Business leaders have to make sure that they are connected to clients and partners around the clock. Effective communication is the very aspect that differentiates a firm that excels from its mediocre peers. However, this is only possible if the underlying technology supports the aspiring vision of the company.

At GO Business we provide services that can help companies move beyond connectivity and networking. In addition to our services, our dedicated and solution-driven team does its best to assist our partners, let it be equipment installation, the configuration of systems or offering ongoing support. With GO Business, we would like to be enablers, we want to see our partners improve and grow while utilising the technology we provide them with.

As GO Business, we are ready to cater for any need, from the most basic connectivity, through wireless-based technologies, up to maintaining complex fibre-based private networks that demand top-notch privacy and security levels.

Our clients can reach our B2B team any time through our website or the GO Business Centre well-located in Mosta’s PAMA Shopping Village. Our team is ready to provide to individual consultations, to offer customised solutions to any challenges or scenarios our clients might have

Through our ability to adjust to the needs of both smaller firms and large enterprises, accompanied by our market experience, the solutions we deliver are not only designed for today.

Keeping future scalability in mind, liaising with the client about their upcoming plans, we advise them so they will not only strive today but in tomorrow’s challenging world, too.

The managed services we offer at GO Business enable us to run the clients’ infrastructure on their behalf, with very special attention to system administration, data services, disaster recovery, cloud services and infrastructure management, just to mention a few. Managing all these aspects removes the hassle from the client’s daily schedule, and with this very peace of mind, they can focus all their energies on running their businesses to the best of their potential.

Nevertheless, when we talk about 24/7 connectivity and networks arching the whole globe, we must address the elephant in the room; the desperate need for elevated security. One single breach can be devastating for a business. As companies are moving toward digitalisation and through digitising their paper-based knowledge they are creating sensitive and confidential big data, the need for top-notch security has spiked.

Therefore, security is of utmost priority for us at GO Business, as we keep investing considerable resources in the continuous development of our security set up and know-how. Being at the core of our operations, we have won the trust of banks, international IT companies and also government entities, in addition to many other clients.

We do not only keep updating our own systems, but we also educate our clients about vulnerability threats, through consultation and support, as well as via taking precautions to protect all our clients and customers.

The present article has been written by Arthur Azzopardi, Chief Officer, GO Business at GO plc. With a rich background in the ICT and Telecommunications industry, Mr Azzopardi joined GO in 2006 as part of the team responsible for transforming the company. Over the years he went on to work in different senior roles and following the successful turnaround of GO’s wholesale business, he was recently appointed Chief Officer for GO Business.

The post GO Business caters for all your corporate communication needs first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Digital payment has come a long way since Edward Bellamy first conceptualised a card used for payment instead of cash in his utopian novel entitled Looking Backward, published in 1887. When the first bank cards were introduced by the end of the 1960s, people appeared to be reluctant to shift habits and pay with a piece of plastic instead of hard cash. Nowadays, producing, updating and using cash — in some cases — can be costlier than card payments. With the spreading use of non-cash payments, hacking the online systems of banks started pacing out movie-like robberies of brick and mortar branches. Security is of elevated importance today in online finances. The blockchain and crypto world strive to disrupt this space; time will tell if hype can solidify.

Transactions in blockchain systems and the storage of tokens — let them be cryptocurrencies or any data — happen in wallets. The access for these wallets — for enhanced security purposes — is through a long private key of haphazard words or symbols. NGRAVE CEO Ruben Merre believes that, while this is a crucial part of the inherent strength of blockchain technology it also is the Achilles heel of the whole ecosystem, at least for the time being.

“The problem lies in how well private keys are managed and protected. Blockchain is an incredible technology and provides a lot of previously unseen security points. It has at least one big Achilles heel though: the private key(s).”

While private keys are part of the inherent strength of the technology, they are often seen as the single-point-of-failure when we look closer at blockchain wallets. A party that gets its hands on the private key can immediately assume full ownership of the wallet’s contents. Moreover, if one loses the private key to their wallet, they lose access to their funds forever, because of the inherent asymmetric (statistically unbreakable) cryptographic relationship between private key (password) and public key (address).

“Hence, security can be improved by optimising the way private keys are managed and protected. First of all, they should be created offline. That way, no third party can know what the key actually is. After that, the associated addresses — which themselves contain no sensitive data that can be tied back to the private key(s) — can be communicated to an online source,” Mr Merre describes. “It is crucial to be able to sign transactions with the private key, but without exposing the private key to an online connection. If you can do all of this offline, you have a very secure solution.”

Another aspect that needs extra thought is improving the backup procedure of one’s private key. “In today’s crypto space, over 90% of people keep their private key on a piece of paper. Completely paradoxical, considering this new and hot technology called blockchain. It almost feels like going back to the stone age. Yet it is a vast reality,” Mr Merre says. He proposes that the solutions offered by his company might be able to bring peace of mind to this space.

