Despite the clear economic benefits of using cloud services, concerns about security, compliance and data privacy have slowed down enterprise adoption. In most recent surveys for Cloud services, security remains the number one issue. The key security concerns from customers’ viewpoint are around security defects in the technology itself, unauthorized access to customer information, encryption, application security, identity management, and virtualization security.

As Mark Fowle, CEO, Attenda explains, “Responsibility for security will depend upon the cloud offering and provider. For Infrastructure as a Service, typically vendor responsibility is around physical, environmental, and virtualization security; but every other aspect of security in applications, operating system and so on still needs to be handled. It is essential to carry out proper due diligence with your cloud providers, ensuring that you ask the right questions and you really understand their service level agreement, to select the right provider, based on your requirements and risk appetite.”

Attenda places security at the forefront of its critical applications hosting and cloud services; supported by ISO 9001 Quality Management, ISO 20000 Service Management and ISO 27001 Information Security accreditations, together with numerous other industry and vendor certifications. It is helping its clients to transition to business-centric cloud computing, building upon its pedigree in highly secure, highly available and high performance critical applications managed services, providing enterprise class security and data privacy, with security policies and processes that embrace governance, compliance and audit, information lifecycle management and operational security. Additionally, for applications with specific compliance requirements, such as ecommerce applications, Attenda supports its clients through its own PCI DSS audits and additional services to assist with their compliance requirements.

He adds, “During 2012 we will be working toward introducing new capabilities and offerings that will drive us closer to the goal of providing a suite of modular security services that address the full spectrum of cloud services from simple self-managed virtual machines and single solution cloud services through to multiple clouds from different providers with the capability to manage security policies and processes across multiple operators, each with different infrastructures, operational policies and security skills, to alleviate security concerns in cloud and hybrid hosting environments.”

To reinforce Attenda’s Security Strategy, Matt Gordon-Smith has been appointed as Attenda’s Director of Security, with responsibility for all areas of security within the business, from its data centres, to the standards built into Attenda’s platforms, services and client solutions. Matt is a seasoned senior security leader with experience across many IT managed services and outsourcing companies including IBM, Siemens, Verizon Business and Savvis. Matt has experience in many different facets of security, across various industry sectors and working closely with clients to address their individual security needs.

Commenting on the appointment, CEO of Attenda, Mark Fowle, said: “We are delighted to welcome Matt to his new role, and regard his appointment as a vital addition to our Leadership Team. Matt joins at an exciting phase for the organisation, as we aim to boost our capabilities to ensure we continue to deliver services that make a real difference to our clients’. He brings huge experience and industry know-how which will play a key role in the future growth of Attenda.”

The new appointment comes at a time of continued growth for the organisation and means that Attenda is well placed to continue to expand its range of services; in August 2011, Darwin Private Equity completed the management buyout of Attenda. Since it was established in 1997 Attenda has grown to over 200 staff and has a strong track record of year on year revenue growth – compound growth of 16% over the last 5 years.

About Attenda Limited

Attenda (www.attenda.net), delivers a Business Critical IT capability that combines business outcome focus with a structured methodology and the resulting infrastructure and services. This proven operational foundation allows Clients’ IT functions to truly fulfil their strategic role, whilst sustaining the agility that supports change and competitive advantage.

Through its structured Define, Design & Verify engagement methodology, Attenda exposes hidden opportunities, offers straightforward advice and facilitates the right choices; consistently delivering exceptional Client service, keeping critical applications optimised and available.

Attenda has built up a commanding market reputation, with the industry’s leading accreditations and an unrivalled portfolio of UK enterprise Clients including bmi, Christian Aid, Microsoft, NHS, Nisa-Today’s, Princes, Regus, St. James’s Place and Travelodge.

Attenda is ISO9001, ISO27001 and ISO20000 accredited, is a Microsoft Gold Hosting Partner, VMware Premier Service Provider, a SAP Partner and SAP Certified in Cloud Services.

For further details, visit www.attenda.net

It’s set to get prime time attention this weekend thanks to a television spot from Go Daddy expected to air during the Super Bowl. And on Friday, web hosting provider, WestHost announced it would aggressively advertise the TLD.

In a reference to larger web hosts including Go Daddy, WestHost Director of Marketing stated, “Major domain registrars are spending millions of dollars on ad campaigns intended to drown out competition for the domain extension but our new ‘.CO’ price discount is intended to open up opportunities for customers looking for an affordable alternative.”

