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Focus on security: Carrier-based security services can protect companies | November 24, 2009
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Security for a new world
As IT security threats evolve and become more severe, so too must the security solutions implemented by organizations and enterprises. “These days, the threats impacting large organizations, in particular, stem from macro effects such as technological convergence, globalization and the extension of the supply chain,” says Stéphane Boisvert, President - Bell Business Markets. “There is a great deal of risk associated with interdependency,” adds Dave McMahon, Strategic Advisor on National Security at Bell Canada. “Businesses subcontract out their help desks, financial monitoring services, IT management systems etc., and those companies subcontract out to other companies—leaving us all dependent upon one another in odd and complex ways.”
According to McMahon, while a typical threat used to be a hacker defacing a Web page, today we’re facing much more severe and sophisticated risks. “Trans-national organized criminal syndicates are engaged in multibillion dollar heists, a cold war of state-sponsored e-espionage rages and terrorists seek to radicalize our youth in social networking sites and within multiplayer online gaming environments,” he warns. “Executive spear phishing tactics compromise corporate data and consumers are being robbed of their identities at an alarming rate,” adds Boisvert.
In this environment, when we think about how to manage risk and secure large information systems, businesses must think about in-depth security, beginning at the strategic level. As a result, some security and privacy can only be done in the cloud. “As carriers, we are able to filter many of the serious attacks and malicious content off the Internet before it gets to the end user, provided that there is demand from consumers,” says McMahon.
The key here is being proactive, stopping an attack before it occurs, rather than detecting and reacting to an impact—which is much more costly and could be ineffective for the enterprise.
This year, carrier-based security services are becoming increasingly popular as the realization surfaces that a number of factors in the IT security world cannot be managed solely by the individual, business or government. “We are now experiencing distributed Denial of Service Attacks of 40Gbps, well beyond the capacity of any government or enterprise to stop,” says Boisvert. We’re seeing the emergence of product offerings from all of the major Internet Service Providers (ISP) which includes upstream services such as providing situation awareness in terms of the threat environment and help monitoring, thus pushing security policies into the cloud and cleaning the pipes before the threat reaches the enterprise. “This can be likened to individuals in a small town coming off their home-well and sewer system and onto city water which has a centralized filtration system,” he says.
Finally, the type of security that we’re moving towards is less about infrastructure and more about info-structure, says McMahon. “It’s about information, the knowledge behind that information and the veracity of that knowledge.” From this perspective, businesses must consider digital rights management and ask themselves: how are we managing the information we have in our system and how can we manage the information about us that’s not in our system?
“How do you manage the truth of information that’s become disembodied from infrastructure?” McMahon asks. The way we add, create and consume information is changing rapidly and Bell is finding that this is no longer something that can be contained with traditional hardware and software. “We have to look all the way up into the cloud and deal with things in virtualized environments and in cloud-based computing, as well as deal with the actual information by placing security on that information as opposed to just on the machine,” Boisvert concludes.
While technology continues to evolve, improving the ease with which business is conducted, so too does the risk associated with technology’s use. The risks of data theft, the malicious misuse of secure information and the spread of harmful viruses are always present. As a result, defending corporate security, privacy and e-mail systems is extremely important but can be among the most difficult and demanding of all IT tasks.
From the appropriate and safe use of social networking tools to the safeguarding of remote networks and mobile computing devices, to the generation, categorization and storage of private data—the experts in this supplement shed light on the latest and most effective corporate security practices and procedures.
An important shift is taking shape in the corporate world, one which reallocates responsibility for privacy and security from the technology to the person, placing administrators, managers and developers in charge of securing corporate assets and procedures. This trend demands that organizations take responsibility for educating employees in order to stay on top of security advancements.
Fighting back against attackers, technology companies also play a role by continuously releasing innovative network, software and security products and services, which must remain high on the radar of small and large businesses alike.
While some organizations are still opting-out of certain information technologies as a result of a continued uncertainty surrounding their safe use, experts in the field encourage education as opposed to avoidance. With the right amount of awareness and advance planning, no organization need be subject to privacy attacks. Use this supplement as a launching pad to help your company reap the rewards of IT without experiencing any of the potential losses.
