TechTouch Asia

Asia-Pacific was the third most-targeted geography in 2023, accounting for 23% of all cybersecurity incidents, according to IBM’s 2024 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index . IBM X-Force is IBM Consulting’s offensive and defensive security services arm.  Phishing (36%) and exploitation of public-facing applications (35%) were the most common initial access vectors observed in the region. The study also found that cybercriminals saw more opportunities to "log in" instead of hacking into corporate networks through valid accounts – making this tactic a preferred weapon of choice for threat actors. “‘AI-engineered attacks’ are receiving more attention due to the rise of generative AI in the current landscape, but the biggest security threat in Asia Pacific remains known unpatched vulnerabilities. Additional focus should also be placed on the region’s critical infrastructure and key industries such as manufacturing, finance and insurance, and transportation, with stress tests and we...

FS-ISAC, the member-driven, not-for-profit organisation that advances cybersecurity and resilience in the global financial system, and Akamai Technologies, the cloud company that powers and protects life online, have released new research on distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks threatening the financial services sector and its customers. The report, DDoS: Here to Stay , revealed that over one-third (35%) of all DDoS attacks in 2023 globally were aimed at the wider financial services industry, which has surpassed the gaming sector as the most-attacked vertical worldwide.  Source: Akamai's DDoS: Here to Stay , produced in conjunction with FS-ISAC. Sectors targeted by DDoS in APAC.   The financial services sector was the most targeted sector in the AMER and EMEA regions, and the third-most attacked sector in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC), after commerce and gaming. Of all DDoS attacks in APAC that targeted financial services, 91% focused on banking, compared to 63% gl...

Qatar's Alfardan Exchange will be taking on TerraPay's digital payment infrastructure. By joining forces, the two entities aim to facilitate seamless, cost-effective, efficient cross-border payments. Sudhesh Giriyan, President – Cross-Border Payments at TerraPay said: “TerraPay, a pioneering provider of white-labelled digital payment infrastructure, is dedicated to transforming the remittance landscape. The partnership with Alfardan Exchange is seen as an opportunity to strengthen our market presence in Qatar and gain strategic leverage in the remittance sector.” “The collaboration underscores TerraPay's commitment to innovation, setting new benchmarks in the remittance sector. Known for creating seamless, secure, and accessible cross-border transaction solutions, TerraPay aims to revolutionise the digital payments landscape in partnership with Alfardan Exchange.” Giriyan said the two companies will work together to establish advanced digital cross-border remitt...

MWC 2024 : Huawei has released smart city solutions to help governments with increasingly complex urban management.  City Intelligent Twins represents a future-oriented digital city technical architecture. Based on technologies such as IoT sensing, high-speed connectivity, cloud computing, big data, and AI foundation models, this architecture helps build an integrated intelligent system featuring cloud-network-edge-device synergy, integrated data for city governance, and assurance of continuous operations. Zhou Hongquan, COO of the Government Public Services Digitalization BU of Huawei said: "The innovative city intelligent twins architecture is Huawei's latest achievement in core smart city technologies and applications. It helps city managers optimise operations efficiency of the city, improves residents' quality of life, and provide powerful support for the sustainable development of smart cities."  In practice, Huawei has successfully improved the collaboration e...

Source: Huawei. Huawei's new IdeaHub ES2 Plus collaborative whiteboard. At MWC Barcelona 2024 , Huawei launched a new flagship collaborative whiteboard, the IdeaHub ES2 Plus. The product is expected to set a benchmark for the newest generation of digital and intelligent enterprise office solutions. Feature highlights include:  Intelligent video capabilities An intelligent triple-lens camera system, Galileo's Eyes, is able to quickly switch focus between speakers in 1 second for seamless transitions in multispeaker meetings. It can detect voices up to 8 m away and display speakers in the optimal golden ratio of 60%. Additionally, it can display two speakers on the same screen when they are conversing together.  Smart audio The solution supports 12 m sound pickup and uses intelligent beam-forming sound pickup technology to effectively eliminate over 300 types of noise in meeting rooms. Additionally, an acoustic baffle function creates a dedicated meeting space by blocking out ...

Telestream, a provider of workflow automation, media processing, and distribution solutions, has released DIVA 9 , a middleware system designed to transform how video data is managed, accessed, and archived. Source: Telestream. DIVA 9 screen capture. With nearly 100 updates from its predecessor, DIVA 9 focuses on improving system reliability, user experience, and operational efficiency. Updates encompass bug and security fixes, performance enhancements, and usability improvements. This iteration simplifies archiving with intelligent media storage lifecycle policies that help to cut costs while optimising asset storage. Its Elasticsearch -driven search capabilities provide a unified view across multiple storage systems, ensuring efficient resource utilisation. Its redundancy, distributed deployment options, and disaster recovery features enhance reliability. Centralising content management, transcoding, and archiving, DIVA 9 eliminates workflow silos, facilitating a more ...

BlackLine ’s Financial Close Management solution was recently honored by G2 , an online software marketplace and peer review platform, as one of the Best Accounting & Finance Products for 2024. This marks the fifth consecutive year G2 has recognised BlackLine’s leadership as a premier platform for the office of the CFO. G2 is the world's largest software marketplace, with more than 90 million buyers annually using the platform to make smarter software decisions based on end-user reviews. The G2 Best Software Awards rank software companies and products based on authentic, timely reviews from real users. To be recognised as a Best Software Award winner, a company or product must have received at least 50 approved and published reviews during the 2023 calendar year. Scores reflect only data from reviews submitted during this evaluation period. The only provider of end-to-end financial close automation software on this year’s list, BlackLine ranked in the top 50 out of nearly 3,...