Blockchain hurdles

Whether blockchain and crypto can move beyond its hype is truly in the future yet, hopes are high. Nevertheless, the online space must ante up in general in terms of security, whether we talk about finances or the handling of personal data. Today, regardless of trying to offer greater security, the crypto world is still loud of investment scams and compromised funds. Therefore, distributed ledger technology-based solutions still need to live up to their potential.

“In my opinion, one of the most crucial hurdles today is security. With several million stolen each day from crypto wallets, it is a very real barrier for new investors to join the market and existing players to increase their investment exposure. If we can make investing in crypto more secure, potential new market participants will be less wary of joining in,” Mr Merre weighs in on the troubles the distributed ledger technology-based solutions face.

“If we can make investing in crypto more secure, potential new market participants will be less wary of joining in.”

NGRAVE CEO Ruben Merre

“Another scalability hurdle is the off-chain to on-chain translation. We also know this subject as ‘oracles’. Ultimately, blockchain often translates off-chain events to an online version,” Mr Merre adds. “For example, if you are insured against earthquakes and the smart contract of your insurance determines that as soon as there is a quake of six on the Richter scale you automatically get money on your account. In such a case, where does the consensus come from that actually defines what six on the scale of Richter means? Oracles, or dedicated offline parties oriented towards reaching a consensus on such rules, play an important role. As one can imagine, there is significant complexity in doing this right,” the CEO explains.

At the same time, blockchain evangelists, enthusiasts and experts are all concerned about scalability, i.e. the more people use a blockchain-based system and the more transactions they initiate, the longer the execution of the transaction would take. “This is a scalability challenge, yet many players are having a look at it as we speak. Then there is cross-chain compatibility/interoperability: How do you make two different blockchain infrastructures interact? Another point is the energy consumed by the network to reach consensus / to mine blocks. Here as well, solutions are investigated including Proof of Stake, Proof of Ownership, etc. moving away somewhat from the traditional energy-heavy proof of work consensus algorithm(s). Overall maturity on the developer side is another facet. We are still in the early days of this technology, which also means that we still have to develop a lot of code to make specific applications work. All of this needs to grow, evolve, mature, in order to make it easier and faster to scale. Finally, standardisation is one of the aspects that would likely benefit the overall crypto space greatly,” Mr Merre says.

Eyes on Malta

NGRAVE aspires to offer a breakthrough in cryptosecurity, by enabling users to do every single step of the user journey without ever exposing the private keys. The company says that their solution has been developed in close collaboration with the end user to ensure seamless ease of use.

NGRAVE has recently entered the second phase of their product development and expects to have a fully-functional version soon. “We will then perfect that version up to the very details and make it ready for industrialisation. People will be able to pre-order starting in September 2019. Expanding towards Malta is something that would make the most sense for 2020,” Mr Merre tells BM about their plans.

After stating the obvious attraction points of Malta — the breathtaking culture, beaches and weather — Mr Merre looks deeper into the ecosystem of the island nation, underscoring the supportive and innovative attitude of the tech and blockchain community in here.

“Malta is looking at crypto with a long-term perspective, and therefore set up three major regulatory bills last October to attract more cryptocurrency companies. This by itself shows that Malta is pioneering important frameworks to further foster blockchain adoption,” Mr Merre says.

He backs up his view with companies such as  Binance, Bitbay, OKex having set up a base in Malta. He also takes time to praise the Malta Blockchain & AI Summit for its support. “In short, Malta is an ideal tech and entrepreneurial hub and we are committed to being a part of and developing the ecosystem on this small, but a powerhouse of an island,” the CEO concludes.

The post Managing private keys better can foster more security in crypto first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Plume’s launch in the United Kingdom comes less than a year after the introduction of Plume membership in the United States, which is a subscription-based service that includes features such as adaptive WiFi, HomePass and parental controls with customisable profiles.

Plume’s platform snowballed in 2018 through large-scale usage by companies such as Comcast, Bell Canada, Liberty Global, and Samsung. At the same time, by open-sourcing Plume’s device software middle layer called OpenSync, the company expanded through partnerships with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Switzerland, Malta, the Cayman Islands, the Netherlands, and now in the UK.

AI solution for better home security

Upon entering the United Kingdom, the company also launched its security offering for US and UK members called Advanced IoT Protection, which is an AI-powered security service designed to protect home IoT devices.

Plume uses AI to identify all devices connected to a home network, detects anomalies in device behaviour, and immediately quarantines devices that have been compromised to prevent a breach from spreading to other devices connected to the home network, the Plume press statement describes. The cloud-solution continually learns patterns of normal device behaviour across a large population of similar devices to spot abnormalities in real time and immediately act to protect users, the company says.

