GRC Journal - (Page 53) THREATS LuRkING ON MESSAGING PLATfORMS Security & Privacy isolated incident, organizations can demonstrate to their customers that they have taken preventive measures and will continue to improve the underlying technology and processes. Clearly, the longterm solution to this problem is a broad reaching secure messaging infrastructure that is easy to use and also provides sender authentication. Organizations must think differently in 2007. Upgrading spam filters is not enough. Federated security technologies must become part of the solution because even one violation of trust can take years to repair. JC: Educating end-users is critical in the effort to not lose credibility with them. Spam volumes continue to multiply exponentially in record time. With one click of the mouse, an end-user’s machine could become compromised if the appropriate security measures are not in place. The attackers continue to become more sophisticated and change their tactics in an attempt to get through the system. At the same time, messaging security vendors’ technologies also have become more sophisticated – the proverbial game of cat-and-mouse. At Secure Computing, we maintain a strong focus on research and innovation, and in turn, our technologies continue to advance at a pace that has allowed us to stay ahead of the bad guys and keep our customers and their end-users safe. When a corporation is implementing a security platform, what features can prevent a financial disaster? How can these features best be demonstrated and understood before their actual implication? JM: While each organization has a different risk matrix and should evaluate their security platform with respect to it, the advancements regarding federated security technologies can have a large and positive impact. The Fortune 500 companies we work with see the need and are becoming very proactive in establishing a centralizing set of security services, not just for authentication but also for digital signatures, encryption, key management, and cross domain federated trust points. These services are utilized not only by their secure messaging platform but will also be available on a per service basis or in any combination for their line of business applications and SOA deployments. Threats can be significantly diminished by deploying authentication, nonrepudiation, confidentiality, data release control, and cross domain trust technologies as integrated core services within an organizations network fabric. These services can also be leveraged by mobile and global employees, partners, and customers, regardless of whether they are operating wired or wirelessly. JC: With today’s fast-paced threat environment, organizations are required to execute sound security strategies or else risk significant financial obligations due to loss of sensitive information or breaches in compliance regulations. These security strategies must involve implementing layered security 182 BTQ Q1 2007 | www.btquarterly.com Business Trends Quarterly http://www.btquarterly.com
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