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Though vendors in the security space claim to have a solution for every
security need, CIOs often have limited budgets and no idea where to spend it.
Solution providers can recommend what investments a company should make and
ensure that it be well implemented thereafter
Recently, India was subject to cyber attacks from a few Chinese miscreants
who hacked into the country's External Affairs Ministry (MEA) server. Though
ministry officially denied that such an attack ever took place, and that no
important data was available on the server, the incident has created a flutter
around the world on the account of security. This wasn't the first incident of
hackers trying to break into secure sites.
Earlier, the Chinese army was accused of hacking into a computer system in
the Pentagon, US. The previous year, in August, Sweden-based hacker Dan Egerstad
managed to hack 100 e-mail accounts of embassies and government offices across
the world, including 13 Indian establishments. The hacker posted a list of login
IDs, passwords and server addresses on his website www.derangedsecurity.com.
The list included e-mail accounts of Indian Ambassadors to China, US, Germany,
Italy, among others. The e-mail account of the officials of the National Defense
Academy (NDA) and Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) were also
found. But Egerstad claimed that he was not a hacker. “I am not a hacker. I only
wanted to test security systems. I hope this leads them to take action,” said
Egerstad.
Today, the dimensions of the attacks are changing and it's not just
restricted to the Pentagon, MEA, DRDO or NDA but every enterprise network today
is subject to the risk of being hacked or exploited, which is driving the need
for enterprise security.
Threats
In any organization security threats can be classified into two
categories-internal and external. The external threats are mostly web-based. The
key external threat that enterprises are facing today is from hackers, where the
intruder gets access to the network through the root and steals critical
information available in the server.
The other way to enter the server is through e-mails. “Research has shown
that a majority of e-mails sent over Internet is unsolicited. Phishing has been
rampantly used and has created a new category of threat-identity theft. Studies
of affected enterprise networks have shown that malware such as worms and
viruses are introduced via e-mail. Phishing is one of the bigges:ht threats for
the BFSI sector,” informed Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu, Country Manager, Check Point
Software Technologies, India and SAARC. Spam mail are also topping
the external threats list today.
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| Every enterprise
network is subject to the risk of being hacked or exploited |
However, in today's scenario, internal threats are also increasingly gaining
mileage. As the network comprises many users, anyone can easily get access to
secure data and misuse it.
Changing dimensions
The dimension of the risk factor and threats is increasing with everything
trickling down to data loss. Earlier, vendors came up with anti-virus solutions
for viruses, which were the only threat. But today, we have spyware, worms,
Trojans, which are of more concern to customers, as they are the primary reasons
for data loss within an organization. “Any enterprise is affected by data loss,
whether it's a BPO or BFSI. Enterprise security is headed towards prevention of
data loss within the organization. More than deploying a firewall, now there is
a need for enterprises to go for total security solutions to prevent any loss in
business,” informed Ronny Ferro, Business Head, EssenVision Software, a
Mumbai-based security consulting company.
According to Kartik Shahani, Regional Director, McAfee, internal threats are
more troublesome than external threats. “An ex-employee can easily use his
password to steal data,” he informed. Primary reasons that vendors cite for such
issues are the lack of security policies and protocols while building the
enterprise security architecture.
Key challenges for a CIO
“The biggest challenge that CIOs face today is lack of awareness about the
security postures of the entire network they handle. Due to this, it becomes
difficult for them to manage the network including the mobile network, and to
judge the level of security at any given point in time,” informed Karthik.
He also felt that very often budgets are too limited and CIOs find it
difficult to decide where they need to really invest the money. “The most
critical thing for a business is a secured server. This is where people are
confused about their point of investment, as in whether they should invest in
noise critical factors or business critical factors. They have to find a balance
between expense and security. The CIOs have a problem with that balance,” he
averred.
The latest issue that decision makers are facing today is compliance and
regulations in the security arena. Currently in India, we don't have compliances
like Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) that are applicable to corporate, but
sooner or later, compliances to such standards would be mandatory in India as
well. The major challenge here is how do the enterprises implement, follow such
standards in their limited budgets.
Shantanu Ghosh, VP-India Product Operations, Symantec Corporation felt that
for today's enterprises, meeting the requirements of a variety of technical
standards, IT governance frameworks, and laws related to security and
administration has become a significant challenge. “As numerous industry experts
have observed, the pressure to demonstrate compliance with such mandates is
likely to increase every year,” Ghosh claimed. He also felt that the compliance
must be made as the DNA of IT for having a secured enterprise network
Solution
Two-three structured authentication processes and multi-layering are
needed for security checks like gateway protection, endpoint production,
network protection and system protection. “We should build many layers of
protection and access control, as it would control all those who gain access to
the network. But beyond that, if some one escapes the access control, a secured
network should have a second and third line of defense,” informed Karthik.
In Cisco, the technology is designed in such a manner that the router itself
acts as the firewall, VPN device, remote access solution as well as the IDA-IPS
solution. “As the complexity grows, requirements go towards a higher end
functionality. If the routers and switches are configured properly, users can
avoid 60-80 percent of the common vulnerabilities,” claimed Mahesh Gupta,
Business Development Manager-Network Security, Cisco.
Is putting the right policies in place a one-stop solution for all security
issues? Karthik of McAffe explained that today, the best of technologies are
available but it all depends on the implementation of those technologies.
The execution of a strong security policy would take some time due to few
challenges like necessity of new technology, investment, etc. Post deployment
of the security solution, the policy has to be followed religiously in order to
have a strong security system in place. Consistent updates of the security
solutions and follow-ups alone can make an organization a secured one.
NR Sethuraman
(sethuramannr@cybermedia.co.in) Page(s) 1
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