Humanizing Carsome’s peace-of-mind car buying process
KUALA LUMPUR, 16 December 2021 –Southeast Asia’s largest integrated car e-commerce platform, Carsome has launched its first-ever regional brand film “Make It Carsome” across Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, as it showcases the transparency behind its precision in execution when customers buy a Carsome Certified car that feels like a “new car”.
The brand film aims to humanize the hassle-free process in Carsome’s mobility solutions, with coordinated input from its Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand teams. Ultimately, it also serves to introduce Carsome to the untapped offline market within the Southeast Asian region.
Derek Tan, Carsome Chief Brand Officer
Carsome Chief Brand Officer Derek Tan said that this is an exciting time at Carsome, as the company takes on the challenge to establish Carsome as the top-of-mind brand in the used car industry. “With this brand film, we want to break the clutter to authentically deliver the key brand message of delivering peace of mind through our Make It Carsome brand manifesto in the region, all for the people who want to move forward in mobility solutions,” explained Tan.
The “Make It Carsome” film features what goes on behind the hassle-free experience when one buys a Carsome Certified car. It highlights the wide selection of over 1,000 used cars on the platform, the quality assurance with Carsome’s 175-point inspection ensuring the cars are free from major accident, frame, fire, or flood damage.
On top of that, buying a car from Carsome is a hassle-free process, where customers just deal with minimal paperwork. They only pay a fixed price with no hidden charges, and will get the car delivered right to the doorstep, complete with a 5-day money-back guarantee and a 1-year warranty in an end-to-end process with peace of mind throughout.
“With the biggest database in Southeast Asia and being at the cusp of data meeting tech innovation, Carsome is at the best position to alleviate the pain points of the used car industry as we integrate millions of data points and thousands of hours into all that we do in those few seconds for the convenience of our customers, the people who matter most to us. It is part of our relentless pursuit to make our customers’ experiences and lives with Carsome much better every single day,” added Tan.
The highlight of the regional brand film production is the usage of the world’s fastest camera robot, the Bolt™ Cinebot™, a high-speed 360o camera robot that can capture images in crisp focus and pinpoint accuracy. Rarely used with digital intermediate (DI) in a commercial shoot for a brand in the region, the elaborate production setup took 12 days to build.
The combination of art and technology profoundly encapsulates each process in a customer’s car ownership journey with Carsome. The 360o camera setup is also a nod to Carsome’s 360o internal and external view of all cars listed on its website, as part of Carsome’s precise execution when consumers buy a Carsome Certified car.
The “Make It Carsome” brand film premiered last week and is now available on the official YouTube channels of Carsome Malaysia, Carsome Indonesia and Carsome Thailand. It will also soon be available on national free-to-air television channels in those three countries.
About Carsome
Carsome is Southeast Asia’s largest integrated car e-commerce platform. With operations across Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, Carsome aims to digitize the region’s used car industry by reshaping and elevating the car buying and selling experience.
The company provides end-to-end solutions to consumers and used car dealers, from car inspection to ownership transfer to financing, promising a service that is trusted, convenient and efficient. Carsome currently has more than 2,000 employees across all its offices.
Santa Fe’ Steak, a steakhouse chain in Thailand, has launched a new range of menu items featuring the use of Sprite Lemon Lime Zero sugar. The menu includes Pork Collar Steak Marinated “Sprite” No Sugar, Salmon Steak with “Sprite” No Sugar, Sea Bass Steak with “Sprite” No Sugar” and Dory Fish Steak with “Sprite” No Sugar. The prices range from THB 119 to THB 199.
Such cross category collaboration expands the usage of Sprite into foodservice application.
Connectivity, data, and AI will change the way we live, work and operate in society
Kuala Lumpur, December 15, 2021 – Trend Micro Incorporated(TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global cybersecurity leader, today released a visionary new report and video dramatization articulating how the world might look at the start of the next decade — and how the security sector might respond to evolving cybercrime innovation.
By 2030, connectivity will impact every aspect of daily life, on both the physical and psychological levels. Malicious threat actors will evolve to use and abuse technological innovation – as they always do. Click here to learn more about Project 2030.
“Project 2030 is not a definitive vision of what will be, but a thought-provoking take on what could be — detailing a future that is plausible based on current technology and trends,” said Goh Chee Hoh, Managing Director for Malaysia and Nascent Countries, Trend Micro. “We hope this possible future will spark a debate within the security industry and wider society. Only by carefully anticipating future scenarios can we offer governments, businesses, and individuals a way to prepare for the cyber challenges of the coming decade.”
The report itself looks at the world in 2030 through the eyes of a fictional citizen, a business, and a government. It offers a detailed analysis of evolving cyber threats and how these might impact security stakeholders.
