Entries categorized under “Threat Assessment”

In the last few years security has shifted from being an issue that organizations only deal with when a crisis occurs to one with which they must now daily confront. This is putting pressure on organizations to stop taking a knee jerk reaction as their means of ongoing security management and instead adopt a systematic approach to effectively deal with both external and internal threats. The problems that internal threats present and why they are so difficult to detect were openly discussed this past Wednesday morning during that morning's keynote at Symantec Vision 2013. (read more)

As the volume of unstructured data such as files in File Shares or documents in Microsoft SharePoint continues to grow, organizations are faced with managing increased data security and information governance risks. One of the more potentially dangerous risks for organizations in the Microsoft Windows world are open shares or folders that are accessible by poorly defined and managed default global access groups like "Everyone,""Domain Users" and "Authenticated Users." To shut down these potential security and compliance risks, organizations may use Symantec Data Insight in five specific ways to manage the inherent ownership, usage and permissions risks present in today's unstructured data and SharePoint environments. (read more)

Since the advent of the TCP/IP protocol, network administrators have had a major blind spot: the ability to reliably determine the identity of an individual device or user. BlackRidge's new Eclipse™ solution, built on BlackRidge's patented Transport Access Control (TAC), uses client drivers or gateway appliances to insert unique identity information to every TCP packet. In this third and final post in our blog interview series, BlackRidge Technology CTO John Hayes and I discuss where BlackRidge is heading and the challenge of managing infrastructures from the perspective of devices rather than networks. (read more)

The keynote given by Symantec's CEO Enrique Salem this past Tuesday and the series of presentations that followed exposed every attendee at Symantec Vision 2012 to just how dangerous today's internet world really has become. Yet the larger threat that every business faces is not putting in place a solution to address them. Rather it is the danger that dealing with these threats will cause organizations to take their eyes off of the ball and fail to focus on where their business needs to go next. (read more)

Followers of my previous blog entries should recognize the next company in DCIG's Executive Interview series. I have previously discussed both the technical and operational impact of BlackRidge Technology's patented breakthrough technology known as Transport Access Control (TAC). Today, BlackRidge announces their first product, Eclipse, based on their TAC technology. I begin a discussion of this release, in the form of a multi-part interview series, with BlackRidge Technology's CTO John Hayes. (read more)

MetaFlows is a network security monitoring tool implementing some unique capabilities in today's ever-changing security environment. They are allowing security administrators access to not only aggregated threat information for their own network, but are also alerting them to potential global threats in their enterprise spaces. I am finishing up my interview today with MetaFlows CEO Livio Ricciulli, looking at how they are able to aggregate threat information while maintaining security in a cloud-based solution. (read more)

Network security monitoring is a constantly changing environment of both tools and methodologies. Most of them today, however, have used a lone "cowboy" mentality where datacenter solutions operate independently. MetaFlows is changing that. Today, I am continuing my interview with MetaFlows CEO Livio Ricciulli, discussing how their product is optimizing network security monitoring and performance. (read more)

Enterprise organizations face the daily challenge of ever-growing threats to their network and IT infrastructure. Not only are these threats growing, but they are constantly changing as well, forcing companies to adapt by changing not only their tools but also their training. Today, I'm talking with MetaFlows CEO Livio Ricciulli about how MetaFlows is addressing these problems by delivering network security monitoring using the "Software as a Service" model. (read more)

Last week I wrote about Symantec's introduction of the Data Insight feature into its Data Loss Prevention (DLP) product. But afterwards a number of questions came to my mind as to how the DLP product itself worked, especially when compared to other solutions in the eDiscovery, search and storage management space, as well as how the Data Insight feature is implemented. So to get those questions answered, I got back on the phone with Robert Hamilton, Symantec's Senior Product Marketing Manager for DLP. (read more)

The current recession's wrath has spared few, and technology has seen its hard times just like all industry sectors, but one area that appears poised to be one of technology's biggest benefactors is healthcare. When the Stimulus bill was passed, President Obama made it a point to bring healthcare technology front and center by providing $19 Billion dollars for the implementation of an electronic medical record (EMR). $19 Billion dollars certainly gets companies attention and most are either positioning themselves, or renewing their focus on healthcare to glean their share of this substantial investment of dollars. (read more)

In this second of a three-part series, DCIG lead analyst, Jerome Wendt, continues his discussion with Deepak Mohan, Symantec's SVP of its Information Management Group. In this conversation, Mohan provides some specifics on how Symantec differentiates itself from competitors in the market by providing customers a full ecosystem of integrated products that encompass data protection, data management and data security. He specifically highlights some of the new product features that are resulting from synergies between Symantec's data protection and security groups. (read more)

Phishing as a security risk has come a long way since its infancy and while phishing has changed its style; one thing that hasn't change is its effectiveness in attracting victims. By combining modern technology and social engineering to gain access to information such as credit card numbers or passwords, criminal activity is flourishing across the Internet. In the May 29th, 2008, Quarterly Trends and Analysis Report by US-CERT (United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team), the top reported security incident was phishing. The documented risk noted by US-CERT bears itself out in statistical evidence tracked by organizations such as the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) which showed the number of unique phishing sites reported between January and March of 2008 was a combined 81,215. These staggering numbers highlight the reasoning behind the FTC Red Flag Rules. (read more)

The 2008 Crypto Conference provided a lot to talk about this year. If you didn't know a Crypto Conference existed, you aren't alone, but it is where the best and brightest mathematicians gather to discuss cryptographic and cryptoanalytic research. However at this conference Adi Shamir (the "S" in RSA Security that stands for Rivest, Shamir and Adleman and that is now owned by EMC) gave a presentation for a new attack on encryption systems called the "cube attack". The ramifications of this attack sent a collective shockwave across the data security sector. Since encryption is revered as our best alternative and last safe harbor from data exposure, any weakness shown by encryption algorithms can have a dramatic ripple effect in data security. (read more)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently issued a reminder to financial companies of the upcoming November 1st 2008 deadline to be in compliance with the identity theft prevention program, and the pursuant FTC "Red Flag Rules." If this is news to you, then you probably aren't alone; but you should make yourself aware as your company might be subject to this regulation. (read more)