The more than 500 houses that were handed over by Cisco in N. Malkapur and Khataknur villages of Raichur have been constructed as per the government guidelines and specifications, and the model design is based on the feedback received from the village residents.

As part of the Memorandum of Understanding also signed earlier today, remote specialist healthcare services were launched in Gillesugur village, where Cisco is using the network as a platform to help bring remote healthcare and education services to these flood affected villages. The initial pilot services are now operational and have accelerated access to affordable, high-quality health care by connecting patients in Raichur remotely with medical providers in cities in a convenient and efficient way. The next phase is to make these services scalable, replicable and sustainable.

Project Samudaya is an initiative by Cisco to rehabilitate communities in flood affected areas of Karnataka. It is a public-private partnership program to create a sustainable society and uses the power of network to help provide access to urban amenities such as quality healthcare and education to rural areas. It aims to construct 3570 houses, two schools, and one primary health care center in the five flood-hit villages and is on course to complete this within the stipulated two year time frame.

During October 2009 as part of its commitment to corporate social responsibility, Cisco announced a donation of US $10 million commitment comprising cash, services, solutions and equipment over two years to support rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in the Raichur district of Karnataka. Through the use of public-private partnerships towards helping build sustainable communities, Cisco committed to reconstruct five villages in the flood affected Raichur district: N. Malkapur, Khataknur, Talmari, Bichali and Chikkamanchal. The handing over of more than 500 houses marks the completion of the first phase of this project.

Cisco collaborates with government agencies and NGO leaders to develop 21st century sustainable education and health care models, enabled by collaborative networked information technology and communications. Cisco believes in the power of the network to establish connections between communities to facilitate more effective delivery of services to citizens, and provide a platform for economic regeneration.

Cisco very actively respond to most humanitarian disasters and in the past has participated in relief activities that include supporting the victims of the earthquake in Sichuan, China in 2008, those affected by Hurricane Katrina in the United States in 2005 and the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004.
Executive quotes

* “I am pleased with our partnership with Cisco towards rehabilitation efforts in the flood-hit regions of Karnataka. With the handing-over of more than 500 houses in Raichur which is the most significant milestone so far from the corporate sector, I would like to thank Cisco for the successful completion of the first phase of their partnership with the state government in our Asare program. Our collaborative effort and such public-private partnerships will help us realize our vision of rebuilding the lives of the flood victims and providing them a safer sustainable community “said Shri B. S Yeddyurappa, chief minister of Karnataka.

* “We are encouraged by the Government of Karnataka’s shared vision to rehabilitate and build sustainable communities in the flood-affected areas of Raichur. Our vision is to improve the quality of life in these communities by using technology to provide access to affordable healthcare and education services. Cisco stays committed in its efforts to support the rehabilitation of the flood affected areas of Raichur and help build a 21st century sustainable and stronger community” said Wim Elfrink, chief globalisation officer and executive vice president, Cisco Services.

* As the leader for Project Samudaya, Aravind Sitaraman, vice president and managing director, Cisco Development Organisation, India said, “Cisco would like to thank its partners for their contribution towards the successful completion of phase one of Project Samudaya. This project is a great example of how employee volunteerism, technology and public-private partnerships have all come together to help rehabilitate and rebuild a sustainable community. We envision this project to be a scalable and replicable model towards providing access to essential urban services to rural areas through networking technologies.”

About Cisco Systems

Cisco is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

In his new role, Heel will lead the company’s Global Services business, a division with approximately 8,000 employees. Formant will apply his extensive Avaya experience in providing business communications solutions to government agencies and be responsible for setting strategy and direction of Avaya’s federal, state and local government initiatives.

The shift will allow Joel Hackney, who had been previously leading the government division, to focus on his dual role as Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing and President, Field Operations.

“With the acquisition of Nortel Enterprise Solutions, Avaya has dramatically enhanced our capabilities in several key areas, including channel reach and the government markets in the US,” Kennedy said. “The communications capabilities of our Government Solutions customers are critically important, both in the U.S. and around the globe. By putting Chris Formant, one of our strongest executives, in the senior leadership role of an expanded global government business unit, we are affirming our commitment to our government customers.”

