Recently, virtualization giant VMware scrambled to release security patches for an ESX server hypervisor source code leak that was published in April and allegedly perpetrated by a hacker from the global collective Anonymous. The recent patch repaired critical vulnerabilities that could have enabled an attacker to execute malicious code remotely on the host and leave an end-user’s virtualized environment susceptible to a compromising cyber attack.

Among other things, the incident called into question the security of virtualized data and for some, how the eventual migration to virtualized network infrastructure would ultimately impact an organization’s security standing.

No doubt, the transportable nature of a virtual environment generally adds another layer of complexity in the overall security of the network that can often leave security holes if organizations aren’t aware of the location of their data or what it takes to secure it.

But whether virtual data is more or less secure largely depends on the caliber of organization’s security posture, experts say. And opinions on how to secure a virtual environment are as numerous and diverse as organizations that house it.

“There’s no single one answer. You need to assess what that environment is, what they’re trying to do and put the proper pieces in place,” Jason Bandouveres, Fortinet senior product specialist.

And no doubt, the security of the virtual system will largely depend on the nature of the organization as well as the type of virtual data and infrastructure needing to be secured. But regardless of how complex or unique the organization’s infrastructure needs, there are some basic security requirements that are necessary throughout all virtual environments, Bandouveres says.

First, Bandouveres contends that despite the fact that organizations will progressively virtualize more and more of their infrastructure, they will still need to adopt some kind of hybrid environment and create some kind of a balance with both physical and virtual security mechanisms to adequately secure their data.

The reason? Ultimately, whether secured via a physical or virtual system, data stored via the virtual environment needs to be protected.

Talking to the Gartner’s of the world, we’re seeing a definite need for both physical and virtual assets to secure both of these,” Bandouveres says. “You have to secure that environment in and of itself. Physical security is at the core of the network. You need to secure the perimeter of that virtual environment, whether private or public cloud, you still need to protect those physical assets and physical links.”

Physical security systems are usually necessary due to the fact that the virtual environment is running on physical devices, Bandouveres says. “Your virtual environment is running on some type of hardware, there are physical servers, there’s physical storage, network, etc… Security devices are definitely necessary to protect the perimeter of these environments.”

Also, in a multi-tenant or multi-client environment, the providers need to configure segregated security zones just as they would in physical environments. At this point, they will be required to invest in security virtual appliances to secure these zones from each other so that traffic won’t be required to route out of the virtual environment through physical security appliances and routed back into the virtual environment to employ a proper security zone, he added.

For example, Company A could be hosting Web servers and application servers on the same physical assets as Company B within a publicly available cloud.

“The beauty of these virtual machines is that they could be running anywhere in that cloud, but the cloud provider needs to segregate one tenant from another tenant to make sure there’s no leak over,” Bandouveres says, adding, for example, as there could be with Web servers that house and protect certain kinds of credit card information from the various clients. That segregated traffic then needs to be rerouted right back into the virtual environment, he adds.

“There are certain compliance regulations that need to be met, so there’re no potential security issues. You need to make sure to have a rock solid security policy and segregate those aspects in a virtual environment, as well,” Bandouveres says. “You could have assets that shouldn’t be talking to or sitting near other data on the physical servers. You need to secure inter VM traffic and different workloads on the same physical host. You don’t generally have that issue in a physical environment.”

In addition, it’s essential to have a central management system that can monitor both their physical and virtual security environments via a single pane of glass in order to avoid efficiency bottlenecks and productivity gaffes created by complicated multi-management servers, Bandouveres says.

Finally, as with physical data, virtual data is often most vulnerable when it’s lost or unaccounted for. However, unlike physical systems, the mobile nature of virtual systems enables workloads to be transported easily from one host or server to another.  As such, organizations increasingly are required to have security policies that reflect that development, Bandouveres says.

“It’s not something you see in the physical world. That server is never going to move,” he says. “In a virtualized environment, they’ve got full load balancing set up. You could see that workload move, and you need to be able to secure that.”

by Peerapong Jongvibool, Thailand Country Manager, Fortinet International Inc.

Bangkok – Colliers International Thailand, a real estate agent providing full-ranges of service, completely sold off ‘The Capital Ekamai-Thonglor’ within a month after its official launch on February 27, 2012.

Colliers International Thailand was appointed to be the sole agent by KPN Group Corporation for the sales of ‘The Capital Ekamai-Thonglor’, a high-end condominium at the beginning of 2012, and with its excellent quality, prime location and great value, the project has generated an enthusiastic response.

“Since Colliers has been appointed by KPN Group Corporation to be responsible for the sales and marketing of ‘The Capital Ekamai-Thonglor’, our emphasis has been on proactive marketing activities to reached target customers through both online and offline media.” said Mr. Monchai Orawongpaisan, Senior Manager of Project Sales & Marketing.

