‘Teen Wolf’ Star Holland Roden to Fly to Manila for AsiaPOP Comicon 2016

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Things are looking to be monsterrific as AsiaPOP Comicon Manila 2016 (APCC Manila) revealed Hollywood actress Holland Roden, as the latest celebrity guest to invade the biggest pop culture gathering slated on August 26 to 28 at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.

Roden is best known for playing the smart and beautiful Lydia Martin on the MTV series Teen Wolf. She has also played supporting roles in other popular series such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Lost, Community, Criminal Minds, and Grey's Anatomy. She is also a host for MTV, doing various fashion and entertainment segments for the channel, MTV.com, and the brand MTVStyle.

For the fans of Roden, APCC Manila is offering Autograph and Photograph session tickets with the stunning celebrity, which will be available soon for purchase on SM Tickets website, https://smtickets.com/, or at all SM Tickets outlets. Autograph and Photograph tickets will also be available for purchase on event days.

APCC Manila 2016 tickets are now available via SM Tickets with ticket prices PhP550 (one-day pass), PhP850 (two-day pass), and PhP1,050 (three-day pass). All these will give the ticketholder access to stage activities, performances, and the main show floor. The event is free for children aged five years and below for all days, but a valid identification is required for verification purposes before entering the show floor.

A special Geek Bundle is also available at PhP3500 for the FIRST 100 customers which includes an event lanyard, tote bag, cape, a 3-day pass, and a 1/12 Iron Man Mark XL "Shotgun" collectible figure from Comicave Studios.

For more information and event updates, please visit asiapopcomicon.com/manila

and official Facebook Page facebook.com/apccmanila

Fortinet FortiGuard Labs Cites Increased Cyber Threat Activity in Brazil

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Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs cybersecurity threat report takes a look at the nature of attacks – how attackers get in, how they manage to persist inside networks, what they want, and who they are. It also provides insight into three key areas of concern that our FortiGuard Labs team has identified, and they bear reviewing here.

2016 Rio Olympics:

Cyberattacks during the Olympic games are not new. We have seen a spike of attacks focused on the Olympics – including targeting vendors and spectators – beginning as far back as the 2004 Summer Olympics in Greece. However, there are three main reasons why the 2016 Rio Olympics deserves special attention:

1. Analysis seems to indicate that cyberthreats and attacks are not (yet) a priority for Brazil. According to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) ranking of global risks, Brazil only ranks concerns about cyberattacks as #23, and data fraud/theft at #16. This is concerning since countries like the US, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, and a few others rank cyberattacks as their #1 business risk. Given the high profile of the Olympic games, we would expect the risks of cyberattack and data theft to be ranked much higher for Brazil.

2. The volume of malicious and phishing artifacts (i.e. domain names and URLs) in Brazil is on the rise. In June, Brazil’s percentage increase was higher in three of four categories in Fortinet’s report when compared with the global percentage increase. The highest percentage growth was in the malicious URL category at 83% compared to 16% for the rest of the world.

3. As the 2016 Rio Olympics unfold, the history of these increased attacks will undoubtedly continue and FortiGuard Labs is already seeing indicators of repeat techniques such as domain lookalikes for payment fraud and malicious websites or URLs targeting event and government officials.

“Behavior Blending”:
We are seeing signs of increasingly sophisticated methods to help attackers persist inside systems they have breached. It is something we call “behavior blending.”

As the name implies, behavior blending is a technique used by criminals that allows them to blend in with everyone else on a compromised network. Once an attacker succeeds in acquiring valid user credentials, they proceed to assume the identity of the user through monitoring and learning the online behaviors of the authorized credential owner. They then attempt mimic as closely as possible the normal behavior patterns of that user. This allows them to remain unnoticed by the latest generation of automated analysis tools searching for anomalous behaviors.

Of course, this requires considerable research for success. As it’s very difficult to understand and replicate normal behavior patterns right away, we have been able to identify threat actors before they become camouflaged. Traditionally, this sort of obfuscation is difficult even for seasoned penetration experts with authorized access to systems. But new tools are emerging to speed up and enhance this process. Because this evasion technique has a lot of potential for thwarting detection, we expect to see more of it as the technique is refined and new tools are developed to better mimic the behavior of a credentialed target. It also represents a new challenge for defenders and security vendors looking to identify sophisticated attacks based on behavior analysis.