Among the predictions are:
AI tools democratize cybercrime on a whole new scale to individuals with no technical skill
Attacks cause chaos with supply chains and physical harm to humans through their cyber-implants
Social engineering and misinformation become more visceral and harder to ignore when delivered via ubiquitous Heads Up Displays (HUDs)
Massive IoT (MIoT) environments attract sabotage and extortion attacks targeting manufacturing, logistics, transportation, healthcare, education, retail, and the home environment
AI-powered obfuscation makes attribution virtually impossible, pushing the security industry’s focus towards incident response and IAM at the edge
5G and 6G connectivity everywhere drive more sophisticated and precise attacks
“Everything as a Service” turns cloud providers into hugely lucrative targets for cyber-attackers
Grey markets emerge for those that want tools to confound workplace monitoring
Techno-nationalism becomes a key geostrategic tool of some of the world’s most powerful nations, with the gulf between them and the have-nots widening further
“The exponential growth of modern technology has brought abundant future possibilities, along with cybersecurity challenges,” said Dr. Victoria Baines, cybersecurity futurist. “These scenarios and their associated threats will require changes to the business and regulation of cybersecurity. The cybersecurity industry must evolve both technology and training to prepare for a future in which everything is connected and at risk.”
A successor to Trend Micro’s acclaimed 2012 report, Project 2020, the new paper was compiled from open-source research, vendor threat landscape reports, scientific abstracts, patents, an invitation-only online survey, and a CISO poll. The video dramatization of the report is meant to be an engaging, entertaining way to visualize the future and enable organizations to think about how they will need to adapt to new realities.
Indonesia’s PT ABC Kogen Dairy, known for its A2 milk, has launched a beverage-inspired flavour. The new KIN Fresh Milk Pasteurised Thai Tea is made with 100% A2 milk offering the delicious taste of Thai tea.
The dairy company has also expanded its range to KIN Bulgarian Yogurt Black. The new yogurt drink features the use of natural vegetable carbon to help with detox. KIN Bulgarian Yogurt Black comes with a mixed berry flavour and is a source of calcium, vitamin A, B2 and D.
Kuala Lumpur, 15 December 2021 – Virtualflex, a wholly owned subsidiary of Johor Corporation (“JCorp”), is partnering Fass Payment Solutions (“Fasspay”), a subsidiary of the world’s leading SoftPOS player, Soft Space, and leading global payments technology company, Visa, to launch the modernised version of its payment and loyalty mobile app, KA$Hplus, that includes a Visa prepaid card for consumers in Malaysia.
Virtualflex currently operates the KA$H payment and loyalty platform, which enables customers to make payments digitally and enjoy KA$HBack rewards. More features and benefits are being introduced via an upgraded payment and loyalty mobile app – KA$Hplus.
KA$Hplus can support an e-wallet limit of up to RM10,000 and is able to issue virtual and physical Visa prepaid cards for users for mobile commerce, in-store purchases, bill payments and top-ups. In addition to spending, users will also be able to enjoy loyalty programmes offered by Virtualflex to get perks like cashback.
Other benefits to both businesses and consumers include automatic rewards issued with the Visa prepaid card, e-hailing bookings, ticketing purchases for bus, train, and ferry, financial services, as well as payroll disbursement programme.
“The introduction of KA$Hplus e-wallet and Visa’s prepaid card offer various features and digital services that brings the convenience and benefits of digitalisation to the fingertips of our employees and customers at JCorp,” said Heng Wa Seng, Chief Technology Officer of Virtualflex.
“The KA$Hplus e-wallet and Visa prepaid card developed and empowered by Fasspay under the Visa Fintech Fast Track programme will significantly strengthen Virtualflex’s capabilities and efficiency and aid our mission to enhance social-economic development in Malaysia through digitalisation,” he added.
Ng Kong Boon, Country Manager of Visa Malaysia said, “This partnership showcases how the Visa Fintech Fast Track programme enables technology companies such as Virtualflex to transform their business offerings and work with fintech players like Fasspay to create card programmes that are relevant for consumers in Malaysia. We are excited to introduce the Virtualflex Fasspay Visa prepaid card to empower consumers in the country to use the KA$Hplus app for their payments and rewards.”
Chris Leong, Chief Executive Officer of Fasspay added, “We are privileged to be chosen by Virtualflex to be its technology partner. Our partnership with Virtualflex and Visa is not only a testament of our technical competency but our ability to offer bank-grade solutions, understand the necessary regulatory environment and engineer solutions that will help our customers innovate and help achieve their corporate mission.”
The partnership between Fasspay and Virtualflex sees KA$Hplus providing customers with future-proof offerings such as upgraded and modernised payment and loyalty features that meet all regulatory compliance set by Bank Negara Malaysia as an e-money provider.
Customer who signs up for KA$Hplus in the coming months will be able to enjoy additional benefits. There will also be a promotional campaign that includes lucky draws, subsidised programmes, and activation and referral bonuses for cardholders.
