Tag Archives: Services

Managing the mobile security paradigm

Posted on by
Reply

There have been profound changes in recent years in the way that people work. Mobility, virtualisation and globalisation have extensively altered how business is conducted. These changes mean that updated and upgraded security systems are needed to ensure data security.

There are new collaborative methods to help companies manage their information systems, solutions for virtualising information applications and cutting excessive investments are springing up and fresh hardware is delivering more mobility every day. But with these altered usage patterns come new threats and risks to security.

Professional and personal data confusion

Mobility is becoming an increasingly important aspect of business, and workers using devices such as smartphones or tablets to access the corporate network are quickly becoming ubiquitous.

However, there is a trend towards employees bringing their own device to work and using their personal smartphone or tablet for professional as well as personal purposes. This consumerisation of computing, with its permanent connection to the corporate network, increases the potential danger of data leaks if the device is lost or stolen. There is an increased risk of professional/personal data confusion, potentially resulting in legal penalties for the business and serious risk of virus and malware issues, as many personal devices are not properly protected.

Recent technologies such as cloud computing and social networking are helping to create these new usage patterns and ways of sharing information. These changes require a much higher level of transparency. Considering many organisations are increasingly subject to compliance regulations, it is vital to have strong and secure information systems in place. Companies need to identify and protect confidential information and show due care and diligence in protecting this information, not just for their own privacy but also for their customers.

Threats

Threats to companies are proliferating at an exponential rate. On average, there are 2,000 new threats every day adding to the estimated 45 million viruses already in circulation.

Attacks are more targeted and sophisticated than ever before, representing a substantial threat to businesses, government and sensitive infrastructures such as the military, utilities, hospitals and others. This makes having appropriate security defences in place for mobile devices paramount. With so many threats out there, the chance of a breach is just too high.

For internal protection against these clandestine threats, strong security infrastructure is required to protect organisational communication and information systems and ensure that everyday business is not disrupted. Different solutions to consider include firewalls, filters for incoming and outgoing web and mail data, IT infrastructure segregation for extranets, partner networks and strong intrusion detection systems that can identify unusual activities and suspicious behaviour and stop threats from infiltrating the corporate network.

External end-user protection is also crucial and may initially seem like a straightforward issue, but becomes increasingly complex when you factor in the multiple devices in use by many workers, in many locations. There are many security systems to consider, such as user authentication and authorisation, secure communications between users and corporate networks, security monitoring to provide transparency and validation of the compliance process and day-to-day security reports and monitoring.

A balance between protection and freedom

However, it is critical to maintain a balance between protection and freedom, as too much complexity within security systems can overburden the network, slowing down application response times and making it difficult for employees to access the network when needed.

Too many different solutions can also have the undesirable result of creating loopholes and system vulnerabilities, making it easier for cybercriminals to infiltrate the network and exploit confidential information.

Implementing appropriate security for the new working paradigm may seem like a formidable challenge. However, mobility does not have to be a risk for organisational security – with the right solutions in place, it can create new efficiencies and cost savings while allowing the workforce to work anytime, anywhere.

Original Publication

Embedded network security: defence at all levels

Posted on by
Reply

Perimeter controls are no longer enough

Confidential information is increasingly at risk in many organisations. Recent incidents have shown that perimeter controls are no longer enough—businesses need to seriously update their security strategies to reflect new threats and new working practices. With bring-your-own-device becoming the norm and employees becoming more mobile, company data is increasingly being taken out of the organisation on laptops, smartphones, tablets and more. Third parties are connecting to the corporate network on devices that the IT department has little, if no, control over, and branch offices are becoming the mainstay of multinational organisations.

The traditional perimeter around a business is no longer there, so companies must adapt to ensure their security, both internal and external, is up to scratch. Those businesses who do not modernise their security will inevitably be more at risk of a security breach that has the potential to seriously disrupt regular business activity.

The Nomadic Challenge

In the knowledge economy, rock-solid security is a must have. Intellectual property is at a financial premium, so it is essential to protect it from inadvertent loss and to keep it out of the reach of professional fraudsters. Information is becoming increasingly difficult to secure in companies that have many branch offices with limited IT resources and growing numbers of mobile workers.

The task of securing information has been made much more difficult by the workforce becoming increasingly nomadic. While this extends a company’s reach, it also extends their risk. Confidential information is frequently out in the field and away from the direct control of the IT department. With increased mobile working, it is not all that surprising that there has been a rise in laptop loss and theft, and yet, few companies encrypt the data stored on mobile devices.

The 3rd Party Challenge

It is not just mobile employees who can put a strain on an organisation’s security. An increasing number of organisations are inviting third parties into their corporate environments and providing them with company services, such as email, web portals and business applications. In security terms, third parties introduce an unknown quantity into the organisation—their devices may not be secured and could potentially introduce malware into the network, or they may not be properly identified and inadvertently given access to confidential information.