“Our services business is equally important, and we believe that Joe’s extensive enterprise sales and services experience as well as his proven ability to deliver business results will add significant value to Avaya and our customers,” Kennedy added. “These appointments underscore our confidence in the substantial growth potential of both products and services opportunities of this market.”

Heel joins Avaya from Sun Microsystems, where he was Senior Vice President, Global Services, responsible for Sun’s multi-billion, 8400-person Global Services business. During his five-year tenure at Sun, Heel also served as SVP, Global Storage Practice and SVP of Industries, Partners. In this capacity, Heel built a significant track record of success leading global organizations through significant transformation, including building and integrating partner networks. Prior to joining Sun Microsystems, Heel was a partner with McKinsey & Co. in the U.S. and Germany where he served primarily technology companies.

Since his appointment in 2008, Formant has guided the Avaya Global Services team through significant business and organizational challenges to create a truly global organization. Under his leadership, Avaya Global Services’ operational efficiency and bottom line performance improved considerably. Chris drove continuous improvement in customer satisfaction, culminating in the Avaya Global Services organization earning the prestigious J.D. Power & Associates certification for two consecutive years as well as numerous awards from the Technology Services Industry Association.

About Avaya
Avaya is a global leader in enterprise communications systems. The company provides unified communications, contact centers, data solutions, and related services directly and through its channel partners to leading businesses and organizations around the world. Enterprises of all sizes depend on Avaya for state-of-the-art communications that improve efficiency, collaboration, customer service and competitiveness. For more information, please visit www.avaya.com.

The contract is part of UkrHydroEnergo’s Hydropower Rehabilitation Project to upgrade and modernize the series of eight plants that were built between 1939 and 1975 and make up the Dnieper River energy cascade, plus the Dnestrovskaya hydroelectric power plant that was built in 1983 on the Dniester River watershed. Funding is being provided by a loan from the World Bank to the government of Ukraine.

With a total capacity of 4639 megawatts, the nine plants currently provide over 90 percent of Ukraine’s hydroelectric generating capacity. Emerson’s automation technology will help UkrHydroEnergo improve process control and enhance information access for these plants.

“We selected Emerson as the project’s Main Automation Contractor of SCADA systems for UkrHydroEnergo’s hydroelectric power plants because Emerson provides advanced technologies along with the best competitive value,”said Semen I. Potashnyk, Chairman of the Board, UkrHydroEnergo. “It’s also important that Emerson has great industry expertise and experience providing similar solutions for other hydroelectric projects.”

“This is another joint project with UkrHydroEnergo where our OvationTM expert system will be used,” said Steve Sonnenberg, president of Emerson Process Management. “We are delighted that they have also chosen us for this major modernization program.”

Each of the nine UkrHydroEnergo hydroelectric plants will be monitored and controlled by an Ovation system, while Ovation supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) technology will integrate and communicate information from all 100 turbine generators so operators can transfer important data between generating sites and UkrHydroEnergo and national dispatch centers. Other Emerson technologies for this project include Rosemount® measurement instrumentation, CSI vibration monitoring systems, and AMS Suite predictive maintenance software.

Additionally, Emerson will provide automation design, supply, installation, and related services through its local project team in Ukraine; its hydroelectric power automation experts in Warsaw, Poland, and St. Petersburg, Russia; and its engineering center in Chelyabinsk, Russia.

About Emerson Process Management
Emerson Process Management (www.EmersonProcess.com) , an Emerson business, is a leader in helping businesses automate their production, processing, and distribution in the power, water and wastewater treatment, chemical, oil and gas, refining, pulp and paper, mining and metals, food and beverage, life sciences, and other industries. Its Pittsburgh-based Power & Water Solutions division (www.emersonprocess-powerwater.com) is a global supplier of advanced distributed process control and information systems, and a recognized leader in developing plant-wide process control solutions for the power generation, water treatment, and wastewater treatment industries. These systems and solutions play a key role in the Emerson mission of combining superior products and technology with industry-specific engineering, consulting, project management, and maintenance services. Emerson brands include PlantWeb™, Ovation™, Scenario™, SmartProcess™, SureService™, Syncade™, DeltaV™, Fisher®, Micro Motion®, Rosemount®, Daniel®, and AMS Suite.
About Emerson
Emerson, based in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, is a global leader in bringing technology and engineering together to provide innovative solutions for customers in industrial, commercial, and consumer markets through its network power, process management, industrial automation, climate technologies, and appliance and tools businesses. Sales in fiscal 2009 were $20.9 billion. For more information, visit www.Emerson.com.

