The challenge of delivering network security in any global organisation is manifestly clear. The continued changes of environment, technologies and types of threat all contribute to the problems faced today. And even with considerable advances in the area of security, businesses are still failing to protect their businesses.
However, as Adam Lembariti, Head of Security at Telstra International, EMEA explains, deploying the right technology alone is not the solution…
The first question to ask is: “Where do these threats come from?” Attacks are evolving, growing in both size and sophistication each year, with the 2008 threat environment report by Symantec showing an almost threefold increase in the number of observable threats.
The fundamental driver of this growth and evolution is an economic one. In the early nineties, cyber criminals would find a vulnerability and then exploit it in the most public manner possible – hence the high profile hits against NASA and the Pentagon. The aim was simply to gain notoriety and ’respect’ within their circle.
This is no longer the case. Today, there is a well organised underground economy in which a single piece of credit card information alone can fetch anything up to 30 US dollars. What’s more, hackers no longer need skill or knowledge: a new market has developed where malware is created by hackers to be sold to - and used by - relatively unskilled criminals. Money, not notoriety, is now the main attraction.
Changes in the global business environment have exacerbated the situation:
- Mobile workers not only move data outside the organisation but also connect back into the network remotely from access points that the business has no control over at all.
- Most organisations provide access to third parties and partners into their networks.
- Most organisations today interact with their customers in some way over the Internet.