A cyberespionage group based in China hacked into India's computer systems to steal sensitive documents from the India Defense Ministry and e-mails from the Dalai Lama's office highlighted in a Canadian report, according to Reuters.
The report, authored by Canadian and American researchers out of the University of Toronto, found that the attack was linked to an underground cyberespionage organization in the south of China, which might have funneled information to certain channels in the Chinese government.
The stolen documents that were recovered contained sensitive information from India's National Security Council Secretariat, as well as classified documents detailing the security situation in bordering nations Tibet, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
The report, titled Shadows in the Clouds, indicated that Chinese cyberattackers capitalized on social networks such as Twitter, Google Groups and Yahoo Mail to propel a botnet designed to infiltrate and infect Indian computers with malware and connect them into Chinese command and control centers.
The compromised systems subject to a massive data breach include Shakti, the Indian Army's artillery combat and control system, as well as India's mobile missile defense system known as Iron Dome, according to Indianexpress.com.
The eight-month investigation—which researchers said is ongoing—found that the Dalai Lama's office was targeted in the attacks between January and November 2009.
A year ago, the same University of Toronto researchers authored another report describing a cyberattack on the Tibetan government, called GhostNet, which was used to create a botnet that had infected 1,295 computers in 103 countries. Similarly, that investigation was launched at the behest of the Dalai Lama.
China denied involvement in the attacks, and the country's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told the BBC that the country was "firmly opposed to hacking." She added that the researchers had not contacted the Chinese government, although they claimed to have contacted China's Computer Emergency Response Team.
The cyberattack against Tibet was initiated just days after Google discontinued its Chinese language search services from mainland China.
High-profile cyberespionage has gained media attention in recent months after a sophisticated cyberattack was launched aimed at stealing intellectual property from the network of Google and more than 30 other corporations. Google and security experts say that the attack originated from China.
Microsoft Dishes On Exchange 2010 Service Pack
The first service pack for Exchange 2010 isn't coming until later this year, but Microsoft is finding it impossible to contain its excitement over what the update will include.
Microsoft said it plans to offer a beta of Exchange 2010 SP1 for download to coincide with the company's TechEd North America conference in June. The update contains improvements to Outlook Web App (OWA), archiving and discovery, mobility and user interface, wrote Michael Atalla, Head, Exchange Product Management, Microsoft, in a blog post.
Microsoft introduced integrated e-mail archiving when it launched Exchange 2010 in November, and SP1 will make it possible to provision a user's personal e-mail archive to a separate mailbox database from their primary mailbox, making storage planning easier. Around the SP1 timeframe, Microsoft will release an update that will support access to a user's Personal Archive with Outlook 2007, Atalla wrote.
On the server side, SP1 allows for the importing of historical e-mail data from .PST files directly into Exchange, Atalla wrote.
SP1 also beefs up e-mail search for legal scenarios that require e-discovery, eliminating duplicate results and providing a search preview. Outlook Web App will also get a tune-up to enable smoother delete, mark as read, and categorize operations as well as a simplified user interface, according to Atalla.
User feedback on the Microsoft Exchange team blog suggests that the changes will be well received. "SP1 is what Exchange 2010 should have been out of the box from the sounds of it," wrote poster Jason Carter.
Exchange 2010 is Microsoft's first sever technology to work on-premises and as an online service. In Exchange 2003 and 2007, each mailbox was tied to a specific server, but Exchange 2010 allows mailboxes to reside on any server, which lessens the impact of network outages.
WD Introduces 750GB Notebook Hard Drives
WD announced that it is shipping 750GB of storage capacity in a standard-height 2.5-inch notebook hard drive. Touted as the industry’s highest capacity hard drive to date in this form factor, the Scorpio Blue WD7500BPVT is designed for mainstream notebooks and has a 3Gbps SATA interface speed.
It utilizes WD’s 375 GB-per-platter areal density, and its Advanced Format technology helps to increase media format efficiencies.
