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4 NEWS 15.4.2021 NAZZARENO Vassallo, Chairman of Vassallo Group, has won the fourth edition of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year™. Vassallo Group is involved in several sectors in the local market that include property and construction, furniture and interiors, elderly and dis- ability, catering, hospitality, architec- ture and education and employs over 1,700 people. is June, he will represent Malta and compete in EY's World Entrepreneur of the Year™ award together with busi- ness leaders from more than 60 coun- tries. John Winfield, Founder and Man- aging Director of Dr Juice, has taken home the prize of EY's Rising Star, an award which is supported by Melita Ltd. EY has been holding the Entrepre- neur of the Year™ awards globally for over three decades. Now found in more than 60 countries, they include a glob- al network of 50,000 entrepreneurs and are the global benchmark for capturing today's and tomorrow's entrepreneur- ial spirit. e Maltese award is adjudicated by an independent panel made up of key figures from the business com- munity. is year's panel included; David Xuereb (President, the Malta Chamber); Paul Abela (President, the Malta Chamber of SME's), Sue Vella (Non-Executive Director, HSBC); Rick Hunkin (CEO, Bank of Valletta); Cath- erine Calleja (Managing Director, Atlas Health Insurance), and David Darma- nin (CEO & Founder, Hotjar and En- trepreneur of the Year winner 2019). e Malta award promotes entrepre- neurship across the Maltese islands and empowers entrepreneurs to grow their businesses both locally and glob- ally. Apart from 2019's win by David Dar- manin of Hotjar, previous winners in- clude Alfred Pisani (Corinthia Group) in 2017 and Angelo Xuereb (AX Hold- ings) in 2018. Ronald Attard, EY Malta's Coun- try Managing Partner, said that while the past year had been extremely dif- ficult for many Maltese businesses, this award was a celebration of entre- preneurs who keep moving forward and believing in their ideas, despite so much uncertainty. "e award has once again attracted exceptionally strong nominations. is year's overall winner is a seasoned en- trepreneur whose long-term vision and perseverance has undoubtedly served as inspiration to many," he said. "e Rising Star is a captivating suc- cess story on how to promote a healthy lifestyle. As the road to recovery com- mences after the immediate impact of COVID-19, I am certain inspirational Maltese entrepreneurs will be a driving force in the process." Malcolm Briffa, Melita Ltd's Direc- tor of Business Services, said that up- and-coming entrepreneurs who create novel business opportunities are a true source of inspiration for Melita to con- tinue providing cutting-edge technolo- gy, which can so often be fundamental to making their dreams a reality. "Our support of the Rising Star Award recognises the hard work and talent needed to create and grow a nascent business, bringing the individuals and their businesses to the fore, not only to be recognised by their peers but also to serve as a motivation for us all," he said. e awards are supported by Melita Ltd., the Malta Chamber of Commerce and the Malta Chamber of SME's. Nazzareno Vassallo wins the EY Entrepreneur of the Year™ for Malta Nazzareno Vassallo IN today's day and age, companies are more and more reliant on data-based services. With many companies adopting a remote-working model, the need for seamless communication and the security of data have become top priority. Being able to maintain this seamless communication (both internally be- tween employees, as well as externally to the public) is crucial for business success, which is why it is imperative to protect your business operations against a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. This kind of attack can have cata- strophic implications for all service providers with repercussion such as nation-wide bandwidth slowdown and disruption of services. This results in damaging side effects to the business community, which is now more reliant than ever on a strong, reliable connec- tion to the internet. What is a DDoS and how can you protect against it? DDoS attacks occur when cyber- criminals flood traffic to a service provider's server through superfluous requests, from different sources, in an attempt to overload their systems, preventing legitimate requests and ul- timately disrupt their services. The reality is that many operators experience a denial-of-service (DoS) very periodically, however since these attacks originate from a single source, they're relatively easy to mitigate and very rarely disrupt a service provider's business operations. When this attack originates from multiple sources (DDoS), the situa- tion becomes trickier, as it becomes largely impossible to block a single point of contact. The good news is that there exist solutions for such network security. Leading Maltese technology solu- tions provider, BMIT Technologies have recently launched a new DDoS protection and mitigation solution, which they have dubbed BMIT Man- aged DDoS Shield. The BMIT DDoS Shield is a mul- ti-tiered solution, protecting against multiple types of attacks. The edge- based mitigation deployed within BMIT Technologies international high speed private network allows the finetuning of countermeasures, used to protect against protocol and appli- cation attacks. An upstream mitigation - Cloud- based – is simultaneously activated, and both mitigation mechanisms work in sync to mitigate an attack, providing peace of mind to service users. For more information about the BMIT Managed DDoS Shield, and the peace of mind It can bring, through the protection of your business needs, visit bmit.com.mt/ddos. Seamless communication and the security of data are now crucial for business success

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