Monday, August 24, 2020

GSMA advances its Network Equipment Security Assurance Scheme

Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and ZTE, have successfully completed an assessment of their product development and lifecycle management processes using the GSMA’s Network Equipment Security Assurance Scheme (NESAS), which provides a security assurance framework to improve security levels across the mobile industry.

The NESAS scheme is a collaboration and jointly led by 3GPP and the GSMA, and is open to all vendors of network equipment products that support 3GPP defined functions.

“The GSMA recognises the support and participation of Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and ZTE who have satisfied the scheme’s security requirements via an independent security audit and we congratulate them on achieving this important first step,” said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA. “By committing to NESAS, vendors are helping network operators, and other stakeholders make informed decisions about secure product development. We look forward to others participating in the scheme, evidencing their commitment to good security practice by promoting a security-by-design culture within the industry.”

During the second stage of NESAS, vendors will submit network equipment products to qualified test laboratories for evaluation. This stage involves laboratories running security tests, defined by 3GPP, and checking that the products undergoing evaluation have been developed under the assessed development and lifecycle management processes. The evaluation concludes with the production, by the test laboratory, of a valuation report that records the test results. The report is provided to the vendor who can make it available to its customers and other stakeholders at its discretion.

https://www.gsma.com/newsroom/press-release/gsma-announces-progress-on-network-equipment-security-assurance-scheme/

AWS launches next-gen SSDs for its Elastic Block Store

Amazon Web Services announced the general availability of io2, the next generation Provisioned IOPS SSD volumes for Amazon Elastic Block Store.

The new io2 volume is designed for 100x higher volume durability (99.999%) when compared to the 99.9% durability offered by io1 Amazon EBS volumes. Higher volume durability reduces the likelihood of storage failures and makes the primary copy of customers’ data more resilient, resulting in better application availability.

AWS said its new SSD volumes will enable customers todrive 10x higher input/output operations per second (IOPS) from their provisioned storage at the same price as io, so performance improves significantly without increasing storage cost. io2 is ideal for performance-intensive, business critical applications that need higher availability like ERP, CRM, and online transaction systems and the databases like SAP HANA, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, Apache Cassandra, MySQL, and PostreSQL that back them.

“Customers rely on highly durable AWS block storage to keep their business-critical applications running at any scale,” said Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec, Vice President, Block and Object Storage, AWS. “Today, we are excited to announce new high durability io2 volumes, that provide existing customers 100x higher volume durability than io1 at no additional cost. For new customers where five nines of storage durability is critical to migrate on-premises business critical applications to AWS, io2 brings together performance, durability, and agility all in a single EBS volume.”

https://aws.amazon.com/ebs

Palo Alto Networks to acquire The Crypsis Group

Palo Alto Networks agreed to acquire The Crypsis Group, a leading incident response, risk management and digital forensics consulting firm, for $265 million in cash.

The Crypsis Group's more than 150 security consultants have handled some of the most complex and significant cybersecurity incidents, responding to more than 1,300 security engagements per year. The company was named one of the Top 10 Digital Forensics Services Companies of 2019 and 2020 by Enterprise Security magazine.

Palo Alto Networks already provides prevention, detection and response capabilities through its Cortex XDR. The addition of The Crypsis Group's security consulting and forensics capabilities will strengthen Cortex XDR's ability to collect rich security telemetry, manage breaches and initiate rapid response actions. The Crypsis Group's experts and insights will also fuel the Cortex XDR platform with a continuous feedback loop between incident response engagements and product research teams to prevent future cyberattacks. The company expects to integrate The Crypsis Group's processes and technology into Cortex XDR to further enhance its ability to safeguard organizations at every stage of the security lifecycle.

"The proposed acquisition of The Crypsis Group will significantly enhance our position as the cybersecurity partner of choice, while expanding our capabilities and strengthening our Cortex strategy. By joining forces, we will be able to help customers not only predict and prevent cyberattacks but also mitigate the impact of any breach they may face," said Nikesh Arora, chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks.

