October Newsletter - Enterprise Applications Management

Enterprise Applications Management might be the answer for Organizational needs that are not covered by enterprise application such as, ERP, CRM, etc.. One application to answer enterprise needs such as H.R. Management, Project / Knowledge management, Training, HelpDesk and many others. 
Enterprise Applications Management Technology is Vega’s topic of the month. For a full coverage of this topic please refer to the Full Article published at our Blog.

Enterprise Applications ManagementThe information Age

By 1950 the first programmable electronic computers had been developed. Costly, these early systems were practical only for the largest of organizations. In the 1980’s a generation of powerful, relatively inexpensive equipment (PC’s & Servers) made complex data processing functions affordable for most businesses and many individuals. By the end of the first decade of the 21^st century, the ubiquitous internet, coupled with the availability of sophisticated, multi-function software made even the most complex and specialized computing processes practical for any size organization.

Once only viable for the largest enterprises, advanced application suites with fully integrated modules such

as…

• Knowledge Management
• Employee Evaluations
• Project Management
• Training Administration
  
• Development Path
• Feedback Processes
• Content Creation
• Permissions Management
• Work Plans
• Resources Management
• Re-certifications
• Collaboration
• Recruiting Processes
• eLearning
• Budgets
• Qualifications
• Surveys

                                       …are now available and practical to implement for most organizations.

For more ...... See Vega's Octobe  Newsletter

August Newsletter – Israel's Sustainable / Renewable Energy Technology

Israel has long played a major role in the Cleantech field, evolving from a nation of limited natural resources to a significant player in global sustainability. The Israeli sustainable energy industry is today considered a global pioneer thanks to breakthrough technological innovations in this area.

Israel's Sustainable / Renewable Energy Technology is Vega’s topic of the month. For a full coverage of this topic please refer to the Full Article published at our Blog.

Israel's Sustainable / Renewable Energy Technology 

Israel has long played a major role in the Cleantech field, evolving from a nation of limited natural resources to a significant player in global sustainability. The Israeli sustainable energy industry is

today considered a global pioneer thanks to breakthrough technological innovations in this area.

The Global Energy Challenge

The use of energy has always been key to the development of human society, enabling humanity to control and adapt to its environment for centuries. Nowadays, humanity is forced to utilize all of its creativity and technological innovation to answer the rising energy needs. In turn, this challenge also presents a huge market and business opportunity for those companies that can provide real, relevant and outstanding sustainable energy solutions.

Sustainable/ Renewable energy industry fast facts

P  Renewable forms of energy have contributed 14% of the growth in global power generation over the past three years.

P  World primary energy consumption - oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy - fell by 1.1% in 2009, indicating a rise in sustainable energy use.

P  Solar energy demand has grown at about 30% per annum over the past 15 years (hydrocarbon energy demand typically grows between 0-2% per annum).

P  The projected global clean energy investment in 2017 will be $254.5 billion.

P  Only 1.7% of the world’s total energy supply is provided by sustainable sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, etc.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of human prosperity hinges on finding a way of supplying the world’s growing energy needs in a way that does not irreparably harm the environment. Until recently, it looked as if we had plenty of time to meet that challenge. No longer.”

Israel - A history of turning desert into oasis

Since its foundation in 1948, Israel has placed great emphasis on conserving energy wherever possible; developing innovative, alternative, and sustainable solutions to combat the nation’s lack of natural resources. Ranging from its decades-long use of solar thermal energy, to its development of unique biofuels, the country has consistently turned its natural disadvantages around, achieving great success and demonstrating expertise and knowledge in the field of sustainable energy. Energy sustainability has been a national priority in Israel since day one, and this emphasis has proven itself in one of the world’s most emergent and well-crafted energy systems.

ï  Israel serves as the base to over 100 start-ups in the sustainable energy sector.

ï  Solar water heaters are used in over 90% of Israeli homes.

ï  Israel houses one of the world’s largest solar energy dishes at the Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center.

