"Flame" infected thousands of computers across the Middle East as Spy Agent and stole its data

A new data-stealing virus has been discovered dubbed Flame which has lurked inside thousands of computers across the Middle East for as long as five years as part of a sophisticated cyber warfare campaign. 

Flame can gather data files, remotely change settings on computers, turn on PC microphones to record conversations, take screen shots and log instant messaging chats.

"The most complex piece of malicious software discovered to date", according to Kaspersky Lab security senior researcher Roel Schouwenberg, whose company discovered the virus. This discovery by one of the world’s largest makers of anti-virus software will spark speculation if other nations are also playing the tactics through secret cyber weapons.

“If Flame went on undiscovered for five years, the only logical conclusion is that there are other operations ongoing that we don’t know about,” Schouwenberg said in an interview.

Kaspersky Lab discovered Flame while investigating reports that a virus named Wiper is attacking computers in Iran. However, they did not know who built Flame. However, they failed to turn up anything that resembled Wiper.

This Moscow-based company gained notoriety in cyber weapons research after solving several mysteries surrounding Stuxnet and Duqu, is controlled by Russian malware researcher Eugene Kaspersky.

If the Lab’s analysis has the reality then, Flame could be the third major cyber weapon uncovered after the Stuxnet virus that attacked Iran’s nuclear program in 2010, and its data-stealing cousin Duqu, named after the Star Wars villain.

Researchers at Kaspersky still finding full significance of the "Flame" although they were only starting to understand how Flame works because it is so complex.

The Lab’s research found most of the infected machines are in Iran, followed by the Israel/Palestine region, then Sudan and Syria. More than 5,000 personal computers around the world have been infected, including a handful in North America.

“The geography of the targets and also the complexity of the threat leaves no doubt about it being a nation-state that sponsored the research that went into it,” the BBC quoted Kaspersky’s chief malware expert Vitaly Kamluk.

Complexity of Flame

The virus contains about 20 times more codes as Stuxnet, which attacked an Iranian uranium enrichment facility, causing centrifuges to fail, while about 100 times more code as a typical virus designed to steal financial information, Schouwenberg said, and there was evidence to suggest the code was commissioned by the same nation or nations that were behind Stuxnet and Duqu, which were built on a common platform.

Both Flame and Stuxnet appear to infect machines by employing a similar way of spreading  and exploiting the same flaw in the Windows operating system.

The ITU (International Telecommunications Union), a UN agency that promotes research and cooperation on telecommunications technology, asked Kaspersky Lab to investigate further.

EU investigating against Huawei and ZTE about illegal subsidies from their government

The European Union again blamed Chinese telecom equipment makers of getting "illegal" subsidies from government, and is set to launch a major trade case against the two companies, the Financial Times said.

The EU told member states that it had been gathering evidence for an anti-dumping case against Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp as if they had obtained illegal government subsidies and sold products in the EU below cost, the newspaper mentioned.

Huawei and ZTE, the world's No.2 and No.5 telecom equipment makers, could be subject to punitive EU tariffs once the EU determined that China was acting illegally, the FT said.

Huawei and ZTE compete globally and given a tough time in the telecom equipment business to European vendors such as Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) and Nokia Siemens (NSN).

The EU's Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said in May, the EU was planning new trade defenses to counter subsidies and dumping by trading partners, such as China, which is the European Union's second biggest trading partner after the United States.

De Gucht already complained that China subsidies "nearly everything", making it hard to compete.

Facebook to open regional office in Dubai

Facebook is ready to open its office in Dubai next week. This announcement came just days after launching one of the biggest and most turbulent share listings in Wall Street history.

Its office will be located Dubai Internet City, with a focus on winning advertising revenue from the region, daily newspaper The National revealed.

Like rest of the world, Facebook is the most popular social-networking site in the UAE, with 54 per cent of the population using the site, according to the Arab Media Outlook and Arab Advisors Group.

The company which was listed on Friday on the Nasdaq in New York, raising US$16 billion (Dh58.77bn).  But its shares experienced a turbulent ride since the offering, falling yesterday for a third day in a row yesterday. In early Tuesday trading on the Nasdaq in New York, the shares hovered at about $33.01, 3 per cent down from Monday's closing price.

Doubt has been cast over Facebook's business model. GM's pullout its $10m Facebook advertising budget, raised concerns over Facebook's valuation and long-term prospects. It did, however, say it would continue to use the site's free functions.

While some advertisers in the Middle East, including Emirates Airline, opted not to discontinue advertising on the website. Analysts have, however, noted that digital advertising revenue is relatively low in the region.

