Egypt has shot up the list of countries for global IT outsourcing in the last few years and comes to GITEX 2012 armed with the largest number of home companies the event has ever seen.

ITIDA (Information and Communication Technology Outsourcing) is the executive IT arm of Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and exhibits at GITEX for the fifth year. However, the appearance of Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology himself this week is a strong indication of how

Egypt aims high

60 MinsShow dates: 14-18 October 2012, Dubai World Trade Centre | AT GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK | Exhibition hours: 11am -7pm

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outsourcing. However, the country is now listed as number four on the list of countries when it comes to business process outsourcing and, extraordinarily, number two when it comes to IT outsourcing, only behind India.

El kady said companies are keen to outsource IT to Egypt because of its young talent.

“If you look at the talent pool in Egypt, there are two million university students and around 400,000 are graduating each year. We are investing big into capacity building and into the development of this talent pool inside the universities and once they’ve graduated. We’re preparing them for jobs, especially when it comes to IT and software applications. By developing young talent into these jobs, the cost of outsourcing to Egypt is more competitive than the rest of the world,” he said.

When it comes to software and software applications, Saudi Arabia is number one in terms of the volume of ITIDA’s customers in the Gulf States, followed by Qatar and the UAE.

However, when it comes to the whole of the MEA region, ITIDA has seen a large response from North Africa and Libya, and for business processes, many of its outsourcing

Yasser El kady, CEO, ITIDA

significant the country’s role in the global IT industry has become.

“We came here with 86 companies accompanying us from Egypt, which is the biggest number ever. We are sponsoring and supporting those companies, both inside and outside of our stand here at GITEX,” said Yasser El kady, CEO, ITIDA.

“We are also focusing on pushing Egypt as a destination for off shoring and outsourcing for software applications, IT services and other business processes,” he added.

Going back four years, Egypt was nowhere near the map of global IT

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ESET unveils Arabic websitecustomers are coming from the U.S., Canada and Europe. It has around 60,000 Egyptians serving multinational organisations.

“In the last year, 17 of our customers grew by 41% through outsourcing with us. Last year our total export was $1.1 billion and this year is $1.5 billion. We are now in the process of developing our 2016 and 2020 plan and by 2020 we are expecting the total export of IT to Egypt to be between $8 billion and $9 billion,” El kady said.

“We are very far away from overtaking India into the number one spot because they have been there for a very long time, but we do have a tight relationship with India and are expecting them to outsource some of their business to Egypt because of our multilingual abilities – we speak 16 languages in Egypt. The focus in India is the English language, so there are a lot of businesses that they could outsource to Egypt,” he added.

ESET ME has used GITEX 2012 as the platform to unveil an Arabic website for users and customers in the region, which it said furthered its commitment to the Middle East and stressed the importance of IT security.

The website - www.eset.com/me-ar - offers detailed description of ESET’s products, easy and quick downloads, as well as support in Arabic.

“Our localised website reflects our commitment to our customers in the region and highlights that security is imperative.”

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In addition, the site offers insightful content and blog that addresses critical challenges and vulnerabilities faced by today’s home users and corporate customers on how they can protect against existing and emerging threats.

“Our localised website reflects our commitment to our customers in the region and highlights that security is

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Egypt aims high

imperative. The site is user-friendly and offers consumers and businesses detailed information about ESET’s latest products as well as support in Arabic,” said Aji Joseph, General Manager, ESET Middle East.

“Also users can benefit from updates, trends and topics that address security concerns – all at a click of a button. Our solutions are built on ESET’s award-winning NOD32 technology to deliver protection specifically tailored for different IT environments,” he added.

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Egypt aims high

Aji Joseph, General Manager, ESET Middle East

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GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK 2012 HIGHLIGHTS

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SCA upgrades communications with Alcatel-Lucent

“We distribute products in all the GCC countries and GITEX helps us to promote the brand we represent and we are able to meet many of our customers at the show.”

my gITEx

Suwaidi, Head of Operations & Technical Support, in the Information Technology Department at the SCA.

In a category of its own, the enterprise-level My IC Phones are known as truly smart desk phones as they are able to deliver the intuitive interface of a smartphone to the desktop using a rich communications platform. Its focus is on UC&C (Unified Communications and Collaboration) services, including voice communications, instant messaging with presence and video conferencing features.

The OpenTouch Conversation (OTC) software has been recognized with the prestigious Best of Interop Award in the category Collaboration in 2012. The OTC, using a single client, delivers a seamless conversation across multiple media, multiple devices, with multiple parties, all within the same conversation. A conversation running on OTC can start on one device and be transferred to another as desired, whether using enterprise SIP phones, smart deskphones, video end-points or BYODs such as laptops, smartphones and tablets.

SCA presently has 500 voice users and is finalizing its UC&C migration, which will be completed in the next three months.

“The mobility capability has been the major reason for this decision,” pointed out Rafeea Al Suwaidi. “We were already using Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise’s voice solution. We saw My IC at the Dynamic tour in Barcelona

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United Arab Emirates’ Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) has deployed the latest Unified Communication & Collaboration (UC&C) solution from Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise to boost its communications infrastructure. The SCA is tasked with ensuring sound and fair transactions on UAE securities and commodities markets through effective supervision and monitoring of these markets in the country as well as improving the level of performance. The SCA is always on the lookout for best-of-breed solutions to provide the best of services and recently turned to its trusted IT partner, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, to enhance its IT communications infrastructure.