The Remote Site Challenge

It is at smaller sites where the risk is most pronounced. Many multinationals have moved away from having a handful of very large sites and offices to a decentralised infrastructure with many smaller offices, depots, sites or outlets. Centralised delivery of enterprise applications over the corporate WAN is empowering this change, however, this often means that there is very little IT resource needed at smaller sites. Although this centralised delivery is an efficient use of resources for application delivery, it leaves smaller locations exposed with little to know IT security onsite.

The Trusted Zone Challenge

Essentially, the corporate network cannot be relied on to be the “trusted zone” that it once was. Organisations need to become “de-perimeterised”. There is no point in having an enterprise perimeter if workers need to access corporate information when they are outside of it. To protect the de-perimeterised organisation, it is important to have security embedded throughout the business.

Enterprises need to have consistent and comprehensive security from the edge of the enterprise through the local area network to the end user. All assets and sites need to be protected as security is only as strong as the weakest link. Automatic preventative devices, which can automatically take action based on what the device has detected, should be embedded throughout the organisation at all layers. Security controls need to be embedded in the infrastructure layer, the transport layer and the application layer in order to ensure that the entire organisation is secure from threats.

For example, user authentication needs to be embedded within the application layer to control access to company resources. The level of accreditation needs to be automatically calculated based on the user’s personal security level and the device and network from which he or she wishes to access the resource.

Embedded network security Opportunity

The de-perimeterisation of an organisation means that security breaches don’t just happen outside a nominal boundary that is protected by a firewall, they can happen just as easily inside. For this reason it is essential to also embed security in the transport layer so that all communications within the business are protected from security breaches.

For too many businesses, security is still seen as merely an expense, when in fact good security offers many business advantages. Security must be seen as an essential element to growing the business, as it not only protects users, but it also enhances productivity by making sure the right people access the right resources at the right time. Embedded network security can ensure that an organisation is secured from top to bottom, providing invaluable peace of mind.

Original Publication

Steps to mastering identity and access management

Posted on by
Reply

As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile and dispersed, identity and access management becomes more important in ensuring organisational security. While managing user identities and controlling access are separate tasks, they are closely related. Identity and access management (IAM) needs to be a key part of business security strategy, particularly as organisations grow and IT architectures become more complex. Here are five things to consider when planning your IAM strategy.

1. Identity data infrastructure

It is not possible to manage user identities without having an appropriate data infrastructure in place to store user information. This generally involves the use of directory and metadirectory systems, usually based on lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP), industry standard for accessing directory data.

Decision makers should consider federated identity as part of the underlying data structure. This allows systems to automatically grant access to users of other systems. Federated identity systems assign permissions to each other, creating a secure web of trusted applications. However, enterprises need to tread carefully when designing these systems—complexity can create more headaches than necessary and increase management overhead, while also limiting the flexibility to change application specifications or relationships.

While federated identity can be used to integrate disparate systems together (including those inside a single organisation), it is also necessary to assign the appropriate level of expertise to the design and maintenance of such a solution.

2. Define roles and entitlements

Two important, but still nascent, techniques that have a significant effect on access control are entitlement management and role-based access control. Systems that carry out these functions allow administrators to define multiple roles in an organisation, along with a granular set of entitlements to allow system access. When combined, they allow for very tight control of user access. For example, someone in a junior accounting role could access a particular database, but only until 6pm.

Defining and maintaining these roles and entitlements requires significant input from business management, which can potentially lead to complications if organisational requirements change. Business management needs to carefully monitor entitlements and roles in order to ensure operational security.

3. Automate the provisioning process

Identity management helps improve company-wide productivity and security, while also lowering the cost of managing users and their identities, attributes and credentials. This requires automation, but it also contains hidden challenges, as just setting up a user name and a password is often simply not enough. Instead, multiple steps must be included in the provisioning process. For example, users might be assigned a sales region, enrolled into a different number of organisational teams or given a list of company resources to which they have access.

4. Simplify access control

Controlling access to systems is a separate but related task to managing identity. The user can only be authenticated if their identity is in the system, but the task of authentication poses another challenge. Users must be able to access the system relatively easily to avoid illicit circumvention of security settings, and yet their credentials must be secure enough to stop attackers simply waltzing through the gate. Enterprise sign-on systems can provide users with access to multiple enterprise applications using just one set of credentials. For added security, hardware-based tokens can also be issued as part of a two-step authentication process.

5. Audit

Any identity and access management system is not complete without a robust reporting capability to meet the needs of auditors facing compliance regulations. Organisations should be able to provide audit trails showing which users had access to what resources, and what was done with those resources. With increasing levels of compliance required from organisations, it is wise to ensure that evidence can be provided when needed.

Summary

Any comprehensive IAM effort is complex, but cloud-based services can help to reduce deployment times. A competent and experienced IT operator can not only host the infrastructure necessary for managing both identity and access control, but can also provide consulting services to help integrate it effectively into a customer’s existing IT architecture. When the time and due consideration is taken, IAM can prove to be a valuable asset to any organisation.

Original Publication