“WD continues to lead the market with capacity points that enable consumers and business professionals to store large quantities of data and rich media content,” said Sushil Bandi, Country Manager, Indian Subcontinent, Western Digital. “Our leading power efficiency, achieved without compromise to performance, is another example of the added features and value that our customers have come to expect from WD.”
The drive comes with WhisperDrive technology, which reduces noise, optimizes the way the drive seeks for data and improves power consumption. Its yields performance fit for demanding mobile applications.
The ShockGuard technology included protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks, while SecurePark ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long term reliability due to less head wear, and improved non-operational shock tolerance.
WD7500BPVT hard drives are available with select distributors and resellers at manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) Rs 8,215. The hard drives are covered by a three-year limited warranty.
IBM Announces Global Entrepreneur Initiative
IBM recently opened its market resources to help the next generation of entrepreneurs capture emerging business opportunities in fast-growing industries such as energy and utilities, health care, telecommunications and government. The new initiative called IBM Global Entrepreneur will provide the technology start-ups a no-charge access to industry-specific technologies in a cloud computing environment.
Under the new program, IBM will provide access to its research community as well as sales, marketing and technical skills.
"A large number of venture capital investments in the technology industry will be targeted at entrepreneurs in US, China, Israel, UK, Germany, France and India this year," said Promod Haque, Managing Partner, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). "To make these investments count, start-ups must have the right skills in place to bring new technologies to market more quickly. Venture capitalists, businesses, government and academia must all collaborate to ensure today's entrepreneurs are prepared to succeed."
Under the new initiative, start-ups can access IBM's software portfolio through a cloud computing environment, including IBM industry frameworks, to accelerate software development; work side-by-side scientists and technology experts from IBM Research to develop new technologies; take advantage of dedicated IBM project managers to assist in product development; attend new IBM SmartCamp mentoring and networking workshops with VC firms, government leaders, academics, and industry experts at the global network of 40 IBM Innovation Centers to build business and go-to-market plans; and tap a new social networking community on IBM developerWorks to connect with other entrepreneurs and more than eight million IT professionals from around the world.
The criteria for start-ups to participate in the IBM Global Entrepreneur Initiative are: the company must be privately-held, in business less than three years, and actively developing software aligned to IBM's Smarter Planet focus areas.
As part of this program, IBM is collaborating with 19 global industry and technology associations to identify and connect local start-ups to the initiative through IBM SmartCamps and forums at IBM Innovation Centers throughout 2010.
Microsoft Extends Windows 7 Enterprise Free Trial
Citing popular demand, Microsoft is extending a free trial program that lets companies kick the tires on Windows 7 Enterprise edition.
Originally launched in September as a limited-time offer, the Windows 7 Enterprise trial was slated to end on March 31 but has been extended through December 31, said Stephen Rose, Senior Community Manager, Windows, in a blog post.
The trial program lets IT professionals test out a fully functional version of Windows 7 Enterprise free of charge for 90 days and is specifically aimed at companies that don't have MSDN, TechNet, or volume licensing subscriptions.
Testers have 10 days to activate the Windows 7 trial, after which it will shut down once every hour until activated. At the end of the 90-day evaluation period, testers that want to keep using Windows 7 Enterprise will have to buy and clean install it, because Windows 7 Enterprise isn't available through retail channels.
Migrating to Windows 7 can be a gargantuan task for larger companies, and the ongoing economic uncertainty could be causing some to put their migration plans on hold.
Last month Microsoft, in a bid to smooth the migration path, launched App-V 4.6, the latest version of its application virtualization offering. The update adds support for 64-bit Windows client and server platforms and enables virtual applications to be deployed in Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), terminal services, and local desktop scenarios.
Microsoft last month also unveiled the release candidate for Med-V Service Pack 1, adding support for Internet Explorer 6 and removing a key barrier to enterprise Windows 7 migrations.
Windows 7 Enterprise includes new features such as DirectAccess, which gives mobile users seamless access to corporate networks; BranchCache, which stores frequently used data locally to improve network performance at remote locations; and BitLocker and BitLocker To Go, which encrypt data on hard drives and removable storage devices.
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