Huawei Posts 8.5% Year-on-Year Increase in Sales

Huawei reported 2013 sales revenues of CNY239 billion (US$38.45 billion), up 8.5% year-on-year (11.6% YOY growth in USD), and net profit of CNY21 billion (US$3.38 billion).  In its newly released annual report, the privately-held company said financial performance was strong across all business areas.

Some 2013 highlights:

• Huawei's carrier network business achieved CNY166.5 billion in sales revenue, up 4.0% year-on-year. 
• Enterprise and consumer businesses revenue increased by 32.4% and 17.8% to CNY15.2 billion and CNY57.0 billion, respectively. 
• Huawei earned 65% of its revenue from markets outside of China in 2013.
• In the Chinese market, Huawei achieved CNY84 billion in sales revenues, up 14.2% year-on-year.
• Huawei invested CNY30.7 billion (~5.06 USD billion) into R&D, which is about 12.8% of its sales revenue. 
• 150,000 employees

"Thanks to the favorable global macroeconomic and industry environment, as well as the effective execution of our company strategy, Huawei basically achieved our business targets for 2013," said Eric Xu, Huawei's Rotating and Acting CEO. "Huawei has never been more closely connected to the world than it is now. This level of connectivity has two implications. First, ICT technologies have been deployed in more than 170 countries and regions, helping more than 3 billion people connect to the world, communicate anytime, anywhere, and easily acquire and share information. Second, this connected world is reshaping politics, economics, business, and production at an incredible speed and with formidable force. "

The annual report is now posted online.

http://pr.huawei.com/en/news/hw-331129-annualreport.htm#.Uzjwi_ldVF4a

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IEEE P802.3bs Task Force Targets 400GbE

A new IEEE P802.3bs Task Force has been chartered to development 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE).  The project will define Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) parameters, physical layer specifications, and management parameters for the transfer of Ethernet format frames at 400 Gbps.

Physical Medium Dependent Sublayers (PMDs) will be standardized to cover at least 100m over multi-mode fiber, and 500m, 2km and 10km over single-mode fiber. Additionally, specifications for 400Gb/s electrical interfaces for chip-to-chip and chip-to-module applications will be standardized. Other features will include ensuring appropriate Optical Transport Network (OTN) and optional Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE).

“Since the ratification of the 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s Ethernet standard, the Ethernet Alliance has heard from both its members and the industry at large that global network traffic and bandwidth demand continues to experience unrelenting growth. We must continue pursuing higher-speed standards to support emerging application areas. Vehicular Ethernet for example, will bring a multitude of new users, ports, and applications into the system, resulting in a corresponding increase in bandwidth demand,” said John D’Ambrosia, chairman, Ethernet Alliance; chair, IEEE 802.3 400Gb/s Ethernet Study Group, and chief Ethernet evangelist, Dell. “We applaud the launch of the IEEE P802.3bs Task Force, and are ready to support it in its mission of advancing the next speed of Ethernet. Through our own 400GbE Subcommittee, we will help enable industry consensus on proposals that will drive the 400GbE specification from concept to ratification.”

http://www.ethernetalliance.org/
http://www.ieee.org/

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NTT Innovation Cyber Security Study Finds Major Gaps

Network malware detection and purpose-built solutions are absolutely essential for enterprise cybersecurity as endpoint antivirus solutions are failing to catch a surprising amount of malware, according to a newly published Global Threat Intelligence Report (GTIR) from NTT Innovation Institute (NTT I³).

Some key findings in the 2014 GTIR include:

• Cost for a “minor” SQL injection attack exceeds $196,000 – Organizations must realize the true cost of an incident and learn how a small investment could reduce losses by almost 95 percent. Case Study: “Massive Data Exfiltration via SQL Injection”
  
• Anti-virus fails to detect 54 percent of new malware collected by honeypots – Additionally, 71 percent of new malware collected from sandboxes was also undetected by 11 different anti-virus solutions. This supports the premise that simple endpoint solutions must be augmented with network malware detection and purpose-built solutions.
  
• 43 percent of incident response engagements were the result of malware – Missing anti-virus, anti-malware and effective lifecycle management of these basic controls were key factors in a significant portion of these engagements. Read the “Administrator Releases a Worm” case study to see how it cost one organization $109,000.
  
• Botnet activity takes an overwhelming lead at 34 percent of events observed – Almost 50 percent of botnet activity detected in 2013 originated from U.S. based addresses. The fact that healthcare, technology and finance account for 60 percent of observed botnet activity reflects the information worker burden that accompanies these industries.
  
• PCI assessed organizations are better at addressing perimeter vulnerabilities – Organizations performing quarterly external PCI Authorized Scanning Vendor (ASV) assessments have a more secure vulnerability profile, as well as a faster remediation time (27 percent), than organizations performing unregulated assessments
  
• Healthcare has observed a 13 percent increase in botnet activity – Due to increased reliance on interconnected systems for the exchange and monitoring of health related data, more systems are potentially affected by malware.

The GTIR was developed using threat intelligence and attack data from the NTT Group companies – Dimension Data, NTT Com Security, NTT Data, Solutionary and NTT R&D. The key findings in the GTIR are a result of the analysis of approximately three billion worldwide attacks over the course of 2013. The data analyzed for this report was collected from sixteen Security Operations Centers (SOC) and seven R&D centers with more than 1,300 NTT security experts and researchers from around the world.

