NETWORKING / THAILAND SECURITY SUMMIT

Cisco addresses security issues

TONY WALTHAM

Leading networking supplier Cisco Systems is now busy tying together its security technologies, taking them from point products to a system level solution, according to senior director of Cisco's security technology group Adrian Amelse.

Speaking in an interview after addressing the Thailand Security Summit last month, Amelse indicated that Cisco's self-defending network concept would evolve to reflect the importance of information security and data security, rather than network security.

Cisco was now working on new products that would address customer needs around content security and application level inspection, he indicated, noting that security was now a CEO and a CFO problem in addition to being an IT problem, since the theft of intellectual property could affect a business to the core.

Cisco is now committed to security, having made over 18 security-related acquisitions since 1995 and with a team of 1,200 security engineers focussed on security and an annual security budget of about US$250 million dollars. Roughly 20 percent of this was for the development of security management products such as the Cisco Security Mitigation Analysis and Response System (CS-MARS) and Cisco Security Manager (CSM), Amelse noted.

This investment was significant by Cisco's standards and products like CSM were absolutely crucial for helping its customers manage self-defending network security, he said.

Cisco also works with over 65 partners through its Network Admission Control (NAC) programme, Amelse added.

The company recently announced new capabilities for enhanced collaboration among products and services in its security portfolio, simplifying the ability for organisations to control and contain information security threats in a more coordinated, flexible fashion across networks while streamlining management and protecting confidential communications to remote users.

The enhancements involve Cisco's Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), Cisco Security Agent (CSA), Cisco's Secure Sockets Layer virtual private network (SSL VPN), CS-MARS and CSM and they mark the latest evolution of Cisco's self-defending network strategy.

This approach uses the network to identify, prevent and adapt to threats in an integrated way so that every network element is a point of defence; all services and devices collaborate to thwart attacks while proactive security technologies automatically prevent threats.

Amelse said that at the recent RSA conference in San Francisco, Cisco's key message had been around threat management and control where the company was trying to take technologies such as its IPS technology found in appliances such as routers or switches and turn it from being a point product into a system-level solution.

Some 750 IT professionals attended the Thailand Security Summit late last month and Cisco Systems (Thailand) director for advanced technology solution, Vatsun Thirapatarapong, said the company sought to prevent customers from falling into the pitfall of looking for point products, but instead to look at security as a framework and modularise their networks.

Security had to be integrated and well thought-through from the beginning and not something that was added on after your network infrastructure was in place, he said.

In response to a question, he said he felt that IT operations personnel had security awareness, but that "most feel that they have a hard time justifying the benefits to top management.

"First, there's the cost, and there's no such thing as RoI for security, so many times when they try to get a budget, it gets pushed back because they ask why you have to invest so much in security when it is not going to affect your bottom line?

"So most of the time, the discussions will start around how to buy a magic box that will fix things - but there's no such thing," he said.

Bangkok Post

Last Updated : Sunday April 08, 2007