ï  The Israeli Public Utility Authority and National Infrastructures Ministry have established feed-in tariffs for the development of solar and wind power technology, encouraging major investment and innovation into these fields.

ï  As of October 2010, a consortium of leading Israeli companies, investors and academic institutions began to develop and operate a brand new technology center for sustainable energy in the south of the country.

ï  Israel is currently embarking on programs that will enable it to integrate alternative energy systems and implement energy efficiency technologies to meet climate change challenges. 

For more ...... See Vega's August  Newsletter

May Newsletter - Israeli Agro-Technology

Israeli agriculture is seen as an excellent example of the ability of advanced technology to change a semi-arid deserted land, with serious security problems, into one of the great success stories of world’s agriculture. Israeli Agro-Technology is Vega’s topic of the month.   For a full coverage of this topic please refer to the Full Article published at our Blog .

Israel’s agro-technology industry is characterized by intensive research and development of innovative system, rooted in the need to overcome local scarcities of water and arable land . They industry’s growth arose from the close cooperation among researchers. Extension agents , farmers and agriculture related industries, cooperative efforts that led to breakthrough achievements. These in turn have fostered a market-oriented agribusiness that exports its agro-technology solution worldwide. The result is modern agriculture methods. Systems and products in a country where more than half the area is dessert  

Israeli agriculture is seen as a world-class example of the ability of advanced technology to change a semi-arid land, with serious security problems, into one of the great success stories of world agriculture.

Some facts & figures :

Ø  Agricultural productivity in Israel has grown by a factor of 10 since the

Ø  1950’s, while the amount of water used in agriculture has been substantially reduced, as have labor inputs.

Ø  Through advanced technology, Israel has reached record highs in productivity per unit for dairy cattle, cotton, olives, and other products.

Ø  Israel’s agricultural technology and broad range of know-how, has become a well-known brand-name for success in the agricultural world.

Ø  Agricultural technology accompanied by Israeli management has become a sought-after product in world agriculture

Ø  Israeli remains well known for breakthrough technology in advanced irrigation, greenhouse systems, vegetable seeds, plant protection and pest management, computerized monitoring and control, and more.

Ø  200 Agro-technology Exporters

Ø  US$4B - Export turnover

Ø  Labor Force - decreased in the last 60 years from 17% to 2.6%

Ø  Cultivated Land - decreased by 20%

Ø  Fresh Water Usage- decreased by 50%

Ø  Product’s Value/1m3 increased from $0.5 up to $4

Ø  Most exports of agricultural inputs are based on decades of development of technology and know-how, in search of solutions for Israeli agricultural constraints: scarcity of water and manpower.

Ø  Scale of this agritechnology is based on Israel’s capacity for development and marketing – it is not limited by natural resources. Israeli companies sell “Israeli smarts” in the form of agricultural inputs.

Ø  In most cases, exports come from innovations developed for Israeli agriculture, which has served as the testing station and the trial fields for the technology that is exported. 

For more ...... See Vega's May  Newsletter

April Newsletter - Israeli Water-Tech

The Israeli water industry is today recognized as a global leader in the water arena thanks to breakthrough technological innovations in areas such as desalination, drip irrigation and water security.

Israeli Water-Tech is Vega’s topic of the month.
You can find a brief summary with few highlights of our monthly technical review at Page 3, and few examples of Israeli solutions for this topic at Page 5. For a full coverage of this topic please refer to the Full Article published at our Blog.

Israel advanced water technology

Overview

Since its foundation in 1948, Israel has placed great emphasis on maximizing its water supply, famously turning much of its arid land into fertile agricultural soil. Indeed, David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding father, declared the goal of “making the desert bloom” as one of the central themes of the new nation, believing it could be one of its main contributions to the world.

Thus, water technologies have been a national priority in Israel since day one. This emphasis has proven itself in one of the world’s most efficient and innovative water systems.

