This week, TIBCO LogLogic has been taking part at InfoSec Europe, the largest Information Security Event in Europe. According to initial reports, there are over 17,000 registrants at this year’s event. We are at booth F50 and we hope to see you there.
One of the highlights about going to one of these shows is the chance to soak up the latest and greatest in information security and put it out for the public (recall my observations from the RSA show earlier this year). Often, there are regional differences. In EMEA, “Big Data” has not yet captured as much attention in IT Security as it has in the States (locals say, “Give it another six months.”). More often, however, you find common security issues — more common than regional people probably realize.
Avoiding the Avoidable
A favorite topic is the latest information on security breaches. At InfoSec Europe, the 2013 Cyber Security Breaches Survey was officially released, and details of the survey’s results were discussed and reviewed. One observation I made at RSA noted that 80% of successful security attacks will exploit well-known vulnerabilities that could have been detectable via security monitoring. This finding is corroborated in the UK government’s 10 Steps to Cyber Security recommendations from last year.
Despite this, the 2013 survey found that take-up of these basic security guidelines, including analysis of log data to monitor networks, was patchy at best (only 30% of large organizations had followed the guidelines). As such, perhaps it should come as little surprise the survey’s finding that 93% of large organizations (250+ employees) and 87% of small business had at least one security breach last year.
How long can we avoid avoiding the avoidable?
Recognizing North Korea and Kim Jong-un’s recent actions as probable bluster has parallels to assessing a rogue computer process or questionable user activity on a network. When a process goes wrong in a system, log monitoring software gives off a real-time alert as a warning. With a less-than-enterprise class solution, this alert might be all that happens, which forces systems administrators to decide on an action based on isolated, incomplete information. With lives at stake rather than system and network resources, the result could be tragic.
With all the talk about how big data should be used, what for, and why, rarely do we hear about who uses “it.” All the recent buzz around big data is not because data has all of a sudden become more valuable, it’s that people are now realizing and discussing how to use new technologies and architectures to derive value from these large data sets.
Three friends and I went hiking last week in a dense forest. The objective was clear: to reach a small fortress about six miles from base camp. Without maps, or smartphones and no real clue how to get there, we were on our own. With no rules, or parameters to validate our moves and literally no support or back-up, we had to make instant decisions based on events as they occurred. We were trailblazers, quite literally, and had to innovate in creating a trail for others to follow just to reach our goal.
At the RSA Conference in San Francisco, it’s all security, all of the time. When one topic is the only focus over such a short period, it becomes easy to see current trends. Here are three that have caught my attention:
