VARINDIA IT MAGAZINE

WhatsApp is an extremely popular mobile messaging service with more than 1 billion daily users. It is really an amazing figure, and the company prides itself in the apparent security it affords all of those users. Some of your most personal moments are shared with WhatsApp, which is why WhatsApp had built end-to-end encryption into the latest versions of the app. When end-to-end encrypted, your messages, photos, videos, voice messages, documents, and calls are secured from falling into the wrong hands. Now, the tech giants and researchers are questioning on the Encryption standard, as there are multi-million user’s database are there, is the WhatsApp server is using the ultimate solution whose popularity is increasing day by day, a million dollar question arises on end-to-end encryption. Not to forget WhatsApp has implemented Moxie Marlinspike’s code , which he wrote for Signal. Ideally, WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you're com...

As per news source, WhatsApp’s Vice President, Neeraj Arora has stepped down from the Board of Paytm. He was a member of the board of directors since 2015. The development comes hours after Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma had tweeted an attack on WhatsApp, accusing it of “killing beautiful open UPI system with its custom close garden implementation.” Vijay Shekhar Sharma criticized WhatsApp’s payments product and also claimed that it did not follow the UPI guidelines. In an article shared by him, it said that WhatsApp did not sufficiently allow for interoperatibility on its payment solution. Also, WhatsApp iOS app didn’t have the option to send payments to people outside WhatsApp, the option was hard to find on its Android app. He also compared WhatsApp’s UPI approach with Facebook strategy which the latter used while trying to launch Free Basics in India.... Read More

Paytm’s Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma has kicked up a storm by having accused WhatsApp that has recently begun testing its payment service in the country of an unfair playing field. Paytm is said to be petitioning for redressal to the country’s unified digital payment system (UPI). Sharma said he will approach the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which has developed the UPI system, and even higher authorities to highlight the issue that WhatsApp trial service does not require a log-in session and Aadhaar-based payments. Owned by Facebook, WhatsApp boasts a monthly user base of 200 million in India and its entry into the country’s digital payment space is seen as a threat to the likes of Paytm. Sharma told a publication that ‘Facebook is openly colonizing the country’s payment system and is customizing UPI to their benefit. “UPI was built as an India Stack, now some American monopoly arm-twists UPI for customer implementation,” he said.... Read More

Ruckus Networks, an ARRIS company, has announced that it has signed a global original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement with Dell EMC to deliver Ruckus’s broad portfolio of wireless solutions, including access points (APs), controllers, virtualized and data analytics assets, and Cloudpath secure network access software—along with Ruckus IoT and OpenG LTE products—as Dell-branded solutions. This agreement gives Dell EMC’s networking sales team and end-user customers access to Ruckus’ portfolio of secure wireless connectivity solutions and strong brand presence not available through alternative suppliers. The agreement is effective immediately and encompasses a range of sales, marketing, and customer support programs in international markets, including APAC, EMEA and the Americas. “Delivering innovative wireless networking solutions to our partners is the key to address the insatiable demand for high-performance wireless networking in the enterprise. The Dell EMC brand ...

Punjab National Bank (PNB) said on Wednesday that it had detected some “fraudulent and unauthorized” transactions worth about $1.77 billion (about Rs 11, 300 crore) at one of its branches in Mumbai. In a communique to the Bombay Stock Exchange, the bank said the transactions were “for the benefit of a few select account holders with their apparent connivance” and that “based on these transactions other banks appear to have advanced money to these customers abroad.” PNB, a state run public sector bank and country’s second-biggest state-run lender and fourth-biggest overall by assets, did not name the people involved but said it had reported the deals to law enforcement agencies and would evaluate later whether it faces any liability arising out of the transactions. “In the bank these transactions are contingent in nature and liability arising out of these on the bank shall be decided based on the law and genuineness of underlying transactions,” PNB said, without gi...

Xiaomi has announced the launch of three new products – Redmi Note 5, Redmi Note 5 Pro and Xiaomi Mi TV.  According to the company, these latest additions to Redmi Note series will exceed expectations in terms of design, camera and performance.  In a significant move for Xiaomi globally, Mi TV is making its way outside of China for the first time ever. Mi LED Smart TV 4 138.8cm (55”) is the world’s thinnest LED TV at just 4.9mm slim, and comes with an intelligent content – first PatchWall software completely redesigned from the ground up for India. Starting from Rs.39,999, Mi LED TV 4 is set to completely transform the TV industry in India.  Commenting on the launch, Manu Jain, Vice-President, Xiaomi and Managing Director, Xiaomi India, said, “At Xiaomi, we work with the value of providing best specs, highest quality at honest pricing for all. All our products are perfect examples of our values and we have worked hard to outperform each time. We are excite...