Since its founding, Israel has been coping with water scarcity and has been treating the subject as a national priority. As more and more countries around the world begin to confront the real issues of global warming and water scarcity, many are turning to Israel, which has developed novel solutions. Israel's success in answering the country's water needs stems from its ability to incorporate an extensive variety of solutions under multiple constraints.

The Israeli water industry is today recognized as a global leader in the water arena thanks to breakthrough technological innovations in areas such as desalination, drip irrigation and water security.

Achievements - Fast Facts

ï  Israel, with an 80% water recycling rate, is the world's leading country in water recycling. The second largest water recycler in recent years has been Spain, with a rate of 18%.

ï  Israeli-invented drip irrigation helped achieve 70%-80% of water efficiency in agriculture, the highest rate in the world.

ï  Israel’s total water consumption has remained nearly the same since 1964, in spite of a growing population and agriculture. This feat has been enabled through improved efficiency and technological innovation.

ï  Israel has achieved the highest ratio in the world of crop yield per water unit.

ï  Israel is home to the world's largest seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plants, annually producing 140-150 million m3 at the low cost of approximately $0.52 per m3 of water, the most cost-efficient of its kind in the world.

ï  Over 35% of Israel's drinking-quality water now comes from desalination. Meanwhile, desalinated water accounts for around 80% of total domestic water use in Israeli cities.

Israeli Water-Tech

Israeli Water- Tech is based on the belief that the Israeli water and renewable energy sectors have the talent and capability to be strong growth industries for the country, and to play a major part in establishing the “Next Generation Oasis” for the world’s rising needs.

This is a national program led by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, and is supported by a number of additional government agencies.

Israel Water-Tech helps to advance the water renewable energy sectors by supporting academia and research, encouraging implementation in the local market, and by helping Israeli companies succeed in the international arena.

Areas of Expertise

ï  Water resources management: first to adopt a comprehensive approach on a national scale; today it is one of the main sources of water agriculture in the country.

ï  Irrigation solutions: highest ratio of crop per water unit (Water for agriculture)

ï  Purification & reclamation: countless innovative breakthroughs

ï  Desalination: the most economical in the world

ï  Water treatment:  recycle , drinking, watering

ï  Water safety and security: applying years of experience in the field of security and defense to counter a new threat.

ï  Water IT and communications

For more ...... See Vega's April  Newsletter

March Newsletter - Big Data Analytics and Cyber-Security

Cyber security analytics is rapidly becoming a Big Data application for one simple reason, large organizations are collecting, processing and analyzing more and more data in order to effectively address the new cyber threat landscape.
Big Data Analytics and Cyber-Security is Vega’s topic of the month.
You can find our monthly technical review at page 3, and few examples of Israeli solutions for this topic at page 5.

A CHANGING THREAT LANDSCAPE

The cyber threat landscape has changed dramatically over the last 5 years. The new industrialization and internationalization of digital criminality combined with the limited legal responses available have enabled the dramatic growth and convergence of both simple and

sophisticated attacks.

It is now generally accepted, not only in the security profession but also in the Boardroom, that every organization will be attacked in one form or another on a regular basis. Some of those attacks will inevitably succeed. This is driving changes in the defensive stance of leading firms, where a greater emphasis is now being placed on identifying and limiting damage from successful attacks. Previously many firms had the stated goal of preventing all possible attacks.

As a direct result, effective and efficient security operations have become a key cyber defense capability within many leading organizations. Innovative and leading commercial organizations are now building increased security monitoring and security analytics capabilities to sit alongside effective threat intelligence and critical incident management capabilities. Their goal is to predict, to limit and to manage the inevitable attacks they will face.

INCREASED MONITORING LEADS TO BIG DATA

Cyber security analytics is rapidly becoming a Big Data application for one simple reason: large organizations are collecting, processing and analyzing more and more data in order to effectively address the new cyber threat landscape.

The promise of Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) technologies was to deliver advanced analytics capabilities. The reality is that SIEM products weren’t

designed for Big Data analytics and generally cannot meet the rapidly evolving needs that leading commercial organizations now demand.

