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The Malta Independent | Thursday 22 January 2015
Consumers are willing to pay more for car tech More than 50% of vehicle owners are willing to pay more than $1,000 (€850) for must-have in-vehicle technology features on their next vehicle purchase. This was revealed in the 2015 AutoTrader.com Car Tech Impact Study which provides insight into how vehicle technology impacts consumer vehicle purchase decisions. In its first year, this study sheds light on what vehicle owners want from car technology, what they're willing to pay to get it and attitudes on specific car technology features.
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onsumer electronics are quickly becoming a spectacle in the automotive industry thanks to the development and demand for car technology,” said Michelle Krebs, AutoTrader.com senior analyst. “It's important to know that consumers are spending more time and money on car technology and they are particular about what they're buying.” Time and money are two things many vehicle owners are willing to part with when it come to car technology, with 50% saying they are willing to wait up to just about a year to get all their must-have features in their next vehicle and 51% saying they were willing to pay up to $1,499 (€1,270) extra to get those features. Hot features to the consumer electronics industry that are topping consumer shopping lists include a backup camera (43%), USB charging port (33%) and wireless device charging (26%). However, consumers have specific demands about the hot features they're willing to pay extra for. The study revealed that consumers have reasonable, but specific expectations for smartphone integration, with 76% saying they don't expect their vehicle to be able to do all the things a smartphone can do. In fact, another 80% said they would prefer to use a navigation system built into their vehicle to one on their smartphone. Phones and applications aren't the end of it, though. When asked what consumers wished their current vehicle had, roughly two in five listed either backup cameras or sensors and 48% said that they wanted on-board WiFi. “We're in the information era and shoppers are informed and they are
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The Malta Independent | Thursday 22 January 2015
Roderick Spiteri
Roderick Spiteri is Marketing and Communications Manager at MITA and editor of Malta Independent ICT feature
The Malta Independent ICT Feature
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veryone has the possibility of discovering government’s ICT backbone as MITA opens its doors to the only Tier III data centre in the region. The MITA Open Day will be taking place this Sunday – 25th January at the MITA Data Centre in Santa Venera. Visitors
will have the opportunity to join one of the guided tours around the data centre facilities and also get information on ICT programmes and initiatives. A new study found that consumers are ready to pay for more to get the must-have invehicle technology features when purchasing a new vehi-
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ccording to findings released by IBM, despite a 50% decline in the number of cyber attacks against U.S. retailers, the number of records stolen from them remains at near record highs. IBM Security researchers report that in 2014, cyber attackers still managed to steal more than 61 million records from retailers despite the decline in attacks, demonstrating cyber criminal's increasing sophistication and efficiency. Contrary to what most would expect, the majority of cyber at-
tackers scaled back their hacking efforts around Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2014 rather than capitalise from the massive spike in retail spending. The 2014 Retail Research and Intelligence Report and the Holiday Trends: Black Friday/Cyber Monday Research and Intelligence Report were created by IBM's Managed Security Services team of analysts, who monitor more than 20 billion security incidents every day. According to the research, cyber attackers are becoming increasingly more sophisticated, using new techniques to obtain massive amounts of confidential records with increased efficiency. Since 2012, the number of breaches reported by retailers dropped by 50%. Despite this decline, the perpetrators were able to impact a far greater number of victims with each incident.
All ICT Features are available on www.mita.gov.mt/ictfeature
Open Day at MITA Data Centre – this Sunday
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adamant about the features they want,” Krebs said. “From manufacturers, to suppliers and even aftermarket consumer electronics companies, this study shows us that there is still plenty of opportunity in the vehicle electronics market in 2015.”
The study also found that only 3% of vehicle owners already have mobile WiFi in their current vehicle and that nearly two-thirds of them use it on a typical day. Moreover, 55% of vehicle owners agree that being able to use streaming services like Pandora or Spotify (online music
streams) in their vehicle makes driving more enjoyable. Another interesting finding is that 52% of vehicle owners think that automakers should invest in making their own information and entertainment systems better whilst the remaining 48% think that automakers should invest in integrating smartphones into a generic system that would be in vehicles from all manufacturers, like Apple Car Play. This study was conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of AutoTrader.com and included 1,033 American vehicle owners aged 18 or older who participated in an online survey in October 2014. Results were weighted as needed for age by gender, education, race/ethnicity, region and household income. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online.