By Genie Sugene Gan, Head of Government Affairs, Asia-Pacific, Kaspersky
15 December 2021
NotPetya, WannaCry, ShadowPad, and Sunburst may or may not be household names, but these malware, and many more, have unleashed significant harm on the world.
Genie Sugene Gan, Head of Government Affairs, Asia-Pacific, Kaspersky
Recently, one such instance of malware was used to attack an IT services company based in Dublin, which supplies security software to scores of large cybersecurity contractors. Working through the company, hackers infected hundreds of its clients worldwide with ransomware, and demanded USD 50,000–5 million from each business in exchange for the decryption key.
Earlier this year, another attack hit an American IT software company, and subsequently infiltrated nine U.S. federal agencies, including the Office of the President, and the Treasury and Commerce Departments.
What these attacks have in common is their modus operandi: hackers targeted software vendors or IT companies to gain backdoor access to their clients’ systems, infecting hundreds and thousands of systems in one go.
This is perhaps how “supply chain” got its name – each part of the process stream is inevitably linked to another. When one part gets affected, a domino effect soon follows.
The Problem
ICT supply chain cyberattacks are on the rise – the European Union for Cybersecurity estimates a four-fold growth in attacks in 2021 compared to 2020[1]. The risk is compounded as vulnerabilities can be introduced at any phase of the ICT life cycle: from design – through development, production, distribution, acquisition and deployment – to maintenance.
The impact of these breaches is also set to grow, given the increasing interconnection of IT systems across organizations, sectors and countries. In a 2019 survey by Gartner, 60% of organizations reported working with more than 1000 third parties[2].
Upon successful infiltration, cybercriminals enjoy free rein to conduct cyber espionage, steal data and intellectual property, or extort money through ransomware attacks, which have been on the rise. From 2019 to 2020, the number of Kaspersky users encountering targeted ransomware – malware used to extort money from high-profile targets such as corporations, government agencies, and municipal organizations – increased by 767%[3].
While the impact on governments and enterprises may feature more prominently, the wider public is not spared. An attack on a grocery chain could force the temporary closure of scores of supermarkets, or a virus may be unleashed on millions of PC users through a software update (as, for example, occurred in the ShadowHammer3+1 attack, which Kaspersky detected and promptly mitigated in 2019[4]). Taking it further, the compromise of systems providing healthcare or public utilities may disrupt the provision of these essential services. And these are the very day-to-day things that affect individuals like you and me.
Early Responses
Recognizing the risks and impact of supply chain cyberattacks, more countries are taking action. Since 2020, national cybersecurity strategies were either released or updated across Asia-Pacific, including in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and Japan. Other countries, like Vietnam, India and Indonesia, are soon expected to release their own national strategies or implementation details too.
But when it comes to ICT supply chain resilience, the solution is more complex in view of the multitude and range of stakeholders involved. Some governments have intervened, with a focus on protecting the ICT supply chains of Critical Information Infrastructure (CII):
In 2018, the S. Department of Homeland Security established the ICT Supply Chain Risk Management Task Force, a public-private partnership to develop consensus on risk management strategies to enhance global ICT supply chain security. The Task Force has released guidelines on the sharing of supply chain risk information, and risk considerations for managed service provider customers.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre also published guides this year for businesses to identify cybersecurity risks associated with supply chains, and to manage these risks.
The Cybersecurity Agency of Singapore announced that it will shortly launch a CII Supply Chain Programme for stakeholders to adhere to international best practices and standards for supply chain risk management.
The Way Ahead
The global nature of ICT supply chains necessitates a stronger, coordinated response at every level.
Globally, countries and International Organizations (e.g., INTERPOL, the UN, ASEAN, Europol) have taken steps to tighten cooperation and share best practices:
Multilateral platforms – Today, the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts and Open-ended Working Group are platforms that can be used by countries to develop consensus around cyber processes and norms. Conferences such as the UN Internet Governance Forum provide further opportunities to discuss at the working level: in 2020, Kaspersky together with our partners organized a workshop to discuss the need and ways to develop assurance and transparency in global ICT supply chains.
Bilateral partnerships – Countries around the region, including Vietnam, India, Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea, have committed to MOUs on various aspects of cybersecurity – an important step in making progress domestically and globally.
While each of these platforms plays an important role in building consensus, exchanging knowledge and best practices, and harmonizing standards, moving forward, it is imperative to have more targeted conversations on global ICT supply chain resilience, given the wide-ranging types of actors and impact involved globally.
Nationally, governments must continue to drive nationwide efforts to establish a baseline level of cybersecurity across sectors through laws, regulations, guidelines, training requirements and awareness building. The examples above provide a sense of some of the measures undertaken by governments.
