Mall of Asia,Pasay City, PHILIPPINES – SUPER WOW! VSSC Distribution Inc.  with its product ESET Security Solutions and S2 Software Solutions sponsored a FUN RUN organized by St. Peter Life Plan Inc. for 2011 celebration of the Halloween titled “ HALLOWEEN RUN 2” last October 23, 2011 . The said event was joined by an estimated numbers of around 3000 – 4000 runners. The program starts at 4:30 am for the opening and introducing of the event while the race begins at exactly 5:30 am. The first batches who run are the 10 K runners followed by 5K runners and the 3K runners. The race ends at 7:30 am followed by the program proper i.e booth games, stage activities and awarding.

This was the first time that ESET Philippines sponsored a FUN RUN and it was tremendously a HUGE success. I mean SUPER GREAT! It was the first time we saw a huge number of people queuing just to try ESET’s games in the booth. It took about 3 hours for us to finish the long lines of people who waited just to get their turn to try our games.

At first we just have 3 lines to serve all the people who want to visit our booth and try our games but due to the unexpected demand we have decided to make it 6 lines so that we can accommodate all of them. We have accommodated around 800 booth visitors who tried our game.  The games composed of raffle in which they can win tumblers, umbrellas, ballpens, keychains and the trial version of ESET Smart Security. The second game (which is the highlight) is a practical quiz that talks about the usage of internet, security and protection of our essential information. Many have tried but only few got all the answers correctly. Those who were able to perfect the said quiz automatically won FREE 1 Year ESET Smart Security Home Edition.

Indeed it was another milestone for ESET Philippines and this was made possible through the help of VSSC Distribution Inc. management, to the ESET Philippines team and through the help of S2 Software Solutions team (for the Digital display in the booth) and to the whole team who never fail to show their unwavering support and utmost cooperation to make this event a VERY SUCCESSFUL one.

This can also be considered a RECORD BREAKING booth visitors in the history of ESET Philippine events in just 5 hours event time.

And most specially, we give thanks to all the booth visitors who patiently waited in the line.

By:          Leslie Queen Bleza

ForeScout, one of the security products of VSSC Distribution Inc. recently launched the new features of ForeScout which is the mobility control at Makati last August 4, 2011. It was attended by VSSC President, Mr. Jun B. Santos, who gave his welcome remarks, followed by Mr. Edison R. De Guzman who introduced VSSC and its milestones. Mr. Marc Fernandez, Regional VP, Asia Pacific, ForeScout take over to introduce and give the updates and upgrades of the product, he highlighted the mobility control which enables ForeScout to  provide real-time visibility and control over smart phones, tablets and wireless devices on the network, keeping it safe from data loss and malicious threats.

Press from different online and print reporters attended the press conference. Questions are thrown during and after the presentation. Discussions and conversations regarding VSSC and its products were also done by Mr. Melvin Lumabas, ForeScout Product Manager and Ms. Leslie Bleza, Marketing. One of the key customers of VSSC shared their experience when they adopt the solution to their network.

Below are some of the links from different online news and blogs.

http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/technology/4084-vssc-covers-security-in-smart-mobile-devices-with-forescout-counteract

http://newsbytes.ph/2011/08/05/biz-focused-security-firm-bares-product-for-mobile-access/

http://www.pinoytechblog.com/archives/forescout-counteract-is-a-hassle-free-nac-for-your-organization

VSSC Distribution Inc. together with one of its security product Lumension, conducted a 2 day-technical training at the RCBC Plaza last August 2 and 3 entitled Lumension Endpoint Management and Security Suite (LEMSS) Administrator Training.  It was headed by Mr. Michael Ooi, Senior Sales Engineer, Asia Pacific, Lumension. It was also facilitated by, Mr. Melvin Lumabas, Product Manager, Philippines together with Mr. Vincent Sim, Channel Sales Manager, ASEAN. Attendees are all technical people that came from different Lumension customers from different industries like banking, pharmaceutical, utilities, government and some from our partners

Michael discussed different technical aspects of the product. Trainees learned how to eliminate malware, identify all executables, define automated trusted change policies, log attempted execution attempts, implement a lockdown policy and update patches and policies. They also learned about the core platform features: Asset Discovery, Inventory Management, Remote Systems Management, Active Directory Sync, Wake-on LAN, and Endpoint Policy Management.