“The ever-increasing demand for smart home performance coupled with the proliferation of IoT devices means connectivity and security are merging and must be addressed jointly and comprehensively,” said Fahri Diner, CEO and co-founder of Plume. “Leveraging our scale as the operator of perhaps the largest software-defined-network in the world, our learnings gathered from a vast population of connected devices uniquely positions Plume to offer the most effective anomaly-based protection of IoT devices.”

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Bank of Valletta Group had a profit before tax of €71.2m in the year ending on 31 December 2018, after providing for a litigation provision of €75m, according to an announcement today by BOV. Profit before deducting provision thus amounted to €146.2m, a year-on-year increase of 5.8%.

Pre-tax return on equity stated before the litigation provision was of 14.9% in 2018, dropping from the preceding year’s 16.5%. This same ratio, reported net of tax, amounted to 9.9% per annum, as compared to a ratio of 7.3% for banks in the eurozone, according to the press statement. The Group’s Core Equity Tier One ratio rose to 18.3, from 16.1% in December 2017.

BOV sees that the main driver for its results is a sustained demand for credit in the local market — especially in terms of home loans, as well as corporate and SME lending.

Gross advances to customers reached €4.6bn, an increase of 3%. BOV said that income from credit cards and payments recorded “satisfactory growth”, without giving an exact rate in its press release. Customer deposits were at €10.4bn, while total group assets stood at €12.1bn, at the end of the year.

‘Challenging’ year behind amid restructuring

Despite the results, that the financial institution tagged as “strong”, BOV says it left behind a truly challenging year. “These challenges ranged from the entry of new players into the financial services industry to comply with new regulation such as GDPR and MiFID ii, including the necessary IT development and the training of staff,” says Deo Scerri, Chairman of BOV.

The chairman underlined that the institution grabs challenges by the horns, making efforts to turn them into growth and building on the results by investing in the future. The group’s pipeline contains “heavy investment” in IT and fintech solutions, as well as focus on strengthening its capital buffers and on giving strategic priority to increasing its anti-financial crime and cyber defence mechanisms.

Although the press statement does not make mention of exact examples related to IT security, such commitment comes timely after BOV has recently been involved in a cyber hacking attempt. The attack the bank’s systems went under in mid-February forced operations to be shut down. BOV found that eleven payments had been initiated to foreign payment accounts in a total value of €13m. BOV asked for the cancellation of transfers and requested them to be reversed. However, news reports suggest it is difficult to say when the funds will be restored, and whether they can be restored in their entirety.

BOV says that during the course of the last year, they continued restructuring the business model, with the objective of lowering risk profile.

“The programme is multi-faceted and includes the winding down of certain business lines, the re-dimensioning of others, the revision of the Risk Appetite Framework, the enhancement of risk policies and comprehensive training programmes covering the entire organisation from the Board of Directors downwards,” the BOV press statement says.

BOV pays out no dividend for 2018

Confirming an earlier announcement, the press statement quotes the chairman as saying that the Board of Directors resolved not to pay out or recommend any cash dividend for the financial year 2018.

Explaining the decision, the board mentions “uncertainty arising from a number of legacy litigation cases”, which the group says led to the board giving up on “top priority to capital conservation, despite its confidence in the robustness of its legal position.” The bank says that to avoid future unexpected losses “the most efficient way of strengthening capital is to reinvest profit in the business, rather than paying it out in the form of a dividend,” the press statement records.

“It is always wise to sacrifice short term benefits — in this case, the payment of a cash dividend — in the interest of long term stability. And that is exactly what the Board did when it decided against a cash dividend payout for 2018,” BOV says.

However, the board says it will make a bonus share issue of one new share for every ten shares held by investors, which, despite not constituting a cash dividend, the group believes may offer “some value to shareholders, even in the form of possible tax benefits.”

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Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Promotion, Carmelo Abela, represented Malta at the conference, which is the world’s leading forum debating international security policy, and a platform for governments and its leaders, as well as global senior decision-makers, to address the world’s most pressing security concerns.

Minister Abela also attended former US Secretary of State John Kerry on “Global Threats: What is keeping people up at night?” and a discussion entitled “Climate Change and Security: Rethinking Multilateralism in a Divided World”. The foreign minister also participated in session discussions on the European Union, Transatlantic Co-operation and the implications of a shifting global order, security in Africa and the Middle East.

On the sidelines of the conference, Minister Abela held bilateral meetings with the Foreign Ministers of Oman, Sudan and Armenia. During the meeting with Armenia’s Foreign Minister, Minister Abela, signed the first Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on political consultations between the two countries, according to the DOI press release.

Minister Abela was accompanied on this visit by Permanent Secretary Fiona Formosa and Malta’s Ambassador to Germany Albert Friggieri.

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