- Children made 52 million unauthorised attempts to use social networks in the past month
- More than 25 million attempts to access pornographic sites as well
THE web is a source of useful information and knowledge during the school year, but when used without restrictions can be quite a dangerous environment for little web-surfers. Different threats, from familiar viruses up to serious fraud, let alone content not intended for children’s eyes, can place your children – and even the whole family – in real danger, Kaspersky Lab said in a statement.
Families now tend to have more and more devices which can access the Internet, which means it’s easier than ever for kids to get online – and harder than ever to control what they do there. According to research by B2B International conducted in April 2013 across a few select countries for Kaspersky Lab, each family owns two or three PCs or laptops (2.5 devices is the worldwide average), one or two smartphones (1.4 on average) and one tablet (0.7 on average). Children use all of these devices to some extent or other, while Parental Control options are far from widely used.
Kaspersky Lab said it analysed the response of the Parental Control modules incorporated in its protection products, and in the first five months of 2013 it found that the following potentially dangerous resources are most attractive for children in the Internet:
- Social networks (31.26%);
- Pornographic and erotic websites (16.83%);
- Online shops (16.65%);
- Chats and forums (8.09%);
- Web-mail (7.39%); resources containing illegal software (3.77%); and
- Casual games (3.19%).
Other inappropriate resources such as sites about weapons or drugs, gambling sites and e-payment systems, etc. – represented about 0.8-2% of responses from Parental Control modules. In absolute terms, within the last month (May 2013) Parental Control modules registered more than 52 million attempts to visit social networks, and more than 25 million attempts to access pornographic sites.
This reflects a shift which sees pornography drop to second place behind social networks, Kaspersky Lab said. In addition, the Top 3 for the first months of 2013 also included online stores.” We can assume that children look at these stores in search of toys and similar products,” the company said. In these circumstances parents need to be especially careful: If children know where their parents keep their bank cards, they can use them to make unplanned purchases. Moreover, children could fall victim to fake Internet shops created by cybercriminals.
However, children’s preferences vary from country to country. In the United States, the “Pornography and erotica” category leads the pack with 222%; online stores are in second place with 19.5%; next come social networks with 18.88%, enjoying almost the same popularity.
A similar situation exists in the United Kingdom, where the top three are exactly the same: Pornography sites with 23.27%, online stores (19.59%), and social networks (16.14%). The only noteworthy fact is that children in the United Kingdom prefer casual games (5.94%) to chats and forums (4.84%).
German children are the most likely to seek out online pornography (25.66%). Next, they prefer online stores (20.68%) and social networks (18.29%).
The situation in Japan has nothing in common with other countries. The younger generation in this country tends to look for sites in the “Chats and forums” category (34.25%). Apparently, these sites act as a good substitute for social networks, which are down in fourth position (10.59%). Besides, many popular Japanese web resources are created with tools designed for creating forums and blogs. Pornography and erotic sites take second position with 23.28%, online stores are in third with 16.89%.
In Brazil, social networks (22.34%) lead the pack. In common with many other countries, Brazilian social networks are followed by pornographic sites (18.91%) and online stores (16.76%).
“As always, prevention is better than cure,” said Konstantin Ignatyev, Kaspersky Lab’s Web Content Analysts Group manager. “In the modern world, access to any type of information has become easier than ever before. At the same time, children are especially vulnerable, and their outlooks are by nature naïve. “Therefore, tools to protect children from inappropriate web content should become obligatory,” he said. Parental Control in software products is convenient in that it enables parents to shield their children from unwanted content in a tactful and intelligent manner without blocking web access altogether, Kaspersky Lab said. Using simple tools, parents can configure protection features to meet their needs and the needs of their children. In particular, Parental Control allows parents to restrict access to specific sites and programs, or to the entire Internet. Similarly, parents can set timetables for their children’s computer use: at an inappropriate time, the computer simply won’t switch on, so children won’t be distracted from their homework or other important things.