One of the major projects of Modi Government, the bullet train project in India appears to move ahead with speed. As the civil work on the 508-km-long Mumbai-Ahmadabad high-speed rail corridor (MAHSR) has been fast-tracked to begin in June this year and the railway authorities have also reduced the deadline to August 15, 2022, from 2023. An official of the implementing body, National High-Speed Rail Corporation Ltd (NHSRCL), said, “Geo-technical surveys have already been done and civil works will begin in June 2018 after receiving the green signal for the entire corridor.” Tests have also been carried out beneath the seabed for the underground section of the project, which extends from Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) to Boisar. Of the 21km underground, almost 7km will be beneath the sea.... Read More

Dell EMC has announced three new servers designed for software-defined, edge and high-performance computing (HPC) environments. The PowerEdge R6415, PowerEdge R7415 and PowerEdge R7425 expand the 14th generation of the Dell EMC PowerEdge server portfolio with new capabilities to address the demanding workload requirements of today’s modern data center. All three rack servers with the AMD EPYC processor offer highly scalable platforms with outstanding total cost of ownership (TCO). “Relentless pace of innovation in today’s time has increased business workload requirements. As Indian customers deploy more IoT solutions, it is essential for Indian businesses to have access to highly capable and flexible compute to turn data into real-time insights. Servers form the bedrock of the modern data center. Hence, our customers expect us to push server innovation further and faster. 14G PowerEdge servers packed with AMD EPYC processer are engineered to meet these increased workload dema...

It is a fact that, new technologies in the Information age will bring newer challenges and risk at the same time. There is a potential risk in adopting newly emerged technologies. For instance, Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds tremendous potential to automate daily risk activities, and rationalize costs. Blockchain technology will enable companies to manage and share GRC information faster than ever, whether it is around vendor risk assessments or continuous auditing. Robotics is all about automation, increasing efficiency and providing intelligence that cannot be seen with the human eye. The cloud, in turn, is enabling the seamless flow of data and Information assets include personal information. Security is one of the main enablers of data protection. It is an absolute fact that about millions of PCs are being used for stealth of cryptocurrency mining. It is advisable to block cryptocurrency mining in your browser. The threat landscape is constantly evolving and the big...

Storing data and applications remotely rather than on one’s own premises can cut IT costs dramatically and speed up operations. Business leaders are looking to optimise and grow their businesses, and cloud can give them the scope of reducing costs and providing better customer experience. Smart businesses are asking what’s driving the rush to the cloud by keeping customized applications in the cloud. India is emerging as the battleground for global e-commerce Internet conglomerates. While Amazon’s boss Jeff Bezos had committed over $5 billion for its Indian arm, biggies like Alibaba, Tencent and SoftBank are excited about their Indian story. Large Internet groups from the US and China are thereby competing for taking a bigger share of the market. Despite the rise of public cloud platforms offered by the likes of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, it is a fact that only 10% (or may be less) of the world's data is currently stored in the cloud.... ...

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has slapped a fine of Rs 136 crore on search engine biggie Google for unfair business practices in the Indian market for online search. Reacting on the complaints that were filed back in 2012, the regulator said the penalty is being imposed on Google for "infringing anti-trust conduct". Incidentally, this is one of the rare cases where Google has been penalized for unfair business ways globally. It was alleged that taking advantage of its dominant position in search engine, Google is indulging in such practices leading to search bias and search manipulation, among others. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said that it found it appropriate to impose a fine on Google after it has given thoughtful consideration on the submissions made by the search engine major on issue of penalty.... Read More

Every organisation relies on the use of information in their daily work. For this reason, organisations need to ensure that their information assets i.e. any piece of data which has value to the organisation such as employee record, analysis reports, financial data, trade secrets, contracts, etc., are suitably protected. This has given rise to the concerns around privacy and personal data protection. Data security of the information will take the center-stage in 2018. Privacy and personal data protection will be the focus in 2018 for every organization. Organizations will refocus on protecting what is really important. Information Security is a difficult task as most organisations are faced with an ever changing landscape affecting their operations - market development, advances in technology, discovery of new vulnerabilities, changing legal regime and so on. Gartner forecasts worldwide security spending will total USD 96.3 billion, that’s an 8 percent spike from 2017. ...

Both consumer and business applications are contributing to the growing dominance of cloud services over the Internet. For consumers, streaming video, social networking, and Internet search are among the most popular cloud applications. For business users, enterprise resource planning (ERP), collaboration, analytics, and other digital enterprise applications represent leading growth areas. But anything we do, security remains to be the biggest concerns. Improvements in datacenter governance and data control have helped to minimize enterprise risk and better protect consumer information. The growth of Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as smart cars, smart cities, connected health and digital utilities require scalable computing and storage solutions to accommodate new and expanding datacenter demands. By 2021, experts say IoT connections will reach 13.7 billion, up from 5.8 billion in 2016. Datacenter application growth is clearly exploding in this new multi-clo...

