HMEL selects IBM as strategic business and technology partner

| DQC News Bureau |

IBM has announced that HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL), a joint venture between Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, an Indian government-owned enterprise, and Mittal

Energy Investments, Singapore, a Lakshmi N Mittal Group Company, has selected IBM as its strategic partner in the design and implementation
of a state-of-the-art Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for their zero residue refinery.HMEL is investing more than US $4 billion to build the green refinery, which will be able to process 1,80,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Located in Bathinda, in the state of Punjab, the energy-efficient, environment-friendly, high distillate yielding complex refinery on commissioning shall produce clean fuels and polypropylene by processing all types of crudes.

HMEL's endeavor is to have processes built around leading practices and implemented on best-in-class applications. HMEL selected IBM as its strategic MES partner to design the processes for manufacturing, select the applications and manage the implementation of the packages and build a common integration and reporting framework for HMEL. Through the 1.5 year, multi-million dollar agreement, IBM will integrate all of HMEL's operations, ranging from manufacturing to marketing and distribution. Having a single, unified view of business operations and access to real-time information across all systems will help HMEL to operate the new refinery with maximum efficiency and return on investments.

”It is critical for HMEL to establish processes that help the company get a single, comprehensive view of its operations and also bring in greater efficiency into the system," said Richard Dirckx, VP-Operations, HMEL. "IBM understood our needs and has the global expertise, knowledge repositories of leading practices, processes and key performance indicators to support our goal of becoming one of the smartest refineries in the world. In fact, HMEL will be among only a handful of refineries to start operations with the full suite of MES applications," he added.

“It is an exciting opportunity for IBM to work with HMEL and help them in this key project,” said Vanitha Narayanan, Managing Partner-Global Business Services, IBM India/South Asia. “We strongly believe that with our domain experts and global experience, we will help HMEL to transform the way information is gathered, combined and analyzed.

The best-of-breed solutions approach will help them discover new ways to improve production efficiencies and be among the best refineries globally creating a true smarter refinery," said Vanitha. The refinery is expected to be commissioned by early 2011.

India among the top three countries in sending spam messages
| DQC News Bureau |

TrendLabs researchers reported that the top 10 spam-sending countries comprised 85.67 percent of the total number of spam messages circulated. India comprises of 12.55 percent of the messages circulated worldwide and is at no. 2 nation after the United States of America in the Top 10 List of researchers. Recognizing that attacks are now carried out using three primary vectors-e-mail, Web, and file-researchers have drawn on some of the highlights from past month.

HSBC has become the top phishing target this month via e-mail. It leaped from the bottom of the list to the top spot this July, while PayPal remained part of the top three phishing targets. New entrant in the top 10 list is ABN Amro Bank.
The United States, Brazil, and India retained their positions as the top three spam-sending countries, a trend consistent with the previous two months. Both the United States and Brazil posted an increase in their spam numbers during the said months. India, meanwhile, posted a decline.

"User account information and credit card credentials reap good profits for cybercriminals. As such, cybercriminals continued to leverage on the widespread use of social networking sites, search engines, and redirectors this July. In the report, we detailed certain attacks and notable data points related to compromised sites,” commented Amit Nath, Country Manager-India and SAARC, Trend Micro.

With malware threats persistently posing danger to users, TrendLabs consistently monitors the threat landscape. This month, ATM malware, botnets, and online gaming-related threats were particularly noteworthy. The notorious KOOBFACE botnet also launched another notable attack this July using the old technique of sending out direct messages (DMs) via Facebook. Two notable ZeuS/ZBOT malware were found this July-one targeting Russian banks and/or Yandex services, the other was TSPY_ZBOT.CQJ, which steals information by inserting malicious code into legitimate banking websites. The malicious code works when the said sites are viewed using Internet Explorer or Firefox. The report also notes that the continued proliferation of online gaming threats has made the gaming sector a consistent cybercriminal target. This is particularly true in China, where online gaming is very popular and where cybercriminals have created XWM, the popular Chinese Trojan kit.s.

ZyXEL's VDSL2 Switch-the finalist for IEC InfoVision Award 2010
| DQC News Bureau |

ZyXEL Communications, one of the world's leading broadband access solutions provider, has announced that its VDSL2 Switch, VES1624, has been named as the finalist for IEC InfoVision Award at the Broadband World Forum Europe (BBWFE) 2010 for Green Broadband Award category.
The BBWFE 2010 will be held in Paris from October 26—28, where ZyXEL's booth G1 will showcase a wide range of telecom solutions, which will include end-to-end FTTx solutions and multi-service applications. ZyXEL's InfoVision Award “finalist product” VES1624 and a series of other green products will also be presented.

As a green enterprise, ZyXEL presents a complete series of eco-friendly and energy-efficient products, including IP DSLAM and DSL CPE products for Telco customers. Integrated with green features, company's energy-saving products decrease power consumption and help customers to reduce their energy costs. Every ZyXEL's energy-saving product complies with global environmental standards, such as EU directives to manufacture environmentally responsible products.

“The recognition of InfoVision Award further strengthens our positioning as an innovative service enabler that helps service providers to profit from the differentiated and value-added services they provide to their customers,” said Dr Albert J Ju, VP, ZyXEL's Service Provider Business Unit. “By consistently providing environmentally friendly products, ZyXEL always takes a lead in developing innovative new products and features that increase energy efficiency, offer outstanding performance for our customers and meet global environmental standards," he added.