SIEM does provide a good foundation for security monitoring in providing a near real-time signature or rules-based detection capability to look for known threats. SIEM is also great for compliance and reporting. However, SIEM does not scale to detect the unknown threats across all the available data. Data often has to be pre-filtered before being loaded in to a SIEM. This effectively presupposes where the risk lies. SIEM cannot do the advanced security analytics that are required today.

It is likely the SIEM platforms and the current range of Big Data cyber security analytics platforms will move towards convergence over the next five years. However, this is new ground for both groups of vendors and for now separate products remain necessary to achieve the full potential benefits of each.

BEHAVIORAL ANALYTICS FOR DETECTION

Behavioral analytics understand past human behavior, predict future behavior and identify anomalous behavior. Behavioral analytics have been used extensively in fraud detection and prevention because different individuals naturally display different behaviors and legitimate behaviour is practically always different from that exhibited by a fraudster.

Behavioral analytics takes advantage of this fact. Rather  than just looking for specific indicators, behavioral analytics combines knowledge with monitoring to determine if behavior is expected and legitimate, or suspicious.

Behavioral analytics is a Big Data challenge not only because of the volumes of data involved, but also because of the need to bring a wide variety of data sources and formats together to create a full picture. Cyber security analytics is increasingly adopting behavioral Analytics, from the fraud detection field, in order to address the reality that traditional security solutions have proven ineffective against the incredible variety and volume of digital criminality, such as cyber espionage, cyber crime, hacktivism and the insider threat. This emerging cyber and fraud threat detection convergence means that the benefits realized from behavioral analytics in combating both will increasingly drive even greater operational efficiencies and investment decisions.

Behavioral analytics are proving to be more robust, enduring and effective than traditional signature and rules based analytics. Figure 1  demonstrates the contrast between the two. In short, an organization using behavioral analytics will find anomalies that other point solutions and systems cannot.

A BIG DATA PLATFORM FOR INVESTIGATION

The operational cost of the technology and people required to effectively detect, triage and investigate security incidents is too high. Limits on data collection, non-interoperable tooling and subsequent data mining means that once suspicious indicators have been identified it can take weeks for a cyber-investigator to collect and analyze the data from across a large enterprise required to identify the appropriate response.

Big Data platforms can enable faster query times and a more seamless approach for security analysts retrieving and analyzing data across multiple sources and formats.

In most cases Big Data Cyber security solution will comprises of three core components:

• Platform - Massively scalable technology platform that correlates data acquired from across the IT infrastructure
• Analytics - Behavior-based threat detection using unique attack models 
• Investigator - Powerful threat intelligence management and investigation toolset providing visualizations, rich contextualization and correlation of threats, indicators, events and alerts.

SUMMARY

As a result of the rapidly changing and expanding cyber threat landscape many organizations have increased their security monitoring capabilities both in terms of volume and variety of data. As such Cyber Security analysis is now becoming a Big Data problem for both the detection and investigation of incidents.

For more ...... See Vega's March  Newsletter

February Newsletter - Identity Theft

In the course of a busy day, you may write a check at the grocery store, charge tickets to a ball game, rent a car, mail your tax returns, change service providers for your cell phone, or apply for a credit card. Chances are you don’t give these everyday transactions a second thought. But an identity thief does. Identity theft is a serious crime. People whose identities have been stolen can spend months or years – and thousands of dollars – cleaning up the mess the thieves have made.

Identity Theft is Vega’s topic of the month. You can find an executive summary of our monthly technical review at page 3, and few examples of players on the protection side at page 5.