With a promotion of the TLD, the web hosting provider is offering registration of .CO domains for $9.49. Anderson also referred to his company’s promotion as “more cost-effective” than Go Daddy’s.

The .CO domain, which is primarily recognized as a TLD for advertising businesses also doubles as the ccTLD for the South American country of Columbia. .CO for international businesses became available  in 2010.

In its press release discussing the company’s promotion of .CO, WestHost cited a report from the New York Times showing a registration rate of 600 thousand domains using the TLD thus far.

WestHost’s promotion of .CO is set to run for a limited time. Aside from web hosting, WestHost’s services include cloud, domain registration, reseller hosting and dedicated servers. For more information regarding the company, visit: http://www.westhost.com/

VPS hosting accounts from AvaHost.Net provide the full root-access to the virtual server of the customer. Due to this the user has access to the advanced options. The installation of additional software, modules and services is available also.

The updated VPS account will provide user with 2.4 Ghz CPU power, 1024 Mb RAM, 80 Gb of disc storage, 1.200 Gb of traffic and up to 3 IP-addresses.

VPS Hosting is usually used for the traffic-intensive Web sites. It is also perfect for the Web sites which require a more powerful configuration. With the full root access it is easy to manage the server. VPS Hosting can be used for a wide variety of purposes, including reselling, Java applications, C/C++ and other.

Daniel Hart, the Head of AvaHost Business Development, said that VPS web hosting is a good solution for the Web sites with a lot of traffic, as well as for the customers who need a flexible server configuration, which is not available in the shared hosting. “VPS hosting is a perfect alternative to the dedicated server, but it comes with better price. AvaHost regularly upgrades the servers. We offer our customers more options for the same price.”

About AvaHost:

Since 2001, AvaHost has been established in the web hosting industry by providing reliable service and support, and the best web hosting solutions, for personal Web sites and small-to-medium sized businesses.

For the last years AvaHost received the following prestigious awards from the well-known hosting business Web sites: #1 Fastest Growing Company, Reseller Hosting of the Month, #1 Budget Hosting, etc.

Namecheap has donated over $64,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to help the organization fight for our digital rights. Namecheap also blacked out its front page on January 18th, urging US customers to petition their government officials to ask them to shelve both acts in the House and in the Senate.

“Namecheap is proud to stand behind our intellectual freedoms on the Internet,” Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall said. “We continue to support the fight against overbroad, ill-considered legislation. We strive to support the open web and build awareness around issues that may curb the liberties that serve as the foundation of the Internet.”

In the last week of December alone, Namecheap’s stance against all overbroad, ill-considered legislation and keep the web open and free resulted in over 80,000 inbound domain name transfers in addition to thousands of new hosting customers and SSL certificate purchases. In early January, the Drupal Association joined the Namecheap family, and Namecheap is pleased to welcome them.

“The Drupal Association is pleased to switch the Drupal.org and Drupal Association SSL certificates from GoDaddy. We received new certificates from Namecheap because we value their commitment to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and their stance against SOPA and their desire to keeping an open web,” said Jacob Redding, Executive Director of the Drupal Association, which hosts DrupalCon. “It is important for our organization to align with others who share our community’s values. With almost 7 million unique visitors a month, a thriving developer community and thousands of registrations a year to one of the largest open source tech conferences, DrupalCon, our partners are hugely important to our project’s success.”

Namecheap is pleased to continue its relationship with the Drupal Association and urges everyone to continue standing against SOPA and PIPA to keep the web open and free.

About Namecheap

Namecheap is a Los Angeles-based ICANN accredited domain registrar founded in 2000 by CEO Richard Kirkendall. With over 500,000 clients and millions of domain names under management, Namecheap is one of the top domain registrars in the world and also offers web hosting services. Find out more by visiting us at http://www.namecheap.com.

About The Drupal Association

The Drupal Association is dedicated to helping the open-source Drupal CMS project flourish. Powering millions of websites and software applications, from personal blogs to the largest enterprise applications, Drupal is free, flexible, and extremely robust. It is constantly being improved by a community of hundreds of thousands of passionate people from all over the world. The Drupal Association provides the support, infrastructure and funding to grow the Drupal Community and help with online collaboration at http://drupal.org. The Drupal Association hosts and supports conferences and camps around the world including DrupalCon Denver to be held March 19-23, 2012. Funds to support these programs come from memberships, sponsorships and donations. To learn more about the Drupal Association, the Drupal Project, and how to get involved and contribute, visit https://association.drupal.org/.