Given the integrated nature of ICT supply chain resilience, there is a particular need to develop core principles (e.g., security-by-design), technical standards and legislative/regulatory frameworks to ensure a consistent level of cybersecurity and accountability across stakeholders. Self-assessment tools can also be published in addition to facilitate implementation.
Individually, everyone is responsible for ensuring our collective cybersecurity. Naturally, businesses that develop products and maintain systems must lead the way.
At Kaspersky, we believe that transparency in the components within and connections across software supply chains is the best way to ensure the integrity and trustworthiness of our digital infrastructure. Our commitment to this principle is evidenced by our Global Transparency Initiative, where, among other things, we:
Welcome third parties to review our source code. More recently, we made it easier for our partners and the public to understand what is inside our products by providing a software bill of materials – a list of all the components, information about them, and the relationships between them.
Practise responsible vulnerability disclosure, and have on many occasions, alerted IT companies regarding vulnerabilities in their systems, averting several potentially significant cyberattacks.
Cybersecurity is everyone’s business because our collective cybersecurity is only as strong as that of the weakest link among us. To remain ahead of the game, a holistic approach involving all stakeholders is required. We must look beyond playing catch-up and reacting to cyberthreats. It is imperative to take a long term approach in designing the cybersecurity ecosystem, which includes building a strong talent pipeline to meet the needs of CERTs, forensic analysis teams and IT departments, and designing CII that is secure-by-design.
The ideas above are by no means an exhaustive list, but hopefully they provide an idea of where to begin – together – in view of the long way that lies ahead of us.
Calpis Lacto, the fermented milk-derived soft drink sold by Osotspa, has a new limited edition flavour – maple syrup. The new product has 10% white peach juice. Maple leaf is described as symbol of love in Japanese society. This sweet and refreshing, Japanese-style flavour reminds consumers of the autumn season in Japan.
Mamee-Double Decker has entered into the popular cream cracker segment in Malaysia with three new products – Vege Crackers, Original Crackers and Sugar Crackers. Crackers are filling and affordable foods popular with Malaysians who dip them into hot beverages or mix with ice-cream, jam and tuna.
Crackers are seen as old fashion as the category has been around for many years. There is a need for new and old players to come in to modernise the cracker segment to make crackers relevant for the next generation of consumers.
Mamee is doing someting different with its crackers. Under Mamee Bakery, the company has introduced a new concept called biscuit cracker 3-in-1 with a breakable biscuit-shaped cracker that is crunchy and dippable.
Click here to purchase Mamee’s latest crackers on its official store on Shopee Malaysia.
Mamee-Double Decker has launched Mister Potato Crunch, a bite-sized uniquely shaped ‘bisnack’ (biscuit + snack), in Malaysia. This baked not fried potato crunch is halal certified and is free from trans fat. Mister Potato Crunch is available in 3 flavours : Himalayan Salt, Sour Cream & Onion and Cheese.
Click here to purchase on Mamee’s official store on Shopee Malaysia.
Potboy Groceries held its second 50% storewide sale on 11 December 2021. We had a chance to observe first hand how this penned out in one of the 50 stores Potboy operates across the Klang Valley region that day.
Potboy started out as an online only grocery store in 2016 selling everyday groceries from known household brands on its platform www.potboy.com.my. It moved into the exhibition space with Malaysia’s first online to offline sale in 2018 to showcase offline retailing to online customers. Since then, it has opened 50 brick-and-mortar outlets mainly in the Klang Valley with the first one at TTDI.
The promotion-driven Potboy held its first round of 50% storewide discount in November 2021 with huge publicity and reception but also negativity surrounding the lack of crowd control.
Image by Facebook/Niki My
On 11 December 2021, the rule of the game was changed where only 5 individuals would be permitted to enter the outlet on a given session. The allocated shopping time did not include the time taken to process the payment. But the key problem remained. Potboy did not impose a limit on the number of items each buyer could purchase. At most outlets including the ones we visited, the first 10 buyers bought most all of the popular and expensive items on shelves including powdered Milo, edible oil, rice and alcoholic drinks.
Image by Potboy Groceries
For us, it was a spectacle of human greed on full display on the early hours of 11 December 2021. These buyers, where some had waited since 3am, were not wrong because they played by the rules. But for those turned up late, they missed the opportunity to enjoy the deep discounts for the highly sought after products.
For Potboy, the 50% sale helps to deepen the image of Potboy as the destination for deep discounting of essential items. For that, the generous 50% sale had done the trick.
Potboy challenges the existing chains like 99Speedmart on price and the convenience of fulfillment through online delivery. The power of Potboy lies in the way it encourages consumers to purchase in bulk. However, the question is the sustainablity of such a business model.
Indonesia’s PT Ajinomoto has unveiled its latest spicy enhancer seasoning under the Piliplus banner. Piliplus is designed for the foodservice industry to help reduce...
