VAR Vendors and Resellers November 2016

News

Eaton partners with Mindware for GCC IT distribution Power management company Eaton and IT specialist Mindware have signed a distribution partnership for its complete portfolio of power quality products across Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the UAE. Mindware, active in the region since opening its Dubai HQ in 1991, will be responsible for the distribution of Eaton’s Power Infrastructure Solutions, including virtualisation-ready uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), rack mountable power distribution units (ePDU), and Intelligent Power Manager (IPM) software.

“This partnership represents a significant development for Eaton in our channel strategy,” commented Karim Refas, Regional Channel Manager, Eaton Middle East. “We are confident that Mindware’s access to distribution networks across the GCC, together with Eaton’s range of Power Management Solutions, the partnership brings a strong proposition to the market.”

“We are delighted to team up with Eaton, one of the most reputable names in the power management arena,” commented Nicholas Argyrides, Chief of Sales and Marketing and Deputy General Manager, Mindware. “Always keeping in mind our channel partners’ needs and requirements, we feel that the Eaton line of products further complements Mindware’s existing infrastructure solutions portfolio. We are looking forward to a fruitful partnership.”

Nicholas Argyrides Sales and Marketing Chief & Deputy General Manager, Mindware

axiom launches ‘Tech Squad’

axiom telecom is promising UAE residents technical support at their home or their office with the launch of the new ‘Tech Squad’ service. axiom is already known for its top-class after-sales support through its service centers and this latest initiative takes this renowned customer care out on the road and literally into the customer’s house. The unique service is the first-of-its-kind in the UAE, bringing international best practice in customer support to the Emirates.

“So many of our daily tasks rely on the seamless functionality of our mobile devices, making it important that a handset or tablet that requires troubleshooting is restored both quickly and conveniently,” said axiom telecom CEO, Fahad Al Bannai. “With ‘Tech Squad’, we can make the process of getting your device service as easy

and hassle-free as possible.”

Customers facing issues with their mobile device can call a dedicated toll-free helpline ‘800-SQUAD (77823)’ and receive instant support. If the problem can’t be solved over the phone, then the Support Center will dispatch an expert technician – complete with a fully equipped ‘mobile lab’ – to the customer’s doorstep.

The service costs just AED 349 per year and includes five support requests and three onsite visits. The service is currently offered in the main areas of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah.

“Finding this level of service in the UAE is hard to come by,” said Al Bannai. “With one of the highest levels of smartphone users in the world, we expect our ‘Tech Squad’ agents to be constantly driving around the streets and serving our customers.”

ESET claims at least 15% of home routers unsecure As a part of BETA versions of ESET Internet Security and ESET Smart Security Premium flagship products, ESET introduced a new feature, Home Network Protection. This feature has enabled users to scan their home routers for vulnerabilities, malicious configurations, exploitable network services and weak passwords.

Since its release in April, ESET has tested more than 12,000 routers of users who agreed to share their data anonymously with ESET for statistical purposes.

The analysis shows that almost 7% of the routers tested demonstrated software vulnerabilities of high or medium severity. Port scanning revealed that in many cases network services were accessible from internal as well as from external networks.

“In particular, unsecured services such as Telnet shouldn’t be left open, not even to local network, which was – unfortunately – the case with more than 20% of the routers tested,” says Peter Stančík, ESET Security Evangelist.

The results also prove that 15% of the routers tested used weak passwords, with “admin” left as the username in most cases.

“During the test, we tried common default usernames and passwords and also some frequently used combinations. It’s disturbing that more than one in seven of such simple simulated attacks was successful,” comments Stančík.

Most of the software vulnerabilities – slightly over 50% - that were discovered during testing by ESET Home Network Protection were bad access rights vulnerabilities.

The second most frequent vulnerability (40%) discovered by the ESET Home Network Protection test was a command injection vulnerability.

Command injection aims for the execution of arbitrary commands on the host operating system via a vulnerable application, largely with insufficient input validation.

Nearly 10% of all the software vulnerabilities found were so called cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities that enable attackers to modify router configuration in order to be able to run a forged client-side script.

“The results collected by ESET Home Network Protection during BETA testing of ESET security solutions clearly show that routers can be attacked fairly easily, by exploiting one of the frequently found vulnerabilities. This makes them an Achilles heel for the overall internet security of households as well as small businesses,” adds Stančík.

On top of scanning routers and testing them for common vulnerabilities, ESET Home Network Protection also provides an easy-to-access overview of devices connected to a local network, categorizing them by type and time of connection.

.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... www.VARonline.com 14 | November 2016