Israel Innovation 2.0

During the week of July 25, 2010, web security firm Commtouch acquired Authentium’s antivirus unit. The sale is likely to be the first of several Commtouch will make in the upcoming months and next few years. Israel’s VoIP site ooVoo is gaining ground on rival and market leader Skype and issues Israel’s government and tech industry need to discuss continue to be brought to light. For these stories and the rest of this week’s headlines, see below.

Cleantech
1. Green hi-rise to hit Tel Aviv

2. 8 Ways Israel and China Intersect in Clean Energy

Investment and Economy
3. Israel tries to lure major banks to expand its R&D

4. IBM buys Storwize for $140 million

Information Technology
5. ooVoo vs. Skype: Tech firm gaining ground on larger rival

6. AT&T, Amdocs launch Israel innovation center

7. Commtouch Security Platform Boosted by Acquisition

Miscellaneous
8. Start-Down: Israeli Start-ups in crisis

9. ‘Sniffing’ Technology Helps Disabled Move, Communicate

During the week of November 15, 2009, data storage and protection company, Axxana announced it had raised $9 million. Gil Schwed discussed the future of Check Point and Tufin Technologies is expanding from security into network management. For these stories and the rest of this week’s 11 headlines, check below.

Cleantech
1. Israel water tech thrives in weakened economy

2. Catching the sunshine

3. After boom and bust, global solar energy market ready to mature, analyst says

Investments and M&A
4. Motorola acquiring Israeli company

5. Axxana Raises $9 Million

6. ClickSoftware closes AiPoint asset acquisition

Information Technology
7. Check Point looks to ‘consolidation’

8. Tufin Expands from Security into Network Management

9. Trojan Hacked Secret Data of Syrian Nuclear Reactor

Miscellaneous
10. The future of Israeli high-tech: Jewish brains aren’t enough

11. Israel top patent producer in Western world

Israel-based Aladdin Knowledge Systems announced today that the software security company has agreed to be acquired by an investor group lead by private equity firm Vector Capital, which specializes in the technology industry, for about $160 million.

Aladdin was covered on Israel Innovation 2.0 in August 2008 after its eSafe product was awarded a Checkmark Premium Level Anti-Spam Certification by West Coast Labs, an independent test facility for information security products and services. Together, Aladdin’s products eSafe, HASP and eToken offer software DRM security, online protection and secure network access. Despite quality security software the company’s stocks never reached its potential.

Jasmine Holdco LLC, an affiliate of Vector Capital, had been in talks with Aladdin on and off since last summer before this agreement was finally reached.

Trusteer, an Israeli security vendor, announced earlier today the availability of a free tool that allows banks to find out which malware variants and Trojans are targeting their websites and customers.

“allows IT professionals to submit their organization’s web address and see a list of malware configuration files that are designed to commit fraud against their brand. By typing their URL address into the Attack Trace search engine, users get a glimpse into the cross section of malware that is specifically aimed at their website and what the code is written to accomplish. The Trusteer Attack Trace search engine searches for leading Trojans and other attack codes including Torpig/Sinowal, WSNPOEM, and NetHell.”

- The typical malware configuration file targets around 500 financial institutions

- Big banks such as Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo and targeted by virtually all malware variants in the engine.

- International websites for known banks such as Citibank.de (Germany), ingdirect.es (Spain), barclays.pt (Portugal), and hsbc.fr (France) are extremely popular targets.

- Small local banks such as ledyardbank.com, sunflowerbank.com, and anchornetbank.com are favorite targets of many malware variants.

- Credit Unions such as, airforcefcu, ocfcu.org, redfcu.org, and teachersfcu.org are strongly targeted by various malware

- Torpig/Sinowal targets the most number of credit unions (hundreds)

Most news from the week of November 23, 2008 was dwarfed by the terrorist attacks that took place in Mumbai, India. The Israel-related technology headlines that did make it through included skepticism for Shai Agassi’s electric car company, Better Place, Magic Software’s new platform application and Israel’s latest Web 2.0 entrant, wePapers.com. For these headlines and more, check out this week’s 12 below.

Featured during the week of November 16, 2008 were news of Michigan’s governor signing a water technology partnership agreement with Israel and news that Israel’s current drought is the worst its been in over 100 years. Security firm, Finjan announced that it raised $22 million and AOMi partnered with Cordys. Contradicting stories on the state of the Israel’s hi-tech sector from the Jerusalem Post and BusinessWeek also made the headlines. For these stories and more check out the headlines below.

Cleantech and Environment
1. Israel Facing Worst Water Crisis in More Than 100 Years

2. Mich. governor signs water technologies agreement

3. A Better Place In The San Francisco Bay Area

Investments and deals
4. AOMi Partners with Cordys to Enhance SaaS Business Model

5. ColdSpark Integrates Commtouch Messaging Security Suite into Mail Platform for Large Enterprises

6. Security firm Finjan raises $22 million

7. Boxee Raised $4M today

8. Taboola Funded for Video Recommendation Engine

Information Technology
9. Voltaire Powers World’s Largest Windows Supercomputer

10. HP and N-trig Deliver Innovative Hands-On Computing

11. WorkLight Helps Retail Banks Gain Edge by Embracing Secure Web 2.0

Miscellaneous
12. MSN Israel reborn

13. Infima Tech Introduces JPACK Compression Solution

14. Hard Times Hit Israel’s Tech Sector

15. US to lower Israeli airport’s safety ranking

16. Despite the tough times, Israel’s high-tech sector thrives

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.