-This month, web hosting provider CaroNet is offering a discount on its colocation services with a monthly rate of $995. The offering includes bandwidth amounting to 100 Mbps, a full rack (42U), and 20 amps of 110v power. Further details at Caro.Net.

-Web hosting provider WestHost recently announced that it is offering a discounted price of $9.49 on its .CO domains for a limited time. Information here (prweb.com).

-Network Solutions is offering domain registration on .COM, .ORG, .BIZ, .NET, .NAME, and .US TLDs with the use of a promo code. Further details can be found on the company’s Facebook page. The promotion ends at the end of this month.

-Web hosting provider Namecheap is awarding domains hourly with a trivia contest the company is holding through its Twitter page. Details here (Namecheap.com)

-Website speed optimizing company Yottaa is taking a unique approach to celebrating the Super Bowl weekend. They’re holding #BurstBowl 2012 where they track website speeds belonging to top Super Bowl advertisers. Details here (yottaa.com).

In today’s age of modern technology, the internet has proven that it plays an important role for the business sector. With people from across the globe constantly checking on the latest happenings through websites and social media platforms, the worldwide web becomes an environment filled with a diverse market. Wouldn’t it be great to have a slice of this number too? Of course the traditional forms of promotions are still practiced but most companies have adopted a modern approach to keep up with the latest trend and one efficient way is through email marketing.

Using this approach towards marketing is proven to be effective yet affordable. Compared to other traditional campaigns, this does not really require a tremendous amount of labor work.  The important part lies in building a mailing list and consistently adding more potential clients in this list. This is the first step towards a successful email marketing campaign. Keep the subscribers updated with the latest news and offers about your business. From time to time write in a formal yet personal level in order for the subscribers to feel the sincerity of the company. Establishing a constant communication line will keep the interest from the clients.

Start the marketing even with a small list; come up with ideas on how you can have it in an engaging manner where everyone could participate. A common mistake for some is they wait until they have a lot of subscribers before sending out emails. This could make customers lose their interest and as a result might end up unsubscribing.

Remember that if you intend to use this easy strategy proper planning and execution is necessary from day one. Some companies invest on software that can help in sending the emails to the subscribers or hire the help of the professionals in this field. Either way, act on a positive manner by providing prompt replies and valuable information to everyone on your mailing list.

About Action Web Group

Aside from affordable web hosting solutions the Action Web Group also has other services such as Email Marketing. Learn more about this and other exciting offers at the AWG website.

iomart Group’s stance follows the announcement today (2^nd February 2012) by the Science and Technology Select Committee, that the UK Government should consider imposing safety standards on software sold  if self-regulation isn’t adopted by the IT industry.

iomart’s web security software Netintelligence, which provides internet protection for 100,000s of school children and families in the UK, is the first and only such software to carry the BSI Kitemark for Child Online Safety. Netintelligence was awarded the Kitemark by Children and Families Minister Tim Loughton in January 2011. So far, no other UK software company has taken up the accreditation and the government has not supported the Kitemark publicly.

The BSI Kitemark for Child Online Safety is a certification scheme for internet website filtering software produced by software manufacturers. These products can be bought as stand-alone products from computer retailers or come as part of an operating system or ISP package. The software’s ease of use, reliability, and performance must meet the scheme’s strict criteria.

Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart Group plc, said: “Back in 2007, iomart along with the British Standards Institute, OFCOM, the Home Office, several major UK child safety organisations and other private sector companies spent a considerable amount of time working on the specifications required for PAS 74 (Access control systems for the protection of children online), which ultimately became the BSI Kitemark for Online Child Safety.

Rather than yet another clarion call for more action, the UK Government could make a bold stance now. It should insist that all public sector organisations with a duty of care towards protecting children online, for example schools and local authorities, should only purchase products that have been awarded the Kitemark. That way other commercial companies will have to follow the lead of Netintelligence and iomart to provide software that the public can trust.”

iomart Group plc is ranked as one of the top web hosting companies in the world by HostReview and is Scottish Digital IT Company of the Year 2011. Bill Strain was recently named IT Leader of the Year 2011 by IT Pro.