In the first three months of this year, Facebook's earnings fell to $205m from $233m in the same period last year. The company's revenue increased to more than $1bn in the first three months of the year.

Facebook was launched by its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and several colleagues, at Harvard in 2004 and now has more than 900 million users around the world. The site reported net income of $1bn last year.

Viettel is rapidly expanding its telecom presence across the globe

Viettel who has successfully developed and popularized telecom services in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Haiti, Mozambique, and Peru, now announced official launch of Movitel - the group’s first mobile network in Africa. Now Viettel has presence in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Viettel has built 12,600 kilometres of fiber optic cable and 1,800 mobile stations in Mozambique, since being licensed on January 10, 2011. This network represents 70% of the total Mozambique’s fiber optic cable network and 50% of the country’s mobile stations. The system has helped triple the density of Mozambique’s telecom infrastructure (increasing the length of fiber optic cable network and number of mobile stations per one million inhabitants in Mozambique by 2-3 times).

Viettel also officially announced its project of connecting and providing free internet for 4,200 schools as part of the group’s pledge to the Mozambican Government, at the launch ceremony. At present, more than 500 schools have been connected due to this project.

“Mozambique is Viettel’s first market in Africa. Viettel is seeking for new opportunities to expand its investment in other African countries.” a Viettel representative stressed.

Indian MTNL eyes managed services deals in Africa

Indian state-run MTNL, which operates mobile and landline services in Indian mega cities like Mumbai and Delhi, is diversifying its business into the managed services space in international markets. In the beginning, it is about to ink multi-year managed services deals with mobile phone companies in key African markets like Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Djibouti and Mozambique, a top company executive told to Economic Times of India.

MTNL will handle network management, up gradation, planning and maintenance for GSM technology service operators in Africa and will also be responsible for the upkeep of key performance indicators and service level agreements. It will also assist  African operator clients on vendor selection to get the best deals.

Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius Ltd (MTML), MTNL's subsidiary based in Muaritius, will be responsible to execute African operations. The parent company is about to relocate 100 top engineers and consultants from Mumbai and Delhi to Mauritius to anchor these managed services deals in Africa. "The MTNL board has taken a decision to dedicate people resources to enter the lucrative managed services space in key African markets. We are in talks with some of the biggest telcos in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon and Djibouti to offer managed services," said another MTNL executive who declined to named these companies.

MTNL itself does not plan to launch GSM services in Africa since losses have mounted and it is in no position to invest in excess of $100 million in greenfield network rollouts. "We don't have money to roll out greenfield networks in Africa. The decision to get into managed services is aimed at prising open new revenue streams since MTNL has the necessary engineering resources to manage international mobile networks," said a company executive.

The size of the managed service contracts is not disclosed but it is expected that multi-year deal in these African markets was likely to be benchmarked at roughly $20 million (Rs 100 crore) a year.

The MTNL leadership was recently in Mauritius to finalise the telco's African odyssey.

This will be MTNL's second attempt to enter Africa. It failed to bag a mobile permit in Kenya in 2006 and a year later it failed to buy a controlling stake in Telkom Kenya. At present, the telco operates mobile services on the GSM and CDMA platforms in Mauritius and will launch 3G services in the island by November.

Telecom Job Vacancy for Technical Presales/Product Development Consultant || Europe

Job Title: Technical Presales/Product Development Consultant - Radio Network Evolution

Location: Based in European city

Job Summary: Signalling , ProbeTools , Analysis, Trouble Shooting

The incumbent is responsible for understanding operator's pain points, industry evolution and potential service needs, supporting solution architecture and engagement. mainly in customer Experience Management direction.

Responsibility: 
The responsibilities include, but not limited to the below areas:
1) Analyze operator's pain points, industry evolution and potential service needs in Customer Experience Management area, and Successfully transform into Client service opportunity.
2) Identify gaps of customer's expectation and current circumstances in Customer Satisfaction Management area, introduce transformation direction and point out Client professional service.
3) Act as a Client top level Service Architecture for solution promotion and engagement.
4) Design and run workshop with operator to present and clarify Client Service Quality and Customer Experience Management solution.
5) Study, summary industry best practice in Customer Experience Management knowledge sharing.
6) Develop related document and guide for customer engagement knowledge sharing

The candidate should have knowledge of signalling tools and probe systems eg Ericsson , Arieso, Actix ,Aircom, OptimiPolystar, Techtronix etc as well as good understanding of 2G,3G,4G protocols and interfaces etc and IP knowledge.