Increased Threats:

Overall, we continue to see an increase in threat activity. This isn’t news, per se, but the implications are worth considering.

First, we are seeing the return of old threats and attack vectors, as well as the continued persistence of classic attacks, such as Conficker and ransomware, through updated variants. Of course, this begs the question: Why, after all the money and research being spent on security, are not only the number of attacks increasing, but many older attacks continuing to persist? Surely, the sophisticated cybercriminal community wouldn’t still be using these if they weren’t successful.

The answer, of course, is complicated. New user devices and applications, new communications methods, the rise of virtualized and cloud-based networking, and things like IoT continue to expand the attack surface. And many organizations continue to adopt and deploy these new technologies before security has rotated to protect them. And far too many organizations are simply skating by on doing the absolute minimum hoping they get overlooked, or because the tradeoff between productivity and security seems too high.

But there is another issue at work here: it’s the industry’s general approach to security that is a critical part of the problem. It’s clear that increased spending on traditional, isolated security devices isn't working, because networks are still getting broken into pretty consistently. Like the old saying goes, we keep doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result. It turns out that the classic arms race approach is a zero sum game.

Companies need something different. Which is why Fortinet, the original innovator of cutting edge ASIC technology designed to increase performance while keeping costs under control, has recently announced the Fortinet Security Fabric.

Of course, a number of vendors have made noise about security platforms and solutions. But until now, none have truly delivered an integrated security architecture designed to unify management, centralize and coordinate threat detection and intelligence, and provide a dynamically coordinated response to threats anywhere across the distributed network, from IoT to the cloud. The Fortinet Security Fabric represents a complete rethinking of how security is to be designed, implemented, and managed, allowing organizations to stop playing catch-up with cybercriminals and finally get out in front of the threat community.

Download and read the report.

Learn more about the Fortinet Security Fabric.


Source & Read more:

https://blog.fortinet.com/2016/08/01/fortinet-fortiguard-labs-cites-increased-cyber-threat-activity-in-brazil-deserving-special-attention-in-coming-weeks

PLDT Enterprise Supports The Philippine Virtual Reality Conference and Mobile VR Jam

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PLDT Enterprise, through its emerging technologies business unit, Disruptive Business Group (DBG), aims to drive awareness for Virtual Reality (VR) technologies in the country with its support of the recently concluded Philippine Mobile VR Jam and Virtual Reality Conference.

The 1st Philippine Mobile VR Jam and Virtual Reality Conference provided participants with a first look at the most promising projects in the country through a series of workshops and seminars. It was organized by VR Philippines, a group of virtual reality developers and enthusiasts dedicated to promoting the advancement of virtual reality technology. Among the attendees were software developers across the country.

Niko Peralta, Head of PLDT DBG’s Digital Mobility R&D said, “PLDT Enterprise is proud to support the burgeoning VR industry. As part of the PLDT Group’s digital pivot, we are constantly on the look-out for new-frontier solutions that will further the advancement of today’s digital enterprise. Start-ups can always rely on our support by which they can build on these newer tech.”

PLDT and SMART’s support of the Philippine Mobile VR Jam and Virtual Reality Conference events underscore its commitment to be at the forefront of the dawning VR technology revolution in the country. “We view virtual reality as technology that today’s enterprises can potentially utilize to deliver more engaging and immersive customer experiences,” said Lemelen Palad, DBG Product Development Manager for M2M and IOT. “A more personalized approach in the ever-growing mobile-first consumer market dictates that businesses today have to be more creative in the way they reach out to their customers,” Palad added.

The event series culminated with the “Virtual Reality Conference” which featured exhibits by various software companies, displaying an end-to-end VR ecosystem from design and production, including proposed commercial applications. Business models include gamification, real-estate, first-person training modules, among others.

Joey Limjap, VP & Head of PLDT ICT Research & Development, added, “We know that VR is still at its nascent stage, and are delighted to be a part of the Philippine Virtual Reality Conference and help create greater awareness of this fascinating and exciting technology. Of course, our PLDT Innolab will always be open to the new technologies like VR and serve as an incubator to further develop it’s potential.”
*Photo caption: From left to right: Cristopher David (VR Philippines), Joey Limjap (PLDT Innolab), Mark Joseph Basibas (Mobile VR Jam participant), Paolo Espiritu (Mobile VR Jam participant), John Hay Supetran (Mobile VR Jam participant), Michael Gaerlan (Samsung), and Lemelen Palad (DBG).