 Another thing that Michael teaches are to  identify all removable devices, create rules at both default and machine-specific levels, observe the effectiveness of your policies in real time, implement your policies,  run reports,  discover all of your physical and virtual endpoints, assess the vulnerabilities on those endpoints, prioritize and remediate those vulnerabilities, and generate in-depth reports.

Congratulations for the success of this training and great job for the trainer and trainees.

ESET Philippines ties-up with UP Diliman Computer Science Organization (UPCursor) with the objective  to educate students in the current computing environment and dealing with security threats that plague internet and web users. Through the cooperative effort of the organizations external affairs officer, Jules Albert Capacillo, it now  ESET Philippines job to protect digital world of the students of the University of the Philippines. The memorandum of agreement was officially signed last June 8, 2011 at VSSC Distribution Inc. office in Makati.

We are very proud that University of the Philippines had the best choice of sponsor, i.e. ESET Philippines, for their school activities. We are  looking forward to be with UP students  for more opportunities and collaborative activities.

Many countries around the world are preparing to celebrate International Children’s Day Wednesday June 1st.  It is time of fun and play – in many regards not far from what goes on when browsing the Internet.  Keeping this in mind,  it is always good practice to make  online safety of children a priority. To help, ESET, the leader in proactive protection against cyber-threats, has compiled seven golden rules on how to keep children safe in cyberspace.

“Many parents are rightfully concerned about their kid’s participation in social networks. There are a number of areas to be concerned with. Who are the kids talking to? Parents might worry about the friends their kids are making online and what kind of people, even their kid’s own age, they are associating with. Some parents will be concerned about how much time their kids are spending online,” says Randy Abrams, Director of Technical Education at ESET.

ESET’s seven golden rules for parents and children for online security

• Updated Antivirus and Security software is a necessity. ESET Smart Security BETA 5, which is available for free download at ESET.com as part of the public testing process, packs helpful features such as Parental Control offering various filters based on the age of the user. In addition, it blocks sites that may contain potentially offensive material.  Also, parents can prohibit access to up to 20 pre-defined website categories.
• Be vigilant and monitor your child’s internet connection: set a password and allow children to surf the web only during the times when you can periodically check on their online activities. Set clear rules about the use of computers.
• Instruct kids on internet privacy: they should never supply personal data and details to strangers on the web and social networks.
• Control the web camera as it can be easily misused by criminals and strangers. Turn off or unplug your webcam when you don’t use it. There is malware that can access your webcam without you knowing about it. Check that the web camera is off when it should be. Have children use camera only for approved communication: with known friends and family.
• Monitor browser history; deleted history might be a reason to sit up and have a  talk.
• On Facebook, if you or your child shares the wall with “Everyone” or “Friends of friends” then you have lost control of who has access to all data. If  one uses apps on Facebook, and is not careful, then one may end up sharing also all private data with the world.
• The information posted on the internet does not go away. Do not assume that when you delete a photo or even the whole social network account that you have automatically deleted all the data forever. Pictures and information might be already saved on someone else’s computer. Children and parents should think twice about which pictures and details  to put on the Internet.

ESET Tops Worldwide Growth List for Consumer Security in Leading Analyst Firm’s Security Software Market Share Report

BRATISLAVA -  ESET today announced that Gartner has ranked the company as the security software vendor with the largest worldwide growth in consumer security in 2010. According to growth numbers from Gartner’s “Market Share: Security Software, Worldwide, 2010” report which was released in late March, 2011, ESET grew by 51.10 percent.

According to the report , “Security markets confirmed expectations of a rebound of growth in 2010. The overall market reached $16.6 billion, growing at a rate of 13%.”

ESET has long been recognized for offering solutions that provide superior protection. By utilizing ESET’s ThreatSense technology, all ESET products bring real-time protection from spyware, viruses, and other threats while using very little memory and CPU resources. ESET saw extensive growth in the consumer security market during 2010 with its award-winning anti-malware solutions ESET NOD32 Antivirus, ESET Smart Security and ESET Cybersecurity for Mac, the company’s newest security solution for OS X.