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AS much as industry seems to be united in crying out for ‘industry-ready graduates,’ there is a caveat” That the graduates are ready for their particular needs and technology platforms. This is short-term thinking. Give them the choice between this and a scenario where industry, academia and government work closely together to create the right programmes and ecosystem for graduates, and you can bet industry will opt for this latter scenario which ensures a long-term sustainable supply of hireable graduates. And this is what has happened with the creation of Collaborative Research in Engineering, Science and Technology (CREST) on June 9, 2012. While industry thinks the agency should have been established years ago, the pressure is on for that agency to hit the ground running at full throttle. Fortunately for the electronics and electrical (E&E) industry, CREST chief executive officer Jaffri Ibrahim (pic) is doing this. In fact, the agency officially launched operations with a graduation ceremony where 98 E&E students completed a Fast Track programme where they served one-year internships. CREST worked with TalentCorp on the programme, which takes more of an apprenticeship approach rather than mere internship. To date, this collaboration has successfully produced 230 industry-ready graduates, with the target to produce 450 more by 2015. Incidentally, talent development is one of three key themes CREST will focus on, the second being research and collaboration, and commercialisation the third. While Jaffri was appointed CEO last June, there were already working groups, consisting of industry players and government representatives, laying plans on the ground from as early as 2011. “Which is why I always tell people we hit the ground running from our launch,” says Jaffri. Intent on maintaining that momentum, Jaffri shares what the agency has done in the past 12 months to live up to its mission of being a catalyst to inspire the E&E sector in becoming the research and collaboration centre for the country, the region and the world – within three, six and nine years respectively. “The goal is to create an R&D culture within our E&E sector,” he says. He agrees it will be a tough mission to accomplish, but thinks there is enough talent in the ecosystem and, more importantly, desire among the key players for this to happen – the key players in this case being industry, academia and government. One major factor about CREST is that it is industry-led, with government playing the role of facilitator. CREST has a RM100-million (US$32-million) budget, a large portion of which will be used for R&D in matching grants. Over the past year it has already completed three cycles of evaluation and awards where 76 projects worth RM39.8 million (US$12.9 million) were assessed. “Thirty five R&D projects worth RM24.1 million (US$7.8 million) were approved, of which CREST contributed RM8.3 million (US$2.7 million), with the rest from industry,” says Jaffri. Other data points Jaffri shared show that CREST has contributed to producing 58 graduates with a Master’s degree of higher, and 22 pieces of intellectual property. In terms of collaboration, it has seen 12 multinationals, 13 local companies, 15 local universities and one foreign university involved in its various programmes. Among the multinationals are its 10 founding members: Altera, AMD, Agilent, Avago, Clarion, Intel, Motorola Solutions, National Instruments, Osram and Silterra. 
Moving forward, there are various plans to further develop the ecosystem for collaboration with a business incubator, targeted for a soft launch in the fourth quarter of this year. This will be in collaboration with Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA) and University Science Malaysia (USM) to nurture E&E projects and talent. Alongside this is the creation of an Expert Network programme to bring together global experts to contribute to the E&E ecosystem, mainly through research collaboration with academia, industry and renowned institutions in clusters deemed critical for Malaysia. Shared service facilities and labs are also being worked on for Q4 2013 as is the creation of repositories of talent, expertise and resources for the E&E community. Shared services and labs will leverage on CREST’s investment in laboratory equipment, talent pool and access to local and global network of similar organisations. The talent repository is currently in a pilot at a university and with one company. The intent is to go live with five companies and five universities by year-end. This talent repository and shared services labs will be of interest to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which always struggle to attract talent and invest in expensive equipment. Engaging with this group is important to Jaffri. “We believe in a hands-on approach in reaching out to our SMEs and have implemented a few successful matchmaking exercises. The first was the business matching symposium with Clarion and its technology partners with MSC Malaysia (Multimedia Super Corridor) companies last November,” says Jaffri. It is also currently facilitating business-matching between Intel, Altera, Agilent and Motorola Solutions with MSC Malaysia and other local E&E companies on opportunities identified for the next 24 months. “We will continue to do this as the interest has increased after our initial success. In addition, we will implement more symposiums, roundtable discussions, seminars and talks to further encourage our SMEs to participate in CREST,” says Jaffri. Academia is already a key partner in CREST with curriculum embedment (content developed and validated by industry players) and adjunct faculty programmes, Jaffri and CREST founding members are looking at the talent pipeline earlier in the chain to come up with programmes to attract youth to take up careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. This was a common concern for all the CREST founding members when Digital News Asia (DNA) 
The campaign will also contribute to the overall health of the ICT retail ecosystem, as honest PC retailers selling genuine software can now compete on a level playing field with fair competition, the company claimed. “Picta and its members are proud to pledge their commitment to the Go Genuine campaign, which is the first of its kind in Penang,” said the association’s secretary Too Tean Lai (pic). “Through this campaign, we hope to empower our members and other computer retailers and distributors with the necessary knowledge and incentives to curb software piracy and support fair trade and healthy competitive practices,” he said. Some computer retailers encounter piracy issues because their sales people are tempted to help customers load pirated software, so the campaign helps Picta members understand the importance and benefits of stopping software piracy and selling genuine software, Microsoft Malaysia said in its statement. In March, the Melaka state government, in conjunction with the Business Software Alliance (BSA), became the 
“This is why the MDTCC conducts enforcement activities to eradicate the sale and distribution of counterfeit software,” Mohd Salleh (pic)said. The launch of the campaign saw Picta and its members sign a Go Genuine pledge, as a sign of commitment to stop software piracy and counterfeiting. Under this pledge, participating members will:
These programmes revolved around enhancing public service delivery; enhancing capacity and capability; enhancing performance measurement capability; connecting government; and creating sustainable and resilient ICT initiatives, she said in her speech read by Dr Mohamad Zainuddi Mat Taib, head of the Public Sector ICT Consultancy Team in Mampu, at the Business IT Architecture Series 2013 (BITAS 2013) conference held in Kuala Lumpur recently. National ICT custodian the Multimedia Development Corporation’s (MDeC) chief operating officer Ng Wan Peng (pic) said effective implementation of Enterprise Architecture initiatives and programmes would result in higher productivity, greater efficiency and success for organisations and companies. “This conference is a great opportunity to promote the Enterprise Architecture initiative to MSC Malaysia status companies and SMEs, as it can enable them to maximise their bottom-line and also pave the way for them to be world class companies,” she said. BITAS 2013 was organised by the IASA (IT Architects Association) Malaysia Chapter. Prior to the conference, the IASA held pre-conference ‘master classes’ which covered topics ranging from business and IT architecture frameworks to developing enterprise strategies.