A full article with much more information about the Identity theft threat and how to protect yourself is published at our Blog,

Identity Theft or Identity Fraud

In the course of a busy day, you may write a check at the grocery store, charge tickets to a ball game, rent a car, mail your tax returns, change service providers for your cell phone, or apply for a credit card. Chances are you don’t give these everyday transactions a second thought. But an identity thief does. Identity theft is a serious crime. People whose identities have been stolen can spend months or years – and thousands of dollars – cleaning up the mess the thieves have made of a good name and credit record. In the meantime, victims of identity theft may lose job opportunities, be refused loans for education, housing, or cars, and even get arrested for crimes they didn’t commit. Humiliation, anger, and frustration are among the feelings victims experience as they navigate the process of rescuing their identity.

What is Identity (ID) Theft?

Identity theft is a crime in which an imposter obtains key pieces of personal information, such as Social Security or driver's license numbers, in order to impersonate someone else. The information can be used to obtain credit, merchandise, and services in the name of the victim, or to provide the thief with false credentials. In addition to running up debt, an imposter might provide false identification to police, creating a criminal record or leaving outstanding arrest warrants for the person Identity theft is categorized in two ways: true name and account takeover.

True name identity theft means that the thief uses personal information to open new accounts. The thief might open a new credit card account, establish cellular phone service, or open a new checking account in order to obtain blank checks.

Account takeover identity theft means the imposter uses personal information to gain access to the person's existing accounts. Typically, the thief will change the mailing address on an account and run up a huge bill before the person whose identity has been stolen realizes there is a problem.

Identity theft occurs when an unauthorized party uses your personally identifying information, such as your name, address, Social Security Number (SSN), or credit card or bank account information to assume your identity in order to commit fraud or other criminal acts.

How does identity theft occur?

Identity thieves can steal your personal information directly or indirectly by:

ï  Stealing your wallets and purses containing identification cards, credit cards and bank information.

ï  Stealing your mail including credit and bank statements, phone or utility bills, new checks, and tax information.

ï  Completing a “change of address form” to redirect the destination of your mail.

ï  Rummaging through your trash for discarded personal data in a practice known as “dumpster diving.”

ï  Taking personal information that you share or post on the Internet.

What can ID thieves do with your information?

Call your creditors and change your mailing address on your credit card account.

ï  Open new lines of credit using your personal identification information.

ï  Establish new services using your name which are charged to you.

ï  Open bank accounts in your name and write bad checks.

ï  Forge checks to wipe out your bank account.

ï  Apply for auto loans taken out in your name.

ï  Commit other crimes and then give your name, instead of their own, to the police during their arrest.

What you can you do to prevent ID theft?

Identity theft is on the rise. While there are no guarantees that your identity will not be stolen there are steps you can take to minimize your risk.

ï  Use passwords on all your credit card, bank, and phone accounts.

ï  Never keep passwords, “PINs” or your SSN card in your wallet or purse.

ï  Learn about security procedures in your workplace.

ï  Never give out personal information on the phone, through mail, or over the internet unless you know the receiver and have initiated the contact.

ï  Guard your mail and trash from theft.

ï  Shred or destroy discarded financial statements in your trash.

ï  Give your SSN only when absolutely necessary.

ï  Keep your purse or wallet in a safe place at work.

How can you protect your personal computer from ID theft?

SSNs, financial records, tax information, birth dates, and account numbers may be stored on your personal computer. Follow these tips to help keep your personal information safe.

ï  Update your virus protection software regularly, especially when a new virus alert is brought to your attention.

ï  Do not download files from strangers or click hyperlinks from people you don’t know. This could expose your system to a virus.

ï  Use a firewall program. This will stop uninvited guests from accessing your computer.

ï  Use a secure browser to guard the security of your online transactions.

What do you do if you are a victim?

ï  Contact the fraud departments of each of the major credit bureaus.

ï  Close the accounts that you know or believe have been tampered with or opened fraudulently.

ï  File a police report with your local police and/or the police in the community where the identity theft took place.

At the end, it is our duty to understand the threat and take all the actions needed to protect our identity. To learn much more details about this threat you can refer to the technical review: “Identity Theft - What, How, Protect, Take Care”, at Vega’s Blog.

For more ...... See Vega's February  Newsletter