Stories about: Leader

Today's CISO plays a pivotal role not only in defining technical standards and security policies, but also in assuring customers of the security of their data and validating security controls to regulators. Many are struggling with this transition because they have been given these responsibilities without any real authority or visibility within their organizations. They also need a new set of skills to successfully fulfill their responsibilities.

A new report by analyst firm Frost and Sullivan claims the Australian market for managed security services will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.6 per cent between 2006 and 2012 reaching $843.1 million.

Vendors of data leakage prevention (DLP) systems claim that customers will avoid integration issues by using packaged tools that encompass all the different elements of the technology, but some early adopters of DLP are already running into serious problems.

Art Coviello, President of RSA and Executive Vice President of EMC Corporation, talks to Computerworld's Siobhan Chapman about enterprise threats, IT security spend and the rising threat posed by social networks.

Driven by market consolidation and the ongoing efforts of large IT security vendors to meld DLP (data leakage prevention) tools into their broader portfolios, some experts contend that the technologies will increasingly become perceived as product features and less so as stand-alone platforms.

For the past few years, organizations have gone full-force in deploying a combination of wired and wireless enterprise networks. But now, as wireless technology matures, they are left asking: Where are the tools to unify management of these disparate networks?

The call to Bob Bailey, an IT executive with a major US government contractor, came on an otherwise ordinary day in October 2003. "Why are you attacking us?" demanded the caller, an IT leader with a Silicon Valley manufacturer. He wanted to know why Bailey's company had launched a denial-of-service attack against his network

The more money that companies spend on securing their IT operations from external attack, the more it seems they become aware that the potential threat posed by their own employees remains their most significant risk.

Hewlett Packard's acquisition of Web applications security specialist SPI Dynamics on June 19 illustrates a growing demand among enterprise customers to have vulnerability-scanning tools integrated into their software development platforms.

Highly distributed organsations run their IT systems on a managed services provider (MSP) model -- supporting numbers of offices dispersed over a geographic area. Mark Scott, president of The Utility Company, says the best model for this combines advanced network monitoring with a franchising system, such as that used by Dunkin' Donuts. His company is an MSP serving a growing population of small companies -- "five-person PR firms, 30-person law offices" -- across North America from its Ottawa, Canada, base.