‘The Capital Ekamai-Thonglor’ is located on Petchaburi Road, a highly competitive location as various projects located along the road has been launched during the past few years. The average price was 97,000 baht per sq.m. at the launch which is considered exceptionally high for this area. “The major factors contributing to ‘The Capital Ekamai-Thonglor’ great success are the reputation and creditability of the developer, project layout and design and quality construction materials making this project a great value for money, as well as full range facilities. Also selecting Ms. Chermarn Boonyasak or Ploy, a superstar, added a healthy buzz. Moreover, marketing strategies and activities and professional and experiences sales team from Colliers.” said Mr. Monchai.

Thailand number 6 on “Pain at the pump” list BANGKOK, 16 May 2012 (NNT) – With the unproportional relation between fuel price and average daily income, Thailand has been ranked as the sixth country in the world where people are suffering from “pain at the pump”.

Leading business and financial news provider Bloomberg has recently released a list ranking 55 countries by their average fuel price and by “pain at the pump,” which is measured by the percentage of average daily income needed to buy a gallon of fuel.

Norwegians pay the highest amount of money for fuel, at 9.69 dollars/gallon, followed by Denmark (9.37 dollars/gallon), Italy (9.35 dollars/gallon), Netherlands (9.35 dollars/gallon) and Greece (9.23 dollars/gallon). However, the countries which tops the fuel price list are not those suffering most from the soaring rate given the high income per capita.

The number one country on Bloomberg’s “pain at the pump” list is India, where the fuel price is deemed slightly high at 6.06 dollars/gallon in comparison with the average daily income of only 4.50 dollars. The low income combined with the pricey fuel has resulted in the country’s energy poverty and the people’s limited access to electricity and clean energy.

Meanwhile, Thailand ranks sixth on the “pain at the pump” list, with fuel priced at 4.96 dollars/gallon in relation to an average daily income of 16 dollars.

Bangkok (11 May 2012) Thai Outdoor Sport Co. Ltd., official distributor of The North Face® products in Thailand, led by Khun Achana Rattana, General Manager (4^th from left) and Khun Tanapong Lamsam, Event Manager of The North Face® 100 Thailand (1^st from left) sponsored Thai 100km champions Mr. Solchai Choosakul (2^nd from left) and Ms. Poonsup Thammapiti, First Thai Female winner (3^rd from left) of The inaugural The North Face 100® Thailand what  held in Amphawa, Samutsongkram at the beginning of the year, to represent Thailand in The North Face 100® Grand Finale in Beijing – China which is to be held 12^th May 2012 what with competitors as 8,600 turned out to compete.

The North Face 100® is a series of trail running challenges in seven Asia-Pacific countries: China, Taiwan, Australia, Philippines, Japan, Singapore, and Thailand – the biggest running series in Asia Pacific.
Media Contact

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TISCO Bank recently launched new campaign “Member Get Member”, a referral program for its existing customers who refer new prospects to apply for its loan against auto license “TISCO Auto Cash” which offers low interest rate and doesn’t require car ownership transfer. Customers can receive up to 1,000 baht of fuel card or gift voucher when the loan application is approved. The campaign is from now on until  October 31, 2012, For more information, please contact  TISCO Bank branches nationwide or go website www.tiscoautoCASH.com

Al-Khobar | Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Saudi Aramco Endowed Chair of Technology and Information Management at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University’s College of Computer Engineering and Science recently organized one-day seminar on “Advances in Cloud Computing and Business Security.”

Delivering a keynote address, Professor T.R. Gopalakrishnan Nair said: “Cloud is the ideal case to make computing capability a universal utility. Very soon big desktops would vanish with the arrival of intelligent devices supporting high capacity computing available from cloud.”

More than 70 participants comprising of industry experts from Microsoft, VMware, EMC and Saudi Aramco and professors from PMU, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) and other universities attended the deliberations.

The newly-formed Center of Excellence at the university took the initiative to find solutions to problems that the industry is concerned about. The seminar focused on application paradigms that organizations have already started exploring for being successful in the competitive markets.

The practical issues related to user management, utility, payment method and business factors were key points that participants focused on. The speakers brought into limelight the technology of accessing different levels of computing power from anywhere and its incessant functionalities.

Participating researchers and industry leaders raised key question “Can there be a few terra flops computation possible from the Tablets. Is it possible to run corporations without computing power in the present scenario? It is found that the best computing capabilities and applications based on demand is an ardent need for everybody.

Although cloud computing is still considered in its infancy, its global presence make it the future of information technology. It offers multiple services from infrastructure to application, hardware and storage services. Consistent improvements are going on with the exploration of newer designs and approaches.

