November/December 2006 issue
2007 preview: What's rollin' round the bend?
Back to Q1, Q2,
Q3
4. What examples have you seen, in 2006, of organizations
using security as a business enabler?
Adrian Asher, Global Head of Security , Betfair
There has been a huge push on phishing and other awareness to the
user communities. There does appear to be a competitive differentiator
that has arisen as a result of this, that of who has best enabled
the user to help protect themselves.
As with any differentiator, businesses use this to further their
product or brand over others. Personally I am wary of where this
potential trend will lead to, as when the purposes of the messages
are becoming increasing marketing driven, there may become a clear
and present danger. One such example I have seen of this, is an
organisation pushing the information to the user base, via the very
method they are trying to warn them against.
Brian T. Contos, CISSP, CSO ArcSight Inc
I work closely with a bank that leverages IT security monitoring
solutions as part of its mergers and acquisitions strategy. This
particular bank tends to make several strategic acquisitions every
year. Before they had a solid security framework governing how they
would connect newly acquired business to their own, mergers from
a technical perspective were lengthy, error prone, insecure and
costly. Today they have documented an approach that leverages incident
prevention, detection and management for every IT connection made.
Overall operational efficiencies have increased, standards are implemented
at a global level, regulatory compliance is maintained, and security
incidents have been significantly reduced. Worm/virus activity,
in addition to information leakage from careless or malicious employees
and policy violations, has been reduced.
Leo Cronin, CISO, Reed Elsevier
In the IT industry, a lot of vendors are certainly using security
as a business enabler. Microsoft has made significant investments
here as have many of the large players in the IT security space.
Investing in superior security helps everyone. On the commercial
(IT consumer) side I think banks and trading houses are beginning
to put systems in place to make online transactions safer without
killing the user experience. I am seeing more effort in using the
right mix of preventative and detective controls to mitigate risk
versus throwing all the investment on the preventative side.
Robert Gleichauf, VP and CTO, Security Technology Group,
Cisco
Companies expanding their businesses into developing markets such
as China. Business risks are such in these markets that companies
realize they need to build security from the get go. This applies
as much to the build out of robust infrastructure as it does to
the protection of intellectual property.
Paul Henry, Secure Computing
For me personally one of the best examples has to be a South American
financial institution that in 2006 rolled out the largest two-factor
authentication token deployment ever in Latin America for their
customers. Interestingly the deployment was led by the marketing
department - not the security department. The marketing department
clearly recognized that customers wanted to transact in a secure
environment and would as a consequence of enhanced security utilize
other services. By offering a secure environment, the company gained
customers, grew their market share and increased their operating
margins. What stands out is the fact that this is a great example
of were the organisation recognized the benefits of security as
a business enabler.
Evan Kaplan, CEO Aventail
We see great examples all the time of our customers improving productivity
through security. For instance, security solutions for disaster
recovery have boosted productivity for businesses with back-up systems
and remote access solutions that let their employees keep working
in the face of snow storms, transit strikes, or other disasters.
And security solutions with strong access controls and end point
checks have allowed businesses to extend data access to their employees
and partners who use unmanaged devices at home or on the road.
Tom Noonan, General Manager, IBM Internet Security Systems
There are numerous ways that good security practices can enable
the business. For example, tracking the movement of data can provide
critical information about how the enterprise, suppliers and partners
access data and critical systems and business processes to manage
that data. The industry has seen various enterprises use vulnerability
scanning disciplines to create the knowledge required to feed risk
management analysis, network performance fine-tuning, and integrate
into the overall network operations.
Hugh Penri-Williams, Chairman of the Information Security
Forum
On a personal front as frequent traveller, I’m impressed by
the ever-broadening range of facilities offered on the Internet
by airlines, hotels, railways and travel agencies. We can now research
and compare route & price alternatives around the globe, make
reservations, choose seats and meals, print tickets and boarding
passes. This avoids check-in queue, just dropping off checked bags.
Naturally, those time gains are being offset by security measures
but we British stoically grin and bear it. However, DIY in this
sector might be going too far. I recently heard one frustrated customer
(of an airline that shall remain nameless) shouting at their staff,
“Next thing, you’ll have us flying the xxxx planes!”
Paul Simmonds, CSO, ICI
See Q1!
Alex van Someren, CEO nCipher
2006 was the year of mobility and every person working remotely
and safely is a practical example of security in action to enhance
flexibility and productivity. One of the more innovate projects
of 2006 is the British Library’s National digital archive
to protect the integrity of some 300 terabytes of digital material
for access 100s of years ahead.
5. Who has impressed you
as innovative in terms of security this year?
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