“The report represents the culmination of months of research from our world-renowned experts and it strives to provide C-level executives and IT departments a platform to come together and discuss the foundation of their security programs in a way that benefits enterprises in today’s Digital Economy,” said NTT Innovation Institute, CEO Srini Koushik, “The 2014 NTT Group GTIR describes the evolving global threat landscape and underscores the importance of doing the basics right. It also backs it up with real-world case studies and actionable insights for the security practitioners and succinct enough for the Fortune 100 CEO.”

The full report is posted.

http://nttgroupsecurity.com

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IBM Commits $100 Million for Big Data Consulting Labs

IBM will more than $100 million to globally expand its consulting services focused on the integration of next-generation mobile, social, analytics and cloud technologies. Plans include opening 10 new IBM Interactive Experience labs around the world and adding 1,000 employees to create new, personalized models of engagement through data and design.

The new labs will be located in Bangalore, Beijing, Groningen, London, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, and Tokyo.

IBM said it believes that data is emerging as the world's newest resource for competitive advantage, and analytics is the key to make sense of it. Its goal is to help clients harness Big Data & Analytics to provide insights needed to make better decisions, create value, and deliver that value to customers and society.

“There’s no longer any real distinction between business strategy and the design of the user experience. The last best experience that anyone has anywhere, becomes the minimum expectation for the experience they want everywhere, and the quality of that experience is entirely dependent on the use of individualized information,” said Bridget van Kralingen, Senior Vice President of IBM Global Business Services. “As our clients recalibrate what it means to engage with their customers or employees, we're bringing them the full spectrum of world-class design and IBM Research, book-ended by strategy consulting and our strength in Big Data."

http://www.ibm.com/gbs/interactive
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/43523.wss

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ThreatMetrix Raises $20 Million for Fraud Prevention

ThreatMetrix, a start-up based in San Jose, California, announced $20 million in Series E funding for its context-based security and advanced fraud prevention solutions.

Adams Street Partners led the investment round, with all existing ThreatMetrix institutional investors also participating in the investment.

“Adams Street Partners is an ideal fit to lead our latest round of financing, due to its expertise in the cybersecurity industry and familiarity with our existing investors,” said Reed Taussig, president and CEO, ThreatMetrix. “Today’s cybercriminals are more sophisticated than ever before and include talented, well-funded, international crime rings and nation states. This financing will enable us to expand the depth and breadth of The Network, grow our customer base and continuously build new capabilities into the TrustDefender™ Cybercrime Protection Platform to protect against rapidly evolving cyber threats.”

ThreatMetrix secures enterprise applications against account takeover, payment fraud, fraudulent account registrations, malware, and data breaches.   ThreatMetrix currently analyzes more than 500 million transactions each month and protects over 160 million active user accounts across 2,500 customers and 10,000 websites.

http://www.threatmetrix.com

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Industrial Internet Consortium Sets Charter

A new Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) has been established to support better access to big data in industrial settings by offering improved integration of the physical and digital elements.  The goal is to enable organizations to more easily connect and optimize assets, operations and data to drive agility and to unlock business value across all industrial sectors. Backers include AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM and Intel.

Specifically, the IIC’s charter will be to encourage innovation by:  

• Utilizing existing and creating new industry use cases and test beds for real-world applications;
• Delivering best practices, reference architectures, case studies, and standards requirements to ease deployment of connected technologies;
• Influencing the global standards development process for Internet and industrial systems;
• Facilitating open forums to share and exchange real-world ideas, practices, lessons, and insights;
• Building confidence around new and innovative approaches to security. 

“We are at the precipice of a major technological shift at the intersection of the cyber and physical worlds, one with broad implications that will lead to substantial benefits, not just for any one organization, but for humanity," said Janos Sztipanovits, E. Bronson Ingram Distinguished Professor of Engineering and Director of the Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS), Vanderbilt University. “Academia and industry understand the need to identify and establish new foundations, common frameworks and standards for the Industrial Internet, and are looking to the IIC to ensure that these efforts come together into a cohesive whole.”

“The Industrial Internet builds upon AT&T’s vision of enabling people to operate anything remotely, anytime and virtually anywhere,” said Mike Troiano, vice president, Advanced Mobility Solutions, AT&T Business Solutions. “The IIC is an assembly of the world’s leading technology innovators working to mobilize devices and machines around the world, whether they’re in an office building or on a ship in the middle of the ocean. Together, we share a common goal of building a more connected world.”

“Ninety-nine percent of everything is still unconnected. As the world looks to connect more things over the Internet, it is creating the next industrial revolution. Cisco is collaborating with Industry leading companies to break through the barriers of connecting things in industrial environments safely and securely, and paving the way for the Internet of Things,” said Guido Jouret, vice president of Internet of Things Business Group for Cisco.

http://www.iiconsortium.org

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NTT Docomo Launches International LTE Roaming

NTT Docomo is launching an outbound LTE roaming service for its subscribers traveling in eight countries and regions, including the mainland USA and Hawaii, Hong Kong, France, Canada, Malaysia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Existing flat-rate data roaming plans will be applied to the service.

https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp

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