Palo Alto Networks' revenue grows 18% yoy to $950M

Palo Alto Networks reported revenue of $950.4 million for its fiscal fourth quarter 2020, ended July 31, 2020, up 18% year over year, compared with total revenue of $805.8 million for the fiscal fourth quarter 2019. GAAP net loss for the fiscal fourth quarter 2020 was $58.9 million, or $0.61 per diluted share, compared with GAAP net loss of $20.8 million, or $0.22 per diluted share, for the fiscal fourth quarter 2019. Non-GAAP net income for the fiscal fourth quarter 2020 was $144.9 million, or $1.48 per diluted share, compared with non-GAAP net income of $146.9 million, or $1.47 per diluted share, for the fiscal fourth quarter 2019. A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP information is contained in the tables below.

"We had a strong finish to our fiscal year, with fourth quarter billings accelerating to 32% year-over-year growth, driven by strong execution, work-from-home tailwinds, and continued success in next-gen security," said Nikesh Arora, chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks. "Earlier today we announced the proposed acquisition of The Crypsis Group, a leading incident response firm. Once the transaction closes, The Crypsis Group will complement our Cortex XDR platform with best-in-class incident response, forensic, and consulting capabilities. In addition to being able to predict and prevent cyberattacks, Cortex will be able to mitigate the impact of any breach that our customers may face."


https://investors.paloaltonetworks.com/investor-relations/overview/default.aspx

Zoom suffers widespread outage

Zoom experienced a widespread outage on Monday, the first day of online classes for many schools and universities across the United States. Users in the UK also reported disruptions to the Zoom conferencing service.

The company said it began posting a software fix as of 8am PT.


Snowflake files for IPO - cloud data warehousing

Snowflake, a start-up based in San Mateo, California, filed papers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering of its Class A common stock.

Snowflake is known for its cloud data platform.

Snowflake intends to list its Class A common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “SNOW”.


Snowflake lands $479M for its cloud data platform

Snowflake, a start-up based in San Mateo, California, announced $479 million in new funding for its cloud data platform.

Snowflake’s cloud data platform supports a multi-cloud strategy, including availability on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Snowflake offers a common and interchangeable code base that delivers advantages such as global data replication, which means you can move your data to any cloud in any region, without having to re-code your applications.

Since its general release in mid-2015, Snowflake has gained 3,400 customers, including recent customers include Accor, Brex, CONA Services, ConAgra Foods, Domino's Pizza Enterprises Limited, JetBlue, and Nationwide.

The new funding was co-led by new investors, Dragoneer Investment Group and Salesforce Ventures. Existing Snowflake investors, including Altimeter Capital, ICONIQ Capital, Madrona Venture Group, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia, and Sutter Hill Ventures, are also participating in the round. This funding round raises Snowflake's post-money valuation to over $12.4 billion. T

“We look forward to Dragoneer’s experience and insights as we continue to serve our customers and grow our business,” Snowflake CEO, Frank Slootman said. “We also welcome our partnership with Salesforce and look forward to the positive impact our technologies and services will deliver to our customers and the broader market.”

Snowflake adds $450 million in funding for data warehousing

Snowflake Computing, a start-up based in San Mateo, California, closed $450 million in additional growth funding led by Sequoia Capital and including existing investors: Altimeter Capital, Capital One Growth Ventures, ICONIQ Capital, Madrona Venture Group, Redpoint Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Wing Ventures. New investor Meritech Capital also joined this round, which raises Snowflake’s pre-money valuation to $3.5 billion.

Earlier this year, Snowflake announced $263 million new venture funding in a round led by ICONIQ Capital, Altimeter Capital and newcomer Sequoia Capital.

This second round brings Snowflake’s total amount raised to $923 million.

Snowflake is headed by Bob Muglia, who previously was president of Microsoft’s $16 billion Server and Tools Business, responsible for products such as Windows Server, SQL Server, System Center and Windows Azure. Snowflake recently announced its availability on Microsoft Azure and its continued support for Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Snowflake has offered data warehousing services since 2015. It claims 1,000 active customers, including Netflix, Office Depot, DoorDash, Netgear, Ebates and Yamaha.

“Learning to be data-driven is an imperative for every organization today, and a data-driven organization must be in control of its data,” Snowflake CEO Bob Muglia said. “Snowflake is the most powerful data warehouse in the world for analytics solutions. That power delivers the security, control and business answers needed to enable data-driven organizations. This is driving spectacular growth for our company, and this latest funding round will provide Snowflake with the resources we need to serve our rapidly growing set of new and existing customers around the world.”