ConSol Partners is acting as the resource consultancy for this project.

Please send CVs to sean.schwarz@consolpartners.com

Mexican multi-billionaire Carlos Slim buying MVNO of US' T-Mobile

  

Regional wireless giant America Movil which is controlled by Mexican multi-billionaire Carlos Slim, announced on Thursday that it has agreed to acquire a 100 percent stake in U.S. wireless carrier Simple Mobile, Inc., a unit of T-Mobile USA. Simple Mobile is one of T-Mobile’s biggest mobile virtual network operators in the United States. T-Mobile USA is the subsidiary of Deutsche Telecom AG.

According to figures released in March 2012, America Movil is the largest provider of telecommunications services in the Americas with 246 million cellular subscribers.

The Mexico City-based company said the deal was subject to “certain conditions as well as the granting of certain authorizations.” said while filing with the Mexican Stock Exchange. The filing did not indicate the cost of the acquisition. Simple Mobile provides service to more than 1 million subscribers and offers voice, text messaging, data and wireless broadband services, the filing said.

Accordingly, Tracfone Wireless, U.S. unit of America Movil, will acquire California-based Simple Mobile “in the second quarter of 2012.”

The deal was made public three days after America Movil announcement that it was seeking a stake of up to 28 percent in KPN, a Dutch telecom company, to expand its presence in Europe.

America Movil, which operates in 19 countries across the Americas includes Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, the United States and Uruguay.

It was founded in the 1990s as a unit of Mexico City-based fixed-line giant Telmex but was spun off from its parent company in 2000. Over time, it became bigger than Telmex. In 2010, Carlos Slim, the world’s richest person with a net worth of $74 billion, unified control of his companies under America Movil.

STC picks Huawei for next-generation metro WDM networks in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) selected world's one of the leading information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, Huawei, to supply new solutions to the company’s next-generation metro WDM networks in Saudi Arabia. 

According to STC, it is facing an urgent demand to construct “ultra-bandwidth” metro networks.

STC will be the first operator in the Middle East to leverage world-leading photonic integrated device (PID) technology to save on both space and power usage of its network operations. by utilising Huawei’s metro WDM products.

“The PID technology helps us construct advanced metro WDM networks, provide multi-granularity services quickly and easily, and serve our customers more agilely,” said Khaled I Al-Dharrab, transport network director of STC.

“Due to its simple design and structure, PID technology makes it easier to deploy and maintain next-generation metro WDM networks,” he said.

The technology greatly simplifies the WDM architecture by integrating multiple key photonic components of the WDM system - such as lasers, modulators, detectors, multiplexers and demultiplexers - into a 5cm PID chip. “Compared to a traditional WDM network, a PID-enabled WDM network can save up to 50% of space and power and 90% of the fiber connection,” Al-Dharrab added. 

Huawei, ranked number one in the global optical network market and the WDM/OTN market in Q4 2011, according to consultancy firm Ovum. Its also an industry leader in the area of WDM development and has successfully applied its PID technology around the world, including in Western Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, and further abroad.

Airtel ranked best telecom operator in Nigeria

Airtel ranked best telco by Nigerian telecom regulator ranked Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel's Nigerian unit -- Airtel Nigeria was ranked by Nigerian telecom regulator as the best operator for good quality of service.

Airtel recorded the best performances in call set up success rate, call completion rate, drop call rate and traffic channel congestion among the four GSM operators in Nigeria, the audit report for March and April 2012 posted on Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC's) website showed.

"We began the journey of building a network with the best quality of service about 18 months ago. I am glad today that our efforts have started yielding positive results," said Rajan Swaroop, chief executive officer and managing director of Airtel Nigeria.

"But this is just the beginning; we will not relent in actualizing our vision of being the most loved brand in the daily lives of Nigerians. We will continue to delight telecom consumers with a robust network and innovative products and services," he added.

Airtel Nigeria recently launched the largest 3.75G network in Nigeria with coverage in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

Bharti Airtel also reported 16 percent growth in revenue in its Africa operations at $1.2 billion during the quarter ended March 31 compared to the like period of the previous financial year. The firm's customer base crossed 53 million mark with the addition of 2.2 million customers during the same quarter.

Bharti Airtel in 2010 had inked a multi-billion deal to acquire the African assets of Kuwait's Zain in what made the combined entity the world's fifth largest mobile telephony firm. Though the firm's revenue has steadily grown in Africa, it is yet to make a profit.