Tag: Enterprise Security

Cloud for a Cause: Applying Social Media to Humanitarian Relief

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Cloud Enable
A. DeCarlo
A. DeCarlo

Summary Bullets:

  • Social media can provide a wealth of information for businesses – and non-profits alike but the challenge goes beyond capturing the data.  Organizations need a way to effectively extract actionable information from what is truly Big Data.
  • Thanks to a gift from Dell of technology, funding, and teachings culled from its own experiences with social media, the American Red Cross is now ready to go through the cloud to capture critical information that can help the organization accelerate its responses to those in need.

For all the discussions around the cloud as a revolutionary force, when it comes down to the cloud it is really just a delivery channel for IT.  So whether that IT being delivered involves compute processing, storage, software applications, or data, the objective is to use the medium to promote more efficient and flexible consumption.  One resource businesses have looked to access through the cloud is data collected from social media.  Twitter feeds, blog posts, and Facebook updates can yield crucial information about things like brand influence, buying patterns, and product satisfaction that a business can then turn around to use for product development, marketing, and sales strategy.  Similarly in the very different world of humanitarian relief efforts, non-profit organizations are finding that social media can inform the way they respond to emergency situations whether they are natural or manmade. Continue reading “Cloud for a Cause: Applying Social Media to Humanitarian Relief” →

Some Thoughts from RSA about the Future of Threat Management

by , posted in Secure
P. Musich
P. Musich

Summary Bullets:

  • Thinking outside of the box is required to dispatch the new types of threats attacking enterprise IT.
  • That type of thinking is not likely to come from traditional security vendors.

It is clear that security professionals understand that their defenses are bound to be breached, and some recognize that the attackers are relentless in pursuing anything worth stealing.  The blinders are coming off for many organizations that thought they had nothing worth stealing, and enterprises are looking around to find more effective weapons to defend their company valuables.  Sadly, what they are seeing by and large from traditional threat management suppliers are extensions to existing product lines, new features and clever marketing designed to pass off such incremental improvements as innovation.  While the need for thinking outside the box has never been greater than it is right now, there is little incentive for traditional threat management suppliers to do that, given their investment in existing technologies.  Continue reading “Some Thoughts from RSA about the Future of Threat Management” →

Enterprise DLP Strategy – Breaking Trust is a Dangerous Option

by , posted in Secure
B. Ostergaard
B. Ostergaard

Summary Bullets:

  • Misusing certificates for data leakage prevention (DLP) purposes is not a good idea
  • Deploying big data analytics to weed out deviant data and traffic behavior is much less intrusive

I have been talking to several MSSPs in connection with their rollouts of DLP services. A pressing issue for them is to explain to customers how effective their DLP services actually are. Two weeks ago Trustwave, an SSL certificate authority, confessed to selling a subordinate root certificate that allowed a customer to monitor employees’ Web communications – even if the staffers relied on HTTPS. Trustwave explains that the man-in-the-middle gear was designed as tamper-proof and limited to its unnamed client’s compound. I would suspect that other certificate authorities have issued similar certificates to enterprise customers for DLP purposes. Despite these precautions, Trustwave revoked the offending certificate admitting that the whole approach was ill conceived. Continue reading “Enterprise DLP Strategy – Breaking Trust is a Dangerous Option” →

SIEM Market Consolidation: Recommendations on How to Adjust to a Changing Market

by , posted in Secure
P. Musich
P. Musich

Summary Bullets:         

  • Security information and event management (SIEM) market consolidation/evolution poses a different set of challenges and opportunities to enterprise security operations.
  • It is important to adjust expectations and buying strategies in light of the consolidation.

The SIEM market, although mature, is evolving at a more rapid rate than it has for some time.  Large IT vendors including HP and IBM are now throwing their weight around in the market, as is McAfee in the security market.  This is putting greater pressure on other vendors that have sat on the sidelines to make a move.  SIEM players are working to streamline deployments while at the same time scaling their ability to gather and correlate an exponentially larger data set.  Furthermore, a new crop of startups have a clean slate to address the complexity issues of traditional SIEM products by enabling true cloud-based SIEM services that can reduce the heavy maintenance and operational costs of first-generation, premises-based SIEM architecture.  Given such changes, here are a few practical recommendations for any current or prospective SIEM customer. Continue reading “SIEM Market Consolidation: Recommendations on How to Adjust to a Changing Market” →

‘Hacktivism’ Changes the Threat Landscape, Again

by Amy Larsen DeCarlo, posted in Secure
A. DeCarlo
A. DeCarlo

Summary Bullets:

  • Recent research finds that ideology and politics – not money – were the top drivers of DDoS attacks in late 2011.
  • High profile scores like hacktivist group Anonymous’ breach of Strategic Forecasting’s site are inspiring dogmatically-minded attackers to strike more often and hit new targets.

From Tahrir Square to Ducati Park, 2011 was the year protestors took to the streets to overthrow the establishment.  In parallel, hacktivists went viral with more cyber attacks launched for the purpose of humiliating their enemies and calling attention to their causes.  The trend is continuing into 2012, when the hacktivist group Anonymous launched a DDoS attack against the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI in retaliation for the shuttering of file sharing site Megaupload. Continue reading “‘Hacktivism’ Changes the Threat Landscape, Again” →

Endpoint Security in 2012

by , posted in Secure
A. Braunberg
A. Braunberg

Summary Bullets:

  • Post-PC era is not PC-less
  • Where policy for mobile devices is managed is a critical question.