Supplements Archive
Security for a new world
As IT security threats evolve and become more severe, so too must the security solutions implemented by organizations and enterprises. “These days, the threats impacting large organizations, in particular, stem from macro effects such as technological convergence, globalization and the extension of the supply chain,” says Stéphane Boisvert, President - Bell Business Markets. “There is a great deal of risk associated with interdependency,” adds Dave McMahon, Strategic Advisor on National Security at Bell Canada. “Businesses subcontract out their help desks, financial monitoring services, IT management systems etc., and those companies subcontract out to other companies—leaving us all dependent upon one another in odd and complex ways.”
According to McMahon, while a typical threat used to be a hacker defacing a Web page, today we’re facing much more severe and sophisticated risks. “Trans-national organized criminal syndicates are engaged in multibillion dollar heists, a cold war of state-sponsored e-espionage rages and terrorists seek to radicalize our youth in social networking sites and within multiplayer online gaming environments,” he warns. “Executive spear phishing tactics compromise corporate data and consumers are being robbed of their identities at an alarming rate,” adds Boisvert.
In this environment, when we think about how to manage risk and secure large information systems, businesses must think about in-depth security, beginning at the strategic level. As a result, some security and privacy can only be done in the cloud. “As carriers, we are able to filter many of the serious attacks and malicious content off the Internet before it gets to the end user, provided that there is demand from consumers,” says McMahon.
The key here is being proactive, stopping an attack before it occurs, rather than detecting and reacting to an impact—which is much more costly and could be ineffective for the enterprise.
This year, carrier-based security services are becoming increasingly popular as the realization surfaces that a number of factors in the IT security world cannot be managed solely by the individual, business or government. “We are now experiencing distributed Denial of Service Attacks of 40Gbps, well beyond the capacity of any government or enterprise to stop,” says Boisvert. We’re seeing the emergence of product offerings from all of the major Internet Service Providers (ISP) which includes upstream services such as providing situation awareness in terms of the threat environment and help monitoring, thus pushing security policies into the cloud and cleaning the pipes before the threat reaches the enterprise. “This can be likened to individuals in a small town coming off their home-well and sewer system and onto city water which has a centralized filtration system,” he says.
Finally, the type of security that we’re moving towards is less about infrastructure and more about info-structure, says McMahon. “It’s about information, the knowledge behind that information and the veracity of that knowledge.” From this perspective, businesses must consider digital rights management and ask themselves: how are we managing the information we have in our system and how can we manage the information about us that’s not in our system?
“How do you manage the truth of information that’s become disembodied from infrastructure?” McMahon asks. The way we add, create and consume information is changing rapidly and Bell is finding that this is no longer something that can be contained with traditional hardware and software. “We have to look all the way up into the cloud and deal with things in virtualized environments and in cloud-based computing, as well as deal with the actual information by placing security on that information as opposed to just on the machine,” Boisvert concludes.
While technology continues to evolve, improving the ease with which business is conducted, so too does the risk associated with technology’s use. The risks of data theft, the malicious misuse of secure information and the spread of harmful viruses are always present. As a result, defending corporate security, privacy and e-mail systems is extremely important but can be among the most difficult and demanding of all IT tasks.
From the appropriate and safe use of social networking tools to the safeguarding of remote networks and mobile computing devices, to the generation, categorization and storage of private data—the experts in this supplement shed light on the latest and most effective corporate security practices and procedures.
An important shift is taking shape in the corporate world, one which reallocates responsibility for privacy and security from the technology to the person, placing administrators, managers and developers in charge of securing corporate assets and procedures. This trend demands that organizations take responsibility for educating employees in order to stay on top of security advancements.
Fighting back against attackers, technology companies also play a role by continuously releasing innovative network, software and security products and services, which must remain high on the radar of small and large businesses alike.
While some organizations are still opting-out of certain information technologies as a result of a continued uncertainty surrounding their safe use, experts in the field encourage education as opposed to avoidance. With the right amount of awareness and advance planning, no organization need be subject to privacy attacks. Use this supplement as a launching pad to help your company reap the rewards of IT without experiencing any of the potential losses.
Supplements Archive