SCA’s infrastructure runs on Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise’s OpenTouch platform, managed by the OmniVista 8770 Network Management System - the most powerful for managing OpenTouch and OmniPCX Enterprise

networks till date. The solution is scalable and provides multimedia call processing for both Alcatel-Lucent and third-party clients/phones. Senior level members of SCA’s management will be using Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniTouch 8082 My IC Phone “the smart deskphone”, which works alongside the My IC client loaded on their individual BlackBerry smartphones. In addition, Senior Executives on the move will use the award winning OpenTouch Conversation software on their tablet devices.

“Since SCA started, we’ve used Telephony. Almost 90% of SCA infrastructure is based on IP phones. Now, we have evolved to UC&C on top of Alcatel-Lucent application fluent network and Open Touch suite. For us, not only is it the most reliable solution we have used, but it also supports BYOD which SCA has strategically adopted and is shaping the future of communications,” said Rafeea Abdullah Sultan Al

and were convinced. We’ve saved 25% on our GSM bills so far.”

“We’ve been working for 6 years with Alcatel-Lucent solutions and plan to expand with new offices as well as increase the number of mobile employees” added Rafeea, who’s working closely with Alcatel-Lucent for greater device flexibility. “We see people moving from Blackberry to the iPhone and tablets and we should be able to provide them with the same services. So irrespective of whatever device the user wants to use, we want to give them the service that benefits them, based on their role. Today, support is what’s important and it’s not just about providing a solution”.

K Ganesan, Managing Director, Topnet Distribution

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Samsung flaunts mobility solutions at GITEX

Kaspersky Lab discovers miniFlame malware

Samsung Electronics is showcasing its range of enterprise mobility solutions at GITEX Technology Week 2012. Samsung is highlighting its Mobility

Solutions for the healthcare sector at GITEX. Samsung’s Electronic Medical Records (EMR) mobile solution has been designed for use in hospitals so that doctors

Kaspersky Lab announced the discovery of miniFlame, a small and highly flexible malicious programme designed to steal data and control infected systems during targeted cyber espionage operations.

miniFlame, also known as SPE, was found by Kaspersky Lab’s experts in July 2012, and was originally identified as a Flame module. However, in September 2012, Kaspersky Lab’s research team conducted an in-depth analysis of Flame’s command & control servers (C&C) and from the analysis found that the miniFlame module was actually an interoperable tool that could be used as an independent malicious programme, or concurrently as plug-in for both the Flame and Gauss malware.

Analysis of miniFlame showed there were several versions created between 2010 and 2011, with some variants still being active in the wild. The analysis also revealed new evidence of the cooperation between the creators of Flame and Gauss, as both malicious

programmes can use miniFlame as a “plug-in” for their operations.

“miniFlame is a high precision attack tool. Most likely it is a targeted cyber weapon used in what can be defined as the second wave of a cyberattack,” said Alexander Gostev, Chief Security Expert, Kaspersky Lab.

“First, Flame or Gauss are used to infect as many victims as possible to collect large quantities of information. After data is collected and reviewed, a potentially interesting victim is defined and identified, and miniFlame is installed in order to conduct more in-depth surveillance and cyber-espionage. The discovery of miniFlame also gives us additional evidence of the cooperation between the creators of the most notable malicious programmes used for cyber warfare operations: Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame and Gauss.”

The original infection vector of miniFlame is yet to be determined. Given the confirmed relationship between miniFlame, Flame, and

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can have quick access to patients’ medical records and share crucial information when they are on the go.

The EMR solution, ‘Dr. Smart’, enables doctors to have access to up-to-date data that is synchronized with the medical database of their hospitals. It also allows doctors to seamlessly provide patient prescriptions, schedule patient operations, and obtain medical references for an improved care environment.

Samsung is also showcasing its mobile solutions for the aviation industry. The mobile application enables aviation staff to calculate take-off performance and operational flight plans without having to carry around a

heavy handbook. It serves as an alternative to the current PC-based Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) software, making it an extremely useful and portable electronic aeronautical information tool for pilots.

In addition, Samsung will also highlight its sales force mobility offering - the Samsung’s Mobile Sales Force Automation (mSFA). The mSFA is a solution for enterprises that focuses on sales activities by providing mobile services to manage customer relations, order placements and coordinate bill collections. A sales team can access data easily and update their information anytime, anywhere enabling them to be more effective and competitive.

Gauss, miniFlame may be installed on machines already infected by Flame or Gauss.

Once installed, miniFlame operates as a backdoor and enables the malware operators to obtain any file from an infected machine. Additional info-stealing capabilities include making screenshots of an infected computer while it’s running a specific programme or application in such as a web browser, Microsoft Office

programme, Adobe Reader, instant messenger service, or an FTP client.

miniFlame uploads the stolen data by connecting to its C&C server (which may be unique, or “shared” with Flame’s C&Cs). Separately, at the request from miniFlame’s C&C operator, an additional data-stealing module can be sent to an infected system, which infects USB drives and uses them to store data that’s collected from infected machines without an internet connection.