Security In fact is a Business Enabler

Ranajoy Punja, VP - Marketing, Cisco Systems

Network security can no longer be considered as a “nice-to-have” solution. Enterprises have to work proactively to design and deploy a comprehensive security solution that delivers optimal safety to enterprise resources.

Enterprises are now more aware about putting in place robust security environment to ward of any threats that breaches can cause. Ranajoy Punja, VP - Marketing, Cisco Systems, in an interview to AC Ganesh of CIOL gives insight to the security threats enterprises are facing and how enterprises are tackling the threats arising out of emerging technologies.

What are the major security threats faced by enterprises today?

Security threats for enterprises over the years have grown manifold. Initially hackers used to target individual computers in the 80s, then individual networks in the 90s and today they are targeting the global infrastructure. The advent of globalization and the rise of mobility have extended individual enterprise networks into a larger global network offering seamless connectivity/mobility.

While computer viruses still top the charts as the prevalent type of attack, the increasing complexity of demands being placed on IT systems -- for mobility, flexibility, and interoperability -- has led to an explosive growth in the variety of communication routes exploited by threats.

There is an emergence of viruses, worms and remote trojan programs which are custom written for individual organisations. The nature of worms and viruses is the same but they have become sophisticated and faster in speed such that an attack is faster than time taken to download the latest patch.

Additionally, enterprises need to continually safeguard their networks against Phishing, Pharming, identity theft, fraud and spyware. Cyber-extortion through various kinds of attacks or the disclosure of sensitive data is also emerging as a major threat.

There are many instances when security issues crop up because of vulnerabilities in the software. How do you look at this? Don't you think software owners should own up this security breaches if any enterprise encounters?

Vulnerabilities in software do crop up and especially there are major such issues with the OS softwares. Such vulnerabilities are a major risk to enterprises. Hence enterprises are keenly looking at mitigating such risks using admission control concepts. Cisco who has been the pioneer in this field and with the “Network Admission Control” technology which helps organizations to do posture validation and remediation to mitigate such OS software vulnerabilities.

We find in most of the cases security breaches happen in an organization either through the LAN or Internet. So how do you address this?

In the past, users could only access the network through a few ingress or egress points—usually where the Internet connected to the enterprise network. And as a result enterprises stacked security at the Internet perimeter using firewalls and intrusion detection systems (IDS). However today, many more means of gaining entry to the network exist. With the perimeter having been extended and distributed, security too needs to be applied at each of these new ingress and egress points and therefore enterprises need to take a Integrated approach to security such that there is greater visibility and control on the overall network security environment.

Cisco offers a networked-based strategy that allows enterprises to use the existing investment to solve the most pressing security concerns while providing an architectural platform that can evolve to a proactive, automated, real-time management of threats. Cisco's Self-Defending Network initiative is Cisco's long-term strategy to protect an organization's business processes by identifying, preventing, and adapting to threats from both internal and external sources. This protection helps organizations take better advantage of the intelligence in their network resources, thus improving business processes and cutting costs.

The three principal characteristics of the Cisco Self-Defending Network are:

· Integration of security throughout of the network

· Collaborative processes between the various security and network elements

· Ability of the network to adapt to mitigate new threats as they arise

Do you think it is necessary to have a Chief Security Officers (CSO) in an enterprise to address the security concerns?

With the network becoming the backbone of business and with increased security threats there is a need for someone, whose sole responsibility is to manage the health of the network, adopt a systems approach to security, define an enterprise wide security policy keeping in mind the business objectives of the organization and operate according to defined policies and best practices while compiling with government regulations. Increasingly the Chief Security Officer is managing this role.

What according to you is the role of security standards and best practices in maintaining enterprise security? Do solution vendors have a role in this?

Network security can no longer be considered as a “nice-to-have” solution. Security infact is a Business Enabler. Enterprises have to work proactively to design and deploy a comprehensive security solution that delivers optimal safety to enterprise resources. We at Cisco believe that companies have to invest in an end-to-end solution – and we believe that the market for this solution set is primed for growth.

Cisco's offers the industry's most comprehensive security solution that enables enterprises to have a self-defending networks approach to security. As Indian enterprises use the flexibility and cost effectiveness of the Internet to extend their networks to branch offices, telecommuters, customers and partners, security becomes paramount for business success. Cisco Self Defending Network security approach addresses this need by offering an end to end security solution right from the desktop level to the network level including secure access.

From a standards perspective, though there are many Industry standards, the BS7799 or the ISO27001 is one of the more comprehensive standards, which organizations have implemented or are in the process of implementing.

Are threats faced by SMBs any different from those faced by enterprise? How do you address threats faced by them?

Today network security is an imperative for all businesses irrespective of their size and scale. With networks becoming the backbone of businesses, enterprises can not afford to ignore this aspect of their network. Enterprises of all sizes today need to protect their businesses against theft of information, virus outbreak prevention, and application abuse with limited additional cost and manageability issues.

Significantly many SMBs are going for integrated security appliances that combine a host of functions like anti-virus, firewall, VPN, content filtering, IDS/IPS in addition to providing network monitoring tools. These solutions have been seeing good adoption with the SMB market and also branch offices of large organizations as they offer value for money and ease of manageability.

Cisco's SMB classes of solutions including the Integrated Services Router (ISR) and the ASA family of products have made deep inroads into the SMB market in India.

How do you foresee a threat and come up with a solution? Can you gives in terms of USD the amount lost due to security breaches across the globe?

Cisco has various solutions to mitigate unseen or unknown threats. For example, the Cisco Security Agent also referred as the CSA is a small piece of software that can be installed on a end-point (client and Servers) and works on the concept of Anamoly behaviour. Hence, it has the capability to block any new sort of virus or worm that may attack a end-point.

As per estimates by Mi2g, a research firm in the UK that specializes in computer security the economic damage from malevolent network security attacks reached somewhere between US$157 billion and US$192 billion worldwide in 2004.