To say we are moving into a post-PC era does not imply that the PC is going away, only that much of the energy in the computing markets is moving to newer, more nimble devices. PC shipments in 2011 were down about 4% year over year. This is attributed mostly to the rise of interest in tablets and smartphones, which can both assume some of the tasks traditionally performed by PCs. This is an important point to emphasize when thinking about the endpoint security markets. Firstly, there will be a strong market for PC client security products for years to come. And because of this, traditional endpoint security vendors believe they have potent leverage when moving into the markets for securing tablets and smartphones: namely, that enterprise customers want to consolidate and integrate endpoint security policy across all end user devices. (Everybody better start thinking more holistically about identity management by the way. But that is a discussion for another post). Continue reading “Endpoint Security in 2012” →

Mobile Apps Rule in 2012 as Service Providers Enhance Offerings

by Kitty Weldon, posted in Mobilize
K. Weldon
K. Weldon

Summary Bullets:

  • Recent announcements confirm our predictions that mobile apps for the enterprise will continue as a big theme this year.
  • New offerings from IBM and AT&T focus on mobile application development and application delivery through enterprise app stores.

We predicted in our January 5th blog entry (“Enterprise Mobility 2012: What Can Businesses Expect in the New Year?”) that the heated debates in 2011 about the best way to develop and manage applications and the rise of the enterprise app store would continue in earnest in 2012.  In early February, we are already seeing new products and services available from some of the leaders in the enterprise mobility ecosystem. Continue reading “Mobile Apps Rule in 2012 as Service Providers Enhance Offerings” →

Please, Delete Me: The EU Addresses Our Personal Right to be Forgotten

by , posted in Secure
B. Ostergaard
B. Ostergaard

Summary Bullets:
•    The upcoming EU Privacy Directive aims at a moving target
•    Reviewing internal data management policies may be one good outcome
We all know that the Internet can come back to haunt us with personal information that we wish had been deleted a long time ago – from youthful debauchery and outdated purchasing habits to run-ins with the law. We also know that many Web sites storing this information show little interest in complying with such deletion requests from individuals. Given its commercial value, we also see that companies with such information are very loath to make it easy for individuals to move such information about themselves to other platforms. A third issue that needs to be addressed is the wide range of different national privacy policies that makes life difficult for companies storing personal data across many countries. Any new legislation must strike a critical balance between an individual’s right to privacy and what’s feasible (i.e., what can companies ‘reasonably’ do, what can authorities monitor and enforce, and how is privacy actually perceived by specific user communities – especially in social networks where users want to follow each others’ private lives). The legislation is clearly addressing a moving target and will be criticized severely, no matter how it shapes up. But retaining legislation that everyone agrees is obsolete is clearly not an option – so whatever comes out in the end – it will require a rethink across the industry. Continue reading “Please, Delete Me: The EU Addresses Our Personal Right to be Forgotten” →

Next-Generation Firewalls Poised to Eclipse Intrusion Prevention Systems

by , posted in Secure
P. Musich
P. Musich

Summary Bullets:

  • Readers who are considering adding new IPSs to their network should ask what their suppliers’ plans are for next-generation firewall (NGFW) features and how far along they are in delivering those.
  • Additional features that come with a NGFW make it a more complex security tool to manage, and enterprises should be prepared to invest in training should they plan to add NGFWs to their arsenal.

Are standalone IPSs becoming the next stateful packet inspection firewall (i.e., an old perimeter security technology that is required but no longer sufficient for protecting enterprise networks)?  Sophisticated and well-financed malware writers consistently find new ways of getting around existing and well-understood security controls such as the firewall and IPS, even as those suppliers race to keep up with the constantly changing threat landscape.  The result has been a constant stream of breach headlines (too many being rather spectacular) that all point to the rise of the so-called ’advanced persistent threat’ (APT).  Enterprises looking to address such threats are coming to embrace the NGFW and the greater application and user context it brings to the fight against more sophisticated cyber attacks.  The NGFW integrates the functions of a stateful firewall and IPS with the ability to identify applications and application-level attacks and apply granular policies to applications usage.  One forecast puts the IPS market at $2 billion by 2014, while the NGFW market is projected to reach $4 billion by 2014. Continue reading “Next-Generation Firewalls Poised to Eclipse Intrusion Prevention Systems” →

One Gigabit WLAN Speeds Coming Sooner Than You Think; Is Your IT Shop Ready?

by , posted in Network
M. Spanbauer
M. Spanbauer

Summary Bullets:         

  • The combination of the “bring your own device” (BYOD) phenomena and higher-speed WLAN access will further exacerbate IT challenges.
  • Processing power on the next generation of tablets and phones will change the paradigm for how enterprise users interact with their applications.

If you have not yet heard, the IEEE’s 802.11ac wireless LAN standard is imminent, and while the standard still may not be ratified for up to a year, this will not stop product developers from taking advantage of early release chips in the hyper-competitive consumer space.  However, this also matters to the enterprise IT department, as some of these devices are incredibly powerful, such as the ASUS Transformer Prime, the first quad-core tablet (though it does not have an .11ac radio).  There is also speculation that the iPad 3 will possess a comparably powerful chip.  This processing power opens up new potential opportunities for malicious damage to be done via rogue security software (or ‘rogueware’).  Still, with the advent of this much faster WLAN specification (speeds up to 1.3 Gbps will be possible), we may also see radical changes to the ways in which users access applications and interact with these resources.  Consider that these new tablets, phones, etc. will have processing power surpassing the desktops of just a couple years ago, as well as a mobile 1G throughput capacity.  This throughput and CPU performance should smash any limitations from a performance perspective for VDI and alter the ways in which we interact with critical applications. Continue reading “One Gigabit WLAN Speeds Coming Sooner Than You Think; Is Your IT Shop Ready?” →