In today’s fast-paced world, it becomes extremely difficult to find time and make a lot of friends. Well, here’s someone who has made over half-a-million friends and had over 40 million conversations in just one year. It is none other than Ruuh, Microsoft’s AI-powered, desi chatbot, who has turned one year old. Ruuh has a persona of a 21-year-old female who is intelligent and is capable of empathizing with her audience. Entertaining the youth with discussions on Bollywood, music, humour and travel, the past year has seen Ruuh’s popularity grow exponentially. It’s no wonder she gets almost 600 “I love you” messages every day and spends several hours chatting with her friends, with the current record standing at 10 hours.. Read More

Facial recognition solutions are expected to come to a wide range of handsets in 2018 following Apple’s FaceID and Samsung Galaxy Note 8’s Face and IRIS unlock technology. More than one billion smartphones are expected to feature some form of face unlock solution in 2020. When Apple announced Touch ID in 2013, it set a trend in consumer mobility. Smartphone OEMs around the world followed Apple’s example and integrated fingerprint sensors into their own devices. And they did so to such an extent that fingerprint-based security is now considered standard issue on even budget-priced smartphones. More than a billion smartphones are estimated to be shipping in 2018 sporting fingerprint sensors. Is Apple permanently ditching Touch ID for contactless authentication? Either way, inevitably, Apple’s rivals will adopt similar technology during 2018, which could lead to facial recognition becoming the de-facto standard for unlocking phones and the gradual elimination of fingerprint...

“A draft National Telecom Policy 2018 that is liberal and non-prescriptive in its licensing approach in Machine to Machine (M2M) communication is being given final touches. The policy should be in the public domain in the next two to three weeks for discussion and responses from stakeholders,” said Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Department of Telecom, Ministry of Communications. Aruna Sundararajan said, “M2M is the next big opportunity for India in terms of its impact and the quantum change that it will bring about in the quality of services and delivery. The favourable impact of M2M on job creation had already set in as seen by the arrival of the first set of start-ups in the areas such as agriculture, smart cities, healthcare and water management.” She stressed that NTP 2018 would be transformative in harnessing the full benefits of M2M communications. She further said that in the M2M framework the focus would be on low-cost manufacturing, where exciting innovatio...

With the advent of the 2018 Winter Games, McAfee forewarns global fans, consumers, athletes and organizations alike of impending Winter Games-themed phishing attacks. Through these attacks, cybercriminals are most likely seeking passwords and financial information, using a number of techniques to entice victims into opening weaponized documents. Tactics include email distributed from “spoofed” corporate-branded email addresses, emails written in native languages, and the addition of attached documents marked as “protected”. McAfee has recently uncovered Operation GoldDragon, a malware attack targeting organizations affiliated with the 2018 Winter Games. Further investigation by McAfee Advanced Threat Research analysts has uncovered the consequences for victims of malware implant GoldDragon include attackers’ accessing end-user systems and collecting data stored on the device and connected cloud accounts. Potential risks include attacker’s access to customer and employee finan...

Dimension Data has extended the company’s protection from ransomware, phishing attacks, bot networks, and all types of malicious software, with Cisco Umbrella, the Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) in the cloud. The decision to incorporate Cisco Umbrella follows the company’s firsthand experience protecting its own 28,000 employees and addresses its clients’ requirement to support an increasingly mobile workforce.  Cisco Umbrella is a cloud security platform that provides the first line of defense against threats on the internet.  “In today’s expanding threat landscape, it is critical to have powerful security tools that effectively support mobility and cloud. With Cisco Umbrella, we are able to proactively stop threats on any mobile device before they happen with a secure solution that is easily integrated with existing infrastructure,” said Chris Panzeca, Senior Director, Global Strategic Partner Sales, .... Read More

Telefónica and Huawei have achieved a new milestone with the Proof-of-Concept (PoC) testbed for 5G-based vehicle communication networks (known as 5G-V2X) in their 5G Joint Innovation Lab at Madrid. This is another solid step to promote 5G commercialization and expand the 5G ecosystem after both companies completed 5G UCNC trial in 2017. 5G-V2X is widely recognized as the first and most important vertical industry which will be enabled by 5G innovations. The test for 5G-V2X technology is based on the latest 3GPP New Radio (NR) Standard specification available since December 22, 2017. Some of the most advanced 5G-V2X services include vehicles platooning, extended sensors, advanced driving and remote driving, among others.... Read More

Google India has launched a public initiative "#SecurityCheckKiya" to protect young and first-time web users from account hijacking, safeguard Android devices from malicious apps and secure all their personal data if they lose their device. The company said that, with a large base of unsuspecting first-time Internet users now coming online through easy access modes but lacking technical literacy, Indian users are increasingly vulnerable to bad actors and abuse on the web. "Just like in the physical world, users in India should take precautions while engaging with the online world. While security is built into all of Google services, keeping the web safe for everyone is a shared responsibility," said Sunita Mohanty, Director, Trust and Safety.... Read More