11 Million Series C Round
Information Technology
6. Sandbox security versus the evil Web (Trusteer and Check Point)
7. New Chip Technology Is Crucial to SanDisk’s Value (MSystems, Ltd)
Miscellaneous
8. PicScout Continues to Guard Visual Content Copyright
9. Stellar Startups: The spirit of a startup
10. Israel’s population in New Year: 7.3 million, 76% Jewish
About the author: Lisa Damast is the Membership Manager of ebizQ.net and currently resides in Israel. Any questions or inquiries regarding this blog or ebizQ membership services can be directed to her via email at ldamast (at) ebizq (dot) net. She can also be followed on Twitter, where she covers additional Israeli technology companies and Israel-related headlines and topics.
*About the Weekly Headlines image: The Star of David in the image was found on Flickr and is used under the Creative Commons license. It was originally uploaded by Flickr member, zeevveez. The overall Weekly Headlines image was designed by Lisa Damast.
Desktop Virtualization Company InstallFree is Golden at VMWorld 2008
Filed under: Data Storage, Information Technology, Performance Management, Software, VC, security, virtualization
If you were at VMWorld 2008, the industry’s largest virtualization conference, last week and are wondering what presence Israeli companies had at it, you need look no farther than the winner of “The Desktop Virtualization Best of VMWorld 2008 Award,” InstallFree.
InstallFree, a provider of Dynamic Desktop Computing,
“enables organizations to centrally deploy and manage software applications to end-users in a stateless, flexible and cost-efficient manner across a variety of usage scenarios.”
InstallFree Bridge, the product that won, allows the lock down of a corporate PC without diminishing the end users’ experience. InstallFree Bridge end-users can access their desktop applications virtually from any computer anywhere and have local application processing and offline availability, all while still under the IT department’s control.
According to the website, additional InstallFree benefits include: single package for all platforms, separately package desktop elements, click and deploy, simplify application lifecycle tasks, business continuity on-click and foster end-user mobility.
Here is a demo video of InstallFree that Virtual Strategy Magazine posted on YouTube.
Company Facts
Founded in 2006.
R&D in Raanana, Israel.
Yori Gabay, Co-Founder and CEO.
Netzer Shlomai, Co-Founder and CTO.
Products: InstallFree MiniBridge, InstallFree Bridge and InstallFree Desktop.
Website: www.installfree.com
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