This seminar focused to integrate and analyze on-demand computing besides reviewing the developments and usages with respect to security. Mr. Othman Al-Kharaz from Saudi Aramco said “future of cloud computing among Saudi Industries is very prospective as people are ready to move to better business models.”

Mr. Nizar Abdul-Baki from Microsoft spoke on causal relation between Microsoft and Private & Public Cloud. Mr. Ahmad Muammar from EMC explained “technologies for cloud and virtualisation. He made presentations on federation capabilities to be achieved and collaborative scenes of companies to bring up better cloud management and architecture systems.”

Mr. Hamad Al-Enezy from Saudi Aramco explained “deep technological challenges of server virtualizations.” Discussion about “securing cloud from different hacking attacks were brought into fore by Dr. Mohammed Houssaini Sqalli from KFUPM. Other notable speakers included Mr. Saud M. Mansor and Dr. Zubairi A. Baig from Saudi Aramco and KFUPM respectively.

PMU’s Centre of Excellence in Technology and Information Management promotes cutting edge research in technology. It anticipates emerging as a best Research Centre suitable to industrial base in the region. It has started carrying out multidisciplinary development programs.

The seminar reflected rich dynamism of Saudi Arabia in inheriting Information technology tools and pursuing novel paths especially cloud computing whose potentialities are unbound.

Recently at KASIKORNBANK’s Head Office, Rat Burana, Mr. Somkiat Sirichatchai, second from right, Senior Executive Vice President of KASIKORNBANK, and Asia Green Development Bank Vice Chairman U Zaw Mynn, second from left, signed an agreement of funds transfer service to Myanmar via KBank counter and K-ATMs to ensure Myanmar workers of safe one-day remittance. U Mynn Tint, Minister Counselor, Myanmar Embassy in Thailand and Mrs. Chantavarn Sucharitakul, Senior Director for International Department, Bank of Thailand, also joined the signing ceremony.

At KASIKORNBANK’s Phahon Yothin Main Branch, Mr. Pakorn Partanapat, Executive Vice President of KASIKORNBANK, recently launched credit card campaigns for 2012 under the “Your Daily Happiness” concept to boost card spending to 205 billion Baht and maintain the Bank’s top position in the market. The first campaign of “Thank Card It’s Friday” offers a 1,000 Baht gift voucher for the first 1,000 customers who each make 1,000 Baht in purchases every Friday, for the entire year, at Central Chidlom, Paragon and Robinson Rama IX. The “Dine, Travel and Shop 1 Get 1 Free” campaign will also continue for the rest of 2012.

Executive List

1. Mr. Pakorn Partanapat (fourth from left), Executive Vice President of KASIKORNBANK
2. Mr. Chatchai Payuhanaveechai (third from left), Executive Vice President of KASIKORNBANK
3. Ms. Chutinunta  Agukrikul (second from left), Marketing Director of CENTRAL DEPARTMENT STORE
4. Mrs. Natsamon Vongkittipat (third from right), Group General Manager Marketing Group of PARAGON DEPARTMENT STORE
5. Ms. Sirinij Chokchairittikul (second from right), Vice President Marketing Line of ROBINSON DEPARTMENT STORE

The Index, which increases when speculative-grade liquidity appears to decrease, is near its highest level since October 2010. However, it remains well below the high of 37% recorded in 4Q2008 during the financial crisis.

In absolute terms, 15 of the 98 issuers in the speculative-grade portfolio demonstrated weak liquidity as at end April compared with 15 of 97 issuers in March.

The details are outlined in a report entitled “Moody’s Asia Liquidity Stress Index.”

“In April, the liquidity sub-index for Chinese speculative-grade companies stood at 15.6%, down from the high of 18.6% in March. While there was some improvement for the liquidity of Chinese property companies, it remains of note that almost one in four of such companies have weak liquidity,” says Laura Acres, a Moody’s Vice President and Senior Credit Officer.

As of end-April 2012, the 12-month trailing default rate for speculative-grade names was 2.63%, which compares to no defaults in 2011.

The correlation between weak liquidity and default remains high. Some 93.3% of Asia-Pacific companies with the lowest SGL score (SGL-4) are rated B1 and below, compared with 86.6% in March.

In April, the downgrade to upgrade ratio moderated with just one downgrade compared to one upgrade after three clear quarters of downgrades exceeding upgrades.

There were also four negative outlook changes and one rating was put on review for downgrade.

“As such a strong negative bias remains with almost 40% of the speculative-grade portfolio having a negative outlook or being on review for downgrade,” adds Acres.

During Q1 2012 in Asia, concerns about euro area sovereign debt and a more general economic slowdown seemed to ease as markets reopened and investors showed appetite for Asian risk. However, more recently, a level of caution has prevailed and there remain several deals in the market yet to complete.

Moody’s still expects a moderate erosion of liquidity this year, as a tight credit supply in China flows through to the wider corporate space.