The RSA Conference – Cloud, devices & social changing the game?
The weather may still be cold in London, but San Francisco has been hot this week, especially for the security industry. The USA RSA Conference is one of the premier security events, educating and connecting security professionals from around the world.
Symantec’s CEO Enrique Salem took the stage earlier in the week as one of the keynote speakers.
He discussed the information economy, and how this decade will change the way we think about it. The two major trends Enrique thinks will change the information economy significantly are the adoption of cloud computing and the explosion of digital devices. Along with the rise of social media, these trends make a trio that are linked and will accelerate the need for an information-centric approach to security.
All three rely on trust, and that trust requires security, privacy and compliance measures in place so that information can be accessible by the right people, on any device and from any place in order for the information economy to reach its full potential.
I found this really interesting. Enrique said that security is not only about putting up higher walls around information or locking down devices, it is about delivering solutions that provide trust and confidence. And he also spoke about how it is an opportunity for the security industry to enable, nurture and navigate through this future of the information economy.
It would be great to know what you are you doing in your organisation to securely allow information to flow freely between the right people. What has changed over the past five years and what predictions do you have for the next five?
Abigail Lovell
See You In Prague…
Just a quick reminder that it’s the Cloud Computing Conference next week in Prague and my session is on The Darker Sides of Cloud Computing: Security and Availability. Cloud computing is definitely the buzzword for 2009 and so it will be great to hear other peoples’ opinions along with some practical advice. See you there.
2009: Chaos In The Clouds?
We live in uncertain economic times where money is tough… but the cloud and more importantly, services within the cloud appears to offer value for money. You pay for what you use and so on. But… will this lead to chaos?
A decade or so ago the likes of PC World started to make a big impact on business computing. You could nip down there in the lunch break and buy a wireless router or a printer, pop back to the office and have it all connected up to the corporate network. Hurray. Well, not actually because the IT department eventually got wind of it, OK so it took several years, and decided that IT equipment in the office should be owned and managed by them in order to reduce the management cost, complexity and risk. So, the rogue wireless hubs slowly disappeared (some too slowly as the war driving and data loss incidents have shown) but they went.
Move on to 2009… budgets are tough but businesses still want to deliver new services. Will ‘the cloud’ become the next PC World equivalent, people rushing out to buy services outside of the IT department? As with ten years ago, all appears to be fine while it works – but when it doesn’t, what then? Even when it is working, the service acquired might not be up to scratch with corporate policy when it comes to having data outside the organization.
So… in the last couple of weeks of 2008, IT departments and CIOs need to think carefully about the cloud and how it can be used within their organizations – ahead of the business units. Develop, distribute and educate staff on policies around Information Protection and data loss prevention. Put a process together to rapidly respond to requests for new services which live in the cloud. There is still time to avoid the chaos… and use the cloud to business advantage.
When Is Cloudy Day Is Better Than A Sunny One?
It happened again, the cloud went away. Of course we are not talking about clouds in the sky, but one of those on the Internet. The outage was 8 hours this time – so a ‘working’ day. It was a Sunday, but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t working – we live in a 24×7 world, so 8 hours is 8 hours.
(Some) customers were quick to come to the defence of the service this time – but perhaps they wouldn’t have been if it had lasted a week… or maybe if it had been a Tuesday…
Choosing a service provider is not as easy as it appears – you do need to ask about their Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity plans and ensure their plans meet your needs, otherwise you could end up with no service and no business.
-
Subscribe
-
-
UK Orders
US Orders -
UK Orders
US Orders -
Links, downloads and other resources
Symantec UK
Symantec Podcast Directory
Symantec Security Response
