IT Security Hot Topic At RSA 2008
- By Brent Dirks
- Apr 10, 2008
Despite the blustery cold and windy weather in San Francisco on Wednesday, information security of all kinds is the hot topic at RSA 2008 -- the largest event in the world dedicated to the field.
At a breakfast roundtable, SanDisk released a survey that helps bring home the fact that oftentimes a big security issue is not protecting from shadowy hackers but from the cubicle dweller with an unsecured flash drive. According to the survey, 77 percent of corporate end users have used personal USB flash drives to transport data. But only 50 percent of end users believe their coworkers are doing the same thing.
And what’s on those drives is bothersome. Twenty-six percent of users admitted transferring customer information, while financial data was transported by 15 percent of respondents.
I then sat down with Solera Networks, who announced its Solera V2P Tap, expanding the company’s initiative toward enabling complete network visibility. The free solution is targeting organizations with virtual machine investments in network management and security tools by regenerating virtual network traffic, including intra-server virtual machine network traffic, to existing physical security infrastructure to monitor and protect virtual network activity.
Steve Shillingford described the solution as TiVo for the network that reviews every channel at all times.
“Having comprehensive network visibility is key to maintaining a secure network,” Shillingford said. “Most organizations have invested significantly in their security and monitoring tools. Purchasing the same tools for their virtual environment is expensive and redundant. Having the only virtual appliance for capture and storage allowed us to offer this solution free of charge to organizations not interested in redundant expenses.”
James Collinge and Roark Pollock from TippingPoint talked to me about the company’s Intrusion Prevention System. With bad press from high-profile data leakage appearing increasingly often in the media, the officials said IPS technology is being deployed in other parts of the network, including the data center.
What is great about the TippingPoint’s product is that beyond looking at where sensitive data -- like credit card and Social Security numbers -- flows inside the network, it can track down anything leaving the network. The information is then given to the company so it can be determined whether the movement of information was authorized.
“People are not really sticking their heads in the sand when it comes to security,” Pollock said. “People are getting more sophisticated about security and IPS technology.”
Watch the podcast section of the Security Products online site -- we’ll be posting two podcasts from RSA with Gemalto and Seagate, IBM and LSI soon.
And courtesy of the airline overlords, my RSA stay has been extended by a day. Hopefully I can fit in some of the companies I was originally unable to meet with and stop by some of the keynotes and education sessions.
About the Author
Brent Dirks is senior editor for Security Today and Campus Security Today magazines.