For more information on iomart Group plc, please visit: http://www.iomart.com/

The company detected a breach effecting customer data pertaining to around 40 thousand of its customers. Thankfully the issue didn’t expose financial data but was limited to phone numbers and email addresses.

It’s a breach that Blacknight emphasized caused “miminal damage” in a press release headline put out by the company.

“We take our responsibilities to our customers very seriously and have already been in touch with the Data Protection Commissioner and have informed them of the breach,” stated Blacknight employee Michele Neylon when discussing the matter today.

Neylon continued, “Blacknight is a secure company, however data breaches are a reality that almost every online company must face. We are taking this opportunity to increase our security even further and apologize to our customers for any inconvenience this may cause.”

In the aftermath of the breach, the company is taking further security measures. The Irish-based provider has alerted the Irish Reporting and Information Security Service to the intrusion. It’s also contacted the country’s Office of Data Protection. Along with that, the company is asking that users change their login passwords.

Tuesday’s breach is just the second to affect a web hosting company within the past month. Earlier in January, web hosting provider DreamHost revealed that it had been hit with an attack relying on an exploit.

Blacknight’s hosting services include SharePoint, cloud, Hosted Exchange and Minimus Hosting. Just earlier this week, the company announced that it had added goMobi, a business mobile solution to services by the company.

Included among the updates with Softaculous version 4.0 are bug fixes and updates to the platform’s interface and Developer API.

Discussing the issue in a press release, Softaculous CEO Pulkit Gupta stated, “We have been working really hard to make Softaculous, Webuzo and AMPPS the best applications in their respective categories.”

Gupta also said Softaculous had experienced “tremendous growth in the usage of AMPPS.”

Meanwhile, the company’s latest version of AMPPS (release 1.5) includes updated PHP version 5.3.9. Softaculous is expected to expected to release new products within the near future, as hinted by company CEO Pulkit Gupta.

Since its launch, Softaculous has proven popular within the web hosting community due to its easy integration with some of the most used control panels including cPanel. Popular apps provided for within the Softaculous platform include Joomla, Drupal and WordPress which are among almost 260 scripts offered.

“By joining the Protected by Prolexic program, businesses will be sending a strong, clear message to customers, competitors, and even cyber attackers that they are taking the threat of DDoS attacks seriously enough to secure the services of the gold standard in DDoS mitigation,” said Paul Sop, chief technology officer at Prolexic. “When they see this logo, online customers will have added peace of mind that a DDoS attack will not bring down sites they rely on for shopping, membership services, entertainment, and other online activities.”

The Protected by Prolexic logo is a registered trademark that belongs exclusively to Prolexic. To prevent unauthorized duplication and misuse of the logo, Prolexic will provide each customer a unique HTML code that hyperlinks to a numbered logo hosted by Prolexic.

“The Prolexic name is known all over the world as the leader in DDoS mitigation and many of the businesses we serve already use our recognized reputation as a selling point to their customers,” Sop said. “Displaying the Protected by Prolexic logo will give these businesses an instant competitive advantage through association with the ‘gold standard’ for DDoS mitigation.”

“We have been proactive and added premium DDoS attack protection from Prolexic and that has increased the value of our web hosting service,” said Lisa Retief, Vice President of Engineering at Yola (http://www.yola.com), a global web site builder and hosting service serving small businesses. “Prolexic’s protection provides peace of mind to Yola and our customers from around the world.”

Certain terms and conditions surrounding the use of the Protected by Prolexic logo apply. Businesses that are interested in participating in the Protected by Prolexic program can learn more by logging on to http://www.prolexic.com/protected or by contacting protected(at)prolexic(dot)com

About Prolexic

Prolexic is the world’s largest, most trusted Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation provider. Able to absorb the largest and most complex attacks ever launched, Prolexic restores mission critical Internet facing infrastructures for global enterprises and government agencies within minutes. Six of the world’s ten largest banks and the leading companies in e-Commerce, payment processing, travel/hospitality, gaming and other at-risk industries rely on Prolexic to protect their businesses. Founded in 2003 as the world’s first “in the cloud” DDoS mitigation platform, Prolexic is headquartered in Hollywood, Florida and has scrubbing centers located in the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.prolexic.com.