CROWDSOURCING under the Digital Malaysia initiative may have got off to a good start, but challenges remain, according to the head of national ICT custodian the Multimedia Development Corp (MDeC). “In fact, there are more challenges than anything else when it comes to bringing crowdsourcing to Malaysia,” the agency’s chief executive officer Badlisham Ghazali (pic) said after the inaugural Digital Malaysia National Crowdsourcing Conference held in Kuala Lumpur on June 10. Digital Malaysia is a programme, launched last year, to transform Malaysia into a digital economy. Among its 
Called the Malaysia Software Testing Hub (MSTH) cluster development programme, the initiative is a collaboration between the private and public sectors under the purview of the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) of the Prime Minister’s Department. 
THE growth in the use of electronic payment products, such as credit and debit cards, added US$4.2 billion (RM13.17 billion) to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Malaysia, according to a study conducted for Visa by Moody’s Analytics, an independent provider of economic forecasting. Stuart Tomlinson, Visa country manager for Malaysia, said that with growing card usage contributing 0.49%, or US$4.2 billion (RM13.17 billion) to Malaysia’s GDP, there’s no denying the benefits of electronic payments here, nor the importance of maintaining an open marketplace to encourage competition and innovation within the industry. “We can see from the data that the positive impact in economic growth is a direct result of card usage and is tied to the benefits electronic payments offer, including enhanced security, convenience of operating without cash or checks, increased efficiency at checkout and a reduction in the grey economy,” he added. The study of 56 countries, including Malaysia, representing 93% of the global GDP, concluded that “card usage makes the economy more efficient, yielding a meaningful boost to economic growth.” Globally, electronic payments contributed $983 billion (RM3.08 trillion) to the GDP of the 56 countries examined between 2008 and 2012. Over the same time period, GDP in those countries grew by an average of 1.8 percentage points. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, noted that despite a challenging global economic landscape, the increasing penetration of payment cards helped increase consumer consumption and, on average, added to GDP. “The increase in consumption parallels the growing popularity and accessibility of electronic payments among global consumers. At the same time, these findings point to the need for governments to adopt policies that encourage the shift to efficient and secure electronic forms of payments,” he added. Tomlinson pointed out that while this news is encouraging, Euromonitor data revealed that more than 66.2% of all transactions in 2012 were in cash. “In addition, according to World Bank data, 34% of Malaysians do not currently have access to formal financial services. Imagine the benefits to the economy if we could connect them with electronic payments, such as mobile branchless banking,” he said. “We are excited about the prospects of increasing electronic payments in Malaysia through new, innovative solutions, and we look forward to working with local businesses, governments and industry stakeholders to continue to expand and support local economic growth.” Other findings from the study include: Regional economic growth: Across Asia Pacific, the adoption of electronic payments increased GDP. In China, GDP rose by nearly US$375 billion (RM1.17 trillion). In Singapore, it rose by US$3 billion (RM9.41 billion). In India, increased card usage contributed US$2 billion (RM6.27 billion) to the country’s GDP. Value of electronic payments: The study concluded that increased credit and debit card usage contributes to economic activity by reducing transaction costs and improving efficiency in the flow of goods and services. The advent of credit and debit cards has greatly aided consumers’ ability to optimise consumption decisions by giving them secure and immediate access to all of their funds on deposit or a line of credit. Merchants also benefit because there is less cash and cheque-handling in the system, eliminating the burdens and risks associated with holding cash. In addition, the dramatic growth of e-commerce and mobile payment methods would not be possible without global electronic payment systems which allow the safe and easy transfer of funds and guaranteed payment to merchants. Supporting government: Electronic payments lead to a reduction in the grey economy by increasing transparency and generating additional tax revenue. Impact of future card growth: Moody’s Analytics found that a 1% increase in card usage across the 56 countries in the study produces an annual increase of 0.056% in consumption. Given recent card penetration growth rates and the additive effects calculated on future GDP, Moody’s Analytics estimates a meaningful 0.25% addition to consumption and 0.16% additional GDP. Card growth boosts recovery: From 2008 to 2012, global real GDP was only 1.8% per annum. Without increased card usage, that growth would have been 1.6%. Card penetration and usage provided an important boost to economies, helping to mitigate what would otherwise have been an even slower recovery from the global recession. This survey is the second iteration, following a study conducted by Moody’s Analytics from 2003 to 2008. For the full study and an accompanying white paper, click 
SOME of you may have read Theodore Levitt 1960 classic piece on Marketing Myopia (click 
AN increased reliance on the Internet for business and finance activity is fueling fears of exposure to cyber-attacks on companies in the Asia Pacific region, according to a new report by the ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and IMA (Institute of Management Accountants).