“We are proud that our continued efforts within the consumer security market have been recognized by an organization as respected as Gartner,” said Richard Marko, CEO of ESET. “The computer security sector is constantly growing and evolving in response to threats to computer users from all over the world, so it is imperative that our services are available to as many consumers as possible. We will continue to innovate and expand to provide more customers with the most reliable security solutions on the market today.”

Furthermore, according to April 2011 Steam Hardware & Software Survey, ESET is gamers’ number one choice for paid antivirus. Steam by Valve is a leading platform for PC & Mac games currently with more than 30 million accounts.  The monthly survey it conducts assesses data on software products its customers are using. Overall, ESET was rated the second most popular security solution with 8.81% share and the most used out of all paid security products. With its latest, fifth generation of security solutions, ESET Smart Security  and ESET NOD32 Antivirus, currently in public BETA testing, ESET sports a new Gamer Mode feature specifically designed for gaming enthusiasts.

To read the full Gartner report, visit: http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=1611815

To read the full Steam survey, visit: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

Every Second Counts! That’s what happened last Friday, April 11, 2011 at My Cinema, Greenbelt 3, Ayala Center, Makati City for our VSSC and ForeScout Exclusive Movie Screening. We wasted no time and made sure everyone was happy. It seems that all of our guests and partners enjoyed the program.  Another milestone for VSSC Distribution.

This event was attended by top partners and top end-users that VSSC is currently servicing. Thank you to Mr. Goh Wah Yu, ForeScout Systems Engineer APAC, as he successfully presented ForeScout and answered all the questions of our guests and partners. A special thanks goes to Mr. Melvin Lumabas for his very cheerful and energetic presentation. Agin, good job and awesome work guys!

Recently, ESET joins the IT Congress at STI Cubao. ESET was invited to be one of the sponsors of the said event. The event with the theme SHOUTOUT: Youth Race Toward ICT was joined by the IT Students of STI. It was indeed a WOW Event because the number of  student and sponsors participants.

Our Retail Channel Manager, Emerlene Dacasin again took the opportunity to speak  to the students to educated them how ESET can help with their computer virus problem. Now, the STI student body  knows what to choose when buying a security solutions for their computer.

Thank you STI and Congratulations to the ESET Team for a job well done!

Think Smart! Think ESET!

Last March 5, 2011, the ESET Philippines team finally landed at the province of Laguna. ESET Philippines was invited to become one of the sponsors of the IT conference entitled Equals 3 held at Malayan Colleges Laguna. It was attended by the Master’s Degree students coming from different STI School branches, Lyceum of the Philippines Laguna and some are from private companies.  It was also joined by the graduating students from STI Southwoods and Malayan Colleges.

It was a great success for ESET Philippines as we were able to promote the importance of security in their day to day activities. ESET Philippines also created a deeper relationship with the leaders from STI. During the event we were given an opportunity to present ESET NOD32, Smart Security, Mobile Security and Cybersecurity for MAC from our very own ESET Philippines Retail Channel Manager, Ms. Emerlene Dacasin. We are very happy and thankful for the support and willingness of the attendees to know more about ESET. You are all great!

We are pleased that people from different STI Colleges trust ESET Philippines very much. We would like to thank them for believing in us. ESET Philippines hopes that this relationship will further give us a lot of future opportunities that will benefit both of us.

Last March 4, 2011, VSSC Distribution conducted a Business Partners Sales Event at RCBC Towers. The event is another resounding success! Our valued partners where given updates on ESET, Lumension and our very own S2 Software Solutions. Establishing good partner relationships is key to better business relationships with our clients. We are very happy that Mr. Vincent Sim, our Lumension Principal, was able to give updates and overview of the Lumension products. Thank you Mr. Sim!

In addition, we were able to give updates on our Enterprise products such as Forescout and Lumension which Mr. Melvin Lumabas enjoyed sharing.  We had a great time answering questions from our participants about the S2 Software Solutions. It is VSSC Distributions home grown product. It is a a Philippine developed web application that uses the power of multi-tenancy or cloud computing. Please expect more events and activities in the next few months as we drive our business partner relationship into the next level.