ITA will be opening its doors to its Data Centre in Santa Venera during an Open Day on Sunday, 25th January 2015. Visitors will have the opportunity to learn about MITA and the multiple programmes and initiatives that the Agency takes care of. They will also be able to tour around MITA’s Tier III certified Data Centre facilities and see first hand government’s ICT infrastructure. The Agency will also have an exhibition area with various stands and informative boards on how ICT has transformed various sectors such as health, education, taxation, social security, justice and more. The Agency will also be providing information on the National Digital Strategy – Digital Malta, eGovernment services,
ages 10-14) Those interested in attending any of these sessions should register by sending an email with their details on communcations.mita@gov.mt The Open Day at the MITA Data Centre in Old Railway Track, Santa Venera will be held this Sunday 25th January between 9am and 5pm. Free parking will be available just opposite – at the St. Philip’s Hospital. The
and also about the MITA Innovation Hub at SmartCity Malta. Current and prospective ICT students will be able to meet ICT professionals and get career guidance in several ICT areas such as networking, development, system administration, operations, etc There will also be tailor-made coding and programming sessions for different age groups as
listed below: • Session 1 – 09:30hrs – 10:30hrs: UNITY Basic game development (open for all ages) • Session 2 -11:00hrs – 12:00hrs: Majjistral Park App and Basic Mobile App Development (open for all ages - bring your own smartphone) • Session 3 – 14:30hrs – 15:30hrs: Scratch programming (open for
Number of cyber attacks on retailers drops by half Over 61 million customer records stolen in 2014
cle. These include backup cameras, USB charging port and onboard Wi-Fi. During 2014, cyber attackers managed to steal over 61 million customer records. IBM said that new techniques are allowing cyber attackers to be more sophisticated in their breaches.
“The threat from organised cyber crime rings remains the largest security challenge for retailers,” said Kris Lovejoy, General Manager, IBM Security Services. “It is imperative that security leaders and Chief Information Security Officers in particular, use their growing influence to ensure they have the right people, processes and technology in place to take on these growing threats.” Black Friday and Cyber Monday Identified as the two biggest shopping days of the year by IBM's Digital Analytics Benchmark, cyber attackers reduced their activity across all industries on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, rather than taking action. When looking at the two week period (Nov 24 - Dec 5) around these days, the data shows the following activity across all industries: The number of daily cyber at-
tacks was 3,043, nearly one third less than the 4,200 average over this period in 2013. • From 2013 and 2014, the number of breaches dropped by more than 50% for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. • In 2013, there were more than 20 breaches disclosed including several large breaches that caused the number of records compromised to rise drastically, reaching close to 4 million. • Over the same period in 2014, 10 breaches were disclosed which resulted in just over 72,000 records getting compromised Despite this “cyber threat slow down,” the retail and wholesale industries emerged as the top industry target for attackers in 2014, a potential result of the wave of high profile incidents impacting name brand retailers. In the two years prior, manufac-
turing ranked first amongst the top five attacked industries while the retail and wholesale industry ranked last. This past year, the primary mode of attack was unauthorised access via Secure Shell Brute Force attacks, which surpassed malicious code, the top choice in 2012 and 2013. Top Breaches Overshadow Growing Trend Attackers secured more than 61 million records in 2014, down from almost 73 million in 2013. However, when the data was narrowed down to only incidents involving less than 10 million records (which excludes the top two attacks over this timeframe, Target Corporation and The Home Depot), the data shows a different story - the number of retail records compromised in 2014 increased by more than 43% over 2013.
Sophisticated Methods of Attack While there has been a rise in the number of Point of Sale (POS) malware attacks, the vast majority of incidents targeting the retail sector involved Command Injection or SQL injection. The complexity of SQL deployments and the lack of data validation performed by security administrators made retail databases a primary target. Over 2014, this Command Injection method was used in nearly 6,000 attacks against retailers. Additional methods include Shellshock as well as POS malware such as BlackPOS, Dexter, vSkimmer, Alina and Citadel. The data for the number of records compromised and breaches disclosed was analysed by IBM security experts and was made publically available by Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. The remaining data came from IBM's Managed Security services team.
Open Day is open for everyone and is of particular interest to current and prospective ICT students, public sector employees and ICT enthusiasts and professionals. For more information visit mita.gov.mt/openday. The Open Day at MITA is part of the ‘Ġimgħa għas-Servizz Pubbliku’ organised between 23rd January and 1st February.