Learn how you can take advantage of Cisco WAAS to accelerate, secure, and increase availability of both application traffic and computing resources!

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TIME: 8:00 AM – 1:00 PM
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“Spam bots continue to diversify, sending a variety of spam themes on a frequent basis,” said Derek Manky, project manager, cyber security and threat research, Fortinet. “This month we observed various socially engineered emails that came with HTML attachments. These attachments further contained obfuscated javascript which would redirect users to malicious sites. The diversity of these spam campaigns and their targets shows how botnets continue to evolve to serve the needs of their underground customers.”

Stuxnet Attack
This month’s Stuxnet attack (read our FAQ here), reiterates the importance of quickly patching security holes as fixes become available and having a broad intrusion prevention system (IPS) in place. Even with proper patch management, all it takes is one zero-day vulnerability to be exploited (even in low volume) to potentially cause a significant impact. While the Stuxnet attack is still under investigation, the fact that a trojan associated with the exploit was seemingly developed to target industrial control systems underscores this point. This is also a good example of how little interaction is required by the end user to become infected. The Stuxnet exploit attacked a Windows Shell vulnerability (CVE-2010-2568). To launch its attack, a user simply opened a folder.

“We saw a similar attack method with PDF files through JBIG2 image streams and Windows shell extensions back in February 2009 (CVE-2009-0658), where simply browsing a folder could trigger an infection,” Manky continued. “Fortinet detects the vulnerability associated with the Stuxnet attack as ‘MS.Windows.Shell.LNK.Code.Execution,’ and generically detects the exploited ‘.LNK’ payload with antivirus as ‘W32/ShellLink.a!exploit.CVE20102568′. As of writing, there are workarounds but no official patch has been released from Microsoft.”

Windows Help Center Vulnerability Exploited
On June 5, vulnerability within the Windows Help and Support Center that could allow remote code execution was publicly disclosed. Like Stuxnet, this is yet another example of a zero-day vulnerability successfully attacked before a patch is made available. We witnessed attacks on the vulnerability as early as June 11th before Microsoft issued a patch for CVE-2010-1855 on July 13th. The attacks that occurred through Websites were made more potent because they were launched through the HCP protocol handler, which is used by all browsers. In many cases Websites that serve exploits will try to fingerprint browsers and launch attack code tailored to those browsers.

FortiGuard Labs compiled threat statistics and trends for July based on data collected from FortiGate® network security appliances and intelligence systems in production worldwide. Customers who use Fortinet’s FortiGuard Subscription Services should already be protected against the threats outlined in this report.

To read the full July Threat Landscape report which includes the top threat rankings in each category, please visit: http://www.fortiguard.com/report/roundup_july_2010.html. For ongoing threat research, bookmark the FortiGuard Center or add it to your RSS feed. Additional discussion on security technologies and threat analysis can be found at the Fortinet Security Blog at http://blog.fortinet.com. To learn more about FortiGuard Subscription Services, visit http://www.fortinet.com/products/fortiguard.html.

FortiGuard Subscription Services offer broad security solutions including antivirus, intrusion prevention, Web content filtering and anti-spam capabilities. These services help protect against threats on both application and network layers. FortiGuard Services are updated by FortiGuard Labs, which enables Fortinet to deliver a combination of multi-layered security intelligence and zero-day protection from new and emerging threats. For customers with a subscription to FortiGuard, these updates are delivered to all FortiGate, FortiMail™ and FortiClient™ products.

About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)
Fortinet is a worldwide provider of network security appliances and a market leader in unified threat management (UTM). Our products and subscription services provide broad, integrated and high-performance protection against dynamic security threats while simplifying the IT security infrastructure. Our customers include enterprises, service providers and government entities worldwide, including the majority of the 2009 Fortune Global 100. Fortinet’s flagship FortiGate product delivers ASIC-accelerated performance and integrates multiple layers of security designed to help protect against application and network threats. Fortinet’s broad product line goes beyond UTM to help secure the extended enterprise – from endpoints, to the perimeter and the core, including databases and applications. Fortinet is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., with offices around the world.